Primrose (5★ Dancer)

Table of Contents

Wow. 

I don’t think anyone was expecting SQEX to release Primrose THIS early for Global.

She came out ~8months in the JP version of Octopath Traveler COTC.

Primrose Azelhart is one of the 8 OG characters in Octopath Traveler, representing the letter “P”.

As a teen, she witnessed the murder of her father. She left home to get revenge, working as a Dancer.

Now let’s take a look at her incredibly STACKED kit.

Tier List Overview of Primrose #

In my role-based tier list of all units, I rated Primrose highly as a Buffer, dark damage dealer and debuffer.

She has insanely versatile buffs/debuffs and is the second unit introduced to have 4-hit skills.

Even now (as of V1.9), she is the strongest Dark DPS.

Highest Weighted Average Stats #

Primrose dethroned every other dancer and units to have the highest weighted average stats across the board. 

She’s noticeably faster than Lynette, and could be easier to use on a team where you want her to go first. 

Her weighted stats are so high for a 5* that you can’t help but feel it’s stat powercreep.

Best Skills #

Via the skill lookup table, Primrose has way too many good skills. I’ll cover some.

Early on, Primrose will be your standard physical attack buffer. 

She immediately learns Initial Skill 2, buffing front row 15% ATK for up to 3 turns.

Her 3★ Skill grants 20% PATK and PDEF to front row for 3 turns (duration extended thanks to passive).

  • No other unit can provide a front row buff covering both PATK and PDEF
  • Lynette can grant front row 20% PATK for 2 turns, more on her later
  • Iris can grant front row 15% PATK for 2 turns

2★ Skill 2 is a 4-hit random fan attack. I would have rated this a lot higher except the higher level EXP Caits do not have a Fan weakness. 

She’ll destroy the 10k and 50k EXP Caits. But against the 100k, 300k and 450k EXP Meows, you’re all out of luck!

1★ Passive restores SP by 5% each turn. She can recover anywhere from 10 – 25 SP per turn, depending on the size of her max SP pool. By golly she is going to need it because her next skill is expensive af.

5★ Skill 1 is a Dark AOE that inflicts 15% PDEF and EDEF down to every enemy for 2 turns.

  • Viola WISH she had this AOE defense debuff
  • No other unit can do AOE PDEF + EDEF debuff
  • Cost 80 SP to use, one of the most expensive skill in the game
5★ Skill 2 is what makes Primrose go from great, to what is even going on here?!
 
  • Grant Front 20% Phys. Atk and Elem. Atk, and Speed for up to 3 turns (70SP)

Meow, you’re telling me she has Lynette’s best buff, with speed up AND 1 additional turn?

How important is a speed buff? Well, if you look at the enemy stat database, you’ll see several enemies and bosses have speed of over 300. 

This speed buff can be important if you want slower units (e.g your 4* units and Gilderoy – he’s F-ing slow) to attack before the boss does.

At the time of writing, she is the strongest Dark damage dealer and 2nd strongest Fan damage dealer.

Job Points Priority #

Prioritize unlocking her 1★ Passive, 2★ Skill 2 and 3★ Skill ASAP, taking the shortest route to get there.

Skip raw stat nodes until you’ve unlocked those 3.

Afterwards, you can spend points on unlocking her other battle skills, or key stats like EATK, SP, and SPD.

Dark Damage Firepower #

Primrose has the highest easy-to-acheieve dark firepower on average, as Stead requires the enemy to be bleeding.

Primrose Vs Lynette #

Let’s cover the elephant in the room – Lynette.

If you have both units, does she replace Lynette on your team?

Not necessarily, and here’s why.

  1. Lynette is still the only unit that can buff entire front row by 20% + 10%  PATK/EATK in 1 turn (switching and then using skill).
  2. Lynette can elongate the duration while increasing the potency of any unit’s PATK/EATK passive indefinitely, as long as she switches row every turn (E.g Fiore’s 20% PATK -> 30% and Fabio’s 15% EATK -> 25%). This is due to how the game treats buffs from passives as it’s separate thing.
  3. Lynette’s ultimate skill provides the same buff as Primrose’s 5★ Skill 2 (20% PATK/EATK/SPD) for 3 turns. However, Ultimates and Skills have separate 30% caps, so Lynette’s ultimate is objectively superior to Primrose’s skill.
  4. Against enemies weak to Fan, Lynette and Primrose are going to be your top two Fan DPS.
  5. Primrose is the strongest dark damage dealer for now.
So, which unit is “better”?
 
Game8 JP site ranks Lynette a 9.9 and Primrose a 9.8.
 
If you have Lynette, F2P don’t really need to pull for Primrose. 
 
Anyways, both units are absolute GOATS as buffers or as a dark damage dealer, so you can’t go wrong building both.
 

Team Comps #

Lucetta or Mabel’s passive can extend the duration of Primrose’s buffs.

Viola’s passive can extend the duration of Primrose’s AOE debuff.

Camilla, Merritt, and Ramona’s passive can grant Regen, useful if you’re not reaching her 75% HP threshold.

Laura’s passive inflicts 15% EDEF down to all foes for 3 turns.

Until Primroses unlocks her 5★ Skills, she is best used in a PDPS focused team, with units like Fiore, Scarecrow, Viola, Heathcote, and Tressa.

Later, she’ll fit into any team comp. Extremely versatile.

Ultimate #

Her ult (once ultimates arrive to the game) is a 2-hit dark attack to a single foe, and grant front row 1 BP regen for 3 turns. With the introduction of Alfyn and Tithi, you don’t need to save an awakening stone for this ultimate. I would recommend trying to A4 her before getting her ult to lv 10.