Marciana: Marine Study Analysis – Should You Pull?

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Overview

• B3 Iron AR Elysion Attacker with a focus on dealing damage and crowd control.
• Has great wave clear with her S2.
• Her self-buffing is incredibly high, but loses effectiveness in crowds, which she tries to make up for with S2 thinning the crowd.
• Has great damage for a 2% unit, but is outclassed in terms of potential by the unit she was released alongside with.
  • As they both fulfill the same general role, an Iron DPS with a focus on bossing, it’s generally better to focus on getting Cinderella: Crystal Wave over Marciana: Marine Study.
• Soooo sexy. The penguin onesie seriously doesn’t dispel it.

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Should You Pull?

This is an awkward situation for Marciana: Marine Study. Even though her DPS is actually quite great for a 2% unit, especially when OLs are catered to her buffing, Marciana has way too much competition from Cinderella: Crystal Wave… actually, not even competition. As they both fulfill similar jobs, an Iron DPS with a great focus vs bossing, Marciana is straight up outclassed by Cinderella: Crystal Wave in terms of meta, having significantly more DPSing tools available in her kit.

The other summer units that are available at the same time don’t help her case either. Dorothy: Serendipity, is incredibly desirable for Shotgun team setups with Tove (Treasure), as her DPS potential in the shotgun team is incredible, even in neutral element settings. Elegg: Boom and Shock, is a DPS unit that provides Water DPS units with a massive Elemental Bonus Damage buff, making her mandatory if one wants to reach higher potential for Water DPS.

Marciana with her lack of major utility means she will just end up as a Solo Raid unit only, primarily, which is perfectly fine, as that tends to be the case for a lot of units, but it’s a shame that when it comes to DPS meta, there is no significant reason to pull for her over Cinderella: Crystal Wave.

The one advantage Marciana has over Cinderella is that she is a 2% unit, meaning she’s easier to obtain and get more copies of, but as with most Nikkes, it’s best to stick to one copy and that’s it. Even though she has probably one of the best MLB wallpapers, you can just look at it here, commander, no need to waste resources!

Similar to Rosanna: Chic Ocean, I wouldn’t blame you if you want to MLB her just to have this on your NIKKE lobby, though.

TL;DR While she is not weak by any means, her lack of utility means she is outclassed by the unit she was released alongside with, as they have the same basic purpose (Iron DPSing vs bosses), but Cinderella: Crystal Wave just has better damage. She is optimally used as a Solo Raid unit only. If you lack Iron DPS, she can make a great supplement, but again, her banner exists alongside Cinderella’s. At the end of the day, though, it’s your pulls.

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Newbie/Incomplete Box Section

Marciana: Marine Study (sMarci, Penguin) is a B3 Iron AR Elysion Attacker with a focus on dealing damage to single targets and the ability to whittle down crowds to ensure she is hitting single targets. Her self buffing is above average, giving herself a ridiculous ~163% ATK, under the condition that there are less than 6 enemies present.

If the amount of enemies that exist on the screen end up at 6 or more, sMarci will sacrifice some of her ATK in order to perform a screenwipe every second. She will do this until there are fewer than 6 enemies to hit. This gives her some of the best wave clear in the game if she is invested into enough, albeit, it gets weaker with every activation.

Aside from that, her lopsided self-buffing means she wants a unique set of OLs catered to her to make the most of it. Incredible ATK, and comparatively high amount of Elemental Bonus Damage to self means she wants much less ATK than usual and slightly less Elemental Bonus Damage OLs from her kit than what is expected of most DPS units.

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Basic Information

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Skill 1: Emergency Whistle

Activates when entering Full Burst after this unit uses her Burst Skill. Affects the 1 enemy unit(s) with the highest final Max HP.
Flagged Target Designation
Effect 1: Deals 3789.25% of final ATK as additional damage.
Effect 2: Activates when the target is alive.
Flagged Target: ATK ▼ 10.56% for 10 sec.
Activates when an enemy is neutralized if the target is in the Flagged Target state. Affects 1 random enemy unit(s).
Flagged Target Designation
Effect 1: Deals 3789.25% of final ATK as additional damage.
Effect 2: Activates when the target is alive.
Flagged Target: ATK ▼ 10.56% for 10 sec.
Activates when landing 20 normal attacks against a target in the High-Risk Target state. Affects the target.
Deals 152.68% of final ATK as additional damage.

