I guess Raptures have eardrums…
Overview
- One of the strongest standard-manufacturer units in the game
- Incredible self-buffing gives her a lot of buffer independence, but also means she doesn’t scale well with most meta buffers.
- More Sustained and Attack Damage buffs have minimal impact for her.
- She prefers buffers that give her ATK, caster ATK, and critical rate/damage.
- Above average wave clear for a Sustained Damage dealer, thanks to burst.
- However, as it is based on debuffs, it only affects one wave of enemies at a time.
- Big damage taken debuff on burst for such a high DPS unit synergizes well with off-burst B3 and high DPS B2 units.
Should You Pull?
Don’t miss out on the Diesel: Winter Sweets (xDiesel, DWS) banner! You won’t have another chance to get her for a full year. xDiesel is a top-tier damage dealer, comparable to powerful units like Pilgrim and Over-Spec Nikkes. She excels at taking down bosses, and unlike many sustained damage characters, she’s also very effective in regular levels thanks to her powerful burst ability.
Although xDiesel doesn’t benefit as much from common team damage boosts as some other characters, her strong self-buffs make her surprisingly independent. This makes her a powerful choice, especially for players who don’t have a fully developed roster. Plus, her high damage output allows her to perform well even in battles where elemental advantages don’t apply.
Although she’s a Limited Unit, there’s a 2% chance of getting her through pulls, so focus on using pulls first. It’s usually best to save Gold Mileage for 1% units, as their rate-up is only half as good. However, Diesel is powerful enough to be worth using Gold Mileage on – she’s as strong as, and sometimes even stronger than, those 1% units.
Many players are likely wondering: should they get Diesel, Brid, or save for the New Year’s units? It’s a tough decision, as both Diesel and Brid offer significant benefits. Usually, I’d recommend prioritizing what you need most, but Diesel’s potential damage output is remarkably high for a standard unit. Brid, on the other hand, provides the strongest attack buff to the entire team – with a 20-second cooldown – since Tove. Unlike Tove’s buff, Brid’s isn’t restricted to specific weapon types, and Brid also deals impressive damage as a B2 unit. Attack buffs will become even more valuable as more damage dealers with low base attack stats are released, such as Liberalio and now Diesel.
Okay, so as a player, my plan is to try and get both Diesel and Brid if I can, using pulls. I’ll definitely try to save up those pull rewards – either to use later or to grab whichever one I didn’t get first. The big thing is, the New Year event is giving out a ton of pulls, but they won’t work on the current winter banners because the timing won’t line up. I’m hoping to use those New Year pulls to get the New Year units when they drop, and if I don’t, I’ll keep saving those rewards until I can get them. The good news is, they’ll eventually be on the Wishlist and available to craft later, so I won’t miss out forever!
Good luck, commanders.
Newbie/Incomplete Box Section
Diesel, also known as Winter Sweets, is a powerful attacker specializing in consistent, high damage output. She uses her surprisingly effective – and unique – singing voice to inflict significant damage on enemies, known as Raptures. Her damage against bosses is remarkably strong, and when fully optimized, she can match the DPS of top-tier characters like Pilgrim and Over-Spec. It’s genuinely impressive!
xDiesel excels at dealing damage to bosses, as her abilities are specifically designed for that purpose. However, she remains effective in regular levels thanks to her Burst ability, which applies a damage boost and makes enemies more vulnerable to attacks. This combination allows her to quickly clear groups of enemies.
This character is a strong damage dealer, but it’s important to remember two things. A lot of her power comes from improvements to her consistent damage output, so buffs that simply increase sustained or attack damage aren’t as effective on her. When building a team for her, focus on allies who provide different types of buffs, like increasing her overall attack power, magic attack, or critical hit rate and damage.
Okay, so one of the biggest weaknesses of the Sustained Damage build, in my opinion, is that it relies on applying debuffs. Basically, it works by stacking damage over time, but only if those debuffs stick. That means if a boss is immune to debuffs, the whole build falls apart. I’ve noticed this a lot when fighting Indivilia Anomaly Intercept – she sometimes becomes immune to debuffs, and it really hurts how much damage I can do with Sustained Damage then.
