Asuka Shikinami Langley Guide & Review

Nothing beats a red-headed girl in an iconic dauntless red suit. Asuka Langley visits this world with her comrades, popping the champagne of collaboration between Shift Up and EVA. Asuka is a B3 Attacker from the Abnormal faction, armed with a phenomenal skillset that can greatly boost her own ATK, Elemental DMG, ATK DMG, as well as Hit Rate. Not only that, she can also buff the Core Damage of Fire Code allies. All these, on top of her built-in Pierce and Lifesteal, will make her a formidable foe, a worthy contender to the once reigning drunken queen.

Can you give a brief summary about this unit?

Simply put, Asuka is a resilient character with both offense and support capabilities. When it comes to DPS, she has a decent output, ranging between 75~95% of Alice (4 shots/s) depending on what supports she is paired with. This is because different DPS favor different supports. She is relatively independent since she has already provided herself with a multitude of buffs, but at the same time she is less scalable than most DPS due to her damage coming from enhancements rather than multiplier. She shines brighter against Wind enemies and enemies with a persistent core. However, ironically, her Core Damage buff is more profitable for her teammates, since she herself does not have perfect accuracy 24/7, which brings us to...

One more thing that sets her miles ahead of her competitors is her capability of strengthening the Core Damage of Fire Code allies, albeit a bit niché since Shift Up has lately been stingy on the endurance of cores. It is still one rare buff with barely any dilution and one of the best buffs available in the market right now. Nikkes like Alice and Modernia (and Rei) will rejoice, since the buff automatically activates for everyone upon entering Full Burst!Her supportive side! Which we believe is what makes Asuka, Asuka. It is the star of the show and what sets her miles ahead of her competitors. Sure, the effectiveness of Core Damage buff hinges on whether the enemy has a persistent core, but it does not change the fact that it is a rare buff with barely any dilution. Nikkes like Alice, Modernia, and Rei can finally rejoice, since it automatically activates for Fire Code allies upon entering Full Burst!

For Asuka to achieve optimal performance, you may want to pair her with an external Individual Shielder when battling Wind bosses (you want 24/7 uptime on her Elemental DMG). Besides that, since her ATK buff only activates when receiving a recovery effect, bursting with her first is almost always mandatory, except when you bring a healer. Without a healer, and especially against bosses outside Campaign, you are expected to bring a CDR to make sure the ATK buff remains online for as long as possible.

In conclusion, she is a great all-rounder, an exceptional unit that everyone must have. The SAnis with pierce of Fire Team.

Should I pull this unit?

We are certain that she will dominate the meta not only in this next Raid but also in future ones as long as the boss has a persistent core, so she is a Must Have. That said, she will be valuable for Campaign and has been verified by top pushers. When Wind enemies start springing up, she would be a great alternative. Her synergy with Alice and Modernia is simply indispensable. You do not want to miss such a powerful Nikke, and since she is limited, pulling for extra copies is encouraged.

Asuka overloads herself with boatloads of enhancements—too many in fact that we would say every common buff would feel diluted for her. They still boost her damage, though, with Damage Taken and Elemental DMG being way superior. Basic attacks determine her output. If infinite ammo is assumed and buffs are discounted, she would deal ~225% of final ATK as damage every second. Sure, this is not as glass-breaking as Scarlet's ~325%, but her personal buffs make up for it.

You Can (NOT) Shield

■ Activates at the start of the battle. Affects self.

Damage dealt to Shield ▲ 601.01% continuously.

(It only affects the damage dealt to the shield, not to the Rapture itself)

■ Activates when recovery takes effect. Affects self.

ATK ▲ 96.98% for 25 sec.

Asuka gains shieldbreaking capacity upon entering battle, increasing damage dealt to shields up to ~600%. This does not affect Hit Count shields nor increase damage against Raptures if pierce is present. While we still do not know how the next Solo Raid will play out, we are certain that this would be invaluable against that boss. Specific bosses such as the Rebuild(s) and Land Eater and mobs who erect Shield/Barrier will also be undermined.

