Rabbit's Reviews #294: Melusine (5* Lancer)

Introduction

Fae Knight Lancelot, Melusine, is a highly unique Servant. We’ve had some Servants in the past with different NP animations, or even NP names, depending on ascension level. Melusine takes that one step further, completely changing her NP’s typing and effects when she hits third ascension. Her third skill also lets her switch from ascension 1 or 2 to ascension 3 (but not the reverse) giving her a degree of flexibility unusual in a Servant.

That said, in most cases, she’ll be operating either as an ST Arts unit or as an AoE Buster unit. Due to the nature of how FGO’s supports work, it’s difficult to put Melusine in a situation where switching from Arts to Buster doesn’t result in lessened performance in one or both of those roles. This means Melusine is functionally two separate Servants with similar kits, and in either use case she’s just okay relative to her role. Melusine is a decent Servant in either form, and her NP-change gimmick will likely be extremely useful in some very specific cases, but all in all she’s a lot more flash than substance.

Servant Data

Lancer

QAABB (Saber)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

4

3

5

Attribute	Earth
Alignment	Neutral Evil

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

April Fool's
Tam Lin (1st Asc)
Tam Lin (2nd Asc)
Redshift Heat

Max HP 14,114

HP Rank

Max ATK 12,154

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,878	Base HP	2,070
Max Atk	12,154	Max HP	14,114
Grail Atk	13,304	Grail HP	15,462

Magic Resistance B

Increase your Debuff Resist by 17.5%.

Territory Creation B+

Increase your Arts Card effectiveness by 9%.

Card Hits	4	3	3	5	5
Per Hit	0.65%	0.65%	0.65%	0.65%	0.65%

	NP per Hit (%)						0.65%
	NP when Attacked (%)						4%

	Star Absorption	90
	Star Generation per Hit	12.0%

Overview

Material Requirements

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	100,000	x5 Lancer Piece
3	300,000	x12 Lancer Piece x15 Great Knight Medal
4	1,000,000	x5 Lancer Monument x24 Dragon Fang x3 Reactor Core of Dawn
Max	3,000,000	x12 Lancer Monument x6 Reactor Core of Dawn x5 Dragon's Reverse Scale

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200,000	x5 Gem of Lancer
2 → 3	400,000	x12 Gem of Lancer
3 → 4	1,200,000	x5 Magic Gem of Lancer
4 → 5	1,600,000	x12 Magic Gem of Lancer x12 Dragon Fang
5 → 6	4,000,000	x5 Secret Gem of Lancer x24 Dragon Fang
6 → 7	5,000,000	x12 Secret Gem of Lancer x10 Great Knight Medal
7 → 8	10,000,000	x20 Great Knight Medal x6 Aurora Steel
8 → 9	12,000,000	x18 Aurora Steel x72 Bell of Amnesty
9 → 10	20,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Servant Skills

Melusine’s skillset is structured so as to be useful regardless of which form she happens to be in, which means she errs towards general buffs rather than card type buffs. Recommended skill order is 1>2>3 if you plan to use Melusine primarily as an Arts unit, or 3>1>2 if you plan to use her primarily as Buster.

Dmg Up

Dragon Heart B

Increase own ATK (3 turns).
Apply Damage Cut by 500 to self (3 turns).
Increase own Max HP (3 turns).
Increase own NP Gauge.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
ATK +	20%	22%	24%	26%	28%	30%	32%	34%	36%	40%
Max HP +	1000	1100	1200	1300	1400	1500	1600	1700	1800	2000
NP +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Dragonheart is many things, but it is first and foremost Melusine’s primary damage buff. 40% for 3 turns is a strong buff, and attack buffs are a nice bracket for Arts Servants (which are usually loaded with Arts buffs already thanks to Castoria and Tamamo). This buff doesn’t contribute to NP gain like an Arts buff would, but in exchange it also applies to Melusine’s Buster NP. This skill also gives Melusine a small persistent damage cut to give her a little more bulk, and it increases her Max HP a bit, which is more-or-less just a self-heal. Finally, the skill has a 30% battery attached to it, which is always useful. The biggest drawback to this skill is the fact that you will generally want the attack buff right away, but you may be better off saving the battery for a later turn, so those two effects conflict a bit—but overall that’s a small criticism.

