Chaton Build Guide (Skill & Ulti DPS)
Nya-hahaha! Chaton is here, and she’s cute and chuuni af!
https://i.redd.it/9lyefwisx6bh1.gif
She’s the second limited Ignis vanguard in the game, which marks the first element to have two limited vanguards. Let’s take a look at her builds and teams, and of course… how she compares to Fuyuka!
Video Version
Build Intro
Similar to Sparkla, Chaton has two different ways to use her skill based on holding or tapping her skill, each corresponding to one of her two builds.
| Input | Build | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Tap | Dark Ray | Deals damage in a line that inflicts a DOT |
| Hold | Bouncing Bomb | Throws bombs that bounce from target to target, dealing AOE damage. When only one target exists, the bomb does NOT do additional bounces. |
Because the Bouncing Bomb can't reach its full potential in single target scenarios, we'll focus instead on the Dark Ray build in this guide.
A more interesting part of Chaton’s kit is her ultimate. This changes her basic attack into a rapid pewpew for a long duration, dealing ultimate damage instead of auto attack damage (the damage still scales with your Auto Attack level). It also generates so much energy, that you’ll be able to use her ultimate off cooldown without any charge efficiency. This makes an ultimate-focused build viable for her - so, let’s take a look at her team and build options!
Support Comparisons
Note that these team comparisons are for F2P investment levels in a neutral environment; in the current boss blitz, skill damage is buffed by 80%, and the skill build also scales harder with limited discs, which we’ll cover later.
The go-to premium team uses Snowish Laru, as well as Flora as supports. Chixia is a suitable substitute for Snowish Laru, though her buffing capabilities aren’t quite as good, even when maxed out. If you don’t have her, you can use Kasimira or Tilia instead. Anyways, let’s look at the potentials for both her ultimate and skill build!
Team Potentials: Skill Build
We’ll start out with the skill build. Below are preset variations:
| Build | Code |
|---|---|
| Skill Build (Snowish Laru) | AAAAcgAAAJ4AAAB+MAYI7ALCABgMBsw2GAGA |
| Skill Build (Chixia) | AAAAcgAAAI0AAAB+MAYI7ALMMABsAMw2GAGA |
| Skill Build (Tilia) | AAAAcgAAAGsAAAB+MAYI7AJgBhhgAsw2GAGA |
| Skill Build (Kasimira) | AAAAcgAAAGwAAAB+MAYI7ALBgQANgMwyGAGA |
Notes
Snowish Laru won’t be doing too much damage in this team, so we focus on the supportive parts of her kit. On Flora, it’s tempting to run the Mindflare build for more crit rate, but it’s better to stick to the Soulflare butterfly cores - Ember of Tomorrow and Ember Rekindled - as this allows us to take Foreshadowing Verification with maximum uptime for a huge crit damage buff. Lethal Inferno is also a strong pickup, though you’ll need Charge Efficiency (minimum 25%) to make it line up properly.
No Snowish Laru? No problem!
Let’s look at alternatives for Snowish Laru before we move on. These options include Chixia, Tilia, or Kasimira.
Team Potentials: Ultimate Build
| Build | Code |
|---|---|
| Ultimate Build (Snowish Laru) | AAAAcgAAAJ4AAAB+MAEA7bbCABgMBsw2GAGA |
| Ultimate Build (Chixia) | AAAAcgAAAI0AAAB+MAEA7bbMMAAsAMwSGAGA |
| Ultimate Build (Tilia) | AAAAcgAAAGsAAAB+MAEA7bZgBhhgAswyGAGA |
| Ultimate Build (Kasimira) | AAAAcgAAAGwAAAB+MAEA7bbBgQANgMwyGAGA |
What about the ultimate build? The rest of the team’s potential priorities actually don’t change at all, so let’s focus on Chaton herself.
This build is really more of a hybrid build than a pure ultimate build, so Mark of Darkness is still very powerful. Doom’s Echo, Curse Fall, and Penetrating Bullet are all core to her ultimate’s burst, and none of them should be skipped. One point in Dominant Firepower is mandatory, while one point in Lucky Bullet is optional, and can yield a small damage increase outside of burst windows.
Gameplay Optimization
While Chaton’s skill build is very straightforward at a glance, there’s a little bit of optimization that can buff your damage by a lot. Chaton’s skill inflicts a 14 second DOT, which, alongside the “Mark of Darkness” potential, snapshots your active buffs (but not debuffs).
