This week, Gimu graced us with a unit that's weird as hell. You're probably going to want to slot extra healing for this one...

Fun fact, when I first saw his artwork I mistook his hands for boobs and wrote the first 20% or so of this thinking he was a she. Took a while to fix that.

Full unit details and initial reddit discussion can be found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/bravefrontier/comments/5mcv5w/unit_details_sunless_warden_rahotep

Stats/Arena/Animations

• Rahotep has one of the weirdest stat lines we've seen to date on a viable unit (I mean, there's stuff like metal mimic out there, but... viable units). He has tremendous max HP (11177 as Lord, and average 12295 as Anima), well above average ATK at 4154 and well above average DEF at 3886. The drawback is obvious - having only 350 REC means Rahotep's REC is lower in comparison to other OE units than even Mifune's HP/DEF ratio. Also, guardian/anima reduce REC further, and Oracle doesn't really give enough to fix anything.
  • REC working the way it does means this being an issue is up to the player. While Rahotep has numerous ways to heal built in, his max HP is so high that those won't be enough. REC is responsible for 100% of the healing from HC crystals, roughly 50% of the healing from OE burst heals, but only a minor fraction of HoT healing and not at all used for Heal when Attacked, Lifesteal and Spark Heals.
  • In other words, to heal Rahotep realistically you either want a whole load of high value burst heals, high value lifesteal and/or high value spark healing, which is going to lead to strange squad compositions just for him. You can't rely on HC and you can't really use HoT or heal when attacked to cover everything due to their natures. You'll have to decide if he's worth the effort.
  • There is one other really unusual option here - you can run Holia (or Alessa with SP) for her HP->REC buff, which will completely offset Rahotep's low REC and makes him a normal unit with really high HP. They also give HP->DEF, so Rahotep ends up really bulky due to his huge baseline.
  • It's unlikely due to the nature of the RNG for it, but it's possible for Anima Rahotep's base REC to be negative, which the game will default to a value of 1 to prevent it doing stupid things like make HC hurt him.
• He does good for arena. 70% chance-based angel idol, AoE normals option, huge HP, huge passive regen. Weak to Ilm's DoT and no angel idol bypass, though. His angel idol type will be utterly destroyed by Ilm's DoT effects if the initial attack eats the revive - he won't recover 60k HP in the colloseum. The rest of his kit matches up well to other units, however.
• His BB animation is a good 3f multiple pattern. His SBB and UBB, though, use 4f multiples, which sucks. Especially if you want to spark heal him. No one blanket will spark all of Rahotep's hits - rather, it would take 3 blankets to spark everything. And they wouldn't be sparking each other, and at least one of them would be badly sparking against the rest of the squad.
  • And I was thinking Gumi knew about the importance of the 3f multiple at this point. That's two really bad sparkers in a row at this point - Ilm's animation was bad too.

LS

• Rahotep's LS is mono-focused, instantly limiting its viability. It offers a large ATK, DEF and HP boost (100% DEF on an LS is unusually high) for fire units only, while the rest of the LS's contents apply to any unit - an ATK boost based on HP lost, BC when attacked and Crit Immunity.
  • The ATK based on HP lost has a minimum value of 40% and scales up to 160% ATK at 1 HP. This means a fire unit receives 140% ATK baseline from Rahotep.
  • BC when attacked on an LS is nice to have.
  • Crit Immunity is generally either mandatory or insignificant. It shows most of its value as a LS or buff, so having it here is ok, but the limited nature of Rahotep's stat boosts means you likely won't be running this LS for the kind of content where crit immunity really matters. It has some decent value if you decide to run mono-fire in colloseum, but the issue mentioned means it's unlikely to be used outside of that.
• Overall, Rahotep's LS lacks the raw power needed to really excuse making a mono squad. Mono-fire isn't strong at this point in time - the only mitigator (Rain) clashes with both ailment null/cleanse options (Kulyuk and Alessa), not to mention Alessa is one of the best pair units for Rahotep if you wanted to use him. There are similar issues with other necessary buffs causing clash between units within the element, and basically the whole problem is Rain's fault, but also Alim for not making a fire mitigator at OE yet.
  • Any bets when they do it'll clash anyways?
  • That said, with the general quality of Rain and his ES, mono-fire would be better if fire got a new cleanse/null unit that doesn't clash with him, rather than a new mitigator...

