Quote Originally Posted by sanahtlig View Post
I was planning on running a Burst build for my Water team with Shingen (Cthulhu, but no Asherah). A free EX slot for Sniper Shot is mandatory for my team, so Hercules wouldn't help much if at all. Shingen's Burst generation is somewhat wasted, but maybe she can get in 2 Bursts and speed up a Full burst by 1 turn?

Endurance builds don't seem very effective (or time-efficient) for endgame content; Light was given massive offensive buffs for a reason. Many of the emerging damage checks seem to be tuned to be lethal if failed, which is probably motivated by revenue strategies. If your goal is selling success, then it makes sense to limit players' ability to innovatively overcome challenges with resources on hand without paying the toll.
Light was given massive offensive buffs indeed, but just like water, we're still waiting 1 more miracle ticket season after this one (so, the 5th) before we actually see any changes to that element. Specifically, about 3 and a half more months before Tishtriya, and a lot longer for Takeminakata and the awakenings. As for water, we kind of face the same problem except longer: Vohu Manah isn't available till 6 months later, Lakshimi even later, and let's forget Shiva awakening since that's literally in a year's time.

Therefore, I'll break down the existing offensive options for water besides Asherah:

Ea. Yeah... No. This is the girl that everyone knows to shit on because the whole thing relies exclusively on stun punish, and while our past member Bear grudgingly mentions the necessity of Ea to poke damage ceiling, or something similar, it's pretty much consensus her kit is ass.

Shiva. Another case of yeah no. She's basically water Hastur without def break: nuke skills that don't really nuke that well, and an enemy party wide nuke skill that... hits like a noodle. Her awakening remains to be seen, but again, in the interest of perspective that's a year away.

The only other SSR that has a skill considered nukey in nature is... Neptune, and even then her spirit passive is too gimmicky to really include in this list, or make her viable.

Only 3 (2?) SSR girls in the water pool that can be considered viable, and all of them suck at what they do as compared to... the damage meta elements fire and wind? You could make a case for SR girls as well, Oceanus (meh), Anahit (meh) and so on, but I believe my point still stands.

Water also pretty much has only 1 hime that can be considered burst gen in Saraswati, outside of Asherah. Then again... she's a discount Titania, slower skills with a lower potency, and none of that passive burst gen either.

In addition, I believe your guide recommends core water SSR himes as girls like Snow Raphy Cthulhu Ryu-Oh etc? If anything, I still believe those girls are the best options for current game content (again, outside of Asherah), but... it's really saying something about the element if debuff-based meta is still the only other legitimate way to play that particular element. I say this because in practice, running a nuker team in water actually doesn't even deal that much more damage than if you were to run a defensive team to begin with.

Sure, endurance builds won't survive the test of time, but
1. If it doesn't, so doesn't water, because endurance build is literally the 2nd best option we have.
2. It gets fixed somewhat with the introduction of the new water himes half a year down, but we face the tower event earlier than Vohu Manah is released, and it's fire.

Why do I pitch Asherah as such a big cornerstone to water damage? The most obvious one is her stackable burst damage buff (and her crit buffs in extension), because for water, you're practically getting nothing extra out of your bursts otherwise, PF and 50% def break are the only setups you have, with maybe an atk buff or 2. I emphasise getting extra out of bursts, because we all know water is a damned slowpoke in burst gen, which happens to be the 2nd problem Asherah fixes (well, not really, but it's there), +20 burst for all works wonders. Running a Hercules PF build with Asherah means you don't have to wait 1-2 turns to get your full burst worth from the PF depletion, and a quick first burst basically allows you to land in the tasty 25% def break, allowing you to drop an otherwise near to dead-weight debuff hime.

For your case however, since you don't have the B frame you need, I'd advise dropping Shingen in favor of Joan simply because you aren't gonna see that much of a difference single bursting every few turns compared to just playing it safe. Shingen's setup only works well in a team which can keep up with her burst gen (therefore wind meta) for the reason that if you're not buffing burst damage or nuke damage itself to absurd levels, you're bursting fast enough to absurd levels to keep up, and water has none of that. Future water himes aren't burst gen heavy as well, so my bias also leans to Hercules in that regard, but the B frame wall is a bit bothersome in your case.

At least currently, my advice for new players is to basically get Asherah if they don't want to face endurance torture. Otherwise, it's better to drop water as an element altogether, the other elements are much better suited for dealing with endgame meta.