Helm (Treasure) Guide & Review

Helm. The first banner in a game we’ve played for 2 years in the making. Do you remember the choices you had to make throughout your time in Nikke? Regrets of using Golden Mileage on some Nikke you never even used. You may have joined new unions, old friends may have quit and new friendships were formed. Different Nikkes were invested into - be it waifu or meta, with some regrets sinking in deep as a unit dropped out of meta as we wait for skill resets.. Well, one such unit was Helm. Our lonely admiral. She’s been with us day 1, has been with us through thick and thin in so many battles (21 Raid seasons to be exact), our companion in the ever hated Elysion Tower, always being a decent, mostly niche supporter… until NOW!

Can you give a brief summary about this unit?

Helm’s favorite item skills make her one of the strongest, if not the strongest, Nikke in this game. Insane burst generation for both PvE and especially PvP, making her the new TOP TIER PvP unit, constant heals and extremely high synergy with the King of the Kingdom: Crown, a higher attack damage buff to allies, and best of all: a new meta Water DPS! At base, her DPS is around Quency: Escape Queen’s damage. However, she scales much better with supporters than QEQ does since she does not have so many bloated multipliers (i.e. her skills do not dilute any buffs from allies since she does not have insanely high self buffs which units like e.g. Asuka have).

Even if you don’t want to build her as DPS, you can expect a free 27% damage increase with small to huge healing by just putting her in your team, while she fills your burst bar around 3 seconds right after full burst ends. An ultimate unit for bossing, a force to be reckoned with. The Naga replacement in Crown teams for when the boss does not have core! An ultimate pick for Elysion tower, insane Burst Generation! An ultimate pick for PvP, since she has the highest burst generation in the game! A jack of all trades, a master of one (Burst Generation), and a very spicy Favorite Item story: Helm is a unit every account should aim to SR15 and Phase 3!

Should I get the Favorite Item for this unit?

YES! She should be the top priority to upgrade in Season 3 of Favorite Items. In Helm lies a new usable Meta Unit in all game modes! While it does take time to collect materials and upgrade in this new system, we recommend getting to Phase 1 for the added Burst Gen she provides in PvP, Phase 2 for her supportive power to be competitive enough to matter, and Phase 3 to further improve her DPS! If you are aiming to go for other treasures as well, we recommend getting Helm to at least Phase 2 on her favorite item to maximise her supportive capabilities.

Frontline Command [Phase 1]

■ Activates when the last bullet hits the target. Affects all allies.

Critical Rate of normal attacks ▲ 14.64% for 5 sec.

■ Activates when attacking with Full Charge. Affects all allies.

Recovers 0.59% of caster's final Max HP.

Fills Burst Gauge by 14.31%.

The heal is very small. To help you understand how small it is, we can use Naga as an example, who’s also a weak healer compared to other healers in-game. Naga can heal 9.58% of her Max HP every 5 shots to 3 targets, while Helm will do only 2.95% which is pretty much one third of Naga’s heal, and also Helm has at least 11% less HP than Naga, and her 5 shots require longer than 5 shots of Naga too.

The good part of this heal is consistent, and because it triggers per instance, you can use Helm to prolong some defensive buff, for example Crown’s S2 which required her to be healed to trigger. Or Nero’s S1 who gives her an insane amount of damage reduction every time she’s healed.

The strongest part of this skill lies in the Fill Burst Gauge. By shooting a full charge, Helm will increase your burst meter by an amount. This amount is doubled on Boss/Targets, allowing her to fill the whole bar with just 3 shots alone (Require S1 lv 10 and you control her), not to mention the help of other 4 allies. In Nikke, burst is the most important time frame, we want to burst as soon as possible (if CDR can allow it), but some teams just have very slow burst gen. Helm will fix all of this. No more tapping or finding weird spots to gain more burst. Just let her auto and you fill your bar before your burst can even cooldown.

The Helm in the video only has S1 at lv 8, hence she needs 4 shots.

Fire Away [Phase 2]

■ Affects all allies.

Damage to Interruption Parts ▲ 3.08% continuously.

■ Activates when entering Full Burst. Affects all allies.

Attack Damage ▲ 27.87% for 10 sec.

■ Activates when hitting a target with Full Charge. Affects the target.

Deals 178.98% of final ATK as additional damage.

