Luvata

Overview

Luvata is the queen of all things fire-related in SoC; with her on the team, the battlefield will be littered with fire tiles, causing the enemy to get mired down as they take scorch damage and get attacked by destructive AoEs from afar. As if that wasn’t enough, she also makes your entire team immune to fire tiles! From both a DPS and utility standpoint, Luvata offers much to the team.

Trait: [Firebird in Nirvana]

Luvata’s trait, [Firebird in Nirvana], boosts her M.ATK by 5-20%, and causes her to inflict 1 stack of [Ignition] on the target(s) when dealing Crit DMG, which can be triggered from 1-4 times per round. [Ignition] is a Life Loss debuff which causes the target to, at the end of the turn, lose HP equal to 25% of the sum of the caster's P.ATK and M.ATK. Additionally, starting at 2-star, when she uses [Fire] skills, she gains [Crit I-III] and (starting at 4-star) [Crit DMG IIII] for 2 turn. Lastly, at the start of the battle, she causes your entire team to be immune to all effects of burning tiles (including movement reduction). Much of her kit revolves around getting critical hits and utilizing burning tiles, and her trait lays the foundation for that.

Basic Attack: [Fiery Wings]

[Fiery Wings] is the better choice of basic attack for Luvata, since it forcibly changes the target’s tile to [Burning], and has the superior range of 3 tiles. There’s no contest here; her other skill is outclassed in damage, effect, and range.

Reaction Skill: [Wall of Ember]

[Wall of Ember] is a unique reaction skill that, as long as Luvata is on a [Burning] tile, if she’s targeted by a single-target physical or magical attack, she preemptively creates a shield for herself of the matching type equal to 100% of her M.ATK stat for 2 turns and cleanses the tile of fire. This effect can activate once every 3 turns and, while she shouldn’t commonly be allowed to be targeted by enemy attacks, it can be a useful failsafe in the event that an enemy does target her with an attack.

Skill 1: [Meteor Flame]

While it is a good idea to pick up both RK 11 skills, [Meteor Flame] is generally the superior option, since it boasts the greater outright killing power and is not diluted by multiple enemies being within its area of effect, unlike [Fiery Wings - Nirvana in Flames]. [Meteor Flame] allows Luvata to target a tile (not an enemy!) within 4 tiles of herself and, if there is a [Burning] tile within 3 tiles of the target tile, she consumes that fire and deals 140% [Fire] [AoE DMG] to all enemies within 3 tiles of the target. If there’s no [Burning] tile, the attack deals half the damage, but forcibly creates a 3x3 square of [Burning] tiles centered on the target tile. This attack has great potential to nuke multiple mobs simultaneously, or at least create a field of fire tiles to hinder enemy movement, if there’s no existing [Burning] tile. Since she keeps those tiles from in any way hindering your team, there’s no downside to creating the [Burning] tiles, anyway. Generally, however, you’ll want to use this for its mob-nuking potential. This skill has no CD, but it costs 4 NRG, meaning you’ll want some sort of NRG battery for her, which will be discussed in Skill 3.

Skill 2: [Leaping Flames]

For her second skill, Luvata definitely wants her passive skill, [Leaping Flames]. In a sense, this passive completes her trait. Its effect is as follows: “When attacking an enemy with [Scorch], Crit increases by 20%; when attacking an enemy with [Ignition], Crit DMG increases by 20%. Upon defeating an enemy with [Scorch], deals 60% [Fire] [AoE DMG] to all enemies within 2 tiles of the target and inflicts [Ignition] for 2 turns.” In other words, she really wants to land critical hits against enemies. The good news is that as long as at least one target of a given skill is scorched or ignited, the effect applies to the entire skill, so you don’t need to worry about inflicting those debuffs on every single enemy to get the benefits. Additionally, this skill allows for chaining the debuffs onto other enemies if they’re bunched up together and one of the scorched enemies dies, meaning that she’ll be all set up for more chaos on the following turn!

Skill 3: [Searing Gaze] or [NRG Restoration]

For her final skill slot, it’s going to largely depend on whether or not Luvata is on the same team with Taair. If not, you’ll want to run her default skill, [Searing Gaze]. In addition to its low NRG cost of 1, and no CD, it is a [Fire] AoE that attacks a plus-shaped area centered on a tile (again, not an enemy, but a tile), and inflicts [Ignition] on the targets and forcibly converts the center tile to [Burning]. Then, she gains a small ATK buff and [Meditation], which gives her a bonus NRG at the start of her next two turns. This allows her to attack with something besides her basic attack while still being NRG-positive so she can save up for her [Meteor Flame] skill. If, however, she has Taair on her team to provide her with [Meditation], then she’s generally better off bringing [NRG Restoration], so she gets the combined effects of both the skill and the buff, meaning she can gain 3 NRG per turn, allowing for [Meteor Flame] to be used quite frequently.

Equipment

For a weapon, you’ll ideally want to equip her Astral Imprint, Nirvana. This weapon increases her AoE damage (but not M.ATK, so you’ll want that boosted by other means), and, whenever she crits, the target(s) will be inflicted with an additional stack of [Ignition]. Lastly, at the start of her turn, she forces the tile that the nearest enemy is standing on to become [Burning]. All of these effects synergize perfectly with her kit, so the weapon is a major upgrade for her, if you can manage to get it. If you don’t have her Astral Imprint, then you’ll want to use a Diffusing Prism, since it synergizes perfectly with her kit, since she’s an AoE-focused mage. Failing that, you can always use Starry Sky Heritage (which actually does a better job of boosting her Life Loss damage, but will do less damage during her turn). For a trinket, she really wants M.ATK, since she won’t be getting it from her tarot (unless you run Devil, but that’s not ideal), which means Shield of Justice is her best option, though Origin Hourglass also works very well on her. Additionally, Blood Luxite Amulet is a solid choice, though she can’t really take advantage of its effect fully, since it works best at low health. For a tarot, since she wants to be getting critical hits as often as possible, you really shouldn’t consider anything other than Justice unless you absolutely need to. Magician or Devil can be used in those cases, but you really want Justice on her. For engravings, she wants Sword + Wand for increased M.ATK. When rolling stats, focus on M.ATK rolls.

Additional Notes

[Fiery Wings - Nirvana in Flames]

For single-target content, Luvata can be used (usually in conjunction with Kvare) with [Fiery Wings - Nirvana in Flames] to absolutely riddle the enemy with her fiery debuffs (3 stacks of [Scorch] + 3 stacks of [Ignition], plus whatever [Ignition] her trait applies if she crits—up to 4 more stacks). The reason this works best for single-target is that it keeps the attack and debuffs from getting spread out over too many targets and being rendered rather useless, since this attack consists of 6 consecutive, random-target attacks.

[Fiery Wings of Freedom]

Situationally, it may be helpful to bring her [Instant] skill, [Fiery Wings of Freedom], which allows her to teleport to any [Burning] tile on the entire map and deal some AoE [Fire] damage to all enemies within a 1-tile radius of where she lands, and forcibly turns all of those tiles into [Burning] tiles. This skill has no NRG cost, but does have a 3-turn CD.