User blog:Linathan/Unit Spotlight: Gaston

Summary
Gaston is scary. Recently, a video created by Ushi showcased a mono-Light squad using two Gaston leads that cleared Tilith’s trial in just four turns. Four! Could you believe that? Could you also believe that Gaston is one of the most successful nukers even in hard content? Want to find out how? Read on!

Before getting into it, there was a lot of thought put into this Unit Spotlight, which was more the reason why this spotlight took much longer to write up compared to the others. With revolutionary buffs and Gabriela in the game, Gaston became an even bigger threat. Apologies for the incredibly late spotlight!

Leader Skill
Score: 9/10

Atro is the perfect candidate to compare Gaston’s Leader Skill to, considering both have similar effects and conditions. Let’s crunch some numbers.

Gaston’s LS
 * Atk boost: (200% Atk + 250% BB Atk) / 600% average base (100% base BB Atk + 500% average SBB damage modifier) = +75% damage
 * Total damage utility: 1.75x

Atro’s LS (not counting Thunder boost)
 * Atk boost: 100% from LS / 600% average base (100% base BB Atk + 500% average SBB damage modifier) = +16.67% damage
 * Total damage utility: x1.1667

Avant’s LS
 * Spark boost: 100% from LS / 150% base = +66.67% damage
 * Critical boost: 150% from LS / 150% base = +100.00% damage
 * Atk boost: 200% from LS / 600% average base (100% base BB Atk + 500% average SBB damage modifier) = +33.33% damage
 * Total non-crit utility: 2.22221111x
 * Total damage utility: 1.6667 x 2.00 x 1.3333 = 4.44442222x

Gaston’s damage utility might not match up with some of the highest non-crit damage utility Leader Skills in the game, but when combined with normal attack buffs, 200% Atk boosts can pack a huge punch. Gaston’s main role is the hit count buffer. Each addition to the normal hit count benefits from the Atk buff, which means that high Atk buffs will increase the damage output by heavy tons.

Another note is that the AoE normal attack proc actually loses 50% Atk additively, not multiplicatively. It will hurt the damage output quite a bit, but not as much as losing half of the damage that you would’ve dealt. Besides, there are quite a number of challenges in the game that have multiple enemies integrated into them, including trials. Utilizing this can be a huge help, especially if you’re generating BB gauges to refresh your buffs. Speaking of which, units get a 10 BC bonus when normal attacking, which is already an incredible amount.

The 15% Dark mitigation is also very, very huge, potentially replacing Grahdens in a good amount of content. A lot of bosses in the game are Dark element, which is great as you utilize a mitigation passive as high as 15%. It’s also an additive mitigation buff, mitigating 65% of the damage taken if you’re actively using a mitigator.

Brave Burst
Score: 10/10

Gaston's BB utilizes a whopping 780% damage modifier, which is significantly higher than the average 370% seen on most Omni units. However, this only hits one enemy, which can make damage distribution among all enemies a bit shaky. In contrary, this BB can still help with focus damage, especially since Gaston has a chance of using this attack twice in one turn.

Gaston has a 50% chance of performing the same attack on the same turn, which is huge when it comes to carrying effects that add other effects to attack. Essentially, with the 70% chance of inflicting 50% Atk Down and the double BB proc, Gaston has a 91% chance of inflicting the Atk Down. With more chances of attacking, Gaston is able to carrying more chances of inflicting certain effects that he carries. On top of that, this also helps Gaston to drain more HP to potentially bypass any HC drop resistance that enemies may carry.

The guaranteed chance of inflicting Weakness is also very significant. While Weakness might not do much, the presence of a status ailment does. Utilizing status damage boosts from units like Ensa-Taya and Azami will help a ton to massively increase the damage dealt, especially with buffed hit counts.

Super Brave Burst
Score: 10/10

Gaston's SBB utilizes the average 580% seen on most Omni units. This SBB will still be very high damage thanks to Gaston’s damage modifier being higher than the standard norm for SBB damage modifiers: 500%.

Gaston offers a great deal of buffs that benefit the normal attack squad. This includes the +2 hit count, which is equivalent to tripling units’ normal hit count and normal attack damage with this buff alone. It’s also great to see Gaston provide the self 150% tri-buff, especially since there are other tri-buffers that can stack their buffs on top of the self buff. Any addition to Atk will help the normal attack damage immensely. Ignore-Def is also a nice effect to bypass any Def buffs that the enemy may carry.

The 5-8 BC BB-on-hit buff also helps a great ton with BB gauge momentum. Seeing how this has been an essential buff to take along in hard content, this buff shouldn’t be missed in any squad.

Ultimate Brave Burst
Score: 10/10

Gaston's UBB utilizes the average 1500% damage modifier seen on most Omni units. This SBB will deal enormous damage thanks to Gaston’s damage modifier being higher than the standard norm for UBB damage modifiers: 1000%.

If you thought Zenia was insanely good during her time, you’ll probably think the same thing. Unfortunately, you’ll be agonizing a little more since Gaston is a limited-time unit.

