Good Monday!

I know I said reviews will come on saturdays.
Sadly over the weekend I had severe headaches for reasons... I just overdid my abs workout and got my entire neck sore, causing my headache. Wasn't able to really focus on writing so thus the review got delayed a bit, but I hope that's fine.

Kingdom Hearts has been a banner many were looking forward to and for a good reason.
Units are good, TMRs are good, STMRs are good, not much wrong. And despite having things changed up in GL regarding the banners, the split banners aren't bad either!

Since this is a banner review, naturally shorter, with three DPS units, don't expect it to be incredibly lengthy. Just a heads up! As I'm writing this, I'm having quite a hard time keeping this super short so I'm once again grateful to have a triple banner, basically tripling the amount of time I put into this review.

Let's take a look!

Banner Review: NV Kairi Kairi, NV Riku Riku & Sora NV Sora by Memel0rd

NV Kairi Kairi (KHIII):

Trust Master Reward : Kairi's Dress (Clothes) - 33 ATK, 22 DEF, 40 SPR, 50% ATK/SPR, Females Only

STMR : Guardian of Light (Materia) - Increase ATK/SPR (70%)
Recover MP (7%) per turn
Increase LB gauge (7) per turn
Increase dark resistance (70%)

Vision Card : The Paopu Fruit's Bond:
Lvl 1~10: 36~72 ATK ; 44~88 SPR
Lvl 4: 20% ATK/SPR
Lvl 7: 20% ATK/SPR
Lvl 10: 30% ATK/SPR ; 50% Light resistance w/ KH unit

Overview:

Kairi is a bit of a weird one, trying to be both an attacker and some sort of healer.

Kairi's base stats are fine with an even split on every stat, meaning for a damage dealer her defensive base stats are neat, but she loses a bunch of base ATK considering 400% cap and buffs through this, which is sort of a bummer.
Her TMR is a huge boost and should definitely be used, granting her a total 240% ATK and 200% TDH with 80% HP, 50% DEF and 170% SPR, quite huge for a damage dealer!
She's resistant against confusion and charm, which.... isn't so hot. At least she has two high 100% innate killers against fairies and more importantly humans, one of the most common monster archetypes!
Funfact: if Kairi drops below 31% HP, she gains a 50% magic mitigation for 3 turns. I guess.

Kairi can T-Cast all of her abilities and as I mentioned, she has a bunch of healer-like abilities. Some of them not even half bad.
For one, she can fit in a way weaker version of Curaja, which is still going to heal a tad. It can help out, especially newer players who haven't gotten their hands on a healer yet, but if a healer is required you'll most likely prefer having a healer in your team.
Additionally, she also has access to a stronger heal every other turn that revives all party members and has a stronger heal, which more so will have an impact and you can easily use this for healing, too, since you might not require your damage dealer to heal you every single turn.

Two of her abilities are a big miss, but I do understand where they come from. She has the materia Dodge Roll as an ability, granting Kairi 2 mirage stacks. Now, she would've been much much more interesting if those applied to all party members. She also has a 5000% SPR mod that deals fire damage with no chains. It's extremely random considering even if focused on full on SPR, the damage will be quite subpar and has no chaining utility.

Her chains do bring some additional utility with Fighting Boost, which, at max level, fills 6 LB crysts to your party per cast. With all casts that's 18! Not incredible but if you use her, you will notice a high uptime on your LB units. Considering both Riku and Sora are extremely strong LB units with the right setup, this has use for sure in Dark Visions. The modifier is okay, it's sitting at 6400% un-boosted and 6900% or 7900% fully boosted.

Though through higher damage options comes a price, as she'll be locked to the light element. As in fully locked. Her Limit Burst, her Grandis and her strongest on-demand chain all have innate light element, luckily if you want to use her for damage, her Brave Shift won't have that issue.
Her Grandis ability can be used four times and fully boosted sits at a 12500% modifier, whereas her backloaded on-demand ability, Holy Shower, sits at a 10200% modifier. The issue is that it's going to take time getting there. Kairi's average damage prior Turn 4 is really low and 4 turns aren't a short amount of turns either.

