MMM - Bikini'd Buddhavista Busts Breakage Boundaries, Bonus Beneficient Bride and Bubbly Brat (Summer 2020 Part 1)

Table of Contents

Sessyoin Kiara (Moon Cancer)
Illyasviel von Einzbern (Archer)
Brynhild (Berserker)

The Modern Magus Magazine

Ah, summer. The time of sweltering heat waves and soothing vacations. Or if you’re from the UK, a bipolar on-off switch of rainstorms and droughts that leaves you wearing a coat as the sun melts you, and becoming an icicle as your electric fan blows a boreal wind straight into your hinies.

It’s for all those reasons that I’m very glad this year’s event is a very safe, summer camp vacation, instead of the chaotic risk that is involved with a beach, desert race, island resort, or god forbid, Nevada in the summer.

And with both Kiara and Abigail Williams as the SSR’s in our gachas, practically NOTHING can go wrong in this event.

...Ah. Well...yep. We’re boned.

Sessyoin Kiara (Moon Cancer)

Introduction

When I thought she couldn’t get lewder, she had to go and put on near-full body tights and that goddamn cap. That’s more or less a critical hit to my- I mean, many people’s fetishes. Yes. Many, many people. And she also seems to be repeating the same mistake of being an AOE Arts Extra class servant. Let’s hope she doesn’t bear the same pitfalls as her vanilla addition.

Servant Data

Moon Cancer

QAABB (Saber)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

4

3

5

3

Attribute	Earth
Alignment	Lawful Evil

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

April Fool's

Max HP 15,336

HP Rank

Max ATK 11,128

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,719	Base HP	2,249
Max Atk	11,128	Max HP	15,336
Grail Atk	12,181	Grail HP	16,801

Territory Creation EX

Increase your Arts Card effectiveness by 12%.

Otherworldly Creation EX

Increase own NP Strength by 12%.

Independent Manifestation C

Increase your Critical Strength by 6%
Increase your Mental Debuff Resist by 6%.
Increase your Death Resist by 6%.

Logos Eater D

Apply Special Defense [Humanoid] for yourself (DEF +14% against Humanoid enemies).

Overview

While the pool of Mooncancers, then again SSR, is still very limited, Kiara at least has a scale to rate herself on, unlike Jinako or BB Summer did. With that in mind, Kiara has high stats for a Mooncancer. While her attack is a modicum lower than BB Summer’s (letting BB assert her dominance as best CCC girl), Kiara has a healthy HP lead in exchange. Nowhere near as much HP as Jinako, but unlike Jinako, he has an attack stat to work with.

Kiara’s passives do a lot for her, too. Both Territory Creation and Foreign World provide a notable boost to her offence, Independent Manifestation provides her a small spread miscellaneous buffs, and Logos Eater, same as her Alter Ego version, makes her more durable than she appears versus a very broad range of foes, including most Servants. So on the whole, more powerful both offensively and defensively than she appears on the surface.

NP Generation

Card Hits	4	3	3	5	3
Per Hit	0.60%	0.60%	0.60%	0.60%	0.60%

	NP per Hit (%)	0.60%
NP when Attacked (%)	3%

	Star Absorption	50
Star Generation per Hit	14.8%

Servant Skills

Mermaid

Mermaid's Flesh EX

Apply Guts to self (1 time, 5 turns).
Remove debuffs from self.
Restore own HP each turn (3 turns).
Increase own NP Strength by 20% (3 turns).
Apply [Mermaid Nourishment] Status:
-[Skill Rank Up] state (4 turns) gained every turn (4 turns).
-When multiple Skill Rank Up states are active, using the 2nd and 3rd skills can use up to 2 [Skill Rank Up] stacks to enhance the effect of the skills.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Revive with HP	2000	2200	2400	2600	2800	3000	3200	3400	3600	4000
HP per Turn	1000	1100	1200	1300	1400	1500	1600	1700	1800	2000
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Hoo boy, where do I start with Mermaid’s Meat. And no, not that kind of meat, you dirty minded degenerates.

I’ll just break it down split into the conventional skill effects and the “Did I just open up a GFL doll page instead of my FGO servant one?” effect.

The conventional effects are a fairly powerful 5-turn Guts, a self-debuff cleanse, a static 20% NP damage up buff, and a solid 2k/turn HP regen for 3 turns, making 6k hp healing total. These alone are some pretty great effects, especially on a 8 turn base cooldown skill. Her Guts skill only has an off period of 1 turn at skill level 10, which makes it one of the safest Guts in the game. The NP damage boost is also solid, and the HP regen kind of just adds to Kiara’s general theme of being passively pretty bulky.

