Alice Best Builds, Teams, Guide & Review

Core Passive & Additional Ability

Core Passive

Alice's Core Passive: Twin Rainbows of the Swordheart provides:

• A Damage Over Time (DoT) that does 2.5% of the Assault DMG every 0.95s.
• An 18% increase to the Disorder Base DMG Multiplier for every second remaining in Anomaly duration (caps at 180%).
• 10 Blade Etiquette* when Alice triggers an Assault.
• "Polarised Assault"* when landing the final hit of a fully charged Basic Attack: Starshine Waltz.
• A 25% Build-up Rate buff for 30s when Alice triggers and Assault.

* Blade Etiquette and Polarized Assaults are part of her unique mechanic.

Damage Over Time (DoT)

Whenever the enemy is afflicted with a Physical Anomaly, a DoT tick of damage will occur every 0.95s. This scaling is based off of the original tick of damage, so a 1,000,000 Assault will have each tick deal 25,000 damage.

The DoT behaves like an Anomaly damage instance, like Shock, Corruption or Burn. This means:

• It does benefit from Anomaly Damage and duration related buffs (e.g. Jane's Core Passive: Insight).
• It does not trigger character on-hit effects (like Burnice's Afterburn).
• It does not trigger item on-hit effects (like Kaboom the Cannon or Fanged Metal).
• It is not affected by Crit.
• Enemy-sided debuffs do apply to the DoT, despite it scaling off the original Anomaly Damage.
• • Conversely, enemy-sided debuffs applied to the original Anomaly Damage does not carry over to the DoT.

In regards to the last point: if you have Nicole's Core Passive: Mechanical Case applied and that causes a 1,000,000 Assault to go up to 1,280,000 damage, the DoT will still only deal 25,000 damage unless the DEF Shred is applied at the moment the DoT deals damage.

Disorder Time Scaling

In line with making Physical in line with DoT Anomalies, Core Passive: Twin Rainbows of the Swordheart also gives it a scaling increase in Disorder Damage of 18% for every second remaining in the Physical Anomaly application.

At 10s, it gives a maximum 180% increase to the Disorder Damage Multiplier.

This is the Disorder Base DMG value, so it scales well with Disorder DMG Bonus values (like from Yuzuha), but is saturated by the 450% Base DMG standard.

Since it is dependent on the amount of time remaining in the Anomaly, Jane's 5s extension of Flinch will apply, allowing for the 10s bonus even when Disorder ICD is factored in.

Alice's unique mechanic can also help with this, by ignoring Disorder ICD values.

Blade Etiquette

All attacks (other than Basic Attack: Starshine Waltz) will build "Blade Etiquette" with varying amounts of build-up. In addition, any Assault Alice triggers through Anomaly build-up will also give an additional 10 Blade Etiquette.

Blade Etiquette is tracked through a gauge under her portrait. It has a cap of 300, with it being split into 3 bars of 100 points each.

By holding down the Basic Attack button, she will charge Basic Attack: Starshine Waltz.

Instead of building Blade Etiquette, this consumes it, with it having 3 charge levels depending on the number of bars it consumes.

Level 1 and 2 charges should rarely - if ever - be used. This is because at Level 3, the final hit of Basic Attack: Starshine Waltz will inflict a Polarized Assault on the enemy.

Polarized Assault

Polarized Assault counts as an alternate version of Assault. This means that:

• It applies the Flinch debuff.
• Activates item and buff effects (e.g. Fanged Metal 4-piece, Artful, etc.).
• Triggers "Atribute Anomaly" Decibel bonuses.
• Is able to Disorder with other Anomalies, including regular Assault.

It is indistinguishable from Assault in most circumstances.

The difference is that it can Disorder with Assault. Polarized Assault is not Assault, which means that if regular Assault is applied, it will trigger a Disorder. Likewise, if Polarized Assault is applied, regular Assault will also trigger a Disorder.

Such behaviour allows Alice to self-Disorder without being dependent on other Anomaly units.

