That better just be what she calls herself, or I'll have to stop taking Elgaian scholars seriously.

Stats/Arena/Animations

• Vikki has a typical nuke spread - High HP (over 9.8k as Lord) and over 4.1k ATK - but doesn't actually slouch on DEF and REC, being well above-average for her role in both stats. So she's a very solid unit by raw stats, for example surpassing Shion in every stat except DEF.
  • Where she falls behind in that specific comparison is having weaker stat-enhancing SP options, but that's not too much of an issue except in extreme cases.
• Vikki can be built to have some level of competence in the arena - her ES gives her 100% ATK on turn 1 (variable on turns beyond that due to HP scaling) and her SP enhancements includes a 20% HP angel idol. Her BB and SBB also hit particularly hard compared to most units due to the inherent buffs. Asides from that she lacks any important immunities and doesn't bypass angel idols easily (with the potential exception of the single target attack in her BB/SBB), so she's mostly just a workable unit that doesn't significantly affect the meta.
• Vikki's animation is split into three parts; two short sets of hits and a long blanket-esque segment at the end, with gaps in between each part of her animation. The single target attack's hits are weaved in with the first two sets of hits. Importantly, every single hit of her animation falls in a single 3f spark track, allowing her to be perfectly sparked against a well-placed blanket, and her movement is normal with the most common speed (3), allowing her to be dupe sparked along the same patterns commonly used for units like Rize, Avant and Silvie.
  • Her animation starts up in a relatively average time, but the delay before the bulk of her hits means she's going to poorly spark against most non-blanket units. Silvie's total animation duration is 131 frames, with her hits in the range of frame 32 to 131; however, 16 of her 20 AoE hits occur from frame 86 onwards and most units with shorter animations are mostly done by that point.
  • Perfect sparking her against a blanket requires an overlap of 34 hits, which is easily attainable for most blankets.
  • Vikki's UBB, SBB, BB and normal attacks all have similar animations, and will spark reliably against the same blanket timing (note that unless she has AoE normals her normal attack will act slightly differently regardless). This means if you feel the need to switch between her BB and SBB for buffs and make a separate auto-recording for each case, she can be still reliable for sparking.

Passive Skills

Leader Skill

• Vikki's LS offers 50% to all stats, 250% BB ATK, -25% BC Cost and Elemental Immunity.
  • The stats boost can be increased to 60% in SP enhancements. It's cheap, but LS enhancements should only be taken if you intend to use the LS.
  • The BB ATK can also be enhanced and the same applies. At any rate, having a solid lump of BB ATK in an LS means the laeder will appreciably increase damage in all content unless you're intent on using normal attack strategies; while the other major multipliers can be resisted, BB ATK is not specifically resisted by anything, so it's reliable. Just be aware that Vikki's kit as a whole may push units to the ATK cap.
  • BC cost reduction is one of the most potent forms of BC support, as it effectively increases the value of all forms of BC generation. 25% cost reduction is effectively a 33% increase to the value of all BC gen applied to your units by itself, and with how the effect stacks that value actually goes up if you bring more (50% cost reduction would double the value of BC gen, 75% quadruples it, 100% meanns you don't even need BC gen anymore).
    • If you stack enough of it, you can even bring units to 0% BC cost, making all forms of BB free to use regardless of BC generation problems or BC drain effects. Note that this is only currently possible with two BC cost reduction leaders, two cost reduction spheres and even then only when used by a unit with BC cost reduction as an ES or SP enhancement.
    • There is actually a case for it being a bad thing, but it's rare; BC drain actually comes in two forms, with one type being a % of the unit's BB gauge, and the other draining a set amount of BC directly. In the latter case, having cheaper BB means the BC drain reduces the gauge further, which could cause the unit to drop below having BB filled where it wouldn't normally. This isn't too common and generally BC cost reduction is beneficial (arguably crucial in SArc at the moment, but that has no relevance to a regular unit's LS...).
  • EWD immunity is often necessary due to the huge damage prevention it's responsible for - preventing elemental damage is at least a 33% damage reduction, and possibly more in cases where enemies have inherent EWD bouses... though we can rarely see that enemies do have that passive. Regardless, having EWD immunity on an LS can be useful in cases where you're using too many potentially weak units to sphere effectively and aren't able to rely on the buff form of the immunity. On the flip side, the buff form of the immunity does exist and most units with it are fairly easy to slot.
• Vikki's effectively a weaker Regil in almost all cases (her BC support and BB ATK are both better, but it's only slight compared to Regil's mitigation ability), but proves stronger if you absolutely need the EWD immunity and this is the only way to get it. 33% damage prevention from EWD immunity is worth a tiny amount more than 30% damage prevention from a single Regil, but even that goes out the window once you bring a second mitigation LS into consideration.
  • Rule of thumb: If you're running a mitigation LS friend, use Regil. If you don't need EWD immunity on multiple units, use Regil.
  • Regil makes it hard to sell other LS to people. Unfortunately his kit also heavily clashes with Vikki, so unless you can use a Regil-esque LS that isn't Regil, you probably won't be able to use her at all if you have him.

