MMM - Frigid Femme Fan of Frozen Frucose Forms Faction with Fatal Fuya, Finally, Flying Fólkvangr-Frequenting Fighters Ferry Firearms in Force (Summer 2022 Gacha Part 3)

Table of Contents

Scathach-Skadi (Ruler)
Assassin of the Nightless City (Caster)
Valkyrie (Summer)

The Modern Magus Magazine

We find ourselves in the final stretch. Sure, the banner’s been out for a while, but so long as the MMM is published before it ends I’m technically on time, right?

Right?

…Odin above, have mercy, I can only go so fast.

Scathach-Skadi (Ruler)

Introduction

Do you ever think camera angles in waifu-focused mobage are weird sometimes?

Why do I ask? Oh, no reason.

Servant Data

Ruler

Buster Card

4

3

4

5

6

Attribute	Heaven
Alignment	Chaotic Summer

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

Max HP 14,850

HP Rank

Max ATK 10,868

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,679	Base HP	2,178
Max Atk	10,868	Max HP	14,850
Grail Atk	11,897	Grail HP	16,269

Magic Resistance EX

Increase your Debuff Resist by 25%.

Territory Creation A

Increase your Arts Card effectiveness by 10%.

Core of the Goddess A

Apply Damage Plus (Total Card Damage +250).
Increase Debuff Resist for yourself by 25%.

Overview

As a 5* Ruler, Skadi has a pretty large array of Servants to square herself up against. With the 4th best Attack and 4th worst HP of her class/rarity, she’s pretty much average in both stat spread and how much power is put into her base stats to begin with. While that attack stat may look relatively average at first glance, it’s worth remembering the Ruler class has a 1.1x Attack modifier, so she’s in fact hitting harder than most SSR’s even if she doesn’t look like it.

And the Ruler class, while packing little offensive class advantage, does offer significant bulk, which is furthered by its own defensive class advantage. Skadi is no exception, possessing a hefty HP pool, especially for her offensive might, and that only gets exemplified by her ability to resist damage from most classes in the game.

So far as passives go, Skadi is relatively normal, for a Summer Servant, at least. EX Magic Resistance provides her with a very noticeable passive resistance to debuffs, which is boosted even further by her Goddess Core passive, making her tied with Stheno and Euryale for the highest passive debuff resistance in the game, at a flat 50%. Goddess Core also provides her with typical Divinity weaknesses, and a minor boost to her card damage.

Lastly, her A-rank Territory Creation provides a notable 10% boost to her Arts card, improving both her NP gain and damage output with it.

On the whole, Skadi is working with a very solid base statline, backed by a very convenient degree of passive debuff resistance.

NP Generation

Card Hits	4	3	4	5	6
Per Hit	0.78%	0.78%	0.78%	0.78%	0.78%

	NP per Hit (%)						0.78%
	NP when Attacked (%)						3%

	Star Absorption	102
	Star Generation per Hit	9.8%

As you can probably surmise by my earlier comments, Skadi has a card deck of BBAQQ, packing a lone Arts card. That Arts card is, however, very good, with her base NP gain of 0.78%, 3 hits on its hitcount and her Territory Creation combining for a base Arts gain of 2.57, well above average even for a Servant with a single Arts card to their name.
While not as impressive as her Arts card, Skadi’s Quicks and Busters are also pretty solid, with her Quicks providing more or less solid NP gain, and her Busters counting among the few that provide enough gauge to not be absolute dead weights in Arts / Mighty chains. Rounded off by a solid 5-hit Extra card, Skadi frankly boasts a well-rounded NP gain profile that doesn’t lack in any singular area. Pretty much any of her cards will generate decently with the Arts first card bonus, especially if crits are on the menu.

On the stargen side of things, Skadi bizarrely manages to do even better. 4 hits apiece on both her Quicks and Busters means she generates a solid quantity of stars with 80% of her deck, and her Extra doesn’t slack in that area, either, making her something of a virtuoso of stargen - she won’t produce anything crazy in quantity, but pretty much any brave chain out of her will produce a good amount of stars.

Skadi simply doesn’t pack any weaknesses in these areas, she’s a genuine good all-rounder for NP gain and stargen alike.

Servant Skills

Quick Up

Primordial Rune (Midsummer) A

Increase Quick Card effectiveness for an ally (3 turns).
Increase Buster Card Critical Strength for an ally (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Quick +	30%	32%	34%	36%	38%	40%	42%	44%	46%	50%
Crit Damage (Buster) +	50%	55%	60%	65%	70%	75%	80%	85%	90%	100%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

First on Skadi’s skill lineup is Primordial Rune (Midsummer). A very to-the-point skill, it provides a 50% Quick booster to a targeted ally for 3 turns, as well as, you guessed it, a 100%, 3-turn Qui-Buster, I mean, Buster card critical damage buff.

