Rabbit’s Reviews #383: Yui Shousetsu (4* Caster)

Introduction

Yui is a very good SR support. She’s around the level of Tamamo and Lady Avalon—probably a bit weaker overall, but with situations in which she’s better. She offers a little less general-purpose damage boosting for Arts Servants than Tamamo does, with the advantage of a skill-based battery. In addition, her NP gives extra buffs based on card-type buffs on the target Servant, which means Arts Servants with Quick or Buster buffs in their kits can get further damage boosts. Essentially this means Yui is a Tamamo alternative for burst fights. She’s not as good at stalling, but she can be better for burst damage in specific cases.

Servant Data

Caster

QAAAB (Caster)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

4

3

5

-

Attribute	Human
Alignment	Chaotic Good

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

Max HP 13,070

HP Rank

Max ATK 7,766

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,294	Base HP	2,091
Max Atk	7,766	Max HP	13,070
Grail Atk	9,403	Grail HP	15,847

Traits

Card Hits	4	3	3	5	-
Per Hit	0.54%	0.54%	0.54%	0.54%	0.54%

	NP per Hit (%)	0.54%
NP when Attacked (%)	3%

	Star Absorption	50
Star Generation per Hit	10.8%

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	50,000	x4 Caster Piece
3	150,000	x10 Caster Piece x6 Forbidden Page
4	500,000	x4 Caster Monument x24 Evil Bone x4 Homunculus Baby
Max	1,500,000	x10 Caster Monument x8 Homunculus Baby x4 Egg of Truth

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100,000	x4 Gem of Caster
2 → 3	200,000	x10 Gem of Caster
3 → 4	600,000	x4 Magic Gem of Caster
4 → 5	800,000	x10 Magic Gem of Caster x12 Evil Bone
5 → 6	2,000,000	x4 Secret Gem of Caster x24 Evil Bone
6 → 7	2,500,000	x10 Secret Gem of Caster x4 Forbidden Page
7 → 8	5,000,000	x8 Forbidden Page x5 Homunculus Baby
8 → 9	6,000,000	x15 Homunculus Baby x8 Heart of the Foreign God
9 → 10	10,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100000	x4 Gem of Caster
2 → 3	200000	x10 Gem of Caster
3 → 4	600000	x4 Magic Gem of Caster
4 → 5	800000	x10 Magic Gem of Caster x4 Ghost Lantern
5 → 6	2000000	x4 Secret Gem of Caster x8 Ghost Lantern
6 → 7	2500000	x10 Secret Gem of Caster x12 Mystic Spinal Fluid
7 → 8	5000000	x24 Mystic Spinal Fluid x2 Egg of Truth
8 → 9	6000000	x6 Egg of Truth x20 Scale of Fantasy
9 → 10	10000000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Guts

Counterfeit Life (Subspecies) C

Apply Guts to self (1 time, 5 turns).
Apply to self: Restore HP each turn (5 turns).
Apply Debuff Immune to self (1 time, 3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Revives with HP	2000	2100	2200	2300	2400	2500	2600	2700	2800	3000
HP Regen +	500	550	600	650	700	750	800	850	900	1000
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Counterfeit Life is a standard survivability skill, granting Yui a long lasting Guts, passive HP restoration, and a one-turn debuff immunity. This can be nice for making Yui more likely to survive until a second buff cycle, and if you want Yui to die to make room for a new support, you can just not use this skill—none of her party buffs are tied to it, so it’s easy to ignore. This isn’t the most exciting skill, but for what it is it’s implemented about as cleanly as one would hope.

Start Np

Patriot's Tactics B

Increase NP Gauge for all allies.
Increase NP Strength for all allies except self (3 turns).
Apply to self: Gain Critical Stars each turn (3 turns).
Decrease ATK for all enemies (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
NP +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
NP Damage +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
Stars per turn +	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	15
ATK -	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
CD	9	9	9	9	9	8	8	8	8	7

Patriot’s Tactics is a great skill. It’s a partywide 20% battery, which is always nice, and it also buffs the party’s NP damage by 30% for 3 turns. This is a strong, universal damage buff—and it pairs well with Oberon, too. Aside from that, the skill gives a good number of passive stars and reduces all enemies’ attack by a bit for 3 turns. Yui is primarily an Arts support and Arts crit can be a losing proposition, but Yui herself provides some crit buffs, and 15 stars per turn on top of the stars provided by a crit-focused DPS may be enough to enable crits.

Arts Up

Magecraft (Elements) B+

Increase Arts Card effectiveness for an ally (3 turns).
Increase Critical Strength for an ally (3 turns).
Increase own NP Gauge.

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 Damage +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
NP +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Magecraft is a targeted Arts card buff, giving 30% Arts up for 3 turns. This plus Patriot’s Tactics gives Yui a nice level of damage ampage for Arts allies for 3 turns. The skill also slightly boosts crit damage, which will usually not be relevant, but on an Arts Servant who has ways to enable crits, it can be nice. Additionally, the skill charges Yui’s own NP gauge by 30%. Between this, Patriot’s Tactics, and Mana Loading, Yui can get 70% charge on her own on the first turn of a fight, meaning a single Castoria Charisma (or a non-MLB event CE that gives starting charge) is enough to let her NP for her extra buffs.

