AdeInformation and Guide

After a whole year since her first introduction, Ade: the Perfect Maid is finally here! Elegance personified is the best way to describe her. You can watch her dance with light sticks in the minigame, but her dance skills do not match up to her performance. Her kit provides an interesting "debuff shield" from an incoming debuff, or removes an already existing debuff. She also gives small ATK buffs and a Max HP buff that does not heal. Will she be able to live up the hype, or will we have the shortest review ever? Spoiler: We will!

Usage

Ade serves a very niche role, just like other cleansers currently in game - cleansing debuff, which comes with an inherent problem. Not many battles require their presence. And, let’s hope it stays this way, because from Shift Up’s previous games, they did create a lot of stages that had nasty debuffs! Ade is an alternative to XMica or Cocoa. Her debuff cleansing is team wide and does not require any skill activation the first time around. Thus, while not being able to trigger it at will is a drawback by itself, you are not forced to use her Burst Skill at all, allowing you to use stronger B2 skills.

Ade's MAX HP buffs also enhance healers if their effectiveness is based on their current MAX HP! So pairing a healer with her will also be a viable option to boost the amount of healing your team receives!

Campaign

Ade will not be used much here. She may be helpful in stages that feature Tailbone (ATK reduction). Just like XMica, Ade will have her place if you fight against Sunbather, which inflicts -60% ATK reduction debuffs!

Union Raid

Situational against bosses that apply major debuffs, but you'd be better off running a more versatile B2.

Solo Raid

With the current meta teams, it’s very hard to find a spot for Ade. Everything she does, others can do and they do better. Unless Shift Up really forces a boss that constantly debuffs your team with debuffs, otherwise you may not want to put Ade in your team at all. The closest we can come up is using Ade as a replacement for Mast… if you use Mast at all.

PVP

She can, and will block Blanc’s burst, rendering her useless. Sadly, nowadays, people tend to pair Blanc with Jackal, and Jackal debuff will eat Ade’s debuff immunity first. In this case, do not run Ade! XMica should perform better than Ade for PvP by a good margin. Ade has a better burst gen than normal AR, similar to Snow White/Mihara's. However, if you look at the burst gen chart, you will realize that they are all considered “slow” there. Ade will not shake PVP meta.

Should You Pull

NO! But if you really simp for Ade, the latest maid of Maid for you, then one copy does not hurt. Ade is an interesting Nikke - She works well without investment, and she does not gain much by investing in her. Maybe you can pull one copy for future proof, or put her in the wishlist instead. By future proof, we mean that she may become important when new bosses with debuffs are released. You can always rely on Cocoa and XMica for that, though.

Kit Analysis

Ade's kit revolves around the ability to protect your teammates from filthy debuffs, by both cleansing and preventing them at the same time. In addition, she provides a little ATK buff longside a decent “empty” HP bar buff that can be filled in order to provide extra defensive capability.

Skill 1

This skill has 2 parts:

All teammates will gain a stack of Debuff Immunity which removes an existing debuff (but will not remove CP penalty and special debuffs like Suppression/Stun Rope of “Sentry”…) and prevents the next incoming debuff if it is not consumed yet. In Nikke, debuffs are currently not an issue to require specific methods dealing with. Some debuffs can be nasty, like Blanc’s burst in pvp, ATK reduction from some Raptures/Bosses like TailBone and that’s where Ade might shine. One advantage of prepared debuff removal is that you don't have to delay or wait for the next burst rotation.

This is how you'll be looking at Tail Bone when Ade renders it useless!

The other part is an ATK buff. Though you can maintain this buff like 100% of the time by keeping her HP hovering up/down 90%, the effect is definitely not worth the pain. Assuming Ade has the same core / gears / level / bond affections with your Attacker, her ATK stat will be 83.33% of your DPS, which translates this S1’s effect into 4.3% ATK up for an Attacker. The value is underwhelming, but it can be combined with her other skills to make a decent value.

The Debuff Immunity does not work like a “Vaccine”. It will not make you “immune” to a certain debuff for the whole stage, but rather it acts as a “Shield” that blocks the next upcoming debuff or removes an already existing debuff. Note that debuff blocking may harm you instead, for example Sanis without Ammo Reduction, or A2 without HP reduction (her burst effect will not trigger at all if this debuff is removed!).