Extra Skill

• Vikki's ES is a three-part ES offering 10% to all stats for Water units in your squad, and also granting Vikki up to 100% ATK based on HP remaining and a 100% chance for her to heal 6-10% of the damage she deals.
  • The stats bonus effectively stacks with any other passive stats boost. Water's got a few other units like this, such as Lasswell (50% ATK to water) and Holia (10% stats to any unit), so you may be able to build around stat boosts in some way. Considering the boost is free it's nice to have.
  • HP-scaled ATK passives don't go past their stated maximum, but as an ATK bonus it's convertible and applies to normal attacks. Vikki's damage output is high enough that you won't really feel the loss of damage as her HP drops, so it'll mostly show value in the arena if you choose to use her.
  • Lifesteal below 100% chance is bad; however lifesteal at a 100% chance can be solid depending on the unit's damage output. Being a double attacker with heavy BB modifiers means Vikki's damage output is particularly high - she can easily expect to deal upwards of 126k minimum (purely from her ES inherent damage in SBB buffs), so she'll be healing at least 5000 HP per turn. If you don't buff her with any LS, sphere, elgif or other BB and fail to spark or crit with her, anyways. It'll normally be a fair amount more.
    • As to whether that healing is useful? It depends on the situation. If it heals her to full, Vikki will not pick up any HC, so other units will effectively heal more from them as a result. If it doesn't heal her to full, it's up to whether she needed the heal in the first place - it's often going to be unnecessary, but it's unlikely to be harmful.

Active Skills

BB

• Vikki's BB is a double attack (AoE/ST, no HP-scaling) which grants the squad 150% ATK/DEF/REC, 450% BB ATK and 50% BC Fill Rate for 3 turns.
  • It's a rare case of a unit having double attack on both BB and SBB. Double attacks calculate damage separately for each attack, which means damage buffs end up applying to each attack within them individually as well - her AoE will be at 450% BB ATK and 150% ATK, but her ST will also be at 450% BB ATK and 150% ATK. As it's divided into two calculations, her raw ATK-based damage can exceed her damage cap by up to 100% on the main target of her BB and SBB (these traits are shared by all double attacks)
    • This gives Vikki one of the highest damage BB in the game, at 2040% mod on main target before considering any damage external to her ES all-stats boost and BB buffs (she can get up to 200% more from her ES HP scaler and 60% more from her SP enhancement for ATK/HP... plus leader skills, spheres and elgifs, of course). She doesn't suffer a huge loss dropping to BB from SBB because she isn't HP-scaled (with the exception of her buffs being potentially weaker gimuplz), but the damage output of her ST AoE attacks on a single target will outperform many HP-scaled units that don't have double attacks.
    • Her SBB is generally outclassed by HP-scaled SBB, but there isn't really any unit that has a better BB than her BB for damage. That being relevant isn't too common unless maintaining SBB is simply impossible for a given fight, but it's nice to know she hits like a truck as long as she does something BB-related.
  • Tri-stat buffs are fairly important to have. You get DEF, which is valuable by itself, ATK, which is valuable when converted into DEF, and REC, which makes your burst healer fully heal your squad. Vikki doesn't offer the highest tier of tri-stat, which is unfortunate, but the difference isn't game-breaking. It's actually 10% higher on SBB, with an SP enhancement to make the SBB's final value 170% if you really care.
  • BB ATK is the strongest globally-reliable damage buff in the game, though with perfect spark it's a little weaker than spark damage buffs in most cases. Vikki has 450% BB ATK unenhanced, which is very strong already, but on SBB only also has an SP enhancement that lets her reach 550% - a new tier of BB ATK. The actual difference in damage from this varies, with average units in average squads getting around a 5.0~7.5% damage increase out of it, and HP-scaled units barely benefitting at all unless than have a non-scaled double attack. Given the length of important fights in this game, that small amount of damage does add up to saving you one or two turns in most hard content in the game.
  • BC Fill Rate increases the value of dropped BC only. Generally you need a BC drop rate buff to make it worth using, and in many fights enemies have BC drop resistance which reduces its value instead. As a result it's not really seen as an important buff, but as a free utility effect it's not bad to have.

