This guide will walk you through the basics of team-building in Goddess of Victory: Nikke. With this guide you can make your own teams, meta or non-meta, that work well for your account.

Burst and Weapon Types

Burst Basics

The most important mechanic of Nikke combat is burst. Units are categorized into three burst types: burst 1 (B1), burst 2 (B2), and burst 3 (B3).

Every time a unit lands a hit, they generate burst gauge. It is important to note that this is per hit, so AoE hits can generate more burst gauge per round. (Some units generate more burst gauge than others; refer to the burst gauge generation section below or the in-depth burst gauge generation article for more information.)

When the burst gauge meter fills to full, your burst 1 character will start the burst chain and use her burst. One character each will burst in order from burst 1 -> burst 2 -> burst 3. In auto mode, units on the left will take priority when there are two or more of the same burst type. After burst 3 is used, your whole team enters full burst mode.

In full burst mode, all AI will follow their aim to where you are aiming manually. (Or all aim at the same target in auto.) Many characters also have skills that trigger when entering full burst mode, so your damage output is much higher during full burst. Full burst lasts for 10 seconds, and the burst meter is reset after it ends to start the cycle again.

Since our goal is to maximize the powerful full burst time, we want to be able to burst chain as often as possible. We must bring at least one of each burst type to fulfill the chain. Though some burst 1 and burst 2 units’ bursts have a 20 second cooldown, all burst 3 units have a 40 second cooldown. This means in order to full burst every 20 seconds, we need at least two burst 3 units.

With one burst 1, one burst 2, and two burst 3 being the requirement for any good team, this leaves a fifth slot open for a “sub” role unit. Sub is what I call a character that does not normally need to burst to be useful for the team. They either have a powerful burst with a long cooldown (Poli, Noise, etc), strong utility burst that should only be used at certain times in manual play (Rapunzel, Noah, etc), or strong skills that make them useful even without their burst (Privaty, Helm, etc). Putting a good sub in your fifth slot is key to building an optimal team.

Weapons

Next to burst types, weapon types are the second most important aspect to consider when building your team. There are many reasons to this: range, area of effect damage (AoE) vs single target damage (ST), burst gauge generation (energy support), and rate of fire (RoF). These concepts will be explained below.

There are six weapon types in Nikke:

Weapon Type	Effective Range	Area of Effect	Single Target	Burst Generation	Rate of Fire
Shotgun (SG)	Close Range	Poor (Spread)	Good	Very Good if Near	Low
Submachine Gun (SMG)	Close-Mid Range	None	Good	Poor	High
Assault Rifle (AR)	Mid Range	None	Very Good	Average	Average
Machine Gun (MG)	Mid-Far Range	None	Good	Poor	Very High
Sniper Rifle (SR)	Far Range	Some Good (Pierce)	Good	Good	Low
Rocket Launcher (RL)	Not Affected by Range	Very Good	Poor	Very Good if AoE	Low

Range

It is important to bring the right weapons for the range of enemies you are fighting. Some enemies are closer, some are further away. This is plain to see and easy to understand, but explained somewhat misleadingly in-game. Below are the exact effective range values for each weapon type:

Range	Weapon	Effective Range
Close Range	Shotgun	0 ~ 25
Close-Mid Range	Submachine Gun	15 ~ 35
Mid Range	Assault Rifle	25 ~ 45
Mid-Far Range	Machine Gun	35 ~ 55
Far Range	Sniper Rifle	45 ~ 100

Weapons receive a range bonus when damaging enemies within their effective range, and are granted additional damage. When targeting an enemy within range for this bonus, the crosshair will appear blue. Rocket launchers do not gain any range bonus.

There is also a range penalty which reduces damage and hit rate when targeting enemies outside of weapon range. Hit rate is just like accuracy: reduced hit rate increases the chance your hits will miss. Snipers and rocket launchers are not affected by hit rate, and so ignore this penalty. Range penalty is worsened the further away enemies are from weapon range.

You can check the range of enemies in-game by looking at the effective range before starting battle. This information is also shown in battlefield info.

Area of Effect (AoE) & Single Target (ST)

Enemies can come as waves of many weaker raptures, or as a single strong rapture. Often, you must deal with both in a given battle. While it is obvious that rocket launchers have AoE damage, there are less obvious mechanics that influence AoE or allow for multiple enemies to be dealt with.

Weapon	Mechanic	Explanation	Units
Rocket Launcher	Explosion	Attack will explode, dealing AoE damage near its target.	ALL Rocket Launchers
Rocket Launcher	Explosion Increase	Explosion radius increases, extending the range of the AoE explosion.	Laplace, Vesti, Belorta
Sniper & Certain Units	Pierce	Shots pierce the target, dealing damage to enemies behind it.	Harran, Alice, Maxwell, Snow White, Laplace, Neve
Shotgun	Spread	Pellets have spread, dealing damage in a small area.	ALL shotguns
Machine Gun	High Rate of Fire	With high rate of fire, multiple enemies can be killed 1 by 1 quickly.	ALL machine guns
Certain Units	AoE Burst	Some characters’ bursts deal high AoE damage, killing an entire wave of enemies instantly.	Scarlet, Harran, Epinel, etc

Burst Gauge Generation

Different weapon types generate more energy per hit. It is important to bring enough burst energy generation for good burst uptime. This holds especially true when bringing Liter, Dolla, and/or Volume.

There are some special units with abnormal burst energy generation. Please refer to the full Burst Gauge Generation article for detailed information on this subject.

