Rabbit’s Reviews #382: Ushi Gozen (5* Avenger)

Introduction

Ushi Gozen’s value proposition comes down almost entirely to one particular trait: she gets bonus damage against Earth enemies twice—once via power mod, on a skill, and once through a Supereffective damage bonus on her NP. This is, in theory, a good thing, especially on a neutral unit. Niche damage is essentially required to hit 90++ damage levels on an AoE Servant, especially without a common class advantage context, and doubling up on a single niche is, in theory, a great way to hit the requisite levels of damage.

…Unfortunately, Ushi Gozen has very low steroids outside of that, which means she doesn’t deal enough damage for the hardest content even with niche, unless she’s both maxed out and fighting Berserkers. The best neutral damage dealers are Berserkers with great steroids or broad niches (AA, Summer Ibuki) or non-Berserkers with both (Kukulkan, Avenger Nobu). Ushi Gozen has only niche damage going for her, and her lack of steroids means niche damage isn’t enough to carry her. She doesn’t really offer anything outside of that, either—she has very little utility, her crit capabilities are pretty modest for a Quick unit, and her refund is terrible. She’s mostly inferior to Dantes, and even Berserker Lancelot will outdo her on nodes with difficult loop requirements or if his NP level is higher. Neither of them is exactly a top-of-the-line AoE unit in this day and age, so that doesn’t reflect well on Ushi Gozen. Mechanically speaking, she brings very little of value.

Servant Data

Avenger

QQQAB (Assassin)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

6

4

5

6

Attribute	Heaven
Alignment	Lawful Evil

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

Max HP 12,602

HP Rank

Max ATK 12,430

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,921	Base HP	1,848
Max Atk	12,430	Max HP	12,602
Grail Atk	13,607	Grail HP	13,806

Avenger D

Increase the amount of NP you gain when damaged by 14%.
Decrease Debuff Resist for all allies (including sub-members) except yourself by 4%. [Demerit]

Oblivion Correction B

Increase your Critical Strength by 8%.

Self-Restoration (Magical Energy) A

Increase NP Gauge each turn by 3.8% for yourself.

Madness Enhancement EX

Increase your Buster Card effectiveness by 12%.

Oni God's Clarity A

Apply Damage Plus 100 to self.
Increase own Quick Card Critical Strength by 20%.

Card Hits	6	4	4	5	6
Per Hit	0.55%	0.55%	0.55%	0.55%	0.55%

	NP per Hit (%)						0.55%
	NP when Attacked (%)						5%

	Star Absorption	29
	Star Generation per Hit	5.9%

Overview

Ushi Gozen has a defense-focused stat spread by Avenger standards, with the lowest attack (though not the highest health) of the SSR Avengers. This isn’t a great starting point for a DPS, though Avengers have such a strong attack lean in general that even with the lowest attack of the SSR Avengers, Ushi Gozen still has high attack relative to SSRs as a whole. Her active star gen is very good, between her three 6-hit Quicks and her AoE Quick NP, and her active NP gen (when she has access to cards) is also pretty solid.

Ushi Gozen has a set of five passives. Avenger passives are nice in general, boosting defensive NP gain and crit damage, as well as providing passive NP gauge every turn. Aside from that, Ushi Gozen gets Madness Enhancement EX, which would be nicer if she had more than one Buster. Her final passive is a unique one, but it’s not all that useful. It gives a tiny damage increase, and it boosts her Quick crit damage by 20%—that’s not a lot, and small crit buffs on Quick units tend to not be very impactful, especially considering the Skadis bring a ton of crit buffs of their own.

For appends, Ushi has options. Mana Loading is usually important for farming, though in Ushi’s case it’s less so—Ushi has a 50% battery, and Ushi’s favored supports also have 50% batteries that can’t be split up, so an extra 20% starting charge only matters if you’re running a 30% charge CE (that is to say, a non-MLB event CE) or are running Castoria, Waver, or Reines instead of Oberon or another Skadi. It’s still probably the best append choice, but anti-Berserker attack damage competes with it. Earth Berserkers are the only real circumstance in which Ushi is likely to hit high-end damage thresholds, so you might choose to go with anti-Berserker damage first to make it easier for Ushi to function in the one case where her damage is likely to be sufficient. Ushi’s Extra card, meanwhile, is underwhelming, so the Extra card buff is of limited usefulness.

Material Requirements

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	100,000	x10 Meteor Horseshoe x10 Warhorse's Young Horn
3	300,000	x10 Claw of Chaos x10 Tearstone of Blood
4	1,000,000	x10 Refined Magatama x10 Heart of the Foreign God
Max	3,000,000	x10 Ball of Rainbow Thread x10 Flaming Oni Lantern Plant