ES

• Rahotep's ES gives him huge passive HP regen and a 70% chance angel idol.
  • The HP regen is intended to give Rahotep a baseline level of healing to make up for his low REC. Alone, it doesn't make the cut, so you will need more if you're trying to use him in real content. He's got more healing options in SP as well.
    • Normally I'd talk about HoT opposing DoT, but in Rahotep's case it also needs to oppose the regular damage he's taking in most cases. Still, he's very DoT reisstant if you can full heal from other sources.
  • Most ES/SP passive angel idols are in the 40-50% chance range, so the extra chance on Rahotep makes a huge difference in content like the colloseum. It's also noteworthy that he's got HP regen built in, because chance-based angel idols don't restore full HP when they trigger like threshold angel idols do.

BB

• A simple AoE that inflicts ailments (75% chance for any ailment), grants 170% ATK when attacking enemies inflicted with ailments, 100% ATK/DEF to fire units and has a 20% chance to allow Rahotep to attack again after the animation finishes.
  • 75% is a fairly decent base for ailment infliction. Remember that most bosses, even if ailments work on them, have a fairly high resistance and even high ailment infliction chances end up with relatively unreliable infliction rates. Still, you don't get much better than 75% without RT attackers or using every infliction effect available.
  • Ailment ATK functions like BB ATK in that your units only have the ATK when attacking. It can't be converted. That said, it aplie to normal attacks, which means it can be used to some degree in normal attack setups. The net result after considering resistance is pretty weak, though, and as such ailmetn ATK isn't a highly valuable effect.
  • The fire ATK/DEF, as expected, only applies to fire units. These are convertable stat buffs which stack with regular stat buffs, making them pretty strong if used correctly, but as I've already disccused, mono-fire isn't very good right now. You can still use this in a squad that's 50:50 with another element and use that element's specific ATK/DEF buffer if you want - for example, you can use Lasswell for water ATK/DEF and get the buffs which fire struggles acquiring from water. Generally you don't want any unit left behind on survivability as any unit dying increases the damage the rest are going to take in most fights.
  • The global version of the "chance to perform another action" resets the unit's attack state after its animation finishes, allowing you to decide between using a BB, SBB or normal attack depending on how much BB gauge is left. Keep in mind that this attack is extremely unlikely to spark for BC and using a BB or SBB here may leave him unable to BB/SBB next turn, but you can use it to attempt another ailment infliction if you failed to do so with the first BB. The lack of sparking also means the damage will feel more like a DoT unless you're doing something like a hit count strategy.

SBB

• Another simple AoE that grants BC when attacked, fire ATK/DEF/crit buffs and a chance-based angel idol. In addition, there's a 7% chance for Rahotep to get another attack after the animation. The damage baseline is a little higher thna most standard AoE, but not really nuke quality.
  • The BC when attacked here is a little higher than most units with the buff grant, though it's not a significant advantage. Still, BC when attacked is a generally necessary buff in the majority of hard content due to giving some defense against BB drains and making BC gen easier against single enemies with AoE spam.
  • The fire ATK/DEF is the same as before, but it's important to note that Rahotep's crit buff is also element specific. This means it's only going to let fire units crit, which depending on your squad might be fine (in a future world where mono-fire is valuable), but it also means you can run him with another crit buffer to increase crit hcance against resistant enemies.
    • The crit cap of 70% is applied after resistance, so if you have 130% crit chance from buffs and enemies have 50% resistance, the extra crit is letting you have 65% crit chance instead of 35% crit chance. This can help in some raids, though many important trial bosses are just plain immune.
  • The angel idol chance is 12%. This buff has popped up a few times recently; as a BB effect you will get the buff icon regardless of whether the angel idol will save the unit, so there's no additional value to repeatedly casting the buff. That said, you'll probably want to spam SBB where possible anyway, just know that the icon being present doesn't mean your units will live.
  • The repeat chance on SBB is lower for whatever reason (even though BB is the one that's got more value for using more than once).
    • Turns out it's lower chance because it applies to the entire squad for that turn. This gives it signficiantly more value than I first thought, but at a 7% rate (or even 12% post-enhancement) it's still nowhere in the level of being reliable enough, and also threatens autobattle as a result. Just Rahotep doing this would rarely be an issue as he doesn't need to BB/SBB every turn. Other units do need to BB/SBB on every turn, and if they waste their BB gauge by getting an extra action on autobattle, it could screw you over.

