Hearts on Snow: Sheru Character Review

Originally appearing in the closed Beta and finally being released on Global, Sheru is the latest Hydro Guardian to enter the standard pool of the game. To get a better understanding of how she performs, we’ll go over her abilities and how she compares to the existing guardians.

Stats

As is expected of an SSR guardian, Sheru’s bulk is nothing to scoff at. While she may not possess the highest resistances in the game, her large health pool synergizes well with her active skills and allows her to maintain her presence on the frontlines. Sheru’s physical mitigation sits between Gyldan’s 2361 Armor and Ceaser’s 1331 base armor, enabling her to comfortably take on physical threats. However, Sheru has the lowest Magic Resistance of the trio, sitting at only 480 – even lower than Gyldan’s 781 RES, which can leave her vulnerable against magic damage. Nonetheless, Sheru boasts a significantly higher health pool of 41,172 compared to the ~35,000 of Gyldan and Ceaser, which synergizes with her abilities and gives her the bulk she needs as a tank. As with all SSRs, Sheru starts with all her talents up to Awakening 3 unlocked, along with all the associated stat increases. HP is Sheru’s most crucial resource as it is the primary stat of her kit as her skills scale with her health, and her ultimate and awakenings serve to strengthen this even further.

Abilities

Passive: Frost Blessing

After casting a skill, Sheru stops attacking and enters [Frost Sugarcoat] for 6 seconds during which she will not use any basic attacks. Sheru receives 20% increased healing and will additionally reflect damage back to enemies that hit her, dealing physical damage equal to 10% of damage taken with a 48% chance to inflict a stack of Encroaching Cold on the attacker.
Encroaching Cold: ASPD -5%, 12 s duration, Max 10 stacks.

While [Frost Sugarcoat] is in effect, Sheru will not declare any basic attacks and will also not move from her current unless displaced by crowd control. This means that if Sheru receives a knock back from a unit like Rita, she will not move back to the frontlines until [Frost Sugarcoat] ends. As Sheru will not be making any basic attacks while this passive ability is active, she will be able to make full use of her signature playset ‘Dorothy’. Frost Blessing functions similarly to Gyldan’s Obsidian Scar passive, allowing her to debuff enemies that attack her. Compared to the random nature of ‘Dark Mark’, Frost Blessing is far more consistent. Firstly, the proc rate is much higher at 48% compared to Obsidian Scar’s 19% giving it a nearly 1 in 2 chance of taking effect. Additionally, whereas random debuffs may simply expire after a short time, [Frost Sugarcoat] can continuously refresh and apply new stacks of Encroaching Cold throughout its duration allowing Sheru to debuff opponents for longer.

Encroaching Cold is a key mechanic shared by Hydro Units, and Frost Blessing allows Sheru to constantly apply the debuff to enemies letting her shine even more in blue teams that can make use of her ability. Frost Blessing punishes enemies with high attack speed, quickly applying multiple layers of Encroaching Cold onto the enemy and drastically cutting their DPS.

Skill 1: First Snow

Sheru grants herself and an ally a shield equal to 20% of Sheru’s Max HP additionally providing 30% bonus armor while it holds. This skill is a cheap and simple method of providing cover for herself and an ally. While Ceaser’s skills seek to heal herself and allies, the barrier provided by Sheru’s S1 aims to protect allies from needing healing in the first place. Most notably, unlike the physical shield provided by Kear’s passive and Skill 1, Sheru’s shield provides protection from all incoming damage. In particular, squishy melee units like Eluya will benefit greatly from the increased survivability provided by this shield enabling them to take a few extra hits and fulfill their role. In most cases, it is perfectly fine to leave this as Sheru’s default skill.

Keep in mind that because of Sheru’s passive, this ability will activate [Frost Sugarcoat] forcing Sheru to stop attacking and will cause her to reflect damage to enemies while applying Encroaching Cold.

