MMM - Intrepid Treasure-Trouvers Traverse Trecherous Tropics, Tailed by Tarrasque and Thaumaturgic Tag-Alongs (Summer 2021 Part 1 Gacha)

Boy is Rengoku (Okitan’s sword, and the shota accompanying her) adorable. And putting that aside, her NP is so.. Visceral.

I’ll admit, I’m not a big fan personally of any of the Servants in this first gacha, but Okitan is definitely my favourite of the bunch. But the thing I fear most is when Musashi Swimsuit catches wind of Okitan’s new form and we’ll have the greatest showdown over a shota.

...and maybe Musashi’s NP Seal on Sabers will actually be relevant for once.

Okita Alter’s Saber form accomplishes the feat of entirely outclassing her original form in base stats, possessing the tied 2nd best atk of any 5* Saber, but having slightly sub-par HP in return.

Though I say that, it’s slightly hard to judge, as Arthur, Sigurd, and Altera all have kind of absurd stattlines that might be throwing the average off. In any case, her base attack is great for a Saber, and her HP is typical, though not impressive either way.

Breaking the rules (that honestly, should be the exception) of SSR Summer Servants, Okitan’s Saber self doesn’t have anything too overwhelming in her passive lineup. Her A-rank Magic Resistance is welcome to aid her resilience, and likewise her A-rank Independent Action bolsters her critical damage a little, something that she’s bound to appreciate as a Quick-focused Saber.

On the whole, she’s built incredibly solidly, but has nothing outstanding to keep your eyes on thus far.

As we’ve come to expect from Okita and her clones now, Okitan Saber has the trademark 5-hit Quick card, and a card set which is leaned toward said Quicks one way or another. With a BBAQQ card set and 0.67% base NP gain, it’s very good for Okitan that she is packed with high hitcount cards.

Her sole Arts card, with its 4 hits, clocks in at 2.68 Base Arts Gain, well above average even for her card set, and more than capable of providing NP gauge for lack of multiple Arts cards. Meanwhile, Okitan’s Quicks are, as usual, superb - 3.35 NP gain on Quick cards is more than enough to act like pseudo-Arts cards, on top of their high hitcounts helping stargen immensely.

Really, if there’s a weakness to be found anywhere in Okitan’s cards, its her Extra. 5 hits is by no means bad for her base NP gain, but it isn’t as outstanding as her Arts and Quick card, instead being somewhat average.

As you may guess, Okitan is overall a superb star generator thanks to her Quick cards, and her other cards have good enough hitcounts to contribute as well, if not as significantly. Meanwhile, her NP gain is equally carried by said Quicks, making her fairly dependent on them, but that’s not really a bad thing when it’s your primary card type.

So, how is Okita Alter’s Swimsuit form?

On one hand, I can’t name a more iconic duo than her and Rengoku:

But on the other hand, she and her blade are a duo destined for disaster:

The bullet points are pretty concise this time around, but it’s mostly because Okitan is a very focused Servant. She’s very clearly built entirely toward farming, with a slight side-focus on Challenge Quests should you feel up for it.

Her downfall just entirely falls in how the standard for farming has risen immensely in the recent months, meaning being a capable farmer for your class advantage isn’t really a huge sell anymore. Why load up on 7 different Quick farmers and Skadi when 1 farmer, Koyanskaya, and Oberon does the trick, while also requiring far less fuss and refund calculations?

To be clear, this doesn’t mean Okitan’s Saber form isn’t good. On the contrary, she’s one of the best Quick farmers available in the game - it’s just that isn’t a very high standard any more. She’s more than serviceable for her main purpose, and makes a side-option for CQ’s to keep your eye on, but the waves she makes are less than they would be years ago, or even just after Muramasa’s release. Rath™ Seal of Approval.

I don’t think anyone doubted for a second that DW would invite Kadoc to a livestream and not include Anastasia’s Summer form in it.

And boy is that art gorgeous. It’s enough to make a man cry. I also find it funny they felt the need to specifically list Viy in her Servant name for this form.

So far as her base stats go, Anastasia is a prime case of an offensively-focused SR Archer being overshadowed by the juiced-up competitors in the same class tier. With the 9th best Attack stat of her rarity, she’s moderately good offensively, but is relatively poor on the HP front, with the 7th worst HP stat.

While she doesn’t particularly stand out on that front, her Passives are more notable - Independent Action (With Viy) is a pseudo-unique passive that gives her both the typical critical damage boost of Independent Action and a minor boost to her stargen, meanwhile Fae Contract gives her a solid boost to her Debuff Application Rate and Resistance.

Anastasia doesn’t boast anything overwhelming in her bases with everything in consideration, but she’s not particularly gimped in any area, either.

Ah, beautiful. We finally return to true form with BAAQQ Servants with mediocre NP gain and hitcounts. I almost missed it with all the great Servants in LB6.