What, did it remind you of something? This obviously isn’t just normal Skadi’s first skill - it gives bonus crit damage to Buster cards, they’re completely different!

Putting statistical similarities aside, Skadi’s vanilla (heh, Ice cream) form is powerful for good reason, and having a hefty 3-turn Quick buff to drop on an ally was certainly part of it. This skill is functionally identical, so naturally it’s powerful, but even more so for Skadi’s own purposes, as she has her own damaging NP in this form, so it can act as a NP steroid for herself if need be.

Regardless, it’s an incredibly potent supportive tool, and one that can be dropped on the lady herself or an ally, while having a relatively short 8-turn base cooldown, for a skill of its power.

Dmg Up

True Summer's Ice Cream C

Increase ATK for all allies (3 turns).
Increase Quick Card effectiveness for all allies (3 turns).
Increase Buster Card effectiveness for all allies (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%
Quick +	10%	10.5%	11%	11.5%	12%	12.5%	13%	13.5%	14%	15%
Buster +	10%	10.5%	11%	11.5%	12%	12.5%	13%	13.5%	14%	15%
Stars per turn +	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	15
CD	9	9	9	9	9	8	8	8	8	7

Next on the skill lineup is True Summer’s Ice Cream, providing a Charisma-style buff for the whole party, while simultaneously not being a ripoff of OG Skadi’s kit. Incredible! It’s already improving!

This skill provides the typical 20% Attack buff to the team for 3 turns, as well as a 15% Quick and Buster booster for the same duration, and lastly a 15 stars/turn buff on Skadi herself for, you guessed it, 3 turns.

Simply put, it’s a very potent offensive steroid, boosting both Skadi’s primary card types for the whole team, and simultaneously providing a generous sum of stars to the team each turn. Just through her first two skills alone, Skadi is providing a 98% damage boost to a Quick damage dealer, or herself, over 3 turns, on top of the massively increased Quick NP refund and continual stargen.

The skill is raw damage, but damage is ultimately what wins battles, and having in spades is not a bad thing to offer at all. A simplistic skill, for sure, but very good at what it aims to do - enable massive damage and refund with Quick NP’s.

The sole drawback is that this skill has a punishing 9-turn base cooldown, making it particularly sluggish in extended battles, should it come to it. For farming purposes it’s hardly relevant, but that cooldown will definitely bite in difficult content.

Start Np

Lost in Thought Late on a Summer's Night A+

Increase NP Gauge for an ally.
Increase Buster Critical Star Gather Rate for an ally (1 turn).
Gain Critical Stars.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
NP +	30%	32%	34%	36%	38%	40%	42%	44%	46%	50%
Star Gather (Buster) +	3000%	3200%	3400%	3600%	3800%	4000%	4200%	4400%	4600%	5000%
Stars +	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	15
CD	9	9	9	9	9	8	8	8	8	7

Last on the list is Lost in Thought Late on a Summer’s Night. The skill name might be wordy, but I won’t need many to surmise this skill - it’s a 50% gauge charger.

Big shock. Skadi? With a targeted 50% gauge charge? I know, right? But unlike her vanilla form, Summer Skadi has some bonus treats sprinkled on top of the otherwise-raw gauge charge to the soul of her target, providing a colossal star focus to Buster cards of the target for 1 turn, and providing a 15-star bomb as well, in case you lacked the stars to take advantage of it.

As you may expect, any targeted 50% gauge charger is incredible, and the crit damage-focused effects are just the icing on the cake, setting up a big NP for an ally (or, again, Skadi herself) and also providing them with the tools for some devastating crits in a Brave chain.

You probably also notice by this point that her kit is quite literally just OG Skadi but better, the only thing the original Skadi has over her in skill set being the sole focus on Quick cards for her critical damage buff. No wonder this Summer form is a little controversial - FGO doesn’t normally do this kind of blatant one-upmanship.

This skill does come with at least some kind of downside compared to normal Skadi - the base cooldown is 9 turns instead of 8. Yeah, it won’t matter at all for farming purposes, but hey - her gauge charging will be less frequent in difficult content.

Noble Phantasm

Gate of Aegir A

Deal damage to all enemies.
Decrease NP Gauge for all enemies by 1.

<Overcharge>

Increase own NP Strength if [near water] (1 turn) [Activates first].
Deal supereffective bonus damage against [Lawful] alignment enemies.

Show Info/Video

Gate of Aegir

Gate to a Great Sea Brimming With Life

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	A	Anti-Summer	6

Effect	Deal damage to all enemies. Decrease NP Gauge for all enemies by 1.

