Good Saturday to all of you!

My apologies for the big slack. At first I was just taking off during the holidays up to the first week of January but then I started to prepare for my upcoming exams and the Review Slack got out of hand.

I'm back and since a bunch of you might be interested in that, I'll randomly throw in the Terra calcs I prepared back then into this review just below the one for this review.
Keep in mind that the numbers shown are compared to 250% total killer. Your total killer with a proper build can easily get up to 400-500%, depending on the team setup, but if used without any preparation can also be lower, therefore keep that in mind as it heavily determines how well damage dealers perform compared to her evoke damage.

Now, to Rain & Fina, they introduce us to two new mechanics. Broken gauge damage modifier and more interestingly: Tag team abilities!

PS: There might be some inconsistencies with "they" and "he".

Enjoy the review!

Unit Review: NV Rain & Fina Rain & Fina NV Rain & Fina (BS) by Memel0rd

Trust Master Reward : No Matter How Far Apart We Are (Materia) - Increase ATK/MAG (30%)
Increase ATK (30%) when equipped with a great sword
Increase MAG (30%) when equipped with a bow

STMR : Swordbow of Unbreakable Faith (Large Sword) - 184 ATK, 176 MAG, 100% LB Damage, 2-Handed

Vision Card : Thanks for Everything!
Lvl 1-10: 45~80 ATK/MAG
Lvl 4: 40% ATK w/ Large Sword, 40% MAG w/ Bow
Lvl 7: 40% ATK w/ Large Sword, 40% MAG w/ Bow
Lvl 10: 30% fire / light resistance w/ FFBE units

Overview:

What would you like me to call them? Rana? Fiin? Let's just go with Rana because I'm a lazy bum.

Rana has high base stats with rather outstanding DEF for a chainer and higher ATK than what we usually see. The passives themselves are good, too. You get a total of 90% HP/DEF, sadly only 30% SPR and since we're focusing on TDH and LB damage, there won't be a lot of bulk coming from the required gear. For added protection, their TMR ability has a great guts passive.
In regards to that, they are not bad either! 200% unconditional ATK, why not. This is useful for non STMR builds as it allows us to equip the Aigaion Arm. Aside from that, 200% TDH and 100% LB damage is not bad either, nothing too crazy however.
Rana is resistan against blind, sleep, paralyze, confusion and petrification leaving no critical status ailment open while also having an amazing innate 200% human and beast killer in their kit. Two of the most common monster archetypes. This makes it much much easier for them to gear for Dark Vision.

The new passive is that they deal 70% additional damage to broken enemies. This doesn't refer to stat breaks but rather to gauge breaking, primarily featured in the Insignia bossfights as well as the extreme versions of the scorns. Having a 70% free damage boost in them is neat-o. They don't have a break gauge ability themselves though!

Rana can T-Cast all of their abilities and has no bad or filler ability, which I'm quite glad for.
If you are in need of dispels, Rana have a 10000% hybrid chain with AMoE frames particularly useful for their AoE dispels that's attached to them, the dispel coming after the damage. Also its damage is low due to the poor hybrid stats they have in their respective form.

Most of the abilities are actually focused on buffing. Four of them in fact, three of them are CD abilities and one is the Grandis ability. Well, one is rather an imperil.

The three CDs all share the same cooldown, available at Turn 1 with a 5 turn cooldown.
Union Veil imperils all enemies' fire, earth and light resistance by 120% for 4 turns;
Crimson Lotus buffs your own ATK by 300% as well as LB damage by 200% for 3 turns while fully filling your LB for the following two turns;
Blazing Veil is more focused on Dark Visions as it has an AoE 150% beast killer for both damage types.

Blazing Blood can be used a total of three times and mainly boosts our fire damge by 15%. The additional fire imbue is not relevant as it'll run out after using the LB two times before affecting other abilities. The LB also has innate fire damage. So...

We have two chains left, both of which are Stardust Ray chains. Unless you have another fire imbue on your team, you won't make a good use of Lotus Saber. It's available at Turn 4 and after all boosts has a 16000% modifier, but is innately non-elemental.

The other on-demand chain is actually innately fire, which is neat! After the modifier boosts from the LB, it sits at a comfortable 9200% modifier. The damage is significantly lower than the LB but it's not utter poop.

