Overview

Reincarnated Kushinadahime is, without doubt, the strongest leader among JP’s 55 5th year anniversary evos. A leader with a high but reasonable skill cap, she’s risen through tier lists to just below the big 3 in only a couple of weeks.

Pros Best damage scaling / control in the game, thanks to combo scaling and no skyfall clause

Unbindable lead + bind clear awakening

High multiplier means low orb requirement

Strong usage of awakenings: Enhanced Combos (7c) awakening, Guard Break, and Dragon Killer latents Cons Restricted to healer types for 1.5x HP and ATK boost

Damage can be unintuitive, experience/knowledge required

Lower RCV than the Dark Athena – Ra Dragon – Aizen trio



Sopdet, Kagutsuchi, Hera Dragon… The most hated Arena spawns generally punish the lack of absolute damage control that most high damage leaders suffer from. While no-skyfall leads like Meridionalis and Acala have solid answers to these spawns, they suffer when on-color orb counts are low, leading to increased stalling and active skill usage. Kushinada now provides the most consistent answer to damage control hazards while maintaining high damage output in other scenarios.

Sample Team

I think detailed analysis of subs is not warranted as there may be some changes in available subs between now and when the lead is available in NA. In addition, sub selection is extremely dependent on individual boxes. For this post, I’ll focus on general awakenings and traits of a Kushinada-led team. I may reconsider in the future when she is released in NA. That said, here’s a sample team that makes good use of her unique leader skill:

Without jumping too much in-depth about the traits of this team, I’ll point out some features that aren’t immediately obvious:

Red sub-element allows strong but balanced damage output on wood element threats such as Parvati, Vishnu, and Gaia Dragon. For the same reason, Blue Valkyrie is preferred over Red.

Valkyrie Reine’s Guard Break awakening can activate, and is useful in long dungeons with high-defense enemies such as Arena 3, and to a lesser extent, Colosseum.

Dual TPA + 7c awakenings allow for flexible damage output.

Sample Damage Chart

I could go into detail with case studies and board analysis in various situations, but instead I’ll let the following damage chart speak for itself. This chart assumes all monsters in the above team are max level with +99 attack, but with no same-attribute inherited skills. This chart is not exact, due to small errors from in-game rounding. The fire TPA with a single enhanced orb is a conservative estimate, as the fire orb enhance awakenings from the Hakus are likely to enhance more than half of the fire orbs.

Attack values: Haku 2590, Reine 2134, Kushi 2177

Dual leader multiplier 2.25x 9x 36x 81x 144x Combo multiplier 1.75x 2.00x 2.25x 2.50x 2.75x COMBOS 4 5 6 7 8 10,200 46,620 209,790 1,048,950 2,051,280 + 15,644 71,514 321,813 1,609,065 3,146,616 28,680 131,112 590,004 2,950,020 5,768,928 + 46,238 211,374 951,183 4,755,915 9,300,456 3,059 13,986 62,937 314,685 615,384 8,604 39,336 177,015 885,077 1,730,817 + 10,490 47,952 215,784 1,078,920 2,109,888 8,572 39,186 176,337 881,685 1,724,184 8,402 38,412 172,854 864,270 1,690,128 23,632 108,036 486,162 2,430,810 4,753,584 2,520 11,523 51,856 259,281 507,038 7,089 32,410 145,845 729,228 1,426,046

Video

The following video helps demonstrate some of the features outlined above. Note that the monsters used in the video aren’t hypermaxed, so the damage numbers won’t exactly match those in the chart.

Kushinada in the Future

Despite the apparent ease with which she deals with our current high-end farming dungeon, Arena 3, I suspect that she’ll be able to fall out of the meta abruptly when harder content hits. The delicate mix of HP, RCV, and ATK in her team is reminiscent of the old Yomigon A1 teams. She isn’t challenged too much by the current set of dungeons, however, and any new dungeons will take a while to reach us, so I’ll be investing in this team and ready to play when it hits NA.

Article by tevvie, Nez, and Pi