Catherine (Radiance)Build and Guide

(Re)joining the roster and bringing along a lot of firsts, Radiance Catherine is our first Chaos faction character, first alt, and first soul with a single-use ultimate. Her mechanics are quite unique, and completely change depending on how you choose to use her, so let's take a look!

When considering Chaos Cath's functionality, the most comparable soul we have in the current roster is Eve. Both of these units can be run as either a support or DPS, have kits that vastly differ based on a controllable factor, and both are anomalies in their class as far as function and kit are concerned. As with Eve, Cath is a superb support unit that can also be run as a great DPS in raids, though the latter requires quite a lot of investment if you want to go that route. (They also both have really awesome wings, coincidence?)

Cath's ultimate is what controls the shift between her two playstyles. "Sol Aeternus" is a one-time use ultimate that changes Cath's entire kit from that of a support into a purely selfish DPS. Once cast, she can't shift back to support form, so avoid using it if you want her to support your other team members. Once cast, it increases her Atk and Def by 100%, boosts her auto attacks by 180% of her Atk, fully restores her HP, puts a permanent burn on all enemies, and finally, makes her fully immune to all CC and knockbacks. It also has a negative effect, which causes Cath to lose 4% of her HP every 2 seconds. This effect doubles at ten second durations up to two times, and while it sounds like it would be an issue, as long as there's a healer on the team paired with Cath's huge self shields, it basically goes unnoticed. This damage is also reduced by her Artifact effect at Legendary+ and further at Origin.

Her Artifact, aside from providing a reduction in her ultimate's self-harm effect, also provides Cath with a buff similar to her passive: when she is in the frontline, she receives Physical and Magical Resistance, and in the backline, Crit Rate and Crit Damage. This buff scales up as you ascend her Artifact. It also applies an effect to her main skill "Sol Omnibus Lucet", which doubles her frontline/backline self-buff for 15 seconds. This applies the same way regardless of if she's in Support or DPS mode.

Since her ultimate completely changes her playstyle, we'll break the rest of her review into two sections; support Cath and DPS Cath.

Support

If you opt for using Cath as a support unit, you will surely not be disappointed! Outside of effectively not having an ultimate, her kit is loaded with all kinds of buffs for your team. Firstly, her passive will provide different buffs for your units depending if they are in the frontline or backline. Frontliners receive 35% of Cath's Def plus 15% reduced damage, while backliners gain 35% of Cath's Atk and a 15% increased damage boost! (No, this buff can't be amplified by Lize or any other effects or skills, sorry~)

Her subskills both revolve around Burn - "Gladius Flammae" is a line attack that deals 180% damage to all enemies it hits and inflicts a 16 second Burn, while also increasing all incoming Burn damage by 40%.

"Conflagro" is a teamwide AoE attack which deals additional damage to burning enemies, and decreases their Physical and Magical Resistance by 15% for 15 seconds. Even without a Speed set, Cath can keep this debuff up nearly all the time, providing your team with a great damage boost!

Lastly, Cath's main skill "Sol Omnibus Lucet" is reminiscent of OG Cath's main in that it applies a shield to your team. But of course, with Cath's new powers, it also got a power up. It is now team-wide rather than an AoE around Cath, absorbs damage equal to 240% of Atk, and deals 60% damage to all enemies within 2.5m of each shielded character every 2 seconds. With a lot of shielded units all grouped up around one enemy, this damage can stack up quite nicely.

As you'd expect, Support Cath is an amazing addition to basically any team. She provides shields-on-demand, which are needed for various mechanics in raids, on top of simply existing to keep your team alive. Both her offensive and defensive buffs are amazing, and she debuffs the enemy's defenses on top of that. Her Burn skills also provide another great option for Gaia, which both provides your whole team with increased damage potential, and acts as a boon to characters that apply burn themselves.

DPS

Once she's used her ultimate, Cath shifts into DPS mode, changing the effects of all of her skills. She no longer functions as a teamwide support, instead hoarding all her buffs and shields to herself. Her ultimate also applies a permanent Burn to the enemy (as long as Cath is alive) and makes her immune to CC for the rest of the fight.

Starting with her passive; it will no longer apply to her team, but apply both the frontline and backline buff to Cath.

• "Gladius Flammae" loses its Burn and Burn damage increase debuff, and instead does double the damage, and is a guaranteed crit.

• "Conflagro" no longer reduces the enemy's resistances, and also doubles its damage.

• "Sol Omnibus Lucet" now only applies the shield to Cath, doubling the damage dealt to nearby enemies, and making Cath invulnerable for 3 seconds.

Transitioning to this simplistic DPS kit from her much more intricate support kit seems like a strange choice - especially with the number of exceptional (and rather one-dimensional) DPS units already in the game. That said, Cath is a perfectly viable DPS option for pretty much any game mode (save Arena, where she can't ult). With enough investment, she packs a punch in guild raids in a similar manner to Eve - but it requires specific team compositions. Cath's base Atk isn't particularly high, and without a very invested Artifact, she's likely to struggle to have the highest Atk stat on her team to gain the buff from certain guild raid treasures. Since the treasure is applied at the start of the battle, her ultimate providing her with 100% more attack doesn't help.

As Cath is a Strength-based unit, her offensive boosting options are also rather limited. The best keepsake set available to her is the Anniversary set, which was originally Dex-only but has thankfully been made available to any class. This at least provides her with a better offensive statline than the Str-based keepsakes, which don't give Crit Dmg or Crit Rate.

Final remarks

Overall, Radiance Catherine is an amazing unit. As a support she brings a lot to the table and doesn't require huge amounts of investment to work well enough. Keep in mind though, since she passes her own stats on to her teammates via her passive, it's obvious that the more invested, the better. Using her as a DPS in regular content doesn't require too much effort either, and she performs well in 5v5 battles. For raids however, she's likely best used as a support unless you've invested quite a bit into both her and her Artifact.

An important thing to note when considering whether or not to pull: Chaos units cannot be obtained via any means other than their focus banner and Erika's Alchemy. Meaning if you opt out of pulling on her focus, you'll be relegated to the depths of Alchemy pulls for your copies. There are 3 copies available through the in-game shop, though the Awakening Shop will only appear after you've gained at least one copy of Catherine, and 3 copies won't get you particularly far. Keeping that in mind, saving Alchemy tickets gained as event rewards specifically for Chaos characters going forward may be the best move for F2P and low spenders.