Full Unit Analysis - White Wulf Faelan

A new Global Exclusive's in town, and quite possibly the cutest new unit since Nyami. Luckily, she's not time limited, so we have all the time in the world to decide to roll for her, so there's not too much worry that she'll suddenly be meta and super important after you miss her.

Link to her official data

Stats/Arena/Animation

• Faelan has a nuke stat spread, passing 4k ATK but having fairly sub-par numbers in other areas. The difference between units defensively isn't very harsh for the most part in the OE era, however.
• She has no particularly special traits for arena modes, so I wouldn't recommend her for colloseum, nor worry about her changing the meta.
• Her main animation is mostly a spark blanket on SBB, but there's a large gap in the middle (still a 3f multiple) and a weird hiccup near the end of the animation which will make her fail to spark against a single blanket. Her random hits are entirely different from her regular AoE, starting really early in her animation and on a different spark track, so it's going to prove tricky to spark both well.
  • She still has regular movement, speed 3 (Rize/Avant type), so she can be perfect sparked against a dupe with relative ease. Note that this will only guarantee perfect sparks against a single target due to the RT nature of her double attack.
  • To clarify on her animation: Regular hits start at frame 17, 3f spark blanket until frame 50. At this point there's a 21 frame gap, then 6f gap spark blanket again until frame 119, then it falls apart and does a 2 frame gap which throws off the last 4 hits. Random hits start at frame 7 and happen at 6 frame intervals until frame 49, which won't line up with the main AoE at any point.
  • Realistically, one spark blanket can hit at most 22 of her SBB hits.
  • The same spark blanket would actually perfect spark her BB, which doesn't have the weird hiccup or double attack.

LS

• Faelan's LS gives 40% all stats, 300% BB ATK when over 50 HP, 100% ailment ATK and ailment immunity.
  • The stats include DEF, which a lot of LS don't boost, but overall the total is relatively low after a convert compared to pure ATK LS. You can enhance the stats to 50% for a small amount of SP.
  • BB ATK when over HP% is pretty unique, but functions exactly as other "[Boost] when over x% HP" effects. Remember that you won't see any damage increase if the HP somehow goes over 50% while already attacking as ATK locks in at the start of the animation. As it's BB ATK, it also can't be converted to DEF.
  • Ailment ATK is another conditional ATK boost which can't be converted, and of course only applies when the opponent is suffering from one of the core 6 ailments (Weak/Injury/Sick/Curse/Paralysis/Poison). This means in many cases it's ineffective or hard to keep active.
  • All of the above are boosts to ATK and therefore count towards the ATK cap (99999 total after applying all %ATK modifiers and converts)
  • Finally, ailment immunity is a thing. As it's available from a wide variety of sources, it's often passable on an LS.
• Overall the LS is a weaker damage option than most BB ATK/Spark Damage hybrids, and you also have to worry about the ATK cap even more than with those while using it. Plus, its other main strength (ailment immunity) is potentially granted by Faelan's buff set anyway, and a relatively common effect overall.

ES

• Faelan's ES makes her immune to ailments and gives her an additional 100% ailment ATK.
  • Basically it's the weaker half of her LS repeated.
  • She's a cleanse/null unit, so being immune to ailments via ES is pretty strong. Currently it's only not going to be active if you field her in summoner arc for some strange reason.

BB

• A regular AoE with a decent hit count. Faelan's BB sports a water Barrier, ailment null/cleanse and ailment reflect, and also hits dual element water/earth.
  • Water barrier on an earth unit, to make up for Tridon's earth shield on a water unit? Well, Barrier's generally a weaker, but more stable version of the shield mechanic. Faelan's barrier can actually be enhanced to 4000 HP which is well above average, but it's expensive (you have to spend 40 SP on another enhancement before the option's even available). The general known properties of barriers as a recap:
    • Barriers use DEF buffs applied to the unit, but not mitigation effects - the damage taken by the barrier is based off the original damage of the attack
    • Barriers use their own elements for calculating their damage taken, but any bleed over is calculated using the unit's real element and buffs.
    • Barriers cannot be buff wiped or run out due to a time limit - the only mechanic which removes them is damage beyond their capacity.
    • The main weakness of a barrier compared to the old shields is the lack of mitigation affecting the barrier, while the main strength is a general lack of bugs and not being subject to buff wipes.
    • Overall, barriers at their current values are fairly weak, but if they can be reapplied easily they still offer a small boost in unit survival.
  • Ailment cleanse/null is a nice pairing to have. Faelan's biggest weakness here is there's no way to get either on her SBB, but with SP enhancements you can actually make the null last for 5 turns which is unusually long (and necessary if you want to max out the repeat use bonus on her SBB between re-applying ailment null)
    • Ther's also an SP enhancement which gives her debuff immunity, which is basically an extension of ailment immunity. However, that buff only lasts for 2 turns and is not extended by the SP enhancement that makes the ailment immunity/reflect last 5 turns.
  • Ailment reflect is an inversion of the ailment infliction buff which attempts to apply debuffs whenever an enemy unit hits your units. The application chance depends on how many units each attack deals damage to, so an attack that hits the entire squad will cause 6 proc chances, and random target attacks with lots of hits could have many more. That said, this means the infliction rate remains fairly poor when facing bosses which rely on single target attacks, especially if they have high resistance.
    • The SP enhancement that makes ailment immunity last for 5 turns also affects Faelan's ailment reflect, which is nice, though generally not really important.
  • As a water/earth dual element attack, Faelan's BB will naturally bypass a fire unit's resistance to earth and deal up to 150% damage. However, this doesn't make her get extra damage from EWD bonuses.