The extra damage is just okay. It has some uses in PVP, where you can threaten Position 1 or 5 (depending on ATK or DEF) before your enemy can burst, but overall the damage is not that impressive. It’s just another incentive to let her auto, because fast tapping her feels pretty dumb when you not only lose her burst gen, but also lose extra damage.

The increased Attack Damage buff, on the other hand, is more than welcome. Most meta supporters now can buff teams around 40 ~ 80% damage buff, so the 27% is not something amazing, but do note that Helm is not a supporter. She’s a healer who can buff team (sounds like Blanc) but also can deal meaningful DPS overtime too.

Because her S2 deals extra damage, so it also helps with burst gen too. Pushing her treasure to Phase 2 will turn her into the highest burst gen in PVP right now, as you can see with this table.

Faster than Jackal is not a normal feat, at all

Aegis Cannon [Phase 3]

When Burningum heard that Aegis Cannon was just a meme, he upgraded it. Now it returns, becoming a force to be reckoned with.

■ Affects the enemy with the highest ATK.

Deals 8236.8% of final ATK as damage.

■ Affects all allies.

Recovers 54.45% of attack damage as HP for 10 sec.

■ Affects self.

Charge Damage Multiplier ▲ 158.4% for 10 round(s).

Phase 3 is purely for her own DPS, that’s why if you don’t plan to use her as a DPS, you don’t need to rush this phase. Let’s break down the skill.

Firstly, Helm’s burst gains way more damage multiplier. To be exact, she gains 565% damage by just upgrading this skill. If we compare it with highest burst multiplier in this game which are

• Snow White burst: 5000% ATK
• Laplace Treasure version: 8105% ATK
• XMaiden: 16473.6% ATK
• Cinderella: 16549.2% ATK

Those skills are considered high burst damage, with Laplace and Snow White having more edge when you can pierce enemies. Looking at how Shift Up avoids pierce parts these days, we can safely assume for now that single target instance of damage is quite meta right now. Her burst won’t be as absurd as Cinderella, but it can easily overcome XMaiden (because Maiden needs to stack her MP). Do note that Helm burst is not just about damage - it also gives lifesteal that pretty much makes your team immortal during that window.

The charge damage part is a bit tricky. We have another character giving this buff too - That’s Admi (and also the favorite items for Sniper Rifles). The number means if your Helm has 250% charge damage, this burst won’t make it become 250% + 158.4%, it will become 250% x (1 + 158.4%) = 646% charge damage, making this charge damage buff quite effectively on her.

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

Helm is a jack of all trades — a healer packed with damage-boosting capabilities and burst gen potential. The easy-to-use not-terrain-reliant burst gen allows her to fit in teams that struggle with burst generation. For this reason, we can consider her an alternative off-burst unit over Naga when paired with Crown.

However, in the overall meta, we have to focus on higher deficits, where our stat is reduced. While Helm's ATK DMG is substantial and she can also trigger Crown's passives, it will be hard to justify sacrificing Naga's insane core damage for her. Naga, overall, offers more damage in most situations. However, your mileage might vary as, depending on your DPS and your investment on Naga (skills/cores/CP for padding), you might deal more damage with one or another. For most people, it is far more likely their Helm will have a higher CP, thus less penalty, but this does not always mean increased damage.

In the tryhard meta, she is a suitable replacement for players that do not have Naga invested into, but since core is always prevalent in Campaign, Helm unfortunately cannot compete with an invested Naga. With units like Alice and Red Hood having nearly permanent spots in Campaign, they take over the job of Burst Generation, leaving Helm’s main point in the dust. Helm in higher deficits is slightly less optimal to use than Naga. However, she is close enough to be a decent enough replacement for the majority of the playerbase. On some stages, she can prove to be better than Naga! If you're looking to try and auto at Higher Deficits, there is probably no better unit to place in the off burst slot than an invested Helm with a Phase 2 Favorite Item!

Bossing - SS

On a single target boss, HelmT at Phase 3 shines significantly. Her burst has a very high damage nuke, and there is an added value of extremely high charge damage buffs afterward that allow her to deal devastating damage. She can generate way too much burst gen to fill in your burst bar, and on water weak enemies (without core, duh), she should be one of the top Water DPS, if not the best (depends on Overload gear effects and skill investments). And not just that, bursting with her means that she allows all of the team to heal up back to full! And if you thought that’s all, it isn’t! On bosses without core or very low core uptime, whatever element the boss is, HelmT at Phase 2 should be the best off-burst unit in the Crown team to buff your main B3s.