SBB

• Vikki's SBB is a double attack again (still no HP-scaling, but the base modifier is unusually high at 850% on the AoE). It grants 160% ATK/DEF/REC (as mentioned, 10% more than BB), 450% BB ATK and adds Fire/Water/Earth/Thunder elements to attack for 3 turns.
  • Vikki has an annoying case of her SBB buffs being the same type but higher values on SBB (and the enhancements only apply to SBB as well). This causes issues with your squad's buff efficiency if you need to use her BB at any point - whenevr Vikki uses her BB instead of SBB, you drop at least 10% ATK/DEF/REC (possibly 20% ATK/DEF/REC if you enhanced the tri-stat on SBB) and likely 100% BB ATK. This isn't the end of the world, but it feels like bad design.
  • Along with her Fire/Water/Earth/Thunder buffs, Vikki can gain Light/Dark buffs through an SP enhancement, making her Water's first All-Elements buffer. As she is also likely water's best BB ATK buffer, she may prove crucial to mono-water in the future.
    • It also gives her SBB kit a very strong parallel to Shion - both have high base mod AoE, an ST, 4 elements with L/D available in SP enhancements and tri-stat buffs. The only functional difference at this level is that Vikki gets BB ATK where Shion gets OD stuff. Unfortunately, Shion also gets one of the best EXP LS in the game and stupid 100% mitigation, 100% uptime UBB gimmicks.

UBB

• Vikki's UBB is an HP-scaled AoE that inflicts a gauranteed 90% ATK/DEF reduction for 3 turns, while also granting the squad 350% ATK/DEF/REC and 600% BB ATK.
  • The HP-scaling is almost completely pointless. Vikki is generally ging to cap damage without it as her UBB has a 2550% baseline just from inherent buffs - even with her 130000 ATK cap SP she only needs 3027% ATK to cap, and 2550% is past what she needs to hit the 99999 cap. If she has her SBB buffs up she'll even hit the enhanced cap at 1% HP.
  • The combination of 90% ATK reduction and 350% DEF is particularly potent defensively, typically reducing base damage taken by upwards of 10000 per attack in high-end content. Some hard-hitting bosses are still affected much more by mitigation UBB, but this level of damage reduction is still solid.
  • Remember that the ATK and REC can also be converted depending on your squad, for even more DEF.
  • Vikki's SBB BB ATK enhancement also affects her UBB, so she can give up to 1050% mod to BB skills here. Add in the 710% mod from her SBB buffs, and it becomes clear that you really need to be conscious of the ATK cap while using her UBB.
• Vikki's UBB is practically the same as Vargas ( DEF and REC), but with no Angel Idol option. I doubt it'll see particularly common usage.

SP Enhancements

Looks to me like two that almost every build will take and a bunch of optional stuff. Let's have a look.

