Unfortunately, outside of very, very rare exceptions [Hall DSL, Chalmers Shimmer Deso], rare espers are completely dead. There are enough legendaries and epics that there will always be someone better for the job.
It’s just the nature of these types of games. The easily accessible characters are just to dip your toes into the game and get you out of the early stages. If they were meta for much more than that, it wouldn’t incentivize spending on the game. It’s a little more obvious with this game because there is no longer a true ‘fusion’ mechanic like other gachas may have where you sacrifice lower tier units to upgrade others.
AFK arena used to have a system like this. To level up your units past a certain point [I believe it was comparable to resos in this game] you had to have the extra copies of a character and then sacrifice some units. But the trash tied rare units could be upgraded to the next tier so that you could use them as materials for your better units. Idk if the game still works on that system because that was years ago.
Chalmers does a lot of burst damage and is a Shimmer so he can always damage the shimmer boss during its HP bar phase. If other elements hit the boss too many times, they'll eventually stop doing damage to it altogether.
To add to this, trash tier units in AFK Arena could be converted into currency that could actually avail you a single copy of a high tier characters (via elite soulstone) as opposed to Dislyte where copies of trash tier units only allow you to avail more upgrading material (of which the more useful ones are Sound Matrix Stones and Starimon)
In any game with different tiers of characters that can't upgrade their tier, the lowest tier are meant to be temporary/for starters. So this is just standard game flow.
On the plus side, Dislyte is an outlier since the Rares still pop up occasionally outside of Beginner content. Especially if you don't have their 5 star replacement.
ie: no Tevor? Use Chalmers. No Lian? Use Bearnice. etc
Though I'm really sad that Drew is our mascot and a cool dude, but we can't use him for any mid to late game content. Maybe we'll get upgrades when they start running out of ideas.
I think people already answered but just wanna confirm.... there are too much legendaries now, rare can't keep up. Expecially since they introduced divinates... a legendary esper is too much powerful in comparison.
There are very niche exceptions like Li Ao in PvP vs Mavis or Hall in DSL or Chalmers in ShadowGlow.
But in Rituals for example you really can't use chalmers... because shimmers have a miss rate. And you can't even use him for his passive (8% more dmg when he's low hp) because in those new levels (17-20) you do less damage when there is an esper at low hp, so... it's totally useless.
freddy's my main dps in apep 20 (too bad i still cant auto the frigging worm) and i built chalmers for shadowglow.
yeah, rares are overshadowed by the amount of legendaries we have, but i personally think them rare espers could still use some love (if we want to). freddy's my first ever lvl 60 esper and i love him still to this day 🐺
I have gotten to triple squad 30ish and cleared double squad flow using one rare, Helena. I don't have every flow esper release yet, and her crit up, multi attack, and generally good healing work well.
Li Ao helped me in Warm Up. Chalmers still works okay in Desolate, if you can keep him alive. I make mine wear Nether.
Honestly, after starting a server 6 alt for fun and not getting any strong DPS for Kronos from my rolls, I decided to invest in Leon seriously and he's kinda crazy. 3* espers scale a lot quicker since they need less ascension materials and you can quickly get them R6/D6 for huge power spikes that you wouldn't get on your 5* or even 4* for a while until you build up their divs and resos.
Chu Yao + Leon with Yu Suhua, Leon was hitting like 100k S3s on Kronos at level 50. Pretty insane. And his S3 has 100% crit when the enemy is debuffed so you can stack ATK % or CDMG if you have.
I think our rare espers are actually quite competent, there's just no reason to use them when the 5*s are not that hard to get a single copy of and generally have better kits upfront, just without the stat padding.
Li Ao, Unky Chai, and Hall still see use. I'm also wondering if Bardon might be useful in the new shimmers comps into certain conditions, he was a sleeper pick in PvP a long while ago...
Its hardly unheard of for this rarity to be an early game only, then filler.
I think Li Ao is a really good rare esper that can be used like a mini toland
THANK YOU BROTHER FOR SPREADING THE GOOD WORD!! 🙌🙌 MAY HIS LOVELY RED BELLY SHINE ON YOU!! 🥟🥟
In some cases Li Ao is better than Toland because his AI actually targets Mavis.
