User blog:Linathan/Unit Spotlight: Mai Shiranui

Summary
Apparently, a fan favorite. I wouldn’t know much about King of Fighters since I've never played it.

Though, looking at the 7* units of the collab, I feel there’s a lot more potential in those units compared to the Omni units themselves. Let’s see what Mai can do!

Leader Skill
Score: 8/10

Mai is practically a pure nuker even at first glance of her Leader Skill. She provides essential crit boosts to make her viable in nuking.

Mai’s LS
 * Critical boost: 150% from LS / 150% base = +100.00% damage
 * Atk boost: 100% from LS / 600% average base (100% base BB Atk + 500% average SBB damage modifier) = +16.67% damage
 * Total damage utility: 2.00 x 1.1667 = 2.33333333x

Mai’s LS (after buff)
 * Critical boost: 150% from LS / 150% base = +100.00% damage
 * Atk boost: 150% from LS / 600% average base (100% base BB Atk + 500% average SBB damage modifier) = +25% damage
 * Total damage utility: 2.00 x 1.25 = 2.5x

Avant’s LS (Omni)
 * 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 damage utility: 1.6667 x 2.00 x 1.3333 = 4.44442222x

Nyami’s LS
 * Spark boost: 100% from LS / 150% base = +66.67% damage
 * Critical boost: 150% from LS / 150% base = +100.00% damage
 * Atk boost: 80% from LS / 600% average base (100% base BB Atk + 500% average SBB damage modifier) = +13.33% damage
 * Total damage utility: 1.6667 x 2.00 x 1.1333 = 3.7774222x

However, Mai’s Leader Skill doesn’t come close to the best in the game. We can even compare Mai to Nyami, a 7* unit with the highest damage utility Leader Skill out of all 7* units, and yet she still loses by a whole ton. Because Mai’s Leader Skill is pure nuking, Mai wouldn’t be your ideal nuking lead, especially with the fact that other units can provide much better damage utility boosts on their Leader Skills.

Brave Burst
Score: 9/10

Mai's BB utilizes a 350% 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.

Mai is already a solid crit buffer by providing the 60% crit rate buff and the 100% crit damage buff, both of which are currently the best in the game. While Mai isn’t exactly the best nuker lead, she can hold out with some amazing damage potential on her BB. There aren’t many units that provide the 100% crit damage buff, especially one that attacks.

The Atk, Def Down debuffs are very nice as well, mainly the Atk Down debuff. Indeed, 30% chance isn’t the highest probability in the game (There’s 50% utilized by Zedus), but it’s still high enough to provide a serious debuff on enemies in which it may otherwise deal tons of damage to your squad. The Def Down debuff is useless especially if the squad carries ignore-Def. Any Def reduction is considered useless beyond 0 since Def cannot be negative.

Super Brave Burst
Score: 9/10

Mai'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 does almost the same thing as Mai’s BB, but instead of the crit rate buff, she gets a 160% Atk buff. While the 160% Atk buff is very nice as Mai now provides one of the highest damage utility BB/SBB of all 7* units, Mai still loses the crit rate buff, losing out on most of her crit damage potential. This requires the squad to either juggle between Mai’s BB/SBB or use another crit buffer, preferably Nyami.

Ultimate Brave Burst
Score: 9/10

Mai'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 probably the most unique part about Mai and it utilizes a very peculiar effect known as extra action, which was previously exclusive to the EU server. This effect used to be exclusive to Arthur until EU released Mai as well. More on this will be discussed later.

The 300% crit damage buff is looking very solid. However, with it being the only damage utility buff that Mai provides, it seems a little underwhelming. Sure, the 90% Atk, Def reduction is very nice, but it doesn’t do anything to fixed damage attacks where mitigation becomes more important. Thankfully, this extra action buff makes up for most of what seems to be underwhelming for Mai’s UBB.

This extra attack buff allows units to perform the same action they performed on the same turn after finishing their animation. However, because of how this works, animation timings are a bit off considering unit animations vary differently due to different end times. However, the upside to this is that Mai has a 50% chance of using her UBB again on the same turn, making the damage absolutely worth it. It’s quite a risky plan to take, but it all works out when the extra action buff kicks in.

Extra Skill
Score: 9/10

Whoever thought Nyami could be so tough with her 1 damage proc? Whoever thought Mai could also be so tough with her 1 damage proc? This creates more options for squads while pairing up with double Paris leads to offer the most out of your units’ 1 damage procs. 20% chance is nothing to scoff at, especially since each enemy attack factors in the 20% chance of proccing.

The BB-crit fill is quite nice only if Mai is able to score critical hits. In crit resistant content, this deems as a useless effect. This only really applies to enemies with reduced crit rate. Even if Mai doesn’t deal any additional crit damage, she can still utilize BB-crit fill.

Arena
Score: 8/10

Mai has a 48 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.

Mai is practically your typical nuker. Her Leader Skill might look strong, but it doesn’t play too much of a significant role considering there are much better options, like Avani, Mifune, etc.

Her 20% chance of proccing 1 damage really helps her to shine. On average, Mai will probably proc this effect once, which is pretty good. It’s also another way to cause annoyance due to how broken this damage reduction can be when it actually procs.

Stats
Score: 9/10

Very solid stats for a 7*, showing high Atk stats.

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

Anima > Breaker > Guardian > Lord > Oracle

Usefulness
Score: 8/10.

Overall, Mai isn’t all too useful in hard content, and her general toolkit isn’t the best for it either. Mai’s role is being a crit buffer, which is almost haggled down by a lot of bosses released so far anyway. Because crit is vastly resisted by many bosses, Mai doesn’t serve of a significant team player.

It’s also considering the fact that Mai is very inefficient. She has to juggle between her BB/SBB to provide the crit rate buff or use another unit that provides a crit buff. Though, using Nyami as a crit rate buffer generally fixes this problem.

One great plus is that Mai’s animation is almost that of a spark blanket. She’s quite a solid unit in places where she can really shine.

Sphere Recommendations

 * Blades of Ultor & War Demon's Blade
 * Blades of Ultor & Delusion Device
 * Blighted Seal & War Demon's Blade
 * Blighted Seal & Delusion Device

Conclusion
Total Score: 8.6/10

The comment section of Mai is rather… interesting... Have you played The King of Fighters? Yes! No!

Comment below on what you think of Mai! 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:
 * Athena Asamiya
 * Iori Yagami
 * Terry Bogard
 * Benimaru Nikaido