Our last unit update this Easter, Carrol has received her omni evolution and not much else has changed.

Well, she's usable, if you don't have any of the high tier units she suffers obvious clash with like Shion and Cleria. Carrol's not so much bad as she has an ability set that doesn't fit in the current meta, though not having current tier tri-stat buffs certainly isn't helping her.

Stats/Arena/Animations

• Carrol has a balanced stat spread, which generally these days means below average ATK and high HP. There's nothing particularly unique about her, but her damage output will be particularly low for an OE unit and she doesn't really have any support to improve it in her SP enhancements.
• Carrol's threshold angel idol in SP enhancements lets her be used as a filler unit in the colloseum, but she doesn't have any particularly high value outside of simply having an angel idol, due to her low stats, average hit count and lack of immunities.
• As a teleporter, you already know that Carrol's not necessarily going to be reliable for turn 1 buffs. However, her hit pattern is pretty solid, being a pure 3f spark blanket that simply adds hits on the end for each attack going from normal through to UBB.
  • Thanks to /u/Hamzak62's work on his sparking simulator, we've pinned down the exact frames for movement for other units, so I can actually bring upa comparison to regular units for a teleporter for the first time. Carrol's attack/buff calculations begin 22 frames after swiping her, which is 4 frames faster than a speed 3 unit in the back row, middle slot, 1 frame slower than back row, bottom slot and 3 frames slower than back row, top slot.
    • The frame delay per unit in auto battle with cut-ins disabled is usually 1 frame, so with the correct order, Carrol can successfully buff those unit slots. Other slots are too fast for Carrol to buff with cut-ins disabled, but at max possible gap she could buff the front middle slot with cut-ins enabled (with cut-ins enabled, there's usually a 2 frame delay between unit BB instead).
    • These numbers don't translate to other move speeds; Carrol is universally faster than speed 1 units and nearly all speed 2 units, but there aren't any relevant ones. Out of speed 4 units, she can only potentially buff the back middle slot (with a 3 unit gap in BB order), and can never buff a speed 5 unit before it begins attacking.
    • Carrol can be theoretically dupe sparked because her animation is a solid blanket, but as a teleporter this will fail to spark at least 1 hit on each Carrol. I doubt you'd want to run dupes of her anyways.

Passive Skills

LS

• Carrol's LS is more or less a straight upgrade on her old one, offering a new all-stats boost to bring her to OE standards, plus upgraded values to her old BC/HC, BB Cost Reduction and BC Regen effects.
  • Her old LS was barely usable for most content due to lack of stats, so the all-stats boost here is welcome. It's got a base value of 40% and no enhancement, so it's still below-average for an OE LS.
  • BC/HC drop rate passives tend to have good value against non-resistant enemies, which is mostly limited to guild raids and FH these days. The end result isn't going to be completely negligible in most cases, especially on the HC side, but it's no longer the strong efefct it used to be.
  • On the flip side, BC cost reduction is one of the best BC support options an LS can have, as it increases the effective value of all other BC related effects except BB cashback. It even increases the value of itself, with 25% BC cost reduction being an effective 33% increase to BC fill, and 50% BC cost reduction being an effective 100% increase, making it a strong effect to stack much like mitigation passives.
    • Being a BC cost reduction lead makes her an option for 0 BC cost strategies. 2 BC cost down LS, 2 BC cost down spheres, and a BC cost down SP or ES will usually hit free BB status for the lucky unit you attach it all to.
  • Carrol's BC regen is worth 7 BC by default, but considering the BC cost reduction she already has it's closer to 9.3 BC per turn. This is again pretty solid, though not quite as strong as spark BC in many situations.
    • In the past, Carrol's LS was one of teh few methods for making it possible for Atro to BB every turn in Imp parade (including, importantly, the very first turn). With the removal of BB cut-ins and metal units in imp parade, and the increase in units which can oneshot imp parade with AoE normals, this is no longer particularly important for that mode, but it may be possible that a similar kind of strategy could be useful somewhere else, someday. OE Carrol's LS would enable it on more units than before if that's the case.
    • I can't think of anywhere it'd be particularly valuable, but the option exists in case we find somewhere for it.
• Overall, Carrol's LS offers some very strong BC support, but that's all it's doing asides from a bit of HC bonus, and with subpar HP it's hard to justify using the extreme BC support for the hard content that leaves you BC-starved enough to want it, which is a shame. She's a leader option for infinite UBB Fina squads at least, but infinite UBB Shion's all the rage now and he doesn't need Carrol.