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Damage +	600%	800%	900%	950%	1000%
NP -	1	1	1	1	1

Overcharge Effect	Increase own NP Strength if [near water] (1 turn) [Activates first]. Deal supereffective bonus damage against [Lawful] alignment enemies.

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
NP Damage +	10%	15%	20%	25%	30%
Supereffective ATK +	150%	162.5%	175%	187.5%	200%

Rounding things off, let’s cover Skadi’s NP, Gate of Aegir. Unlike her Caster form, this is a damaging Quick AOE NP, which means as always we’ll have to analyze it for looping and farming performance. But first, the actual effects:

Before anything else, this NP provides Skadi with an Overcharge-scaling 10% NP Power boost if on Near Water terrain, something that’s unlikely to be frequent, but it’s convenient when you do get the bonus. Then, it deals damage, hitting 6 times (and in turn, producing a pretty large amount of stars) with a Super-Effective modifier versus Lawful trait enemies.

Like all the alignment-based traits, this will exclusively hit Servants and Servant-type exclusive enemies, with absolutely no generics possessing the trait. Of the Lawful-Chaotic alignment chart, Lawful is the middle child, having more members to it than Neutral, but less than Chaotic. Regardless, it hits roughly ⅓ of the Servant roster for effective damage, something that’s furthered by Skadi’s Ruler class and the low count of Lawful Avengers (most of them are Chaotic). So it’ll hit effective damage fairly often versus Servant targets, in conclusion.

The final aspect of this NP is pretty simple, dropping the NP gauge of every target by 1 step. A rarely-seen effect, especially on damaging AOE NP’s, this can effectively allow one to stall out an entire enemy wave’s NP’s if you can pull them off with enough frequency, making it particularly useful in difficult content.

So let’s get down to the numbers. With just her own buffs in play (on herself, naturally) Skadi clocks in with a very respectable 23% refund on her NP, notably high for a Quick AOE. When you toss her in a very typical farming setup (50% gauge CE, 1 other Summer Skadi, 1 Vanilla Skadi), that bumps up to a hefty 46% refund, assuming no Overkill in play.

Speaking of Overkill, I think touching on the damage of Skadi’s NP is key here. With just her own buffs active she pulls off a respectable 26k damage neutral, more or less on par for a typical high damage AOE NP. In the aforementioned farming setup, that damage output is instead 58k damage neutral, bumping up to 71k on wave 3. Frankly, it’s not particularly impressive, especially considering she’s got the makings of a universal farmer.

So let’s push that damage higher with a Black Grail setup. In a full-blown Skadi bananza setup with Battlesuit, she manages to net a refund well over 50% without any Overkill, which is sufficient for her to 3-turn loop (Needs 100% charge for 1st NP, 50% for 2nd and 3rd, 200% gauge charge available from herself and the 3 other 50% gauge chargers, Skadi (vanilla), Skadi (summer), and Reines in this case, plus some simple math) and in said loop, she can push out 126k damage neutral waves 1 and 2, then 146k damage on the last wave. A significantly better sum, if you ask me.

Bottom line is that she’s largely dependent on class advantage or Black Grail setups to have sufficient damage output for universal farming, but in said setups she performs without much issue.

Conclusion

So how is Skadi’s ice queen form, all things considered? On one hand, she’s a sweet and refreshing treat to supplement your Chaldea:

She really is just a second Skadi in the roster, what can I say. Her supportive capabilities in farming scenarios are largely superior to her Caster form, and even in difficult content her better offensive buffs may prove of greater worth than normal Skadi’s defensive NP in the right circumstance. She proves a pretty major improvement to Quick farming simply by being the 3rd support slot for Battlesuit lineups that was lacking otherwise, with most teams depending on a Kaleidoscope Reines or similar to provide good refund and offensive buffs.

While she has a few hitches, Summer Skadi is also simply an effective universal farmer, on top of being able to put out a killer critical damage niche for higher difficulty content, should you be willing. She support, but she also attacc. I need not elaborate further.

However, she’s also as cold as ice, and willing to sacrifice (your time for more ice lollies):

Summer Skadi’s most effective farming setup is fairly action-intensive, and demands threefold ownership of Summer Skadi herself, OG Skadi, and Reines to execute, on top of Black Grail and Kaleidoscope. Simply put, it’s a tall order to execute, and demanding on one’s Servant and CE roster alike. Other Universal farmers can do more for less, even if Skadi here is essentially doing double duty as both a potential support and farmer in her own right.

I mean, what else do I have to say? It’s Skadi 2: Electric Boogaloo. Naturally she’s good.

