NtE 1.1 Banner Guide: Hotori, Lacrimosa, or Skip to Cha?

NtE 1.1 Banner Guide: Hotori, Lacrimosa, or Skip to Cha?

Zero budget, zero regret: pull Hotori first if your roster's already standing, go all-in on Lacrimosa if you're chasing the patch's nastiest single-target ceiling, and only skip both for Cha if you're a disciplined F2P sitting under ~80 pulls who's willing to gamble on a kit nobody's confirmed yet. That's the verdict. The rest of this is the stuff order guides skip: how many primos you'll actually bank, why the missing 50/50 rewrites the whole equation, and why the reflex to "always save for the new unit" quietly robs casual players of characters they'd have loved.

I ran the three banners through four wallet types. Pure F2P, monthly-pass low-spender, the ~$30/mo mid-spender, and the constellation-hungry whale. Pinned each against the published pity thresholds and the phase calendar. The bar for a pass was simple: leave Version 1.1 holding at least one C0 limited you genuinely wanted, with nothing worth posting in a regret thread. Here's where each profile drifted from what the tier lists quietly assume.

Scenario 1: the focused F2P who pulls once and walks

This run matters most. It's where the numbers run tightest and a misstep stings the hardest. A pure F2P account banks roughly 72 pulls' worth of currency across the patch, per a Version 1.1 resources thread on r/NevernessToEverness, with a community pull-count breakdown on YouTube landing in the same 72–82 zone depending on how many events you clear.

And here's the catch that bites: 72 isn't comfortably enough to guarantee a C0 by itself. Average pulls to a C0 limited hover around 80–90, and the reason is structural. There's no 50/50 to win early. Every limited pull is a locked rate-up, so you never get that lucky-early-win swing that bails out a thin bank in other gacha titles, per LDShop's gacha breakdown. Soft pity wakes up around 70 pulls with the rate climbing to 19.59%, according to a BlueStacks gacha guide. So 72 pulls usually nets you a copy if you're already buried in soft pity, and leaves you holding nothing if your earlier rolls came up dry.

Carryover is what rescues this account. Pity persists between limited banners, per Sportskeeda's gacha guide (2026), so a handful of stray pulls on one banner don't evaporate. They roll forward. So the play is to pick ONE banner and empty the tank: 72 pulls plus carryover realistically locks a single C0, and the resources thread above agrees F2P can grab one limited C0 in 1.1 with 72+ pulls. Spread that bank across Lacrimosa and Cha, though, and you court the ugliest outcome of the whole patch. Two soft-pity-adjacent banners and not one copy to show for it. The same YouTube breakdown tags that exact split as the biggest F2P blunder of 1.1.

My read for this profile? Lock the unit, ignore the other two, and don't burn a single pull until you've made the call.

Scenario 2: Hotori-first versus the Lacrimosa hype

I went into this one expecting the tier lists to be right. Came out disagreeing. Early creator rankings lean Lacrimosa, and on paper I get it. Kaiden.gg calls her the "definitive Chaos Main DPS with highest single-target ceiling," leaning on her Nightmare DoT and Discord proc mechanics, where every Discord trigger tacks on 400% ATK bonus damage per the Kaiden.gg Lacrimosa guide. Big, scary number.

Raw ceiling isn't pull priority, though. Lacrimosa needs a specific scaffold under her to hit those figures. She thrives inside Discord-archetype teams built around Sakiri as the DoT-boost core, per a Lacrimosa build summary on r/NevernessToEverness. No Sakiri, and you've pulled a Ferrari you can't take out of the garage. That team-building friction is exactly what tier lists wave off when they grade units in a vacuum.

Hotori's the inverse. She's an S-Rank Cosmos Solid Sub-DPS / Burst Support per Game8's Hotori build, and her signature move records teammate skills then recasts them inside her Ultimate for a burst window. PC Gamer contributor Jessica (PC Gamer Tier List, 2026) said it flat: "Hotori offers unique time stop utility across combat and exploration." That time stop runs in combat and in the overworld both, per an LDShop Hotori build writeup, stretching even into exploration content like the Pink Paws Heist. Cross-mode value that never lands on a damage chart.

So here's what caught me off guard. For the median account, Hotori's the safer grab precisely because she asks so little of the roster you already have. A burst-support that slots into Nanally + Hotori + Mint + Zero teams does work the second you pull her. Lacrimosa's the higher ceiling only for accounts already running the Sakiri core. So the honest verdict isn't "Lacrimosa is better." It's "Lacrimosa is better if you've already built for her."

Source: Game8 & Kaiden.gg (2026)

Scenario 3: when "skip everything for Cha" falls apart

The loudest community advice gets stress-tested here. Save for the new Phase 2 unit. And this is where the expected-value case sags hardest for most players. Cha is confirmed as an S-Rank Phase-attribute character debuting in Version 1.1 Phase 2, per Game8's upcoming banners page, with the banner running June 24 to July 8, 2026. That part's nailed down. The kit details making the rounds, though, are leak-stage and unconfirmed, and the skip-to-Cha crowd treats that part like it's already in stone.

Staking a whole patch's currency on a unit whose numbers might get revised before launch is a shakier bet than it feels. You're trading a known C0 (Hotori or Lacrimosa, both with documented kits and team fits) for a rumor. If Cha gets tuned down between leak and release, routine stuff in this genre, you've passed on two confirmed characters for a letdown.