PVP - SSS

The power HelmT at Phase 2 has in generating burst (it’s just too much burst gen) alone guarantees her to be at least SS. Then she buffs, snipes hard, and allows for stall. Her damage is so stupid that you can run some specific comps and just snipe their DPS at 2 RL, as well as stall the enemies. She allows for a ton of new 2RL comps which used to be 2.5~3RL before her. Insane burst gen! She is our new entry in the SSS tier, and is here to stay in it. HelmT is a must have for Champions Arena, SP Arena, and can be a solid option for Rookie Arena as well.

Gear Investments

As an auto character, Helm doesn’t require much ammo (because SR takes forever to charge a shot). You can go with a charge speed route instead to help her in PVP. You can even go with a Crit Rate route to help her nuke bonk harder too.

• Ideal: 4x Ele, 4x ATK
• Filler: 4x Crit Rate/Damage, 4x Charge Speed, 1× Ammo
• Priority: Meta

Charge Speed is meta for PvP. Crit Rate/Damage is more of a PvE route. 1× Ammo with a value of 60%+ can help for burst rotations as she gets 10 ammo, which allows her to shoot 7 bullets during full burst, and 3 ammo to get to the next burst rotation!

Skill Investments

Helm is so easy to build, in many ways. You can use her as a PVP unit which only needs a high skill 1, medium skill 2 and low burst. Or you can run her as a non burst buffer which means only skill 2 is required. Of course, you can go full build Helm at 10/10/10 too.

• Skill 1: 4/7/10
• Pour as many skill books as you can here if you want to put her as battery in PVP. For PVE, she’s fine at 7, heck, even 4.
• Skill 2: 4/7/10
• This skill gives an Attack Damage buff while giving Helm extra DPS. Good skill to upgrade, can stop at 7 first then finish to 10 later on when one has extra skill books available.
• Burst Skill:4/7/10
• Do you want to bonk a Rapture? (It doesn’t have to be a Rapture!) Go as high as possible to improve her performance in PvE.

Suggested Progression Path

 

PVE Investment

PVP Investment

Priority

Helm (Treasure)

PVE investment

4/4/4 → 7/4/4 → 10/10/4 (→ 10/10/10)

PVP investment

4/4/4 → 4/4/4 → 7/7/7 (→ 7/10/10)

Priority

Medium

Cube Investments

For PvP: Her burst gen is so huge that Quantum becomes very impactful on her.

For PvE: Typical Cube for DPS. Slap it on her if you want to go DPS build.

Team #1: Aegis Cannon, Fire!

Burst 2

Burst 1

Burst 3

Burst 3

Burst 2

or

Burst 2

Burst 1

Burst 3

Burst 3

Burst 3

Bossing Team. The Water DPS team features Phase 3 HelmTr as its main DPS. Super strong on single target water weak bosses.

Team #2: Toss a coin to your Admiral, Beat the Harvester!

Burst 2

Burst 1

Burst 3

Burst 3

Burst 3

A very few still have Helm at Phase 3 Treasure. In cases where players only have Phase 2 Helm Treasure, let's stick with Helm as non burst support. This team can kill harvester AI with ease once you have decently invested OL and skills

Team #3: Elysion Tower Meta

Burst 2

Burst 2

Burst 1

Burst 3

Burst 2

or

Burst 2

Burst 2

Burst 1

Burst 3

Burst 3

Redefining burst generation in Elysion Tower, Helm really does it all! She can even act alongside Mast Anchor to provide immense Heal for the team as RRH destroys the enemy raptures.

How fast can you go?

Burst 2

Burst 1

Burst 3

Burst 3

Burst 3

2 RL comp that instantly swipes everything once Cinderella bursts.

Can you get past it?

Burst 1

Burst 2

Burst 3

Burst 3

Burst 3

Thanks to Helm, we now can even push the Noise Noah XXX combo into 2 RL. This comp is just insane. It has stalls, it has a huge nuke, and it has huge follow-up attacks from Cinderella too.