MMM - Rambunctious Reverend Reveres Rotten Ritual, Realta Nua Residents Repulsed by the Rector's Rigour

The Modern Magus Magazine

Now, one would assume with a long break over the course of December, plenty of free time in the holiday season and a singular Servant to cover, that the MMM would come out in record-breaking pace to mark off a good start to the New Year, no?

Well, maybe I’m feeling a little evil in the spirit of our good friend, Kotomine Kirei. Is that so bad? Regardless of whether it is on time or late, the birth of an MMM should be celebrated, should it not?

In reality, it’s because I got hit with a goddawful stint of sickness immediately in the run-up to the New Year, so I can only write it now that I’m feeling half-decent.

But with that out of the way, the MMM’s don’t write themselves!

Introduction

He was big and strong, and his eyes were flaming gold…

Hey, don’t tell me you didn’t have that song on repeat on your head for days after the man’s announcement. For some reason, FGO Servant or not, the song just fits Kirei himself.

Servant Data

Alter Ego

QQAAB (Archer)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

5

4

5

4

Attribute	Earth
Alignment	Lawful Evil

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

Max HP 14,107

HP Rank

Max ATK 11,107

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,716	Base HP	2,069
Max Atk	11,107	Max HP	14,107
Grail Atk	12,158	Grail HP	15,455

Territory Creation B

Increase your Arts Card effectiveness by 8%.

Executor B

Increase your Critical Strength by 8%.
Increase your Critical Star Drop Rate by 8%.

Baptism Sacrament A

Increase your Mental Debuff Resist by 30%.

Poison Resistance (Confidential) B

Grants self immunity to Poison.

Overview

As another addition to the slowly-expanding Alter Ego lineup, Rasputin has a pretty good number of Servants to compare himself to. Among all the 5* Alter Egos, he joins with the lowest Attack by a pretty wide margin, and the 2nd Highest HP in return. As it turns out, Kiara’s statline is actually pretty busted, relatively speaking, she’s just specced defensively.

While that isn’t exactly a glimmering start for the Russian man, it’s hardly the end of the world. Alter Egos have high attack stats overall, so having the worst Attack of them is still average compared to most SSR’s in the game. And having a good HP stat in exchange has its uses, even if an offensively-designed statline would be more handy overall.

It wouldn’t make sense for a man of Rasputin’s reputation to not be bulky, no?

Rasputin also comes with a wide range of passives to further bolster his bases - Territory Creation is an all-important 8% boost to his main card type, a very good thing to have, while his trio of Unique passives also aid him in their own ways. Executor provides him with modest boosts to both stargen and critical damage, enhancing his critical damage output inherently. Baptism Sacrament provides him with significant passive Mental Debuff Resistance - admittedly not very useful most of the time, but having the capability to ignore most Charm/Terror debuffs is a handy perk to have in the right fights. And lastly, Poison Resistance (Confidential) provides him with immunity to Poison, completely unsurprising given the legend of Rasputin.

On the whole Rasputin has a bit of an underwhelming offensive presence, but his passives help compensate for that decently, and in turn the man is more defensively resilient than most Servants, especially for the damage output he has to offer.

NP Generation

Card Hits	5	4	4	5	4
Per Hit	0.42%	0.42%	0.42%	0.42%	0.42%

	NP per Hit (%)						0.42%
	NP when Attacked (%)						4%

	Star Absorption	98
	Star Generation per Hit	10.0%

Ah, how I almost missed getting disappointed by new Servants’ generation stats.

With a BAAQQ card deck, Rasputin has a deck fit for NP gain, with his Arts cards having 4 hits at 0.42% base NP gain, meaning his base Arts gain clocks in at 1.8144 after his Territory Creation is factored in. This sits a little bit above average, but as you may expect from any high-hitcount Arts card deck, his other cards suffer for it.

Rasputin’s Quick cards, to their credit, do have 5 hits apiece, which makes their NP gain respectable instead of goddawful, and also produce a huge amount of stars as a result. His Buster and Extra also pack high hitcounts at 4 and 5 apiece, though neither produce particularly good amounts of NP gauge due to Rasputin’s low base NP gain in the first place.

On the stargen side of things, Rasputin is spectacular, however. With high hitcounts across the board and his passive stargen boost, pretty much any chain from him produces a great sum of stars, even when mainly Arts cards are involved. As I like to say time and time again, good stargen kind of becomes good NP gain by proxy of the +100% NP gain bonus from crits, so even if Rasputin’s NP gain on paper is very mediocre, his great stargen profile helps compensate for it.

