3 Hinagiku Akiba

Overview

Hinagiku Akiba is a high damage breaker with tanking and debuffing rolled into her kit. There is no situation where she’s not good,
and many situations where she’s extremely good. Her break damage is massive, with break speeds averaging around Yo levels in the SHARK test
(Yo can break a bit faster with good RNG though). Her damage output is high even when not built for it; when built for it, she can easily hit
100k+ PER TICK on her charge punch (yes, 300k hits every 1.5 seconds). Her utility is also amazing; a full screen 30 second 30% defense shred
at only 1 bar, on top of applying Attention (yes, this actually matters now). She has good performance as an AI teammate, being the only character
currently available that can DEFLECT enemies thanks to her charge punch. However, her optimization when manually operated is genuinely absurd thanks
to a mix of perfect timing her charge punch to get more out, counterattacking for more stun, and dash cancelling to recover stamina faster.
There’s genuinely too much to cover for one character so we’ll continue throughout the guide.

TLDR: She’s VERY good and arguably the best character in the game overall.

Primary Attack

Hina has a 3 stage attack, with each stage being chargeable (holding down the primary attack button) to deal more damage and
generate 60 Ki Fist stacks at max charge. Her first two punches are jabs, while the third attack is an uppercut.
Regardless of if previous stages were charged for any amount of time you can charge the next attack.
For example, doing 2 uncharged primaries (the jabs) then holding down the button will charge the uppercut punch.
While charging you’ll see and hear cues that indicate the charge level; once you hear a “ding” and see the gauntlet
flash gold you’re at max charge and should release the primary attack button to do a massive punch (AKA a max charge punch)
that does 3 instances of damage. From here on out, we’ll be calling uncharged primary attacks (AKA how everyone else’s primary attack works)
“Uncharged Punch” and charged primary attacks “Charged Punch”. While charging, getting hit by any deflectable attack
(AKA anything physical, including projectiles) will cause a deflect to occur (this does NOT deal any damage or break damage);
pressing the primary attack button after this will give you an immediate max charge punch. This is a huge part of Hina’s damage
output and executing max charge punches as soon as possible is going to be a big part of optimizing her DPS.
More relevantly to most people, this can also be used to get very easy deflects against enemies.
However, because the deflect doesn’t do any break, it’s strictly worse than a counterattack itself.
But hey, you didn’t pull this cheat code of a character to let that stop you, right?

Secondary Attack

Hina leaps towards her target and slams down with her fists doing 3 damage instances, generating 60 Ki Fist stacks on activation.
This move is technically her best tool for breaking enemies quickly when spammed but is obviously worse than similar characters (Kazuki, Senju, Koishi).
It has a few benefits to being used though. Most obviously is its ability to track enemies; for some reason Hina can outright curve in mid air
to hit her target even if that target changes. It moves her farther than her charge punch does allowing you to get back into position if your target runs off.
It can be freely cancelled into her counterattack for even more optimal breaking (and particularly useful with her T3 dupe if you have it,
allowing for extremely high bursts of break damage). Finally, if you have her T5 it becomes an actually respectable damage option (although not by THAT much).
With that being said, for the stamina used it’s generally not worth using damage wise and should be reserved exclusively for either breaking or getting that last
bit of charge needed to perform her strategy skill.

Counterattack

Deflect counterattack (can only deflect physical attacks). Standard counterattack. With her T3 she gets to do a max charge punch after a
successful counterattack which is insanely useful.

Strategy Skill

Requires 300 stacks of Ki Fist. Hina rushes forward a short distance before doing a golf swing with her gauntlets. With a currently
unmatched 1200 break value, this is the strongest break move in the game. However, you have to fully charge her unique meter to use it.
This does make her break speeds a bit slower than a dedicated breaker character, but it does allow you to force a break very quickly.
More interestingly, you can use this when the enemy’s break bar recovers to do a huge chunk to it allowing for rapid back to back breaks with the right team.
It also just does a lot of damage; 3000% is just under Enoki’s total 4000%. Becomes VERY spammable through her T1 and T5, letting her even the playing
field vs dedicated breakers if you invest into her dupes.

Ultimate Skill

Requires Tension Phase 1, costs 100 Tension. Hina does a cute heart animation before applying a 30% defense reduction and Attention to all enemies for 30 seconds.
This alone would’ve been enough to warrant her a top tier position and makes her the premiere defense shredder (sorry Jio, but at least you have a new job now as a gardener).
There’s not a lot to say about this here, it’s pretty much exactly what it says it does.

Chain Skill

ROCKET PUNCH! Yeah other than that it’s just an average chain skill.

Combos (If Operating)

Hina has a ton of options for her rotation on top of different options when reacting to how the enemy is attacking. Because I’m biased as hell I will be listing ALL of them.