Since Nikke treats timing of skills in this order: Self skill > External skill, hence Debuff Immunity will mostly consume your own debuff first before it can block any harmful external Debuff. Essentially, whichever debuff was applied first will be removed by Ade.Once Ade has < 90% HP, she needs to be > 90% HP to retrigger the ATK buff (in her skill 1) with the help of her S2 or Burst Skill (both of which reduce her HP below 90%, and bring it back up after the buff expires). If she has already been under 90% max HP and is not healed back to > 90%, she will NEVER trigger S1 attack buff.

DO NOT RUN ADE WITH S.ANIS OR A2. THESE NIKKES NEED THEIR SPECIFIC DEBUFFS TO PERFORM WELL AND DEAL DAMAGE.

Skill 2

With this skill, Ade can keep providing debuff protection for her team, which will come in handy under some situations. That sounds reasonable on paper, but let’s convert those effects into time-based intervals.

• Assuming your device can run at 60/30 FPS, her first effect which requires 420 normal attacks will take 35~42s shooting relentlessly! And you do not even have that much ammo to begin with. With 60 ammo per magazine, she will have to reload 7 times at max to even trigger this effect. Since she has 1.5s reload, that adds up to total time, making them 45.5~52.5s. Putting it in practice, you may proc this effect 2~3 times every 90s fight, or 4 ~ 6 every boss fight (180s).This niche limits her ability in team building by a lot, since you may only want her in a boss fight to make this skill worth her slot.

• The second part effect will trigger every 13~15s (including 2 times reloading), putting herself at 100%/115.62% (level 10 value) ~ 84% Max Hp for 5s. During this time, you can “fill” the gap by healing Ade and her allies, which gives them more survivability. And if you notice, this skill is kinda synchronized with her S1, because it forces Ade dipping below 90% to proc the ATK buff. Make sure to bring a healer or taunter with Ade because if she is hit and her HP falls below 90% permanently, she will never be able to activate her skill 1 again.

Burst

Just like Mast’s burst, Ade also “boosts” the HP bars of her allies by an amount without healing them, putting them at 79.9% / 71% Max HP (With S2 effect too). This may help some Nikkes that are required to stay at low HP as fast as possible, for example Guillotine, Scarlet. Healers will also benefit from this effect because all of the current healing effect (beside life steal) scales on Max HP => more Max HP, more heal. Last but not least, 2B will also like this effect because she’s currently the only damage dealer scaling on HP.

This burst also has a moderate ATK buff, which can be converted into 8.46% ATK buff for your Attacker(s). At the very peak, your Attacker(s) may enjoy 12% ATK buff from Ade alone. It looks small, but the effect lasts 10s, and comparing her with other B2 excluding Naga and Blanc, she suddenly does not look so bad anymore (20s cd - B2 - ATK buffer)

Investments

Gear Investments

Ade is a pure supporter, which means she does not scale really well with OL. If you want to OL her, go for the Ammo lines, because they reduce the time she needs to trigger her S2 by reducing reload intervals. For other options, you can choose whatever between Elemental, Hit Rate, Crit Rate… because it does not matter.

Skill Investments

• Skill 1: 1

  • This skill gains abysmal value each level. With 0.21% Caster ATK gained per level, we highly recommend you not leveling it at all. Not to mention, if she’s damaged below 90% and not healed back more than 90%, she won’t be able to trigger S1 again, ever!

• Skill 2: 5

  • Mathematically, only after level 5, her S2 will leave Ade below 90% Max Hp, triggering her S1 condition to buff ATK. Since every level only gives her 0.72% Max HP which is very small, you do not want to spend your hard earned skill material on this skill beyond level 5.

• Burst: 1

  • Burst always leaves Ade below 90% HP, so she can always trigger her S1 during burst. Problem is, each level only gives you 0.4% caster ATK more, and burst material is very scarce, you need to think twice before investing in Ade.

Cube Investments

Both Bastion and Resilience would serve her well for PvE purposes for more reliable Reset Time (Skill 2) stacking. Bastion > Resilience for Ade. Don’t run Vigor on her since it inflates Ade HP and makes it more difficult to dip her HP below 90%.