I'm very nearly late with this one. Again. Blame guild raid this time?

If this changes your mind and makes you want to summon Long, you will have 3 hours after maintenance ends to summon for him. The maintenance will end roughly 6 hours from time of posting.

Stats/Arena/Animations

• Long has the highest ATK in the game on an RS unit at 4.8k. Mifune's still got higher ATK, but he's incredibly glassy in comparison to the rest of Long's stats - Long at least still has 9.5k HP (above average), 2.9k DEF (somewhat below average) and 3.4k REC (average), which is enough to be usable in endgame content.
• Arena-wise, Long just has high stats and bulk. That's enough to function in regular arena for the most part, but he doesn't really stand out in collo.
• Despite his low hit counts, Long has a relatively decent animation - all hits are on a single spark track, and the AoE is a tight set of 3f hits that should be reasonably capable of sparking with other units. His ST hit comes much later, but there is no spark blanket in the game that would fail to spark it if you spark his AoE properly with the same blanket.
  • There are some slight concerns that his AoE actually starts up really fast and you may need an early starting blanket to get it properly unless you keep him on the back row. This also causes some compatibility issues with Durumn, who starts up fairly late and needs two blankets to fully spark without a dupe of her available, though you could try to get Long in on the first blanket sparking Durumn in that case.
  • However, the optimal situation is to have a dupe of both Long and Durumn around so they can just perfect spark themselves. Long is plenty capable of this as a standard movement unit.
  • Long shares a similar pattern to Durumn where his highest hit count animation shares all the hits of his next one down, and so on. This means his SBB perfect sparks his normal attacks, BB and UBB; his normal attacks perfect spark his BB and UBB, and his BB perfect sparks his normal attacks and UBB.
    • Asides from his hit counts being really weird overall (SBB > Normals = BB > UBB), it's worth noting that Long's normal attack includes a hit on the same frame that the ST hits from his BB/SBB/UBB come out, so that dupe Longs can always perfect spark that at the very least.
    • Damage loss from sparking SBB against Normals/BB = sparks worth 19% of total distribution. Damage loss for sparking UBB against SBB = sparks worth 75% of distribution (so make sure if you're UBBing him for some reason and normally use a dupe to spark that you have another unit that sparks well with him)

Passive Skills

LS

• Long's LS has been noted as being cute for completing Feng's in a way. At any rate, it offers 60% HP, 60% ATK/DEF/REC based on remaining HP, 15% light/dark mitigation and 150% spark damage for 2 turns after dealing 50k damage.
  • Given the low scope of the LS, it's a little disappointing the stats aren't purely passive, especially as the preference for REC would be to increase as HP goes down (and DEF doesn't want to scale in any situation, really, though with enemy damage typically frontloaded it's better to be based on remaining HP)
  • The mitigation is additive to BB/SBB non-elemental mitigation and other passive mitigation effects. 15% for elemental mitigation here is fairly standard, but unlike Feng, Long has no way to increase it to 20%. Note that passive mitigation cannot be stacked past 50% total.
    • Long's a rare example of a Light/Dark mitigation LS on a unit that isn't inherently weak to either element. In most cases you'd have to sphere a unit for EWD null or bring the buff with a 15% Light/Dark mit lead; with Long you may not have to depending on squad choice.
  • The spark damage is a buff, so it won't stack with other LS that give timed spark damage buffs. In this case it's triggered by dealing damage, which makes it fairly reliable (units should be dealing at least this much per turn, and in many cases significantly more). In addition, when it triggers it applies to all further damage dealt by the unit for the rest of the turn because spark buffs apply even after initial damage calculations (a unique quality amongst damage buff types). So if a unit does 50k damage on its first hit, the rest of its animation would benefit from the spark damage buff.
    • The damage should be cumulative including multiple targets in an AoE, making it trigger earlier in AoE situations. Which feeds into dealing even more damage.
    • Once it's up this buff will probably stay up until such a time as you're forced to not atack with units or you get buff wiped. It's only OTKO situations where there's any question of it not being up, and with a high enough squad damage output the amount of unbuffed damage will be fairly small.
• Overall Long's LS is relatively middle of the line for damage output, and fairly decent for survival too. Being limited to just two elements for the mitigation factor means it'll often be nothing more than spark damage and stats, which doesn't make a great overall LS, but it's plenty usable for light/dark specific battles.