It cannot Disorder with itself (such as from using her M2 Sage at the Sword's Tip). Think of it as a unique element, similar to Frost or Auric Ink: like how they benefit from Ice/Shatter and Ether/Corruption effects respectively, so too does Polarized Assault benefit from Physical/Assault effects.

It should be noted that it does not count for things that specify Anomalies triggered through build-up, like the 10 Blade Etiquette bonus for her.

There are also other unique features that pertain to Polarized Assault:

1. It can bypass Anomaly and Disorder ICD on application.

So for example, if Alice uses Basic Attack: Starshine Waltz and a Disorder occurs even a single frame before it is due to land, the Polarized Assault will still be applied. Since it is an Anomaly, this would then trigger a Disorder with the previous element that had just been inflicted the frame before.

Such behaviour allows for Disorders to happen even before the 3s Disorder ICD has completed.

Although it bypasses Disorder ICD on its application, it does not cause other Anomalies to bypass their Disorder ICD. This is very important, as it dictates how Alice is played in Anomaly teams!

Any Disorders triggered by Polarized Assault will initiate the 3s cooldown and this must be respected. So no other Anomalies can be inflicted for 3s after Basic Attack: Starshine Waltz lands, if it triggered a Disorder - even regular Assault.

2. It uses the currently build Physical Anomaly gauge for its damage calculation.

When Polarized Assault triggers, it does not reset the Physical Anomaly bar. Instead, it will treat it as if whatever is currently built so far is the equivalent of 100% of the gauge when it triggers.

For example:

Assume a 1,000,000 Assault. If you are using Nicole with The Vault and get the 24% Damage Bonus for only 50% of the Anomaly gauge when building Physical Anomaly, you wouldn't hit for 1,240,000, but for 1,120,000 instead.

This is because you only had the Damage % Bonus for half of your build-up, so it averages out.

Yet if you were to trigger Polarized Assault while the Anomaly gauge is at 50% full, just after The Vault's buff has expired, it would hit for the full 1,240,000.

The way that it functions is that it would take the average of what is currently built and ignore any missing build-up. This is a double-edged sword.

If timed around buff uptimes (like with The Vault example), it is going to be hitting harder than regular Assaults. However, Anomaly dilution has a much more pronounced effect as a result.

Physical Anomaly Build-up Rate

When Alice triggers an Assault on the enemy, she gets a 25% boost to her Physical Anomaly Build-up Rate. Emphasis placed on Alice. If any other character in the team (like Jane or Yuzuha) trigger Assault instead, she will not receive this bonus.

This does work with Polarized Assault, which means that it should have 100% uptime without needing optimised rotations.

Additional Ability

Additional Ability: Mystery Hunt needs either an Anomaly or Support character in the team to activate. It provides:

• 300 Blade Etiquette at the start of battle.
• 30 Blade Etiquette when any Disorder is triggered (inclusive of Yanagi Polarity Disorders).
• 1.6 Anomaly Proficiency (AP) bonus for every 1 point of Anomaly Mastery (AM) over 140.

Given that Alice has 142 AP at max Core Passive: Twin Rainbows of the Swordheart, it is always active. This informs her stat, Drive Disc and W-Engine priorities.

Basic Attacks

Alice's Basic Attacks are split between Basic Attack: Starshine Waltz and Basic Attack: Celestial Overture.

Starshine Waltz

Basic Attack: Starshine Waltz is the Blade Etiquette consuming move. There are some nuances to it:

1. It will always trigger regular Assault before Polarized Assault.

The final hit is what both triggers Attribute Anomaly and applies Polarized Assault. In the case where the Anomaly Gauge has reached 100% by the time it lands, the regular Assault will process first.

If this happens, it guarantees an immediate Disorder (regular Assault -> Polarized Assault).

2. It is fully swap cancellable, but Alice does not trigger regular Anomalies when inactive.

Swap cancelling Basic Attack: Starshine Waltz is core to Alice's gameplan, as it allows you to do productive things on other characters during its long animation.

