Table of Contents
Overview
Pros
- A gamechanger for PVP: may define the meta for the foreseeable future.
- High magic damage on her skill
- Incredible range
- Consistent 3 SP cost at all levels
- Reasonably tanky stats: more HP than Justia, but less than Lathel.
- Nightmare Bunny's AOE pairs well with her base costume, Dimension Witch.
- One of the very few units can reduce M.RES.
Cons
- Limited unit who WILL NOT appear in the Powder Shop after her banner finishes: you only have one chance to pull for her to max level.
- Base M.ATK stat is slightly on the low side.
- Fits best in a magic team, hard to maximize her damage without magic damage support (B-Rank Helena)
Eclipse for PvE
Where Nightmare Bunny really shines is in PVP, so the PVE explanation will be brief.
Eclipse is a solid unit ,so there's nothing surprising about the fact that she's good for PVE. She does great Dark type magic damage in a huge AOE: 600% damage is very high, and ties with Dalvi for the highest damage multiplier on a magic unit. The big AOE especially comes in handy against fiend bosses, which tend to fill up the board.
Eclipse's base damage (308) is a little low though compared to Dalvi (352) and Schera (385).
Eclipse's SP charge ability should also not be overlooked. Her skill pays for itself if it hits at least 3 units.
Eclipse for PvP
Eclipse's kit for PVP is completely unique and she is likely to change the metagame for the foreseeable future. Below is a deep dive on why she's so good in PVP.
Range
First of all, Eclipse's AOE is huge. She hits an entire row and (almost) an entire column, making it near impossible for the defending team to protect its attackers.
No other unit has such wide horizontal reach. Other than Empress of the Ocean Rubia (whose AOE is somewhat situational), Eclipse is the first unit that has a full horizontal AOE range.
In terms of vertical reach, Eclipse is not the first unit to be able to clear a full column: Neon Stalker Liatris and Nartas can do that too. However, Liatris's physical damage is relatively low (5x55%+125% burn) and she can be countered with high DEF gears. Nartas was also released recently with a full column AOE skill, but his high SP cost and inconsistent damage has prevented him from seeing much competitive play. Eclipse, on the other hand, overcomes both Lia's shortcomings on damage and Nartas' shortcomings on SP cost.
Because of her uniquely wide range, Eclipse is likely to have a significant impact on the metagame for defense formations. To date "empty mid" formations have been popular for minimizing AOE damage, but they are not very effective against Nightmare Bunny. The combination of her skip targeting, wide vertical AOE and wide horizontal AOE means that there is nowhere truly safe for a defending player to place their vulnerable attackers. If Nightmare Bunny Eclipse picks up in popularity (as I suspect it will), all players will need to rethink their defense formations to play around her.
Playing around Nightmare Bunny is not easy. Ironically, any attempt to build a defense formation to avoid Nightmare Bunny's AOE will actually make it easier for Eclipse to hit on her second turn with her main costume, Dimension Witch. This is because the best way to play around Nightmare Bunny is to place units diagonally from each other: but a diagonally adjacent formation plays straight into the hands of Dimension Witch's "X" shape AOE. The Nightmare Bunny and Dimension Witch costumes therefore complement each other very well.
Damage
The other great thing about Eclipse is her high damage, which is complemented by her 15% M.RES reduction ability. This can be illustrated with the example below:
- An example opener for a PVP attack team is B-Rank Helena + Nightmare Bunny Eclipse for 5 SP.
- Consider a moderately geared Eclipse with 1500 M.ATK. Assuming for simplicity that she starts a fresh chain stack and does not crit, at +5 costume level (600% multiplier) and boosted with a +5 B-Rank Helena (+75% magic damage), Eclipse does a total of 17,325 magic damage. That would be enough to kill most non-tank units without M.RES gears.
- Let's assume however that the target enemy unit is geared up to 90% M.RES. Without any M.RES reduction skills, Eclipse would only do 1,733 magic damage to a 90% M.RES enemy: not enough for lethal. However, after applying 15% M.RES reduction, Eclipse instead deals 4,331 magic damage: that damage is now at a level that can kill a lot of non-tank units with equipment tuned for full M.RES instead of HP.
- Of course, if Eclipse manages to crit, her chances of getting lethal increase further. Note that Eclipse's unique gear is a crit-type necklace.
- Note also that as a dark type unit, Eclipse's attacks have no elemental resistances, and receive bonus damage during the Season of Dark.
What this all means is that Eclipse not only has amazing reach, she is also a reasonably reliable killing machine. It's pretty clear that the devs were careful in balancing the M.RES reduction at 15%. It feels like a small amount of reduction at first, but the aim is undoubtedly to make her have just enough damage for high-ranking PVP play, without being overbearing.
By the way, the above example uses B-Rank Helena +5, but an alternative viable strategy is to use Samay (50% magic damage boost instead of Helena's 75%). Since Samay costs 1 SP, this would you with 1 spare SP in an attacking team for a knockback (Rou, Kry) or a finisher (Sword Queen Sylvia).
SP drain
As a succubus, Nightmare Bunny's SP drain powers fit well with her character thematically.
SP drain is fairly powerful in PVP. A defending team starts with 6 SP and gains 6 SP per turn, for a total of 12 starting SP on their first turn. Draining even just 3 SP usually means that the defending team will be able to use 1 less skill than usual. For example, preventing a Glacia from having enough SP to activate her taunt/revive could be the difference between victory and defeat.
On the other hand, having an additional 3 SP on your next turn can also give you enough SP for 1 more skill, which can turn the tides of battle. The SP drain is therefore icing on the cake for an already good unit.
Conclusion
Nightmare Bunny is a very strong costume in all game modes, but especially for PVP where she is a top tier unit for attacking teams.
Since it is a limited costume, you will only have a short window to get her to +5. It's best to have her at +5 if you're aiming for high ranking PVP, though her linear scaling means that she's good at any costume level.