Crimson Judgement, their Limit Burst, is the first ability in their kit to feature the tag-team mechanic.
First of all, the LB has a total of 30 hits, a base 12000% fire modifier and also boosts the modifier of a bunch of abilities. There's a catch though, you don't actually need a dupe to chain it. Through the tag-team mechanic, Rana will chain with themselves. This makes chaining easier than ever but sadly is locked to fire damage in this case.
The 30 hits are important to take a look at. Chaining with yourself doesn't mean that the modifier nor the hits will get doubled. It just means you'll have a 29 elemental chain, not 59, as well as a total 12000% modifier and not 24000%.

Brave Shift:

Rana's brave shift is available at Turn 1, has an infinite duration, can immediately go back to the normal mode but then has to wait 1 turn in NM to get back to BS.

They change completely when entering BS as Fina takes over. Oppressive women shake my head.
The issue is that the base MAG is on meta levels but the pots are still focused on higher ATK, thus you lose out on 32 base MAG, which, with a 300% MAG buff and 400% MAG, makes roughly for a "free" loss of 256 MAG.
The 200% ATK / TDH shifted towards 180% MAG with 200% MTDH but sadly the 200% human / beast killer got decreased to a measly 50% killer.

A brief fun-fact: Rana's BS has 100% innate LB damage but their LB doesn't deal any damage in this form.

Since Fina took over, they focus now on some magic damage and some healing, both not being exceptionally good though. Through dualcast you can make use of Curaja, Full-Life, Dispelga and Reraise, the healer essentials basically.

Interestingly enough, Rana in this form has three on-demand Tag-chains. But they're short. They don't last that long and only have a total 20 chain.
The three chains consist of fire, earth and light damage while the light one is by far the strongest. Fire and earth are stuck at a 5800% (7800% after boosts) modifier while light has an 8500% (10500%) modifier!
The CD tag team ability isn't much stronger and aside from being available every other turn while filling our LB by 10, the modifer is 9000% or 13000% after the buffs.
Keep in mind that the only way to get those modifier boosts is to use the LB in the normal form, thus takes two turns to get.

In order to amplify the damage, they have yet another self-boosting ability. You want 300% MAG and Quad Cast? Here you go! You can use it right from the get-go, too, and the Quad-Cast has almost perfect uptime.
Additionally it mitigates all damage dealt from beasts by 15%.

The Grandis ability is yet another tag-team light chain with a 13000% modifier and boosts your light damage afterwards. Just like the other Grandis, it can be used 3 times total.

The Limit Burst can be used as a safety net at any time due to the quick changing back and forth from NM to BS.
It cures all status ailments, revives all party members, then applies a 100% HP reraise, recovers a bunch of MP and increases fire, lightning, earth and light resistance by 80%.
The only downside is that it's the LB and Rana's LB is by far the strongest ability they have in their kit.

How do they fare in the meta?

In terms of magic damage, Rana is okay, but lacks burst, takes time to set up if the modifier boosts are wanted and outside of light damage falls off by a good margin. I wouldn't use Rana as mage unless you desperately want a single magic unit chaining.

Their physical damage is much more prominent, features burst similar to Riku's Limit Burst while chaining with themselves. Against EXT Scorn trials, you can enjoy a sweet 70% damage increase for free, which makes Rana perform on similar burst levels to Sora and therefore extremely strong in physical damage. Keep in mind though that it's locked to fire, which can make it less optimal against a few of them.

For Dark Visions that 70% bonus doesn't apply but the self-chaining part can open up another slot for a finisher.
It won't get you the 100 chain reward, but it can make it much much easier to cap on the damage. You don't even have to deal a lot of damage, you could simply use them as a single unit chainer even if you hit monstrous DEF.
For damage alone though, they'll easily get outshine generally in Dark Visions due to having a single element available.
Considering that stages usually have two weaknesses, you have a roughly 25% chance of them working.

Rana has a simple and quick rotation, getting their highest burst out at Turn 2 and Turn 3, allowing for high consecutive damage if HP thresholds exist, which is always far better than units who take e.g. 5 turns or more.

