MMM - Lascivious лисица Leads Latest Earth-Loop in Light-Lacking Look (New Years 2022)

The Modern Magus Magazine

With the end of the year passed the horizon, we find ourselves in a new dawn for FGO - changing of the development company to meme on, as well as an ushering into the final chapters of Part 2’s story, sure to involve many a sick skateboard trick from Daybit.

But there yet remains one battle to be resolved - an eternal duality that has plagued humanity since the dawn of its conception. Like Yin and Yang. Sun and Moon. Light and Dark.

Yes, Koyanskaya’s Dark form allows us, in the break of this new year, to put an end to the great question, encapsulated in their final ascension arts:

Tits or Ass?

Introduction

Boy, typing Koyanskaya was troublesome enough already, and now I have to specify which I mean when saying it, too?

I could use classes, but that’s just plain boring, so instead I’ll be calling the Foreigner in question Yami Koyanskaya, or Yami when just referring to her in comparison to Koyanskaya of the Light.

Is it weebish? Sure it is. But how else am I going to imagine two Koyanskayas clashing in a Yugioh duel inside a casino to decide which is the real Queen of Foxes?

…Okay, maybe a little too weebish.

Servant Data

Foreigner

QAABB (Saber)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

4

3

5

Attribute	Beast
Alignment	Chaotic Evil

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

April Fool's

Max HP 14,700

HP Rank

Max ATK 11,220

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,734	Base HP	2,156
Max Atk	11,220	Max HP	14,700
Grail Atk	12,282	Grail HP	16,104

Entity of the Outer Realm C

Gain 2 Critical Stars per turn.
Increase your Debuff Resist by 6%.

NFF Services EX

Apply 20% Special ATK [Wild Beast] to self.
Increase own Arts Card effectiveness by 5%.
Increase own Debuff Success Rate by 10%.

Nega Self C

20% Chance to inflict Nullify Buff (1 time, 3 turns) on [Wild Beast] enemies when attacking.

Overview

Among our now-fairly-large SSR Foreigner roster, Yami Koyanskaya is essentially middle-of-the-road in her base stats. With the tied-3rd worst Atk stat and 4th best HP stat of the class and rarity, she sounds like she’s given a bad hand, but it’s more that just Van Gogh-chan has a better statline flat-out, and Foreigners in general have pretty good statlines. Yami Koyanskaya is quite durable in her bases, but pays for it with an average Attack stat, instead of a good one. It’s not the worst deal out there.

In turn, Yami has a handful of passives to look at. First is the Foreigner staple, giving her a poor man’s Fragment of 2030 and a minor boost to her Debuff Resistance. More interesting, however, is her two unique passives:

First is NFF Service EX, granting her a passive 20% Effective damage boost against Wild Beast trait enemies, which as a reminder is essentially any Servant or enemy that is very clearly an animal or based on one (aka, not a mythological creature. Hence why Tamamo, a kitsune, is exempt, but Tamamo Cat, a cat…or a dog? Ugh, in any case, Tamamo Cat counts.) On top of that is a 5% Arts boost, and 10% Debuff Resistance, combining with her Entity of the Outer Realm to make her debuff durability quite decent.
Second of her unique passives is Nega-Self C, a very niche passive that gives her a 20% chance to apply a 1-time, 3-turn Buff denial to Wild Beast trait enemies when she attacks them. I don’t consider it a coincidence they didn’t let us bring this perk against Koyanskaya’s Beast form in Tunguska, since that’d be really nice against her boss self. So while situational, it is a fairly consistent way of denying any buffs on a specific enemy type.

On the whole, Yami Koyanskaya starts off with a curious statline. Not overwhelming anywhere, but the anti-Animal niche her passives pave out is odd and charming, to say the least.

