Rare Recruit Strawhats - Updated Character Review

Rare Recruit Strawhats – Updated Character Review

The second character review post is already here! In the few days that have passed since the first one, quite a few things have happened, including the arrival of sockets. As such, we are going to add a hidden powers comment so you know how many sockets a character has and what we recommend you to choose.

The tables below focus on the second version of the Strawhats, which were added to Rare Recruit shortly after the game launched. There was a first batch called “Baroque Works”, which we have decided to skip since most of those units are farmable and only two or three of the ones available are interesting in One Piece Treasure Cruise current state. However, worry not, because we have decided to include Robin in our review!

	Monkey D. Luffy Gear 3rd Captain Ability: Boosts any character’s ATK by 3.5x after hitting 3 Perfects in a row Special: Deals 15x character's ATK in STR to all enemies Number of Powers: 2
Review: You may like how his captain ability works or not, but nobody would deny that Gear 3rd Luffy has been a beast since the moment he was released. He has high attack and health, he has one of the best skills in the game and he can clear most if not every single piece of content released so far. Training Forests? Check. Clashes? Check. Fortnights? Check. However, such power can’t be hold without a disadvantage. And Luffy’s is the fact that, if you miss one of the first 3 Perfects you need to hit in order to unlock his power, your damage output will be vastly reduced. For that reason, you may not find Gear 3rd suitable for some intensive farming, and it’s not a captain that you will use every day (unless you really like it, of course!). However, he is a wild card that you can use when your standard Slasher, Striker, or type based team isn’t enough.
The Future: Not much changes for Gear 3rd Luffy. He keeps being a really useful unit and, in some cases, he even is a better option than Voyage Dream (aka Log) Luffy. There is a new buff some raid bosses use that makes them immune to damage until a certain number of hits have been landed. With Gear 3rd Luffy, you won’t lose any damage due to this shield, since the first three hits (which don’t do any damage due to said shield) weren’t important to begin with.
Hidden Powers: Since Gear 3rd Luffy only has 2 sockets, there aren’t many combinations available for you. Our recommendation, however, is that you priorize Bind (Lock) reduction above everything else, since a character binded vastly reduces the amount of damage you can inflict to your foes. The other socket can be filled with Despair (Silence) reduction, or any other power of your liking.

	Streaming Wolf Swords and Lion Song Roronoa Zoro Captain Ability: Reduces damage taken by 80% if HP is above 99% at the start of the turn Special: Reduces STR damage taken by 100% for 1 turn (Streaming Wolf Swords Zoro) Deals 25x character’s ATK in DEX damage to one enemy (Lion Song Zoro) Number of Powers: 2-3
Review: One of the rare cases where the unevolved version of a character is better than the evolved one. Lion Song Zoro is a useful character for beginners, don’t get me wrong. His captain ability allows new players to clear the first few Clashes with ease (but patience) if they don’t have a team that can beat them using brute force. However, Lion Song special is nothing to write about, so even if he has one extra socket, you won’t ever use it once you can beat Mihawk, Monster Chopper and Garp by normal means. However, they same can’t be said about the Streaming Wolf Swords version. His special, which reduces STR damage taken in the next turn to 0, vastly increases his usefulness for new and old players alike. Some teams need his skill in order to beat Whitebeard’s Forest, one of the hardest pieces of content available in Global. Overall? He is “just good”. Not the unit you should be looking for when you pull, but not a waste of your gems. If you pull Streaming Wolf Swords, don’t evolve him.
The Future: His status doesn’t change much in future content. New players may use him for getting their first copies of Mihawk, Garp and Monster Chopper. And Streaming Wold Swords. He is used in some teams when the fight ahead has some hard hitting Strength enemy.
Hidden Powers: Streaming Wolf Swords has 2 powers. Lion Song has 3. Are they worth socketing? I would say so, but other units should definitely take a higher priority. As you may have guessed while you read the review, he is a niche unit. And for that reason, socketing the Halloween and Ashura versions of Zoro should be more important than unlocking this version hidden powers.

	Happiness Punch Nami Captain Ability: Boosts ATK of INT characters by 2.5x Special: Changes PSY orbs into INT orbs. Number of Powers: 3
Review: Currently, she is part of the strongest INT manipulation combo along Cindry and shares his captain ability with Ice Witch Whitey Bay from the Whitebeard’s allies batch. For that reason, you may think. Is she actually that useful? I’d say the answer is yes. On one hand, she is a Strawhat member, which are the easiest characters to fully socket. On the other hand, she has an important role as an orb manipulator. So she definitely has a safe position as far as INT type captains go.
The Future: Things won’t change much for her. A new and youngest version of Choo should be released some time in the future, which would substitute Cindry while getting an attack bonus. Besides that small change, there isn’t much more to tell. She won’t be able to clear everything,
Hidden Powers: She has 3 sockets, which is quite good, considering how it is to unlock her power and Happiness Punch is the best version of Nami available overall, so she should be your priority. As always, giving points to Bind or Despair should be useful, but keep in mind that giving more than 20 points to those two powers doesn’t increase the effect. So give a look to your INT subs before deciding. Other interesting powers for Happiness Punch Nami could be Healing at the end of the turn, matching orbs or cooldown reduction.