ES

• Long's ES gives him 10% mitigation, 50% spark damage and 50% crit damage.
  • The mitigation is passive, so it's additive to BB mitigation which by itself gives Long significant bulk by default. It makes it a lot easier to hit 100% mitigation on him if you so choose, as you can theoretically get there purely from passive effects with a 10% mitigation sphere and two 15% leader skills. Giving Long 100% mitigation means his damage will very rarely drop off from the HP-scaling effect on his BB/SBB (but you'd be giving up a lot of damage or BC gen you likely could've gotten from those LS or sphere slots, so there's a trade-off here)
  • Crit/Spark damage are just the regular damage pumps. In Long's case they contribute to giving him potentially the largest damage output in the game, which is significant.

Active Skills

BB

• Long's BB is a double attack (HP-scaled AoE, regular ST) which grants 170% ATK/DEF/REC, Light/Dark elements and 30% chance to inflict 30% ATK down for 3 turns.
  • First note here, Long actually does really high damage with his BB alone. It falls short of his SBB in practice unless you have really pingu spheres, but still outdamages the majority of units in the game due to its HP scaling and additional ST hit.
    • Lord Long with the ATK limit break enhancement needs roughly 2660% damage modifier to reach the ATK cap His BB's AoE carries 370% inherently, and scales 300% per 100% HP, so at baseline hits for around 670% and needs 2000% more modifier from LS/SP/Spheres/Buffs to cap, which feels unrealistic unless you heavily focus on things which buff HP and BB ATK at the same time. His SBB will fare better later on.
    • To hit the base ATK ap of 99999, he needs 2050% ATK, and falls 1480% short before considering buffs. With just standard LS boosts (2 x 50%) and a 40% HP sphere, he gets to 1090% BB modifier on his BB, which after a 400% BB ATK buff is going to outdamage any non-scaled unit, but can still lose to other HP scaled nukers. In this scenario he's 560% short of the cap - depending on your chosen LS and spheres/elgif he may be able to reach it
  • Tri-stat is very solid, and 170% values are decent for it.There's not much more to say here; just remember that typically most of the value of an ATK buff is in ATK->DEF conversion, so make sure you have a unit that gives that somewhere in your squad if you're doing non-OTKO content (such as Kanon or Hallelujah, if you're focusing on thunder)
  • Long becomes Thunder's first unit at OE to add the Dark buff to your squad (Silas already had Light). Currently thunder doesn't actually have any all-element buffers, nor does it have a water buffer or earth buffer in OE that I'm aware of, so in mono-thunder Long's element buffs may have some relevance.
  • ATK down is typically viewed as being pretty small and niche, but Long is actually an excellent source of the effect. on his BB he gives 30% chance to inflict 30% ATK down as a buff, which stacks with base infliction - this is the strongest form of the infliction buff in the game outside of UBB, with the closest competition being the guild raid leaders and Sakura Miku at 20% chance to inflict 30% ATK down. Long's infliction rate here with 6 attacking units can normally be considered as 1-(1-0.3)⁶ = 88.2% (=26.46% ATK down on average), but his double attack actually adds an extra proc chance on his main target so running a single Long in a 6 unit squad has a single target infliction rate of 91.8% (27.54% ATK down on average). Adding other double attackers adds extra proc chances; using an RT attacker such as Ensa-Taya would come close to 100% infliction rate (though at this point there isn't a significant advantage over the guild raid leaders).
    • In other news, ATK down is working in guild raid this season. Those bosses have a baseline of over 15k ATK - having consistent ATK down will prevent a lot of damage.
  • Long gets an SP enhancment to make all of this last for 5 turns, which if you intend to use him for his buffs is actually pretty beneficial due to BC gen issues he'll have in the long term.

