Mica: Snow BuddyInformation and Guide

Foreword

Mica: Snow Buddy arrives in Neverland with full Christmas fashion. She looks so cute! Though her cuteness can definitely be matched with her "worry meter" around Belorta.. But don't fret! She turns her trauma into unbelievable strength in order to protect her friend! But now, down to business. Mica's skills focus on supporting the team in a multitude of ways: reducing the damage taken, buffing ammo, while also providing decent burst gen even though she is an SMG. She also opens up your teambuilding options with her skill of increasing the stack count of stackable buffs. Her burst is an atk buff, paired with a cleanse of 1 debuff. All in all, she's an interesting add to the roster, and will see some use in specific cases, but doesn't seem to break into the meta.

Kit Analysis

Mica: Snow Buddy (abbreviated as XMica throughout this guide) is a unit designed for cleansing debuffs and providing offensive buffs at the same time. Her cleanse is consistent, as it can be voluntarily activated at the start of every rotation. The ATK buff is decent but is inferior to other B1 buffers. Think of her as Liter who exchanges her firepower for situational debuff cleansing. That said, she may fall short of surpassing other B1 options with the lack of CDR and cover repair, which are inarguably valuable in many game modes.

Skill 1

With every 120 shots landed, XMica accumulates a stack of Tidying Up, which reduces the damage taken by all allies for a long duration. When the maximum number of stacks is reached, she additionally provides everybody a decent amount of Max Ammo, comparable to a low-level OL line. This skill is not breathtaking in any way, but the Damage Reduction and the bonus Max Ammo may come in clutch, especially if your team has no healers and/or does not have enough Max Ammo. In fact, the buffs from this skill can be considered permanent, as they can be continually refreshed till the end of the battle.

You can cheese her Max Ammo. What we mean is that you can "not" activate her Max Ammo buff on purpose by letting her lose stacks. This may be particularly useful when pairing her with units reliant on last bullet (like SAnis).

Skill 2

Stack refresh is what we call an "interesting trait" as only several units have access to such authority. It is also one of the fastest stack refresh in the game as it can mathematically be triggered every 7.5~10s (150 shots + Resilience), but here's where the problem lies. It is dependent on skill level, which means she needs to shoot more at lower levels. Moreover, currently, there aren't many units that benefit from stack refresh, except for herself (you know...). The extra burst generation does help her a little in PvP and in teams with low burst regen, but whether that is useful depends on your composition.

Burst

Perhaps her redeeming factor—a not-so-bad ATK buff, which will always be meaningful regardless of its engraved value, followed by a reliable teamwide cleanse to liberate your team from undesired shackles. Chatterbox is one example of a boss that applies a stackable debuff which will instantly eliminate anyone with too many stacks. Removing that debuff leads to increased survivability, but sometimes you don't really need to remove it. You can use cover, dodge, or divert it. Even then, there are some enemies (such as Doctor) that apply inevitable stat penalty to your team, which unless cleased will technically last forever. Also be warned that her ATK buff is dependent on caster's ATK, not the targeted unit's ATK, making it slightly less effective on attackers.

Usage

XMica will probably not see much usage outside Raids and PvP, and even then, there are way better units to choose from. She can be an alternative for beginners, however. There is a chance that XMica is a sleeper unit and will be used more when newer units with better synergy are released, such as units whose damage is reliant on stacking, particularly an SG wielder with CDR to further harmonize with Tove. Or someone like A2 who constantly buffs (and also debuffs) herself but without the coupling.

• Bossing - Her primary content. When debuff cleansing is necessary, especially for removing ATK debuffs, she will most likely see some gameplay. Outside that, she may be used as an alternative B1 buffer. She may still see some usage in Team 4 or 5, if you don't own every meta unit.

• PVP - At maximum level of Skill 2, she can generate Burst Energy fairly quickly, but it also comes with the disadvantage of feeding Jackal. Her ATK buff will come useful situationally, and Damage Reduction may improve survivability despite taking years to stack. She can be utilized as a cope unit until you acquire more suitable PvP mercenaries.

• Sim - She is most likely not used for campaign, but we are distinguishing this section from the rest in preparation for the upcoming Simulation Overclock, which they announced not long ago. Unlike campaign, this mode probably does not incur stat penalty. XMica may prove useful when too much debuff is being applied by those pesky debuffer mobs from time to time. Note that we do NOT know what Simulation Overclock actually looks like, so this is just an early prediction.