I could wish for more from the scumbag priest on this side of things, but frankly with the tools he has at his disposal, things could be much worse for the man. Just solid, on the whole.

Servant Skills

Heal

Protection of the Faith (Unique) A+

Restore HP for an ally.
Clear all debuffs for an ally.
Increase own ATK (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Heal +	1000	1100	1200	1300	1400	1500	1600	1700	1800	2000
ATK +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
CD	6	6	6	6	6	5	5	5	5	4

First on the skill lineup is Protection of the Faith (Unique). I’d certainly call Kotomine Kirei a unique priest (with some pained emphasis on the unique), so perhaps it fits.

This is both a supportive skill and an offensive steroid for the priest himself, providing a weak 2k HP heal to a chosen ally, as well as cleansing the target’s debuffs, while simultaneously giving Rasputin a meaty 30% Attack Up buff for 3 turns.

While there isn’t too much depth to this skill, having targeted debuff removal is a very nice tool for difficult content, as it lets you break other allied Servants out of crippling debuffs such as NP Seal, Sleep, Stun, Charm, and so on, as well as provide a continual source of healing to (hopefully) keep someone on the team alive as the battle wears on.

But the main focus of this skill is definitely the attack buff, acting as an important offensive steroid for Rasputin, and one on a very short cooldown, too. With a base cooldown of 6 turns, this skill is on a short 4-turn cooldown timer at max skill level, meaning Rasputin has his offensive buff active almost all the time, and the team can depend on his heal rather regularly. A very solid skill, on the whole.

Start Np

Malicious Feasts A

Increase own NP Gauge.
Decrease own HP by 2000 [Cannot fall below 1 HP, Demerit].
Increase NP Gauge for all [Evil] alignment allies.
Increase Arts Card effectiveness for all [Evil] alignment allies (3 turns).

Show Info

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

Next up is Malicious Feasts. This skill is literally meant to be Rasputin gathering power by wishing upon Seihai-kun, so it’s unsurprising he has to pay the cost of 2k HP to gain its cursed blessing - a 50% NP gauge charger.

With how many Servants envy such a thing, it could really be considered a cursed wish.

In any case, this skill has two components - the 30% gauge charger which is applied to Rasputin alone, then a 20% gauge charge and 20% Arts booster buff for 3 turns to every single Evil ally on the field, which naturally includes Rasputin himself. So that makes for a 50% gauge charger and neat 20% damage steroid for his NP, on top of what is technically team support.

Evil trait Servants aren’t too common, but a number of fairly important Servants like both Koyanskayas, Tamamo, Morgan, and Oberon are all Evil trait, so the fact this skill can also gauge charge the team will come in handy from time to time.

But on the most basic level, Rasputin gets a 50% gauge charger and NP steroid out of this skill, and that’s more than enough to make it a superb addition to his kit. The cooldown is also typical for its power, with an 8-turn base cooldown.

Guts

Undying Bahloo EX

Apply Guts to self (1 time, 3 turns, 1 HP Revival).
Apply Guts to self (3 turns, 1 HP Revival). [60-80% Chance of success, unlimited times]
Apply buff to self (3 turns): When Guts activates for self, increase own NP Strength by 20% (5 turns).
Apply Target Focus to self (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Guts Chance +	60%	62%	64%	66%	68%	70%	72%	74%	76%	80%
CD	9	9	9	9	9	8	8	8	8	7

Last on the skill lineup is Undying Bahloo. While this skill is in reference to one of the composite spirits that make up Rasputin, as he’s an Alter Ego summoned by the Alien God (remember when Alter Egos were always compositions of multiple spirits because BB made them from random-ass data? I ‘member), we all know he has this because Rasputin is a man that just does not die.

As a result, this is entirely a defensive/supportive skill, providing Rasputin with a 3-turn Taunt, and 2 separate Guts buffs for 3 turns, one a very conventional 1-time 1HP revival Guts, and the other a funky Guts with no time-based expiration limit (so it will continually proc so long as it hasn’t expired), but an 80% chance of working each time at max skill level.

In other words, Rasputin gets a 3-turn window to play the Necromancy CE revival game, while simultaneously taking all the hits for the team. Surprisingly kind of him. He doesn’t get nothing out of it, though - he gets a 5-turn, 20% NP Power Up buff each time he revives from a Guts for 3 turns, so he can start racking up some massive damage if he simply refuses to die a bunch.