The second component is what generates her damage. As we all know, every unit needs at least some ATK of any form before they can deal decent damage, and a nearly permanent ~97% is no joke. Use Modernia or Scarlet as reference (both dependent on basic attacks). When deployed alone without any healer, Asuka will trigger this buff once via Burst Skill at the beginning, which will persist over the next 25 seconds. Without CDR, this is close to 62.5% uptime, but with CDR, it is closer to 80~95%. Not faultless, but you can choose to pair her with a healer for maximum uptime. Any healing counts as a recovery effect, but the ones with duration are only registered once at the beginning.

Without a healer, Asuka will NOT have ATK buff until she uses Burst Skill. This prompts using her Burst Skill first before anyone else's, making Alice a less than ideal choice of pairing (but if doing so results in higher overall team damage, then the sacrifice is worthy). On the other hand, Modernia perfectly synergizes well with her since she does not need to use Burst Skill at all. In shorter fights where the first few seconds are crucial such as PvP, you will almost always want to bring a healer to preemptively trigger the effect.

You Can (NOT) Resist

■ Activates when entering Full Burst. Affects self when in Shield status.

Damage as strong element ▲ 30.02% for 10 sec.

■ Activates when entering Full Burst. Affects all Fire Code allies.

Damage dealt when attacking core ▲ 60.07% for 10 sec.

Asuka gains Elemental DMG whenever team enters Full Burst and she has an Individual Shield. Independent Shield is different from generic shield (Centi, Blanc) that every unit is given their own shield and the shield HP is not shared by the entire team. Individual Shield is only provided by select units, such as Rei, Folkwang, Crown, Tia, and Ram. Not many optimal choices for her. Thankfully, this part of the skill only gives Elemental DMG, which means it is only necessary against Wind enemies. For enemies of other elements, you can forget about the Shield requirement.

Asuka also grants Fire Code allies with Core Damage bonus. This is very impactful, as such a rarely diluted buff will massively boost the output of Nikkes that can regularly hit cores, such as Modernia and Alice (and Rei). At the same time, it is also useless if the enemy does not present any core, but unless it is one of the recent bosses that Shift Up makes hiding cores and promoting the SG team, then there is nothing to worry about. Most mobs and Campaign have cores too.

Beware of dilution from Naga, who already provides up to ~125% of Core Damage. Overall, given a persistent core, she increases the damage of perfect Fire core-hitters by 27~29% when used alone and 15~17% when used with Naga. While this is trivial and pairing them both together is in no way detrimental—in fact, it could be the opposite—it might be an important consideration for minmaxing. Her supportive strength also declines significantly when Core is absent (important for Raids).

You Can (NOT) Block

■ Affects self.

Gain Pierce for 25 sec.

Attack damage ▲ 150.04% for 10 sec.

Recovers 3.16% of attack damage as HP over 10 sec.

Hit Rate ▲ 101. 37% for 10 sec.

Asuka greatly empowers herself, gaining Pierce for 25 seconds as well as improving her survivability and offensive capabilities through increased ATK DMG, Lifesteal, and Hit Rate. This is where her damage spikes because that ATK DMG is ~150% and Hit Rate will allow her to leverage her S2 better. Safe to assume that, at maximum level, that ~101.37% Hit Rate translates intoperfect accuracy, which means all shots will be guaranteed core hits. This is not something that Scarlet can brag about.

Let's talk about that Pierce. It is potent against bosses with Shield that are not immune to damage when Shield is up, and it is also good for hitting multiple mobs or boss parts at the same time, effectively doubling or tripling your damage (or more!). But, one underrated side effect is that it also allows Asuka to utilize Pierce Damage buffs, like the one given by Zwei or Mari.

Do note that Attack Damage, Pierce Damage, and most other enhancements that end with "Damage" (except for Core & Distributed) all belong in the same group, which means they dilute each other. Fortunately, the Pierce lasts 25 seconds, while that huge ATK DMG buff only lasts for 10 seconds, so there is that—the window of opportunity! Likewise, similar to her ATK buff, this should have 80~95% overall uptime with CDR.

The Lifesteal looks weak on paper, but given that damage spike, it may be enough to fully heal her. However, don't go expect to see her tanking all sorts of damage and sustaining injuries that would have killed a Noise. However, it is still useful for tanking attacks targeting the Nikke with the highest ATK, since she does have a lot of ATK herself. To err on the safe side, treat as a tool to activate her S1.

