Kagero: Honorable Ninja

[BANRYU]

Kagero: Honorable Ninja

Though she was once top dog among dagger units (and still is, in a sense... if one counts her Spring incarnation) for her powerful weapon and high Attack as a dagger-wielder, Kagero has long since fallen from relevance in the metagame at large, owing not only to the ever-growing abundance of strong non-infantry units introduced to the game or appearing in arena matches, but also to the introduction of stronger dagger units such as her aforementioned alt, as well as Sothe and New Year Takumi. Though her stat build isn't quite up to snuff in comparison to these newer daggers, she still boasts the second highest Atk of all dagger units, and while this makes her a good dedicated slayer of infantry or mages with certain skill builds, due to the changing shape of the meta those wishing to use her more broadly would be well advised to branch out and build her to strike a wider, more general swath of targets...

Level 40 stats:
HP: 28 / 31 / 34
Atk: 32 / 35 / 38
Spd: 29 / 32 / 35
Def: 19 / 22 / 25
Res: 24 / 28 / 31
Total: 147 ~ 148

Default skills:
Weapon: Poison Dagger+
Assist: --
Special: Reprisal
Passive A: Warding Blow 3
Passive B: Daggerbreaker 3
Passive C: --

---

Classic Ninja (speed-focused / general offense)
General use, Arena offense, chain modes

Spoiler

Suggested IV: +Spd/Atk, -HP*/Def*/Res

• -Def: 33 HP | 50 Atk | 37 Spd | 19 Def | 28 Res
• -HP: 30 HP | 50 Atk | 37 Spd | 22 Def | 28 Res
• L&D -Def: 33 HP | 55 Atk | 42 Spd | 14 Def | 23 Res
• L&D -HP: 30 HP | 55 Atk | 42 Spd | 17 Def | 23 Res
• L&D -Res: 33 HP | 55 Atk | 42 Spd | 17 Def | 19 Res

Weapon: Barb Shuriken+* / Lethal Carrot+*
Assist: Draw Back / Reposition / Ardent Sacrifice
Special: Moonbow* / Luna
Passive A: Brazen Atk/Spd 3 / Life and Death 3 / Swift Sparrow 2 / Fury 3
Passive B: Desperation 3
Passive C: flexible
Sacred Seal: Spd+3 / Atk+3 (use whichever is not the boon)

In order to truly go beyond the selective niche of her default weapon, Kagero must adopt a different weapon and fighting style, utilizing her middling speed to its utmost potential by stacking it as high as possible while retaining a solid breadth of attack. Of the dagger selections available to her, Barb Shuriken / Kagami Mochi and Lethal Carrot offer the best in terms of attack strength as well as special effects, with Kagami Mochi being the most desirable, as it grants her the ability to proc Moonbow in two strikes (that is, while Desperation is active) and nets her the most consistent offensive performance. Failing either of the two powerful limited weapons, Smoke Dagger is still quite powerful, with the -6 AoE debuff to all stats providing useful team support rather than offensive efficiency. 

For passive skills, overloading her Atk and Spd as much as possible is the most practical course of action, with Brazen Atk/Spd being the best among these due to its synergy with Desperation, though Life and Death is both more readily available and offers strong performance off the bat. Swift Sparrow is an option to retain her decent magical bulk and let her duel mages more easily before getting into Desperation range, though its lesser boosts make it slightly less desirable. Ardent Sacrifice as an assist is also an option to safely get into Desperation range that makes Life and Death slightly less risky. Fury is a more budget-friendly A-skill that can also be used to get into Desperation range more easily without the use of Ardent Sacrifice, though it's generally not as strong for her overall performance as simply pumping Atk and Spd, since her defenses are rather low, with the only real benefit being that dueling mages is easier with the extra Res. It's as simple and straightforward as it gets in terms of performance; failing Kagami Mochi's availability, Luna as the special is another attractive option since Desp-range Kagero will be procing Moonbow every other round anyway, making for stronger special activations at about the same frequency as non-Mochi Moonbow. 