The one thing that actually props the skip case up is that missing 50/50. Every limited rate-up is guaranteed, per Game8's gacha guide. Pair that with carryover and any pulls you sink into a Phase 1 banner without finishing roll forward toward Cha, fully intact. "Skipping" Phase 1 isn't a clean reset, then. Partial pity banks. A focused F2P who taps Lacrimosa a little, doesn't close it out, and carries that progress into Cha lands on Cha cheaper than a from-scratch estimate would tell you. Almost no order guide models this, and it's the only flavor of skip-to-Cha I'll defend.

When does it hold up? A disciplined F2P with a thin pull bank (under ~80), no Sakiri core to feed Lacrimosa, and no roster hole Hotori would plug. For everybody else, you're trading confirmed value for a leak.

Scenario 4: the low- and mid-spender who can almost swing two

This is the nicest surprise in the lot. A low-spender on the monthly pass equivalent banks roughly 96–102 pulls across 1.1, per the YouTube pull-count breakdown, and that's enough to land both Lacrimosa and Cha at C0, the same source notes. The pass roughly doubles the F2P comfort margin without ever touching the chunkier packs.

That rewires the whole decision tree. Where a pure F2P has to pick one banner and live with it, the low-spender's question shifts from whether to order. My call for this profile: take the confirmed unit you'll lean on first (Hotori if you want the utility, Lacrimosa if the Sakiri core's already humming), let carryover roll, then close out Cha in Phase 2 once her kit's actually live and the leaks are either confirmed or buried. You make the Cha decision with real numbers instead of betting blind.

Mid-spenders (~$30/mo) clear both with room to breathe and can start eyeing a constellation. And this is where I'll go against the genre's gut: chasing dupes in 1.1 is weak value for anyone who isn't a whale. A single C0 carries the unit fine. The leap to a constellation costs another full pity run for a bump on a character the next patch might power-creep anyway. For non-whales, two C0 units outdo one duped unit nearly every time this early in a game's lifespan.

One trap that specifically nails spenders: the signature weapon banner shares zero pity with the character banner. Budget the two apart. Plenty of players have assumed a shared counter, dumped currency into both, and walked away with neither finished. Clean, avoidable regret.

What the currency actually buys you, profile by profile

Stack all this up and affordability sorts itself out by wallet. The pity spine: soft pity ~70 pulls (rate to 19.59%), hard pity 90 pulls guaranteed, no 50/50, full carryover, drawn from LDShop, BlueStacks, and Game8 (2026). Average to a C0 limited lands at ~80–90 pulls because that guaranteed-rate-up system strips out the early-win swing.

Source: r/NevernessToEverness & YouTube pull-count breakdown (2026)

Once you've locked which copy you're guaranteeing this patch, figure your exact gap against the table above before any spending. Knowing whether you're 8 pulls short or 28 is the line between a single top-up and an over-purchase. Topping up pull currency through a service like Neverness to Everness top up is one route once that number's nailed down. The numbers come first, the wallet second. (Disclosure: this guide is published by VGTopup.)

The order I'd actually commit to

For the median account, the kind with a few units built and an F2P-or-near-F2P bank, pull Hotori. Her low team dependency means she's contributing the day she lands, and she covers exploration content the damage charts pretend doesn't exist. Already running a Sakiri-based Discord team? Flip it. Lacrimosa first, since her 400% Discord procs earn the priority. Skip both only as a focused F2P under ~80 pulls with no roster gap either fills, then lean on carryover to reach Cha cheaper than a clean-slate guess suggests.

The piece I'll stand behind even when it's unpopular: the "always save for the newest unit" reflex is flat wrong for casual players in this patch. No 50/50 to dodge, kits confirmed for the live banners and leak-stage for Cha, and a usable C0 you'll enjoy beats a rumored unit you bet the whole patch on. Save when you've got a reason. Not out of habit.

Frequently Asked Questions

If I lose pulls on Lacrimosa without finishing, do they carry to Cha?

Yep. Pity persists between limited banners (per Sportskeeda, 2026), and since there's no 50/50, that progress rolls forward whole. The quiet edge: a few "wasted" Phase 1 pulls aren't wasted at all, and that's the mechanic that makes a partial-skip into Cha cheaper than a from-scratch pity estimate. Just don't go in planning to half-pull two banners. That's how F2P accounts end up finishing neither.

Does the monthly pass really let me grab both 1.1 banners?

For a typical login-active account, it does. The pass nudges you up to roughly 96–102 pulls across the patch (per the YouTube pull-count breakdown), enough for Lacrimosa and Cha at C0 both. The caveat's consistency, though: that figure assumes you're clearing patch events and pulling daily income, not just buying the pass and logging out. Skip a chunk of the event content and you drift right back toward the F2P "pick one" zone.

Is the signature weapon banner worth buying for Hotori or Lacrimosa?

For non-whales, no, and there's a budget trap to flag while we're here: the weapon banner shares no pity with the character banner. You're funding two separate counters, so a single C0 character almost always beats splitting your bank to chase a signature. Leave weapons to whales who've already secured the unit and have currency to torch.

What if Cha's leaked kit changes before the June 24 release?

It can, and that's the heart of the risk in skipping confirmed units for her. Cha's confirmed as the Phase-attribute Phase 2 unit (per Game8, 2026), but the kit numbers floating around are unconfirmed leaks. If you're banking for her, treat the leaks as a maybe rather than a plan, and reassess the second her banner goes live with finalized values instead of dropping currency on rumor.

As a brand-new or rerolling player, which 1.1 banner should I prioritize?

Hotori, in most cases. Her low team dependency means a fresh account can actually field her, while Lacrimosa needs a Discord core (ideally Sakiri) you won't have on hand yet. New players also get the standard banner selector at 50 pulls (per community guides), so burn early free currency building a baseline roster before committing limited pulls to a single Phase 1 copy.