Rabbit’s Reviews #328: Don Quixote (4* Lancer)

Introduction

Don Quixote is not super. He has some things going for him, but at the end of the day, he’s a two-skill Servant in the weakest card type. It’s a shame, too, because there’s a lot to like about the guy—everything from his concept, to his animations, to his story portrayal is awesome—but his kit just doesn’t quite cohere enough for him to be worth investing much in, especially with Lancer Yu being free and still relatively recent. He could be worse, and a new support could help him a little, but this is a “pull-for-love” kinda character.

Servant Data

Lancer

QQABB (Lancer)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

5

3

2

5

Attribute	Earth
Alignment	Lawful Good

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

Max HP 12,622

HP Rank

Max ATK 8,643

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,440	Base HP	2,019
Max Atk	8,643	Max HP	12,622
Grail Atk	10,465	Grail HP	15,304

Magic Resistance E

Increase your Debuff Resist by 10%.

Riding E

Increase your Quick Card effectiveness by 2%.

Accompanying Attendant B

Increase your Death Resist by 20%.

Card Hits	5	3	2	5	5
Per Hit	0.71%	0.71%	0.71%	0.71%	0.71%

	NP per Hit (%)						0.71%
	NP when Attacked (%)						4%

	Star Absorption	93
	Star Generation per Hit	11.8%

Overview

Material Requirements

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	50,000	x4 Lancer Piece
3	150,000	x10 Lancer Piece x6 Meteor Horseshoe
4	500,000	x4 Lancer Monument x16 Great Knight Medal x3 Warhorse's Young Horn
Max	1,500,000	x10 Lancer Monument x5 Warhorse's Young Horn x10 Giant's Ring

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100,000	x4 Gem of Lancer
2 → 3	200,000	x10 Gem of Lancer
3 → 4	600,000	x4 Magic Gem of Lancer
4 → 5	800,000	x10 Magic Gem of Lancer x8 Great Knight Medal
5 → 6	2,000,000	x4 Secret Gem of Lancer x16 Great Knight Medal
6 → 7	2,500,000	x10 Secret Gem of Lancer x4 Meteor Horseshoe
7 → 8	5,000,000	x8 Meteor Horseshoe x10 Void's Dust
8 → 9	6,000,000	x30 Void's Dust x60 Twilit Ritual Sword
9 → 10	10,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100000	x4 Gem of Lancer
2 → 3	200000	x10 Gem of Lancer
3 → 4	600000	x4 Magic Gem of Lancer
4 → 5	800000	x10 Magic Gem of Lancer x12 Proof of Hero
5 → 6	2000000	x4 Secret Gem of Lancer x24 Proof of Hero
6 → 7	2500000	x10 Secret Gem of Lancer x8 Void's Dust
7 → 8	5000000	x16 Void's Dust x5 Giant's Ring
8 → 9	6000000	x15 Giant's Ring x20 Scale of Fantasy
9 → 10	10000000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Servant Skills

Practically speaking, Don Quixote only has two skills. Recommended skill order is 2>1>3.

Quick/Buster Up

Seasoned Knight's Grand Adventure EX

Increase own Quick Card effectiveness (3 turns).
Increase own Buster Card effectiveness (3 turns).
Apply Guts to self (1 time, 3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Quick +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
Buster +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
Revives with HP	1000	1100	1200	1300	1400	1500	1600	1700	1800	2000
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Itinerant Knight’s Grand Adventure is an underwhelming damage buff. It has both lower values (20%, rather than 30%) and a longer cooldown (6 turns, rather than 5 turns) than standard buffs of its type. The lower steroids aren’t compensated for elsewhere, either—Don Quixote falls short of the expected 50% in total first-NP steroids most ST Servants reach. In exchange, Don Quixote gets… a vanilla guts effect. Some survival is better than nothing, and guts skills can be nice in that their duration makes timing them less of an issue, but still, this is a weak skill on the whole. The fact that this skill buffs both Quick and Buster is kinda nice on Don Quixote, I guess—it helps his crit output a bit.

