Gao is a versatile Uber, with a spammable Midranger First Form and a Backliner Evolved Form. In First Form, Baby Gao has a solid 13.6k base HP with 2200 base DPS at 310 range, along with a cost of 900, 5 KBs, and a 7.2 second Cooldown. In Evolved Form, Mighty Lord Gao boasts 64.6k base HP, 5200 base DPS at 470 range, 4 KBs with a rather high 6000 cost and 2.5 minute Cooldown, as well as Wave Immunity and a 5% Critical Hit chance. The main feature of both forms is being Strong against all Traited enemies.

Gao's main strength lies in his wide range of uses. In Evolved Form, he can't necessarily break many stages as obviously as some of the other Uberfest/Epicfest Ubers, but his solid stats and diverse ability set is good enough that he can be used in virtually any level and will still perform well. Thanks to his Strong ability, Mighty Lord Gao has 161.5k effective anti-Traited HP and 9400 effective DPS at full treasure, making him a great generalist. His huge HP pool thanks to Strong means he uses all of his repositions, and his above average range for a Backliner keeps him safe from many threats. This being especially noticeable against Aku enmies, enabling Gao to tank multiple threatening death surges. Because his base stats are good, and he relies on Strong rather than Massive Damage to deal with Traited enemies, he is also very much still usable against Traitless enemies as an at least average Backliner, and similarly is not quite as ruined by Curse as other anti-Traited units. Wave Immunity ensures he remains just as good on wave stages, and crits mean he can even work on Metals, although is rarely needed and is rather inconsistent. There is really almost nowhere you cannot bring him and get some kind of useful result. Baby Gao, the First Form, is also useful as a midrange stackable area attacker with above average durability (34k effective HP) and damage (4000 effective DPS) against Traited enemies.

Mighty Lord Gao's biggest weakness from his raw stats is his above-average cost which can lead to difficulty in cash tight stages, but other than that he looks very solid at first glance. However, as you get into late-game, Gao becomes less noticeable as your Uber roster increasingly expands. Usually being outclassed by specialists on stages with specific traits and going into UL, Gao also noticeably suffers from the occasional appearance of Loris which is able reach and cripple Gao with curse. He doesn't really have an answer to status effect enemies or barriers, and overall is just built more so to handle the early-to-mid game. Even if he's one of the best choices in a stage, you should be aware that there are limitations to his fame as the best basic all-rounder. Despite this, Gao still works well within the lategame in absence of any specialist and in various mixed stages with a variety of traits when you might not have specialists to cover them all. First Form suffers from the same limitations in late game, and is overall just less used than Evolved Form; as Cyborg, Time Traveller, Slapsticks, and so on get the job done well enough most of the time. Baby Gao also suffers from slightly worse range than such competitors, which worsens or totally ruins his matchup against enemies like Winged Pigge, where stacking spammable AoE units is a valid strat.

Gao is the epitome of "Jack of All Trades, Master of None". This is meant as both a good and a bad thing, and it defines the unit. Few other Ubers can be so brainlessly included in just about any mid-game stage and yield great results. He'll fill just about any gaps in your roster; if you don't have a specialist anti-Red, Gao will handle Red enemies fine until you get one, but once you do you probably won't use him for them again. Later on, his performance does begins to falter with Loris and as you get more specialsits but he's still a high performance anti-Wave unit and a solid Backliner for mixed stages, Akus and as a subsitute for specialists.

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