Although the Polarized Assault will happen regardless of if she is, or isn't, the active character, standard Anomaly trigger rules apply: if the Anomaly gauge is maxed out in Physical build-up and Basic Attack: Starshine Waltz lands while Alice is swapped out of, it would not trigger a regular Assault.

Instead, the gauge would remain maxed and only Polarized Assault is applied. It is especially important to keep this in mind, because Polarized Assault still triggers Disorder ICD, locking you out of the regular Assault (and all other Anomalies for that matter!) for at least 3s after.

3. A pseudo-Vital View state is active during its charging period.

While consuming Blade Etiquette, time will slow down. This does not count as an Evasive Assist, nor does the slow down has any impact on timers, stun bars, buffs, etc.

It can, however, hold enemies in place and delay their attacks for a short while.

Celestial Overture

Basic Attack: Celestial Overture is Alice's standard Basic Attack string.

Most of it is unremarkable, but there are many shortcuts to the 5th hit of the string:

• Dodge Counter: Ceremony of Swordlight
• Special Attack: Piercing Dawn
• EX Special Attack: Aurora Thrust - Northern Cross
• EX Special Attack: Aurora Thrust - Southern Cross
• Quick Assist: Intertwined Stab
• Assist Follow-Up: Cross Riposte
• Chain Attack: Starfall Intermission

The 5th hit is not only stronger than the rest - in particular in terms of Energy Regen (4.8) and Blade Etiquette (23.2) - it can also be enhanced, increasing most of its parameters by 50-80% and being fully invulnerable.

It has multiple Anomaly trigger points ("finishers"), being at the end of the zig zag portion, the upwards dive and the downwards dive. It is also fully swap cancellable and always executes in full.

Alice will gain 1 stack of an enhanced B5 (capped at 1) whenever she triggers an Assault through Anomaly build-up. This stack is consumed upon activating a B5.

This means that you do not gain stacks from Polarized Assaults or regular Assaults triggered by other teammates. It works similar to the 10 Blade Etiquette from Core Passive: Twin Rainbows of the Swordheart.

Specials & EX Variants

Alice has 1 Special and 2 EX Specials. All of them have a Perfect Dodge property on their startup, and if successfully used to Perfect Dodge attacks, will generate 10 Blade Etiquette.

Special Attack: Piercing Dawn is a fast side-swap, but with low stats across the board. It does a quarter of the damage, daze and half of the Anomaly application of Dodge Counter: Ceremony of Swordlight, while also generating less Blade Etiquette.

As it is a Special move, it generates no Energy either. Other than its side-swap, it has no real use.

EX Special Attack: Aurora Thrust - Southern Cross is the default EX Special. It's a 2-part attack, starting with a series of slashes while backdashing followed by a thrust. Only the thrust is able to trigger Anomalies.

EX Special Attack: Aurora Thrust - Northern Cross is the alternate EX Special, which can be used by holding forwards before casting. It's only a singular thrust, so it executes very quickly.

Although EX Special Attack: Aurora Thrust - Southern Cross is slightly stronger, the speed of EX Special Attack: Aurora Thrust - Northern Cross means it is usually the better choice, given that both shortcut into B5 anyways.

Note that all Perfect Dodges triggered count as Perfect Dodges for Decibel purposes as well as for item triggers, like Sharpened Stinger Predatory Instinct stacks, but do not count as Dodge Counters (such as for Woodpecker Electro).

Dodges, Assists, Chains and Ultimates

All other skills aren't particularly outstanding.

Dodge Counter: Ceremony of Swordlight is better than Special Attack: Piercing Dawn, so it should be used instead if no Energy is available.

Quick Assist: Intertwined Stab is unremarkable.

Assist Follow-Up: Cross Riposte generates over 80 points of Blade Etiquette and has good Anomaly build-up, so it's worth using. Unfortunately, as Alice is often either the active character or remains on-field after Basic Attack: Starshine Waltz, there aren't many opportunities to use this.

Chain Attack: Starfall Intermission is deals decent damage and builds 40 Blade Etiquette. It's fast, but not outstanding. Its speed can sometimes be a problem, as if you trigger an Anomaly just before it, Alice will be in Disorder ICD by the time its finisher hit lands.

