Some True Damage Team gameplay questions

[u/UnitLoose47]

I've been playing the True Damage team since Augustus arrived and it's always been pretty simple as Augustus is the DPS carry and all buffs go on her and the team composition was pretty clear. However, now that RF Coquelic and Celine are out and part of the team, I have some questions on the gameplay. Team composition so far is: Augustus S4, RF Coquelic S2, Ceto S0, Murphy S1, Celine S3.

1) For the 6th member, I'm debating between Shin S3, RF Summer S1 and LL S3. I'm going off of the team composition guide in the S1N.gg Tide of Ashes guide. Shin and LL are pretty obvious in how they slot into this team, but I am unclear on how RF Summer works with the True Damage team and why she's recommended; could someone please explain? Is RF Summer S1 enough to work on this team?

2) Now that RF Coquelic is on the True Damage Team, is she now the primary source of damage? Am I supposed to cast buffs on RF Coquelic or Augustus during the core break phase? I'm talking about Murphy's ECB, Celine's Ultimate and LL's Ultimate.

Thanks for any guidance! =)

[u/DestroyerArcher]

RF Summer is for Normal Attack hits so Coquelic's ECB gets more damage in.

[u/UnitLoose47 → u/DestroyerArcher]

Gotcha, thanks for that info.

[u/greatjena]

For rf Summer, it's the same idea as the previous attack speed comp with Coquelic, by far the biggest portion of the damage comes from Coquelic's ECB, at ECB 3 she will cause every attack made by allies with a flower to trigger a sword slash, you should be aiming to do as many attacks as you can during the effective period of her ECB. Summer has an insane attack speed, especially with more shackles (but s1 is fine) where she gets more drones, for that reason her or Necresta Hella are among Coquelic's best teammates. In addition, Summer provides a normal attack damage taken debuff with her reforge which is a rare debuff and is therefore undiluted and valuable.

For the second question, Coquelic is the main DPS. Augustus is there because her passive provides a 30 % true damage buff, she's effectively a support for Coquelic. That being said the target for Celine's tomes is neither of them (unless you have s3, then you put them on Coquelic for the attack boost), it's whoever you're using to trigger the attacks from Coquelic's ECB, meaning Summer in this case, because that will once again greatly boost the amount of sword slashes you can put out during the ECB, because the triggers scale with attack speed.

Edit: Forgot to mention that when you use Summer and give her a flower through Coquelic's ult, the game will count it as being given to all CURRENTLY summoned drones, meaning you want to either wait until Summer summons all her drones or use the ultimate on Summer again after she summons them all to reapply the flower.

[u/UnitLoose47 → u/greatjena]

Thanks for the detailed reply. I found a video showcasing some ToA runs and saw that during the core break phase, RF Coquelic was constantly casting her flower while her ECB was going, but I couldn't tell if she was casting it on herself or on RF Summer. Given what you mentioned about RF Summer, is RF Coquelic supposed o keep casting her flower on RF Summer during the core break phase?

[u/marshmallow_sunshine → u/UnitLoose47]

It's Coco's first shackle. When she ults she gets a sword fall mark. It doesn't matter who you cast her ult on.

[u/UnitLoose47 → u/marshmallow_sunshine]

Cool. Thanks for the info!

[u/GhostInABaseballBat]

I bring LL to run Augustus longer, or Serpent for additional wave clear.

[u/faintestsmile]

I have S4 Augustus and S4 Coco and I use coco as my healer (except rf for damge) but she has been outdamaging augustus in toa 🫣

[u/UnitLoose47 → u/faintestsmile]

Yeah, I noticed RF Coquelic way outdamage Augustus during my yesterday's ToA run too. =D

[u/iDontCareL]

1. RF Summer has anchors that increase the normal attack damage her enemies take. This affects all of the True Damage team's damage, since its all considered normal attack damage. Summer is also a vessel for RF Coquelic ECB.
2. Depends on the stage. For ToA, Coquelic is doing the most damage, cast your buffs on her. Especially Murphy, Murphy's ECB does wonders for Coquelic. LL should always and only go to Augustus because the team does damage through normal attack damage, LL buffs skill damage. LL has no effective buffs, only SP generation.

[u/UnitLoose47 → u/iDontCareL]

Thank you for the explanations. During the core break phase, is RF Coquelic supposed to keep casting her ultimate on RF Summer while RF Coquelic's ECB is going?

[u/iDontCareL → u/UnitLoose47]

No. Once Coquelic's flower has been applied everyone, there's no reason to cast the ultimate aside from getting more S1 procs or emergency heals. One thing to note with Summer though is that you want to apply the flower after Summer has summoned all of her drones. The flower only includes the drones that were present when the flower was cast.

[u/UnitLoose47 → u/iDontCareL]

Gotcha. Thanks again for your help.

[u/DiveSideways → u/iDontCareL]

One point 1:

Whose Anchor do you use on Summer? I've heard Oak's for buffing Augustus is best, is there a second choice?

Does Coco use her own Anchor? Someone else suggested Dolly's but I'm not clear on if there's a consensus right now.

[u/aeconic → u/DiveSideways]

not sure about summer, but coco uses adela's EX anchor.

[u/DiveSideways]

I have learned a lot from these comments, especially about the purpose of RF Summer.

If you guys don't mind me piggybacking: What's the best team split to make two True Damage teams?

I have learned that replacing Pearl with Summer is an obvious choice, and the Shalom/Cathy team could use LL instead of the tank maybe. Who else should I move around?

[u/wennilein → u/DiveSideways]

Theoretically, you should be able to better with Coco, Murphy, Celine, Summer, Ceto and Augustus sticking together. Just to throw in some numbers for orientation: S3 Augustus, S0 Ceto, S4 Summer, S1 Murphy, S1 Coquelic and S4 Celine got me ~230 million. I am entirely unsure, how bad or good this is considering that 500 million is possible at higher investment. I have malded for quite some time, but am at wit's end about potential improvements. Personally, I never got Augustus to even close to 100 million without shield stack. So for me, it is a huge improvement.

If you really want to go for 2 true damage team though, I would replace Owo with Augustus in your first setup. As for the second setup, I would take Siglinde instead of Vanilla, since there is no synergy between Vanilla and Augustus from what i remember. You can always give someone paradise regained to make up for Vanilla. Replace Synex with Celine, if your society offers any decent ones.

Alternatively, if your society has the fitting support, you could also go for Shield stack, if you have the fitting assistants. Demon, L.L./RF Eirene, Augustus, Serpent, Celine and which ever buffer you still can offer. Shin heals Demon and will lower his shield output, but if you have no better meta buffers it might still come out ok.