Rabbit's Reviews #270: Yu Miaoyi (4* Lancer)

Summer Yu is one of the strongest welfares we’ve had. In a world without Castoria, she’d be in contention for the best welfare to-date—she has very high damage, strong Skadi synergy, and easy recursion. She’s roughly on-par with Ridetoki—she has a weaker battery in exchange for much higher damage versus half the cast. Kenshin will still beat her out with ideal support—even versus males—but Yu is still a super strong Quick option and a very nice free Servant to have.

Yu is tied with Caenis for highest attack of the SR Lancers, and she has the lowest HP of that pool as well. Stats don’t normally make much of a difference, but in Yu’s case, having high attack is a large part of why her damage ends up being so silly high. Yu has low in-kit steroids, but between having high base attack, being a Lancer, and being NP5 by default, Yu lands at high levels of damage anyway—which is to say, she has a very nice stat spread. Her internals are solidly “okay” at first glance, with an Arts card that’s low-ish for a Lancer deck and a pair of middling-to-good Quicks. Fortunately, Yu’s in-kit buffs push her effective NP gain up a little higher, landing her fully in good NP gain territory in practice. She’s not fantastic at star gen as Quick Servants go, but that’s about her only weakness internals-wise. For passives, she has your standard Lancer Magic Resistance, and that’s all.

Ascension Materials

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	50,000	x1 Miaoyi Hair Accessory
3	150,000	x1 Miaoyi Hair Accessory
4	500,000	x1 Miaoyi Hair Accessory
Max	1,500,000	x1 Miaoyi Hair Accessory

Skill Enhancement Materials

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 x4 Shell of Reminiscence
5 → 6	2,000,000	x4 Secret Gem of Lancer x8 Shell of Reminiscence
6 → 7	2,500,000	x10 Secret Gem of Lancer x3 Warhorse's Young Horn
7 → 8	5,000,000	x5 Warhorse's Young Horn x5 Ancient Bell
8 → 9	6,000,000	x15 Ancient Bell x12 Fruit of Eternity
9 → 10	10,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Yu’s skillset is actually remarkably restrained—her stats and NP carry most of her kit. As a result, she doesn’t really gain all that much, relatively speaking, from leveling any of her skills beyond her second skill enabling an immediate start with Kaleid. As such, recommended skill order is 2>3>1.

Ideally, Yu wants to slot into standard Skadi teams, with two Skadis and Waver, Reines, or Castoria. You can also run her with two Skadis and a Summer BB if you’re willing to reload for a double-Quick opening turn—this results in less overall NP damage but gives you guaranteed sustained crits and eliminates any chance of getting stumped by bad card luck. Her kit is strong enough, though, that (much like Ridetoki) she can do okay in nonstandard Quick teams. You’re still going to want a single Skadi—presumably off your support list—but you can grab one of the many solid Quick Semi-supports as your third Servant as well. Barti is a particularly good choice here, as he can push Yu’s NP damage and crit damage while also keeping his own star weight down. Assuming Yu’s running a 50% starting CE, you can even give Barti a Kaleid and use Yu’s battery on him to let him NP turn-one for even more damage boostage.

The Black Grail is always a great pick for damage-dealers, but if you want to make looping even more reliable or you’re running single-Skadi teams, 50% charge CEs are also strong picks. Golden Sumo and Holy Night Supper are both good for pushing damage, while Traces of Christmas is a strong choice for making it even easier for Yu to loop.

Lancers are good grail targets and Yu is a strong Lancer. Even beyond that, though, Yu’s stats have something of an outsized impact on her damage, so extra levels will make her even more effective. She’s a great grail target all-in-all, especially if you don’t have Kenshin or prefer not to run Arts teams.

Yu is very, very strong. The only thing keeping her from being bigger news is the simple fact that Arts teams are so dominant now. Still, Kenshin being better overall doesn’t keep Yu from being excellent, and if you prefer to run Quick setups, she’s a super strong pick.

Overall: 9/10
Single-Target DPS: 10/10
AoE DPS: N/A
Survivability: 5/10
Offensive Utility: 3/10
Defensive Utility: 5/10
Farming Usefulness: 3/10
Love for Xiang Yu: 10/10