Ram Review – High-Powered Banshee DPS!

Though I’ve covered Rem, the blue-haired twin, I realize now that I never covered Ram, the Earth Mage who was our free unit during the Re:Zero collab. I’ve seen a lot of talk about Rem (and for good reason; I’m pretty sure that even now, she’s still meta-breaking), but there’s not a lot about Ram. With that, I decided to take a closer look at her.

Let’s begin!

Introduction

“A maid of the Roswaal Mansion, Ram came to Ritania through a Chaos Gate. Her left eye is covered by her pink hair. After arriving in Ritania, she and Rem began taking care of Tirel Castle. Ram’s twin sister, Rem, is very dear to her.”

Class: Mage
Element: Earth

In a nutshell, Ram’s skillset is:

• S1: Attacks an enemy, with a 60% (max 75%) chance to decrease Attack for 1 turn. Increases effect chance by 25% when she’s buffed. (Soul Burn: Attacks all enemies, but doesn’t trigger a Dual Attack.)
• Passive: Increases her ATK by 30%, and then decreases the effect of Combat Readiness-decreasing by 80% (100% when fully skilled up).
• S3: Attacks the enemy, decreasing Defense for 2 turns and then granting Increased ATK (Greater) to herself for 2 turns. (4-turn cooldown when skilled up)

Analysis

Just looking only at her skillset, Ram doesn’t look so great. Her kit is painfully simple, and she only attacks one enemy on both skills. (Her s1 can be soulburned to hit an AoE attack, but not a lot of people will do that.) You have to take the rest of her kit into account in order for her to truly shine.

First of all, she already boasts an incredibly high ATK of 1,556, and that is without her built-in 30% ATK boost. With that, all of her damage on her skills will be really good with just mediocre gear. On top of that, her s3’s damage multiplier is insanely good, meaning that she has the potential to completely one-shot a boss monster – which is exactly what people have been doing.

Where to Use Ram?

Like I said earlier, Ram is now one of the best units to use in Banshee one-shot teams. Because her damage output is so insanely high with minimal effort, on top of her being an Earth unit, many people have turned to using her as their main damage dealer.

Ram has been used in Banshee 13 one-shot teams, due to her high damage multipliers and insane base Attack. I don’t think she’s at all that usable in PvP, due to the fact that she needs an entire team to set her up (which is especially tricky in RTA, where the opponent could just ban her and make all the work be for nothing), and is currently not in a meta where she would shine.

Despite that, Ram has her place, and she shines in that place.

In a quick nutshell, use her in B13. There’s nowhere else you can really go for, especially in PvP.

Builds

There’s only one way to really build Ram, and that is to give her high ATK, Crit Rate and Crit DMG%. Now, the actual part of building her is what might be a little different.

Destruction/Crit: The build that most people go for. Destruction boosts her Crit DMG%, and Crit Rate will help her to get to 100% Crit Rate (or at least 85%, if she’s only going to be used in Banshee 13). Earlier players use Attack as their 4-set at first, but will swap to Destruction once they can. ATK%/CRIT DMG%/ATK%

Rage/Crit: This is the build that most die-hard players will go for on their Ram. Rage is a harder 4-set to work with, but if used right it can make Ram deal infinitely more damage. Requires some really good set-up of the Banshee one-shot team in order to be pulled off. ATK%/CRIT DMG%/ATK%

The ideal Ram stats to go for are:

• 85% Crit Rate (100% if you’re not using her in Banshee for some reason)
• 300%+ Crit Damage
• 180~ Speed
• 5,000+ ATK (More is always better)

Artifacts

There are only a few artifacts I can think of to use on Ram.

Daydream Joker: As always, Daydream Joker is one of the best artifacts to use on PvE units who work best in the Hunts (this can be seen on units such as Sigret, a PvE-oriented Seaside Bellona, etc.). This is due to the fact that Daydream Joker scales damage off of the enemy’s max HP; this means the more HP the enemy has, the more damage is dealt. There are a few PvE scenarios that block or limit the effects of Daydream Joker, but Banshee 13 is not one of them.

Kal’adra: I’ve seen many people use Kal’adra on a Rage-based Ram build, in order to have more debuff-based damage. It’s actually been proven that Rage’s “increases the damage by 30%” stipulation is one of the highest damage increasers in the game, and Kal’adra is no different. Overall, it’s very good to pair up with on a Rage build, but if you’re using a Destruction build I’d personally use Daydream Joker.

What About Severed Horn Wand?

Severed Horn Wand is Ram’s own artifact; it’s her character-specific artifact, and usually came paired alongside her. The question, however, is whether or not it meshes well with her kit enough to be used over Daydream Joker or Kal’adra. Personally, I like Severed Horn Wand as an artifact to use on a damage-based Mage – personally, I’d used it on Vivian before I got Dignus Orb and had some surprising success – but it’s not the greatest for Ram.

It works with her kit (the Attack boost is nice, and since Ram tends to be squishy the decreased damage on Boss monsters is appreciated), but it’s not going to completely make or break her kit. Daydream Joker and Kal’adra are much better to Ram’s kit, as it increases her damage far more than a flat 15% boost that Severed Horn Wand gives.

Should You Build Her?

Yes! If you played during the Re:Zero event, then you probably have your Ram SSS-maxed already. (And if you didn’t, right now there’s no other way to get her, so either wait for a rerun or for the event to be added to the Book of Memories.) Considering how she’s a free unit, and has a great place to shine in, there’s really no reason to not build her. With that said, I hope you enjoyed this article, and it helped to influence your decision on whether or not to build her. I’m Sara Ann, and I’ll see you in the next article!