Centi Character Guide

Section 1: Who is Centi?

First, let’s begin with a quick summary of her attributes, in table form for your convenience.

Section 2: Why is Centi Good?

If you’ve come to this guide, the most pressing question you have is likely “Is Centi any good?” The answer is undoubtedly yes, and as for why, let us begin a brief overview of her three best aspects and why they are beneficial.

Aspect 1: Excellent Burst Generation

First, let’s discuss the mechanics behind filling the burst gauge. The burst gauge stores up to 10,000 Energy, at which point using a Burst 1 skill becomes available. Every attack landed on any individual rapture or component of a large rapture contributes Energy, and the amount varies between weapon types and even sometimes among characters. To concretely see why Centi’s burst generation is considered excellent, let’s examine the burst generation on some well known, popular Nikkes at the time of writing, and then look at Centi’s:

As we can see, Centi’s burst generation per round is huge – 345 energy per rocket launched. Not only that, but because RLs have an AoE on impact, she generates that energy per target within that AoE on each round! Furthermore, the amount of energy gained is independent of charge level. She has some of the highest unconditional burst energy generation in the game, short of shotgunners if they hit at least 8 of their 10 pellets, Harran with her Skill 1 active, or Jackal. This makes her an excellent choice in teams focused around quick burst rotations that need to build energy quickly.

Aspect 2: Consistent Shielding

Centi’s Skill 2 generates a shield across the entire party for 5 seconds, with a relatively short cooldown that is sped up by her Skill 1. This makes her the best shielder in the entire cast. While you may wonder what the point of such shielding is early in the story, its true worth is revealed when pushing higher stages while under the recommended Power Rating. Shields block all damage from reaching the Nikke and fully block the hit that breaks them as well, with no damage “overflowing” to the Nikke. 

This characteristic is very important in stages with either Sniper or Kamikaze Raptures, because those types of Raptures aim to destroy Nikkes with one single, high power attack after a charging period is complete. If you are unable to destroy them in time, having a shield up will block the attack, allowing you to endure what otherwise would be a fatal blow. With her consistent capability to establish and maintain shielding, Centi can potentially fully protect you from several of their attacks. You can’t heal through an instant kill, but shields can stop it from happening. This also can reduce your need for healing, potentially giving you another DPS slot for things like Special Intercepts or Stages where you just need more damage.

Aspect 3: Debuffing as B2 with Low Cooldown

Centi fills the B2 slot, which doesn’t have many contenders for great options at this time. Dolla tends to take the title for best offensive support B2, but Centi holds the position for defensive B2s. Centi’s Burst Skill is a 20s cd defense debuff with low damage against up to 5 enemies, but more importantly, this also reduces the defense of those enemies. This makes her useful in taking down particularly tanky Raptures or bosses with high defense values if your roster doesn’t have a Nikke who is better suited at dealing with the enemy. She is never a bad pick for a team as a result.

Section 3: How do I Use Centi Effectively?

You should first focus on leveling her Skill 1, then her Burst Skill, and finally her Skill 2. While Skill 2 raises the strength of the shield, raising Skill 1 will increase its uptime. A lot of the attacks that shields are best at blocking will destroy the shield in one hit regardless, so having more shields is better than having a stronger shield. 

Additionally, playing her manually and rapidly firing off her rockets as quickly as possible is one of the best burst generation sources in the game, alongside Harran using the same tactic. While it delays her shielding, the huge surge of burst energy can enable you to flow efficiently from Burst to Burst, especially if you have cooldown reductions like Liter or Volume on the team as well. Without them, her natural burst energy generation can also be sufficient, which allows you to leave her to the AI to use fully charged shots to continually activate her Skill 1. 

At maximum manual speed, you can fire 4 to 5 rockets per second. That’s 1380 to 1725 energy, up to nearly 20% of your burst gauge, near immediately before you need to stop and reload. Compare that to Modernia – she would need to fire up to 173 rounds to give you that much energy.

Conclusion

With the above 3 points in mind, it should be more clear why Centi is considered an excellent Nikke. Her defensive skills are nearly unparalleled, she fills the B2 slot which is a bit lacking in excellent competitors, and her burst generation and defense reduction make her a great addition to almost any team in almost any situation.