Originally Posted by sniddy

Really should get a 2nd pierce 6*

That or victoria bride, off to research them now

So, Anemone, counter at 2x and def boost
Ionocidium - attack boost and dodge
OR Saffron same but better stats, just a slight dip on the attack boost but only 3% so saffron over Ion
Snowdrop for the minus attack handy on the bigger bosses but...not really doing it

OR

Victoria bride attack and dodge and I do like the brides...

Should be a pierce and while I think Saffron is the slighly better choice, I like Anemones looks better - so welcome to the party Anemone

Anemone is great for bosses with low hp (the 1 hp per hit ones) because she hits 3 times, she is also great as your last girl in the squad to clean up anything that is missed because she can target the same enemy 3 times or 3 different enemies.

Saffron is nice because blooming is just around the corner and she has a bloom form with dodge and counter skills.

Stats aside I prefer Anemone for looks as well.

Originally Posted by sniddy

Should be a pierce and while I think Saffron is the slighly better choice, I like Anemones looks better - so welcome to the party Anemone

Anemone is awesome!
Other piercers I like:
Daisy: she's innocent in a lewd manner and deals IMBA damage.
Snowdrop: One of the most "normal" girls available, but her debuff helps more than a Defense bonus against the tougher bosses. (A debuff squad is pretty strong overall)
Burning Bush: must-have for trigger-squads.
Mei Plumblossom: Together with Cattleya, she's a must-have on your whale-ship team. A guaranteed solarblast at the start, though I'd advice saving it against the smaller pests and help your squad get through those, instead of using it on the ancient bosses (it deals relatively very little damage against ancients)

Overall, I think all Pierce-rainbows are well-rounded units, so it's more a matter of personal tastes regarding their design and the strategies you use within your squads. If you don't play with a trigger-squad, then Burning Bush suddenly becomes a lot less interesting. If you don't use Solar Blasts, then Mei Plumblossom and Hollyhock become a lot less interesting..

Originally Posted by Drip

Anemone is awesome!
Other piercers I like:
Daisy: she's innocent in a lewd manner and deals IMBA damage.
Snowdrop: One of the most "normal" girls available, but her debuff helps more than a Defense bonus against the tougher bosses. (A debuff squad is pretty strong overall)
Burning Bush: must-have for trigger-squads.
Mei Plumblossom: Together with Cattleya, she's a must-have on your whale-ship team. A guaranteed solarblast at the start, though I'd advice saving it against the smaller pests and help your squad get through those, instead of using it on the ancient bosses (it deals relatively very little damage against ancients)

Overall, I think all Pierce-rainbows are well-rounded units, so it's more a matter of personal tastes regarding their design and the strategies you use within your squads. If you don't play with a trigger-squad, then Burning Bush suddenly becomes a lot less interesting. If you don't use Solar Blasts, then Mei Plumblossom and Hollyhock become a lot less interesting..

Bear in mind however that solar blasts become a lot more useful in the future (they are definitely lackluster now).

As for ancient bosses, I'd like to offer another point of view, but it really depends on one question: does your main squad usually die before the end of the whaleship mission? If so, then I side with Drip: use the solar blast on the pests. If not, then save it for the ancient pest: use the blast after your whaleship makes both of its attacks but before the ancient pest starts their attack.

If done near the HP threshold such that the blast would push it over, the pest will flee after your blast without making its own attacks; with experience, you'll know where the thresholds are. The reason you want to use the blast after is if you exceed the threshold after one of the whaleship's attacks, then you don't get the benefit of the other one and using the blast first makes this scenario more likely which results in a DPT loss and puts your whaleship in a more vulnerable position towards the end of the map when the ancient pest will have more hp then could otherwise have been the case.

For my whaleship runs on 2-5 (895K before helpers and not counting the Hit-Type bonus), I usually use the blast after the whaleship makes its second round of attacks (this can vary depending and has sometimes ended up being around the 4th-5th round when the whaleship consistently used the side cannons instead of any specials). The pest flees, and the solar blast recharges from the smaller pest fights by the time I get to the ancient pest again. In a best case scenario when I could limit the first encounter to two rounds and each round was two specials with an overall total of at least two Isana Attacks, using a blast after the first two attacks is almost always enough to pass the second threshold before the pest gets to make any attacks. Blast recharges by the last ancient pest encounter, use it at will; the pest isn't fleeing anymore.

I realize this is a lot more involved, but the blast can still be a useful tool despite its relative low power.

