He's angry! He has a giant sword, wielded in just one hand! He has the power of darkness!

He is, surprisingly, a mitigator. But as his appearance suggests he's actually a very high damage unit, so he's got that going for him, which is nice.

Seeing as there isn't another one yet, I'd like to call him the Critigator (/shot).
Seriously, unless there's someone I completely overlooked there isn't another mitigator with a crit buff...

Stats/Arena/Animations

• We did it, everyone, we got a mitigator with over 4k ATK as Lord! And also a massive 9850 HP, 3940 DEF... he only has issues in his 3070 REC, which still workable.
• Keres may not seem it, but he may have some value in the arena? Asides from his massive base stats, he gets: 50% HP, 2 turn mitigation, crit BC gen, a 20% chance to mitigate 100% of an incoming attack's damage, and even some passive HoT. His LS even gives 200% ATK (no duration limit) and 30% crit rate, which is better for damage output than Zekuu and only loses out on the whole BB fill debuff utility and not having ABP/CBP bonuses.
  • Well, admittedly Zekuu isn't a mono lead. But Keres has the better damage boosting LS if you can build mono successfully.
  • I'm sure a lot of high-end arena players prefer Zekuu anyways. Wouldn't want to give up free points for marginally better damage.
• Keres' animation isn't the best in the world, and it's likely you'll at least give up sparking his first two hits. The first two hits of the animation happen on frames 4 and 7, giving Keres one of the fastest swipe to damage times in the game (Toki's frame 0 double attack is still faster, however). The remaining hits start from frame 30 and form a spark blanket (with a 30f gap fom frames 36 to 66) - notably on a different spark track, so no unit other than another Keres can perfect spark him.
  • Basically, not a particularly great animation. You can perfect spark most of it with a well-placed blanket, but I'm serious about those first two hits being nearly impossible to get.
  • Keres has move speed 5, which causes desync against different move speed units in your expected spark patterns when attacking enemies at different locations. It's still a regular movement speed and can still be perfect sparked against itself with a carefully formed auto recording, and Keres is an HP-scaled nuke so it may be viable to bring dupes.
    • The desync due to different move speed is half the problem people are getting when trying to perfect spark Durumn - when mob formations change, her travel time relative to other units changes as well. There's other issues with speed 5 apparently being harder to dupe spark with BB cut-in animations turned off (because stuff fires a tiny bit faster), but that can probably be solved by adding some ms to the auto timing to simulate still having the BB cut-ins.
  • Keres does share the property I noted with Durumn and Long where his higher hit count attacks perfect spark his lower hit count attacks. This lets us use dupe Keres to get all of his buffs active at the same time in a nuke squad, as his SBB doesn't have the crit chance buff that his BB does (and frankly, the crit chance buff is pretty important for a nuke squad).
    • The aforementioned animation property means Keres will spark at similar rates with other units regardless of using his BB, SBB or normal attacks, so at least your sparking won't become unreliable if he fails to fill all the way.

Passive Skills

LS

• Keres has a monster of an LS which offers 200% ATK, 30% Crit Rate, 60% HP and 150% EWD to Dark units only, plus 150% Crit Damage and an 80% boost to DEF and REC when a given unit's BB guage is over 50% full.
  • The ATK/HP/Crit Rate/EWD are Dark-only; the crit damage and DEF/REC are for any unit, but it's really not a functional LS for non-dark units.
  • The raw ATK of Keres' LS is huge; like most LS over 100% ATK, it's restricted in some way. By converting it to DEF you can effectively out-DEF any other LS that's around as well.
  • The crit chance here is dark only, which is the same as the crit chance he gives on his BB/SBB... so you'll have at least 90%. Crit chance past the 70% cap is not reduced until after enemy resistance is applied, which means going past the cap can help in crit-resistant scenarios. Additionally, passive crit chance on LS can help damage output in the rare scenario Keres' buff isn't even up.
  • Keres' EWD is big, but also dark-only. He's already a clear role lock for mono-dark leader at this point, so it's not really a huge loss that he can't give EWD to other elements as well. Keres, like his batchmates, is designed for guild raid, where EWD is actually functional, so used as intended it's pretty decent. Elsewhere, resistance is common... though if you want to try FH nuking or want to farm Mora/Medal Rush, Dark EWD works fine in those places as well.
  • His Crit Damage is also big, and can be enhanced to 250% in SP enhancements like Durumn. This makes Keres the single nukiest leader for mono-dark at present, pushing out Gregor quite easily, though the lack of bonuses for non-dark elements means there are still better leaders for mixed element teams.
  • The DEF/REC when over 50% BB gauge is a solid defensive bonus on top of the 200% ATK you should already be converting to DEF in non-OTKO scenarios. Used in that way Keres seems to be the highest DEF-buffing leader in the game, though DEF alone isn't a great substitute for LS-based mitigation.
• In Guild Raids he offers an additional 25% all stats for Dark units and 20% Light/Dark mitigation for any unit. This is great additional bulk and also 5% more mitigation than Durumn/Wannahon/Zeis offer for their respective elemental matchups in guild raid. The extra mitigation is there for a real reason - dark units don't naturally take half damage from light units, so the extra mitigation somewhat compensates that when you take a Keres squad up against a Light guardian.
  • I mentioned there wasn't a Light/Dark mitigation lead over 15% in Long's analysis, but I guess I forgot Keres' Guild Raid-only mitigation effect was unusually higher than his batch when I was writing that. Though it's very situational - only in a specific mode, and only if the effectively random boss element makes it do anything.

