Laplace (Treasure)
It has been a very long time since we first got our hands on the one and only: Hero of the Ark, Leader of Matis, and the favorite of Syuen, Laplace! When she first came, the world of Nikkes was new to us. For a lot of us, she was indeed the very hero portrayed in Chapter 18, as she helped us clear campaign, beat Grave Digger in Interception S, and more. However, as time progressed, we saw more units being released, and our Hero saw less and less use, eventually being pushed out of the meta completely. 1 year, 6 months, and 6 days later, she has her say yet again. It's fair to say that her fans have waited an eternity for this day. Now let's take a look together at how much she has improved thanks to her favorite item!
Can you give a brief summary about this unit?
Laplace cements herself currently in the top 10 DPS units! She will definitely have her say against Iron Weak Bosses from now on. She may also be used against other bosses, but it depends on whether pierceable parts exist. The point to note here is that her laser pierces and, hence, increases her damage substantially when there are more parts to hit. If there are no pierceable spots, Laplace can lose her spot to other DPS units if the element weakness is not in her favor.
Should I get the Favorite Item for this unit?
YES! She should be the top priority to upgrade in Season 1 of Favorite Items. In Laplace lies a new usable Meta Unit in all game modes (yes, even in PvP!). 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 DPS 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 Laplace to at least Phase 2 on her favorite item.
Kit Analysis
Laplace the PvP Gamer [Phase 1]
In Phase 1, Laplace's Skill 2 transforms from additional damage being a last bullet effect into one that requires full-charged shots to activate. While this is a decent buff for her damage in PvE content, it is even better for PvP content. This extra tick of damage will now proc whenever Laplace hits a shot on opponents and provide the team with extra Burst Generation! If you know PvP well, you can understand how important Burst Generation is! With Treasure, Laplace Burst Gen Rank increases to the #6 spot, just below Clip SGs! Finally, since this new mechanic is based on fully charging Laplace's shots, she can be considered as Auto-Friendly. However, in PvE, you may play her like Trony, with a mix of fully charged shots as well as Quick Scopes to maximize her potential. Remember to have Skill 1 always fully stacked!
The Hero Arrives! [Phase 2]
Phase 2 is where Laplace gets her PvE breakthrough. The standout changes are to Laplace's laser, which is her weapon change during Burst. It now lasts for 10 seconds instead of the old 5 seconds! This is an immense buff to her damage since her laser is the majority of her DPS. This is the buff that she has been waiting for. Something that, from what we remember, was taken away from her just before she was released to the public all those months ago! But that's not all. The second change to her Burst further improves her DPS. An additional effect now occurs when Laplace enters her Burst with her S1 at full stacks, which is that all of her damage from the laser is converted into True Damage! All of this combines to help Laplace regain her standing in the current Meta. While she is no Red Hood, she is now a worthy competitor to many DPS units, such as Scarlet or Summer Anis.
It is worthy to note that if Laplace's Skill 1 is fully stacked before entering her own Burst, all the damage ticks from skills and laser during her own Burst will be True Damage. True Damage is damage that completely ignores the DEF values of the opponent (i.e., considers the DEF value of the opponent as 0). If Laplace loses her S1 stacks during Burst, her True Damage effects will remain. The only thing that stops proccing is the extra 11.9% damage per tick, which is directly based on her Skill 1 stacks and needs Phase 3 treasure for maximum uptime.
Hero Binoculars [Phase 3]
In Phase 3, Laplace extends the duration of Skill 1's "Hero Vision," which now lasts 15s instead of the old 5s. This increases the uptime of her Range Buff, but more importantly, it increases the duration of the True Damage tick by 5 seconds. Since Laplace shoots at an increased fire rate with her laser during her own Burst, this is an upgrade to her damage during Burst. While not a substantial buff, it is a decent 1100%+ of True Damage on a single opponent, which is multiplied along with the number of parts Laplace hits!
