Rabbit’s Reviews #361: Duryodhana (4* Berserker)

Introduction

Duryodhana is a really good unit as SRs go. He’s an AoE Arts Berserker—only the third to be added to-date, and the first who’s not a limited SSR. This puts him in a great place to start with, and while there are elements of his kit that aren’t perfect, they’re mostly fair trades in exchange for the strength of his class and typing, and he ends up as one of the best AoE SR units as a result. He’s actually also better than a fair number of SSRs, especially for CQs. His biggest drawback is that he has essentially no meaningful utility, and he has no niche damage either, which means he’ll often fall behind specialist units in any given situation, despite being a great generalist unit.

This is a fair place for a unit to be, and one that’s especially fitting for a Berserker: great in general, but not better than a unit more tailored to a particular fight or node.

Servant Data

Berserker

QAABB (Saber)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

5

3

5

6

Attribute	Earth
Alignment	Lawful Evil

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

Max HP 11,250

HP Rank

Max ATK 9,409

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,568	Base HP	1,800
Max Atk	9,409	Max HP	11,250
Grail Atk	11,392	Grail HP	13,640

Traits

Card Hits	5	3	3	5	6
Per Hit	0.32%	0.32%	0.32%	0.32%	0.32%

	NP per Hit (%)	0.32%
NP when Attacked (%)	5%

	Star Absorption	10
Star Generation per Hit	4.9%

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	50,000	x4 Berserker Piece
3	150,000	x10 Berserker Piece x18 Fool's Chain
4	500,000	x4 Berserker Monument x5 Black Beast Grease x4 Phoenix Feather
Max	1,500,000	x10 Berserker Monument x7 Phoenix Feather x4 Cursed Beast Gallstone

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100,000	x4 Gem of Berserker
2 → 3	200,000	x10 Gem of Berserker
3 → 4	600,000	x4 Magic Gem of Berserker
4 → 5	800,000	x10 Magic Gem of Berserker x3 Black Beast Grease
5 → 6	2,000,000	x4 Secret Gem of Berserker x5 Black Beast Grease
6 → 7	2,500,000	x10 Secret Gem of Berserker x12 Fool's Chain
7 → 8	5,000,000	x24 Fool's Chain x4 Phoenix Feather
8 → 9	6,000,000	x12 Phoenix Feather x20 Crown of Silvery Light
9 → 10	10,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100000	x4 Gem of Berserker
2 → 3	200000	x10 Gem of Berserker
3 → 4	600000	x4 Magic Gem of Berserker
4 → 5	800000	x10 Magic Gem of Berserker x2 Cursed Beast Gallstone
5 → 6	2000000	x4 Secret Gem of Berserker x4 Cursed Beast Gallstone
6 → 7	2500000	x10 Secret Gem of Berserker x12 Stake of Wailing Night
7 → 8	5000000	x24 Stake of Wailing Night x5 Sun Leather
8 → 9	6000000	x15 Sun Leather x20 Ether Light Collector
9 → 10	10000000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Dmg Up

Charisma of Vice B-

Increase ATK for all allies (3 turns).
Increase Critical Strength for all allies (3 turns).
Increase Critical Star Gather Rate by 5000% for a random ally (1 turn).

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 Dmg +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
CD	7	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6	5

Duryodhana starts off with a fairly typical Charisma-type skill, pairing the usual 20% attack up with two crit effects. 20% crit damage up is barely anything, but Arts teams tend to be starved for crit buffs, so it’s not quite as bad on Duryodhana as it would be on a Quick or Buster Servant, relatively speaking. This also massively increases a random party member’s star weight for a turn—enough to let Duryodhana crit pretty easily if you’re lucky, or to steal stars for a support if you’re not. Since you probably won’t have very many stars on turn 1 (when you’re likely to use this) the star weight buff will mostly decide who gets to crit. The randomness is unfortunate, but this is mostly just a small damage buff, and it serves that purpose well enough.

