Arcana: Fortune Mate Analysis – Should You Pull?

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Overview

• B2 Fire Attacker SG unit that buffs shotgun units a lot and deals high Fire DPS in the shotgun team composition.
• The meta B2 buffer for most shotgun teams.
• Having her allows other, more general buffers to buff other teams, since she is locked to buffing Shotgun allies only.
• Not needing ammo management allows her to maximize her DPS through OLs

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Should You Pull?

She’s honestly really strong. A B2 buffer specifically for the shotgun team that has great DPS to boot in the same team composition means that she is guaranteed to be meta, because the shotgun team is so ubiquitous for raid content. It would be an easy yes, but we should note that half anniversary is about a month away.

While Arcana: Fortune Mate is strong, she is also mostly going to be used in raids only. Also, while she is great for the shotgun team, she doesn’t exactly supercede B2 buffers like Grave or Ade: Agent Bunny (bAde) enough to make her significantly better than them. For those reasons, if you care about raids primarily, you should very likely pull for her; otherwise, you can skip her and wishlist her later.

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Newbie/Incomplete Box Section

Arcana: Fortune Mate (Arcanalt, ArcanaFM, Altcana) is a B2 Fire Attacker SG unit that primarily buffs her fellow shotgun allies alongside dealing good DPS within the same team composition. Due to the fact that her buffs are exclusive to Shotgun-wielding allies only, alongside her personal DPS needing Tove’s Attack Speed buff to stack up her passives, she should strictly be used with other shotgun allies.

Even though she is a B2 unit, she is built to deal a lot of DPS thanks to all of her skills. Her S2’s built in Bastion effect also makes it so that she doesn’t even need any ammo management lines or even the cubes at all, allowing her OLs to contribute to her personal DPS, giving her a ton of damage potential. Her 20s Burst cooldown also ensures that she can constantly deal damage, unlike a standard B3 unit.

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Basic Information

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Skill 1: Keepsake Album

Activates when Full Burst ends. Affects all shotgun-wielding allies.
ATK ▲13% of the caster’s ATK x stack count of Precious Moments for 15 sec.
Activates when Happy Memories takes effect. Affects self.
Snapshots of Youth: Normal Attack Damage Multiplier ▲10% continuously, stacks up to 3 time(s).
Activates when Full Burst ends. Affects self.
Removes Making Memories.
Removes Snapshots of Youth.

Whenever Full Burst ends, Arcanalt will buff up the caster ATK of allies by 13% of her ATK, stacking up to 3 times if she stacks up her S2 enough. Due to its 15 second duration, this buff is effectively permanent in normal gameplay. Despite how sizeable it can be, since both Tove (Treasure) (ToveT) and Drake (Treasure) (DrakeT) are usually part of the same team composition, the ATK gain from this isn’t as effective as it seems, since both ToveT and DrakeT provide so much ATK to Shotgun units.

Whenever Arcanalt gains a certain stack of her S2, she will also give herself a Normal Attack Damage Multiplier. This is honestly so nice, since the bulk of her DPS comes from normal attacks, and she is rewarded to deal more damage with normal attacks the more she can shoot.

Up to +30% Normal Attack Damage Multiplier makes her already strong normal attacks even stronger, especially when you combine it with a Collection Item, since a Shotgun doll’s offensive effect is a Normal Attack Damage multiplier that stacks additively with this effect. There is a catch, though.

As soon as Full Burst ends, both her Burst and Snapshots of Youth buff wear off. As we’ll see soon, in normal situations, the Normal Attack Damage Multiplier takes so long into Full Burst to reach max stacks that Arcanalt barely has time to make use of the maxed out Normal Attack Damage Multiplier. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a powerful effect… it’s just that she can barely make use of it at max power.

Skill 2: Memories and Moments

Activates when performing normal attacks while in Making Memories status. Affects self.
Effect changes according to the number of attacks. The effect of each phase does not stack. Resets when Making Memories is removed.
Two times: Reloads 6 round(s).
Four times: Happy Memories: Number of pellets ▲ 1 continuously, stacks up to 3 time(s).
Six times: Precious Moments: ATK ▲ 2.49% continuously, stacks up to 3 time(s).
Activates when using Burst Skill. Affects all shotgun-wielding allies (except self).
Attack Damage ▲55% for 10 sec.

