User blog:Linathan/Unit Spotlight: Sanguine Hood Ciara

Sanguine Hood Ciara
[Leader Skill] Arcane Aspect (120% boost to Atk of Fire, Water, Earth, Thunder types, boosts elemental damage & boosts BB Atk )

[Brave Burst] Savage Reave (15 combo on all foes & boosts Atk for 3 turns ; Cost: 24 BC, DC: 15 BC)

[Super Brave Burst] Arcane Furor (18 combo on all foes, boosts Atk for 3 turns & adds Fire, Water, Earth, Thunder elements to attack for 2 turns; Cost: 22 BC, DC: 18 BC)

[Ultimate Brave Burst] Phantasmal Harvest (21 combo powerful Fire, Dark attack on all foes, boosts Atk for 3 turns & boosts BB Atk for 2 turns ; Cost: 21 BC, DC: 21 BC)

[Extra Skill] Red Guardian of the Woods (Absorbs HP when attacking & adds Def ignore effect to BB/SBB for 2 turns)

About Scoring System
For my analyses, I enforce a scoring system. Each category is out of 10 points. The final score will be the average of all of the category scores. Note that my analyses are based on my opinion. You are free to agree or disagree with the points that I have here. The categories are listed below: Typing will be under stats.
 * Leader Skill
 * Brave Burst
 * Super Brave Burst (only for 6* units and above)
 * Ultimate Brave Burst (only for 7* units)
 * Extra Skill (only for 7* units)
 * Arena
 * Stats
 * Usefulness

Note: Scoring will be different for 7* units compared to 6* units due to the fact that 7* units have two more categories than 6* units. For example, a 6* unit with an 8.5 rating cannot be compared with a 7* unit with a 7.5 rating.

Summary
Quaid? Never heard of that unit before. Four elements? Never clicked in my mind.

Oh wait, you mean that Zelnite-looking green-haired dude? Ah, him. Yep, sorry bud. Halloween is taking over town and Ciara is coming in with some awesome buffs. Wanna hear them? Read more!

Leader Skill
Score: 9/10

Ciara provides a 120% boost to not just one element, but four elements: Fire, Water, Earth, and Thunder. This is currently the least selective of the element-based Atk boosting Leader Skills in the game. It’s also the best of its kind as well considering 120% is currently the highest non-buffing Atk boosting Leader Skill in the game.

Having Ciara as the lead already makes her superior over Farlon as Ciara provides the 120% boost to four elements instead of one.

Like Farlon, Ciara also boosts BB Atk by 100%, which is quite a significant BB Atk boost. However, there are units with higher BB Atk boosts like Haile and Zenia with their 150% BB Atk boosts on their Leader Skills.

Brave Burst
Score: 8/10

Ciara's BB utilizes a 300% damage modifier, which is higher than the typical 280% damage modifier that most 7* units use. This will deal high damage thanks to Ciara’s high Atk and damage modifier. Even better, because it’s a multi-element attack, this BB will never deal any weak damage.

Ciara provides a 115% Atk buff. This is a very good Atk buff, but it's not the best in the game. The best in the game is currently Ultor's SBB, which boosts Atk by 200%, but only for 1 turn.

Super Brave Burst
Score: 9/10

Ciara's SBB utilizes the typical 500% damage modifier that most 7* units use. This will deal high damage thanks to Ciara’s high Atk. With this SBB providing elemental buffs, Ciara will never deal weak damage with this SBB.

Onto the topic of elemental buffs, Ciara provides four elemental buffs: Fire, Water, Earth, and Thunder. These are very handy as elemental bonuses are multiplicative to the base damage calculation formula. Additionally, these elemental buffs already cover around two-thirds of every enemy in the game, which is a huge type coverage for units that are benefiting from this buff.

Like her BB, Ciara provides a high Atk buff. However, this time, Ciara provides a 140% Atk buff, which is one of the best Atk buffs in the game (the best in the game out of all of the 3-turn Atk buffs). Very awesome buff to have as it boosts overall damage output.

Ultimate Brave Burst
Score: 10/10

Ciara's UBB utilizes a 1200% damage modifier, which is higher than the average 1000% damage modifier that most 7* units use. This will deal high damage thanks to Ciara’s high Atk and damage modifier. Even better, because it’s a multi-element attack, this BB will never deal any weak damage.

