Some good stuff in this one! Let’s take a look.
Confession time: I used to play Puzzle and Dragons. Fortunately, Housamo’s take on Goemon is much better-looking than PaD’s interpretation.
His default skill is a bit underwhelming – flat ATK increases aren’t all that useful when multiplicative buffs are in play. It doesn’t help that Spirit only adds [a small amount of] attack – for most units, this is about a 1.1x attack buff (before any other buffs get applied). It’s honestly a bit surprising how useless this buff is.
Arousal isn’t terrible, especially if you’ve already got a source of Ardour on your team.
His LB1 is pretty much the only difference between his two rarity variants: his 3★ gets the defensive Dazzle, while his 4★ gets ATK Up. Both skills are pretty well-suited to their variants – his 4★, with better stats, can make better use of the offensive buff, and applying Dazzle compliments his supporting skill set nicely.
His LB2 is a good spread of abilities. The healing is probably the biggest draw here, followed by the HP reduction, followed by the evasion (largely because it will never trigger when you need it).
Obstruction from his LB3 is a bit useless, though the other two effects from the skill make up for it – suppressing enemy charge skills and charging allies’ are both great effects in the right lineup.
I’m less keen on buff-stealing effects than when they were first released, since 1) enemies never seem to have decent buffs to steal, and 2) they’re never fully levelled skills (i.e. they’re weaker than you’d want them to be). Still, it’s a fun effect, and can be great in the right circumstance.
Aside from the fact that rolling him will probably get you put on a list somewhere, Kotaro is actually a pretty good defensive support.
His main strength comes from his LB2: granting evasion at 80% is pretty strong, and applying Tenacity to allies around him is a nice bonus.
His charge skill is also worth bringing up: Crit+ on a global-range attack has the potential to be board-clearing – with the caveat that you’ll really want a few levels in his sacred artefact.
If you do manage to roll one or two duplicates, his default and LB1 skills become a fair bit more valuable. If you don’t, he’s probably better saved for quests that you really need evasion for.
Surfing with all that fur must be a nightmare.
Seth’s skillset makes me think that I’ve missed something with Kotaro (and Goemon, to a lesser extent) – Seth does a lot, and all of it is good.
Protection, healing, and Curse (on a slash range) are all excellent defensive effects, and Barrage can really improve a team’s consistency.
Remove and Nullify Debuff from his LB3 is nice, but there aren’t many times when an enemy can stand up to multiple attacks from a blow unit (even without buffs).
60% is a bit low on triggering Regeneration, but I’m honestly a bit surprised that he got a means of self-healing at all – even though his skills are a bit more conditional, the amount of defensive work he can put in compares well to the likes of 5★ Snow.
His charge skill is also great. You do miss out on a turn of healing, but Evasion is just about as good, and you get CP to self and allies on top of it.
In case this wasn’t clear, Seth is great.
Much like his standard variant, Volos takes some work to unpack.
Easy things first: Vigour and Crit are excellent offensive buffs, and Regeneration and Remove Debuff are a solid defensive base.
Glint does decent work for him, particularly for his Crit buff, and immunity to Fear will definitely come in handy.
CS Lock and Curse on magic range is a pretty nice for a charge skill, especially if you can get a level or two on it.
Now, let’s talk about that LB1.
Getting a 1.5x damage boost for each debuff on the enemy adds up fast. After his charge skill, he gets a 2.25x damage boost, which is decent, if not the most exciting. At 3 debuffs, this is basically Crit; 4, Crit+. If you can somehow manage to get more than 4 debuffs on the enemy, this becomes the best damage-multiplying skill in the game.
I am very much looking forward to seeing what nonsense I can get up to with him.
I’m weirdly unenthused by Chernobog – don’t get me wrong, he’s a real powerhouse, but his limited variant design feels a bit… uninspired, perhaps? Maybe it’s a side-effect of his standard variant having a relatively narrow skillset.
Nit-picking aside, you absolutely shouldn’t be disappointed if you do roll him. Three different sources of healing on a Snipe unit is fantastic – with Unction doubling as a damage-reduction buff, you shouldn’t need much else on your team in the way of defensive support.
On top of that, he also brings plenty of offensive capability to the barbecue table – Ardour might be a common offensive buff, but Freeze certainly isn’t, and both will do some real work in getting the enemy team nice and dead.
Between Burn, Freeze, and straight up HP reduction, he should be shaving 2600 off the enemy’s health every turn (on top of his attack damage), which is nothing to sniff at.
The CP gain between his default and LB3 skills is nice (but nothing spectacular) – his charge should come up pretty reliably in about 3 turns.
His charge skill ranges from good to great, depending on whether it’s got levels or not. Even at level 1, Crit is a reliably good buff; in most cases, when combined with Ardour and Freeze, it should allow your team to sweep the board. If you do manage to roll a duplicate or two, it gets better (surprise!) – at 1 duplicate (SA level 21), Crit is a 3.2x multiplier, while at 2, Crit goes to 3.6x (his healing goes from 500 to 800 or 900, respectively).
If you get more duplicates than that, you’re probably rolling too much (source: somebody who rolls too much).
His Immobility isn’t too much of a debuff – you’ll want to run a different unit with movement abilities (that will hopefully trigger Chernobog’s LB1) anyway. If you’re looking for recommendations, might I recommend Valentine’s Shino?
Compared with Chernobog, I find Andvari’s design much more elegant – his skillset is a nice extension on his standard variant.
And what an extension it is. While not particularly fancy, Andvari can definitely pull his weight: Crit and Concentration on move (at good rates) will be plenty of damage for most things, while Guts, Regeneration, and Curse should help keep him alive (though he’ll want a bit of support in more drawn-out fights).
A 15% bonus to received coins is nuts.
His charge skill (he should get it up reasonably quickly) is again level hungry, but his movement-based buffs should allow him to make up for this. I suppose it makes sense for a miser character to need duplicates?
There are some really great units in this gacha – I think there’s enough value in it that I’d recommend rolling – Seth is probably the best defensive 4★ unit around right now, Volos is a potentially fun combo piece, and the two 5★s are just bonkers.
As usual, good luck if you’re rolling!
The@Housamo 