Hey guys! Welcome to the latest New Unit Analysis! Today we'll be having a look at Vishra, who has the distinction of being my very first analysis ever. I hope you guys appreciate just how far I've come since my early days of fumbling around through stats and comparisons. :>

Today we'll be looking at how Vishra compares to his hot friends, as well as how he fares in the current metagame and what his future prospects are.

Disclaimer: As always, I try to keep these as objective as possible, but they're ultimately my opinion and yours may differ. Please read them with an open mind and a view to make your own decisions. :>

Rakshasa Lord Vishra vs. Lava, Michele, Aisha, Bordebegia

Vishra's Stats:

Lord: HP 5821 ATK 2000 DEF 1823 REC 1455

Max Imp Bonuses: HP 750 ATK 300 DEF 300 REC 300

LS: Attacks have a chance to inflict random status ailments and boost in damage dealt during critical hits (Curse 7%, Injury 10%, Paralysis 7%, Poison 7%, Sick 10%, Weak 10%, Crit damage 50%)

Hit count: 9 (drop check count 2/hit)

BB: 11 hit multiple target Fire damage and chance to inflict Curse (25BC to fill, Curse 45%, damage modifier 230%)

SBB: 13 hit multiple target Fire damage and all allies fill BB-gauge when attacked for 3 turns (55BC to fill, BB fill 1-3BC per attack (100% chance), damage modifier 440%)

Note: In-game description of SBB lies, there is no fill rate increase attached to his SBB.

• Like all the recent evolutions, pretty nice stats for this day and age, with his REC being the only real issue that he has and even then, it's definitely at a level where it's very useable. His HP could use a slight boost as well, but again, it's hardly bad. His leader skill is random status ailment infliction, similar to Lira's with a different spin on the auxillary buff. Vishra has the rare crit damage buff attached to his LS which as you know, is very powerful on units like Zebra, but unfortunately, Vishra's version is pretty weak so he's a poor substitute on that front. More on that later. His hit count is pretty decent, though just falls short of breaking double digits which is a shame. This evolution, Vishra gains access to his SBB which has a very misleading in-game description, it doesn't actually increase your fill rate, the Japanese version of the description has no such line and their is no evidence in the data that he does this. He does however fill your unit's BB gauge slightly every time they're attacked which would be fairly useful as a defensive buff if he didn't fill them by such small amounts. This is a pretty unique buff at this point in time in Global though, so he's got that to his name!

• First up today is Lava. Compared to the one who sacrificed her wings for Vargas, Vishra has better HP ( 120), ATK ( 305) and DEF ( 240) but less REC (-55). As you can see, it's pretty clear that Vishra dominates Lava statistically, which isn't really surprising, unfortunately considering Lava is an old unit. The very minor REC difference does very little to compensate for the much larger advantages Vishra has in the other stats so he wins this one convincingly. He also wins in hit count and more importantly has a much better attack animation than Lava does, another plus on his side. Comparing their BBs, Vishra wins again with the same hit count, higher damage modifier ( 230% for Vishra vs. Lava's 220%), a faster fill rate (25BC vs. 28BC) and a curse effect. Comparing their SBBs, Vishra wins slightly in damage modifier and hit count, but loses slightly in fill rate but none of those differences are big enough to matter. Really it's Lava's DEF ignore buff vs. Vishra's BB gauge fill on being attacked buff. DEF ignore isn't a very good buff, to be honest, and when you factor in the large amounts of units that can modify damage, it really doesn't amount to a noticeable increase in damage output at all and I clearly overvalue it in my earlier analyses before I knew better. For this reason I think Vishra's unique buff is probably more useful overall. Vishra wins this comparison handily.

