Estra - Sorceress Hunter

Overview

Estra is the premier single-target DPS in SoC (at present) and is capable of pretty much melting bosses in short time. While she may not always be the best tool for every job (since much of the game tends to be centered around doing AoE damage), when you do need her, you’ll be very glad you have her.

Sorceress Bane

Trait

Estra’s trait, [Sorceress Bane], provides her with a few things. First of all, it gives her the ability to [Jump], which means she has greater mobility which, as a Seeker, is incredibly useful to her. Additionally, it also provides her with a [Magical Shield] equal to 150% of her M.DEF stat. While this may seem like an odd thing for a DPS character to have, its actual purpose is to boost her P.ATK. Her trait boosts her P.ATK by 35% of her current [Magical Shield] value, meaning that the more magical shields she possesses, the more her attack goes up. As such, although she has a shield, she actually does NOT want to get hit with any attacks that will eat away at it. Also, this shield stacks with the previous shields each turn, and has no expiration, which means that, as long as she isn’t getting hit with magical attacks, her P.ATK will keep going up until the shield reaches 100% of her HP value! Her trait also increases her damage dealt to targets based on how much NRG they are missing from their maximum; 4-10% per NRG missing, up to 12-30%. When she uses a non-[Instant] single-target active attack on a target with more M.ATK than P.ATK, she also depletes 1-2 NRG from them before attacking and deals additional physical DMG equal to 60% of her P.ATK. Additionally, when at at least 3-star, she increases her P.ATK by 10-20% when attacking targets with no NRG at all. Finally, once she reaches 5-star, she reduces her own Reaction Skill and Class Skill CDs by 1 additional turn (effectively meaning she should be able to use her ultimate skill every single turn).

Spine Pierce

Basic Attack

[Spine Pierce] is the obvious choice for a basic attack; it does the same amount of damage as [Feverish Attack], but has the ability to ignore the target’s {Physical Shield] when she performs a [Back Attack], which is far more useful than some Life Steal.

Shadow Evasion

Reaction Skill

Estra’s unique reaction skill, [Shadow Evasion], allows her to, when getting attacked by an active single-target attack from the back or side, preemptively teleport behind the target, launch a basic attack at 50% DMG, and interrupt the target’s turn entirely. This pairs beautifully with [Spine Pierce] and is nice because of its ability to keep the enemy from even getting to take an action. The only downside is that it can only be used every other turn before she hits 5-star, so just be sure you’re aware of when it’s active and when it isn’t.

No Restraints (or Blinding Strike)

Skill 1

The first skill you’ll usually want to bring to content is Estra’s ultimate, [No Restraints]. This skill is a single-target nuke that, first of all, ignores Reaction Skills entirely. The actual attack first hits for 40% DMG, then deals another 100% DMG. For each NRG the target is missing, however, this number increases by 30%, up to 190% total. When this attack kills a target, Estra recovers 3 NRG. Clearly, the idea behind this attack is to hit enemies who are already missing NRG (see Estra’s trait for how to make this happen, as well as her passive, [Thunder Arrow]) in order to maximize the attack’s damage. That means that it’s easiest to make this work against enemies who have more M.ATK than P.ATK, but it can definitely be made to work against any enemy, really. Just don’t expect to walk up to enemies with no thought at all and have this do max damage. This skill costs 3 NRG and has a CD of 2, so if you want to use it every turn, the big issue (before 5-star) is going to be the CD, so make sure you have a way to reduce CD on her, such as Cocoa’s Happiness buff or something similar. Bear in mind that this skill is less useful than her [Blinding Strike] skill for general content (or perhaps even bosses who are more P.ATK-based, since she has a harder time removing NRG from these targets), so you might want to read that section in Additional Notes before deciding what you want to run on her for specific content.

