Foreword
Trony is a Fire B3 Attacker designed for feet lovers. Period. But, whether you agree with that subjective claim, it is unquestionable that Trony's enticing appearance has indeed sparked joy. She attacks enemies with the help of her special Cumulative Damage debuff, which acts as her source of bonus damage. By converting some of her damage dealt, she can conveniently multiply her output, inflicting distributed damage and also gaining a personal ATK buff from time to time.
Summary
What do you think about her?
Her cost-effectiveness has much left to be desired. While she can compete Scarlet (against Fire Element Weak Bosses) when heavily invested, she has a high skill ceiling and costs thousands more burst manuals to be usable. Even Scarlet is barely in meta right now, and her unsupported DPS is already outclassed by many. Trony's damage also does not scale with the number of enemies and is stagnant, unlike Scarlet with her legendary AoE wipe. Unless Elemental Type is a major issue, or ShiftUp creates a situation that favors her Cumulative Damage playstyle, her presence in the meta will be limited.
Should I pull her?
Nope. Her DPS is just disappointing seeing the level of investments needed to develop her. We recommend SKIPPING this unit, unless you like feet, in which case we wholeheartedly recommend getting MLB for that spicy lobby screen. Disclaimer: We are not responsible for any poor financial decisions that you make to satisfy your carnal desires.
Kit Analysis & Highlights
Trony's gimmicky skillset is actually very simple once we understand how it works. In fact, it is too simple that her real performance does not in any way justify those lengthy descriptions.
Dorothy At Home
Remember Brand? Clearly you do, because you couldn't have possibly forgotten our Goddess Doro. Pretty much Trony's S1 is just a weaker version of Brand whose damage pool can only be filled by Trony herself. Similarly, its maximum cap is determined the second this debuff is initialized based on Trony's final ATK at that moment (other DMG buffs and debuffs discounted). However, unlike Brand, its time limit of 5s is not fixed, which means once it reaches its maximum cap, the damage is transferred immediately and a new cycle can begin. If a mob with this debuff dies, the damage is still distributed to nearby mobs.
Only one instance of Cumulative Damage debuff can be applied at a time. If Mob A has that, then you cannot apply it on Mob B, and you must wait till it expires or explodes. Before then, you should ideally keep shooting at Mob A for the damage buff. Otherwise, Trony will also lose all damage buff. Treat it as target lock.
For the mathematically inclined:
- AI can full charge 3 times within 5 seconds.
- On manual, you can full charge 4 times with tight timings @ 1170 + 17ms per shot.
- Influenced by ATK buffs that are provided at the start of Full Burst(s), such as Maxwell's and Privaty's.
- The explosion of S1, when reaching maximum cap or expiring, grants 2.8% burst energy.
Since S1 can be applied repeatedly and instantly explode upon reaching its cap, it can be pretty much viewed as an ordinary damage boost, except for the initial shot that applies the debuff. Thus, we can assume that this translates to 50% TDM (Total Damage Multiplier) on average. This value is taken from the base conversion ratio.
Since the initial shot is not counted toward accumulated damage, the perceived TDM is actually slightly less than 50%. This will be worse when the cycles are shorter, since there will be more initial shots.
In short, Trony's S1 is her primary source of damage, which means that she will be dealing virtually no damage without it. Thus, instead of explaining S2 and Burst Skill separately, we will describe their relationship with S1 and how they affect each other.
Anti-Feet Gang
Let's start with her S2. Her S2 is not awful but useless. S2 grants Trony a buff that enhances her Distributed Damage, but what this basically does is not amplify the explosion damage but increase the maximum cap of S1. The problem is that her S1 can be reapplied as soon as it reaches its cap, so what is the use of a higher cap? To reduce the number of initial shot(s) we mentioned earlier & the occurrences of truncated conversions, but is it worth the skill manuals? Not really.
Truncated Conversion: If the current accumulated damage is 800,000, and the cap is 1,000,000, and you deal 500,000 (× 50% = 250,000), then the last 50,000 damage will go to waste.
Even if S2 is triggered after debuff is already applied, it will still increase the maximum cap. Also, since refresh time < the buff duration, S2 can be considered permanent, unless you do not Full Charge all the time.
In fact, we discovered that she would deal more damage by mixing Full Charge(s) and quick scopes. Perform a Full Charge to apply Cumulative Damage debuff, then follow it up with quick scopes until you reach 100%. Then, repeat the cycle. If you notice, this optimal playstyle is unconcerned about S2's effects!
Last but not least, her S2 also features a DEF reduction that barely has any effect, but it still exists, so we need to bring it up for formality.
Pro-Feet Gang
In contrast to S2, Trony's Burst Skill plays an indispensable role in boosting her damage. It accelerates the accumulation speed of S1 by additively increasing the conversion ratio, which also boosts the perceived TDM (read "Dorothy At Home"). At max level, it will be 50% + 62.83% = 112.83% (or 2.13x).
Not only that, it also massively boosts Trony's ATK, and since Trony does not have any ATK buff outside Burst Skill, this buff will have a significant impact. ATK OLs will also greatly enhance her overall damage.