When sMarci uses her Burst, the Rapture with the highest final max HP is hit with an incredibly powerful damaging effect; as long as the target is alive, they will have their ATK reduced by 10.56%, which is a good way to reduce the damage dealt by bosses and high-priority raptures, that tend to have the highest max HP on the field of whatever setting they’re on.

If the unit affected by this ATK debuff dies, a random enemy will be affected by this damage and if they survive, also be affected by the debuff. This can keep on being a chain reaction, but only as long as the enemy can tank the big hit. If the big hit outright defeats the targeted unit, this effect will stop completely.

It is unfortunate that enemies must survive the Flagged Target Designation damage in order to receive the Flagged Target debuff and be eligible to pass on the big damage/debuff, as it means that there is no high-damaging effect bouncing off from different unit to different unit; this would’ve made her campaign potential even greater than it already is.

Whenever sMarci attacks a target that is affected by her High-Risk Target debuff 20 times, they receive an additional 152.68% of final ATK as damage. It should be noted that this debuff can only affect Electric-enemies, so it only works against Iron-weak units.

At 20 attacks required to activate this effect, and an AR’s base firing rate of 12/s, this means sMarci will activate this effect every ~1.667s.

Skill 2: Penguin Emergency Dispatch

Activates at the start of battle. Affects self.
Whistle: ATK ▲ 32.73% continuously. Stacks up to 5 times.
Whistle stacks ▲ 4.
Activates every time there are 3 or fewer Raptures present for a period of 5 sec.
Affects self.
Whistle: ATK ▲ 32.73% continously. Stacks up to 5 times.
Activates every time there are 6 or more Raptures present for a period of 1 sec.
Penguin Emergency Dispatch
Function: Expends Whistle stacks to attack Raptures when there are 6 or more present.
Effect 1: Affects all enemies. Deals 214.36% of final ATK as additional damage.
Effect 2: Affects self. Whistle ▼ stacks 1.
Only activates when a Rapture appears or is neutralized while there are 5 or fewer Raptures. Affects self.
Elemental Advantage Attack Damage ▲ 20.41% continuously.

sMarci starts combat by giving herself 5 whistles, each one granting her a big 32.73% ATK, adding up to a crazy ~163% ATK self-buff. At the same time, this forms the basis to how she clears waves of enemies, by expending Whistles to perform a screenwipe.

sMarci has a counter to her left stating how many Raptures there are, and her whistle counter to the right. The lifesaver is also color-coded based on what it is doing. When the number of Raptures are 6 or greater, the lifesaver is red, and if it stays that way for one second, she will deal an attack to the entire screen and expend a Whistle stack. This will keep happening until the number of Raptures on the screen are below 6 in count.

When the lifesaver is blue, that means she is attempting to get a Whistle back. If the number of Raptures remains at 3 or fewer for at least 5 seconds, then she will recover a Whistle stack and get back some ATK.

Against boss raptures in raid settings or chapter bosses, which tend to fight alone, she will instead maintain a constantly high ATK stat. sMarci will keep generating Whistle stacks, but since it’s capped at 5, it will just keep working as it does like above.

As long as the number of Raptures is at 5 or fewer, sMarci can maintain a nice Elemental Damage buff. Against solo bosses, this buff is effectively permanent. Since this is an Elemental Damage buff, it is only beneficial against Electric (Iron-weak) enemies.

Burst: Penguin Spiral

Affects self.
Elemental Advantage Attack Damage ▲ 30.97% for 10 sec.
Attack Damage ▲ 27.45% for 10 sec.
Affects all Electric Code enemies.
High-Risk Target: DEF ▼ 10.56% for 20 sec.

sMarci gives herself a big 30.97% Elemental Damage buff, or at least, big for the buff type, as it’s not typical for Nikkes to give themselves Elemental Damage self-buffing. She will also give herself an okay Attack Damage buff.