Potion

Skill 2

For her second skill, you’ll want to bring is her [Potion] skill, which is actually two skills in one slot. The first skill is [Blood of Shadows]. This [Instant] skill restores 1 NRG and gives Estra a buff, [Dark Devour], which increases her Crit Rate by 45%, gives her 30% Life Steal, and doubles the DMG increasing effect of her trait tied to how much NRG the target is missing, and this buff lasts for 4 turns. The second skill, [Water of Exorcism], dispels all debuffs from Estra, then restores 1 NRG and gives her a buff called [Mana Ward] which increases her DEF by 30% and gives her a [Magical Shield] equal to 150% of her P.ATK, and gives her [Control Immunity] before getting hit with any magical attacks, also lasting for 4 turns. After the effect of either potion ends, however, Estra’s ATK and DEF are reduced by 8% for 3 turns, so be sure she can get done what she needs to during the 4 turns the potion is active. Ideally, the best use of this skill is to use [Blood of Shadows] before using her [No Restraints] skill, thus both increasing the likelihood for a critical hit, as well as maximizing the damage of the nuke. [Water of Exorcism] is more defensive, overall, but its shield does stack with her trait’s shield, meaning it does increase her attack, and works very well with her HP-based build (which will be discussed in the Equipment section). This skill, regardless of which potion is used, has a 2 turn CD and costs no NRG.

Thunder Arrow

Skill 3

For her final skill, you’ll want to bring is Estra’s passive, [Thunder Arrow]. This skill causes Estra to, when using a non-[Instant] single-target active attack, launch an additional attack for 30% DMG, which depletes 1 NRG from the target, and also inflicts [⦸ Active Skills] and [⦸ NRG Recovery] for 2 turns. This works well in conjunction with her ultimate, since it does more damage if the enemy has less NRG. This also works with her default skill, [Blinding Strike], which will be discussed in the Additional Notes section.

Estra can be built in one of two primary ways, so depending how how you want to build her, her equipment is going to be very different. For her Crit build, you’ll want to maximize her critical hit potential, while also investing in her P.ATK stat sufficiently. As such, for this build, you’ll want to give her Void Stab (for extra Crit and Crit DMG), which works well with her [Instant] [Potion] skill to build stacks (this also works will with [Blinding Strike]). For a trinket with this build, you’ll either want to bring her Astral Imprint, Cage Mask, or Shield of Justice (though you can also opt for Origin Hourglass or even Maverick’s Cloak) for the P.ATK boost offered by any of the above. The nice thing about her mask is that it also gives a further boost based on how much of a [Magical Shield] she possesses, meaning it has a higher ceiling than the other options (though is by no means necessary for her). For a tarot for this build, you’ll want to bring Justice, for the boost it provides to both Crit and Crit DMG. Under the right circumstances (factoring in external crit-related buffs that are available), she should be able to be at about 100% Crit, with about 60% or more Crit DMG with this build. If you wish to build her differently, then you can opt for her HP-build, which relies on having as much of a [Magical Shield] as possible to boost her P.ATK via her trait. If you go this way, you’ll want her to have a Newborn Blade, a Crystal Burst Armor, and a Fool’s Tarot, all three for the significant HP boosts they provide. This route will provide a more easily maintained (unless she’s getting hit with magic attacks, which she shouldn’t be) source of attack than the Crit build, though will have less of a damage ceiling, so it largely comes down to taste/playstyle. For both builds, you’ll want Sword + Wand engravings, and P.ATK should be your Focus, though she won’t mind HP rolls on the HP build.

Blinding Strike

Alt. Skill 1

As an alternative to her ult, you can opt to bring her default skill, [Blinding Strike]. This skill allows Estra to teleport behind a target within 3 tiles, launch her basic attack (which will do more damage than normal), and [Ignore Assist]. After the attack, she can then move again and, if she killed the first target, she gets to attack again (though that part is limited to once per turn, so even if you chain this skill twice, that will be the end of it). This skill only costs 2 NRG and has no CD, so it is almost always ready to go, and it pairs perfectly with her [Spine Pierce] basic attack. When using this skill at a distance, it still procs her [Thunder Arrow] passive before she teleports and, since that isn’t limited to being used once per turn, it can activate again on the next skill she uses that turn. It is my opinion that, as I said above, this skill will be more useful for most content, but it does have a lower damage ceiling than her ult, so just be aware that, if the situation lends itself to her ult being used, you’re almost certainly better off bringing that over this skill.