MMM - Titular Terrestrial TYPE Tenders Tremendous Turnout, Tagged by Thaumaturge That's True-blue To Lady Yu (7th Anniversary Gacha)

I’d never complain about Arcueid’s inclusion in a billion years, but why did she have to be a Mooncancer? I’ve already got 3 grailed Mooncancers in my roster, and she’s just inflating that number further. Maybe it’s my own fault for exclusively liking characters from Moon Cell or associated with the moon, but regardless it tickles my OCD side that wants an even balance of grailed Servants.

As an SSR Mooncancer, Arc’s competition isn’t particularly numerous, but it’s there nonetheless. Among her competition, she possesses the highest Attack stat, in exchange for the lowest HP. While that may lead you to believe she’s a glass cannon, it in fact simply makes her bulky rather than an absolute unit. The Mooncancer class as a whole has very defensive statlines, so Arc only manages to barely scrape the average SSR Attack value, roughly speaking, despite being hyper-offensive for a Mooncancer.

On the whole, it’s a good place to be, though.

Arc’s passives are an entirely different beast. With 5 in total, she not only possesses an array of high-ranking Magic Resistance, Territory Creation, Item Creation, and Independent Action, but also her own unique passive - Ultimate One D.

In terms of lore, this skill is in fact the “I am a TYPE” skill, which would usually provide her with a power boost necessary to always one-up her opponent assuming she’s got her planet backing her. However, since she’s summoned as a Heroic Spirit, we don’t get that level of OP-ness. Instead she gets a significant 30% boost to all card types while the terrain is “1000-Year Castle”. Or in other words, Millennium Castle Brunestud. That’s an aspect of her kit we’ll get onto later.

The bottom line is, her passive lineup is excellent, providing her with good resistance to debuffs, a notable boost to her Arts cards, more reliable debuff application, and some bonus critical damage. Combined with her more offensive stat spread, she’s got a very good baseline.

With a base NP gain of 0.45% and 2 4-hit Arts cards, with her Territory Creation in play, Arc clocks in with a base Arts gain of 2.01, pretty good considering she’s otherwise suffering from the curse of high Arts hitcounts.

While that NP gain is well above average, her other cards do suffer for it somewhat - her Quick card is merely mediocre, and her Extra is similarly very middling for NP gain, as they both work off the same, relatively low base NP gain. But in general, having good Arts cards is a worthwhile trade for mediocre NP gain elsewhere.

On the matter of stargen, it’s a somewhat similar story. Her Quick card is pretty good for stargen with its 4 hits, but with only a single Quick, and a very normal 3-hit Buster, Arc isn’t exactly spewing out stars. She’ll produce a respectable sum on Brave chains (especially with the new changes surrounding the Mighty chain, and the Quick first card bonus in general), but she’s certainly not a Servant to turn to for dedicated star generation.

So how is Archetype: Earth on the whole? On one hand, the world is quite literally her oyster:

However, she may have to pick up the pieces in some areas. If I had to be specific… about 17 pieces, cut by a knife?

While Arcueid isn’t the kind of game-breaking anniversary Servant Koyanskaya and Castoria may be, she also isn’t a support. You’ve got to cut her some slack in that regard.

What Arc does offer, though, is some fairly-reliable Buster farming with flexible setups, as well as fun and effective performance in CQ’s, especially since she can provide an additional hard defensive option to the team that bypasses one of the banes of CQ teams - buff removal. It helps that just her very basic gameplay stats are very satisfying to work with - her NP gain is solid, and with the gauge charges to her allies she can throw around, as well as the 30% card boosters she gets from her unique terrain, she feels very souped up when you get her into the heat of things.

Helps that the Tsukihime theme remains an absolute banger 22 years later, you can literally take over the game’s jukebox and have it playing constantly if you keep the 1000-Year Castle terrain looped.