Against Electric enemies, she will give them a High-Risk Target debuff that decreases their DEF by a bit for 20 seconds. DEF debuffs that low are honestly mediocre when it comes to buffing DPS. As the damage formula has ATK and DEF directly counter each other, but ATK stats are always higher than DEF stats, the DPS amplification it gives is significantly less than 10.56% ATK under most circumstances, which is not a great amount, especially to herself, as she gives herself so much ATK by default.

Since it only works against Electric targets, this too, is tied to Iron-weak DPS primarily. The main benefit of this debuff is that it activates the last line of her S1. With its long 20s duration, sMarci can activate her S1 damaging effect 12 times over the course of 20 seconds every time she debuffs the enemy, assuming no reloads. Since this goes into an ally’s Burst Time, sMarci maintains above average DPS against Iron-weak solo bosses.

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Campaign

As seen in the videos above, sMarci has above average potential in campaign, as long as one can help her control the crowds so that she doesn’t lose all her Whistle stacks fast, and by extension, lose all her damage, as each Whistle stack also means a loss in ATK. Her S1 also does a good job at ‘assassinating’ high priority targets, who tend to have high max HP stats, especially if she can maintain her ATK stat.

sMarci’s self buffing, while potentially high, doesn’t necessarily mean she has great potential in high deficit, as she can quickly lose that ATK if the Rapture crowds get out of hand, especially outside of Iron-weak content. Losing so much ATK will tank her damage in high deficit, and since high deficit massively reduces stats, it’s not recommended to take sMarci past 40% deficit at most. She can be really good at wiping out crowds fast for stuff like events, but for serious content, know her limits.

Outside of the free screenwipe on occasion, sMarci doesn’t have a ton going for her in campaign. The AR curse strikes again, where the weapon class is below average at dealing with individual targets, meaning she will need the help of others to deal with the Raptures to balance Whistle stacks.

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Arena

Unfortunately, sMarci is pretty mediocre in PvP. Her S1 hit against the highest HP unit is remarkable, but if it outright kills the Nikke that is hit by it, there is no chain reaction that could potentially escalated into defeating multiple Nikkes in a row. This is especially true when it comes to Moran, as she is weak to Iron and could be annihiliated in spite of how durable she can be, due to the sheer base damage, if sMarci has enough elemental damage.

Aside from her S1 being tricky to use in PvP settings, her S2, while it gives her great ATK stat to make use of in PvP, unfortunately doesn’t have the penguin screen attack activation that it does. Not only does it only activate when there are 6 units or more on the opposing side, and PvP is 5v5, but it specifically affects Raptures, so it wouldn’t have worked in PvP, anyway.

Aside from all of this, she has an AR, one of the weaker weapons in both PvE and PvP settings, with no special properties that would allow it to make up for its downsides in Arena. While she can work in PvP, she will need a lot of catering by allies, and to be sent against the right enemy teams to work out.

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Special Interception | Union Raid | Solo Raid

Where sMarci does her main job, dealing DPS against single targets. As a unit that is primarily intended to deal with Iron-weak bosses, especially with all the effects she has that only activate vs. Electric enemies, she is primarily an Iron-weak Solo Raid bossing unit only. If you have the best Iron units available, it would be tough to consider sMarci for single boss settings, like Intercept, or Union Raid, unless she is very built by comparison.

Her ATK reduction against bosses and DPS that is generally independent of parts or core allow her to maintain relevance against any boss, but also means she won’t have a sudden damage spike against specific bosses. Against bosses with spawns, such as Harvester or Mother Whale (but are overall rare), she can uniquely wipe out spawns without having to aim for them, allowing her team to keep the DPS flowing.

If you can cater to her unique self-buffing power and balance her OLs around it, she can have very competitive damage in SR, especially for a 2% unit.

