Vesti: Tactical Upgrade Early Analysis – Should You Pull?

Vesti is Bestie? Yes!!!

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Overview

• The third member of the Absolute squad.
• While not part of the dedicated duo team like Eunhwa and Emma, they boost her personal performance a lot.
• The majority of her damage is true, meaning high DEF bosses don’t stand a chance.
• Predicted to be good in PvP.
• Due to her base 2 second charge time, Charge Speed OLs are incredibly effective on Vesti.

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Should You Pull?

Vesti: Tactical Upgrade is a B3 Fire Attacker that mostly deals true damage. While she can work well on her own, she definitely performs well with the Absolute duo Emma: Tactical Upgrade and Eunhwa: Tactical Upgrade on the same team, due to all the stacking buffs they provide to Vesti.

While Vesti is predicted to do good damage (especially if her B2 procs on parts it hits), she suffers from being a Fire-code NIKKE. Fire is one of the most saturated elements in the game for DPS alongside Electric. If you already have many Fire DPS units built, it could be hard to justify pulling for more, especially when a team of three is desirable to really enable Vesti’s DPS.

In my opinion, for PvE purposes, what’ll determine if you pull for her is your upcoming raid performance. There’s no doubt the team will be meta for fire raids, but if you are in a satisfying rank without them for now, then I’d say skip, as all three will be relatively easier to obtain later. Otherwise, give it a try.

Vesti can work well enough alone to at least reach a better ranking for raids without also needing to pull the rest of the squad that can be obtained later.

Vesti’s PvP prospects look really good, with Vesti having a huge blast radius thanks to her burst active, and constant true damage. If you care about PvP, it’s likely that this could be the reason to pull the lever, but wait for testing first!

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Newbie/Incomplete Box Section

Vesti is a B3 Fire Rocket Launcher with a completely new way of attacking. While she definitely works best with the upgraded Absolute team, Vesti is quite independent from them and doesn’t need them to work well. The bulk of her damage is true, which completely ignores the defense stat of targets in the damage formula, and that is before including exclusive buffs to true damage which are multiplicative.

Due to her horrid base charge time of 2 seconds, it’s recommended to seek out some Charge Speed OLs for Vesti in her gear, especially with how her S1 works.

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Basic Information

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Normal Attack Information

Unlike a standard rocket launcher that has a base attack ranging in the 65% range, a 1 second base charge time and 250% charge damage multiplier at max charge, Vesti has a base attack of 22.44%, a charge time of 2 seconds and a charge damage multiplier of 200%. Seems absolutely horrible, but her S1 is meant to completely counteract all of it and and sets the tone for how she attacks.

Every time Vesti releases a fully charged attack, her next three attacks will receive 100% charge time (instant), causing her to rapid fire three shots before needing to charge up again. It is essentially like how Cinderella has to fully charge her Glass Slipper before full auto comes into play, but Vesti instead will have to do this every three shots.

Her base ammo is 8 instead of 6, unlike standard rocket launchers, which also means ammo OLs are 33% more effective on her.

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Skill 1: Missile Guide

Activates when performing Full Charge attacks, if self is not in Missile Guide status.

Affects self. Missile Guide: Charge Speed ▲ 100% for 3 round(s).

Charge Damage ▲ 58.5% for 3 round(s).

Activates when reloading to max ammunition. Affects self. Removes Missile Guide.

Notice how after firing her last volley, Vesti has to charge up to fire the next volley.

This skill is quintessential to how Vesti works. Without it, she wouldn’t function at all with how terrible her base rocket launcher actually is. Every time Vesti charges up an attack, her next three attacks will gain the Missile Guide buff and have 100% charge time, allowing her to attack in rapid succession at intervals. This volley of attacks works well combined with her S2.

Attacks buffed by Missile Guide cannot trigger Missile Guide, and reloading also removes the buff, so it is ideal to have Vesti’s ammo be a multiple of 4, to prevent awkward situations where you can’t make use of a full volley. (1 regular rocket fully charged to prepare 3 instant fire rockets)

Due to the fact that the volleys are seperated by a regular charge time, charge speed from OLs or allied buffs will reduce the interval between each volley.

Skill 2: Monster Stage

Activates when landing Full Charge attacks. Affects target(s).

Deals 266.6% of final ATK as true damage.

Activates when landing Full Charge attacks if self is in Battle Formation status.

Affects self. ATK ▲ 20% for 3 sec.

Activates when landing Full Charge attacks if target(s) is in Explosive Round status.

Affects self. Projectile explosion damage ▲ 20% for 3 sec.

Where so much of Vesti’s damage comes from. Every single rocket from Vesti will deal significant true damage to anyone caught in the splash. Since it doesn’t specify anything ‘nearest the crosshair’ or the number of targets, it should also affect boss parts hit by the splash, similar to Laplace. If this is correct, the damage from this effect will be big against most bosses. (Nevertheless, wait for testing to confirm this)

Vesti also gives herself buffs if boosted by her teammates from Absolute. If she is buffed by Emma’s burst, she will give herself a 20% ATK bonus. If the targets she hits are affected by Eunhwa’s Explosive Round, her rockets (not the true damage) deal 20% more damage. Since the Absolute team actually lacks ATK buffs, both effects compound well into Vesti, before considering all the other buffs Absolute grants her.

Burst: Missile Container Online

Cooldown: 40s

Affects self. Explosion Radius ▲ 100% for 10 sec.

True Damage ▲ 60% for 10 sec.

Affects all enemies (including parts).

Deals 492.3% of final ATK as Burst Skill true damage.

Vesti increases her blast radius significantly. This will cause her rockets to hit more enemies and hit more parts on a boss, and in either case, have more enemies be affected by her S2 true damage proc.

