Table of Contents
Overview
Note: Anti-dystopian Diana is not a limited unit.
Pros
- Low SP cost: 1 SP from +1 onwards, which is very versatile for PVP.
- Benefits from M.ATK supporter buffs (Hi Helena!).
- Works fine at lower levels, but at +5 with magic buffers like Helena, it is the most powerful team energy guard skill in the game (significantly outclassing Red Hat Rou).
- Base costume is already top tier, so this makes Diana even better.
- Stacks with her base costume aura.
Cons
- Skill is based on M.ATK, which requires you to invest in M.ATK gears Diana (who is a supporter and wouldn't otherwise need much M.ATK).
- Short aura duration (1 enemy turn), so it needs to be timed carefully.
- Aura range is fairly wide, but forces your units to bunch together for full coverage.
- Like all energy guards, Diana's buff gets removed by Schera (as well as others like base Eleaneer and base Rafina).
Diana for PVE
Right now, AOU Diana (base costume) is a top tier supporter for end-game content, because she gives the highest damage boost for both magic and physical type units.
This new AD Diana costume significantly improves Diana's toolkit by making her not only one of the best end-game offensive supporters, but also one of the best end-game defensive supporters.
I'll compare AD Diana to Red Hat Rou, who is the only other unit that gives an energy guard to the whole team. I'll do the comparison on the basis of examples using moderately tuned late-game gearing, though obviously it will be possible to get much better stats than the examples below.
Diana has a pretty low base ATK at 176. For comparison purposes, we'll take 900 M.ATK as a baseline, which assumes that she has reasonably refined UR II-III gears tuned for M.ATK. Since Diana can benefit from M.ATK buffs (B.Helena and Samay), we'll also compare her skill power with buffs applied.
With Red Hat Rou, we'll take 10,000 HP as a baseline. The comparison works out as follows:
| Costume | Energy Guard (+0) | Energy Guard (+5) |
| AD Diana (assuming 900 M.ATK, no buffs) | 4800 | 9000 |
| AD Diana (with Samay buff) | 7200 | 13500 |
| AD Diana (with B.Helena buff) | 8400 | 15750 |
| AD Diana (with B.Helena and Samay buff) | 10800 | 20250 |
| RH Rou (assuming 10000 HP) | 5000 | 12000 |
Overall, you can see that Diana and Rou's energy guards have comparable power without supporters, but Diana has much higher potential if boosted by magic buffers. Although Diana's energy guard only lasts 1 enemy turn (compared to RH Rou, which lasts 2 enemy turns), Diana also costs a lot less (1 SP, compared to Rou's 3 SP).
You can also see that Diana's energy guard is pretty decent even at +0, especially once buffed. On the other hand, +5 seems to be overkill right now for PVE: presently, there's really no content that requires the huge defensive potential that AD Diana offers (other than very high level fiend hunts). This could of course change as more end-game content is released over time.
Finally, note that Diana has a minor advantage in that her energy guard refreshes once at the end of the turn it's cast, so that gives Diana's energy guard the edge against DoT attacks (burn/bleed damage at the end of each turn).
Diana for PVP
Diana is unique because she is one of the few viable defensive skills for Turn 1 PVP.
So far, there have been no good and cheap defensive skills for Turn 1 PVP. Red Hat Rou costs 3 SP, and taunting tanks generally cost 3-4 SP, which are all too expensive to use on Turn 1. The only other cheap defensive costume is Top Idol Helena, who can reduce damage by 50% for 1 SP, but this is generally not considered very reliable: the damage reduction does not work against fixed damage (Justia and Alec), and also isn't enough to protect glass cannons like Schera and Gray from dying to strong attacks.
AD Diana, on the other hand, is a different story because the effective HP gain from her 1 SP energy guard is immense. For example, consider the following Turn 1 combo: Kind Student Samay +5 > Nightmare Bunny Eclipse +5 > Anti-Dystopian Diana +5. Eclipse boosted by Samay is a strong opening attack with wide reaching AOE. Diana +5 can then gives your units within range over 13000 additional HP each, turning each of them into formidable tanks (imagine facing 5 Leclisses!). Then on the defending team's turn, the defending team will start with at least 3-6 less SP than usual thanks to Eclipse's SP drain, which will hinder their ability to overcome Diana's big energy guards.
It is also worth noting that Diana is very tanky. She has 4011 base HP: compare that with Lecliss, the highest HP unit in the game, who has 4515 base HP. On top of this, Diana's exclusive gear comes with a 54% HP bonus stat. This means that Diana can potentially fill both the support role and the tank role in a PVP team.
Diana's main shortcomings in PVP are her limited aura range (which forces you to bunch up your units, not ideal in PVP) and her lack of useful follow up on turn 2 (her base costume is fairly weak in PVP). For those reasons, AD Diana has powerful potential in PVP, but can be tricky to use effectively.
Conclusion
AD Diana offers great defensive support, but she somewhat feels like a solution to a problem we don't have yet: there's hardly any PVE content right now where big energy guards are required.
Nevertheless, the AD Diana costume makes Diana, one of the best supporters in the game (if not the best supporter), even better. For that reason, having at least 1 copy is a good idea. Having +1 will necessary for PVP use. Anything more than that would be a luxury, as you are unlikely to have very much use for a stronger energy guard in the immediate future (unless you are going for very high fiend hunt levels).
Again, AD Diana is not limited, so you don't need to be worried about missing out if you miss her on the current banner.