ES

• But Keres having high numbers for specific situations doesn't end there. His ES gives him 100% crit damage (because he clearly needed more), as well as a 20% chance to take 1 damage from incoming attacks and 2500-3000 HP regen.
  • So, more crit damage for nuking with. Keres' SBB isn't a double attack, but is HP scaled with an ATK cap limit break option.
  • The chance to reduce damage to 1 applies to each attack taken individually and applies to every hit in that attack when it procs, so against lots of attacks it'll simply average out to a 20% damage reduction (multiplicative). That said, if it triggers against a large single nuke, it prevents way more damage than that. As a mitigation effect, it cannot apply to DoT effects and there are some attacks in the game which simply ignore it, but considering it's free, as long as you know those things will happen you can deal with them.
  • The HoT is additive to BB/SBB HoT or sphere HoT, including adding its own REC bonus (10% standard) to the amount Keres will recover. So while 2.5-3k isn't absolutely massive by itself, that becomes 6-8k HoT 25% REC with, say Elza as your HoT buffer (seeing as she's a HoT buffer in Dark). As a result Keres may be able to heal through DoT effects that still damage your other units.

Active Skills

BB

• Keres' BB is a simple AoE that gives 2 turns of mitigation, 120% ATK/DEF and 60% crit chance for Dark units and a 20% chance to inflict 30% ATK down for 3 turns.
  • That's 2 turn mitigation with no SP enhancements required, a trait shared by Elimo, Ilm and Cardes. That makes it theoretically usable in SArc before SP enhancements are unlocked (we still don't know wen they will be), but Keres has particularly high BC costs for a mitigator and may struggle anyways.
    • One other note for SArc is that Keres doesn't get 2 turn mitigation until OE. There are no 7* 2 turn mitigators currently.
  • The ATK/DEF/Crit buffs are Dark only. As an element-specific buff they stack with non-specific buffs such as a regular tri-stat from Feeva or Shion and, though unlikely to be used with Keres, a regular crit buff such as that given by Gregor. Stacking up different types of ATK/DEF buffs is great for ATK->DEF conversion (or DEF->ATK conversion) and allows units to reach really high DEF totals, which can be particularly valuable in raid environments.
  • Finally, the ATK down infliction buff. While worse than Long's (because Long's ATK down infliction is the best in the game), 20% chance/30% ATK down is still the second best infliction buff in the game and a very solid defensive benefit.
    • Of particular note while using Durumn in today's guild raid, I spotted her ATK down working pretty regularly. Guild raid bosses have upwards of 15k ATK - a 30% reduction prevents 4500 base damage per attack taken, which adds up quickly to a lot of mitigation.
• A word of warning: At 30 BC, Keres' BB is one of the most expensive mitigation BB in the game. His SBB is also very expensive at 62 BC - both of these are more expensive than Gazia's BB/SBB were back in the day. Thankfully Keres has 2 turn mitigation by default and his EWD null buff on SP is also 2 turns, so you can maintain his buffs by alternating BB -> Normal -> SBB -> BB if you need to do so.