Tier List & Analysis
Campaign (LD) - C
As we mentioned earlier, initial shot(s) are RAW and do not benefit from the conversion TDM boost. Since campaign involves a lot of mob killing, you will have a lot of initial shot(s) and fewer TDM utilizations, making her no better than Eunhwa or Yulha DPS wise outside Burst.
Campaign (HD) - C
Due to stat penalty, mobs will become tankier, and you can now start utilizing the conversion TDM boost. However, Trony's kit lacks consistent ATK buff that would make this worthwhile. This would make her similar to Alice in playstyle, where she will only pop during Burst. But due to the insane DPS output of Alice as well as her having pierce, these characters are not even comparable. Trony is not an ideal unit to use in Campaign.
Boss (Solo) - B
On Fire Weak Bosses, Trony's DPS can rival that of Scarlet, but she has too many shortcomings. Expensive and requires manual gameplay for maximum damage. Theoretically, she would be a decent temporary replacement if you don't have better units, but do know that you might want to reset her in the future since she is simply not meta enough to fit in. If you do not have 2B, and there are Elemental QTE Shields, she can sub in as decent unit for Fire Weak Bosses in Solo Raids.
Boss (Adds) - B
S1 can only be applied to one enemy at once, which means Trony should not change target for 5s after application, or her DPS would plunge. Unfortunately, against bosses with adds, you may sometimes need to switch target abruptly. Also, she has no AoE to wipe mobs, and in fact, those extra mobs may reduce damage dealt to the boss because of Distributed Damage.
PVP - C
Target switches may make Trony shoot NIKKEs other than the debuffed one, losing damage in the process. No damage outside Burst. No AoE. The 5s window also takes too long to pop. In PvP, she is no better than most SR units.
Investments
Gear Investments
As per the usual standard, investing in a DPS requires OL-ing and enchanting Helmet and Gloves to Level 5, followed by Body Armor. For the OL, we recommend:
- 4x ATK, since her kit lacks ATK outside Burst. High priority.
- 4x ELEMENTAL, because there is nothing else better. High priority since her major use in Meta will be in Fire Weak Raids.
- 2x AMMO, for burst regen to expedite burst cycles and also to make her S1 easier to accumulate with quick scopes. High priority.
- 2x MISCELLANOUS, which can be more Ammo, Charge SPD, Charge DMG, CRIT Rate, or CRIT DMG. CRIT is less favorable, but the difference should be insignificant in a real battle. Low priority.
Skill Investments
- Skill 1: 4
- Upgrades are trivial because the conversion ratio is invariable, but they help reduce the number of initial shot(s) and truncated conversions. CP padder.
- Skill 2: 4
- Trivial in most situations. Helps reduce the number of initial shot(s) and truncated conversions. CP padder.
- Burst: 7~10
- Upgrades grant more damage via higher conversion ratio. Ideally, this should be high, as this is the only skill that scales well. Besides that, we only recommend using her if you are planning to reset her skills in the future.
Suggested Progression Path
Cube Investments
Resilience or Bastion would do fine. We recommend Bastion Lv 7+ if you have exactly 1x Max Ammo, as the extra 3 shots will help with charging Burst Energy after Full Burst(s). Otherwise, we prefer Resilience because their uptime/downtime balance is more consistent, especially if you're running her with other Reload buffers like Crown or Privaty.
PVE Team Compositions
Team #1: God Comp
This one is currently the god team, with insane amount of strongest buff possible, with decent heal. Mostly reserved for 2 best DPS, but you can always ignore meta and put Trony here. The reload buff helps Trony fast tap playstyle to fill as many S1 as possible, and the core hit buffs help her reach the S1 cap faster, allowing for more nukes during Burst!
Team #2: Old God Team
The previous god team, only different with Tia instead of Crown and you can only use 2 B3 max here. By choosing this team, you may want to do slow charge with Trony, which lowers her dmg a bit compared to fast tap playstyle. However, Core hits allow her to do extremely high damage!
Team #3: Reload Support
This team utilises 2 DPS that needs fast reload, 2 supporters rely on last bullet mechanic to trigger their main gimmick. It's a simple team, just don't expect huge damage compared to other 2 teams above. A similar team was seen being used with Drake instead of Trony during the Stormbringer Raid. However, Trony definitely provides an upgrade over Drake in this situation!
Team #4: Ammo Support
This team provides basic ammo support to both Trony and Modernia courtesy of Noir! Since both DPS are fire based, this team can be used against Fire weak bosses in Raids!
Final ratings
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Scales well with ATK OL.
- Damage conversion as a sole multiplier is a unique mechanic, and a Total Damage Multiplier!
- Can compete for a spot in Solo Raids against Fire Weak Bosses, especially if incomplete roster.
- Interesting shooting pose and wallpaper.
- Feet.
Cons
- Manual-intensive.
- Initial shot(s) and truncated conversion(s) are DPS loss and are more rampant against squishy enemies.
- Debuff can only be applied on one enemy at a time, initiating Target Lock.
- Lacks consistent ATK buff to pair with her constant S1 activation.
- Requires invested Burst Skill.
- Skill 2 is almost useless.
- Not cost-effective.
- We have too many Fire DPS as of now.