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Strengths

• High self ATK buffing makes her fairly low investment compared to other DPS units.
  • However, it also means she doesn’t want buffers that give more ATK, as it would be inefficient for her.
• Great wave clear for a unit mostly intended to deal with solo bosses.
  • Comes at the cost of her self-buff, though, so tread carefully.
• Has some PvP potential, but is hard to work around.
• Has above average damage, though she should primarily stick to Iron-weak.
• Sooooo hot, oh my god.
• Slight ATK reduction can help out against bosses, though it’s not as good as Damage Taken Reduction.

Weaknesses

• AR Curse strikes again, why give her an activation effect that needs a bullet count higher than what AR fire rate wants?
• Very weak DEF debuff this late into 2026 is somewhat shameful to see.
• Already outclassed by the banner unit she was released alongside with.
• S1 interaction is unfortunate.
• Needs a degree of control to maintain relevance in campaign, and especially in PvP, when it comes to Rapture count balancing, and knowing what enemy comps to fight to ensure good S1 chains, respectively.

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Rating

Category	Rating
Overall	S
Story	S
Bosses	SS
Arena	A

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Recommended Cubes

bastion cube,resilience cube

As an AR with a fast 1s reload, Resilience is the best cube to go for, generally speaking. However, if you happened to roll great ammo lines on sMarci, Bastion can also work pretty well.

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Doll Priority

Her doll priority is Medium-High. While she has good damage, and great ATK scaling that would appreciate the increase in base ATK from Doll, if you already have the best Iron DPS units available, then they should be prioritized over sMarci if they still need more work.

sMarci will be an Iron-weak SR unit for most players, for all intents and purposes, which limits where she will be played in content, metawise.

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Expected Skill Priority

Nikke	Budget Skill Investments	Recommended Skill Investments	Skill Priority	Notes	Investment Priority
Marciana: Marine Study	Skill 1: 7 Skill 2: 7 Burst: 7	Skill 1: 7 (10) Skill 2: 7 (10) Burst: 7	S1 = S2	Skill 1 is where one of her biggest nukes is located, and where her bonus damage effect from hitting enemies afflicted with her Burst debuff is, making it important to level. Skill 2 gives her a HUGE ATK self-buff and some bonus elemental damage, making it important to get. It also has her screenwipe for campaign. Burst gives her more self buffing, but is overall not as important for her, as the buff it contans is overall less than her S2’s buff, and the DEF debuff from Burst is irrelevant.	Medium-High

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Overload Gear Priority

Gear Priority = Head > Gloves > Chest > Boots

Attribute (Sub-Stat)	Priority	Recommended	Notes
Increase Element Damage Dealt	★★★☆☆	2 – 3x	Wanted for Union Raids and Solo Raid content, where she will mostly see use. As a unit with a high degree of Elemental Damage dealt, she doesn’t need as much as other units.
Increase Hit Rate	☆☆☆☆☆	0x	Even though she is an AR that would appreciate hit rate to hit cores more effectively, the bulk of her damage is independent of core hits.
Increase Max Ammunition Capacity	★★★★☆	1-2x	Having more ammo is never a bad idea, especially as she has an activation effect that is dependent on firing bullets against Electric enemies. Her fast reload can compensate for this, however.
Increase ATK	★☆☆☆☆	0 – 1x	Unlike most DPS units, she does not want that much ATK. The amount of ATK she gives herself from S2, alongside the amount of ATK from buffers she’ll most likely end up allied with, will be so much, that the ATK from OLs will be severely diluted.
Increase Charge Damage	☆☆☆☆☆	0x	—
Increase Charge Speed	☆☆☆☆☆	0x	—
Increase Critical Rate	★★★★☆	1 – 3x	As a unit that doesn’t really need ATK OLs, and barely needs Elemental Damage OLs, she can make room for critical lines. Critical Rate is slightly more important than critical damage, as getting a critical hit on her S1 effects against a boss will be a fat DPS up.
Increase Critical Damage	★★★☆☆	0 – 2x	Critical damage can make potentially lucky critical hits even better.
Increase DEF	☆☆☆☆☆	0x	—