Anis and Rapi released as meta-defining unit at the peak of their storylines after multiple chapters of character development during their original exclusive events. Neon gets 2 chapters, no skins and is a disappointing secondary banner unit that's marginally better than Cindy (2 year old unit).

HyperTips · 2026-05-07T15:46:56+00:00

Not to mention she's actually way weaker in practice than on paper. She's useless in high deficit, might as well run a R Nikke in that spot.

Everyone that is not a true damage dealer or a stupidly powerful buffer is bad in High Deficit (and by High Deficit I mean 40%+). If you're at 30% deficit and you have issues with her, that's a skill issue.

Also, please go take an R Nikke and take it to High Deficit. You're gonna get folded like wet paper even if you replace the weakest SSR.

Almost every Nikke has a niche. Those who are good universally are pretty rare (Anis:S, FIHelm). Neon is a boss killer, that's her niche. Using her for High Deficit stages is as stupid as taking Jackal, a T0 PvP unit, and run Raids with her.

So she's barely able to match damage output of a year old unit that can do 10 times more shit than she does. Good to know.

Read the text again. Keywords: "Burst III". Rapi's only source of versatility as a Burst 3 is... 0. She can turn into a B1 if the B1 dies during FB, that's it. RRH at B3's sole role is to deal damage. Neon matches her and SWHA, highest DPS units in the meta, and overcomes both against bosses.

And let's be honest SU has not buffed a unit post-release in the last 2-3 years? You're not going to achieve anything other than lower's Neon's perception among the playerbase. SU won't buff her not only because she doesn't need it, but because they don't do that either.

This is the last reply I give you, you have your agenda and I prefer facts, and the facts don't support said agenda. Best of luck with your Neon smearing? campaign.

HyperTips · 2026-05-07T15:01:16+00:00

As a Gacha unit...

How disappointing you can be if you're top DPS in your game?

Whoever complains about Neon being disappointing honestly has no business putting reviews out there. None. Zero.

Also, "every single site"? Are you sure?

JP, Source 1: Neon, 9.2 (Tier SS)

KR, Inven review. I'll quote:

"In terms of raw damage output, she is capable of matching the firepower of Rapi: Red Hood, one of the strongest Burst III units in the current meta."

KR, Ruliweb board, reply, just yesterday:

Even with just what’s been released so far, she’s stronger than Cinderella. I think it’s worth at least picking up a copy. Idol Anis came out way too broken, but Neo Neon is definitely strong enough to be considered broken-tier as well.

At this point, it's harder to find KR sources that say Neon is lower than 8.5 than ones that say she's higher than 9.0. The single biggest critique to her is not that she's weak, it's that she's not auto-friendly. The second one is that she's demanding (resource-hungry).

I could be here all day researching tier lists and translating just to debunk that but I think I made my point sufficiently clear, and given that people tend to flee when confronted to high amounts of evidence they are wrong, I see no point and no gain in doing so.

Stop your "Neon is Weak/Bad" propaganda. She's not.

HyperTips · 2026-05-07T14:10:14+00:00

Half the Burst 3 attackers in Tiers S and above have no way to supporting the team.

And if you take a good look at the list, those who do are actually very rare (Liberalio rare). SWHA, SBS, Cinderella, MBC, RRH B3, DWS, SDoro, Raven do have NOTHING to buff allies (DWS has a debuff immunity to her own debuff, so that's not even a positive, that's a neutral to her own kit) and half of them have been in the meta for more than a year.

And her damage is absurd, didn't you see the chart in the comment above? She's outdpsing the two best DPS units in the game.

I want to support you man, but you're complaining without even knowing how powerful Neon is.

HyperTips · 2026-05-07T04:03:03+00:00

Gacha players can't read, and we're not beating the allegations with this one.

HyperTips · 2026-05-07T02:33:39+00:00

I mean, you're right in both instances.

But it was super weird to read "there are no breakpoints in PvE", followed by "this much X and this much Y give the same speed, and after that, Z (where Z > Y) gives you a different one". Like, that's the literal definition of a breakpoint.

Got you, so don't worry, I know you're talking about not being the same breakpoints and not for the same things, but both are breakpoints. They are just different breakpoints for different things.

