MMM - Local Librarian of Legendary Leaders Lacks Lodestones for Levelling, Leading to Lunar Ladies Lacking Legitimacy as Lackies (Summer 2024 Part 2)

If the, well, planet-sized mammaries on her base form weren’t enough, BB’s absolutely-not-a-disguise-for-someone else form adds in actual planets to the equation with her Astronaut form. Voyager has a space-suit buddy which is certainly adorable.

And she also plays Basketball in this form…with planets. I get it’s a joke on the abbreviation of her name, but man is she the most ballin’ Servant of all time with how often she dunks across her forms.

As one of the few SSR Mooncancers in the game, BB Dubai has a limited pool of competition in both meanings of the word, but ultimately leans toward the more defensive side, with the second-lowest Attack and second-highest HP of the class, a reasonable stat spread with admittedly below-average Attack in the grand scheme of things.

The funniest part of BB’s forms generally being pretty weak in terms of stats is because Nasu decided to make her Strength, Endurance, and Agility in her SSR forms all C just for the “CCC” joke, even though it tanks her base stats due to how they lean on the lore Parameters. The lengths one mushroom can go for the memes.

She gets plenty of love in the passive front to compensate, however. Item Construction, Magic Resistance, and Core of the Goddess create a formidable combination of consistent debuffing, extremely good Debuff Resistance, and some bonus damage on every card, but she also packs an equal amount of unique passives.

Far Future Management increases BB’s Critical Resistance and Star Weight by 20%, providing a significant buffer against random crits at all times, as well as a miniscule boost to her star weight (it might attract an extra star or two to her own cards, on average). Meanwhile her pair of Humanity Assessment passives provide a minor boost to damage against Evil alignment and non-Servant foes, as well as those with anti-Good effectiveness in their toolset, and defensively provide a similar boost versus Lawful alignment and Servant foes, as well as those with anti-Evil effectiveness in their toolset.

Combined these unique passives make BB very robust against most CQ scenarios (getting a boost in bulk against Servants), as well as boosting her damage output in farming versus most enemies, so her otherwise-lacking offence is compensated for, on top of further improving her durability.

With a base NP gain of 0.33% and a BAAQQ card set, BB Dubai’s base Arts gain is a rather pathetic 1.32 on her 4-hit Arts cards. Her other cards similarly suffer from her poor base Np gain, though her Quicks are at least bearable at baseline, with their 5 hits compensating hard for a weak base NP gain. While this issue is somewhat compensated for by BB’s abundance of Arts and Quicks, it’s still not a fantastic position to be in.

At the very least, the high hitcounts across the board means BB’s stargen is fantastic, producing large amounts of stars in more or less any chain combination. Good stargen can compensate for poor NP gain in some circumstances, so that’s another mitigating factor, though even with her passive’s boost, her star weight is pretty poor, meaning she might struggle to soak up the stars she produces without additional aid.

So how is BB Dubai on the whole? Well on one hand, she’s glimmering with glitz and glamour so vibrant it almost makes me forget the awful culture and human rights violations of the city she touts:

However, she’s also still radiating a sus aura, one that might lead me to put her space-suit to the test and eject her off the Moon…wait, she wasn’t an impostor?

If it weren’t clear from everything thus far, BB Dubai is pretty spectacular. If she merely came packaged as a selfish damage dealer with the same numbers she’d be very good, if a bit plain, but her capabilities to pivot to a supportive role, whether mid-quest or in the teambuilding stage, really diversifies her capabilities and distinguishes her from other options.

Even if she’s not good enough to go toe-to-toe with the very best supports in the game, she does look very favourable compared to say, Tamamo or even Reines in many aspects, so she’s by no means out of the competition. I can see situations where I would take her to support Muramasa or Tezcatlipoca over Proto-Merlin or Tamamo when I want more offensive power and her utility tools, and being able to pull that as double duty on top of her more plain farming capabilities is one hell of a draw.

It helps that BB Dubai also packs tools that are typically rare in strong Servants - skill-based buff removal and forms of team defensive cooldowns that bypass Invincible Pierce or Buff Removal. Having a very generally applicable Servant that can act as a support with those tools instead of having to bust out someone like Tristan for that purpose is convenient, and might make her a mainstay in more difficult fights in the future should her tools be in higher demand.

