Rabbit's Reviews #306: Jacques de Molay (5* Foreigner)

Introduction

Jacques de Molay has a lot of powerful tools in her kit. She has a 50% battery. She has a partywide invuln. She has the potential for higher total damage buffs than even Arjuna Alter (discounting the advantages of his class). There’s a lot here that should make Molay really really good. In practice, though, her tools are all in the wrong places, turning this into a case where the whole is less than the sum of its parts. She doesn’t get access to roughly half her damage buffs when farming. She has quite bad NP refund. Her party survival tool is tied to not one but both of her batteries. She also has anti-synergy with one of her theoretical best partners (in Van Gogh) and doesn’t quite match with another (Doman). She’s almost—but not quite—an excellent Servant. On the bright side, this means she’s within reach of being great if she gets a good buff or the right new Support down the line, but for the time being, she’s decidedly unimpressive.

Servant Data

Foreigner

QQABB (Lancer)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

5

3

4

5

Attribute	Earth
Alignment	Neutral Evil

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

April Fool's

Max HP 16,143

HP Rank

Max ATK 10,868

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,679	Base HP	2,367
Max Atk	10,868	Max HP	16,143
Grail Atk	11,897	Grail HP	17,685

Entity of the Outer Realm A

Gain 2 Critical Stars per turn.
Increase your Debuff Resist by 10%.

Territory Creation A

Increase your Arts Card effectiveness by 10%.

Divinity B

Apply Damage Plus for yourself (Total Card Damage +175).

Card Hits	5	3	4	5	5
Per Hit	0.78%	0.78%	0.78%	0.78%	0.78%

	NP per Hit (%)						0.78%
	NP when Attacked (%)						3%

	Star Absorption	148
	Star Generation per Hit	14.7%

Overview

Material Requirements

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	100,000	x10 Evil Bone x10 Fool's Chain
3	300,000	x10 Great Knight Medal x10 Forbidden Page
4	1,000,000	x10 Mystic Spinal Fluid x10 Heart of the Foreign God
Max	3,000,000	x10 Egg of Truth x10 Glowing Star Fragment

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200,000	x10 Evil Bone
2 → 3	400,000	x10 Fool's Chain
3 → 4	1,200,000	x12 Great Knight Medal
4 → 5	1,600,000	x12 Forbidden Page
5 → 6	4,000,000	x12 Mystic Spinal Fluid
6 → 7	5,000,000	x15 Heart of the Foreign God
7 → 8	10,000,000	x15 Egg of Truth
8 → 9	12,000,000	x15 Glowing Star Fragment
9 → 10	20,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200000	x10 Void's Dust
2 → 3	400000	x10 Black Beast Grease
3 → 4	1200000	x12 Tearstone of Blood
4 → 5	1600000	x12 Deadly Poisonous Needle
5 → 6	4000000	x12 Lamp of Evil-Sealing
6 → 7	5000000	x15 Stake of Wailing Night
7 → 8	10000000	x15 Fruit of Eternity
8 → 9	12000000	x15 Demonic Flame Light
9 → 10	20000000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Servant Skills

Molay’s skillset is primarily about batteries and damage, and as such she really needs all three skills maxed in order to function at full strength. Recommended skill order is 1>2>3.

Dmg Up

Investiture in Depravity A

Increase ATK for all allies (3 turns).
Increase Critical Strength for all allies (3 turns).
Increase NP Gauge for all allies.
Apply [Evil] trait to all allies except self (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%
Crit Dmg +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
NP +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Investiture is a party charge skill and a damage buff, which makes it really good right from the jump. Party charge is good for helping the whole team NP, making your supports more stable and your damage-dealers more powerful. Similarly, the attack boost and crit damage boost speed up Molay’s teams, whether she’s the only damage-dealer or is running alongside someone like Van Gogh or Barti. The skill also makes her allies Evil, which is relevant to Molay’s second skill. This is the only downside of the skill, as the Evil trait is required for the defensive aspects of the second skill to kick in, which can cause issues with battery timing.