Skill 2: Anemo Snow

Sheru gains 20% bonus damage mitigation for 3 seconds, and incoming projectiles are reflected, dealing physical damage to the attacker equal to 5% of Sheru’s max health. Anemo Snow will activate [Frost Sugarcoat] effectively granting Sheru two sources of ‘reflect damage’. Do note that unlike [Frost Sugarcoat] which reflects damage taken by Sheru, Anemo Snow will always deal the same damage (5% of Sheru’s max health), regardless of how much damage Sheru takes from the attack. Like Frost Blessing, this ability punishes enemies that attack Sheru rapidly. However, it is very important to note that unlike [Frost Sugarcoat] , Anemo snow will not reflect melee attacks, only projectiles.

Anemo snow costs 4 energy compared to Frost Snow’s 3 energy and is generally not recommended for any Auto modes like PvP as it is impossible to predict when the AI will choose to use the skill making it worthless if not controlled manually.

Ultimate: Sacred Realm

Sheru creates a circular barrier that increases the max HP of herself and allies within the barrier by 30% for 12 seconds, additionally destroying enemy projectiles passing through the barrier for 4 seconds. A simple, straight forward ability that can save your units from being nuked as well as a general use panic-button that applies a pseudo-heal to allies.

Sheru loves HP, and the increased max HP she provides to herself serves to further strengthen the power of her first and second skills while allowing her to soak up more damage on the frontlines.

Plays and Adapts

Dorothy is Sheru’s recommended play set and she is the only unit in the game that can make full use of its effect (apart from maybe Gyldan). Dorothy not only increases her max HP, but also provides a steady stream of healing to Sheru – an impressive 20% HP over 8 seconds, that allows her to stay topped up and continue to reflect damage to opponents. The only caveat to this set is that it requires Sheru to spend energy to receive the healing, and she must cast her skills in steady succession. Dorothy’s healing does not stack and overlapping the healing duration will result in wasted healing.

Vita is an often underrated play set that is a great all-round set for guardians whether in PvP or PvE. Vita further increases Sheru’s massive Health Pool, and a free panic button that restores HP based on max health is perfect for an HP-based tank like Sheru. Unlike Dorothy which requires spending energy as well as waiting for the healing over time, Vita is an instant emergency heal ideal for short battles like PvP. In longer PvE battles, Dorothy will doubtless get more value in sustaining Sheru than Vita; It is important to note however, that Vita is completely free for players to obtain and exalt by simply doing their Labyrinth runs and does not require any Dubriostals or Blue Wishes. 
Qingqing is the universal 4* play set that is usable on any guardian. If not able to obtain any of the other available options, players can comfortably use this playset until later on.

My recommendation for adapts is to run HP/HP/HP. Sheru passively has 20% increased healing received built into her kit, and her kit scales solely off of HP. This maximizes her shield strength on Skill 1 and her reflect damage on Skill 2. If players find this setup to be too squishy, then they can opt to swap any of these adapts for a Armor & Magic Res adaptation.

Awakenings

As with all SSRs, Sheru comes with Awakening 3 out of the box. I generally recommend 3-1 as the best general use case for Sheru and I would only recommend 3-2 if also opting for Awakening 4-1. Together, they allow Sheru to keep pressing that Ult button and provide more utility for the team. For Awakening 4, I recommend 4-2 as Sheru scales with HP and the 8 second duration of this talent is quite generous and ensures that you should never be losing any stacks once you’ve accumulated them. Awakening 5 is in my opinion the best place to stop advancing Sheru as it is where she maximizes her PvP potential by freezing enemies and applying even more Encroaching Cold. The [Frozen] status stuns enemies for 2.5s which plays into her kit of slowing down and stalling enemies, buying more time for her to recover. Awakening 6 may not be achievable or worthwhile for most players, but for those that are able to reach it, I would recommend 6-1 to make the best use of her ult unless specifically relying on the projectile destroying mechanic against specific PvE content like Deep Maze.