SBB

• Long's SBB is a similar double attack (now with added 300% ATK on the ST hit per repeat use up to 900%) which allows Long to grant himself 100% ATK/DEF, 60% crit chance and 100% spark damage, inflicts 50% ATK down at a 40% chance and fills the OD gauge by 10%.
  • The scaling his time is 400% per 100% HP, with a 100% higher baseline and 100% inherent ATK, so the SBB has 970% base. With realistic buffs (400% BB ATK, 170% ATK) and two 50% HP LS, the SBB hits 1640%. Long can get an additional 50% HP in SP enhancements ( 200%, so 1840%) and needs just 620% more ATK to reach the increased ATK cap of 130000. This is not tremendously difficult, as we're yet to consider spheres, elgifs, HP/stat->ATK convert buffs or the other effects of the LS we've given him; Long should be able to reach the increased ATK cap without needing to lose spark/crit/EWD sources.
    • Though in mono-thunder with Durumn you may not have a BB ATK buffer, or even an ATK buffer depending on your sub units, which may add difficulty to capping Long unless you have pingu spheres such as HE. Long should still easily reach the point where he outdamages the rest of his squad.
  • All of the self-buffs Long gets will stack with regular buffs. In practice this means he doesn't need a crit buffer to support himself (though in crit-resist scenarios it can help) and can get extra bulky in the presence of an ATK->DEF converter; he also ends up extra nukey with his self-spark buff.
    • Long, Durumn and another crit buffer with Durumnlead would give him 210% crit chance, if you really want that much to bypass crit resist. The cap being 70%, however, means it's not got any practical value outside of certain raid/FG bosses.
    • He gets some SP enhancement choices for these self-buffs, adding up to 30% more ATK/DEF or 20% more spark damage. Or both, if you really want. The extra spark damage continues to put him in a league of his own for damage potential.
  • The ATK down he inflicts here is not the highest chance for 50% down that exists - that particular achievement goes Zedus who has 50% chance/50% down, but he's not even OE. 40% chance for 50% ATK down is, however, the highest chance I'm aware of at OE tier, so Long is best-in-class at both the ATK down infliction buff and raw ATK down infliction. He even gets an SP enhancement to make the SBB's ATK down last for 2 turns.
    • As this is a raw infliction and the BB effect is a buff, ATK down from either source can stack with the other, allowing for a max ATK down value of 80%. It's actually fairly consistent if you can maintain BB and spam SBB without issues.
    • In theory, a 10 turn rotation of Long's ATK downs (using both SP enhances that affect it) with perfect BC management on a single target would look something like this:
      • Turn 1 (BB): 27.54% ATK down (BB, 91.8% chance inflict 30% down)
      • Turn 2: (SBB): 27.54% ATK down (BB) 20% ATK down (SBB, 40% chance inflict 50% down) = 47.54% ATK down
      • Turn 3-5: (SBB): 27.54% ATK down (BB) 32% ATK down (SBB x2 proc chances = 64% chance) = 59.54% ATK down
      • Turn 6 (BB): = Turn 2 (47.54%)
      • Turn 7 (SBB): = Turn 2 (47.54%)
      • Turn 8-10 (SBB): = Turn 3-5 (59.54%)
      • Turns 11 : Repeat from turn 6
    • Which is a huge amount of ATK down compared to other units (it's a tiny amount less for less targets, but negligibly so). You do have to build Long specifically for this and perfectly maintain his BB gauge, which is unrealistic in end-game content, however.
    • Note that the actual values of ATK down are 0%, 30%, 50% and 80%. The in-between values are just an average; the closer the values are to 80% the more likely you are to have inflicted both types of ATK down.
  • Finally, a 10% OD fill. Burst OD fill is great as it scales to the current cost of filling the OD meter, allowing for consistent fill times throughout an entire battle. 10% is an unusual number for OD fills which only a handful of units have received, and allows players to push towards infinite UBB with some units - which, depending on what you're doing, could potentially break the game.
    • An example would be Fina with 5 8-10% fillers (at least 4 10% fillers needed if I remember the math correctly), and 2 leaders as 20% cost reduction to let Fina's UBB reach 0 cost. In the future, this may also be possible with Shion (he doesn't hit 0 cost, but instead his UBB lasts 3 turns so you have a turn to fill him).
    • Long as a 10% filler is a usable sub for these strategies, though his BC cost leaves a lot to be desired. In the Fina strategy her UBB actually provides BC fill once active; in the Shion version the UBB you're using fills 50% OD by itself and therefore BC maintenance on the squad is a lot more lenient.
    • General reminder here that buffs can be removed and mitigation can be ignored, so these strategies don't work in all content. They do work in some, however.
• Long's SBB, despite being a nuke tool, does have a little utility to it. Unfortunately with a low hit count and high BC cost (62 total) Long will struggle to fill this consistently, and I expect in practice the repeat usage bonus on his ST attack will not be used - definitely not in OTKO (doesn't carry over between waves), but even maintaining it in a trial environment will be difficult. If you push a lot of BC gen/cost reduction, you may be able to maintain a full BB/SBB rotation to take advantage of his ATK downs and OD fill, but Long loses a lot of damage in the process.

