Phantom Guide & Review

The thief outcast of Master Hand who unfortunately missed out on the fun because ShiftUp randomly decided to launch Solo Raid one day earlier this time. She is a Water B3 DPS from Elysion who uses cards to inflict debuffs on enemies and collect buffs for herself. She can later consume these buffs and debuffs to deal additional damage. Her special move, Secret Trick: Rampage of Thieves, allows her to deal a good amount of Distributed Damage.

Can you give a brief summary about this unit?

In short, she is weak. Her kit looks mint at first glance, but then you realize there are several glaring problems: low basic attack ratio, long reload times, skills requiring more than one target to be optimal, mediocre Burst Skill, and many other problems that will quickly surface the moment you start analyzing her skills.

Let's first talk about her DPS. Mathematically, against single targets, she deals less damage than Scarlet. Phantom's low innate basic attack ratio, in tandem with her inability to trigger some of her skills, results in an underwhelming MPS (multiplier per second). The worst part is, whereas Scarlet can still be "reinstated into meta" by deploying SAnis with her, Phantom does not have an enabler yet. Even Bunny Alice, who can technically refresh her stacks against single targets, will not lead to a massive uptick in damage output.

Things become slightly better when calculating her damage against multiple targets. This is because she can naturally and repetitively inflict Calling Card and constantly removing them to deal Additional Damage. However, to continually inflict this damage, you must spread your shots among multiple enemies, which means she is far from being auto-friendly. A minimum of 3 enemies is needed, otherwise with 2 enemies, you are forced to wait 5 seconds between triggers.

Should I pull this unit?

We think the answer is a resounding: NO. The major reason? Nikke's 2nd Anniversary is VERY close, but that's not all. Phantom is a non-limited character, which goes in our favor in that there is no serious harm skipping her since we can simply wishlist once she enters the default pool. What is even more in our favor is the fact that her use in the meta is, in fact, limited.

While she can be used in all formats, she does not match top units in almost any scenario, especially in ease-of-use. Sure, she might see use in Water-Weak Raids and obviously Elysion Tower, where she likely shines the most due to having many mobs. However, we believe she will not immensely improve your scores or the number of floors you manage to push. With Red Hood having set the standard in the first anniversary, the chance of the upcoming anniversary unit to be broken is extremely high.

If you do decide to pull her because you are preparing for Water-Weak Raids and/or Elysion Tower pushing, we strictly advise you NOT to use your Golden Mileage for her, since she is absolutely not worth the Mileage.

Before we dwell deep into her kit, please take a look at this peak gameplay clip, which represents the idle game NIKKE (they say).

Theoretically, she can deal more damage than Scarlet: Black Shadow. The problem is: how she can achieve that?

Thifes' Calilgn Kda

■ Activates when hitting a Rapture with a normal attack if the Rapture is not in Calling Card status. Affects the target.

Calling Card: DEF ▼ 32.19% for 5 sec.

■ Activates when hitting a Rapture with a normal attack if the Rapture is not in Calling Card status. Affects self.

Thief's Dagger: Hit Rate ▲ 25.75%, stacks up to 3 time(s) and lasts for 5 sec.

■ Activates when hitting a target with a normal attack if the target is in Calling Card status. Effects self.

Attack damage ▲ 75.17% for 1 round(s).

Whenever Phantom hits a Rapture without the debuff Calling Card, she inflicts them with Calling Card for 5s and obtains one stack of the buff Thief's Dagger for 5s, up to 3 stacks. The debuffed Rapture has lowered DEF, whereas Phantom gains increased Hit Rate. Since this skill requires hitting a non-debuffed Rapture to stack, it is technically impossible to achieve maximum stacks of Thief's Dagger without having multiple mobs. Therefore, to be optimal, this skill requires hitting 2-3 different Raptures (NIKKEs don't count), but you still get bonus ATK DMG if hitting a Rapture with Calling Card over and over again. The procedure is:

• Hit a non-debuffed Rapture to inflict Calling Card and gain 1 stack of Thief's Dagger. Hitting a Rapture which has Calling Card will not gain her Thief's Dagger but instead increases her ATK DMG.
• Accumulate 3 stacks of Thief's Dagger.
• Upon reaching max stacks of Thief's Dagger, up to 3 enemies who are inflicted with Calling Card will take Additional Damage, removing the debuff.
• The buff Thief's Dagger is then cleared, and Phantom gains Distributed DMG buff from Skill 2.

The kit feels pretty complicated because it forces you to switch between enemies to maximize its potential. On one side, you can keep spray-firing to abuse the Additional Damage as much as possible. On the other hand, you can also keep firing at one target to abuse the ATK DMG buff aforementioned.

