MMM - Minor Mascots Make Markets in Mooring Machi, Must More Megamis Mimick Man?! (Dancing Dragon Castle)

The Modern Magus Magazine

Past the great stretch of pre-summer reruns, we find ourselves once more venturing into new content in FGO. Not that I didn’t appreciate a period to catch up on farming and strengthening quests, but that’s neither here nor there.

But the prelude to the anniversary and the flood of content that comes with, let’s partake in our appetisers this time round, no? Perhaps in the form of a sugary cold drink at this fine-looking Cafe nearby? Ahnenerbe, huh? Sounds pretty good if you ask me.

Introduction

Sometimes FGO does really like to do deep cuts on their new Servants. Aside from the real Servant part of this Pseudo-Servant being Azumi-no-Isora, the hosts in question are a largely forgotten part of Type-Moon history, who you probably only recognize thanks to Carnival Phantasm featuring them rather prominently.

In any case, Hibiki and Chikagi feature in their own mini-series that once existed on the now-defunct Type-Moon Mobile site, and on the whole don’t have much relevance to the greater lore outside of Hibiki randomly being the Holy Scripture of a Dead Apostle Ancestor. Yeah, I’m not even gonna dig into that rabbit hole.

Servant Data

Alter Ego

QQABB (Lancer)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

3

4

3

5

8

Attribute	Human
Alignment	Lawful Good

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

Max HP 13,537

HP Rank

Max ATK 12,252

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,893	Base HP	1,985
Max Atk	12,252	Max HP	13,537
Grail Atk	13,412	Grail HP	14,830

Traits

Achi Women's Manners EX

Increase own Buff Removal Resist by 10%.
Increase own Debuff Resist by 10%.

Independent Action B

Increase your Critical Strength by 8%.

Offertory Dance Grounds A

Increase Critical Strength for all allies by 5% while on the field.

Grotesque God B

Apply Damage Plus 100 to self.
Apply Damage Cut by 300 to self.

Great Wani's Protection C

Gain 5 Critical Stars for self each turn while on [Near Water] battlefield.
Gain 5% NP Gauge for self each turn while on [Near Water] battlefield.

Overview

As an SSR Alter Ego, the dynamic duo here are competing with a broad number of fellow Servants, albeit in a solid class overall. With the tied 4th best Attack of any SSR Alter Ego, and, the exact middle-of-the-road for the HP rankings, these two have some decent offence while not sacrificing too much HP, meaning they’re pretty well-rounded.

In addition to the solid baseline stats, these two have a lot of unique passives, so let’s get into them:

Firstly, they pack Independent Action, the only non-unique passive, providing a modest boost to their critical damage. Following that is Achi Women’s Manners, increasing their Buff Removal and Debuff Resist by 10% passively. While the numbers on this are low, having passive Buff Removal Resist can be crazy in certain fights, and likewise debuff resistance is universally useful. Then there’s Offertory Shrine Grounds, providing a small 5% Critical Damage boost to the whole team while they’re on field, including the duo themselves, meaning their passive critical damage is pretty damn good.

Rounding off their passives, Grotesque God provides 100 Damage Up and 300 damage cut passively, the latter being far more useful, essentially providing 300 bonus HP per attack they take. While it may not seem like much, damage cut like that adds up over longer, harder fights, and vastly improves their staying power. And finally is Great Wani’s Protection, providing 5 Critical Stars and 5% NP gauge per turn when on Near Water battlefields. It’s a good conditional boost, but as you’ll find later, it’s not as conditional as you’d think.

On the whole, Hibiki and Chikagi have a strong statline, and their passive lineup provides some spectacular perks to give them a strong foundation in battle.