Ultimate: Starfall Finale gives a flat 200 Blade Etiquette, making it an pivotal tool in rotations to generate Blade Etiquette when out of Energy. It also has a high Damage Multiplier (over 4,500%!) so it's good to slot it in stun periods for extra burst. Note that it is one of the few moves that does not link to Basic Attack: Celestial Overture B5.

Summary

Alice at first looks like a simple character, but she has a lot of little intricacies to her kit that make her a potent main damage carry:

• Enhances Assault Anomaies: She transforms Assault into a DoT-styled Anomaly, complete with Anomaly damage ticks and a scaling Disorder damage multiplier that rewards you the earlier its triggered.
• A strong carry with Self-Disorders: With "Polarized Assault", she can Disorder her own Assaults and get bonuses (like Decibels or Fanged Metal) from it, making her an effective carry in any team.
• High Skill Ceiling: With multiple swap-cancellable skills, directional inputs for her EXs and the complex ways in which her Polarized Assault can alter rotations due to it both bypassing and triggering Disorder ICD gives her great potential.

1. Core Passive
2. Basic Attack
3. EX Special | Ultimate
4. Dodge
5. Assist

Reasonings

• Levelling Core Passive: Twin Rainbows of the Swordheart both increases Physical Build-up Rate and AM.
• • Maxing it out leaves Alice with 142 AM, just over the baseline needed for Additional Ability: Mystery Hunt.
• Other skills are not as notable, as they do not have special effects, so level in order of most commonly used ( Basic Attacks > EX Specials >= Ultimate).

Although levelling skills does not provide significant gains, levels do mean more daze and damage. As Alice has high damage scaling (e.g. 4,500% Ultimate: Starfall Finale), it is still recommended to invest in them. Some fights may also require the daze provided to comfortably reach stun thresholds.

Alice is a character that benefits a lot from her Signature. Other options still work fine, but may require additional build-up support.

Practiced Perfection

Practiced Perfection (P1) provides:

• 30% Attack
• 40% Physical DMG Bonus
• 60 Anomaly Mastery
• • 96 Anomaly Proficiency (due to Additional Ability: Mystery Hunt)

It is Alice's Signature and her best-weapon, being a very significant increase over other options.

In terms of raw stats, it doesn't seem all that different from Sharpened Stinger, but as Additional Ability: Mystery Hunt provides 1.6 AP for every point of AM, that means an extra 96 AP - more than Sharpened Stinger's entire mainstat bonus.

Practiced Perfection should be at least 16-18% better than Sharpened Stinger, and possibly even exceeding a 30% gain against something like Electro-Lip Gloss or Weeping Gemini.

The increase in Anomaly build-up from the high AM values can also impact rotations, as it is what allows Alice to consistently self-Disorder. Without it, she may struggle to apply Assaults fast enough.

Certain teams can do well without it. Alice | Jane does not care for the AM as much, and Yuzuha's M2 Full of Colorful Company can make up for the build-up loss, but otherwise Alice will play very differently without her Signature, especially in teams that don't strictly run double Anomaly.

Sharpened Stinger

Sharpened Stinger (P1) provides:

• 90 Anomaly Proficiency
• 36% Physical DMG Bonus
• 40% Anomaly Build-up Rate

It is the second best option, having strong stats all around.

As it provides Anomaly Build-up Rate, it can follow similar rotations to Practiced Perfection, meaning it falls behind predominantly due to the lack of AP granted by Additional Ability: Mystery Hunt.

Since all of Alice's Special and EX casts provide Perfect Dodges, they can also be used to refresh its Predatory Instinct stacks to full without much effort.

Burst rotations can be awkward in the stun period, as it'd need to be interrupted with Dodge inputs to maintain the buff, but it is still vastly superior over Standard Banner or A-Rank options.

