Blanc and Noir – reviews and ratings!

Disclaimer

This is an early review for Blanc and Noir, so their rating can change in the future as we will able to do more testing.

Also, it’s very important to understand that we will rate them at their best – which means when you play them together. If you don’t play them together, you can basically drop them down a tier to what you will see below (when it comes to PVE at least; for PVP playing them together isn’t as crucial).

Blanc

Information

• Rarity: SSR
• Burst: II
• Weapon: AR
• Class: Defender
• Element: Wind
• Manufacturer: Tetra
• Squad: 777

Skills

Skill 1 – Lucky Guard

■ Activates after landing 120 normal attacks.

Creates a Shield, equivalent to 11.8% of the caster’s Max HP, which protects all allies from damage. Lasts for 5 sec.

Blanc’s Skill 1 will protect all allies with a Shield and considering that Blanc uses AR, you will need to empty 2 clips to trigger the shield. Also, this skill works exactly like Centi’s shield so the Shield isn’t given to each ally, but it protects all of them.

Skill 2 – Rabbit Twins W

■ Activates after Full Burst ends. Affects all allies.

Constantly recovers 3.68% of caster’s Max HP every 1 sec for 5 sec

■ Activates when Full Burst ends with an ally from the same squad on the battlefield. Affects self.

Cooldown of Burst Skill ▼ 40.76 sec.

Blanc’s Skill 2 triggers AFTER Full Burst ends which is pretty interesting and the first part will heal all her allies for a decent amount of HP. The healing is good enough to allow you to run her as your healer against most content.

The second part of the skill is where things are taken up a notch. Considering that Blanc’s Burst cooldown is really long – sitting at 60 seconds – if you pair her with Noir, you will be able to reduce it to 20 seconds. This means that together with Noir, you can safely run Blanc as the solo Burst II character in your team – otherwise, you will need to pair her with another Burst II character.

Burst – Showtime

Cooldown – 60 seconds

■ Affects all allies.

Constantly recovers 3.84% of caster’s Max HP every 1 sec for 8 sec.

■ Affects 1 ally with the lowest HP (except caster).

Gain indomitability for 10 sec.

Max HP 31.68% for 10 sec.

■ Affects all enemies.

Damage Taken ▲ 39.26% for 10 sec.

That’s a packed Burst, but it’s justified considering the long cooldown.

The first part of the Burst will heal all allies, similar to Blanc’s Skill 2. Additional healing is always a great thing, especially against Bosses.

The second part will target the ally with the lowest HP and both increase his max HP (which translates to healing with the way the mechanic works in NIKKE) and also prevent that ally from dying for 10 seconds. This part of the skill will be great against Bosses to cheese some of their mechanics (like one-shot kills), but also overall improve the teams’ survivability – especially if you also use Noir so Blanc can Burst every 20 seconds.

And last but not least, Blanc’s Burst will also target all enemies and make them take nearly 40% more damage for 10 seconds. I can hear Novel chucking ‘I’m in danger’ in the background.

Summary

Blanc is a great Burst II character who gets elevated to the highest tier when you pair her with Noir – it allows you to run 1-1-3 (or 2-1-2) formations thanks to the massive cooldown decrease she gets with her Skill 2. Bursting with Blanc every rotation will not only give you a lot of healing but also help the team with DPS thanks to the Damage Taken debuff attached to the Burst.

Blanc is honestly like a Swiss army knife – she can do everything and fill many roles. She took the best parts of Novel, Centi, Biscuit, and Rapunzel kits. It’s honestly scary and it screams powercreep.

If you don’t have Noir, you can still run Blanc with Centi to spam shields and keep the team alive. Which is great, especially in the story, but keep in mind that Blanc is at her best when she’s paired with Noir. Also, maybe in the future, there will be another 777 Squad member added to the game, so you will be able to trigger Skill 2 without Noir.

