Nautika – Prydwen Pre-Release Review

Good morning! The long-anticipated 2nd Anniversary stream just happened recently and with it came the reveal of our next Limited Character: Nautika! People certainly were not expecting that Insight II art, going from little ice-climber to demigod chimera. Let’s see what the living sacrifice of Manus Vindictae is up to!

I apologize regarding the Pre-Release Review for Kiperina. I have been terribly busy this month, and honestly still am, but I want to squeeze in Nautika as she’s a Limited character.

The translations are from @/ChunxiRavenclaw and myself on the Official Discord.

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 Nautika is good. ALWAYS take preliminary kit reviews with a grain of salt, no matter from what source it is (even ours).

Afflatus: Spirit
Role: Damage Dealer
Tags: HP Loss (Bloodtithe), FUA

Insight: Demigod

1. After taking an action, gain [Warmth].
   1. [Warmth]: Increased Max HP.
2. When an ally loses HP, gain [Bloodtithe]. Upon entering combat, lose HP and increase max [Bloodtithe]. Effects that reduce Nautika’s HP will not lower her HP below a certain percentage. Moxie turns into Faith. Upon gaining [Bloodtithe], gain Faith. When Faith reaches a certain amount, Ultimate becomes available.
3. When in the [Mother Spirit’s Protection] status, after gaining a certain amount of [Bloodtithe], cast “Mother Spirit’s Maw”. At the start of the round, if Nautika does not have [Returnance], consume [Bloodtithe] to gain it (requirement increases with each use of [Returnance]).
   1. [Returnance]: Upon taking lethal damage, cleanse all debuffs and heal a certain percentage of HP instead.
   2. “Mother Spirit’s Maw”: Lose a certain amount of Current HP. Mass attack. Deals Reality DMG to all enemies. Deals Bonus DMG based on Nautika’s Max HP. This counts as a Follow-Up Attack.
   3. [Mother Spirit’s Protection]: After being attacked, gain [Warmth]. Increase Healing Received by self. For each certain number of HP Lost, further increase Healing Received.

Nautika starts out (Insight 0 – Insight I) as a Human and has only 2 skills with no Ultimate:

Incantation 1: Drill Through The Ice
1-target attack. Deals Reality DMG.

Incantation 2: Snow Warning
Mass buff. Increase DMG Dealt and decrease DMG Taken of all allies.

Once she gains her Insight II Garment (and thus her chimeric form) she gets access to her actual abilities:

Incantation 1: Lingering Pain
Lose a certain amount of Current HP. Mass attack. Deals Reality DMG. Deals Bonus DMG based on Nautika’s Max HP. Then, gain several stacks of [Warmth].

Incantation 2: A Door of Ivory or Horns
Choose: “Weaving In The Light” or “Sacrifice In The Rift”, then cast selected skill.

1. “Weaving In The Light”: Self Counter. Enter the [Mother Spirit’s Protection] status and decrease DMG Taken.
2. “Sacrifice In The Rift”: All units lose a certain percentage of HP. All allies gain [Adversity I]. Then, deal Reality DMG based on own Max HP to a single enemy. Damage scales with the amount of units in play.
   1. [Adversity I]: Increase DMG Reduction and DMG Dealt. For every certain number of HP Lost by the carrier, further increase DMG Reduction and DMG Dealt.

Ultimate: The Holy Joik
Self Channel. Enter [Living Sacrifice].

• [Living Sacrifice]: Convert [Bloodtithe] into [Living Sacrifice] stacks. If there are [Living Sacrifice] stacks, cast “A Thousand Wounds”. Otherwise, cast “A Thousand Springs”.
• “A Thousand Wounds”: Mass attack. Deals a number of 1-target attacks. Deals Reality DMG scaling with [Living Sacrifice] stacks. Then, deals Reality DMG based on Max HP to all allies. Finally, recover own HP.
• “A Thousand Springs”: Mass attack. Deals Reality DMG to all enemies. Deals Bonus DMG based on own Max HP. Then, recover own HP.

Kit Review

There’s some pretty interesting things going on here, so let’s see the purpose of all this text.

The first thing to note is her reliance on [Bloodtithe]. This is a mechanic introduced in Ezra Theodore’s Euphoria 1 and will occur again in Semmelweis’ Euphoria. After gaining stacks of it, Nautika FUAs with “Mother Spirit’s Maw” and gains Faith. In addition, she consumes it both to get her self-revive in [Returnance] and to convert it into [Living Sacrifice] stacks for her Ultimate.

Given that her only real offensive tools are “Mother Spirit’s Maw” and “The Holy Joik”, it appears imperative for you to have access to a good generator (Ezra / likely Semmelweis) or a solid HP Loss foundation (Ezra, MedPoc, Eternity, Semmelweis, J). It is unlikely that “Lingering Pain” will deal negligible damage as she can stack Max HP with [Warmth] and Eternity as potential teammate, but this likely won’t match up against the former two abilities.