Damn if that doesn’t sound entertaining. You can even increase the chance of the Guts revival succeeding with Buff Success Rate Up buffs, so there are some silly gimmicks you can do with this skill to basically ignore enemy damage for 3 turns and give Rasputin an absurd damage boost.

As you would expect from most Guts buffs, especially a very strong one like this, it has a long 9-turn base cooldown. It’s fair, all things considered.

Noble Phantasm

Zazhiganiye Angra Mainyu A

Deals damage to all enemies.
Deals 150% supereffective damage to all [Evil] alignment enemies.
Inflict Burn (3 turns, 1000 dmg/turn) on all enemies.
Inflict Spreading Fire on all enemies (3 turns, Burn damage +100%).
Inflict Curse (3 turns, 1000 dmg/turn) on all enemies.
Inflict Curse Damage Up on all enemies (3 turns, Curse damage +100%).
60% Chance to inflict Instant Death on all [Good] alignment enemies.

<Overcharge>

Increase own Arts Card effectiveness (1 turn) [Activates first].

Show Info/Video

Zazhiganiye Angra Mainyu

Dark Heart Which Erupts into a Flood

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	A	Anti-World	4

Effect	Deals damage to all enemies. Deals 150% supereffective damage to all [Evil] alignment enemies. Inflict Burn (3 turns, 1000 dmg/turn) on all enemies. Inflict Spreading Fire on all enemies (3 turns, Burn damage +100%). Inflict Curse (3 turns, 1000 dmg/turn) on all enemies. Inflict Curse Damage Up on all enemies (3 turns, Curse damage +100%). 60% Chance to inflict Instant Death on all [Good] alignment enemies.

Effect

Deals damage to all enemies.
Deals 150% supereffective damage to all [Evil] alignment enemies.
Inflict Burn (3 turns, 1000 dmg/turn) on all enemies.
Inflict Spreading Fire on all enemies (3 turns, Burn damage +100%).
Inflict Curse (3 turns, 1000 dmg/turn) on all enemies.
Inflict Curse Damage Up on all enemies (3 turns, Curse damage +100%).
60% Chance to inflict Instant Death on all [Good] alignment enemies.

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Damage +	450%	600%	675%	712.5%	750%
Supereffective ATK +	150%	150%	150%	150%	150%
Burn Damage	1000	1000	1000	1000	1000
Burn Damage +	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
Curse Damage	1000	1000	1000	1000	1000
Curse Damage +	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
Death Chance	60%	60%	60%	60%	60%

Overcharge Effect	Increase own Arts Card effectiveness (1 turn) [Activates first].

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
Arts +	20%	25%	30%	35%	40%

It’s almost been 20 years since Kirei first started posing ominously in front of corrupted grail(s) in the VN, and he still looks amazing doing it. Having a remix of All the World’s Evils playing with this NP is just the cherry on the cake.

Zazhiganiye Angra Mainyu, a NP name I’m very happy to just ignore the first word of, is an Arts AOE NP with a whole bunch of effects to work through, on top of the fact we need to discuss farming / looping with it. Oh joy.

Before doing anything else, this NP applies a 20% Arts Booster scaling with Overcharge to Rasputin for 1 turn, providing an essential boost to both his damage and NP refund off the bat. Then, it deals the damage, with a 50% Effective Damage boost against Evil trait enemies. As I’ve already mentioned, the Evil trait isn’t particularly common, but does cover a big chunk of the Servant cast, and a limited number of NPC-only enemies. So you’ll get the effective damage out of this NP relatively often.

Then we have all the other effects. This NP packs a 60% Instant Death chance for Good alignment enemies, which we can essentially ignore in player hands, since only Servants will have Good alignment, and Servants have an absurdly low death rate when enemies, so this thing will pretty much never kill them.

The last effect(s) of this NP, and the ones that actually matter, are the 1000 damage Burn and Curse debuffs applied to every enemy for 3 turns, on top of the Burn and Curse amplification debuffs, doubling up their damage and multiplicatively increasing the damage of any other Burn or Curse debuffs that get thrown on the targets hit. Compared to the damage of an actual NP these things are minor, but when the debuffs run their course and get stacked up multiple times from NP spamming, they do add up to a respectable chunk of damage, so don’t underestimate them.