If used as LB capper, her damage burst can be quite high but is also gated behind Turn 4 as her self 250% LB buff is firstly available at Turn 4. But I'll talk more about that in her Brave Shift section.

In her normal form, her Limit Burst is more used so to set up her on-demand chains. The LB chains with itself and has a decent modifier of 9300% alongside her 250% buff from her BS form, while also boosting up the other modifiers for 3 effective turns by quite a lot, hence why we use it. The CD, Rise Up, will also help her damage and healing abilities being stronger as it has a self 250% ATK/SPR buff. If used alongside units such as Yoshikiri, it won't do that much.

Brave Shift:

Kairi's Brave Shift is available from Turn 1, lasts 2 turns in which you can't go back to her normal form and then has only 1 turn cooldown until you can enter it again. So once you go in, you have to stay in it until it naturally wears out.

In her BS form, she gains a lot more SPR. Sacrificing 40% ATK for 70% SPR, but sadly also loses 50% TDH. Oh well, can't have it all.

This form becomes more interesting as it both has way better healing capabilities due to increased modifiers through passives, higher SPR but also a massive LB damage buff with a way higher LB base modifier of 11800% instead of 9300%. So if you want to use her as an LB capper, this is the form to go for.

Kairi gains a few new abilities that are seperated from her T-Cast and can only be W-Cast. For one, a stronger on-demand heal that also applies a decent HP regen, though I wouldn't sacrifice a cast for it. If you're truly about that healing, using Cura twice instead of using HP Healing once, you'll benefit from that more.

Though her two new supportive abilities locked to the new W-Cast are much more interesting.
The first is her BS form's Grandis ability, Nature's Support. You can only use it twice but in return buffs everybody's light damage by a whopping 25% damage. Since it's a seperate damage multiplier, it'll actually increase it by 25%, not like adding a 50% damage killer to an already existing 100% one.
The second is yet another heal that also cures breaks, stop and charm and afterwards applies resistances. The buff itself lasts 5 turns while the skill is on a 6 turn cooldown, but it's mostly nice when your other sources got dispelled and / or need to focus on different actions first.

Her last support skill that's usable in both W- and T-Cast increases all status ailment resistances, which is good whenever you don't run a healer but still have Kairi in your party.

In terms of damage, she loses her strong light chains and instead gains a 250% LB damage buff gated by a 3 turn CD ability that's also available at Turn 3.
Afterwards you want to use your base 11800% Limit Burst. Through the buff, her innate 150% LB damage and gear on top of that, you can definitely make her burst pretty hard.

How does she fare in the meta?

Kairi would've been much better at the start of NV as her damage fits right between Akstar and NVA Lasswell, where she would be considered a meta damage dealer with a really strong burst option and neat support.

At the current state, we have Riku and Onion Knight, who are much stronger in on-demand chains, while Riku and Sora are both much stronger options for LB damage. The same goes for Tifa as well.

Between being locked into light as a pure chainer and being outclassed as an LB finisher by Riku, Tifa and Sora, two units who are on the same type of banner and are targeted over her, is kind of sad and makes the bits of support in her kit quite redundant as they cannot be splashed into as many teams since it mostly consists of abilities that healers provide.

As I've said earlier, if she had access to an AoE 2 mirage stack instead of only granting it herself, she would've instantly bumped up a few notches in terms of support compability regarding different teams. Her light damage support is only useful to light damaging teams and on top of that, she lacks an AoE or even ST light imbue, which would've been a nice addition, too.

For a chainer her damage is fine but with the first real bump up in damage since the start of NV not future proof at all, while still being definitely good for all the content we currently have.
As a support chainer, her support is gimmicky in the sense of being inspired by a healer but not good enough to replace a healer. If she was, then the entire healing role would've been extremely gimped. Then again, I might look on it differently, as I never was a fan of units that try to do what healers do but can't be really skipped in essential fights.

By far her main problem is that her first turns are horrible as either chainer or LB capper, thus hindering her to be really useful in Dark Visions and lose out on a lot of damage where other units could've already done the job twice.

