#her supposed niche was dealing arts damage and gaining more dp per kill (which she already lost with the regular dp on kill modules

[voidedjuice]

Module thoughts:

- pretty much everyone whose module-improved talents talents give them sp has it good (regular C'hen, SARIA, Blemishine maybe)

- the module upgrades gave Specter alter pretty much everything she was lacking (initial sp after doll use, stronger slow, though the effect does depend on the exact numbers?)

- Ling got it so good, already being super good apparently and now also getting more of her summons on the field at a time

- Skadi becomes a true fast redeploy

- Nealter full time true damage

- Lumen keeps powercreeping whisperrain :(

- The devs hate Reed so much it's unreal

[xenodile]

I decided to do some math on the Arts Guards.

Okay so, all max level, max trust, max potential, the Arts Guards are:

Mousse - E2, level 70

2345 health

705 attack (644 base, +26 from potential, +35 from trust)

392 armor  (357 base, +35 from trust)

18 DP cost (20 base, -2 from potential)

Astesia - E2, level 80

2523 health

690 attack (660 base, +30 from trust)

471 armor (393 base, +23 from potential, +55 from trust)

19 DP cost (21 base, -2 from potential)

Sideroca - E2, level 80

3345 health (2845 base, +500 from trust)

620 attack

369 armor

20 DP cost (23 base, -3 from potential)

That covers it for basic stats, so now let’s look at their abilities.

Mousse’s trait grants her a 23% chance to double attack, effectively doubling the damage dealt, but it does not count as 2 attacks for charging her skill.

Astesia’s trait gives her a stacking +5 attack speed buff every 20 seconds she’s deployed, stacking up to 5 times, capping at +25 attack speed after 100 seconds.

Sideroca gains a +15 attack speed and Resistance, reducing the duration of crowd control effects on her by half, after she deals the killing blow to 5 enemies.

All three have an attack interval of 1.25, meaning they must wait 1.25 seconds between each attack.  Astesia’s trait, when fully stacked, reduces her attack interval to 1 second, while Sideroca’s reduces her attack interval to 1.08.

In a 5 second window, if allowed to attack a single target freely, without skills, Astesia could attack 5 times, dealing 3450 Arts damage before Resist.  Mousse could attack 4 times, dealing 2820 Arts damage, and Sideroca could attack 4 times, dealing 2420.

In a 10 second window, Astesia could attack 10 times for 6900 damage, Mousse could attack 8 times for 5640 damage, and Sideroca could attack 9 times for 5580 damage.

Now we should look at their skills, and figure out how that plays into things.

Mousse’s skill 1, Scratch, at M3, causes every 5th attack to deal 75% increased damage, and inflict a 40% attack debuff on the target.  This attack can also proc her trait, potentially dealing 2,397 Arts damage before mitigation.  The attack debuff on her target also helps with Mousse’s survival, greatly reducing damage taken and allowing her solid armor to go much further.  And since this ability is attack based, it has no downtime, so Mousse is never vulnerable or without her tools.

Astesia’s skill 2, Astral Sword, at m3, gives her 80% increased attack and armor, kicking her up to 1242 attack and 847 armor, increases her block count by 1, and allows her to attack all enemies in her attack range at once, for 15 seconds.  With only a 20 sp charge time, this skill has fantastic uptime and turns Astesia into a pseudo-AoE guard, which combined with her high attack speed lets her quickly tear through groups of enemies.

Sideroca’s skill 2, Restorative Surge, at m3, gives her 110% attack up, putting her at 1302 attack, and regenerates 8% of her max health per second, equaling 276 health per second, but reduces her attack range by 1 tile, for 30 seconds.  With an sp cost of 30, Sideroca has a sizable window in which she has the lowest damage output and armor of the Arts Guards, and the reduced range means she can only attack the enemy she’s blocking, making her unviable for use as a second attacker next to another melee operator.

With their skills taken into account, lets go back to those 5 and 10 second attack windows.

In 5 seconds, Mousse cannot land 5 attacks, so Scratch will not go into effect, but she can still potentially get a Combo proc for increased damage, so her damage potential in this window is 2820 to 5640, with the lower being no procs of Combo and the higher being every hit procing Combo.  At 23% activation rate, on average we’ll be looking at 1 or 2 procs in this 5 second window.

When we go to 10 seconds, and Mousse can attack 8 times, not only do we double the chances for Combo to proc, but we also get the powerful Scratch proc on the 5th hit, dealing 1198 damage, and reducing the enemy’s attack for 5 seconds.  Mousse’s potential damage in this window is 6133 damage with no Combo procs, to 12,267 damage if all 8 attacks proc Combo.  While Mousse’s RNG trait may seem inconsistent, her offensive recovery on Scratch means her damage boost and attack debuff will be constantly active, so Mousse will never be at a disadvantage based on enemy spawns or move speed alterations.

With Astral Sword active and her trait stacked, Astesia can deal 6210 damage in 5 seconds to every enemy in her range while packing the armor of a Defender.  The 15 second window it’s active is the same as Eyjafjalla’s skill 3, so while it’s time enough to tear through a group, you’ll still have to make sure you use it when you need it, though the 20sp cost means you can activate it fairly liberally.

While Restorative Surge manages to push Sideroca up to the highest raw attack stat of the 3, Astesia still beats her in attack speed, and can only deal a potential 5208 damage in a 5 second window, or 11,718 in 10 seconds.  More importantly than the damage itself, is that Sideroca can still only attack a single target in this window, and gains no additional defense.  Compared to Mousse’s ability to nearly half enemy attack power and Astesia’s Defender level armor, Sideroca is especially vulnerable to burst damage.  While regaining 2760 health in 10 seconds can keep her topped off while fighting mooks, it will do very little to prevent her from simply taking fatal damage before she has a chance to recover.  While the generous 30 second window allows Sideroca to refill her health nearly 3 times over, it may be difficult to find a situation in which this healing isn’t wasted and/or Sideroca is constantly blocking an enemy to attack.  With a 30sp charge time in conjuction with the long duration you may activate the ability at the start of a wave, have a portion of it go to waste while waiting for enemies to spawn, and then have it run out partway through the next wave, and have it unavailable when you need it.  While not as bad as some other abilities in terms of downtime, the fact that Sidera has the lowest armor and lowest damage of the Arts guards without Restorative Surge is a considerable disadvantage.

Furthermore, we should examine their traits a bit closer.  Mousse’s Combo is always active giving her a constant source of supplemental damage, while Astesia merely needs time to ramp up.  Sideroca must score the killing blow on 5 enemies to activate Mercenary’s Tenacity, and if she shares a lane with any ranged attackers, they can potentially stop her from activating her trait, which will seriously diminish her damage output.  It should also be noted that Sideroca’s defensive utility, that being high health and self healing, is better suited to fighting Arts damage enemies than armored enemies with high physical damage.  Arts enemies often have high resist making Sideroca’s supposed niche of “anti-caster Arts guard” somewhat conflicted, while armored physical attackers often have low or no resist, making Mousse and Astesia’s higher armor more valuable as survival tools.

In conclusion, Mousse is cheaper and requires less set up, and is much easier to use.  Astesia has unique utility and by far the highest and most consistent damage output of the 3.  Sideroca doesn’t really bring anything unique to the table in terms of gameplay outside of her self healing.  Leveling and upgrading her is a labor of love, much like all the other 5 star welfares.