Campaign (LD) - SS | Campaign (HD) - SS

Nothing beats the old-fashioned way of stacking up as much ATK buff as possible. It is obviously the only way to counterbalance the stat penalties of CP deficit and make mobs with high DEF less of a hassle (Mirror Container go brrr...). However, she has no wipe, so if you expect her to clean the screen, you might be disappointed. You might as well wait for Rei for that. Asuka's playstyle is similar to Alice's, in which her damage spikes upon using Burst Skill. She gains Pierce and can decimate multiple targets at once, and she will also help accelerate the next burst rotation thanks to her long-lasting Pierce.

With that said, do note that Asuka may not always be the one bursting first. When that happens, she will not have her S1 active till her rotation (if you do not bring any healer). Sometimes, we also do not bring CDR (if using RH B1), so make sure to track the downtime.

While we do not expect her to outclass Alice or Red Hood, she can easily overrun Fire-weak stages thanks to her built-in Elemental Damage. Her synergy with Crown will also make that Elemental DMG permanent! Together with Rei and Alice/Modernia, she can make these stages look like a child's play. Alice and Modernia are meta campaign pushers, and Asuka's Core Damage boost will overdrive them. We believe they can also be force-used for other elements too, but we will see more into that after Rei drops.

Boss (Solo) - SSS | Boss (Adds) - SSS

Otherworldly offensive and supportive capabilities that raise her to another level, which shoots up further against Wind enemies. Still an overall versatile profile that should work against most bosses with persistent cores.

Her damage is about 75~95% of Alice for most players (4 shots/s). Excellent synergy with Alice and Modernia, making her the SAnis of Fire Team (and Rei herself does that too to some extent). Great synergy with Crown/Tia against Wind bosses to achieve 100% uptime on Elemental DMG, but there is dilution happening, so it might not be ideal for minmaxing.

Bosses that allow Pierce to shine through annoying shields and clustered parts/hitboxes will also elevate her damage. Lifesteal also allows her to somewhat tank attacks that target Nikkes of the highest ATK.

PVP - A

In PvP, she is a mediocre DPS. Her basic attacks hit hard, especially against the countered element (w/ ELE DMG OL). You can theoretically use her to punish unprotected Blanc, SBS, or Noah in P1 before enemy uses Burst Skill. Her performance is most similar to Alice. You can bring a healer as well to trigger her ATK buff early.

Her damage is contained within her Burst Skill, during which she forces the activation of S1 and gains ATK DMG. This will make her function similarly to Alice that she will continue thrashing the targeted unit, but this also means she is countered the same way (taunters + immune/indom). One drawback is that she wields an AR, so she will feed Jackal/Scarlet, unlike Alice, but this might not be that of big deal since not every team has Jackal.

Gear Investments

She scales best with Max Ammo OL alone, but this effect is less apparent with Reload Speed buffers (like Crown) in team. With 20 base ammo and without cube, she spends 1.667s to expend a full clip and takes 1.367s second to reload (animation + cover delay factored in). This is ~55% uptime, which is pretty low. One Max Ammo of 68.93% uplifts this to ~67.4%, which translates to an average of 22.5% DPS increase! Imagine what you could get with more Max Ammo.

After Max Ammo, prioritize Elemental DMG and ATK. Elemental DMG is preferred due to the diluted nature of ATK and higher CP gain, but as usual, ATK is more universal.

The suggestion below assumes the usage of Bastion Lv 7, and according to our maths, 2-3× Max Ammo have the highest gain, and it falls off slightly after that. You would still want to get 2-3× even with Reload Speed buffers + Resilience for convenience.

• Essential: 2-3× Max Ammo
• Ideal: 4× Elemental DMG, 1-2× Max Ammo, 4× ATK
• Passable: -
• Priority: Meta

Skill Investments

• Skill 1: 10
• The bane of it all. This is where her only source of ATK buff is located. Reminiscent of Scarlet. Focus on maxing this first as DPS, but do not abandon the others.
• Skill 2: 10
• Level up if against Wind enemies, more so if the team has a Shielder besides Rei (since Rei only gives 10s). Core Damage is influential and works in any content where core is present. Upgrade to witness teamwide damage boost (Fire Code allies), especially if enemy core is persistent. Focus on maxing this first as Support.
• Burst Skill: 7~10
• Upon using Burst Skill, she gains Pierce, which is needed to accelerate Burst Rotation and to synergize with Rei. Pierce lasts 15s default, 20s at Level 4, and 25s at Level 7. You also want to reach Level 6+ as soon as possible because that is also the breakpoint for perfect accuracy too. Upgrade further if more damage is desired. Steep scaling on ATK DMG (2.36× as opposed to the regular 1.69x), so maximum level is encouraged.

