Table of Contents
| Costume Level | SP | M.ATK | Crit | Heal |
| +0 | 3 | +35% | +25% | 50% M.ATK |
| +1 | 3 | +45% | +25% | 75% M.ATK |
| +2 | 3 | +55% | +25% | 100% M.ATK |
| +3 | 2 | +55% | +25% | 100% M.ATK |
| +4 | 2 | +75% | +25% | 100% M.ATK |
| +5 | 2 | +75% | +50% | 100% M.ATK |
Overview
Pros
- Only 5-star magic damage supporter in the game (excluding AOU Diana who boosts property damage), and the best magic supporter to date.
- Huge 50% crit boost at +5.
- Heal power pairs well with Top Idol Helena (base costume) for endurance in long battles.
Cons
- Needs a lot of investment to reach full power: crit damage boost doubles at +5.
- Susceptible to power creep: At +4, her skill is comparable to a magic version of 3-star Arines.
How many copies do you need?
Homunculus Lathel is considered the best physical supporter and B-Rank Helena is considered the best magical supporter to date. However, unlike H.Lathel who is pretty good at all levels, B-Rank Helena is really quite weak at lower levels, and picks up significantly in power in the last few costume levels.
It's useful to look at 3-star Arines as a baseline comparison. Arines gives +70% ATK to physical attackers and +30% crit for 2 SP. Although Arines doesn't boost M.ATK for magic teams, her skill stats are a useful guide as to what we should expect out of a supporter.
Another useful comparison is 4-star Samay, who gives +50% ATK and M.ATK, with a minor heal (but no crit boost).
Helena at +0 is sadly disappointing: she gives +35% M.ATK and +25% crit for 3 SP. At base costume level, Helena's offensive support power for magic teams is worse than the support power of Arines for physical teams (and again, keep in mind that Arines is only a 3-star). It's also arguably not much better than Samay.
Getting Helena all the way up to +3 improves her M.ATK buff by only 20% compared to +0 (from 35% to 55%), and her SP reduces by 1. There's not a huge improvement in her offensive supporting ability from +0 to +3. However, note that the SP reduction at +3 is essential to play the Turn 1 B.Helena + NB Eclipse combo in PVP for exactly 5 SP.
At +4, Helena gives +75% M.ATK and +25% crit for 2 SP. In other words, at +4 Helena's offensive support power is finally at a level that is comparable to Arines.
Only at +5 we finally see the true power of Helena: At +5 Helena gives +75% M.ATK and a huge +50% crit rate, the highest crit boost in the game. This is a massive power jump from +4 to +5.
As you can see, B.Helena's costume scaling is very different to H.Lathel. With H.Lathel, there are great upgrades in his costume power over the first few levels (+0 to +3), and relatively minor upgrades for +4 and +5. With B.Helena it's the opposite: her first few levels from +0 to +3 do not upgrade her offensive power much, but there are big steps up when you get to +4 and +5. What this all means is that Helena needs a lot of investment to be at full power.
Healing
The above analysis looked at damage only, but don't worry, I have not overlooked Helena's healing abilities.
Helena heals for 50% of her M.ATK per turn at +0, which scales up to 75% at +1 and 100% at +2 to +5. Now this is nice and helps in certain slow burn battles (e.g. Yukwang fire fiend boss) but not really a reason to pull for Helena.
Firstly, let's face it: you're pulling Helena because you want to boost the attack power of your magic teams. For the most part, you need more damage to overcome end game content, not more healing.
Secondly, for most battles, healing even at +0 is either going to be good enough or completely useless. Assuming Helena is moderately geared and has say 1500 M.ATK, Helena heals 1500 x 1.35 (from her M.ATK boost) x 0.5 = 1013 per turn (or 2025 between every enemy attack, since it heals once at the end of your turn and once at the end of the enemy turn). If that's not enough to keep you alive, your team is probably dead anyway.
Thirdly, Energy Guard skills are far more effective than healing, because they prevent death rather than help you heal back from it. Red Hat Rou and the upcoming Anti-dystopian Diana both have skills that give Energy Guards to your team.
Conclusion
B.Helena is the best magic buffer in the game, but that's because she's the only 5-star magic buffer in the game.
Objectively speaking, B.Helena is not that great until you reach +4 and +5. If a magic-based 3-star variant of Arines existed, I wouldn't recommend that you pull on B.Helena at all. Since B.Helena is an older unit on a re-run banner, she is at risk of being replaced over time with powercreep. But since B.Helena is the one and only supporter choice we've got for magic teams at the moment, you must have her if you want to have a strong magic team for end game content.
If you've already got a few copies of B.Helena and want to get her to +5, now would be your best chance to max her.
If you are planning to pull for her from scratch, just be aware that she takes a lot of investment to get to full power and unlocks a big upgrade at +5. Otherwise, Samay is a decent alternative if you have other crit buffers.