ES

• Carrol's ES is barely changed from 7*. She gets slightly higher benefits from BC and HC, and an ailment cleanse is added to her BB and SBB.
  • The BC fill rate is fairly weak at 20% (1 extra BC per 5 picked up, usually). Her BC costs are fairly average and her animation is decent, so it's not absolutely important to her.
  • The HC value is also a 20% increase. This is a multiplier against REC when picking up HC, so it should have a noticeable effect on how easily Carrol heals from HC. Unfortunately it doesn't help the healing of other units - it just makes Carrol heal a little more reliably.
  • The cleanse on BB/SBB is the biggest part of Carrol's ES, just like it was on her 7* form. While having cleanse is usually important to a unit, in the current meta Carrol faces several issues with it:
    • Many currently standard units include cleanse and null at the same time on all skills, while Carrol can only null on BB. Only being able to cleanse causes issues in some fights, mainly involving the interactions of Curse and BC on Hit, though in most cases Carrol should still be viable.
    • Carrol has no inherent form of ailment immunity, so you always have to look towards a sphere or elgif to give it to her. This is necessary in cases of buff wipes ailments in the same turn.
    • Carrol's cleanse will not function under ES Lock. While rare, this is something to be wary of in RX6, or when using her in Summoner Arc.
• I feel like Carrol's ES wasn't buffed anywhere near enough for OE standards. She only gained 5% BC/HC value, and that's tiny. Realistically speaking, Carrol's ES feels more like a requirement for using her rather than a bonus, which is something that would be easily felt in Summoner Arc.

Active Skills

BB

• Carrol's BB is a multi-element Water/Earth/Light AoE that grants ATK/DEF/REC buffs, BC Regen and Ailment Null for 3 turns.
  • At this point the elements are just for Carrol. In most cases she won't need them due to having the buff form on her SBB, but I guess the extra damage against Fire/Thunder might help on rare occasions. It's mostly a flavour effect.
  • Carrol's tri-stat buffs are valued at 140%, with an SP enhancement to push them to 150% available for SBB only. Even enhanced, they're below average for OE tri-stat buffs, with even Atro having it better here, considering he got 150% for free. Regardless, the tri-stat buff is valuable in squad building, and in most cases a difference of 30% between Carrol and the strongest common stat buffs isn't going to get your squad killed all that often.
  • Carrol's BC regen here is 7 BC, like in her LS. That's about 25% of a BB for most units, which is decent fill, and a good addition to most squads. It's only on her BB - you'll have to swap between BB and SBB to make use of it.
  • Carrol's Ail Null is a new and welcome addition from her 7* form, allowing her the important cleanse/null pairing on at least one of her skills. Unfortunately it's not present on her SBB, so you'd have to switch down to BB occasionally to make use of it, and in a worst case scenario buff wipes might stop her from SBBing much at all.

