Who Should You Roll For?

This is the list of all Dolls released in the CN server during its 1st year. Clukay's banner is missing, but its at the very end as the 1st Anniversary Banner.

Clotho followed Clukay's Banner, followed by Dupin.

Intro

This is not a full list of all future Dolls.

This guide is a breakdown of highly sought after Dolls for the purposes of planning ahead.
All Skill numbers will be referenced at their maximum value.

Disclaimer

Readers should not assume that if a Doll is missing from this list that it means they are not good.

Aki is a melee DPS of the Warrior class, a veritable 'glass cannon'. All of his abilities are purely focused on dealing critical damage. His passive permanently increases his Critical Damage by 30% and his Normal Attacks gain +30% Critical Chance for every attack that is not a crit, resetting every crit. This alone allows a very singular Algorithm build of stacking as much critical damage as possible.

Additionally, Aki's Active Skill hits 5 separate times, with each hit benefitting from both the critical damage and critical chance boost per hit. While each hit's modifier is not high on their own (100% ATK), their ability to individually crit makes this a deceptively strong skill.

Aki's ultimate follows a similar trend, offering a massive 1000% ATK Damage nuke that auto-casts repeatedly as long as it kills an enemy and further scales off the target's missing HP.

This simplistic, but powerful kit allows Aki to scale excellently with Functions, Algorithms, Protocols and basically any other kind of buff he can receive from other sources.

Hubble - Highly Recommended

Hubble is a Sniper with a rather unique kit, allowing her to run both an Physical Damage or Operand Damage build by either focusing exclusively on her Passive or Active Skill, respectively. For easier understanding, let's breakdown the two builds.

Normal Attack-focused Build

Hubble's Passive increase her Damage Dealt by 6% every 4 Normal Attacks, stacking up to 5 times for a total of a 30% Damage Dealt increase. To take advantage of this passive, Hubble will want stats such as ATK, Attack Speed, and Critical Chance/Damage.

The kind of Sniper Functions Hubble will want in this build will be ones that enhance her Normal Attacks or provide bonuses to Physical Damage. The same is true for any Protocols or buffs from party members. As a result, Hubble's AoE damage will be weaker, but her single-target damage will shred through an enemy.

A final benefit to this is changing the Damage Type Hubble primarily deals to Physical Damage, What this means is that if a player is running another Physical DPS such as Aki, they won't have to worry about reducing Hubble's damage if they opt to take a Protocol that provides +50% ATK, but lowers Hashrate by -50%.

Active Skill-focused Build

Hubble's Active Skill is a 400% nuke that deals Operand Damage and scales off Hashrate. Additionally it is also a source of AoE True Damage, affecting all enemies within 2-tiles of the initial target. It's base CD of 10 seconds is quite low for how much damage it does. This build is capable of wiping out a group of enemies in mere moments and also benefits from further increased damage thanks to her Passive.

The stats Hubble will be focusing on will be Hashrate and Skill Recharge. It's all about raw AoE damage being served up as often as possible. She'll want Functions and buffs that compliment these needs too. Anything that further reduces the cooldown of her Active SKill is highly valuable.

Hubble will primarily deal Operand Damage in this build and will be complimented by running other Dolls who also deal Operand Damage. Additionally because her Ultimate also scales from Hashrate, it will also hit harder than her Physical-oriented build. However, her Ultimate is universally powerful because it is able to group an entire map together.

Conclusion & tl;dr

Skill-focused is stronger early-mid game.
Normal Attack-focused is stronger late game.
Both are viable paths.

Alternative Evolutionism (First Event)

If the EN server follows the same schedule, this event will begin 1 month after release. If it takes longer, more time to save! There are no new Dolls released between the Launch Banners and this event!

De Lacey - Bait

De Lacey is only in this list to warn readers that she is waifu bait and her banner runs for a week before Hatsuchiri's!

That said, De Lacey is Medic and was essentially tailor-made to partner with Hatsuchiri. If players are running a 2 Medic comp, De Lacey offers a unique tether synergy to provide buffs & healing to Hatsuchiri who will be jumping around the map frequently. She's also one of the few Dolls to receive a balance update on CN, making her buffs stronger and is also part of the first batch of Dolls able to upgrade their skills directly through a new system.

Hatsuchiri - Must Have

The Queen of the Deep, Eldritch Terror of the Void. This thing right here in whose shadow nothing good nor godly will ever grow. Hatsuchiri is a Doll therefore she is godless. She was adopted by Satan himself before she was returned out of fear of her awkwardness. Her creator, terrified, just abandoned her. And there she is, stood before you, like the first of some brand new species. Anything that you put before her would be like entering a threshing machine.

