Last Rite Guide and Best Build

Kit Intro

Last Rite is a 6-star, Cryo, Great Sword damage dealer completely centered around building and consuming Cryo Infliction stacks as fast and frequently as possible. This allows her to deal damage through her Ultimate and Combo skills, which are both the focus of her kit.

What makes Last Rite unique is that she cannot gain energy from her teammates, and her Ultimate costs over twice as much as most other characters. Fortunately, Last Rite’s battle and Combo Skills each grant additional energy, with her combo generating up to half the energy she needs to use her Ultimate all at once. Because of this, triggering Last Rite’s combo as much as possible is the name of her game. To do so, enemies must be afflicted with at least 3 Cryo Infliction, something that requires proper team building in order to achieve in a timely manner.

With so much importance on Cryo Infliction, Last Rite generally wants teams specifically built around her with the goal of either helping her generate Cryo Infliction faster or buffing her combo and Ultimate damage as much as possible. Her dedication to Cryo also usually rules out playing her in Arts Reaction teams that combine Cryo with other elements to trigger effects like Solidification, as that’s Cryo that could have otherwise been spent on more combos and Ultimates.

Ultimate

Last Rite’s Ultimate is the core of her kit and playstyle, and what you’ll be building teams in order to play around. Using it costs 240 energy and causes Last Rite to perform a sequence of 3 serious damage Cryo Attacks during which she’ll be immune to damage. Her Ultimate also comes with a restriction that she can only gain energy from her combo and Battle Skills, something which might seem bad, but actually doesn’t stop Last Rite from gaining this Ultimate at a standard or even faster rate than other damage dealers. Due to how important energy and her Ultimate are, we’ll have a special energy section below to cover them in detail.

Note: The Ultimate restriction blocks Last Rite from gaining 6.5 energy when her own or other characters' Battle Skills are used.

Combo

Last Rite’s Combo Skill is the main way she fuels her high Ultimate cost; however, using it requires the enemy to have at least 3 Cryo Infliction on them in order to trigger. After activation, consumes all Cryo Infliction on the target in order to deal significant Cryo damage and generate 40 energy plus additional damage and another 15 extra energy per Cryo stack consumed. The main things to know from this are that:

• Consuming 3 Infliction grants 85 energy

• Consuming 4 Infliction grants 100 energy

This is key info we’ll be using when talking about how best to generate Last Rite’s Ultimate smoothly. This combo also notably only has an 8-9 second cooldown, meaning the main restriction on using it is usually just how fast you can apply Cryo Infliction.

Tip: Using Combo at 3 Cryo Infliction yields more energy per Infliction than at 4, but which option is more optimal will depend on energy breakpoints. We’ll talk about it in the energy section.

Talents

Both of Last Rite’s talents improve her damage and revolve around her combo and Ultimate. The first, Hypothermia, causes Last Rite to inflict Cryo Susceptibility for 15 seconds when consuming Arts Reactions. This triggers every time she uses her combo. The size of the Susceptibility depends on the amount of Infliction consumed. Each stack improves it by 4%, leading to the following numbers:

• 3 Stack Combo = 12% Cryo Susceptibility

• 4 Stack Combo = 16% Cryo Susceptibility

This effect is a nice boost to Last Rite’s own damage and any other Cryo teammates.

Note: The Cryo Susceptibility from this talent is applied before the bulk of the damage of the combo, and it will also be buffed despite being the ability that applies it.

Last Rite’s other talent, Cryogenic Embrittlement, causes her Ultimate to increase the effect of Cryo Susceptibility when hitting the target by 1.5 times. This increase only applies to the damage of the Ultimate, so the 12% and 16% from Hypothermia would instead become 18% and 24%.

Note: This effect isn’t just limited to increasing Last Rite’s own Susceptibility but can also increase other sources, such as Ardelia’s Art’s Susceptibility.

Battle Skill

Last Rite’s Battle Skill applies a buff to the squad, which lasts 15 seconds. This causes the next Final Strike performed by the controlled operator to summon a mirage of Last Rite that attacks, dealing Cryo Damage while applying a Cryo Infliction stack. Using this ability generates 16 energy and consumes the usual 100 SP. Immediately after, it refunds 30 SP, so in practice, it only costs 70. This skill is essential for energy breakpoints and is a highly efficient way of building the stacks needed for Last Rite’s Combo Skill, as you’ll be using it a lot when playing her.