SBB

• Carrol's SBB is an AoE that grants Water/Earth/Light element buffs, ATK/DEF/REC buffs and BC on Hit for 3 turns, while also filling the OD gauge by 8% with each use.
  • The AoE itself is still multi-element, but that hardly matters when you're including the buffs as well. Maybe one day in the future Alim or Gumi will introduce content where buffs simply don't apply? That'd be really weird and people probably wouldn't like it though.
  • The element buffs only cover 3 possible elements, and there aren't really many options for Fire/Thunder buffs specifically without having every element potentially attached anyway (just Silas, I guess?). This generally means that unless Carrol's got the only elements you need, you're going to have every element from another unit ayways.
  • The ATK/DEF/REC is higher than BB if enhanced, in which case you actually lose some defense when switching BB and SBB for buffs. Annoying.
  • Carrol's BC on Hit is particularly strong at 5-7 BC, ad can even be enhanced further to 6-8 BC. This is generally seen as a mandatory buff for hard content as most hard content has regular AoE for it to proc from, and it's important for countering most BC drain in the game (in some cases it'll fail to do that, if the enemy doesn't BC drain as part of an attack or doesn't attack after it)
  • Burst OD fill is the most reliably method for filling OD gauges, and Carrol's value is fairly standard for OE units. This will fill fixed percent of the OD bar no matter how many times you've activated UBB in the current battle, which is really the important feature that makes burst OD fill better than OD fill rate buffs.

UBB

• Carrol's UBB is a multi-element Water/Earth/Light AoE that applies a 25k HP Light Barrier, fills all unit's BB gauges 9except her own) and refills the OD gauge by 30%
  • Barriers have a couple features which allow them to be used against some types of nukes; they allow a unit to take damage beyond its maximum HP, and they can't be removed by buff wipes. These are more or less the same features that make Angel Idol UBB desirable, so a barrier can be used as a stand-in in some cases. Unfortunately barriers have some important weaknesses:
    • Damage beyond what the barrier's rated for is still gonna kill your squad. When a nuke is set to deal 100k or 400% unit HP in damage, it's almost never going to work.
    • Damage dealt to barriers is unaffected by mitigation. A barrier with 25k HP, while you have 50% mitigation active, is only really preventing 12.5k damage.
    • Barriers cannot be applied early, as they're liable to be broken before the nuke you're trying to survive.
  • Carrol's BC fill is applied as 999 BC insta-fill. This will bypass BC fill rate debuffs in most cases, unless the debuff is 100%.
  • The 30% OD fill is a refund on the OD spent activating the UBB. This will, like her SBB, fill based on a % of the OD gauge. like with Shion, this means Carrol's UBB is pretty easy to spam; unlike Shion the effects only realistically last one turn per use, so it's not really godmode when it works.
• Basically Carrol's UBB is a cheap nuke survival tool, but it's limited in the kind of nukes it works for and doesn't offer much beyond that.

SP Enhancements

• 10 SP: 20% ATK/REC
  • Build filler
  • Carrol's not much of an offensive unit, so this is pretty weak. The stats would mostly contribute to converts if you used them.
  • Not recommended
• 10 SP: 20% HP/DEF
  • Build filler
  • Fairly standard. If you find you have the SP to spare, HP options are always solid.
• 40 SP: Add Angel Idol buff when below 20% HP
  • Like all threshold AI, it's got a single charge. Threshold AI will be skipped if an attack deals enough damage to skip the 20% marker directly to 0 HP, so they don't always work, but they're still particularly solid in arena modes and raids where they let you run away safely.
• 10 SP: BB Regen effects trigger at start of turn
  • Build filler
  • Moves all BB regen buffs and passive triggers for Carrol to the start of the turn rather than the end of the turn. Does not function on the first turn of arena/colloseum matches.
  • Usually pretty minor, but with enough BB regen and cost reduction you can make a unit have BB ready on turn 1 during autoquests, which may have some value as mentioned.
  • Also functions as a potential counter to BB drain, as it shifts BB regen's effect to after the BB drain, rather than before it.
• 20 SP: Enhance SBB ATK/DEF/REC buffs to 150%
  • A small enhancement which gives a minor stat boost.
  • This only applies to SBB, which is annoying as Carrol's design means you'll want to switch between BB and SBB regularly if you want the BB regen and ail null.
• 20 SP: Enhance SBB BC on Hit value to 6-8 BC
  • A cheap enhancement that sets her BC on Hit value to the highest seen on a BB/SBB to date.
  • That said, the difference is relatively small; it's rare that just one extra BC will make a major difference to a battle.
• 30 SP: Add 3500-4000 HP regen effect for 3 turns to SBB
  • Only added to SBB. Carrol already has to switch regularly. Luckily it lasts long enough that it's not to much of an issue.
  • It's a relatively mid-tier HoT buff. Dedicated units tend to have better, but it's not unusable.
  • As this can introduce buff clash, only take it if your squad needs it.
• 30 SP: Add Crit Immunity effect for 1 turn to BB/SBB
  • The first of Carrol's immunity buffs.
  • Crit immunity is important if content has high crit chance, an just a convenience if it doesn't. Generally valuable in later content. Prevents at least 33% damage when it blocks an attack that would crit (more if the enemy has crit passives/buffs), but the game doesn't let you know that it did.
  • It only lasts 1 turn, but it's on both BB and SBB, so as long as you can fill SBB on the turn you use BB, it should be consistent. If you need one extra turn to fill SBB after using a BB, however, it could be problematic.
• 30 SP: Add Element Immunity effect for 1 turn to BB/SBB
  • The second of Carrol's immunity buffs.
  • Generally unless you're running content blind, you'll know how many units in your squad need elemental immunity. If it's 1 or 2, spheres can suffice; if it's the entire squad, you'll want a buff or LS for it.
  • Element immunity generally prevents 33% damage when it functions (150% -> 100%), but in some cases can prevent more if the enemy has a hidden EWD passive like the guild raid bosses.