As a fan, I’m really excited about Diesel! From what I’ve seen, he’ll be great for quickly clearing regular levels, and he’ll really shine when it comes to taking down bosses with some serious damage.
Basic Information
- Skill 1: Ah Ah, Mic Test
- Skill 2: I’m Gonna Sing Now!
- Burst: La La La ♬
- Cooldown: 40s
- Rarity: SSR
- Burst: III
- Weapon: RL
- Class: Attacker
- Element: Fire
- Manufacturer: Elysion
- Squad: Infinity Rail
- Weapon Name: Candy Line
Skill 1: Ah Ah, Mic Test
This ability activates when you enter Full Burst. It has different effects depending on whether you’ve recently used your own Burst Skill.
If you used your Burst Skill first: You gain a permanent 20.28% increase to critical damage, and this effect can’t be removed, even after being revived.
If you didn’t use your Burst Skill first: You also gain a permanent 20.28% increase to critical damage that can’t be removed, even after revival.
Regardless of how you enter Full Burst: You’ll receive a 60.19% sustained damage boost for 10 seconds if you are in ‘Intro’ status, or a massive 235.03% sustained damage boost for 10 seconds if you are in ‘Highlight’ status.
At the start of battle, Diesel won’t have any special boosts. Which boost she gets depends on what happens during the very first Full Burst. If Diesel is the first B3 unit to use her ability and start that first Full Burst, she’ll enter Intro Mode. Otherwise, if another B3 unit triggers the first Full Burst, Diesel will activate Highlight Mode instead.
Once she gets either the Intro or Highlight buff, it lasts for the entire fight. Both buffs increase critical damage by the same amount, so the main difference is how much sustained damage they provide. Intro is meant to be a weaker buff with no drawbacks, while we’ll cover the downsides of Highlight later when discussing her Burst ability.
Because Intro mode gives xDiesel a massive 175% damage increase against bosses, there’s no good reason to use it any other way. She should always burst second to get a more powerful buff. While this buff might slightly affect her teammates, the benefit to her damage output is so significant that it’s worth it, especially when fighting bosses.
Intro isn’t necessarily bad, though. When fighting many weak enemies, maximizing damage against them isn’t always helpful, as they’re easily defeated anyway. The drawback of Highlight could also be a problem when teammates are attacking smaller enemies. Using xDiesel burst at the beginning or during a wave is effective for quickly eliminating groups of enemies.
When battling regular enemies, you can use either normal maps or Highlight. However, when facing bosses – especially during raids where they have a lot of health – Highlight is the better option.
Skill 2: I’m Gonna Sing Now!
This ability triggers when you or an ally destroy an enemy body part. It then grants all allies (except the user) immunity to Noise Pollution, stacking up to three times. It also affects the user directly. When activated, it increases sustained damage by 68.04% for 15 seconds. Attacking with a Full Charge activates another effect, boosting sustained damage by 318.14% for 3 seconds, stacking up to twice. Finally, entering Full Burst deals 63.33% of your final attack power as sustained damage to the targeted enemy every second for 9 seconds.
When a teammate or Diesel destroys a boss’s body part, everyone on the team gets a protective buff called Mute. This helps counter the negative effects of Diesel’s Highlight ability (more on that later). At the same time, Diesel significantly increases her own damage output – by 68.04% – for 15 seconds. This damage boost can be very long-lasting when fighting bosses with many parts, especially those that can regenerate. It’s a powerful buff that most damage-dealing characters would greatly appreciate.
Here’s where things get really over the top. Whenever Diesel fires a fully charged shot, she massively boosts her damage – increasing it by 318.14% for three seconds. She can do this twice, stacking the buff for an incredible 636.28% total damage increase. This level of self-buffing is unlike anything we’ve seen before.
Diesel’s powerful S2 buff is easy to get, so he doesn’t need to focus on collecting parts from bosses and enemies. Because most of the damage increase comes from simply firing fully charged shots, Diesel should avoid bosses that significantly slow down his charge speed. These bosses would make it hard to build up the buff, severely reducing his damage output.