“A Door of Ivory or Horns” is an interesting bit, being the first [Versatile] card that secretly gives Nautika access to 3 basic Incantations instead of 2. Assumedly you’ll use “Weaving In The Light” first to set-up [Mother Spirit’s Protection] that lets her FUA and stack [Warmth]. Then, you’ll cast “Sacrifice In The Rift” to globally reduce HP (benefitting HP Loss/Bloodtithe), deal some damage and set up [Adversity I]. If I had to make an educated guess, you’ll likely cycle between Turn 1: Weaving, Turn 2: Sacrifice, Turn 3: Ultimate or Fee Turn, Turn 4: Repeat (though this of course depends on the buff durations).

“The Holy Joik” is fantastic. Beyond just being a cool as hell animation, it utilizes a new type of system called ‘Faith’ instead of Moxie. This is obtained through gaining [Bloodtithe]. Once Faith is full, she can cast this Ultimate, convert [Blood Tithe] into [Living Sacrifice] and launch a multitude of 1-target attacks based on the amount of [Living Sacrifice] stacks gained. For the HSR players under us, I’m told that this is similar in function to Acheron’s “Slashed Dream Cries in Red” Ultimate or Castorice’s Dragon.

Conclusion

Bluepoch saw people claiming that Limited i0 outfits were better than their i2s and decided to release Nautika to silence the haters.

Regardless of form, this all looks very promising. The HP Loss team hasn’t had access to a proper Damage Dealer ever since its ‘debut’ with Semmelweis back in 1.9, so to finally see it get some attention beyond Supports is refreshing. For a Limited character to adhere to a very specific niche is new, most Limiteds so far have been pretty broad in their applicability, and I’m not sure how to feel about it due to the importance of Damage Dealers in their respective comps.

Objectively, I can’t really find a fault in her kit. She scales with Max HP on multiple levels, has above average stats to begin with based on her status as a Limited, access to Follow-Up attacks, buffing through [Adversity I] and [Warmth], self-healing in emergency cases, constant self-revives with [Returnance], stage-wide HP Loss, and large amounts of burst in “The Holy Joik”.

There’s not really any ‘bullshit’ mechanics like Liang Yue’s Green/Red Zone or Anjo Nala’s [Contract] and in that respect I’d also put Nautika much closer to something like Lucy and Jiu Niangzi in terms of kit quality.

I say that, but I think [Returnance] is something to look forward too. Since we haven’t had a HP Loss Damage Dealer before we don’t have anything to compare the numbers to, though we know from Reveries that Semmelweis can output some serious damage on her own. As a proper Carry, Nautika will rise above that. The other problem that HP Loss faces is a lack of survivability (ironically); the issue is that [Shield]s have a duration and can’t always be timed well to face burst damage from enemies. Due to their nature of being at very Low HP at all times, there is considerably risk to utilizing teams like this.

Nautika solves that… for herself at least, with [Returnance]. This allows her to create a constant [Prayer] like effect that allows her to, in case of lethal damage, revive herself. As the Carry, this is a considerable defensive anchor to put under Ezra Theodore’s [Bloodtithe] kit and in addition, her damage doesn’t actually scale with HP Lost most of the time. She just needs to drop her HP low to generate [Bloodtithe], and getting healed back up after that only allows her to generate more of said [Bloodtithe].

From this I spy that [Bloodtithe] as a niche will involve bouncing between full HP and quickly burning it down to the minimum, creating a (still risky, but in a fun way) flow of phases between high and low. This, I think, is Nautika’s strength as someone who can stay at low HP without the usual consequences and getting bonuses off of being low HP while not being punished (unlike Semmelweis and Eternity for example) for getting HP back.

Predicted Tiering: S+

Possible Pros:

• Faces none of the usual drawbacks of HP Loss teams through [Returnance], generating [Bloodtithe] and the lack of low HP requirements.
• Very consistently high damage output through “Mother Spirit’s Maw”, “Sacrifice In the Rift” and “The Holy Joik”.
• Self-sufficient buffer with [Adversity I] and [Warmth], only really needs an HP Loss or Bloodtithe Support.

Possible Cons:

• May struggle with layered buffs due to the perceived functionality of “The Holy Joik” as multiple casts.
• May lose consistency and survivability without a Bloodtithe Support (which is a very limited selection of Ezra and Semmelweis atm).
• Depending on her scalings (if it’s an ATK/HP split or strictly Max HP) she may be one of the only Carry units to not benefit from Kakania’s [Solace].

Team Ideas

Standard: Nautika / Semmelweis / Eternity / Ezra Theodore
Non-Standard: Nautika / Mercuria / Semmelweis / Medicine Pocket
Shield Comp: Nautika / Semmelweis / J / Ms. NewBabel
FUA (bc why not): Nautika / Semmelweis / Flutterpage / Fatutu
Imagine Dying (tank meme team): Nautika / Necrologist / Kakania / Fatutu
I wonder if Anjo works bc she has no Moxie Comp: Lopera / Nautika / Anjo Nala (Nautika) / Ezra Theodore