Tier List
Important findings about Laplace
It is very important to understand some things about Laplace. Currently, there is misinformation among the community that Laplace is bugged. However, this is NOT the case. Laplace is NOT bugged. The misinformation is present due to visual bugs, which do not show the Part Damage Numbers that are a part of Laplace's Skill 2, and only show the True Damage numbers. Very rarely, you may see these Part Damage ticks appear. However, the most solid proof of this is comparing her damage with and without Skill 1 fully stacked against a boss with parts from damage charts (which you can see when you pause the game). Back-tracking calculations show that Laplace Skill 2 works normally!
Campaign (HD) - SS
Laplace can do some serious damage, and the best part is that she can only get better the higher the deficit goes. The main drawback here about Laplace is that she cannot cover during her own Burst. This is a critical point since a lot of times there are one-shot attacks that you need to cover from to survive. Moreso, while she can deal good damage but cannot compete with the likes of Alice or Modernia, until she is either on element or unless you are in ultra-high deficits, which are now extremely harder to reach due to the new update with Overload effects inflating Combat Power. Regardless, while Laplace may not be the best choice for every situation, she is a strong contendor to be used in various situations.
Campaign (LD) - SS
Laplace can perform extremely well in Low Deficits. Previously, lower Deficits were defined to be a walk in the park if you had certain units. Now, however, 25–30% deficits can prove to be extremely tough conditions, similar to what 35-37% deficits used to be before the CP update. Regardless, just like in High Deficit, Laplace remains a strong contender for the top spot in Campaign! Expect a change in definitions for Low Deficit and High Deficit campaign on the website soon!
Boss (Solo) - SS
This is where Laplace should shine the most! Raids are the cornerstone of measuring how well a Nikke performs compared to other units. Laplace performs at a very good level against most Tyrant Class Bosses! What makes her good is what makes Red Hood, Alice, Snow White and Maxwell good: Pierce! Laplace's usability can vary sharply according to the stage situation against Solo Bosses, some of which can be found as follows:
Firstly, she loves to go up against Iron Weak Bosses! Make sure to have those Elemental Damage rolls on her OL gear for this! In this case, she should easily be able to overtake the likes of even Modernia in damage! However, on neutral grounds, Modernia should be able to defeat Laplace whenever there are no pierceable parts. When there is a core available, Modernia's damage skyrockets, at which point Laplace needs pierceable parts to come near her damage. When there is one pierce available, Laplace should be able to compete with Modernia in terms of damage. In cases where Laplace can pierce two or more parts together (such as against Heavy Metal or Ultra), Laplace pulls away ahead!
In other comparisons with notable units like Scarlet or S.Anis, Laplace can do similar damage to both of them, if not more. Whenever there are pierceable parts, Laplace will simply do more damage than them, unless the element favors Scarlet and S.Anis. Another unique comparison can be made to Scarlet: Black Shadow. If SBS is not paired with Alice, Laplace piercing just 1 part + body can allow her to reach equal damage to SBS! Nevertheless, SBS pulls ahead if she has Alice with her. In all these cases, however, Laplace can do more damage comparatively if the element favors her and she has at least 1 pierce available!
Boss (Adds) - SS
Bosses with additional raptures are less likely to have additional parts to pierce in Nikke. Adding to that, the stage designs are also more likely to be similar to campaign, where the competition to fit in the 5 slots of a team is a lot tougher compared to 3-5 teams of Raids or PvP. However, Laplace is still an excellent choice for these stages since she can handle small raptures with quite ease and can also deal good damage to the boss.
PVP - SS
While Laplace is not the best Nikke to Burst with, with this new treasure update, she is one of the best Nikkes to provide Burst Generation to the team! The extra-damage tick is also excellent for pressuring P1 and P2 units. Hence, due to this extra damage as well as the extra Burst Gen, Laplace is now considered an excellent PvP unit.