Invi Shield

Holy Shroud (False) B

Apply Invincible to self (1 turn).
Increase own NP Gauge.
Apply Invincible to all allies with [Evil] alignment except self (1 time, 1 turn).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
NP +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Shroud of Turin is a neat skill. At base, it’s an invuln paired with a 30% battery, which is nice albeit somewhat annoying in that it presents a survivability-damage trade. This trade is made more painful by the third effect on this skill, which is to provide a single hit of invuln to Evil allies. This invuln only lasts one turn, meaning if you don’t use it when you actually need the survival, it’ll be wasted. It also requires using Investiture of Corruption first (unless Molay’s allies are evil), further reducing the flexibility of its timing. Even in CQs, Molay is usually going to want to use this as a battery rather than as a defensive tool, but leaving that much potential utility on the table is never a good feeling.

Gain Critical Stars per Turn

Innocent Monster A (Molay)

Gain Critical Stars each turn (3 turns).
Increase own Quick Card effectiveness (3 turns).
Apply Special ATK [Curse] on self (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Stars per turn +	5	6	6	7	7	8	8	9	9	10
Quick +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
Special ATK +	30%	32%	34%	36%	38%	40%	42%	44%	46%	50%
CD	7	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6	5

Innocent Monster is the most straightforward skill in Molay’s kit. There are no real timing considerations here—you just use this when it’s available. This skill provides stars per turn and a small Quick buff, both of which are useful, but the main draw here is the hefty power mod it grants against cursed enemies. This is very powerful in theory but less useful in practice. Molay can inflict curse, but only on her NP, and only post-damage, which means she’ll effectively never have this damage boost in farming situations unless you’re bringing, say, Doman. What this means is that Molay has very high damage potential but will only see that damage potential in CQ contexts. Without her curse damage, Molay is an uninterluded Servant with unremarkable (albeit ramping) steroids and low attack, and that holds her back quite a bit.

Noble Phantasm

Vendredi Treize A

Deal damage to all enemies.
Inflict Curse on all enemies (5 turns, 1000 dmg/turn).
Inflict Curse Damage Up by 100% on all enemies (5 turns).

<Overcharge>

Increase own NP Strength (3 turns) [Activates first].

Show Info/Video

Vendredi Treize

Friday the 13th

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	A	Anti-Personnel	5

Effect	Deal damage to all enemies. Inflict Curse on all enemies (5 turns, 1000 dmg/turn). Inflict Curse Damage Up by 100% on all enemies (5 turns).

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Damage +	600%	800%	900%	950%	1000%
Curse Damage	1000	1000	1000	1000	1000
Curse Damage +	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%

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

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
NP Damage +	20%	25%	30%	35%	40%

Molay’s NP is good for what it is. It’s an AoE Quick NP with a pre-cast 3-turn NP damage buff, which is quite nice. It inflicts curse after damage, which is good for being able to proc Molay’s power mod but bad in that it doesn’t happen in time for the NP itself to gain the bonus if the enemy isn’t already cursed. This NP also has a low enough hit-count that Molay struggles with refund—much like Quick Space Ishtar, she’s almost entirely dependent on batteries to loop, especially against waves with fewer than three enemies. This is almost an amazing NP. If curse were pre-damage and if this hit a few more times, Molay would be a lot stronger. As it is, it’s just okay.

Usage Tips

In farming contexts, Molay is a battery-centric looper. With a Kaleidoscope, Oberon, and two Skadis, Molay can loop against anything provided her damage is good enough. With Mana Loading maxed, she can usually do the same with a 50% charge CE instead—she uses her own 30% battery on turn 1, and then just has to refund 10% on one of the other two waves. There are, of course, many ways to mix-and-match resources. For example, with an MLB Kaleid, or with a base Kaleid and Mana Loading, Molay works with any 50% charger (rather than just Oberon). 6-drop farming—farming with any six event CEs—is generally going to be beyond Molay, but 5-drop farming should be possible with a range of setups if Molay deals enough damage. Unfortunately, dealing enough damage isn’t a given, and 5-drop farming is pretty easy to do these days, so this isn’t a particular advantage for Molay over her competition.

