Summary

Seems like GungHo is loving the rainbow playstyle, because right after the debut of NY Reeche, the Valentine’s Day Egg Machine brings us a new rainbow leader in Valentine’s Ideal. Valentine’s Ideal somehow packs even more of a punch by packing the same survivability as NY Reeche but also provides a natural recovery multiplier in exchange for a small reduction in firepower. Furthermore, the +2 combo effect not only boosts damage but also improves consistency of activating Enhanced Combos (7c) and even Super Enhanced Combos (10c) awakenings.

The main weakness with Valentine’s Ideal is that her entire leader skill is based around matching four or more attributes. This means that Valentine’s Ideal is subject to the occasional orb troll, but is also extremely vulnerable to hazard skyfall due to the presence of poison/jammer orbs vastly increasing the chance of orb troll. Pairing with a 7×6 board leader can vastly mitigate this problem. (Not going into 7×6 lead swap because that can apply to almost every leader, and because I’m too lazy.)

Good News (Yay!)

• 3 Enhanced Combos (7c) awakenings provide massive personal 8x ATK multiplier when matching seven combos (feasible on most given boards, and especially accessible with LS).
• 2 TE+ provides substantial two seconds of move time; applies at all times (compared to something like NY Reeche, which has built-in move time in LS only).
• 1 Skill Charge shortens effective cooldown from 15 turns to 8~12 turns.
• Active provides RCV rebuff, awoken bind clear, and guaranteed rainbow board; extremely versatile active that covers lots of stuff.
• 4x HP, 324x ATK, 4x RCV and 43.75% shield is pretty ridiculous combination of survivability, recovery, and firepower; in addition, the sacrifice of skyfall combos in exchange for an additional four (mostly) guaranteed combos is generally a positive trade, considering that skyfall is not as friendly.

Bad News (Boo.)

• Cooldown is longer than you would think (despite one Skill Charge and a medium-ish 15 turns to wait).
• Entire leader skill dependent on matching four or more attributes; prone to orb troll.
• Problems that rainbow teams face, like dependency on void bypass actives and triggering every attribute absorb shield.

Team Building

Here are some things to be addressed when building a team (because no leader is perfect).

Typing and Attributes

Maybe a bit obvious, but to maximize passive multipliers, subs should be Balanced or Dragon type. In addition, the subs altogether should include Wood, Light, and Dark attributes for full color coverage in order to maximize leader skill activation.

Once within these requirements, bring whatever utility is needed for the dungeon. Need a combined bind/awoken bind clear for Fuma Kotaro in AA2? Take Yashamaru Kurama and his versatile active to protect yourself. Need a quick time buff active to counter a ridiculous amount of time debuffs? Take Zaerog – Core or Super Reincarnated Bastet . As you can see, all these cards are either Balanced or Dragon type and provide some color coverage (Wood and/or Dark).

If you are a new player and somehow managed to roll Valentine’s Ideal, then typing and full color coverage are really the only requirements; add whatever else you need under those restrictions. At this point, you should be learning how to combo (and Valentine’s Ideal will help you do that, so enjoy). However, if you are a bit more advanced…

Big Board Pairing

To reduce orb troll (which is Valentine’s Ideal’s only major weakness), Valentine’s Ideal can pair with a [7×6 board] leader to increase the number of orbs. However, keep in mind that the extra combo effect from the leader skill somewhat diminishes in value, while the “no skyfall” effect still holds. Here are some options.

From the Fujimi Fantasia Bunko Collab, Orphen provides a 7×6 board, a 25% shield, and massive RCV (relative to effective HP) but is dependent on matching Light and Dark every turn to maintain full shield (not terribly difficult on big board). Orphen possesses a large amount of personal firepower (10x ATK) and team sustainability (4 Team HP awakenings) but is bindable.

From the Three Kingdoms 2 Pantheon, Diaochan provides 7×6 board, a 25% shield, and sufficient RCV but requires a match of 5+ linked Light Orbs to proc the shield (which is more of an annoyance than anything, but worth noting). Diaochan is bindable but brings L-Unlock awakenings and that sexy super blind resist.

From the Heroine Exclusive Series, both forms of Uruka work with Ideal to provide a 7×6 board, 1.5x HP and either a 25% shield or 2x RCV (depending on which form of Uruka) but requires that Fire, Water, Wood, Dark, and Heal are matched; the big board considerably mitigates the severity of both leaders’ activation requirements. Unfortunately, Uruka restricts the sub pool to Dragon type only, which excludes a plethora of powerful Balanced-type rainbow cards.

From the Monster Hunter Collab, Diablos provides 9x ATK, a 25% shield, and an extra two combos in exchange for matching eight combos and all attributes. Since the attack multiplier and damage reduction shield are tied to the combo count activation clause, Diablos is a simple but consistent big board pairing that doesn’t have a typing restriction. Unfortunately, the additional combo effect in the leader skill loses a lot of value when considering how the bigger board already serves to provide additional combo. Furthermore, Diablos possesses a terrible active skill and a lackluster set of awakenings.

