Sakura: Bloom in Summer guide & review

The summer version of our charismatic Underworld Queens, heralded by the vivacious head of Seimeikai, is making their second debut in the tropical islands! While the scorching heat and blistering sands may be a deterrent, nothing compares to a tranquil oasis off the urban haze. Sakura is enlivening the coast with newfound look and armament, allowing her to become just the formidable DPS that applies serious debuffs, dealing sustained damage to her opposition through breaking parts and whatnot.

Can you give a brief summary about this unit?

Sakura's summer version, or S. Sakura, is reborn as a DPS unit instead of her Support roots. Her main focus will be on Solo Bosses, since she gets worse if the number of enemies is high. Against Bosses, she gets better when the boss has regenerating parts. If the Element is in her favor as well, she can outdamage most meta units if she comes properly invested, even against the mighty Modernia! In neutral conditions, however, she performs at the level of Scarlet, except just slightly better and without the threat of HP drain. This makes S. Sakura one of the top picks for Solo Raids, but that's not all! Her performance in PvP is not to be underestimated, as she can be used to wipe enemy units as a nuker! Beware of Noah, however, since she can completely neutralize S. Sakura!

Should I pull this unit?

We believe in a simple: Yes! We are at a point in Nikke where Elemental Advantage in Solo Raid is becoming more and more important. Teams are becoming more coherent. We have seen some prominent DPS units dropping out and coming back in depending on the element of the boss! An example of this is none other than Scarlet, who now is a shadow of her once dominant former self, but still always has a spot whenever there is an Electric-Weak raid. Similarly, we do not have a lot of Wind DPS. Realistically, we only have Scarlet: Black Shadow, and Guilty if you want to be generous. The remaining slots are filled with the usual DPS like RH, Alice, Modernia etc. But now, S. Sakura can outdamage some prominent units, and thus will come into play against Wind Weak Solo Raid Bosses! Rest assured, when properly built, she will display exceptional results.

Pull a copy if you're new and lack a DPS unit for raids. Pull a copy if you are an old player since we're moving towards Element-based meta! One copy should suffice if you want to have an easier time aiming for higher rankings in Raids. If you main campaign and do not want to focus on Raids and PvP, you may skip her. As for duplicates, first and foremost, we must praise how good looking she and her MLB lobby screen are! Other reasons to go for dupes include aiming for Top 200 in Solo Raids, or if you take PvP seriously, since dupes contribute a lot to CP.

Sakura is a sustained damage dealer who blights enemies with her trademark Sakura Petals, a DoT debuff that drains HP every second. Sakura automatically applies this debuff to the highest ATK enemy every 30 seconds and also boosts her ATK damage at the same time. Moreover, if she or an ally destroys a boss's part, the duration of this buff and debuff is extended, prolonging the mayhem they bring about.

What is Damage-Over-Time (DoT) debuff?

Entities afflicted with DoT will take a certain amount of damage every second until the debuff timer runs out. The damage per second is based on the ATK value of the unit inflicting it in real time and updates throughout its duration. Providing damage-enhancing buffs after it is applied does wonders.

DoT won't be increased by Bonus Range or Core Hit (obviously), but CRIT, Full Burst Bonus, Elemental DMG, Attack Damage, ATK Buffs, and Damage Taken all do increase its effectiveness. Since DoT is a debuff, it can therefore be cleansed as well. It works similar to Nihilister's. This information can be useful for Arena if you plan to use her there (or fight against her).

If we take her percentages at face value, she has a decent output, rivalling that of Modernia but slightly lower if enemy presents favorable conditions to Modernia (core, etc). Most of her damage comes from Skill 2 and Burst Skill. This means she is somewhat bursty, and her damage would see a significant jump after using Burst Skill. However, it is not as apparent as that from Red Hood or Alice. Her Skill 2 will deal continuous damage as long as the team continues to break parts, while her Burst Skill is not as reliant.

However, wielding an Assault Rifle, Sakura may not be the best when it comes to breaking miniature parts herself. Against Mother Whale's, for example, she would have a hard time destroying them. On the other hand, cracking gigantic parts like Alteisen's in close range would be effortless. Hence, she may require another DPS to help destroy parts faster.

Sakura's kit boasts beefy numbers. Huge multipliers. Her Burst Skill alone deals a total of X,XXX% of caster's ATK as damage in total against single targets, which is incredibly high! This also does not factor in her Skill 2, which deals a lot of continuous damage. Her percentages are indeed very promising!

