Hello everyone, /u/DefiantHermit here with (hopefully) the first iteration of the Should You Pull? series for Tales of Crestoria!

Some of you may remember me from FFBE as an in-depth math junkie and lovely sub/discord moderator. For those that don’t know what they’re getting into, SYP? was a series of unit analysis where I tried to dissect units in banners to give players with limited research time a condensed, but still thorough, round up so they could make a more educated decision on pulling on a banner or not.

In any case I hope this is an informative read and that it is able to help at least a fraction of those who are still undecided. Hopefully this game is ironed out in the next few weeks so we can have fun times and learn together as we go!

Foreword

Unlike FFBE or several other gachas, in ToC we unfortunately don’t have the benefit of future sight with an early release Japanese version. While on the one hand this is an exciting opportunity for unbiased experimentation and unexpected challenges along the way, on the other hand this means virtually no pre-planning for events/challenges or saving for busted units.

This makes any decision of spending resources on a banner that more important, while also making unit analysis that more difficult, as there’s no way of knowing if a “strictly better” unit will come along in a short span of time.

In addition to this, Crestoria is shaping up to be a game where a crucial trait of a unit or the true potential of a memoria stone are gated behind 5 dupes, adding another required layer to unit analysis. Of course there will be wildcard stones distributed throughout our journey, but we have yet to see the frequency of those as the game is just that new.

With all this in mind, please take mine word with a grain of salt. While I’m certainly going to try my best at condensing and transmitting information, I’m also human and I’m learning the game as it goes alongside you.

So without further ado, here's the unit analysis for the Summer Banner, part 1!

Summer Veigue

Element: Earth
Type: Longsword
Role: Hit Generator

Overview:

Summer Veigue is the new addition to Earth’s roster, with a clearly defined role as a dedicated hitgen. Just like most units sharing this role, his stats take a familiar shape: a severely below average ATK stat, average HP and the 3rd highest DEF amongst current units. This is also a trend with earth units, so far turning out to be the “bulky” element.

His awakening skill grants 11% DEF to Earth Allies, alongside a 5% chance to reset Longsword users CDs after use. The DEF boost seems questionable at this point in the game, as we do not yet fully understand the impacts of the stat and while the CD reset sounds tempting (specially with his own kit), 5% seems way too unreliable for such a high investment required to unlock it. Not only that, but you’re not too interested in stats for the role he’s going to cover, so Veigue is very low on awakening priority.

As far as his skills go, it’s just what you expect of a hitgen: a lot of hits but with relatively high cooldowns:

Modifiers are on par, if not a bit higher than most hitgens, while hitcount is top tier, only matched by Vicious. This makes Veigue pretty good at his job, being capable of quickly ramping up your dedicated damage dealer’s DPS.

In addition to this, his Mystic Arte is intriguing: a 150% AoE 12 -> 13 hit skill. On content with just 1 enemy, he actually falls flat compared to his competition, but things start to get interesting with multiple enemies, as a single cast can suddenly put you half-way through the max dmg boost.

While this seemed especially relevant in Arena, as you’re facing 4 other opponents, Veigue has a somewhat prohibitive 270 OL cost. Without external support (memoria or skills), you’re looking at 4 to 6 turns (depending on your targeting and crit luck) until it’s ready and while that might still be a relevant timeframe to close out games, it would definitely put him in a different power level if it was cheaper.

Elemental Context:

Veigue is the 4th SSR Earth unit to be released and he already has fierce competition in Yuri. While they sport very similar statlines, Yuri has a spammable (2 turn cd) 8 hit skill in contrast to Veigue’s 4-turn 10-hitter, which makes his ramping more consistent.

In addition to that, Yuri’s Mystic Arte is more suited against single enemies, but also requires investment to reach its full potential, as hitcount varies wildly from base to max awakening (26 to 38 hits) and still has a prohibitive 260 OL cost.

However, at the point we are in the game, it doesn’t have to be a competition just yet. Running a Veigue Yuri HitGen core should allow for consistent ramping, easing a lot of content we have available.

Memoria Stone:

Veigue’s Memoria Stone grants 60% Unrestricted Crit Damage at base level, going up to 120% at max awakening. While the numbers may seem impressive, it just has way too much competition out of the box. Just to list a few:

While Veigue has the benefits of having no weapon type restriction, there are various options for other elements and weapon types at a much lower accessibility cost (SRs, Rs and even farmable stones) which should enable a cheaper/quicker max awakening to get maximum bonuses and stats.