Vesti also gives herself a big true damage buff of 60%. True damage buffs are multiplicative with other regular damage buffs, and so are a significant damage boost. This true damage buff is additive with other true damage buffs, namely the ones the other members of the Absolute squad provide.

Vesti also deals true damage to the entire screen, and if there are parts to hit, deals true damage to them. Honestly, if her S2 procs deal true damage to parts, this could be detrimental in destroying parts too soon. Outside of that, though, this burst dealing true damage and being buffed by other true damage sources also means that it is a very reliable screenwipe.

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Campaign

Vesti may not necessarily see good use in campaign, especially since she prefers being with her own team most of the time, and campaign itself is already full of established teams/strong units. However, there are scenarios where enemy defense becomes too high and true damage shines the most.

Similar to Ein in certain situations, it’s plausible Vesti could see use in campaign even without her team because so much of her damage is true. Even with stat drops from a campaign deficit, true damage will always ignore the target’s defense completely, helping it be consistent in the climb.

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Arena

Vesti could potentially see great use in PvP due to how much damage output she has, and the increased blast radius + true damage from her burst could devastate the opposing team.

Due to her interval-based fire rate, though, it’s likely some other source of burst gen will be needed, even if her own personal burst gen is actually better than expected.

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Special Interception | Union Raid | Solo Raid

Where Vesti will definitely destroy her enemies. There’s no doubt Vesti, combined with the rest of her team, or even without them, will be relevant to Fire Raids for the foreseeable future. It will have to be tested if she can see relevance even outside of Fire raid, but this will likely only be true vs bosses with lots of parts to hit, most likely.

Vesti is most optimal with her own squad for two main reasons: Vesti will not compete with spots vs other DPS with more meta supports if she is supported by her own squadmates, and Vesti receives so many compounding buffs from her two squadmates together. (Eunhwa also benefits massively from the buffs she receives from both herself and Emma when together)

Due to the fact that Fire is a very competitive element with great DPS units already, though, and the fact that to play the Absolute team optimally, three units need to be invested in (two of them significantly, as they are both good damage dealers), this team will definitely be a long term project for most players.

Something to note is that because Indivilia has incredible defense values compared to most other Anomaly Intercept bosses, Vesti could be one of the meta fire DPS units vs her.

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Strengths

• Tons of true damage.
• Is optimally played with a team setup that doesn’t necessarily take away from other raid teams.
• Can be played with or without her team (though she performs best with her squad)
• Good DPS, especially with more charge speed.
• Will be meta for PvP.
• Strong burst that can hit parts of a boss and screenwipe.
• Sooooo cute!!! Vesti bestie!!

Weaknesses

• Rocket launcher completely carried by skills.
• High base charge time causes her DPS to shoot out in intervals instead of being constant.
• Fire is a very competitive DPS element. If one has many fire DPS units built, it can be hard to justify building an entire team dedicated to Fire DPS only.
• Requires proper ammo count, or ammo management to play optimally.
• Expensive.

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Rating

Category	Rating
Overall	S
Story	SS
Bosses	A
Arena	SSS

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Recommended Cubes

resilience cube,Wingman Cube

Unlike most DPS units, Vesti doesn’t want Bastion at all. Due to how her S1 works, Vesti will ideally want to play with ammo that is in an interval of 4. Reload speed up will be great, while ammo increases and decreases from allies can throw off this number, as can magazine refills.

It is an incredible waste of time for Vesti to prepare a volley of rockets if she has less than 4 ammo left, because reloads remove the Missile Guide buff. Attempting to fire a Volley while at less than 4 ammo will cause Vesti to charge up a rocket, fire an incomplete volley, reload, and then charge up again.

For this reason, I primarily recommend Resilience cube, to decrease her reload time and get her to shoot faster sooner. Wingman cube can be a viable secondary cube choice if it helps her reach an interval of 4, though honestly, proper ammo management can also help too.

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Doll Priority

As a unit that is viable in both PvE and PvP, Vesti has a high priority for an SR5 RL doll at a minimum. As mentioned, though, since Fire is a very crowded element, it’s possible you don’t necessarily have use for her immediately, though, especially as a full squad is desired to enable her a lot.

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Expected Skill Priority

Nikke	Budget Skill Investments	Recommended Skill Investments	Skill Priority	Notes	Investment Priority
Vesti: Tactical Upgrade	Skill 1: 4 Skill 2: 7 Burst: 4	Skill 1: 4 Skill 2: 10 Burst: 7	S1 << S2	Skill 1’s charge speed doesn’t increase with level. All that goes up is the charge damage boost for Vesti’s weak rockets. Skill 2 is where so much of her damage comes from. True damage proc per rocket and buffs from being with her allies. Burst increases her personal True Damage buff, and strenghtens the power of the screenwipe.	High

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Overload Gear Priority

Gear Priority = Head > Gloves > Chest > Boots

Attribute (Sub-Stat)	Priority	Recommended	Notes
Increase Element Damage Dealt	★★★★★	4x	Wanted for Union Raids and Solo Raid content.
Increase Hit Rate	☆☆☆☆☆	0x	—
Increase Max Ammunition Capacity	★★★★☆	1-2x	Ammo. For Vesti, it best be at an interval of 4.
Increase ATK	★★★★☆	3x – 4x	Simply more damage.
Increase Charge Damage	☆☆☆☆☆	0x	—
Increase Charge Speed	★★★★☆	2x – 3x	Due to her abnormally long charge time, she especially benefits from charge speed a lot.
Increase Critical Rate	☆☆☆☆☆	0x	—
Increase Critical Damage	☆☆☆☆☆	0x	—
Increase DEF	☆☆☆☆☆	0x	—