UBB

• Finally, Rahotep's UBB is an HP-scaled nuke which offers an 80% chance revive, 350% fire ATK/DEF and inflicts a large DoT effect.
  • The HP-scaling, like usual on UBB, is mostly irrelevant. Rahotep hits the ATK cap at 2350%, and this UBB has a baseline of 2950% before raising max HP further.
  • Keep in mind that revives take some time for the animation to complete, which means the revived unit will not be buffed by actions which occur too soon after the revive. They definitely won't get Rahotep's ATK/DEF buff, and you'll need to carefully wait for the animation to finish before using other BB/SBB if you UBB for the revive.
  • Yay more mono-fire ATK/DEF. Same things as before applies. Stacking up lots of DEF is good, and this would stack with a generic stat UBB and be converted to allow us to get close to the DEF cap, but being fire only means it's too focused to be used in most scenarios.
  • The DoT has a modifier of 3000%, which is above the 2350% needed to hit the ATK cap. In other words, 99999 damage DoT. It only lasts for 1 turn.
    • DoT bypasses mitigation, so it might have some unique uses in some fights which use 100% mitigation to force you to live through an enemy UBB sequence or something. Most of those fights would need more than 100k damage to kill the enemy at that point regardless, though.
• Basically the main value of this UBB is the revive, which, even it isn't the only or best option for that effect, means it's not really a great UBB, just an option if you lack any other units with revive UBB and want to use it.

SP Enhancements

Most of Rahotep's SP enhancements are focused on counteracting his low REC or supporting his colloseum role - the former basically being an SP tax if you can't support him, but there don't seem to be many interesting options if you don't need to SP him to heal anyways.