Weapon Type	Burst Gauge Generation	Units
Rocket Launcher (Clip Reload)	Very high energy generation	Anis, Centi
Shotgun (Clip Reload)	High energy generation	Drake, Sugar, Maiden, Pepper, Neon
Sniper Rifle	Good energy generation	Sniper Rifles (some anomalies)
Rocket Launcher (Full Reload)	Some energy generation	All other Rocket Launchers (some anomalies)
Shotgun (Full Reload)	Some energy generation	All other Shotguns
Assault Rifle	Some energy generation	Assault Rifles (some anomalies)
Submachine Gun	Poor energy generation	All Submachine Guns (some anomalies)
Machine Gun	Poor energy generation	All Machine Guns

Roles and Synergies

Burst and weapon types are crucial to build a basic functioning team, but we can strive for something better: team synergy. We will now discuss team roles and synergies to build the most powerful teams possible.

Roles

I categorize units into 6 basic roles:

Role	Explanation	Recommended # in a Team
DPS	Deals damage. At least one is necessary in every team.	1~3
Offensive Support	Increases the damage of allies by buffing attack, crit chance, crit damage, hit rate, charge damage, charge speed, damage%, attack speed, or by debuffing enemy defense, healing, or increasing enemy damage taken.	2~4
Defensive Support	Decreases damage taken by allies by buffing defense, healing potency, max HP, damage reduction, or sharing damage taken.	0~2
Energy Support	Generates energy or buffs allies’ energy generation to help fill the burst gauge quickly. See the burst generation guide for more information.	1~3
Healer	Heals allies. Healers are helpful against enemies that deal damage over time.	0~2
Shielder	Shields allies. Shielders are favoured against enemies that use powerful attacks intermittently, as units do not take overflow damage when a shield is broken.	0~2
Taunter	Taunts enemies. Taunters can sometimes be very strong defensive options, but can be problematic if they die.	0~1

Most units fulfill more than one role, but not all roles equally well. The key to building a powerful team relies on covering each necessary role efficiently between five units.

The most essential roles that must always be filled are: DPS, Offensive Supports, and Energy Supports. Every team requires at least one unit per each of these roles in order to function. This is because these roles are the offensive roles. Every stage has a time limit and you must be able to deal a certain amount of damage to defeat the enemies within that time.

The other roles are defensive roles: defensive supports, healers, shielders, and taunters. They are not always necessary for every stage. However, they may be crucial in some stages and become increasingly important at harder difficulties. You must be able to find the right balance between offence and defence for your team to be successful.

Example Teams

Let us combine this knowledge with what we learned previously from Team Building 101.

Position	Burst 1	Burst 2	Burst 3	Burst 3	Sub
Unit	N102	Anis	Privaty	Neve	Ether
Weapon	RL	RL	AR	SG	SG
Role	Offensive Support, Energy Support	Energy Support, Defensive Support, Offensive Support	DPS, Offensive Support	DPS	Shielder, Defensive Support, Offensive Support

In the above example, we have fulfilled:

• 2 DPS: Sometimes 2 may not feel like enough, depending on how many offensive supports there are.
• 4 Offensive Supports: This is a good number of offensive supports for 2 DPS. However, Anis and Ether only bring defense down, which is one of the weakest offensive support skills. But N102 and Privaty are strong attack buffers, so we fulfill the 2 Offensive Supports minimum.
• 2 Defensive Supports: This is a good number of defensive supports for a general purpose team.
• 2 Energy Supports: Since Anis is one of the strongest energy supports in the game, this is enough.
• 0 Healers: Healers are not always necessary to have.
• 1 Shielder: Shields can be helpful against strong enemies. 1 shielder is often enough.
• 0 Taunters: Taunters are not always necessary to have.

Position	Burst 1	Burst 2	Burst 3	Burst 3	Sub
Unit	Liter	Centi	Scarlet	Harran	Drake
Weapon	SMG	RL	AR	SR	SG
Role	Offensive Support	Energy Support, Shielder, Defensive Support, Offensive Support	DPS	DPS, Energy Support	DPS, Offensive Support

Next, let us analyze one of the popular meta teams to understand what makes it strong.

• 3 DPS: 3 DPS is often favourable due to all stages having a time limit, and many stages having other mechanics that require a DPS check to be met.
• 3 Offensive Supports: This is a good number of offensive supports for 3 DPS. While Centi is a weaker offensive support, Liter is one of the best offensive supports in the game, and Scarlet and Harran have strong self-buffs themselves.
• 1 Defensive Support: This is a fine number of defensive supports for a general purpose team, especially with a shielder.
• 2 Energy Supports: Since Centi and Harran are two of the strongest energy supports in the game, this is more than enough.
• 0 Healers: Healers are not always necessary to have.
• 1 Shielder: Centi is the best shielder in the game, and is usually more than enough.
• 0 Taunters: Taunters are not always necessary to have.

Elements

There are also 5 elements in Nikke: Fire, Wind, Iron, Electric, Water.

When a unit has type advantage over an enemy, that unit deals 10% bonus damage. When a unit has type disadvantage, that unit takes 10% bonus damage from the enemy. There is no damage penalty for type disadvantage.

Since 10% is not particularly high, the elemental system is not as important as other aspects to consider when choosing units for your team. However, when all else is equal, elemental bonus can make a difference.

For example, since Neve has type disadvantage against Gravedigger, in SP Interception Gravedigger she is unable to survive a single drill other while most other units can survive it.

Synergies

Synergies are not always necessary for a team, but can bring out the full potential of your units.

For example, Admi is normally a weaker unit overall than more generally powerful units like Rupee or Dolla, but when paired with Scarlet and Privaty, can bring out strong synergy that makes her very valuable to the team.

For more information on team synergies, refer to the Team Compositions guide.

Team Compositions October Update