Whenever Arcanalt performs basic attacks with Burst Active, she gains a stacking buff mechanic similar to Scarlet: Black Shadow’s S1. As long as Arcanalt can keep shooting, she will keep strenghtening herself over the course of Burst Time. Since the effects do not stack with one another, she has to cycle through 6 attacks before she can stack up the next portion of Memories and Moments.

After the first 2 shots fired in the middle of Burst Time, she will give herself +6 ammo. Every 6 shots fired after this one will reload her 6 ammo, so the 8th shot fired during Full Burst refills 6, as does the 14th, so on. Since she shoots 6 to give herself 6, this effectively gives her infinite ammo during Burst Time if she got to Burst, which she always should in the Shotgun-based team composition.

After the first 4 shots fired in the Middle of Burst Time, she will give herself +1 pellet. Every 6 shots fired after this one specifically will give her another +1` pellet, meaning that it takes 10 shots to reach +2 pellets and 16 shots fired to reach +3, which is the cap. While the pellets seem kind of pointless, since pellets on their own do not increase DPS, they slightly increase her accuracy; also, the pellet stacks are tied to the Normal Attack Damage multiplier stacks from S1.

After the first 6 shots fired, she will give herself a slight ATK buff. Every 6th shot after this one will give another slight ATK buff, up to 3 times. The 12th shot within Full Burst and the 18th shot respectively are the thresholds to reach to gain all the ATK buffs from S2. Each stack of this buff is tied to the caster ATK buff gained from S1, meaning Arcana wants to shoot a minimum of 18 times every Full Burst to ensure she can maximize the ATK buff she gives to allies.

It should be noted that due to a Shotgun’s base firing rate of 1.5 shots per second, Arcanalt on her own will not be capable of stacking her S2. Within a standard 10 second Full Burst duration, she will only shoot 15 times at most, assuming one uses Burst as quickly as possible, which barely misses the mark for the final stack of Happy Memories, and can never hope to reach the final stack of Precious Moments.

For those reasons, if Arcana is on the team, ToveT is required to ensure she can both function at full effectiveness and have proper DPS. If ToveT has maxed S2, the Attack Speed buff allows Arcanalt to shoot 21 times within Full Burst, which allows her to gain maximum Normal Attack Damage multiplier for up to 5 attacks per standard FB, and always give the maximum caster ATK buff stacks from S1 on every Burst rotation.

Finally, what will guarantee her a spot in raid meta: Whenever Arcanalt uses Burst, she gives all Shotgun allies besides herself a huge 55% Attack Damage buff. This is equivalent to the amount a unit like bAde or Crown buffs, but unlike either of them, Arcanalt can also deal DPS by default. Even though Arcanalt herself cannot benefit from this buff, her own buff on Burst, which activates so much of her kit, more than makes up for it.

Lastly, as soon as Full Burst ends, all the stacking buffs from S2 go away, and with it, the Normal Attack Damage multiplier buff on S1. The stack count also resets to 0, meaning upon using Full Burst again, Arcanalt will have to go through the same cycle of needing to shoot 16 times to max the pellet count and 18 attacks to cap out the slight ATK buff on S2, to maximize the caster ATK buff from S1.

Burst: Radiant Youth

Affects self.
Making Memories:
Function: Enhances attack capabilities.
Effect 1: Critical Rate ▲ 20.09% continously.
Effect 2: Reloads 2 round(s).
Effect 3: Attack Damage ▲ 29.99% continuously.
Affects all enemies.
Deals 554.4% of final ATK as Burst Skill damage.

As soon as Arcanalt uses Burst, she gives herself a buff that enables the majority of her skills: Making Memories is required to start stacking S2 effects, using Burst is what gives the shotgun units in her team +55% Attack Damage, and with stacking S2, she will also activate parts of her S1, depending on how much she can shoot within Full Burst.

