Hey everyone.

Vlad is the actual Chad of this banner. Alright, I’ll see myself out with these puns.

Emperor Vlad Overview

Vlad in his Base Form is a physical killers based Magic dps, which is pretty sweet in terms of killers. He is locked to Dark element on some attacks though. Another downside: No killer buffs, just typed (Human) mitigation at 50%, which is pretty good. On his Grandis, he also got 50% general mit plus a 5K barrier. Nice but eh. The Base Form is kind of whatever. I do like his untyped 100x mod AMOE chain to one enemy though. Pretty neat skill for Trials for example. Side note: He does fill his LB at the start of the battle – sweet, if you got his LB maxed that is.

His Brave Shift is basically Delta Sakura/Regina-esque in terms of gameplay. You powerup his True Power of Solitude move for a while and then fire off a whopping 975x mod Dark Magic spell. He also has 10% rod imperil on one of the power-up moves. Cool? Nah. We got better and we are getting better very, very soon! What I like personally: 5x innate chain mod cap for a TDH unit. With Lightning’s STMR (sadly can’t wear the CoW helm) he will be easily 6x capping. Other than that. I guess that’s about it. 50% Dark Magic amp for self is good, too. It’s on his LB auto-buff.

Vlad is perfect for Human bosses as he does have 300% innate Human Killer in his kit. You don’t need anything for that, because that is in his Level 1 kit already.

TMR & STMR Evaluation

Vlad’s TMR is mostly good for himself as he immediately caps Eq MAG% with it, though I like the TSW aspect to it. It may see some general use? We will have to see. For a Materia, I feel like this is very good. The STMR has a neat effect with 300% MAG at the start of the battle, after being revived or when Brave Shifting. It’s nice to have but doesn’t add much as he needs to power up for an eternity anyway. Stats are boring with 184 MAG. I wouldn’t want to chase it.

Vision Card Evaluation

It’s GB Charlotte’s Card and thus not really useful. Neither does he want 80 MAG or 50% LB damage, nor does he need 100% MAG (though it is nice). You’re far better off using Louise’s card on him. If you don’t have it, use NV Sol’s card. More MAG than GB Charlotte, same MAG%.

Damage Calculation & comparison

Builds: Vlad Build

Louise Builds - though we’re only checking the 2x CB DV build

Rest of the competition

Assumptions:

• 90% SPR Break
• 300% MAG buff
• 300% LB buff
• 38% total amp for Lunafreya
• 50% total amp for Kaktiria & Terra (assuming Ling’s 25% fire amp as base now!)
• 86% amp for Louise & Vivi (his damage got upgraded via Louise’s fire field)
• We’re facing a 22.5k SPR DV Boss with 60% passive SPR, 60% Ele Resistance
• Varying amounts of killers depending on gearing, 150% killer buff to adjust for evocation
• 130% Dark Imperil (probably not feasible), 135% Fire Imperil, 135% Water Imperil
• Sword/Rod/Gun Imperils (Note: Terra has 30% weapon imperil total due to mixed weapons)

Here are the results at EX 3 shown in millions:

If you’d like to see a screenshot with a few more details, here it is: Picture of it. Also includes Ibara. Edit 00:29 CEST: I updated the picture because I was made aware that my Ibara build was outdated (no Louise VC, no Wizardess Robe). It should be far more accurate for DV stages now.

Vlad is doing surprisingly well to be honest. I did not expect him to be this super close to Lunafreya but Rod Imperil and 50% amp make a huge difference. Terra got upgraded via Ling here, so naturally she is starting to get ahead again. All in all: Not too shabby for a Story Unit. But he is still very far behind Louise and Vivi (even if you slash his damage in half due to having to bring Steiner). For Human Dark stages, Vlad is going to be pretty, pretty, pretty good.

How does he fare in the meta?

Vlad is the surprise on this banner as he clearly is the better of the two. He does have a place in the meta when it comes to human killing and when the boss is weak to dark as this is right up his alley (50% dark amp for self is gooooood!). For Trials he may be a decent chainer because he uses physical killers in base and chains AMoE, which comes in handy for your other dps should they be physical types. In CoW I don’t see him being relevant as he just doesn’t do much. Yeah, one can put barrage on him but at least for the current CoW, he just can’t get the milky juice to slide into your teams. He will be good for the next DV final magic boss, which is weak to fire/dark! But … uhhh.. We got Louise Terra who will cap this or Vivi, who should also cap this on his own (with Steiner reflect obviously). Soooooooooooo… you don’t really need Vlad.

Should you pull

If you are severely lacking magic dps, yeah, you could. He is a very strong Dark finisher with a wonky rotation (you have 4 turns in shift and you absolutely have to LB on the turn you shift or else you’ll be in trouble). People will call me biased and/or other names but with the upcoming arrival of Cetra Aerith, the floor for magic burst damage is just going to rise significantly. But for now, Vlad takes the 3rd place right behind Louise and Vivi. I didn’t pull because he just doesn’t do anything for me other than warming the bench.

Cheers

Livedili