SBB

• Faelan's SBB, asides from being dual element water/earth, is basically completely different from her BB. It's now a double attack sporting a repeat usage scaled AoE as the main attack and an 8 hit random target component as the second attack, attempts to inflict ailments at a low chance and buffs Ailment ATK and BB ATK.
  • The repeat usage bonus maxes out on the 4th use in a row, ending up at 1100% BB mod (base 500%). This resets to 500% if you fail to SBB for any reason. Note that the base value is only 100% higher than her BB, so if you can't make use of the repeat scaling, her SBB barely deals more damage than her BB beyond the random portion (which scales poorly to large enemy groups, doesn't crit, and is hard to spark)
  • The double attack is a random target attack, meaning each hit has individual proc chances for ailment/debuff infliction buffs and passives. Do note, however, that the ailment infliction included in her SBB is not the buff, but a separate effect that will only attempt to trigger once when using the SBB. If you want to make use of her better infliction chances with infliction effects, you will need to get those effects from another unit or sphere.
    • Random target attacks cannot crit and deal their damage divided roughly evenly between each of their hits, so each hit in this case will only deal 12.5% of the total damage. RNG is re-rolled for each hit, so it won't be identical damage on each hit (it's also this RNG being re-rolled which causes additional proc chances on infliction buffs, lifesteal effects or DEF ignore passives and the like)
  • Her base ailment infliction rate is only 25%, which is frankly an insulting number. I get the feeling it was intended to make really high infliction chances paired with the random target attack, but as far as we're aware, the current mechanical interaction means it won't function that way (if this was your intention Gumi, perhaps just make her infliction a passive as part of her ES or something?)
  • We covered BB ATK and Ailment ATK earlier. Between her SBB and LS and SP enhancements, one Faelan can offer the squad 1100% ATK (assuming BB is being used, each unit is above 50% HP and an ailment is inflicted on the target). It's probably more likely that you won't be using the LS, however.
    • The BB ATK can be enhanced to 450% (current top tier), and the Ailment ATK can be enhanced to 200% (also current top tier). Whether this is worth the SP for you is a question for later.
  • There's also an SP option to add an Earth barrier to Faelan's SBB. I'm not totally aware of the interactions between different element barriers, but it's probably irrelevant in most content; if enemies can't even break the first barrier you apply in one turn you don't need two barriers even if you can have two barriers.
    • This is the enhancement you have to buy before you can get the 4000 HP barrier on BB. This barreir also gets to have 4000 HP in that scenario. Costs a total of 60 SP.
  • Finally of note is the option to make Faelan's SBB an iSBB (self-refilling). This isn't perfect against BB fill debuffs, but it's something she wants to maintain her consecutive usage bonus.

UBB

• Finally, Faelan's UBB is generally an extension of her SBB. While it loses the double attack, it still buffs BB ATK, ailment ATK, grants a barrier and deals with ailment infliction (now as buff form).
  • Between her SBB, LS, UBB and SP enhancements, she can grant up to 2140% ATK. Pretty sure the cap becomes an issue at that point for almost every OE unit that attacks on BB/SBB.
  • Barrier UBB have a unique niche in "attacks which would buff wipe mitigation but you need loads of extra HP that isn't HP% to survive". It's used for some trials. That said, there are probably far better options all the same.
  • As this infliction is now a buff, it works well with her SBB. The chance is 100% before resistance - just remember that nearly every boss has at least partial resistance to every ailment, so it can still fail.
• Overall, Faelan's UBB acts as a rare ailment infliction/damage hybrid. The barrier on the side is pretty nice as a tool as well, though most trials where you'd use a barrier you can't really make use of ailments at the same time.

Overall, I'd say Faelan has issues as a unit. She's trying to inflict ailments, but has terrible rates for it. She's trying to be an ailment cleanse/null unit, but the forced switching between BB and SBB with a repeat use scaled SBB really nixes that. Her animation is pretty bad. Offensively, she only contributes one useful buff, and despite trying to be a nuker she lacks all of the tools needed to really compete with the prime nukers that are currently used.

Ailments/BB ATK is a weird combination that only worked on Ensa-Taya because her tools were all incredibly strong - even if you took the ailments away from her, she still had exceptional damage buffs from DEF->ATK, BB ATK and spark damage, and you could still use her BB to apply ATK down extremely reliably. If you take ailments from Faelan, she pretty much loses all sense of focus (one damage buff on SBB and cleanse/null on BB...?), but she's not particularly well done even with them due to the low infliction rates.

Her builds are going to have issues as well. Realistially speaking, they somewhat build themselves, but you're forced to leave a lot out of any build. For example, if you want to use her 5 turn ailment immunity, you'll need to consider taking the iSBB option (to make sure you actually get any real value out of the extra turns), which already takes up 70 SP and removes the options of enhancing BB ATK or adding barrier to her SBB (and even then you can get screwed over by not genning enough BC on turns you use the BB).

Of course, she's adorable, so I want her to be good, but I can't see her getting mainstream usage in her present form. She's combining something niche, done pretty badly, with one of the most heavily contested damage buffs in the game.