The damage of a DOT tick (179%) combined with a Mark of Darkness proc (365%) actually comes fairly close to the base skill damage (624%) - as such, you’ll want to coordinate your team’s buffs, the strongest of which being Snowish Laru’s Toy Army, which ramps up to a massive 350% ATK 10s after casting her ult. Due to the delay on Toy Army stacking, you’ll want to snapshot at 7-8 stacks, as after 8, Celebration Resumed will drop off.
Timeline
A visual timeline of the relevant buffs during an ultimate window.
Buff timing is even more important in her ultimate build, so let’s talk about that! Her ultimate grants 15 seconds of Cat’s Eye Mark, which starts the second you start your ultimate, and 20 seconds of pewpew time after. This basically means the first 10s after you ult will be heavily empowered by Curse Fall, which grants a huge amount of on-hit damage, and this is the window that we want to buff.
Use Flora’s ultimate 2 seconds before Chaton’s, so that it can ramp up in time. 2 seconds after starting Chaton’s ultimate, use that of Snowish Laru. Before Chaton’s ultimate animation is finished, use Flora’s skill, then use Chaton’s skill. When Toy Army reaches 8 stacks, use Chaton’s skill again to snapshot the maximum buffs.
Talent Calculations
Chaton’s talents all give fairly generic and consistent value, with her 5th talent, and potentially 1st talent, having slightly more value. Since her first talent gives crit damage, it will scale with your crit rate emblems, which this calculation was done without any of.
Best Emblems: Skill Build
Speaking of emblems though… let’s look at her emblem options, starting with the skill build! On the 70 emblem, both PEN and Crit Rate have a very high value - note that crit has some additional value that’s hard to quantify as it’ll make your skill resets more consistent. Skill Crit Rate is actually a strong generic line to get as well, holding more value than element damage or other options. On the 80 emblem, skill +3 is strong, in between Crit Rate and your second PEN line. Lastly, on the 90 emblem, levels in Mark of Darkness are very strong, while the other options, namely Lucky Bullet and Foe Annihilation, are slightly weaker than Skill Crit Rate.
Best Emblems: Ultimate Build
For the ulti build, much of the priorities are fairly similar - remember that this build still does do a decent amount of skill damage. Both Auto and Ultimate +3 are not that strong, as most of the damage from the burst is from the potentials instead of the raw damage ratios. +3s in Curse Fall, Penetrating Bullet, and Foe Annihilation are all above average value lines, but not really enough to be considered “chase” lines.
Disc Calculations: Skill Build
Let’s take a look at discs! Note that the below calculations use Harmony Level 1 to evaluate the strength of the associated skills.
On the skill build, the sigs of both Snowish Laru (Snowy Night Surprise) and Chaton (The Cat's Treasure) herself are very powerful. Fuyuka’s signature (Fireworks) boosts auto attack damage, and isn’t that great in comparison. The event discs are weaker than both the Finale (Voyage Blueprint) and Cataclysm (One Shot, One Down) discs at an equal investment. Sunlit Blossom is solid in the support slot.
Disc Calculations: Ultimate Build
For the ultimate build, the gains from the Laru and Chaton sigs are dampened but still very strong; Voyage Blueprint gains some additional value, while also holding its own as a support slot disc as ultimate damage isn’t that diluted for Chaton, compared to Fuyuka anyways.
Comparison to Fuyuka...
Speaking of comparing to Fuyuka… how do they compare? Fuyuka’s strongest build is her ultimate build, and at lower investments, so is Chaton’s. Unlike Fuyuka, Chaton can ult off cooldown without the need for any charge efficiency emblems, allowing her to have a consistent performance regardless of emblem investment - but on the topic of consistency, due to her large amount of hits, that means she’ll deliver constant damage, versus Fuyuka, who packs a majority of her damage into the first few punches of her ultimate, and can hit some godly highrolls and some depressing lowrolls. In terms of average damage, though, they actually come quite close to each other.
That’s it for this Chaton guide! All the information covered in this guide can be found on the Chaton page in the DPS calculator, which also now has a new page with all the build codes I’ve covered in my guides!
Anyways, I’ll see you guys next time, bye bye~