UBB

• Long's UBB is also a double attack nuke, and offers 400% ATK/DEF/REC for all units, 200% ATK/DEF/REC to Long as a self-buff and 200% spark damage to Long as a self-buff. It also refills the OD gauge by 50% to make up for not doing much else.
  • The double attack here should hit the increased damage cap (2660% ATK) on both hits - the AoE has an inherent baseline of 1700% and scales 500% per 100% HP, so any Long close to full HP should cap that. The ST hit has a baseline value of 2700% after the included buffs, so it caps naturally unless Long has heavy damage debuffs.
  • The tri-stat here is marginally higher than other tri-stat UBB typically are. It can make some difference towards survival with converts, but it's not mitigation or angel idols.
  • The self-spark isn't even close to what a nuke UBB would give the entire squad; the overall point of this UBB is simply being easy to use repeatedly for the tri-stat and Long's damage output.
  • The OD fill here just covers some of the cost of your next UBB. Theoretically Long can maintain this thing with the support of one or two other OD fillers, but it's not as great as a certain upcoming unit's 50% refill UBB.

SP Enhancements

Long's got a lot of damage enhancements, plus some utility enhances that mostly affect his ability to provide defensive benefits via ATK down. As such, how you use him will have a large impact on what you'd want to take for his enhancements.