Her TMR is locked behind females but if applicable is on STMR level. 33 ATK is lower than some other ATK based clothes but in return you gain not only 50% ATK on any weapon but also 40 flat SPR with 50% SPR, which could be huge for a variety of units. Often phys damage dealers suffer from relatively low SPR. Sadly the female meta units aren't that prominent aside from Tifa, who would rather have a higher ATK or LB damage boosting chest piece as her ATK caps super easily.

Kairi's STMR has immense potential for both physical attackers and future SPR scaling units.
70% ATK AND SPR with no requirements with 7 auto LB and some dark resistance on top of it is absolutely neat. This also means that she has the materia with the highest amount of LB fill, giving you already 7 out of 12 possible LB per turn fills. Many physical attacks nowadays rely more and more on LBs, so this is neat. Definitely worth considering to moogle if you have a bunch saved up.

Kairi's VC, while sounding nice, might not be the best.
Essentially it won't be used on Sora or Riku as both of theirs are way better to have on themselves. Sora and Riku both want Riku's and if Sora can't have it, he'd rather have his.
Why?
Because Kairi's VC only has 72 ATK. If you didn't know, stat increases on Vision Cards count as base stats, so having 72 ATK or 110 ATK on your VC isn't just a 38 ATK difference, it also gets affected by the passive stat ups and buffs. Assuming you hit 400% ATK cap and have a 300% ATK buff, that actually makes a difference of 304. Which is a big difference in damage. The added SPR is neat, but then again, you only have 40% ATK.

Build Maths:

Normal Build:
https://ffbeEquip.com/builder.html?server=GL#33cf3510-3306-11eb-8198-ed599324a7c5

Brave Shift Build:
https://ffbeEquip.com/builder.html?server=GL#d9ff0a90-3307-11eb-8198-ed599324a7c5

Kairi (KHIII) Damage

[NM] ATK post 250% buff: 4591
[NM] ATK post 150% buff: 4184
[BS] ATK post 250% buff: 4294
Assuming spark chains


Rotation:
[NM] Turn 1: Rise Up   Saintly Saber   Saintly Fall
[BS] Turn 2: Fighting Boost x3
[BS] Turn 3: Nature's Support   Holy Shoot
[NM] Turn 4: Limit Burst
[NM] Turn 5: Saintly Saber   Spiral Bloom   Destiny's Embrace
[NM] Turn 6: Saintly Fall   Holy Shower   Destiny's Embrace
[NM] Turn 7: Rise Up   Holy Shower   Destiny's Embrace


[NM] Turn 1: [ 4591^2 x 42 x 3.445   4591^2 x 47 x 4 x 1.6 ] x 1.5 = 14084576869
[BS] Turn 2: [ 4591^2 x 64 x 3.445   4591^2 x 64 x 2 x 4 ] x 2.2 x 1.5 = 50947666396
[BS] Turn 3: 4591^2 x 66 x 3.445 x 2.2 x 1.5 x 1.25 = 19768408196
[NM] Turn 4: 4591^2 x ( 93 x 5 ) x 3.445 x 2.2 x 1.5 x 1.25 = 139277421384
[NM] Turn 5: [ 4591^2 x 42 x 3.445   4591^2 x ( 110   110 ) x 4 ] x 2.2 x 1.5 x 1.25 = 89090426155
[NM] Turn 6: [ 4184^2 x 47 x 3.445   4184^2 x ( 102   125 ) x 4 ] x 2.2 x 1.5 x 1.25 = 77260333929
[NM] Turn 7: [ 4591^2 x ( 20 x 3.223   82 x 4 )   4591^2 x 125 x 4 ] x 2.2 x 1.5 x 1.25 = 77593849580


Average Turn 1-7: 66,860,383,215
-> 105% of NV Cloud's Damage ( 63,896,292,660 )
-> 97% of Awakened Dragon Akstar's Damage ( 69,099,512,095 )
-> 79% of Riku's Damage ( 84,199,496,578 )
-> 60% of Onion Knight -Neo Vision-'s Damage ( 112,264,942,635 )
-> 57% of Sora's Damage ( 115,905,303,716 )

