Horn

“Doctor, does a commander as outstanding as you ever feel sorrow? Or anger? Or... hate? I try as hard as I can not to let personal emotions sway me, but I can't forget. I promised them I would never forget.”

Horn has been through the wringer. As a division commander in Victoria’s Tempest Platoon, she made the mistake of digging too deep into the nobility’s dark web of lies and treason, where her commitment to honor almost got her killed multiple times. When Victoria was laid waste by Dublinn, Horn went missing, presumed dead. We won’t go into the circumstances that lead to her becoming a soldier in the employ of Rhodes Island, but suffice it to say that she’s coming back swinging as a 6* Fortress Defender with absolutely jawdropping damage capabilities… as long as she can keep going through the backlash Overdrive damage she inflicts on herself.

The moment she is deployed on the field, Horn is gunning for offense. Her Military Fortress E1 Talent gives a surprisingly large ATK buff to all other allied Defenders (deploy her with Mudrock and see what happens) as long as she is deployed, and her Bloodbath E2 Talent makes sure she’ll stick around. Once per deployment, Bloodbath restores Horn to full HP when she would take a fatal blow and increases her ASPD and DEF… at the cost of half her max HP.

Bloodbath may seem somewhat counterintuitive at first glance. As a Fortress Defender, Horn fires very powerful splash damage projectiles at great range, but only when she isn’t Blocking an enemy. If she isn’t Blocking, she shouldn’t be taking damage, right? Don’t worry: Horn’s ready to do that damage to herself! Her only Skill that doesn’t hurt her is her S1, Flare Grenade, an automatic Skill that turns Horn’s next attack into a flare that does greatly increased damage and creates an illuminated zone that reveals Invisible enemies inside of it.

Flare Grenade is consistent and reliable damage, but when you need to pull out the big guns, it’s S2 and S3—specifically their Overdrive mechanics—that you’ll be looking for instead. As a reminder, Overdrive is a mechanic where a Skill offers one effect for the first half of its duration, then increases in potency (but also often gains drawbacks) for the second half of its duration. Horn’s S2, Tempest Command, is a perfect example. An Ammo-based Skill, Tempest Command simply increases Horn’s damage for its first half. During the second half, however, Horn will also deal extra Arts splash damage with each attack. As an Ammo Skill, Tempest Command can be manually deactivated. Do this during the regular phase and you can skip the Overdrive effects. Manually deactivate during Overdrive instead and Horn will fire all remaining ammo at the same time, inflicting massive burst damage on her unlucky opponents. Oh yeah, and also taking damage equal to 60% of her max HP. Trigger an Overdrive Tempest Command twice with no healing in between and bam, you’re in Bloodbath mode now.

If that’s not enough DPS for you, however, there’s Ultimate Line of Defense. During its vanilla mode, Ultimate Line of Defense simply increases Horn’s ATK and reduces her attack interval—powerful enough on its own. When it goes into Overdrive, the ATK boost is doubled, absolutely shredding anything within range for the remainder of the duration. However, Horn will also constantly lose HP during Overdrive. Like Tempest Command, two uses of Ultimate Line of Defense without healing in between will put Horn into Bloodbath mode—and if you thought Ultimate Line of Defense was powerful on its own, try it with an ASPD boost. Go ahead. We’ll wait.

Okay. So this Operator is (literally) a loose cannon with way too much power, and even the HP damage of her Skills serves to propel her to greater power levels. Is she completely invincible or something?! Not quite. First off, Horn has to deal with the shortcomings of her archetype. Fortress Defenders have very long range, but they also have a huge blind spot in front of them. On narrow or crowded maps, it can be difficult to find a good spot to place a Fortress Defender to take advantage of their range. And they need their range, because once they start Blocking an enemy, they cannot use their awesome ranged splash attacks until their Block is clear.

In short, Fortress Defenders are pretty bad at the whole “being Defenders” thing, despite their Block-3, because they become markedly less effective when Blocking. And Horn takes this to a new level. Yes, her self-inflicted wounds are very useful for triggering Bloodbath, but once she’s used the Bloodbath revive, she has no other tools in her kit for mitigating or surviving incoming damage. And considering how much damage she does to herself, Horn can die very quickly all on her own, let alone when there are enemies up in her face. To add insult to injury, her DP cost is very high, so if you slip up and let Horn die, you’ll be paying through the nose to get her back on the field. (Also, you’ll have made Bagpipe sad. You monster.)

Using Horn requires building your team around her needs (heck, even deploying them around her needs, since you’ll probably want to hold off on deploying any healing in her vicinity until she triggers Bloodbath). Is the tradeoff worth it? YES, one thousand percent. Remember that whole “Ultimate Line of Defense with an ASPD boost” thing? Yeah, go try it again. Don’t worry. We’ll be here when you get back.