With that all out of the way, let’s go over the refund and farming potential of this NP. With just Rasputin’s own buffs active, this NP has a baseline refund of 22.37%, which I can tell you is pretty high. When you throw Rasputin in a typical 50% gauge CE farming setup with double Castoria, that refund bumps up to 63%, more than enough to form a 3-turn loop.
How do the damage numbers look in such a setup, though? Honestly, not bad, but not particularly great either. With the prior setup and things like 1k Atk fous factored in, he does a total of 60.6k damage neutral per NP, being able to boost up to 85k on wave 3. While it isn’t enough to farm common farming nodes versus neutral targets, against Alter Ego class advantage (which is the 3 Horseman classes, as a reminder), it’s more than enough to work with.

But things don’t stop there for our Russian priest. He’s more than capable of doing Black Grail farming, and he can even do it without a Battlesuit swap, though the refund gets pretty tight (he’s golden versus Riders / Casters, but versus neutral NP gain classes it’s shaky, dependent on overkill, and he’ll need Battlesuit for Assassins/Berserkers usually). In such setups his damage on waves 1 and 2 breaches the 100k mark, and with access to an Oberon switch-in turn 3 his wave 3 damage gets high enough to trivially clear everything but 90++ farming nodes.

…and let’s be real, lately those 90++ nodes have just been “Bring Melsuine or the event Welfare” nodes in disguise if you want to farm them.

Bottom line is, Rasputin makes for a very reliable farmer with sufficient damage output and fairly flexible capability to run Black Grail setups. Hell, it’s thematic for him.

Conclusion

So how is Rasputin overall? On one hand, to Moscow chicks, he’s such a lovely dear:

Rasputin is, as you might’ve guessed, a very solid farmer. The Alter Ego class is well suited to farming a broad range of classes with enough damage output to pass benchmarks, and Rasputin has the refund and baseline damage to back it up, allowing him to farm in fairly versatile setups, with access to Black Grail or not. While he isn’t exactly going to push damage benchmarks to the roof in the way Summer Ibuki can, he’s still a very convenient Servant to have for farming, if not technically a universal farmer.

His talents are also pretty suited to difficult content. Rasputin’s access to debuff removal and taunt are both irreplaceable quirks in tougher quests in the game, and can downright trivialize some fights that hinge on the hopes that a spammed enemy ST NP will overwhelm the player with offense. One unkillable priest with a smug-ass grin quickly puts a stop to that. Throw in his anti-Evil trait bonus damage being fairly versatile for taken on enemy Servants, and his great stargen profile / longevity, and he’s simply very handy in the right fights.

However, his drinking, and lusting, and hunger for power has gone on too long. We have to do something about this outrageous man:

While in a farming environment Rasputin’s damage output is pretty acceptable to work with, it may not pass a lot of the time in difficult content, especially if you’re not at liberty to get Rasputin’s class advantage in the fight. When the buffs from supportive Servants are out of the equation, he can hit like something of a wet sponge, even with the DoT damage from his NP debuffs providing extra spice on top. It’s not too severe, but more or less a byproduct of his less-than-stellar offensive profile overall.

Like most New Years’ Servants, Rasputin makes for a superb, if not meta-warpingly powerful, addition to the Servant roster.

Both an excellent farmer and entertaining damage dealer to bring into higher-difficulty quests, this crazy Russian can fill in typical roles while also having plenty of unique niches to play when more abnormal quests crop up to tackle.

If anything, my only disappointment is I thought his skill kit would be a little more gimmicky if anything. The Guts skill is great and all, but I was anticipating some true Grigori Rasputin-style absurdity in the entirety of the skill kit. Or maybe I’m just over-selling the legend.

In any case, Rath™ Seal of Approval. Rasputin makes for a fine offensive Alter Ego in general, as well as a great Arts farmer who can cover a lot of ground, even if not on the level of a universal farmer.

Outro

With that, the New Year's edition of the MMM is out of the way, and I’d like to formally welcome you all to 2023!

Surely nothing can get any worse compared to the last two years in world affairs, right?

Right?

In the future, at least we have all the wonderful LB7 Servants in their Aztec god glory. I even heard we have a fabled…catboy.

I am positively coiled with anticipation. Until then!

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MMM - Rambunctious Reverend Reveres Rotten Ritual, Realta Nua Residents Repulsed by the Rector's Rigour

The Modern Magus Magazine

QQAAB (Archer)

Quick Card

Quick Card

Arts Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

Traits

Tags

Heal

Start Np

Guts

Zazhiganiye Angra Mainyu

Outro

Links

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