Rei Ayanami Guide & Analysis – Should you Pull?

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Newbie/Incomplete Box Section

Rei has decent DPS with very niche but strong buffs. Luckily there are Nikkes that can fully take advantage of her buffs, unluckily these Nikkes are either limited (Asuka) or Pilgrims (Modernia).

There isn’t much to talk about in regards to Rei as she’s mostly an enabler for Modernia to deal more damage in boss battles

This team can be the 3rd or 4th strongest team overall when fighting bosses/Solo raid battles, however there is a lack of survivability when compared to the higher placed teams due to the lack of healing. This will drastically reduce the team’s DPS if a healer is needed to be slotted in the burst II slot are Burst III slot.

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Basic Information

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Skills

Skill 1: Preemptive Subdual

Activates after 100 normal attack(s). Affects self.
Damage as strong element ▲ 30.23% for 3 sec.
Activates after landing 100 normal attack(s). Affects the enemy
within attack range nearest to the crosshair.
Deals 112.37% of final ATK as damage.

A permanent uptime buff for the damage against fire-weak enemies as MGs fire at 60 rounds per second when playing the game at 60fps

Her Attack proc adds around 18%~ DPS at most. This extra proc of damage can’t core hit. The skill scaling of this skill is rather underwhelming as well, increasing in small increments for both the element damage boost and damage on proc.

Skill 2: Attack Support

Activates at the start of the battle. Affects self
Damage dealt to Shield ▲ 700.5% continuously
(It only affects the damage dealt to the shield, not to the Rapture itself)
Activates when entering Burst stage 3. Affects all Fire Code allies.
ATK ▲ 25.03% of caster’s ATK for 10 sec.

A modest Attack buff on every full burst as it procs on burst stage 3. However it is limited to fire code allies. There are not much viable Fire DPS nikkes, but the ones that are viable are relevant to the meta.

There are only a few bosses with shields in the game (Rebuild Vulcan, Mat-H)

Fire DPS’s

Modernia,Asuka,Alice,Rapi: Red Hood

Modernia and Asuka out of this list will be paired with Rei at almost all times. Alice isn’t considered to be a suited pair as she has more team synergy with Scarlet: Black Shadow, and that Alice can’t take advantage of Rei’s Burst (48% ATK damage) when Alice herself is bursting. A2 and 2B are also decent fire DPS’s, but A2 requires a healer and 2B already has an enormous ATK pool.

Burst: Annihilation: High Explosives

Affects all Fire Code allies.
Creates a Shield equal to 13.44% of the caster’s final Max HP
for 10 sec.
Attack damage ▲ 48.02% for 10 sec.
Affects all enemies.
Deals 990.2% of final ATK as damage.

Rei’s shield is pretty nifty as it can completely block heavy hitting attacks once every other full burst. Damage exceeding the shields HP value will not bleed into the protected Nikkes which is an amazing sustainability tool in select bosses that have single hit nukes (Ultra, Land eater, etc).

However, her shields only work with fire code Nikkes. This means your supports (Burst I and Burst II) are most likely vulnerable to AoE attacks unless covering them manually. Cover can be very limited in some solo raids and boss battles, so relying on Rei’s shields completely is not feasible in most boss content.

The burst itself is able to deal very respectable AoE damage which is useful in campaign and PvP, but is a minor contributor to her overall DPS against boss battles/solo rapture fights.

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Campaign

Rei is not expected to perform amazingly in campaign, but she can be usable when supporting listed Nikkes. Not ideal but an option if the commander lacks better supporters.

Rei does have a saving grace besides buffing other fire code Nikkes, it being her screen wipe burst, and a rather powerful one at that. She’s stronger than the other non-pilgrim screen wipers (Maiden, Privaty: Unkind Maid, Kilo). Scarlet and Rei should share similar performance in campaign if the player is not running specialized teams (Mono Fire, Mono Electric) with Scarlet having a slight DPS edge, while Rei can take care of pesky hit count raptures (Glasses) found in later chapters.

Mono Fire Team

Liter,Crown,Asuka,Rei Ayanami,Modernia

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Arena

Fortunately, Rei’s burst makes her pretty great in arena due to her AoE burst. Although she offers nothing new, she can be a placeholder in Scarlet/Jackal comps.

Rei should be able to output similar burst damage (burst skill) as Scarlet, but does have lower burst generation capabilities due to MG wind up time and set 30 FPS in arena.

Will be expanded in the future (Gotta nudge my PvP dude again, I dislike PvP – Valkin)

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Special Interception | Solo Raid | Union Raid

Special Interception (+ Anomaly)

Rei doesn’t have much place in special interception outside of being used in fire-weak bosses. Fortunately Alteisein is fire weak, pretty much the hardest special intercept boss newbies have trouble at.

While not being the best option, her increased element damage when there are no other sources of increasing it as a newbie is great. Even if the Commander doesn’t have other fire Nikkes to pair with, Rei should be able to stand her ground and dish out nice damage.

Anomaly (Indivilia)

rapi: red hood,Grave,Asuka,Rei Ayanami,Modernia

D: Killer Wife can optionally be used instead of Rapi: Red Hood and Crown can be chosen over Grave.

Rei is a great pick against Indivilia but not quite first choice. Despite being able to run a 1-1-3 Burst formation against Indivilia with Asuka/Alice,Rei,Modernia. Running Crown Naga or Tia/Naga still nets similar if not more damage than Rei’s team even if Crown gets wiped out in phase 2 due to a cover piercing Nuke.

Solo Raid | Union Raid

Mono-Fire Team

rapi: red hood,grave,asuka,rei ayanami,Modernia

A simple 5-fire code Nikke team with extremely high burst generation due to Grave’s interaction with MG Nikke. Can perform well even outside of fire weakness due to buffs and synergy within the comp.

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Closing Thoughts/ Should you pull

A very hard topic. her kit’s nature is very niche and can be hit or miss for many Commanders as there are realistically only 2 Nikkes that can pair with her well. This may change in the future depending on Nikke launches (Fire Nikkes).

Rei does have a strong solo raid team even outside element neutral content but her slot is a bit shaky even in her most preferred team.

Pull if focused on high ranking solo raid content for current and future fire weak raids AND already have Asuka, or need a placeholder for Scarlet in Arena. Otherwise hold for Mari (Assumed very good) or Anniversary Pilgrim if the Commander is lacking gems/tickets

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Nikke	Budget Skill Investments	Recommended Skill Investments	Skill Priority	Notes	Investment Priority
Rei Ayanami	Skill 1: 4 Skill 2 : 4 Burst : 7	Skill 1: 7 Skill 2 : 7 Burst : 10	S2 > S1	Skill 1 and 2 have low scaling for their skills, and are not impactful enough to warrant spending gold books for. Her burst offers a high ATK damage up boost, which is good for Strong Sub-DPS Nikkes (Currently only Modernia as of now)	High

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Expected Ratings

Rather rough estimations of ratings for Rei Ayanami

Category	Rating
Overall (PvE)	S-SS
Story	S~
Bosses	S-SS~
Arena	SS~