Mechatalk Final Gear: Noctris - Forbidden Witch

 Things have come to full circle for Final Gear and at long last this Mechatalk series made it to cover 6* UR units which is no other than the leader of Hexel Faction herself! The Steel Witch, Noctris! Out of the main factions leaders in Final Gear, I really liked Noctris Character and Mecha design the most and made quite some sacrifice to obtain her. Given Komoe and Flashwing's mismanagement with Final Gear, It took me almost one year before I get to fully upgrade Noctris as they only decided to rerun Noctris Banner by the time Final Gear is in maintenance mode. Certainly it has been a long way for me to be able to have Noctris at her peak form where many have given up upon this game. But to me it is worth it and proud to be able to dedicate a mechatalk article for her too.

 One of the legendary individual in Final Gear setting, Noctris is the founder of the Hexel, Nation that focus on Magic and Technology. This young nation able to stand among Large nations like Arita and Kegha on Equal terms owing to the Leadership of this Steel Witch. An individual with Mysterious past, Noctris once lead her own Mercenary group that later become the foundation of the Hexel nation. Then at some point Noctris gained her fame as Steel Witch after she managed to wipe out one of the large mercenary group by herself which paves her path to find her own nation. Together with group of exiled Scientists, Noctris then found the Hexel Nation on a barren land southwest of Arita region. Posessing both Power and Intellect, Noctris is an effective leader who appeared to have easygoing personality yet can be ruthless at times when necessary in order to fulfill her duty. Noctris also have an immense curiosity for revolutionary mechanical design and contribute her passion into several of Hexel's Arsenals.

In Final Gear, Noctris is one of the 8 Natural UR unit, serving as Demolisher Role and one of the best offensive unit out there. She pilots Forbidden Witch Unit, a mech unit that is capable to transform into several forms in which she is the only unit that has such gimmick as her Special power. 

 In this segment I might also explain how I obtain Noctris in the firstplace and why Natural UR Units had some kind of Infamy that lead to Final Gear's eventual downfall to its current state. Natural 6* Units are notorious powerful units that demands significant Resources for players to obtain them. For Starters Most players will need 30 Rolls or 45000 Crystals to obtain UR Char along with their Unique Mechs. This is roughly 6 months of savings for F2P players and most people simply don't have that amount of patienct when Final Gear contents are Grindy in Nature. But the most offending part would be that Players may need another 15000-45000 Crystals should they wish to max out their UR Unit due to the exchange rate of the Currency required to raise the Units Stats. At very least in the maintenance mode, the Exchange rate has been reduced to 1/5 of the original price which allow remaining players to max their favorite URs if it happens to be Lilian or Noctris for significantly less resources.

I barely obtained Noctris last year as I spent my reserves on Sakura Taisen Banner and Noctris was being released straight after this banner. As such due to the minimum Resources that I had, my Copy of Noctris was very weak capping at 200k BP for more than a year making her very weak in PVP and did had a hard time on Border Conflict for a period of time. It was only until early this month that I got the opportunity to get 50 Copies of her character bit to Max her stats. Unfortunately my Noctris Rank is stuck at 5* since I would prefer to use my remaining resources to collect more mechs with the remaining time of Final Gear. But i would expect Noctris BP would be around 550-600k should she is raised to 6* Rank.

 As Hexel Nation Leader, Noctris commands through group of syndicates called "Family" and 4 Subordinate Matriarch Witches consist of Chilino, Barthory, Favia and Solar as members forming a group known as 5 Witches of Hexel. While on appearance the Matriarchs appear to have equal standing with Noctris, being the strongest among the peer witches, Noctris effectively serve as the De Facto leader within the group with loyal followers of her own. Despising betrayal the most, Noctris is capable of utilizing cunning or violence whenever necessary to keep the subordinates like Solar or other treacherous family leader in line.

 Among Final Gear Units even among URs, Noctris Forbidden Mecha design had the grace to have the unique form Gimmick, Only CN UR Agnes had the similar multiple form gimmick but even then it is not semi permanent like Noctris. As long as Noctris able to accumulate enough energy for High Gear which is very easy as long as the enemies are found in abundance. Here are the following brief description of 4 Noctris Forbidden Witch unit form:

• 1st Form: Dragon breathing out cones of fire - Short Range
• 2nd Form: Demonic looking Mech releasing waves from blade like appendages - Medium Range
• 3rd Form: Giant Hovering Scorpion shooting Fireballs - Medium Range
• 4th Form: Noctris with Giant Grimoire firing Giant Lasers
  

 As a Natural UR Unit, Noctris is  one of the best hard hitter out there as long as she is allowed to reach her Final Form which appears as Noctris in her Witch outfit with Giant Grimoire on her back. In this form she can rain down large Laser Beams that will obliterate anything in few Salvos. As a Mid Range Demolisher, Noctris is also actually tanky enough to withstand hits from Melee units to build up her High Gear but just don't pit her against Zero. In PVP she really need Tanky units as distraction for her to reach Final Form which can be hard when you encounter Zero and Ruby on enemy team.

 Noctris UR Skill is nothing flashy but since it is just a damage multiplier unit but it is what that makes her final form shine as it enables large amount of DPS and very deadly when you have several units in her firing line. Noctris DPS maybe deceptively low compared to Ruby staying around 140 Million+, but she can just deal same amount of damage with Ruby when she gets to fire her lasers at Multiple Units. If only Final Gear had more enemies with Multiple Hitzones considering Noctris is just an overkill for the regular PVE content.

 In Noctris Final Gear Mechatalk, I will use the opportunity to cover abit for other group members of 5 Witches of Hexel. Noctris had around 4 Witch Matriarch subordinates and one honorary member as her direct subordinates. Among the Witch Matriarchs, only Favia and Solar gets their Unique mechs, If only Final Gear didn't fall to its current state, we could expect at least Chilino gets her Special Mecha treatment along with UR Reskin. Curiously the Honorary Matriarch Mama do have a wedding skin for some reason.

While Noctris is rather ineffective unit by this time due to her Gimmick Requirement and Ruby will just make short work of her. She will remain my personal favorite Faction Leader UR and personally I think her Wedding Skin is the best one compared to Lilian and Morgan. The patience required to raise Noctris maybe very taxing for a game that does not have many players due to its deliberate shortcomings but I am willing to pay the price because I do consider the Value worth the effort since I still like Final Gear as a Mecha Gacha game. 

For the 10th Final Gear Mechatalk, I will probably do Elizabeth to slacken the pace abit.