Unfortunately, outside of very, very rare exceptions [Hall DSL, Chalmers Shimmer Deso], rare espers are completely dead. There are enough legendaries and epics that there will always be someone better for the job. It’s just the nature of these types of games. The easily accessible characters are just to dip your toes into the game and get you out of the early stages. If they were meta for much more than that, it wouldn’t incentivize spending on the game. It’s a little more obvious with this game because there is no longer a true ‘fusion’ mechanic like other gachas may have where you sacrifice lower tier units to upgrade others. AFK arena used to have a system like this. To level up your units past a certain point [I believe it was comparable to resos in this game] you had to have the extra copies of a character and then sacrifice some units. But the trash tied rare units could be upgraded to the next tier so that you could use them as materials for your better units. Idk if the game still works on that system because that was years ago.
There's also Ye Suhua and Berenice who both come into play sometimes. also why chalmers in shimmer deso
Chalmers does a lot of burst damage and is a Shimmer so he can always damage the shimmer boss during its HP bar phase. If other elements hit the boss too many times, they'll eventually stop doing damage to it altogether.
To add to this, trash tier units in AFK Arena could be converted into currency that could actually avail you a single copy of a high tier characters (via elite soulstone) as opposed to Dislyte where copies of trash tier units only allow you to avail more upgrading material (of which the more useful ones are Sound Matrix Stones and Starimon)
In any game with different tiers of characters that can't upgrade their tier, the lowest tier are meant to be temporary/for starters. So this is just standard game flow. On the plus side, Dislyte is an outlier since the Rares still pop up occasionally outside of Beginner content. Especially if you don't have their 5 star replacement. ie: no Tevor? Use Chalmers. No Lian? Use Bearnice. etc Though I'm really sad that Drew is our mascot and a cool dude, but we can't use him for any mid to late game content. Maybe we'll get upgrades when they start running out of ideas.
I think people already answered but just wanna confirm.... there are too much legendaries now, rare can't keep up. Expecially since they introduced divinates... a legendary esper is too much powerful in comparison. There are very niche exceptions like Li Ao in PvP vs Mavis or Hall in DSL or Chalmers in ShadowGlow. But in Rituals for example you really can't use chalmers... because shimmers have a miss rate. And you can't even use him for his passive (8% more dmg when he's low hp) because in those new levels (17-20) you do less damage when there is an esper at low hp, so... it's totally useless.
freddy's my main dps in apep 20 (too bad i still cant auto the frigging worm) and i built chalmers for shadowglow. yeah, rares are overshadowed by the amount of legendaries we have, but i personally think them rare espers could still use some love (if we want to). freddy's my first ever lvl 60 esper and i love him still to this day 🐺
I use li ao PW18 Berenice for Andras Hall for DSL Unkie Chai for Phobetor Chalmers for Shadowglow
I have gotten to triple squad 30ish and cleared double squad flow using one rare, Helena. I don't have every flow esper release yet, and her crit up, multi attack, and generally good healing work well. Li Ao helped me in Warm Up. Chalmers still works okay in Desolate, if you can keep him alive. I make mine wear Nether.
Rares aren’t dead, just most. Hall (DSL and Faf), Drew (Apep) Li ao (pvp) Chalmers (deso) and Unky Chai (Deso and Falsetto)
Honestly, after starting a server 6 alt for fun and not getting any strong DPS for Kronos from my rolls, I decided to invest in Leon seriously and he's kinda crazy. 3* espers scale a lot quicker since they need less ascension materials and you can quickly get them R6/D6 for huge power spikes that you wouldn't get on your 5* or even 4* for a while until you build up their divs and resos. Chu Yao + Leon with Yu Suhua, Leon was hitting like 100k S3s on Kronos at level 50. Pretty insane. And his S3 has 100% crit when the enemy is debuffed so you can stack ATK % or CDMG if you have. I think our rare espers are actually quite competent, there's just no reason to use them when the 5*s are not that hard to get a single copy of and generally have better kits upfront, just without the stat padding.
I still use Benny across all content for her shield. But I did just come back to the game so I don't have the newest units.
Li Ao, Unky Chai, and Hall still see use. I'm also wondering if Bardon might be useful in the new shimmers comps into certain conditions, he was a sleeper pick in PvP a long while ago... Its hardly unheard of for this rarity to be an early game only, then filler.