Fusion Compiler

Fusion Compiler (P1) provides:

• 24% PEN Ratio
• 12% Combat Attack
• Up to 75 Anomaly Proficiency

On the surface, Fusion Compiler is a strong weapon. With how saturated stats can be, the PEN Ratio it provides is competitive, especially when using a PEN % D5 and 2-piece Puffer Electro.

Unfortunately, when it comes to its Anomaly Proficiency bonus, "The duration of each stack is calculated separately." It is 3 stacks of 25 AP, adding up to a potential total of 75, but this is rarely ever maintained.

To maintain continuous uptime on all stacks, Alice would need to use a Special or EX Special every 2.5 seconds. There isn't enough Energy for this, so it'd need Special Attack: Piercing Dawn use.

Given that Special Attack: Piercing Dawn generates no Energy and has a pathetic stat spread means that attempting to maintain stacks on Fusion Compiler would just harm your rotation and total damage output. 2 stacks is more realistic, but even then it's still cumbersome.

So overall, it is worse than Electro-Lip Gloss or Weeping Gemini at P1. However, it can get quite strong with dupes.

Electro Lip-Gloss

Electro-Lip Gloss (P5) provides:

• 75 Anomaly Proficiency
• 16% Combat Attack
• 25% DMG Bonus

With Polarized Assault counting as an Anomaly, this W-Engine's bonus effect should almost always be active - even in non-Anomaly teams (like those with Nicole or Astra Yao | Yuzuha).

Overall it's a solid option, but only when at P5. Its exact strength will depend on stat saturation, as Damage % and Combat Attack can suffer somewhat, but its AP mainstat means its still competitive.

Weeping Gemini

Weeping Gemini (P5) provides:

• 25% Attack
• Up to 192 Anomaly Proficiency

Alice craftable W-Engine option and surprisingly quite strong. Unless running a high daze unit on the team (e.g. Caesar or Trigger), most Deadly Assault bosses will only go through 2 stuns, whereas Shiyu bosses may die during or before the first stun.

Since Polarized Assaults counts as inflicting an Anomaly, that means they also count towards building Weeping Gemini stacks.

Given its bonus is AP, it does well in an environment where Combat Attack % and Damage % Bonuses are excessively saturated, even if Alice does also get a fair bit of AP from Additional Ability: Mystery Hunt.

It's about on par or even superior to the other non-limited options, falling short only on bosses that self-stun (like Typhon and maybe UCC), making it a pretty safe bet.

Stats

D6 - Anomaly Mastery

Additional Ability: Mystery Hunt gives 1.6 AP for every point of AM, so this slot is locked down. AM is giving more Anomalies and providing raw damage due to the conversion.

D5 - PEN % | Physical DMG Bonus | Attack %

This rides on stat saturation. IfPracticed Perfection and Yuzuha are used, then:

• PEN % with 2-piece Puffer Electro
• Physical DMG Bonus
• Attack %

Would be the order from best to worst. PEN % and Physical DMG Bonus would be within a single % worth in difference, with Attack % far behind.

But this comparison takes a hit when other factors are in play.

Nicole is a great teammate for Alice, but her DEF Shred interferes with the bonus from PEN %, making it lose value. Some buffs, like Artful, provide even more DEF Shred, making PEN % the worst choice instead.

Attack % is the least desirable option, but Damage % buffs can really stack up. Practiced Perfection, Fanged Metal, Yuzuha, Proto Punk and/or Swing Jazz and Astral Voice can all work together and heavily saturate it.

If the Artful buff (20% DMG + 20% Physical DMG Bonus and 35% DEF Shred) is used, then Attack % can surpass other stats, or at the very least become a competitive pick.

So PEN % is the best stat on paper, but Physical DMG Bonus is the most consistent stat, with Attack % as a niche but viable alternative depending on context.

D4 - Anomaly Proficiency

Even with Alice's Additional Ability: Mystery Hunt saturating AP, it still consistently outperforms other stats, making it the pick for this slot.

Drive Discs

Fanged Metal is the best 4-piece by far, providing a consistent 45% in Damage Bonus.