Character Design: 6/10
Sprite: 6/10
Chainer: 6.5/10
Trust Master Reward: 7/10
STMR: 9/10
Vision Card: 7/10
Arena: 8/10
Limit Burst: 8/10
Future Proof: 4.5/10
Dark Visions: 4/10
Free 2 Play: 8.5/10
Pay 2 Play: 6.5/10
Personal Rating: 7/10
Optimal Rating: 7.5/10

NV Riku Riku (KHIII):

Trust Master Reward : Riku's Glove (Accessory) - 50 ATK, 30% LB Damage

STMR : Guardian of Light (Materia) - Increase ATK (80%)
Increase equipment ATK (100%) and accuracy (25%) when single wielding any weapon
Increase equipment ATK (100%) when dual wielding

Vision Card : Facing the Demon Tower:
Lvl 1~10: 35~110 ATK
Lvl 4: 40% ATK w/ Swords
Lvl 7: 40% ATK w/ Swords
Lvl 10: 20% ATK ; 50% LB Damage w/ KH Units

Overview:

Second unit of the banner and let me tell you, aside from damage and breaks he's incredibly straight forward, so let's pick up the pace as Kairi had so much more text than I hoped her to do.

Riku's base stats are generic for a damage dealer with decent HP, DEF and SPR and very high ATK. He focuses on TDW and doesn't look impressive at first sight regarding his passives. 180% ATK and 100% TDW is definitely not the best we've seen, but not hard to fix. Even if you build for more LB damage, he can still fit in killers decently. Regarding his survivability, you can be lucky that he's a TDW unit, since 50% HP/DEF and 40% SPR isn't hot.
He's resistant against blind, disease and petrification, which likely needs patching up to do with buffs or gear, though the 150% human killer buff is highly appreciated, considering human is one of the most common archetypes.

Riku can T-Cast all of his abilities but has two rather unnecessary abilities that deal poor chain damage and either grant him one amazing mirage stack or 40% mitigation for one long turn. I wouldn't use them.
Both forms also have a 500% break damage ability when equipped with a sword, which can be used alongside setting Riku up for high burst damage.

In terms of chaining, Riku has decent tools in his base form in terms of damage, though mostly builds towards his Limit Burst.

All of his chains have AMoE frames

He has two on-demand chains, one with a base 6700% that also increases his LB damage on the next turn by 150% while also imbuing dark. Which then is useful for his second on-demand chain that has a 9200% modifier but no element, though has a ST fullbreak of 80%, just like Onion Knight.
Duel Trigger also helps Riku set up for his LB as it fully fills it, but can only be used twice. It has a 10000% modifier, but to be fair, Riku also instantly fills his LB at the start of the fight.

Ideally used right before his Limit Burst, he has two CD abilities that help him ramp up the burst damage. Dark Break every other turn with an effective 4 turn 130% dark imperil as well as Overdrive, a self 300% ATK buff with regens that lasts 3 turns but is on a 5 turn CD. So ideally you'd want the Limit Burst to benefit from his ATK buff.

The limit burst itself in the normal form can chain, has a base 11500% modifier, applies yet another 125% dark imperil and has a ST fullbreak of 85%. So we use this as our highest burst for chaining as Riku but can also be used in similar fashion to Onion Knight as a breaker.
If you use Riku as DPS, you can keep up the breaks naturally and only have to worry about dispels, but can also use him as evade provoker, though as that I'd still argue Onion Knight would be the better choice due to much more support.

Brave Shift:

Riku's Brave Shift is available from Turn 1, lasts 2 turns in which you can't go back to his normal form and then has only 1 turn cooldown until you can enter it again. So once you go in, you have to stay in it until it naturally wears out.

Riku's stats barely change and the main difference is his access to higher damaging moves. The most notable change is that Riku loses his amazing 150% human killer and swaps it out for a niche fairy killer.

His on-demand chain becomes stronger but loses its breaks, now with a backloaded 10000% modifier. His one time use Grandis ability also has a backloaded 15000% modifier and after Turn 3, both can be amplified by the CD ability. Then you'd end up with a 12000% on-demand and 16000% grandis ability.

