Character Guide — Rou

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Strengths and Weaknesses

Costumes

Rou currently has 4 costumes. White Cat is a knockback skill with evasion, Nature's Claw is an HP scaling DMG skill with evasion, Red Riding Hood is a crit + energy guard buffer, while Stray Cat is a straightforward ATK scaling skill.

White Cat

+1	+2	+3	+4	+5
DoT	Knockback	SP Cost	Knockback	DoT
75% ▸ 125%	100% ▸ 150%	2 ▸ 1	150% ▸ 200%	125% ▸ 175%

White Cat is recruitable in the pub of Story Pack 4 — Pack Daddy.

The only knockback skill in the game that pushes an enemy 3 squares back (every other knockback skill pushes 2 squares back), this costume is very difficult to play against in PvP, whether she is being used in offense or defense. It even gives her a pesky evade that allows her to make the opponents waste their skills.

At +3, this costume costs 1 SP, making her a great unit to use in the PvP opener.

Key Upgrades: Design +3.

Nature's Claw

+1	+2	+3	+4	+5
Physical DMG	Physical DMG	SP Cost	Physical DMG	Physical DMG
7% ▸ 10%	10% ▸ 12%	5 ▸ 4	12% ▸ 14%	14% ▸ 16%

Another great costume in PvP. The evasion gives her a chance to "tank" hits she otherwise couldn't, and the HP% damage can be lethal if she's given enough crit damage. White Cat also wants crit for her knockbacks, so this costume works well alongside the former.

While the DMG upgrades may look small, the fact it scales of enemy max HP means that every upgrade lowers the amount of CDMG she needs to guarantee a kill (see the build section for a bit of math on this). Skill potential 2 is a must have for this costume if you're using Rou in PvP, as it allows her to destroy even 90 DEF units.

Key Upgrades: Skill Potential 2, SP reductions, DMG upgrades significantly lower her CDMG breakpoint allowing her to build more HP.

Red Riding Hood

+1	+2	+3	+4	+5
Crit Rate Buff Energy Guard	Crit Rate Buff Energy Guard	SP Cost	Energy Guard	Energy Guard
30% ▸ 40% 50% ▸ 60%	40% ▸ 50% 60% ▸ 70%	4 ▸ 3	70% ▸ 95%	95% ▸ 120%

Red Riding Hood gives her entire team an energy guard that scales off her own max HP (emphasis: it does not scale off her teammates' max HP). It does not scale very well at +0, but with enough upgrades, the energy guard can be really strong. It comes with the caveat that none of her other costumes scale off HP, but it's possible to build for both HP and crit (see the builds section).

On top of that, she also gives her team a 50% crit buff at +2, which is a great consistency buff. The fact that she doesn't buff ATK or MATK means that she's not really used as a buffer in PvE content, but this buff is great in PvP.

Key Upgrades: Design +1 and +2, SP upgrades, Energy Guard upgrades add up.

Stray Cat

+1	+2	+3	+4	+5
Physical DMG	Physical DMG	Physical DMG	Physical DMG	Physical DMG
250% ▸ 300%	300% ▸ 350%	350% ▸ 400%	400% ▸ 450%	450% ▸ 500%

Stray Cat is a limited unit that was given out for free during the Half-Anniversary event.

This costume is decent, allowing Rou to be a budget DPS for Fiend Hunt or other PvE content. The damage is not stellar, but it works. The problem with this costume is that it scales off ATK, which none of her other costumes do. This means that if you want to use this costume effectively, you have to sacrifice her potency on her other costumes. Unless you really don't have another DPS for the content, this tradeoff is often not worth it.

Key Upgrades: Skill Potential 2, DMG upgrades add up.

Building Rou

Because Rou's costumes scale off different stats, she has a lot of different builds depending on which costume you're optimizing for. She'll build ATK if you're using her for Stray Cat, full CRIT if you're using her for White Cat and Nature's Claw, and you'll build HP on her if you want to prioritize the Energy Guard from Red Riding Hood.

In PvP, you may want to build CRIT until she meets her crit breakpoints, then build HP with the rest of her substats.

Bond Potential

♦ Several bond nodes are locked behind a skill potential.

ATK Build (Stray Cat)

Optimal Substats — 7 ATK% substats + 8 CDMG substats
Bond Potential — Nature's Claw

This build is used if you're desperate and using Stray Cat Rou as a DPS for Fiend Hunt or other PvE content. Build either full DEF or full MRES depending on the enemies you're facing.

Full Crit Build (White Cat/Nature's Claw)

Optimal Substats — 1 Crit Rate + 11 CDMG substats, 3 flex substats
Bond Potential — Nature's Claw

This build puts her at 50 Crit Rate and nearly 700 CDMG, allowing her to get to 100 Crit Rate from either her Red Riding Hood costume or B-Rank Idol Helena. The 3 remaining substats can go to HP%. If you don't have Rou's EX weapon, you will have to instead go with 6 Crit Rate + 9 CDMG subs.

HP Build (Red Riding Hood)

Optimal Substats — 6 HP% + 9 HP substats
Bond Potential — Red Riding Hood

Rou can get up to 14,000 HP on this build (up to 21,000 HP energy guard). On Fiend Hunts that deal Fixed DMG, you can even use HP% body + HP head pieces (or HP body + HP% head), getting her to 20,000 HP (up to 30,000 HP energy guard). You may want to replace one HP substat with a crit rate substat to get to 50% crit rate for her other costumes in PvP.

Hybrid Crit/HP Build

This is an alteration of the HP build where you want to guarantee a kill (vs 90 DEF, <20k HP) with Nature's Claw but do not have enough dupes in order to do it with the HP build. Instead of giving a build, however, I will instead give a table of CDMG thresholds based on the multiplier on Nature's Claw:

Multiplier	CDMG required to kill a 90 DEF unit (≤20k HP)	vs 90 DEF, ≤25k HP
7%	792.9% (not realistic)	1016% (not possible)
9%	594.4%	768% (not realistic)
10%	525%	681.3%
12%	420.8%	551.1%
14%	346.4%	458.1%
16%	290.6%	388.3%
18%	247.2%	334.1%

If your Rou's multiplier is at least 16%, the HP build is fine since you'll have over 300% CDMG from main stats alone. If her multiplier is 14% (at least +2 Nature's Claw with the DMG potential), the HP build with Nature's Claw bonds can work. Anything below that however will require you to sacrifice HP/% for CDMG.

If you want to make sure that she can also 100-0 90 DEF tanks, you will also want to build more CDMG (refer to the table above for thresholds against 25k HP tanks).