Polarized Assault counts for triggering the 4-piece effect, so it is incredibly easy to maintain 100% uptime of the buff.

2-piece however, has some variance:

1. Phaethon's Melody

This is the safest option to use, given that Additional Ability: Mystery Hunt converts its AM bonus to AP. It gives both extra build-up and damage, making it a well-rounded option and the default pick for Alice.

2. Puffer Electro

Ideal to use if PEN % is the D5 and provides the highest raw damage, but it should be avoided if DEF Shred is used. For example:

• Artful Buff (Deadly Assault)
• Nicole
• Trigger with Spectral Gaze
• Jane with M2 Adapt to the Environment
• Alice with M1 Palmful of Cilantro

3. Freedom Blues or Chaos Jazz

These sets provide a greater damage gain than Phaethon's Melody (30 AP instead of 12~) and can work regardless of DEF Shred, but it does come at a cost of lower AM for build-up.

Most of Alice's teams would follow a shell of:

Alice | Agent | Yuzuha

Anomaly Agents are strong, but hypercarry teams work well too, like:

Alice | Nicole | Yuzuha

Alice | Astra Yao | Yuzuha

Even Caesar can be used on the slot and still work well. Or perhaps Trigger - with or without Additional Ability: Silver Lantern's Gaze active if Spectral Gaze is available.

There's always potential for A-Rank or Standard Banner teams, such as by using Pulchra | Lucy or Seth | Rina, given that Alice is somewhat self-sufficient, but such teams would perform poorly.

The best Agents for Alice would be:

Yuzuha

Yuzuha is by far Alice's best teammate, and being a Physical-type Agent makes their synergy even better than with other Anomaly units.

Basic Attack: Starshine Waltz takes time, meaning Alice is often swapped out of during cast. However, not being the active character means not triggering Assault before Polarized Assault, which can lead to overcapping in Anomaly or becoming Disorder ICD locked.

Since Yuzuha's Basic Attack: Tanuki Claws can trigger an Assault halfway during Basic Attack: Starshine Waltz, this is no longer a big issue.

The build-up bonuses offered by Additional Ability: The More the Merrier also helps with rotations, especially if Practiced Perfection isn't available.

Vivian

Vivian is the best Anomaly unit to pair with Alice. Most endgame enemies have Ether Weakness, with only 1 (Heretic Jester) having Resistance.

This makes it much easier to juggle Disorders with Vivian over other units, helping build Blade Etiquette and Decibels. Surprisingly, weakness does not factor much in terms of damage, but for a good reason:

Polarized Assault counts for Additional Ability: Prophetic Tears' Abloom triggers. As Physical is one of the highest scaling elements for Abloom damage and Alice cycles between 2 types of Assault, almost all Ablooms will be Physical.

The raw damage that comes from constant high-scaling Ablooms, all without needing to take up field time that Alice needs to build Blade Etiquette makes them strong together.

Yanagi

Yanagi is has great synergy with Alice's kit. As Additional Ability: Mystery Hunt gives additional Blade Etiquette whenever Disorder is triggered and Yanagi can readily trigger Disorders with EX Special Attack: Gekka Ruten and Ultimate: Raiei Tenge, Alice gets the most number of Basic Attack: Starshine Waltz in Yanagi teams.

Normally, landing Polarity Disorders when the enemy is inflicted with Assault would massively tank its damage, as Physical has the lowest Disorder Base Damage Multiplier scaling out of all the Anomalies.

Core Passive: Twin Rainbows of the Swordheart fixes this issue, as it increases Physical Disorder damage. It is still bettter to land Polarity Assaults in Shock, but this greatly reduces the skill floor of the comp.

Jane

Jane is a strong pick - not just as a secondary DPS unit, but as a support, because Core Passive: Insight applies to regular Assaults, Polarized Assaults and even the DoT effect from Core Passive: Twin Rainbows of the Swordheart.

This means that Alice's already high Assault damage numbers are taken even higher as they can now Crit, which is a big deal given how this is a fully unsaturated bonus.