Diesel’s powerful, fully charged shots provide a significant boost, but it only lasts for 3 seconds. Because his normal reload takes 2 seconds and charging a shot takes 1 second, simply reloading and recharging will cancel the buff, forcing him to build it up again. Since damage calculations consider how many buffs are active at any given moment, Diesel needs to keep firing consistently to maintain the bonus.
To keep Diesel’s buff active, focus on things like faster reloading, charging, and larger magazine sizes – these all reduce how often you need to reload. However, the most efficient way to do this is by using the Resilience Cube. With just the Rank 1 effect, it’s enough to maintain the buff when manually controlling Diesel after a reload. If you prefer to play on auto, you’ll need at least Rank 2 of the Resilience Cube effect.
Additionally, when Diesel activates Full Burst, she applies a damage-over-time debuff to the main target. This target is always the boss in regular stages and the primary boss in boss stages, ensuring Diesel consistently deals damage to a boss, even when it’s not her turn to use Burst.
Burst: La La La ♬
Okay, so this ability hits all enemies. They take 25.09% more damage for 10 seconds, and I deal 18.43% of my attack as damage every second for 9 seconds. If the enemy is the boss or main target, even better! It also does a boosted 181.2% of my attack as damage per second for 9 seconds against them.
If I’m highlighted, it helps my team too! It lowers the hit rate of all enemies by 100% for one second, and reduces the ‘Mute’ stack on all my allies by one. Basically, it’s a really strong ability with both damage and support potential, especially if I can stay highlighted!
When Diesel activates her Burst, she weakens all nearby enemies, making them take increased damage. Enemies affected by this initial weakening also receive a smaller, ongoing damage effect. This combination is Diesel’s primary way of dealing damage during regular gameplay, especially against enemies that aren’t bosses, as it’s the only consistent damage source that works on them.
If the enemy is hit, they receive a significant damage over time debuff. When combined with her other abilities that also inflict this type of damage, and considering all the ways she boosts her own damage, this skill quickly defeats enemies. Even enemies resistant to fire damage take massive damage because of the combined damage multipliers.
There’s a tricky drawback to using Diesel’s Burst ability while Highlight Mode is active: it temporarily reduces all allies’ accuracy to zero for one second. While this sounds severe, it’s usually manageable because Diesel can only use Burst seven times to gain the Highlight buff. This means allies will only experience the accuracy reduction for a maximum of seven seconds during a boss fight, and even then, it may not significantly impact damage since they might not be targeting critical hit spots anyway.
Don’t stress about this debuff when fighting bosses. It might be useful against regular enemies, especially since smaller attack areas mean the debuff could prevent a one-hit knockout from certain enemies. However, when xDiesel is at her best, this debuff isn’t a big deal. Therefore, always have xDiesel use her Burst second when battling bosses.
Damaging specific parts of a boss gives your teammates a benefit that cancels out the negative effects of Noise Pollution. When fighting bosses with these parts, the ‘low concern’ debuff becomes less impactful. Even though it’s a minor advantage, it still gives xDiesel an edge against bosses that have parts.
Concerning the Damage Formula
xDiesel’s strongest feature is her massive sustained damage – potentially over 1000% when using Highlight mode. While it’s generally best to combine different types of damage boosts, sustained damage actually works the same way as a direct ‘Attack Damage’ increase in the game’s calculations.
Because xDiesel primarily relies on sustained damage, many buffs that increase attack damage aren’t as effective for her as they seem. This means even some of the best buffs won’t give her as much of a damage boost as you might expect. While she can still benefit from these buffs, to get the most damage out of xDiesel, it’s better to pair her with teammates who offer different types of buffs.
xDiesel needs help boosting her attack power, and ATK/caster ATK buffers can provide that – much like Mihara does with Bonding Chain. She’s one of the few high-damage Burst 3 characters who doesn’t increase her own attack stats. Support units like Liter, Miranda (using her Treasure skill, often referred to as MirandaT), and other less common picks are particularly effective when paired with xDiesel.
In-depth explanation
To figure out why Diesel: Winter Sweets isn’t performing as expected for some players, we need to break down the core calculation behind Diesel’s ongoing damage, focusing only on the elements that actually impact it.
