Dieci Rodion Reveiw: Tanks have knowledge for soloing

[David Bowie Sensei]

So we have Dieci Rodion out and boy is she a tough cookie, her tanking feel weighty and her Insight is tricky. But if you takes a Hit she is dishing it back in spades. A kit based around discard, shielding/taking damage and sinking. Her special ability is all about insight which is a count that remembered the last skill you discarded and gives bonuses for such.
Now on too the review.

Basics- Tank ID: Level 35= 197 health and Defensive 40
As a 000 tank ID her defensive level is a good +5 but don't let that fool you. Shes sporting a
Offensive levels of her S1 with -1, her S2 wth +1 and her S3 with +2. Meaning she will want to be hitting with her S2 and S3, which is great on a discard ID for what we see. Her speed is 4-6 so she will often be in the middle of the dashboard prehaps along side the other sinking teammates she might want to run with. Shes good against blunt and bad against piecing, which is mixed bag of both good and bad. Her defensive skill is a defend, which works with how her Kit works and her passive. All her skills are blunt, which works with her passive, so thats good. While her sins being Gloom, Envy and Sloth work well as they fuel her sinking EGO, more on that later.

Skill 1 - Illuminate Thy Vacuity: 3 power, 3 coins with +2 coin power aka 3-9
At first glance this is not the kind of rolls you want on a S1. But this ID out the get go has a on use effect of gaining coin power equal to insight-1. This means if you discarded a S2 last discard, this gains +1 coin power and +2 coin power on Discarding a S3. This can sometimes make you debate a bit on if you should save your S2 and S3 after you gain 2 or 3 insight just so this skill has a okay or decent clashing power.
But if this skill is discarded you gain Insight X 4% of your max health as shielding. Normally this means you will often end up with a decent shield considering at level 35 having 197 means you are around 8 or 16 shield for using a S2 or S3, which is not bad as its like gaining that much heath for the turn.
Her 3rd/last coin lowering her stagger threshold by 8 is also good as the semi goal for this ID is taking a beating and hitting it right back.
( T4 increases the shield gain to 5% can be seen as minor, but the bigger the shield the better, same goes with her threshold lowering to 10 instead.)

Skill 2- Weight of Knowledge: 3 power, 4 coins with +3 coin power aka 3-15
3-16 with 4 coins as a S2 is insanely good. This is you bread and butter for your damage output and getting your shield triggers. With a on use discarding the skill of the lowest rank in all your skill slots and also caring better than the S1 for being discarded with 8% instead of 4%. It power-creeps her own S1. It also grants her +3 aggro which she really needs to get as a tank and for how her passive works. Its only issue is that only its last coin does something inflict 3 sinking. Not bad, but for so many coins, this skill is more about bashing brains/using up sinking rather than help it til the last coin.
(T4 continues to progress the shield level to 10%, while gaining 5 aggro and sinking instead. It also shows that it wants her grouping up with sinking or using her Sinking EGO as needing +5 sinking to gain +2 clash power, means 5-17, which is really good for clashing.)

Skill 3- Excruciating Study: 4 power, 4 coins with +3 power aka 4-16
Now we look at the oddest yet the strongest part of her kit. Not only does discarding this skill grant insight X 15% max heath, shield. But also puts your insight count at 3, which makes your S1s better and triggers the second part of your passive if you keep it at the end of the turn. When you want to get this insight 3 working, you will need your defend dice or EGO to block rightly, which can be taxing compared to just straight attacking. The skill itself also discards 2 skills of the lowest rank in all your skill slots so you then need to balance discarding as it will always take from left to right of the dashboard, rather than the skill in the same slot first. Lastly this skill also creates +3 aggro, so 3 out of 4 of her skills will draw in attacks, once again works great with her passive.
Now the coins are pretty sweet as they are kinda made to not only keep sinking on each hit, but increase the count by the end. As long as your first coin rolls heads it inflicts a very decent +4 sinking count, with the last coin also inflicting +2 sinking on hit. As long as your first coin is around and hits head, thats a lot of SP damage and still keeps sinking at a fairly good count. This once again makes it less keen on being discarded and being used other her S2.
(T4 really hammers home that if you are discarding this skill, your getting a reward for it Insight X 20%, if you live the pipe dream of having 3 insight on the discard, that's around a 60 HP shield, a tanks wet dream. Meanwhile aggro goes up to +5 aggro and she gains +1 coin power on vs +7 sinking targets. now thats a 4-20 that would be doing 28 SP damage on extra damage. Its double. But worse is that with the count she makes, it could continue next turn if shes the only hitter on the target.)