Surprisingly, the fact half of her supportive tools are limited to a small roster isn’t that big of deal, since so many of them are strong individually and match well with her buffs, something that can’t be said for Servants who buff say, Shinsengumi or Demonic allies. Living Humans are generally very strong, if not at least dependable, and of the Mooncancers in the game, only Jinako and Summer BB are more situational, but still solid Servants.

So unsurprisingly, a damage dealer who can pivot to support on a whim, while still meeting all benchmarks for a strong performance on both sides is very good, go figure. I don’t even have to throw my BB-loving bias into the mix here. Rath™ Seal of Approval, with a recommendation.

While she might be named by her true name this time round, I’m still gonna call her Tlaloc, simply because it’s shorter and easier to spell.

But with that said…man, with the combined power of mecha, cities, and bunny girls, she’s actually managed to become a horny leviathan to rival Kiara. I fear for the future of Fujimaru Ritsuka’s virginity when this lady comes on so hard no matter the circumstance.

It’s funny how with all the prior Mooncancer Servant’s reviews I said there’s a small Mooncancer pool, and even with 3 new additions in rapid succession it’s still a very small roster of Servants.

Case in point, Tlaloc’s summer form is the second SR Mooncancer in the game, after the OG BB, so naturally there’s not much in the way of competition. Regardless, Tlaloc takes a much more offensive spread compared to BB, having an attack stat close to the average for a 4* Servant, alongside a pretty high HP stat relative to her offensive might, so a solid base stat total.

As for passives, Tlaloc packs 4 with actual benefits. Territory Creation and Divinity are like how you remember them, providing Tlaloc with a notable boost to her Arts card as well as a small damage boost on every card, while her two unique passives are a bit more significant.

Waterside Activities, besides being a sexual innuendo in Japanese, provides a pretty major critical damage boost to Tlaloc on Near Water fields, while Lunar Capital, besides being a hellish stage in Touhou Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom, provides Tlaloc a 5% buff in her Quick cards, Arts cards, and Critical Damage, as well as a 200 damage cut to the whole team if she’s in the frontline.

These passives are obviously pretty great, boosting the team’s durability slightly just for bringing her, on top of providing notable boosts to two card types and her critical damage.

With a BBAQQ card deck and a base NP gain of 0.58%, Tlaloc’s 4-hit Arts card hammers out an impressive 2.71 base Arts gain after her passives are factored in, making it one of the best Arts cards for NP gauge generation in the game.

While that’s quite a perk, it doesn’t extend to the remainder of her cards, with her Quicks being more or less average, and her Extra card being more or less the same. For Servants with her card deck, though, having the single Arts card be great can certainly pay off with a singular well-timed crit, so she’s still not in a poor spot, just bearing the drawbacks of her card deck.

By comparison, her stargen is excellent. With her high hitcounts and focus on the two card types best for it, she won’t have any issues producing stars, and can use them to compensate for possible NP gain issues, provided her low star weight doesn’t interfere with it.

So how is Tlaloc’s Mooncancer form in practice? On one hand, she’s by far the sexiest city I’ve ever seen fit into a Bunny suit, but then again, she’s the only one:

However, she’s ultimately going to be left high and dry, and I don’t mean after she gets out of the ocean. I’m still failing to see how any of, well, that works with a mecha-city-girl:

Man this is a hard one to assess. Tlaloc’s Mooncancer form may be lacking in some key aspects that are usually a given for one with her kit. Typically AOE NP Extra class Servants are capable of dependable farming, even if it’s lacking on the damage front, but Tlaloc struggles to manage even that, but equally, it’s not as if she doesn’t shine in the right circumstances.

Throw her in a fight with a giant, HP sponge boss that spawns additional enemies and she will absolutely crush even without class advantage, and equally she has enough supportive tools that she’s not truly a dead weight even if her offence is lacking. She might be focusing on a narrow type of fight, but said fight is fairly common in the grander scheme of things, and she packs enough tools to actually live in such a drawn out fight that the payoff will be seen.