Void Bypass

Becoming fairly common in annihilation-level content, rainbow teams require void bypass actives to defeat enemy spawns with damage void shields.

• For most content, one is more than enough.
• For Arena and Colosseum, two are recommended.
• A base with at least two Skill Charge is recommended for inheriting void bypass actives (mainly equips). Void bypass active cooldowns usually are extremely long, which is why all of the available non-equip options also come with at least one Skill Charge awakening (with the exception of Fagan-Rai, who is a special case). Therefore, void bypass actives (equip should be inherited on cards that possess Skill Charge because the awakening will substantially reduce the extremely large effective cooldown of an inherited void bypass active.

Viable Void Bypass Options

Arguably the easiest to obtain as a 7★ GFE, Akine provides that valuable void bypass active plus a rainbow board. Unfortunately, Akine is the slowest charging void bypass option of any base card due to only possessing one Skill Charge and is severely limited in multiplayer or rogue dungeons (like Colo2) because a substantial portion of her value is tied to her full hazard resist super awakenings. At least she has a FUA.

From the Shaman King Collab, Hao includes a rainbow board change without Heal Orbs in the void bypass active. While this may help to maximize damage, the active becomes awkward when requiring a FUA on top of the void bypass. Hao has two Skill Charge awakenings that allow him to charge up his active relatively quickly but doesn’t provide much utility otherwise (does have a tape resist super awakening).

An Odysseus-style equip with a full rainbow board change in addition to the void bypass active, Akine Equip is “technically” the easier of the two void bypass equips to obtain. If owning a Shelling Ford, I would highly recommend investing into LFord Card instead.

The superior of the two void bypass equip options, LFord Card provides an unmatched three turns of void bypass along with a three-turn haste as well as an SB and some hazard resists. Use this over Akine Equip if possessing both.

Optimal Bases for Void Bypass Inherits

DISCLAIMER: Anything with one Skill Charge awakening will work, just not as effectively. In addition, bases with two Skill Charge that are off-type (such as Asuna) can also work, but are less desirable due to the loss of passive type-based multipliers.

A 7★ GFE, Reeche has the requisite two Skill Charge to be an effective charging base for a void bypass inherit. She has two Enhanced Combos awakenings for a respectable amount of damage and can also provide tape or cloud resist via super awakening. Unfortunately, Reeche does not provide color coverage due to attribute overlap with Valentine’s Ideal.

From the Gungho Collab, Dark Reeche is essentially a dark version of Reeche that has higher stats at Level 110. The main benefit of Dark Reeche over Reeche is that she provides additional color coverage (Dark). That being said, she does not have a sub attribute.

From the Heroine Exclusive Series, Orya (as Reeche’s disciple) possesses the requisite two Skill Charge to be an effective charging base for a void bypass inherit. The main appeal of Orya is her natural double Devil Killer awakenings (as well as the ability to take on Devil Killer latents), which makes her far more effective in terms of damage compared to Reeche/Dark Reeche against Devil types (relevant in A5/AA3 due to prevalence of Devil type spawns). She also possesses a FUA via super awakening. Unfortunately, Orya does not provide color coverage due to attribute overlap with Valentine’s Ideal.

From the New Year Egg Machine, NY Reeche is the best in this role due to her unique triple Skill Charge; this allows her to charge her active and inherit incredibly fast. In addition, she has triple Enhanced Combos awakenings for consistently high personal damage (8x ATK) and provides additional color coverage (Light). NY Reeche can also have either a Devil Killer (A5/AA3) or Machine Killer (Colo2) SA as well as corresponding killer latents to augment her already formidable firepower.

A Look To The Future

The Sword Art Online Collab has recently returned to JP and as a result, GungHo added new cards and buffed old cards to make the collab appealing. Since NA usually receives the same things that JP does after a delay, I thought it would be wise to look ahead and see how future cards work with current cards.

From the SAO Collab, Kirito attaches a spike (based on Skill Charge) to his void bypass active, which is convenient considering rainbow teams in general want to kill damage void shield spawns right away due to the relative inaccessibility of void bypass actives. However, the spike will not be very large because of the rarity of the awakening. Kirito has two Skill Charge awakenings (which shortens effective cooldown considerably) as well as a FUA and a 10c.

As a leader, Kirito provides a 7×6 board, a 25% shield, and massive RCV. Kirito is an extremely powerful leader pairing with Valentine’s Ideal because he has very similar activation requirements (the rainbow-style four or more attributes) and brings an extremely valuable active skill and synergistic set of awakenings.

Parting Note

If you read all the way to here, wow! As you might be able to tell, a lot of the restrictions on Valentine’s Ideal require powerful but extremely rare monsters. Therefore, if you see a real Valentine’s Ideal player…

(Or maybe they’re just extremely lucky.) Either way, good luck and have fun!