TKB-408 Analysis

By BigStupidJellyfish | 2021-September-08 | Last updated 2022-August-28

TKB-408 is a 5-star AR originally released in the point event "Maples by the Bridge." She has a rather atypical night-oriented skill:

Polar Night Radiance ICD 5s, CD 16s

During nighttime, increase damage and crit damage by 70% (28% during daytime) for 8 seconds. If there are ~~more than 3~~ 5 different gun types present, increase crit rate by 30% while this skill is active (crit rate buff only limited to nighttime).

If you just want to know if she's good or not: she's rather bad. Classic night ARs (OTs-14) are almost always going to perform better, and even those see limited use nowadays considering all the better options out there. If you want the details, read on.

(Update, 2022-March-04: These charts have been reworked to include all relevant new equipment pieces and ST AR-15's SPEQ adjustments.)

(Update, 2022-August-19: additional testing indicates her buff actually is additive, but requires more than 4 gun types in the echelon. Charts have been fixed, but good luck getting a functional team out of that.)

(Update, 2022-August-28: The team requirement has been fixed to "more than 3." Pretend the charts below say 4+/<4 and they'll be correct.)

#2 Processor^#

The #2 Processor chip is a significant boost to most ARs, increasing FP and ROF in exchange for critical damage. While it's clearly amazing for most ARs at night (you aren't critting much with PEQs on), TKB's crit damage buff may make it less clear. Let's see:

So yes, chips are still very much worth it.

Damage over time^#

Let's look at her damage contribution relative to some other ARs over time (like in this writeup). This can be useful to see how much of an impact her ICD and skill duration has on her overall damage output. Starting with no tiles/other buffs, TKB in the orange:

AS Val is assumed to have FP buff uptime from Python+a Fervor fairy, although the actual FP buffs are not applied here to keep the model simple. If you kite Python a bit you can improve her uptime, further increasing performance.

It's worth mentioning that OTs-14 has a bit higher ROF (100 vs 97 ROF with chips, 15f) but fires on the same frame, causing her to lag behind a bit at the start when combined with her lower base damage. Many ROF buffs will put OTs-14 on a higher frame than TKB, significantly improving her relative DPS. One example with +10% ROF: TKB is now essentially always worse than OTs-14.

For the full list of (somewhat practical) tiles and if they help OTs-14 more:

Buffing crit damage doesn't help her relative value much, especially with things like AR-15 and AS Val on the table:

I could resize the chart to fit AS Val but I think this gets the point across.

Going even further gives similar results:

So: TKB may have a slight advantage over OTs-14 if you have lots of crit buffs and have built an absolutely insane echelon. However, she does not come close to the top night ARs and realistically is no more than ~10% better than generic stuff like G41.

Damage against armor^#

Crit damage is calculated after applying damage reduction from armor. While this is not even remotely a concern with Px4 Storm in RFHG echelons, ARs tend to lack the AP & FP needed to ignore this mechanic.

TKB in the blue this time, with a 5* Damage II Artillery (1.55*1.15=78% total FP buff). Varying FP buffs will shift the x-axis around but overall trends would be similar.

TKB does better against armor than G41, but a pure FP buff like what OTs-14/AS Val have is clearly superior against armor.

Keep in mind that this is in-skill DPS - dolls with short/burst skills will generally be rated higher than ones with high uptime here. Using uptime-averaged DPS or something similar has its own problems though as almost all ARs will be totally blocked by armor out-of-skill and few fights last multiple skill cycles.

WA2000 included for reference. Don't use ARs to fight Hydras, especially considering what happens when their skills aren't up.

Conclusion^#

Night ARs as a whole see limited use in the current RFHG-dominated meta. If you do need them, AS Val+Python+AR-15 will cover 99% of your needs. When TKB is only sometimes marginally better than old night ARs like OTs-14 and not far off from day ARs like G41, it's hard to imagine you'd be hurting to fill teams without her. A number of other ARs (e.g., AS Val, AR-15, Angelica) will benefit about as much or more than TKB from realistic levels of crit buffs, so she doesn't even get to claim that specialty. 9A-91's login SPEQ makes her a vast upgrade even when giving TKB her crit rate boost.

To be fair, TKB's skill is at least functional. She's hardly in the category of dolls like JS05 or 100 Shiki who have downright awful skills. If you want a night AR that shoots things, don't care about the details, don't need top-tier performance, and already have her raised, it's possible to use TKB.

With lackluster performance even in her niche, I do not recommend raising TKB-408.

Other considerations^#

Her tiles are decent to put on an offtank (+25% FP, +50% ACC), but are awkward to position as you'll often have a HG on 4 at night. She can still sit there if using Desert Eagle/HP-35/C-93/P22 or similar as your handgun. If on 1 or 7, her tiles are a non-factor for any sane echelon.

The charts and analysis above include lines with the crit rate boost from her skill. It requires 5 doll types in the echelon, so standard AR/HG/SMG night echelons would not give her that crit rate buff and she'd follow the somewhat weaker <5 gun type lines. I do not recommend trying to build teams around that component of her skill. An out-of-place AR/HG/RF/MG/SG or something will hurt echelon performance far more than a minor crit rate buff on a subpar AR would help. It's a similar deal to SL8 - missing out on a HG's 30%+ tiles and 25%+ DPS buff skill for 5% damage on 1 RF is an awful trade.

Any possible Galil mod interactions aren't covered as I'm not convinced of the viability of such setups in general. I'm also not entertaining the idea of running her with a crit scope against 0 evasion enemies - running a dedicated team to fight 0 evasion (armored) enemies and picking ARs for your DPS is simply absurd. RFs and MGs exist.

Speaking of the future, as a new AR without a popular following, TKB is less likely to receive a SPEQ or neural upgrade in the future.

Echelon ideas^#

While she isn't a priority, here are some example formations you can use TKB in. Echelons should always be built depending on the enemy, your armory, and various other requirements so please don't copy these 1:1.

Left: an AS Val variant, if you have a strong aversion to AR-15/Sopmod/good night ARs. Right: an example making use of her tiles.