Card Review with Cate: Madu

Madu is the newest addition to the 7★ Witch GFE lineup. She has great features, stats and she also introduces a new kind of leader skill to the game. Let’s break it down and see how good she really is!

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Active Skill: Increase combo count by 2 for 1 turn; Delay enemies by 2 turns. (14 max CD)

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Delay active in its own is just incredible, in Arena 3 it will buy you time for a lot of spawns, notably Sopdet and Vishnu . In Alt. Arena delay active is a common strategy against Sopdet , Noah , Gaia , Hashihime , Deightros and the Metatrons . The +2 combo count can be used to increase your damage output. In farm builds it can be used to secure a certain combo count or activate your combo enhance however this option is just a luxury and you are more likely to just appreciate the flexibility her active will offer in Arenas and Challenges.

Before we start discussing leader skill, let’s break down the new leader skill first:

Leader Skill: Multiplier/shield when matching X or more connected orbs

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This part of the leader skill is brand new, but it is very similar to some of the existing leader skill that we already have. Madu’s leader skill is similar to ones from cards like CaoCao , Mori , Enishi , Ryo and Halloween Nene where they all require you to match more than 6 orbs of a certain color and Madu does not. You may also feel like this leader skill is similar to sparkle leader skills such as Nergigante or HeraDra , but the significant difference is that Madu’s multiplier is applied to all attribute and not just the color you matched. This creates an interesting cutoff on the orb count requirement such that it is almost impossible to get a board that you cannot activate if the orb count is at 6 or lower. The leader skill can activate by matching a group of any orbs and that includes poison, mortal poison, jammers and bombs, while this info is unlikely to make an impact it’s good to keep in mind since we do have spawns like Eyro who spawns 6 bomb orbs preemptively. The merit to this leader skill is that it is extremely easy to activate and works with any kind of offensive awakenings since you are not being limited to activate the leader skill from your primary attribute.

Now that we understand how the new leader skill works let’s move on to the Base form:

Leader Skill: 3x ATK when matching 4+ combo; increase orb movement time by 3 seconds; 5x ATK and reduce damage taken when matching 6 or more connected orbs

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The base form is what you will most likely want to keep for all content except maybe farming and here’s why:

Her leader skill puts you at 11 second movetime without any awakenings and that is already more time than any of the teams I run. With the crazy amount of time to match orbs it opens up the option of using fire row enhance alongside combo enhance. This combination of awakening has not been the easiest to play around due to how time-consuming it is to match a row, the amount of orbs it take (which reduces combo count) and the fact that row enhances just don’t supply enough damage. However with Madu you will be able to utilize fire row enhance much like a supporting offensive awakening alongside subs like Leilan , Ame no Uzume , Uriel , Eren and Dogiragon . These subs will allow you to generate high damage even without matching a row of fire orbs and when you actually need the damage you will be able to output even greater damage. If these are not enough then there’re also other options available that are tailored to kill certain typings such as Napoleon for Dragon type, No.6 for God type, Kyo Kusanagi for Devil type and Brigid for Machine type and to which they can all benefit from fire row enhance. Her team will also be able to utilize Camael very well given 2 leaders already give you 8 fire row enhance and that translates to 3.4x burst already. If you build your team around fire row enhance then the number can become even greater. The active skill Madu has also synergize well with the proposed team building strategy since it can make up for the combo count when you get orb trolled.

Moving on to the Evolved form:

Leader Skill: 4x ATK and 2x RCV for Fire Att.; Increase orb movement time by 3 seconds; ATK 3x and reduce damage taken when matching 5 or more connected orbs.

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I know I’ve mentioned “except maybe farming” for the base form leader skill but I just want to clarify that it does not necessarily mean that the evolved form is good at farming. While the leader skill looks great for red team swiping it’s not like she does anything that other red row teams can’t already do. While her leader skill may suggest low orb requirement on farming, her awakening suggests otherwise. The ability to use Sado is provided by the leader skill but her awakening sets doesn’t support that. 144x multiplier with a row of fire orbs and no supporting awakenings will not net you a lot of damage. For farming harder content such as Radar dungeons that has damage null shields, her multiplier will simply be too low. Compared to Amen her numbers are a joke and Amen offers much more flexibility due to the low base cooldown on active. The only thing she offers that no others do is the double VDP that she provides but there is nothing that’s preventing you from just taking her to the sub and use a better leader.

Maybe one day I’ll need 11 seconds to swipe a monocolor board, but until then I will never make evolved form to use as a leader.

The base form Madu offers 2 skill boost+ and that is pretty rare identity for red cards to have. There are some comparable card to Madu such as Ilmina , NY Horus , Dantalion and Belial . They each bring a different set of awakenings, active skills and killer options to the table but most importantly the base active cooldown are all different and which to use and what is replaceable is all for you to figure.
Note: NY Horus and Belial gained their skill boosts from super awakenings so they will only work for solo.

The best part from the evolved form is the double VDP however red VDP cards usually end up being used in Amen farm teams. In Amen farm teams the damage isn’t the problem it is mainly about getting the initial awakening to unlock the awakening. Take Pixel Echidna for example, you will be able to output 392m damage by just using monocolor board into double row makers such as Machine Goemon into Jin . So while Madu may not be a necessity on Amen team she is still a very strong VDP card with her extremely high attack value paired with double VDP that can fit on other teams. Her typing allows her to take God killer, Devil killer and Physical killer latents. The latent killer selection covers Noah Dragon , Zeus Dragon , Azathoth and everything in Radar 4 series except Buute which makes her flexible in a good amount of cases.

Overall I’m a lot more satisfied with Madu than the other 7★ GFE’s. Her base form as a leader is very strong throughout the entire game. The combination of 3 second TE with new leader skill opened up a lot of options for team building. She is a wonderful leader to play with but there isn’t anything that she does that others can’t so in the end she’s just luxury.
On a side note, those tiddies aren’t worth the bucks.