A (Semi) In-Depth Review of Ken in 2021

Way back when the game first released, Ken was absolutely top-tier. As in, during your Selective Summon, if you couldn’t get a Vildred + Angelica roll or Sez, Ken was the next best thing. He was considered one of, if not the best unit in the game. Nowadays, both Ken and Martial Artist Ken have fallen out of use a lot, and aren’t considered to be the meta-destroyers that they used to be.

However, with semi-recent Ken buffs (way back in September 2020), and the fact that Ken was my Selective Summon, I figured I’d take a look at Ken once more in 2021. We’ll be going over where he stands in the meta these days, how to build him, and whether or not you should pull for him these days.

Introduction

“Born an orphan, Ken has faced many hardships in his life, but manages to maintain a bright and optimistic personality. He believes the only way to survive is through strength, and dedicates his life to training and always admires the strong.”

Class – Warrior

Element – Fire

In a nutshell, Ken’s skillset is:

• S1 – 50% chance to Decrease Defense, and will also Burn if he has the Vigor buff. Gains 15 Fighting Spirit every time he uses this
• S2 – Decreases Defense, increases his own speed, and gains 40 Fighting Spirit if he kills an enemy. With Vigor, his Decrease Defense ignores Effect Resistance. (Can also be soul-burned for an extra turn)
• S3 – Decreases Attack, Stuns, and also grants Vigor to himself. Consumes 80 Fighting Spirit.

Analysis

As you can see, part of Ken’s gimmick is that he centers around Fighting Spirit. He starts the battle with 50 Fighting Spirit, gains 5 every time he’s attacked, but needs 80 Fighting Spirit to proc his s3. (For some reason, he also has a cooldown on his s3, which I personally find ridiculous, since Charlotte runs off of Fighting Spirit and she has no cooldown on her s3.)

Another part of Ken is his buff that’s unique to him only – Vigor! It increases his Attack and Defense both by 30%, and also cannot be dispelled. It’s also worth noting that all 3 of his skills are based off of his Max HP, the scaling is pretty good in his multipliers, and he already has a very high base HP. As of this writing, Ken has one of the highest base HP in the game!

Basically, Ken is meant to be used as a bruiser unit. He can be used as a frontline tank, a defense breaker, and even a damage dealer. However, this also means that he’s a jack of all trades, master of none. There’s no one place that Ken really excels in. Even in PVP, he’s already at a disadvantage. He has to charge up to use his s3, and he’s also a fire unit in an Ice meta. Apart from, like, one unit (a.k.a. Politis), a lot of fire units aren’t going to be the best choice in PVP. That’s not to say he’s bad – certainly not – but he’s become a victim of power-creep.

I will say that Ken absolutely carried me throughout my early-game days, though, and as a very new-game player, he’d been the unit that did 90% of the damage in my team. Even now, he’s in my team when I’m playing through the in-game story. I’ve used him for more than a full year straight at this point, and I’ve noticed he works best as a tank that can also deal a surprising amount of damage. The DEF break on his s2 is reliable (even when he doesn’t have Vigor on), and his damage is good once he has some good gear on him.

Where to Use Ken?

As mentioned, Ken has fallen out of use in both PVE and PVP, so not a lot of people know where to use him. I could make an entire article on the ins-and-outs of where Ken (or any other unit) shines in one area or not, but I’ll condense it into 2 paragraphs: PVE and PVP.

Ken… doesn’t have a place to go in PVE. You can’t use him in Wyvern 11-13, because the boss gains Combat Readiness whenever a non-Ice unit takes a turn. The Banshee is an Ice unit, automatically putting Ken at a disadvantage. Ken is only a single-target attacker, which makes him not the best unit to pick against the Azimanak Hunt. He does nothing to manipulate the mechanics of the Caides Hunt, either. This leaves him with the Golem Hunt – a hunt that no one really farms, because the sets aren’t worth it.

As for PVP, this is pretty much the best place to use him. He’s made to be a PVP unit, and he’ll get you up the ranks a bit. However, he does start kind of falling off once you start playing PVP more seriously, and he’ll become pretty situational. He becomes less of a favorable pick once you get into Masters+, and in RTA he’s niche from the start.

Builds

First, here’s my own Ken build. The Counter gear came from Arena shop, and the Crit set came from crafting and equipment conversion.

First of all, I would like to make one thing clear: I am well aware that my Ken isn’t at his best. Counter sets almost always have to be paired with Immunity, however Immunity gear wasn’t easy to come by for me. I also know that his Defense is lacking, his Crit Rate is lower than it should be, and he probably needs a lot more Crit DMG.

The main stats that you want for the gear on his right side (in order of Necklace, Ring, and Boots) are Crit DMG%, HP%, and SPD. This does not change depending on what set you use, and will always be what you want. The stats you would want to aim for on your Ken is about:

• 20,000 HP
• 1,200 DEF
• 180 Speed
• 100% Crit Rate
• 250% Crit Damage

I’d like to say that this isn’t something any new player should expect to immediately achieve. Rather, this should be seen as a guideline, or a goal to work towards the further in the game you go.

With that said, I’m going to take a closer look at some of the different builds that you want to use for Ken, along with what stats to aim for.