Investments
Gear Investments
Notes
Elemental Damage and ATK are the basic food of any good DPS in Nikke. 1-2× Max Ammo are good to reduce the number of Reloads Laplace does. Meanwhile, if you manage to obtain 21%+ Charge Speed through Overload Gear, she can provide extremely high Burst Generation for your team in PvP. This can possibly increase her rank in the Burst Generation up to the Top 5, right above Clip Shotguns!
Skill Investments
- Skill 1: 1~4
- While this skill is essential to Laplace's kit, this is the most useless part of her kit in terms of value for upgrading. You can leave this at lvl 1 if you like, or upgrade it to lvl 4 for CP padding.
- Skill 2: 4/7/10
- The new change of Skill 2's additional damage now being Full Charged based makes it more worth it to upgrade this skill.
- Burst Skill: 10
- With the new laser duration, there is no question about it. Laplace Burst needs to be maxed out to maximize her potential DPS.
Suggested Progression Path
Cube Investments
Resilience Cube should be the best option for Laplace in PvE content. In PvP, she can make good use of the Charge Speed Cube as well.
PvE Team Compositions
Team #1: The King and Her Subjects
General Campaign team. This team should strike fear in the hearts of any Electric Element Rapture! Once you have Elemental Damage rolls on Laplace's OL gear, she can be used to good effect on Iron Weak stages. To make this a team for Bosses, you can swap out Naga for S.Helm, and instead strike terror in the hearts of any Electric Element Boss (since they are weak to Iron).
Team #2: Schoolgirls meet the Hero!
Laplace is an RL, so her accuracy is absolutely pinpoint. Hence, even at far range she is able to core hit extremely effectively, just like an MG or SR unit! Hence, using her with Tia Naga is highly effective!
Team #3: A good RL unit? Rem approves!
Laplace lacks innate ATK buffs. As a result, she scales extremely well with them! Hence, Rem and Liter's ATK buffs are of high value to Laplace. Not only that, Rem can heal Laplace very effectively, and allows. Now all that is left is for Shiftup to fill in the other 2 spots for this team.
Team #4: True Damage Team(?)
This team is incomplete at the moment due to their being only one DPS unit that does true damage. Hence, we need one more B3 unit to fill in the remaining spot. The flex spot can most probably be a CDR unit, such as Dolla or Summer Helm. Maybe in the future Shift Up will decide to release a True Damage DPS B3 unit, this team can be extremely relevant in terms of what we consider Meta for Boss Raids. Regardless, this team requires immense investment as it needs both Laplace Treasure at Phase 2 at least, as well Frima Treasure at Phase 3!
PvP Team Compositions
Team #1: 2.5RL Scarlet Nuke
Quantum Cube lv 7 on Jackal, Centi and Laplace. Basic 'Fast Nuke' team to save you a Clip RL (Anis or Emilia) for other teams. Laplace adds extra pressure on P1+P2 with her
Team #2: 3RL Emilia Nuke
Vigor Cube on Blanc. This team has a lot of hidden damage from Emilia + Laplace. A2 can add to the pressure on P1+P2 (and even P3). Noir will instead target P5. Blanc needs Vigor cube to survive the onslaught, however RedHood can use her B2 in case she dies, still allowing Laplace and Noir/A2 to deal decent damage to the opponent team.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Good Burst Generation (slightly below Clip SG)
- Hits hard, and will be even stronger if she can pierce.
- True Damage helps her a lot on high penalty stages and in Raids.
- Her burst laser has pin point accuracy.
- The Ark's Hero!
Cons
- She requires a lot of investment, even more than top meta DPS now to even work (Favorite Item System).
- Her damage is only on okay level without pierce.
- Her burst needs 5 full charge S1, which means you mostly won't burst her first.
- Can't cover during burst, literally Do or Die. Very harsh quality to have for High Deficit Campaign.
- Her burst's fire rate is affected by DPS, just like any MG. Low FPS = Low DPS.
- Window Breaker...