Overview
Pros:
- At full potential, becomes a 3x3 AOE attack for SP
- Damage is pretty good for a 3x3 AOE attack, even without the burn bonus
- Synergises well with Lia's other costumes
Cons:
- Fire element already has a lot of other attackers. Maid Lia brings good damage and range, but is not very unique.
- Single hit skill is vulnerable to evasion and does not stack chains.
- Although SP, range and cooldown improve with Potential upgrades, skill damage does not improve (max remains at 450%/700% at +5).
Who can deal continuous damage?
Maid Lia's bonus damage activates on units who have continuous damage (i.e. burn damage) applied. Below is a list of units that can apply burn damage, ignoring 3-star units:
- Sharpshooter Gray
- Vanguard Gray
- White Cat Rou
- Thorn Rubia
- Angel Teresse
- Neon Savior Angelica
- Rodev's Star Lia
- Neon Stalker Lia
- Violent Student Kry
For PVE where big mob clears are required, Vanguard Gray and Thorn Rubia are useful for activating Lia's bonus damage across many units.
The knockback skills are also useful for both PVE and PVP: Rou, Teresse and Kry. Firstly, they are all low cost (1 SP) skills, so they can easily be used together with Maid Lia in the same turn. Secondly, by knocking back the front line, they do damage to the units behind and bunch up the enemy team at the same time.
Lia for PVE
Lia's damage multiplier of 700% is impressive, but her niche is dealing 3x3 fire damage against large mobs. There are generally better options for dealing high damage against single targets or small mobs.
First, Lia's base damage is average at 352: the same as Eleaneer, Justia, Rubia and Sylvia. However, unlike these other units, Lia's unique weapon only boosts crit rate on her unique stat, not ATK or crit damage. This limits her damage potential.
Secondly, the setup required to trigger Lia's bonus damage is pretty situational. Generally, for late game PVE, you'll be using Lia in a fire team against wind enemies. Putting the knockback units aside (note most bosses are immune to knockback), the only other fire character that has burn damage is Rubia. If you don't use Rubia, you'll be sacrificing a valuable team slot for a non-fire unit that doesn't benefit from property damage buffs, which may not necessarily make up for the bonus damage you get out of Lia. This makes your options for using Lia relatively limited.
Thirdly, fire attacker options are very crowded, so Maid Lia has a lot of competition when choosing a fire attacker for PVE.
For single target fire damage, POV Lathel has a massive 1000% damage multiplier on top of his ATK boost buff.
For small mobs, Gentle Maid Anastasia +5 at full Potential deals 3x160% = 528% fire damage after taking chains into account, but she also gets a 200% crit damage buff. Fire Graffiti Anastasia is even stronger, with 5x120% = 720% after chain damage, plus her 200% crit damage buff.
Lia's main niche in PVE is where you really need that 3x3 AOE.
Lia for PVP
If you already use Neon Stalker Liatris in PVP, then having Maid Lia is a great choice. Maid Lia does much better damage, and has lower SP cost, than Rodev's Star, so Maid is a good replacement for Rodev's Star as a secondary costume. As a 3x3 AOE skill that costs only 3 SP, she is excellent value.
Also, although Lia's unique weapon is average for PVE use, it's pretty good for PVP because it allows her to easily reach 100% crit rate, which further boosts her damage.
However, despite the fact that Maid has better damage and better SP cost than Rodev's Star, Maid Lia comes with a pretty significant disadvantage in that she is vulnerable to evasion. White Cat Rou is already super popular in PVP. Word is that the upcoming Maid Rubia costume will also have an evasion skill, so that would be a direct counter to Lia.
Conclusion
Many players will no doubt pull her for her absolutely degenerate art, but her in-game skill set is unfortunately somewhat forgettable. Although her damage is pretty good now, she competes with a lot of other high damage fire-type attackers. If you're a meta-chaser and not a whale, then this unit might not be for you, but I won't blame you if you follow your heart 🙂