• 10 SP: Increase LS All Stats bonus by 10%
  • Sets Vikki's LS all stats value to 60% total. Fairly cheap.
  • As with all LS enhancements, only consider it if you actually think you'll use her LS.
• 15 SP: Increase LS BB ATK bonus by 75%
  • Set's Vikki's LS BB ATK value to 325%. Also cheap. Some units have gotten self-only 50% BB ATK for significantly more SP...
  • It'll be worth, on average after buffs, about 3~4% damage for your squad. This is mainly due to Vikki bringing a huge amount of ATK% increases, reducing the % gains of small boosts like this.
  • For the price, it's not a bad damage increase. But as mentioned with the other LS boost, only consider this if youw ant to have her as a leader.
• 15 SP: 30% ATK/HP
  • Nice and solid HP boost. The ATK isn't too important, but does get increased in value to 60% on the main target of her BB and SBB.
  • This enhancement seems to slot itself if you want the spark damage passive below.
• 15 SP: 100% Spark Damage
  • Vikki being fairly simple to spark with blankets means spark damage passives are good for her. At 15 SP it's also really cheap for a 100% boost.
  • If you want to use her as a nuker to any degree, you need this option; it's more likely to matter than the ATK cap increase.
• 10 SP: Increase ATK limit to 130000
  • ATK cap increases are usually only relevant for UBB damage and units with HP-scaled attacks, but Vikki does stuff that puts her close to the cap so I'm going to drop some numbers here.
    • Lord Vikki needs 2330% total mod to hit 99999 ATK and 3030% mod to hit 130000 ATK. Breaker values are 2180% and 2830% respectively (these values rounded up to next 10%).
    • Her SBB at 100% HP will hit for a minimum of 1670% damage, and with her ATK/HP and SBB BB ATK enhancements can be pushed to 1800% damage (1600% on ST).
    • The only buffs which can still be added are UBB effects, Converts, Element ATK and Ailment ATK. However, she's open to LS, Sphere and Elgif bonuses. An 80% DEF/REC->ATK Convert will give her around 200% ATK in most scenarios; Lasswell or the water Guild Raid leader could give roughly 100% water ATK. Any reasonable LS combination is likely to push at least 100% more ATK, so 2200% ATK is attainable on a no-UBB basis.
  • This puts Vikki reasonably close to being able able to hit the 99999 ATK cap after spheres and other LS bonuses, so if you want to nuke with her and she's breaker, feel free to take the ATK limit break enhancement. Barring her lack of EWD/Crit passives, she may actually be one of the game's best nukers due to her ST hitting harder than other double attackers (barring her lack of crit/EWD passives), but this does require more buff support than HP-scaled units.
• 40 SP: Adds Angel Idol effect when falling below 20% HP
  • Threshold-based angel idol effect. Works as standard, including being bale to be bypassed by low hit count units.
  • Very solid ability for the arena - units with angel idols are particularly powerful in Lanza defensive squads, though chance-based idols are more reliable against Zekuu-based squads.
• 30 SP: Adds Light/Dark element buffs for 3 turns to SBB
  • Rounds out her element kit with the ones that aren't part of her SBB by default.
  • Very solid choice if building mono-water, as there aren't many other options for element buffs.
  • Outside of mono-water, you can theoretically get Light/Dark from a few other units such as Krantz, but it's very convenient to have all elements in one unit.
• 35 SP: Adds 30% chance to inflict 50% ATK down for 1 turn when using BB/SBB
  • Adds a standard ATK down to Vikki's BB and SBB. The values are regular JP tier.
  • While not necessarily bad, it clashes with her buff options in most builds. If her BB ATK and Light/Dark choices are taken by default, you can't even afford this.
  • As this is a chance-based effect, there's still merit to stacking multiple users of it in one squad, but the efficiency decreases for each additional user.
• 20 SP: Increases SBB ATK/DEF/REC buff by 10%
  • Sets the value of Vikki's SBB ATK/DEF/REC buff to 170% total. Does not affect the same buff on BB.
  • It's not a massive gain, so it can safely be left out of builds if you want other stuff for her. After converts it's worth about 600 DEF, which is 100 damage reduction after mitigation - not particularly large.
• 40 SP: Increases SBB/UBB BB ATK buff by 100%
  • Sets the value of Vikki's SBB BB ATK buff to 550%, and her UBB BB ATK buff to 700%. Does not affect the same buff on BB.
  • Arguably Vikki's biggest draw outside of mono-water is her potential to have a 550% BB ATK buff, the highest seen to date outside of a UBB. It's farily costly at 40 SP, but adds a reasonable amount of damage to a squad - as mentioned earlier in the analysis, it can be worth between 5.0-7.5% extra damage for most of your squad, barring HP-scaled units. That'll reduce the length of battles by roughly 1 turn per 20 it normally takes.
  • It also has great value for Vikki personally as the extra BB ATK applies to both her AoE and ST damage and helps her approach the damage cap regardless of not being HP-scaled.
  • Her LS enhancement is actually more SP-efficient, but the LS itself isn't particularly amazing.