• 20 SP: 50% HP
  • Massive bulk at a low price. 50% HP will also provide 150% BB ATK to his BB and 200% BB ATK to his SBB, making it a pretty decent investment - unlike other units with HP-scaled SBB, his scaling factor is low and he needs more HP to reach his damage cap.
  • I normally say these enhancements on HP-scaled units exist mainly to create a buffer where they can be below max HP and still cap damage, but Long can't create much of an HP buffer zone unless he has HE - which makes it all the more important to give him as much HP as you can without sacrificing spark damage.
• 10 SP: 80% ATK boost relative to remaining HP
  • Build filler. Passive HP-scaled boosts like ths can't exceed their stated value (only HP-scaled BB modifiers increase when adding HP% boosts), so it's seemingly small. You may want it to help cap Long's SBB damage if you can't use great spheres/elgifs for him, and it should always be beneficial towards his ST damage on BB and SBB as well.
  • Plus it can be converted to DEF. Long can have more DEF than most units between everything he has here.
• 20 SP: 100% Spark Damage
  • Nice, solid spark damage boost. At this point Long has more personal spark damage than any other unit at 250% between ES, SBB and SP, which is part of why he can outdamage Lasswell.
• 20 SP: 75% Crit Damage
  • Also a good damage boost. Depending on your squad composition you may not actually need this - using Long in a Durumn squad and UBB farming means all units in the squad are likely to cap crit damage while UBB is active.
  • Even so, unless you find a way to UBB every single wave, there would be 2 waves in FH where this crit damage could be useful.
  • And outside of FH you may not be using crit damage UBB and can benefit from it due to rarely being at the cap.
• 10 SP: Increase ATK cap to 130000
  • Usually this isn't that great, but Long is a similar case to Durumn where the nature of having HP-scaled attacks means the ATK cap is relevant on a much more regular basis.
  • As such, unless you're aiming for some sort of hard content build where you don't expect Long's HP to stay high enough to get past cap, you should probably take this.
• 15 SP: Increase BB buff duration to 4 turns
  • Less time using BB means more time using SBB. More time using SBB means more damage and potentially lower enemy ATK.
  • But you should only take this if you plan on using Long's BB; if you just want an FH nuke, you won't be touching BB unless SBB doesn't fill and even then the duration doesn't matter.
• 15 SP: Increase BB buff duration to 5 turns
  • More of the same. Worth taking if you take the 4 turn enhancement.
• 20 SP: Increases SBB ATK down duration to 2 turns
  • Covered earlier, but again: This makes it the best ATK down infliction for BB/SBB tier in the game; from 2 turns and onwards the average expected ATK down from SBB is 32%. If you can maintain the SBB, that's a solid defensive effect (even better if you add in the BB for good measure).
  • The real reason Long was given this enhancement is likely to be the difficulty of filling his SBB consistently in content where you'd actually want the ATK down.
• 15 SP: Increases SBB Self-ATK/DEF buffs to 130%
  • A small set of bonus stats for Long. May have some value to defensive builds
  • But in a pure nuke build clashes with the 80% ATK based on remaining HP option.
• 15 SP: Increases SBB Self-Spark buff to 120%
  • Considering the cost of Long's spark damage passive, this seems a little overpriced, but in a nuke build it fits into him without issues.
  • At this point Long has 270% self-spark damage and 125% self-crit damage.
    • When he was announced I compared him to Lasswell, which seemed apt - Lasswell gets 170% self-spark damage, 70% self-crit damage and no ATK cap increase. While Lasswell does have a 150% EWD option, it's as a buff, which means Long could get an equivalent buff from another unit - or a stronger buff, because Durumn can give a 200% EWD buff to thunder units.
    • Long's only weaknesses in the Lasswell comparison are his lack of squad damage buffs and higher reliance on BC support. If you can make Long work consistently, he'll outperform Lasswell.

SP Builds

Long's builds are mostly a choice between nuking and ATK down infliction. Simply put, for every choice you make that enhances your squad's survivability via ATK down, Long will deal less damage.

For the full nuke build, you'll have a choice of 80% ATK based on HP remaining, or 30% ATK/DEF added to the SBB self-buff. The former is better for damage, while the latter is more consistent if you want to use it for survivability via ATK->DEF conversion. Most nuke builds just want the higher damage.

In the ATK down build, there's 20 SP left over at the end. You can either give Long the 30% extra ATK/DEF buff for survivability, or one of the damage boosting passives - with the likely best damage boosting choice being the 100% spark damage, as crits can be unreliable. A hybrid build can drop one turn of the BB duration enhancement to grab the 20% spark damage self-buff enhance as well (or ATK/DEF 100% spark damage). That's basically the only middle of the line build that makes any sense unless you'd rather drop the SBB duration by 1 turn and keep the 5 turn BB duration.

You'll notice the ATK down build breaks the ATK cap. Long can make use of it in almost any squad, so I threw it in there. If you have a non-attacking burst healer, make sure to top Long off before attacking unless you have damage reflect to deal with.

Long is a very, very nukey unit. Perhaps the nukiest! But he's also an extremely competent ATK down debuffer that may have gone overlooked by some. I want to get a Keres analysis out while he's sharing the gate with Long as competition, but I can't promise that'll happen in time (for now I'd say Keres is the better general use unit in spite of his apparent mono-ness, but Long is likely the better nuke content unit)