Defensive - Fixated Study: 12 power +5 coin power aka 12-17
Now its keen to note, this is a skill that you will often use to help set your insight right, not to use, but to hold back on the skill its hiding, from discarding it. The skill itself also can discard, going for the highest ranking of your skils slots. Meaning you can often get 3 insight when you have a S3 in the higher slot. It also makes 3 aggro which is once again good.
(T4 gains gloom, aggros for 5 now and 15 power instead of 12. Gloom is keen here as it will help if used, for fuelling EGO.

Passives-
Incandescent Enlightenment - 3 Gloom Owned
Now I have talked a lot about this passive is why you might want her hit a fair bit. As each time you take 5% of your Max health, you gain one blunt damage up next turn, up to 5 so 25% your health. The funny thing is, it counts your shield in this, in brackets. Meaning you block a heavy hit, with a powered up shield you can get up to 50% more damage next turn. This means that blocking losing clashes for this tank, just means setting up for some big numbers the next turn and with your S1 lowered your stagger threshold and your shield, you aren't really going to be staggered when you get this damage boost. For a passive that wants you taking a hit, it does an amazing job of paybacking for it.
Secondly just to flex a bit, if you end your turn with 3 Insight, you remove 1 negative debuff on yourself, so with the right setup, you may have a good damage boost without pesky paralysis or damage downs ruining the day. The second part is just icing on the cake.
Support :Missionary of knowledge - 5 Gloom Owned
Same as the first passive but only up to 3 blunt damage up and the highest Max HP. So good for your tank most of the time as long as they have blunt skills. But as of writing any tanks that what to take hits, don't have pure blunt, so it can be tricky. Though the only contest for passives using her are more wrath heavy than gloom unless you want slash damage.
Its not bad and I can see you taking it for solos using blunt or for later gloom tanks.

Sin/EGO - Rim Shank
Now this ID has the two core sins for fueling her sinking EGO with Gloom and Envy which is the two common and uncommon skills for her. If you plan to make the most of her sinking, this ego will help a fair bit. At T3 is inflicts 3 or 5 on corrided sinking count allowing both Rodion and her team to keep the sinking going. Its also an attack weight 3 either way, meaning quite a lot of sinking to go around.
Then the passive also cares for sinking, inflict bind and power down against +5 sinking targets 3 times per unit on hit. So it works well Rod keeping her sinking amounts to trigger effects and like. Her T4 on the other hand, makes the ID spark, not only getting more sinking count but also inking potency, which Rod really needs as she only has 1 coin that increases it. Rim Shank is a must have T4 on this ID.

Finally Thoughts
I had to run back on forth through this review a few times as the more I looked at her kit and how her insight works, the greater she looked. Shes an ID that can ignore that she is a sinking ID, but instead be a bruiser tank. Hand picking what to discard with using defend and EGO can really flair up this tank as often you don't really want to hold skills or defend with most IDs even tanks. But this ID does and gets a sweet buff for doing so.
Like all good tanks so can solo quite well, while in groups you can cherry pick your insight better, making this ID really think to get the most out of her.
Does she need uptye 4? No. Her kit still grants aggro while the shield can still be good at brunting damage.
Does she want uptye 4? Maybe, you really want to uptye this if you plan on using her more for getting the most out of her sinking and Rim Shank, while shielding you up better to tank those nasty RR2 or MD2H hits.

[Kildread]

Rime Shank really underlines the sinking thing --- but it works pretty well without actually using it from my own playtesting. Although I didn't play her at T3, after looking at the increases brought by T4, thought it was worth it.

Originally posted by David Bowie Sensei:

Hand picking what to discard with using defend and EGO can really flair up this tank as often you don't really want to hold skills or defend with most IDs even tanks. But this ID does and gets a sweet buff for doing so.

Ohhhh, that's great to know! Even if you're forfeiting shield for keeping a 3 Insight, it can make a bad 2 S1s into good ones.

[David Bowie Sensei]

Originally posted by Kildread:

Rime Shank really underlines the sinking thing --- but it works pretty well without actually using it from my own playtesting. Although I didn't play her at T3, after looking at the increases brought by T4, thought it was worth it.

Originally posted by David Bowie Sensei:

Hand picking what to discard with using defend and EGO can really flair up this tank as often you don't really want to hold skills or defend with most IDs even tanks. But this ID does and gets a sweet buff for doing so.

Ohhhh, that's great to know! Even if you're forfeiting shield for keeping a 3 Insight, it can make a bad 2 S1s into good ones.

Considering I was going back and forth while writing and replaying just to test how defend works, its a neat trick, I only clocked on to it after remembering my blunder in my kit check out of thinking you could discard defend.
It really turns her into a ID that you have to think more when using to get the best out of her, which is always a nice change of pace.

[Bishop]

Err, she is alright I guess? I wouldn't call it strictly better than rosespan tho. Rosespan synergies better with charge team, has better offensive stats and higher damage when charged (and it only requires 3 charge to roll anyway). This is better at eating hits if someone is into eating hits for whatever reason. It also MAY be better at clashing but won't be in majority of encounters (sinking is too inconsistent to keep it on target for clash power buff when there's 7 other ids smacking it unless you doing some deluge).

