Rabbit's Reviews #261: Caenis (4* Lancer)

Article by 22whiterabbit22

Table of Contents

Introduction
Servant Data
Overview
Material Requirements
Servant Skills
Noble Phantasm
Usage Tips
Grail Potential
Conclusion
Rabbit's Arbitrary Ratings
More Servant Reviews

Introduction

Caenis is a solid if unexciting SR Buster Lancer. She’s essentially built around having two consecutive turns of good damage, followed by a length of downtime. The construction of her kit is fairly unique, and she’ll probably feel novel and interesting to use as a result, but ultimately she’s a fairly standard Buster Crit Servant who also happens to lack an Interlude and be not particularly self-sufficient, which overall makes her rather underwhelming mechanically.

Servant Data

Lancer

QQABB (Lancer)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

Attribute	Earth
Alignment	Neutral Evil

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

April Fool's

Max HP 11,532

HP Rank

Max ATK 9,896

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,649	Base HP	1,845
Max Atk	9,896	Max HP	11,532
Grail Atk	11,982	Grail HP	13,982

Magic Resistance C

Increase your Debuff Resist by 15%.

Madness Enhancement EX

Increase your Buster Card effectiveness by 12%.

Core of the Sea God B

Apply Damage Plus for yourself (Total Card Damage +225).
Increase your Arts Card effectiveness by 8%.

Card Hits	3	3	3	5	3
Per Hit	0.86%	0.86%	0.86%	0.86%	0.86%

	NP per Hit (%)						0.86%
	NP when Attacked (%)						4%

	Star Absorption	90
	Star Generation per Hit	12.2%

Overview

Material Requirements

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	50,000	x4 Lancer Piece
3	150,000	x10 Lancer Piece x6 Octuplet Crystals
4	500,000	x4 Lancer Monument x24 Stake of Wailing Night x3 Tearstone of Blood
Max	1,500,000	x10 Lancer Monument x5 Tearstone of Blood x6 Fruit of Eternity

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100,000	x4 Gem of Lancer
2 → 3	200,000	x10 Gem of Lancer
3 → 4	600,000	x4 Magic Gem of Lancer
4 → 5	800,000	x10 Magic Gem of Lancer x12 Stake of Wailing Night
5 → 6	2,000,000	x4 Secret Gem of Lancer x24 Stake of Wailing Night
6 → 7	2,500,000	x10 Secret Gem of Lancer x4 Octuplet Crystals
7 → 8	5,000,000	x8 Octuplet Crystals x5 Shining Silver Crown
8 → 9	6,000,000	x15 Shining Silver Crown x16 Phoenix Feather
9 → 10	10,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Servant Skills

If there’s a theme of Caenis’s skillset, it’s “weird durations.” Recommended skill order is 1>3>2.

Dmg Up

Monstrous Strength B+

Increase own ATK (2 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
ATK +	20%	22%	24%	26%	28%	30%	32%	34%	36%	40%
CD	7	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6	5

Monstrous Strength splits the difference between a standard 3-turn buff and a standard 1-turn buff, giving a slightly-awkward 40% attack buff for 2 turns. Fortunately for Caenis this has a certain degree of in-kit logic—Caenis’s NP gives a substantial 3-turn crit damage buff, so Caenis can use this skill on an NP turn to boost her NP, and then still have the attack buff to fuel a subsequent crit turn. This would be an odd skill choice on most other Servants—and you could make a case that Caenis would be better off with a standard 3-turn 30% buff—but Caenis’s kit is built around it, so it’s not bad here.

Attack Plus

Pillaging Spear B

Apply Buff on attack: Increase own ATK (1 turn, Activates first) when normal attacking (3 times, 3 turns).
Apply Debuff on attack: Decrease ATK by 10% (1 turn) for an enemy when normal attacking (3 times, 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%
CD	7	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6	5

Trident is a simpler skill than it seems at first glance. Essentially, for the duration of the skill, any time Caenis uses a normal card she gives herself a 20% attack buff before dealing damage and then leaves the enemy with a 10% attack debuff. Both effects only last a turn, so it takes some careful planning to make the most of this skill. With this skill active, Caenis can use cards before an NP to boost her NP damage a little, but given her lack of interlude she’ll usually benefit more from leading with her NP and letting this skill fuel super-boosted crits, either on the NP turn or on the turn after. In fact, if Caenis saves this skill for the turn after an NP and then gets BAB or BQB chain with crits, Caenis’s final Buster crit matches the effect of Hero Creation in innate buff value. The one-turn nature of the attack buffs and the way that they stack mean Caenis’s crit damage potential is both highly isolated and rather luck-dependent, but it’s there, at least. It’s also worth noting that in solo or anchor situations the attack debuffs on this skill combined with Caenis’s third skill can render Caenis highly resistant to cards for a turn, if not effectively invulnerable.

Shield Up

Poseidon's Blessing A

Apply Guts to self (1 time, 3 turns).
Apply Damage Cut to self (3 times, 3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Revives with HP	1000	1200	1400	1600	1800	2000	2200	2400	2600	3000
Damage Cut	2000	2100	2200	2300	2400	2500	2600	2700	2800	3000
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Sea God’s Favor calls to mind Fujino’s signature skill. Combining a massive damage cut with a 3-turn Guts, this skill makes Caenis remarkably bulky for at least a turn and makes her pretty likely to survive two or three without any outside help. While this essentially ensures she’ll get at least one round of her damage turns off, it also gives her some interesting anchor potential, as she can buy a few extra turns of survival at the end of a fight provided the enemy doesn’t have any gimmicks to stop her.

Noble Phantasm

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
A	Anti-Army	3

Effect	Increase own Critical Strength by 50% (3 turns). [Activates before damage] Deals damage to all enemies.

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Crit Damage +	50%	50%	50%	50%	50%
Damage +	300%	400%	450%	475%	500%

Overcharge Effect	Increase own NP Strength (3 turns). [Activates before damage]

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
NP Damage +	10%	15%	20%	25%	30%

Usage Tips

Grail Potential

Conclusion

Caenis is largely unremarkable. She has enough of interest going on in her kit to be potentially solid and to be satisfying to use, but she’s not really going to be doing anything other Buster crit Servants can’t already, and she’s not accessible enough to be an appealing target for new players who don’t have her role filled yet. She’s something of a curiosity overall—not bad, but also not especially valuable.

Rabbit's Arbitrary Ratings

Overall: 7/10
Single-Target DPS: 7/10
AoE DPS: 6/10
Survivability: 6/10
Offensive Utility: N/A
Defensive Utility: 2/10
Farming Usefulness: 6/10
Respecting Goredolf: 10/10