BornovaBuild and Guide

Bornova is a Hollow Affinity DPS, competent in both sustained Single Target and AoE environments.

Skill 1

Bornova introduces a brand new Debuff to the game, [Festering]. Since all 3 of his skills revolve around exploiting that Debuff, let’s talk about it first:

[Festering] is a stackable Debuff that can be applied up to 30 times on each enemy, and has no duration limit. Every skill from Bornova applies a certain number of Festering stacks and each stack deals additional damage to Bornova’s target based on his ATK stat, when Bornova attacks said target. The additional damage is increased against Affinity Disadvantaged enemies, but also when the target is a Boss. No Shell attack can trigger this Debuff and it cannot be Purified.

Moving on, Bornova’s S1 is his main DPS tool, dealing progressively more damage to a Single Target depending on its Festering stacks, while applying multiple stacks of the Debuff and increasing Bornova’s own Turn Meter by up to 50%. Due to Bornova’s reliance on Festering stacks to deal Damage and their trigger having no CD, spamming S1 and cycling turns as fast as possible is primordial. For that reason, getting S1 to level 3 is the bare minimum and a top priority for mid to long fights. Every level after that is nice, but not a must.

Skill 2

S2 is an AoE attack that hits once for mediocre damage initially, but applies [Vulnerable] and multiple stacks of [Festering] with a high chance on all enemies. Bornova’s main target receives an extra stack of the Debuff.

This skill is primarily used as a setup/scaling tool for Bornova, in order to deal much higher ST damage on his main target with S1 spam. For this reason, the skill should be taken to at least level 3 for longer fights, as the extra stack will only be felt over the course of multiple rounds of S1 spam. Level 5 is nice for the CD Reduction, but not strictly necessary for most PVE.

Skill 3

Similar to S2, Bornova’s S3 is also a setup for his big S1 spam, this time offering a 2-3 turn [ATK+] to himself while dealing some damage and inflicting up to 4 stacks of [Festering] on all enemies.

With the ATK+ Buff getting an extra turn duration at level 4 and SPD nodes being tied to this Skill, it’s highly recommended to take the skill to level 4 at least, as it will provide useful benefits for any scenario outside of Burst.

PVE

In PVE, Bornova’s primary role is Single Target DPS, with good AoE capabilities in long fights. The goal is to stack [Festering] and other offensive Buffs/Debuffs as fast as possible and then spam S1 with extra attacks, getting more turns etc. With supports like Lily to ensure that Bornova hits as often as possible, his DPS is incredible. The main downside of this strategy is the time it takes for Bornova to ramp up or surpass our regular ST nukers, such as Liliam and Diting or even Rosa and Yeli who, like him, offer both very high ST and AoE damage.

For AoE content, Bornova lags behind the competition when it comes to instant firepower. However, if he gets to use both of his skills a couple of times each, he’ll quickly turn the tables and become a serious threat to the enemy. For that reason, he’ll be best paired with CD Reduction and Turn cycling options.

PVP

In PVP, although Bornova’s firepower is incredible in the long term, his ATK scaling makes it simply too hard for him to survive long enough in a fight to properly ramp up his damage. This leads to him being too weak for Cleave and also too squishy for drawn-out battles. Since he offers very little besides his personal damage, and said damage is hardly relevant in PVP, it’s safe to say that Bornova was not designed with PVP in mind.

Conclusion

Bornova establishes himself as the premier Hollow Affinity DPS for PVE, capable of excelling in long battles such as Quarry, and remains usable even in quick battles where he’s got the Affinity advantage, although he still pales in comparison to the usual nukers in Burst.

His PVP potential is low, with too many easily exploitable weaknesses and too few upsides.