Recently, I've been coming across an opinion that AshBlade as a duo is just another 'low-cost wonder'—a team that is only good in the moment but is doomed to fall off after the HP inflation finally strikes, since they allegedly don't have good verticals; and that, for them to last, they'd need WAven.

I don't agree with this position, and I've been very vocal about how bleak the verticals prospectives are in WAven team. Thus, I've decided to finally make a full-scale Plight compilation, since I've been living in these stages ever since v1, and consistently clearing Plight has become my new endgame goal.

AV/DPAV numbers

Boss	WAven	SRobin
Irontomb (4.5)	299241 DPAV / 500av	368545 DPAV / 487av
Graphia (4.4)	578051 DPAV / 419av	802578 DPAV / 305av
Illwish (4.2)	472944 DPAV / 392av	509887 DPAV / 358av
Sunday (3.8)	358153 DPAV / 394av	406899 DPAV / 368av
Aquila (3.7)	384203 DPAV / 500av	533531 DPAV / 444av
Lygus (3.6)	633345 DPAV / 470av	778116 DPAV / 348av

The yap section

A quick disclaimer: Where am I coming from.

• Ashveil is by far my favorite character in the game. That means a lot, as I don't often get attached to the characters in this game. As such, I'm always slightly biased towards him. Making him shine, and last in his team (even with his mediocre eidolons) is my main priority.
• I don't like to invest horizontally, unless it's to upgrade my main teams, or my 2nd/3rd team is cooked beyond saving. I'd rather make my favs stronger than get a bunch of weaker toys that will become obsolete sooner than I build them up to my standards. In other words, I'm not really qualified to talk about full E0S0 teams, as my only experience of playing them is from their respective betas.
• I have no horse in the monomen race. As long as the kit is good and the unit improves on Ashveil's perfomance, I'd pull even a frog for this team.
• I don't care about cost min-maxing.
• 'Overall account value' is a whatever arguement for me. As long as I have any use for them, they can be as 'valuable' as Cerydra for all they want. I spent 4 GCS on E4 Welt just to use him in one 0c with Ash, and even E2 MBlade was pulled exclusively for this team, with me not caring a dime about his 'universal value'.
• I don't chase meta in the conventional sense. That said, if given the choice between 'good enough' and 'the best', I'd always choose the latter. 0c'ing is my way of having fun in this game.
• I don't mind pulling for extra cost to remove in-built clunk, or if their eidolons are transformative to their playstyle.

Why Plight?

>Because Plight is THE hp inflation hellhole, where even the newly released units can't do much without their eidolons. The fights there are naturally drawn out, and the bosses are impossible to overkill, unless you have the ridiculous investments. As such, the mechanical pitfalls and synergy shortcomings are more likely to come to light. The team's consistency is way more important than big burst damage at this investment level.

>While sustainless isn't outright banned in Plight, it's way harder to pull off, and most teams are forced to run a sustain. This increases the cost requirements all over the board, and can even kill the performance of the comps that don't have enough 'good' verticals to make up for the damage loss.

>Finally, Plight stages always come with a wide variety of shill and anti-shill, and some of the older stages already include some very unfavorable matchups for both SRobin and WAven comps.

>Therefore, Plight is probably the best place to go* (out of the options available in the game) if you want to gauge the impact of the team's verticals, or how they're going to fare in a hostile environment. Even though this method, too, has an obvious flaw (Plight giving you more av for the max reward), the runs are still informative enough.

Why are old rotations also included?

>To get a bigger sample size. As I've mentioned, AA changes its anti-shill every patch, so using only the most recent rotation or two would be short-sighted, especially since we're still in FuA shilling era. Besides, it's not like Aquila is any less tanky than Irontomb, and past rotations have got some very unfortunate debuffs and matchups for the modern FuA (hi, Depowered).
That said, Skaracabaz, Sparxiecon and Pom-Pom were banned for obvious reasons.

Why doesn't WAven team use the Elation buffs?

>Because the Elation buffs won't be around forever, similarly to how tailor-made break/dot buffs are nowhere to be seen now—in the very next AA, all these teams will have to settle for 40% dmg only for ults and skills, which is more akin to playing with no buff at all. As such, if I'm pulling for 12+ cost team, I'd like them to perform well even with scrappy generic buffs.

