MMM - Dogged Doggo Doyens are Deferred Deep Delves as Decrepit Dramatist Dictates Densetsu no Dissertation (Nanmei Yumihari Hakkenden Gacha)

The Modern Magus Magazine

Well this is quite the surprise, but a welcome one - a sudden new event in between the hype of Traum and all of our Anniversary / Summer content feast in a month’s time?

Shame for the western audience that it’s surrounding a piece of Japanese literature few had heard of prior to the event, but it’s never too late to learn, huh?

It’s surprising Bakin’s work never took off in the West. After all, it has an overflow of cute dogs. That always gets the crowds going, right?

Introduction

If I had a dollar for every time a famous figure in Japanese culture was an elderly man, but was made a cute girl in Fate because their daughter helped them produce their works at some point, I’d have $2, and boy if that isn’t going into my Summer gacha funds.

And hey, given we got a new addition to the old man roster in the last gacha, I’ll forgive it this time.

Servant Data

Rider

QQAAB (Archer)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

3

2

6

4

Attribute	Human
Alignment	Lawful Balanced

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

Max HP 14,256

HP Rank

Max ATK 10,723

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,657	Base HP	2,090
Max Atk	10,723	Max HP	14,256
Grail Atk	11,738	Grail HP	15,618

Riding B

Increase your Quick Card effectiveness by 8%.

Magic Resistance B

Increase your Debuff Resist by 17.5%.

Divinity C

Apply Damage Plus for yourself (Total Card Damage +150).

Overview

As a 5* Rider, Bakin unfortunately seems to embody some of the lesser quirks of the class. Riders have some of the lower base stat totals of any class, and it can result in Attack stats like Bakin’s, sitting clean at the second-lowest for her class and rarity, only above Medb. She does compensate for it with the second-best HP, but unless you’re specifically a full support (which, hint, she’s not) that’s ultimately a strict drawback.

While thankfully Bakin gets her fill’s worth of HP for that tradeoff, it’s still not a great position to be put in.

Her passives are more or less typical, too. With modest ranks in Riding, Magic Resistance, and Divinity, she gets a decent boost to her Quick cards, some resilience to debuffs, and a minute boost to card damage in exchange for weakness to anti-Divine trait effects.

Not a particularly stellar start.

NP Generation

Card Hits	3	3	2	6	4
Per Hit	0.41%	0.41%	0.41%	0.41%	0.41%

	NP per Hit (%)	0.41%
NP when Attacked (%)	3%

	Star Absorption	197
Star Generation per Hit	9.0%

Servant Skills

Start Np

Svabhāva B

Increase own NP Gauge.
Increase NP Gauge for all allies except self by 10%.
Gain Critical Stars.

Show Info

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

First up is Svabhava. Named after the Buddhist and Hindu principle of living creatures having an intrinsic nature, it’s a theme explored in Bakin’s works.

As a skill, it’s your obligatory gauge charger, providing Bakin with 30% gauge upon use, as well as charging her allies’ gauges (except herself) for another 10%. While not the craziest gauge charge support out there, it is one regardless, which is nice to have.

In addition, this skill makes for a modest star bomb, providing 15 stars for the team at max level. I may get tired saying it, but gauge chargers are always great, even if this one feels slightly undertuned in comparison to some others. It could realistically also provide the 10% charge to Bakin herself, making it a 40% self-gauge charge and still not be too broken, as well as line up decently with the skill’s 8-turn base cooldown.

And regardless, even a 10% gauge charge for a Servant’s own supports can be very key in a number of situations. It’s not a bad skill to have at all.

All Type Up

Eight Benevolences and Righteousnesses A

Increase Quick Card effectiveness for an ally (3 turns).
Increase Arts Card effectiveness for an ally (3 turns).
Increase Buster Card effectiveness for an ally (3 turns).
Increase Critical Strength for an ally (3 turns).
Increase NP Strength for an ally (3 turns).
Restore HP for an ally.
Apply Evade to an ally (1 time, 3 turns).
Apply Debuff Immune to an ally (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%
Arts +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
Buster +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
Crit Damage +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
NP Damage +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
HP +	500	550	600	650	700	750	800	850	900	1000
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Next up is The Eight Virtues. You get three guesses as to how many benefits this skill provides, and the first two don’t count.

This skill is an eightfold buff party for a singular ally, providing them with a 20% Quick/Arts/Buster booster, a 20% Critical damage buff, a 20% NP damage buff, a 1-time Evade, and a 1-time Debuff Immunity buff for 3 turns, with a minute heal as the cherry on top.