Then there’s the unique effect. Since technical descriptions can sometimes be hard to parse, here’s a short paragraph rundown:

Using this skill will apply a special buff to Kiara for 4 turns. At the end of each turn while it is active, Kiara will gain a Skill Rank Up buff for 4 turns. These buffs will therefore be added a total of 4 times per use of Mermaid’s Meat. Kiara’s 2nd and 3rd skills will consume these buffs when used, up to a maximum of 2 buffs per individual skill use. Depending on how many buffs were consumed, the effects of the skill will be improved. Hopefully the boosted versions will be easy to understand.

So effectively, if you pop this skill on turn 1, you can use the full-powered versions of her 2nd or 3rd skill on turn 3, then the other on turn 5. Or you can be horribly inefficient and use one on turn 2, then the other on turn 4, and waste one of the buff stacks. At any rate, it makes her other skills stronger. And in some cases, notably stronger.

And that’s all you really need to know. Regardless of the bonus gimmick, this skill is still really good. The effects on the other skills will be covered when I talk about them, which is right about…

Start Np

Divine Power (Ink) B

Increase own NP Gauge.
Gain Critical Stars.
Each [Skill Rank Up] buff increases NP Gauge charge by 10%, Critical Stars gained by 5.

Show Info

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

Start Np

Divine Power (Ink) B+

Increase own NP Gauge.
Gain Critical Stars.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
NP +	30%	31%	32%	33%	34%	35%	36%	37%	38%	40%
Crit Stars +	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	25
CD	7	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6	5

Start Np

Divine Power (Ink) A

Increase own NP Gauge.
Gain Critical Stars.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
NP +	30%	32%	34%	36%	38%	40%	42%	44%	46%	50%
Crit Stars +	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	30
CD	7	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6	5

Now.

Divine Power (Ink) is your favourite typical lower-cooldown, lower-payoff gauge charger skill. With a twist! Just popping this thing with zero foreplay, you’ll get a nifty 30% gauge charge and 20-star bomb for Kiara. Frankly, not too bad for your buck, though a little lacking in frills. With each Skill Rank Up buff Kiara expends on it, however, the NP gauge charge is boosted by 10%, and the star bomb by 5 stars.

And if you ask me, a 50% gauge charger on a 5 turn cooldown at skill level 10 is pretty neat, even if you have to wait to use it. And hey, don’t use it. Just pop it immediately. The last 2 skill up buffs from Mermaid’s Meat will last long enough to expend them when this thing comes back off cooldown.

With my recent discussion of Arts farming and general support meta in my prior MMM, I hopefully don’t have to talk about how important gauge chargers are, but for those unaware, gauge chargers are very good, even if only 30%, on AOE servants. And trust me, Kiara appreciates it.

Evade

Clam Palace A

Apply Evade to all allies (1 time, 3 turns).
Remove Sure Hit buffs from all enemies.
Decrease DEF for all enemies (3 turns).
Decrease Arts Resist for all enemies by 20% (3 turns).
Apply [Fascination] Status on all enemies (3 turns):
-[Fascination]: This debuff is treated as a Mental Debuff. Decrease Critical Rate for an enemy by 10%.
Each [Skill Rank Up] buff increases number of [Fascination] stacks by 1, enhances DEF Debuff by 5%, and Arts Resist Debuff by 5%.

Show Info

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

Evade

Clam Palace A+

Apply Evade to all allies (1 time, 3 turns).
Remove Sure Hit buffs from all enemies.
Decrease DEF for all enemies (3 turns).
Decrease Arts Resist for all enemies by 25% (3 turns).
Apply 2 stacks of [Fascination] Status on all enemies (3 turns):
-[Fascination]: This debuff is treated as a Mental Debuff. Decrease Critical Rate for an enemy by 10%.
Each [Skill Rank Up] buff increases number of [Fascination] stacks by 1, enhances DEF Debuff by 5%, and Arts Resist Debuff by 5%.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
DEF -	15%	16%	17%	18%	19%	20%	21%	22%	23%	25%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Evade

Clam Palace A++

Apply Evade to all allies (1 time, 3 turns).
Remove Sure Hit buffs from all enemies.
Decrease DEF for all enemies (3 turns).
Decrease Arts Resist for all enemies by 30% (3 turns).
Apply 3 stacks of [Fascination] Status on all enemies (3 turns):
-[Fascination]: This debuff is treated as a Mental Debuff. Decrease Critical Rate for an enemy by 10%.
Each [Skill Rank Up] buff increases number of [Fascination] stacks by 1, enhances DEF Debuff by 5%, and Arts Resist Debuff by 5%.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
DEF -	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Last but far from least on the skill lineup, we have Clam Palace. No, not that kind of cla- okay, I think you get it by now.