Hatsuchiri is a Warrior and the first new Doll dared to be called ~~powercreep~~. She brings everything desirable to a DPS to the table: High mobility, incredible AoE and single-target damage, Crowd Control, a Cheat Death mechanic and Skill resets.

Hatsuchiri's passive makes use of a status unique to only her called Dive.
Dive is triggered at the start of battle and causes her to immediately swim to the furthest enemy, knocking them and any units within a 1-tile radius up for 1 second and dealing 200% ATK Physical Damage. Additionally, she cannot be targeted while swimming and if she receives fatal damage, she is immediately healed for 25% HP, which can proc once per battle.

Synergy is the name of the game and Hatsuchiri's Active Skill makes use of her Passive to a deadly degree. First, it deals 3 separate hits of (200/220/240)% ATK Physical Damage to her target (660% total) and 200% Derivative damage to all enemies within a 1-tile radius. If her target dies within 6 seconds of using this skill, she will immediately Dive to a new target, dealing Dive's damage and immediately or soon after use her active skill once again. Her active skill has a ridiculously low Cooldown of only 6 seconds, making it synergize excellently with the time limit given to kill an enemy and Dive again.

Furthermore, her Ultimate is a single-target nuke which immobilizes an enemy for 6 seconds and dives to them, dealing 1600% ATK damage. This resets the CD on her Active Skill too, which can also begin the Dive chain once more. A popular strategy is waiting til Hatsu uses her active and immediately follow-up with her Ultimate, therefore triggering her Active skill once more.

Thanks to Dive making her untargetable and her passive death save, Hatsuchiri is incredibly difficult for the enemy to pin down and kill. She becomes a machine gun of mobility and damage, quickly decimating both the frontline and backlines of enemies.

Future Dolls

Nora - Must Have

Completely cracked Doll, no question. Let's just get that out of the way. She's the physical embodiment of Madagascar and if you don't know what that means then you didn't play enough Plague Inc. during your childhood. Nora can completely lockdown and destroy a field for 45-75 seconds. Combined with other Dolls from this list and players will have a very dangerous combination.

This coked out Pigeon is a Physical Specialist. ~~Her passive is that she writes your obituary.~~ At the start of battle she gains a unique +150% ATK buff that decreases by 50% every 15 seconds. Once it reaches zero, she becomes Exhausted and will not act again for the rest of the battle unless her Ultimate is used.

In the meantime, Nora's active skill is continuously cast on random enemies, dealing 120% ATK damage and inflicting 3 different debuffs in a sequential order. Once she casts 8 times, there is chance she stuns herself during subsequent casts with a +15% chance per cast, stopping the skill. The debuffs are as follows:

All DEF -30%
Stun
+15% Damage Received

The self-stun on her active exists merely to maintain the illusion of some semblance of balance while enabling the rest of her party to decimate their foes.

Nora's Ultimate has two important uses which are mutually exclusive:

If Nora is NOT Exhausted, allows her to immediately use her Active Skill again if she stuns herself too early.
If Nora is Exhausted, her Ultimate grants her +90% ATK and removes Exhausted for 30 seconds, allowing her to act once again. Once this buff wears off, she will be Exhausted permanently for the rest of the battle.

A downside of Nora is the time limit of her activity, making her an undesirable pick against Bosses if the party cannot clear within 45-75 seconds, but since Dolls can be swapped in and out of reserve slots before the start of any battle, this isn't much of a con.

Clukay - Must Have

Clukay was released with Neural Cloud's 1st Anniversary and thus will not be appearing in EN until that time arrives for the server, making her a highly predictable banner to plan for.
She is the first Doll released in which her Fragments cannot be farmed in Daily Search, requiring players to roll for dupes or use Neural Kits to buy fragments.

Clukay is a Sniper and another map destroyer, like Nora (whom they both pair exceptionally well together, go figure).

Her Passive grants her Normal Attacks a 30% chance to launch a 100% Operand grenade at a target and surrounding enemies within 1 tile. If there are no additional enemies, the main target will take 3 instances of 60% Operand that are guaranteed crits. Also applies a status that causes defeated enemies to explode for 400% Operand in a 2-tile radius.

This explosion-on-death is able to critically hit and will apply the status again to any newly hit targets and if they die from the explosion, they will also explode themselves.

Furthermore, Clukay's Active Skill launches a 460% Operand grenade toward the densest area of enemies, applying another status for 10 seconds that guarantees the target will explode on death, regardless of the damage source and apply her Passive's status to any new enemies hit too.