Dmg Up

Open Door of Dreams EX

Increase own ATK (3 turns).
Increase own NP Gauge each turn (3 turns).
Apply to self: Gain Critical Stars each turn (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
ATK +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
NP per turn +	5%	5.5%	6%	6.5%	7%	7.5%	8%	8.5%	9%	10%
Stars per turn +	5	6	6	7	7	8	8	9	9	10
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Opening the Door to Dreams is a better skill. 20% is still low for a selfish 3-turn buff, but it’s more expected on an attack buff than on a card-type buff, especially since this skill has more useful additional effects than the first skill does. This skill gives Don Quixote passive NP gain and passive star gen for 3 turns, making it easier for him to loop his NP and secure crits. Honestly, this skill could stand to be on a turn shorter of a cooldown, but Don Quixote is Quick and not super likely to reach a second buff cycle anyway, and everything here is generally nice, so… could be worse.

Start Np

Closed Book of Reality E

* Requires 30% NP Gauge to use.
Decrease own NP Gauge by 300%.
Increase NP Gauge for all allies except self.
Gain Critical Stars.

Show Info

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

Closing the Curtain of Reality is a lore-compliant skill you will realistically never touch. It requires at least 30% charge to use, and it drains Don Quixote’s entire NP gauge. In exchange, it gives 30% charge to Don Quixote’s allies, and a burst of 20 stars. It’s unfair to compare to Castoria but… really? She gets 30% AoE charge, plus an attack buff, without any drawbacks, and Don Quixote has to have this massive demerit tied to a weaker overall effect? This skill is part of why I said above that Don Quixote is solidly not an off-support: all of his offensive party buffs are tied to his NP, but using his party charge skill prevents him from using that NP. The closest thing to a practical use for this is to start Don Quixote with Mana Loading and a 10% charge (such as from Waver, Reines, or Chen) and then use this to funnel a bunch of starting charge back to the supports. You could do this, but why would you? It’s that much extra charge you have to find for Don Quixote, assuming you want him to NP, and if you don’t want him to NP, you could… just slot in another support instead? I guess if you were in a case where you absolutely needed a Castoria or Skadi NP to prevent a party wipe, and they didn’t have enough gauge, but they did have at least 70%, and Don Quixote had at least 30%... then you might get value from this for enabling a defensive NP that saves the run. But even in that case, using this skill leaves Don Quixote with an empty gauge, slowing you down a lot. Unless you’re about to win in a turn or two, this is unlikely to save what is probably a losing run, and the conditions for it to be useful are so absurdly specific as to be completely impractical. Don Quixote is just a two-skill Servant, and you should go into any attempts to use him assuming him to be as such.

Noble Phantasm

Valiente Asalto Dedicado a la Princesa D++

Deal damage to a single enemy.
Deal 150% supereffective damage against [Giant] enemies.
Deal 1000 damage to self [Demerit]. *Caution: Can reduce HP to 0.
Increase ATK for all allies by 20% (3 turns).

<Overcharge>

Increase Critical Strength for all allies (3 turns).

Show Info/Video

Valiente Asalto Dedicado a la Princesa

Ah, I Offer my Lance to my Beloved Princess!

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	D++	Anti-Giant	5

Effect	Deal damage to a single enemy. Deal 150% supereffective damage against [Giant] enemies. Deal 1000 damage to self [Demerit]. *Caution: Can reduce HP to 0. Increase ATK for all allies by 20% (3 turns).

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Damage +	1200%	1600%	1800%	1900%	2000%
Supereffective ATK +	150%	150%	150%	150%	150%
HP -	1000	1000	1000	1000	1000
Atk +	20%	20%	20%	20%	20%

Overcharge Effect	Increase Critical Strength for all allies (3 turns).

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
Crit Damage +	20%	30%	40%	50%	60%

Valiente Assault Dedicado a la Princesa is a decent NP. It doesn’t have best refund, and its buffs are post-damage, but it does give Don Quixote some ramp, which ST SRs often don’t get. The partywide attack and crit buffs are sadly underutilized here—in order for Don Quixote to stack this enough for them to matter to an ally, he’ll need enough resources focused on him to loop, at which point he’s just your DPS anyway. The crit buff is also too small to make much of a difference, especially since Skadi floods the crit bracket on Quick cards. 20% Buster, 40% attack, and 20% crit isn’t enough for especially notable Buster crits, and an extra 20% crit on top of 200% in Quick Crit buffs isn’t going to make a difference. You get decent Buster crits on turn 3, but there’s no guarantee you’ll draw Don Quixote’s Busters on that turn.