NP Generation

Card Hits	4	3	2	5	7
Per Hit	0.62%	0.62%	0.62%	0.62%	0.62%

	NP per Hit (%)	0.62%
NP when Attacked (%)	3%

	Star Absorption	97
Star Generation per Hit	10.0%

Servant Skills

Quick/Buster Up

Shoreside Offering Dance A

Increase Quick Card effectiveness for all allies (3 turns). [10-20%]
Increase Buster Card effectiveness for all allies (3 turns). [10-20%]
Increase NP Gain for all allies (3 turns). [10-20%]
Apply Evade to self (2 times, 3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

First on the duo’s skill lineup is Shoreside Offering Dance. This is a pretty hefty team buff skill, providing 20% Quick Up, Buster Up, and NP Gain Up to the team for 3 turns, and on top of that, it provides the duo themselves a 2-time, 3-turns Evasion buff.

The offensive perks are great for Hibiki and Chikagi themselves, improving the damage output and refund of their primary card types, on top of a general boost to NP gain that compensates for their mediocre base NP gain they’re forced to work with. The fact these buffs extend to the team is just a bonus, allowing their allies to also reap the benefits, and possibly open up an avenue for them to act as a pseudo-support.

The Evasion buff is naturally great, too. Fire-and-forget defensive skills that will assuredly soak some hits pay off dividends over time, and having the option to hold this skill back for a NP turn also improves their durability in difficult content. With an 8-turn base cooldown, the skill is pretty strong for the cooldown it’s saddled with, tripling up on selfish offensive buffs, team support, and defensive options in one.

Start Np

Watatsumi Shrine Gate A

Increase own NP Gauge. [20-30%]
Increase NP Gauge for all allies. [10-20%]
Increase Max HP for all allies (3 turns). [2000-3000]

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
CD	9	9	9	9	9	8	8	8	8	7

Next up is Watatsumi Shrine Gate. From the icon, this is unsurprisingly a gauge charge skill, providing 30% gauge to Hibiki and Chikagi themselves, and 20% gauge to the entire team on top. In other words, it’s a 50% gauge charger that also provides 20% gauge to their allies.

That alone would be a spectacular skill to have, but it goes even further beyond, also providing a 3k Max HP Up buff to the team for 3 turns. Having a little defensive buffer is always handy, and due to the way Max HP buffs work, it’s also a 3k heal if the team is below max HP, so the bonus utility is especially nice.

But being frank, the gauge charge is all you need here. 50% gauge charge is par for the course at this point, but the team charge on top is especially handy, and further contributes to the duo’s potential as a pseudo-support, already providing a lot of desirable buffs off just two skills.

Only real issue is this skill’s harsh cooldown, having a 9-turn cooldown at base. It’s rough, but about what you’d expect from a skill that provides 90% gauge charge in value, on top of other benefits.

Np Dmg

Tide-Ebbing and Tide-Flowing Jewel A

Increase NP Strength for all allies (3 turns). [10-20%]
Apply buff to self (3 times, 3 turns): Decrease DEF by 10% for the target (3 turns) when attacking with Quick normal attacks.
Apply buff to self (3 times, 3 turns): Increase own Critical Strength by 10% (3 turns) when attacking with Buster normal attacks.
Apply [Near Water] battle field to self (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Last on the skill lineup is Tide-Ebbing and Tide-Flowing Jewel. Keeping up with the theme of Hibiki and Chikagi part-timing as supports, this skill provides a 20% NP Strength Up buff to the team for 3 turns, as well as planting an interesting duo of buffs on themselves - A 3-time, 3-turns buff that applies 10% Defence Down for 3 turns when they use normal Quick cards, and the same for their Busters, except it applies a 10% Critical Strength buff to themselves instead.

While these kinds of buffs are packaged awkwardly, the time-based limitation and card cycle means that usually you’ll only get around 2 applications of the buffs in 3 turns, meaning it’s 20% Defence Down and 20% Critical Damage Up on average. Very mediocre buffs, all things considered, even if it’s packaged neatly.

The last and more interesting part of this skill is a 3-turn buff that turns the terrain into Near Water. Not only does this turn on the duo’s conditional passive, providing 5% NP gauge charge and 5 stars per turn by proxy, but it also buffs their NP by proxy, granting an additional buff when it’s used.