Talking about stats, Veigue’s stone offers 10,000 HP | 800 ATK | 1700 DEF, which is fitting for his character design. However, the stone’s effect goes the opposite way of the stats it boosts. It’s a strictly offensive stone, but it offers a significantly low ATK stat compared to other DPS stones.

Summer Kanonno

Element: Wind Type: Longsword
Role: Sub-Dps / Support-Dps

Overview:

Kanonno gets another SSR version, joining the fray this time as a Wind Support-Dps. She has below average HP, decently high ATK and solid DEF stat, placing her midway through dedicated DPS and support units.

Her Awakening skill grants 7% ATK to all Allies alongside 10% DEF to Wind allies, both of which are solid buffs. Unrestricted ATK buff is always good and the extra bulk should be welcome in a Wind team. Just like her statline, the awakening skill is also midway through a dps and support skill, which might put her awakening priority in your backline. Kanonno’s skillset keeps following the character trend of support-dps:

So we see the first arte is your standard damaging move: average modifiers, low-ish hit count with an average cd time. What changes things up is the second arte, where Kanonno forgoes a second damaging move for a 50% ST Heal. This makes her kit similar to other units, like Estelle, Misella and Kohaku, so we have a good comparison base.

Her Mystic Arte closely follows Veigue’s: 113% ->160% AoE 8 hit skill. Once again, on content with several enemies, this can help you ramp your damage dealer’s output during MA turns, while being on the underwhelming side as far as single enemy content goes. The OL cost is not bad at 190, which means she should be MA-ready in 3 to 4 turns without external support.

Elemental Context:

Kanonno is also the 4th SSR Wind unit to be released and, just like Veigue, already has same-role competition inside her own element in Kohaku. They share similar statlines (Kohaku having higher HP in exchange for lower DEF), an average modifier, low/mid hit damaging skill and a healing support skill (here Kohaku trades in raw healing 50% -> 20% for debuff cleansing capabilities).

Kohaku’s Mystic Arte is also more suited against single target enemies, with a 17 -> 20 hit spread, with a bulkier modifier as well and a cheaper cost to boot.

Just like Veigue and Yuri, this also doesn’t need to be a competition just yet, as the elemental pool is still too shallow and Kanonno/Kohaku can share the same team. In their case, though, it’s a bit tougher, as they share a role that you might not be willing to bring multiples of. Certainly more healing can be welcome in harder content, but it might just be more beneficial to run a dedicated hitgen or DPS instead and we still don’t know how healers will fare as content progresses.

Memoria Stone:

Summer Kanonno’s Memoria Stone offers a passive 12 -> 24 OL gauge gain per turn with no restrictions, which is the highest in the game yet. And here we see the same issue as Veigue’s own stone: you have high numbers on a strong effect, but only if you fully awaken it, while there are several other options with much lower investment cost, but with more restrictions. For example:

As far as stats go, the stone offers 7500 HP | 1350 ATK | 1400 DEF at max awakening. It’s an average gain in HP and an above average gain in ATK and DEF. Of course you’ll have fiercer stat competition on relevant SR or farmable stones as well, as they can be fully awakened much earlier.

To round things up, Kanonno’s stone’s effect is powerful for several content, including arena, where getting an MA early is extremely impactful, but fierce competition from budget SR/farmable choices might make you leave it as a subgrid stone until you can invest in awakening it.

Should You Pull?

If you remember the foreword, the conclusion here should be predictable: depends. As we can see, both units released already have direct role competition within their own elements, even in this reduced character pool. We still don’t have the luxury of having units competing for slots yet, since most elements can barely make up a full SSR team, so just getting more units for your elemental teams might also be the way to go.

That said, while none of the units look terrible on paper, neither one of them sound busted and the same could be said about their Memoria Stones, so power level is staying relatively still with this first banner. Veigue offers an alternative Earth hitgen for people that don’t have Yuri, while Kanonno offers wind another support-dps to make your team all around more bulky. If you’re able to properly support your Veigue, he can definitely be a menace in Arena and depending on how content evolves, having a side heal utility on a dps might prove invaluable.

In terms of unit investment, as awkward as it sounds… we still don’t know if those units are limited or permanent additions to the pool. So while there is the ever present worry of being unable to get dupes if these are limited units, there will definitely be more ways to obtain wildcard stones to awaken your SSRs, so you shouldn’t be too worried about having a dead unit in your box.

Anyway, hopefully this has been informative enough and allowed you to learn a little bit more about the game to make an educated decision on pulling or not! In case you decide to pull and get either SSR, yaay!