Overview
Sakura Minamoto is a self-sabotaging RF.
If it wasn’t for the fact that Sakura Minamoto will lose a link every 3 or so Skill activations, she’d be decent. The fact that she just deletes her own links while only approaching comparable DPS to other actually good self-buffing RFs makes her entirely useless.
As such, Sakura Minamoto is NOT RECOMMENDED. No, hitting your own Echelon every 8s is not good.
All ZLS Dolls share two passive effects when using an all-ZLS echelon:
- Summon the two ZLS members not in the echelon as reinforcements behind the echelon, with stats based on the Leader
- Summon a barrier that reduces damage taken and draws fire while active, with stats based on all the members’ combined stats
The reinforcements are incredibly weak and contribute 1-2% of the total damage at best. As such, your choice of Leader hardly matters.
The barrier can withstand weaker enemies if the fights are quick enough, but is far less durable than Suomi or an actual SG. To make matters worse, it can quickly cause your backline to lose links, as it inflicts 50 points of damage to all echelon members when it breaks. The -80% damage taken also doesn’t prevent Ai Mizuno from losing an entire link when her Skill backfires, removing one of the potential upsides. This is honestly so bad that using a full ZLS Echelon is discouraged. Instead, consider whether each individual Doll adds value to your Echelon and if not, pick something else.