User blog:Linathan/Unit Spotlight: Athena Asamiya

Athena Asamiya
[Leader Skill] Psycho Soldier (40% boost to Atk, max HP, damage taken may restore HP & considerably reflects damage when attacked)

[Brave Burst] DM: Phoenix Arrow I (10 combo powerful Light attack on all foes, absorbs HP when attacking, damage taken may restore HP for 3 turns, probable slight HP absorption when attacking for 3 turns & removes all status ailments; Cost: 16 BC, DC: 20 BC)

[Super Brave Burst] DM: Phoenix Arrow II (12 combo powerful Light attack on all foes, absorbs HP when attacking, damage taken may restore HP for 3 turns, probable slight HP absorption when attacking for 3 turns & activates Light barrier; Cost: 24 BC, DC: 24 BC)

[Ultimate Brave Burst] DM: Phoenix Arrow MAX (3 combo massive Light attack on all foes, damage taken enormously restores HP for 3 turns, adds all elements to attack for 3 turns & negates Atk, Def, Rec reduction for 3 turns; Cost: 25 BC, DC: 27 BC)

[Extra Skill] Psychic Resonance (Adds Light element to BB/SBB for 3 turns, adds great HP recovery for 3 turns effect to BB/SBB & greatly reflects damage when attacked)

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 and above)
 * Extra Skill (only for 7* units and above)
 * Arena
 * Stats
 * Usefulness
 * SP Enhancements (only for Omni units)

Note: Scoring will be different for units of different evolution rankings. For example, a 6* unit with an 8.5 rating cannot be compared with a 7* unit with a 7.5 rating.

Summary
Athena, a fighter in King of Fighters and also known as a psychic.

So, yet another limited time unit… great...

Oh yeah, Global released three at a time. EU released two at a time. Thanks for giving us enough time to summon all six of these units. Gotta catch them all, right? /s

Leader Skill
Score: 7/10

Athena provides a 40% boost to HP and Atk, both of which are very good. It’s quite standard for recent units to carry stat boosts this high anyway.

Athena also offers HP-on-hit, which is a very nice clutch effect in case units would’ve died from a certain attack. There’s also the 50% damage reflection effect, which is also pretty interesting. It’s also considering it’s a guaranteed chance of reflecting, which holds some use in certain situations.

However, it’s because of the nature of most 7* units that have relatively low stats that causes this Leader Skill to lack some use. Not many units can utilize this if an ultimate attack deems too fatal. For example, unless the units have Angel Idol, surviving Lucius’s Galaxy wouldn’t proc this reflection effect due to the units not being alive to grant the effect. Besides, you can’t kill enemies with this effect.

Brave Burst
Score: 7/10

Athena's BB utilizes a 360% damage modifier, which is much higher than the average 280% modifier that most 7* units use. This will deal relatively high damage thanks to the high modifier and Atk stat.

Athena gets a drain effect, allowing her to drain 8-10% of the damage dealt as HP. This is quite a high parameter considering most units fall within 20000-30000ish HP roughly. If anything, Athena could potentially heal to full if she’s supported with multiple damage utility buffs. On the topic of HP drain, units can also utilize this too, but with a 50% chance proc. On top of that, units get a HP-on-hit effect, recovering 20-25% of the damage received as HP with a 20% chance proc, very much like her Leader Skill.

Even though all of these heals are nice, it’d be more logical to take a Burst Healer instead, like Krantz and Lara. Burst heals are a lot more reliable compared to relying on a 50% proc rate to drain HP. Besides, Athena’s utility is lacking on her BB. Units like Krantz and Lara utilize a variety of other buffs in addition to the burst heal that they provide.

Super Brave Burst
Score: 7/10

Athena's SBB utilizes a 560% damage modifier, which is higher than the average 500% damage modifier that most 7* units use. This will deal relatively high damage thanks to the high modifier and Atk stat.

This SBB is literally the same thing as her BB, but with a 4-6% HP drain instead of a 3-5% HP drain, which makes such a little difference in HP drained. Athena also gets the 2000 HP Light barrier, which is great but can be better utilized by other units like Ark and Juno-Seto. There’s nothing much to say about this SBB, considering its assets are so similar to BB.

Ultimate Brave Burst
Score: 7/10

Athena's UBB utilizes a 1300% damage modifier, which is higher than the average 1000% damage modifier for 7* units to use. This will deal relatively high damage thanks to the high modifier.

This UBB is quite sad. It literally provides buffs that are easily accessible, barring the 75% HP-on-hit buff. Units like Lance and Lara can utilize Stat Down negation and units like Ark, Zeruiah, Shida, and Allanon can utilize rainbow elemental buffs. The 75% HP-on-hit buff is rather useless since mitigation can do most of that work in providing survival a lot better on UBB. There’s nothing from this UBB that deems the OD gauge worth filling for when units can utilize these effects on BB/SBB.

Extra Skill
Score: 8/10

Athena adds Light elemental buffs to the mix, allowing units to have a wider type coverage of dealing strong damage to units. Though, because this is just a single elemental buff, you’ll need other elemental buffs to cover all the other elements to utilize elemental advantage.

Athena also recovers a decent amount with her HoT buff. It’s unfortunately not the greatest HoT buff since it only heals a meager amount of 2500-3000 HP. Units like Selena and Juno-Seto have the highest HoT buffs in the game.

Arena
Score: 7/10

Athena has a 40 BC normal attack Drop Check, which is a pretty high Drop Check to use. Type 2 AI is not too shabby considering its high proc rate of BB/SBB.

Her Arena role isn’t that much better than her actual toolkit. As a lead, she fails to kill units with her reflect effect. Because of this, if enemies deal too much damage, they’ll survive with 1 HP. This causes a lot of problems with enemy Angel Idol units, like Selena and Azurai who require their HP to be below 20% to activate. It’s quite absurd and for Athena’s Leader Skill to be the reason why Angel Idol proc’d, Athena’s score definitely doesn’t cut it.

Stats
Score: 9/10

Very solid stats for a 7*, even at a balanced state.

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

Anima > Guardian > Breaker > Lord > Oracle

Usefulness
Score: 7/10.

There’s not much you can do with Athena overall. She’s there for pure heals and nothing else. She provides all of these healing utility buffs, but they can be better utilized by other units, like Lara, Kulyuk, Atro, Allanon, etc. While she is one of the most efficient healers, her buffs don’t seem to be up to regular standards of this metagame.

While her reflect effect on her Leader Skill is what’s most notable, it’s not that useful. Units can’t utilize this well if significant damage output from reflect requires the death of units. Units cannot utilize reflect once they die, limiting the usage of this effect. It’s also considering this effect cannot kill enemies and will leave them at 1 HP should they die.

Sphere Recommendations

 * Beiorg's Armor & Dragon Eye
 * Beiorg's Armor & Fallacy Orb

Conclusion
Total Score: 7.5/10

Athena seems to be a fan-favorite, looking at the comments. Have you played The King of Fighters? Yes! No!

Comment below on what you think of Athena! Does she have potential in even the hardest content in the game? 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:
 * Loremaster Allanon
 * Empyrean Juno-Seto
 * Terry Bogard
 * Benimaru Nikaido