In terms of Hit Rate, Phantom will need at least 2 stacks of Thief's Dagger to match Quency: Escape Queen's Hit Rate. This means against solo bosses, she will have less Hit Rate than Quency and thus not be able to core-hit as much as QEQ. Before testing, we thought the HR at maximum (75%) was great, but soon we realized that the Hit Rate basically cleared itself the instant it reached 3 stacks, so the maximum she can maintain is only 2 stacks. And EVEN THEN, she requires 2 different Raptures to maintain. Most of the time, it's 1 stack so she's just a worse QEQ here.

Tfieh's Vsiion

■ Activates when Thief's Dagger is fully stacked. Affects the target(s) in Calling Card status after the stacks are removed.

Deals 84.33% of final ATK as additional damage. Calling Card status is removed after the effect is triggered.

■ Activates when Thief's Dagger is fully stacked. Affects self after the stacks are removed

Distributed Damage ▲ 12.86% continuously, stacks up to 3 time(s). Stacks are removed after Burst Skill is cast.

■ Activates after landing 10 normal attack(s). Effects self.

ATK▲ 85.12% for 5 sec.

Distributed Damage ▲ 31.92% for 10 sec.

This is where we enjoy the peak idle gameplay - (Spoiler Alert: you don't)! This skill answers why Skill 1 stacks are cleared immediately by the time it reaches 3 - Phantom will detonate the debuff on all Raptures (lol it's 3), deals some bonus damage on them, then give herself a whatever amount of Distributed Damage ▲ buff. This buff can stack up to 3 times so you need to detonate at least 3 times to reach this max, then it will add up and clear itself when Phantom burst. The buff is meh, let's take a look at the bonus damage.

• Situation: Over 6.3s.
• Scarlet: Black Shadow hits 9 times, dealing 9 x 85.93% ATK + 1500.94% ATK ~ 773.37% ATK + 1500.94% ATK.
• Phantom hits 75 times, dealing 25 x 15.78% + 84.33% ATK x 25 ~ 394.5% ATK + 2108.25% ATK.
• SBS has ATK buff, Charge DMG buff, and shorter damage interval during her burst.
• Phantom can deal that much damage with Attack Damage + ATK buff on any burst.

As you can see, Phantom output is very high and stable, in exchange for your mentality. You need to

• Find 3 Raptures.
• Switch between them every 0.083s (because AR shoots 12 ammo per sec).
• Or pause between each hit and move your crossfire to next target.

Overall, it's just peak. Thank you, Ingrid.

Screet Trikc: Rmapaeg of Tiehves!

■ Affects all enemies.

Deals 1457.28% of final ATK as Distributed Damage.

A very meh burst, likely more meh than Scarlet's (because Scarlet's wipe is undivided). To be fair, her Burst Skill damage is even worse than Quency: Escape Queen, so you don't have to rely on her Nuke to screen-wipe in PVP either. You burst because it's Phantom's turn, but she's perfectly line working as an off-burst DPS.

Campaign (LD) - S | Campaign (HD) - A

Phantom expresses interest in dealing serious damage in this game mode, but do try to understand that she is extremely hard and annoying to use. On Water-Weak Stages, phantom can effectively be used as a DPS and may even be used as an off-burst DPS. The idea is to pause spam and change your cursor position to hit different raptures, as shown in the video clip at the start of this guide. At the same time, you can burst with Red Hood or Modernia or SBS or Asuka or whoever you want to, but NOT Alice! The problem here is that manual intensive units will interfere with other manual intensive units. Phantom requires extreme babysitting (manual gameplay) to work, same as Alice. Hence, it is better to use units that don't require manualing alongside Phantom; some prominent names have already been told above.

While Phantom is a good shout for Water-Weak Stages, with absolute perfect gameplay and build, she may even be a choice for neutral element stages. Taking everything into consideration, Phantom is by far the best B3 unit for Elysion Tower, and if you want to actually tryhard the tower, Phantom IS the way to go.

Bossing - A

We will be judging this Nikke based on two major points: Boss (Solo) and Boss (Adds), with the major focus being on Boss (Solo) since it's far more prevalent and relevant. Phantom wants multiple Raptures on the screen to reach her peak, or well, reach any peak at all. She is considerably weaker compared to the likes of Ludmilla: Winter Owner and Quency: Escape Queen against Solo Bosses, all because of the fact that she cannot stack her thieving ability if only a single target rapture exists on the screen. That said, she should still deal enough DPS if properly built (skills and OL lines) to fit in a Water-Weak Solo Raid, so if you plan to tryhard, Phantom gets in your Top 5 teams.