Gaston provides a +3 hit count buff, which is currently the highest in the game on UBB. This can stack on top of the +2 hit count buff that Gaston provides, adding a total of 5 extra hit counts to each normal hit and sextupling the damage dealt by normal hits. To make damage sound even more threatening, Gaston provides 300% Atk and Def buffs. What does this all equate?

Gaston’s UBB alone:
 * Atk boosts: 100% + 300% from UBB = 400%
 * Hit count modifier: 1 + 3 = 4
 * Total damage utility = 400% x 4 = 1600%

Gaston’s SBB + UBB:
 * Atk boosts: 100% + 300% from UBB = 400%
 * Hit count modifier: 1 + 2+ 3 = 6
 * Total damage utility = 400% x 6 = 2400%

With UBB alone, Gaston’s normal attack damage utility exceeds that of multiple units, such as Zenia and Soleil, the previous winners of the normal attack damage utility buffers.

Lastly, Gaston inflicts 1200% DoT, which can serve as a good counter to enemy HoT. As you might have been aware, HoT is how you counter DoT for your squad. There isn’t much of an effective way to counter an enemy’s HoT if the boss is immune to Poison other than DoT. It can help, but it’s not much of a required debuff to take along considering it’s only used for very few occasions in a quest.

Extra Skill
Score: 9/10

Boosting all stats by 30% with a sphere that you’re most likely going to use on Gaston is already an amazing plus. There are a bunch of damage spheres that Gaston can use to not only dish out tons of damage, but also to utilize these amazing stat boosts. Magical Device is currently the only Atk Boosting Sphere in the game that provides some sort of significant parameter boost, but there are better options to choose from, especially since Gaston is more normal-attack-based.

Gaston also gets a maximum 75% tri-buff after three turns in the battle which beefs him up even further. One can’t ask for any better buffs than this as this is one of the highest seen on an Extra Skill. This will definitely help when utilizing certain conversion buffs to make them a lot more effective.

Arena
Score: 10/10

Gaston has a 48 BC normal attack Drop Check, which is a pretty high Drop Check to use in the game. Type 2 is not too shabby thanks to its high chance of proccing BB overall.

The Colosseum metagame has taken a turn now that Gaston is in the game. His Leader Skill is super OP and it pairs extremely well with the recently-released unit known as Gabriela. With Gaston’s Leader Skill providing such a significant boost, Gaston lead + 4 Gabriela might be a new competitor in the higher ranks of Colosseum. However, the team will have to be protected by some sort of 20% Angel Idol proc, such as the Stage 50 Colosseum Elgif and Sacred Staff.

One weakness that is only counterable by chance is Mifune due to increased damage taken from Dark enemies. Even with the HP boosts provided by Gaston and Gabriela’s SP options, the squad can still take enough damage to become one-shotted by Mifune, even with the standard Soul Blade + Shiny Anklet setup.

Stats
Score: 10/10

Very insane stats as all of them are above average, especially in Atk and Def where they shine the most out of all four stats.

In terms of typing, my type preference for Gaston is…

Anima = Breaker = Guardian > Lord > Oracle

Usefulness
Score: 9/10.

While his damage utility super amazing, Gaston does have his limited use, especially in the lead position. His Leader Skill only benefits Light units and chances are that you’re going to be using that Light team as a hyper normal-attack nuking squad.

Though, as a sub, Gaston has some use, but isn’t much of an effective team player compared to other BB utility buffers like Felice and Zelnite. Hit count buffs are usually covered by Ark anyway, especially since Ark leads are recommended in almost any trial. Even then, hit count buffs aren’t necessarily popular in the metagame and they serve as a somewhat minimal utility buff that can be situational. Gaston has use in the squad, but not as big compared to the common loadout of recently-released units, such as Felice, Zelnite, Sirius, etc.

SP Enhancements
Score: 8/10

See SP Enhancement Options: Gaston

The SP options that Gaston carries are the type of SP enhancements that make him even more effective as a hit count buffer. However, these options seem to cater more towards the Arena side of things. There are quite a number of options that make him even more threatening in Colosseum.

In terms of content-related SP options, Gaston doesn’t seem to have much to benefit himself. There’s the 15% Dark mitigation buff, but even then, its use is very limited to specific content. He ends up using more Arena-related enhancements than content-related ones that he ends up playing Arena in almost every quest he plays in.

Sphere Recommendations

 * Sacred Staff & Reign Omega
 * Sacred Staff & Shiny Anklet
 * Sacred Staff & Sacred Rod
 * Shiny Anklet & Dragon's Amulet
 * Sky Harbinger & Ka-rzn's Excruciation
 * Sky Harbinger & Shiny Anklet
 * Beiorg's Armor & Shiny Anklet
 * Beiorg's Armor & War Demon's Blade

Conclusion
Total Score: 9.4/10

Oh Gasp! That’s all for now, folks! Have you summoned Gaston? Yes! No!

Comment below on what you think of Gaston! How does he fit in the current metagame? Looking into using him in Colosseum? 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:
 * Hallelujah
 * Lux Halcyon Atro
 * Chivalrous Thief Zelnite
 * Doombringer Azurai