As you might have already figured, Anastasia’s NP gain isn’t in a great spot. With 0.57% base NP gain and two 3-hit Arts cards, she clocks in a base Arts gain of 1.71, more or less exactly on average. And things don’t really improve for her in her other cards - her Quicks have the same hitcount as her Arts, making them similarly mediocre, while her 5-hit Extra is dead on average when her base NP gain is factored in.

And even when factoring in Anastasia’s passive stargen bonus, her stargen is pretty mediocre too. The bottom line of great stargen and NP gain is usually hitcounts, and she’s not excelling in that area at all.

So really, her NP gain and Stargen aren’t abysmal, but are bland if nothing else.

So how is Anastasia’s Summer form overall? On one hand, she’s one cool cucumber:

However, she’s also not hot enough to match her tanned competition:

Just on principle, there’s nothing wrong with Anastasia - she has an incredibly competent, and for lack of diversifying my vocabulary more, robust kit that can tackle a diverse range of content decently, but she steps on the toes of an existing welfare’s niche a little too hard, which can ultimately be a death sentence for viability in real terms. It’s like if an SSR Shielder was released who functionally didn’t do more than Mashu.

I know that may not be an apt comparison as Mashu is absolutely available to all, while Kuro is only theoretically available to all, which is why I naturally want to put this here for anyone just scrolling straight to the conclusion - Summer Anastasia is more than worthwhile for an Arts Archer if you don’t have Kuro, I’m just assuming a large chunk of the playerbase does.

That’s all, really. Feel free to roll for her if you love Anastasia or don’t have her niche filled, but in most circumstances she won’t provide anything worth the Quartz cost. Or I’m severely overestimating how many modern FGO players have Kuro. Either works.

Rounding up our gacha this time is a lady whose first trick is living in a 2D plane!

Now I’ll admit it’s rather cruel to mock art, but I still kind of like the cute simplicity of Corday’s art. It just looks funny juxtaposed against the very detailed and dynamic poses of the other 2 girls in this gacha. And on the plus side, Corday getting a swimsuit form was so out of left field I don’t think anyone anticipated it. She’ll make a fun-looking duo with Amakusa’s Phantom Thief outfit, at the very least.

I can’t really make fun of her for this, considering Corday’s entire deal is being a statistically weak Servant with nigh-perfect Presence Concealment, but Corday’s base stats are pretty abysmal, even for a Caster.

With the 5th worst Attack and 10th best HP for a Caster of her rarity, Corday is hardly impressive on the offensive side of things, and gets barely any compensation in return. Such is just the life of a Caster with an offensive kit, but it still presents a hurdle which impacts her performance.

She gets a better hand dealt for her passives, however. Magic Show Field is her unique replacement for Territory Creation, providing both a minute 5% boost to her Arts cards and a more notable increase to her Arts critical damage, while Magic Goods Creator is the counterpart for Item Creation, providing a minute boost to her Debuff Application Rate and Star Generation.

While it’s debatable whether she’d be better off with full-power versions of the original Caster class skills, there’s no doubt those two crit-focused boosts help her retain her Assassin identity even in a different class.

On the generation side of things, Corday is...very typical. With the standard Caster BAAAQ card set and 0.53% base NP gain, you can likely anticipate what I’ll say next - her 3-hit Arts card clocks in at 1.67 base Arts gain with her passives factored in, decidedly average. Really, at this point I’ll take Servants with downright bad Arts gain but interesting hitcounts on their other cards if it’ll keep us off 3 hits on every card for every Servant.

Unfortunately, Corday is precisely that - her Buster and Quick share the same hitcount as her Arts cards, and so suffer from the same mediocrity. And worst of all, her Extra card is only 4 hits, making it pretty awful for NP gain in comparison to most.

She has a slightly better situation on the stargen front, for a BAAAQ Servant at the least, due to her high passive stargen, but her hitcounts still mean she isn’t generating much of anything worthwhile even with her passive on her side.

All in all, Corday’s generation stats are below the baseline.

So how is Corday’s tricky summer form in reality? Well on one hand, she’s pulling every trick in the book out of her hat:

However, she’s also all smoke and mirrors:

In conclusion, while Corday is a pretty good example from DW of how to make a Servant focus on a gimmick but still make them somewhat competitive in spite of it, she sadly doesn’t really push out enough power in the present meta to make herself a premier option as a ST Arts looper. While she can push out the damage and refund necessary to function, she can meet consistency problems and simply requires more effort than other options out there.

And really, the true shame is she’d be a lot more usable if her kit’s focus debuff were anything but Skill Seal. Even Curse, Burn, or Poison effectively can contribute to a NP turn’s damage output if they’re big enough numbers, then again actually notable debuffs in CQ scenarios like NP Seal, stat debuffs, or Stun. Meanwhile the small part of her kit trying to make her a critical damage dealer doesn’t really go anywhere, just leaving the girl in an awkward spot.

...At least she’s a targeted 30% gauge charge option if you really need one of those?