Reverse 1999 — Recoleta Pre-Release Review

Good evening! We’re back! Unfortunately, due to me having a LARP weekend right during the 2.6 trailer release I wasn’t able to get this out any earlier. Now that I’ve kind of mellowed down from all the metaphysical mumbo jumbo I got up to that I’ve yet to properly summarize and make theories about I’ve found the time to sit down and evaluate our newest candidate: Recoleta

The translations this time around are Chunxi’s (Discord), the formatting of which I cleaned up because I do not have the strength of will to do another ounce of translating a foreign language properly.

With that out of the way, the usual disclaimers apply: we don’t have modifiers just yet, nor specific details regarding some parts of her kit, so we can’t say for sure if Recoleta is good. ALWAYS take preliminary kit reviews with a grain of salt, no matter from what source it is (even ours).

As always this as a discussion thread and also a question one, I am happy to help where I can.

Additional note, I will be doing these Pre-Release Reviews on here first going forward!

Kit Translation

Afflatus: Mineral
Role: Sub DPS
Tags: Moxie, Ultimate

Insight: Automatic Writing

1. Increase max Moxie. After other allies cast Ultimates, gain Moxie and acquire [Monologue] / [Dialogue].
2. Upon entering combat, increase Crit DMG.
3. Increase Max Moxie. Upon entering combat, gain Moxie and acquire [Preparation – Recoleta]. If enough stacks of [Monologue] / [Dialogue] are consumed, gain [Preparation – Recoleta].

• [Monologue] / [Dialogue]: Upon casting Ultimate, consume all layers to deal additional Reality DMG.
• [Preparation – Recoleta]: At the start of the next round, generate a preparation incantation “Ficciones”.
• “Ficciones”: Cast the Ultimate of the ally with the highest amount of Moxie.

Incantation 1: The Metaphor of Letters
1-target attack. Deals Reality DMG. After attacking, inflicts [Moxie Extraction] on the target.

• [Moxie Extraction]: When the carrier is attacked, the attacker gains Moxie.

Incantation 2: The Imagery of Words
Mass attack. Deals Reality DMG to 2 enemies. Grants the caster [Monologue] / [Dialogue].

Ultimate: The Labyrinth of Realism
Mass attack. Deals Reality DMG to all enemies. Consumes all Moxie; increases the Ultimate Might of this attack based on Moxie consumed. Grants Moxie to the ally with the least amount of Moxie. If enough Moxie is consumed, double the Ultimate Might of this attack.

Kit Breakdown

First, let’s break down in simple terms what Recoleta does:

• Her Insights generally increase her max Moxie. When allies other than Recoleta cast their Ultimate, she gains stacks of a buff that increases the output of her Ultimate. If enough stacks are consumed, she generates an incantation that auto-casts the Ultimate of the ally closest to drawing theirs.
• Her Incantation 1 inflicts a debuff that allows allies to generate Moxie by dealing damage to a specific target, which favors direct attackers with decent AP use.
• Her Incantation 2 generates more stacks that allow her to increase the damage of her Ultimate and generate “Ficciones”.
• Her Ultimate is a nuke that consumes ALL available Moxie and scales its damage with the amount consumed. It also grants Moxie to the ally furthest from drawing their Ultimate.

The Support part of her role is related to her helping allies cheat out their Ultimates by either force casting them with “Ficciones” or lowering the bar to generating them with [Moxie Extraction] or Moxie generation via Ultimate.

The DPS part stems from her ability to do likely significant damage by quickly generating Moxie to consume with her increased cap and consuming it for her Ultimate to nuke.

If you’re going for a more damage oriented playstyle, chances are you’re going to need to be using a lot more AP than you would with her normally, though with how vital [Monologue] / [Dialogue] generation is to make her kit function she will likely have a higher average AP usage. This is because to generate the buff you are looking at just Incantation 2.

Even if you don’t care about her damage, her “Ficciones” generation depends on her consuming [Monologue] / [Dialogue] stacks, which we can then assume lifts her standard AP usage above that of more AFK Supports such as J, Lopera and Mercuria.

The perceived pros of this are as follows:

• Easy access to Moxie generation through [Moxie Extraction] and “The Labyrinth of Realism”.
• Ability to cheat out allied Ultimates early through “Ficciones”.
• High personal damage potential with the added Reality DMG from [Monologue] / [Dialogue].
• Being the first in her niche as Moxie support likely means she’ll only improve as time passes and more units are released.