So yeah, the bottom line is, Arc is a moderately good universal farmer with really good CQ performance, and just feels great to use. Even if you’re swamped by high-investment Mooncancers in your roster like me, she’s a strong option. Rath™ Seal of Approval, with a recommendation.

Well, that’s another NPC Servant added to the roster, if nothing else. While Xu Fu certainly is adorable, it’s a bit of a shame her inclusion is pretty much entirely overshadowed by Arc’s addition to the game.

I suppose in her eyes it doesn’t matter. After all - she’s reunited with her beloved Lady Yu, thus completing the incredibly messy love rectangle that is Xu Fu - Xiang Yu - Yu Meiren - Lanling. Though frankly it’s more just Yu’s unwanted harem.

As the first 3* Alter Ego introduced to the game, Xu Fu frankly doesn’t have any points for comparison. However, her statline largely remains consistent with the Alter Ego class as a whole, merely placed in a lower rarity. Simply put, she has Saber-like stats, if a little weaker on the attack side of things.

For a Silver Servant she hits reasonably hard, and doesn’t slack in the HP front, so frankly she’s in a pretty good spot there.

Moving onto passives, Xu Fu has a number of unique passives. Village Creation acts as equivalent to B-rank Territory Creation, while also boosting her defensive NP gain by a negligible amount, she packs Item Creation much like a Caster, making her debuffs more consistent, and the remaining 2 passives…are either worthless or actively negative.

High Servant, a skill only shared with the Sakura sisters, does nothing in terms of gameplay and essentially only exists to indicate a Servant is basically made out of a composition of multiple Divine Spirits. I imagine that’s what places her in the Alter Ego class, too.

Meanwhile Weak Constitution (Yu Mei-ren) EX…well, you can imagine what it represents. No simp on earth, man or woman, can lay a hand on their oshi, and she’s no different. Hilariously it isn’t that impactful since Xu Fu isn’t an offensive Servant in the first place, but it is funny.

With 0.59% base NP gain and 3-hit Arts cards on a BAAQQ card deck, all I can say is: “Aw, shit. Here we go again.”

Coming out at 1.91 base Arts gain, Xu Fu’s Arts cards sit slightly above average. Thankfully, her other card hitcounts are also pretty good, with 5-hit Quicks actually providing some solid NP gain on her other primary card type, and even her 4-hit Buster does provide a decent sum of gauge, if for a Buster card.

The main flaw for her NP gain-wise is her Extra, with its 4 hits not really putting in the work you’d like due to her mediocre base NP gain. Considering how her card deck is conductive to generating gauge it’s not the worst thing in the world, but it is a definite flaw.

On the stargen side of things, Xu Fu is pretty great. Those 5-hit Quicks really put in work, and her kit on the whole is reasonably high on hitcounts. Regardless of the chain she’s pretty likely to provide a good quantity of stars. Even more so now with how the new Mighty Chain mechanic means getting the Quick first card boost to stargen is even easier.

While a little intimidating at first, the truth is Xu Fu is pretty good at both NP gauge and Star generation, so good for her.

So how’s Xu Fu with everything in consideration? On one hand, she’s got the key to success, and maybe immorality as well:

However, she’s also not really into this whole elixir thing, and frankly may just piss off to Japan to found a new dynasty and (she wishes she could) elope with Yu Meiren:

Xu Fu ultimately forms yet another name to the growing list of “not 50% gauge charger supports, but low deployment cost and effective as a battlesuit swap” Servants. While she does outperform her same-rarity comrades for the most part, Da Vinci Ruler provides incredibly stiff competition, and even trying to apply her outside of that role means either trying some flaky solo strategies on a Servant with no hard defensive buffs, or running her as a devoted support to one of the weakest Servants in the game.

Believe me, Xu Fu can be pretty fun to use, if only to try and break Yu as hard as humanly possible, but in a practical sense she doesn’t really leverage her role as a support, or her class that effectively.

Maybe misery loves company, considering the object of her affections is in a similar boat.