Rhiannon – Prydwen Pre-Release Review

Good morning and happy 3rd anniversary! First in order is Mere- Rhiannon? I first read her name as Rihanna, and thought we’d gotten an unforeseen collab. Despite the uh… interesting outfit and confusing lore, this is a kit review, so I will not be rating anything else about her.

The translations are from u/Meru_9 (on Reddit), I doubt they bear any introduction.

The usual disclaimers apply: we don’t have modifiers just yet, nor specific details regarding some parts of their kit, so we can’t say for sure if Rhiannon is good. ALWAYS take preliminary kit reviews with a grain of salt, no matter from what source it is (even ours). That said, she is a Limited character, and is thereby extended certain privileges that standard characters do not get.

Afflatus: Beast
Role: Support
Archetype: Literally every single one

Insight: The Falconer Witch
Precognition | When [Familiar Resonance]’s energy reaches a certain value, Rhiannon will actively cast it before using an Incantation and enter [Hypersense]. At the start of the round, gain [Kindred Attunement]. Rhiannon is a [Universal Fit] character.

1. At the start of the round, gain [Rapport].
2. Upon entering combat, increase ATK.
3. Upon entering combat, gain Moxie and [Familiar Resonance] gains a certain amount of energy. At the end of the round, consume [Kindred Attunement] to gain additional Moxie.

• [Hypersense]: Allies may take one additional round of actions while enemies cannot act. Before Incantations in the AP Area resolve, add “Blackberry Swarm Summoning” to the queue.
• [Kindred Attunement]: When consumed, [Familiar Resonance] gains a certain amount of energy and grant [Rapport].
• [Rapport]: Forcefield. Increases allied Afflatus Advantage DMG.
• [Universal Fit]: Treated as a member of [Lingering Glow], [Bloodtithe], [Dynamo], [Inspiration] and [Instrument] archetypes.
• “Blackberry Swarm Summoning”: Mass Attack. Deals Mental DMG. Deals additional Mental DMG scaling with [Rapport] stacks. This attack always has Afflatus Advantage.

Incantation 1: Jumbled Spell
Mass attack. Deals Mental DMG. Before attacking, consume [Kindred Attunement] to increase own ATK.

• Evolved: Mass attack. Deals Mental DMG. Before attacking, consume [Kindred Attunement] to increase own ATK. After attacking, decreases Critical DEF of all targets scaling with [Rapport] stacks.

Incantation 2: Silent Dusk Array
Mass buff. Grants [Song of the Flock] to all allies. Consume [Kindred Attunement] to increase own Max HP.

• [Song of the Flock]: Increased Incantation Might and Ultimate Might.
• Evolved: Mass buff. Grants [Song of the Flock] to all allies. Consume [Kindred Attunement] to increase own Max HP. Grants DMG Bonus to all allies scaling with [Rapport] stacks.

Ultimate: A Song for the Carefree
Mass buff. Grants [Adar Llwch Gwin] to other allies. For a certain number of rounds, own Incantations are “Evolved” and actively casting Incantations does not consume AP.

• [Adar Llwch Gwin]: Increase ATK/Max HP based on Rhiannon’s ATK/Max HP.

Review

Sorry, what?

I’m going to be upfront about this. From line one Rhiannon looks to be absolutely busted. To avoid going off the rails and to keep this review somewhat manageable for the reader, I’ll do my best to go through it step by step, starting at her Insights.

[Hypersense], gained by hitting certain thresholds of [Familiar Resonance] energy allows the team to take an extra turn of combat, without triggering the enemy round. How this works, or at least how it is shown on the stream, this “extra turn” is separate from the overall turn counter.

What does this mean? Everything.

This basically means that Rhiannon has access to an irresistible Mass [Daze] effect, but that doesn’t even cover the half of it. You get an entire extra round to gain Moxie, cast cards and set-up.

Based on what we can see from the stream (NOT CONFIRMED), this turn doesn’t appear to count as an actual turn. The turn counter doesn’t go up, nor do enemy casts go through. As this may not be an ‘actual turn’, buff and debuff durations could just not go down. Should it work like that (and I wouldn’t put it past BP) you can do the following with this: [Burn]/[Halo] becomes extremely easy to stack, [Pulsing Field 3] gains an entire extra turn of use and same happens with [Qi Panorama], [Blood Domain] and [Horror Story Night]. The counterargument for this is that Rhiannon has a lot of “start of the round” effects that probably wouldn’t trigger if this extra turn isn’t an ‘actual turn’ on at least SOME level, but they could just give her the Limited Privilege.

When this extra turn is used, Rhiannon also automatically adds an extra cast of hers called “Blackberry Swarm Summoning” to the queue. Which is a mass attack that always has Afflatus Advantage.

Her other Insights are pretty unassuming. It provides a steady flow of [Rapport] stacks which is used as secondary scaling for her entire kit, and is also a Forcefield that amplifies allied Afflatus Advantage DMG. They also gives her access to Moxie cycling which is never bad so long as your Ultimate is strong.