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200,000	x10 Meteor Horseshoe
2 → 3	400,000	x10 Warhorse's Young Horn
3 → 4	1,200,000	x12 Tearstone of Blood
4 → 5	1,600,000	x12 Cursed Beast Gallstone
5 → 6	4,000,000	x12 Refined Magatama
6 → 7	5,000,000	x15 Ball of Rainbow Thread
7 → 8	10,000,000	x15 Flaming Oni Lantern Plant
8 → 9	12,000,000	x15 Remnants of Madness
9 → 10	20,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200000	x10 Evil Bone
2 → 3	400000	x10 Claw of Chaos
3 → 4	1200000	x12 Black Beast Grease
4 → 5	1600000	x12 Heart of the Foreign God
5 → 6	4000000	x12 Stake of Wailing Night
6 → 7	5000000	x15 Giant's Ring
7 → 8	10000000	x15 Arrowhead of Malice
8 → 9	12000000	x15 Obsidian Knife
9 → 10	20000000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Servant Skills

Ushi’s skillset is quite weak relative to limited SSRs as a whole, with surprisingly restrained values and awkward buff placement. She does at least get a 50% battery, though, which is a step up over several other relatively recent Quick AoEs. Recommended skill order is 3>2>1.

Special ATK

Doujigiri Yasutsuna A

Apply Special ATK [Demonic] to self (3 turns).
Apply Special ATK [Earth Attribute Servant] to self (3 turns).
Increase own Critical Strength (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Special ATK (Demonic) +	30%	32%	34%	36%	38%	40%	42%	44%	46%	50%
Special ATK (Earth Servant) +	30%	32%	34%	36%	38%	40%	42%	44%	46%	50%
Crit Damage +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Ushi’s first skill is a 3-turn power mod buff, granting niche damage against both Demonic enemies and Earth attribute Servants. Notably, the Earth buff applies only to Servants, meaning it doesn’t work against non-Servant Earth enemies (which is particularly relevant to farming). Demonic is a fairly small niche, but it’s worth noting that the two buffs apply separately, meaning Ushi Gozen can get both power mod boosts against the small handful of Demonic Earth Servants. Mostly, though, this skill serves to increase Ushi Gozen’s NP and card damage against Earth Servants in particular. Power Mod is mostly worse than Supereffective damage (though Ushi gets that too), as it stacks additively with NP damage and crit damage buffs. On the flip-side, Ushi isn’t likely to have that much in the NP damage bracket, as her NP gain is weak enough that she’ll likely need to run a starting charge CE instead of Black Grail. Speaking of crit damage, the skill also provides 30% crit damage up, which is extremely low, especially on a triple-Quick Servant. This skill does technically give 80% (and occasionally 130%) in this bracket for crits in-niche, which is better… but her other card-applicable steroids are so low her crit damage won’t be that impressive regardless.

Quick/Buster Up

Mana Burst (Tempest) A

Increase own Quick Card effectiveness (3 turns).
Increase own Buster Card effectiveness (3 turns).
Apply buff to self (5 times, 3 turns): Increase own Critical Strength (3 turns) when using Quick attacks.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Quick +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
Buster +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
Crit Damage +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Ushi’s Mana Burst is (ironically) not her one-turn buff. It’s a 3-turn 30% Quick and Buster buff, which is nice as a baseline, but unfortunately it’s her only sustained non-niche damage buff, which is why her damage is so pitiful out of niche (and only okay in-niche). The skill also grants a tiny 20% crit damage buff when Ushi uses her Quick cards, which can stack up to 5 times. Ushi can ramp to decent crit damage as a result, though her buffs being so concentrated in a single bracket limits her potential as a Quick Servant. On the bright side, Ushi’s NP does proc this, so you’re guaranteed at least one stack per turn if Ushi’s looping.

Critical Star Absorption Up

Demonic Oni God EX

Increase own Critical Star Gather Rate (1 turn).
Increase own Critical Strength (1 turn).
Increase own NP Strength (1 turn).
Increase own NP Gauge.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Star Gather +	1200%	1280%	1360%	1440%	1520%	1600%	1680%	1760%	1840%	2000%
Crit Damage +	30%	32%	34%	36%	38%	40%	42%	44%	46%	50%
NP Damage +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
NP +	30%	32%	34%	36%	38%	40%	42%	44%	46%	50%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Ushi’s third skill is… awkward. It’s a 50% battery, which is good, but it’s also a one-turn NP damage buff, meaning Ushi only gets her max damage on one turn, and she has limited control over which turn that is by virtue of needing to use this skill for NP access reasons. The skill also raises Ushi’s star weight and crit damage for a turn. 50% crit damage up isn’t bad, but usually skills of this type last three turns or have higher values, making this pretty underwhelming overall.

Noble Phantasm

Goouhanten Jinraifuuretsu A

Deal damage to all enemies.
Decrease Critical Rate for all enemies by 30% (3 turns).
40% chance to inflict Stun on all enemies (1 turn).

<Overcharge>

Deal supereffective damage to [Earth Attribute] enemies.

Show Info/Video

Goouhanten Jinraifuuretsu

Ox King Reversal - Thunderclap and Fierce Wind

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	A	Anti-Fortress	6

Effect	Deal damage to all enemies. Decrease Critical Rate for all enemies by 30% (3 turns). 40% chance to inflict Stun on all enemies (1 turn).

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Damage +	600%	800%	900%	950%	1000%
Crit Chance -	30%	30%	30%	30%	30%
Stun Chance	40%	40%	40%	40%	40%

Overcharge Effect	Deal supereffective damage to [Earth Attribute] enemies.