On top of all of these effects, she gives herself a ridiculous 20.09% Critical Rate, and a ~30% Attack Damage buff, both which more than compensate for Arcanalt not being able to benefit from the Attack Damage buff on S2. On top of all the other buffs she gives to herself from S2 and S1, Arcanalt’s DPS potential goes through the roof.

She will also reload 2 shots of ammo, which doesn’t seem like much, but is part of what gives her complete ammo independence: whenever she activates Burst, she gives herself 2 ammo, and after firing 2 times, she refills her magazine by 6, and every 6 shots after THAT will refill 6 again, until Full Burst ends.

It should be noted that the effects are continuous, but S1 itself will dispel her Burst, and with it, S2, the moment Full Burst ends. This means effects that lengthen or shorten Full Burst time affect how long her Burst buff and S2 stacks lasts, and how much of her S2 she is able to stack.

This matters in particular when it comes to Soda: Twinkling Bunny (bSoda), since she is very important to Iron DPS for the SG team, and when played optimally, she will always extend Full Burst by 5 seconds. While the Attack Damage buff to allies is always 10 seconds, meaning that it’ll wear off in that time frame no matter what, Burst Time extension allows Arcanalt to maintain maximum power from Burst, S2 and S1 for longer.

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Campaign

Even though it’s far from optimal, Arcanalt makes the shotgun team very workable in campaign content. Her buff is so good for them, her personal DPS is great to supplement the DPS of the main DPS units, and the screenwipe she performs upon using Burst also helps deal with crowds of lesser enemies.

Even though this buff can’t fully benefit from Full Burst buffs, as it occurs upon using Arcanalt’s Burst 2, it’s still very effective thanks to Tove’s buff occuring prior to it, Arcanalt’s Burst buff to self helping it fish for critical hits more, and ideally, the caster ATK buff Arcanalt gives herself from S1 after the first time.

Even though there’s definitely better options available for the campaign team over the shotgun team, if you want to try out the shotgun team in campaign content, Arcanalt definitely makes it a lot more viable than before.

It should be noted that due to the lack of other viable shotgun units in Elysion, as well as Tove belonging to a different tower, Arcanalt should not be considered for Elysion tower for the foreseeable future, since her buffs to allies work exclusive to the benefit of shotgun units, and lacking Tove’s Attack Speed results in her working worse than she should.

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Arena

While Arcanalt does have a screenwipe Burst on B2 and a powerful basic attack, much stronger than the average shotgun, she isn’t a clip SG, giving her average Burst generation. All her buffs working exclusive to the benefit of shotguns also makes her less viable in Arena. Worst of all, though, she needs to stack up to maximize her power within Burst time, which takes too much time compared to how long Arena matches last.

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Special Interception | Union Raid | Solo Raid

Arcanalt is pretty much made for this: she is a B2 that will be locked to the shotgun team for the foreseeable future, freeing up other B2 units that would have gone with them, such as bAde, Grave, and Nayuta towards other team compositions. Against Fire-weak setups in particular, Arcanalt makes for a powerful unit to deal high DPS when built for it, with all her buffs adding up with ToveT’s and DrakeT’s resulting in a very strong Fire DPS unit.

While it seems like she powercreeped Brid: Silent Steam (xBrid) off the shotgun team, because she isn’t shotgun locked unlike Arcana, it allows xBrid to join other teams against Fire-weak raids. Even though she loses out on personal DPS, allowing such an excellent sub-DPS and debuffer to join other teams and provide a more effective buff than what xBrid could provide in the shotgun team will result in higher overall team damage.

It should be noted that for Water-weak Solo raid settings, setups buffing Dorothy: Serendipity (DoroS) are likely to benefit from Grave more than Arcanalt, despite how much better Arcanalt is for the shotgun team, because Grave provides both a 40% Attack Damage buff and a 40% Pierce Damage buff, which DoroS benefits a lot from, due to how often she fires off Piercing Attacks. It is possible for Arcanalt to catch up to Grave and be more present for the SG team, though it will require a lot of investment for Arcanalt to make up for the DPS loss DoroS will likely go through.

For Electric weak settings, Arcanalt normally isn’t a part of it, since original Arcana is mandatory to buff Isabel, which mandates using Dolla if ToveT is used as a B1, leaving no room for Arcanalt.