Base Damage × Major Modifiers × Element Bonus Damage × Damage Up × Damage Taken = Final Damage
Base damage is calculated by multiplying your character’s base attack power by a sum of attack buffs and caster attack buffs, then further multiplied by the final attack damage of the attack or skill used. Major damage modifiers include a base of 1, plus any additional critical damage sources, and a 50% bonus from full burst. Elemental damage is added on top of this, starting with a base 10% bonus and any other sources of elemental damage. Finally, overall damage is increased by attack and sustained damage bonuses. Damage taken remains as damage taken.
xDiesel’s skills that deal ongoing damage all start with a very low base damage output. When you combine the damage per second from her Skill 2 and Burst at their highest levels, and apply it to a boss, it totals around 263% of her attack stat as damage over 9 seconds.
On its own, this deals very little damage – even a standard shotgun’s basic attack is more powerful. However, when combined with all of xDiesel’s damage-boosting abilities, the damage increases dramatically, reaching around 2470% of her attack power per second. That’s nearly ten times the original damage, but this calculation assumes no other modifiers are active, a component is damaged, and xDiesel is in Highlight Mode.
Because xDiesel’s damage increase comes entirely from sustained damage, simply adding more attack damage or sustained damage won’t significantly boost her DPS. It’s much more effective to focus on other modifiers allies can provide, like attack up, caster attack, critical damage/rate, elemental bonus damage, or even damage taken – these will all have a bigger impact since they multiply into an already large damage output.
To simplify things, let’s imagine that during a burst, a character deals 100% of their final attack as sustained damage each second. Let’s also assume the damage reduction from their burst ability is 25%, and xDiesel’s self-buffs increase damage by a total of 1000%. For now, we’ll ignore critical hits because they don’t consistently contribute to damage. If we use these numbers in the damage calculation, assuming the enemy has no defense, we get:
(100) × 1.1 × 1.5 × 11 × 1.25 = 2268.75
When Ade: Agent Bunny uses her Burst skill at its highest level, it increases the Attack Damage of xDiesel by 55%. This calculation doesn’t include Ade’s own Attack stat or Pierce Damage, because Sustained Damage isn’t impacted by those factors, resulting in:
(100) × 1.1 × 1.5 × 11.55 × 1.25 = 2382.1875
2382.1875/2268.75 = 1.05
The damage increase was only a small 5%. Even with a large number of units affected, xDiesel didn’t receive much benefit in this basic test. Typically, xDiesel will gain more of an advantage from the bonus to caster attack power during regular gameplay.
Blanc, once a top-tier support unit but now used more in specific situations, currently offers a 40% increase to damage taken when her burst skill is fully upgraded. While she’s fallen out of favor compared to Agent Bunny in Tetra Tower, she’s still a valuable asset for xDiesel, boosting her damage output.
(100) × 1.1 × 1.5 × 11 × 1.65 = 2994.75
2994.75/2268.75 = 1.32
xDiesel benefits significantly from a 32% damage increase! While damage reduction buffs aren’t usually as helpful as direct damage boosts, xDiesel relies heavily on increasing her damage output. This buff provides a noticeable improvement to her overall damage per second (DPS), even considering she already has a damage reduction ability with her Burst skill.
This is a simplified explanation, but hopefully it helps users understand why it’s better to pair Diesel with teammates who boost her weaknesses, rather than just enhancing her existing strengths.
Buffers to Consider vs Bosses for Diesel: Winter Sweets
xDiesel isn’t against damage-boosting supports like Agent Bunny, Grave, or Crown, but they don’t significantly increase her damage output unless they offer other benefits as well. She often finds that using typical damage-boosting units doesn’t improve her DPS much compared to other options, which can be disappointing.
Crown can give xDiesel a damage boost when she uses her special attack, but it’s not the best way to use Crown if xDiesel is your main damage dealer and only benefits from that specific type of boost. The boost only applies during xDiesel’s special attack, and she actually performs better with consistent damage increases since her regular attacks still do significant damage, even when she’s not using her special.