NP Generation

Card Hits	4	3	3	5	5
Per Hit	0.67%	0.67%	0.67%	0.67%	0.67%

	NP per Hit (%)	0.67%
NP when Attacked (%)	3%

	Star Absorption	153
Star Generation per Hit	14.8%

Servant Skills

Buster Up

Dominator Fox A

Increase Buster Card effectiveness for all allies (3 turns).
Increase NP Gauge for all allies.
Decrease Critical Star Gather Rate by 100% for all [Hominidae Servant] allies (1 turn).

Show Info

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

First and a notable introduction in Yami Koyanskaya’s skillset is Dominator Fox A. This skill provides a 30% Buster Up buff to the team for 3 turns, as well as an eye-bulging 30% gauge charge for the team. To be frank, I thought Castoria was going to hold the privilege alone for a bit longer.

Naturally, this makes Dominator Fox a great supportive skill for Buster teams. With only Merlin and Koyanskaya’s Light form for tribal support options (and Oberon, by technicality, but his nature in being best used as a last-turn swap in means it doesn’t stand out as much), their amount of “free to use” team gauge charge has felt insufficient at times. This makes a great addition to resolve that, even ignoring the fact that Yami Koyanskaya isn’t exactly made to be a full support. Hell, if this skill just gave its benefits to Yami Koyanskaya herself it’d be fairly good.

And now the other component of this skill, being a 100% Star Weight drop to Hominidae Servant allies. This is a new trait, one that is essentially made to encapsulate “anything that is tied to Humanity”. What does this cover in practice? Having looked over the Servant list to surmise, every Servant that isn’t a true God/Goddess (aka, no human vessels/pseudo-servants), an Elemental (Faeries, Consort Yu), a construct (Nursery Rhyme, Galatea, Enkidu, ect.) and, fairly obviously, Servants who are essentially more animal than human.

Despite the exceptions, that ends up being most of the Servant roster. Yami Koyanskaya is naturally an exception, so in most circumstances this acts like a Star Weight Down debuff for her allies, letting her scoop up most of the stars.

With an 8-turn base cooldown, this skill is on a pretty reasonable timer for its power.

Overcharge Up

Massacring Beasts A

Increase NP Overcharge level by 2 for an ally (1 time, 3 turns).
Apply effect on an ally (3 turns): When attacking with Buster Cards, gain 5 Critical Stars.
Increase ATK and DEF for all [Kemono] trait allies (3 turns).

Show Info

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

Next up is Beasts of Slaughter A. This is an ally-target skill which provides the chosen target 2 benefits: A two-stage Overcharge boost for 1 time, 3 turns, and a 5-star bomb every time they attack with a Buster card for the same duration.

While these benefits alone are nice, if not too spectacular, the interesting part of the skill is, yet again, at the end. Using this skill provides a hefty 30% Attack Up and Defense Up buff to all allies with a new trait. Quite literally just “Animal-kind”, I consider it better described as “Kemono-mimi”, because the only factor which determines whether they have the trait is if they have animal ears or very obvious animal traits

Don’t believe me? Let me point out some specific cases - Saber Shiki (Only if she’s in her bunny-ear costume), Scathach (Only in her bunny-girl outfit), Bunyan (Again, only in bunny outfit), Kijyo Koyo (...only, pfft, Only if she’s in her dinosaur ascension) and lastly, Summer Kiara (Only if in her Mermaid 3rd ascension).

So yeah, it’s not about whether they really are an animal, but merely if they look somewhat like one. Even Vritra and Melusine are included for their visible dragon-like appendages, even if we want to split hairs and say dragons aren’t really animals.

Point being, the trait is weird and relatively niche, but the buffs are very nice, boosting the offensive power and durability of those affected by a good margin, on top of the benefits of this skill’s targeted effect. Naturally, Yami Koyanskaya benefits from the Kemono trait buff, so it’s a good offensive steroid on her end of things.

The real drawback here is the harsh 9-turn base cooldown on this skill, making it a bit slow to come back in drawn-out fights. But still, fairly solid.