Ratings

As we mentioned earlier, we will rate Blanc as if you played her with Noir.

• Story – SSS
• Bossing – SSS
• PVP – S

If you don’t have Noir, here’s how Blanc’s ratings would look like:

• Story – A
• Bossing – S
• PVP – S

Noir

Information

• Rarity: SSR
• Burst: III
• Weapon: Shotgun
• Class: Attacker
• Element: Wind
• Manufacturer: Tetra
• Squad: 777

Skills

Skill 1 – Lucky Charm

■ Activates when above 70% HP. Affects all allies.

Caster’s ATK ▲ 14.08% constantly.

A very simple, but really really strong skill. As long as Noir’s HP will stay above 70% HP, she will ‘share’ part of her ATK with all allies. This isn’t an ATK buff that scales with the target’s ATK, but instead, it scales with Noir’s ATK.

This means that gearing her with OL ATK gear can massively improve the DPS of the party members, but currently, it isn’t working – we don’t if it’s a bug like it happened with Dorothy or if it’s working as it should.

Skill 2 – Rabbit Twins B

■ Activates when entering Full Burst. Affects all allies.

Max Ammunition Capacity ▲ 5 round(s) for 10 sec.

Reload 39.88% magazine(s).

Noir’s Skill 2 is another super strong skill that further improves the team’s damage output. Max Ammo Capacity makes wonders for Alice or Scarlet as this allows them to shoot for longer so they do more damage and get stacks easier (in the case of Scarlet).

But wait, there’s more! The second part of the skill instantly reloads up to 40% of the character magazine which is great for any damage dealer as they can shoot without reloading for longer – which means they will do even more damage. There’s also a way to make Modernia never reload if you pair Noir with Liter – yeah, it’s stupid.

Burst – Finale

40 seconds cooldown

■ Affects all enemies.

Deals 351.64% of ATK as damage.

■ Affects all allies with a Shotgun.

Hit Rate ▲ 13.93% for 10 sec.

Damage to interruption part ▲ 23.23% for 10 sec.

■ Activates when Full Burst ends with an ally from the same squad on the battlefield. Affects all allies.

Hit Rate ▲ 11.61% for 30 sec.

Damage to interruption part ▲ 19.36% for 30 sec.

Noir’s ultimate is the weakest part of her kit, but it’s still much stronger than Burst skills from the majority of characters – this should let you know how broken Noir is.

The first part of the Burst will do AoE damage to all characters, but the value is pretty low.

The second part of the skill will buff Shotgun allies by giving them Hit Rate and Damage to interruption parts – while Hit Rate is great in any content as it will allow Shotgun wielders to shoot more accurately to enemies in the distance, the second will help against bosses.

The third part of the skill will only become active when Blanc is paired together with Noir and it will apply the same buffs as before, but this time to all allies.

Summary

Noir is a Burst III Attacker who can drastically improve her allies’ damage output by providing them with tons of buffs – ATK, Mag Size, Hit Rate, bonus damage to boss parts and instant reload. On top of that, her own personal damage output is decent, so she’s not a deadweight in that regard – she deals slightly less damage than Drake.

While Blanc really needs Noir to achieve her full potential, Noir actually works really well even when you don’t play them together.

Ratings

As we mentioned earlier, we will rate Noir as if you played her with Blanc:

• Story – SSS
• Bossing – SSS
• PVP – SS

If you don’t have Blanc, here’s what Noir’s ratings would look like:

• Story – SS
• Bossing – SS
• PVP – SS

Closing remarks

Overall, Blanc and Noir are the strongest duo of characters in the game that can carry you through every piece of content. While this sounds great, I have to admit that Blanc smells of powercreep – she can do too many things at once and the way the devs decided to ‘balance her’ is by forcing you to also pull Noir.

NIKKE still makes a lot of money, so this big powercreep shouldn’t really happen now, especially with the upcoming collab. It’s a shame, but it is what it is.

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