Suggested Progression Path

 

PVE Investment

PVP Investment

Priority

Asuka Shikinami Langley

PVE investment

1/1/1 → 4/4/7 → 7/7/7 (→ 10/10/10)

PVP investment

1/1/1 → 4/4/7

Priority

Meta

Cube Investments

With Reload Speed buffers, opt for Resilience. Without, use Bastion (Lv 7+ highly recommended).

Team #1: Crown Pushing the Limits

Burst 1

Burst 2

Burst 3

Burst 3

Burst Flex

Well, we talked earlier that Asuka and Rei are both amazing buffers and even considered them the SAnis(es) of Fire Team. While Rei's kit does not fully synergize with Alice's playstyle, Asuka does, and her Core Damage boost is just insane. No, it's not better than Naga's, but you can save Naga for other teams. In this team, Crown + Privaty will ensure infinite ammo, while D:Wife and Liter will enable smooth rotation. Unless you have a good Alice, using Rei to buff Asuka is also a viable strategy. If minmaxing is not a concern, you can also use Naga instead of Privaty to spice things up!

Team #2: Dream Alice + Modernia Team

Burst 1

Burst 2

Burst 3

Burst 3

Burst 3

One of the nicest Campaign teams at the moment. A variant of the OG Naga team, where we barter Naga's Core Damage for Asuka. Asuka takes Alice and Modernia to greater heights, and she herself has incredible damage. Having 3 DPS is better than 2, no? No?

Team #3: Dream Modernia Team

Burst 1

Burst 2

Burst 3

Burst 3

Burst 3

This will help Modernia shine. Both Asuka and Rei need to activate their respective Burst Skill(s) to achieve peak supportive power. Meanwhile, the only Fire unit currently that should not use Burst Skill is Modernia. This makes her the most ideal third DPS for this team. Modernia does not have too much ATK buff her in her kit, so she will definitely benefit from Rei's. Modernia also scales very well with Rei's ATK DMG and Asuka's Core DMG. Strong for Campaign and Bossing too! You can also choose to use RH B1 as an alternative in Campaign.

While Crown is the best buffer, the dilution of ATK DMG is a bit too high, and she might be better paired with other units. In case of this, S. Rosanna would be a viable alternative, due to providing an undiluted Damage Taken debuff.

Team #4: Bunny Power

Burst 1

Burst 2

Burst 3

Burst 3

Burst 3

Ammo Support is crucial to some units in this game, and the OG Bunny Duo of Blanc and Noir is the best way to mitigate it. Noir's ammo buffs suit all of the 3 units: Rei, Modernia, and especially Asuka. If you lack Max Ammo rolls, using Bunnies is a viable strat. Similar to S. Rosanna, Blanc's Damage Taken debuff is a separate undiluted multiplier and hence a major driver for Asuka's DPS. However, Blanc's shield is NOT individual.

Team #5: That Dolla/SHelm Team

Burst 1

Burst 2

Burst 3

Burst 3

Burst 3

A healer with a B2 CDR is some standard P4-P5 configuration. When against Iron-weak bosses, using SHelm in this team might prove feasible. Pepper can continuously heal the team and activate Asuka's ATK buff, whereas Zwei can repair cover and buff Asuka (with Pierce DMG). Still, Soda as a Fire MG Unit might be the better choice here since she benefits from Asuka's & Rei's supportive buffs. She also heals the team and triggers Asuka's ATK buff!

Demolish Unprotected P1 Wind Unit

Burst 2

Burst 2

Burst 3

Burst 3

Burst 1

A sample setup to quickly kill an unprotected Blanc, Noah, or SBS in the first spot. Only Asuka and Rapunzel are essential in the team. The rest are replaceable. Needs Elemental DMG OL to work.

Asuka Blanc Variant

Burst 3

Burst 2

Burst 2

Burst Flex

Burst 1

Basic speedy Blanc + Red Hood (Burst 1) team. Lifesteal should increase her odds of winning in most 1v1 indomitability standoffs.