This skill pretty much radiates OG Kiara, from the all-enemy debuffs it applies, but it’s also a fabled all-team Evasion option, one that’s nice enough to try and prevent you from getting boned by Sure Hit buffs. It’s not gonna help often, but the feeling is there.

So putting aside the team-saving defensive option for a bit (since oddly, that’s the less interesting part of the skill), this thing’s actually an insanely powerful offensive skill for Kiara. Its nature as a debuff button means it can only work for one enemy wave, but boy is it effective. Starting at 20% def down and 20% Arts resist down at skill level 10, it also applies a new debuff to every enemy - Fascination.

Fascination is fundamentally just a weak critical rate down debuff (10%) that is a Mental Debuff. Alone, that’s not too impressive, but it’s a key component to Kiara’s NP, so keep it in mind.

The effectiveness of this skill increases notably with Skill Rank Up buffs, becoming 30% def down and 30% Arts resist down at 2 stacks (so essentially a 69% damage boost instead of 44%), and it also adds two more stacks of Fascination to the pile. Elaborating on why it’s important will kind of knock things out of order, so I’ll just say you want to prioritize using 2 Skill Rank Up’s on this skill, whether in farming or CQ’s.

And all that on a 8 turn base cooldown. It’s like Summer Kiara is getting retribution for OG’s absurd base skill cooldowns.

Noble Phantasm

Nirmāṇarati Heaven's Foam A

Deal damage to all enemies.
Deal 20% extra special attack damage per [Mental Debuff] stack (up to 10 stacks).

<Overcharge>

Chance of inflicting Instant Death.

Show Info/Video

Nirmāṇarati Heaven's Foam

Kerakuten - Clam Mandala

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	A	Anti-World	3

Effect	Deal damage to all enemies. Deal 20% extra special attack damage per [Mental Debuff] stack (up to 10 stacks).

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Damage +	450%	600%	675%	712.5%	750%
Add. Damage +	20%	20%	20%	20%	20%

Overcharge Effect	Chance of inflicting Instant Death.

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
Death Chance +	100%	112.5%	125%	137.5%	150%

Nirmana Rathi - Heaven’s Foam. Some things never change, including Nasu’s giantess fetish. Arco Wada’s probably in on it too.

But that aside, here’s why I kind of had to delay talking about Fascination. Kiara’s NP is an Arts AOE with a moderate hitcount, but it notably has a Special Damage Modifier based on the number of Mental Debuffs each target has. Basically, a 20% damage boost for each Mental Debuff. So a 2-buff Clam Palace would apply 3 Fascination stacks, making a whopping 60% damage boost on her NP.

Now, if you have some familiarity with the game’s damage formula, you might’ve noticed something here. Kiara by herself not only completes the Holy Trinity of damage buffs by herself (Atk up / def down, NP dmg up / Effective damage, Card booster), but also includes the Trinity’s rarer, illegitimate son, the NP damage special modifier. Meaning she gets a lot of multiplicative buffs on her NP. To show the end result of this combination:

Kiara Summer: (11128+1000)*4.5*1.42*1.32*1.3*1.6*0.23 = 48,900

Mystery Servant A: (11669+1000)*1.1*3*1.5*1.3*1.5*1.32*0.23*1.5 = 55,700

Now, you may be sitting here thinking, “Hey, Kiara Summer’s NP damage is still worse than this ‘Mystery Servant A’, why’re you comparing them?” The reason is because ‘Mystery Servant A’ is Arjuna Alter. Also known as the Lostbelt King of absurd all-class AOE damage. And he has class advantage over Kiara in this calc. Even managing roughly 85% of his damage output is impressive, especially considering Kiara’s NP is loop-friendly, and his isn’t.

To give a more tat-for-tat comparison, Space Ishtar’s Wave 3 NP damage (having stacked up her NP’s NP dmg up buff 3 times) is 40,100.

So Kiara’s got one of the highest-damaging class-neutral AOE’s in the game, while not even benefitting from Avenger/Berserker’s 1.1x attack modifier, or Berserker’ universal class advantage. And she can loop with it. Oops, said that twice.

So, looping. Let’s get onto that. While her NP’s 3 hits may seem unpromising, especially when paired with her base NP gain, she has the tools (otherwise known as, “haha Casturia exists now baby”) to make it consistently loopable. With Casturia buffs active running Miyu or Ilya Devil CE, she gets 55% refund with no overkill on class neutral targets. Factor in half overkill (since this NP is gonna hurt with Casturia support), and it goes up to 68%. While that seems shaky (considering she’d only get the 30% gauge charge from the Casturias’ Charisma each wave), her own gauge charger and possible Mystic Code options (not even considering Battlesuit) make it very consistent, even if facing Berserkers.

