Christmas 2022 - Tier List Change Log

Tier B+

Vritra, the serpentine diety, manifests as an AoE Arts Lancer. She comes with both a 30% NP charge and up to 10% NP per turn over 5 turns, which combined with her decent Arts buffs, give her relatively comfortable access to her NP. Similar to others in the somewhat crowded AoE Lancer roster, she is capable of looping comfortably, especially with premiere Arts Support. Her NP additionally decreases Arts Resist after damage, which can help improve Arts performance on subsequent attacks from herself or the party, and also Skill Seals and debuffs Critical Rate, which can indirectly protect the party from enemy skills or crit attacks. She also provides some measure of offensive support for allies, providing a relatively rare NP Damage buff as well as bonus Special Attack against Divine enemies to all allies at modest values. For herself, she also has an Arts performance and Arts Star Gather buff, making her Arts Cards particularly threatening. Defensively, Vritra only has a Guts skill, although this still provides her with a bit of extra survivability. However, Vritra's damage only just barely reaches the benchmark levels required for farming, sometimes requiring external support for beefier waves. In the crowded AoE Lancer niche, she doesn't quite bring anything particularly new to the table, has higher cost compared to some options, and the values on her Divine bonus damage are lower than most others, so she doesn't quite fully carve out a niche for herself. However, for Masters in need of an AoE Arts Lancer, she is more than capable of filling the role with her relative ease of access to her NP.

Tier A

Karna enters the boxing ring as Christmas 2022's welfare Servant, changing from Lancer to Saber class. As a single-target Quick Saber, Karna dishes out lightning-fast punch combos that bring him to the top of his class in damage output, partly due to the ease of reaching NP5 with him. In his skill set, he has a multitude of self-buffs, including Quick/Buster Card buffs, and both a general Crit Damage buff and a Quick-only Crit Damage buff, which when stacked, enable him to deal immensely damaging Critical hits. He also has a Star Gather buff, which helps guarantee Stars on his cards when his Crit buffs are active. Karna's third skill provides some measure of support as well, being an ally-targetable 20% NP charge that also gives the target 3 times of Debuff Immunity, which can be invaluable in certain fights. Defensively, Karna has a 2-time, 3-turn Evade, giving him a decent measure for emergencies. His NP itself is relatively straightforward, buffing his own Quick effectiveness before damage, and also has a relatively niche effect of removing Guts before damage. Altogether, his kit is well-rounded and focused on his damage output, with impressive NP and Crit damage, both of which are only further enhanced with premiere Quick Support. Karna is an excellent ST Quick Saber option to keep in the back pocket, even if Masters already have other options, due to his sheer damage output and Quick/Crit synergy.

Tier C+ > B

Old man Li Shuwen's latest Interlude upgrade is a straightforward buff to both the damage of his NP and the Instant Death chance. Although the Death effect isn't all that exciting, the damage buff to his NP puts him among the top for ST Arts Assassins, and his Interlude is very much worth completing for this upgrade. It was generally agreed that the boost to his damage is worth a bump in tier score.

Tier B+ > A+

Astraea's latest interlude upgrades her NP, providing both a damage boost and a very powerful Ignore Invincible effect that applies before damage. The ability to always ensure that she can deal damage even when enemies have Evade / Invincibility active makes her an excellent choice to run in challenge quests after her Interlude, when it wasn't an option before. With this upgrade, her damage is also increased, and she will very rarely have Class disadvantage due to her Ruler class, so she becomes a very strong all-around single target Arts damage dealer. It was agreed that this upgrade is substantial enough to push her up a full tier.

Tier D+ > C

Beowulf's latest Rank Up with the release of Christmas 2022 gives his Guts skill an overhaul. The skill cooldown is helpfully decreased by a turn, and it gains three additional effects - two are Special Attack bonuses against Giant or Dragon-trait enemies respectively, while the third is a generous 3-turn Critical Damage buff. In combination with the prior upgrade to his second skill, which grants him Stars, increased Star Gather, and another Crit Damage buff, his card damage becomes much more notable, with his Crits now being an impressive threat. His tier was shifted up as a result.

Tier C+ > C+

Charles Babbage received a Rank Up quest during the second half of the Heian-kyo release, lengthening the NP Strength buff from his skill while also giving him a generous number of Stars and a Critical Damage buff. This improves his offensive performance overall, although it was generally agreed that this does not change his overall role as a selfish damage dealer, and also does not make him any more remarkable compared to other AoE Casters (of which there are many), so it was generally agreed that his tier remains the same.