th, 2019, the Hall of Heroes for the fire Sniper Mk.I Carcano was announced. Now, I really don’t know how to feel about Carcano, or any of the Snipers in general. I popped the water one Covenant from the “get 5 lightnings and get a free Sniper” event, but I’ve never really used him, and he’s the only one I have. Before we begin, Hall of Heroes is a lot like Trial of Ascension, so that means you can use Trial of Ascension strategy and monsters (e.g. attack bar pushbacks, stuns and continuous damage are king). I strongly advise bringing your regular Trial of Ascension team. In my case, I’m using Baretta (L), my water Homunculus Kaneki (Ice Mist path), Verad, my dark Homunc Lunalessa (Unbalanced Field path), and Charlotte, because Shaina got nerfed hard and I am now unable to use her in ToAH. Let’s cut the chatter and get on with it!

Is Carcano Usable?

Ehhh, I mean on paper, he looks okay. His first skill attacks and ignores all damage reduction effects (so stuff like Rina’s shield and Chloe’s Invincibility are ignored, but not passives like Darion or Dias), his second skill makes him strike the Hidden Aim pose, which I always imagine to be a T-Pose increases his attack power by 200% whenever he’s in the Hidden Aim pose and reduces his chances of being hit by a glancing hit by 50%. However, his passive, Dead Eye, makes him look mildly interesting. At the start of each of his turns, he’ll decrease a random enemy’s defense for 1 turn. Now, due to the randomness of this skill, most can just brush him off as an unreliable single-target one attacking skill nuker at the best. I personally haven’t had time to mess around with him just yet, but somewhere on the internet, I read that he could be a pretty good backup defense breaker for KataBae raids. From the way his passive reads, it sounds like he doesn’t need to go through the Resistance/Accuracy check (though he might need to, so take this with a grain of salt). If you can let him get a turn after Galleon and before your nukers, it feels like he could be good at his def breaking thing and even do a little damage along the way. Again, I’ve yet to actually build him, so for all I know I could be talking crazy talk here.

Stage 1

Welcome to stage 1, everybody. Every journey starts at the first stage, and this is no different. Here, we have three Covenants (water snipers) and two Chasuns (wind Sky Dancers). The Threat: Maaaan, if I had a penny for every time Chasun Fallen Blossom’d during my SW career, I’d have a lot of pennies. Don’t get me wrong, she’s still amazing in terms of the sheer amount of healing she brings to the table, but lately, Chasun has sort of fallen out of the meta, in favor of her light sister Yeonhong. Isn’t it funny how, in 2016, Chasun was the best Dancer and Yeon was the worst and now it’s the other way around? Fun fact: Yeon had to get buffed big time in order to become this OP. Fun fact 2: At once point, there was going to be a change where Wolyung and Yeonhong’s second skills were to be swapped, but everyone put up such a hissy fit Com2uS reversed it. Fun fact 3: I STILL DON’T HAVE A CHASUN. Anyway, I’m sure most of you all know what Chasun does (Amuse heals everyone for 20% of her max HP and buffs their attack power for 2 turns, Fallen Blossoms balances her and another enemy’s HP and attack bar until they’re higher than before and goes through healblock), but let’s talk about Covenant, the only Sniper I had until this HoH. Covenant, the water Sniper Mk.I does not have the T-pose second skill, but instead his second skill is Suppressive Fire, which attacks one target and has a 70% chance to remove all buffs on them. The damage he deals increases based on how many buffs he removes. However, his third skill, Head Shot, doesn’t seem like much when you first look at it. It attacks one enemy and ignores their defense. This is a single-target ignore defense, and people like Lushen because he’s a 3-hit AoE defense ignore unit. However, Lushen’s multiplier on his third is 68%, compared to Covenant’s 400%. Let’s also mention that this third only needs two skillups: one to increase his damage by 25% and the other decreases its cooltime by a turn. In other words, Covenant is a great single-target nuker that can easily take out Rinas and Guillaumes. The Solution: So you may be asking, “what sort of preventative measures can I take against this stage?” This one’s actually going to be a relatively simple stage, because healblocks easily prevent Chasun from healing with Amuse. Granted, it won’t stop Fallen Blossoms, but it can prevent everyone from suddenly healing. Did you know that Fallen Blossoms is relative to Chasun and her target’s HP? For example, if she’s at 1% HP and her target is 100%, she’ll balance herself out to 100% HP as well. However, if they’re both at, say, 20% HP, she can only balance it so they’re both at, like, 21% HP. This means that if you keep everyone’s HP all relatively the same amount, you can keep her from mitigating too much damage with Fallen Blossoms. From what I remember, Covenant is pretty squishy as it is, so you can make sure he stays stunned and chip away as everyone’s HP at once in order to keep Chasun from being too horrifying with Fallen Blossoms. Seriously, I have so many bad memories of her…