Similar to Yuzuha, Jane can trigger Assaults while Alice performs Basic Attack: Starshine Waltz, and since there isn't a need to juggle different Anomalies besides Assault and Polarized Assault, Disorder ICD is much easier to deal with.

When Practiced Perfection isn't available, Jane's Anomaly application can help make up for the loss in AM, leading to smooth rotations.

At a base level of investment (M0P1 all units), Vivian and Nicole would outperform Jane in Physical weak content, with Yanagi likely pulling ahead on Physical neutral. When Mindscapes are factored in though (in particular Jane's M2 Adapt to the Environment), the comp becomes one of the strongest teams in the game.

Nicole

Nicole - from a cost perspective - is the best partner for Alice when being run with another strong support (ideally Yuzuha, but Astra Yao too).

As Alice's burst all comes from Assaults - which are single instances of damage - Core Passive: Mechanical Case only needs to be applied for the moment in which the Assault triggers.

So whenever Alice does Basic Attack: Starshine Waltz, just swapping to Nicole and doing a single hit of Basic Attack: Do As I Please or Dash Attack: Jack in the Box is enough to significantly increase Alice's damage output.

If running Yuzuha, swapping to her after Nicole and triggering Assault with Basic Attack: Tanuki Claws means you could get both a regular Assault and Polarized Assault to benefit from the DEF Shred. Since Polarized Assault triggers works based on the average of the existing build-up, The Vault can often apply its Damage % Bonuses to the entirety of the Polarized Assault.

Other Units

The rest of the Anomaly cast works decently well with Alice too.

• Miyabi

Since Basic Attack: Starshine Waltz provides easy Disorders, this means that it's easier to generate Fallen Frost stacks, similar to a Miyabi | Yanagi team.

Unfortunately, although an Alice | Miyabi shell can be strong, it's still a significant downgrade from Miyabi | Lycaon | Soukaku or better yet, Miyabi | Yuzuha | Soukaku. So despite the interplay between the two characters' mechanics is good, it's still worse than just running a mono-ice or Yuzu-ice comp.

• Burnice

She's a strong off-field damage dealer with similar benefits to Vivian, allowing Alice to stay on-field longer and build Blade Etiquette.

Since Ultimate: Glorious Inferno provides a Quick Assist prompt, it can help with Ultimate Bypass combos to get around Alice's Disorder ICD (more on 8. Additional Tips).

Fire resistance on Miasmic Fiend does limit her utility for endgame in Deadly Assault however.

• Grace

Although she offers no direct synergy, she can still work well as Alice is self-sufficient. Issues with lacklustre Anomaly Build-up Rate aren't a big deal.

In a way, the frequent application of Assault can be a bit of an issue, as it lessens the impact of Additional Ability: Tech Support Dept., but that also means there's less of a loss on running Grace without it being active (such as with Yuzuha or Astra Yao in the third slot).

• Piper

The 18% Damage increase from Additional Ability: Synced Acceleration can be helpful, and being a Physical Agent, she can trigger Assaults when swapping out of Alice, but other than that there isn't much that she adds over running a hypercarry comp instead.

Mindscape 1

Palmful of Cilantro provides:

• 25 Blade Etiquette when Alice triggers a Polarized Assault
• 20% DEF Shred after triggering an Assault (regular or Polarized)

25 Blade Etiquette on Polarized Assaults is nice but not outstanding. Core Passive: Twin Rainbows of the Swordheart gives 10 Blade Etiquette on regular Assaults and Additional Ability: Mystery Hunt provides an additional 30 Blade Etiquette whenever any Disorder occurs, even Alice's self-Disorders.

However 20% DEF Shred is significant. As DEF Shred gets stronger the more you have, pairing it with certain buffs (Artful, giving 35%) or characters (Nicole, giving 40% or Jane's M2 Adapt to the Environment giving 15%), it can quickly scale up to significant gains.

So in practice, the raw damage increase this provides - especially when considering stat saturation - makes it a strong Mindscape.