I’ve created a list of units that work well, or at least decently, with xDiesel as a partner. This also means that if a popular ‘meta’ buffer doesn’t boost xDiesel very effectively, it can instead support other strong DPS units where it will make a bigger difference in their damage output.
We’re assuming your team includes a unit that reduces skill cooldowns, regardless of whether it’s specifically a Nikke designed for that purpose.
Burst 1
Liter is a strong and reliable option. She significantly boosts xDiesel’s attack power and critical damage, which are both very valuable. While the boost only lasts for 5 seconds, it perfectly complements xDiesel’s skills, as her consistent and burst damage both last for 9 seconds.
Unlike most attacker units that only see a moderate damage increase during their burst window (a 5-second period after activating their special ability), xDiesel benefits from a slightly larger damage boost from Liter. Even if xDiesel already has a lot of attack-boosting stats, getting more from Liter is still very helpful, because she doesn’t have any abilities that increase her attack on her own.
While xDiesel might not land critical hits frequently, MirandaT significantly boosts her attack power for the entire duration of a Full Burst. If xDiesel has a high critical rate, this combination can result in massive damage output. This synergy also benefits Mihara: Bonding Chain (MiharaBC), who is often paired with MirandaT in Fire Raids.
MiharaBC deals a lot of damage in quick bursts, which works really well with the damage vulnerability that xDiesel applies to enemies. Because both MiharaBC and xDiesel rely on external buffs rather than boosting their own attack power, it’s easier to make sure MiharaBC gets the full benefit of MirandaT’s critical hit rate increase.
Although xDiesel technically could use the critical rate tactic with MirandaT, it’s not very effective. Unlike other units that focus on sustained damage, xDiesel needs to keep attacking constantly to keep her damage buff active. She only gains about 3 seconds of benefit per full burst, so it’s generally not recommended. This makes xDiesel unique – she’s the only unit that actually performs better with higher critical rate instead of critical damage when paired with MirandaT.
Volume remains a strong way to increase critical hit rate in the game, especially for players who prioritize critical hits. While generally not as good as Liter, Volume becomes surprisingly effective when paired with the Romantic Maid (mMast) and Innocent Maid (mAnchor) maids. The significant caster attack boost from mMast can match or even exceed the attack boost provided by Liter.
If you use mMast as the main stat buffer for xDiesel, which is a good strategy, focusing on Critical Rate and Critical Damage will be more effective. Since xDiesel doesn’t have a way to boost her own attack power, she benefits greatly from critical stats. Combining mMast’s Critical Rate boost from Skill 1 and Critical Damage from her Burst, along with a high attack stat from artifacts, can significantly increase xDiesel’s damage output.
Like Liter, xDiesel benefits from Volume’s buffs a bit more than other damage dealers. While the buffs only last 5 seconds, xDiesel’s sustained damage ability lasts 9 seconds. This means xDiesel gets more overall value from the buff during their Full Burst than other units, who only utilize around half of it.
Okay, so this setup is awesome, but here’s the thing: mMast is really good at boosting one player’s damage in raids – basically, focusing all the buffs on them. My worry is that xDiesel might not be quite ready to be that main damage dealer, and if they aren’t, all that boosting power from mMast could go to waste. It’s like having a super powerful engine, but no skilled driver!
Burst 2
Nayuta permanently increases xDiesel’s attack power. Because roughly 25% of xDiesel’s damage comes from their Skill 2, and this damage can occur even outside of burst mode, xDiesel greatly benefits from consistent, permanent boosts like the one Nayuta provides.
This combination really shines because it helps Nayuta, a powerful attacker, take more damage – which actually boosts her weapon’s effectiveness when she transforms. She essentially performs like a top-tier unit, despite being classified as a mid-tier one. Whenever xDiesel uses their special ability, Nayuta gets a huge advantage from the increased damage taken. This is a rare benefit, as most other units don’t provide enough of this effect for the whole team to capitalize on it.
While not quite as strong as Nayuta, Eunhwa (tEunhwa) is also a powerful damage dealer for a Backline DPS unit. She can both apply a damage taken debuff that boosts xDiesel’s damage and benefit from the damage taken debuff created by her own burst skill.
