In-depth P90 Analysis (By hina#8787)
Tiles:
Skill
Squirrel:
Arc Shadow: Gain a stackable 20% evasion increase every second. The following four attacks will be guaranteed hits and crits.
Passive: Activate Arc Shadow for 3 seconds whenever she loses over 5% max HP. 6 seconds cooldown.
Active: Activate Arc Shadow for 5 seconds and deploy 999 armor, 3 HP holograms for 3 seconds. The number of holograms deployed depend upon the number of Dummy Links.
Introduction to P90
First off, P90’s stats distribution aligns nicely with that of a main tank, boasting very high evasion, slightly above HP values. This stats distribution aligns nicely with her role as a main tank, whose job is meant to soak up as much damage as possible. Paired with her skillset, she does that pretty well, able to mitigate damage nicely to delay repairs. Her tile coverage is excellent from a main tank point of view, with a decent amount of damage + accuracy bonus. Both of which would pretty much always prove to be useful in almost all scenarios. While the damage boost from her tiles won’t be as great as someone like UMP45, her true value lies in her skill.
Skill Usage – Arc Shadow
While her guaranteed hit + critical combo won’t do much most of the time due to her using T-Exo + Suppressor most of the time, it can be a nice bonus in certain scenarios, especially in the latest event Shattered Connexion on CN where she can comfortably contribute hit counts to whittle down Beasts’ shields. While not noticeable, it does contribute a fair bit without sacrificing anything about her usage as a main tank. Think of it as a small lil bonus.
Her passive also gives her a slight edge over your traditional EVA tank dolls like Suomi or MP7 for very quick fights, where it can activate much earlier and provide a decent amount of EVA boost to further mitigate damage. While the values definitely aren’t as high as the 2 previously mentioned SMGs, it’s definitely a noticeable thing in fights fast enough where you can’t utilise Suomi or MP7’s skill to its fullest effect. Do note that the 5% HP reduction criteria is based on the HP she enters the battle with. Once criteria is met, future stacks only require her to take damage to procc her passive again.
Onto the more important parts of P90’s unique role, her stacks mechanic and her holograms. Her EVA buff translates to as follows. Note that one of the things not stated in her skill is that each Arc Shadow stack actually lasts for 5s, meaning that you get the evasion bonus for 5s even after you stop gaining stacks. Note that each stack has their own individual cooldown.
| Mode | 1s | 2s | 3s | 4s | 5s | 6s |
| P90 Passive | 20% | 44% | 72.8% | 72.8% | 72.8% | 44% |
| P90 Active | 20% | 44% | 72.8% | 107.36% | 148.83% | 107.36% |
Here’s a chart representation of her getting her passive activation at 3s mark.
With this, P90 actually gets an excellent uptime with inconsistent values. However, this is not too much of a concern as her hologram does come into play in protecting her while ramping up the evasion. Do note that her holograms force anyone in range of them to retarget to the holograms themselves, making it a lifesaver at times.
Skill Usage – Holograms
Question now would be, how do I effectively make use of her holograms? To put it simply, P90 can counter almost anything in game right now given the right setup. The only thing she can’t reliably mitigate damage from are no-miss sources that splashes across links or deals AoE damage.
Examples of such would be:
-Hydra’s skill
-Cyclops’ grenades
-Rodeleros’ laser beams
-Everything Doppelsodners fire
-Archer’s flaming arrow (Holograms plays a slightly different role here)
-Dreamer’s laser beam
-SWAP Jaeger’s nuke shots
-Gladiator’s smash
And many more.
That being said, the true value of P90 is being able to perform well in almost every scenario (sometimes even against what’s mentioned above) would be to combo her appropriately.
Here’s some few quirks to know about P90’s Holograms before we continue:
-Each hologram is counted as an individual Doll standing together.
-You can provide shielding with P22 by placing your holograms at front column
-Sei and HS2000 can provide shielding as well
-Due to each hologram being an individual doll, you get HP shield value on each individual hologram.
-P90 used to be a nightmare for M4A1’s cannon mode due to doll count effect (Fixed already)
Rush B?
Buying taunt valuable uptime (Micro Difficulty: Easy)
We all know by now that taunt’s a valuable asset in many scenarios. Counted as 1 link in terms of damage taken, taunt alone can shrug off your usual link blasting attacks easily. At the same time, having multiple 5-linked opponents can prove to be deadly for your taunt. In this scenario, we can make use of P90’s forced retargeting quirk to buy 3 seconds to keep your taunt up even longer, allowing your dolls to stay healthy longer.
Skill Baiting (Micro Difficulty: Easy ~ Intermediate)
While it’s hard to see in this gif, you can see the red “ ! “ indicators extending out of the grid formation. Once again, by making use of the forced retargeting quirk, we can bait out the fire arrows from Archers to shoot at essentially where our T-dolls won’t stand at, effectively rendering it useless. While the holograms themselves are weak to the AoE effect of the fire, it doesn’t matter since your t-dolls won’t be stepping on it anyway.
Last Stand (Micro Difficulty: Challenging)
A frequently used technique by P90 connoisseurs, this method relies heavily on having sufficient DPS in the first place to counter threats that spawns forward too early on, usually before you can dish out enough punishment.
With that fulfilled, you can begin forming a line along the lane you wish to perform this technique in. A frequent method of using this would be to pair it with taunt fairy. The idea is simple, have P90 sit at either tile 4 or 5 depending on how many times you need to perform this trick. Most of the time tile 5 is sufficient.
Afterwards, when taunt’s down, bait out the shots of the enemy on whoever’s on 6, then retreat immediately before taking damage. By then, P90’s hologram should be up, allowing you P90’s holograms to take the brunt while she moves back to tile 4 if needed and repeat this.
However, your tile 5 bait might have to take a fair bit of damage before P90’s hologram is ready for it again in a 2-cycle scenario. Against less tanky enemies (or 1-cycle scenario), this can result in a no damage run easily. Frequently used technique against SWAP Dragoons in particular.
The face that broke CN/TW/KR.
Shielding Combo (Micro Difficulty: Easy ~ Intermediate)
While in their base form, holograms doesn’t do particularly well against hordes. However due to the fact that shielding values are applied to ALL holograms instead of all of them sharing a single shield, this makes P90 essentially an impenetrable fortress against anything that doesn’t hit all links + ignore armor at once. With HS2000 or Sei, this can be easily pulled off by forcing manual on HS2000/Sei and activate AFTER the holograms are thrown out. P22 combo can be a little tricky, as you’d need P90 to be on middle column so that her holograms lands in the frontmost column.
Conclusion
With the appropriate setup, P90 can be an amazing frontliner in soaking up damage for your team. However, she does require specific external support to pull it off, but the results can be astonishing. It’s up to each individual to decide whether forcing yourself to use a set of T-dolls is worth it or not. Should the troubles be worth it and you can manage it, she’s definitely a “Highly Recommended”, otherwise she’d sit somewhere at “recommended” or “niche” depending on your preferences/existing options.
Art sauce:
https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=76710861 by TERU
https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=75870720 by Nyanko-sensei
Archer gif sauce:
Jetroyz#1366
