Scarlet: Black ShadowInformation and Guide

Foreword

A legendary warrior of the past, one of the few living remnants weathering the indiscriminate tribulation in the ancient times, Scarlet has emerged as her once ruthless form—Scarlet: Black Shadow. Her current appearance is a tad deceptive; who would expect a drunken girl was once a fighter who knew no forgiveness? Whispers of her now inanimate comrades rang in her head as she stepped into a world disconcertingly familiar.

Kit Analysis

Scarlet: Black Shadow (SBS) is an elegant swordmaster who launches well-timed attacks to unleash multiple strikes in quick succession, each dealing significant damage to one or more enemies. Every strike is identified by a different phase, and in each phase the nature of this offensive ability would be distinct. Do note that these strikes cannot core-hit but can crit.

While her insidious attacks necessitate an unavoidable tiny delay at the end of each hit (0.23s), her fire rate can be compared to the default attack speed of Shotguns (SG), estimated to be around 0.73s per shot. This also means that she is auto-friendly, yay! It is, however, possible to shorten the interval between each attack by providing Charge Speed buffs, whether through OL or by pairing with other units (especially Alice), effectively accelerating the cycle. Unfortunately, this also comes with a drawback: her basic attack virtually has no range (500 for default RL radius; 50 for SBS).

Before we dive deep into her intricacies, let's scratch the surface first.

Skill 1

This part of SBS is technically not an actual component of her skillset but rather constitutes her basic mechanics. It sets the baseline DPS output of SBS and her skill multipliers. Basically, this is where the phases of SBS are described. In short, every 3 attacks when not in her Burst Skill, SBS triggers a phase change and activates the effect of that new phase, whether it be dealing additional damage or poking all enemies with distributed damage. During Burst Skill, she can trigger this every 1 attack instead of 3, allowing her to repeatedly activate the phase change and dealing bonus damage.

Because some of her attacks contain Distributed Damage, SBS might seemingly display less performance on stages where there are a lot of mobs, but this is misleading. While that does reduce damage dealt to a single enemy under these circumstances, the bonus AoE will allow her to clean low-HP enemy mobs, which can be very annoying. This might prove to be extremely useful with the upcoming Material H boss!

Skill 2

Successful attacks start with an ultracareful preparation. SBS fulfills this quote from Sun Tzu, God of War, by entitling herself to increased max ammo and a clean refill of her magazine at the start of every Full Burst. This is something that other common units have missed but allows SBS to rightfully stand on the podium. SBS is probably one of the few units that can guarantee that she neverreloads in an entire run, which leads to a consistent damage output and a notable QoL improvement, especially due to its synergy with Burst Skill and Skill 1.

Burst

Packed with tons of power, her Burst Skill allows SBS to triple her wrath. Upon activation, for the following 10 seconds, the number of attacks required to prompt the phase change in Skill 1 is reduced to one. Instead of needing 3 attacks to trigger each phase, she can immediately trigger the next one in one hit. In other words, if she activates her Burst Skill just after Phase 2 is triggered, her next cleave will immediately trigger Phase 3 and so on.

A significant ATK buff and a twofold Charge Damage amplification are also granted alongside this, turning her into a ravaging storm. This is where most of her DPS is located, so taking full advantage of her Burst Skill will allow you to appreciate her true strength. Luckily, unlike Alice, she is quite independent in this regard as she can accomplish this by ensuring a full magazine at the start of each Full Burst thanks to her Skill 2, which extends the cap even!

In base form without any additional buffs from OL or allies, SBS can comfortably land 13 shots during Burst. With the help of Alice, who considerably lowers her charge time from 0.3s to 0.125s at max level due to the relative scaling of caster's Charge Speed buff (making it 5x more effective), she can fire up to 17-18 shots. For your information, relative scaling of Charge Speed is dependent on the Charge Time of Alice and target unit. In this case, SBS's Charge Time is 5x shorter, which explains the 5x effectiveness. In other words, the 11.67% buff transforms into 58.35%.