Critical Star Absorption Up

Perry Dancer B

Increase own Critical Star Gather Rate (3 turns).
Gain Critical Stars each turn (3 turns).
Gain Critical Stars.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Star Gather +	2500%	2750%	3000%	3250%	3500%	3750%	4000%	4250%	4500%	5000%
Stars per Turn +	5	6	6	7	7	8	8	9	9	10
Stars +	5	6	6	7	7	8	8	9	9	10
CD	7	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6	5

Parry Dancer is a more powerful variation on Eternal Arms Mastery. As with Saber Lancelot’s version, this skill provides an absurd degree of star weight up, to the point where Melusine is likely to take every single critical star available. This means you’ll generally want to prioritize Melusine’s cards while this is active, as other Servants aren’t going to be able to crit at all unless you’re flooding the field with stars. The skill also provides an immediate burst of stars, along with more stars each turn, supplying Melusine with a baseline level of crit-enabling for the skill’s duration. What Melusine does not have is any form of critical damage up whatsoever, which means she’ll need some support help for her easy crits to deal meaningful damage.

Ray Horizon

Ray Horizon A

[For Ascension 1-2]
Change self to Ascension 3: NP type changes Buster AoE.
Increase own NP Gauge.
Apply Invincible to self (1 turn).

[For Ascension 3]
Increase own NP Strength (3 turns).
Apply Invincible to self (1 turn).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
NP + (Asc 1/2 Only)	50%	55%	60%	65%	70%	75%	80%	85%	90%	100%
NP Dmg + (Asc 3 Only)	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
CD	7	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6	5

Ray Horizon is an interesting skill in that its effects change depending on Melusine’s Ascension level. Regardless of ascension, the skill gives a single turn of invuln. Short-cooldown invincibility skills are great, and this adds to Melusine’s existing bulk, but unfortunately this skill also functions as an important component of Melusine’s damage output, which means this forces an always-ugly survivability-damage trade. Furthermore, using this skill while in first or second ascension changes Melusine irreversibly to third ascension, so an Arts-oriented Melusine never benefits from this as a defensive tool. The core advantage to the ascension 1&2 version of this skill is that when Melusine transforms she also gets a 100% battery. This means the first version of the skill has three primary use cases:
1) You’re running Melusine strictly as an Arts Servant. You keep this in reserve for cases where Melusine is about to die or you’re ready to end the fight, in which case you use this skill for a weaker but immediate finisher NP.
2) You’re running Melusine strictly as a Buster Servant. You use this skill immediately to charge Melusine to 100% while also letting her start with The Black Grail or some other chargeless CE.
3) You’re farming a 90+ node or are otherwise in a situation where you need Melusine to be ST one turn and AoE on a later turn.
What these three have in common is that this is a once-per-fight benefit, and you’re essentially planning Melusine’s strategy around how you plan to use the skill. In Arts teams, Melusine’s ideal case is for this to be a complete dead skill that she never touches, which doesn’t feel great, but in the other two cases, this skill is an integral part of Melusine’s value. It’s also worth noting that while the ascension 3 version of this skill provides a 30% NP damage buff—a solid damage amp by all rights—Melusine will still generally prefer to start in ascension 1 or 2, even while running as a Buster unit. A 100% battery is just too powerful to pass up, mostly because of The Black Grail. The Black grail is either a 30% or 50% (if MLB) increase in NP damage over starting Melusine with Kaleid and using the NP damage buff from the alternate version of Melusine’s third skill. Even less powerful CEs will lead to a more powerful Melusine in the long run, especially since Buster teams usually take long enough to clear that Melusine will probably still get to use the ascension 3 version of skill 3 eventually anyway.

Noble Phantasm

Innocence Arondight (Ascension 1&2) A

Deal damage to a single enemy.
Inflict Damage Plus by 1000 on a single enemy (5 turns).
Gain 10 Critical Stars.

<Overcharge>

Increase own NP Gain (3 turns). [Activates first]

Show Info/Video

Innocence Arondight (Ascension 1&2)

今は知らず、無垢なる湖光

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	A	Anti-Personnel	5

Effect	Deal damage to a single enemy. Inflict Damage Plus by 1000 on a single enemy (5 turns). Gain 10 Critical Stars.

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Damage +	900%	1200%	1350%	1425%	1500%
Damage Plus	1000	1000	1000	1000	1000
Stars +	10	10	10	10	10

Overcharge Effect	Increase own NP Gain (3 turns). [Activates first]

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

Hollow Heart Albion (Ascension 3) EX

Apply Ignore Invincible (1 turn). [Activates first]
Deal damage to all enemies.
Inflict Burn on all enemies (5 turns, 1000 dmg/turn).

<Overcharge>

Increase own Buster Card effectiveness (3 turns). [Activates first]

Show Info/Video

Hollow Heart Albion (Ascension 3)

誰も知らぬ、無垢なる鼓動

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	EX	Anti-World	5

Effect	Apply Ignore Invincible (1 turn). [Activates first] Deal damage to all enemies. Inflict Burn on all enemies (5 turns, 1000 dmg/turn).

