Mastering Alice: NIKKE's Pilgrim of Destruction
Alice, a character wrapped in an aura of innocence, contradicts with her DPS capabilities in the NIKKE universe.
Known for her significant damage potential, she stands as a testament to high investment giving unparalleled rewards.
This guide dives into Alice's capabilities, her optimal build and gearing strategies, and how to optimize her strengths.
Understanding Alice: Best Builds and Team Compositions
Alice's Arsenal: Skills and Priorities
Normal Attack: Sniper Rifle
- Mode: Charge
- Ammo: 6
- Reload: 2 seconds
- Damage: 69.04% ATK, with full charge damage at 350%.
- Core Attack Bonus: Deals 200% damage when attacking the core.
Alice's charge attack mechanic is foundational, requiring players to manage charge times for optimal damage output.
The significant boost in damage against cores makes her particularly effective against bosses with vulnerable points.
Skill 1: Energizing Carrot
Type: Passive
Effect: Increases charge speed and charge damage for the two allies with the highest ATK after entering Full Burst.
- Charge Speed Boost: 11.67% of Alice's charge speed for 10 seconds.
- Charge Damage Boost: 7% for 10 seconds.
This skill is critical for reducing Alice's charge time, enabling quicker deployment of her charged shots.
The boost it provides not only enhances Alice's DPS but also benefits high-attack allies, making it a versatile addition to her kit.
Skill 2: Healthy Carrot
Type: Passive
Effects:
- Pierce Ability: Activated when HP is above 80%, allowing shots to pierce through targets.
- HP Recovery: Activates below 80% HP, healing Alice based on attack damage.
While the piercing ability is essential for maximizing AOE and boss damage, the HP recovery aspect offers resilience, allowing Alice to maintain her offensive momentum even when under fire.
However, because Alice's primary role is DPS rather than sustainability, this skill has a slightly lower priority compared to her burst and Energizing Carrot skill.
Burst: Wonderland
Cooldown: 40 seconds
Effects: Significantly boosts Alice's charging speed and ATK for 10 seconds.
- Charge Speed Increase: 80.15%
- ATK Increase: 55.12%
Wonderland is the cornerstone of Alice's burst damage capability.
The substantial increase in both charging speed and ATK for a short duration allows Alice to unleash a barrage of high-damage shots, obliterating enemies swiftly.
Maximizing this skill is paramount for players aiming to exploit Alice's DPS potential fully.
Leveling Priorities
Burst: Wonderland
Wonderland is Alice's most impactful skill, offering a massive boost to both her charge speed (80.15%) and attack power (55.12%) for 10 seconds.
This skill turns Alice into a DPS powerhouse, allowing her to unleash a rapid succession of high-damage shots.
Given the transformative effect this burst has on her combat capabilities, maximizing this skill first ensures Alice can deliver her full damage potential as quickly as possible.
The increase in charge speed is particularly crucial, as it directly correlates with her ability to output damage consistently.
Skill 1: Energizing Carrot
This passive skill significantly enhances Alice's and two other high-attack allies' charge speed and charge damage upon entering Full Burst.
The boost to charge speed (11.67% of Alice's charge speed) and charge damage (7%) for 10 seconds can be instrumental in both solo and team settings.
By reducing the charge time for her attacks, Alice can more frequently use her charged shots, which are central to her role as a main DPS.
Additionally, the benefit this skill provides to other allies makes it a strategic asset in team compositions focused on maximizing DPS.
After Wonderland, this skill should receive the next highest level of investment to complement the burst's effectiveness and enhance overall team damage output.
Skill 2: Healthy Carrot
Healthy Carrot offers a dual-function passive that provides Alice with a continuous pierce effect when her HP is above 80% and a self-healing mechanism when her HP falls below 80%.
While the pierce ability is crucial for maximizing damage across multiple targets or penetrating boss defenses, the healing aspect adds a layer of survivability.
However, since Alice's primary function is to deal damage rather than sustain, this skill is a lower priority compared to her burst and Energizing Carrot.
Players should focus on leveling this skill once the more direct DPS-enhancing abilities are maximized, ensuring Alice remains effective and durable in prolonged engagements.