SP Builds

Vikki's builds are mostly going to revolve around nuking in some form; her utility options aren't particularly strong, and remain mostly just that - options.

The Full Damage Build (with elements) has 30 SP of choices in it, which are typically going to be between 30% HP/ATK, 100% Spark Damage and Break ATK Limit. There's use caes for each option; HP/ATK Spark Damage is good if you don't intend to push her ATK over the cap, Spark Damage Limit Break is good if you do intend to push her over the cap, and HP/ATK Limit Break is an option for players willing to deal less damage overall in exchange for survivability. If you push far enough past the ATK limit the missing spark damage will be a lower damage increase than the ATK limit break (hitting 130k damage is going to be a 30% damage increase, 100% spark damage in a squad with just standard buffs will be around the same but you're not going to just have a spark damage buff for her). Given how far you need to push her ATK% to hit the extended cap, I only really recommend trying to use the limit break for Breaker types in this build subset.

You can also try using the LS stuff instead of the passives in that build if you wanted a Vikki leader build. She loses a lot of damage potential for it, though (and Vikki as leader really wants her limit break due to the extra 300-375% ATK mod)

The Full Damage Build (No L/D) is for squads that get Light/Dark from another unit or simply don't want them. This allows Vikki to take every damage-enhancing passive and buff enhancement she has available. It's only a marginal advantage, however - you gain 10% ATK/DEF/REC and Vikki can take HP/ATK, Spark Damage and Limit Break in a single build, which works out to a 40% ATK gain over the purest nuke build available. If using Vikki as a leader you can swap out the tri-stat for the LS stats or BB ATK enhancement, though you'll end up with a build that can't spend every SP.

The Arena Build is mostly just to point out what she needs to function there. There are 45 SP left to spend - mainly because none of her remaining options are significant to the arena. Feel free to take whatever you want n the basis of what you might perfer her to have in regular content (probably just the BB ATK buff enhancement)

The Defensive Build is just an example, but I don't particularly recommend it (better to use a dedicated unit for ATK down, especially with the trend of guild raid leaders having really good ATK down). At any rate, the remaining choices include damage passives, LS passives or the Light/Dark buff. By removing the tri-stat from the build you can open up room for her BB ATK buff.

Overall, Vikki is actually a very solid unit. She's got an animation that works well with spark blankets (and released alongside one that actually complements her pretty well, though the timing for perfect spark against Cotton is really precise), great damage and a strong buff kit. If you don't have anything quite like her, she's a decent pick.

Her greatest failing is that Gumi made a unit that's nearly identical to Shion in BB/SBB (yet lacking his strongest draws in LS and UBB), while also buff-clashing with many other popular units such as Regil. 2-3 months ago people would've been all over her. But right now she fumbles around Shion and Regil and can't find a way into their squad at all.

Now, she does have potential use in the future, but that depends on an unknown factor i.e. the water Guild Raid unit. Between Vikki and Lasswell, water has a strong base of nukers which could make a mono-water squad function for nuking content. You could summon Vikki banking on that possibility if you have double Lasswell already.

Oh yeah, during the analysis I showed how Vikki can approach or pass the ATK cap. Those numbers are actually similar to the ones Shion gets when using his BB ATK SP enhancement (as long as he's buffed by a BB ATK unit), suggesting there's a case for his ATK limit break despite not being HP-scaled. Shion's overall damage potential is higher than Vikki's (similar ATK, similar mods, higher spark damage passives), but his animation is trash and basically requires a dupe Shion to spark well.