Tip: This Battle Skill can be used at any point during basic attack animations without interrupting them, making weaving it into standard gameplay quite easy. This ability can also be used prior to combat starting, letting you stockpile a usage of it while still beginning the fight with 200 SP. This won't work in some endgame modes, though.

Energy

Because Last Rite is entirely reliant on herself for energy, it’s possible to completely map out how many Combos and Battle Skills she’ll need to access her Ultimate each time. This ensures we build the optimal amount of energy and avoid wasting Cryo Infliction.

There are currently two main approaches to Energy on Last Rite, one which runs a slightly longer rotation but gets to invest fully into damage on gear and maximizes susceptibility during Ultimate, and one gives a little of that up in favor of a shorter rotation.

Assuming you’re playing Last Rite alongside a character like Xaihi capable of applying at least 1 Cryo Infliction per combo skill and you’re using Last Rite’s Combo as soon as available, you’re likely to run into the energy scenario below, which leaves you just short of having your Ultimate.

Last Rite 0% Ultimate Gain Rotation

That’s not enough energy to hit 240, so we’ll either need some energy regen or to switch up the rotation, both of which are viable depending on what you need. The first solution is to use a piece like Tide Fall Light Armour to cover the short fall and then some.

Last Rite 10.1% Ultimate Gain Rotation

With the above set-up, you have enough energy using a standard rotation and also only need to use 3 Battle Skills instead of 4, meaning you can be more flexible with how you generate your Cryo Infliction.

If you don’t want to give up using a completely damage-focused set-up though, you can instead opt to extend Last Rite’s rotation to make-up the missing energy. The most optimal way to do this is to weave in an extra Battle Skill and execute a 4 Infliction combo, ideally right before Ultimate, to take advantage of the increased Cryo Susceptibility.

Note: If you can gain the 5th Cryo Infliction in another way, that also works, allowing you to save SP and still execute a 3 and 4-stack combo.

Last Rite 0% Ultimate Gain Rotation

After this, you may wonder if stacking even more energy might be even more optimal. In most cases, at P0, the trade-off simply isn’t worth it, as you’ll be sacrificing too much damage to achieve it. This can change at P4 as it becomes more realistic to attempt to hit major breakpoints like gaining Last Rite’s Ultimate in a single Combo Skill, but that is a far higher investment.

Gameplay

Last Rite’s gameplay is simple and rotational; as long as you hit the correct usage of abilities, she’ll always play the same. Here is what to do, assuming you’re using a standard 10.1% energy Last Rite build:

• Accumulate 3 Cryo Infliction while using Last Rite’s Battle Skill at least 2 times;

• Consume Infliction Stacks with Combo Skill;

• Accumulate another 3 Cryo Infliction using at least 1 Last Rite Battle Skill, activate all team buffs, consume Cryo Infliction with combo, then Ultimate.

Something like the rotation above is what you’ll continue to repeat for the whole fight, but depending on the encounter and your team, you can switch it up. Here are a few more things to consider:

• If the battle allows it, use Battle Skill before combat starts, allow SP to recover, and start fights with an effective 300 SP.

• You only need to use Last Rite’s Battle Skill 3 times over 2 Combo Skills. The order in which you use the former or the latter doesn’t matter; you can swap them around.

• If you have teammates capable of granting a lot of Cryo Infliction, like Fluorite, you can trade out having Last Rite use Battle Skills and instead use a 4-stack combo to compensate.

• If possible, try to align using the Combo + Ultimate combination at a time the enemy is Staggered.

Optimizations

Last Rite is heavily dependent on getting Final Strikes, so being able to speed through her Basic Attack sequence faster can help her perform better. This can be done by Dodge cancelling the 2nd hit of her Basic 2, as well as the recovery animation of her Basic 4. Doing this will grant you more SP plus Stagger over a fight and, most importantly, churn through Last Rite’s battle skill activations more quickly, accumulating Cryo Infliction faster.