This NP also deals bonus damage against Giants. This is a pretty small niche, but it’s there if you need it. Out-of-niche, Don Quixote’s turn-1 NP damage is low, but turn 2 is decent and turn 3 is actually pretty good, thanks to his ramp. He still loses out overall to Summer Yu, but if you missed her and don’t want to run Arts for some reason, he can kill Archers well enough, I guess.

As one final note, this NP is somewhat unusual in that its HP demerit can actually kill Don Quixote. Be careful when using it—you wouldn’t want Don Quixote to accidentally drop himself when you aren’t expecting it.

Usage Tips

Overall, Don Quixote is an extremely bland ST Quick unit from a gameplay standpoint. He has good cards, so ideally he runs double Skadi (plus whatever third support you have access to) and let him loop. Oberon is the most flexible third support, though Reines is arguably better if she gets to NP—she provides more overall damage buffs (even beating Oberon’s burst turn unless Don Quixote has an NP damage CE) and her defensive tools and NP gain buffs help Don Quixote as well. Sadly, Don Quixote’s attack buff does not scale with overcharge, but his crit buff does, at least, helping his cards a little.

Quick can also stall, as always, with Skadi/DPS/Castoria setups. Don Quixote doesn’t have much unique value here, except in that his NP buffs will almost always be in effect and he can burn his third skill in an emergency. I wouldn’t really recommend trying to stall with this guy, and his HP demerit is particularly poorly-suited to Castoria teams, but if you want to force Don Quixote into clearing a fight he’s not suited for, this is probably your best bet.

Quick sadly does not scale down as well as Buster or Arts do. If you don’t have your own top-tier supports, you’ll want to bring Don Quixote with whatever NP charge supports you do have. Even Koyanskaya is better than nothing, since she helps Don Quixote’s Buster crits and provides decent steroids versus Man enemies. You can fill out the team with whichever free or budget supports you do have: Hans is always decent, as is Barti. Bonus points if your additional supports bring AoE buffs and can deal decent damage on their own. Laksmibai is actually a decent pick here, as she and Don Quixote can supplement one another’s buffs to help each other’s crits deal more damage.

It might be worth noting that there’s a small value proposition for 90+ nodes here as well. Don Quixote can drop a single-enemy wave, giving his NP buffs an ally. If he’s able to build 30% gauge (probably through AoE batteries on a support or DPS somewhere) he can reflect that gauge back to the DPS to enable setups that wouldn’t otherwise be possible. Is it worth investing in him for? No. Is it there? Yeah, I guess.

Don Quixote’s CE choices are pretty simple: the Black Grail brings the largest damage increase, while starting NP gauge CEs like Traces of Christmas make for more flexible loopage (and doesn’t have the HP demerit if you’re playing slower). Pick whichever is best for your planned use case.

Given Don Quixote’s NP’s demerit, sticking a few healing CCs on his cards isn’t a bad idea—a bit of healing placed before his NP can occasionally stop the demerit from killing him, which you might need. Aside from that, crit damage CCs are a good idea for Don Quixote’s Buster cards, as he has decently easy crit access but pretty low crit buffs on his Busters.

Grail Potential

Conclusion

Don Quixote is a very fun character. His art is great, his concept is great, his writing is great… but he pays for that by being the worst of the Traum bunch mechanically. His bases are solid, and the right set of buffs could make him good, but for now he’s an easy pass or a trophy pull. Not much else to say.

Rabbit's Arbitrary Ratings

Overall: 6/10
Single-Target DPS: 6/10
AoE DPS: N/A
Survivability: 2/10
Offensive Utility: 4/10
Defensive Utility: 1/10
Farming Usefulness: 4/10
Windmill-Slaying: 10/10