Scarlet Black Shadow: NIKKE's Top-Tier Wind DPS
Scarlet: Black Shadow, dubbed ScarBs by the community, marks a new era in NIKKE as the first solid wind code DPS.
This guide dives into the different ways of building and maximizing Scarlet alter's potential, ensuring you can make the most ouf of her unique kit.
Let's jump right in!
Scarlet Black Shadow Guide: Best Builds and Team Compositions
Skill Overview and Leveling Insights
Normal Attack: Precision Barrage
Uses a rocket launcher with a rapid 0.3-second charge time, capable of delivering significant damage, especially with full charge hits that increases damage against core targets.
The quick charge time and increased ammo capacity (9 shots) facilitate a continuous damage output, making ammo management and timing of charged shots critical for maximizing DPS.
Skill 1: Fleetly Fading Breakthrough
This passive skill escalates in damage and effect with every third charged attack, targeting enemies based on their defensive stats and area of effect (AoE), culminating in widespread damage after nine charges.
Skill 2: Fleetly Fading Asura
Upon entering Full Burst mode, Scarlet's maximum ammo capacity is boosted by 60%, and her magazine is instantly reloaded, ensuring readiness for sustained assault.
While the immediate ammo reload and capacity increase are invaluable, the skill’s utility is somewhat dependent on Scarlet's role within your team and the frequency of Full Burst activations.
Burst: Fleetly Fading Strike
Dramatically reduces the number of full charge attacks needed to trigger Skill 1's effects, simultaneously boosting attack and charge damage significantly.
This burst skill is central to unleashing Scarlet Alter’s maximum damage potential, effectively lowering the activation threshold for her powerful passive abilities.
Leveling Priority
Burst: Fleetly Fading Strike
Scarlet's burst skill not only enhances her attack and charge damage significantly but also reduces the activation threshold for Skill 1's effects, making it easier to trigger its powerful damage phases.
This burst is central to maximizing Scarlet Alter's DPS capabilities, particularly in boss fights or against tougher enemies where her enhanced damage can make a decisive impact.
Leveling up this skill ensures that Scarlet can frequently and effectively use her burst, capitalizing on the increased damage and reduced requirements for Skill 1's effects.
Skill 1: Fleetly Fading Breakthrough
This skill directly amplifies Scarlet BS's damage output by introducing powerful additional effects at intervals of three full charge shots.
The significant increase in damage it offers, especially with the substantial 750.47% of final ATK as distributed damage at nine shots, makes it a top priority.
Leveling this skill enhances Scarlet's ability to deal with both single targets and groups, making her versatile in various combat situations.
Given its escalating damage potential, investing in this skill early ensures Scarlet can maintain high damage output consistently.
Skill 2: Fleetly Fading Asura
The utility of this skill lies in its ability to increase max ammo capacity and provide an instant magazine reload upon entering Full Burst.
This skill becomes particularly valuable in long battles where continuous firing is crucial.
The decision to prioritize this skill depends on your combat strategy and how often you find Scarlet needing to reload in critical moments.
If Scarlet serves as your primary DPS, and you frequently engage in battles where sustained damage is key, leveling up this skill could be beneficial.
However, if you can manage her ammo effectively, you might allocate resources to other skills first.
Optimal Harmony Cubes
Bastion Cube
Provides ammo refunds after firing a set number of rounds, which synergizes perfectly with Scarlet BS's need for sustained fire.
The Anti Code HC feature also increases damage against strong elements, which can be crucial for exploiting wind element advantages against susceptible targets.
The Bastion Cube is particularly effective for Scarlet's alter because it addresses one of the primary challenges rocket launcher faces: maintaining ammunition.
By offering ammo refunds, this cube ensures Scarlet can keep firing longer, enhancing her DPS uptime.
Resilience Cube
Significantly increases reload speed and offers an elemental damage boost.
This cube is ideal for minimizing downtime, ensuring Scarlet Alter is always ready to unleash her devastating attacks.
If you focus on a fast-paced combat style, the Resilience Cube ensures that Scarlet BS's reload time is drastically reduced, allowing for a quicker return to action.
Wingman Cube
Increases max ammunition capacity, which directly complements Scarlet BS's skill set by allowing her to fire more shots before needing to reload.
The elemental damage boost is an added bonus, enhancing her wind-based attacks.
The Wingman Cube is ideal for Scarlet's alter as it extends her ability to sustain attacks without interruption.
Gearing Scarlet Alter for Dominance
Overload Gear Prioritization
Max Ammo Capacity
To optimize Scarlet BS's rocket launcher effectively, increasing the max ammo capacity is crucial.
