MMM - Blooming Bladeswomen Brandish Bastardous Blades Beligerently, Bitter Deadbeat Braces Bullpup... (Summer 2019 Part 1 Gacha)

I think, perhaps, Delightworks have found a new skill type to plaster on everyone. First Da Vinci Lily, and now Musashi Berserker. Accel Turn is making rounds, that’s for sure. This skill is simply fantastic - it’s a pinch defensive evasion option for a singular hit, it has a very respectable 50% crit dmg up buff to go with for a turn, and it offers both effects on an absurdly-low 6 turn base cooldown, giving it a short downtime of only 4 turns at skill level 10.

What’s even better is that the evasion has no turn expiration, it’s simply there until broken. Meaning you can use whatever other means to redirect damage from Musashi such as taunts while she uses Accel Turn when she pleases, and is still assured to ignore a hit somewhere down the line. And naturally, it’s a pinch option to survive a NP, so that’s one huge crippling weakness many servants suffer from written off immediately. We’ve definitely got a good start here.

It wouldn’t be Musashi without some of the good ‘ol Niten-Ichi-Ryū she’s known for, and the associated hitcount-doubling gimmick. Unlike OG Musashi, Fifth Serving B doesn’t double all of her cards’, including Extra card, hitcounts, but just her Arts cards (discounting NP). This essentially translates to a 30% multiplicative damage boost to her Arts cards for 1 turn at skill level 10, as well as doubled NP gain and star generation. While the latter is pretty meaningless, turning what is normally a 1.53% Arts gain into 3.06% is, well, excellent. It also helps that she has two of those cards, allowing her to technically have the highest NP gain of any servant with two Arts cards for 1 turn.

And I haven’t even touched the 50% NP gain boost for 3 turns. This is why Musashi Berserker’s NP gain isn’t bad. While the 8-turn base cooldown on this skill means she can only benefit from the 50% increased NP gain half the time at skill level 10, this still makes her card generation and NP refund absurdly good - a crit overkill 3rd Arts card in an Arts chain from her with just this skill active will give 69% NP gauge. In one card. I think I can justifiably say: Nice.

Lastly, and far from least, we have Demonic Thundering Eye EX. This skill as a bunch of components to it, so I’ll break it into three parts - 

Offensively, this is a 3-turn 30% attack up to Musashi Berserker herself, a 3-turn 30% def down to all enemies and a 3-turn Invincibility pierce to herself. When said boosts mean she ignores most defensive options, does 60% increased damage for THREE turns and also supports her teammates with a moderate damage buff, I’m more than justified to sing this skill’s praises. It’s essentially a 3-turn, more powerful Prana Burst (I never call it Mana Burst for the record, you’ll get used to it), with added team support and a bonus HELL NO to most cockblock effects you’ll run into. 

But let’s move on - Defensively, Musashi gets a very barebones 1 hp, 1 time, 3 turn Guts. While on its own I’d probably complain about how crappy this thing is, contextually, and with the existence of Accel Turn already, it’s actually more of a last resort backup to keep her alive should things turn for the worst. And being a low-HP Berserker, things probably will.

Then third and finally, she loses 5k HP upon using it.

Ooooooooouch. Now that’s a harsh demerit if I’ve ever seen one. I ragged on Nobu Avenger for her burn shredding her limited HP pool in one of my previous MMM’s, but this really takes the cake for harshest HP demerit. While the HP drop thankfully can’t kill her, it certainly will put Musashi close to death in most cases. And that’s where the Guts is handy.

Needless to say, this skill has to be used sparingly. Popping it on turn 1 of a difficult fight is asking for Musashi to eat a crit early and just becoming a twinkling star in the sky. But on the reverse side, this is a colossal offensive boost for both herself and her team when she uses it. If you have the correct support to compensate for the HP loss, then it can be a frequently-useful tool to bolster her offense.

