Should you build Reed?

Reed is a 4-star unit and you will get a copy of her for free, with other dupes available later.

Reverse 1999 has been in a bit of a low-rarity shortage for a while now, and a lot of the low rarities have not been particularly good. Reed is actually a usable 4-star, but in terms of the meta, she is not going to be that exciting to most people. She can serve as a budget option for many players, but her lack of i3, like all 4-stars or lower, does heavily limit the low-rarity roster, and she is very much no different.

Reed is a 4-star support who can become extremely tanky and help the team by providing offensive support. She essentially revolves around a mechanic known as [Wither and Bloom]. You get this when you first enter combat thanks to her passive, and it allows you to start the cycle. You can advance this cycle by using her move “Old Notes”, which also cleanses negative effects from herself, or by waiting for the start of the round.

When Reed is in [Wither and Bloom II], [Wither and Bloom III], or [Wither and Bloom IV], instead of retreating when taking lethal damage, she restores 30% of her max HP, returns to [Wither and Bloom I], and gains [Evergreen] for 2 rounds. This effectively makes her extremely difficult to kill. However, it should be noted that she cannot use her Ultimate while [Wither and Bloom] is in the first stage.

Wither and Bloom II increases damage taken by 50% from [Burn]. Wither and Bloom III increases damage dealt by 20% and damage taken from [Burn] by 20%. Wither and Bloom IV grants +20% Critical Rate, +30% Critical Damage, and +20% damage dealt, and upon being attacked, damage taken per hit cannot exceed 80% of her max HP.

Her Ultimate is another self-buff that grants [Evergreen], meaning she will not advance [Wither and Bloom] for a period of time, allowing her to maintain her current state. It also applies [Wither and Bloom] to all allies, allowing her to boost team damage while also making them similarly difficult to kill for 3 rounds. The main limitation of her kit is the cycle itself and how long it can take to reach the IV stage, which is the most desirable version, as the earlier stages come with various penalties.

To help with using her ultimate, she generates Moxie through her skill “New Experience”, and she gains one Moxie when entering combat. However, she only gains one at a time regardless of the skill level, which can make her cycles a bit rough. Having an I3 that helps with this would be highly beneficial.

Pros & Cons

You will be getting all of them eventually.

Not dying will likely give her a pretty solid niche in simply not getting one-hit KO’d. This is especially important since she’s not really going to be the best offensive buffer by any stretch. Because of that, you want to lean into her survivability by pairing her with someone like Villa, who also fits her well since they’re both Plant arcanists, and she can help with Moxie as well, which makes her cycle a lot smoother. Or honestly, any healer works just to keep her safe.

Beyond that, Reed feels fairly self-contained. If you’re mainly using her for the Ultimate and the team-wide damage cap, she does her job well in almost any composition.

Her Second Life

Embrace the Past

Honestly, anything that gives her health, lean into that.

• Her Second Life: Also helps buff the team when she uses her ultimate, which you want to do anyway.
• Embrace the Past : Gives a whopping 4300 HP.

Resonances

Pattern: BaogKDEwJDgVPFA8YDpELxAnRUUARgI0BEwGSANIE0wj

A few suggestions are listed below. 3-People teams are highlighted, with the 4th slot added at the side to provide a 4-P variation of the same team or even insights on possible variations of the 3-P team.

Standard Teams

Vegan Impromptu[GLB]

Damage Dealer

Damage Dealer

Sustain

TEAM EXPLANATION

• 4th slot options: Any
• Euphorias: None
• It’s kind of hard to be specific with Reed, but as I mentioned, Villa works as a healer and can help get her ultimate faster. Then you just add a DPS and you have a team. Reed is going to be used for cheese purposes when you really need to be unkillable for some reason. Yeah, she can work as an offensive buffer, but you probably have better buffers for that. Literally, most DPS should be fine. I picked Marcus here just because she works well with Villa. Villa provides the [Song of Inspiration] and incantation rank-ups that Marcus needs to fuel her [Eureka] and frequent skill cycling.