Alright folks, let me tell you about my latest encounter with the one and only, Bubu, the Heimdall operative with a knack for divinations! As a seasoned operative myself, I’ve seen my fair share of operatives, but Bubu’s unique blend of ballistic damage, S-Energy manipulation, and a touch of divination has left quite an impression on me.

It’s been challenging for Seasun to create effective pistol DPS characters, and given this history, it’s natural to be cautious about Bubu. However, by deviating from the traditional approach and actually making her gun deal damage, she’s found success. Drawing inspiration from Haru – Absconditus and Vidya – Agave, the quirky diviner Bubu has managed to surpass past prejudices and establish herself. It seems that third time really is the charm for her.

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Abilities

Deiwos Passive

Instead of beginning with her regular shooting sequence, we’re opting for the Deiwos passive first. This part of her arsenal is quite crucial. Essentially, after firing two standard shots, she unleashes a rapid-fire burst of three quick shots, often referred to as an “Arcana Shot.” Each shot in this burst does less damage and generates less U-Energy, but due to their fast speed, it still results in a significant increase in DPS. To put it simply, the damage of each shot is reduced to 60% of its normal value. This reduction is a unique modifier separate from the existing one in the damage formula, as applying it any other way would make things too straightforward.

If your magazine runs dry during rapid fire, Bubu will instantly swap in a new one before taking her shot, and also do the same after firing. This implies that there’s no need to pause for reloading, which is always a convenient advantage.

Sure thing!

Standard Skill

To start with, it’s simpler to discuss the active aspect of this ability initially: Press and hold the skill button to restore S-Energy. It doesn’t get any easier than that! However, please note that during this action, you won’t be able to shoot or dodge (it should be obvious), but you can still stroll around for some leisurely repositioning.

What makes Bubu unique in combat is her ability to enter the “Evil Ward” state. This state allows her to amplify the thermal damage of her shots and make them ricochet off multiple enemies. The thermal damage boost isn’t an additional instance, but rather a multiplier for any thermal shots you fire. Additionally, Bubu can use extra S-Energy for each ricochet, with up to three enemies taking damage from each shot. However, subsequent ricochets deal less damage and consume less S-Energy. Essentially, being in the Evil Ward state means that Bubu has enough S-Energy to activate these abilities.

As a devoted fan, I must admit, it’s quite impressive! Yet, you might be doubting if Bubu could really consume energy at such an alarming rate with these resource demands. And rightly so! You see, Seasun anticipated this and thus empowered her, making her incapable of passively restoring S-Energy. Instead, she relies solely on activating her standard skill to recharge, regardless of how perfectly I arrange the feng shui. Oh well, a bit of challenge makes the game more exciting!

In this scenario, both neuronics seem relatively insignificant, offering enhanced mobility as their main advantage. However, it’s wise to prioritize upgrading them initially to fully leverage the thermal damage bonus offered by Evil Ward.

Support Skill

As a devoted fan, I’ve gotta say, Bubu really knows how to make an impression with her skill set! She creates a zone that sizzles enemies with persistent Thermal damage (thanks to neuronics). Plus, if you aim at the boundary walls, it unleashes even more Thermal damage on the trapped foes. It’s a real showstopper, but the one-second cool-down on activating that bonus damage gives it a touch of novelty rather than true game-changer status.

Ultimate

When Bubu is activated, she enters the “Malicious Purge” mode, where every key press triggers a three-shot volley of Arcana, each of which critically hits and does extra critical damage. Additionally, these shots consume less energy to activate her standard skill’s thermal damage boost and reload rapidly after every two Arcana shots. Essentially, this amplified state is powered by Vital Essence, much like Haru – Absconditus’ ultimate ability, which provides an initial amount that depletes over time, as well as with each Arcana shot.

As a fan, I’d express it like this: Whenever I use Bubu’s ultimate ability, it doesn’t drain any U-Energy or require a cooldown. Instead, she needs to gather a unique resource called a Divine Seal. While her ult isn’t activated, Bubu naturally accumulates progress towards a Divine Seal over time and even faster when she unleashes Arcana Shots. With neuronics, I can quickly obtain a Divine Seal if an enemy is stunned or paralyzed (once per foe, to avoid any misuse). Equipping Thermal weaponry gives me a Divine Seal right from the start, fulfilling Bubu’s prophecy of imminent high damage.