Shooting (FPS) B rank starts us off with what I like to call “bargain bin Accel Turn”. Such a comparison is even harsher considering there’s another swimsuit with that skill in the same banner. While Shooting (FPS)’s critical damage buff is inarguably better, providing the same damage boost over the same number of cards in an ideal circumstance, it has a 3-turn failsafe to trigger crits with, meaning it doesn’t lock you into all your crit damage in a single turn, while also not punishing you for rolling unluckily on a non-100% crit card.

The evasion and cooldown, however, are just flat out worse. A 1-time evasion with no turn limit is like a gift that you know you’ll get eventually, and can wait it out. 1-time 1-turn evasion is more like a shoddy flash-sale deal that you fall for because you need some form of enjoyment to fill the void in your otherwise-mundane existence. It’s just an inferior version of a run-of-the-mill evasion skill, only good enough for living a NP while being open to follow-up attacks. And it’s on a 7-turn cooldown instead of 6. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a fairly good skill, but it’s annoying how two skills can be so similar but be so far apart in how good they are.

Next is Princess Summer Vacation (False) A rank. Something of an abnormal skill, it opens off with a targeted taunt debuff to the enemy, as in you make one of the enemies taunted, forcing your party to attack them with non-AOE NP’s. After that, you get a standard Charisma buff for the team and team Sure-hit for 3 turns. 

While the “Demerit” may sound pretty bad, it’s honestly not much of an issue, so long as the target dies on the turn you use it. AOE NP’s also ignore taunt by nature, so using this skill just to boost Osahime’s NP damage also isn’t an issue. Team Sure-hit is also a pretty good effect, and one that is fairly rare to find, with Holmes’ NP being the only other major source of team evasion-ignore of any kind. Still doesn’t help with Invincibility, unfortunately. On the whole, a solid support skill.

Ah, wouldn’t be modern era DW without a dual-card buff skill in the gacha. Chiyogami Commander gives a 3-turn, 30% buff to both of Osahime’s main card types, while also packing the fair, not-unreasonable 7 turn base cooldown it should have.

Excuse me, a little bit of my resentment over past 8-turn cooldown dual-card buff skills slipped through. 

At any rate, this is an important boost to Osahime’s NP damage as well as her NP gain, making her 3 Arts cards’ NP gain even better, on top of the increased damage. Not much else to say - it’s a solid long-term steroid.

For active skills, we start with Femme Fatale (Fake) A rank. A peculiar skill at worst, this applies Skill Seal and Critical Defense Down (think a debuff version of Critical Power Up) to a single enemy for 1 and 3 turns respectively, while also dropping a respectable star bomb for the team.

Skill Seal is a pretty situational debuff that can be useful in some circumstances, but usually only succeeds in delaying an annoying skill for a turn, and there’s no real way of telling if it helped. For some foes, making them attack for all their actions is worse than them using skills, such as with Fafnir-size dragons. NP power up on a Lizard that’ll die in 2-3 turns? Yes, please.

The more interesting aspect to this skill is the Crit Defense Down, acting as something like a team critical damage up buff with some extra hurdles, not only aiding Carmilla herself but her possible allies. With the star bomb on top of it, this skill is essentially a crit damage skill for Carmilla to take advantage of with some added utility. Slightly long cooldown at 8 turns base, but it’s solid, and also very unique.

Did somebody say unique? Throwing out a stylistic “Steal your heart” in newspaper clippings, this skill is essentially a NP gauge drain and team NP gauge charger on a 1-turn delay, with added crit rate down just sprinkled on top. While the gauge charge value of 25% is interesting (notably putting servants with LB Imaginary Magic to full gauge), it’s functionally going to be identical to a 20% charge for the purposes of propping NP gauges for waveclear.

...except there’s a problem. This skill can’t be used for 3-turn clears. It’s a debuff applied to an enemy, which then triggers a turn later to provide both the NP drain and team gauge charge. So the target has to live a turn, or else the debuff goes to the graveyard with them. And unlike modern Yugioh, you can’t treat the Graveyard like a special summoning deck. Oh, sorry. I mean GY.

So in reality, this skill will be used for challenge quests and when you mess up clearing a boss wave quickly. The team support is definitely undeniable, but that 25% gauge charge sadly doesn’t have the potential it appears to have upon first glance. Also the cooldown is pretty good considering what this skill does, so that’s a +1 from me.

