User blog:Linathan/Unit Spotlight: Pyre Aegis Vanberk

Pyre Aegis Vanberk
[Leader Skill] Flashing Strategy ( Large boost in critical hit damage & adds chance of repelling 20% of damage taken when attacked )

[Brave Burst] Magnetic Meteor (10 combo powerful Fire attack on all enemies & adds chance of ignoring opponents' Def when attacking for all allies for 2 turns; Cost: 25 BC, DC: 10 BC)

[Super Brave Burst] Apollonia Disaster (12 combo powerful Fire attack on all enemies, adds chance of ignoring Def for 2 turns & boosts critical hit rate for all allies for 3 turns ; Cost: 15 BC, DC: 12 BC)
 * Vanberk's Brave Burst and Super Brave Burst have a guaranteed chance in ignoring opponents' Def when attacking, not a chance.

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

Summary
A spotlight done by request!

We're talking about Galant! Is that right? Oh, it's Vanberk. Wrong blacksmith.

He has a hammer. He has armor. He's got made crit stuff. What more do you want from him? Galant? His dungeon is long gone. At least we got Vanberk! With that huge hammer, Vanberk will be dealing tons of damage, just like Elulu's banhammer that banned over 200 players in Frontier Hunter Season 12! Not excited? Let's see what his hammer can really do!

Leader Skill
Score: 8/10

Unlucky with capturing Zebra? Vanberk serves as a better alternative to Zebra. They both have the same critical damage boost, which beats Maxwell's critical damage boost by 25%. You'll be dealing tons of damage only if you're lucky. Criticals play a huge luck game. However, this can be manipulated using critical chance buffers, like Kira, Duel-SGX, Orna, etc. There are also spheres like Amanohabaken and Havoc Axe which can increase your chances of landing criticals.

As an added bonus to the Zebra-like Leader Skill, Vanberk gets reflect damage. The reflect damage is nice, but it cannot be heavily relied on. This is due to the low damage output. However, because this effect deals damage, you are able to produce BC. Considering this Leader Skill applies to everyone, you will have a higher chance in reflecting damage. If one of your units is still in need for that one BC, perhaps you could get lucky to reflect damage and produce that one BC.

Brave Burst
Score: 7/10

Vanberk gets a nice ignore-DEF BB with a 260% damage modifier. The ignore-DEF buff is useful when facing units with high DEF.

However, the Drop Check is quite bad. 10 BC? That won't be helping your squad that much. True, BBs typically don't have high hit counts, but this one is rather low compared to other BB in the game.

Super Brave Burst
Score: 7/10

Like his BB, Vanberk's SBB has the ignore-DEF effect, but with a 450% damage modifier. The damage output is quite high with Vanberk's high ATK stat. The critical rate buff is great too. 40% is not the best buff, but if you have Amanohabakens equipped to your units, you can actually hit the critical rate cap (70%). Any higher will scale down to 70%. Havoc Axe also increases critical rate by 20% so using Havoc Axe in conjunction with Vanberk's SBB can allow you to hit the cap.

However, the 12 BC SBB Drop Check is quite atrocious. Compared to other units, this Drop Check won't help generate BC that much.

Ultimate Brave Burst
Score: N/A

This unit does not have Ultimate Brave Burst.

Extra Skill
Score: N/A

This unit does not have Extra Skill.

Arena
Score: 7/10

Vanberk's Leader Skill allows units to deal a ton of damage to the opponent's side, but only if they land criticals. This is rather risky as your units have a chance in not landing critical hits at all. True, you can fix this by giving your units the Amanohabaken + Death Axe/Havoc Axe combo, but no matter how high your critical rate is, there is still bound to be a chance that your units may not land critical hits at all. There's so much luck applied to just one Leader Skill.

There's the reflect damage effect on Vanberk's Leader Skill, but your units can still die from your opponent's attacks. True, you can produce BC by reflecting damage, but it won't help you in the long run since you are already trying to get everyone's BB gauge filled for the second turn.

Vanberk's Drop Checks overall are very low. His normal attack has a potential Drop Check of 15 BC, which is very low compared to other units. This will not help with readying your units' BB for the second turn.

Stats
Score: 8/10

Vanberk's stats are not too shabby. He's got high HP and high ATK. His DEF is above average, but his REC is lacking a tiny bit. Though, this is not a problem as Burst Healers and HC buffers exist in the game.

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

Anima > Breaker > Lord > Guardian > Oracle

Usefulness
Score: 7/10

Due to Vanberk's low Drop Check in all categories, Vanberk doesn't seem to be useful. Your squad will have trouble getting their BB gauges filled because of the lack of BC drops. This depicts a problem, especially in Raid where squads are focused on killing the boss as fast as possible while maintaining the efficiency of BC drops and BB filling.

However, his Leader Skill saves you a trip to get Zebra. His critical damage boost on his Leader Skill is currently the best in the game. However, there are other units with better Leader Skills to build more teams out of, like a Zedus squad, a Maxwell squad, etc.

Conclusion
Total Score: 7.3/10 Who has the best banhammer? Do we need a poll for this? I think we do!

Who has a better banhammer? Elulu! Vanberk! Mariudeth! Hogar!

Axes count as hammers, right? They can smack things down, like cheaters. Hehehe.

Comment below on what you think of Vanberk! Thought of another unit to add to the poll? Leave them in the comments below!

Check out my list of analyses in Spotlights: Table of Contents!

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 * Thief God Zelnite
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