While Skadi’s kit on the whole has definitely begun to feel a bit outdated since we’ve seen the likes of Castoria and Proto-Merlin step on the scene, the fact of the matter is that Quick teams are still lacking a broad range of support options, and Summer Skadi provides a very welcome increase in firepower to their roster, both in the role as damage dealer and support.

I could probably go into detail on how I think as a Servant, she’s simply unimaginatively designed and fills a role in the game that would be effectively defunct if Quick already had a secondary 50% gauge support, like being the Oberon to Koyanskaya, but that isn’t really what I’m here for.

And by god, do I need to finish this MMM.

Whether you need Skadi, already own Skadi and want to further your support lineup, or are lacking a solid Universal farming option in a Quick team to begin with, Summer Skadi fills all such situations with spectacular flair. Rath™ Seal of Approval with a recommendation.

Assassin of the Nightless City (Caster)

Introduction

Truly, Fuya has managed to channel the greatest power available to any loli in order to simultaneously conquer her fear of the undead AND get a dynamite body - self-delusion.

No, it’s the actual reason. For the fear of undead, at least. I like to think it goes for both, though.

Servant Data

Caster

QAABB (Saber)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

5

3

2

5

Attribute	Human
Alignment	Lawful Evil

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

Max HP 10,914

HP Rank

Max ATK 9,492

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,582	Base HP	1,746
Max Atk	9,492	Max HP	10,914
Grail Atk	11,493	Grail HP	13,233

Territory Creation A

Increase your Arts Card effectiveness by 10%.

Item Construction A

Increase your Debuff Chance Rate by 10%.

Will of Ascension EX

Apply Mental Debuff Immune to self.

Overview

As an SR Caster, Fuya’s Summer form is bound to suffer the downfalls of the class - low offensive stats in general, and the Caster class’s 0.9x Attack modifier to kick her while she’s down. However, she compensates nicely with a very offensive statline, possessing the 2nd best Atk of any SR Caster, and the worst HP. Despite how bad “worst HP” may sound, Caster HP stats are reasonably high in general, so her bulk doesn’t really suffer too much in exchange for having pretty solid offense in spite of her class’s flaws.

On the Passives side of things, Fuya is pretty typical. With solid Territory Creation and Item Creation in tow, she gets a moderate boost to both her Arts cards and Debuff success rate, with a unique passive in Will of Ascension tacked on. This passive provides her with a general immunity to mental debuffs, which mostly constitutes Charm, Terror, Confusion, and some others. It’s essentially Charm immunity with extra steps.

While she’s not particularly spectacular either way, Fuya does start herself off with a strong offensive statline and some reasonable passives to form the backbone of her kit.

NP Generation

Card Hits	5	3	2	5	5
Per Hit	0.61%	0.61%	0.61%	0.61%	0.61%

	NP per Hit (%)	0.61%
NP when Attacked (%)	3%

	Star Absorption	52
Star Generation per Hit	10.7%

Servant Skills

Dmg Up

Empress's Charisma (Summer) EX

Increase ATK for all allies (3 turns).
Increase Buster Card effectiveness for all allies (3 turns).
Increase NP Gain for all allies (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
ATK +	10%	10.5%	11%	11.5%	12%	12.5%	13%	13.5%	14%	15%
Buster +	10%	10.5%	11%	11.5%	12%	12.5%	13%	13.5%	14%	15%
NP Gain +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Kicking off Fuya’s skill lineup, we have Empress’s Charisma (Summer). To nobody’s surprise, it’s a Charisma clone, providing a trio of 3-turn buffs for the party - 15% Attack Up and Buster Up buffs, as well as a 20% NP gain buff.

Individually these buffs may not be pretty major, but put together they form the profile of a pretty solid offensive boost for Fuya herself, as well as Buster Servants in general. Not to mention a NP gain buff, while not as effective for Buster Servants, is universally appreciated, giving her a healthy modicum of team support to work with.

There’s not much else to it, really. The skill is a very pure team offensive buff, and it’s far from the worst at it. It’s a little annoying that it packs an 8-turn base cooldown when the overall power of the skill is not too high. Ah, well, them’s the breaks.

NP Drain

Ill-Fated Princess of the Wu Dynasty A

Decrease NP Gauge for all enemies by 1.
Apply Special ATK [Undead] to all allies (3 turns).
Increase NP Gauge for all allies.

Show Info

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

Next up is Ill-Fated Princess of the Wu Dynasty. While a wordy name, this skill has some useful effects to it. Firstly, it drops the NP gauge of all enemies by 1 step, a powerful effect for stall, or really just delaying NP’s in general, and one that is rare to see on skills. Next, it provides a surprisingly…weak anti-Undead effective damage buff to the team for 3 turns.