About the builds

>The builds of Hyacine, Ashveil and MBlade are ported directly from my live account. WAven and SRobin are given the builds with equally high substat rolls. SRobin is on Sacerdos because I forgot the Delieverer was a thing.

>Why would Ashblade retain their dps builds, you may ask? Because that's exactly what they're going to use on my account, regardless of who I decide to go for. I'm aware that WAven wants Eagle on his teammates. Sadly, back when Ashveil came out in March, no one could know that WAven would be made into such a selfish mDPS who couldn't care less that his supposed 'teammates' waste more than half of their kit budget on personal damage. Thus, I've been religiously farming the most optimal Ashblade sets, and have already spent a few dozens of SMR to refine their builds. I'm not throwing all that away, and all my Eagles/Vonwacqs are garbage regardless.

>However, if you plan to go for WAven, switch at least one of them (preferably, both) into the spd-err-eagle builds, for the love of god. Even if it doesn't closes the gap between WAven and SRobin, it still helps WAven shave 20-40av off. As much as it pains me to say this, Ashblade dmg isn't worth it beside invested WAven with his sky-high hit-count requirements and turn dependancy. Even if Eagle buys them just one more action before Aha instant, that will already be more dmg.

Why is E2S1 SRobin/WAven specifically

>E2S1 SRobin is the minimum investment requirement for my account to clear 4.5 Plight. Otherwise, I'd have to go for Hyacine's eidolons, and I'm not sure I can afford it. Thus, WAven also got his E2S1 for the sake of fairness. Most runs (other than Aquila and maybe Lygus) allow them to drop 1-2 cost.

Why is Hyacine only E0S0?

>To prove a point, kinda. E0S0 Hyacine is one of the most overrated characters in the game. Without SRobin, all she can offer to Ashblade is a meager 30% hp buff to MBlade and a better-than-average attack frequency... with the condition that you almost exclusively spam basics on her. But it you spam basics, her ult uptime falls down the cliff. Unless you're only ever fighing the kinds of Pom-Poms and Hoolays, she's bound to eventually lose her ult for a turn or two.

>With E2S1 SRobin, the only extra thing she does is gives Ash up to 800 more atk, which is indeed better than nothing, and it does make up for the loss of DHPT. The thing is, Ashveil is already oversaturated on atk (7000+ in battle), and SRobin doesn't really help with Hya's uptime.

>Besides, E0S0 (basic-bot) Hyacine doesn't really heal that much. Without her S1, her heals can only be triggered when she uses a skill or ult, or someone in the team (other than Ica) loses HP through an enemy attack or self-inflicted dmg... which, in practice, means that you often have to rely on MBlade's skills/FuAs to drive SRobin's energy passive.

>Hyacine+SRobin's synergy does become spectacular if you invest into Hyacine, but whenever I tested the team's sustain options in normal content (the one which Huohuo can actually sustain), E0S0 Huohuo either outright outperformed E0S0 Hyacine, or came very close. Yes, even with Robikini.

>So, for E0S0 Pearl to tilt the scales into WAven's favor, she would have to be more than 30+% upgrade for WAven's team, which is a... tall order from a mDPS with no sustain incentive in his kit. If such thing happens, then I can only congratulate the devs with probably killing sustainless for good, but back in the days, people also put all their hopes into DHPT fixing all the problems with Phainon and Cerydra, and we know how it went. The average of 70-100av gap is too huge to be overcome with some minor sustain buffs, after all.

>However, if you still hope for Pearl, here's a piece of insight: pray that she has a dedicated healer mode. E2 WAven attacks so often that MBlade gets to red hp in no time, and at this point, not even Hya's skill+ult combo is able to quickly heal him out. I had to scrap several recordings just because MBlade kept speedrunning his own demise, and there was no way to get his zone back before Aha Instant. And ideally, Pearl should allow him to take dmg from enemies and not just compensate for his self-inflicted hp-loss. Otherwise, the team will be left will one more half-obsolete E6.

But why is the difference so huge? Aren't they perform similarly in normal content?