So yeah, unsurprisingly she can loop with double Casturia, and it’s also about as consistent as Summer Musashi or Space Ishtar. And somehow, she hits harder than them on Wave 3. I will admit her damage on Wave 1 can be a bit lacking, since usually she won’t have Casturia’s attack buff up. Past that, he likely won’t have issues outside of exceptionally bulky 3-enemy Wave 2’s.

Ah right, and there’s also the Instant Death. Contrary to what some people are assuming, It applies after damage is dealt. So it’s entirely a plus - Kiara always gets her full refund, and if her damage isn’t enough to finish her target off, she has a surprisingly solid instakill chance for an AOE NP. Much higher than Saber Shiki’s at base, for example.

Conclusion

So with all this meandering about the bizarre mechanics of Kiara’s kit, how good does that make her in practice? On one hand:

Lady’s durable, and even provides solid defensive team support. With her high HP pool, passive defense from Logos Eater, the excellent safety net Mermaid’s Meat provides, all on top of a team Evasion buff, Kiara won’t have issues surviving NP’s under duress. And as a bonus perk of the Mooncancer class and her Independent Manifestation, she has extremely good Death Resistance. May not matter too much, but we’ll have to face the Erice CQ again in a rerun, and I know that losing units to an instakill AOE is a nuisance. And who knows, maybe a KH Challenge Quest-style nuisance will show up in this year’s Nero Fest equivalent.

So far as farming goes, Kiara is very solid. While she may be a little less consistent than someone like Space Ishtar (which sounds weird, since Ishtar’s the one with a chance-based skill), she compensates with powerful Wave 3 NP damage, which can take down even pretty chunky bosses when hitting neutral. And while some may consider it ‘cheating’, she’s gonna have a damage boost for this Summer and any following Summer events, including reruns. So it helps her in a small subsect of events, too.

I touched on it lightly, but Kiara’s Wave 3 / Turn 3 / Whatever you’d call it NP damage is very impressive, especially considering the handicaps of her class. Once you pull out the full Arts support for her, she proves a very formidable force for difficult quests, providing Arts teams with a much-desired on-demand defensive option, and getting perks she has little access to otherwise, like Skill CD reduction from Tamamo, or just Casturia enabling her to loop almost indefinitely.

However, she’s still burdened with some flaws:

While her NP damage alone may be high class, her own card damage is a different beast. She lacks any disposable general offensive buffs to aid her card damage, nor any real critical-oriented boosts outside of her Independent Manifestation and star bomb. It makes her a better fit for Casturia, since she doesn’t provide crit support anyway, but it means her single target offense is going to lack compared to other colour equivalents like Arjuna Alter or Dantes.

As always, the burden of having skills with a baker’s dozen of effects means it’s harder to use the individual effects of each skill to their fullest - Kiara’s main damage steroid is tied to her defensive option, and her other defensive option kind of wants to be popped the instant it comes back up. Having to manage the Skill Rank Up buffs on top of this doesn’t help. Basically, you need to grind your walnuts a little and think ahead to use her fully effectively.

While doing my best to ignore the non-gameplay aspects of Kiara that are...attractive, she’s still a pretty good class-neutral AOE servant. Her natural durability makes her solid as a rock in difficult content, and her debuff-oriented kit also lends itself better to CQ scenarios. But outside of that, she’s still a strong Arts farmer, packing some of the highest Wave 3 NP damage in the game, if held back a little by her sub-par earlier NP damage. If you’re looking for a shiny new universal farmer to pair with your Casturia, and you never had the fortune of getting Space Ishtar or Musashi Berserker, she makes a good pick. Rath™ Seal of Approval.

Illyasviel von Einzbern (Archer)

Introduction

Now I could make tasteless loli jokes here, but instead I’m just going to talk about something more interesting. This alt makes Ilya the first alt of a ‘collab’ Servant in the truest term - you might count BB, Melt, and Kiara, but they were already kind of Servants, and both written by Nasu and in a Type-Moon installment. Prisma Ilya version Ilya, however, is neither of those things.

...so, Summer Shiki anyone?

Servant Data

Archer

QQAAB (Archer)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

4

3

4

5

Attribute	Human
Alignment	Neutral Summer

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

April Fool's

Max HP 10,914

HP Rank

Max ATK 10,098

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,683	Base HP	1,746
Max Atk	10,098	Max HP	10,914
Grail Atk	12,226	Grail HP	13,233

Magic Resistance A

Increase your Debuff Resist by 20%.

Independent Action B

Increase your Critical Strength by 8%.

Infinite Magical Energy C

Increase NP Gauge by 3% each turn for yourself.