Noble Phantasm

Resshinjunmei - Fushakushinmyou C

Increase ATK for all allies with Quick buffs (3 turns).
Increase Critical Strength for all allies with Arts buffs (3 turns).
Increase NP Strength for all allies with Buster buffs (3 turns).

<Overcharge>

Restore HP for all allies.

Show Info/Video

Resshinjunmei - Fushakushinmyou

Patriot's Name - Absolute Devotion

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	C	Anti-Army

Effect	Increase ATK for all allies with Quick buffs (3 turns). Increase Critical Strength for all allies with Arts buffs (3 turns). Increase NP Strength for all allies with Buster buffs (3 turns).

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Atk +	20%	25%	27.5%	28.8%	30%
Crit Damage +	30%	40%	45%	47.5%	50%
NP Damage +	20%	25%	27.5%	28.8%	30%

Overcharge Effect	Restore HP for all allies.

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
Heal +	3000	4000	5000	6000	7000

Yui’s NP is interesting in concept. At base, all it gives is healing—a decent amount of health, scaling with overcharge. Aside from that, it gives three other buffs that scale with level—but each is contingent on having a specific card-type buff. Servants with Quick buffs gain Attack up, servants with Arts up gain crit damage up, and Servants with Buster up gain NP damage up. Specifically, the card-type buffs must not be permanent—buffs from CEs, or boxed buffs, don’t count for this.

Given that Yui is only really worthwhile for supporting Arts units, this means you can count on Yui’s NP providing some additional crit damage up, which isn’t really worth using the NP on its own. If the DPS has a source of Quick up or Buster up, however, Yui’s effective steroids roughly match Tamamo’s (provided she NPs), and if the DPS has both, her damage buffs surpass Tamamo. This is especially true if Yui has NP levels, as her damage buffs scale slightly with NP level.

There aren’t all that many Arts Servants who benefit fully from Yui’s NP. Space Ishtar can, but she has to get lucky, since her tricolor buff can fail. Muramasa can, but he has to time his Mana Burst correctly. Emiya Alter, Chiron, Durga, and others like them are natural general-purpose fits for Yui’s NP. Functionally, this is an NP that provides increased support to specific Servants, and Yui goes from good to great when supporting those Servants.

Usage Tips

Yui’s a pretty straightforward support. In an ideal world, she replaces Tamamo or Lady Avalon as your third support in an Arts team, plugging in for a Castoria to amplify damage. She’s only superior to Tamamo or Lady Avalon if you can clear in three turns and the DPS has Quick or Buster buffs, but especially if you don’t already have either of the SSRs, she’s a great alternative. She also has slightly lower cost, which can enable using better CEs.

If you don’t have your own Castoria, Yui works as a general-purpose Arts support. There’s not a lot of complexity here—you slot her into any Arts team and let her use her buffs. She’s not great at sustain, so if you have better stall-oriented supports available, you might want to start with Yui and plug her out after she’s used her skills or after she NPs.

It’s also worth noting that Yui has some interesting synergy with Chen Gong specifically. If you’re using Chen Gong to cycle supports, you can toss Chen’s Buster buff on your DPS to proc the NP damage buff on Yui’s NP. In a team like Yui/Arts DPS/Castoria/Castoria/Lady Avalon/Chen, you can use the first Castoria’s buffs, plug her out for Chen Gong, and do a Yui->Chen->DPS NP chain (or Yui->DPS->Chen if the DPS has no useful overcharge). Chen’s Buster buff makes Yui’s NP better, and then Chen gets rid of Yui. Chen can taunt himself to ideally get himself killed, too, and then you’re left with Castoria/DPS/Lady Avalon—a great stall shell that also has a bunch of extra starting buffs on the DPS.

If Yui is supporting an Arts crit unit, 2030 is a good CE, since 2030 plus Yui’s own passive star gen buts you in reliable-crits territory if the DPS has any star weight buff available. Alternatively, starting NP charge makes it trivial for Yui to NP, even without Castoria’s help.

Utility-focused CCs are the best pick for Yui. Buff removal CCs can be handy in general, and star gen CCs can make Yui a bit better as a crit support. Healing CCs can also be a good option if you’re often running Yui in budget teams where you’re counting on her to stick around to a second buff cycle. The best option, of course, is CCs that increase party damage, but those are in very short supply and probably won’t go to Yui.

Grail Potential

Conclusion

Yui is really good by SR support standards. She is, on the whole, inferior to the SSR options, but she’s a good enough alternative to be more than sufficient if you don’t have her direct competition, and in very specific contexts she can actually be a superior choice. She’s probably not worth investing in if you already have one of Tamamo and Lady Avalon, and almost definitely not if you have both… but even if you do, she will be useful on occasion, which is a pretty good place for a new limited SR to be.

Good Servant. Clean design and reasonable balancing. No notes.

Rabbit's Arbitrary Ratings

Overall: 8/10
Single-Target DPS: 1/10
AoE DPS: N/A
Survivability: 6/10
Offensive Utility: 8/10
Defensive Utility: 4/10
Farming Usefulness: 5/10
Einzbern Homunculus Tech: 5/10