	Impact Usopp: Captain Ability: Boosts ATK of PSY characters by 1.5x Special: Boost ATK of PSY characters by 2x for 1 turn Number of Powers: 2
Review: A key piece in PSY teams that focus in dealing a huge amount of damage in one turn. A team using Impact Usopp’s special can deal massive damage when he is paired with an orb booster like Coby, Squardo or Doflamingo and a powerful captain ability. Teams focused on the PSY type have never been as strong and easy to gather as they are right now, since now he can be farmed in Water 7 His biggest flaw is the fact that you can’t have him and Golden Pound Usopp in the same team. However, their vastly different natures (defense vs offense) reduces quite a bit the amounts of situations where you may need both.
The Future: So far, any unit released in Japan has outclassed Impact Usopp’s attack boost. He is used in a wide variety of situations, including Aokiji (the hardest INT boss available), Zephyr and Nightmare Luffy. For that reason, we heavily recommend you to farm him as soon as you can (unless you get it on Rare Recruit).
Hidden Powers: He only has two sockets, which limit his usefulness, but on the bright side, he is easily farmable. When the time has come to unleash his true powers, we recommend you to focus on getting Bind resistance to max. Both Zephyr and Aokiji, 2 of the 3 INT raid bosses released in Japan, bind your characters, so having that ability unlocked is quite an important thing. The other socket can be Despair, Healing at the end of the turn or Reduced cooldowns.

	Mr. Prince Captain Ability: Boosts any character’s ATK by 2.5x after hitting 2 Perfects in a row. Special: Deals 20x character’s ATK as QCK damage to one enemy
Review: Poor man’s Gear 3rd Luffy is a vastly underrated unit, that is often paired with Hatchi, Coby and Helmeppo when people talk about terrible Sugofest results. However, we believe in his potential. Does that mean he is awesome? No. But he can be of much more use than most people think for two reasons: ·         He has a quite good synergy with Gear 3rd Luffy and Rayleigh, two awesome captains for teams that rely in the last few units for doing damage.. ·         Most teams bring at least one support unit that is not supposed to get any damage boost. You can use said unit and Mr. Prince himself for the first 2 hits, and then enjoy the bonus for the rest of your turn. Does this mean he is a top tier unit? Of course not. Most of the time, a captain that boosts a class or type by 2.5x would out damage him. But he is a cheap, easy to level unit that players that haven’t spend much time in Treasure Cruise could set as their captains unless they get top tier units like Mihawk, Kid, Gear 3rd or some Legend. PS: Oh, and did we tell you that he can clear both Dofflamingo's Clash and Mihawk Training Forest?
The Future: Not much is changing for him. He isn’t a unit that can be brought to the most complicated content. However, he is not supposed to be used there. By the time you’ve played enough to consider farming the hardest bosses the game has to offer like Enel, Aokiji, Kuma or Boa, you should have better captains. But for the first few raid bosses and even Mihawk forest, he is a viable captain of choice.
Hidden Powers: Since Mr. Prince only has 2 sockets, there aren’t many different combinations. We strongly recommend you to priorize Bind (Lock) reduction above everything else, since a character binded vastly reduces the amount of damage a team lead by him can deal in one turn. The other socket can be filled with Despair (Silence) reduction, or cooldown reduction, matching orbs and Heal at the end of the turn. However, our recommendation is giving the matching orbs power to a unit with 3 or more sockets.

	Nico Robin Captain Ability: Boosts RCV of INT units by 2x. Special: Boosts ATK of INT units by 2x for 1 turn.
Review: Nico Robin is the INT version of Impact Usopp. For one turn, her special ability allows you to double the amount of damage your INT units can deal. Pair her with an orb manipulation combo (like Happiness Punch Nami and Cindry, or Brain Point Chopper and Buggy) and a orb booster (like Doflamingo, Coby, Log Nami or Kaku) in order to get an insane amount of damage on your next turn. As a captain she isn’t especially useful. Captains that don’t boost attack are never used.
The Future: Her situation doesn’t change much in the future. There isn’t an INT type booster that boosts attack as much as him. The most similar unit to her is the story mode version of Jabra, the werewolf from the CP9, which boosts their attack by 1.5x while vastly reducing your health, which makes him a much worse option for your teams.
Hidden Powers: Nico Robin only has 2 sockets, which doesn’t give you much room for different combinations. On the bright side, she is easy to sockets since some fortnights drop different versions of her. Being completely honest, recommending two specific sockets for her is complicated. Overall, the useful sockets are Matching Orb (investing 5 points here is enough), Bind and Despair reduction, Healing at the end of the turn and cooldown reduction. We recommend you to look at the big picture and deciding where to invest depending on the powers that have already been filled by the rest of your party.

Below, there is a link to our previous character review, in case you missed it before. In any case, we wish you good luck!

An Index to our previous reviews:

1.      Original 5* star units review: Red-Haired Shanks, Portgas D. Ace Flame Mirror, Princess Vivi and Enraged Arlong Shark on Tooth.