Other than these two notes, Arcanalt will almost always be a part of the shotgun team, and potentially open up room for new teams, depending on what other DPS shotgun units are introduced in the future.

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Strengths

• Best shotgun team buffer in the majority of circumstances.
• Incredible DPS potential thanks to all the buffs she gives herself and ammo independence.
• Makes use of the powerful Normal Attack Damage multiplier buff, which combines well with her stronger than average basic attack.
• 20s cd screenwipe gives her functionality in content with a lot of trash mobs.
• Has greater future potential; as more shotgun units are added to the future, she will only become more relevant, especially if they are DPS units of other elements she can buff.

Weaknesses

• Being shotgun locked means her power outside of Fire-weak is dependent on how the shotgun units are doing in other elements; for example, since Wind’s best choice is Noir as of this writing, it could be dubious to buff Noir instead of using other strong, non-SG units that exist for Wind.
• Can’t really make use of max stack Normal Attack Damage buff from S1 outside of team compositions using bSoda.
• Needs Attack Speed from Tove for maximum functionality: at default attack speed, she can’t hope to max S1/S2 stacks, ever.

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Rating

Category	Rating
Overall	S
Story	A
Bosses	SS
Arena	B

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Recommended Cubes

destruction cube,resilience cube

As mentioned, Arcanalt does not actually need ammo management cubes thanks to both her burst refilling +2 ammo upon use, and after firing 2 shots mid-Burst, she will refill 6 ammo, refilling another 6 for every 6 shots fired during her Burst effect. For those reasons, her best cube is Destruction cube when attacking a boss with parts; otherwise, going for your highest level cube to maximize DPS is the next best choice.

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Doll Priority

As a Nikke that relies mainly on normal attacks to deal DPS, and has a normal attack damage buff on S1 that stacks additively with the Shotgun doll’s normal attack damage multiplier, Arcanalt has a higher than usual priority for a Doll. The ATK stat increase it gives is also made more effective with the caster ATK buff she gives off from S1.

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Expected Skill Priority

Nikke	Budget Skill Investments	Recommended Skill Investments	Skill Priority	Notes	Investment Priority
Arcana: Fortune Mate	Skill 1: 4 Skill 2: 7 Burst: 7	Skill 1: 7 Skill 2: 10 Burst: 7	S1 < S2	Skill 1 contains her caster ATK buff and her Normal Attack Damage buff. Due to the fact that the shotgun team already has both ToveT and DrakeT giving away a ton of ATK, as well as the low uptime on max stack Normal Attack Damage multiplier, it can be left at 7 to save on resources. Skill 2 is where the Attack Damage buff to allies comes from. While the other buffs to self that come from this skill are quite minimal, the Attack Damage buff to allies make it a must max. Burst is where a lot of her personal power comes from, since it enables so much of her kit. It can be maxed out eventually to give her higher personal DPS, especially vs Fire-weak content.	Higher

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Overload Gear Priority

Gear Priority = Head > Gloves > Chest > Boots

Attribute (Sub-Stat)	Priority	Recommended	Notes
Increase Element Damage Dealt	★★★★★	4x	Wanted for Union Raids and Solo Raid content.
Increase Hit Rate	☆☆☆☆☆	0x	—
Increase Max Ammunition Capacity	☆☆☆☆☆	0x	Due to her skills, she doesn’t actually need any ammo lines whatsoever. The moment you activate Burst, if you interrupt her potentially long reload with a normal attack, she will return to shooting properly for the rest of FB.
Increase ATK	★★★★★	4x	Simply more damage.
Increase Charge Damage	☆☆☆☆☆	0x	—
Increase Charge Speed	☆☆☆☆☆	0x	—
Increase Critical Rate	★★★☆☆	1 – 2x	The lack of need for ammo lines allows her to make good use of critical lines.
Increase Critical Damage	★★★★☆	1 – 3x	Critical damage in particular, is so effective for her thanks to how much critical rate she already gives herself, on top of the critical rate Tove gives to allies.
Increase DEF	☆☆☆☆☆	0x	—