Overview

As almost seems to be tradition for Pseudo-servants, Ilya has a fairly specialized stat spread, but one hindered by a low base stat total. With the 3rd highest attack stat of any 4* Archer, she also possesses the 2nd lowest HP. This may not seem too out-of-place, but she’s also tied in HP with Kuro, and Tomoe’s abnormally low HP for her attack kind of skews the statistics.

Point being, she’s solid offensively, but frail.

Ilya’s passives don’t do much to compensate for that, but they’re not too bad, either. She has a high-ranking Magic Resistance for an Archer, on top of the standard Independent Action and her own sort of ‘Personal Passive’, Infinite Magical Energy. The former two are neat bonuses, but getting 3% free NP gauge per turn is really handy, needless to say. Normal Ilya kind of got it in exchange for mediocre regular NP gain, but maybe Summer Ilya will have it differently?

NP Generation

Card Hits	4	3	3	4	5
Per Hit	0.63%	0.63%	0.63%	0.63%	0.63%

	NP per Hit (%)	0.63%
NP when Attacked (%)	3%

	Star Absorption	148
Star Generation per Hit	8.0%

Servant Skills

Quick Up

High Pressure! A

Increase own Quick Card effectiveness (3 turns).
Increase own Quick Card Star Gathering Rate (1 turn).
Increase own Critical Strength (1 turn).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Quick +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
Quick Star Gather +	300%	320%	340%	360%	380%	400%	420%	440%	460%	500%
Crit Damage +	50%	55%	60%	65%	70%	75%	80%	85%	90%	100%
CD	7	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6	5

Kicking off Ilya’s active skills is High Pressure! No, I’m not excited, the exclamation mark is in the skill. Anyway, hosing down horny lolicons apparently nets you a moderate Quick up for 3 turns, on top of both Quick star focus and a huge critical damage boost for a turn.

Frankly, I don’t know what to say except it’s a very good skill for a damage dealer. Huge crit boosts are strong, then again on Quick-oriented servants who tend to get drowned in stars effortlessly. The Quick card star focus is probably unnecessary, but a neat addition, and the Quick card booster is so standard fare at this point I don’t know what to say of it.

All that is topped off by the 7-turn base cooldown, a refreshing break from a number of 3-turn card booster skills that get an 8-turn cooldown for no explicable reason. So on the whole, a great skill.

Invi Shield

Summer Vacation! (Child) A+

Apply Invincible to self (1 time, 3 turns).
Increase own NP Gain (3 turns).
Increase ATK for all [Child] Servants (3 turns).

Show Info

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

Next is Summer Vacation! (Child). Yeah, Ilya likes shouting a lot, apparently. It permeates into her skillset. Almost a succinct copy of OG Ilya’s Invincible skill, this one instead has a slightly stronger NP gain boost of 30% at skill level 10, the Invincible is 1-time, 3 turns instead of 1-turn (which is both better and worse), and there’s also a child-loving Charisma effect slapped on.

For Ilya herself, this thing is pretty great. As a Quick AOE servant, a NP gain booster significantly raises her odds of being able to loop with double Skadi, while the Child-only Charisma affects herself, meaning she also has a reasonable 3-turn damage steroid to work with. Having a defensive option (one that may not necessarily be wasted by popping it for the offensive benefits) is also good, and the Child servant Charisma is frankly a gimmick, but it works on… Hans and Miyu? I suppose if you want to go theme team and not leave Ilya completely bereft of support it works. Not something to focus on, though. It helps Ilya, and that’s all that really matters.

Start Np

Legal Shower! B++

Increase own NP Gauge.
Increase own Critical Strength (3 turns).
70% Chance to restore 500 HP each turn for self (5 turns).

Show Info

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

This next skill, as barely legal as it is, is Regal Shower. Leaving terrible jokes aside, it’s the ever-desired NP gauge charger skill for Ilya, and a great one at that. 30% gauge is typical for its 7-turn base cooldown, but it also comes packed with a hefty 3-turn 50% critical damage buff and somewhat-inconsistent HP regen.

Meaning Ilya can buff herself up to 150% critical damage up with just her own skills. Once you factor in two Skadis and her Quick card star focus...yep, that’s scary.

Putting the good parts of the skill aside, the HP regen with a 70% proc chance seems to solely exist as an excuse to run Kuro and her together, due to her ‘strengthened’ Kiss Demon’s increase to buff success rate. It’s pretty much an accessory anyway, I doubt anybody’s going to bank hard on a 500 HP regen to beat a quest.

So unexpectedly, gauge charger skills are good. Who would’ve thought?

Noble Phantasm

Prisma☆Splash Rainbow! A

Deal damage to all enemies.
Apply Sure Hit to self (1 turn) [Activates first].

<Overcharge>

Increase own Quick Card effectiveness (1 turn) [Activates first].
Increase own Arts Card effectiveness (1 turn) [Activates first].
Increase own Buster Card effectiveness (1 turn) [Activates first].