The Undead trait is more or less everything you think it affects - if it’s a zombie, ghost, or skeleton, or looks similar, it’s Undead. As a result, no Servants are Undead, and very few significant bosses are, either. While that would typically make it a useless buff, Fuya has a trick or two to make it worth your while, which I’ll get back to later.

The last and inarguably best effect of this skill is a 20% gauge charge for the whole party. By now I hope I don’t have to explain why this is great, as gauge chargers, especially those that can benefit teammates, have a universal appeal to them. While 20% gauge charge isn’t a lot, it’s also not to be understated, and can easily enable NP’s that wouldn’t happen otherwise, especially when in the presence of a supportive lineup with their own team gauge charges, from skills or NP’s alike.

As great as this skill generally is, it certainly suffers for it in the base cooldown. 9 turns is a pretty harsh duration to wait for this thing to come back up, which goes doubly due to its nature as a NP gauge drain / charge skill - you fundamentally want it up as soon as possible.

Stun

Imperial Taoist Technique EX

Inflict Stun on all [Undead] enemies (1 turn).
Restore HP for all allies.
Clear debuffs for all allies.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Heal +	1000	1200	1400	1600	1800	2000	2200	2400	2600	3000
CD	9	9	9	9	9	8	8	8	8	7

Last on Fuya’s skill lineup is Imperial Taoist Technique. With 3 effects to this skill’s name, it starts with the most situational of them all, plastering a stun on all Undead trait enemies for a turn. At a glance, it sounds pretty awful, but again, Fuya makes it work with her NP in play, so we’ll get to that.

The other effects of this skill are fundamentally supportive, providing a modest 2k HP heal to the team, while also clearing all debuffs from them. Team debuff clears are pretty neat to have around for CQ content, even if the heal isn’t exactly in high demand. Saying that, if you don’t have a need for this skill’s effects (which is all the time in farming content, or simply any content that doesn’t end in 3-5 turns) then you probably won’t see much use out of this thing.
I imagine this skill’s long 9-turn base cooldown doesn’t help the matter, either. This thing is slapped with an atrociously long cooldown for something which isn’t too powerful in the first place. Ouchie.

Noble Phantasm

Come, Come, Cruel Jiangshis! B

Apply [Undead] trait to all enemies (3 turns).
Deal damage to all enemies.
Deal 150% supereffective bonus damage to [Human] attribute enemies.
Decrease DEF for all enemies by 20% (3 turns).

<Overcharge>

Increase own NP Strength (1 turn) [Activates first].

Show Info/Video

Come, Come, Cruel Jiangshis!

Come, Oh Cruel Jiangshi Army

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	B	Anti-Army	5

Effect	Apply [Undead] trait to all enemies (3 turns). Deal damage to all enemies. Deal 150% supereffective bonus damage to [Human] attribute enemies. Decrease DEF for all enemies by 20% (3 turns).

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Damage +	300%	400%	450%	475%	500%
Supereffective ATK +	150%	150%	150%	150%	150%
Trait - Undead
Def -	20%	20%	20%	20%	20%

Overcharge Effect	Increase own NP Strength (1 turn) [Activates first].

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
NP Damage +	10%	15%	20%	25%	30%

Rounding things off for Fuya’s kit is Come, Come, Cruel Jianghsis!

Normally I would probably mock the simplicity of the NP name, but I’ll take it over Kanji nightmares than some NP’s can end up being.

This NP is a Buster AOE, so no calculations here for refund or anything. It’s probably for the best, given this NP has a lot of effects - Firstly, it both applies the Undead trait to every enemy for 3 turns. As you might imagine, this severely improves Fuya’s kit, allowing her to slap any kind of enemy with her effective damage buff versus the trait, and make her Stun live versus any kind of enemy. It can also have some fun side-synergy with other anti-Undead Servants like Gray or Ibuki-douji, but for the most part it’s here to make her kit not goddawful.

Following that, she also gets an Overcharge-scaling NP damage buff, providing a 10% NP damage boost for a turn as the baseline. Then, this NP deals its damage, with an effective damage multiplier versus Human attribute targets. One of the three big attributes, Human is naturally rather common, and one of the biggest effective traits to hit in the game, in fact. Close to 45% of all Servants in the game are Human attribute, and a very nice chunk of generic enemies also fall under it.

So long story short, Fuya’s gonna do a lot of damage with this NP often. And that’s not even the end of its effects - this NP lastly slaps a 20% defense down debuff on the targets for 3 turns, making them even more vulnerable to successive NP’s.