It goes without saying this is a spectacular supportive ability, or simply a buff for Bakin herself to take advantage of. While the buff numbers are relatively small, it is a 44% damage boost to any NP, as well as a range of defensive buffs that any Servant could use and abuse. The combo of Evasion and Debuff Immunity on an ally-target is particularly nice for CQ content.

Put plainly, it’s a spectacular skill, and it begins to make sense why Bakin is lacking in some other areas if she has this in her back pocket. With a base cooldown of 8 turns, it’s even surprisingly short cooldown for how strong it is.
Either that, or they really wanted to continue the number joke.

Arts Up

Lost in Writing A

Increase own Arts Card effectiveness (3 turns).
Apply Buff to self (3 turns): When attacking with Arts Cards, increase all allies' ATK by 5% (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%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

A skill named after a novel of Akutagawa Ryonosuke, who to begin with I only know of because a single Touhou song is named after his novel Kappa, Gesaku Zanmai actually is a skill to take the title literally, being about how Bakin dedicated their life to the Gesaku style of Japanese literature.

But hey, it’s a Japanese literature pun, so it’d be a shame to not call it by the other famous author’s work.

This skill is incredibly basic, but deceptively powerful. Providing a 30% Arts buff to Bakin for 3 turns, this acts as her primary offensive steroid, but also provides a simple but powerful buff that grants a 5% Attack Up buff to the team for 3 turns every time she lands an Arts card.

And let me tell you, that bonus will add up quickly. Even if technically she can only do 2 Arts cards every 3 turns, her Arts NP also triggers this buff, meaning she essentially gets a built-in damage ramping not just to her own NP, but the whole team’s damage. And if she pulls off an Arts Brave chain or two, that offensive boost gets all the more powerful.

To put it in a more measurable expression, for the duration she essentially has something like a 10-15% Attack buff on for the team, which can peak at 25-30% if your card shuffle luck is good. That does ultimately make it a bizarre Charisma buff by proxy, but it lasts longer than a typical Charisma (due to how the 3-turn buff applies another 3-turn buff during its duration), so it provides some funky interactions.

In spite of all that it’s still ultimately just a straight damage buff, even if a cool one.

Noble Phantasm

Nansou Satomi Eight Dog Chronicles A

Apply 30% Special ATK [Demonic] to self (1 turn) [Activates first].
Deal damage to all enemies.
Gain 8 Critical Stars.

<Overcharge>

Deal supereffective damage against [Evil] alignment enemies.

Show Info/Video

Nansou Satomi Eight Dog Chronicles

Nansō Satomi Hakkenden

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	A	Anti-Personnel	4

Effect	Apply 30% Special ATK [Demonic] to self (1 turn) [Activates first]. Deal damage to all enemies. Gain 8 Critical Stars.

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Special ATK +	30%	30%	30%	30%	30%
Damage +	450%	600%	675%	712.5%	750%
Stars +	8	8	8	8	8

Overcharge Effect	Deal supereffective damage against [Evil] alignment enemies.

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

Nansō Satomi Hakkenden, or in other words, the title of the novel this entire event is based around, makes for Bakins Noble Phantasm.

With this thing being an Arts AOE NP, we’ll be examining all the refund and farming goodness that comes with later, but first is the effects.

First and foremost, this NP provides a 30% anti-Demonic trait buff to Bakin for a turn, providing that moderate damage boost to both the NP itself and any of her attacks which follow. The Demonic trait is well-known for being one of the most common effective damage traits, especially for common mobs, in the game, hitting pretty much anything that’s a demon, magically-created, or a phantasmal beast, including most of the mini-boss type enemies out there, and 19 Servants.

Following that, this NP dishes out its damage, with an Overcharge-scaling effective damage modifier versus Evil trait foes. This trait is oddly probably less useful to hit, covering about ¼ of the Servants in the game, as well as a small minority of enemy-only units. Certainly useful when the stars align to get the damage boost, but not as frequently encountered as the prior trait.

Then, lastly, after dealing the damage this NP provides a hilarious 8-star bomb upon each use. No guesses allowed for what eight “stars” of this event they refer to. Remember to pet your doggos.

And now the nitty-gritty details. With just Bakin’s own buffs, her NP comes in with a refund of 22.14%, not bad by any means. When you throw her into the deep end of reality with a double Castoria setup, that refund bumps up to 59%, more than enough to form 3-turn loops.