Show Info/Video

Prisma☆Splash Rainbow!

Young Maiden, Become the Rainbow

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	A	Anti-Army	5

Effect	Deal damage to all enemies. Apply Sure Hit to self (1 turn) [Activates first].

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Damage +	600%	800%	900%	950%	1000%
Sure Hit

Overcharge Effect	Increase own Quick Card effectiveness (1 turn) [Activates first]. Increase own Arts Card effectiveness (1 turn) [Activates first]. Increase own Buster Card effectiveness (1 turn) [Activates first].

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
Quick +	10%	20%	30%	40%	50%
Arts +	10%	20%	30%	40%	50%
Buster +	10%	20%	30%	40%	50%

And now we get to the brass tacks of any Servant when I’ve mentioned “Quick” and “AOE” at a prior point in their kit. Ilya’s NP, Prisma☆Splash Rainbow!, is a 5-hit Quick AOE with a before-damage Sure Hit buff and triple-card booster buff. While being able to hit through Evasion can be a handy perk, the real thing to assess here is the NP’s damage and refund, starting with the former.

Ultimately, Ilya has 20% atk up and 30% Quick booster, making for a 56% damage steroid on her NP. While it’s not necessarily bad for a 3-turn steroid, that’s still not a particularly impressive output, especially considering the premier Quick Archer looper, Atalanta, manages to do nearly as much damage as Ilya without any buffs at all. NP interludes are one hell of a drug. With class advantage and double Skadi damage buffs, it’ll hardly be an issue, but it may present problems for higher-hp wave 3’s or challenge quest scenarios.

As for the refund aspect, it comes down to this: Can Ilya loop?

Yeah, she can with some moderate consistency. With double Skadi buffs, her NP refunds 28% gauge on neutral targets (which, considering she’ll mostly face off Sabers, is quite handy). Add in her passive 3% gauge charge, and he gets 31% from a NP at baseline. With LB Kaleido, that means she can just do 2 NP’s then use 1 Skadi gauge charge plus her own and then Clocktower Uniform’s gauge charger to get a 3-turn loop. You may be able to do something with other CE’s using battlesuit, but she can work with the most basic Skadi setup, if not in a convenient manner. Atalanta is certainly easier to build around, at least.

Conclusion

So does Ilya’s Summer form meet the mark? First, we’ll have to dowse out her strong points:

This lady knows how to crit, man. With two critical damage boosts in her kit, on top of solid stargen and a Quick star focus effect that begs for Skadi to enable, Ilya is really gonna destroy anything she even taps with her Quick crits. But even putting that aside, her general crit damage is going to be both high and consistent due to Archer star weight. This is a pretty useful perk to have, since many Quick AOE loopers have the AOE damage down, but struggle to match it in single target damage. Ilya definitely won’t have that problem, though her AOE damage is more lacking.

As already stated, she can loop. Convenient and consistent farming is always a strong perk, though Ilya’s abilities stray from convenient or consistent more than I’d like, personally. If you don’t have LB Kaleidoscope, she may be difficult to build around. Regardless, being a worse entry in a fairly exclusive club to begin with isn’t bad. You gotta take what you get.

She has...some defensive options. While one-hit Invincible isn’t the epitome of consistency, especially when tied to one of your offensive tools, it at least has a chance of sticking around or being ready for enemy NP’s, and her inconsistent heal is a heal nonetheless, sustain can sometimes save you when things get dire. She has more than some loopers who tend to die when the enemy gets a turn in the first place…not naming anyone. *cough* Lancelot *cough*

However, she also has an issue to hose down:

Her AOE damage just isn’t that great. It may not matter for most farming, but it does generally harm her farming potential, as she typically doesn’t have good enough refund to handle Berserker nodes, and then due to her low damage output taking on class-neutral farming is out of her reach. Naturally, this also means she won’t be the best pick for CQ’s where being able to dish out huge damage on all three targets at once is important, as opposed to dishing out a small benchmark then focusing on the main boss.

Summer Ilya on the whole may be fairly good, but she doesn’t strike me as too exciting, probably because she has a lot of similarities to Sei Shonagon. Thankfully, her superior refund compared to Sei and much, much better single target crit damage means she’s largely a better servant, but at the same time, her kit doesn’t exactly bring anything new and exciting in a meaningful way. She’s just a Quick Archer that can loop and also has good CQ applications. Nothing wrong with that, and frankly, she’ll serve you well if you can get her to NP2 or NP3 to patch up her mediocre baseline NP damage. Rath™ Seal of Approval.