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Ignore Invincible
Damage +	300%	400%	450%	475%	500%
Burn Damage	1000	1000	1000	1000	1000

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

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

Melusine has two completely separate NPs. In ascension 1 and 2, her NP is Innocence Arondight, a single-target Arts NP with good refund. The skill also buffs Melusine’s NP gain for 3 turns before dealing damage, so the refund is better than it looks on its face, to the point where Melusine is one of the most consistent ST Arts loops. As a secondary effect, the NP (unsurprisingly) steals Saber Lancelot’s gimmick of increasing the target’s damage received for 5 turns—a nearly negligible amount of extra damage, but potentially useful against high-defense enemies. The NP also provides a flat burst of 10 stars, which helps to provide Melusine with reliable crit access. Overall, it’s a nice but relatively plain ST Arts NP. Nothing to complain about; gets the job done; nothing overly exciting.

At ascension 3, Melusine drops her ST Arts NP in exchange for an AoE Buster NP. With the caveat that Buster is disfavored in the game at the time of writing (I say with a long, meaningful glance at Oberon’s missing third skill), this is a better NP than Melusine’s first NP, at least in terms of secondary effects. The NP has a pre-cast 20% 3-turn Buster buff, which means Melusine’s damage snowballs if you can somehow get her to loop (I say with yet another long, meaningful glance at Oberon). The NP also has a pre-cast pierce invuln, which means Buster Melusine is unlikely to be stymied by enemy hard defense buffs. The NP ends with a burn debuff, which is mostly for flavor. The biggest disadvantage of this NP, outside of Buster’s usual challenges, is that Melusine is an uninterluded AoE Buster Lancer in a world where almost all of her competition is Interluded already, which puts her at a disadvantage in terms of damage.

Usage Tips

If using Melusine as an Arts Servant, she’ll do well with the typical Arts setups, by which I mean two Castorias and whichever other third support you happen to have. Melusine’s overall NP gain is strong enough that she should be able to loop pretty easily with proper support and decent card draws. She’s a two-skill Servant in this usage, which is kinda gross, but her first two skills have enough overall value that she ends up doing fine.

It’s also worth noting that Melusine has particular synergy with Lanling and Sherlock. Melusine has easy crit access but no way to boost her crit damage, so both Lanling and Sherlock can help Melusine in that regard, and as an added bonus, most of their buffs are card-type-agnostic, meaning Melusine can switch to Buster and still benefit from what they have on offer. Arts crit teams can be particularly appealing if you don’t have your own Castoria, as you can scale down your team to fit whatever supports you have and Melusine will do alright.

Buster Melusine appreciates all the usual suspects. Himiko is nice with Melusine for reasons similar to Sherlock—with Himiko’s stars plus Melusine’s, Melusine will be critting almost for sure, and Himiko also provides crit damage buffs Melusine wants. And that’s all aside from the usual Himiko/Castoria stall potential. Merlin also will work well, as Hero Creation will let Melusine have a turn of power crits.

Also, while he isn’t formally out yet, it’s worth noting that, assuming what we already know about his kit matches with his summonable version, Oberon will likely enable a guaranteed Black Grail tri-loop setup for Melusine. Oberon appears to provide 70% charge to a teammate, and Melusine has a 30% battery on her first skill. This means Melusine can use Ray Horizon to enable her first NP, reach her second with Oberon’s skills and her own battery, and then get a third with any two 50% chargers. Melusine will likely need NP levels for this to provide enough damage to matter, even if Oberon’s third skill does provide Buster buffs, but it’s an interesting option that’s more or less unique to Melusine regardless.

Melusine’s best CE is almost always going to be The Black Grail. In an Arts context, Black Grail pushes damage from NP loops, and double Castoria can push Melusine to an instant NP regardless, while in a Buster context, Melusine has a 100% charge to start the fight anyway, so she doesn’t need starting charge. Lacking the Black Grail, any CE that boosts damage for Melusine’s preferred strategy or card type is good.

Given that Melusine is pointedly lacking in crit damage buffs and crit damage CCs are fairly common, crit damage up Command Codes are a good and fairly obvious pick.

Grail Potential

Conclusion

Melusine is a highly unusual Servant with an interesting gimmick. There will probably be a handful of fights or farming nodes where her ability to switch from ST Arts to AoE Buster will make her the best pick, but these will almost certainly be few and far between. In most cases, she’s going to be either a pretty good Arts unit or a pretty good Buster unit. There’s value in that flexibility, for sure, but it’s not as remarkable as her being the first Servant with two completely different NPs would suggest.

Rabbit's Arbitrary Ratings

Overall: 8/10
Single-Target DPS: 7/10
AoE DPS: 7/10
Survivability: 5/10
Offensive Utility: N/A
Defensive Utility: N/A
Farming Usefulness: 8/10
Summoning Bahamut: 10/10