Molay is a lot more interesting in CQ contexts. Since Molay has such good cards, she can loop her NP fairly reliably even with Black Grail (or something similar) equipped. She’ll still want a pair of Skadis and another charge support in order to do her thing reliably, but access to cards gives her more flexibility in general. Molay also has much more impressive damage in these situations, as she’ll (usually) have access to her Curse power mod on subsequent turns.

Outside of the standard triple-support setups, Van Gogh and Doman are both worth mentioning. Since Molay is an Entity of the Outer Realm, Van Gogh provides massive crit damage buffs. Unfortunately, Molay and Van Gogh don’t have great synergy, as Van Gogh removes curses from the enemy team, functionally reducing Molay’s damage output. Doman is a little better of a fit. Molay doesn’t fully benefit from his Chaotic Evil buffs, unfortunately, but Doman does have two separate ways of inflicting curse to the enemy team, meaning he can help Molay reach her damage potential right from the jump.

It’s also worth noting that Molay’s NP charges make her a good fit for stall-oriented Quick setups. Skadi/Molay/Castoria, in particular, is well-positioned to stall for the long term. Molay’s party invuln also stacks nicely with Gate of Skye and Round of Avalon, letting it provide a little extra safety on turns where someone is low on protection and making it more useful as a survival tool than it normally is.

Molay’s first skill also means she plays nicely with Quick semi-supports like Barti and Lakshmibai. If you don’t have a Skadi of your own or are generally lacking for powerful supports, running Molay with Barti and a support Skadi should be reasonably effective as budget Quick teams go.

In farming setups, Molay is going to need a starting NP charge CE in order to get moving right away. For CQs, though, Molay has more flexibility. The Black Grail is, as always, the best option for damage, but you might also consider a CE like Traces of Christmas, which brings less damage but makes Molay more stable and gives her easier loop access.

Between her strong active star gen and her passive stars, Molay will likely be critting semi-regularly. She doesn’t have a lot in the way of crit damage buffs within her kit, though, so crit damage CCs—particularly on her Busters—are a good idea. Command Codes that inflict curse are also excellent here for obvious reasons, as they let Molay proc her curse damage without needing to NP first.

Grail Potential

Conclusion

Molay has enough going for her within her kit that she can’t be outright bad. She has 50% in selfish batteries. She has party charge. She has good sustained steroids. She has some CQ utility. While her loop specs aren’t the greatest, she can still farm if you have the right supports and are willing to give her a charge CE. At her core, Molay has three key problems. First, and most significantly, Quick is disfavored in the current state of the game. Skadi teams just aren’t as fast or as reliable as comparable Arts and Buster setups. Second, Molay doesn’t have notable advantages over her direct competition. Majin Saber has much better loopage, and Caren even more so. Dantes hits drastically harder. Voyager is much better for slowplay teams by virtue of his frequent party charges. There’s not really a context in which Molay is the best option, and she’s not enough of a jack-of-all-trades to be a flex option either. Third, Molay’s in-kit tools are positioned such that she struggles to make use of all of the potentially powerful things she has access to.

Molay is definitely usable, and there’s a world in which Quick gets an amazing new support who perfectly complements Molay’s kit. We aren’t yet living in that world, though, so for now, she’s a pretty easy skip.

Rabbit's Arbitrary Ratings

Overall: 7/10
Single-Target DPS: 4/10
AoE DPS: 8/10
Survivability: 5/10
Offensive Utility: 5/10
Defensive Utility: 4/10
Farming Usefulness: 7/10
Urban Legends: 10/10