>Here's a little story: back when I just pulled MBlade E2S1 in 4.3, I got the easiest AA 0c in my life, and, all in all, felt invincible, even though I was aware about the team's many flaws. So, I decided to try Plight... and got immediately humbled, as my damage was suddenly not enough, and Ashveil's 'not-so-bad' downtime led to everyone's downfall.

>The same thing happens with WAven. While his damage is very good, his mechanics are flawed. He cannot control the timing of Aha Instant, thus his bounce dmg is often wasted on the field full of mobs. Aha Instant deletes all his Fervor, thus he's regularly forced to overkill 2% HP bosses with no means of carrying over the resources. He's also very turn dependent for the Fervor stacking; without refreshing the 6 stacks of his Passive, his hit requirements are unreasonably high. As a result, you can't even afford to spam the attacks too much (so that you avoid wasting energy), as that can result in Aha jumping over WAven's action and firing off an underpowered Elation skill... and, of course, deleting all your Fervor stacks.

>At the same time, SRobin has both 'slightly more damage' and better mechanics going for her. Her buffs are good, her ults help to front-load the team's damage, and she actually puts effort into fixing Ashveil's main flaw instead of forcing the team to dance around her needs. While she is in no way perfect for the team, she's still got a stronger foundation to work with. "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer", or something like this.

Where's SRobin+WAven option

>The team is indeed good and comfy, but I'm not looking for the best WAven's team. Ashveil is my priority, and even though I have my gripes with E0 MBlade, E2 MBlade is as close to the 'tailor-made support' as Ashveil will probably get in the foreseeable future. Kicking him off the team would mean killing Ashveil's potential for good, and that's a no-no in my book. Especially when the alternative is playing a clunkier version of the said team with worse mechanics.

'But that's not the most optimal cost distribution for WAven'

>See, that's exactly why I took such big issue with the longevity claims. WAven can only invest into himself, since his so-called supports waste most of their eidolon budget on improving their non-existent damage. Even though his E6S5 is incredible and will carry him for a while, that's a very dangerous place to be, especially when none of your supports are even niche/tailor-made for your needs. Nothing about MBlade or Ashveil is truly irreplaceable for WAven; he only uses them for their strong buffs and good frequency. His kit has no need for sub-dps(es); he's hypercarry through and through. And just a strong amp is never enough to earn a permanent spot in the team. Once Ashblade's amp starts to fall off, WAven will kick them out without hesitation.

>If anything, WAven harms their longevity. On their own, Ashblade's vertical situation is actually very good—MBlade's got very strong E1, E2 and E6 with some absurd frequency potential, and even decent E4. Ashveil's eidolons are at worst mediocre and boring, but all of them still improve on his damage by a decent amount. Finally, Robikini brings another set of powerful support eidolons to the table (and forces Hyacine's verticals to benefit them too), helping them gain a steady ground on the higher end of investments. With WAven, they can only piggyback on his success, while dreading for the day when he gets any alternative (even if in the form of another generalist). I would never wish such fate on a character I'm passionate about.

Some criticism

For SRobin team:

• Depowered hurts them badly, since MBlade cannot gain out-of-turn energy until his second turn. The ramp-up is longer than in WAven's case (vs. Depowered); the fight only properly starts when Ashveil gains his first ult.
• MBlade is still the only one who can deal an actual toughness damage. Though SRobin's chickens have got better toughness damage than Tribbie's FuAs, they are still more likely to just kill an enemy before it's broken.
• Chickens are AV sprinters who can get action-delayed or stuck at the start of the next cycle.
• If the enemy is slow and doesn't attack much, the team really loses its momentum.
• Due to the loss of Tribbie's instant FuAs, getting rid of Ashveil's charges generally takes more time, unless MBlade has enough charges/is close to ulting, so that you can quickly cycle through them. For the most part, that's non-issue, but there are several instances where it forces Ash to overcap a bit.
• One of the most annoying teams to play sustainless. Ashveil is Ashveil, MBlade constantly speedruns his way to the grave, and SRobin loses half of her energy regen without a sustain. Though if you have enough damage to end the fight quickly, the fourth buffer makes them do some funny numbers.
• Robin's ult regen is heavily tied to the turns of her birds and the sustain/heal frequency. Allies can only consume her Groove stacks once per their turn, and since I don't use Hya's S1, Robin doesn't ult all that often.