Arts Up

Cudgel Techniques A (Duryodhana)

Increase own Arts Card effectiveness (3 turns).
Increase own Critical Strength (3 turns).
Gain Critical Stars.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Arts +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
Crit Dmg +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
Stars +	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	15
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Cudgel Techniques is your usual 30% 3-turn card-type buff, plus a small crit damage buff and some stars. Again, this is a low-strength crit buff, but it’s in a pretty empty bracket, so it’s not as bad as it could be. 50% total crit up isn’t a lot, but it lasts three turns and is on a Berserker with easy crit access, which means it’s a fair bit better than it looks. Given that you’re likely to use this on turn 1, the stars this gives will go to whoever Duryodhana’s first skill decides to target, which may or may not be useful. The main draw here is the Arts buff, though, which is quite nice.

Critical Star Absorption Up

Child of Ill Omen EX

Increase Critical Star Gather Rate for an ally (3 turns).
Apply to self: Gain Critical Stars each turn (3 turns).
Increase own NP Gauge by 10% each turn (3 turns).
Decrease Debuff Resist for all enemies (1 turn).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Star Gather +	3000%	3200%	3400%	3600%	3800%	4000%	4200%	4400%	4600%	5000%
Stars per turn +	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	20
Debuff Res -	20%	22%	24%	26%	28%	30%	32%	34%	36%	40%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Child of Ill Omen is a very powerful skill. It’s a massive targeted star weight buff that also lasts three turns. In practice, this is a selfish buff, but it’s kind of cool to have a long-lasting targeted one—there are only two other 3-turn targeted star weight buffs in the game (Bryn’s and Crane’s). This skill also provides a whopping 20 stars per turn, so whoever Duryodhana targets with this will have easy access to crits for the skill’s duration. Crit access on a Berserker is extremely powerful, and it’s probably part of why Duryodhana has such low Arts card NP gain—he should be critting most of the time, and crits substantially increase NP gain. Speaking of NP gain, this skill also gives 10% NP charge per turn, giving Duryodhana a de facto refund boost that makes it a lot easier for him to loop things. On top of all that, the skill reduces all enemies’ debuff resistance for a turn, taking the debuff rate on Duryodhana’s NP to 100%. The NP debuff can still be resisted via Magic Resistance and the like, but it’s a lot more reliable than it would be otherwise. The one drawback of this is that in farming contexts Duryodhana wants to use this skill on turn 1 for refund reasons, but he would rather have the debuff resistance on turn 3 for damage reasons. This isn’t strictly a problem in the way that it often is with trades of this nature, as Duryodhana might not need the extra refund to loop things, and he might not need the extra damage to clear things—and he might still get the extra damage even if he has to use this T1—so it’s not a huge problem, even if it’s not ideal. In CQs, there are no drawbacks—you use this T1, and in addition to the primary benefits it mostly guarantees Duryodhana gets his debuff-based ramp from the jump. Very good skill overall.

Noble Phantasm

Jai Kaurava A

Deal damage to all enemies.

<Overcharge>

Chance to apply Quick Resist Down by 20% on all enemies (3 turns) [Activates first].
Chance to apply Arts Resist Down by 20% on all enemies (3 turns) [Activates first].
Chance to apply Buster Resist Down by 20% on all enemies (3 turns) [Activates first].

Show Info/Video

Jai Kaurava

Firstborn of the Hundred Sons

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	A	Anti-Army	6

Effect	Deal damage to all enemies.

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Damage +	450%	600%	675%	712.5%	750%

Overcharge Effect	Chance to apply Quick Resist Down by 20% on all enemies (3 turns) [Activates first]. Chance to apply Arts Resist Down by 20% on all enemies (3 turns) [Activates first]. Chance to apply Buster Resist Down by 20% on all enemies (3 turns) [Activates first].