Phantom closes in with her water partners (xLud and QeQ) when bosses with adds are considered, since she can now stack up her Thief's Dagger ability. With this, she can possibly (with highly managed gameplay and with enough Raptures on the screen, of course) reach to new heights, and compete with others in terms of overall damage dealt. Lucky for her, Harvester exists. Unlucky for her, Quency and XLudmilla with Liter and Crown are enough to reach Stage 9 on Harvester!

PVP - B

Phantom is not a good unit for PvP since her Nuke is too weak and her single target damage is towards the lower end. Her Skill 1 does not work in PvP since there are no Raptures. Because of this, she is definitely bench material in the overall meta. Even so, you may still use her as a Nuke + Follow-Up Damage Dealer with Blanc if you have an incomplete PvP roster.

Gear Investments

Phantom is your average DPS, and hence ATK and Elemental Damage are highly appreciated on her. Some Ammo rolls on her would allow her to reload less (her reload time is 2.0s+). If you plan to play perfectly with her in Campaign-type stages or on Bosses (with adds) stages, then we also suggest getting some Hit Rate to maximize core hits as well.

• Essential: 1-2× Max Ammo
• Ideal: 4× Elemental DMG, 4× ATK, 1-2× Max Ammo
• Passable: 2× Hit-Rate, 1-2× CRIT DMG, 1-2× CRIT Rate, 2× Ammo
• Priority: Low

Skill Investments

• Skill 1: 4→7→10
• Skill 1 provides Phantom with a permanent uptime Attack Damage buff, as well as a decent DEF down on the target. If adds are present, it will also buff her Hit Rate considerably, making this skill a high priority upgrade.
• Skill 2: 4→7→10
• Skill 2 provides, yet again, a high value offensive buff with permanent uptime. It is an ATK buff this time, diluting the amount of buffs she may get from ATK buffers as well. If you are fighting Bosses with Adds, this skill also gives her a Distributed Damage buff, and if you remember the skill analysis, can be a major source of damage output for Phantom - but only if you are able to perfectly play with Phantom on such stages. All in all, very high priority skill to upgrade for Phantom.
• Burst Skill: 4→7
• Her Burst Skill is the least part of her damage output. You can leave it at low values, but may upgrade it to 10 if you plan to minmax damage for raids, or if you are building Phantom for PvP for some reason.

Suggested Progression Path

 

PVE Investment

PVP Investment

Priority

Phantom

PVE investment

1/1/1 → 4/4/4 → 7/7/4 (→ 10/10/7)

PVP investment

1/1/1 → 1/7/7 → 1/10/10

Priority

Low

Cube Investments

Resilience and Bastion are the way to go.

Phantom has no special gimmicks. Resilience or Bastion fit her perfectly just fine. Bastion allows her to hit more bullets overall usually, but if Reload Speed buffers like Privaty or Crown are in the team, Resilience Cube is the better choice.

Team #1: A Wet Crown

Burst 3

Burst 3

Burst 3

Burst 2

Burst 1

Crown, with a Trifecta of Water Units. Liter/RedHood act as Burst 1 Units. Possible team for water weak campaign stages. Phantom's burst damage isn't much so it can be ignored, but she can deal immense damage with her Skill 2 with her 'perfect gameplay style'. With tons of Elemental OL, this team can possibly be a good choice for Water Weak stages.

Team #2: Schoolgirls are introduced a new career path: Robbery

Burst 1

Burst 1

Burst 2

Burst 3

Burst 3

B3

General Team 1 for Phantom. She can fit in the Tia-Naga team.

Team #3: Coin Loving 777 meets a Thief

Burst 3

B3

Burst 1

Burst 3

Burst 2

Burst 3

General Team 2 for Phantom, since she, like most DPS, fits in the Rouge-Blanc or Blanc-Noir combo

Team #4: Wo'ah Water Woteh

Burst 1

Burst 2

Burst 3

Burst 3

Burst 3

This team utilizes SMary's Elemental DMG buff to make QEQ more devastating, as well as her healing to keep the team healthy. The last two units are FLEX and can be other units, damage dealers & buffers alike. We use Phantom and XLud to showcase 3 Water DPS.

Team #1: The Nuke Team for Nukers

Burst 3

Burst 2

Burst 1

Burst 2

Burst 1

3RL Nuke. Prioritizes buffing Phantom to the max with both RH's Burst 1, and Blanc's Burst 2. Blanc will allow Phantom to deal any follow-up damage she can muster up the courage to deal.

Team #2: Zombie Queen

Burst 2

Burst 3

Burst 1

Burst 2

Burst 3

3RL Nuke. Aim is to revive Blanc when she eventually dies in P1, and opposing RLs should allow Phantom to get Indomitability from Blanc. This should pull off the nuke alongside any follow up damage Phantom can dish out.