Rabbit’s Reviews #343: Iyo (4* Ruler)

Introduction

We’ve gotten a bunch of Arts loopers as welfares in the past year, and Iyo is probably the best of the bunch. She really has all the pieces: a good neutral class, Fionn-clone-type loop specs, a 30% battery, persistent steroids in all three brackets, damage ramp, et cetera. It’s hard to envision a better AoE SR, let alone a better welfare—any stronger than Iyo and you’re solidly in the realm of SSR-esque power budgets. Maybe that’s the direction we’re heading—Kriem is already there, for ST—but at least for now, Iyo is about as good as it gets at the SR level.

Servant Data

Ruler

QQAAB (Archer)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

4

3

5

4

Attribute	Earth
Alignment	Lawful Evil

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

Nostalgic Day Off

Max HP 11,756

HP Rank

Max ATK 8,977

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,496	Base HP	1,881
Max Atk	8,977	Max HP	11,756
Grail Atk	10,869	Grail HP	14,254

Magic Resistance B

Increase your Debuff Resist by 17.5%.

Territory Creation B

Increase your Arts Card effectiveness by 8%.

Natural Constitution B

Apply Poison Immune and Burn Immune to self.

Incantation of Kunu C

Increase own Quick Card effectiveness by 5%.
Increase own Quick Cards Critical Strength by 10%.
Apply [Wild Beast] trait to self.

Card Hits	4	4	3	5	4
Per Hit	0.41%	0.41%	0.41%	0.41%	0.41%

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

	Star Absorption	99
	Star Generation per Hit	10.1%

Overview

Material Requirements

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	50,000	x1 Twilight Magatama
3	150,000	x1 Twilight Magatama
4	500,000	x1 Twilight Magatama
Max	1,500,000	x1 Twilight Magatama

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100,000	Gem of Caster Gem of Assassin Gem of Berserker
2 → 3	200,000	x4 Gem of Saber x4 Gem of Lancer x4 Gem of Archer x4 Gem of Rider
3 → 4	600,000	x4 Magic Gem of Caster x4 Magic Gem of Assassin x4 Magic Gem of Berserker
4 → 5	800,000	x4 Magic Gem of Saber x4 Magic Gem of Lancer x4 Magic Gem of Archer x4 Magic Gem of Rider
5 → 6	2,000,000	x4 Secret Gem of Caster x4 Secret Gem of Assassin x4 Secret Gem of Berserker
6 → 7	2,500,000	x4 Secret Gem of Saber x4 Secret Gem of Lancer x4 Secret Gem of Caster x4 Secret Gem of Assassin
7 → 8	5,000,000	x10 Refined Magatama
8 → 9	6,000,000	x12 Flaming Oni Lantern Plant
9 → 10	10,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100000	x4 Gem of Caster x4 Gem of Assassin x4 Gem of Berserker
2 → 3	200000	x4 Gem of Saber x4 Gem of Lancer x4 Gem of Archer x4 Gem of Rider
3 → 4	600000	x4 Magic Gem of Caster x4 Magic Gem of Assassin x4 Magic Gem of Berserker
4 → 5	800000	x4 Magic Gem of Saber x4 Magic Gem of Lancer x4 Magic Gem of Archer x4 Magic Gem of Rider
5 → 6	2000000	x4 Secret Gem of Caster x4 Secret Gem of Assassin x4 Secret Gem of Berserker
6 → 7	2500000	x4 Secret Gem of Saber x4 Secret Gem of Lancer x4 Secret Gem of Caster x4 Secret Gem of Assassin
7 → 8	5000000	x10 Ghost Lantern
8 → 9	6000000	x12 Ashes of Forgetfulness
9 → 10	10000000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Servant Skills

Iyo’s skillset is quite good across-the-board. Recommended skill order is 2>1>3.

Arts Up

Kidou (Ruin) B

Increase own Arts Card effectiveness (3 turns).
Apply Special ATK [Divine] to self (3 turns).
Inflict Curse on all enemies (5 turns, 1000 dmg/turn).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Arts +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
Special ATK +	30%	32%	34%	36%	38%	40%	42%	44%	46%	50%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Kidou is a pretty standard 3-turn steroid—30% Arts up for 3 turns. This is a very nice buff on Iyo, propping up both damage and refund. The skill also gets a solid 50% power mod versus Divine enemies. We didn’t really need more Divine-killers, but Divine is a good and broad niche, and this is a lot of extra damage when it procs. The skill also inflicts curse for 5 turns, which is slightly more than just flavor—Iyo’s NP stacks curse damage up, so this comes out to a bit more extra damage than it might have been otherwise, especially in CQs. Solid skill all-around.

Start Np

Oracle of Darkness B

Increase own NP Gauge.
Increase own Arts Card Critical Star Gather Rate (1 turn).
Increase own Arts Card Critical Strength (1 turn).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
NP +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
Star Gather (Arts) +	300%	320%	340%	360%	380%	400%	420%	440%	460%	500%
Crit Damage (Arts) +	50%	55%	60%	65%	70%	75%	80%	85%	90%	100%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Oracle of Darkness is a nice 30% battery. Welfare batteries are often capped at 20% for whatever reason, so Iyo getting a proper 30% battery is much appreciated. Aside from that, this skill mirrors Himiko’s battery, giving star weight up and a massive 100% crit damage up to Iyo’s primary card type. Paired with the star burst on Iyo’s third skill, this gives Iyo easy access to powerful crits for a turn. Arts crits may not hit the hardest, but they’re always great for NP gain, and getting extra damage on top of that is much appreciated.

