Rabbit’s Reviews #349: Nitocris (Alter) (5* Avenger)

Well, if you had asked me who I thought the first LB7 Servant would be… I would not have said Nito Alter. But here we are, I guess?

Nito is an AoE SSR Arts Avenger, which sets her up quite well at base. She also has good CQ utility, and—most importantly—a 100% battery skill. This makes her one of the best loopers in the entire game. In exchange, her damage is quite low—to the extent that she struggles to keep up with the likes of Muramasa. This leaves her in “worst of the best” territory, similar to Ruler Moriarty, but unlike Moriarty, Nito has some genuinely unique value and (most importantly) is non-limited. Nito is far from the first Arts looper in the gen pool, but she is far and away the best looper of the bunch, and she’s also in a neutral class. As a whole, she’s not a Servant to actively pull for, but she’s a great spook and a solid addition to the general Servant pool.

Nito is tied with Spish for the lowest attack of the SSR Avengers, and she has much lower HP than Spish. That said… Avengers have really good attack at base, so even with low-for-an-Avenger attack, Nito is still plenty strong. Nito is a triple-Arts Servant, so active star gen is not a strength, and—as is typical for Avengers—her Arts card NP gain is also on the low side. Nito also has an absolutely terrible Quick card, which is unfortunate. She has the usual Avenger passives, increasing her crit damage and offsetting her weak cards with passive and defensive NP gain. She also has Divinity and a low-level of Madness Enhancement, both of which are essentially flavor. For appends, Mana Loading is the best as always. Anti-Caster damage is decent, especially given Nito’s lack of attack buffs, and the Extra card buff is mostly useless.

Ascension Materials

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	100,000	x10 Forbidden Page x10 Ghost Lantern
3	300,000	x10 Phoenix Feather x10 Black Beast Grease
4	1,000,000	x10 Lamp of Evil-Sealing x10 Primordial Lanugo
Max	3,000,000	x10 Scarab of Wisdom x10 Heart of the Foreign God

Skill Enhancement Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200,000	x10 Seed of Yggdrasil
2 → 3	400,000	x10 Forbidden Page
3 → 4	1,200,000	x12 Phoenix Feather
4 → 5	1,600,000	x12 Lamp of Evil-Sealing
5 → 6	4,000,000	x12 Tearstone of Blood
6 → 7	5,000,000	x15 Divine Leyline Spiritron
7 → 8	10,000,000	x15 Scarab of Wisdom
8 → 9	12,000,000	x15 Scale of Fantasy
9 → 10	20,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Append Skill Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200000	x10 Ghost Lantern
2 → 3	400000	x10 Black Beast Grease
3 → 4	1200000	x12 Primordial Lanugo
4 → 5	1600000	x12 Heart of the Foreign God
5 → 6	4000000	x12 Stake of Wailing Night
6 → 7	5000000	x15 Arrowhead of Malice
7 → 8	10000000	x15 Small Bell of Absolution
8 → 9	12000000	x15 Ashes of Forgetfulness
9 → 10	20000000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Nito’s skillset is fairly busy on paper, but in practice it’s straightforward: persistent Arts buffs, and a huge battery. Recommended skill order is 2>1>3.

Nito’s main claim to fame is that she can loop CE-less against anything, no questions asked. With Mana loading and two Castorias, you use both Castorias’ 30% batteries and one Castoria’s 20% battery for turn 2. Nito refunds 10% trivially, so turn 2 you use the remaining Castoria battery and plug in Oberon to use his batteries. On turn 3, you use Nito’s battery to finish the loop. The only thing Nito has to worry about is damage, which is a nice place to be, even if she does need plug for it. You can also get away with not having Mana Loading or Oberon if there are more enemies on the field—a single wave of 3 lets Nito loop CE-less without Mana Loading and with a 50% charger like Waver or Reines in place of Oberon.

For CQs, Nito likes the conventional Arts setups. Reines/Castoria, Tamamo/Castoria, and Lady Avalon/Castoria all make great shells for basically any Arts Servant, and Nito’s extra utility makes those teams a little safer. Nito’s 100% battery also means she can safely use her NP a bit more aggressively than she might otherwise be able to, letting you use it as part of an Arts chain to help the supports get their NPs ready or using it for extra damage in-between Castoria NPs, and having the battery ready to push Nito to another NP in order to get an overcharge level for Castoria.

Outside of the obvious setups, Lanling and Hans both have some nice synergy with Nito’s buff success rate effects. Nito isn’t good at crits, but those two supports can collectively help prop up her card damage a little, which is usually worthwhile when you’re trying to run low-end teams.

Unless you’re running an event CE, there’s little reason not to put Black Grail on Nito. She outheals the demerit on her own, and it goes a long way towards offsetting her damage issues. Use it.

If you think you might run Nito in lower-end teams where card damage matters, crit damage CCs are a good idea, since Nito doesn’t have any in-kit crit buffs beyond her passives. Otherwise, utility CCs can complement her CQ utility—buff removal CCs pair nicely with her other ways of keeping enemies under control.

Avengers are great grail targets and damage is Nito’s biggest weakness, so if you find yourself with a high-NP Nito, grails would be a great investment. That said, Spish and Kama—let alone Ibuki—are solidly better, so if you already have a favored Arts omnifarmer, Nito is unlikely to bring you much in the way of new value.

If FGO’s enemy health values hadn’t exploded as much as they have in the past year, Nito would be an unambiguously amazing Servant. As-is, though, her low damage really holds her back. I personally think this is fair, though, given her status as a gen pool Servant. She does feel like a proper non-limited alternative to the likes of Spish and Kama, filling the same role, with a few neat quirks, at an overall lower level of power. I’d recommend skipping her banner, but if she spooks, she’s one to be very happy about.

Overall: 8/10
Single-Target DPS: 3/10
AoE DPS: 7/10
Survivability: 5/10
Offensive Utility: 2/10
Defensive Utility: 4/10
Farming Usefulness: 7/10
Ammut: 10/10