Coming soon - Get a detailed view of why an account is flagged as spam!
view details

This post has been de-listed

It is no longer included in search results and normal feeds (front page, hot posts, subreddit posts, etc). It remains visible only via the author's post history.

92
Unit Review: Lord of the Seas Nichol
Post Flair (click to view more posts with a particular flair)
Post Body

Hey everyone.

Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition. But letā€™s ride this tide I guess. Not a fan of releasing nerfed units but here we are.

Lord of the Seas Nichol Overview

NV Nicholā€™s 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. Heā€™s also able to full dispel (sadly not perfect) the boss and has some sweet 50% mitigation (P/M) in his kit. Canā€™t miss out on the 120% Water imperil (bleh) though! His LB is the perfect dispel youā€™re 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 heā€™s still a Supporter but gains access to some evoke based skills. Heā€™s a Water Evoker at 64x mod that also functions as an evocation gauge filler as well as MP battery for the team. Heā€™s 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. Itā€™s 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. Itā€™s cool and all but hardly usable when you also want to make use of Lunaā€™s LB.

Nonetheless: Nicholā€™s 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 itā€™s 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 doesnā€™t make it any better. What a waste of an otherwise decent STMR. Shouldā€™ve 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 itā€™s 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 donā€™t tell me itā€™s cool for Cetra Aerithā€™s Holy burst. Itā€™s 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, Iā€™d probably put this on Faisy, Melia, BS Snow, or Diverti. However, Faisyā€™s card is better and so is Meliaā€™s card.

The Water Bartz equivalent

Until now, most of you will probably think that I totally hate Nichol and believe heā€™s 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 Lunaā€™s LB, her damage will take the field imperil into account (but nobody else after her). To give you a rough idea, hereā€™s Lunaā€™s latest gearing.

Luna so far (300% LB boost, 15% Amp, 135% water imperil, 300% MAG buff): 1039.05m Damage

Luna with Nicholā€™s 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 Avalancheā€™s Tifa, whom weā€™ll 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 havenā€™t done the math which one is better though, so letā€™s not jump to conclusions.

How does he fare in the meta?

Lord of the Seas Nichol isnā€™t all bad but he really has no place in teams outside of Water. All he does is Water Damage after all. Youā€™d 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 donā€™t 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 itā€™s minor: Removing EX-Abilities/Passives. We are essentially getting a nerfed unit that wasnā€™t 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 ā€œat a later pointā€. We were also told that latent abilities and ability awakenings were supposed to come ā€œat a later pointā€. All they did was scam us in the end. Itā€™s like your dad saying ā€œIā€™ll 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 donā€™t think heā€™s worth spending Lapin on. Especially not when heā€™s 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 thatā€™s 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!

Author
Account Strength
100%
Account Age
6 years
Verified Email
Yes
Verified Flair
No
Total Karma
3,659
Link Karma
990
Comment Karma
996
Profile updated: 2 days ago
Posts updated: 8 months ago

Subreddit

Post Details

We try to extract some basic information from the post title. This is not always successful or accurate, please use your best judgement and compare these values to the post title and body for confirmation.
Posted
3 years ago