Brynhild (Berserker)

Introduction

Frankly, I’m shocked that DW even had the balls to release a swimsuit alt of a Servant then go the complete opposite direction of most alts, making Bryn...very clearly more interested in Sigurd than she’d ever be for her Master. And who ever said Summer events are all just waifu pandering?

...unless this spawns a bunch of NTR doujins. Then this community is truly cursed.

Servant Data

Berserker

QABBB (Berserker)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

3

4

5

Attribute	Heaven
Alignment	Neutral Good

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

April Fool's

Max HP 10,023

HP Rank

Max ATK 10,197

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,699	Base HP	1,603
Max Atk	10,197	Max HP	10,023
Grail Atk	12,346	Grail HP	12,153

Traits

Humanoid Female Divine Heaven or Earth Servant Weak to Enuma Elish Valkyrie Summer Form Group Servant

Card Hits	3	3	4	5	5
Per Hit	0.85%	0.85%	0.85%	0.85%	0.85%

	NP per Hit (%)	0.85%
NP when Attacked (%)	5%

	Star Absorption	10
Star Generation per Hit	5.1%

Evade

Swan Dress (Summer) A+

Apply Evade to self (2 times, 3 turns).
Apply Damage Cut to self (3 times, 3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Damage Cut	500	550	600	650	700	750	800	850	900	1000
CD	7	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6	5

Starting off with skills, we have Swan Mystic Code (Summer). This isn’t Gamepress’s fault, but I have to rant about how annoying this translation is, since it’s based on the NA Localization of Valkyries.

So, Mystic Codes. They’ve been in the series since OG F/SN, but for english-speakers you may not know that the Kanji for the term, and the literal translation, is “Formal Dress”, or “Reiso”. While the established localization for the term invented long ago by Mirror Moon was effective for conveying the purpose of such items, it also proved an issue. “Reiso” is also used in regular Japanese to use, well, formal dressing. Particularly fine-looking or important dress, in other words. And if you know a little about Norse Mythology, you know about the Swan Dresses of the Valkyrie. Now you probably see the problem.

Now the translation of “Mystic Code” is understandable, as the exact same term is used for other cases in FGO to refer to the magical items, not the clothing. However, the Swan Dress skill is pretty vague on whether the dress is a Mystic Code or just a skill / NP. In Japanese, this issue doesn’t exist. It’s practically a pun, if anything. But sadly in English we lack the benefit of making such an easy double entendre. Well, short of using a time machine to go back and telling Mirror Moon to translate it as “Mystic Vestment” or something. Anyway, I’d prefer to refer to it as Swan Dress. Moving on…

This skill is more or less similar to Valkyries’ edition of the skill, providing a fully-defensive combo of 2-hit Evasion and Damage Cut. Unlike Valkyrie’s version (on release at least, when I rated them), hit-based defensive buffs are no longer subtracted when a hit is absorbed by Evasion / Invincible, meaning this skill will get a lot of mileage - protecting Bryn for a total of 5 attack, 2 negated, 3 having their end damage total reduced by 1000 at skill level 10. On top of being 7-turns base cooldown, it’s simply a very strong, very solid defensive option.

It’s almost like Berserker HP matters far less than their defensive skills, huh?

NP Turn

Wisdom of Summer B

Increase own NP Gauge each turn (3 turns).
Gain Critical Stars each turn (3 turns).

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%
Stars per Turn +	5	6	6	7	7	8	8	9	9	10
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Next up is Midsummer Wisdom. Obviously made to parody Sigurd’s Gift of Wisdom, the power of megane flows strong through Bryn. It’s really just a good gauge charging / stargen skill. 60% NP gauge over 3 turns isn’t the slowest gauge buildup out there, and can let her build up 2 NPs fairly quickly successively if she’s using a starting gauge CE.

On the whole, this skill is pretty eh. It can come in handy, but nothing it provides is really a turning point to making Bryn a better Servant. Just a broader-reaching one. Naturally, it’d be better if this were an instant gauge charger. And while the star generation is good, Bryn’s Berserker star weight means she won’t put it to much use. And as for trying to use her as a star support for someone else...well, maybe. You’ll see why it kind of works and kind of doesn’t.

Arts/Buster Up

Summertime Lovers EX

Increase own Arts Card effectiveness (3 turns).
Increase own Buster Card effectiveness (3 turns).
Increase Arts Card effectiveness for all [Loved Ones] except for self (3 turns).
Increase Buster Card effectiveness for all [Loved Ones] except for self (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Arts +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
Buster +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
[Loved One] Arts +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
[Loved One] Buster +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
CD	7	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6	5

And last for Bryn’s skill lineup, we have Summertime Lovers. As you would expect from the force of normie couple lovey-dovey-ness Sigurd and Bryn emit, this skill is pretty much encouraging to you pair Bryn and Sigurd on a team.