Usage

Campaign, Tower, and Simulation:

SBS is not as versatile as the other B3 DPS for Campaign and Tower because of her inherent lack of stable AoE DPS. She does damage all enemies, but the more enemies there are, the less damage each of them takes. This is unfortunate as usually, in campaign, you want to kill the mobs as quickly as possible before they can even retaliate. That said, she is still powerful when addressing enemies in low quantities. This is because her Burst Skill is equipped with an insane ATK buff comparable to the original Scarlet.

In Late Story, you would notice that she deals tons of damage, surpassing other DPS B3. Well, that's true, but it will get you nowhere with extreme high CP deficit (32%+). Why is that? Well, as you enter endgame content, enemies will hit very hard, which can potentially one-shot your units. The only way you can prevent that from happening is to kill them first. But, SBS is actually terrible at this because, while her Distributed Damage does amount to a huge sum (can be seen when game is paused), her attacks are killing no one in time as the damage is spread. This buys enough time for the enemy to annihilate your team prior to death. Dealing tons of damage is fruitless if she is not able to neutralize the threats immediately. Compare this to Alice or Red Hood that can quickly pick off targets one by one, especially the Sniper Raptures in the distance. However, SBS may be able to kill enemies in time against Iron enemies due to elemental advantage.

Oh, and let's not talk about how Modernia's AoE damage isn't dependent on how many enemies are there in its range. The damage is fixed. This allows Modernia to clear a group of 5 raptures and a group of 20 raptures in the same time. Now, is there any reason to pick SBS over Modernia if we only care about the overtime AoE damage? Modernia's is just more consistent and lasts longer too. Not only that, Modernia has a powerful ST damage outside Burst, while SBS's damage will fall off sharply after 10s.

Pilgrim Tower

Quite interestingly, she may act as a substitute in Pilgrim Tower. With a similar reasoning as stated previously, she may see more use here due to the fact that there are only a handful of options for B3, especially when it comes to bosses where healing is needed.

Bossing/Raids

Indispensable, irreplaceable, immovable. We can safely say that SBS is, if not the best, one of the most destructive DPS deployable to the battlefield. She provides herself with enough Max Ammo not to rely on anyone, enough ATK to not be useless, and a huge preference for raw damage multipliers in her kit. She can manage all bosses with ease, whether they have parts or a core, and her damage is simply reliable and consistent.

SBS is convenient, and that is especially true when you have to deal with a certain boss gimmick, such as the boss spawning mobs with high DEF and low HP, as seen against Mother Whale and soon Solo Raid Material H. The Distributed Damage will finish all of them instantly as only the boss's DEF matters, not the mobs.

PVP

The fact that SBS's AoE damage materializes as Distributed Damage may be objectionable for PvP as the value would be too low if divided by five. Her Burst generation is also on the low side and inconsistent as whiffing often occurs. However, SBS has proven to offer delicacies that would undoubtedly outweigh these spoiled pieces of meat.

She may not exhibit the highest AoE damage (that would be Scarlet) nor the highest ST damage (that would be Alice/Red Hood), but the pressure she applies while inflicting moderate ST and AoE damage at the same time is too impactful to ignore. Oh, don't forget that she also refills her magazine at the start of Full Burst, guaranteeing her independence. In fact, her major AoE in Phase 3 is also more deadly the fewer enemies there are remaining in the battle! This makes finishing off leftover units a frivolous task.

Nonetheless, she has a direct counter — Sakura — and can be blocked and hard-countered by Biscuit + Defender. Since her Skill 1 has Distributed Damage, and if you remember from 2B, when it hits an immune Nikke (immunity is something Biscuit provides to defenders), she will do 1 damage to everyone even with the 3rd part of her Skill 1, which cuts her damage and will most likely lead to a loss for SBS.

Should You Pull

If you read this guide and reach this point still with this question, then perhaps you should reread the guide again. Jokes aside, yes, you should definitely get her. In fact, if possible, also acquire a few copies for higher stats, but this is just a lifestyle choice more than a requirement. Mileage her if you have to. SBS is one of the best bossing units at the moment. Period. We would also recommend getting Modernia if your gems allow you to, as her banner is up right now as well, if you lack her. We won't play favorites here since we believe both units are a must-have for one's account, and both are worth Golden Mileage. If you can only go for one, we recommend flipping a coin!