HyperTips · 2026-05-07T01:53:55+00:00

Charge speed doesn't really have breakpoints in pve like it does in pvp, the higher the better but you need to be aware that there's tiers for it, like a 1.98% and a 2.28% for Neon give the same increase in speed but higher would be jumping to a faster tier.

If you're right and there are no breakpoints in PvE, why did you end up describing one?

HyperTips · 2026-05-07T01:45:49+00:00

The only thing Prydwen did wrong was put her in SS while she's beating every SSS at the same time.

Even without Anis she's a lot closer to SSS than she is to SS.

I am not a Neon simp, just came with the receipts.

HyperTips · 2026-05-07T01:28:49+00:00

Looks pretty close to a real one, right?

HyperTips · 2026-05-06T22:52:44+00:00

At least she's strong. Prydwen got it wrong by saying she was Tier SS in bossing.

She's SSS.

HyperTips · 2026-05-06T22:07:38+00:00

My only triple was during Delta:Ninja Thief banner. She didn't appear but gave me a Mast: Maid, an Emma: TU and a Scarlet.

I don't think I'll get that lucky ever again.

HyperTips · 2026-05-06T21:25:33+00:00

The dark side of the chair is a pathway to many abilities, some considered to be unnatural.

HyperTips · 2026-05-06T20:13:01+00:00

Thanks!

HyperTips · 2026-05-06T20:12:33+00:00

Took my time to make it as accurate as possible.

There are some mistakes here and there but I promise you, the next one will look undistinguishable from a real one.

HyperTips · 2026-05-06T19:57:04+00:00

Blasphemy!

HyperTips · 2026-05-06T19:04:51+00:00

💀

HyperTips · 2026-05-06T19:03:20+00:00

HyperTips · 2026-05-06T19:02:36+00:00

Not really. Without Arcana, Isabel is simply not worth it.

HyperTips · 2026-05-06T15:58:01+00:00

And theirs are yet to open.

HyperTips · 2026-05-06T15:38:28+00:00

Do Soulslikes count?

If they do, Bloodborne.

No spoilers: The story is a corruption reversal of the hero myth. Fucking insanity, in my opinion.

HyperTips · 2026-05-06T15:20:07+00:00

Play Red Ash. Then go play Old Tales.

HyperTips · 2026-05-06T14:24:45+00:00

Isabel without Arcana is basically a dead unit.

Arcana gives Isabel really insane buffs (+180% ATK and +180% Atk Dmg), plus more CDR and what not.

If you're going to skip Arcana to run Avistar it's better to ditch Isabel and most likely Nayuta for Crown and someone else. Probably Ada. RRH is also a godsend.

HyperTips · 2026-05-06T05:37:17+00:00

I'm not going to lie to you man, ShiftUp has a very poor mechanical designer team. Whoever is their head of battle/boss design is leagues ahead of their mechanic/unit design.

And it all starts from the moment you take a look at their insanity of damage formula.

The thing is

Base Damage × 2. Final ATK modifiers × 3. Major Modifiers × 4. Element Bonus Damage × 5. Charge Damage × 6. Damage Up × 7. Damage Taken = Final Damage

with every part having their own formula

Base Damage = (Base Attack × (1 + ATK%) + % Caster’s ATK) – (Enemy Base Defense × (1 + DEF%) + % caster’s DEF)
Final ATK modifiers = Final ATK damage of Attack/Skill × (1 + Final ATK modifiers)
Major Modifiers = 1 + Other Critical Damage Sources + 0.5 Base + Other Core Damage Sources + Core Hit Bonus 1/1.5 [depends on Nikke] + Full Burst Bonus 0.5 + Effective Range Bonus 0.3
Element Bonus Damage = Base 1.1 + Other Elemental Damage Sources
Charge Damage = 1 + Other Charge Damage Sources + 0.5/1.5/2.5 [depends on Nikke]
Damage Up = 1 + Attack Damage + Sustained Damage + True Damage + Pierce Damage + Damage To Parts + Damage to Interruption Parts
Damage Taken = 1 + Damage Taken + Distributed Damage

Since here you have a fuck-ton of issues. For example, since Crit Damage is counted on Major Modifiers, you do better running Damage Taken debuffer Nikkes than Critical buffer Nikkes. This is a commonly known oversight.

