SpathodeaBuild and Guide

Spathodea is a 6-Star Carry of the Beast Afflatus. Her kit is centered around single-target burst damage, which puts her in the same realm as Melania. Unlike Melania, however, Spathodea synergizes with Crit/Burn-oriented supports and prefers to deal intermittent bursts of high damage rather than Melania's continuous ramping.

By casting "Ignition Point", Spathodea can continuously stack [Preignition] and [Exhilaration] on herself, increasing the amount of [Burn] inflicted by and the Crit Rate of her next attack respectively. This also causes her to automatically draw her "Little Boxer" skill with the corresponding rank. This passive ramping using stacking buffs is required for her to set up her Ultimate: "Flame Within The Fire", as its Crit DMG is dramatically increased if the target is carrying over 15 stacks of [Burn].

Because she's casting "Ignition Point" in place of more attacks, her overall DPT appears to lag behind that of similar Carry characters, this is then resolved when her Ultimate is unleashed, as Spathodea quite comfortably outdamages most others in terms of single hit bursts of damage given how easily she can guarantee Crits on her attacks and ramps up her Crit DMG. In essence, instead of blindly spamming hits, Spathodea aims to make every hit count to the fullest.

Conclusion

Spathodea falls into the "single-target Carry that hits really hard" trope that Melania started back in 1.1 and faithfully delivers on the premise. Her kit is extremely self-reliant, and being able to essentially guarantee Crits is always a niche bit of QoL to have in a character that relies on it. On the other hand [Burn] is probably the worst DoT effect in the game because its really hard to get to stick consistently, but Spathodea solves this by turning [Burn] into essentially a counting system that says "if I hit this amount use my Ult and watch the nuke go off".

The one gripe we have with Spathodea on-release is that her only option in terms of supports to help her with [Burn] is Ulu, who is a rather weak character and not really someone you want to use in 3-man settings, resulting in Spathodea not really getting to fully bloom as a Carry. This is resolved later with Isolde's release in 1.7 as she is the primary Support for Burn-related teams (though she shines everywhere else too), but that's a whole 2 patches (3 months) later. Even so (and especially in 1.7) Spathodea is and remains as one of the primary single-target Reality carries and excels in content where she can take up the space (and AP) to set up her big hits.