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

Ushi Gozen’s NP is… fine. It’s an AoE NP with Supereffective damage against Earth enemies, which is nice in theory, though Ushi’s low steroids limit its practical value. It also reduces enemy crit chance by 30% for 3 turns, which is enough to mostly shut down crits on turn 1 in CQ contexts, and to more or less completely shut down crits on later turns. The NP closes with a small chance to stun enemies. The stun chance is much too low to be reliable, especially with Magic Resistance factored in, but it could occasionally be nice for CQs. …Though it also means Ushi can’t rely on getting her supports killed, if you need that for extra damage, which can be a drawback in rare situations.

This NP has two key problems. First, it has no ramp. This isn’t necessarily a dealbreaker—none of the good neutral Servants I listed at the top of the review have farming-applicable ramp on their NPs—but it is an issue when you don’t have good steroids elsewhere. The other problem with this NP is that its refund is well below average. The NP gives refund equivalent to a non-crit Quick card per enemy, which just isn’t enough for Ushi to farm difficult nodes and can make it harder for her to loop even in CQ contexts.

Usage Tips

Ushi Gozen’s loop specs are, as mentioned above, quite bad. With double Summer Skadi, she refunds a measly 8.5% per enemy (though she does get a flat 3.8% after that thanks to her Avenger passives). This means she cannot loop CE-less, even against 3/3/x nodes. Against 3 enemies, she refunds about 30%, factoring in her passive and overkill. Even with a plug Oberon, this leaves Ushi about 20% charge short on the last turn. You can make up the difference with Summer Chloe, but that leaves your team cost too high to run a full set of SSR CEs… and farming 3/3/x nodes is usually easy enough that there’s no reason to sacrifice CE slots for it.

For farming, Ushi’s more or less locked into using a 50% charge CE. For that, with two Summer Skadis and a plug Oberon, Ushi needs to refund 30% on one of the first two waves, which means she can farm 3/x/x or x/3/x, provided she has the damage. You have four 50% batteries and a 20% battery (from Oberon) at your disposal, so you use one 50% battery on the first turn, two on the turn you don’t refund 30%, and one plus Oberon’s 20% battery on the turn where you can refund 30%. Being unable to run Black Grail limits Ushi’s damage potential in these setups, but if you’re farming an event with a damage bonus CE that also gives starting charge, and you’re farming nodes that have at least one wave of three, and the highest-health enemies are Earth-attribute, Ushi might be sufficient.

…She’s, uh, not a very good farmer.

Ushi looks a little better in CQs, in part because she can run triple Skadi, which increases her overall damage output. Given her triple-Quick deck, double Caster Skadi with a single Ruler Skadi is likely the better setup, even though it results in slightly lower NP-applicable steroids (assuming Skadi doesn’t NP). Ushi benefits strongly from loading up on Caster Skadi’s Quick crit buffs, and she can output solid single-target damage if your card draws line up. She’s not the best Quick Servant at doing this—and Buster Servants are much better at this gimmick in general—but it’s an option.

Her performance will drop off substantially in less-optimized teams, as her weak refund will become more of a problem, and the utility she does have isn’t reliable or powerful enough to meaningfully keep a squishy team alive. Budget or alternative Quick supports—Wu, Laksmibai, Santa Night, Barti, et cetera—are all options to prop Raikou up, but the team will likely struggle even relative to other budget teams.

Ushi usually needs 50% charge CEs to loop. Holy Night Supper and Golden Sumo bring damage and charge, and Traces of Christmases Past helps prop up Ushi’s NP gain. The Black Grail is the best damage option for CQs, though at that point you’re relying on good card draws to loop successfully.

There’s nothing that would obviously benefit Ushi CC-wise, so crit buffs are a good standby, even if their actual impact with Skadi buffs factored in will be quite low. More damage is more damage, at least.

Grail Potential

Conclusion

Ushi’s issues really boil down to two things: bad refund, and not enough damage. A good NP interlude could fix the damage issues, but loop specs are a deeper problem and are less likely to be fixed. I definitely wouldn’t pull for her unless she got substantial buffs.

It’s a shame that AoE Quick units are consistently relatively undertuned. Even good ones—Sen no Rikyu, for example—come with caveats (like not getting a proper 50% battery). Arts and Buster regularly get very strong units (even if they also get weak ones now and again), but Quick doesn’t really have the same luxury. Ushi’s weaknesses are by and large emblematic of that. Kukulkan gets anti-Earth damage and tons of steroids. Nobu gets to double up on niche types and tons of steroids. Both meet the loop conditions for their card type. In Arts land, you have monsters like Summer Ibuki and Tez. And then Quick gets Servants like Ushi Gozen, who pays through the nose for getting to double-stack her niche and who finally gets a 50% battery but has terrible NP refund in exchange. As a set of balancing decisions, it’s quite strange.

Rabbit's Arbitrary Ratings

Overall: 5/10
Single-Target DPS: 6/10
AoE DPS: 4/10
Survivability: 2/10
Offensive Utility: N/A
Defensive Utility: 3/10
Farming Usefulness: 4/10
Giant Mechanical Arms: 2/2