Rabbit's Reviews #265: Elice Utsumi (4* Lancer)

Elice is a really nice addition to the game. AoE Arts is chronically lacking in good budget options, with the best available Servants who arguably qualify to-date being Salieri (who’s story-locked and has a weird kit) and Sieg (who can loop relatively easily but suffers from pretty low damage). Elice, by contrast, is a more “standard” Arts damage dealer who couples strong NP damage with a straightforward and easy-to-use kit. This also sets her apart from the two existing AoE Arts Lancers, one of whom (Fionn) is built around sustain and one of whom (Melt) is all about fastburn. Elice is powerful and boring, which, paradoxically, sets her apart—she fills a role that both Arts Lancers and budget Arts in general were missing, and she does it quite well.

SR Lancers have a pretty wide spread of stats overall, but Elice falls right in the middle, with middling attack and middling health. She’d appreciate more attack due to her offensive lean, but her stats aren’t bad, so it could be worse. He internals, then, are quite good, with Arts cards that are solidly above-average relative to her deck and Quicks that are serviceable-if-unexciting. She has high-ish hit-counts across the board, too, so with a star gen buff (from, say, Lanling) she’ll make a fair number of stars. For passives, she starts with a unique Magic Resistance variant that gives her extra debuff resistance versus undead enemies, which usually won’t matter but might occasionally be nice. She also has Riding to prop up her Quicks a touch, Independent Action for stronger crits, and Divinity E, which doesn’t do much of anything beyond making her more vulnerable to Divine-slayers.

Ascension Materials

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	50,000	x1 Astrolabe of Faraway Adventure Open Astrolabe of Faraway Adventure configuration options
3	150,000	x1 Astrolabe of Faraway Adventure Open Astrolabe of Faraway Adventure configuration options
4	500,000	x1 Astrolabe of Faraway Adventure Open Astrolabe of Faraway Adventure configuration options
Max	1,500,000	x1 Astrolabe of Faraway Adventure Open Astrolabe of Faraway Adventure configuration options

Skill Enhancement Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100,000	x4 Gem of Lancer Open Gem of Lancer configuration options
2 → 3	200,000	x10 Gem of Lancer Open Gem of Lancer configuration options
3 → 4	600,000	x4 Magic Gem of Lancer Open Magic Gem of Lancer configuration options
4 → 5	800,000	x10 Magic Gem of Lancer Open Magic Gem of Lancer configuration options x12 Evil Bone Open Evil Bone configuration options
5 → 6	2,000,000	x4 Secret Gem of Lancer Open Secret Gem of Lancer configuration options x24 Evil Bone Open Evil Bone configuration options
6 → 7	2,500,000	x10 Secret Gem of Lancer Open Secret Gem of Lancer configuration options x4 Ghost Lantern Open Ghost Lantern configuration options
7 → 8	5,000,000	x8 Ghost Lantern Open Ghost Lantern configuration options x15 Stake of Wailing Night Open Stake of Wailing Night configuration options
8 → 9	6,000,000	x45 Stake of Wailing Night Open Stake of Wailing Night configuration options x20 Arrowhead of Atonement Open Arrowhead of Atonement configuration options
9 → 10	10,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore Open Crystallized Lore configuration options

Elice’s skillset is pretty simple, and her skills mostly just exist to push damage. Recommended skill order is 1>3>2.

Elice is going to be strongest in Arts teams built to survive through multiple buff cycles, so that means typical setups such as Merlin/Elice/Tamamo or Waver/Elice/Tamamo will work well. The cooldown reduction from Tamamo’s NP helps keep Elice’s buffs active more frequently and the other supports can help cover for Elice’s dependence on her cards for her NP gain. Lanling also has a lot of synergy with Elice, as he provides attack buffs, which stack multiplicatively with Elice’s innate buffs, and his star gen buff and crit damage buff can help Elice to crit harder and more often. Jinako also pairs nicely with Elice, providing the same attack boost as Lanling (provided the enemy isn’t immune to debuffs), giving flat stars per turn, and helping to keep the pressure off with her defensive tools. Elice is, again, a very “normal” Arts damage-dealer, and any standard Arts-oriented team is going to support her just fine.

Elice wants to stick around and make use of her sustained buffs as much as possible, so CEs with longer-lasting benefits are generally going to be more useful than, say, Kaleid. Painting Summer is great as always, pushing Elice’s damage a little and helping with her NP gain. Meeting of the Heiresses is similar, providing a few stars per turn in exchange for Painting Summer’s starting NP. Sign of Smiling Face is also a very powerful CE on Servants like Elice, especially at MLB.

As a free NP5 SR with a strong-if-standard kit and good base damage, Elice is a strong contender for a pair of grails. If you like to run Arts teams and don’t have a strong AoE option already, Elice is a good pick.

Elice is not terribly exciting. She can’t loop, she’s not especially bulky, and she doesn’t have any particularly noteworthy utility—she has none of the things Arts Servants typically use to distinguish themselves. That said, she has good sustained buffs and, by extension, consistently high NP damage, which is not something any other free AoE Arts Servant can say, leaving her filling a much-needed role despite her ostensibly boring kit. She’s a healthy addition to the game and, she’s a Servant players without well-developed Arts tools may find useful.

Overall: 8/10
Single-Target DPS: 5/10
AoE DPS: 9/10
Survivability: 5/10
Offensive Utility: 1/10
Defensive Utility: N/A
Farming Usefulness: 6/10
Fog: 10/10