Solo Leveling: AriseTawata KanaeInformation and Guide

Tawata Kanae makes a remarkable entrance into the game by slicing herself a spot at the top of the competitive meta on day one of her release. She’s a straightforward hyper carry specialized in Bossing vs Foes with numerous Break phases or with multiple trash mobs spawning throughout the fight. Her potential however is highly situational and depending on how the devs make future encounters, Kanae could either establish herself like Cha and Mirei did in their time or fade away once the current content rotates out of our priority list.

Even though her kit can seem a bit daunting in some ways, Kanae is actually super simple to play: The Game Plan is simple - you go insanely hard, spamming skills for 10-20 seconds and then you’re out of Mana and then you either manage to proc her passive Mana Reduction or you swap her out so she can recover. Let’s take a quick look at her skills as they’re all very simple in essence aside from one or two points:

Her Basic Attacks have quite a few  hit instances, so you can use it to very easily trigger Artifact sets with crits without expanding Mana.

Her Core Attack also happens to have a huge amount of hits, so another win when it comes to stacking, it also has pretty good damage by itself so make sure to spam it whenever available.

Munechika, when it completely lands on the enemy, has a LOT of hits which once again is good for stacking right before she gets into her burst skills. Those abilities are mostly there for setup, their damage, while decent, isn’t all too important when compared to her ridiculous Skill 2. A nice addition to Munechika is that getting hit in mid-air results in an Extreme Evasion so all the damage/potential debuffs from the attack are avoided, and you get to finish the animation of the skill as if nothing hit you (because nothing hit you, heh).

Her Skill 2, Kamaitachi, is where the bulk of her damage is gathered and oh boy does this skill deal a lot of damage. The skill comes in 4 versions, all unlocked sequentially by using her abilities in a certain order that is already specified in-game (check Skill page of the Hunter, bottom > Skill guide).

However, the Mana consumption is extremely high when doing a full rotation so it’s recommended to avoid using the base version of Kamaitachi as much as possible unless you’re confident you can keep up with the Mana sink it represents.

Her Ultimate, Tsuchigumo, is yet another nuke that will only show its true damage when used at the right time in her combo, so always save it for when you have the [Fire] effect.

Kanae’s QTE skill, Noragami, is a generic low damage move whose damage you probably won’t notice when compared to the rest of her kit, but it does have [Knock Down] which is always appreciated.

Lastly, her Support skill Aragoto is a pure DPS ability with currently the highest multiplier on a Support skill, so even though you’ll usually prefer a more Buff/Break oriented Support you shouldn’t sleep on Kanae’s extra damage if you can afford to bring an extra nuke with you.

Passive and Advancement

The [Crimson], [Scarlet] and [Fire] effects are what change her Skill 2 and unlocks powerful effects whenever you use it. 

Make sure to use your Core attack after getting [Crimson] and then don’t forget to use your Ultimate before using your last Kamaitachi during [Fire] to get the most out of her in manual.

Other than that, her damage is drastically improved against foes in Break state so make sure that she plays right after your Breaker if you have to tag her in.

• A1 unlocks the [Instinct] buff, stacking up to 10 times and increasing Crit rate by 1% per stack, gained when an enemy dies near Kanae or a foe goes into Break. At 10 stacks, the buff turns into [Sixth Sense] giving even more Crit rate and 40% MP consumption reduction when under 20% Mana;

• A2 is a simple 16% Crit damage buff;

• A3 gives Super Armor for 5 seconds after using Munechika and reduces its CD by 5 sec when using Kamaitachi during the [Fire] buff;

• A4 is a 12% Fire damage increase per each Fire member in the party, stacking up to 3 times;

• Lastly, A5 is where Kanae turns into a beast with both [Instinct] and [Sixth Sense] upgraded massively, the latter giving 77% Atk, 20% Crit rate and Crit damage and 50% Mana consumption reduction when under 30% MP.

Weapon and gear

Her weapon, “The Path a Hero Must Take”, is exceptional thanks to its simplicity and potency. Up to 12% Attack on a high attack scaling unit is already amazing, but getting as much as 20% Crit Rate is insanely good. Whether your Kanae is A1 or A5, you want her weapon A5 asap if you’re using her.