For chaining, you only swap into this mode for having slightly higher on-demand chain damage for those two turns, nothing else is really going on.

But you can turn Riku into a high damage dealing LB capper. His base form is already quite good at that if capped as the Limit Burst has a way lower chain modifier than Riku allows it to have, but in his BS form you can't really chain it thus wants to be capped either way.

And if you do, you'll use a hefty 15000% base modifier Limit Burst. That's all there is really. His LB has extremely high potential to the point where it can outdamage Tifa's LB, but as a drawback is locked into dark damage.

How does he fare in the meta?

Riku as a damage dealer nets his spot at the #3 spots unless you have a bunch of STMRs.

Compared to Onion Knight however, Riku scales really well with them due to LB damage being way stronger with STMRs. Especially if you get Sora's STMR, an ATK materia with 80% ATK and 75% LB damage, which is pretty crazy.

For pure LB capping, his damage potential isn't as high as Sora's as his on-demand LB damage buff is lower than Sora's, while Sora heavily appreciates having Riku's VC and TMR.

As an evade provoker, I prefer Onion Knight despite lower damage potential that way as Onion Knight has the neat but niche (also unreliable) accuracy decrease gimmick as well as undispellable buffs. Your evade provokers like to be targeted by dispels. Stardust Ray also goes nicely alongside other support units or tanks.

He's rather limited in Dark Visions as a capper despite having quick access to his Limit Burst as both forms of his highest bursts are locked to dark and even his chains, except for one, are locked to dark.

Riku's TMR is massive and if you really want to ramp up your LB damage, this one is a decent upgrade.
Compared to Esther's TMR, this one has 5 more flat ATK and 15% more LB damage for a total of 50 ATK and 30% LB damage. Even for units such as Tifa that cap on LB damage with STMRs, this might allow her to gear for another killer instead. Great to have if you pull Riku but not mandatory.
Riku's STMR is super strong and extremely splashable on any physical damage dealer, though can also be overkill. It grants 80% ATK and 100% TDW / TDH without any requirements, which for one can allow units that originally focus on TDW to use TDH, mainly important for TDW units that lack the 6x chain cap, allows many TDH users to have WAY easier access to killer materias and simply allows TDW units to gain more. It's a great and extremely generic STMR and if I got Riku I'd moogle it to be frank.

Riku's VC is great for both himself, Sora and any future sword unit.
It has base 110 ATK, which is the highest base ATK increase from a VC, while potentially granting 80% ATK. I'd argue this is better than Mad Dash (100 ATK with 100% ATK w/ Large Sword) as base ATK is much more valuable than % ATK. Also it's easier to cap on ATK passives.
For both Riku himself and Sora this is a massive VC, as at max level it not only grants KH units an additional 20%, but also 50% LB damage. And hey, I'd be lying if I told you Sora's LB wasn't be incredibly strong.

Build Maths:

Normal Build:
https://ffbeEquip.com/builder.html?server=GL#f646eb90-3308-11eb-8198-ed599324a7c5

Brave Shift Build:
https://ffbeEquip.com/builder.html?server=GL#2ac04ce0-3309-11eb-8198-ed599324a7c5

Riku (KHIII) Damage

[NM] ATK post 250% buff: 4576
[NM] ATK post 150% buff: 4135
[BS] ATK post 250% buff: 4828
[BS] ATK post 150% buff: 4382
Assuming spark chains


Rotation:
[NM] Turn 1: Overdrive   Dark Break   Dark Maelstrom
[NM] Turn 2: Limit Burst
[BS] Turn 3: Dark Divide x2   Shadow Breaker
[BS] Turn 4: Dark Maelstrom   Dark Divide x2
[NM] Turn 5: Limit Burst
[BS] Turn 6: Overdrive   Dark Divide x2
[BS] Turn 7: Dark Maelstrom   Dark Divide x2
[NM] Turn 8: Limit Burst


