MMM - Calculable Comeuppance of Courteous Courtier Calls Calamity to Chaldean Chap Craze (GudaGuda 2021 Gacha 2)

The Modern Magus Magazine

Wait a minute, this isn’t a Pretender in a banner with every single male NPC Servant shown in the event?

We’ve been tricked, backstabbed, and, quite possibly, bamboozled by DW, and this cannot stand, so I am officially making a highly-influential Reddit post to show off my grievances. Surely the multi-million dollar Japanese company can’t ignore my influence on a western cat meme sharing site!

Well, even if my prediction of the banner for the second of the event was off (I had reasons to think it’d be a Pretender, honest!), there’s a new Servant to assess nonetheless. Let’s get on with it.

Introduction

Come to think of it, even though I thought it rare for dudes in FGO to get a rarity-bumped alt, it has happened a few times already - Cu Zerker, Saber Diarmuid, Romulus, Muramasa if we’re really splitting hairs over EMIYA. But I guess the fact Ryouma isn’t as big a fan favourite as the others makes it a bit more shocking to me.

Well, those with his welfare form best nab a doppelganger while you can.

Servant Data

Lancer

QAABB (Saber)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

5

4

5

3

Attribute	Human
Alignment	Neutral Balanced

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

April Fool's

Max HP 15,147

HP Rank

Max ATK 10,753

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,661	Base HP	2,221
Max Atk	10,753	Max HP	15,147
Grail Atk	11,771	Grail HP	16,594

Traits

Card Hits	5	4	4	5	3
Per Hit	0.47%	0.47%	0.47%	0.47%	0.47%

	NP per Hit (%)	0.47%
NP when Attacked (%)	4%

	Star Absorption	91
Star Generation per Hit	12.0%

Arts Up

Dragon of Restoration A

Increase Arts Card effectiveness for all allies (3 turns).
Increase Critical Strength for all allies (3 turns).
Increase NP Overcharge Level by 1 for all allies (1 time, 3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Arts +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
Crit Dmg +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Starting off Ryouma’s skills, we have Dragon of Restoration A. A massively upgraded form of his welfare version’s team Arts buff, this skill provides a moderate 20% Arts buff for the whole team for 3 turns, as well as a 30% Critical Damage buff and NP Overcharge buff (1 time) for the same duration.

If these buffs were for Ryouma alone they would be pretty solid, providing a moderate continuous boost to his damage and a one-off boost to his NP’s performance, but as a team buff it becomes excellent, especially as the NP Overcharge buff lasts for 3 turns, practically assuring you can use its full value before it expires. And while in farming cases the team-buff nature of this skill probably won’t see use, in CQ’s Castoria REALLY appreciates the Overcharge buff, and equally can use the offensive buffs pretty effectively to increase her damage output when you do end up putting those Arts cards of hers in a chain.

Given the power of it, an 8-turn base cooldown is pretty fair for this skill. It’s a powerful team buff that also aids Ryouma’s own game plan.

Start Np

Great White Snake of Takachiho A-

Increase own NP Gauge.
Apply Debuff Immune to self (3 turns).
Increase own Buff Removal Resist (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
NP +	30%	32%	34%	36%	38%	40%	42%	44%	46%	50%
Buff Removal Res +	50%	55%	60%	65%	70%	75%	80%	85%	90%	100%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Sometimes, a man just never misses, huh?

Great White Snake of Takachiho A-, being a 50% gauge charger, is a fantastic skill. I’d hope I don’t have to repeat the same spiel, but even if you’re not a farming oriented Servant, gauge chargers just increase the speed of your NP immensely and open up options in team building that are otherwise impossible. But added onto that, Ryouma has a pair of REALLY absurd utility buffs - 100% Buff Removal Resistance and Debuff Immunity for 3 turns.

Now, you’ve probably seen these two buffs in separate kits before and haven’t figured why I say this is an absurd combo. While this pairing of buffs does occur in other kits (Ereshkigal, Qin Liangyu and Murasaki to name a few), they all have it on a 3-time or 1-time limitation, or only for 1 turn.

The power of this combo is that the Servant in question both can’t have their buffs removed or be debuffed, which in turn makes said Servant immune to 95% of difficult content’s gauge break “Wipe the slate” skills. You know, like how that certain floating orb in a burning techno-city who shall not be named to avoid LB5 spoilers has a really infuriating Buff Denial and Buff Removal gauge break effect.

While normally you’d probably have to know such a combo is coming in advance to correctly time it against the effect, Ryouma gets this thing on a 3-turn timer on a 8-turn base cooldown skill. In other words, he’s immune to the majority of the game’s annoying gimmicks half the time once this skill’s at level 10.

