Rabbit's Reviews #260: Dioscuri (5* Saber)

A rare two-in-one Servant, Caster and Pollux are added to the game collectively as Dioscuri. Dioscuri is pretty straightforward as Arts Servants go—they don’t have great damage or much valuable utility, but they do have very good sustained NP gain, which makes them pretty easy to use. They can also spook, so while they don’t have much to recommend themselves over Nero Bride or Beni-Enma (or even Munenori or Saber Hokusai, really), they’re a strong addition to the general pool and a perfectly usable spook, especially if you don’t already have any of the competition at your disposal.

Dioscuri has mid-to-high attack and HP stats as SSR Sabers go, which leaves them with a fairly good stat pool overall. They would benefit from committing more fully to attack, but it’s not a bad spread at all. They have quite good star gen as Arts Servants go, with high hit-counts across the board and a skill that provides a star burst tied to Arts card usage. They also have very good NP gain on their Arts cards, and their high hit-count NP means they’ll get a better base NP refund than most ST Arts Servants, too. They’re still dependent on cards (and especially crits), but well-supported they should be able to NP every two or three turns, if not back-to-back when they get lucky.

Dioscuri is a weirdo with seven full passives, so for organization’s sake I’m doing something unusual and breaking this up into its own paragraph. They start with the Saber-standard Magic Resistance, which helps to stave off debuffs. They also get both Riding and Madness Enhancement, which help to push their overall damage a bit (though unfortunately they miss out on Territory Creation). Then they get a full complement of Avenger passives: Avenger, Oblivion Correction, and Self-Restoration. Collectively these boost their effective NP gain and their crit damage, while also making allies slightly more susceptible to debuffs. They finish with a unique passive in Twin Gods, which functions as Divinity plus a small innate boost to NP gain and star gen, improving their overall performance.

Ascension Materials

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	100,000	x5 Saber Piece
3	300,000	x12 Saber Piece x22 Fool's Chain
4	1,000,000	x5 Saber Monument x6 Lamp of Evil-Sealing x3 Dawn Core
Max	3,000,000	x12 Saber Monument x6 Dawn Core x12 Divine Pulse Spirit Orb

Skill Enhancement Materials

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 x3 Lamp of Evil-Sealing
5 → 6	4,000,000	x5 Secret Gem of Saber x6 Lamp of Evil-Sealing
6 → 7	5,000,000	x12 Secret Gem of Saber x15 Fool's Chain
7 → 8	10,000,000	x29 Fool's Chain x3 Glowing Star Fragment
8 → 9	12,000,000	x8 Glowing Star Fragment x24 Divine Pulse Spirit Orb
9 → 10	20,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Dioscuri’s mat requirements are surprisingly mean. They ask for chains, which are a bronze mat and therefore typically in short supply, as well as a bunch of gold and silver Lostbelt mats. Unless an event happens to have their mats, they’re impossible to ascend until Olympus, which kind of negates their potential as a spookable, new-player-friendly Servant. Pretty unfortunate.

Dioscuri’s skillset is deceptively straightforward. Recommended skill order is 3>2>1.

Dioscuri is an Arts Servant who leans towards faster play. Tamamo can be a good support if you have the tools to enable rapid NP looping, but a standard Tamamo/Merlin team is probably not going to mesh well with what Dioscuri wants to do. Instead, Dioscuri synergizes more naturally with Lanling, who can boost their sustained crit damage and the star gen on their high hit-count cards, while also matching their faster playstyle more elegantly. Sherlock and Jinako may also work nicely with Dioscuri, as Sherlock’s NP’s buff can let Dioscuri’s cards hit hard, and Jinako can provide stars and take some pressure off Dioscuri with her defensive tools.

If you have the batteries to get Dioscuri up and running quickly, The Black Grail lets Dioscuri take advantage of their high NP gain and helps to prop up their sustained NP damage. Painting Summer is also excellent, as it emphasizes Dioscuri’s NP gain and helps them NP repeatedly.

SSRs are pricey grail targets and Dioscuri has a lot of tough competition. If you like them and plan to use them regularly, though, the extra stats will help increase their sustained NP damage, which will make them more effective overall.

Dioscuri feels a bit like an outdated Servant design, with a dodge in the wrong place, a gimmicky skill that’s only sorta useful, and an old skill type (in Voyager) on a Servant whose kit doesn’t particularly benefit from it. They’re propped up by their very good NP gain and their pierce-everything NP, and they can be strong in the right team, but they just don’t have much to recommend them over their competition overall, and even outside of that their kit doesn’t quite come together as well as it could. Decent Servant, totally usable, not exciting.

Overall: 7/10
Single-Target DPS: 8/10
AoE DPS: N/A
Survivability: 4/10
Offensive Utility: 2/10
Defensive Utility: 2/10
Farming Usefulness: 2/10
Twins: 2/2