[NM] Turn 1: 4576^2 x 67 x 4.525 x 2.3 = 14601358154
[NM] Turn 2: 4576^2 x ( 115 x 5 ) x 4.415 x 2.3 = 122263949350
[BS] Turn 3: [ 4828^2 x ( 20 x 3.9325   80 x 6 )   4828^2 x ( 100   150 ) x 6 ] x 2.3 = 110368432733
[BS] Turn 4: [ 4382^2 x 67 x 4.525   4382^2 x 100 x 2 x 6 ] x 2.3 = 66386859850
[NM] Turn 5: 4135^2 x ( 115 x 5 ) x 4.415 x 2.25 = 97663458241
[BS] Turn 6: [ 4828^2 x ( 20 x 3.9325   80 x 6 )   4828^2 x 100 x 6 ] x 2.3 = 62117593853
[BS] Turn 7: [ 4828^2 x 67 x 4.525   4828^2 x 100 x 2 x 6 ] x 2.3 = 80588283037
[NM] Turn 8: 4576^2 x ( 115 x 5 ) x 4.415 x 2.25 = 119606037408


Average Turn 1-8: 84,199,496,578
-> 132% of NV Cloud's Damage ( 63,896,292,660 )
-> 129% of Kairi's Damage ( 66,860,383,215 )
-> 122% of Awakened Dragon Akstar's Damage ( 69,099,512,095 )
-> 75% of Onion Knight -Neo Vision-'s Damage ( 112,264,942,635 )
-> 72% of Sora's Damage ( 115,905,303,716 )

Character Design: 2/10
Sprite: 5/10
Chainer: 8.5/10
Finisher: 9/10
Trust Master Reward: 9.5/10
STMR: 9.5/10
Vision Card: 9.5/10
Arena: 5/10
Limit Burst: 9.5/10
Future Proof: 9/10
Dark Visions: 6/10
Free 2 Play: 9/10
Pay 2 Play: 9.5/10
Personal Rating: 8.5/10
Optimal Rating: 9/10

NV Sora Sora (KHIII):

Trust Master Reward : Oathkeeper (Sword) - 170 ATK, 62 MAG, 50% TDW/TDH, Sora Only

STMR : Guardian of Light (Materia) - Increase ATK (80%)
Increase LB damage (75%)

Vision Card : The Keyblade Graveyard Battle:
Lvl 1~10: 50~100 ATK
Lvl 4: 30% ATK
Lvl 7: 30% ATK
Lvl 10: 20% ATK/DEF/MAG/SPR ; 10% fire, ice, lightning, water, wind, earth, light resistance w/ KH Units

Overview:

Sora will mark the new era of Limit Burst damage. But he's also similarly as boring to Riku as a unit except that he doesn't have breaks. So he's only damage.

Sora's base stats are very similar to Riku's as they're similar to many other damage dealers.
Even their passives are quite similar, though Sora has a slight edge on Riku. Both have 180% ATk but Sora, with his own TMR, has 200% TDW, 70% HP and 50% DEF/SPR.
He's resistant to sleep, silence and paralyze, which is again quite similar to Riku, requiring some back up, while having 150% fairy killer in his kit, too.

Riku can T-Cast all of his abilities and has a ton of abilities that very likely don't see any use. He has a ST chain with 5 LB increase while also having a chain that has a higher modifier and grants more fixed LB. He has a ST light imbue for himself when his 300% ATK buff with a 100% uptime also imbues light. He has a ST 100% light imperil when he has a Grandis ability that's way stronger in both damage and imperil with an effective 5 turn imperil available for a total 4 times. He has a 7200% chain as CD on turn 3 when his on-demand chain is stronger.
The only niche on here really is his self regen mirage ability as he grants himself 3 mirage stacks for 3 turn, refreshing twice afterwards. So technically a total of 9 mirage stacks though those not used up won't stack with the ones that refresh.

All of his chains are also AMoE chains.

I've already mentioned two of his important set up abilities. Infinity, his Grandis ability, that is a 8100% light chain with a 120% light imperil and also Stun Impact, a 300% ATK buff with light imbue. Both last 3 turns and have a 3 turn cooldown while Infinity can be used four times.
Since it's worded a bit weirdly, the imbue and buff last 3 turns.