And opening up the window for further pseudo-support action is also a nice benefit - a lot of Servants benefit from Near Water terrain, but very few actually set it, and of those, these two are by far the most supportive overall, so they’re a prime option if you want your Nemo or someone similar to be fighting at peak performance.

The 8-turn base cooldown on this skill is pretty reasonable given its power, as it does technically translate into a NP gauge and Critical Stars per turn buff, on top of the other displayed benefits.

Noble Phantasm

Unasaku Hiraku Michi Hiki no Tama A

Increase own NP Gain by 20% if in [Near Water] battlefield (1 turn) [Activates first].
Remove all defensive buffs from all enemies [Activates first].
Deal 150% supereffective damage to [Chaotic] alignment enemies.
Deal damage to all enemies. [600-1000%]

<Overcharge>

Increase own Quick Card effectiveness (1 turn) [Activates first]. [10-30%]
Increase own Buster Card effectiveness (1 turn) [Activates first]. [10-30%]

Show Info/Video

Unasaku Hiraku Michi Hiki no Tama

Ebb-and-Flow Jewels which Open the Boundary of Man and Sea

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	A	Anti-Army	8

Effect	Increase own NP Gain by 20% if in [Near Water] battlefield (1 turn) [Activates first]. Remove all defensive buffs from all enemies [Activates first]. Deal 150% supereffective damage to [Chaotic] alignment enemies. Deal damage to all enemies. [600-1000%]

Level	1	2	3	4	5

Overcharge Effect	Increase own Quick Card effectiveness (1 turn) [Activates first]. [10-30%] Increase own Buster Card effectiveness (1 turn) [Activates first]. [10-30%]

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%

Rounding everything off, we have Hibiki and Chikagi’s NP - Unasaku Hiraku Michi Hiki no Tama. Unfortunately, it’s one of those NP’s where the “short name” is just the NP subtitle in furigana, so it’s a mouthful no matter how I write it.

This is a Quick AOE NP, so we’ll be diving (heh) into NP refund numbers for it, but we’ll go over all of its effects, first.

This NP a number of effects before dealing damage - firstly, it provides a 10% Quick and Buster boost to the duo for 1 turn, scaling on Overcharge. Then, it removes all defensive buffs from all enemies, an especially useful perk in difficult content to shed away annoying defensive skills that may have stacked up. And lastly, if the field is Near Water, they buff themselves with +20% NP gain for 1 turn.
Then the damage is dealt, with no special perks, but a +50% effective damage booster versus Chaotic alignment foes. For Servants it’s a pretty good alignment to hit, targeting about one third of the available roster, as well as a surprisingly good amount of NPCs, including major story bosses, though not really any common enemies in farming quests.

But that’s all the effects on this NP. Yep, a rare one with everything before or during the damage, with no effects afterwards. So with that out the way, let’s look at the refund:

With just the duo’s own buffs active, this NP has a baseline refund of 24%, which technically becomes 29% due to the passive 5% gauge per turn from turning the field to Near Water. For a Quick Servant, that’s pretty good, and it shows once you throw them in a typical double Ruler Skadi setup with a 50% gauge CE - their refund bumps up to 53% (58% with the gauge per turn), safely past the benchmark to farm with double Ruler Skadi.

The refund is good, but let’s look at the damage output. With the aforementioned setup they’ll be doing about 71k damage neutral for the first two waves, then 95k damage neutral on wave 3. While it’s far from bad damage, it certainly isn’t enough to tackle any class. Thankfully, with class advantage those numbers bump up to 107k and 142k respectively, which is more than enough to handle most nodes, so they don’t have any issues in laxer setups just dealing with Horsemen classes.

But that said, they do pack enough refund to do Black Grail setups, as even without the boost from a 50% gauge CE they net more or less 50% (55% after the NP gauge/turn) per NP turn on the dot. In such setups you would need a Battlesuit Swap for a 50% gauge charge support, in this case I’ll assume it’s Oberon for max output.

With Black Grail, they’ll be dishing out 110k damage waves 1 and 2, then 196k damage on wave 3, all neutral damage. It goes without saying that’s enough damage to function as a universal farmer, and they do so consistently even accounting for leeway on Overkill or class NP gain modifiers.