The biggest advantage is that these two units, being Fire-type, can inflict massive damage to enemies weak against Fire. Because tEunhwa isn’t essential for fighting Fire-weak bosses, it’s perfectly fine to use her alongside xDiesel.
Combining Emma: Tactical Upgrade (tEmma) with TEunhwa creates a powerful synergy, significantly boosting both characters. We’ll explore this surprising combination in the ‘Surprising Synergies’ section.
Okay, so xBrid is a seriously strong damage dealer. Not only does she hit hard on her own, but she also gives xDiesel a massive boost to his attack power. And here’s the really cool part: if we’re fighting a Wind enemy (which Fire units are strong against), she stacks even more debuffs that make them take extra damage. Basically, the more damage xDiesel is already applying, the harder xBrid hits too – it’s a really powerful combo!
xBrid is currently the best unit in the game for boosting a unit’s magical attack power, and it can affect any character with a short 20-second cooldown. Because xDiesel still does consistent damage even outside of powerful bursts, and really benefits from attack boosts, xBrid is a great addition to xDiesel’s team.
Switching xBrid for xDiesel limits your team options, preventing you from using both her and Tove/Drake together. Although labeled as a support character, xBrid currently functions as the primary damage dealer in raid teams facing enemies weak to fire, especially when using a ‘shotgun’ strategy. If you haven’t fully prepared Tove, using xBrid in place of xDiesel can be a good temporary solution for fire-weak encounters.
Duos
While xDiesel doesn’t deal Distributed Damage, Maids are excellent at boosting its performance, and using them together is essential. Because xDiesel heavily relies on ATK, combining mMast and mAnchor ensures xDiesel consistently benefits from a maximum Drunk stat boost from mMast whenever they both use their Bursts in sequence.
Normally, xDiesel goes second when attacking bosses, but to start a powerful attack chain, mAnchor needs to go first in the initial round. Although mAnchor doesn’t provide the same attack boost to xDiesel as other units, it’s okay for its damage to be slightly lower when it’s not xDiesel’s turn. Plus, mAnchor’s attack boost is still very effective, particularly from its second skill, which contributes significantly to the overall attack power when used in combination with mMast.
As noted in the Volume section, mMast provides a consistent boost to both Critical Rate and Critical Damage, which works very well with Maids when powering up xDiesel. If you don’t need the Maids (especially mMast) for another team, it’s best to use Volume instead of Liter for xDiesel.
The combination of Blanc and Noir is very effective with xDiesel. Blanc significantly reduces incoming damage, and Noir boosts xDiesel’s attack power as long as Noir stays healthy – which is easy to achieve with Blanc’s healing. Noir also helps xDiesel maintain a key damage bonus. Switching Noir for Rouge allows for better team synergy, specifically by enabling support from Liter.
Surprising Synergies
Okay, so xDiesel might not have that super powerful true damage, but honestly, the combo with tEmma is really strong. tEmma gives xDiesel a big boost to her attack power, plus a cooldown ability that goes off every 20 seconds for even more damage. She also weakens enemies, making it easier for both of them to hit hard. And the best part? She makes tEunhwa absolutely shine in Fire Weak stages – she can really carry, especially considering she’s a B2 unit! It’s a really effective pairing.
Currently, most Fire Weak raids don’t require both members of the Absolute duo. This means xDiesel might be able to include them in Fire Weak raids.
Okay, so this is a bit of a desperation move, honestly. Tia’s first skill doesn’t really do a ton for xDiesel, but if Naga has a shield, her burst attack does give a nice boost to caster attack power. Before xBrid came out, this was a huge way to get caster attack for everyone on the team, every 20 seconds. It’s still good, but honestly, the Nikkes I mentioned earlier, before JKs, give xDiesel way more of a benefit overall.
It’s important to know that xDiesel’s Sustained Damage ability doesn’t work with the Core Damage buff. Only the damage from her regular rocket attacks benefit from it.
If you don’t have many strong choices right now, xDiesel can still be effective against bosses, even if they don’t focus on the stat she needs. You can use JKs to temporarily boost xDiesel’s performance against bosses until you find better alternatives.