But naturally, that’s only one side of the equation. In terms of damage, Bakin runs into a fair bit more trouble, though it’s partially the fault of her Attack stat. With her own buffs active, her NP pulls a damage output of 20.9k a pop neutral, not abysmal but far from great, either. When she’s hitting her anti-Demonic buff it gets a sizable boost to 26k, but that’s still not breaking any records.

What matters most is how she performs in practical farming setups, though. With a 50% gauge CE, double Castoria and 1k Atk fous, she’s putting out 64k damage neutral. Enough to farm her class advantage, but definitely not hitting the threshold for universal farming.

Saying that, though, I’m obliged to theorycraft Black Grail setups on her - With LB Black Grail, double Castoria with Da Vinci Ruler on battlesuit swap (the most budget option that makes Black Grail farming consistent for her), she’s dishing out 118k damage wave 1, ramping up to 151k on wave 3. And such a setup should be consistent if she’s getting good sums of overkill on the first 2 waves.

Bottom line is, she makes for a dependable class advantage farmer with the potential for Black Grail setups, even if she’s not the most spectacular at them.

Conclusion

So how is Bakin, looking at the big picture? On one hand, she’s looking like a dog’s dinner (In British speak, this is somehow a compliment):

Bakin makes for a solid farmer. In spite of her pathetic base NP gain, somehow her NP makes up for it with interest, being able to loop consistently in a good range of setups. Add in her ability to run Black Grail setups and high damage ceiling when hitting her effective traits, and she’s probably going to be the ideal option for farming nodes, even for those not in her class advantage.

Bakin has a singular, if very powerful, supportive niche. The Eight Virtues’ buff is one of the strongest singular buff skills in the game, providing unmatched offensive and defensive support in one, long-lasting, relatively-low cooldown package. While it’s still not enough to make her a valuable dedicated support, this support alone, combined with the minor 10% gauge charge she can provide to allies, may make her a worthwhile off-support in some situations.

However, sometimes it’s also best to let sleeping dogs lie:

As I feel like I’m saying a lot lately, being able to do Black Grail farming setups doesn’t excuse mediocrity otherwise. The Rider class in particular is very harsh on the competition for farming, especially Arts, with Habetrot being a high-damage, high-consistency Arts farmer with a similar aptitude for Black Grail setups, and, unlike almost any other Servant in the game, she’s available to everyone at any time at NP5, with no need for event reruns or permanent Main Interludes. While her supportive capabilities do let her stand out a little, Bakin fails to do anything that justifies her gacha SSR price tag compared to Habetrot.

Honestly, at this point introducing any AOE Arts Rider feels a little unfair. Habetrot is practically a gift directly from Kinoko Nasu to the rosters of FGO players, and as a result it’s very hard for another Servant to waltz into her specialty and beat her. Bakin is unfortunately no different in that regard.

While she has some fun tools to play with, such as her Arts card-based damage ramping from Gesaku Zanmai, as well as her incredibly powerful ally buff and the dual effective damage buffs on her NP, in a practical sense she can’t do much to distinguish herself.

And frankly, it presents an issue for me. The MMM’s general objective is to assess whether a Servant is only worth obtaining for your love of the character (no seal of approval), powerful enough to make a meaningful contribution to a Servant roster (seal of approval), or a centralizing Servant who can perform roles in gameplay that no other option can (recommendation). Were she in any other class, it’d be simple for Bakin to be handed the Seal and be done with it.

But Habetrot makes things difficult, since the bar for a passing farming Rider in FGO suddenly becomes “are they any better than Habetrot?” rather than “are they capable of farming class advantage consistently?” And frankly, it feels unfair to adjust my own assessment criteria solely because some Scottish midget with a big gun exists.

So here, Rath™ Seal of Approval, with the “Please bear in mind you can use Habetrot if you want.” disclaimer on the side.

Outro

A single new Servant means a short MMM, and this one is no different. Based on what people have spoken about in datamines, we may be due another gacha and Servant attached for this event, but I’m keeping that under wraps for both myself and the viewers.

Until then, remember to send your little puppers on errands, and I’ll catch you all on the flipside!

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MMM - Dogged Doggo Doyens are Deferred Deep Delves as Decrepit Dramatist Dictates Densetsu no Dissertation (Nanmei Yumihari Hakkenden Gacha)

The Modern Magus Magazine

QQAAB (Archer)

Quick Card

Quick Card

Arts Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

Traits

Tags

Start Np

All Type Up

Arts Up

Nansou Satomi Eight Dog Chronicles

Outro

Links

About the Author(s)

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