Ludmilla: Winter Owner guide & review

Calm, mature, and the Queen of Snow. Mommy Ludmilla invites us Servants to have a memorable, relaxing (and very lewd!) vacation in her hot springs! In full Christmas spirit, Ludmilla: Winter Owner gives us the present of a very simple-to-understand kit, all of which contributes to her amazing damage output, rivalling even Modernia when fighting Solo Bosses. Her skills allow her to do extra damage on top of what she is already shooting, and her burst is a selfish reload speed and ATK buff. She also has a self ammo reload, which when combined with the reload speed, means that she has everything an MG nikke needs to output tons of damage!

Ludmilla: Winter Owner (abbreviated afterward as XLud) is a balanced unit with significant supportive capability and a high damage output, rivalling Modernia, against enemies with cores in particular. She not only provides Damage Taken, a seriously powerful debuff that permanently improves the team overall damage, but she also strengthens herself with Ammo Refund and Reload Speed, things MG wielders adore the most! Moreover, her kit is simple. You only need to land your shots, and that's it. She has an average basic attack multiplier that is also compounded with the additional damage provided by Skill 1 and Skill 2. However, you still want to minmax a little by ensuring she only reloads within 20s of her using Burst Skill for the acceleration.

Like all MGs, one downside is that these weapons are heavily influenced by FPS. If the game runs at 60 FPS, you will be able to achieve maximum potential with her. However, so long as it is under 60 FPS, your damage will be slightly reduced. One way to test this without any monitoring app is by listening to the sound cue of Skill 1 triggering or watching the damage numbers. This should trigger every 1 second if all your shots land.

Skill 1

■ Activates when landing 60 normal attacks. Affects the target.

Damage Taken ▲ 12.56% for 3 sec.

Deal 158.43% of final ATK as additional damage.

■ Activates when landing 60 normal attacks. Affects self.

Reloads 20 rounds of ammunition.

One of XLud's best gimmick is Ammo Refund. Every time she lands 60 shots, she recovers a certain number of bullets (dependent on skill level, from 11 to 20). This functions similarly to Bastion and is, in fact, slightly stronger than Bastion at max level. If she recovers 20 bullets every 60 shots, then recovers bullets again from those 20, and again, it would amount to a 50% total increase. To compare, Bastion is around 42.8%. They are synergistic too. If you combine both, you get a whooping 172%! That said, we will discuss in detail later about which Cube is best. You might need to swap based on the team. In any case, the shots need to land to count.

Her Skill 1 also constitutes a major part of her DPS, termed as Additional Damage, which cannot core damage but can CRIT. Every 60 shots landed, she inflicts a certain amount of damage. It also applies Damage Taken debuff, which is one of the best debuffs in game. Just by having XLud in the team, you are basically multiplying the team's TDM by slightly over 12% (if no dilution happens from Novel, Blanc, or SHelm).

Skill 2

■ Activates when hitting the Core for 60 times. Affects the target.

Deal 109.64% of final ATK as additional damage.

■ Activates at the beginning of Full Burst. Affects self.

Critical Rate ▲ 14.6% for 3 sec.

This skill consists of two components—damage every 60 core hits & critical rate buff every Full Burst. The damage is on the low side if we compare it to the combined Basic Attack and Skill 1 ratios and also demands hitting cores at that. However, it still plays an essential role in multiplying her DPS by a fixed amount. Meanwhile, the critical rate buff is definitely nice to have, despite seemingly being contradictory to her kit that revolves around hitting cores. Why is that? Remember that we said Additional Damage cannot core hit but can CRIT. Yes, while this buff only improves her Basic Attack damage a little due to dilution, it considerably boosts the damage from Skill 1 and Skill 2.

Burst

■ Affects self.

ATK ▲ 62.54% for 10 sec.

Reloading Speed ▲ 67.2% for 20 sec.

The most exciting part of her skill, Reload Speed! Wonderful! If you think this sounds too good, be informed that XLud's reload time is actually 3s, making her more reliant on Burst Skill level. That aside, her Burst Skill is relatively simple. She gets 10s of ATK buff and 20s of Reload Speed buff. The ATK buff is self-explanatory. Every level increases the value, which helps her deal more damage during her Burst. What about the Reload Speed? With Bastion, it just helps cut down time wasted. However, it gets very tricky with Resilience Cube, and the only way to understand it is through mathematics. For investment advice, please visit the Investment Section, where we attach graphs for Skill 1 and Burst Skill accordingly.

XLud displays great versatility. She can be used in all content except Arena. Below is the complete list of game modes with a short description for each:

Bossing

XLud has strong bossing potential. Once invested, she is independent and fits in many teams. However, due to her spectacular supportive capability and DPS, she will most likely join one of the top teams. She accumulates more damage when attacking bosses with exposed cores but still deals decent damage when there is no core. She is also the only serviceable Water DPS unit in game, making her much more valuable against Fire bosses due to elemental advantage.

Campaign

Strong ATK buff during Burst, raptures with cores, and Damage Taken. She can be used in campaign but may lack the AoE provided by other units such as Scarlet and Modernia. Besides that, she lacks any ATK buff outside her Burst, so that will incur a massive damage penalty.

Tower

Since Volume/Blanc/Noir is the meta composition for this Tower, using SAnis, who has an antagonistic kit, isn't really ideal. With this update, XLud will replace SAnis and wreak havoc on the raptures together with Alice.

Gear Investments

Like usual, OL every piece of her gear. Upgrade Head and Gloves to level 5. Can leave Chest at level 3 or max it to level 5 if you want to splurge a bit. As for the OL lines, you want a minimum of 2 Max Ammo. This will allow her to be independent, separated from Liter & Noir, and be paired with better supports, solely relying on self-provided Reload Speed buff to gain maximum uptime. For convenience and flexibility, you can get 3 Max Ammo lines instead. The rest should be ATK & Elemental DMG. CRIT Rate & CRIT DMG are good bonuses for buffing her additional damage.

