Rabbit's Reviews #312: Martha (Santa) (4* Caster)

2021 continues to be a good year for welfares. Unlike our other welfares this year, Martha is a full support, and she packs a set of truly impressive offensive buffs. For perspective, Martha’s damage push capabilities are competitive with—and conditionally better than—even the various SSR supports. She pays for this in other ways, of course—limited party batteries, an awkward NP type, and limited defensive utility—but she still has a potential context in which she is the best option, that being in cases where you just need as much damage as possible. If you think of Servants as having a certain “budget” of power available, going all-in on one particular thing leaves them more likely to have a place where they stand out. Martha does this with damage buffs and is definitely better off for doing so.

As a support Caster at the 4* level, Martha has relatively low attack and relatively high HP, and that’s exactly where she should be. She’s surprisingly good at star gen for a support Caster, too—she has good hit-counts and two Quick cards, plus a Quick NP for occasional NPQQ chains. Her NP gain is also quite good relative to her deck, making it relatively easy for Martha to charge her NP gauge. That said, the fact that her NP is Quick means NPAA chains won’t be as effective for Martha as for most support Casters. Her passives are also really nice, with Territory Creation and Riding to help her NP gain and star gen (and damage, technically). She also has a low level of Item Construction, which can help her second skill sometimes overcome Magic Resistance. For appends, Martha really wants Mana Loading, as it lets her NP immediately with a 50% charge CE and her third skill. The other two are mostly irrelevant, but since Martha is a welfare there’s no reason not to at least unlock them.

Ascension Materials

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	50,000	x1 Ladle Stick Open Ladle Stick configuration options
3	150,000	x1 Ladle Stick Open Ladle Stick configuration options
4	500,000	x1 Ladle Stick Open Ladle Stick configuration options
Max	1,500,000	x1 Ladle Stick Open Ladle Stick configuration options

Skill Enhancement Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100,000	x4 Gem of Caster Open Gem of Caster configuration options
2 → 3	200,000	x10 Gem of Caster Open Gem of Caster configuration options
3 → 4	600,000	x4 Magic Gem of Caster Open Magic Gem of Caster configuration options
4 → 5	800,000	x10 Magic Gem of Caster Open Magic Gem of Caster configuration options x10 Dragon Fang Open Dragon Fang configuration options
5 → 6	2,000,000	x4 Secret Gem of Caster Open Secret Gem of Caster configuration options x20 Dragon Fang Open Dragon Fang configuration options
6 → 7	2,500,000	x10 Secret Gem of Caster Open Secret Gem of Caster configuration options x4 Forbidden Page Open Forbidden Page configuration options
7 → 8	5,000,000	x8 Forbidden Page Open Forbidden Page configuration options x2 Spirit Root Open Spirit Root configuration options
8 → 9	6,000,000	x6 Spirit Root Open Spirit Root configuration options x20 Eternal Ice Open Eternal Ice configuration options
9 → 10	10,000,000	Crystallized Lore Open Crystallized Lore configuration options

Append Skill Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100000	x4 Gem of Caster Open Gem of Caster configuration options
2 → 3	200000	x10 Gem of Caster Open Gem of Caster configuration options
3 → 4	600000	x4 Magic Gem of Caster Open Magic Gem of Caster configuration options
4 → 5	800000	x10 Magic Gem of Caster Open Magic Gem of Caster configuration options x5 Seed of Yggdrasil Open Seed of Yggdrasil configuration options
5 → 6	2000000	x4 Secret Gem of Caster Open Secret Gem of Caster configuration options x10 Seed of Yggdrasil Open Seed of Yggdrasil configuration options
6 → 7	2500000	x10 Secret Gem of Caster Open Secret Gem of Caster configuration options x3 Lamp of Evil-Sealing Open Lamp of Evil-Sealing configuration options
7 → 8	5000000	x5 Lamp of Evil-Sealing Open Lamp of Evil-Sealing configuration options x5 Divine Pulse Spirit Orb Open Divine Pulse Spirit Orb configuration options
8 → 9	6000000	x15 Divine Pulse Spirit Orb Open Divine Pulse Spirit Orb configuration options x12 Fruit of Eternity Open Fruit of Eternity configuration options
9 → 10	10000000	x1 Crystallized Lore Open Crystallized Lore configuration options

Martha’s skill mats are extremely friendly. She’s a welfare and therefore free to ascend, and the most recent materials she needs for skills are from Lostbelt 1. She doesn’t ask for any particularly annoying mats, and the ones she does ask for aren’t in excessive quantities. Appends are a little trickier by virtue of needing LB5 mats, but still, none of what she needs is too hard to get ahold of. There’s not much reason to skip out on leveling her stuff.

All three of Martha’s skills are strong, and she really wants all three leveled to maximize her potential. Recommended skill order is 3>1>2.

Don’t let her Quick NP fool you, Martha is a generic support who can slip into teams of all card types. She can slot into pretty much any team and bring strong attack buffs and potentially power mod, while also fueling crits. She’s super plug-and-play, and this entire section could honestly boil down to “run her with a DPS and whatever other supports you have.”

Martha is a particularly good support for budget teams and newer players. Martha/DPS/(Skadi or Castoria or Merlin) is a strong budget team shell. The Castoria version is solidly the best of the three, mostly due to how complete Castoria’s kit is, but the Quick and Buster alternatives should also do fine for earlier-game content.

For players with more developed boxes, Martha is mostly going to be relegated to fights against Divine Servants (or weird Undead/Demon enemies, I suppose, if we ever get one threatening enough to warrant it). Outside of her niche, Martha doesn’t bring enough damage to warrant using over higher-rarity supports, but in-niche, her extra damage can sometimes be enough for her to be worth bringing. Castoria teams are, again, the best option, as double Castoria ensures Martha can NP even without needing a starting NP CE. This can let Martha run, say, Poster Girl so she can die and make way for a better support.

If Martha isn’t running with double Castoria, she wants a CE with at least 50% starting charge so that she has easy access to her NP. It doesn’t really matter what CE, and in fact lower-cost options (like Dragon Meridian) may be the best choice, as they make way for costlier Servants and CEs elsewhere in the team. With double Castoria, look for CEs that bring valuable party effects (such as 2030), or bring a taunt CE so Martha can clear herself off the field.

There’s not much Martha needs that CCs can provide. Supportive CCs are generally going to be the best option here—particularly Everyone’s Da Vinci-Chan (for boosting party NP damage) or CCs that provide party healing.

Supports benefit very little from grails, and this is especially true of Support Casters. If you’re relying on Martha for damage, something has gone wrong, and the extra HP may keep Martha from dying when you would rather she leave the field. I’d skip this one.

Martha’s in-niche damage ampage is among the best in the game, even when top-tier supports are considered. She also helps with crits and brings some healing, which means she has a little bit of value even outside of her damage buffs. She’s more-or-less comparable to Lanling—largely inferior out of her niche, but pretty solidly better in-niche. Lanling is himself a great SR support, so getting effectively another Lanling for free is really excellent. For new players, she’s a great go-to support for whomever you want to run as a DPS, and for older players, she’s a situationally powerful damage buffer who can be handy for occasional challenge fights. There’s not much more you can ask from a free support.

Overall: 9/10
Single-Target DPS: 2/10
AoE DPS: N/A
Survivability: 3/10
Offensive Utility: 9/10
Defensive Utility: 5/10
Farming Usefulness: 6/10
Plating Skills: 10/10