Since Sakura's kit boasts astronomical numbers yet lacks ATK buffs, she scales well with them, allowing her performance to skyrocket in the right setup. That means, when obtaining OL or pairing supports, prioritize ATK buffs more than anything else. You also ideally want ATK buffs that are long so that you will not have to worry about S2 timings. Another good thing about her is that she is not reliant on Max Ammo as most DPS are (everything is tied to part breaking).

Just from the kits themselves, we would highly recommend pairing her with Rosanna: Chic Ocean. She offers consistent ATK buffs and Parts Damage boost that would help Sakura trigger her S2 more often. If no Rosanna, you can explore other options like Tia & Naga or Blanc & Noir. The best option is obviously Crown. However, using Rosanna: Chic Ocean offers a plethora of advantages, such as making the other supports available for other units. A unit should not be compared with the most optimal supports but rather the support pairings they usually get.

It is also important to understand that her Burst Skill deals damage sequentially to a random enemy 10 times within 2.2s (0.22s/hit). This means it reapplies DoT from time to time, increasing its debuff stacks, maxing at 10. As it is stack-based, and stacks are NOT independent, her Burst Skill's damage will be significantly higher against single targets. This is because, if there are multiple enemies, her Burst Skill will instead cycle through enemies before going back to the primary target. Timers are also refreshed, meaning that her DoT actually lasts around 12.2s as the final refresh occurs at 2.2s after Full Burst begins. If there are less than 10 enemy units, let's say 5 units in PvP, the nuke attacks them in a random order, and then the units are hit again in the same order as before.

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

S. Sakura faces a big problem in campaign-type stages, something we have witnessed before with Scarlet: Black Shadow. Her damage that comes from her burst, which can stack DoT if it hits the same enemy, is divided into 10. It tries to hit 10 units, and if it can't, it constantly hits the available targets in a cycle. On a Solo Boss, her burst can target the same single enemy and do big numbers every second the DoT procs. However, when there are more enemies available, she does the same amount of damage, but it gets diluted (similar to how distributed damage becomes diluted the more enemies are on the screen). Unfortunately, in the case of SSakura, she does not hit as hard as SBS, not even close if we are being honest. Additionally, due to her not having inherent ATK buffs, her performance starts lagging behind in High Deficit Campaign as well. As a result of all this, her damage gets extremely diluted, making her an extremely hard unit to use for Campaign.

Boss (Solo) - SS | Boss (Adds) - S

S. Sakura's domain is against Bosses. If we go into specifics, it is against Bosses that either have abundance of parts (that regularly respawn), or are weak to the Wind Element. She can easily outshine most prominent units, such as Scarlet. SSakura performs exceptionally well against single targets, and can prove to be a competitor of none other than our well known Queen, Modernia! If you play on a lower FPS, she will easily outshine Modernia. However, in a 60 FPS, neutral element environment, against a Boss that has no parts but has a core, Modernia will dominate SSakura. But.. the more you start going in favour of SSakura, the closer, if not better, SSakura starts to become! If you add Boss Parts, she gets closer in damage, and if you happen to make that Boss Wind-Weak, she comes even closer! Mix both of them, and at her peak, SSakura should be able to edge out Modernia in DPS! Against Bosses with Adds, she is still a strong pick, but her usability is comparatively lower due to her damage getting because of the smaller raptures present on the screen.

Damage Comparison vs Scarlet Against Solo Bosses:

PVP - SS

S. Sakura is a strong choice in PvP as a main B3. Contrary to her use in PvE as a DoT unit, she will shine in PvP as a Nuker! In the showcase video below, you can see how strong her nuke is. However, this does not show the downside of using her. Her ~4000% nuke happens to be divided into 10 shots over 2.2 seconds, and the targets each individual ~400% part of the nuke in a random order, one by one. An advantage of this is that her nuke cannot be taunted onto one target, and instead moves in a cycle which hits all 5 units. The worst part about this is the fact that her Nuke is divided into 5 units. However, some things that go in favour of SSakura are the facts that her damage that comes from her Skill 2 is of high value and targets the Highest ATK unit of the opponents. If the nuke hits the Highest ATK unit fast, paired with the S2 damage, it is a confirmed kill! Not only that, she scales well with ATK buffs, and also does DoT on the units targeted by her nuke, so anyone left on low HP is also guaranteed a sure fire death!