His on-demand chain, Sunray Blast, is nothing crazy with a base 7100% modifier that goes up to a total of 7500% after his other CD ability, Stellar Interception. Which is available at Turn 3, has a 7500% modifier and buffs Infinity slightly while also very so slightly boosting Sunray Blast.

Sora's LB in this form might seem strong with a 10000% modifier and boosting Sunray Blast by an effective 2000%, but just wait for the BS form.

Brave Shift:

Riku's Brave Shift is available from Turn 1, lasts 2 turns in which you can't go back to his normal form and then has a 3 turn cooldown until you can enter it again. So once you go in, you have to stay in it until it naturally wears out. Afterwards you gotta wait a bit, which is a decent attempt at balancing his massive LB prowess, so that you can't spam it even if you could.

Not much changes in this form aside from Sora gaining 20% ATK while losing 50% TDW. Not a huge deal, it happens. Now it's important to look at his LB damage, where you can immediately see how big of a difference Riku's gear would be for Sora as he only has an innate 50% LB damage. He heavily appreciates any LB damaging gear.
He also swaps out his fairy killer for the much more common human killer.

Not much has changed other than Sora using up his two turns of Brave Shift entirely to set up his LB. Sadly his Grandis Ability and his new CD ability don't matter in this form as you only have two turns, one of them being his LB.

So on the first turn Sora is going to buff up his damage by Radiant Brands, Ultimate Finish and either Stun Impact for the ATK buff or Spiral Drove to gain 15 LB crysts.
The other two abilities boost the damage dramatically. Radiant Brands increases the LB damage by 250%, just like Tifa. And we know how she turned out. Ultimate Finish then boosts his Light damage by 15%, which is just a straight 15% damage boost.

Despite only having 50% innate LB damage, if you have proper LB damage, through his 250% buff and massive base 15000% modifier, Sora can become the strongest LB capper or LB chainer in the game.

How does he fare in the meta?

Sora does wonderfully in the meta. In terms of pure damage.

With external support, Sora can be set up on Turn 2, otherwise you'll gain access to his Limit Burst at Turn 3 at full power. This is definitely fast and very similar to both Riku and Tifa, thus fitting nicely into fast turn clears.

He heavily appreciates STMRs that boost LB damage. Riku's TMR and VC can be a huge help so is his own STMR, which boosts LB damage by another 75% and can also equip one of the strongest LB boosting weapons with Crown Prince Noctis' STMR or Cloud AC's STMR. Or just... both.
Through STMRs, Sora can get close to the LB damage cap easily while still leaving slots open for killers.

The damage potential on his Limit Burst is exceeding Tifa's by a longshot and is quite ridiculous if applicable.

There's the issue, similar to Riku.
Sora's burst is entirely locked to Light. So it's actually quite fair for Sora and for that matter Riku to outburst Tifa by a good margin since Tifa can be used on any boss due to her not being locked while these two are locked.
For the best Dark Vision chances, you'd want both Riku and Sora, though since NV units are hard to pull can't really be assumed other than whales.

Very straight forward but strong damage dealer. For Dark Visions it's the same issue as with Riku, thus don't be surprised to see a relatively low ranking.

His TMR can't be used outside of his own kits and if you have his STMR, often enough you don't want it in his BS form as there's better TDW ATK weapons or weapons with LB damage.
His STMR is not as splashable as Riku's as it has 80% ATK and 75% LB damage, but if used much stronger. 75% LB damage is a monstrous boost. Many LB damage dealers have materias with 60% ATK and 30% LB damage boost equipped or just 55% LB damage boost with no ATK.
This STMR single handedly outperforms both of the best version of LB boost forms and even for mages that don't care about ATK can become BiS. The boost is just that crazy strong. If you have Sora, definitely STMR moogle it. Even if it gets powercrept at some point, the LB damage is sooooo good.

His VC is okay but not crazy. It's main purpose is that any physical attacker can use it.
It has a total of 100 ATK, which is the second highest ATK gain, alongside 60% ATK without any requirements. So if you want to work on something with your limited resources that will have use on any physical attacker, here you go! With KH units you'll also gain a slight boost, but it's not huge.