PvE: Teams and Synergy

Sheru is a Hydro Guardian but that does not mean she needs to be on a Hydro Team. Sheru is a flexible unit that can find a home on any team as a bulky frontline with ample tools to protect her allies. Sheru’s best team would be on a Hydro Team that is able to apply and make use of the Encroaching Cold mechanic unique to Hydro units. Sheru is able to consistently apply this debuff on enemies and in conjunction with Liv, units like Icicle that make use of Encroaching cold to deal more damage will see a huge bump in their damage from being able to consistently make use of this mechanic.

Outside of Hydro Teams, Sheru is always a welcome addition to the frontline. She is able to keep herself safe, pop projectiles in emergencies, pseudo-heal allies and even provide some coverage for nearby allies. In particular, some teammates that may struggle to stay on the frontlines like Sirslet or Eluya will greatly appreciate the large shield that Sheru can provide cheaply and on-demand at an energy cost of only 3. Sheru is a consistent unit that performs well in early game content as well as scaling into late game.

PvP: Checks & Counters

Sheru’s Hydro typing and large bulk make her very difficult to take down. She resists damage from common fire DPS units like Fene and Sirslet, and her passive Frost Blessing punishes enemies that rely on basic attacks. Sheru has the highest health pool in the game, making her a difficult target for assassins to burst down. Sheru’s greatest counter is undeniably Ciamkom. Sheru’s hydro typing causes her to take an additional 30% damage from Ciamkom. Factoring this along with having the lowest M. RES out of all the SSR guardians, and Ciamkom’s Blur debuff causing Sheru to take additional magic damage on top of this, even a well-built Sheru will struggle to stay alive against a good Ciamkom. Lastly, Ciamkom’s skills are not projectiles nor does Ciamkom rely on basic attacks to get the job done, giving little opportunity for any counterplay from Sheru.

While Moetesju may come to mind as an obvious counter to Sheru, this may not necessarily be the case. Moetesju functions primarily as a sub-dps and relies on attack speed to trigger her passive to generate stacks of Wind Breath. While Moetesju’s typing allows her to deal 30% bonus damage to Sheru, Sheru’s Frost Sugarcoat punishes Moetesju’s quick basic attacks and Moetesju’s low skill ratios are not usually enough to do more than chip damage against Sheru’s armor. Moetesju may be able to wear Sheru down, but she will need help from her allies in order to do so.

Sheru can also be checked by Rita. While Rita is a fire DPS and would typically not be taken against a Hydro Guardian, Rita’s Skill 1 provides a massive knockback that can easily send Sheru all the way to the backlines. Furthermore, Sheru’s Frost Sugarcoat also forces Sheru to remain stationary after casting a skill and she will not return to the frontline until this end. This means that even a 3* Rita can effectively displace Sheru out of position and keep her there for some time, allowing her teammates to collapse on the exposed backline. Sheru finds the most value in her kit when the enemy is forced to focus on her, and being sent to the backlines is usually a disaster for any team. Players can mitigate the threat of Rita by having another durable frontliner that can survive until Sheru is able to make her way back to the front.

Sheru is a flexible unit that can work well in any team, but particularly shines in teams that can keep her healthy and make good use of the Encroaching Cold debuff. Sheru’s premier play options ‘Dorothy’ and ‘Qingqing’ provide consistent healing over time that help to mitigate chip damage and hopes to wear opponents down by outlasting them. Squishy melee units like Eluya in particular will benefit greatly from the large shield provided by Sheru’s Skill 1, and the pseudo-heal provided by Sheru’s ultimate helps Sheru keep your team in the fight.

Conclusion

Sheru is an HP-scaling Hydro Guardian that utilizes a unique mix of utility and debuffs to enhance her durability and protect herself and her allies on the battlefield. Sheru is the perfect frontline for any Hydro team seeking to make the best use of the Encroaching Cold mechanic, however she can flexibly slot into any team and provide support and maintain a strong presence on the frontline. Is Sheru worth pulling for her even if you already have another Guardian?

Probably yes!