The major counter to S. Sakura will be Noah, who can completely shut-down Sakura's Nuke, and as a result, shuts the window on any plan you had on beating the opponent team. Scarlet is also a decent opponent against SSakura, since she is AR, and also does damage over time to Scarlet herself. This goes in favour of Scarlet due to her own Skill 2, which has a chance of counterattacks which do deathly damage in PvP.

Gear Investments

Sakura's OL requirements are relatively simple. Just ATK and Elemental DMG (staple for DPS). Nothing else. She is not reliant on Max Ammo. However, we discovered her DoT can CRIT, so CRIT lines are passable.

• Essential: -
• Ideal: 4× Elemental DMG and 4× ATK
• Passable: 4× CRIT Rate, 4× CRIT DMG
• Priority: Medium

Skill Investments

• Skill 1: 5-7
• At level 5, breaking 2 parts every 30 seconds can provide permanent uptime for her Skill 2. However, you may upgrade it to level 7 for the minor extra sustained damage buff, as well as to maximize uptime when there is only 1 part break every 30 seconds.
• Skill 2: 7~10
• Skill 2 is where most of her DPS output comes from. Eventually max out this skill to take full benefit of the Attack Damage Buff, as well as the DoT skill.
• Burst Skill: 7~10
• Her Burst Skill is also a major chunk of her damage output. It especially comes into play in PvP. Apart from that, this skill also has a DoT, which adds substantial damage. Eventually max out this skill as well to take full advantage of her skills.

Suggested Progression Path

 

PVE Investment

PVP Investment

Priority

Sakura: Bloom in Summer

PVE investment

1/1/1 → 4/4/4 → 5/7/7 (→ 7/10/10)

PVP investment

1/1/1 → 1/4/4 → 1/7/7 (→ 1/10/10)

Priority

Medium

Cube Investments

S. Sakura does not particularly require any cube. Any generic cube works on her, but Bastion will allow her to shoot more bullets over 3 minutes. Despite that, it is recommended to use the highest level cube available for the ATK (and Elemental DMG) bonus.

Team #1: The Anticipated Synergy

Burst 1

Burst 2

Burst 3

Burst 3

Burst 3

S. Rosanna buffs S. Sakura extremely well. Her Damage Taken debuff, paired with extra Parts Damage buffs, as well as the Sustained Damage buff are all highly appreciated. Combined, they allow S. Sakura to deal immense damage to opponents. This buffs S. Sakura beyond what most other teams can, even higher than the famous bunny duo!

Team #2: The Bunny Duo

Burst 1

Burst 2

Burst 3

Burst 3

Burst 3

While Tia's Attack Damage buff and Naga's ATK buff are highly appreciated, Tia and Naga are core-hit buffers and are better suited to units that hit the core more often. However, S. Sakura's passive damage comes from skills instead of core hits. On the other hand, Blanc and Noir help S. Sakura the same as they would benefit any other unit. Maxwell boosts S. Sakura's output, while Modernia in general performs exceptionally well in the bunny team due to Noir's Max Ammo buffs.

Team #3: All in on Sakura!

Burst 1

Burst 2

Burst 3

Burst 3

Burst 1

This team aims to maximise S. Sakura's damage as a Main DPS. This is definitely not the ideal team to run since better DPS like Alice and SBS would benefit more from Crown. However, if you lack prominent DPS units, or are a super fan of SSakura, this team is a possible combination. You may also run this in campaign if you lack the big DPS pilgrims.

Team #1: High Power Nuke (3RL)

Burst 3

Burst 2

Burst 1

Burst 2

Burst 1

Opponent running a slow team? This team can effectively counter it. Can also counter Blanc + Emilia teams well if this team is run with Blanc. The Blanc version of this team will fare will against most Noah-less teams.

Team #2: Making Use of DoT with Stall (3RL)

Burst 2

Burst 3

Burst 1

Burst 2

Burst Flex

Clip-SG

Noir, B.Soda, and Drake are the best choices for Clip SG here. Hits less harder as the previous team but you save some critical resources. Again, will fare well against Noah-less teams, but otherwise may struggle.

Team #3: Fast Nuke (2~2.5RL)

Burst 3

Burst 2

Burst Flex

Burst 2

Burst 1

Opponent running a slow team? This team can effectively counter it. Can also counter Blanc + Emilia teams well if this team is run with Blanc. The Blanc version of this team will fare will against most Noah-less teams.