Banner Guide – Dark Saintess Liberta

Official Patch Notes

Exclusive Gear

Overview

PVE	PVP	Fiend Hunt/Guild Raid
S	S	S
Last Night	Tower of Pride	Tower of Salvation
S	S	S

Liberta for PVE

At long last, Dark Saintess Liberta arrives! This is a game changing costume that is strongly recommended to pull for, for both beginners and veterans alike. Let's explore why.

As good as B.Helena?

Firstly, Dark Saintess Liberta is essentially the physical version of B-Rank Helena. Let's compare them side by side:

At full power, both DS.Liberta and B.Helena give a +115% ATK/M.ATK buff and a 50% crit rate buff. They both last for 4 turns (2 player turns) with a 3 turn cooldown. They both also cost only 1 SP.

The only difference between the two skills effects (other than the physical/magical difference) is that DS.Liberta restores SP, whereas B.Helena heals. This doesn't make a huge difference, because Liberta's other costume (Onsen Manager) heals, and Helena's other costume (Top Idol) restores SP. Helena has a slight advantage though on healing and SP charging, because Helena's heals are usually stronger (based on her M.ATK, instead of the target's max HP) and her SP charging is faster (6 SP instead of 3 SP).

Better than Helena?

Even though DS.Liberta and B.Helena are near identical, when taken as a whole package, Liberta is better than Helena for offensive buffing. This is because Liberta has 2 offensive buff costumes, whereas Helena only has 1.

When Liberta's two costumes are used together, Liberta gives your team:

• 115% ATK,
• 50% crit,
• 130% damage amplification (for enemies with 10 or more chain stacks), AND
• Some healing and SP charge

There are only 3 characters in the game with 2 offensive buffs: Teresse (Medical Club + Beach Angel), Refi (Gluttonous + PWB) and now Liberta. Liberta therefore now ranks as one of the best offensive buffers in the game.

Better than Lathel?

H.Lathel gives the strongest single turn ATK buff: a huge 160% ATK on the turn it's used, and then 70% on the next 2 turns. For that reason, H.Lathel has been the best physical buffer for quite some time.

Although the headline ATK buff from H.Lathel is better than DS.Liberta, overall Liberta is stronger as a whole package for long battles. Lathel has no other buffer costumes. The extra 45% ATK on H.Lathel is not as strong as OM.Liberta's 130% damage amplification for high hit count teams.

Of course, even though Liberta has the better total buff power, H.Lathel can still be used together with Liberta since their ATK buffs stack.

Team building for fiend hunts

In high level fiend hunts, you need as many supporters as possible to fill out up to 3 teams.

DS.Liberta is a physical buffer, so you obviously want to use her in a physical team.

OM.Liberta is a buffer that only activates on 10 or more chain stacks, so you obviously want to use her in a high hit count team.

What this means is that, to get the maximum value out of Liberta for late game fiend hunts, you ideally want to build her in a physical high hit count team. For this high hit count team, you will almost certainly need to pair Liberta with Refi, who allows you to stack chains faster.

Therefore, your physical team build will be:

1. Liberta (ATK buff + damage amplifier)
2. Refi (property damage + chain buff + crit damage buff)
3. Flex slot (any character needed to trigger conditional skills, or another buffer if nothing else is needed)
4. Celia / Hikage / Zenith etc (chain stacker, needed for Liberta's buff to activate)
5. Main attacker

Previously, there was a lot of flexibility as to whether you used Diana or Refi as your property buffer for your physical and magical teams. With the release of DS.Liberta though, Liberta will almost always be used with Refi on a physical team, leaving Diana (and most likely Teresse) to be used on the magic team or second physical team.

Other game modes

Liberta also has a lot of impact in other game modes.

In Last Night, DS Liberta makes an excellent opening buffer and is only one of 3 costumes with a 50% crit buff. Just keep in mind that buffs are halved in Last Night, so DS Liberta gives actually only 25% crit rate.

