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Hey everyone.
Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition. But letās ride this tide I guess. Not a fan of releasing nerfed units but here we are.
Lord of the Seas Nichol Overview
NV Nicholās Base Form is already a huge buff to Lunafreya as he buffs 30% Water Amp for all while also imbuing everyone with Water. Nice bonus: 100% resistance to water, fire, and lightning. Heās also able to full dispel (sadly not perfect) the boss and has some sweet 50% mitigation (P/M) in his kit. Canāt miss out on the 120% Water imperil (bleh) though! His LB is the perfect dispel youāre looking for while also increasing stats by 300% (bleh), LB Damage by 200% (okayish) and removing all debuffs from the party. Aka: Units used to have bigger kits and now they got smaller kits with abilities that do it all in one. Not a fan of this design choice. It sometimes is better to have direct control over what you gain at a certain time rather to get it all immediately.
In Brave Shift heās still a Supporter but gains access to some evoke based skills. Heās a Water Evoker at 64x mod that also functions as an evocation gauge filler as well as MP battery for the team. Heās able to increase Aquatic Beast Killers by 100% (he should have 160% via EX 3 unlocks which got removed and is supposedly coming via ability awakenings later ā but we all know what happened to prior ability awakenings). His 10 Turns Cooldown is stacked with stat cures (only ATK/MAG), increasing said stats by 300% while also filling MP, LB gauge and giving everyone except himself Flood Evoke Chains. The true gem is his LB though which has 350% Stats, 45% Water Amp (P/M) and 250% LB boost for all party members. Itās great but gets powercrept by Aerith (400% stats, same LB, different elements) in a week or two.
When you evoke Leviathan in Brave Shift, you imperil both sides of the field by 25% for Water. Itās cool and all but hardly usable when you also want to make use of Lunaās LB.
Nonetheless: Nicholās best spot is in a Water team unsurprisingly where he is going to shine regardless of missing out on his EX 2 or EX 3 abilities. For the record: EX 2 would unlock a 60 LB gauge fill at the start of the battle (aka instant LB if it is max lvl). His EX 3 would unlock a 160% Beast Aquatic Killer (P/M) in Brave Shift.
TMR & STMR Evaluation
No idea what they were smoking when they designed the TMR but it is bad. Yeah, one could argue it is decent for the 100% LB Fill Rate but LB Fill Rate is hardly ever useful outside DV. It is certainly one of the best TMRs (only STMRs really push the bar for the value) in that regard but itās stats are otherwise very lacking. The STMR is full troll mode. Why put SPR or even DEF on a chest slot of a unit that scales from MAG in Brave Shift? The added 50% Beast/Aquatic (P/M) is nice but absolutely nobody other than Shui Yu wants to use this. Oh yeah, it also has 50% Water resistance. Cool but doesnāt make it any better. What a waste of an otherwise decent STMR. Shouldāve removed DEF and put on MAG on it.
Vision Card Evaluation
The Vision Card is another one of those cases where I fail to see itās general use. It is nice for magic tanks as it does provide 800 Base HP and 80 SPR. But for Magic DPS? Yeah, sorry, nope. The passives are adding insult to injury. Who cares about 20% MP at level 4 or 7? Nobody. And donāt tell me itās cool for Cetra Aerithās Holy burst. Itās not. The Fire/Ice/Lightning/Water resistance at 20% at level 10 is just .. whatever. In general: If I were to use this card ever, Iād probably put this on Faisy, Melia, BS Snow, or Diverti. However, Faisyās card is better and so is Meliaās card.
The Water Bartz equivalent
Until now, most of you will probably think that I totally hate Nichol and believe heās a useless unit, right? Well, things are starting to look a little bit better from now on. When I played around with the excel sheet and did some calcs on how much he actually improves damage, things were looking up. Especially our best girl Lunafreya highly appreciates when you bring him along. She herself has a 15% amp only. Pushing this to 45% is a huge improvement especially in a Dark Visions environment. Furthermore, if you use his field imperil before using Lunaās LB, her damage will take the field imperil into account (but nobody else after her). To give you a rough idea, hereās Lunaās latest gearing.
Luna so far (300% LB boost, 15% Amp, 135% water imperil, 300% MAG buff): 1039.05m Damage
Luna with Nicholās support (300% LB boost, 45% Amp, 160% Water Imperil, 350% MAG Buff): 1604.56m Damage
That is a whopping 54% increase in damage done. It also brings her back to the number 2 spot in the grand scheme of things, tho Vivi still requires Steiner to get to the top.
Another great case of usage for NV Nichol is Avalancheās Tifa, whom weāll be getting very soon. She also loves the 25% field imperil. Other than that, Tifa may be a fan of Aerith because she grants her 400% stats. I havenāt done the math which one is better though, so letās not jump to conclusions.
How does he fare in the meta?
Lord of the Seas Nichol isnāt all bad but he really has no place in teams outside of Water. All he does is Water Damage after all. Youād have to imbue him with different abilities (via Ling for example) to allow different elements. He is the definition of a one-trick pony. In Water teams he really shines and brings huge buffs to the team unless the units have better amps on their own (such as NV Tifa). If we were to get Water Stages in Dark Visions, I totally can see him being used. Same for Clash of Whales where a boss weak to water would make Nichol sought after. Too bad we donāt have the alternative with Tidus. Gumi is great at creating a problem and selling the solution.
One could argue that we're in the Water DV Meta now and I'd kind of agree. Luna Nichol teams will outdamage Bartz Faris teams but for a different reason. That being the 25% imperil field and the 350% buffs to the party. It is a very, very short lived meta though because DV stages will shift away from double element (or none so to speak for the final one) to single element stages without splits in P/M stages.
One thing I really have to point out even if itās minor: Removing EX-Abilities/Passives. We are essentially getting a nerfed unit that wasnāt all that awesome to begin with because Aerith kind of makes him obsolete for the most part (outside Water teams!). We know that Aerith is coming. Nichol not having his instant LB fill, not having 160% AOE Killers for two types is a huge letdown. Yeah, they said these abilities are coming āat a later pointā. We were also told that latent abilities and ability awakenings were supposed to come āat a later pointā. All they did was scam us in the end. Itās like your dad saying āIāll get some cigarettesā and never coming back.
Should you pull
While I did pull ā with tickets only ā for Nichol because I want to keep him at my disposal should I ever need a good water amp for Dark Visions, I donāt think heās worth spending Lapin on. Especially not when heās missing some crucial skills that were removed because whatever reason Gumi has. His kit is good for what it is meant to do and he will do very well in the 1 or 2 DV stages that require Water element but thatās about it. So I say: Skip and be happy when you offbanner him sometime later.
Cheers
Livedili
P.S.: I want my 2000-3000 Lapin from the SE, Gumi!
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