Rabbit’s Reviews #353: Pope Johanna (5* Ruler)

Introduction

Johanna is not a good unit. With a few slight changes, she could be a good support or a good damage-dealer. As-is, though, she provides low steroids with very long cooldowns, which makes her bad for burst, bad for stall, and bad at hitting things. She’s a proper Arts crit support at the SSR level, but Lanling and Sherlock are both arguably better at that, and Sherlock comes with the added benefit of getting you past defensive buffs. Her kit is just undertuned as a whole, and while there are some fairly clear ways she could be improved, it generally takes a long while in FGO before Servants get buffs, so for the foreseeable future, at least, there’s not a lot of reason to pull for this one.

Servant Data

Ruler

QQAAB (Archer)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

4

3

5

3

Attribute	Earth
Alignment	Lawful Good

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

Max HP 15,592

HP Rank

Max ATK 10,126

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,564	Base HP	2,286
Max Atk	10,126	Max HP	15,592
Grail Atk	11,084	Grail HP	17,082

Magic Resistance EX

Increase your Debuff Resist by 25%.

Territory Creation A

Increase your Arts Card effectiveness by 10%.

Card Hits	4	3	3	5	3
Per Hit	0.55%	0.55%	0.55%	0.55%	0.55%

	NP per Hit (%)						0.55%
	NP when Attacked (%)						3%

	Star Absorption	104
	Star Generation per Hit	9.9%

Overview

Material Requirements

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	100,000	x5 Lancer Piece x5 Rider Piece x5 Caster Piece
3	300,000	x5 Saber Piece x5 Archer Piece x5 Assassin Piece x5 Berserker Piece
4	1,000,000	x5 Lancer Monument x5 Rider Monument x5 Caster Monument
Max	3,000,000	x5 Saber Monument x5 Archer Monument x5 Assassin Monument x5 Berserker Monument

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200,000	x5 Gem of Lancer x5 Gem of Rider x5 Gem of Caster
2 → 3	400,000	x5 Gem of Saber x5 Gem of Archer x5 Gem of Assassin x5 Gem of Berserker
3 → 4	1,200,000	x5 Magic Gem of Lancer x5 Magic Gem of Rider x5 Magic Gem of Caster
4 → 5	1,600,000	x5 Magic Gem of Saber x5 Magic Gem of Archer x5 Magic Gem of Assassin x5 Magic Gem of Berserker
5 → 6	4,000,000	x5 Secret Gem of Lancer x5 Secret Gem of Rider x5 Secret Gem of Caster
6 → 7	5,000,000	x5 Secret Gem of Saber x5 Secret Gem of Archer x5 Secret Gem of Assassin x5 Secret Gem of Berserker
7 → 8	10,000,000	x12 Divine Leyline Spiritron
8 → 9	12,000,000	x15 Egg of Truth
9 → 10	20,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200000	x5 Gem of Lancer x5 Gem of Rider x5 Gem of Caster
2 → 3	400000	x5 Gem of Saber x5 Gem of Archer x5 Gem of Assassin x5 Gem of Berserker
3 → 4	1200000	x5 Magic Gem of Lancer x5 Magic Gem of Rider x5 Magic Gem of Caster
4 → 5	1600000	x5 Magic Gem of Saber x5 Magic Gem of Archer x5 Magic Gem of Assassin x5 Magic Gem of Berserker
5 → 6	4000000	x5 Secret Gem of Lancer x5 Secret Gem of Rider x5 Secret Gem of Caster
6 → 7	5000000	x5 Secret Gem of Saber x5 Secret Gem of Archer x5 Secret Gem of Assassin x5 Secret Gem of Berserker
7 → 8	10000000	x36 Twilight Ritual Sword
8 → 9	12000000	x20 Fruit of Eternity
9 → 10	20000000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Servant Skills

Johanna has a supportive skillset that’s just a bit too cautious in a few ways, which keeps her from really shining. Recommended skill order is 3>2>1.