Build Maths:

Normal Build:
https://ffbeEquip.com/builder.html?server=GL#5ab716d0-330a-11eb-8198-ed599324a7c5

Brave Shift Build:
https://ffbeEquip.com/builder.html?server=GL#8bd53f30-330a-11eb-8198-ed599324a7c5

Sora (KHIII) Damage

[NM] ATK post 300% buff: 5136
[BS] ATK post 300% buff: 4911
Assuming spark chains


Rotation:
[NM] Turn 1: Stun Impact   Speed Slash   Infinity
[BS] Turn 2: Ultimate Finish   Radiant Brands   Spiral Drove
[BS] Turn 3: Limit Burst
[NM] Turn 4: Stun Impact   Stellar Interception   Infinity
[NM] Turn 5: Sunray Blast x3
[NM] Turn 6: Sunray Blast x3
[BS] Turn 7: Stun Impact   Ultimate Finish   Radiant Brands
[BS] Turn 8: Limit Burst


[NM] Turn 1: 5136^2 x 65 x 4.525   5136^2 x 81 x 6 x 1.6 = 28270493625
[BS] Turn 2: [ 4911^2 x 81 x 4.525   4911^2 x ( 53   48 ) x 6 x 1.15 ] x 2.2 = 56424720306
[BS] Turn 3: 4911^2 x ( 150 x 5.5 ) x 5.95 x 2.2 x 1.15 = 299523777113
[NM] Turn 4: [ 5136^2 x 75 x 4.525   5136^2 x 86 x 6 ] x 2.2 = 49639713235
[NM] Turn 5: [ 5136^2 x ( 7 x 3.9325   68 x 6 )   5136^2 x 75 x 2 x 6 ] x 2.2 = 77504254996
[NM] Turn 6: [ 5136^2 x ( 7 x 3.9325   68 x 6 )   5136^2 x 75 x 2 x 6 ] x 2.2 = 77504254996
[BS] Turn 7: [ 4911^2 x 81 x 4.525   4911^2 x 53 x 6 x 1.15 ] x 2.2 = 38851438349
[BS] Turn 8: 4911^2 x ( 150 x 5.5 ) x 5.95 x 2.2 x 1.15 = 299523777113


Average Turn 1-8: 115905303716
-> 181% of NV Cloud's Damage ( 63,896,292,660 )
-> 179% of Kairi's Damage ( 66,860,383,215 )
-> 168% of Awakened Dragon Akstar's Damage ( 69,099,512,095 )
-> 138% of Riku's Damage ( 84,199,496,578 )
-> 103% of Onion Knight -Neo Vision-'s Damage ( 112,264,942,635 )

Character Design: 3/10
Sprite: 4/10
Chainer: 9.5/10
Trust Master Reward: Sora/10
STMR: 9.5/10
Vision Card: 8.5/10
Arena: 8/10
Limit Burst: 9.5/10
Future Proof: 7.5~8/10
Dark Visions: 7/10
Free 2 Play: 9/10
Pay 2 Play: 9.5/10
Personal Rating: 9/10
Optimal Rating: 9/10

Conclusion

Let's get one thing out of the way: I did not miss triple banners and I don't want to see multi-NV banners again. Please Gumi, just don't do it. I know it's a collab.
The banners itself are quite nice and I like the parallels they drew between Riku and Sora. The best part is, both are quite useful and if you really like KH, you will have use for both of them as they're elemental locked.
I also like the fact that their element turns them into more niche units and thus doesn't strictly outclass the other options with Onion Knight as the best chainer and Tifa as the best LB capper. Even though that limits them for Dark Visions heavily, I still think it's a healthy and rather good decision.
Kairi is definitely the worst unit in the banner but she's still good right now and has potential as decent LB capper, not as strong as the others but still nothing too bad.
Riku's TMR and VC are definitely the highlight if you plan on using KH units, but oh man, all the STMRs are amazing.
Even if Kairi's doesn't seem that amazing, I still feel like every single STMR on this banner is great to have and all of them are extremely splashable onto any physical damage dealer.
So yeah, pull if you want to as either the units, the gear or the VC will be beneficial in one way or another!

Enjoy the KH units, guys!

Memel0rd out​