Woo! We got our first HP down skill in player hands! And the values, unsurprisingly, suck. Okay, so while this Mistress C (for Carmilla) EX fits the theme of bloodsuckers without giving you a NP drain / gauge charge combo (which this kit has already), the real appeal is the fact it’s a 6k heal for Carmilla Rider at max skill level versus 3 enemies, on top of the juicy 30% def down to the enemy. 

Having an AOE def down for a servant with an AOE NP is certainly good news, and getting a pretty big heal out of it simultaneously is also a useful bonus, especially considering Carmilla Rider’s poor max HP. The damage itself might also come in handy for rare cases where there’s enemies in reserve on the wave, and you have 1 or more foes left with sub-2k hp, forcing you to take an extra turn. I haven’t tested it, but I imagine it will make reinforcements appear if it kills the target.

Unless this thing can’t kill. Then it just sucks.

First in our lineup of skills is Divine Power (Ink) C rank. Almost a classic combination, the NP gauge charge / star bomb combo has stood the test of time, and it’s still excellent. 20% gauge and 20 stars on-demand is great for a servant of Hokusai Saber’s deck, who clearly focuses on criticals and NP gauge charging off a NP chain. The 7-turn base cooldown on this skill is also excellent, making the gauge charging frequent, as well as getting essentially two free assured crits if you have enough star focus.

Short evaluation for this skill, you say? DW has a habit of making welfares basic,for lack of a better term. Not my fault there’s little to talk of.

Did somebody say star focus? Oh right, it was me, teehee. 

Father-Daughter Bond B rank is an unfortunate victim of a serial killer who first originated in the original summer event - Guts skill cooldown. While having a defensive option is great and all, does Guts usually have to be stapled to that annoying 9-turn cooldown even when it isn’t 5 turns long? Like, I get not making the cooldown 7 or 8 when you can have it up for 5 turns, but 9 turn cooldown for a 3-turn duration Guts is just annoying.

Anyways, Hokusai gets a powerful 3-turn star focus with this skill and may not die when she is killed. Great, even if you can’t use it frequently.

I’d quote an ancient meme for this skill, but I don’t feel like it. Pen Name - Silk Patterned Octopus B rank is a simultaneous 3-turn Arts booster and “When you crit, you can crit harder” skill, giving Hokusai Saber a 20% critical damage buff every time she lands a crit for 3 turns, being able to gain the effect for 3 turns. So to condense that down, she can in an optimal situation get +100% crit damage for a turn or two after having used all her cards from a given 3-turn card cycle.

If you plan out like a mastermind, you may be able to get more than that by using the skill before a new card deck is drawn at the end of the 3-turn cycle…

Actually, I should probably explain what I’m talking about briefly - each servant of the frontline of three servant has their card hand of 5 cards, like Hokusai’s BAAQQ, is added to a deck of 15 cards, which has 5 drawn out of each turn to form the command card hand you get. This means that only 5 attacks can be made by each servant over the course of 3 turns. 

Using this, we can know that assuming Hokusai uses this skill turn 1, she can get a maximum of +100% crit damage before the duration wears off. This can be extended further if you get ‘lucky’ and get no Hokusai cards on the first turn of a cycle, allowing you to pop it on the second turn and potentially get up to 8 procs of this skill by drawing 3 Hokusai cards on the next cycle in addition to the 5 from the first one.

But I digress - assuming you use all 5 of Hokusai’s cards in a given cycle and they all crit, this skill averages out to 40% crit damage up over those 5 cards, which then may increase depending on how many Hokusai cards you get following the first cycle (as the crit damage buffs last 3 turns individually, not the duration of the initial buff to get those crit damage procs.)

This is all very confusing to comprehend out the gates, so just know you shouldn’t use it if the turn number is (3n-1), such as turn 2, 5, or 8, and you’ve already drawn a lot of Hokusai cards last turn. Otherwise, have fun critting and seeing all those buff markers on her.

And there’s the Arts buff, too. That’s pretty good, I suppose.