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
Quick Res -	20%	20%	20%	20%	20%
Arts Res -	20%	20%	20%	20%	20%
Buster Res -	20%	20%	20%	20%	20%
Chance	60%	70%	80%	90%	100%

Jai Kaurava is a very plain NP, but it’s more than serviceable—it’s an AoE Arts NP with good refund and ramp. In exchange for Duryodhana’s very weak Arts cards, he gets better-than-average NP refund. The ramp comes with some caveats, though—it’s in the form of a 20% 3-turn debuff to all card types, which is nice, and it activates before damage, which is excellent, but it only has a 60% chance of activating (which can be reduced further if enemies resist debuffs) and only the accuracy, rather than the actual effectiveness, scales with overcharge. In farming contexts, this being debuff-centric means Duryodhana’s NP will be a bit unreliable from wave to wave and won’t actually ramp at all. In CQs, this means Duryodhana’s damage can ramp, but it isn’t guaranteed to.

The long and short of this is that this is a conventionally strong Arts NP with some drawbacks to account for Duryodhana’s rarity. That’s pretty fair, and while this could be better, it could also very easily be worse.

Usage Tips

Against a neutral NP gain target, Duryodhana refunds a little over 20% per enemy with double Castoria. With Mana Loading, he can just loop 3/3/x nodes CE-less. On turn 1, you use all of Duryodhana’s skills, plus all of both Castorias’ except for one of the 20% batteries. Assuming Duryodhana’s Arts debuff lands on all three enemies, he refunds about 56% before Overcharge. His own passive battery takes up to 66%, and the Castoria battery plus 20% from a plug charger takes him to 100%. On turn 2, he refunds about 64%, gets 10% from his passive battery, and the plug charger can offer another 30% to secure the loop. This does need the plug charger to be able to split their batteries, but it doesn’t require Oberon specifically, meaning Waver and Reines also work for this. This does need Mana Loading even with Oberon, though, despite the extra 20% charge available, just because of how the batteries are distributed.

For CQs, the same logic applies. If you can clear quickly, that exact setup is your best bet, and you can throw in Duryodhana crits whenever you happen to draw his cards. If you can’t clear quickly, though, you need a way to keep Duryodhana safe—he has no innate survival tools to cover his Berserker squishiness. This makes Reines/Castoria and Lady Avalon/Castoria teams appealing for longer fights, as they can mostly block incoming damage. Reines is a bit better at preventing all incoming damage, and she also provides other survival tools to cover for Duryodhana if you get unlucky. Lady Avalon, on the other hand, gives more Arts buffs, and Duryodhana is a rare Arts Servant who can use her crit tools well. I have a marginal preference for Lady Avalon in teams like this, but both have their advantages.

Duryodhana is also generically strong enough that he should do okay in lower-end teams. Mozart and Xu Fu are always good budget Arts supports, and more crit-oriented alternative supports like Hans, Lanling, and Sherlock are also solid picks here. You could also consider bringing taunters like Mash or George to keep heat off the otherwise-fragile Duryodhana.

As is usually the case for Arts units, The Black Grail is your best CE choice. Even if you’re trying to stall with Reines/Castoria, it’s still probably your best bet, as Duryodhana can’t really afford to take hits and if he’s surviving long enough for the damage demerit alone to kill him, you probably have better options available. If you need starting NP for any reason, Painting Summer is still a good CE, and Mark on a Smiling Face is a strong alternative to BG if you’re really worried about the demerit for some reason.

Duryodhana has very easy crit access and comparatively modest crit buffs, so crit damage CCs are a great choice here.

Grail Potential

Conclusion

Duryodhana is a very good unit, with some clear but fair drawbacks. He’s an AoE Arts Berserker with good loopage and damage, the potential for strong ramp in CQs, and easy crit access, but in exchange he has no survival tools, he has no useful utility, he has no instant battery, and he’s both debuff and RNG-reliant. He’s a very straightforward servant. His kit is pretty bare-bones, but he does those bare-bones things really well. It’s too bad he’s not spookable, but there’s no one else quite like him below the SSR level, which makes him a nice addition to the game.

Plus, he’s a fun character with great art. What else do you need?

Rabbit's Arbitrary Ratings

Overall: 9/10
Single-Target DPS: 7/10
AoE DPS: 10/10
Survivability: 1/10
Offensive Utility: 4/10
Defensive Utility: N/A
Farming Usefulness: 8/10
Sneak Attack!: 10/10