As always, that doesn’t mean much for farming, but boy is it a useful tool to have in his back pocket for when you really hit a wall in difficult content - a Servant with 3-turn Buff Removal Resist, Debuff Immunity, and a 5-hit Castoria Invincible buff is pretty much untouchable for their duration. And Ryouma pulls off such a combo with ease.

Arts/Buster Up

Amasakahoko (Twin) B

Increase own Arts Card effectiveness (3 turns).
Increase own Buster Card effectiveness (3 turns).
Apply buff to self: Gain Critical Stars each turn (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Arts +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
Buster +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
Stars +	5	6	6	7	7	8	8	9	9	10
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Rounding off Ryouma’s skill lineup is Amasakahoko (Twin) B. Embodying the mythical Japanese spear, this skill provides Ryouma the mighty power of...standard dual-card buffs. With a 30% Arts and Buster buff apiece, both of Ryouma’s primary cards get buffed by this skill for 3 turns, and it also comes with a bonus 10 stars/turn buff for the same duration, providing a neat little supply to the Critical Damage role Ryouma builds as his side-hustle.

Unlike his other skills where I can run over the implications of what it offers, this skill is shockingly simplistic. It’s extra damage, some consistency to any attempts at Critical Damage he can pull off, and better refund on his NP. The only further commentary of note I can provide is that the base cooldown of 8 turns, while lining up with his other skills, is a little long for a dual-card booster skill.

But honestly, that’s nitpicking.

Noble Phantasm

Ryuu yo, Wadatsumi no Hara wo Yuke EX

Increase own DEF by 50% (1 turn). [Activates first]
Deal damage to all enemies.

<Overcharge>

Increase own NP Strength (3 turns). [Activates first]

Show Info/Video

Ryuu yo, Wadatsumi no Hara wo Yuke

My Dear, Go Conquer the Plains of Wadatsumi

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	EX	Anti-Army	3

Effect	Increase own DEF by 50% (1 turn). [Activates first] Deal damage to all enemies.

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Damage +	450%	600%	675%	712.5%	750%
Def +	50%	50%	50%	50%	50%

Overcharge Effect	Increase own NP Strength (3 turns). [Activates first]

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
NP Damage +	20%	25%	30%	35%	40%

There are some NP names I’ll just refuse to type out. In this case, Ryouma’s NP name is literally just a Japanese sentence. All you need to know is Ryouma and Oryou are tee tee.

So far as the gameplay effects go, Ryouma’s NP is packing two effects, both prior to damage - a flat 50% Defense buff on Ryouma for a turn, and an Overcharge-scaling 3-turn NP Strength buff, starting at 20%. Once both of those are applied, the NP itself is an Arts AOE.

Which means we have some farming talk to do. Yaaaay. Peacu peacu.

Let’s start with damage. On paper, Ryouma is fairly even with his leading competitor among the SSR lineup - Vritra. With both their skill buffs active, Vritra’s NP hits for 20.9k damage neutral, and Ryouma’s for 21k neutral. While in either case this doesn’t sound like much, it’s pretty standard for a loopable AOE NP, and I can say from experience that Vritra’s own output is sufficient when she has supports bolstering her.

But that’s ultimately an unfair comparison - Vritra’s NP damage buff is a 1-time buff, and without it her NP’s output drops to a measly 17.4k, while Ryouma’s NP starts off as strong as listed, and only grows stronger with each wave due to his NP’s ramping pre-damage buff, much like Space Ishtar. Ryouma’s output jumps up from 21k to 24k, then 28k on the third wave, ultimately a very respectable sum of damage.

Throw in a proper CE and some Castoria support and you’re looking at 72k neutral wave 1, 83k neutral wave 2, and 88k neutral wave 3. Still not on universal farmer levels of damage, but more than sufficient to farm with class advantage.

So, let’s look at the refund instead now. With his base NP gain of 0.47% and 3 hits on his NP, Ryouma’s refund on paper actually doesn’t look too hot - in fact, with his 50% Arts booster active it comes out at 19% refund, VERY similar to both Vritra and Fionn’s own refunds respectively. Add in the prior Castoria support setup with a CE and you get 54% refund - enough to loop, but admittedly not a confidently high sum of gauge. Vritra with the same setup, for reference, gets 70% refund after her 3rd skill’s 10% gauge per turn is factored in. As a result, Ryouma’s farming setup can be a little vulnerable to the whims of enemy class, with Berserkers and Assassins harming his consistency, as well as the degree of Overkill he accomplishes.