Assessment

Bubu confidently affirms that a pistol’s damage per second (DPS) can indeed be effective, stating that he has already determined this fact.

Despite Bubu not being a genuine geomancer, the harm she inflicts is undeniably real. Firing a swift barrage of powerfully charged shots and reloading her gun at speeds that are almost imperceptible, Bubu serves as a testament to the fact that raw firepower remains valuable in today’s world. Her two-step dance routine following each burst can make hitting your target somewhat challenging, but this minor inconvenience is a small sacrifice for the significant damage she deals, along with an engaging and addictively enjoyable gameplay experience.

Well, there is one catch. Bubu’s amazing damage output depends heavily on having both S-Energy and her ult available, and her DPS ability goes down quite a bit once she goes through her entire stash of special sauce. This can limit her performance in extended fights, especially if she can’t find a break in the action to pop her standard skill and recharge. But overall, Bubu is a highly competent damage-dealer who will be more than enough to tackle general content with the potential to steal away Neural Sim bosses and put pressure on the current top picks. She also isn’t entirely dependent on a charge-up minigame to do her damage, which is a breath of fresh air from Seasun’s fixation on this playstyle for the back half of 2024.

Weapons

It seems you might not have noticed that Bubu’s event shop and gacha weapons exhibit an unusual characteristic. Although categorized as semi-automatic pistols, their ammunition capacity, compatibility with other weapons, and base critical damage are more akin to revolver-type pistols. This could be due to the fact that they are designed to work with the Bold Type – Magazine attachment, which increases your ammo capacity slightly, enhancing the effectiveness of Fenny – Starshine’s support skill. I can’t claim to know the mind behind Seasun’s creations, but this is just a speculation as to why they might have made such a design choice.

These two weapons have the ability to stun an enemy after a specific number of shots are fired (the premium weapon needs 40 shots while the free one requires 60), and this triggers Bubu’s ultimate for free. This feature is exclusive to Bubu’s equipment, but unlike Fritia – Turbo’s weapons, it doesn’t penalize you for trying out different gear. It seems that Seasun is learning from past mistakes.

Compared to the store-bought weapon Plum Blossom and the locked weapon Gilded Blaze, the standard method of enhancing performance is used, with Gilded Blaze receiving a percentage reduction in damage taken as expected. This results in a 25% boost at Tier 1 and a 54% edge at Tier 2… which isn’t all that impressive. Among current high-damage agents, only Siris – Ksana has a smaller gap between premium and free weapons. It seems Seasun placed some importance on having the Stun ability available sooner (your experience with this may differ). By the way, for those using Plum Blossom from the shop, if you haven’t used your ultimate in a while, tap your standard skill occasionally to refresh one of the buffs that Plum Blossom offers.

Looking at more unconventional options ended up being way more interesting than I initially expected, because wow do you want something with a revolver statline. I initially didn’t even bother testing off-element weapons as I figured that missing out on Evil Ward’s Thermal damage boost would be too big of a gap to overcome. As it turns out, however, just having better weapon compatibility (essentially an ATK multiplier for shooting) and base crit damage goes a long way, with the support weapon Prismatic Igniter topping the cope charts just by being a Thermal revolver. In fact, every other Thermal pistol, being semi-automatic, ended up losing to the three off-element revolvers I tested before forcing myself to stop lest I end up admitted into a psych ward laughing at the absurdity of it all. One of them was the starter 2★ pistol! And it actually translates into DPS too, as the rapid-fire Arcana Shot effectively neutralises the rate of fire difference that usually keeps these weapon sub-types competitive. My apologies to anyone hoping to use Lucky Times.

Manifests

Bubu adheres to the recent trend where abilities only cause damage, without any exceptions. However, this time, it appears that Seasun didn’t fully charge Bubu’s M4 ability, resulting in a dip in an otherwise consistent growth pattern. This suggests that M3 could be a better choice, although M2 can still serve as a good temporary stopover because it offers some uncommon additional utility alongside its damage increase, while her ultimate is active, by providing extra Crowd Control (CC) resistance.

