Rabbit's Reviews #253: Nightingale (Santa) (4* Archer)

It feels as if 2019 has involved a lot of effort on the part of the game’s developers to democratize Quick, with the addition of a few useful low-rarity Quick units (Barti and Paris), a pair of type-neutral full supports who can slot into certain Quick teams (Asclepius and Jinako), the nonsense that is Chen Gong, and a plethora of gacha SRs who make for interesting single-Skadi teams. Santa Night caps off this trend, roughly matching the utility of the Lakshmibai-likes, but with the added benefits of being entirely free and packing very high AoE damage. If you have the tools for high-investment top-end Quick setups, Night won’t do much for you, but if you like to run low-to-mid-range Quick setups, she has the potential to be a godsend.

Night has (surprisingly) a strongly offensive stat spread, with the fourth-highest attack of the SR Archers and low-ish HP to match. That isn’t normally what you want from supportive servants, but given Night’s status as a Quick semi-support, the extra attack stats are quite useful. Night’s high attack lets her output good damage even while she’s supporting her allies, which fits perfectly with the game plan of low-to-mid-range Quick teams—everyone contributes damage, and everyone pushes everyone else’s DPS. Night’s passives play into this as well, with high levels of Independent Action and Madness Enhancement helping her to crit harder, especially on her single Buster card. She also has the obligatory Magic Resistance passive for her class. Internals-wise, Night has slightly above-average Arts cards for her deck, with passable-but-not-exciting Quicks. Her high hit-counts mean she’ll generate stars reasonably well, too.

Ascension Materials

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	50,000	x1 Lamp of Dedication Open Lamp of Dedication configuration options
3	150,000	x1 Lamp of Dedication Open Lamp of Dedication configuration options
4	500,000	x1 Lamp of Dedication Open Lamp of Dedication configuration options
Max	1,500,000	x1 Lamp of Dedication Open Lamp of Dedication configuration options

Skill Enhancement Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100,000	x4 Gem of Archer Open Gem of Archer configuration options
2 → 3	200,000	x10 Gem of Archer Open Gem of Archer configuration options
3 → 4	600,000	x4 Magic Gem of Archer Open Magic Gem of Archer configuration options
4 → 5	800,000	x10 Magic Gem of Archer Open Magic Gem of Archer configuration options x4 Homunculus Baby Open Homunculus Baby configuration options
5 → 6	2,000,000	x4 Secret Gem of Archer Open Secret Gem of Archer configuration options x8 Homunculus Baby Open Homunculus Baby configuration options
6 → 7	2,500,000	x10 Secret Gem of Archer Open Secret Gem of Archer configuration options x3 Lamp of Evil-Sealing Open Lamp of Evil-Sealing configuration options
7 → 8	5,000,000	x5 Lamp of Evil-Sealing Open Lamp of Evil-Sealing configuration options x15 Mystic Spinal Fluid Open Mystic Spinal Fluid configuration options
8 → 9	6,000,000	x45 Mystic Spinal Fluid Open Mystic Spinal Fluid configuration options x60 Reactive Gunpowder Open Reactive Gunpowder configuration options
9 → 10	10,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore Open Crystallized Lore configuration options

As a welfare, Night is super easy to ascend. Her event even makes it unusually simple to get her ascension mats and comes with a ready source of experience cards. In exchange, her higher-level skill materials are awful, asking for 60 fluids and 60 bullets per skill. She’ll take time and dedication to max, but if you like running Quick teams that don’t just ride on Skadi looping, she’s well-worth the investment.

Night’s skillset is fully supportive, and while she can herself benefit from these skills, you’ll usually want to direct them to a dedicated DPS. Recommended skill order is 3>2>1.

As with all the other Quick semi-supports, Night will function most naturally alongside a DPS and either another semi-support or Skadi. Ideally she wants a DPS who benefits a lot from her buffs (like MHXA, Ridetoki, and the like) and partners who can boost her own damage to let her take advantage of her strong NP in the process. Her solid steroids and auto-NP5 status mean she can also function passably as a point Servant for double Skadi teams—though she doesn’t have the internals to loop without cards, so she won’t excel in that role to the degree certain other servants will.

As an added note, Night’s three-turn buff removal resistance buff also has the potential to fix Consort Yu’s core drawback. This won’t necessarily make for a good team, but it’s something to consider if you’re a fan of Yu.

2030 is always a good CE pick for support-oriented Servants—and here it helps the team take advantage of Night’s crit buff—but Night has good enough damage that you might also consider giving her something to boost her NP damage instead. The added speed may be worth the loss of crit reliability.

Night is a strong, free SR Servant with good base stats. If you find yourself making good use of her, she’s absolutely worth a pair of grails.

Night makes a pretty strong case for being the best of the Lakshmibai types. She has strong offensive utility and some good defensive utility, on top of good damage and (most importantly) being free. The other three—Lakshmibai, Summer Carmilla, and Jane—all have advantages, and Carmilla in particular has a lot in her favor that might put her over the top, but Night is really excellent all-around and can definitely open up interesting possible single-Skadi and no-Skadi Quick comps.

Overall: 9/10
Single-Target DPS: 6/10
AoE DPS: 8/10
Survivability: 6/10
Offensive Utility: 9/10
Defensive Utility: 6/10
Farming Usefulness: 8/10
Christmas Medical Miracle: 10/10