SBB

• Kere's SBB is an HP-scaled AoE that gives 2 turns of mitigation, plus 75% Crit Damage, 150% EWD and 30% HP->ATK/DEF conversion for 3 turns.
  • Keres has an ATK cap limit break, but needs 3060% ATK to reach it. Luckily his SBB scales at 700% per 100% HP, so despite it looking like he needs more work than Long to cap, he actually needs a lot less. Keres should cap at 300% HP with no buffs, but considering his HP->ATK conversion and common buff effects it's more likely he'll only need 180-200% HP to cap SBB damage. Less with more ATK from LS/Spheres/Elgifs.
  • Some weirdness here; Keres doesn't give crit chance on SBB to go with the crit damage. He does not get any form of SP enhancement to work around this, which means using Keres effectively in a nuke environment requires him to switch between BB and SBB. This may hurt his usage for FH/FG significantly unless you do something like dual Keres leads so you get all your crit chance from LS. In other modes, you won't need to worry about that so much as long as you can keep all his BB and SBB buffs active at the same time.
    • I feel like when he was announced Gumi had his ATK/DEF/Crit buffs on BB and SBB and have edited them out since then. The data in-game definitely doesn't show them and there is an edit tag on the announcement post, but I could've just misremembered it.
  • The crit damage, like with Durumn, can be enhanced to 125%. And, like with Durumn, if you use a crit UBB you don't really need that extra crit damage. But it's an option all the same.
  • The EWD, is solid, but can't be enhanced unlike Durumn and Zeis. It's a little unfortunate, but 150% is still particularly large as EWD buffs go; no unit provides higher for Dark EWD.
  • Finally, the HP->ATK/DEF convert. There's an option here to bring it up to 35% conversion, which is the strongest HP convert in the game (outside UBB, of course). That said, this brings up the issue of whether 35% HP->DEF conversion is better than 80% ATK->DEF conversion, and the answer is still likely to be no, especially with the amount of ATK that Keres provides. Still, if you don't want to slot an ATK->DEF converter, Keres' buff is plenty serviceable.
    • HP converts scale off max HP, so they're increased by % HP boosts including HP buffs. As it's based on max HP, damage taken doesn't affect the value of the buff, but having your max HP temporarily reduced by something like an LS or ES lock will reduce the convert value until the debuff is removed.
    • Note that the stacking rule for convert buffs is that you're allowed to have one convert to each stat individually; you can have HP->ATK and HP->DEF at the same time, but you can't have HP->DEF and ATK->DEF. Oh, and you can mix things up and have HP->ATK and ATK->DEF if you want, but the ATK->DEF conversion will ignore the added ATK from the HP->ATK conversion.
    • Of course, this rule still obeys the whole "BB and UBB tier buffs can stack" thing.
  • There's also a lot of other optional buffs in SP enhancements I'll talk about later. Keres has a lot of utility considering he's a nuke leader.

UBB

• Kere's UBB is a nuke UBB, but also a mitigator UBB... it manages to be both! But only in limited scenarios. Anyways, it gives 40% Max HP (permanent), 300% crit damage, 500% Dark EWD, 50% HP->ATK/DEF and 80% Light/Dark mitigation for 3 turns.
  • The HP buff is permanent, and also competitive with SP-enhanced HP UBB from other units. HP buffs never fall off unless returning to the map in a raid/GQ environment, which unfortunately you'll be doing regularly in guild raids.
  • 300% crit damage and 500% EWD is huge nuking potential, especially against those pesky Light Guardians which aren't immune to it. I can see Keres squads oneshotting outposts already...
  • The 50% HP->ATK/DEF stacks with his SBB buff or even another unit's SBB-tier ATK->DEF conversion. Like with his SBB buff it doesn't really match up to UBB tier ATK->DEF converts, but you still get a lot of bulk out of this (at 30k HP, it's close to or above 400% DEF for many units). The HP buff included in the UBB only helps to further increase the value.
  • Finally, mitigation. Keres' UBB is only giving us Light/Dark mitigation, and only at 80% value, so you'll typically want another UBB mitigator if your target isn't Light/Dark. A little unfortunate, but when your target is Light element, the UBB's overall value is huge.
    • But what other dark unit's UBB mitigation could we use, you ask? Well, dark is Shion's element...

SP Enhancements

Keres gets a lot of enhancements that look very similar to Durumn here.

Also, that one 5 SP enhancement? Not a typo.