Then the last thing they pushed in, [Universal Fit]. This makes Rhiannon be treated as a member of the [Lingering Glow], [Bloodtithe], [Dynamo], [Inspiration] and [Instrument] archetypes. But what does this actually mean? The full extent of it we can’t be sure, but it at least confirms that she will get targeted by archetype-specific buffs such as those given by Lorentz Butterfly (LG) or Enigma (Dynamo). This alone makes her easily placeable in pretty much every current meta team we have.

That’s a lot huh? Yeah, but these were only her Insights. Let’s go on to her Incantations.

We’ll start with her Ultimate, as it has an effect on all of her other Incantations.

“Song for the Carefree” is a mass buff that grants +ATK/Max HP to all other allies while ‘evolving’ her own Basic Incantations for a certain amount of rounds. In addition, Rhiannon will not consume AP during that time.

This all seems pretty standard, until you hit that last line and start reading through these evolved Incantations. Not using any AP for any number of rounds is very powerful, and we see watered-down versions of this effect on nearly all of the top-tier Supports like Flutterpage, Charon and Lorentz Butterfly. In addition, she doesn’t seem to have any Moxie lockout like Flutterpage or Lorentz, meaning that (in addition to her Insights) this cast will be very easy to cycle reliably.

To gauge the true value of this, however, we need to look at Rhiannon’s Basic Incantations.

“Jumbled Spell” is her first and is a Basic Incantation that attacks all enemies. Normally a Basic Incantation Mass Attack only hits 2. It deals Mental DMG and consumes stacks of [Kindred Attunement] (generated through her Precognition at the start of a round) to grant Rhiannon extra ATK.

When ‘evolved’ this Incantation also shreds enemy Crit DEF scaling with stacks of [Rapport].

“Silent Dusk Array” is her second Basic Incantation. It is a mass buff that grants +Incantation/Ultimate Might to all allies and increases Rhiannon’s Max HP.

When ‘evolved’ this Incantation also grants all allies +DMG Bonus scaling with stacks of [Rapport].

These effects are all pretty spread out, and there isn’t a whole lot of text per skill which makes it all look relatively calm. I’ll now consolidate all of her effects into one list to show you the scale of what she is doing (mostly all at the same time). However, to preface this, Rhiannon’s kit is one that we need to see the modifiers of to accurately judge her power (which we don’t have) as she brings a lot of new effects that we aren’t sure how it’ll impact the game:

• Insight: Makes her fit, by design, into every current meta archetype.
• Insight: Lets her grant an entire extra turn which delays enemy actions, gives your team at least 3-4+ more active casts for damage, set-up and moxie.
• Insight: MAY also give your team an extra round of Arrays or certain buffs.
• Insight: Makes her increase all allies’ Afflatus Advantage DMG.
• Insight: Gives her an active cast FUA (like Argus) that hits Mass and always has Afflatus Advantage.
• Skill 1: Increases her ATK.
• Skill 1: Inflicts -Crit DEF on all enemies.
• Skill 2: Increases her Max HP.
• Skill 2: Grants +Incantation Might, Ultimate Might and DMG Bonus to all allies.
• Ultimate: Really easy to cycle. Grants +ATK or Max HP to all allies.
• Ultimate: Makes her completely AP-free for several rounds.

So basically, she gives almost every key offensive buff in the game to your entire team (including Max HP to make her viable in Bloodtithe) except for some sort of Crit Rate increase.

In addition, she allows your entire team to take an extra round of active actions, which may or may not extended buff, debuff and array timers. This also delays enemy actions, let’s you draw cards, does not count toward the total turn limit and you can gain Moxie from casts during this extra turn.

Her Ultimate is really easy to cycle due to this, as she also passively gains Moxie from her Insight. Whenever she casts her Ultimate, she also becomes completely AP-free for several rounds (likely with a permanent uptime).

Through her Insights, she gets targeted by archetype-specific buffs even if she doesn’t carry a Precognition of said archetype.

Are there any cons to her kit? I can think of maybe two, though those are largely inconsequential:

• She needs to build to her first Ultimate to get going. Though as we’ve seen with Charon, this never is a problem so long as the character in question gets Moxie upon entering combat (which she does).
• She doesn’t give any +Crit Rate or -Crit RES. This is the only valid con she at face value, but as a Support there are two slots for her in any standard team, so just make sure you bring a Crit Rate amplifier like Flutterpage, Charon, Tooth Fairy(E), Semmelweis(E) or have a Carry with high base Crit Rate like Beryl, Brume, Liang Yue (these are all S+ tier characters anyway).

Beyond that we’ll just have to wait for her numbers to be revealed, as that will determine how broken she is. I think she will be completely busted regardless even if just for her extra turn and AP-free state, as we’ve seen that you can be a viable flex pick with less than than (like Lorentz Butterfly, who is only providing her card-copy effect in teams that aren’t Lingering Glow and she’s still good in those).

If we include her getting access to most offensive buffs in the game and the likelihood of her personal damage output also being quite good due to her FUA… I am seriously afraid that I will have to pull another 1.6 on Prydwen and add a tier above the rest of the roster just for her.

How will this all look? Well… I have two great memes from the community that’ll illustrate this pretty succinctly.

Predicted Tier: S+ (if not SSS, hopefully not).