Rabbit's Reviews #310: Mysterious Ranmaru X (4* Avenger)

We have perhaps been moving in this direction all year. The first welfare of the year, Kiichi Hogen, could loop farm with starting NP CEs and optimal conditions. Mysterious Idol X Alter, while weaker, had similar looping specs. Koyanskaya and Oberon, meanwhile, made loop farming accessible to a range of Servants who could never have done so before. So, in the spirit of making farming easier for everyone, we now have Ranmaru, a welfare AoE Arts Avenger.

It would be difficult for Ranmaru to not be strong with that base. Arts AoE is probably the best typing for a DPS unit at the moment, and Avenger is arguably the best class container in the game. This is the type of Servant that gave us Space Ishtar and Summer Kama (and also Salieri, who is deceptively valuable for less-developed accounts). While Ranmaru is substantially weaker than their top-tier SSR competition, they still largely solve farming of standard nodes for anyone with Castoria, which is hugely valuable. There are other options who can do similar things—Habetrot, for instance, or the aforementioned Salieri—and being locked behind Heiankyo makes it relatively more likely a given player already has a favored farmer by the time they get Ranmaru, but Ranmaru is nonetheless a strong farmer and damage-dealer who works almost everywhere. Getting something like that for free is top-notch.

Ranmaru has the lowest attack and highest HP of the SR Avengers, but Avengers have high attack in general, so even as a low-attack Avenger, Ranmaru is decently powerful at base. Their internals, however, are remarkably bad. Ranmaru has the single-worst Arts card in the entire game to-date, which means they will be heavily reliant on batteries and refund in order to NP reliably. Fortunately, they have solid NP refund, along with a battery and innate passive NP gain, so it shouldn’t be a huge issue in practice. Ranmaru also doesn’t have much in the way of active star gen, except on NP turns, where Ranmaru gets a massive star gen buff to prop them up.

As an Avenger, Ranmaru has a ton of passives—and very good passives, at that. Ranmaru has two of the three standard Avenger passives, in Avenger (boosting defensive NP gain) and Oblivion Correction (boosting crit damage slightly). Defensive NP gain is particularly important to Ranmaru in CQ contexts, given Ranmaru’s struggles to generate NP with cards. Ranmaru’s third passive is a special version of Self-Restoration, giving the usual passive NP gain—a respectable 3% per turn—and pairing it with a small but permanent Arts buff, making this an excellent passive overall. Ranmaru then gets Entity, for passive star gen and some debuff resistance, along with Magic Resistance for even more debuff resistance. Finally, Ranmaru gets immunity to Burn, which is niche but occasionally important. This is a really fantastic spread of passive skills, and all of them meaningfully benefit Ranmaru’s playstyle.

For Appends, Mana Loading is as always the most valuable skill, providing a little extra starting charge to help Ranmaru with farming or getting moving in CQs. Ranmaru’s specialty damage append is Anti-Caster, and this is probably more valuable than the Extra Attack buff due to Ranmaru’s weak cards—dealing more damage to Casters may let Ranmaru more effectively farm certain nodes, while the Extra Attack buff is just a marginal benefit in CQs. That said, as a welfare, Ranmaru can safely level all of their appends due to the free Servant Coins available in their debut event.

Ascension Materials

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	50,000	x1 Mysterious Substance RX Open Mysterious Substance RX configuration options
3	150,000	x1 Mysterious Substance RX Open Mysterious Substance RX configuration options
4	500,000	x1 Mysterious Substance RX Open Mysterious Substance RX configuration options
Max	1,500,000	x1 Mysterious Substance RX Open Mysterious Substance RX configuration options

Skill Enhancement Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100,000	x8 Proof of Hero Open Proof of Hero configuration options
2 → 3	200,000	x8 Evil Bone Open Evil Bone configuration options
3 → 4	600,000	x10 Fool's Chain Open Fool's Chain configuration options
4 → 5	800,000	x10 Tearstone of Blood Open Tearstone of Blood configuration options
5 → 6	2,000,000	x10 Refined Magatama Open Refined Magatama configuration options
6 → 7	2,500,000	x12 Reactor Core of Dawn Open Reactor Core of Dawn configuration options
7 → 8	5,000,000	x12 Heart of the Foreign God Open Heart of the Foreign God configuration options
8 → 9	6,000,000	x12 Glowing Star Fragment Open Glowing Star Fragment configuration options
9 → 10	10,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore Open Crystallized Lore configuration options

Append Skill Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100000	x8 Octuplet Crystals Open Octuplet Crystals configuration options
2 → 3	200000	x8 Meteor Horseshoe Open Meteor Horseshoe configuration options
3 → 4	600000	x10 Warhorse's Young Horn Open Warhorse's Young Horn configuration options
4 → 5	800000	x10 Shell of Reminiscence Open Shell of Reminiscence configuration options
5 → 6	2000000	x10 Mystic Gunpowder Open Mystic Gunpowder configuration options
6 → 7	2500000	x12 Arrowhead of Malice Open Arrowhead of Malice configuration options
7 → 8	5000000	x12 Egg of Truth Open Egg of Truth configuration options
8 → 9	6000000	x12 Bell of Amnesty Open Bell of Amnesty configuration options
9 → 10	10000000	x1 Crystallized Lore Open Crystallized Lore configuration options

All three of Ranmaru’s skills are good, and they’re laid-out nicely for ease of use. Recommended skill order is 3>2>1.

