This [Punishing: Gray Raven] guide is about who to pick from the S-Rank Selector & who to reroll for from the first 40 pulls to optimize your starting game play, the S-Rank Selector is an item you get when you start the game which lets you choose one of the S-Ranks from the starting roster.
The S-Rank Selector does not get upgraded when new characters are released, so there’s no reason for you to save it up for later.
[Punishing: Gray Raven] is not very competitive, there are two modes in which players compete via a point-based ranking system for higher rewards, the premium currency though is given for participation not ranking, therefore if you want to, feel free to just pick whatever character appeals to you and have fun.
Before you pick a character from the Selector I highly recommend you finish your 40 pulls on the starter banner first, it will take you around 2-3 days of play time to get enough summoning currency to do this, if you don’t pick your starter S-Rank from the banner first, you run the risk of getting a duplicate.
So if you’re like me and being nonoptimal keeps nagging at the back of your mind, here’s my breakdown of which S-Rank you want to make sure to get at the start of the game, long story short if you only want the info it’s the dark tank S-Kamui.
So next up, do your 40 summons, if you get S-Kamui, pick any other character from the selector, if not, pick him from the selector instead or if you do get him you can double down on him and pick him from the selector as well to instantly make him SS
Be aware though that you can bring any S-Rank character to SS as a free-to-play player by scoring highly in the Pain Cage mode, so the dupe pickup from the Selector would only really help if you plan to SSS him, if that is what you want to do, you’ll need to pull him two more times from the rotating banners, since SS to SSS requires three duplicates.
And now we’ll move on to the character to character breakdown
S-Lee
Starting with the S-rank version of Lee, S-Lee is an excellent physical damage dealer who excels at sustained damage, he has some minor gathering capabilities with his blue skill and can deal damage in a decently sized area, he’s also on the easier side to play than other characters because he can fight at range.
His only real weaknesses are the small area his ultimate covers and the lacking burst damage he deals, but all around he’s a great example of a DPS class character and would be a really advisable pick from the selector if there wasn’t a giant elephant in the room.
Alpha
And that elephant is Alpha, she arrives in the first patch which should be about one and a half months after release.
Alpha is a burst centric character, when building Alpha you focus solely on her burst which can reach ludicrous levels, in the two competitive modes her burst can take out multiple waves in war zone and kill Pain Cage bosses in mere seconds, to make up for her lack of sustained damage you pair her with another physical DPS like A-Karenina early on, or later Rosetta and you have the best of both worlds.
Well, if Alpha needs someone to deal sustained damage for her, why not pick S-Lee for that role? Well, the reason for that is the aforementioned Rosetta, she’s an S-Rank physical tank and the by far best unit to pair with Alpha because she increases Alpha‘s burst to even more insane levels while supplying the sustained damage she needs. Lee can’t amplify Alpha‘s burst like Rosetta can, so you would end up replacing Lee anyway, because of that there’s no reason to get him at the start, so the only reason I cannot recommend picking S-Lee is because Alpha is simply too good and she arrives too soon after the game launches.
If you don’t want Alpha or you can’t get her, Lee is the best alternative as your lead physical DPS.
S-Liv
Next up is the physical S-Rank support S-Liv, we’re gonna be comparing her to her B-Rank version which is not a good way to start this to say the least, so she can actually do really good damage for support unit and is quite hard to kill because of her ability to move while attacking at range, she also heals herself on every 3 orb ping based on her attack power, adding to her survivability because of this she can be a good fallback unit should you find yourself in a tough challenge.
Sadly, she suffers greatly in the actual support department, her QTE heals and grants a shield based on her attack power which sounds nice at first, the problem is that her healing is rather average being on par with the aforementioned B-Rank version, she has the shield is also nothing to write home about because it only lasts for a mere 2 seconds, it will occasionally block damage but you don’t want to QTE for the shield, you want to QTE for the damage buffs, debuffs and set effects you can get from them.
Additionally her QTE does not deal damage, limiting her build choices because she can’t use sets that debuff when dealing damage, B-Liv is a better support for physical damage teams because she does deal damage on her QTE and also because she unlocks a passive physical damage increase at SSS rank when off field.
In short S-Liv is an offensive support unit which is a conflict of interests, there are better units to build for damage and a better physical support version in her B-Rank once that one hits SSS, her best feature is her survivability which can function as a safety net for players early on, but will become unnecessary as you get better at the game. From what I hear she’s a great unit for some of the later more challenging club missions, I can’t confirm this though as the available co-op missions on the JP server were rather easy and that is the version I am most familiar with.
S-Kamui
Next up is the dark tank S-Kamui, the character I would recommend you pick up early, dark teams are very strong in the game and if you want to compete in War Zone: the timed “Kill as many as you can” mode the dark stage is very competitive.
S-Kamui deals physical damage in its base form, his entire dark damage comes from his ultimate which isn’t a single big attack but has him changed to his dark mode along with all his skills and the numbers on his skills when in alt mode are pretty high comparable to the ultimates of other characters, with proper gear and play style he can stay in the alt mode permanently.
S-Kamui likes to build up orbs and cooldowns off-field, enter the fray to deal burst damage then switch out again, the only downside to S-Kamui is that at launch there aren’t any other dark units to pair with, in the patch “Fallen Star”(two patches after launch), we get the dark DPS A-Watanabe who is a great partner for S-Kamui, Dark Watanabe takes the role of sustained DPS on field and benefits from the debuffs S-Kamui provides as a tank class, giving S-Kamui in turn time to recover his burst.
S-Karenina & S-Nanami
We’re gonna talk about the last two characters together because they are very reliant on each other, S-Karenina is the only fire DPS in the game and S-Nanami the only fire tank, together with the later releasing fire support A-Sophia, they make up the only fire units currently available in the Chinese version of the game, the fire team is currently considered the weakest team of all elements.
S-Karenina is a great sustained DPS unit but unlike S-Kamui for dark and Alpha for physical, S-Nanami doesn’t bring big burst numbers to the team and neither does A-Sophia, the fire team in its current state is played by only having S-Karenina on the field 100% of the time with S-Nanami and A-Sophia providing support.
This doesn’t mean fire is bad per se, simply that it hasn’t got much attention in the form of strong new additions to its lineup, S-Karenina and S-Nanami are launch units with A-Sophia arriving early to the game in the third major patch “Eternal Engine“.
I can’t recommend picking up either S-Karenina or S-Nanami by themselves, if you don’t want to pick S-Kamui and happen to pull either one of the two fire S-Ranks, you can pick the other and build the fire team, the fire team is a perfectly good team early on in the game but falls off greatly as strong units are released for other teams such as Rosetta for physical, by that point physical is strong enough to be the better choice for War Zones: Fire stage in which fire damage is increased.
All in all, my priority ranking for the S-Rank Selector would look something like this,
#1 – S-Kamui – most solid pick for the future with what we know about the game right now
#2 – The Fire-Duo (S-Karenina & S-Nanami) – only recommended if you can get both, building mono element teams is the way to go in [Punishing: Gray Raven] for stacking elemental buffs and debuffs
#3 – S-Liv – mainly for her potential using co-op missions and because poor S-Lee will rarely if ever see play if you have Alpha
#4 – S-Lee – doesn’t really have a place in your roster if you have Alpha, move him up to second or have him share first place with S-Kamui if you don’t want or can’t get Alpha well that wraps up my opinion on the starting S-Rank units
I really hope it wasn’t too harsh in some of the characters, my personal optimal start to [Punishing: Gray Raven] Global will be to get S-Kamui and S-Karenina, I have faith the fire team will one day have its time to shine!
This guide is based on videos by Whiskey Titan