Arts Star Gather Rate Up

Illusionary Saint A

Increase Arts Card Star Gather Rate for an ally (3 turns).
Increase Arts Card Critical Strength for an ally (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
Star Gather (Arts) +	3000%	3200%	3400%	3600%	3800%	4000%	4200%	4400%	4600%	5000%
Crit Damage (Arts) +	50%	55%	60%	65%	70%	75%	80%	85%	90%	100%
Stars per turn +	5	6	6	7	7	8	8	9	9	10
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Illusionary Saint is arguably Johanna’s most interesting skill… though it’s not actually especially strong in practice. It’s an Arts crit enabling tool, boosting an ally’s Arts card star weight and crit damage, while also providing a handful of stars each turn. This is the Arts analogue to Skadi’s Quick crit buff, but it’s a bit less useful here for a few reasons. For one, Johanna has much lower overall steroids than Skadi does, so despite Quick cards being a bit weaker than Arts cards at base, a Johanna-fueled Arts crit will do less damage than a Skadi-fueled Quick crit, all else being equal. Additionally, while Johanna provides passives stars and a star weight buff to her favored card, Arts teams are much more likely to be short on stars than Quick teams are, which means Arts crits will be less reliable overall than Quick crits typically are. Quick teams also often benefit from powerful Buster crits, especially with Summer Skadi’s help, and Johanna doesn’t help Arts units with those at all—in fact, she makes it actively more difficult to crit with Buster cards. Arts Servants also don’t tend to struggle with refund in CQ contexts (unlike Quick units), so the added benefit of higher effective card-based NP gain is lower here than it is in Skadi teams. The idea of an Arts support who boosts crits Skadi-style isn’t a bad idea in the abstract, but Johanna’s kit as a whole doesn’t do enough to support it.

Arts Up

Evaded Religious Procession C

Increase Arts Card effectiveness for all allies (3 turns).
Apply Debuff Immune to all allies (1 time, 3 turns).
Apply Damage Cut to all allies (3 turns).
Increase own NP Gauge.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Arts +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
Damage Cut +	500	550	600	650	700	750	800	850	900	1000
NP +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
CD	9	9	9	9	9	8	8	8	8	7

Evaded Religious Procession is essentially a Charisma variant. It boosts the party’s Arts performance a bit, while also providing a handful of other benefits: one hit of debuff immunity, a decent partywide damage cut, and a self-battery. The partywide Arts buff is nice, though it’s a bit on the low side for both support and DPS purposes. Debuff immunity is handy in general, though this only working once means you have to be careful about the timing in cases where it matters… which is a problem given the long cooldown on this skill. AoE damage cut, similarly, can be powerful, though the values on this one aren’t especially high. 1000 HP is enough to meaningfully reduce incoming normal card damage assuming defensive class disadvantage, but it’s not until you start approaching 2000-ish that you can reliably no-sell damage entirely, making this a nice but usually not substantial defensive tool. The skill also has a battery, which is important to Johanna’s own loop specs but not super useful to her supportive ability since her NP is almost completely offensive. This skill is, in sum, a mix of nice-but-not-amazing benefits… on a very long cooldown. This skill would be much better if it had fewer effects on a shorter cooldown, or if it kept its cooldown but provided a heftier Arts buff. As-is, it’s kinda disappointing.

NP Turn

Papal Debate EX

Increase NP Gauge each turn for all allies (3 turns).
Increase ATK for all allies (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
NP per turn +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
ATK +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
CD	10	10	10	10	10	9	9	9	9	8

Papal Debate is Johanna’s best skill by far, and it still has some serious flaws. It provides a flat 20% NP gauge to the party each turn. Technically speaking, this is a lot of charge—it’s 60% total to the whole party over its duration—but the fact that none of it is immediate limits its usefulness, especially in farming contexts. Functionally speaking, this is a substantial boost to refund for a looping DPS, more than compensating for Johanna’s limited Arts buffs (at least as far as refund goes). This also provides a small attack buff, which, again, has disappointing values for the skill’s long cooldown. …And it is a long cooldown: 8 turns at max level. For a cooldown this long, I would expect more benefit, whether that’s a much larger damage buff or an upfront battery. Johanna’s ridiculous cooldowns make her a terrible pick for stall teams and largely lock her to burst setups, but her overall steroids are not high enough to really help Arts Servants meet the damage thresholds often required for min-turning, which leaves her in an awkward position of not having a clean use case support-wise. This is very nearly a great skill, but it feels deliberately undertuned in several ways, keeping it from reaching its potential.

Noble Phantasm

Legendam Pater Domus A

Apply 50% Special ATK [Evil] to self (1 turn) [Activates first].
Deal damage to all enemies.
Inflict Nullify Buff to all enemies (1 time, 3 turns).

<Overcharge>

Deal supereffective damage to [Human] attribute enemies.

Show Info/Video

Legendam Pater Domus

Prayer is the Radiant Glory of the Throne

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	A	Anti-Personnel	3

Effect	Apply 50% Special ATK [Evil] to self (1 turn) [Activates first]. Deal damage to all enemies. Inflict Nullify Buff to all enemies (1 time, 3 turns).