Like her BB and SBB, Ciara provides a very high Atk buff, but since we’re talking about UBB, we’re talking about an even higher Atk buff. This is a 250% Atk buff that Ciara is providing, which is one of the highest Atk buffs in the entire game.

To top that off, Ciara also provides a 500% BB Atk buff, which is a significant boost to damage output. Since the average SBB damage modifier is 500%, most SBB damage modifiers will become just as strong as the average UBB damage modifier.

However, there’s already a UBB that surpasses these buffs overall. Zenia’s UBB provides the same exact buffs, but with the additional utility of providing two extra normal hits at a 200% damage modifier.

Extra Skill
Score: 8/10

Ciara has the ability to drain 5-10% of the damage inflicted on enemies as HP recovered. This is a very good effect to bypass any HC drop resistance that enemies may have. This also serves as a potion saver in Challenge Arena since units do not recover to full after each Arena battle.

While not a huge significant factor for most cases, the ignore-Def buff practically sets enemy Def to 0, including Def buffs. This can be handy against enemies that have high Def buffs or high Def, mainly Metal units.

Arena
Score: 10/10

Ciara has a 24 BC normal attack Drop Check, which is a mediocre-leveled Drop Check to use. Though, Ciara’s Atk is very high, which helps her net very high damage with her normal attack. Additionally, her BB and SBB provide Atk buffs and never deal weak damage.

Ciara works perfectly as a lead too. Her 120% Atk boost being available to around two-thirds of the units available in the game allows more squad options for the player and bigger variety. Indeed, 120% is not the best Atk boost on Leader Skill since there’s Hadaron and Toutetsu, but it still better than not having an Atk boost. The BB Atk boost is great as well if Ciara is the only unit using BB due to RNG.

Stats
Score: 9/10

Very offensive unit. Atk is very high and her HP and Def is hovering above average. Rec is below average, but doesn’t serve much of importance since Rec buffers, HC buffers, and healers can help with that issue.

In terms of typing, my type preference for Ciara is...

Anima > Breaker = Guardian > Lord > Oracle

Usefulness
Score: 9/10

Ciara has proven to be very useful, especially in the damage department. Her elemental buffs and the Atk buffs both have significant damage boosting capabilities.

Ciara also outclasses two units, the first being released along with Ciara and the other being released a long while back: Farlon and Quaid, respectively. In terms of Leader Skill, Ciara completely trumps Farlon as Ciara’s 120% Atk boost is open to four elements compared to Farlon’s being limited to Fire elements. In terms of being sub units, Ciara completely trumps Quaid since Quaid’s only utility is providing elemental buffs while Ciara provides even more than just elemental buffs, like her 140% Atk buff.

Ciara is also very good to use in Frontier Hunter thanks to her elemental buffs. Each hit that is dealing strong damage will count towards the Weak Element Attacks bonus. Ciara’s UBB also deems useful to score tremendous amounts of points for dealing enormous amounts of damage.

However, do keep in mind that elemental buffs do not factor into elemental damage boosts and buffs from units like Kira, Dion, Maxwell, Zedus, etc.

Sphere Recommendations

 * Occult Treasure & Heresy Orb
 * Occult Treasure & Fallacy Orb
 * Occult Treasure & Impiety Orb
 * Occult Treasure & Infidelity Orb
 * Occult Treasure & Heavenly Bud
 * Occult Treasure & Flag Flower
 * Occult Treasure & Revelation Book

Conclusion
Total Score: 9.0/10

It’s always interesting to see Global Exclusives with unique combinations with their effects and buffs. I mean hey, this half-fox, half-human creature just outclassed Quaid... Which of the two Halloween units do you like the most? Ciara! Semira!

Comment below on what you think of Ciara! How do you think she compares with Quaid? Do you love them elemental buffs? Leave a comment below!

Check out my list of analyses in [http://bravefrontierglobal.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Linathan/Spotlights:_Table_of_Contents! Spotlights: Table of Contents!]

Check out my other Unit Spotlights:
 * Sylvan Excalibur Quaid
 * Oracle Knight Ark
 * Obsidian Seraph Zenia
 * Pumleficent Semira