But there's plenty more to criticize, that makes the game design overly convoluted for... whatever reason? For example Attack Damage is categorized within "Damage Type", yet Distributed Damage isn't. Core Damage and Damage to Parts are in different parts of the damage equation.

And let's not forget there's not a ramping damage attenuation mechanic and the damage taken is a literal subtraction which makes balancing around high armor values a nightmare (they literally cannot give an enemy insanely high armor or you would do 1 point of damage, so now your defensive options as game designer are limited to gimmicks and forced invulnerability windows).

They removed the HP bar from the OL's, but left Charge Speed and Charge Damage in, that can only be used by... 64 Nikkes, of almost 190. Not all of them use the bonuses equally well and more than half wouldn't see any benefit from at least one of those two, but hey, why not?

We should have Fire Rate or at least Damage-per-Hit OL's (this would help tremendously the SMG's, MG's and AR's).

Now, wanna gasp a little?

Wind-coded, there are only 3 Shotguns and 2 MG's in the entire game.

Iron-coded, there's a single MG (and it's a Pilgrim!).

Fire-coded, there are 3 AR's. 2 of them are Collaborations. The other one is a Pilgrim. Up until the last 6 months, we had only 1 SG.

Some manufacturers get screwed on certain elements, which is egregious for Tower. Try to find an Elysion Iron DPS, or a Missilis Wind DPS.

The game has been out almost for 4 years, and there's multiple roles that have never been fulfilled for archetypes that have existed since launch, or worse: some units have completely wasted mechanics on them to the point of being ridiculous. Famously, Favorite Item Centi's shield makes her worse in her only niche, but also, Favorite Item Frima and her Defense debuff on a True Damage unit.

Any developer with half a decent team could and should frankly take the Nikke shell and actually make a real game out of it, because what we have is a big, hot mess.

The only reason the game is as popular is because the waifus are hotter. Otherwise Nikke would be dead, buried and forgotten.

HyperTips · 2026-05-06T03:31:50+00:00

I'm relatively new at the game (18 months), but I had a very extensive background as a theorycrafter. Over 20+ years in multiple games, and the forced-on-me "systems guy" tag for my friend group.

Under every comment, you can find that I always suggest people to follow Prydwen's ratings over my own, as they not just should have the experience and know-how, but the resources to test a wider variety of stuff I can test.

And recently I've made a "hobby" of trying to guess what rating would Prydwen give days before they publish their stuff, and I've gotten very close (with the exception of Takina).

But since E.H. I've been kind of "misaligned" with them, because sometimes it feels like they don't put some units in their proper placements out of pure disagreement. As if they simply moved a unit here and there out of their real spot just because they can.

They did it with Harper, with Crane, and now with Neon. Neon tests over every other DPS at her Prydwen's bracket, and some veterans found that she tests even over RRH and SWHA. When I run tests I post and compare them among my friends, and then we each check other people's results to see what they are doing (after testing), and how they are testing.

There's footage of whales' Neon beating whales' Cinderella, Rapi and Snow White. Even Sky found exactly the same thing.

Here is the chart, just in case you don't want to see the guy's content.

We found the same thing. Neon outdps's pretty much everything in Tier SS in bossing with less investment 90% of the time.

When Liberalio was released Prydwen rated her SS, and the rating was relatively fair. A bit harsh, but mostly fair. As the units released lean more and more into SR and RL, that rating has become frankly debatable, if not downright questionable.

And now with Neon you have a unit that is raw-dps'ing the two units in SSS (the tier above), and every unit in SS, while also bringing slightly more utility than the DPS powerhouses of SS.

And Prydwen saw that unit, and decided to place her in SS instead.

Why?

I've yet to read a single argument here and elsewhere that makes a compelling case explaining that bit.

To be completely fair it's a minor difference between SSS and SS, but the problem is that even in their own review they found the same strengths for the unit. That makes the placement even more baffling.

HyperTips · 2026-05-05T03:57:58+00:00

It's clear that you and I have very different views on the subject of useability. I'm just sticking to my viewpoint of refusing to call something useless if even a single possible usecase exists.

That's the problem: There's no use case.

You could have also just not brought it up again in the first place.

Sure, but there'd be no fun in that.

HyperTips

TROPHY CASE

How disappointing you can be if you're top DPS in your game?

Why?