Mica: Snow Buddy guide & review

Mica: Snow Buddy arrives in Neverland with full Christmas fashion. She looks so cute! Though her cuteness can definitely be matched with her "worry meter" around Belorta.. But don't fret! She turns her trauma into unbelievable strength in order to protect her friend! But now, down to business. Mica's skills focus on supporting the team in a multitude of ways: reducing the damage taken, buffing ammo, while also providing decent burst gen even though she is an SMG. She also opens up your teambuilding options with her skill of increasing the stack count of stackable buffs. Her burst is an atk buff, paired with a cleanse of 1 debuff. All in all, she's an interesting add to the roster, and will see some use in specific cases, but doesn't seem to break into the meta.

Mica: Snow Buddy (abbreviated as XMica throughout this guide) is a unit designed for cleansing debuffs and providing offensive buffs at the same time. Her cleanse is consistent, as it can be voluntarily activated at the start of every rotation. The ATK buff is decent but is inferior to other B1 buffers. Think of her as Liter who exchanges her firepower for situational debuff cleansing. That said, she may fall short of surpassing other B1 options with the lack of CDR and cover repair, which are inarguably valuable in many game modes.

Skill 1

■ Activates when landing 120 normal attacks. Affects all allies.

Tidying Up: Damage Taken ▼ 2%, stacks up to 10 times and lasts for 15 sec.

■ Activates when the caster's Tidying Up is fully stacked. Affects all allies.

Max Ammunition Capacity ▲ 40% continuously.

With every 120 shots landed, XMica accumulates a stack of Tidying Up, which reduces the damage taken by all allies for a long duration. When the maximum number of stacks is reached, she additionally provides everybody a decent amount of Max Ammo, comparable to a low-level OL line. This skill is not breathtaking in any way, but the Damage Reduction and the bonus Max Ammo may come in clutch, especially if your team has no healers and/or does not have enough Max Ammo. In fact, the buffs from this skill can be considered permanent, as they can be continually refreshed till the end of the battle.

You can cheese her Max Ammo. What we mean is that you can "not" activate her Max Ammo buff on purpose by letting her lose stacks. This may be particularly useful when pairing her with units reliant on last bullet (like SAnis).

Skill 2

■ Activates when landing 150 normal attacks. Affects all allies.

Increases stack count of stackable buffs by 1.

■ Activates when entering battle. Affects self.

Burst Gauge filling speed ▲ 300% continuously.

Stack refresh is what we call an "interesting trait" as only several units have access to such authority. It is also one of the fastest stack refresh in the game as it can mathematically be triggered every 7.5~10s (150 shots + Resilience), but here's where the problem lies. It is dependent on skill level, which means she needs to shoot more at lower levels. Moreover, currently, there aren't many units that benefit from stack refresh, except for herself (you know...). The extra burst generation does help her a little in PvP and in teams with low burst regen, but whether that is useful depends on your composition.

Burst

■ Affects all allies.

Dispels 1 debuff.

ATK ▲ 39.3% of caster's ATK for 5 seconds.

Perhaps her redeeming factor—a not-so-bad ATK buff, which will always be meaningful regardless of its engraved value, followed by a reliable teamwide cleanse to liberate your team from undesired shackles. Chatterbox is one example of a boss that applies a stackable debuff which will instantly eliminate anyone with too many stacks. Removing that debuff leads to increased survivability, but sometimes you don't really need to remove it. You can use cover, dodge, or divert it. Even then, there are some enemies (such as Doctor) that apply inevitable stat penalty to your team, which unless cleased will technically last forever. Also be warned that her ATK buff is dependent on caster's ATK, not the targeted unit's ATK, making it slightly less effective on attackers.

XMica will probably not see much usage outside Raids and PvP, and even then, there are way better units to choose from. She can be an alternative for beginners, however. There is a chance that XMica is a sleeper unit and will be used more when newer units with better synergy are released, such as units whose damage is reliant on stacking, particularly an SG wielder with CDR to further harmonize with Tove. Or someone like A2 who constantly buffs (and also debuffs) herself but without the coupling.

Bossing

Her primary content. When debuff cleansing is necessary, especially for removing ATK debuffs, she will most likely see some gameplay. Outside that, she may be used as an alternative B1 buffer. She may still see some usage in Team 4 or 5, if you don't own every meta unit.

PVP

At maximum level of Skill 2, she can generate Burst Energy fairly quickly, but it also comes with the disadvantage of feeding Jackal. Her ATK buff will come useful situationally, and Damage Reduction may improve survivability despite taking years to stack. She can be utilized as a cope unit until you acquire more suitable PvP mercenaries.

Sim

She is most likely not used for campaign, but we are distinguishing this section from the rest in preparation for the upcoming Simulation Overclock, which they announced not long ago. Unlike campaign, this mode probably does not incur stat penalty. XMica may prove useful when too much debuff is being applied by those pesky debuffer mobs from time to time. Note that we do NOT know what Simulation Overclock actually looks like, so this is just an early prediction.

