Rimuru Review – Buff Stealing, Extra Damage, Oh My!
Now that the That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime (or, Tensura for short) collab is over, and we’ve had about a solid month to test Rimuru out, I thought it would be a good idea to talk about them and what their spot in the meta is. Milim turned out to be not-game-breakingly-OP, and Shuna…
…well, we don’t really talk about Shuna.
Rimuru, though, is a completely different story; they’ve been making some rounds around RTA (and PVP in general), and as such we have a lot more info on where they’re usable than either Milim or Shuna. There’s a lot to talk about them for their multiple unique mechanics, and you’ll soon see why that is.
With that said, let’s begin!
Table of Contents
Introduction
Class: Warrior
Element: Earth
In a nutshell, Rimuru’s skillset is:
- S1: Attacks an enemy, grants themselves a random buff from a selected pool for a turn (said pool being: Increased ATK, Immunity, Increased Critical Hit Resistance, Increased Effect Resistance)
- Passive: After attacking with a non-basic skill (so essentially, not their S1), Rimuru copies 2 buffs from their target and then grants them to all of their allies – although undispellable buffs like Vigor, Idol, etc. aren’t copied. When anyone in their team is attacked by a buffed enemy, they’ll activate an attack that hits the enemy and increases their Combat Readiness by 30%. This extra attack only can happen once every 3 turns, and does in fact trigger the buff copying.
- S3: Attacks an enemy, guaranteed not to be affected by elemental disadvantage or whatnot. A successful attack with land an additional 5,000 fixed damage on the enemy, and this fixed damage will increase proportional to the number of buffs on the entire ally team before attacking. (The max amount of fixed damage is 10,000.)
Analysis
Quick Fact: You only need two buffs on everyone on the ally team in order to gain the full 10,000 damage on Rimuru’s s3! That means you only need Rimuru to trigger their passive and grab two buffs before using their s3 for the full extra damage.
In short: Rimuru is an extremely versatile unit. They can work in cleaver or bruiser teams; if you need buffs, Rimuru has your back, and if you need damage, Rimuru has you covered. Though they don’t have usability in PvE, when I say they’re strong in PvP, I mean they’re strong.
Rimuru can easily burst through DPS units using their s3 – the initial damage softens them up, and the extra 10k can easily be the killing blow that takes out squishier units. Even if you’re fighting against, say, a 30k HP Dark Corvus, it’s very easy to weaken them up for someone else to deal the final blow. If your enemy has good buffs, Rimuru can copy them with ease and turn the tides on your favor!
Where to Use Rimuru?
As mentioned in Analysis, Rimuru hasn’t seen much use in PvE. The enemies rarely use buffs to their advantage in a way that Rimuru can counterattack, give them to their team and benefit from it, and when they do it’s usually not that great. (Not to mention the Wyvern, barring the fact it’s a Fire unit, has an undispellable shield.)
However, in PvP, anything goes! That’s where Rimuru is at their best. If you’ve been on Reddit, the Epic 7 Discord, or pretty much anywhere else when Rimuru was first released, you’d see tons of images of Rimurus who copied really good buffs from their enemy (such as an Evasion + Immunity combo, Skill Nullifier and Attack Buff, etc.). They aren’t exaggeration – as I write this, Rimuru has been seeing heavy use in PvP, and for very good reason!
Rimuru’s a bit stat-hungry, but for what it’s worth they are a very high-quality unit to use. As I write this, it’s been about a month since the first Tensura collab dropped, and I don’t know if SuperCreative will rerun it next year like the Guilty Gear collab.
Builds
Shockingly, Rimuru shouldn’t be built as a damage-free tanking unit! Remember their s3 has up to 10,000 extra damage. This means that it stacks on top of whatever other damage their s3 does. No matter how you build them, you definitely want to have at least some sort of damage on Rimuru, for more damage.
Speed/Immunity – CRIT DMG%/ATK%/SPD. This is the usual build for if you want to make Rimuru as a DPS unit. If you’re building them as a bruiser unit, I’d say replace the ATK% ring with HP%. Apart from that, though, you want to stack up as much DPS substats as you can on Rimuru, too – remember, you can easily get record-breaking numbers with their s3 + extra damage.
The ideal Rimuru build looks to be about:
- 13,000 HP
- 1,200 DEF
- 3,500+ ATK (More is always better)
- 220 Speed
- 100% Crit Rate
- 270%+ Crit Damage
Artifacts
There are a couple of artifacts that you can use for Rimuru! Here are a few select choices:
A Symbol of Unity – [Acquired in Guild Shop] Honestly, there are so very few DPS units that don’t benefit from Symbol of Unity at this point. Rimuru can always benefit from having more Hit Chance and more damage. If you don’t have your Symbol of Unity max-limit-broken or someone else already has it, then Oath Key can work fine. It essentially does the same thing as Unity, minus the extra damage.
Draco Plate – [LIMITED ARTIFACT] This one’s the most common artifact I’ve seen on Rimuru so far. It increases their Crit Damage by a significant amount, and decreases the amount of damage they take from a critical hit as well. It serves the purpose of protecting Rimuru and increasing their damage as well, all in one artifact!
Azure Comet – [LIMITED ARTIFACT] Azure Comet is shockingly good on Rimuru. I haven’t seen that many people use it on them, but it’ll merge super well with their s3. The extra damage will be all but guaranteed to kill someone if you have the full 10,000, which is an easy Combat Readiness boost.
Sigurd Scythe – Sigurd Scythe, as always, is one of the best artifact choices for a Warrior unit, and Rimuru is especially no different. If you build your Rimuru with damage and not just as a tank unit, you can get some nice extra damage + healing out of this artifact.
Overall, all 4 of these artifact choices are pretty good on them, but your best/most commonly used choice is going to be either Draco Plate or Sigurd Scythe.
What About Anti-Magic Mask?
“At the start of the turn, had a 100% chance to grant a random buff to the caster for 2 turns. (Immunity, Increase Attack, Increase Defense, Increase Critical Hit Damage, Increase Speed)”
I haven’t run into that many Rimurus in the wild with Anti-Magic Mask on, but I know that people have put it on them. It’s their own artifact, after all – the artifact that runs on banner with them. It does help with their S3, too – as Anti-Magic Mask places buffs on the unit it’s on, it’ll help to ease up the “2 buffs per ally” requirement for their full S3 damage.
Personally, I think the main problem is that Anti-Magic Mask is a decent artifact, but it’s not necessary on Rimuru. As I mentioned, the main way I can see it being useful is to ease up the “2 buffs per ally” requirement for their s3. However, do remember that Rimuru’s entire gimmick is stealing buffs with their passive! Whenever they use a skill that’s not their s1, they will automatically copy 2 buffs – this artifact shouldn’t be necessary at all!
Should You Build Them?
Yes! I can’t account for meta changes, but as it stands Rimuru is doing insanely well right now. They’ve been seeing a ton of use in Arena, and have helped to send players up in the ranks of PvP with their unique buff-copying and hard-hitting S3.
Of course, if you like Rimuru as a character, or are a fan of That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, that’s another valid reason to build Rimuru, meta or not! I know I’ve built some unorthodox characters because I like them. Rimuru just gets the added benefit of being very strong in this current meta. I hope this helped sway your decision on whether or not to build Rimuru! I’m Sara Ann, and I’ll see you in the next article!