Look, let's be honest, the dust has finally settled on all the matches for Champion Arena Season 39 of Goddess of Victory: NIKKE. Every single ranker who pushed through to the top 8 in the aggregation group brought Laplace: Ultimate Hero (hereafter referred to as Wind Laplace). It is pretty safe to say the character has cemented a firm spot in the current meta. On top of that, the newly released favorite item Nikke Flora hit a staggering 100% pick rate. KookminTree has neatly rounded up all the Nikke loadouts deployed by the top 8 rankers of Champion Arena Season 39.

Champion Arena Top 8 Ranker Squad Nikke Pick Rates

※ Based on a total of 40 squad configurations from the top 8 rankers of Champion Arena Season 39.
※ Do keep in mind that the aggregation groups shift with every single season.

The Nikkes universally chosen by the top 8 rankers in the aggregation group were mostly Burst 2 units. The roster featured a total of seven characters: Noah, Favorite Item Centi, Trina, Nayuta, Blanc, Anis, and Favorite Item Flora. SR Anis achieved a 100% pick rate among the top 8 for the very first time since data tracking began. While the character previously hovered safely between a 50% and 80% pick rate, every single ranker decided to draft Anis this time around.

Favorite Item Flora is absolute dominance incarnate in the arena right now alongside Vestie: Tactical Up, thanks to hefty buff multipliers. Meanwhile, Privaty: Tactical Up and Emma: Tactical Up have comfortably secured their places in the meta, maintaining a very solid pick rate of over 50%.

Over in the Burst 3 department, Wind Laplace reached a pristine 100% pick rate among the top 8. Give it a bit more time, and we will probably see a day where every single ranker in the top 64 runs Wind Laplace. Perhaps anticipating this exact terror, one ranker in the top 8 actually pulled out Sakura as a counterpick. While the player unfortunately failed to claw their way to the finals, it really tells you just how threatening Wind Laplace has become.

We also spotted a few off-meta choices, such as a ranker deploying Mast: Romantic Maid and Soda: Twinkling Bunny. Word has it that the upcoming Season 40 will be followed by a brief hiatus, so it will be fascinating to see what mad science combinations appear in the final beta season.

The finals of the aggregation group turned out to be an absolute nail-biter. The user known as 'Excited' bolted ahead with two consecutive wins, bringing the championship tantalisingly close. However, a subsequent string of three losses snatched victory away at the very finish line. Round 1 featured a clash between Nayuta's team and the Kakusei team, where Nayuta held the line with sheer indomitable grit before wiping out the opposition entirely. In Round 2's showdown between Tactical Up and Moknehel, the HP bars of Privaty and Vestie dipped dangerously close to zero, but overwhelming firepower ultimately let the team pull through with everyone surviving.

Alas, the subsequent bouts brought a flurry of consecutive defeats against Wind Laplace, Tactical Up, and Nayuta compositions. Round 4, in particular, was a gritty slugfest between Wind Laplace and Tactical Up. Soda's stun landed just a fraction of a second too late, leading to a total wipe right as the opponent triggered their Burst skill. If Full Burst had been activated even slightly sooner, Wind Laplace's Burst could have clinched the win, making it a genuinely heartbreaking moment.

As a quick piece of trivia, both of these rankers only managed to reach the top 16 and top 64 respectively during the previous season. Yet here they both were, duking it out in the grand finals with a magnificent display of skill. We can only eagerly anticipate even more brilliant matches in the upcoming Season 40.

Meta Analysis

Will Halloween Belorta Make an Arena Appearance?

Have you had a moment to look over the skill details for the brand-new Nikke 'Belorta: Pumpkin Witch', arriving on October 8? Taking a gander at the image above, the character comes equipped with an ability that grants the adjacent Nikke on the right a damage-over-time effect alongside an attack increase scaling with the caster's stats. Since the character belongs to the launcher weapon class, which traditionally thrives in the arena, plenty of Commanders are pinning their hopes on the Burst generation rate. The exact Burst generation numbers will unfortunately have to wait for field tests once the character drops on October 8.

That being said, the Burst cooldown sits at a hefty 40 seconds, making it rather tricky to deploy subsequent Full Bursts, which casts a bit of doubt on PvE viability. Squad positioning is also a crucial factor; if you place Belorta: Pumpkin Witch in slot 5, absolutely no one will receive the buffs, so do exercise caution. Whether Belorta manages to carve out a niche will depend entirely on the upcoming top 64 ranker stats for Season 40 of the Champion Arena.

Nikke Issues

Champion Arena Beta Season Finale Notice

The Champion Arena BETA is officially drawing to a close after Season 40. It is scheduled to return as a regular season, meaning operations for the Champion Arena will temporarily halt once Season 40 concludes. Therefore, please bear in mind that even if you secure 4th place or higher in point rankings during the next Special Arena, participation in the Champion Arena will remain unavailable.

According to disclosures from the developer notes back in August, the regular season will implement several extra quality-of-life improvements, including opportunities to rearrange squads prior to the start of the top 8 and final matches. Specific details regarding these improvements and how to make the most of them will be detailed in future patch notes and in-game announcements, so keep your eyes peeled.