Build Maths:

Normal Build:
https://ffbeEquip.com/builder.html?server=GL#120c6c60-5d6b-11eb-87f8-c955d1aba12b

Brave Shift Build:
https://ffbeEquip.com/builder.html?server=GL#a36e5ef0-5d6d-11eb-87f8-c955d1aba12b

Rain & Fina Damage

[NM] ATK post 300% buff: 4867
 [NM] ATK post 150% buff: 4159


 Rotation:
 [NM] Turn 1: Crimson Lotus   Blazing Blood   Union Veil
 [NM] Turn 2: Limit Burst
 [NM] Turn 3: Limit Burst
 [NM] Turn 4: Blaze Arrow Saber x3
 [NM] Turn 5: Blaze Arrow Saber x3


 [NM] Turn 1: 0
 [NM] Turn 2: 4867^2 x ( 120 x 5.1 ) x 3.67 x 2.2 x 1.15 x 1.5 = 201907271120
 [NM] Turn 3: 4867^2 x ( 120 x 5.1 ) x 3.67 x 2.2 x 1.15 x 1.5 = 201907271120
 [NM] Turn 4: [ 4159^2 x ( 13 x 3.38   79 x 4 )   4159^2 x 92 x 2 x 4 ] x 2.2 x 1.15 x 1.5 = 71940988218
 [NM] Turn 5: [ 4159^2 x ( 13 x 3.38   79 x 4 )   4159^2 x 92 x 2 x 4 ] x 2.2 x 1.15 x 1.5 = 71940988218


 Average Damage Turn 1-5: 109,539,303,735
 -> 158% of Awakened Dragon Akstar's Damage ( 69,099,512,095 )
 -> 130% of Riku's Damage ( 84,199,496,578 )
 -> 98% of Locke -Neo Vision-'s Damage ( 110,809,779,499 )
 -> 97% of Onion Knight -Neo Vision-'s Damage ( 112,264,942,635 )
 -> 94% of Sora's Damage ( 115,905,303,716 )

 Terra -Neo Vision- Damage

 [NM] MAG post 300% buff: 5461
 [NM] MAG post 150% buff: 4778
 [BS] MAG post 300% buff: 5773
 Assume spark chains
 Assuming chain cap (on Limit Burst)
 Compared to 250% total killers


 Rotation:
 [BS] Turn 1: Trance Burst   Magitek Power Release - Fire   Unlock Magic
 [BS] Turn 2: Limit Burst
 [NM] Turn 3: Firaga x3   Meltdown
 [NM] Turn 4: Firaga x3   Meltdown
 [NM] Turn 5: Limit Burst
 [BS] Turn 6: Trance Burst   Magitek Power Release - Fire   Unlock Magic
 [BS] Turn 7: Limit Burst


 [BS] Turn 1: 0
 [BS] Turn 2: [ 5773^2 x ( 80 x 4.3 ) x 2.75 x 3.4 x 6 x 2.2 x 1.15 ] / 3.5 = 464918572486
 [NM] Turn 3: [ 5461^2 x 72 x 4.82   5461^2 x ( 72 x 2   84 ) x 6 ] x 2.2 = 112522996114
 [NM] Turn 4: [ 5461^2 x 72 x 4.82   5461^2 x ( 72 x 2   84 ) x 6 ] x 2.2 = 112522996114
 [NM] Turn 5: 4778^2 x ( 60 x 1.25 ) = 1712196300
 [BS] Turn 6: 0
 [BS] Turn 7: [ 5773^2 x ( 80 x 4.55 ) x 2.75 x 3.4 x 6 x 2.2 x 1.15 ] / 3.5 = 491948722049


 Highest Burst: 491,948,722,049


 Average Damage Turn 1-7: 169,089,354,723

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

Conclusion

Rain & Fina are pretty cool and the tag-team mechanic is quite fun!
It doesn't make other chainers obsolete but can only make your life easier by applying them.
The normal form sadly is locked to fire but features easy and quick damage that has even higher potential in the EXT scorn trials where they'll receive a free 70% damage boost once the gauge is broken.
In Dark Visions the limited fire option can be a pain and the lack of burst damage as well as even decently high chains can also mean that you'll still have to plan in chainers, even if not used on the kill turns themselves.
Shifting to Brave Shift might be much rarer than you expect since the best healing ability they have is their Limit Burst, which sadly means that you're gating yourself by not using it in their normal form as it features the highest damage Rana have available.
If you want a more generic Tag-Team chainer, I'd suggest you to wait for Lasswell & Raegen, which should come next week. Their LB is non-elemental and their BS form has a really strong 14500% finisher as LB.
Overall a cool unit but not a metabreaker. Once you realise that self-unit-chaining isn't nearly as OP as it sounds as almost all non-damage dealers have ways to chain, too, it's not that special. For a bunch of you it can make your DV life easier as it can allow you to fit another finisher into your composition.
Not a must pull by any means however.

And a lovely weekend to you all!

Memel0rd out​