Skill Investments

• Skill 1: 10
• Higher levels deal more additional damage, refund significantly more ammo (great scaling; crucial to her kit), and enhances the Damage Taken debuff, contributing to higher team damage overall. Prioritize upgrading to level 10.

• Skill 2: 4-7
• No actual breakpoints. Investments improve damage. Scaling appears relatively weak. Make sure to allocate resources sparingly and avoid overinvesting, so you can also invest in other units.
• Burst: 5-10 (Recommended 10)
• Burst Skill investment, especially with Resilience (no Privaty in team), gets very tricky when you want to save resources and not upgrade it to level 10. Ideally, you should, for the highest ATK buff and the shortest reload time, but not everyone has that freedom.
• Firstly, let's understand that Reload Speed buff gets more apparent the closer it is to 100% (and eventually >109% for removing the invisible Cover Time). At >109%, your unit will have to waste ±11 frames every reload, whereas at 100%, your unit will have to waste another ±11 frames (totalling up to ±22 frames). This may vary between units, but the numbers don't stray too far. Any other percentage will be equal to Visible Reload Time + 22 frames.
• Now, let's discuss about MG wind-up mechanics. When not firing for a prolonged period, MG will gradually lose fire rate. While it does slowly wind down soon after you stop shooting, it is more apparent if the Visible Pause exceeds 0.6s (excluding the ±22 frames). Before then, quickly firing again after reloading will ramp the weapon up again to maximum fire rate in no time. This means between 0.5-0.6s of Visible Reload Time, you have to be frame perfect. Anything below 0.5s of Visible Reload Time should be easily doable. Note that this only affects the wind-up mechanic, and faster Reload Speed still means less time wasted!
• Therefore, what is the conclusion? Here are a few pointers:
• At Burst Skill level 7, you reach an ideal amount of Reload Speed buff, where you don't have to be exactly excellent with timings to maintain fire rate.
• At Burst Skill level 6, you can easily maintain MG's fire rate after each reload by quickly refiring. It is similar to using Guillotine (Resilience) + SAnis. There is still a slight fire rate loss.
• At Burst Skill level 5, you can maintain fire rate but need to be frame perfect.

Breakpoints:

• Level 1: 66.65% => 1 second reload
• Level 5: 80.09% => 0.5973s reload
• Level 6: 83.45% => 0.4965s reload
• Level 7: 86.81% => 0.3957s reload
• Level 8: 90.17% => 0.2949s reload
• Level 9: 93.53% => 0.1941s reload
• Level 10: 96.89% => 0.09s reload

Cube Investments

We recommend Bastion for starters. If you have uninvested Burst and have insufficient Max Ammo OL to back it up, Bastion will improve her uptime by up to 172% alone (S1 level 10, Bastion level 7+). You can also place her in Liter/Blanc/Noir team for effortless ammo retaining.

Once her Burst is invested and you acquire 2 Max Ammo lines, feel free to move her out and slap Resilience. This will reduce or eliminate the downtime incurred by reloading, thus increasing the total damage output over long periods. The minimum Burst level for usability is at least 5, but we recommend 6 or higher. It will feel much smoother at level 10.

Since XLud is a powerful unit, she is to be paired with other strong units. Here are some examples:

Team #1

Burst 1

Burst 2

Burst 3

Burst 3

Flex

Flex

One of the most foolproof team despite not offering the highest DPS. Damage Taken from Skill 1 is diluted thanks to Blanc. The team also does not provide consistent ATK buffs (other than Noir's), which may be inadequate for XLud. Liter's only lasts 5s. That said, the Liter/Noir/XLud combo allows infinite ammo without much hassle, particularly with lower investments. This variant uses Bastion.

Team #2

Burst 1

Burst 1

Burst 2

Burst 3

Burst 3

Based on current data, this team offers the highest XLud's DPS so far, with Maxwell taking the lead. However, it would be a waste of Tia & Naga because Maxwell's DPS isn't that good. Red Hood might be a better choice. XLud is also one of the several units in game that can take full advantage of Red Hood's initial 70%+ ATK buff during RH's Burst, while other units require the use of their own Burst Skill to even deal considerable damage. For this team to work, you should fulfill the minimum investments (2 Max Ammo & Lv 5+ Burst).

Team #3

Burst 1

Burst 2

Flex

Burst 3

Burst 3

Burst 3

A reload-heavy team focused on infinite ammo without high levels of Burst Skill. By utilizing Privaty's Burst and her own Burst, you can reach infinite ammo easily with either Resilience or Bastion. XLud offers similar DPS here versus in the Liter counterpart (does not account for Part Damage). B2 can be Centi, Diesel, Sin, Quency, Novel, Marciana, etc. This variant can use either Bastion or Resilience. Manual play is encouraged.

Team #4

Burst 1

Burst 2

Flex

Burst 3

Burst 3

Burst 3

Flex

If nothing else works, or if you don't have any other units, then try to make a team with Maxwell. SMary, N102, and Miranda are decent B1 choices. XMica is also an option, but she is not out yet. Nevertheless, judging by the kit, we believe they would be a compatible pair.

As the proverb states, you must respect your mommy, so not pulling Ludmilla is a disgrace to society and disrespectful in the eyes of Nikke gods. Literally, you should get at least a copy of her. She has an amazing value, and you won't be disappointed. In fact, we recommend 2 extra copies for 2LB (max bond) for those seeking higher stats while still being economical. Ms. Ludmilla will definitely appreciate your charity.