Stage 2

If I haven’t mentioned it yet, I am really mad that the Snipers don’t T-pose for their Hidden Aim pose. I love the T-pose. ANYway, here we have three Carbines (wind Snipers) and two Ludos (fire Dice Magicians). The Threat: I’m gonna say Ludo’s the bigger threat here. Carbine’s…uhhhh, he’s pretty bad. He has the T-pose second skill, but his passive Veteran is not good at all. Basically, Veteran increases his attack bar by 30% whenever someone lands a glancing hit on him. That’s it. Keep in mind this is not a critical hit or anything. It’s a glancing. Yeah. Now let’s talk about Ludo real quick. The Dice Magicians are very RNG-based, as they roll dice for each of their skills and then go from there. Ludo is no different. His passive, Roll Again, will roll a die at the start of each of his turns. The damage he inflicts on an enemy will be increased by 70% when the number he gets is large, and the damage he takes will be reduced by 70% when the number is small. I’ve heard some people call him a mini-Theomars, and I’m pretty sure they had good reasoning behind it, but I can’t remember, so you’ll just have to take my word for it. The Solution: So have you noticed that Ludo’s passive says he gets his dice rolling whenever he gets a turn? That means attack bar manipulation can easily prevent him from ever getting a turn. Now, usually, I would recommend someone like Shaina for this kind of thing, but ever since her nerf, she doesn’t do attack bar manipulation anymore. Now she gains 25% accuracy. For like two debuffs max. Oh and they destroyed her arena speed lead as well. (I still miss Shaina, if you can’t tell. I know she was dummy OP and that’s why she needed the nerf but still. It hurts, man. It hurts.) WELL, since I am now unable to recommend Shaina for this kind of job, I’ve sort of found a new replacement to Shaina – Loren, the light Cow Girl. She was buffed, like, way before Shaina’s nerf so that she goes from dealing 10% attack bar decrease on her passive to 20% per hit. Her passive Chaser will decrease the enemy’s attack bar for 20% per hit and she’ll weaken their defense for one turn. And both of her usable skills are multihit. She’s kind of fun to use, I’m not gonna lie. Carbine’s pretty much the same way. He only increases his attack bar when he’s hit by glancing, and the T-pose gives him a 50% chance to be hit by glancing. But remember, he can’t ever T-pose if he never gets a turn. -head tap meme-

Stage 3

It’s miniboss time, baby! Here we have an Ophilia (fire Paladin) and two Lapises (water Magic Knights). The Threat: I think it’s around here that I realized just how profoundly useful pre-nerf Shaina was. I miss her… But anyway, I’ma definitely have to go for Ophilia as the biggest threat here. She has a buff that only she has, the Threat debuff, in which you still have control over your units, but you can only attack her. It’s sort of like a weaker version of the Provoke debuff. Her third skill Cry of Threat activates the Threat state for 3 turns and creates a shield equivalent to 20% of her Max HP on all allies for 2 turns. Her second skill Prayer of Protection is a complete single-target cleanse that also plants Invincibility on the target for 1 turn, and her first skill buffs herself with Immunity for 1 turn. This also means you can’t just straight up target her Lapis minions, and frankly, Lapis has gotten really good lately, especially because of Shaina nerf- okay this is the last time I will mention it, I swear. Her first skill attacks one enemy twice and all enemies the third time, decreasing the enemy’s attack bar by 25% per hit, her second skill attacks random enemies four times (but they have a higher chance to be hit based on how low their attack bar is) and decreases their defense for 2 turns, and her third skill will steal HP from all enemies, healing herself by the damage dealt and absorbing 25% of everyone’s attack bar. This is a four-star monster that everyone gets for free! It is whack! The Solution: Did you know that, while single-target attackers can only target Ophilia, you can still heal your teammates and use AoE skills? That’s right. Your Baretta can still use Phoenix’s Fury on everyone even while Ophilia has the Threat state up. If you have an Ice Mist water Homunculus like I do, then, in the immortal words of Anakin Skywalker, “This is where the fun begins.”