Conclusion

So how are Hibiki and Chikagi overall? On the one hand, they’ve got some Goddess-charming dance moves, expert waitressing skills, and let’s just say, I’ve got plenty to offer in exchange for some “Navigational skills” wink wink:

This dynamic duo offer some pretty bog-standard but effective farming capabilities. Refund that consistently reaches over 50% gauge is rare for Quick farmers, but the fact they can manage it makes them especially potent, and the fact they can also deal very manageable damage on top of that is spectacular. While ultimately they’re nothing exceptional compared to over universal farmers, being there is great, regardless.

While their main job is farming, this duo are part-time supports, with a surprisingly comprehensive suite of tools, providing gauge charge to the team, offensive buffs that are especially potent for Quick Servants, and even some defensive tools in their Max HP buff. They won’t be dethroning Skadi or her variants for support slots anytime soon, but Servants with versatility like theirs tend to show up in abnormal farming setups all the time, such as when you need both a ST NP and AOE NP to clear waves.

A last but relatively minor point is the tools these two have for difficult content. While it’s not very strong on paper, these two do have a pretty solid passive critical damage boost, more critical damage built into their 3rd skill, and high stargen following their NP turns due to its high hitcount, so they can really bring the pain when they’ve got Skadi critical damage buffs behind them. Add in the good durability they boast, a wide-reaching effective damage on their NP, and their capability to strip buffs from the enemy and protect their own passively, and there’s a lot on the table for difficult content. It’d feel wrong to ignore it, at the very least.

However, I also think I see barnacles under their makeup, and they forgot the caramel syrup in my iced pumpkin mocha frappuccino! Disgraceful!

While these two might have strong damage numbers in formal farming setups, that’s largely owing to the power of Ruler Skadi’s damage buffs. Individually, compared to other Quick farmers, their damage output is fairly low, and might become lacklustre compared to other farming options in the future. Even if they kept to the horseman class advantage of the Alter Ego class, they could lose out to Servants with more favourable offensive profiles, so it’s worth bearing in mind.

On the whole, Hibiki and Chikagi are pretty spectacular, possessing a well-balanced farming profile that provides both damage and consistency, on top of a good plethora of supportive and niche tools that allow them to stand out beyond just their farming capabilities.

In the grander scheme of things, the Alter Ego class isn’t the greatest class to be saddled with, but they perform pretty well regardless, with plenty of room to stand out amidst their competitors, whether with their farming damage output or turning their eyes toward difficult content with the options they have at their disposal.

That ultimately makes them “just” good farmers with wider applications, but even if that role is pretty common nowadays, it’s no reason to look down on them for it - they’re more than serviceable Servants, and it definitely shows. Rath™ Seal of Approval.

Outro

Given the number of new faces showing up in this event, you’d think we’d have more than one new Servant to work with, huh? Well, Lasengle can always surprise us, but this is as far as I’ll go with the event’s current progress, at least.

This new Servant was a prime opportunity for me to once again discover the disparity between English and Japanese Wikipedia in information on Japanese myth, with the Japanese page being loaded with details you wouldn’t catch otherwise.

The only conclusion I can draw is…Japanese Mythology really likes to make action happen at the bottom of the sea, huh? I feel there’s a billion myths covering something along those lines at some point. Maybe it’s just their equivalent of something happening in Mount Olympus - the designated “here be the gods and other fantastical beings” space.

But hey, I’m rambling. With all luck the next MMM will be for something rather grand, but who knows what’ll crop up between now and the Anniversary? Until then!

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MMM - Minor Mascots Make Markets in Mooring Machi, Must More Megamis Mimick Man?! (Dancing Dragon Castle)

The Modern Magus Magazine

QQABB (Lancer)

Quick Card

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

Buster Card

Traits

Quick/Buster Up

Start Np

Np Dmg

Unasaku Hiraku Michi Hiki no Tama

Outro

Links

About the Author(s)

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