Originally Posted by Taon

Bear in mind however that solar blasts become a lot more useful in the future (they are definitely lackluster now).

They are lackluster, but at the same time, they are noticable. I'm lvl 150 now, and the Solar Blast wipes out lvl 45 pests, making it comparable to the AOE of a lvl 70 Rainbow girl.
For the first squad in my Whaleship, I use my trigger-squad, in an attempt to kill as many of the pests on the first round as I can. Last time, they were just a bit short, but a solarblast would get rid of 1 or 2 of the three. The downside of my triggersquad is, that I never really invested in their defence, other than by giving them jewelry, so if I don't use Solar Blasts, they tend to loose a couple of units along the way. If it's Cymbidium or Fritillaria who's lost, then that really cripples the performance of the entire squad. Which is why I keep investing quite heavily in the offense of that squad. For glass cannons, offense is the best defense.

My debuff squad would probably last longer without the Solar Blasts, but it deals less damage per combat round, which means fights take longer, making it more suitable against bosses.

Originally Posted by Drip

They are lackluster, but at the same time, they are noticable. I'm lvl 150 now, and the Solar Blast wipes out lvl 45 pests, making it comparable to the AOE of a lvl 70 Rainbow girl.
For the first squad in my Whaleship, I use my trigger-squad, in an attempt to kill as many of the pests on the first round as I can. Last time, they were just a bit short, but a solarblast would get rid of 1 or 2 of the three. The downside of my triggersquad is, that I never really invested in their defence, other than by giving them jewelry, so if I don't use Solar Blasts, they tend to loose a couple of units along the way. If it's Cymbidium or Fritillaria who's lost, then that really cripples the performance of the entire squad. Which is why I keep investing quite heavily in the offense of that squad. For glass cannons, offense is the best defense.

My debuff squad would probably last longer without the Solar Blasts, but it deals less damage per combat round, which means fights take longer, making it more suitable against bosses.

Just to make sure there's no misunderstanding, I'm not saying solar blasts are useless; only that they'll get better in the future, so don't necessarily discount girls that modify the SB/shines drop rates.

Everyone's situation is different which is why I offered my alternative opinion on using Solar Blast on whaleship maps: in contrasting with your squad my main squad (consisting of Dendrobium, Saffron, Acacia, Iberis and Alpinia) rarely loses any of its members (Acacia and Iberis are typically the first to die since I've not put any ampies or blooms into them while the other three are maxed on ampies with full skillblooms and one dressbloom away from 4/4 and almost maxed jewelry). My squad though is pretty much all about brute force since I swap out Acacia and Iberis for Sakura and Cherry for RB events and I've been too lazy to cook up a more fine-tuned squad; Scotch Broom will probably take Iberis' place in the near future. In my case, I have the luxury of not needing the SB for the small pests so I looked for a way to boost the survivability of the whaleship since the final outcome is way too dependent on the overall RNG for the whaleship special attacks (if the first two encounters were mostly just the side cannons, then the final encounter would leave the whaleship dangerously low on health).

I guess this should be a separate discussion, but in short Drip, I absolutely agree with your assessments as they relate to certain scenarios; I only wanted to illustrate that usage of the SB on whaleship missions isn't necessarily one-size-fits all.

I should have bought the hearts, it was $1 - I was being too cheapskate bastard LOL

Almost identical deal to yesterday, only today it's a 6* Skillbloom + 10FG for $20. Pass for me.

I think that's a pass from anyone, skillblooms and FGs can be farmed and $20 is a lot for that, heck $10 would be too high for me, $5 would be a maybe and still 90% sure Id pass

I'd bite a 5$ Rainbow Dressbloom.
But no more than that.

And not sooner before the damn Dodge bug is fixed together with the huge amount of girls that got completely broken. Yes still salty about buying Saffron for the Dodge just to find out that the Dodge is gone, not just form her but from Setaria and bunch of other girls.

Originally Posted by Myrdin

I'd bite a 5$ Rainbow Dressbloom.
But no more than that.

And not sooner before the damn Dodge bug is fixed together with the huge amount of girls that got completely broken. Yes still salty about buying Saffron for the Dodge just to find out that the Dodge is gone, not just form her but from Setaria and bunch of other girls.

I'm still not 100% clear on this, is it actually gone or is it a visual bug like the stam issues we are having again. That is do they actually dodge anyway still? or have you not seen a dodge on a dodge girl since the bug?