Stage 4

Here, we have three Dragunovs (dark Snipers) and two Mollies (light Mermaids). The Threat: I’m starting to think Dragunov is the weakest of the Snipers. He’s got the T-Pose second skill, but his passive Reloading will have him stay in the Hidden Aim pose if he kills an enemy in it. Normally, once the Snipers take a turn in the T-pose, they’ll go back to normal and you’ll have to wait for Hidden Aim to refresh. But Dragunov here still stays in the T-pose. That’s it. Molly was like Chasun, in that she was really good, and still is, but has sort of fallen out of the meta as of late. Her passive Glaring Mists will make enemies have a 20% chance to land a glancing hit on a random ally and she’ll also heal the ally with the lowest HP by 10%. This means every turn she’ll heal an ally and cause glancing hits on random allies. The Solution: You know how the solution to Ludo was never letting him get a turn? This is also the solution to Molly and Dragunov. If you don’t let Molly get a turn, she can’t use her passive. If you don’t let Dragunov get a turn, he will then be unable to trigger the T-pose and therefore his passive as well.

Stage 5

We’re at the penultimate stage now! The last stage before the boss consists of three Magnums (light Snipers) and two Isillens (dark Elven Rangers). The Threat: LOL I couldn’t even remember what Magnum did, I had to look him up. But anyway, Magnum’s passive Snipe Preparation will make him gain 25% of his attack bar whenever an enemy gets a beneficial effect. This means he could actually manage to cut in between your speed tuning for this stage if you end up having any buffs here. So in other words, if your Colleen gets the first turn and casts Fiery Dance, there’s a good chance that in the higher levels of HoH, he can and will cut in and snipe down some of your best mons. Isillen, meanwhile, is a different kind of annoying to deal with. She has the passive Supportive Fire, which means that whenever one of her allies gets attacked, she’ll counterattack them three times. And I mean, she’s not a bad mon, she’s just not…good, is all. The Solution: Did you know that if you attack Isillen herself, she will not counterattack you? Seriously, if you single-target hit her, it will not trigger her passive, so you could burst nuke both Isillens down in two turns, and then do the stun-and-slash for Magnum.

Stage 6

Iiiiiit’s boss time, baby! Today, we’ve got Carcano as the boss. Now, if you’ve been following my HoH how-to articles for a while now, you’re going to expect me to say “this stage has the most variety of all stages, because the lackeys’ elements will always be different.” Well, that ain’t changing here. I think there was, like, one Hall of Heroes where the lackey elements stayed the same, and that was the Orochi HoH. The Threat: Like always, the threat’s gonna differ because the lackeys differ. Here, though, the Covenant minion is our biggest threat, solely because of the sheer amount of damage he can deal. Seriously, in B6, I think one of them hit my Baretta for, like, 40k without attack buff or defense break on him. The Solution: Because the threat differs each stage, the solution’s gonna be different as well. Here, if this were a higher level, I’d probably go for Covenant first, stun Magnum, and then kill Carcano. Or you could just go straight for Carcano. Either works, I guess. I hope you all enjoyed this article about Carcano, the fire Sniper Mk.I’s Hall of Heroes! Did you all get a copy yet? If so, did you find any use for him? Let me know in the comments down below, but for now, I’m Sara Ann, and I’ll see you in the next article!]]>