[The House of Spiders: The Ring Nursefather] Hong Lu NEW!

The House of Spiders: The Ring Nursefather Hong Lu is an interesting Bleed and Charge Identity who synergises with The House of Spiders: The Ring Apprentice Faust Identity and to a certain degree, with other Ring faction Identities.

First, he has a total of 5 unique statuses:

• Corpus Ingredients is a unique Charge that works the same way as a normal Charge does.

• Viewing the Tableau starts at 21 stacks upon Encounter start, loses 2 stacks on turn end and gives Ring Hong Lu 2 Protection if The Ring Apprentice Faust is on the field. More of this status will be explained in the passive section.

• Artwork: Tibia, obtained upon spending 10 Corpus Ingredients, allows him to switch state and gain bonuses, up to 3 Base Power, additional +1 Potency and Count for Bleed infliction and 10% damage. These buffs are gained based on Corpus Ingredients Potency.

• Corpus Theater randomly grants the unit 3 Bleed Potency, 1 Bind and 1 Defense Power Down upon gaining Bleed. Starts with 3 stacks, losing 1 for each trigger of the previously mentioned effect. Mostly serves the purpose of inflicting a debuff to fulfill the Ring conditions of “+X types of negative effects”.

• Somatic Frission-inspiring Melody is a status currently unique to Ring Nursefather Hong Lu, giving Speed, 1 Clash Power and 10% damage to every ID with “The Ring” tag.

Next, he has 3 passives. To summarize, the first and second are always active and do as follows: 

• Gain Corpus Ingredients based on allies with “The Ring” tag multiplied by 2, with a max of 10.

• Gives 5 Corpus Ingredients if Ring Hong Lu dealt HP or Shield damage, with an additional 3 Corpus Ingredients on kill. His main way of obtaining Charge, aside from Skill 2.

• Gains Corpus Ingredients Potency every 10 Corpus Ingredients consumed cumulatively, giving Artwork: Tibia when Potency is at 2 or higher.

• Makes all of his skills count as Charge (mainly relevant for Mirror Dungeons).

• Starts the battle with 21 Viewing the Tableau stack. When ID with “The Ring” tag uses a skill, lose 1 stack (once per turn, per identity). If the stack is at 0, the bottom skill will be replaced with a one-time use Skill 3-2. If he somehow loses the skill, he will replace another one. Important breakthroughs for S3-2 gain: 2 Ring ID for 7th turn, 3 for 6th turn, 4 for 5th turn, with 5 for 4th turn. 

• A free get out of Stagger card.

Now for the third passive, “A Maestro’s Critique” requiring 4 Lust Owned: 

• Activates Skill 1-2 on Ring Apprentice Faust when she uses Skill 3.

• Heal 4 SP if the attack skill inflicted a debuff on the attack end (3 times per turn). If Ring Hong Lu is at max SP, he gains 1 Slash Damage Up instead.

Now about the skills:

• Skill 1 - Anatomize - 2 Coins - Min Roll 10 - Max Roll 17 - Not much to write about this skill, except the fact that it buffs Hong Lu’s Defense Level Up and debuffs enemies’ Defense Level Down, making him take a bit less dmg, while the enemy will take a bit more dmg. The buff and debuff are negligible and the debuff itself is mostly for fulfilling the requirement of +X amount of negative effects on the enemy, which are present on Hong Lu’s skills.

• Skill 1-2 - My, How We Love the Flesh and the Blood - Whatever this skill rolls does not matter. This skill activates only when House of Spiders: The Ring Apprentice Faust uses her Skill 3 and Ring Hong Lu has 4 owned Lust. It will target only Faust, buffing her Offense Level Up by 6, which is a welcome buff to overall damage, but the main strength of that skill comes from basically free Pride resource, something that will appear more times in Hong Lu’s kit, ramping up resource generation.

• Skill 2 - Gather Ingredient - Blood-bathed Object - 3 Coins - Min Roll 16 - Max Roll 23 (Clash 24) - At 10+ Corpus Ingredient Count, this skill will consume 5 Count and turn all Coins into Unbreakable and more importantly, when the target has +5 types of negative effects, it will be followed up by Skill 2-2. This is also the only skill that generates Corpus Ingredients.

• Skill 2-2 - Installation Art no. 3: Improvised Ribcage - Min Roll 13 - Max Roll 16 - Free skill followed up after Skill 2 and if the target has +5 types of negative effects on them. A little bit of free damage, free Envy resource and application of Corpus Theater.

• Skill 3 - Tibia's Melody - Anatomization of the Unanatomized by the Anatomized - 4 Coins - Min Roll 16 - Max Roll 24 - If 3 or 5 Corpus Ingredient Potency is achieved, this skill will gain +1 and +2 ATK Weight, respectively. An alright Skill 3 with not much to write about.

• Skill 3-2 - Closing Time - Installation Art no. 1: Your Flesh and Bones as the Gallery's Seats - 5 Coins - Min Roll 28 - As its base counterpart, if 3 and 5 Corpus Ingredient Potency is achieved, this skill will gain +1 and +2 ATK Weight on top of its already 3 ATK Weight, respectively. Now we are talking about an upgrade over the base skill. Not only does this one do way more damage, especially against Single Target, but once the attack ends, all Ring Identities will receive Somatic Frisson-inspiring Melody. Decent buff that is amazing on The House of Spiders: The Ring Apprentice Faust, who doubles the numbers from the buff on herself. This skill can be used only once per Encounter and if Hong Lu is fielded with 1 more Ring Identity, he will have it available at turn 6, with 2 more Ring IDs at turn 5 and so on. Overall, it is better to just have Ring Faust fielded with him since at turn 6, Ring Hong Lu is more likely to be “ramped up” properly to output as much as possible from this skill than at turn 5 or 4. 

• Defensive Skill - Evade - 1 Coin - Min and Max Roll 14 - Provides Hong Lu with “Assist Defense” that can double up on Lust sin generation.

• Assist Defense Skill - Clashable Counter - 2 Coins - Min Roll 12 - Max Roll 16 (17 in Clash) - Both Evade and Counter when used properly, can result in Hong Lu generating 2 Lust resources in a turn.

While Ring Hong Lu does not boast amazing damage output outside of his Skill 3-2, his ability to generate 2 (or even 3 if he uses Skill 2, Skill 2-2 and Skill 1-2) types of sin resources in a single turn is really powerful as it can activate passives faster and especially can allow usage of more E.G.O. more frequently for their certain powerful effects, passives or status effects. 

Notable ID/Team Synergy:

• Bleed: Strong Bleed Potency application with a stable count and heavily benefits from it, as his Skill rolls will be much higher.

• The House of Spiders: The Ring Apprentice Faust: Ring Hong Lu becomes much more active with Ring Faust on the field, constantly outputting Pride resource and at the time of writing this review, the most value you can get out of all Ring members when comparing Skill 3-2 activation.