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Damage +	450%	600%	675%	712.5%	750%
Special ATK +	50%	50%	50%	50%	50%
Buff Block

Overcharge Effect	Deal supereffective damage to [Human] attribute enemies.

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

Johanna’s NP is mismatched with her supportive kit. Aside from a situationally-useful buff block effect, it’s entirely damage. Evil and Human are both broad niches, which is nice, but Johanna’s pre-niche damage is among the lowest of the AoE SSRs. Unless she’s fighting Evil Man enemies, her damage is going to be really unimpressive—and that’s assuming you’re using her as your DPS. As a support, her NP does basically nothing, and the rest of her kit isn’t good enough to justify that (unlike Koyan and Oberon, who are in similar positions). Johanna has relatively easy access to her NP, too, which makes it especially disappointing that her NP isn’t more valuable as a support.

Usage Tips

As a DPS, Johanna refunds about 20% per enemy with two Castorias, before batteries. With Oberon and Mana Loading, she can loop anything but 1/1/x nodes, just by using all of Johanna’s own stuff turn-one and spacing out batteries for maximum efficiency. I’m not going to go into much detail here, since Johanna’s damage is too low for it to matter much, but it is an option, at least. For farming specifically, Johanna can also potentially be used to clear wave 1 and help another DPS on waves 2 and 3. This is unlikely to be optimal in most cases and requires very low HP thresholds on wave 1, but it can be situationally good for mixed-DPS setups, especially if you happen to have a high-NP/grailed Johanna handy.

Johanna is more interesting as a support. If you want to lean into Arts crit damage, you really want to commit to running two of Johanna alongside an Arts DPS with high base card damage—which probably means a Berserker. The ideal partner also has at least a 30% battery, so they can immediately NP with one Castoria and two Johannas. There are three Servants who meet all of these criteria: Ibuki, Vlad, and Kriemhild. For these, you run Castoria/DPS/Johanna/Johanna. You put Black Grail on the DPS, use all of Castoria’s skills immediately, then plug her for the second Johanna. You want stars available immediately, as well as as many passive stars as you can manage. To that end, give Castoria a star burst CE and both Johannas passive star gen CEs. That way you have 20 stars on turn 1 and more every subsequent turn. For Vlad specifically, you might be better off giving one of the Johannas a star burst CE as well, since Vlad’s NP also gives stars. From there, the process is pretty simple: prioritize Arts cards and hope you can loop.

If you can’t arrange a team that can burst down a fight, Johanna is probably not a good support pick, but if you want to use her for longer fights anyway, you either need the ability to stall for long periods of time, or you need cooldown reduction. Tamamo is a solid partner for this reason, giving you buffs with better uptime as well as CDR each time she NPs. Castoria also works for stall purposes, as always.

DPS Johanna wants the Black Grail to prop up her damage. Support Johanna wants to be able to reliably facilitate crits, so she either wants a star burst CE like Golden Captures the Carp, or she wants a passive star gen CE like 2030 or His Rightful Place.

Johanna is best as a support, so support CCs are a good pick here. Healing and buff removal CCs are solid picks, as are CCs that grant extra critical stars for more reliable crits.

Grail Potential

Conclusion

Johanna is an interesting unit, with lots of theoretically powerful supportive tools and great refund. Unfortunately, she’s held back at almost every turn, with low values and very long cooldowns. There’s no shortage of strong AoE Arts units and strong Arts supports in the game, and Johanna doesn’t really do much to recommend herself over even the SR-level options. This makes it hard to advocate pulling for her, and since she’s limited, she can’t spook. There’s not a lot of value here. If you have Iyo, she’s a better DPS, and if you have Lanling, he’s a better Arts crit support. Castoria, Tamamo, and Lady Avalon are better general-purpose Arts supports, too.

Not being best-in-class doesn’t immediately make a Servant bad, but Johanna is outclassed by a ton of options, at basically every turn. She has a number of serious drawbacks even setting aside the direct comparisons, and overall she’s just… not a very good unit. Maybe she’ll get a great buff down the line at some point, but for now, this is one to skip.

Rabbit's Arbitrary Ratings

Overall: 3/10
Single-Target DPS: 2/10
AoE DPS: 2/10
Survivability: 5/10
Offensive Utility: 6/10
Defensive Utility: 2/10
Farming Usefulness: 3/10
Existing: 0/10