Speed/Crit – I mean, you really can’t go wrong with Speed/Crit sets on pretty much any unit. Ken’s no different. This set here will help you achieve a faster Ken in general.

Lifesteal/Crit – While going into the Abyss, you’ll be given plenty of pieces of Lifesteal gear. These Lifesteal pieces are actually really good, and your Ken can be a good contender for who gets them. The further down you go, the higher equipment level the Lifesteal pieces get (so you’ll get, say, Lv. 41 pieces, then Lv. 65, etc.), meaning that your Ken’s gear can get stronger and stronger the deeper you go. The Crit set, meanwhile, will have to come from Wyvern or Crafting.

Counter/Immunity – This one was what I was trying to go for with my Ken. The Counter set will trigger his s1, meaning that he gains more Fighting Spirit, which – in turn – will activate his s3 requirements quicker. Honestly, I’ve seen a few other people run Ken on Counter, and I can say that it’s really terrifying when you see the “Counterattack” pop up after hitting him, because you just don’t know how much he’s going to hit for. The Counter Build is more of a late-game build, and not recommended for early players.

Artifacts

Once you’ve got your general build all set up for Ken, the next question is: what Artifacts can you use on him? My own Ken’s running on a Draco Plate that’s only one Bottle of Knowledge away from being fully limit broken, so I can say from experience that it’s a pretty good artifact for him. However, not everyone has a Draco Plate (especially newer players), so we’re gonna take a look at some more artifacts that are actually really good on him.

Sigurd Scythe – Well, Sigurd Scythe is just a very good Warrior artifact in general. You really can’t go wrong with this one: it had extra damage and life-steal once he reaches below 50% HP. I will say that it’s not the best artifact to use Ken on, though. He’s mostly going to be supported by healers, and it won’t be a huge burst of damage that kills him most of the time; instead, he’ll get debuffed and controlled to death.

Draco Plate – [LIMITED ARTIFACT] This is the artifact that I’ve been using on him for a few months now, and I can safely say that it’s not bad at all on him! Draco Plate lowers his stat requirements by increasing the amount of Crit Damage he deals, along with decreasing the amount of damage that he takes on Critical Hits. Very good artifact to use on him!

Hell Cutter – Not the best to use on him, but viable. I used it as my Ken artifact for a few months before I got Draco Plate. This one does help stack up his Crit Rate if necessary and his ATK (though that’s not really going to be necessary, because he doesn’t really scale off his ATK).

Crimson Seed – [Acquired in Hall of Trials] As mentioned in Sigurd Scythe, Ken will mainly end up dying from debuffs. Because Crimson Seed dispels debuffs when the caster’s attacked, this artifact’s cleanse could be what saves your skin at some point.

As a super early-game player, the best Artifact to put on him that you’ll (likely) have is Exorcist’s Tonfa. That one will increase his damage if the enemy’s at more than 50% HP – it doesn’t scale off of his ATK, mind you. It just increases his damage in general.

What about Samsara Prayer Beads?

Samsara Prayer Beads is Ken’s own artifact. It was released fairly recently, but it’ll run on every Ken banner, and also features him lore-wise. Now, is it any good for Ken?

…Not really.

“40.0% chance each to grant increased Effect Resistance and Defense for 1 turn at the end of the turn.” That’s what Samsara Prayer Beads done when fully maxed out, which basically makes it a bruiser version of Alexa’s Basket. Now, here’s the problem: Not only does it proc at the end of the turn (vs. Basket proccing at the start of the turn), but Ken doesn’t even scale off of Effect Resistance or Defense! However, I will say that bruisers like Ken do need Effect Resistance and Defense on top of HP, Crit Rate, and Crit Damage, meaning that this artifact could lower the stat requirements if you’re really in a pinch.

I don’t want to say that Samsara Prayer Beads is Doctor’s Bag-levels of bad – and trust me, that artifact is bad – but you wouldn’t get the best results putting it on Ken. In short: You can use Samsara Prayer Beads if you want, however it shouldn’t be used over any of the artifacts talked about in the above section.

Should You Pull?

Finally, we need to talk about whether or not you should pull Ken. Personally, there’s a lot of people who believe that he’s not a good unit to pull for anymore, and that you shouldn’t go for him if you get him on his Selective Summon.

First of all, if he’s your favorite character and you love the look of him, then go right ahead! The best part of Epic 7 is that you get to pull for all your favorite units, and you can make pretty much any unit work if you like them enough. (Diche knows I’ve unironically built fire Dingo because I love the look of him.) By all means, if you like Ken’s appearance enough, then I say pull him.

But in all seriousness, Ken may have fallen out of use these days, but he’s still a pretty strong unit to use. I will say, though, that a 5-star unit named Sigret is one of the best Selective Summon units to go for progression-wise, but if you roll past her or never get her, then Ken can be quite usable.

Like I said, he’s a jack of all trades, master of none, meaning you could pretty much slot him anywhere in early-game. However, there is still a good chance that he’ll end up becoming a benchwarmer once you hit your Wyvern 11 farming days, so take that as you will.

I hope this helped you make a decision on whether or not to build/pull for Ken! I’m Sara Ann, and I’ll see you in the next article!