Hwayoung Review – No Crit Damage? No Problem!

Move over, Gunther; you don’t hold the title of “highest base ATK in the game” anymore. That title now belongs to Hwayoung. There’s been a lot of talk about her for a while, ever since her release, and it’s not hard to see why. I figured I might as well throw my own 2 cents in about her as well.

Let’s begin!

Introduction

“In the past, Hwayoung used to be one of Natalon’s strongest fighters. However, both of her arms were severely injured during a fight against the Suin. Some time later, Hwayoung took Ken in as her pupil, but following his disappearance, she settled in a human village in the Prairie.”

Class: Warrior
Element: Fire

In a nutshell, Hwayoung’s skillset is:

• S1: Kicks the enemy, increasing her Combat Readiness by 10% (15% when skilled up)
• Passive: Hwayoung sacrifices her ability to land a critical hit, but she increases her attack stat by 35% (50% when skilled up). She also decreases the damage she takes by 30%. At the start of the battle and at the end of her turn, she’ll grant herself a barrier proportionate to her ATK.
• S3: Hwayoung dispels all debuffs from herself before she attacks an enemy, granting immunity to herself for 2 turns. This attack penetrates the target’s defense, and the damage increases proportional to the difference between her max HP and the target’s HP (as long as she has less HP than the target).

Analysis

Hwayoung isn’t the first unit to have the gimmick of “deals more damage if the enemy has more HP than the caster.” The only other unit off the top of my head I can think of with that same gimmick would be Ervalen.

However, Hwayoung essentially does his job better when it comes to his extra HP attack difference – not only does she penetrate the target’s defense, but the attack increase can go all the way up to 100%. In comparison, Ervalen can only go up to 100%.

In other words, she looks like a more sustainable version of Ervalen.

Where to Use Hwayoung?

Like most units released these days, Hwayoung doesn’t have a real place in PvE. However, it currently looks like she’s shaping up to be pretty good in PvP! There are many units on the field that can punish you for landing a critical hit, so even though Hwayoung can’t land a crit, it can still be useful in battle.

Hwayoung’s role in PvP is a high damage single-target dealer, and by god she does that job well. Due to her barrier and the fact she reduces damage taken, even in a squishy build Hwayoung can still hold her own. This is good, because Hwayoung really doesn’t want HP on her kit.

Even if she misses against high-evasion units (such as Violet), the increase in damage from the HP difference (along with penetrating defense) would be enough to burst them down.

Builds

First of all, do not put any Crit Rate% or Crit DMG% on Hwayoung. Both stats will go utterly wasted, as she cannot deal a critical hit. Like Summertime Iseria and Senya (and Inferno Khwazu to an extent) all you need to stack up on Hwayoung damage-wise is ATK%. On top of this, she does not need that much HP% stats, and it actively harms her once you go past a certain post.

Some people have figured out that around 12,000 HP is around the general sweet spot for her Max HP; it’s enough to ensure that she gets the full HP scaling while still having low enough HP to take down most units. In general, the goal-post for Hwayoung stats seems to be:

• 12,000 HP
• 6,500+ ATK (but 7,000 and above is preferred)
• 1,500~ Defense
• 230~ Speed

The 6,500+ number may seem a bit too high, but it’s worth noting how large her base Attack stat already is.

As for what sets to use on her, it seems like the classic Speed/Immunity build is the way most people are going to go. The stats for the right side are going to be ATK%/ATK%/SPD.

Artifacts

I’ve only seen a few artifacts to use on Hwayoung so far.

Uberius Tooth – An obvious choice for Hwayoung. Once fully skilled up, Uberius Tooth will deal some extra damage at the end of a single target attack, and scales off of the caster’s ATK. Essentially, she’ll get another bump of damage at the end of either of her 2 skills, which could be enough to finish off the job against anyone particularly pesky.

Indestructible Gaiters – This is Hwayoung’s own artifact, which is also a great choice for her. It’ll increase her attack by a flat 10%. However, if she attacks with a non-critical hit, she’ll have a 100% chance (once skilled up) to burn for 1 turn. Like Uberius, burn scales off of her Attack, which makes this another good choice for her.

Should You Build Her?

I’d definitely say so! Hwayoung is rapidly shaping up to be a very strong character in this meta (and maybe even out of the meta, as well). She’s not something to balk at, and anyone who needs a single-target damage dealer who can go through high-Evasion units – or even want a Gunther 2.0 – should summon for Hwayoung.

Of course, if you just like her design or personality, that’s a perfectly valid reason to pull for her, too! I hope this article helped you to form an opinion on her, and give some pointers on how to build Hwayoung. I’m Sara Ann, and I’ll see you in the next article!