In Tower of Salvation, physical teams have now become a lot more powerful now that DS.Liberta is available. Her crit rate buff makes a huge difference for total damage, and her SP charge helps a lot given how scarce SP is in this mode.

In Tower of Pride (Floor 1), Liberta + Lathel makes it easier than ever to reach a high score clear with single hit physical attackers like EA Eris or Maid Liatris.

Liberta for PVP

DS.Liberta is amazing for PVP, as she functions as the physical equivalent of B.Helena.

At only 1 SP, she can be easily slotted into any physical team. Although physical teams already have access to H.Lathel, Liberta is significantly better for PVP, because she allows you to build your attackers for full crit damage and 50% crit rate (which becomes a guaranteed crit with Liberta's buff). Crit builds are several times more powerful than just having an attack buff alone. For example, hitting a crit with 300% crit damage means 4x the normal damage.

It's also worth noting that Liberta also comes with the bonus of being much tankier than Lathel: She has base 3885 HP vs Lathel's 2877 HP, and her awakening, potential upgrade stats and exclusive gear all give her more stats to make her even tankier.

Liberta's arrival is poised to shakeup a somewhat stale meta by bringing more popularity to physical teams. There are a few costumes that stand to benefit a lot from Liberta. For example:

• A fully geared PMB.Eleaneer (with crit build) buffed by Liberta is now capable of knocking out Granhildr without any help from Zenith. Currently PP.Schera is a more popular opener than PMB.Eleaneer in attack teams, but Liberta's arrival is likely to drive some increase in Eleaneer's popularity.
• B-Rank Manager Gray now also emerges as a viable 2 SP Granhildr killer. With 50% DEF shred, a fully geared Gray buffed by Liberta can brute force through Granhildr's energy guard.
• Sword Queen Sylvia is now back on the menu as a competitive attack team opener. Sylvia really relies on crit to deal lethal damage. With Liberta, a fully geared Sylvia becomes an extremely reliable 1 SP killer, though she still struggles against Lecliss as one of her biggest challenges.
• White Cat Rou's burn damage is now a lot more reliable if she has both the ATK buff and the crit rate boost.
• Empress Rubia is a menace on defense if you can manage to buff her with Liberta.
• Android Queen Lecliss can now get powerful guaranteed crits on her counterattack when geared with an Evil Dragon's Blade, Promise of Harmony and Rebellion. Even units geared to 90% DEF may find it hard to survive against her.
• Zenith's biggest weakness is her low offensive powers, but Liberta now gives Zenith good odds at lethal damage against low DEF enemies.

Finally, a small tip: If using Liberta in PVP, note that OM.Liberta is not good because it's almost impossible to get 10 chain stacks up before your ally attacks, and the healing power is also not very strong (25% of the target's max HP). You may therefore prefer to queue up only DS.Liberta, so that you can fire off a buffed normal attack on the cooldown turns, instead of wasting SP on OM.Liberta's low impact buff.

How much should I invest in Liberta?

DS.Liberta is definitely a costume that you want to get to +5 and unlock full potential for.

At low costume levels, DS.Liberta is really weak. Look at it this way: even at +4, her attack buff is only 65% without potential upgrades, which is worse than 3-star Arines.

Also, DS.Liberta is not very good in PVP until you unlock her SP reduction potential upgrade. There's a huge difference between a buff that costs 2 SP and a buff that costs 1 SP.

It's a very worthwhile investment to spend tickets on her because she will be staple for physical teams in a lot of end game content.

Exclusive Gear

Liberta's exclusive gear gives her additional HP. This improves her survivability, but not her buff power. Since survivability is rarely an issue even in late game content (especially for a reasonably tanky character like Liberta), pulling for her exclusive gear is not strongly recommended as it does not add a lot of value. The main benefit from getting her exclusive gear would be to add some extra staying power in PVP.

Conclusion

Yes, pull for Liberta and go all in. She's one of the best supporters in the game and has high utility in all game modes. She is very worthwhile getting to +5 full potential as you will most likely be using her often.