Mindscape 2

Sage at the Sword's Tip provides:

Polarized Assault when using Ultimate: Starfall Finale

• 25% Assault DMG Bonus
• 25% Assault Disorder DMG Bonus
• 1,000 Decibels when entering the Battlefield

Ultimate: Starfall Finale triggering a Polarized Assault is handy, but given how Ultimates are not all that frequent, it wouldn't be that significant a damage gain.

The 15% increase to Assault and Assault Disorder Damage is quite significant, given how usually Anomaly and Disorder Damage % are often unsaturated, but the increase only applies to Assault Damage and Disorders triggered off Assault.

Lastly, an extra 1,000 Decibels when entering the Battlefield, which is a handy Quality of Life.

At first this Mindscape may seem lacklustre, but when this is contextualised around existing fights and other characters and their Mindscapes, it becomes very strong.

Ultimate: Starfall Finale being able to trigger a Polarized Asasult is a big enabler for P0 teams (and any low-cost clears) that make use of the Artful buff.

With a Nicole | Yuzuha team, it's difficult for Disorders to be sustained. This would require a Physical Anomaly and Polarized Assault to be continuously cycled every 10 seconds, and when lacking the build-up buffs from Practiced Perfection or Sharpened Stinger, this gets difficult.

Polarized Assault Disorders from Ultimate: Starfall Finale can make up for downtime, allowing for Artful upkeep which skyrockets the team's damage output.

Paired with other Mindscapes, it gets even better.

Jane M2 Adapt to the Environment Crit increase applies to Polarized Assaults - including the ones triggered by Ultimate: Starfall Finale. Likewise, the 15% Assault and Assault Disorder DMG Bonus applies to Jane's Assaults too.

Yuzuha's M2 Full of Colorful Company provides even more Anomaly build-up (leading to more Decibels from Attribute Anomaly bonuses) as well as on-demand Chain Attacks, which give even more Decibels. Coupled with the 1,000 Decibels Alice gains at the start of battle, this can lead to a Ultimate: Starfall Finale in under 10 seconds, then another use every 30 seconds.

With it all coming together, it allows for some of the strongest low-cost clears in the game (if with Nicole | Yuzuha) or the strongest team in the game for a given investment level, with an all M2P1 Alice | Jane | Yuzuha matching or even outperforming other equivalent teams in their own shilled content.

Mindscape 4

Rosemary on Her Lips provides:

• 10% Physical RES Ignore by Alice
• 25% Physical Anomaly Build-up Rate on Basic Attack: Celestial Overture

Most of this Mindscape's power is on the RES Ignore, given how it is a strong and diversified way of increasing damage, but the build-up bonus is nice too.

Since so much of Alice's build-up is derived from Anomaly Mastery, the 25% Build-up Rate helps diversify her further. Do keep in mind it applies only to Basic Attack: Celestial Overture and not Basic Attack: Starshine Waltz - so in practice its a small gain, but does make it easier to cycle Assaults given how often enhanced B5s get used.

Mindscape 6

A Heart of Thyme provides:

• An extra attack dealing 3,300% of Alice's AP on targets after using Basic Attack: Starshine Waltz or Ultimate: Starfall Finale.
• • This attack is guaranteed to Crit.
  • It can trigger at most once every 1s, and at most 6 times.
  • Using Basic Attack: Starshine Waltz or Ultimate: Starfall Finale again resets the count.

The number seems impressive - 3,300% - but this is tied to AP, not Attack. This means buffs and bonuses that scale with Attack do not factor in its scaling.

It is also an instance of standard damage, not Anomaly damage, which means it is not receiving any bonuses from Anomaly or Disorder Damage %.

Every hit being guaranteed to Crit helps this do more damage, but depending on your team its contribution can lower quite a bit.

It can go from up to 10% of an Assault per tick to less than 1.5% of an Assault per tick depending on the fight and team comp (M2P1 Alice | Jane | Yuzuha on Miasmic Fiend). Even with all 6 hits, the damage is underwhelming.

Check back here soon for additional tech, like EX Double Dodging and Ultimate ICD Bypass, which can help elevate your gameplay to the next level.