“This Iris from a parallel world is enjoying her summer vacation. Having led such a busy life, taking a vacation was risk endeavor that could cost her life. However, she always had her trustworthy colleagues and the strength to overcome any tribulation. And thus, the Northern Flower decided to bloom in full under the summer sun for the first time.”

The First Gold Summer Festa Fatecore has Arrived

The most significant news from the recent weekly patch is the release of the new Summer Festa Fatecore Iris. Similar to Zeon from the previous First Guardian banner, although only a rare grade unit, this Iris fatecore is the rare gold type. Gold type fatecores provide not only an increase in stats, but also changes to the hero’s abilities to make them even stronger than black or blue fatecores. Of course this comes at a cost of being the rarest type of fatecore available thus having the highest mileage requirement of 28 multi-summons on their respective banners. Question is, is she worth the huge Xes investment?

Let’s take a look at the what this new gold fatecore Iris provides:

Basic Stat Increases

The base stats increase as shown above when equipping this fatecore to Iris. Similar to other fatecores, enhancing the fatecore will increase them further. At max level 30, this fate core will cap at an additional 499 attack, 354 defense, and 7518 HP. You can see the increase in HP is significant at max level, greatly increasing her value as a frontline support.

Gold Fatecore Top Tier Skill Set

1. Passive (Cleanse) - In addition to having the Summer’s Blessing and Flop-Flop bonuses unique to the Summer Festa theme, this fate core adds the White Fog ability. This ability removes all of the enemy’s barriers/shields and provides a defense break that scales off Iris’ HP once per round.  Yes, this is a direct counter to the Dragon Emperor Knight’s dragon scale shield that forms every round when hit. 

1. Active 1 (White Origin of Protection) - In addition to being a cleanse, this ability increases a target’s mana by 2. As you can imagine, this is a great setup skill for a potential nuke from a burst or a high damage skill such as Jinn or Baraka’s active 2.

1. Ative 2 (White Mana Release) - This skill is very similar to Anastasia’s active 2 in that it is a strong single target nuke. As a support type, this type of skill and damage potential adds more depth to your team knowing that you are not sacrificing damage with her taking a support role. 

Meta-changing Abilities

Since the release of the First Guardians/Dragon Emperor Knight fatecores, their presence in all PVE and PVP content has been dominant. They quickly defined the meta and were the most sought after heroes for all looking to be competitive and/or progress through the game. Due to their strong passive skills, these fatecore units had little to no competition until now. The abilities of this new fatecore Iris not only provide you a hard counter to the Dragon Knight passive, they also provide a significant boost to your account in all aspects of the game.

1. Solid Support on Light Sanctum Days - Due to her innate light element and high base HP with her fatecore equipped, Iris is a top tier frontline unit for all Sanctums on light days.

1. Synergy with Damage Dealers - Her active 1 skill is an instant cleanse and mana boost for burst type damage dealers or single target nukers with low mana requirement. In addition, the Summer’s Blessing passive provides a huge attack increase after being hit with a frost attack. So she brings sustainability as a Bathory counter and a damage boost to all attack type heroes on your team.

1. Dragon Knight Counter in PVP - Obviously apparent with her passive skill set, her ability to remove shields every round is currently the only hard counter to the dragon scale shield provided by the Dragon Knight passive. In addition, the common Summer Festa bonus is a direct counter to Bathory teams. Pair her with any damage dealer and say hello to an instant win against solo Dragon Knights in tag matches. During normal arena weeks she can replace any frontline unit you have to decimate any team with a fatecore Zeon/Anastasia/Rera as long as you have a strong damage dealer paired with her.

The Verdict

After reading all the points made above, if you are still on the fence about adding this fatecore Iris to your team, I will conclude by saying this is a unit that should not be missed. Bottomline, she is currently the best support unit for PVP content and is a strong unit for PVE content. You cannot go wrong investing all your Xes for her. That said, I wish you the best of luck during this limited banner and hope you all have the opportunity to use this amazing unit in the near future!