• 10 SP: 30% Max HP
  • Adds lots of bulk to Keres for cheap.
  • 30% HP is 210% SBB mod for him.It's possible to cap his damage without this, but it's cheap and easy to slot.
• 10 SP: 30%-> 50% Max HP
  • More bulk, slightly less value per SP.
  • Still very good if you can afford to slot it.
• 15 SP: 8-10 BC on Crit
  • I mentioned before, but Keres has very high BC costs and they can become problematic. This helps fix that!
  • Unfortunately crit BC is unreliable in a lot of content - either you only have one target to crit on so there's a decent chance of failure, or targets simply can't be critted to begin with.
  • But on the other hand BC gen is very important for the man...
• 20 SP: 50% EWD
  • EWD passives never seem to get as much damage as Crit or Spark passives.
  • Good for nuking if you know the target element will be common, but expensive.
• 10 SP: Increase ATK cap to 130000
  • Standard ATK cap increase.
  • As a unit with an HP-scaled SBB, Keres can make good use of this.
• 40 SP: Enhance LS Crit Damage to 250%
  • Same thing Durumn got. At 250% Crit damage you're already in range of a crit UBB alone capping off your squad's crit damage.
  • More cost-efficient than the SBB crit damage enhancement, as long as Keres is your leader. But if you have no plans of leading with him, you don't need it.
• 5 SP: Add 2 turn Elemental Damage Immunity buff to BB/SBB
  • I already said this, but: Not a typo.
  • Keres is designed as an anti-Light leader/sub unit. However, dark squads are inherently weak to Light. Gumi gave him this SP enhancement for cheap to cover that weakness.
  • In other words, if you actually want to guild raid with him, this is a very important passive. Especially as guardians have increased EWD passives.
  • If you're nuking, or using a different EWD null sub, you're less likely to need it, but... seriously, it's just 5 SP and lasts 2 turns. No other unit gets that at that cost.
• 15 SP: Add 3 turn DEF Ignore buff to BB/SBB
  • Why?
  • Because DEF Ignore is on every single guild raid leader in some way
  • But Gumi still haven't added any mechanics to guild raid that make DEF ignore matter
  • At least they let ATK down matter now
• 25 SP: Enhance SBB HP->ATK/DEF Conversion to 35%
  • If you're planning on making use of Keres' convert buff, this is pretty solid. It's going to be worth around 1500 ATK/DEF at 30k HP, which is like 40-50% depending on the unit.
  • So it's arguably worthwhile utility for hard content unless you plan on overriding it with 80% ATK->DEF.
• 30 SP: Add 15% Light/Dark Resistance to 1 turn to BB/SBB
  • Keres' only 1 turn effect
  • This is an elemental mitigation buff, meaning it stacks multiplicatively with passive effects and non-elemental BB/SBB buffs rather than additively. This means after Keres' 50% mitigation buff and 20% mitigation LS, the 15% mitigation only reduces damage by 4.5% in guild raids.
  • The single turn duration is an issue with Keres' BC fill problems as well.
  • Still, this isn't unusably weak, it just suffers a lot.
• 30 SP: Enhance SBB Crit Damage to 125%
  • Not as cost efficient as the LS enhancement, but it applies even if he's just a sub unit.
  • If you're planning on UBBing Keres and having him as leader at the same time, you don't need extra crit damage. That said, the extra crit damage still matters on turns you're not using UBB.
  • Because he doesn't get an EWD buff enhancement I'd still consider this in nuking builds, but probably not for guild raids (you'd have to give up too much)

SP Builds

Like Durumn he makes me wish we could have more than 100 SP. Though I'm not really a fan of the whole using dupes to do it thing.

Keres builds, like Durumn, will range from selfish/supportive nuke builds to general content builds. He's got a lot of options.

Out of all of these, only the second build has no choices...

Anyways:

Nuke Leader build: The 20 SP choice is between 50% HP, EWD Null (Damage option if not capped yet) and 5 SP wasted, or EWD Null and Crit BC (BC support option). Technically there's also an option to take the DEF ignore buff, which may be the highest damage option available simply because you may already be capped on damage. You can actually drop the 30% HP enhancement to take the crit damage buff enhancement, but depending on the scenario you might not need it at all.

Nuke Sub build: This build makes itself, so there's not much thought about what to put in it. The choice here is to consciously decide to have a weaker LS on your Keres in order to get more passives.

Support Leader build: Asides from the LS enhance, this build takes the EWD null buff and 30% HP at minimum, but leaves 45 SP open to player choice. I've left this much open because I really don't know what you value most at this point - you might want Crit BC with a 30 SP enhancement like SBB Crit Damage or BB/SBB Dark/Light mit, or you might want to spend 25 SP on the HP->ATK/DEF convert enhance and add more HP and break the ATK limit.

Support Sub build: This one gives you all of the choice. Again, it's because I don't know what buffs are relevant to your squad. The extra 40 SP gained from not taking the LS enhancement theoretically lets you take every buff enhancement Keres has, but you probably just want one or two buff enhancements with HP/Limit Break/Crit BC passives.

The most important thing to consider when choosing open buffs is whether the effect is relative to your squad, or whether you think the effect is worth more than taking passives on Keres.

So yeah, that's Keres. Our first HP-scaled Critigator. He's one of the most damaging dark units in the game, but that's actually not saying much since dark has very few HP-scaled units and Keres is the only one in global with ATK limit break.

His primary issues are BC gen and sparkability (in a nuke environment). He should be able to work relatively well with Elza or Feeva, and Keres Ensa-Taya Shion is a squad that looks worrying in the future, barring Dark's lack of BC on hit units that slot well with Keres (last I heard, dark basically just has Johan, who covers much too similar roles to Keres). Maybe a future unit will fix that.

At the moment I don't think mono-dark with Keres lead can nuke as well as mono-thunder with Durumn lead. Keres not having crit chance on SBB really doesn't help things. That said, Keres is generally a versatile sub unit in other squads despite appearances, offering mitigation, heavy ATK down, a stat->DEF convert, high duration EWD null and an optional dark/light mitigation buff, all on the side from his nukey stuff.