Shield Break

Goddess Morph (Beast) B

Apply Ignore Invincible to self (3 turns).
Increase own Critical Strength (3 turns).
Apply effect to self (3 turns): When attacking an enemy:
- Inflict Poison on the target (3 turns).
- Inflict Curse on the target (3 turns).
- Inflict Burn on the target (3 turns).
Apply Poison Damage Up on all enemies (3 turns).
Apply Curse Damage Up on all enemies (3 turns).
Apply Burn Damage Up on all enemies (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Crit Damage +	30%	32%	34%	36%	38%	40%	42%	44%	46%	50%
Poison Damage +	300	320	340	360	380	400	420	440	460	500
Curse Damage +	300	320	340	360	380	400	420	440	460	500
Burn Damage +	300	320	340	360	380	400	420	440	460	500
Poison Damage Up	50%	55%	60%	65%	70%	75%	80%	85%	90%	100%
Curse Damage Up	50%	55%	60%	65%	70%	75%	80%	85%	90%	100%
Burn Damage Up	50%	55%	60%	65%	70%	75%	80%	85%	90%	100%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Last, and probably the coolest skill in Yami Koyanskaya’s toolkit, is Goddess Morph (Beast) B. While the length of the description is intimidating, in actuality it’s somewhat simple - Koyanskaya buffs herself with Invincible Pierce and a 50% Critical Damage buff for 3 turns, as well as giving every enemy a +100% Poison, Burn, and Curse amplification for 3 turns, then finally making all her attacks apply a 500-damage Poison/Burn/Curse for 3 turns. So she’s essentially both amplifying DoTs on every enemy and dealing every kind of DoT with her attacks for the duration.

What does that mean in practical terms? Depending on how many cards she’s using for the skill’s duration, you get a nifty chunk of bonus damage from her cards. For example, if Yami Koyanskaya pulls off a brave chain on the first turn you apply the skill, she’s applying 2000 damage of each kind of DoT to a target, which all gets doubled. So it’s 3 instances of 4000 damage per turn, making an extra 12k damage per turn for 3 turns.

Not bad, if I’m being frank. Sure, it may not be much compared to the force of a good NP damage buff, but it’s still damage, and DoTs do occasionally have their place in difficult content - it’s not like anything stops a DoT from dealing its damage bar downright debuff immunity (screw you, Arjuna Alter).

The real appeal of this skill, however, is definitely the Critical Damage buff and Invincible Pierce. Both make for great offensive tools, and Critical Damage dealing already synergizes with her kit.

It’s just a very neat bonus that she can theoretically make Tomoe’s Burn damage output even more crazy, or a plan along those lines. Dare I point out Melusine, a Servant she already supports excellently, applies a Burn on her AOE NP?

Noble Phantasm

Tunguska Nine Drive C

Increase own ATK by 20% (1 turn) [Activates first].
Deal damage to all enemies.
Remove Offensive Buffs from all enemies.
Decrease Buster Card Resistance by 20% for all enemies (3 turns).

<Overcharge>

Deal supereffective damage to [Earth] attribute enemies.

Show Info/Video

Tunguska Nine Drive

Thunderous Heavenly Light - The Calamitous Star Crashes Down in Waves of Flame

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	C	Anti-World	5

Effect	Increase own ATK by 20% (1 turn) [Activates first]. Deal damage to all enemies. Remove Offensive Buffs from all enemies. Decrease Buster Card Resistance by 20% for all enemies (3 turns).

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Attack +	20%	20%	20%	20%	20%
Damage +	300%	400%	450%	475%	500%
Buff Removal
Buster Res -	20%	20%	20%	20%	20%

Overcharge Effect	Deal supereffective damage to [Earth] attribute enemies.

