Tove Analysis and Theorycraft – Should You Pull?

I swear I’ve heard this voice from a certain recoil anime! As a follow up to Red Hood, is Tove enough to get some attention from players? Here are our early thoughts and breakdown of the new SSR Nikke!

Tove

Note: This was made before the release of Tove. A more detailed analysis and guide will be published once testing has been done after her release. Character information is subject to change.

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Basic Information

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Skills

Note: Assume all skills are level 10.

Skill 1: Emergency-Crafted Bullets

Passive

■ There is a 5% chance of activating when attacking. Affects self.
Emergency-Crafted Bullets: Reload 5.31% magazine(s).

■ Activates during Emergency-Crafted Bullets. Affects all allies.
Temporary Modification: Max Ammunition Capacity ▲ 2 round(s), stacks up to 3 time(s) and lasts for 5 sec.
Critical Damage ▲ 5.24% for 5 sec.

Tove’s entire S1 has a 5% of activating when she fires (doesn’t need to hit). On the surface, 5% is a very low chance but given that AR fires 12 bullet/s at 60 fps, Tove will fire 60 shots during 5 second and 5% of 60 is exactly 3. This means we can safely assume her S1 stack (Temporary Modification) will remain at full stack as long as she keeps firing.

Tove’s S1 also reloads her gun, this interaction is based on current max ammo which Max Ammo Cap overload and skills that increases Max Ammo will also allow her S1 to reload even more bullets. This effect exists simply to help her reach full stack more reliably as she doesn’t have to reload as often. Even though theoretically Tove has infinite ammo, we won’t be looking into her DPS potential as she doesn’t have any skills that deals significant damage.

The stackable effect from Tove’s S1 is much more beneficial to weapon types with low base ammo such as Shotguns, Rocket, Snipers which incentivizes players to pair her with those weapon types, especially Shotguns.

Crit Dmg buff is negligible as it has very low values and Crit is heavily diluted in the damage formula so the increase will be minimal. However, free extra damage is always welcomed.

Skill 2: Modification Successful

Passive

■ Activates when Temporary Modification is fully stacked. Affects all allies.
Critical Rate ▲ 3.32% continuously.

■ Activates when Temporary Modification is fully stacked. Affects all allies with a Shotgun.
Attack Speed ▲ 42.24% continuously.

Crit Rate buff is not important for the same reasons mentioned above, Crit being in a bad spot in the damage formula and low values.

Her second effect is very interesting as it increases shotguns fire rate by a considerably amount. At level 10, Tove’s S2 increases Shotgun’s fire rate from 1.5/s to 2.1/s.

Burst: Miracle of Makeshifts

Cooldown: 20s

■ Affects all allies.
Miracle of Makeshifts: ATK ▲ 2.32% of caster’s ATK. Mirrors the stack count of Temporary Modification for 10 sec.

■ Affects all allies with a Shotgun.
Miracle of Makeshifts: ATK ▲ 24.21% of caster’s ATK. Mirrors the stack count of Temporary Modification for 10 sec.

A simple ATK increase based on Tove’s ATK stat, do note that the the increase will be substantially lower compared to normal ATK buff as Tove is a supporter so she’ll have a lower base ATK. This skill further incentivizes using Tove with Shotgun units as they get an additional ATK buff on top of the first one.

More notably is the second clause which similar to Mast’s Burst. Aside from increasing S1 stack count by 3 (doubled), it will also re-apply the ATK buff the same number of times. In other words, the ATK buff will be applied 3 times. Mast also has the same interaction where she deals 4.52% of final ATK 50 times every 7 seconds during her burst. A 72.63% + 6.96% ATK buff is massive even if it’s based on a supporter’s ATK, guaranteed to boost shotgun’s DPS to the moon.

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Campaign

Shotguns has unfortunately fallen out of the meta due to the lack of new shotgun DPS units and other weapons being more versatile and more consistent. This is prevalent in campaign as shotguns are useless small fodder and mobs far away. However the synergy is there and we can definitely assemble teams with Tove. Keep in mind that this team has wildly inconsistent performance.

Example Team Comps

Tove,Dolla,Sugar,Drake,Privaty Tove,Helm: Aquamarine,Sugar,Drake,Maiden

To complete a team with Tove, we simply need a CDR unit, preferably B2 (Dolla/Helm: Aquamarine) then fill the B3 slots with strong shotgun units such as Sugar, Drake. Privaty is a good support for this team as she boosts reload speed to increase the DPS units uptime and a AOE stun if you ever need it.

Sugar is the highest shotgun DPS currently so it makes sense to pair Tove with her. The extra attack speed stacks additively, doubling Sugar’s fire rate during her own burst (3 shot/s). She’ll burn through her ammo extremely quick, the extra ammo from Tove helps with this issue somewhat. It’s recommended to get Max Ammo Increase attributes from overload to mitigate this issue.

Unfortunately Tove doesn’t pair well with last bullet shotgun units (S.Anis / Marciana). The fire rate increase isn’t enough to offset the extra ammo given from her S1.

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Arena

Tove uses an AR which means her burst gen is very poor. Similar to Liter, she offers a huge attack buff which can enable another “Alice comp” using Sugar. Unfortunately this comp is also easily countered by a taunt wall (Noise + Noah or Biscuits + Any Def). Another similarity is that the comp requires heavy investment on Sugar.

Example Team Comps

Noah,Tove,Sugar,Drake,Noir

Fortunately, clip shotgun has great burst gen to compensates for Tove’s poor burst gen.

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Special Interception | Union Raid | Solo Raid

For Special Interception, Shotgun comps are already extremely powerful against Gravedigger. Tove will speed up GD fights or help struggling players clear it easily. She’ll also help players struggling to break Modernia’s core thanks to the early ATK buff and shotguns having range bonus.

With the release of Tove, shotgun comps for raids are finally relevant again. However building a team around her is rough as we need a healer and a CDR unit. There aren’t any single unit that satisfies these conditions so we’ll need 2 slots, leaving us with 2 slots for shotgun DPS. The CDR is vital as her ATK buff is tied to burst so ideally we’d want to burst as often as possible. A healer can be replaced with reliable taunt unit with good self sustain such as Noise/XRupee/Sin.

Example Team Comps

Tove,Dolla,Sugar,Helm,Drake

Helm can be replaced with a pure healer like Rapunzel.

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Closing Thoughts

Tove has a great kit and a splendid body ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°). Unfortunately aside from Sugar, we don’t have enough decent shotgun DPS units to leverage her kit. Therefore Tove isn’t a must pull, try to get a copy if you have the resources to do so as she’ll most likely be relevant once more meta shotgun units are released. Otherwise, if you plan on saving resources for Christmas banners, you can safely wishlist her.