For WAven team:

• The verticals.
• He and MBlade are in a constant tug-of-war between their gameplay priorities. MBlade is built to dish out as many attacks as humanly possible AND to dish out them as soon as he can. His overcap mechanic only allows him to delay his ult by one FuA proc; otherwise you're just shooting your ceiling in the leg. But as soon as WAven reaches 30/50 Fervor, he just starts ignoring any of the teammates attacks, even if Aha is still far enough to dump his charges. And due to his extra Fervor passive, he would really prefer for you to delay all your attack barrage until he takes his turn.
• CC is one of WAven's worst enemies. If he gets CCed, not only does Aha Instant changes to the default weak attack, but all of his FuAs (from E1/E2) also get wasted. They don't get cued and, unlike MBlade, he cannot use them up in a succession after he's freed. At most, he will use the final (from 30/50 stacks) one, and that's it. What's lost is lost.
• AoE encounters are not his forte either. WAven put all his eggs in the powerful Bounce basket, leaving his true-AoE attacks underbaked. Thus, if an enemy manages to litter the field with trash mobs just before Aha's turn, WAven may not even be able to finish the last 5% hp of the boss.
• His ult has no excuse to do so little.
• Somehow, he's even more affected by Energy Absorption++ than AshRobinBlade team.
• It's still possible for Aha to take THEIR turn at x7/x8/x9 (i.e 27/38/49) Fervor stacks and just delete every unused stack.
• Aha speed mechanic goes against everything FuA stands for. FuA as the archetype is built around unleashing as many attacks as possible in the shortest amount of AV, regardless whether someone is taking a turn. But if you mindlessly spam your attacks outside of anyone's turn (or if you're MBlade who does it by default), Aha will lap your team and take THEIR turn too early, leaving you no opportunity to full stack WAven. The opposite is also possible: your supports have their bursts ready so they get WAven to 50F in no time, but then everyone is left doing nothing.
• His extra Fervor passive ties too much of his stacking to his turn. As a result, you're constantly stuck in a dilemma, whether to spam Ashblade's ults as soon as they are ready, or to wait for his turn to refresh the passive. If you go with the former route, you're at high risk of not being able to reach 50F before Aha Instant. If you go with the latter, you will lose a bunch of energy. In the world of action scalers, he only cares about his own turns.
• Aha pay no mind to a boss' mechanics. If you're unlucky, then your max-Fervor elation skill will be dropped on 90% dmg res Pollux.
• Aha pay no mind to damage control. If WAven's weaker e.skill dared to leave enemy at <5%, the enemy will die from the full glory of the max-output 50-fervored elation skill.
• WAven's damage is inherently backloaded. You cannot gain anything from stacking his Fervor, unless Aha takes a turn. But Aha is AV crawler who can only take a finite amount of turns in the battle. Thus, Aha is very susceptible to getting stuck at the unreachable side start of the next cycle, with no amount of spd buffing being able to help THEM. And in these cases, WAven is just left sitting there with his 50 Fervors and no hope of getting any pay-off for his efforts. Praise be to Lightning Lord of our time.

Some praise

For Robin teams:

• Shortens the ramp-up time of Ashveil's E2.
• Allows E2 Ashveil to consistently ult at 18 Gluttony stacks, which was not always possible in the past if he got his ult back too fast.
• (Mostly) fixes Ashveil's downtime, thus making the dual-carry comp more comfortable to play.
• Amazing personal verticals.
• The buffs surpassing those of og Robin, which have always been incredible for Ashveil + Sunday's utility + out-of-turn AA + decent frequency + 100% def.shred
• Gives the team a solid sustain option with very strong verticals that now benefit everyone
• Her E1 gives the team the last missing 'rare' dmg multiplier (true dmg).

For WAven team:

• Incredible speed of weakness-breaking
• Probably the fastest character to deal with Pom-Pom mechanic
• His E2 frequency is very fun.
• Whenever an enemy doesn't hate bounce for daring to exist (ST/linked hp encounters), his dmg is bonkers.
• If you're a fan of Aventurine, you've won a life-time lottery with these eidolons

The closing arguement: some thoughts about the future

Now, that may come as a bit of suprprise, but I don't think either of 4.5 units is a mainstay on the team. That's not to say they will be kicked out in a patch—I think they have a solid chance sticking around for at least half a year. But back when 4.3 beta just dropped, I was genuinely impressed by MBlade's kit and how he managed to address almost every single one of Ashveil's shortcomings, while perfectly complementing his best qualities. It was as if he was the missing second half of Ashveil's kit, and when he was revealed, the puzzle finally clicked (I still miss his v1 E2). None of 4.5 units inspire the same 'wow' in me.