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
Supereffective ATK +	150%	162.5%	175%	187.5%	200%

C’mon now, Koyanskaya. We literally JUST sent off Tunguska into the sky to inevitably crash into Velber at some point in the future during Extella 2 and create a whole bunch of problems for Hakuno, and now you keep bringing it back to crash into the planet for your NP?

But joking aside, Tunguska Nine Drive is a very visually pretty NP. As a Buster AOE, we’ll be focusing mostly on this thing’s effects, so let’s get into it:

First and foremost, Yami Koyanskaya’s NP applies a much-appreciated 20% Attack buff to herself for 1 turn before damage. Never anything wrong with a pre-NP steroid, and hers even just generally helps her critical damage on a follow-up chain, too. Next, naturally, is the damage. While there’s nothing special about this NP in the damage like Defense Pierce, it does have a Super-effective damage modifier, doing +50% more damage against Earth attribute targets, scaling on Overcharge.

Targeting Earth attribute is honestly quite interesting, as it’s not common. I believe Tesla’s NP targets it as well as Heaven trait, Gilgamesh’s Ea technically does, though that has its own exceptions, but otherwise it’s fairly sparse. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad trait to target, though - quite the opposite. Both Tesla and Gil’s NP only do effective damage for Servants, but Yami Koyanskaya’s NP hits every enemy of Earth attribute. This is particularly important as Earth attribute has the most generic enemy types in the game - pretty much every enemy beast, demon, or otherwise non-humanoid creature that isn’t divine falls under it, which is the majority of enemies. The Servant pool of Earth attribute is the second-largest after Human, too, so on the whole this NP is very likely to get its bonus damage.

Moving on, this NP then removes all enemy Attack buffs. Not necessarily a powerful effect, but in difficult content it can be particularly handy, especially as Koyanskaya already has Invincible Pierce, so defensive buffs won’t normally present a problem for her. It’s just, well, neat. Lastly is the beautiful feature we all love, ramping damage in the form of a 20% Buster Resistance Down debuff for 3 turns on the targets struck. While it means nothing for farming, it is a significant boost to Yami Koyanskaya’s ability to hammer in enemies in CQ’s.

And speaking of farming, I should probably point out Yami Koyanskaya can farm, though that is pretty much a benchmark for Buster Servants nowadays that only requires a gauge charger. But anyway, so long as she has her 20% starting NP gauge append skill and a 50% gauge CE she’s good to go in double Koyanskaya of the Light and Oberon in the wings.

How well does this NP perform for damage, though?

With her own buffs active, a singular NP comes in at 22.6k neutral, not exactly the most spectacular damage output possible. But that’s essentially a worst-case scenario. If she’s hitting Earth attribute (which as I’ve pointed out, is very common for generic enemies) it’s a very powerful 33.9k neutral by herself, with the possibility of being boosted further to 40.7k if she’s ganging on an Earth attribute Wild Beast trait enemy. You’ll probably be unsurprised if I tell you that combination is fairly common.

Put into a practical situation with support from her light-side self, max Atk Fous, a proper CE, Mystic Code support and so on, Yami Koyanskaya is dishing out 57k damage versus neutral enemies, 83k if they’re Human attribute, 86.7k if they’re Earth attribute, and on Wave 3 you’re looking at 77.8k damage neutral, 111.7k and 116.8k for the respective attribute situations. That’s more than enough to farm with class advantage, and can even manage farming on neutral nodes if you’re getting the attribute effectiveness.

And naturally, that’s not factoring in an Oberon battlesuit swap since at that point damage output more or less gets overkill.

Point being, she’s not got the most powerful NP in terms of raw damage, but in practical use she’s going to be hitting for significant damage versus ⅔ of the major attributes in the game, which is more than enough to coast by.