Optimal Harmony Cubes for Alice
Adjutant Cube
Particularly beneficial for Alice, the Adjutant Cube can further increase her charge speed, pushing her closer to or even beyond the 100% charge speed threshold.
This enhancement allows Alice to fire her charged shots more rapidly, significantly boosting her DPS output during critical moments, such as during her burst activation.
Bastion Cube
While Alice's primary role is to deal damage, the Bastion Cube offers a defensive boost that can be crucial in high-level content where survivability becomes a concern.
By enhancing her defense, Alice can stay in the fight longer, ensuring she continues to contribute significantly to the team's damage output without being overly susceptible to being taken out by powerful enemy attacks.
Resilience Cube
Similar to the Bastion Cube, the Resilience Cube provides an additional layer of survivability, focusing on reducing the damage Alice takes from enemy attacks.
This cube can be a strategic choice in scenarios where Alice's survivability is paramount to the team's success, ensuring she remains a consistent threat throughout the battle.
Wingman Cube
The Wingman Cube enhances the effectiveness of buffs received from allies, making Alice even more lethal when supported by a team designed to increase her strengths.
This cube is particularly strong in coordinated team compositions where Alice benefits from attack buffs, charge speed increases, and other enhancements that can escalate her damage output to even higher levels.
Gearing for Greatness
Primary Gear Focus
Charge Speed Increase
Given Alice's reliance on her burst ability, Wonderland, which significantly boosts her charge speed and attack power, gear that further increases her charge speed is crucial.
This allows her to fire charged shots more frequently, enhancing her overall DPS.
Items or enhancements that offer charge speed boosts should be prioritized to reduce the time between her devastating attacks.
Attack Power
Boosting Alice's attack power directly increases the damage of her charged shots and her burst ability.
High attack stats amplify her ability to deal massive damage in a short period, making gear with attack power enhancements crucial for her effectiveness in battle.
Critical Hit Rate and Damage
While Alice's primary damage comes from her charged shots, increasing her critical hit rate and damage can significantly enhance her burst potential.
Gear that offers bonuses to critical hit rate and damage ensures that when her shots hit, they hit hard, potentially leading to quicker enemy takedowns.
Secondary Gear Focus
Max Ammo Capacity
Increasing Alice's max ammo capacity allows for more charged shots during the active phase of her burst ability, reducing downtime and maximizing her damage output during critical moments.
Gear that offers bonuses to ammo capacity can be beneficial, especially in prolonged fights where every shot counts.
Elemental Damage and Charge Damage
While situational, enhancements to elemental damage and charge damage can offer Alice an edge in battles where elemental weaknesses can be exploited.
These should be considered based on the specific enemies or content being tackled.
Recommended Gearing Strategy
For Alice, the right balance between charge speed, attack power, and critical enhancements in overload lines can drastically improve her performance.
Aim for a mix that complements the existing strengths of her skills, with a strong emphasis on reaching or surpassing the 100% charge speed threshold when combined with her burst skill.
Gearing Pitfalls to Avoid
While DPS is Alice's primary role, completely ignoring her survivability can be harmful in higher difficulty content.
Ensure that while focusing on offense, Alice's gear does not leave her overly vulnerable to quick defeats.
Avoid over-investing in stats that do not directly contribute to Alice's DPS output, such as hit rate (due to sniper precision) or defense, beyond what is necessary for basic survivability.
Alice's Team Composition
Core Principles for Team Composition
Maximizing Charge Speed: Since Alice's effectiveness significantly increases with her charge speed, incorporating allies that can boost this attribute further ensures she can unleash her full burst potential more frequently.
Enhancing Attack Power: Allies that provide attack buffs can elevate Alice's already formidable damage output, making her an even more lethal force on the battlefield.
Providing Sustain and Protection: Given Alice's focus on offense, having team members that can offer healing, shields, or aggro management helps keep her in the fight longer, ensuring she can continue to deal damage without being easily taken down.
Ideal Teammates for Alice
High DPS with Sustained Support
Team Composition: Includes Liter, Blanc, Alice, Maxwell, and Noir.
This lineup is engineered for a harmonious blend of aggressive DPS and strong defense.