Given I was just talking about it, let’s look at how much Fuya’s NP hurts. With just her own buffs in play, this NP should be dishing out about…a uh, pretty pathetic 16k damage neutral. Turns out, even slapping the Undead trait on her targets doesn’t help much. I doubt the Caster class is doing much good for her, either. Even when you throw her a bone and give her the anti-Human attribute effective damage she still isn’t exactly breaking records.

And, despite her gauge charge skill, she can’t 3-turn loop in Koyanskaya+Oberon setups.

Uh oh.

Conclusion

So how is Fuya’s bigger, bolder form? On one hand, she’s managed to obtain the dynamite body a certain other retired necromancer wishes they had:

Fuya genuinely has some pretty potent tools in her kit, and the means to use them to their fullest potential to support both herself and her team. The offensive boosts she can provide after netting a NP on the enemy is pretty significant, then again the supportive utility her team gauge charge and all-enemy Stun skill can provide given the right opportunity.

However, she ultimately can’t escape her personal flaws, no matter how far she deludes herself:

Even when the stars align for her, Fuya’s summer form just isn’t a very good damage dealer. Her offensive output ultimately caps out at “solid” if she’s getting her anti-Human attribute damage bonus, and even then that’s tangential on having her 9-turn cooldown buff active, and managing to land her Undead trait-applying debuff through enemy debuff resistance. Throw in her inability to loop, and she just doesn’t push enough damage to compete with conventional options.

While she does have solid supportive tools available to her, Fuya doesn’t provide enough to justify bringing her over other potential B-list supports. 20% gauge charge and her offensive buffs are nice and all, but plenty of more budget options like Da Vinci Ruler, Xu Fu, and so on provide similar tools or better. Then again comparing her to the top-tier 50% gauge charge supports floating around. Having part of her supportive kit tangential on Undead trait (which is also dependent on getting her to NP) on top of those long 9-turn cooldowns is the nail in the coffin, frankly.

Honestly, I was worried for a second. We almost had a Summer this year without a stinker in the gacha.

While she doesn’t pack the same level of shocking mediocrity some Summer Servants have managed to bring to the table on release, the fact remains Fuya’s Caster form has some severe issues, and her strengths either come with enough strings attached or don’t compete enough with similar options to really justify bringing her to the table. Pretty much any AOE Berserker will have her beat for damage in difficult content (and in some cases, supportive options), then again the top Caster options, while her utter incapability to farm pretty much annihilates her viability in all other aspects of the game.

It’s a shame all things considered, but hopefully she can be sated with the accomplishment of overcoming her fears, since she’s not going to accomplish much else.

Valkyrie (Summer)

Introduction

Last, but far from least, we round off with the welfare(s) of this event. It seems Lasengle are not content to merely torment us with Gacha, but must also force upon us the most tragic Catch-22 of the game’s history - picking one out of the three Valkyries to be your welfare (until the presumed rerun).

For the purposes of this MMM we’ll use uncontested best girl Ortlinde, though just to prevent myself from being exposed and canceled down the line, I did pick Hildr as my Valkyrie for the welfare.

Why Hildr, if Ortlinde is the best, you ask? It’s simple - if I close my eyes, the green-haired Valkyrie costume is Calico M950 from Girls Frontline. Maybe Kiritsugu has rubbed off on me a little.

Servant Data

Assassin

QQAAB (Archer)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

3

4

3

5

10

Attribute	Heaven
Alignment	Lawful Summer

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

Warmaiden Ers

Max HP 10,580

HP Rank

Max ATK 9,741

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,623	Base HP	1,692
Max Atk	9,741	Max HP	10,580
Grail Atk	11,794	Grail HP	12,828

Traits

Servant Humanoid Divine Heaven or Earth Spiritron Dress User Weak to Enuma Elish Valkyrie

Card Hits	3	4	3	5	10
Per Hit	0.23%	0.23%	0.23%	0.23%	0.23%

	NP per Hit (%)	0.23%
NP when Attacked (%)	4%

	Star Absorption	100
Star Generation per Hit	25.5%

Quick/Arts Up

SMG / SAM66 B

Increase own Quick Card effectiveness (3 turns).
Increase own Arts Card effectiveness (3 turns).
Increase own Critical Strength (3 times, 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%
Crit Damage +	50%	55%	60%	65%	70%	75%	80%	85%	90%	100%
CD	7	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6	5

First on the Valks’ skill lineup is SMG / SAM66, a fictional firearm that’s some mix between a FAMAS and P90, named after a random Icelandic manuscript detailing Scandinavian mythology. This skill also acts as lore confirmation that Odin is something of a gun nut, which is pretty funny.

In gameplay, this acts as a 3-turn dual-card booster, providing a 20% boost to the Valks’ Arts and Quick cards for 3 turns, as well as providing a massive 100% Critical damage buff for 3 crits over the same duration.