Campaign
xDiesel’s special attack can hit all enemies, but like other characters who rely on weakening opponents to do damage, it doesn’t affect newly spawned enemies. This makes her ineffective for defending bases or in defense-focused levels. Enemies constantly appear, and she lacks the single, powerful boss target she needs to truly shine with her consistent damage output.
Okay, so xDiesel is different from other damage-over-time units. While her initial damage on regular enemies might seem small, it actually ramps up fast. Even with just the weakest of her buffs applied, when you stack it with all the sustained damage boosts and the debuff that makes enemies take more damage, plus any buffs my teammates throw out, she absolutely melts through waves of enemies. It’s seriously satisfying!
Fighting a map’s boss is even more helpful, as it automatically defeats them without requiring precise aiming. However, xDiesel needs a lot of help boosting her attack power – either through attack-boosting items or support characters – because she can quickly become weak when her power drops during a campaign.
While the Highlight mode generally deals more damage, using Intro mode can be helpful during campaign levels. Because enemies are often small, the chance to miss with a burst attack—which has a 100% lower accuracy—could mean failing to eliminate a dangerous enemy quickly, potentially leading to your Nikke being defeated in one hit.
This is a small point, but it’s worth thinking about. For regular enemies, the difference between the ‘Intro’ and ‘Highlight’ effects probably won’t be noticeable because their health bars are already small. This is pretty much the only situation where ‘Intro’ is useful. If you’re playing the campaign with xDiesel, it’s best to save her for boss fights, although she can also be helpful for clearing out waves of enemies, even without a boss present.
Arena
We don’t recommend using her. She’s a typical Rapid-Fire unit, and most of her damage comes from burst attacks. In player-versus-player combat, her kit won’t be very effective because it relies heavily on sustained damage, which isn’t applied to opponents in that mode.
xDiesel relies on consistently landing fully charged shots to keep her damage bonus active. Interruptions like stuns will cause this bonus to disappear, and any remaining damage on enemies when she dies will be significantly reduced. This makes her damage output in player-versus-player combat unreliable. Additionally, if the enemy team can remove debuffs, they can eliminate her damage potential if they do so after she uses her main attack.
Special Interception | Union Raid | Solo Raid
Diesel excels at defeating tough enemies in raids and boss battles. To maximize her effectiveness, use support units that boost her abilities and other units that benefit from her ability to increase enemy damage taken. Currently, Diesel is among the strongest raiding units available. She significantly boosts her own damage, making her effective against a wide range of enemies, not just those weak to fire. Her damage output is incredibly high, rivaling top-tier damage dealers.
xDiesel struggles against two main boss types, and one of them is particularly problematic: bosses weak to Fire. Thermite β already hinders Nikkes who rely on charge weapons, and while xDiesel doesn’t deal most of her damage with basic attacks, she still needs to use them to keep up her strongest damage boost. Thermite β’s constant slowing of charge speed makes this fight a tough one for xDiesel.
The second boss you’ll face is Indivilia. While she’s weak to fire and generally susceptible to xDiesel’s damage, she has a defense mechanism: whenever her elemental barrier is destroyed, she briefly becomes immune to all debuffs.
On Indivilia, spinning shield icons mean you currently have protection from negative effects – a buff called ‘Debuff Immunity’ is active.
Indivilia’s protective buff doesn’t last forever, and it doesn’t always activate, but when it does, it creates a 15-second period where xDiesel can’t effectively deal damage. If Indivilia already has a damage-over-time debuff applied, casting the buff will immediately remove it. Also, while the buff is active, she can’t receive a new damage-over-time debuff. In a 3-minute boss fight, 15 seconds of lost damage is significant.
This impacts how much damage xDiesel’s burst attack receives. Even though xDiesel can still do a lot of damage to Indivilia, it’s important to remember that destroying Indivilia’s protective barrier will cause her to use Overcharge, which significantly reduces xDiesel’s damage output for 15 seconds.
Keep in mind that she only applies the buff right after the Element Barrier is destroyed. Because Indivilia takes time to unleash her powerful attack while the barrier is up, you can strategically wait to break it. This ensures xDiesel’s ongoing damage effect completes before she starts attacking.