This allows for extended assault phases before needing to reload, crucial for maintaining her DPS output during critical moments.
Elemental Damage Boost
Given Scarlet Alter's unique position as a potent wind DPS, gearing her to amplify wind elemental damage ensures she exploits elemental weaknesses more effectively.
This is key for raids where wind damage can significantly impact the outcome.
Attack Increase
Boosting Scarlet BS's attack power directly increases her damage per shot, making each attack more devastating.
This is especially important for her charged attacks, which can benefit greatly from higher base attack values.
Charge Speed Enhancement
If you rely on quickly charging and releasing attacks, improving charge speed can be beneficial.
While not as universally critical as ammo capacity or elemental damage, it's a valuable option for reducing downtime between powerful charged shots.
Crafting the Ultimate Team
Core Team Composition Strategies
Scarlet Black Shadow's performance is greatly enhanced by integrating her with established support cores that provide cooldown reduction (CDR), defense, and healing.
These support units ensure Scarlet BS can continuously unleash her high-damage attacks while maintaining survivability on the battlefield.
Liter and Novel Core
Offers cover repair and significant CDR, ensuring Scarlet BS's skills are available more frequently, maximizing her DPS output.
The synergy between Liter's defensive passives and Novel's support buffs allows Scarlet BS to focus on offense, reducing her downtime and vulnerability.
Bunny Setup
Combines defense and max ammo buffs with Scarlet BS's need for sustained fire, making it an ideal setup for long-duration fights.
This setup not only enhances Scarlet BS's survivability but also addresses her ammunition management, allowing her to maintain constant attacks.
Provides a mix of healing and defensive buffs, with Naga specifically offering elemental damage amplification that can be pivotal for Scarlet Black Shadow.
Designed for boss stages, this combo boosts Scarlet BS's wind DPS while ensuring survivability against tough opponents.
Adding Sub DPS for Enhanced Combat Dynamics
Alice or Maxwell Support
Both characters are known for their ability to boost attack and charge speed, directly complementing Scarlet BS's rocket launcher mechanics.
Incorporating Alice or Maxwell not only increases Scarlet BS's damage output but also reduces the charge time of her attacks, enabling her high-damage output.
Crafting Team Strategies for Scarlet Alter
Boss Battles
Scarlet Black Shadow excels in boss fights, where her wind code advantage and focused DPS can be maximized.
Selecting team members that enhance her attack power and sustain her ammunition will be crucial.
For bosses with fewer parts or those susceptible to wind damage, Scarlet BS's targeted damage becomes invaluable.
Campaign Considerations
Despite her power, Scarlet BS may not be the best fit for campaign levels crowded with lesser enemies due to her focused explosion AoE and distributed damage traits.
In these scenarios, a more area-of-effect oriented DPS might be preferable.
Using Scarlet Black Shadow in Combat
Understanding Scarlet Black Shadow's Strengths
High Damage Potential: Scarlet BS's rocket launcher, especially when fully charged, can deliver devastating damage to individual targets or small groups, making her particularly effective against bosses or elite enemies.
Elemental Advantage: As a wind code unit, she has an inherent advantage against water code enemies, allowing her to deal increased damage in elemental matchups.
Burst Skill Efficiency: Her burst skill not only enhances her attack and charge damage but also reduces the activation threshold for her Skill 1 effects, enabling more frequent and powerful attacks.
Combat Strategies
Timing Full Charges
Master the timing of Scarlet BS's charged shots to maximize her DPS.
The reduced charge time compared to other rocket launcher units means you can unleash fully charged shots more frequently, but doing so with precision is key to exploiting her damage potential fully.
Skill Rotation Management
Scarlet BS's Skill 1, Fleetly Fading Breakthrough, changes its effect with every three full charges, cycling through targeting the lowest defense enemy, dealing distributed damage, and then affecting all enemies.
Managing this rotation to align with combat needs—such as focusing on single targets or preparing for AoE damage—is crucial.
Burst Skill Application
Use her burst skill, Fleetly Fading Strike, to enhance her attack power at critical moments.
This is especially useful in boss fights, where boosting her damage output can significantly shorten the battle duration.
Remember, the burst also makes her Skill 1 effects easier to trigger, offering strategic flexibility in how and when to unleash her most potent attacks.
Final Thoughts on Scarlet Black Shadow
Scarlet Black Shadow, or ScarBs, is a crucial addition to NIKKE's DPS roster, filling the long-vacant role of a wind code damage dealer.
By strategically leveling her skills, optimizing her gear, and integrating her into cohesive team compositions, you can unlock her full potential, making her a top-tier unit in any combat scenario.
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