Date Masamune is a decent anti-Black and anti-Red CC unit in True Form, with a 40% chance to Knockback every ~3.5 seconds. He also fills the role of a general backline attacker. He has 54.4k HP with 3 KBs, 6200 DPS at 425 range, 16 Speed, and 4200 cost with 2 minutes Cooldown. Evolved Form has drastically worse stats in every area and is not useful beyond the early game.

Masamune has good compatibility against Red enemies especially, where KB can often be useful to counter their typically high endurance. Masamune's fast attack rate and decent proc rate yield a Knockback on average every 8 seconds. AoE attack also gives him an advantage over Rare/Super Rare alternatives in Red or Black spam stages, where even a large stack of single target KBers will quickly be overwhelmed, and his high range keeps him safe from harm long enough to land a proc while a shorter ranged stack might die before doing much. His backline-class standing range also means that he remains safe from enemy midrangers and lower range backliners should you expose them by knocking back the front line, and can then proceed to attack them directly. He also has across the board average to good stats, and especially solid DPS for a Backliner that remains relevant even into late game for generalist use.

Knockback is redundant against most Black enemies who have high KB counts and are more than likely going to be controlled by damage output with or without a proc, reducing his good matchups to mostly just Le'noir and Dark Otter. His compatibility with some of the more threatening Red enemies is also questionable. Masamune can't even touch Professor A, and in pure Red stages will even cause your front line cats to advance into Professor A's attacks more often than not. Berserkory is a bit better; with enough luck you can keep him controlled but if you get a dry spell and let him attack a few times then it's game over. Talented Catley with Wave Immunity pretty much obsoletes him in this role.

Overall, Masamune has good general DPS worthy of being your go-to generalist throughout early and mid game, and a reasonably good ability, but unfortunate matchups against the most relevant Red enemies and few use cases against Blacks overall. In both his effective traits, Special, Rare and Super Rare cats can satisfactorily cover most of his feasible targets already, but his higher range, area attack and fast attack rate still let him shine from time to time.

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