Definitely some spice in this one; after the underwhelming reveal that was the AR gacha, it’s nice to have something worth rolling in again (also, nice to see that they’re keeping AR cards and units separate, at least for now!).

As usual, the event mobs (the 2★ jiangshi) aren’t really worth going out of your way to get – they’ll be a pain to go up against, but aren’t going to be great on your side of the field. If you’re desperate to apply Curse or Skill Lock to the enemy, then they’ll work, but there are far better options available. (Devils for Curse and Benten for Bind, to name some free ones!)

Let’s take a look!

New Standard Units

When reading up on the new units for this review, Licho was the last one I looked at.

He also immediately became one of my favourite units from the gacha – applying Weapon Change offensively is really cool design. Though it’s obviously not quite as strong as Charm (it won’t actually stop the enemy team from attacking you, and doesn’t affect charge skill ranges), a lot of the time it is going to take one or more enemy units out of the fight – at least until Lifewonders implements better enemy AI.

The rest of his kit works quite elegantly around this – he’s got some pretty impressive staying power in Curse, Tenacity, and blow damage resistance. Dazzle, even at level sacred artifact level 1, is a passable defensive debuff, and Skill Lock is always a great option to have.

On the offensive side of things, he should be able to put out a decent chunk of damage, thanks to Brawn and bonus damage against Weapon Change and Skill Lock.

Glint to self and allies is welcomed to shore up his default skill activation rates.

Not needing to move to activate most of his kit is, as usual, a huge plus.

We’ve had quite a few underwhelming 4★ this year; Licho is absolutely not one of those.

For some reason, both of the new permanent units are more mechanically interesting than the limited-time ones.

Sanatkumara is absurd, for one reason: Guts (Barrage is also good, but not quite as amazing).

Buff/Debuff Spreading is otherwise not spectacular – there aren’t many long-lasting buffs that you can’t get more easily (and most of the good ones don’t last long enough).

If you can get a source of Guts on him, though (such as, say, his 5★’s charge skill), you’ve now got a 90% of giving Guts to adjacent allies on move. This isn’t quite immortality for your team, but it’s a good chunk of the way there.

Sharing his debuffs isn’t quite as good – it has difficulties in that 1) enemy debuffs aren’t usually fully levelled, and 2) he applies them on attack, meaning the strong ones (Charm, Possession) can’t be passed around.

There are other edge cases where he’ll be useful – Christmas Claude will appreciate him, for instance, but his main drawcard is definitely sharing Guts.

The rest of his kit is pretty decent. Protection and Nullify Debuff to allies are nice defensively (though you’ll want a source of healing to round it out), while Stigma is a good offensive debuff, and horizontal mobility comes into play fairly regularly.

Crit and Ardour to his 5★ will help him dish out a bunch more damage (as well as help get him Guts quicker!).

His charge skill is strong – Possession is great, and Remove Debuff can be – and gets bonus points for not needing sacred artifact levels to be effective.

Also worth mentioning: double Sanatkumara, sharing buffs with each other, can (in theory) sustain a buff with duration >1 for the whole fight.

New Limited-Time Units

Babalon is a pretty good support – she gives decent healing to allies (Nourishment and Blessing) as well as decent offensive boosts (Nourishment, again, and Ardour), while keeping herself alive with DEF Up, healing on attack, and immunity to Charm.

Crit+ and healing from her CS are both nice effects (though do want levels to be really great).

Now, let’s talk about that Immobility. Not being able to move for 3 turns is a pretty big drawback, and will absolutely be a deal breaker for some teams. On the other hand, for a charge-skill focused team (or even a team that doesn’t need to move much), +12CP a turn can be amazing.

Ultimately, as long as you’re careful which teams you run her in, Babalon should run pretty well.

In contrast with Babalon, Tetsuox is about as subtle as a brick (thematic design?).

There’s not a ton to say about him – his skillset is very clearly designed to get a bunch of damage on the enemy as soon as possible (not that this is a bad thing!).

One thing that is worth mentioning is the choice to not move him at the start of the phase – his single-target damage will actually be higher (even without Ardour), thanks to blow-range having a significantly higher multiplier than magic-range.

Though it would be pretty fiddly to pull off, it might be worth trying to time his charge skill for the beginning of a phase when his Weapon Change wears out.

Though his skillset seems underwhelming at first glance, Krampus is anything but.

For the first 4 turns of combat, ATK Up and Limit combine to give him an attack multiplier of 4.4x (up to 8.8x, if you take a bunch of damage in the first few rounds). This is basically permanent Crit.

Turn 5, Stigma, his attack boost against Stigma, and Limit combine to give him an attack multiplier of 9.2x (18.4x at 1HP). This doesn’t need much else to be one-shotting pretty much everything (through Guts, since he can Nullify and/or Remove Buffs when he hits them).

This is all without needing to move, and is very difficult to interrupt.

Getting full value out of Krampus is largely a question of timing – if at all possible, you want to be on the start of a phase when his LB3 skill triggers (or at least fighting an enemy that’s going to take a turn or two to take out).

His charge skill should go some way to filling in the time between triggers of his LB3, particularly if it’s levelled at all.

In the right circumstances, Krampus is very strong – if you get him, it’s absolutely worth learning how to use him effectively.

There really aren’t any units in this gacha that are complete duds – Babalon is probably the most restrictive in terms of teambuilding, but she’s still pretty good – and most of the units are really quite strong. I’d definitely consider rolling in this one.