Rabbit's Reviews #239: Chen Gong (2* Caster)

Introduction

Impressed as I am with Barti, Chen Gong is the clear winner of this new servant batch. On the low end, he’s a really excellent budget Caster with a strong mix of utility that enables shenanigans for budget and non-budget runs alike. On the high end, he’s a stupidly powerful Arts looper who has the potential to fastburn through difficult AoE fights. It might just be the release hype talking, but at the moment I’m leaning towards putting him as the best bronze servant in the game. The guy’s insane.

Servant Data

Caster

QAAAB (Caster)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

3

4

1

4

Attribute	Human
Alignment	Chaotic Good

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

April Fool's

Max HP 7,755

HP Rank

Max ATK 6,119

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,085	Base HP	1,459
Max Atk	6,119	Max HP	7,755
Grail Atk	8,867	Grail HP	11,192

Traits

Card Hits	3	4	1	4	4
Per Hit	0.40%	0.40%	0.40%	0.40%	0.40%

	NP per Hit (%)	0.40%
NP when Attacked (%)	3%

	Star Absorption	49
Star Generation per Hit	11.0%

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	15,000	x3 Caster Piece
3	45,000	x6 Caster Piece x4 Forbidden Page
4	150,000	x3 Caster Monument x5 Eternal Gear x3 Octuplet Crystals
Max	450,000	x6 Caster Monument x5 Octuplet Crystals x3 Scarab of Wisdom

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	20,000	x3 Gem of Caster
2 → 3	40,000	x6 Gem of Caster
3 → 4	120,000	x3 Magic Gem of Caster
4 → 5	160,000	x6 Magic Gem of Caster x3 Eternal Gear
5 → 6	400,000	x3 Secret Gem of Caster x6 Eternal Gear
6 → 7	500,000	x6 Secret Gem of Caster x3 Forbidden Page
7 → 8	1,000,000	x5 Forbidden Page x3 Kotan Magatama
8 → 9	1,200,000	x9 Kotan Magatama x12 Ancient Bell
9 → 10	2,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Taunt

Scapegoat E

Apply Target Focus to an ally (1 turn).
Decrease Critical Rate for all enemies (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Crit Chance -	10%	12%	14%	16%	18%	20%	22%	24%	26%	30%
CD	7	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6	5

Scapegoat is a fantastic skill for a support Caster to have. Taunts in general are exceptionally useful for controlling enemy damage—particularly in super high-damage fights—and this taunt is targeted. In lower-damage fights, Chen Gong can use this to help ensure defensive NP gain for a servant who needs an extra push (which is particularly viable in conjunction with his defense buff), while in high-damage fights Chen Gong can use this to sacrifice a lower-value unit (which may be Chen himself) while keeping the more important allies alive. As a side-note, the taunt has a 300% success rate, so it can draw fire to Nagayoshi even with his crit buff up. This also provides a solid 30% crit chance debuff for three turns, which can go a long way towards keeping enemy damage under control.

Shield Up

Tactician's Advice B++

Increase DEF for all allies (3 turns).
Apply Damage Cut to all allies (3 turns).
Increase NP Gauge for all allies by 10%.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Defense +	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	19%	20%	21%	22%	24%
Damage Taken -	200	215	230	245	260	275	290	305	320	350
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Tactician’s Advice is a slightly lower rank of Waver’s and Reines’s skills of the same name. Even at lower levels, the combination of defense up and damage cut is a strong one, and this also provides a 10% battery, which can give a little extra leeway in terms of loop thresholds or CE selection. With this and Scapegoat together Chen Gong is remarkably good at mitigating enemy card damage, as most enemies’ normal cards won’t be particularly threatening with this defense buff up provided they don’t crit—and Scapegoat makes crits significantly less likely.