Strengths
- Huge self-buffing gives her very high default damage, especially in Highlight Mode.
- Damage Taken debuff on Burst is great for allies that either have great DPS off-burst or are good non-B3 DPS units.
- Has lots of potential for DPS increases, as long as she is buffed properly.
- Very auto-friendly, especially with Resilience Cube equipped.
- Thanks to her high default damage, she is one of the most powerful Nikkes against bosses a new player can have, if their roster is low.
- Has potential to screenwipe vs normal maps, unlike other Sustained Damage DPS units.
- Diesel, my beloved.
Weaknesses
- Due to her incredible self-buffing, she is very inefficient with other buffers that provide more Attack/Sustained Damage.
- Debuff based damage means it is vulnerable to debuff immunity, and loses value in normal maps where more enemies can keep spawning.
- Vulnerable to Charge Speed reduction debuffs.
- You’ll go deaf.
Rating
| Category | Rating |
|---|---|
| Overall | SS |
| Story | S |
| Bosses | SSS |
| Arena | C |
Recommended Cubes
Diesel needs resilience to keep his S2 stacks up. Even a small boost from the Resilience Cube is enough for manual play, and a slightly larger boost is sufficient for auto-play. When combined with reload speed buffs and ammo support from teammates, Diesel can maintain these stacks almost permanently. This is crucial because Diesel’s damage output relies on consistently applying buffs with each attack.
Doll Priority
Currently, she’s one of the strongest damage dealers against bosses, even those not weak to fire, and consistently prioritizes her doll skills. Because she doesn’t have a built-in attack boost, she benefits greatly from increased attack power. This makes her potentially useful in a variety of challenging raids. While she doesn’t fully utilize the bonus damage from charge attacks, any increase to her overall damage output is valuable.
Expected Skill Priority
| Nikke | Budget Skill Investments | Recommended Skill Investments | Skill Priority | Notes | Investment Priority |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Diesel: Winter Sweets | Skill 1: 4 Skill 2: 10 Burst: 7 | Skill 1: 7 Skill 2: 10 Burst: 10 | S1 << S2 | Skill 1 provides her with an okay critical rate buff, and an important Sustained Damage buff. However, the Sustained Damage buff here pales in comparison to the one from S2, and so is the lower priority one. Skill 2 not only provides her with massive amounts of Sustained Damage, it is also the source of an additional Sustained Damage DPS debuff against a boss. Even though Burst appears to have low scaling, after all the Sustained Damage multipliers from S1 and S2 are taken into account, this is one of the hardest hitting bursts in the entire game currently. | Highest |
Overload Gear Priority
Gear Priority = Head > Gloves > Chest > Boots
| Attribute (Sub-Stat) | Priority | Recommended | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Increase Element Damage Dealt | ★★★★★ | 4x | Wanted for Union Raids and Solo Raid content. |
| Increase Hit Rate | ☆☆☆☆☆ | 0x | — |
| Increase Max Ammunition Capacity | ★☆☆☆☆ | 0 – 1x | Diesel doesn’t necessarily benefit from ammo. It just helps her maintain stacks easier, although the Resilience cube alone already does a good job with that. |
| Increase ATK | ★★★★★ | 4x | Simply more damage. For a unit that completely lacks any form of self-ATK buffing, ATK OLs are even more important for Diesel than usual. |
| Increase Charge Damage | ☆☆☆☆☆ | 0 – 1x | Even though she is a RL, she does not deal damage primarily through her basic attacks. |
| Increase Charge Speed | ★☆☆☆☆ | 0 – 1x | In a similar vein to ammo, charge speed helps Diesel maintain stacks a lot easier, especially after a reload has been completed. However, this isn’t reason enough to warrant going for this. |
| Increase Critical Rate | ★★★★☆ | 2 – 4x | As a unit with so much self-buffing, and no real need from ammo, she benefits so much from being able to critically strike more often. |
| Increase Critical Damage | ★★★★☆ | 2 – 4x | As a unit with so much self-buffing, and no real need from ammo, higher critical damage will really come through for her DPS when she gets lucky. |
| Increase DEF | ☆☆☆☆☆ | 0x | — |
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2025-12-10 09:16