Why is this all important? Black Grail. Generally the best farmers, especially Arts ones, will be capable of performing consistent farm setups using Black Grail, or just any non-gauge charge CE like Royal Icing to maximize damage output. With Ryouma’s refund, however, he can struggle a little to manage such setups. In a Black Grail double Castoria setup he typically scores 60-70% refund, but if he fails to net 2 out of 3 hits Overkill then he’s vulnerable to failing to meet the 50% gauge requirement to fully loop in a Battlesuit setup. And requiring Battlesuit to farm with Black Grail to begin with is a little slow.

The bottom line of this weakness is that Ryouma might fail to meet damage benchmarks in 50% gauge CE setups, but might fail to meet refund benchmarks in setups without starting NP gauge. It’s a troublesome vulnerability he has to work around, even if by all technicalities he is a capable farmer.

Conclusion

So how is Ryouma in practice? Well, on one hand he and Oryou go together like Yin and Yang:

Ryouma makes for a good, if not exceptional farmer. At a minimum, he’s very competitive with existing Lancer farmers hanging around who aren’t called Melusine - he packs the best damage output available of the Arts AOE farmers, and even if his refund is somewhat mediocre, his 50% gauge charger compensates for it greatly. While his refund means he can’t truly just run Black Grail versus everything like some farmers can, all of the other Arts AOE Lancers generally can’t either, so he remains competitive.

For CQ scenarios, Ryouma is packing a respectable package. His critical damage buffs from his kit, while nothing amazing, are good enough to make his regular card damage formidable, and when put in combination with the powerful AOE damage his NP can put out, he can quite easily crush difficult content where AOE is the prerogative. Add in his very powerful Debuff Immunity / Buff Removal Resist combo and he makes a consistent option to tackle Challenge Quests.

But on the other hand, he can be left buried in the bottom of the ocean:

It might seem like a minor nitpick, but Ryouma for all the cool tricks in his kit to protect him from Challenge Quest cheese lacks a true hard defensive option. The 50% defense buff from his NP can be combined with a Waver / Reines defense buff to more or less take zero damage from NP’s if they don’t pierce defense, but in most cases you won’t be able to plan for that in mind. As such, Ryouma is going to be dependent on his support options to protect him from NP’s. It isn’t such a huge deal when Castoria has a dependable defensive NP, and most sorties with Ryouma will involve two of her, but it can present issues from time to time.

If there’s anything I can count on in the world, it’s that the power of wholesome couple ships will triumph over base gacha game waifu pandering. No offense meant to Okuni, but the number of one-off mostly forgettable female Servants added in events are a little too numerous for my liking.

To that end, Ryouma and Oryou’s Lancer form is a very solid Servant, with good farming applications and a couple of useful traits for CQ purposes alike. Their only true flaw, if any, is that they will always be in the shadow of Melusine unless a player specifically lacks the components for Melusine’s farming but has them for Arts farming. That dragon loli is simply too powerful to overcome with love alone.

In the same sense, Ryouma isn’t that much better than other Arts Lancer farmers present in the game prior to them - Vritra boasts her more consistent NP refund at a cost of notable worse NP damage, Fionn’s damage sucks but he’s actually accessible, and Summer Melt has to run kind of abnormal setups, with her damage output mostly dependent on NP level. None of them vastly outclass the other, though most of the time my own conclusion is I would take Ryouma for 9/10 of farming nodes, Vritra for the remaining 1/10.

I’m making all this long talk to make two points - One, all of the Arts SSR Lancers in this game feature dragon women and I find that an odd coincidence, and two, Ryouma is good but not breaking new territory. He’s desirable if you lack a Lancer to already fill a role, and good but probably not worth breaking your back over if not. Rath™ Seal of Approval.

Outro

Feels odd to be ambushed by a second gacha in an otherwise-unsuspecting event so quickly, and then again for a Servant class I...well, wasn’t expecting. The Avenger, Alter-Ego, and Foreigner classes all had additional members added to the roster added fairly swiftly after the first, so I was kind of hoping we would see another Pretender before the year ends.

I still have my hopes up, but I suppose they’re dashed for now, much like any hopes of the Male-Female ratio for this year recovering. Forget the female fanbase (well, don’t forget them, we respect women in this humble and unbiased publication), I want to see some hot guys added instead of cockteased, too!

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MMM - Calculable Comeuppance of Courteous Courtier Calls Calamity to Chaldean Chap Craze (GudaGuda 2021 Gacha 2)

The Modern Magus Magazine

QAABB (Saber)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

Buster Card

Traits

Tags

Arts Up

Start Np

Arts/Buster Up

Ryuu yo, Wadatsumi no Hara wo Yuke

Outro

Links

About the Author(s)

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