Central to this strategy is Maxwell, whose presence escalates Alice's charge speed and ATK, enhancing her burst damage.
Blanc and Liter contribute to the team's longevity through healing and defense boosts, with Noir adding depth to the DPS lineup.
The main limitation here is the team's AoE damage, where Noir's output may fall short.
Enhancing wave-clear capabilities without drastically diminishing Alice's burst power may involve integrating characters like Scarlet or Modernia, known for their broader damage reach.
Alternative Naga Formation
Team Composition: Features Liter, Naga, Alice, Maxwell, and Modernia.
Naga's buffs significantly empower Alice and Maxwell, boosting the team's damage output.
Modernia adds a versatile DPS edge to this arrangement, ensuring a well-rounded attack strategy.
While Tia's encompassing taunt might pose strategic disadvantages in some battles, integrating her for specific encounters can offer novel tactical approaches, especially when combined with Naga's buffs.
Although Maxwell's contributions are crucial for enhancing Alice's burst, alternative characters like Scarlet or Harran might be suited for particular gameplay needs or challenges.
Maximizing Reload Speed
Team Composition: Admi, Alice, and Privaty.
This strategy aims to exploit sniper rifle mechanics, achieving a state where Alice can continuously fire without reloading by reaching approximately 100% reload speed.
A significant focus on enhancing Privaty's skills and Admi's burst capabilities, paired with a Resilience Cube for durability, forms the foundation of this approach.
Including characters like Dorothy or Liter for cooldown reduction is critical for maintaining DPS momentum.
Designed for battles where continuous DPS is paramount, this setup optimizes unique game mechanics to keep Alice's firepower relentless.
Charge Speed Optimization
Focuses on boosting Alice's charge speed to improve her burst frequency and overall damage output.
Building around characters and gear that enhance Alice's charge speed is crucial.
This strategy ensures her charged shots are deployed rapidly, leveraging her DPS potential to the fullest.
Alice's Playstyle
Strengths
High Burst Damage: Alice's ability to unleash a torrent of high-damage shots in quick succession, especially when her burst ability, Wonderland, is active, sets her apart. This makes her exceptionally effective in taking down bosses or clearing groups of enemies swiftly.
Pierce Mechanic: Her charged shots, enhanced by the pierce mechanic, allow her to deal damage to multiple targets in line or penetrate through enemy defenses, maximizing her DPS potential across several foes or through boss-specific weak points.
Self-Sufficiency: With skills like Healthy Carrot, Alice can maintain high performance through self-healing when her HP drops, combined with continuous pierce when her health is above 80%, adding a layer of survivability and consistent damage output.
Synergy with High-Attack Units: Energizing Carrot, Alice's skill that boosts charge speed and charge damage for her and the two highest-attack allies, exemplifies her ability to synergize within DPS-focused team compositions, enhancing the overall team's damage potential.
Weaknesses
High Investment Requirement: Unlocking Alice's full capabilities necessitates significant investment in skill leveling and specific gear, making her less accessible to newer players or those with limited resources.
Reliance on Specific Conditions: Her optimal performance is contingent upon maintaining above 80% HP for the pierce effect and requires a setup that consistently keeps her in this health range, adding a strategic layer that can be challenging to manage in tougher content.
Dependency on Support for Max Potential: While Alice is formidable on her own, reaching her peak DPS output often depends on having the right team composition around her, including units that can provide additional attack buffs, charge speed enhancements, and sustain.
Manual Play Requirement for Optimal Output: To fully exploit Alice's DPS capability, particularly her motion cancel technique for faster shooting, players need to engage in manual control, which may not suit all playstyles, especially those preferring auto-play for convenience.
Final Thoughts on Alice
Alice, with her deceptive appearance and high DPS capabilities, is a character that rewards players willing to invest in her development.
As you navigate the complexities of her build and master the nuances of her gameplay, Alice emerges not just as a character but as a top-tier Burst III unit within NIKKE, reshaping the battlefield with every shot.
Whether you're a seasoned player or just starting, Alice's journey from an unassuming sniper to a DPS colossus is a testament to the strategic depth and rewarding gameplay NIKKE offers.