Conclusion

So how is Koyanskaya of Darkness on the whole? On one hand, she can create any possibilities for herself, like magic born from fervent prayers:

Yami Koyanskaya makes for a very potent Buster side-support. Just having a 30% team gauge charge alone is powerful, but adding in her Buster Up buff, targeted NP overcharge buff, and potentially an Attack/Defense boost (some notable benefactors of said buff are Kingprotea, Ibuki, Barghest, her Light self, and Melusine), she can be a potent additional boost to an existing Buster support lineup. In the right circumstances, she may even prove a better option than Merlin or Oberon for supporting your primary damage dealer.

Even when being self-serving, Yami Koyanskaya has a very robust kit. With a fairly good steroid setup from her kit, a consistent engine to produce stars for herself when using Buster cards then hitting reasonably hard with crits boosted by her 3rd skill, and the threat of stacking up both Damage over Time and Buster Resistance Down debuffs, she can really bring the pain. And that’s ignoring how hard she can hit when she’s meeting her reasonably-common effective traits.

While not necessarily the best option for Buster farmers out there, Yami Koyanskaya does function quite well as a universal farmer when hitting either Human or Earth attribute enemies. Or, naturally, Berserkers, but that’s something of a given. Compared to some fellow Foreigner farmers who struggle to meet universal farmer damage benchmarks full stop, she’s in a pretty good position.

However, she’s also on the brink of being sundered and divided, succumbing to the light and being imprisoned on a celestial body:

Much like her Light self, Yami Koyanskaya has essentially zero defensive tools. While that isn’t much of a death sentence using her as an offensive Servant, when trying to apply her as a side-support, the fact Buster has only one card-specific support with good defensive support in Merlin does mean it can be rough to involve her in a composition when you need defensive tools. Her Light self will remain the queen of offensive Buster support, but she too lacks defensive tools, so it’s hard to fit Yami Koyanskaya in when you really need to bring Merlin in.

Yami Koyanskaya makes a very good mirror to her Assassin sister released earlier…uh, last year, and for good reason. While Koyanskaya of the Light felt like a full support who could technically be an offensive menace in a pinch, Yami Koyanskaya feels like an offensive Servant who can pull out a significant sum of team support when you allow it.

Naturally, supports tend to rule FGO’s meta, and being not-as-good a Support as Koyanskaya of the Light is just like saying Yami Koyanskaya isn’t as good as them. Which is about true. But being worse than the brighter Koyanskaya is hardly a death sentence. We can’t overhaul the farming meta of the game that frequently, after all.

The bottom line is, Yami Koyanskaya is a fairly competent farmer when meeting a broad niche, makes for a situationally strong side-support for Buster teams, and can be absolutely devastating in the right challenge quests. You may have to keep an eye on the enemy lineup to spot her opportunities, but she really can demolish if she gets foes who are vulnerable to all of her delicious little quirks and damage bonuses behind Trait requirements. As a Foreigner, you could certainly do worse. You could be Summer Abbie!

…Man, that just makes me feel bad for the eldritch girl. In any case, Yami Koyanskaya is exceedingly good, and flexible in how she can be used. Rath™ Seal of Approval, with a recommendation.

Outro

If it weren’t obvious enough by my choice of language in this MMM, I’m a poor nerd tempered by FFXIV: Endwalker and for some reason my head decided to vent some of its fanboyism into this specific MMM. I’ve got to choose some kind of literary theme to keep things interesting for myself, after all, if not the readers.

But we’ve got a lot ahead of us in 2022 - 10 (11, depending on who you ask) Servant silhouettes to anticipate in FGO, even more dread for a completed Mahoyo translation (at least the movie will be there if all the translation projects falter once more), and the year that I told myself in 2020 would mark the end of the pandemic.

Woo, end of the pandemic….where? It’s ending, right? Right?

Now I get why my generation are becoming Doomers.

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MMM - Lascivious лисица Leads Latest Earth-Loop in Light-Lacking Look (New Years 2022)

The Modern Magus Magazine

QAABB (Saber)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

Buster Card

Traits

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Buster Up

Overcharge Up

Shield Break

Tunguska Nine Drive

Outro

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