On the other hand discard is strong mechanic with how skills work in this game and so far any id with discard has potential to be better that id without it simply by filtering s1 skills.

[RedCobra]

Originally posted by Bishop:

Err, she is alright I guess? I wouldn't call it strictly better than rosespan tho. Rosespan synergies better with charge team, has better offensive stats and higher damage when charged (and it only requires 3 charge to roll anyway). This is better at eating hits if someone is into eating hits for whatever reason. It also MAY be better at clashing but won't be in majority of encounters (sinking is too inconsistent to keep it on target for clash power buff when there's 7 other ids smacking it unless you doing some deluge).

On the other hand discard is strong mechanic with how skills work in this game and so far any id with discard has potential to be better that id without it simply by filtering s1 skills.

but her rose spanner id kinda bad as well if she have half or low sanity her S2 almost never landing all heads.

or bad luck S2 land Tail at first coins with 30 sanity

[Bishop]

Originally posted by RedCobra:

Originally posted by Bishop:

Err, she is alright I guess? I wouldn't call it strictly better than rosespan tho. Rosespan synergies better with charge team, has better offensive stats and higher damage when charged (and it only requires 3 charge to roll anyway). This is better at eating hits if someone is into eating hits for whatever reason. It also MAY be better at clashing but won't be in majority of encounters (sinking is too inconsistent to keep it on target for clash power buff when there's 7 other ids smacking it unless you doing some deluge).

On the other hand discard is strong mechanic with how skills work in this game and so far any id with discard has potential to be better that id without it simply by filtering s1 skills.

but her rose spanner id kinda bad as well if she have half or low sanity her S2 almost never landing all heads.

or bad luck S2 land Tail at first coins with 30 sanity

Well I consider it being at full sanity but true at lower sanity it will perform worse.

[Birp]

This is strictly better than Rosespanner, it's not even close. It's like 6 or 7/10 vs 8.5/10.

Rosespanner slightly wins out on damage, because her s2 - similar to KW Honglu - hits like a truck (9+12+15+18 + tremor bursting value) if it connects.

On the other hand, this is better at clashing by a lot. Dieci's s2 clashes for 15, compared to 12 for Rosespanner. Dieci doesn't really have to use s1, whereas Rosespanner s1 clashes for 10. s3 is 16 vs 17, Rosespanner wins by 1.

Rosespanner has +1 and +2 offense lvls on her s2/s3, but Dieci is the 2nd tankiest id in the game, whereas Rosespanner is a typical squishy dps with 3 stagger thresholds.

tl;dr Better clashing, discard flexibility, tankiness > slightly better dmg.

Actually, Rosespanner might not even be better at dmg, if u factor in her s1 usage, but I don't want to do the math so let's say she wins...

[Atma]

Rosespanner is Tremor Identity, Glutton Rodya is a tanky sinking one. They both serve difference purposes in different teams.

[Angela]

Originally posted by Bishop:

Err, she is alright I guess? I wouldn't call it strictly better than rosespan tho. Rosespan synergies better with charge team, has better offensive stats and higher damage when charged (and it only requires 3 charge to roll anyway). This is better at eating hits if someone is into eating hits for whatever reason. It also MAY be better at clashing but won't be in majority of encounters (sinking is too inconsistent to keep it on target for clash power buff when there's 7 other ids smacking it unless you doing some deluge).

On the other hand discard is strong mechanic with how skills work in this game and so far any id with discard has potential to be better that id without it simply by filtering s1 skills.

Rosespanner is self suficient with charge tbh, she doesn't need Telepole or in a charge team for better synergies.

[Kildread]

Originally posted by David Bowie Sensei:

It really turns her into a ID that you have to think more when using to get the best out of her, which is always a nice change of pace.

It's awesome -- I came to this because of Ruina due to all the mechanics that game and I'm always up for more options/strategies. Pretty much decided my 3 000 IDs for MD2H clears will be Dieci, Spicebush and Molar Ish next week, I was clearing MD2H before I started using N Sinclair, can do without him.

[CarThief]

I'm a simple man. I see better clash numbers, I click. And this one definitely rolls better than Rosespanner, even without the IV bonuses.

Also, if Knowlege is Power, and she starts learning all the recipies and flood/culinary things in the City... God help us all. She'd be a monster ten times stronger then the Red Mist, atleast! She could single-handedly topple The Head!

Hm... Not sure how easy it'd be to get her S2/S3 power-up effects to trigger though. A mere 15 and 16 isn't enough to get her on the team, but hey, if I ever need a... whatever she's good at tanking, then yeah. (Also pairs reasonably with R-Ish and Spice-Sang, atleast.)