In short, Clukay is capable of causing massive chain reactions of damage once she uses her Active Skill once since it effectively eliminates the need for her to deal the final blow to any to cause an explosion chain.

Clukay's Ultimate doesn't have any synergetic qualities like her Passive and Active, but it deals many small bursts of critical damage in an area which can be used to detonate any straggling enemies.

Because the main crux of Clukay's damage is the passive 400% explosion that can critically hit, a build centered around Critical Chance and Critical Damage is recommended.

Nascita - Highly Recommended

Nascita is a Warrior whose kit synergizes with itself excellently to deal consistent Normal Attack damage, burst damage, True Damage and Shield shredding potential.

Her Passive causes her to enter Hurricane Mode after 5 Normal Attacks and lasts for 5 Normal Attacks. During this period, each attack's damage is reduced by 50%, but it applies Wolf's Eclipse which deals 80% ATK in True Damage, lowers the target's Max HP by 80% ATK and inflicts a stacking healing debuff.

It should be noted that Hurricane Mode acts like a continuous Active Skill. Once it begins, Nascita is forced to quickly attack 5 times and she cannot use her Active Skill even if it is completely off cooldown, although she can still be harmed while she jumps around her target.

Nascita's Active Skill deals 700% ATK Damage to her current target and immediately applies 3 instances of Wolf's Eclipse to the target. This skill deals 30% increased damage against Shields. Her Active Skill has a rather long cooldown of 12 seconds due to her gameplay loop consisting of entering Hurricane Mode > Active Skill > Hurricane Mode > Active Skill, etc.

Complimentary to both her Passive and Active SKill, Nascita's Ultimate has her entering yet another mode for 10 seconds. This new mode increases her Attack Speed by 75%, adds an additional stack of Wolf's Eclipse to each attack made in Hurricane Mode and causes Hurricane Mode to attack 10 times instead of 5. Additionally Active Skills used during this time will refund 30% of their CD when used.

Much like Aki, Nascita excels at shredding single targets and her ability to deal large amounts of True Damage mean she is particularly effective against more tanky units or Bosses.

Kuro - Highly Recommended

Kuro is an Operand Sniper capable of dealing high single-target damage, but sadly, her AoE is quite lacking actually making her one of the more balanced Dolls on this list.

The crux of her damage will come from her Active Skill, while her Passive is essentially filler during its cooldown. Unlike other Dolls on this list so far, Kuro's Active Skill is a 'Continuous Skill', which means that while its active, its cooldown will not decrease until it finishes. This means any Cooldown Reduction effects are only 50% as effective as they normally would be, but at the same time means more emphasis on raw stats can be placed in a build instead. This causes Kuro to be linear and easy to build.

Her Passive gives her Normal Attacks a 60% chance to proc an enhanced shot, which also has a 60% chance to proc another enhance shot. This effect can chain up to 5 times per 1 Normal Attack. The enhanced shot deals 100% Operand, cannot be evade and cannot critically hit normally, but may be able to crit through special means such as Functions and other Doll Skills (like Daiyan).

Kuro's Active Skill is a channeled flurry of shots, dealing 80% Operand every 0.2 seconds for 3 seconds. If Kuro channels the full duration, the target will take an additional 320% Operand damage. The cooldown is rather long, sitting at 12 seconds and as stated above, cannot recharge while Kuro is channeling. Another downside is that this skill will cancel early if the target dies before she finishes. It will not deal the additional damage and it will also not retarget to continue on a new enemy.

Because of this, Kuro is not well-suited to map clearing, and her preferred enemies are mainly Bosses or other high HP encounters.

Her Ultimate is the only AoE she possesses, but its value is not as highly regarded as others. Still it does provide additional damage based on her own Hashrate for allies attacking enemies within the zone. It can be useful in helping to quickly wiping out a Bosses summoned minions.

Kuro pairs well with Daiyan whom is able to give Kuro the ability to crit. If a crit/crit damage build is used along with Daiyan its capable of some disgusting damage. Daiyan has respectable AoE too, making up for Kuro's almost complete lack of it. A match made in heaven, really.

Helix - Highly Recommended

Helix is a real treat. She released at a time when players were desperate for a new, good Medic and we were not disappointed. Helix is essentially Persicaria 2.0. If Persicaria's main drawback was a lack of buffs, Helix solved that. Until Helix, Nanaka was still the reigning Queen as a unit capable of AoE healing and buffing allies. She doesn't replace Nanaka, but now we have a choice for comps that don't want to babysit our favorite idol. Be free, Warriors!

