Costume Guide – The Void Granhildr

Pros

• Granhildr is already top tier in PVP, adding another costume to her arsenal improves her further

• Can be paired with units like BHelena to boost crit rate on her counters

• Very high damage against the right kind of enemy

• Free copy available in the pub (random encounter)

Cons

• Preemptive activation not very useful

• High SP cost for relatively low impact in PVP

• Poor synergy with high DEF/M.RES builds: counter damage scales based on the damage you actually take

• Situational in PVE: works only against enemies with attacks that have low hit count and high (but not too high) damage, and requires a high level Comeback Idol

Does the counter activate whilst Energy Guard is up?

Yes. If Gran has her Comeback Idol’s energy guard up, Void’s counter will still activate. Testing results below: 

Granhildr for PVE

First of all, the preemptive activation option is near useless in PVE, since the player always goes first. The only thing relevant for PVE is Gran’s damage.

Since the Void counter skill stacks with energy guard, Gran’s potential counter damage is very, very high. With Comeback Idol +5, Gran effectively quadruples her HP. A moderately geared Gran with both costumes at +5 and 20,000 HP can theoretically deal up to 320,000 physical damage, and that’s before any crit damage. 

Compare this to AQ Lecliss +5, who deals 35% of her max HP per hit. However, max HP damage calculation is capped at 20,000HP. If she has 20,000HP or more, then her reflect damage is 7,000 per hit. For example, against the fiend boss Parkyr Rex Slayer (who deals 8 hits on his conditional attack), Lecliss counters 75,600 physical damage in total (including chain damage, but before crit). 

So in terms of pure damage potential, Gran is theoretically the best in the game. However she can only reach that theoretical power where you are up against a boss who deals just the right amount of damage that is heavy enough to almost kill Gran, without actually killing Gran, after she has had the opportunity to set up her energy guard. A lot of gear fine tuning may be required to ensure the enemy’s damage hits that sweet spot. 

Note also this means that Gran really only works in select fiend hunts and story/challenge battles, but does not work for Tower of Pride or Last Night.

Granhildr for PVP

Gran’s base costume helps your existing Comeback Idol get stronger, but it’s not a must have for PVP.

The preemptive activation is not very useful in PVP compared to the taunt from Comeback Idol. Although it may be possible to deal lethal damage with the counter preemptive skill, there are too many scenarios where it does nothing meaningful, including when hit by buff removers, when hit by knockback skills, when hit by resisted attacks (e.g physical attacks against your 90% DEF), when hit with single hit lethal damage (e.g. Comeback Idol Yuri, Blood Glutton Justia) and of course when Gran is simply not hit at all.

If the SP cost were cheaper, Void might see some preemptive play for the surprise factor, but at 4 SP there’s just no reason you would use it over Comeback Idol as your preemptive skill. 

Still, Void is good to have, because it gives you the chance to turn around the battle in the late game. Since the counter from Void expires based on hits, not turns, it’s possible to stack Void and Comeback Idol for powerful results. Without Void, if Gran manages to survive turn 1, she becomes just a sitting duck in the late game. With Void though, she gains real offensive abilities. She now has a decent chance of winning a 1v1 into death time.

For PVP purposes even 1 copy is pretty good. 10,000 HP damage to Void Gran +0 counters for 20,000 physical damage.

Conclusion

If you gave already invested in Comeback Idol, this new costume improves Gran by giving her late game offensive skills in PvP. If you have a high level Comeback Idol, she also becomes a potential powerhouse in PVE, against a niche kind of enemy that deals very high damage. 

It’s worth at least getting the free copy from the pub, but only invest further if you are aiming for the highest rank PVP and PVE.