Gear Investments

Since XMica's ATK buff is dependent on caster's stats, the idea of upgrading her Helmet and Body is justified. However, the buff is weak and short, so there is only little gain. Pay attention to your resource consumption and manage it properly. It is probably wiser to leave it at base level and upgrade other units' gear. That said, giving her Max Ammo lines will shorten the window between triggers of S1 and S2, which might be useful depending on your team.

Skill Investments

• Skill 1: 3/4
• Skill 1 provides team with increased Max Ammo, which is always nice to have, and Damage Reduction may help team survive against attacks that would have otherwise killed them (such as Chatterbox's slam). We recommend choosing either Level 3 or 4. At Level 3, she grants 2 ammo to all SR units if rounded up, whereas at Level 4, she grants 3 ammo to all SG units. All of these assume that there are no other Max Ammo buffs in team. If there are, the breakpoints might be altered.

• Skill 2: 3-7
• Each level increases gauge filling speed (more crucial in Arena) and reduces the number of shots needed to refresh team's stacks. If stack refresh or higher burst generation is urgently needed, then you may consider upgrading this skill. Otherwise, you should ideally stay away or just leave it at 3.
• Burst: 3-7
• Ideally, any skill that increases ATK should be leveled to 10, including this one. Nevertheless, its worth is incomparable to other ATK-buffing skills. What's valuable about her Burst is the debuff cleanse, which fortunately does not scale past Level 1. This means, unless you need that tiny ATK juice, you can leave it at a low level like 3, 4, 5, or 7.

Cube Investments

Both Bastion and Resilience would serve her well for PvE purposes for more reliable stacking. In PvP, you can opt for Quantum instead (or even Vigor if she constantly dies before she can benefit from her Burst Skill).

Straight ahead, onward to Team Composition! Well, honestly, her teams are more or less the same as when you are pairing Pepper, N102, Miranda, or SMary with Dolla. There are some pretty interesting combinations you can try out, but you should only do it for fun instead of for maximizing damage. Here are some early compositions we can think of:

Team #1 - All-Around Composition

Burst 1

Burst 2

Burst 3

B3

Burst 3

Flex

Flex

A basic setup involving XMica and a healer for survivability. Very beginner-friendly and would work in many game modes despite not being the most powerful setup. While this team is mainly used for dealing with debuffers, you can also use her just as an ATK buffer. Simply rotate normally but time her Burst well for maximum efficacy. Feel free to replace Helm with other healers if desired. If healer is not needed, just bring another DPS. For beginners, XMica is a decent buffer for Modernia because she can dispel the Ammo Reduction debuff she inflicts herself with.

Team #2 - Hypothetical "Forced" Tove Team

Burst 1

Burst 1

Burst 2

Burst 3

Burst 3

A gimmicky composition that forcefully combines Tove and XMica. You may ask, why? Well, Tove is a unit whose offensive capabilities build up with stacks, and XMica accelerates stack accumulation and helps with stack maintenance. So, they have this hidden synergy. For your information, Tove's ATK buff is permanent as long as you refresh it with stack refresh before the duration ends! This theoretically means that your SG units may enjoy 70%+ ATK buffs for the entire battle. Unfortunately, this team is too expensive to actually test and may not be outputting damage worth the required investment. Do not use Marciana or Helm if healing is not needed; if needed, just pick one of them.

Team #3 - Machine Gun Heaven: Unlimited Ammo Team

Burst 1

Burst 2

Burst 2

Burst 3

B3

Burst 3

B3

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.

While she is not amazing for PvP, XMica's ATK buff is very much similar to Liter's, excellent for one-wiping the enemy team off the board. However, the low value (and dependability on caster's stats) may demand higher investments. Still, she generates Burst Energy faster than Liter, which may or may not be more important than the buff strength itself. Here is one team where you can slot her in:

Team #1 - All-Around Composition

Burst 3

Burst 2

Burst 1

Burst 1

Burst 2

Scarlet has been known for easily wiping off teams and countering SAnis. Here, we suggest a 2.5-3RL setup. With the increased burst generation, XMica can easily compete with other buffer spots. Do note that, at higher sync levels, XMica may not offer enough ATK for Scarlet to wipe everyone fully, hence why she is paired with AnneMF here, another nikke available in rate-up banners right now! But, what we're trying to take advantage of here is Mica's debuff cleanse ability, which will allow her to counter relatively faster Blanc-based teams, as removing Blanc's Damage taken buff allows supporter and defender types to survive a non-buffed Scarlet's burst (unless its a crit) at higher sync levels.

For the vast majority of players, we honestly cannot recommend obtaining her for now due to lack of versatility and exorbitant investment costs. However, if new units with better synergy are released in the future or if new bosses with impactful debuffs appear, this advice may change. Oh, speak of the devil—it's Chatterbox's Solo Raid! Thus, it is your decision if you want to take the risk of getting her for future-proofing purposes. We may see her being used in Simulation Overclock if it arrives with gimmicks, but that is just too hopeful. Unless you are using her in Solo Raid, or if you are trying to save gems, we suggest waiting for the last banner day to finalize your decision. We would also have received patch notes by then!