So essentially, she’s got some interesting and useful supportive effects, a strong performance when tackling her specialty, but she’s deceptively not that great at farming, even if it’s possible. While I don’t ever expect her to blow away the competition, she puts enough on the plate that I consider her usable, if for a narrow specialty. Rath™ Seal of Approval.

Okay, I have a high tolerance for BS but this is the point where I have to ask, how do all these qualifiers even stack up? Since this is the… *checks notes* Servantverse Space Summer Alter version of Artoria? Even then I don’t know what part of her is a modifier of what. As in, is she the “XX” version of MHXA, or the Alter version of MHXX? I’m pretty sure it’s the latter, but that’s the problem when you stack up so many alternate forms on one person.

Doesn’t mean it isn’t hilarious, but boy if they make a Santa version of her I might go insane.

As an SR Foreigner, MHXXA has 3 other Servants to compare herself to in the same rarity and class, 2 of which are just alternate forms of herself. Brilliant, I tell you.

With the second-highest Attack in that selection, and the second-lowest HP, she’s solidly built offensively, albeit not as much as MHXX’s original form. Her overall base stat total is pretty damn high, with only statistical champions like Rama or Roland among the 4* lineup actually having a similar level of good offence and HP.

To complement her base stats are an assortment of passives, though they’re pretty easy to go over. Entity of the Outer Realm, Madness Enhancement, and Magic Resistance provide her a passive amount of critical stars, a small boost to her primary card type, and some bonus Debuff Resistance. Even better, her more unique passive, Altereactor, provides even more passive Debuff Resistance, making her very durable when it comes to debuffs, shrugging them off almost half the time.

With a BBBAQ card deck and a base NP gain of 0.65%, MHXXA truly embraces the Buster gorilla lifestyle, albeit at the cost of NP gain capabilities. With her single 4-hit Arts card, she gets a base Arts gain of 2.6, pretty high for a Servant with one Arts card, though not enough to really compensate for the lack of sheer Arts cards.

Her other cards aren’t too bad for NP gain, with her 4-hit Quicks being roughly average for NP gain, her Extra being better than most, and her Busters providing a cool 2% when in an Arts first card chain bonus, as is typical..

Much like other Servants in this issue, MHXXA has very good stargen to contrast, with high hitcounts all around and a surplus of the card types that are good at star generation. Plus, well, in general the Mysterious Heroine-type Servants tend to have very good methods of star generation due to the whole space theme, so this much is a given. As always, good stargen translates into more crits, and better NP gain, so it covers for her card deck’s weaknesses somewhat.

So how is MHXXA overall? Well looking at things one way, she’s the most fearsome of all Sith lords across the Servantverse, Darth Confectious, and you shall respect her name:

However, she’s also the true epitome of what the Fate franchise gets ridiculed, the latest in the series of absurd variants on the franchise mascot, and no amount of laser scythes or chuunibyou syndrome can fix that:

MHXXA is one of those sad instances in my book where a Servant technically did nothing wrong in terms of what they’re designed to do - specific card-focused crit Servants with ST NP’s can be spectacular, taking Astraea as an example, but ultimately where MHXXA fails to keep up with the power of competitors is both in her lower critical damage capabilities, as well as her insufficient capability for NP looping.
If her numbers were just a bit stronger across the board, and her skill cooldowns more reasonable, a ST farming setup would be largely feasible for her, and the damage output would be high enough to be in contention despite the limited class advantage options she has at her disposal. Honestly the issue with convenience is her biggest sin - needing a level 10 Append Skill just to do looping is a big ask.

But with that many gripes, I’ll still point out this is largely just besmirching the annoyances built into her kit. Her strike zone for high damage output is pretty broad with how common Good and Lawful alignment are, and even though she doesn’t hit as hard as I would like, that doesn’t mean she won’t demolish a difficult fight when she’s got the buffs of Merlin or Koyanskaya behind her. Ultimately she still is very well-rounded, and can clearly cut out a portfolio of the Servant roster to obliterate when you need her, which makes her a reasonable pick when a morally-upstanding Servant needs to be put down for the sake of story progression or a challenge quest.

So yeah, she’s workable, but she just annoys me in how her skills were designed. Rath™ Seal of Approval.