Logistics

Bubu’s designated support team is called Halo Squad, and trust me, you’ll want to leverage it! This trio boosts Arcana Shot damage and strengthens her attacks when she’s in the Evil Ward state. To put it simply, this means her stats are enhanced almost all the time since she’s usually charged with S-Energy. So, Seasun, let’s not make things too obvious!

Regarding substats, ATK% is typically the go-to choice since higher attack translates directly to more damage output. For the secondary stat, you can opt between Alignment Index (which boosts ATK%) or Critical Damage. In an ideal situation, Critical Damage would be superior due to the increased damage from critical hits. However, this assumption is made under the condition that you’re consistently landing critical hits, which might not be unreasonable given Bubu’s ultimate ability. But if you anticipate spending a considerable amount of time without her ult or your accuracy isn’t exceptional, Alignment Index could serve as a decent alternative stat to consider.

Teams

To start off, let’s address the character that causes harm by firing weapons, which is Bubu. At present, there isn’t a superior support for shooting characters compared to Fenny – Starshine. I understand that Bubu lacks reload downtime that can be minimized with bonus ammo, but this point is not crucial. More damage equals more advantage, and more advantage is beneficial. If your Starshine is at level M1 or above, remember to spend a bit more time focusing on weak spots for the added %Final DMG boost when you hit them.

As a gamer, I can vouch that Mauxir – Shadow Ka is a no-brainer when it comes to support pairings, especially for ballistic damage operatives like myself. The stationary target, damage amplification, and boosted critical rate are all perks we appreciate. Sure, there’s a slight dip in synergy with Starshine since Kebechet doesn’t qualify as a weak spot, but it’s usually a trade-off worth making.

Apart from the common Acacia members like Kaguya and The Cub (Eatchel), Tess, the Magician, is equally effective in swift battles. You might be wondering, yes, she can indeed be quite powerful in such situations.

“But viiiiiic, Bubu doesn’t use U-Energy for her ult, you told me that earlier!”

And you’d be right, but hear me out. Tess’ Hjartagard Squad logistics set provides a 20% damage buff after Tess ults, which then increases by another 25% when someone else does. Add in her signature weapon Eccentric Joker, which provides similarly-large buffs in the same manner, and the fact that Bubu can instantly ult at the start of combat, and you have a whole lot of buff in not a lot of time. Your damage will drop off very quickly once said buffs expire, but for triple-tapping Sim bosses to death as quickly as possible and other shorter fights, it works much better than you might think.

Budget-wise alternatives feature brands like Fritia – Little Sunshine, offering choices such as Amarna or Twilight Squad due to their matching elements. Additionally, there’s always the trustworthy Acacia – Redacted, boasting both a Slow trait and an ability to amplify damage for her Navigator Squad.

Should you pull?

If you’re lacking “Lyfe – Infinite Sight”, consider Bubu as a top-notch Damage Per Second (DPS) operative. He’s an excellent choice for your team, likely the most powerful ballistic damage operative in your roster, and we highly recommend adding him to your squad.

If you do have Lyfe though, things get a bit more complicated.

In a direct matchup, both characters possess the capability of dominating, but their performance can fluctuate based on the circumstances. Bubu’s high DPS is contingent on her S-Energy and ult cooldowns, whereas Lyfe consistently dishes out dodge shots. Moreover, Lyfe offers greater versatility, as she can be tailored to inflict more skill damage and benefit from a broader range of support options due to this flexibility. Given a choice, I would lean towards Lyfe for her adaptability.

Coexisting with Lyfe has its perks, particularly if you’re an alternative entity. For instance, Season has been eager to include Kinetic resistances in the weekly Neural Simulation modifiers list because of Lyfe’s strong influence, and this could potentially give Bubu a chance to shine. Additionally, the limited ballistic support pool is expected to grow in the future, which would provide more options for Bubu, placing her in a favorable position as one of the top 3 ballistic DPS with Lyfe IS as her main rival. Once the ballistic damage support is released, it might even reduce the competition for Fenny – Starshine’s custody during that week.

Indeed, these observations are merely hypotheses drawn from previous patterns and trends. However, given her self-proclaimed expertise, it’s not unimaginable that among those in Heimdall force, Bubu – the divination mistress – might hold a promising future.

Supplementary Material

Link to spreadsheet

Includes weapon calculations, manifest growth calculations, and a logistics optimization calculator.

Cheat Sheet

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2024-12-25 01:00