On the other add, there are some clear weaknesses:

• Likely rather AP-negative due to the need to upkeep her effects through exclusively Incantations. This will limit her team roster a bit, making her unavailable for Poison Team for example.
• A perceived lack of synergy with the current top damage dealers such as Willow and Poison, who either don’t want to cheat out their Ultimates or have Incantation based damage output.

Pre-Release Review

I never thought I’d see the day we got a true Moxie support.

Possible AP problems due to Ultimate casts aside, there is a lot to look forward to in this kit. Recoleta is the first unit to actively allow allies to cheat out Ultimates; either via “Ficciones” or by forcing Moxie generation with [Moxie Extraction] and “The Labyrinth of Realism”. This is big for units who want to spam their ultimate as much as possible and don’t have a way to source Moxie through their own kit (think of units like Blonney, Kaalaa Baunaa, P0 Liang Yue, Barcarola+Voyager(E), Vila if in an AP-negative setting). This also benefits ramping damage dealers who badly want to spam their Ultimates such as Melania and Lucy.

I believe a way BP is trying to relieve the AP bar constantly getting filled with Ultimates is that “Ficciones” cast, and if this causes the affected unit to cast their Ultimate as a Follow-Up it means that Recoleta can find a home even in teams surrounding characters like Lilya(E1), Anjo Nala and Fatutu which further broadens her applicability.

Moxie generation cannot be understated as a niche. It was attempted by Shamane(E), who failed due to [Surge] being a slowly stacking buff that targeted allies at random. In Recoleta’s case there is generally a way to manipulate whose Ultimate she’ll force out and who she is giving Moxie to, not to mention that [Moxie Extraction] grants the player complete agency as to whose cycling they want to boost based on targeting.

One problem I foresee is none of the current “top tier” DPS units really… wanting to cheat out Ultimates all that much? The reason many of the new supportive units work is if they slot somehow into the teams of our top DPS, which Recoleta doesn’t seem to be able to do.

• Windsong has a need to stack her Incantations and when paired with Flutterpage for 3-turn cycles she has ways of guaranteeing her Ultimate.
• Willow does want to get her Ultimate out quickly but rather wants strictly Moxie to upkeep [Ancient Ritual], plus Poison Team has no place for someone who remotely needs AP anyway.
• While Lucy absolutely likes spamming her Ultimate, she’s not reliant on it and moreso focuses on Incantation based damage.

Even when we look at damage dealers who do want to Ultimate as much as possible there are problems that may undermine the synergy.

• Marcus rapidly generates her own Ultimate anyway though realistically doing this faster is only a plus for her.
• Lilya(E1) does want to spam her Ultimate but does want to stack [Passion] and [Ceremonious] at least a bit to optimize Ultimate damage. Depending on how rapidly Recoleta cheats out Ultimates this may or may not be something to consider.
• Noire generally wants a strict Ultimate cycle that allows her to stack [Genius Insight] before her burst phase, same thing as Lilya(E1).

These perceived problems only really depend on the rate at which Recoleta can generate Ultimate casts for allies, which hinges on us knowing the numbers in this case. Because of which I am strongly feeling that she may turn out better than I might’ve made her look in pointing out the possible issues with her kit in the context of the meta.

Predicted Tiering: S (possibly S+ in the future), primarily due to being the only character currently capable of helping allies cheat out their Ultimate (we’re ignoring Leilani+Darley for this one) I can’t see her being bad in the slightest and depending on her personal damage output plus the rate of her cycling I believe she may very well supersede S and move directly into S+. If placed in S either due to team restraints or AP problems (most likely) she’ll likely push down J as I do not believe him on the level of a selection such as Liang Yue, Tuesday with Recoleta as addition. On the other hand, if the rate of Moxie is too slow or her AP need is too high I can see a realm in which she’d go in A+, but it is very likely that she will improve over time regardless.

Team Concepts

1. Lilya / Recoleta / Anjo Nala (Lilya) / Fatutu
2. Marcus / Mercuria / Recoleta / Vila
3. Lopera / Kaalaa Baunaa / Recoleta / Vila
4. Ms Newbabel / Lopera / Melania / Recoleta
5. Lopera / Recoleta / Shamane / Anjo Nala (Shamane)
6. Lucy / Lopera / Recoleta / Vila