Dmg Up

Priestess of the End C

Increase ATK for all allies (3 turns).
Increase Critical Strength for all [Wild Beast] allies (3 turns).
Gain 10 Critical Stars.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
ATK +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
Crit Damage +	30%	32%	34%	36%	38%	40%	42%	44%	46%	50%
CD	7	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6	5

Priestess of the End is yet another odd Charisma variant—all three Servants in this event have one, and all three also give critical stars. This one is a standard 5-turn cooldown attack-based Charisma, and as its bonus effect it boosts Wild Beast Servants’ crit damage by 50%. None of the other Wild Beast Servants work particularly well with Iyo, but Iyo herself gets access to the trait via her unique passive. In practice, this is a selfish 50% crit buff for 3 turns—which is entirely respectable on a skill that’s also an attack buff and that’s on a 5-turn cooldown.

Noble Phantasm

Yoiyami-Kageru Tsuki no Mitama C

Increase own NP Strength by 10% (3 turns) [Activates first].
Deal damage to all enemies.
Inflict Curse Damage Up by 100% on all enemies (3 turns).

<Overcharge>

Inflict Curse on all enemies (3 turns).

Show Info/Video

Yoiyami-Kageru Tsuki no Mitama

Twilight-Enshrouding Moon Orb

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	C	Anti-Army	4

Effect	Increase own NP Strength by 10% (3 turns) [Activates first]. Deal damage to all enemies. Inflict Curse Damage Up by 100% on all enemies (3 turns).

Level	1	2	3	4	5
NP Damage +	10%	10%	10%	10%	10%
Damage +	450%	600%	675%	712.5%	750%
Curse Damage +	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%

Overcharge Effect	Inflict Curse on all enemies (3 turns).

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
Curse Damage	1000	1500	2000	2500	3000

It's hard to object to Iyo’s NP. It’s an AoE Arts NP with pretty standard looper refund, that has a pre-cast damage buff, and that ramps. Sure, the pre-cast buff could be stronger, but AoE SRs don’t often get ramp, and welfare SRs almost never do. Iyo has great steroids overall, too, spread pretty evenly across all three buff brackets. This is a great NP, really, to the extent that Iyo outdamages Ranmaru in a double-Castoria team, on turn 1, with Ranmaru’s defense debuff, without Iyo’s power mod. This is despite the fact that Iyo has much lower base attack.

The NP also inflicts curse and curse damage up. Damage over time is mostly flavor, but in CQs, this does add up to some solid extra damage by turn 3, as the curses and the curse damage increases start to compound.

Usage Tips

With double Castoria, Iyo refunds about 20% per enemy. This means double Castoria/Oberon teams can easily do CE-less farming for 2/3/x and 3/2/x nodes. 2/2/x is right at the edge of possible—against Riders or Casters, or with a bunch of overkill, Iyo can manage it, but usually she will be a bit shy.

With a 50% charge CE, 1/1/x is possible. On turn 1, Iyo uses Mana Loading and one of the Castoria charismas to NP. With two Castorias’ Arts buffs, she refunds 10%. On turn 2, one Castoria uses both batteries and plugs out for Oberon. Oberon and the other Castoria both use their 20% batteries, bringing Iyo to 100%. Iyo NPs again, refunding 20% this time. On turn 3, Oberon uses his 50% battery and Iyo uses her 30% battery to secure the loop.

For CQs, you want double Castoria and a third support—probably one of Tamamo, Lady Avalon, and Jinako. Tamamo brings the most damage generically and transitions nicely into Castoria stall aimed at quickly cycling skills in order to achieve relatively quick kills. Lady Avalon is a bit better at slower forms of stall and brings nearly the same buff value as Tamamo, while also offering some additional batteries. Jinako brings a similar battery to Lady Avalon’s, some nice party defense, and by far the most damage push so long as the enemy is Lawful.

Iyo’s kit is pretty complete and self-contained, which means she works nicely at all levels of box investment. If you don’t have strong supports natively, there are plenty of free or cheap options who work very nicely with Iyo. Xu Fu, in particular, is a great pick, and Paracelsus works decently too. You could run, for example, Paracelsus/Iyo/Friend Castoria/Xu Fu (plugging Paracelsus for Xu Fu on turn 1) and have a great low-end Arts team that can output a fair bit of damage in the first few turns and then transition into a solidly stable Arts crit strategy after the opening moves.

The Black Grail is the best CE for damage, as always. Sign of Smiling Face, Meeting of the Heirs, Painting Summer, and Ocean Flyer all also pair quite well with what Iyo brings.

Star weight CCs are a good pick on Iyo—she has some nice crit buffs, but limited ways to draw stars to herself. Alternatively, star gen CCs can help her leverage her turn of powerful Arts Crits more reliably.

Grail Potential

Conclusion

Unless our power expectations for SRs are going to be revamped at some point in the near future, it seems pretty unlikely that we’ll see a better AoE welfare than Iyo. She’s a loop-enabled AoE Arts Servant with good damage and ramp in a neutral class. Really excellent unit here, even if the ways she’s excellent are relatively standard. I do think it’s a little weird to get a fourth welfare of this type in the course of a year—especially when all four are pretty similar, and Iyo is cleanly better than the other three—but I guess that’s just how Servant balance is going in FGO land these days.

Rabbit's Arbitrary Ratings

Overall: 10/10
Single-Target DPS: 6/10
AoE DPS: 9/10
Survivability: 5/10
Offensive Utility: 3/10
Defensive Utility: N/A
Farming Usefulness: 9/10
Evil Himiko: 10/10