As their primary appeal is their farming potential, I’ll start off with Ranmaru’s farming setups.

In order to loop without a starting NP CE—so you can use Black Grail or an event CE—Ranmaru needs a plug charger, and to be fighting three enemies. There are two primary alternatives that can make this work: a stronger one, which uses Oberon, and a somewhat weaker one, which uses Waver or Reines. Let’s start with the Oberon setup.

With Oberon, Ranmaru runs Castoria/Ranmaru/Castoria/Oberon. This requires Mana Loading unlocked (but not necessarily leveled). On turn 1, Ranmaru uses their battery, Castoria 1 uses all three skills, and Castoria 2 uses Skill 2 and Skill 3. Ranmaru NPs and refunds to 60%. Turn 2, Castoria 2 uses Skill 1, then you plug one of the Castorias out for Oberon and have Oberon use his Skill 1. Ranmaru probably uses their second skill here as well, for the extra damage, though this may vary by node. Ranmaru refunds to 60% again. Turn 3, Oberon uses his remaining two skills, you use the plugsuit attack buff, and Ranmaru NPs to clear the node. Easy! With this setup, Ranmaru deals roughly 58k on turn 1, 100k on turn 2, and 130k on turn 3, without any CE. A non-MLB Black Grail brings this to 92k/146k/229k, which should be well more than enough to clear any standard farming node.

With Waver or Reines, Ranmaru needs Mana Loading maxed. You run Castoria/Ranmaru/(Waver or Reines)/Castoria. On turn 1, Castoria uses all three skills and then plugs out for the second Castoria, who uses her third skill. Ranmaru uses their third skill, and Waver uses his third skill or Reines uses her first skill. Ranmaru refunds to 50%. On turn 2, the second Castoria uses her first and second skills. Ranmaru refunds to 60%. On turn 3, Waver or Reines use their remaining batteries to push Ranmaru to their final NP.

Note that Waver, rather than Reines, is actually the better option here, as Ranmaru benefits from his attack buff on turn 1 (where Reines’s arrives on turn 3) and with maxed Mana Loading, Waver also actually gets access to his NP on turn 3 for even more damage push.

If you give Ranmaru an NP charge CE, their loop conditions become a lot less restrictive. There are enough different possible workable combinations that detailing specific options would be… time-consuming and not terribly useful, but generally speaking, you want double Castoria (if you have your own), or a friend Castoria and whatever chargers you have handy. With double Castoria, a plug Oberon, and Kaleid, Ranmaru should be able to loop basically any node provided they have the damage for it. If you want to use Ranmaru for farming, play around with what you have, and odds are you’ll be able to make something work for a 5-drop comp.

For CQs, much of the same applies. Ranmaru’s card-based NP gain is so bad they really want battery supports to ensure they can function effectively. Castoria is obviously the best option here, but Waver/Reines/Oberon/etc can also work. If you don’t have the chargers to support Ranmaru, you’re probably better-off bringing someone with more conventional NP gain stats as your damage-dealer (like Salieri, if you have him).

For farming purposes, Ranmaru wants Black Grail, an NP charge CE, or an event CE. If you have Castoria and one of the other charge supports, you bring an event CE for standard nodes where Ranmaru deals enough damage, Black Grail for standard nodes where Ranmaru does not deal enough damage, or an NP charge CE for nodes with unusual enemy compositions. For CQs, Black Grail is still generally the best choice, although CEs like Painting Summer and Smiling Face can be nice as well for offsetting Ranmaru’s low base NP gain.

Magus of Flowers is a nice CC for Ranmaru, as its flat NP charge isn’t impacted by their low NP gain. Alternatively, crit damage CCs are good picks, as Ranmaru has fairly easy crit access but not a lot of crit damage within their kit.

Avengers benefit a lot from grails, and more attack will help Ranmaru hit higher damage thresholds, which by extension makes them more flexible both for farming and for CQs. Especially if you don’t have a meta Arts farmer you favor, grailing Ranmaru can be a good choice.

Ranmaru is a great welfare Servant. They have clear and significant disadvantages relative to top-end Servants of their type, but they’re more than strong enough for general use and ensure anyone who’s cleared Heiankyo can have access to a great farming unit. There are other Arts options—even free or relatively accessible ones—but Ranmaru has enough going for them to be an exciting addition to the game for players with less-developed boxes, and even more experienced players may find them nice to have on occasion.

Overall: 9/10
Single-Target DPS: 5/10
AoE DPS: 8/10
Survivability: 4/10
Offensive Utility: 5/10
Defensive Utility: 5/10
Farming Usefulness: 9/10
Relative Ranmaru Strength: 10/10