Shinpachi’s unique strength is executing huge crit damage on a single turn. In order to do this as effectively as possible, he wants to be able to use his third skill twice in one turn, and also to NP on that turn. Double Koyanskaya solves this innately—you can give Shinpachi any damage-boosting CE, use all of his skills, use Koyan’s buffs, use Shinpachi’s third skill again, and then NP. This floods the field with stars, guaranteeing Shinpachi crits for massive damage.
If you don’t have native Koyan, you can accomplish something similar with another 50% charger (along with the friend support Koyan), such as Waver or Reines, provided you bring the Atlas Mystic Code for the additional cooldown reduction. You can even use a 30% charger like Xu Fu if Shinpachi has Mana Loading. Xu Fu of course offers a lot less in steroids than Koyan does, but she does at least bring some crit damage up.
Because of Shinpachi’s innate defenses, he can be particularly effective with some taunt-oriented setups. If you have GudaGuda Poster Girl, it’s arguably Shinpachi’s best CE. It doesn’t give extra attack stats like Black Grail does, but it does provide a massive attack buff, which applies not only to Shinpachi’s NP but also to his crits. Shinpachi’s favored teams provide no (or very few) attack buffs, so he benefits a lot from it. The other big draw of Poster girl is the 3-turn taunt in brings. The taunt guarantees Shinpachi gets hit, generating more stars, and he has the tools he needs to survive through a buff cycle in spite of drawing attacks. Shinpachi can use his dodge on turn 1, rely on his guts turn 2, and then expect to die on turn 3, making way for another damage-dealer. You can then plug a Koyan out for another support to assist whoever comes in to close out the fight.
If you want even more damage for Shinpachi, you can plug Koyan out for Chen on turn 1. Chen provides another 100% crit damage up and 50% Buster up for a turn, further amplifying Shinpachi’s damage. Chen’s taunt can also be used to get himself killed, or to make sure Shinpachi is finished off if he survives turn 3 somehow. His NP can also remove the other Koyan from the field, again leaving you with a second DPS and someone to support them.
If you don’t have Poster Girl, you can accomplish something similar with Crane. Crane provides a three-turn taunt to the two others on the field, so if you use her skills before plugging your support Koyan out for another Koyan, Shinpachi is still left with a three-turn taunt, and he gets to benefit from Crane’s buffs also.
Outside of optimized setups, Shinpachi benefits from any allies who can provide stars and crit buffs. Hans is a natural pick, giving an extra bunch of stars each turn, along with some damage buffs and passive NP charge. Xu Fu, as mentioned earlier, is also decent, and Barti can work pretty well for amplifying damage on a single turn. Nobukatsu also provides useful buffs, especially if he can NP.
Shinpachi’s defenses make him a good anchor servant as well. As the last line of defense, he guarantees he gets hit multiple times per turn, providing plenty of stars to enable a turn of power crits. He can only anchor for a few turns, unlike anchors like Fujino who tend to last longer, but at least one of those turns is likely to have the explosive damage needed to close out the fight, which is probably worth more than a few more turns of low damage.
Outside of the above-mentioned Poster Girl setup, CEs that boost damage for both cards and NPs are good options. Shinpachi has so much in-kit crit damage, getting extra from his CE isn’t a priority. As such, Limited/Zero Over is unusually good here, especially if you happen to have it leveled for the extra attack—it provides less for Shinpachi’s NP than Black Grail does, but it benefits his crits in exchange. Black Grail also always deserves a mention for a damage-dealer, though if you’re using Black Grail, you will want to prioritize getting multiple NPs off, which may mean adding a plug Oberon or the like into the mix.
On the one hand, Shinpachi has so much crit damage available to him that extra gets mostly washed out. On the other hand, there’s nothing else that he really needs that CCs can provide, and since Shinpachi’s whole thing (aside from surprising durability) is crit damage, you might as well amp it as high as you can. Alternatively, you may want to give Shinpachi star gen CCs, as flooding the field with stars can let him crit even on off-turns.
Introduction
Berserker
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