• Next up is Michele. Compared to the vulgar axe wielder, Vishra has better HP ( 290), ATK ( 70) and DEF ( 320) but less REC (-340). Michele's pretty fragile and Vishra highlights that here nicely having significantly better defensive stats and a slight advantage offensively as well. While the REC difference here is notable, it doesn't really do enough to swing the stat advantage in Michele's favour so Vishra wins in that regard. However Michele has a whole lot of other things under her belt, like her phenomenal 15 hit normal attack, and her 115% ATK buffing, fire attribute bestowing SBB with 18 hits, making her one of the best offensive support units in the game, as well as a brilliant BC generator. Vishra can't really compete with his BB or SBB. He hits slightly harder himself with his superior damage modifier ( 440% vs. Michele's 350%), but Michele increases the whole party's overall damage by a lot more and Vishra's unique buff just isn't strong enough to pull him over the line in utility so Michele wins this comparison overall.

• Thirdly is Aisha. Compared to our dragon loving angel, Vishra has superior ATK ( 175) and DEF ( 220) but loses out in HP (-250) and REC (-235). Pretty even spread of stats, to be honest. Vishra clearly has the offensive edge here. Comparing their defensive merits, Vishra's DEF advantage grants him about 66 extra damage mitigation per attack which means he outscales Aisha's HP advantage after taking 4 attacks, which is pretty likely in a prolonged battle (trials, raids etc.), so I think he wins in the defensive department as well. That means that Aisha's only real advantage is in REC where she has a noticeable margin, but not enough for me to call it in her favour. I'd say overall Vishra just edges her out by a small margin, but they're pretty close statistically. Taking into account the rest of their attributes, Vishra also wins in hit count, but when we come to their SBB comparison, things get a bit uglier for the cursed warrior. Aisha's actually has a pretty amazing SBB, we now should all know that she has the second highest crit rate buff in the game at 45% (SBB10), but what you may not realise is that she's actually got a damage distribution of 120% on her SBB meaning she does 20% more damage than you would expect after damage calculations, meaning she actually probably hits harder than Vishra with her SBB despite having a lower base ATK stat and the same damage modifier. Crit is an amazing buff, and Aisha is a very strong user of it, so I think this comparison will have to go to our dragon lady as well.

• Lastly, we have Bordebegia. Compared to our demon horse centaur, Vishra has better DEF ( 170) but loses in the other attributes: HP (-400), ATK (-60) and REC (-105). In this case, Vishra's extra damage mitigation is about 51 damage per attack for his DEF mitigation which means that he needs to take 8 hits before he starts outscaling Bordebegia's HP advantage. That's pretty probably in long fights like trials and raids, but less practical in short battles like the arena or regular quests. The advantage Bordebegia has in the other stats probably swings it more in his favour, but they're only rather small advantages so who's better statistically is probably a bit context driven. What's more important than stats though is what else they provide to the team, and in this respect, Bordebegia has Vishra beat pretty soundly since he contributes some powerful buffs. Bordebegia's crit buff may not be that powerful at 35%, but it's still much better than nothing if you have no alternative and Bordebegia has the distinction of being the carrier of the most powerful spark buff in the game at the moment at 70%, another very powerful offensive buff. In comparison, Vishra's defensive BB gauge fill buff pales a bit, particularly because Bordebegia is also an Ares' Excelsior using leader, meaning he has utility as the leader of BB-spam teams as well. Bordebegia wins here.

• As you can see, unfortunately, Vishra isn't really going to be a top tier unit any time soon. He's actually not that bad. He has very good stats, he just doesn't really stand out in any particular area and being in an element with so many monster units means that he's a bit outshined. He's a capable filler if you need a fire unit on your squad though.

Vishra: Indepth Look

• Vishra actually has really great stats. His ATK and DEF are phenomenal, and have been since his 5* days. His HP isn't particularly eye catching, but it's not bad either and his REC is his only real weak point, but even then, it's perfectly useable.

• His leader skill just isn't very good. You guys can talk about how you like random status all you like, but I just don't think it's that effective in practice. It's a bit too RNG dependent to my liking since there are actually relatively few truly useful statuses to inflict.

• The crit damage buff would be nice if it was stronger. 50% is just WAY too weak to justify using Vishra in the leader position, particularly because Zebra may be a pain to farm, but he's FREE and his crit damage buff is 300%. Like, they're not even in the same UNIVERSE in terms of power.