Buster Up

Tactician's Cherished Desire A

Increase Buster Card effectiveness for one ally (1 turn).
Increase Critical Strength for one [Berserker] ally (1 turn).
Increase Max HP for one ally (1 turn).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Buster +	30%	32%	34%	36%	38%	40%	42%	44%	46%	50%
Crit Damage +	50%	55%	60%	65%	70%	75%	80%	85%	90%	100%
Max HP +	2000	2100	2200	2300	2400	2500	2600	2700	2800	3000
CD	7	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6	5

Tactician’s Wish can best be described as “one-turn Hero Creation for ‘Zerkers.” The Buster buff on this skill applies to all Servant types, but the other two effects are ‘Zerker-only, meaning Buster crit ‘Zerkers (like Arjuna, Raikou, Nagayoshi, and Nobu) are going to be Chen’s best friends. Chen can push burst NP damage for any Buster Servant, of course—and his other utility means he’s still valuable when backing non-‘Zerkers—but for Buster crit ‘Zerkers he can enable near-Merlin levels of burst damage, which on a 2* Servant is every bit as ludicrous as it sounds. The skill is also on a shorter CD than Hero Creation is, which is nice if you can keep Chen Gong alive long enough to use it again. The biggest drawback to the targeting limitation is actually the Max HP buff, as the short duration means it’s not as flexible of an overheal as Merlin’s skill is and the Berserker exclusivity means Chen Gong can’t use this as an emergency heal on another support (or on himself). Generally speaking you’ll want this for damage-amping reasons anyway, though, so it’s ultimately not that painful of a limitation.

Noble Phantasm

Two-Pronged Formation C

(Can only be used while there is at least one other Servant on the field who can be used as a sacrifice)
Deals significant damage to all enemies.
Sacrifices an ally (Instant-Death effect that ignores Instant-Death resistance) [Demerit]
* The leftmost ally (that is not Chen Gong) will be sacrificed.

<Overcharge>

Increases damage dealt.

Show Info/Video

Two-Pronged Formation

Kikaku Ichijin

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	C	Anti-Army	4

Effect	(Can only be used while there is at least one other Servant on the field who can be used as a sacrifice) Deals significant damage to all enemies. Sacrifices an ally (Instant-Death effect that ignores Instant-Death resistance) [Demerit] * The leftmost ally (that is not Chen Gong) will be sacrificed.

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Damage +	900%	1200%	1350%	1425%	1500%
Death

Overcharge Effect	Increases damage dealt.

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
Add. Damage +	0%	225%	450%	675%	900%

It may not be obvious at first glance just how ludicrously good Chen Gong’s NP is. It’s a variant on Arash’s NP in that it deals AoE damage with an ST multiplier and then kills a unit—though in Chen’s case it’s not himself but rather the ally in the first party slot (or the third, if Chen occupies the first himself) who dies. The more obvious usefulness of this NP has to do with sacrificial buffers. You can let a servant like CasGil or Barti drop their buffs and then use this NP to get them out of the way in favor of someone with more sustain (or just with more offensive buffs) in order to keep a DPS of your choice rolling. It functions as something of an alternative to Poster Girl in that regard, and in fact some setups that would formerly have been considered “Poster Girl strategies” can in fact be replicated with a combination of Scapegoat and this NP. Neat!

…The catch here is the “DPS of your choice” can actually be Chen Gong himself. The refund on this NP is high enough that Chen Gong is capable of looping in the right team. This would not, on its own, make him busted good—he’d still be fighting against 2* Caster stats—but the “demerit” on this NP more than makes up the difference.

Each time Chen uses his NP, he kills a Servant, which also means he’s bringing another Servant in. This means you can have a conga line of supports ready to show up, buff Chen, and then die. You can do this with, for example, Waver to minimize the refund Chen needs to loop, or you can do it with Tamamo/CasGil/Paracelsus to gradually increase the damage and refund Chen gets, or you can do it with Bride/Lanling/Jinako for a mix of both. Since the NP gets extra damage on Overcharge, you can give Para, Waver, Jinako, and sometimes Lanling starting NP CEs to let them NP to give Chen a level of overcharge and also boost his damage output in the process. Chen’s looping conditions are pretty tight in farming contexts (without Waver help), but in CQs, where cards are available, it’s quite easy for him to NP turn after turn in order to snowball up to ludicrous damage.

Usage Tips

Grail Potential

Conclusion

Chen Gong is truly phenomenal. His mix of support tools makes him a great budget option with potential usefulness even to players with more developed rosters, which is quite rare as bronzes go, and his potential as a DPS is way higher than it has any right to be provided you have the supports to enable him. Awesome servant all-around.

Rabbit's Arbitrary Ratings

Overall: 10/10
Single-Target DPS: 5/10
AoE DPS: 10/10
Survivability: 4/10
Offensive Utility: 10/10
Defensive Utility: 7/10
Farming Usefulness: 9/10
Making Necessary Sacrifices: 10/10