WAven is designed in a fundamentally different way.

Ashblade are a dual-carry core with mutual buffing capabiliets and two distinct damage profiles, that being ST with some blast and AoE with extra bounces. They're true action scalers whose natural turns hold little value, and whose identity is built around their ults—that's their main way of accessing/dealing dmg, and their gameplay loop is all about ulting as much as possible.

At the same time, WAven is just a hypercarry who happens to charge his damage through the attacks of his allies. His identity is built around elation skills and, as an extension, Aha Instant, while his ult is a whatever button that can occasionally make his charging easier. He likes his turns—and even needs them, since otherwise his frequency requirements are just ridiculous. Moreover, he's a very fake action-scaler, as he just stops scaling altogether after a certain point, even if his allies aren't anywhere close to running out of steam. Therefore, when playing him with Ashblade, you're stuck in an eternal tug-of-war, where it's impossible to please both sides and you're constantly forced to choose whose wants to prioritize.

Robin is a bit weird for me. On the one hand, the devs clearly considered Ashblade as one of her team options—they're one of the few comps to not struggle with her Vibe fluctuations, and the ones who benefit the most from her atk/c.dmg trace checking every teammate independently. And there's also, of course, her invaluable ult that single-handedly fixes some of the biggest weaknesses of this team.

On the other hand, her kit is too universal and inoffensive for her to stick around. She never truly commits to any team or archetype—she has no FuAs, no ult damage, no out-of-turn actions beside proccing her ult. While she does have her heart in the right place i.r.t. fixing some of the major downsides of the team, she's not irreplaceable. Ashblade have a very strong mechanical foundation, and eventually they will be able to go on without her. But at the present, she is their best option with truly violent buffs and incredible eidolons to ensure they will last.

Does it mean 4.5 units are bad/skippable? It doesn't. Both of them are great, and the best this game currently has to offer for Ashblade, as far as the vertical performance is concerned. You will probably be fine without them, if you've already invested into Tribbie or don't chase the best possible results/don't really care about AA. But if you like 4.5 units, or want to upgrade the team, then they're a viable pick. I've never been of fan of the mindset of 'skip the current BiS and suffer for months with no damage, because that current BiS may get replaced'.

E0S0 Robin or E1 Tribbie? More often than not, E1 Tribbie.

Is it even possible to create a perfect 3rd slot? The perfect concept has already been once in a beta—v1 Gilgamesh; specifically, his gimmick with converting the energy used by the allies into his own. Just replace the conventional energy bar with Castorice-type ult, and, if self-AA is truly problematic, give him something like Himenova-type of frequency. Maybe give him better buffs too.
If we go with a more supportive route, then just a Tribbie with better buffs and better damage, and maybe some modest ERR on top.

Help me decide if I should get Ashveil or Blade's sig lightcone if my planned team is E0 Ashveil, E2 Blade, E1 Sobin and E0S1 Hyacine.

Thanks!

Hello!!! My team rn is Ash E0 with S5 Stellar Sea, MBlade E2S1, RMC and HuoHuo E0S0

I will get Waven and his sig lc that’s for sure, then will the left over jades, should I get Ash lc or E1? But I prob don’t have that many jades left after pulling Waven :( tysm for your help!!! And good luck pulling <33

My team is Ashveil E0 S1(ratio LC); Mblade E2s1; Tribbie e1 s5DDD; healer (eg HH)/sustainless.

Is it worth to replace Tribbie for Waventurine E0? Also i dont think i have enough wish for the LC.
Are there existing cals or showcase?