• Basically, don't settle for Vishra if you're looking for a crit damage leader, go and get that Zebra. It's a pain, but it'll be worth it. Or alternatively, start preparing for Maxwell.

• His hit count is pretty solid at 9. It would be nice if he broke double digits, but the difference between 9 and 10 is pretty much just aesthetic. He's no BC generating monster like Michele or Duel-SGX, but he's not doing too badly in this area.

• His BB is pretty comparable to Kikuri's. It has the same curse chance and a similar hit count but loses slightly in damage modifier ( 250% vs. 230%) but in return fills a bit faster (25BC vs. 34BC). I actually prefer it. In the grand scheme of BBs, it's pretty average, nothing bad, but not particularly spectacular either.

• His SBB provides a buff that I need to find a more succinct name for. It fills the the BB gauge by 1-3BC every time a unit is attacked.

• This is a buff that gives one method of BC generation without attacking, meaning you can guard and still recover BC with this buff which has applications where maintaining infinite BB/SBB isn't possible and you need defensive buffs like Oulu's or Dalvanshel's to be active when you're attacking.

• It's strictly inferior to say, Lodin's SBB buff which restores more BC (5) per turn and without the requirement that you get hit to activate, but it's a different buff so it stacks.

• Unfortunately, I don't think Vishra's buff is quite powerful enough to really be of much use in most situations. We'll probably have to wait until Lily Matah's released before this buff truly begins to show it's worth. Vishra provides me witha good opportunity to flag it with you guys as a buff to be aware of though.

• I know his SBB says he also increases BB gauge fill rate, but that's a lie. The JP description doesn't have that line in it, and there's no data in the code to suggest that Vishra has a buff like this so it's likely a mistranslation of the descriptive text.

• Vishra's hard to find a true use for since he doesn't really have a niche he's really strong in. His buff is currently unique (at least off the top of my head no one else has anything like it), but it's not strong enough for him to find purchase on a team because of it.

• His strong stats mean he's very good filler for mono-fire teams or if you need a fire unit in any squad, but unfortunately, you won't find many top tier teams running Vishra at all.

• Competition-wise, currently Aisha, Michele, Bordebegia all have comparable-ish stats but contribute importantly to the team's power with their useful buffs, and in the future, Luther, Ramna and Farlon will also probably outclass Vishra as fire units. Lily Matah, despite not doing damage with her SBB, will probably be the premiere user of the BC regen on being hit buff (argh, I'm trying) so she's probably going to usurp him in that role.

• Overall, I'm not going to sugar coat things, he's not a top tier unit. He's definitely useable since his stats are strong and there's nothing particularly WEAK about him, but he just doesn't really have a niche he's strong in and a lot of other units outclass him with their superior support options. Sorry! Bearer of bad news.

Typing Discussion

• As always, the most important thing to note here is that if typing is the only thing holding you back from using a unit, you should definitely just go ahead and use them. Please don't discard units because their typing isn't 'optimal'.

• I've changed my thinking a bit since the batch overview, so this ranking might differ to how I've written it there. Goes to show how little typing really matters.

• I like Lord a lot for Vishra, you may not agree. I think his natural stat distribution is very good, but I'll agree that Guardian is probably at least on par since he maintains good offensive stats at 1.8k ATK and his DEF skyrockets to 2k, making him very bulky.

• I think Breaker and Anima are probably roughly on par as well. I like Breaker slightly more, to be honest. His DEF is respectable at 1.6k still and his ATK hits a whopping 2.2k which is very nice.

• Anima is basically as good as Breaker, hitting 6.5k HP, but dropping to 1.25k REC hurts the viability of this typing slightly

• Finally I think Oracle is actually quite good for Vishra as well given his lowish REC. He definitely benefits from the REC gain Oracle gives him, topping him up to 1.7k REC while his HP hits 5.5k which isn't great, but still okay.

That's it guys, hope you enjoyed the read, things are certainly different from the first time I analysed Vishra, that's for sure. :>

As always, I welcome your comments/criticims/encouragements. If you found this useful, please drop an upvote on your way out, I'd really appreciate the support. <3

Until next time!

Links to previous Analyses