• To maximize DPS, you’ll want to do 2 uncharged primaries (like a normal character's primary attack string) then max charge her 3rd primary (AKA the uppercut).
  This is because charging her jabs reduces our total DPS compared to squeezing out more uppercuts. We skip using secondary here since its damage is very unimpressive
  for its casting time and stamina cost. Strategy skill should be used when it's available (ideally immediately following a max charge uppercut). However, this combo is
  very vulnerable to being interrupted; any attack that forces you to counterattack or charge deflect will reset you back to the start. And unlike Enoki, we have no way to skip
  to the good part of this attack string. As such, this string is mainly used in either telegraphed attack phases where we have the time to execute it OR if the boss is stunned via breaking.
• A more realistic scenario is spamming max charge punches (whether manual or not) into secondary attack. This does less DPS but significantly more break damage, with an additional
  benefit of safety. If you have the stamina/the time, opting for manual max charge punch -> secondary then counterattacking during the secondary allows for even more break damage.
  This will also charge her strategy skill faster, unlike the optimal DPS rotation which loses out on multiple charge punches and secondaries.
• Another option is eschewing manual charge punches in favor of secondary attack spam and counterattack. This lets you get her strategy skill charged the fastest irrespective of
  the enemies aggression, but isn’t great for immediate damage output or breaking. Main use case for this is setting up a quick back to back break (which she is very good at facilitating)
  by breaking with her strategy skill ready to go before the boss recovers, then opening with a strategy skill after the boss recovers to cause a huge chunk of damage to their break bar
  and quickly causing a second break. This idea is best used with T3/T5 as you can easily get max charge punches through counterattacks.

Tips

1. You can technically do a mini charge for each of her primaries to do a smidge more damage, but keep in mind that some situations have very strict time limits in which you can squeeze
   out her attacks. Every boss has a general set/series of “attacks” that they will do where you can figure out an optimal rotation per fight.
2. Track your stamina usage when doing her break heavy combos! If you run out of stamina her lengthy recovery animations can leave you open to being hit.
3. Learning when to release manual max charged punches is very important for doing her maximum DPS. Listen for the ding and watch her gauntlet for the gold flash.

Potential

• Fighting Instinct: Levels up her skill’s ranks. As usual, this is the normal dump option for improving her damage.
• Survival Instinct: Increases Max HP, Defense, and Max Stamina. Another dump option. Better for the AI than for you.
• Coordination: Increases Support. Useless for Hina.
• Passive 1: Increases action DMG of a fully charged Primary Attack. A massive boost to her damage. At max rank it’s 720% for max charge punches and 1080% for her max charge uppercut.
  Only works on max charge though, so make sure to fully charge!
• Passive 2: After ulting, fully charged Primary Attacks cause an AoE attack around Hina. Don’t sleep on this, this is actually pretty good. Every max charge punch will generate
  an AOE pulse around her for a decent amount. Obviously very good when fighting multiple enemies or even against a single enemy if you’re getting lots of max charge punches off.
  Best if you’re ignoring her counterattack in lieu of just charge deflect spamming. Her passive 1 will deal more overall damage though, especially with Fighting Instinct points.
  Will likely be at its best when clearing out mobs in Fractal Vice or farming Rifts, so put some points into it for that and remove them when facing bosses.

Dupes

Hina’s signatures are COMPLETELY optional for her supportive capabilities. They only serve to either improve her break damage or her DPS.
If you just want Hina to be a tank/support, do not consider dupes. WIth that in mind, let’s continue.

• Akiba Secret Kenjutsu: Dedication: Increases the amount of Fist Ki from Primary/Secondary by 15. Successfully deflecting while charging her Primary Attack grants 25 Fist Ki.
  Lets you get more strategy skills out for more breaking. Very useful for double break setups.
• Akiba Secret Kenjutsu: Gentle but Firm/Akiba Secret Kenjutsu: Through Thick and Thin: Gain 2/3 Potential Gems.
  Potential Gems are very useful for her as she gets a lot of damage off them. Read her Potentials section if you want to learn more.
• Akiba Secret Kenjutsu: Forewarned is Forearmed: After a successful Counterattack her next Primary Attack is fully charged.
  I consider this her best dupe, despite how unimpressive it sounds. Being able to mix in counterattacks is very important for her breaking, and more max charge punches is very good
  for her DPS AND breaking. With correct rotations you only stand to gain from this, and gain a lot you do.
• Headfirst: After a fully charged primary attack, immediately performing a secondary attack causes it to do 2x Action DMG and increase its Fist Ki generation by 50.
  This READS crazy but Hina’s secondary does not do a lot of damage and this isn’t going to save that. Its main benefit is making it generate (alongside T1) a whopping 125 Ki Fist charge
  (nearly half the required amount) letting you really spam out her strategy skill. Very useful for her breaking speed, making her competitive with Kazuki and Senju.

Operating Character

If you want to DPS, you should probably pilot her yourself. The AI isn’t bad, and it’ll hold the fort down tanking wise, but Hina’s optimal DPS rotations are far too specific and intricate for the AI to perform well. As a support, Hina is acceptable whether piloted or not; moreso a matter of if you want the absolute fastest breaks or not.

Conclusion

Hina is THE best character in the game right now, full stop. She simply does EVERYTHING other than healing at an S tier level, if not S+ when properly built. She has no realistic flaws that can’t be easily played around, she is extremely forgiving for any skill level, she has a ton of skill expression for players willing to master her, and she actually has good dupes for future investment. What more needs to be said?