Providing 30% card booster to Arts and Buster over 3 turns to both Bryn and any of her Beloved trait allies (For a brief summary of who counts, if they’re usually a man and usually conventionally heroic, they qualify). And that’s it. Just a dual-card booster. The Arts boost naturally will help with Bryn’s NP gain, while a Buster boost on a servant with 4 Buster cards in their kit is naturally great, but compared to other Summer servants thus far, Bryn’s kit has felt a little...bare? Perhaps unfocused is a better term.

So at any rate, the game wants you to run Brynhildr with Sigurd, or at least any other servant with her Beloved trait. Does this actually have much practical use? Well...Lanling and Waver both have the trait. Outside of that...yeah, it’s a gimmick. Just accept it’s a personal card booster for Bryn and move on.

Noble Phantasm

Effect	Apply Ignore Invincible to self (1 turn) [Activates first]. Deal damage to all enemies.

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Damage +	300%	400%	450%	475%	500%
Ignore Invincible

Overcharge Effect	Increase own Buster Card effectiveness (1 turn) [Activates first].

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
Buster +	20%	30%	40%	50%	60%

Conclusion

So is Bryn our blushing bride or wedding day disaster? On one hand, the stars are lined up for her:

Strong defensive tools...for a Berserker. It’s funny how just having a 2 hit, 3 turn Evasion and damage cut skill can help negate your class’s crippling weaknesses. Unlike most of her class, Bryn isn’t liable to die from a stiff breeze, while also having a personal option for living NP turns.

For a Berserker of her card set, Bryn’s NP gain is really good. Midsummer Wisdom provides her with a lot of free gauge and opportunity to fit in an Arts crit, while her dual card booster also assists in her NP gain, stacked on a solid baseline NP gain. She doesn’t require too much external support to get a full gauge ready, which can open up her team composition and CE options compared to other Berserkers.

Universal Invincible Pierce AOE’s aren’t too common, or at least those with it tied to the NP itself. There’s OG Kiara, Amakusa (though pre-buff removal isn’t exactly the same thing, unremovable Invincible / Evasion is pretty common now)...and that’s it. Dantes may have Invincible Pierce on a skill, but having it tied to the NP itself tends to be more consistent in CQ scenarios.

However, she’s also set for tragedy:

Her damage just isn’t that great. Her NP will pretty much be hinging on the Berserker class advantage, and her regular card damage will only be using her abundance of Buster cards and a 30% card steroid to get by. Of course, this can be compensated by Buster supports, but you’d rather have a Servant who can do even more than Summer Bryn with a support holding her up.

Compared to the abundant looping AOE servants provided by Quick and Arts teams, Bryn just can’t really compete. Her kit isn’t built to abuse the best that Buster supports can offer, and where she does focus on (such as her NP gain and durability) is something that Merlin already can effectively cover for her, making it somewhat pointless. The same kit simply oriented for Arts or Quick would be far more effective, since Bryn’s own strengths play into those teams and cover for the shortcoming of Arts/Quick supports better.

Now then. With the emergence of Casturia I had to promise myself I wouldn’t start penalizing Buster servants just for not being focused on one of the meta card types, but Summer Bryn’s issues don’t really lie just there. She doesn’t play to the strong points of her card type - immense critical damage, raw card damage, and just general stability. When you get down to it, there’s not much reason to favour her over Chacha, who has similar NP damage from her NP5, the same stargen / NP gain perks, but doesn’t require a foray into the gacha to obtain. That said, I do think Summer Bryn is better than Chacha, but that’s not a particularly high bar. She’s just...out of fashion? I feel bad putting a lady down in her wedding dress, but it’s the facts.

Outro

Following my usual tradition for summer events, I intend to throw the work of the Welfare servant on future Rath as he tackles the second gacha. Lord save that poor fool, the sucker. But for those who may want to know whether to invest in Summer Yu during the event in the meantime, I’ll give a 1-sentence summary: She’s a solid ST Crit-focused Quick Lancer with some niche tools; nothing overwhelmingly great, but not to be passed over, either.

So with that said, if you all survive the completely safe nighttime in our cabin retreat, I’ll see you for the second edition of the MMM for this summer!

Links

Rathilal's MMMs - Archive

MMM - Bikini'd Buddhavista Busts Breakage Boundaries, Bonus Beneficient Bride and Bubbly Brat (Summer 2020 Part 1)

The Modern Magus Magazine

Sessyoin Kiara (Moon Cancer)

Traits

Tags

Nirmāṇarati Heaven's Foam

Illyasviel von Einzbern (Archer)

Traits

Tags

Prisma☆Splash Rainbow!

Brynhild (Berserker)

Traits

Tags

Brynhild Sigurtein

Outro

Links

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