Rabbit's Reviews #252: Astolfo (5* Saber)

Introduction

The long-awaited Saber Astolfo arrives as this year’s Christmas Servant. Hooray? As an ST Quick Saber, he faces strong competition from Okita, Diarmuid, and Fran, and unfortunately he’s, uh, not the best. He can potentially hit very high damage numbers in extremely specific high-end comps, but that’s true of plenty of SSRs, and he has a number of key weaknesses that will drag him down in most realistic situations.

Servant Data

Saber

QQAAB (Archer)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

3

4

7

9

Attribute	Earth
Alignment	Chaotic Good

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

April Fool's

Max HP 14,248

HP Rank

Max ATK 11,694

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,807	Base HP	2,089
Max Atk	11,694	Max HP	14,248
Grail Atk	12,801	Grail HP	15,609

Magic Resistance A

Increase your Debuff Resist by 20%.

Riding A

Increase your Quick Card effectiveness by 10%.

Card Hits	3	3	4	7	9
Per Hit	0.52%	0.52%	0.52%	0.52%	0.52%

	NP per Hit (%)						0.52%
	NP when Attacked (%)						3%

	Star Absorption	103
	Star Generation per Hit	10.1%

Overview

Material Requirements

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	100,000	x5 Saber Piece
3	300,000	x12 Saber Piece x22 Proof of Hero
4	1,000,000	x5 Saber Monument x20 Great Knight Medal x3 Warhorse's Young Horn
Max	3,000,000	x12 Saber Monument x6 Warhorse's Young Horn x5 Dragon's Reverse Scale

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200,000	x5 Gem of Saber
2 → 3	400,000	x12 Gem of Saber
3 → 4	1,200,000	x5 Magic Gem of Saber
4 → 5	1,600,000	x12 Magic Gem of Saber x10 Great Knight Medal
5 → 6	4,000,000	x5 Secret Gem of Saber x20 Great Knight Medal
6 → 7	5,000,000	x12 Secret Gem of Saber x15 Proof of Hero
7 → 8	10,000,000	x29 Proof of Hero x6 Aurora Steel
8 → 9	12,000,000	x18 Aurora Steel x24 Ring of Giants
9 → 10	20,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Servant Skills

Astolfo’s skillset is actually not bad—it just doesn’t mesh well with the rest of his kit. Recommended skill order is 3>1>2.

NP Turn

Declaration of Destruction C

Gain NP Gauge each turn for yourself (3 turns).
Remove own Debuffs.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
NP Regen +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
CD	7	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6	5

Destruction Declaration is a pretty strong passive NP gain skill, giving Astolfo 20% NP gauge per turn for 3 turns on a reasonable 5-turn cooldown. Unfortunately, all this really does in practice is offset Astolfo’s weak bases, so it doesn’t leave him with any real spam potential. It also removes debuffs, which might occasionally be nice, but usually you’ll just use this whenever it’s up for the meter gain.

Stun

La Black Luna C

Apply Terror to all enemies (3 turns) - chance to inflict Stun at the end of each turn; debuff removed when Stun succeeds.
Apply Evade to self (3 times, 3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Stun Chance +	30%	31%	32%	33%	34%	35%	36%	37%	38%	40%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Magic Flute has a terror effect tacked to it, but don’t let that distract you—this is just a nerfed PfA. The Terror effect is an unreliable delayed stun that will probably buy you a turn of safety at some point, but not with enough consistency that you can count on it. Fortunately, hit-based dodge skills are almost always great, and the three hits of safety this grants makes Astolfo a reasonably stable Saber. Unfortunately, unlike a true PfA, the dodge hits can be wasted if they somehow aren’t used within 3 turns, but generally speaking this is still a good skill.

Dmg Up

Majestic Triumphant Return EX

Increase own ATK (3 turns).
Increase own Critical Strength (3 turns).
Increase own Buster Card Star Gather Rate (3 turns).

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 +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
Buster Absorption +	300%	320%	340%	360%	380%	400%	420%	440%	460%	500%
CD	7	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6	5

Majestic Return would be a great skill on a different Servant. It gives 3 turns of both Attack up and Crit up, along with Buster card star weight up. Unfortunately, Astolfo only has… one Buster card. Not only does Astolfo not really have the means to leverage the buster crit buff, but this also means Astolfo is less likely to crit on his NP-generating cards, hurting his effective NP gain even further. In most practical situations, the only part of this skill that will actually matter is the attack buff. This does help to push Astolfo’s damage and it does have good uptime—and it’s worth leveling for that reason alone—but it’s a pretty bizarre skill given everything else about Astolfo’s kit.

Noble Phantasm

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
B	Anti-Personnel	9

Effect	Deal significant damage to a single enemy. Inflict NP Seal to a single enemy (1 turn).

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Damage +	1200%	1600%	1800%	1900%	2000%
NP Seal

Overcharge Effect	Increase Quick Card effectiveness (3 turns). [Activates first]

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
Quick +	20%	25%	30%	35%	40%

Usage Tips

Grail Potential

Conclusion

Astolfo has a lot of potential. His skills are pretty strong, and his NP is excellent. Unfortunately, his bases are so bad that the majority of that potential goes down the drain, and his “good” skillset would be much more at home on a Buster Servant than on a Quick one. His kit has the feel of a Servant from several years ago, and even among ST Quick Sabers he loses pretty soundly to all of his competition.

Rabbit's Arbitrary Ratings

Overall: 5/10
Single-Target DPS: 8/10
AoE DPS: N/A
Survivability: 6/10
Offensive Utility: N/A
Defensive Utility: 1/10
Farming Usefulness: 2/10
Maximum Astolfo Count: 100/1