For her artifacts, 2 One-Hit 2 Curse is the go-to on the armory side as it offers a nice scaling damage buff and Kanae’s Kamaitachi is considered both Ult and Skill when in its enhanced form, and for the jewelry 4 Expert is by far the best option in Team fights. If you play Kanae as a short term nuker or in a more generic setting with long downtimes you can replace the Expert set with either 4 Executioner or 4 Champion on the Field, the former being a little more conditional but very powerful while the latter will stack incredibly fast thanks to her huge hit count on Basic Attacks. As for the armory side you could consider the Warmonger and the Armed sets if you’re missing a good 2 piece One-Hit + Curse, or if you absolutely need more Defense Pen on certain occasions. 4 Curse is also acceptable for survivability and extra TP if you’re a few thousand short.

Note that the Outstanding Ability set which is usually favored by so many carries is almost unusable on Kanae due to how Mana hungry she is, so don’t even bother with it unless you can guarantee a lightning fast kill in one/two rotations tops.

For the stats, it’s all about offense with Kanae: Attack is the most important as you have a lot of buffs that will capitalize on it, then you want to look for Crit Rate, making sure to at least secure the 50% on the stat sheet but can go a bit higher to really maximize all her Crit Damage buffs. Lastly, Crit Damage, Damage Increase and Defense Pen should be invested into similarly unless you take Kanae into high defense encounters like WoBL Deimos where you’ll want more Defense Pen.

New addition to the Reviews: Main Shadow and Cores

Main Shadow and Cores

We’re adding the recommended Main Shadow for Carry Hunters, as it’s always dependent on them.

For Kanae, Beru works really well if you’re already critting enough thanks to him double dipping into both Attack (her most important stat) and Crit Damage, on top of a 5% Damage taken increased debuff when summoning him. Igris is the other option should you need even more Crit Rate for High difficulty challenges mostly.

On the side of Cores, we’ll stick to the sets for now as the stats already correspond to the ones mentioned just above:

• Fire Ancient Wraith or Crimson Apex for Attack are easy to slot in and swap with other characters, but Nameless Demon has the higher damage ceiling thanks to Kamaitachi triggering hit constantly;

• Fire Ancient Wraith is preferred for Defense slot but give more importance to the raw stats;

• Fire Watcher is almost mandatory on Kanae, she really needs that Mana Reduction so even if the raw stats aren’t the best try to get one at least level 10 for the longer fights and the TP. Otherwise, a great Fire Crimson Apex can perform well in shorter fights where you want to land an extra rotation for the kill.

Team synergy for Kanae

So far, Kanae is extremely reliant on the Mono Fire team, especially at higher investments. Esil and Gina make for perfect teammates as they both give Kanae everything she needs most: Attack and Mana. Replacing them will be no easy task but you should be able to perform reasonably well with Min Byung-Gu or Han Se-Mi to an extent, even though you’ll lose out on half of her buffs that only apply to Wind units.

Should you roll for Kanae?

Yes and no. Do you have Esil and Gina already built or you’re planning to make a full Fire team? Kanae is good but requires a lot of investment to see the returns compared to Yoo Soohyun’s ease of use and less exponential curve of power up via dupes. Kanae also requires a somewhat different stat and Artifact focus compared to Yoo, so you won’t be able to switch her gear as easily as you would with other DPS units, especially when it comes to Cores.

When it comes to investment it’s also important to mention Yoo is a unit that was released many months ago and is currently available in the custom draw, meaning players should be comparing their current Kanae with their level of investment in Yoo they accumulated over the months. 

While Kanae’s performance in Guild Boss and WobL Deimos is undeniable, an overinvested Yoo will most likely take the lead when it comes to CP and may even outperform Kanae in some scenarios. So if you won’t overinvest in Kanae from the get go your returns may vary greatly and at that point, it may be viable to wait for her to be added in the custom draw before replacing Yoo. She will be a great boon to your Guild Boss score and to PoD, so you should be the judge of how much that is important for your account and overall progress.

Investment

• For F2P: A1 is the minimum to mitigate her Mana draining a bit, but it won’t make her shine all that much either;

• For Dolphins: A4 is the minimum you should consider if you want a strong Hunter, as A2 and A3 are simply too little boosts compared to A4 and A5;

• For whales: A5 should be the goal as it makes her much stronger. If you are aiming for WOBL Hard mode (the 3k/6k challenge is live as of now) consider investing higher, as you will need all the CP you need to reduce penalties.