Table of Contents
Overview
Pros:
- Biggest AOE of any playable character in the game
- Very good damage for such a wide AOE skill
- Short 3 turn cooldown time
Cons:
- Most expensive skill in the game
- Her other costume (Emerging Desire) is not very good
- Since she's an offensive-type limited costume, you need to commit to a big investment in a short period of time if you want her at full offensive power.
- Since she's a limited character, it's unlikely that we'll get more costumes in the future to make her better overall (whereas other non-limited characters will get better over time as new costumes are released).
Roxy for PVE
First up, let's clarify what Roxy actually does. In case the table above is not clear, Roxy +5 does 450% to the main target (not 450%+350%) and 350% to all other targets. At full potential, she does 600% to the main target and 400% to all other targets.
This is pretty good damage for a costume with such big AOE. It's even better when you consider the fact that Roxy has the highest base magic attack in the game, at 407. In comparison, Schera's magic attack is 385, Eclipse's magic attack is 308, and Celia's magic attack is 275. Note that a higher base magic attack means Roxy gets even better stat gains from M.ATK% gears.
Roxy is good in pretty much every PVE game mode, thanks to her big ranged nuke. She is especially useful in Fire Tower of Pride (which rewards you for overkill damage) and fire fiend hunts. After Roxy, the next best water AOE is Game Club Rafina. GC.Rafina at +5 full potential does effectively 784% damage in a 3x3 AOE, but bear in mind that Rafina's base ATK (220) is much much lower than Roxy's base M.ATK (407).
Even though Roxy has great offensive power, the heavy SP cost can limit the kinds of team formations you can build. For example, Roxy leaves very little room for SP heavy buffers like PWB.Refi and MC.Teresse, and you may be limited in the number of buffers you can afford to use. For long battles, Roxy also forces you to bring an SP battery like NB.Eclipse.
Roxy's weapon
There's one more really important thing to consider before investing in Roxy: HER UNIQUE GEAR IS LIMITED.
If you want to truly max out Roxy's attack power, not only do you have to get her to +5 before the limited banner runs out, you also need to get a copy of her unique gear, which increases her M.ATK by 45% on the bonus stat. Given that Roxy's role is a plain and simple nuker, you want Roxy to do the highest damage possible, but if you miss getting it on the limited weapon banner, you lose your shot at that extra 45% M.ATK forever.
That's a very big investment cost to go for both the costume and the weapon, so choose wisely before committing.
Roxy for PVP
Let's be real: are you really going to bring a 6 SP costume into a PVP battle?
There's no way to use her on attack turn 1 (as you only start with 5 SP). Using her on defense leaves almost no room for the rest of your team's skills, especially if you are SP drained by NB.Eclipse. Although it's possible to get lucky with a team wiping attack, the high risk and high cost of playing Roxy doesn't sufficiently justify the possibility of a high reward.
Her other costume, Emerging Desire, is also weak in PVP. Unfortunately this means that Roxy overall is not a strong choice for PVP.
Conclusion
Roxy packs a punch for PVE battles and has the biggest AOE of any costume in the game. She's a really good unit to have (and will probably be one of the best units for future fire fiend hunts), but there are three important things to keep in mind before you pull. One, her SP cost is ridiculously expensive, which really limits the options for your team. Two, since Roxy is a limited collab character, chances are that she will not get any more costumes in the future (that is, she won't get better with powercreep and won't become more versatile over time). Three, you're going to have to commit hard if you want her at full power, because both her costume and her weapon are limited.