I plan to get waventurine e1s1 maybe e2s0 if he got his e2 buffed I haven’t seen, but also I want to get ashveil that I’m 100% doing but for light one is his a must have? I have feixiao,topaz, ratio’s lc are any of them good enough or is sig that big of an upgrade? I have e1s0 blade joining them as well, and lastly is err or atk better in the team I’ve seen many debates in this subreddit abt it

I wanna use topaz because I low-key want to, I know she is not good for fua teams but I'm sure ashveil mortenax blade duo will carry her lol. I'm just wondering if they can do well together. Has anyone tried using topaz with them? Also I have weird satisfaction when I use weaker characters for some reason so yea

Hi new to this sub. I plan to pull for Ashveil on his rerun. I currently have M2S1 MBlade. No Hyacine, have been using E1 S2 Luocha as my Sustain for Mblade.

Question is: Who is better for the Ashblade team based on buffs and Synergies. E1S1 Tribbie or E1 S1 OG Robin.

Thanks?

At E1S1 they are equally powerfull for diferent reasons, more or less but they are there.

(Disclaimer, pick the one that you like the most this is for people that like all 3 and have to choose 1 or dont know)

-Pick WAven if Elation has kicked your *ss and want the most powerful option for the long run, mid base power but the strongest end of the 3 while invested, recomended if you want to follow the meta or want to make aventurine the strongest at the cost of reducing Ashveil damage output, now outside of this team is deadweight (not including elation ofc),Hyacine best sustainer but lets see what pearl does for him.

-Pick Robin SP if you want the duo to shine the most, they are doing the most damage and both becomes the main dps in a way, she gives value for your entire account so even if they create a stronger team she can be in another, Like her song(important lol) and has a high base power and stays high with investment, at E0 she is a support at E1 onwards she hits like a truck also just by existing makes your team speed demons lol, Hyacine best sustainer.

-Pick Gilgamesh if you wanna invest in Blade specifically, this team is the one that benefits the most of his vertical investment,Probably the most fitting aesthetic wise,bad-mid base power huge peak at E1 but mid at best late (I would say bad late if he didnt peaked in E6), if you are looking for the cheapest cost and leave it there or go all in into blade he is your man, also his healer slot is unknown, Huo2 has anti synergy (even if she is the best here) because you trade more energy using skill for less actions (stacks) for the team, also has the chance to grow A LOT if they for some chance create a fate character either a support (Ashveil is good but he is the weakest link here) or a sustainer that buffs him like he did with saber.

Summary.

Aven is the safest and strongest pick,a 1 man army cheatcode for elation Mid early, highest end.

Robin flexible and good pick and at the worst case scenario she can go somewhere else, high early, high end.

Gilgamesh is the riskiest one he can be an Anaxa buffed a billion times indirectly or a Boothill forgoten by time even his BIS sustainer is unknown, at the end FATE has to decide, its a gamble, Bad-mid early, High peak at E1, Bad-mid end.

I hope i help you decide because a lot of people are somewhat confused and pls this is my opinion and be civil about it <3

Disclaimer - I count Gilgamesh 0 cost at E01S1, if you read this over his free LC and character period then unless you like him in performance is a lot worst than the other two no questions asked, you decide if its worth it or not.

Hi, im planning to pull for ash and use him with e2 mblade and either sobin or waventurine. Ive seen that his main issue is his Ult uptime despite having enough attacks to get max Gluttony stacks. Previously the extra 5 energy per skill didn't do enough for him, but with newer units bottleneck changes.

According to Calcs and Showcase, ER rope performs better than ATK in both robin and aven teams -

In robin team: robin already gives enough ATK buffs, so ATK% buff is more diluted,

In aven team: aven is the main source of damage and ashveil basically acts as his battery (generate fervor).

So my understanding is, ER rope is strictly better in all of these teams.

Right now im running ashblade, gil and huohuo, all e0s0.
I still want to make ashblade the main carries so should my priority be e2 mort or e1 roberto?

I don't have mblade nor ashveil but I'm planning to make ashveil team and wanted to pull for 3 or 4 cost on 4.5 I'm pretty split up between pulling Waven or Robin or wait for mblade rerun. Should I get Ashveil Robin and Waven or Ashveil and Robin then wait for mblade

My current plan for my ashblade team is ashveil(E0S1) , blade(E0S1), Tribbe (E0S1), HH(E0, post-op S5). Since im pulling ashveil already i only have enough to grab 1 char + their sig so would my team have better long term use if i grab waven or s.robin?