 

Selective Assassin (mage/infantry slayer)
Challenge maps / specific PvE

Spoiler

Suggested IV: +Atk/-Def, +Atk/-HP

• -Def: 33 HP | 49/46 Atk | 32 Spd | 19 Def | 28 Res
• -HP: 30 HP | 49/46 Atk | 32 Spd | 22 Def | 28 Res

Weapon: Kitty Paddle+ / Poison Dagger+
Assist: Draw Back / Reposition / Ardent Sacrifice
Special: Moonbow / Luna
Passive A: Death Blow 3 / Defiant Atk 3
Passive B: Chill Def 3 / Cancel Affinity 3 / Swordbreaker 3 / Vantage 3
Passive C: Threaten Def 3 / flexible
Sacred Seal: Atk+3

Kagero's default weapon and role are not typically as potent for a wider variety of situations, but choosing to specialize at effective damage can still make her useful on teams that call for it or maps with large concentrations of specific unit types. With the Kitty Paddle, she's equipped to target all tome-wielders, most of which typically have quite weak defense (and those that don't can usually be muscled through with the effective damage anyway) ; as such, her priority should be pumping up her single-hit damage by way of skills like Death Blow (if her team has Atk field buffs) or Defiant Atk (if they do not, though watch for Panic Ploy since her HP is very low). For Kitty Paddle builds, Cancel Affinity is a highly desirable skill to round out the set, since it allows her to punch holes through would-be Raven Adepts that would otherwise counter her. Apart from that, Vantage is a useful skill to pair with Defiant Atk, giving her excellent enemy phase performance for baiting and preemptively taking out mages while at low HP. 

Running her native Poison Dagger makes the build more budget-friendly, as most of the desirable skills are fairly cheap or common, though also makes it more difficult to determine when her effective damage will be useful within specific team comps. In particular, if the team has weaknesses to specific infantry units (for instance say, Ayra, Cancel Affinity archers, infantry blade mages, etc) but is covered against other common threats like Armor Emblem, Horse Emblem and so forth, she will be able to be useful at least some of the time... though she will be left without much to do against comps of all non-infantry, which are increasingly more common-- it is for this purpose that running Chill Defense can make her really useful even on such teams. 

Apart from that, this build also uses the Defiant Vantage combo rather well for essentially the same purpose, minus non-infantry mages but with the additional targets of squishy mages and archers. Swordbreaker is another useful skill, since the abundance of infantry swords in the game make fairly consistent appearances in both non-specialized arena teams as well as PvE maps-- and the ability to double fast sword units with her inadequate speed can be plenty useful for some teams. Otherwise, her C-slot is open for Threaten Defense (if she lacks Chill Defense) or any support skill that her team might need. 

 

Edited May 9, 2018 by BANRYU

[SoulWeaver]

Ah, I've been waiting for someone to get to her. Looking forward to this one.

[Shoblongoo]

No Fury???

[BANRYU]

4 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

No Fury???

Sell me on it, if you think it should be here. 

[BANRYU]

aight dis shit is done. Lemme know if I missed or should add anything. 

Poor Kagero, getting Hector'd. 

[Poimagic]

Maybe the reason why Fury is an option is because it improves her spd without hurting her defenses? Plus, she could potentially use def Ploy with the extra res. Albeit, the spd isn’t as good with LnD, so maybe it could be added as a budget option?

[bottlegnomes]

+SPD with fury and +SPD smoke dagger is hitting 47 attack and 40 SPD. That's not great, but it's not awful. It also lets her get into desperation range even attacking non-ranged units and as mentioned keeps her res intact. The seasonal daggers give her 50/40. Not sure if 40 speed is enough to really cut it anymore, but it does seem like it'd be a decent budget option since Hinata is pretty easy to get while Sothe is a bit harder.

[BANRYU]

TBH her base defenses are low enough that I don't feel like Fury makes much of a difference (her Res becomes passable / barely good enough with her low HP and her Def is kinda not good either way), but I suppose Hinata is technically a bit easier to come by than Sothe esp since he came as a free unit... I guess it couldn't hurt to mention Fury as a budget suggestion for the first set or in an 'other options' section since she CAN at least hit 40, which is kind of my bare minimum threshold of 'is it worthwhile to invest in speed for this unit'. 

I'll add it in some form or other when I get a chance. 

[Shoblongoo]

Fury boosts her attack and speed up to acceptable levels, grants more opportunities to get into desperation range, and makes her a bit more competent at baiting out mages on the opening play. 

Not the greatest user, but shes not the greatest unit to begin with. She at least gets some mileage out of it. 

 

[Nightmayre]

Kagero holds a special place in my roster as she was the first unit I manually upgraded to 5*, before SI was even a thing. It was before I knew natures were a thing, too, so I am rather lucky I  randomly upgraded one with good IVs (+Spd -Def). She carried me through a lot of early game content. She doesn't see much use any more, but she's still a valuable counterpick in AA/SA against infantry threats.

I use: Poison Dagger+, Moonbow, Ardent Sacrifice (to get into desperation range), L&D2 (all the L&D3 fodder I could spare have been fed to my Bladetome mages), Desperation and a blank C slot as she doesn't need it for the battles I'm using her for.

Kagero's real value I think is that she's a very good budget unit for AA/SA that requires little investment to act her role as counterpick. But if you're looking for a main team dagger unit rather than a switch-in, there are better options now.