This cheese-fearing little shit brings a unique kind of healing previously only seen on Algorithms: Post-Battle Recovery.

Let's talk about her Active Skill first because the effect within it is used by her Passive.

Helix's Active Skill heals the lowest HP% ally and all allies within 1 tile by 450% Hashrate. First of all, that is an insane burst heal. Second, this heal applies a 25% ATK/Hashrate buff to allies hit for 7 seconds and applies a stack of Energized to herself. Every stack of Energized increases the radius of her heal by 1 tile, up to 15 stacks. That means every time Helix uses this skill, the radius gets larger. Nanaka wishes she could cover an entire map with splooge of healing juice. Still, this skill's cooldown is a whopping 14 seconds, so CDR and Angela are her friend.

Moving onto Helix's passive, whenever an ally falls below 20% HP they are healed for 30% Hashrate per Energized stack. This can trigger on each ally once per battle. Additionally, at the end of each battle, all allies are automatically healed for 60% Hashrate per Energized stack which is not reduced by Overtime effects either.

This additional healing post-battle is incredible for pushing new, difficult content.

The cherry on top of Helix's kit is her Ultimate, which has the potential for some rather unique uses. It buffs an ally with +25% ATK/Hashrate and resets the cooldown of their ultimate, allowing them to effectively cast their Ultimate twice in rapid succession.

The only reason Helix is not a 'Must Have' is because she doesn't completely obliterate maps like Hatsuchiri, Nora, or Clukay and there are comparable healers available, like Nanaka or even Persicaria (who may not buff, but her heals are still strong).

Sueyoi - Specialized Usage - Must Have

The definitive 'fuck this enemy in particular' Doll.

Sueyoi is Specialist who doesn't Normal Attack. Instead, he tethers to an enemy and begins building 105 energy and dealing 3% True Damage per second. If he builds enough energy to kill the enemy, he kills it immediately, otherwise he will discharge all the energy he possesses after 10 seconds, dealing 1% Operand x # of energy.

His energy charging speed increases by 0.8% for every 1% of Critical Chance and 0.4% for every 1% of Critical Damage. The Passive cannot crit normally, but can through Functions and other means.

Additionally his Active Skill marks his target to increase his energy generation by 50%. When the marked target is killed by his Passive, it will detonate for 100% True Damage in a 1-tile radius. The value of this detonation may look small at first glance, but this is Sueyoi's true bread and butter. The amount of AoE potential this unit has is quite insane.

Finally, Sueyoi's Ultimate serves as a tool to quickly generate his maximum of 1500 energy over 3 seconds, dealing 1% Operand x # of energy and if he kills his target, that built up energy will continue discharging at new targets until he is depleted. This is a channel and it can be interrupted by CC. Any enemies killed will also detonate for 100% True Damage.

Black Hole Enigma is where this Doll typically shines, but can also be used to deal massive AoE damage in regular play thanks to his synergies with other specialists such as Rise, Dushevnaya, Angela and Puzzle. Puzzle in particular is a perfect partner for Sueyoi because of her ability to easily group up enemies for his AoE True damage.

While this Doll is capable of some of the best damage in the game, he's also the hardest to use properly, requiring constant micro and proper target management, although Puzzle alleviates this burden significantly.

Considering this, Sueyoi's first banner appearance may not be ideal for everyone, especially if they don't have the proper Dolls to pair with him ready to go since he isn't as plug-and-play as Dolls like Hatsuchiri or Nora who "just work".

Daiyan - Specialized Usage

Daiyan is a sniper who is not exceptional on her own, but what she brings is unique and potentially highly sought after depending on player desire.

Other than some respectable AoE with a wide range, the niche she fills is granting allies the ability to critically hit when they otherwise would not normally be able to critically hit. This is valuable for Dolls such as Kuro, for example.

It's important to position Daiyan correctly because its necessary for her Active Skill to pass through the allies a player want to be able to crit. Upon passing through allies, they are granted a 9 second buff which allows them to crit based on their own critical hit value.

For example, if you've given Kuro Algorithms and Functions bringing her to 60% critical chance, she normally cannot use that, but with Daiyan's buff she now has a 60% chance to critically hit for 9 seconds.

Daiyan's Ultimate also provides a 5 second duration version of this buff to any allies it passes through too.

Outside of waifu reasons, this is Daiyan's main purpose and the only reason players should consider rolling on her banner is because they intend on taking advantage of her ability to make the non-critable, critable.

EN Banner 1 - KURO

EN Banner 2 and 3 - DELACEY AND HATSUSHIRI

CN Banner Schedule