While 3-turn card boosters are always appreciated (and probably necessary, most of the time), the critical damage buff on this skill is pretty powerful, providing a huge boost to the crits that the Valks will be able to frequently pull off if they have time to set up for it, being Assassins with good stargen, and all.

Simple, but powerful. Tied together by a 7-turn base cooldown, this skill is also quick to come back up, considering the number of similar skills plastered with an 8-turn cooldown. Solid all round.

Dmg Up

Valkyrie Group Combat B+

Increase ATK for all allies (3 turns).
Apply Evade to all allies (1 time, 3 turns).
Increase NP Gain for all [Valkyrie] allies (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 Gain +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Next up is Valkyrie-Style Group Combat. Acting as a Charisma clone, this skill provides the standard 20% Attack buff to the team for 3 turns, on top of a very nice 1-time, 3-turn Evasion buff, as well as a 20% NP gain buff for Valkyrie allies.

99% of the time, that NP gain buff will only be applied to the Valkyrie in question using this skill, but that much is enough to make a significant difference. After all, their NP is an Arts AOE - farming is possibly on the table.

Putting that aside, this skill makes for a nice additional offensive buff, on top of providing a very convenient defensive safety net for the Valkyrie in question and their team. Even if it doesn’t get used to endure a NP turn, it’s still damage avoided for the whole team, and of a type that won’t (usually) conflict with typical supports’ defensive tools like Castoria’s special Invincibility buff, or a Merlin variant’s regular old Invincibility.
The 8-turn base cooldown on this skill is harsher, relatively speaking, but it’s understandable considering how it’s a team defensive cooldown, essentially.

Start Np

Valkyrie Talk EX

Increase NP Gauge for an ally by 20%.
Restore HP for an ally.
Gain Critical Stars.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Heal +	1000	1200	1400	1600	1800	2000	2200	2400	2600	3000
Stars +	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	20
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Last on the docket is Battle Maidens’ Vow. A targeted support skill, this provides a 20% gauge charger and a 3k HP heal to a targeted ally, on top of a 20-star bomb to spice things up.

Naturally, the most powerful aspect of this skill is the gauge charger, providing an essential leg-up to an ally’s NP, or usually the Valkyrie in question’s own, as gauge chargers tend to be pretty useful for farming no matter the circumstance.

The other effects to this skill aren’t to be overlooked in high-difficulty scenarios, though. Heals may occasionally come in clutch to keeping an essential Servant alive for a turn longer, while the star bomb is an essential means for the Valkyries to ensure crits for themselves on a given turn, which melds very well with their powerful critical damage skill.

All in all, it’s a solid skill. The gauge charger isn’t big in size, but its targetability makes it valuable in a variety of situations, then again the other supportive benefits tacked on. The 8-turn base cooldown on this skill is probably a little harsh for its actual power, but other gauge chargers have had it worse, so I’ll keep quiet.

Noble Phantasm

Fylgja Valkyrie B

Deal damage to all enemies.
30% Chance to inflict Instant Death on all [Demonic] enemies.

<Overcharge>

Deal supereffective damage against [Earth] attribute enemies.

Show Info/Video

Fylgja Valkyrie

Final Assault - Nimbus of Divine Spears

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	B	Anti-Army	10

Effect	Deal damage to all enemies. 30% Chance to inflict Instant Death on all [Demonic] enemies.

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Damage +	450%	600%	675%	712.5%	750%
Death Chance	30%	30%	30%	30%	30%

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

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

Rounding things off on the Valks’ kits, we have Full-Gear Valkyrie. I have the feeling this NP is some sort of mecha anime reference I’m not getting, since it seems far too cinematic to have not come from Nasu’s endless repertoire of Gundam or Super Robot Wars attack animations that consistently crop up in this game.

But in gameplay terms, this NP is relatively simple. It dishes out damage first and foremost as an AOE Arts NP, and we’ll get into the looping numbers in a bit. The damage on this NP has a super effective modifier versus Earth attribute foes, scaling with overcharge. Hitting any attribute for effective damage is usually good, and Earth attribute is no different - it’s the second-largest attribute in the Servant roster, and the largest for generic enemies, with pretty much any manner of non-divine, non-human-based foe falling under its banner. If it looks like a kind of magical creature and not a God, it’s probably Earth attribute. Naturally, this means the Valks will hit hard versus a large portion of enemies in the game, severely increasing their damage potential.

After that, this NP has a very small Instant Death chance versus Demonic enemies. It’s essentially negligible, both for how rare the Demonic trait will come up, how rarely a target will live to be hit by the Instant Death chance, and how rarely it will actually succeed. It’s probably there for flavor purposes more so than anything else.