• 30 SP: Add 35% HP Buff to UBB

  • HP buffs are permanent once active, so once you use her UBB your units will have 35% more HP for the rest of the fight. This means this only adds value to Carrol's first UBB.
  • However, HP buffs also don't stack, so if you're using another HP UBB you don't need two.

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SP Builds

These basically come down to whether you want the immunities or not. Asides from that Carrol is fairly freeform; one player might want the HoT or UBB HP buff, the next player may just get her a bunch of passives and improve her regular buffs.

These are really just build skeletons. You can remove or add buffs as you see fit. Due to how Carrol's stuff is priced, it's almost always worth it to take the HP/DEF passive.

The Full Immunity build seems the most potent, but also arguably the most expensive; immunities are typically found in pairs, so you're unlikely to be able to make a variant of the build which only uses one of them. Additions to this build can include the HP UBB buff, HoT buff, or one of the SBB buff enhancements plus ATK/REC or BB at start of turn. So, nearly everything. Depends on what you want.

The HP-related Buffs isn't really a recommended build, as much as an example or what you can do if you don't take both immunity buffs. It still has as much freedom in remaining choices as the immunity build. While viable, neither added buff is as potent as other units have made them, so if you can include a unit with the superior buff without clashing, Carrol's versions become irrelevant.

The Buff Enhancement build focuses on Carrol's inherent buffs. This build introduces the least clash, and has the most room for adding options - enough that you could give her the angel idol if you really don't want to add any buffs to her. Alternately, add one buff of choice and both remaining 10 SP passives.

In the long run, I think Carrol is a very usable unit who unfortunately released a little late in the OE cycle amongst competition that was far too strong for the kit she was given. You can more or less break her kit down by which of the big three it competes with: Regil can be given EWD immunity, Shion covers elements, tri-stat and OD fill and Cleria has ailment cleanse/null, HoT and BC on Hit. Her problem is other units, not herself, and the fact that most of her kit was locked in by her 7* form means she was pretty much doomed to suffer from this.

Basically, out of the big three units in the current meta, Regil is the only one Carrol isn't guaranteed to have significant clash with. This is largely a meta that Alim has created and it's been hurting nearly every unit that Gumi have released in the past couple months; Gumi would have to work to release sidegrades to the big three that somehow don't clash with Carrol in order to make a meta squad that she can slot into.

If you discount the major meta units, however, Carrol has a very solid and broad kit - cleanse/null, tri-stat, BC on Hit, BC regen, OD fill and Crit/EWD null in a single unit is a very large kit that fills a lot of important roles in a squad. So she's certainly not a bad unit - she just isn't part of the current meta.