• 10 SP: 30% HP
  • Cheap build filler for its effect.
  • For practical use, if you're not using HP->REC conversion there may be issues involved with healing Rahotep after HP% attacks if his base HP is too high. This is honestly an issue that only really comes into play for units with very low REC to HP ratios.
• 15 SP: 30% HP/DEF
  • More cheap build filler.
  • The extra 5 SP on the cost means it'll force you into some other options later, or waste SP. Might be worth it for some builds.
• 10 SP: 70% Crit Damage
  • Cheap build filler again. A lot of Rahotep's options are fairly cheap, to be honest.
  • Rahotep's a crit buffer, crit damage goes well with that. But remember that many important enemies are immune and Rahotep's base damage isn't nuke tier, so it's not a huge upgrade.
• 30 SP: 20% Chance AoE Normals (-50% ATK)
  • Very strong option for arena stuff.
• 10 SP: 30% Chance AoE Normals (-50% ATK)
  • Requires the first AoE normals enhancement.
  • Intended to be 10 SP to increase the chance of the AoE normals by 10%, which is a nice upgrade making them 50% more reliable.
  • There may be a bug with this and the next enhancement, which I'll detail in that part.
• 20 SP: 30% Chance AoE Normals (-25% ATK)
  • Requires the second AoE normals enhancement.
  • Intended to decrease the damage penalty of the AoE normals from 50% to 25%. This damage penalty is an ATK% modifier, so with high ATK it's not actually all that significant, and I don't think 20 SP to increase ATK by 25% on AoE normals is a good trade unless it fits in your build easily.
  • Now the bug, as it appears in data, is that none of the AoE normal enhancements are in the same "series", meaning they don't overwrite - they stack. Gumi has implemented each passive with the final stats after the passive (assuming an overwrite), rather than just the stats it changes, so you'll actually end up with all 3 normal attack AoEs.
    • I'm still not entirely certain on how this effect stacks - you either end up with 3 proc chances with varying penalties, or one really high proc chance with a very high penalty. Either way, you'll end up with a higher proc rate than you expect.
    • Also worth noting, looking back Azurai does this too. No wonder his AoE seems much more reliable than Mifune's despite supposedly only a 10% difference. Alim's Viktor shows the correct implementation which completely replaces the first enhancement.
• 15 SP: 3000-4000 HP HoT passive
  • Only to Rahotep. Total passive regen at this point is 8000-11500.
  • Another thing to help offset his low REC.
  • Also adds 10% REC to his passive regen. Unless you're using REC converts it's not going to make a difference in the long run.
  • As another 15 SP option, it's one of the two things you're likely to consider pairing with the 30% HP/DEF option earlier.
• 30 SP: Add 3500-4500 HP HoT to BB/SBB
  • Rahotep's only additional buff he can get from SP enhancements, making it potentially one of the most valuable to standard squads.
  • It's not a top-tier HoT as there's no further enhancement to bring it up to Selena/Holia/Juno-Seto tier. That said, in many cases it should be enough if you want to use it.
  • Rahotep does need more healing, but HoT is standard to many squads and you won't necessarily need it from his SP enhancements.
• 30 SP: Enhance BB/SBB's considerable ATK/DEF boost for Fire types ( 20%)
  • 30 SP for 20% ATK/DEF for one element seems like a lot.
  • Still, being both ATK and DEF means you can convert the stats into each other for a larger overall boost. It may be good defensively if mono-fire becomes a thing.
• 45 SP: Enhances BB/SBB's probability to perform 1 extra action within the same turn ( 5%)
  • 45 SP for 5% extra chance to use an extra normal/BB/SBB attack which can't spark.
  • I'm just going to say that I don't think this is very reliable (5% chance is tiny in the long run) and the damage increase is very low in most content and squads.

SP Builds

Rahotep's SP builds seem extremely obvious, so this won't take long.

There's also potential for a mid-line build with 30 SP of AoE normals and 30 SP on the fire ATK/DEF buff (boosting his normals when his extra action triggers), but I'm really not feeling like the 5% extra attack chance is worth working into a build unless you're going for pure damage output (you'd want AoE normals with it too if you're going for this)

Conclusion

I feel in the long run, Rahotep mostly shines as a sub unit in the colloseum. He has some leader potential, but doesn't have the survival chance Terry grants, so you need to have very bulky fire units to work with him like an army of himself and Azurai. Between his (likely bugged) AoE normals, high angel idol chance and huge HP/regen, Rahotep is a force to be reckoned with in the colloseum whose best counter (Ilm) was, perhaps intentionally, released just before him.

Meanwhile, in other content, he... well, falters. Rahotep provides very little necessary buffs (just BC when attacked and potentially HoT) and relies on unstable effects (crit, ailments, low chance angel idols) and mono-specific stuff in an element that's not really suited for it right now. On top of that, if you even want to use him you either need very specific units to make him heal normally, or you need to slot additional healers which the rest of your squad didn't need to begin with. So he's a low value unit which needs significant effort just to use, where you should actually be getting high reward to balance out the completely intentional issues with the unit. He shows most of his value in a game mode where healing is unimportant or unreliable to begin with, and also has little to no value in OTKO content where you wouldn't need to heal him such as FH.

As an overall design, I find him interesting, but lacking suitable rewards for the effort required to use him outside of the arena. He's just lacking enough important effects to make up for the inconvenience he causes - units which take effort to be used safely should reward that effort more than units which you just slot and they work.

Ironically, if Rahotep was a mitigator, he could have possibly made mono-fire viable paired with Alessa (Rahotep, Alessa, Afla-Dilith would be a very strong base if he was a mitigator), but it's probably too late for Gumi to consider that.