I’ll also note now that due to the Assassin class’s stargen, this NP also produces a good amount of stars despite being an Arts NP, since I don’t know where else to mention it.

With that out the way, let’s talk about the looping potential on this NP. In spite of (or more likely, as was planned by the devs) the Valks’ low base NP gain, their NP provides a large sum of refund, producing 29.8% NP gauge with just their buffs alone hitting 3 enemies. Throw in a typical double Castoria setup, and that gets bumped up to an impressive 81.9% on neutral targets.

Simply put, their refund is nutty. If the Valks get any level of overkill on their target (which is easier due to the high hitcount on the NP), it’s likely they’ll straight-up get over 100% gauge refund. In fact, a battlesuit swap setup with Proto Merlin does just that, even without any overkill factored in.

So they’re covered for looping, but how’s the damage output? With just their own buffs it isn’t too hot, clocking in at 21.7k damage neutral even with their free NP5. If they get their effective damage bonus it becomes a far more palatable 32.7k, but that’s hardly consistent. In an actual scenario with double Castoria support, 1k attack fous and a full-on damage CE (because they can just afford to do that, even if it’s not Black Grail), it rounds to a more respectable 84k damage neutral, 126k if hitting Earth attribute.

That alone is more than enough to farm against class advantage, but what about with Black Grail? In such a setup (Double Castoria support, Tamamo on battlesuit swap since you don’t need more gauge charge, just damage), you’re looking at something like 150k damage on waves 1 and 2, then 177k damage on wave 3, all on neutral targets.

To surmise, in budget builds the Valkyries can act as effective class advantage-only farmers, maybe more if they can hit Earth attribute. If you can run Black Grail setups, they can very easily perform universal farming, only meeting a bump when tackling Caster waves (and honestly, if those Casters are Earth attribute, they can probably farm it). That’s pretty spectacular for just welfare Servants.

Conclusion

So how are the Valkyries’ summer forms on the whole? Well on one hand, they’re tactically tutored to tangle with even the testiest of tangos:

These battle-born ladies form a very resilient Arts farmer, with damage numbers in optimal setups high enough to tackle pretty much any node except their class weakness, something that’s otherwise rare to find in a welfare Servant. Add in how the Assassin class in general is pretty low on solid farming options, and they’ve immediately cut out a niche in farming for themselves.

Even in difficult content, they have a fair bit going for them. With a team defensive tool to prevent potentially lethal damage, a very powerful critical damage buff on a low cooldown, and a targeted gauge charge / heal to provide additional support where necessary, they can easily dish out the pain to powerful bosses, and bolster their allies at the same time. And it goes without saying, but Servants with incredible looping capability can also apply it to difficult content with similar success. Compact, high damage is useful regardless of where you take it.

However, they’re also tearing me apart, and not with the 5.56x45mm NATO rounds they’re unloading:

You can only choose one. I mean, that sucks, but the real drawback is more in their abysmal regular card NP gain. While for farming purposes this flaw can essentially be ignored, in difficult content poor NP gain can be incredibly impactful in an offensive Servant’s performance, simply because past turn 3, all bets are off, and you really have to squeeze more NP gauge out of normal card chains until the necessary skills come back online. And when these girls are packing quite literally the worst regular card NP gain in the game…yeah, you can see the issue.

I never thought I’d say this for a Servant(s) whose base NP gain actually physically pained me to read, but the summer form of the Valkyries is really, really good. In terms of their farming consistency and damage output, they’re basically on par with Habetrot, trading an incredibly good gauge charger for outright insane NP refund, which in turn means they’re oddly more dependent on buffs to boost their damage output than gauge charge or refund.

While certainly not the greatest farmers out there, they’re pretty high-class, and to get that in a free package is a blessing for most players, making farming on Rider nodes a thing of the past, and universal farming in general far more accessible, provided you can make a Black Grail setup work. Their performance in high-difficulty content, while hampered by their awful NP gain, is still pretty good, so they end up being fine all-rounders to add to one’s collection and overuse to their heart’s content.

Just be wary of igniting a 3-way war between the fanbases of each girl. And the 3 extra Valks we now have to contend with from the spiritual dresses. Hoo boy. Rath™ Seal of Approval.

Outro

Another year behind us, and probably the most impactful batch of Summer Servants that have ever been added to the game.

…my hands are sore. At least it’s all over with, and now we can kick back for a few weeks and let the Summer 2021 rerun act as filler and provide an opportunity for people to snag that all-important battlesuit swap support queen, Da Vinci Ruler, right?

…Right? Guys? The rerun is coming, right?

Lasengle!?

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