Rabbit's Reviews #314: Dobrynya Nikitich (4* Rider)

Tunguska brings with it a pair of non-limited Riders. The SR, Dobrynya Nikitich, is—wow, I feel like I just wrote this exact same thing. Wonder why that could be?

Of the two AoE Riders Tunguska introduces, Nikitich is by far the weaker. She’s more-or-less just a modern take on Siegfried, with better skills overall in exchange for somewhat less dragon-smashing power and a lack of an Interlude. She is sadly not Koyanskaya-farming compatible, despite being a Buster Servant, and while you can rig things with the help of Habetrot, you might as well just loop with Habetrot and ignore Nikitich at that point. As such, she’s mostly relegated to niche CQ use, and she’s not really powerful enough to be remarkable even in those cases. She’s within range of being made worthwhile if she gets good buffs down the line, but as-is she’s one to avoid.

Nikitich has a nicely offense-leaning stat spread, with fairly high attack, which helps her damage potential. She has low hit-counts and a bad deck for star gen, though, so active star gen is not going to be her thing. Her NP gain is on the low end of standard for her deck, and her passives are fairly unremarkable: a high level of Riding, which doesn’t help her much, and Magic Resistance for occasionally staving off debuffs. For appends, Mana Loading is great as always. The Extra Attack buff is also unusually good for NP gain here due to Nikitich’s hit-count distribution. She gets bonus damage versus Alter Egos, which I suppose could be handy if you don’t have a Pretender ready to go, but otherwise append 3 is the one to skip.

Ascension Materials

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	50,000	x4 Rider Piece Open Rider Piece configuration options
3	150,000	x10 Rider Piece Open Rider Piece configuration options x15 Dragon Fang Open Dragon Fang configuration options
4	500,000	x4 Rider Monument Open Rider Monument configuration options x7 Serpent Jewel Open Serpent Jewel configuration options x4 Meteor Horseshoe Open Meteor Horseshoe configuration options
Max	1,500,000	x10 Rider Monument Open Rider Monument configuration options x8 Meteor Horseshoe Open Meteor Horseshoe configuration options x4 Dragon's Reverse Scale Open Dragon's Reverse Scale configuration options

Skill Enhancement Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100,000	x4 Gem of Rider Open Gem of Rider configuration options
2 → 3	200,000	x10 Gem of Rider Open Gem of Rider configuration options
3 → 4	600,000	x4 Magic Gem of Rider Open Magic Gem of Rider configuration options
4 → 5	800,000	x10 Magic Gem of Rider Open Magic Gem of Rider configuration options x4 Serpent Jewel Open Serpent Jewel configuration options
5 → 6	2,000,000	x4 Secret Gem of Saber Open Secret Gem of Saber configuration options x7 Serpent Jewel Open Serpent Jewel configuration options
6 → 7	2,500,000	x10 Secret Gem of Rider Open Secret Gem of Rider configuration options x10 Dragon Fang Open Dragon Fang configuration options
7 → 8	5,000,000	x20 Dragon Fang Open Dragon Fang configuration options x3 Warhorse's Young Horn Open Warhorse's Young Horn configuration options
8 → 9	6,000,000	x9 Warhorse's Young Horn Open Warhorse's Young Horn configuration options x20 Giant's Ring Open Giant's Ring configuration options
9 → 10	10,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore Open Crystallized Lore configuration options

Append Skill Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100000	x4 Gem of Rider Open Gem of Rider configuration options
2 → 3	200000	x10 Gem of Rider Open Gem of Rider configuration options
3 → 4	600000	x4 Magic Gem of Rider Open Magic Gem of Rider configuration options
4 → 5	800000	x10 Magic Gem of Rider Open Magic Gem of Rider configuration options x4 Meteor Horseshoe Open Meteor Horseshoe configuration options
5 → 6	2000000	x4 Secret Gem of Rider Open Secret Gem of Rider configuration options x8 Meteor Horseshoe Open Meteor Horseshoe configuration options
6 → 7	2500000	x10 Secret Gem of Rider Open Secret Gem of Rider configuration options x8 Great Knight Medal Open Great Knight Medal configuration options
7 → 8	5000000	x16 Great Knight Medal Open Great Knight Medal configuration options x2 Dragon's Reverse Scale Open Dragon's Reverse Scale configuration options
8 → 9	6000000	x6 Dragon's Reverse Scale Open Dragon's Reverse Scale configuration options x20 Aurora Steel Open Aurora Steel configuration options
9 → 10	10000000	x1 Crystallized Lore Open Crystallized Lore configuration options

Nikitich’s skillset is fairly balanced, and while none of her skills is especially powerful, they all put in work. Recommended skill order is 3>2>1.

To say Nikitich can’t farm is an exaggeration, since anyone can technically farm under the right conditions, but at the very least she cannot tri-loop unless you’re willing to burn a CE slot on a Chen with Kaleid or some such. You can sacrifice Habetrot on wave 1 to let Nikitich NP on waves 2 and 3 with a Kaleid and Koyanskaya help, but at that point you’re probably fighting Casters and you might as well just loop things with Habetrot.

For CQs, Nikitich is pretty straightforward. You either want Koyanskaya/Koyanskaya/Oberon for blitzing and looping, or some combination of Merlin, Himiko, and Castoria for crit- and sustain-focused gameplay. Nikitich isn’t great for either setup, but she has enough generic tools to work in both. Without anything to meaningfully distinguish her, she’s really only worth bringing if you’re facing Dragons, but she’s decent for that purpose, at least.

You could also theoretically bring George to apply the Dragon trait to an enemy, but that implies you’re using Nikitich for an ST fight, which is a questionable choice—her power mod vs. Dragons isn’t significant enough to let her compete with ST units, much less the powerful welfare Riders. You’re better off bringing Rider Liz at that point.

Nikitich really wants starting NP gauge pretty much regardless of what you’re doing with her. Her dang 20% battery really limits what CEs she can run, and she’ll need Kaleid for reliable looping in most cases. If you can run Oberon in the front line, have Mana Loading unlocked, and are willing to work with card RNG, you can probably get away with a 50% charge CE like Aerial Drive, but otherwise you want as much charge as you can get.

Crit damage CCs are a good choice for Nikitich given her relatively easy crit access. Flat star gen CCs are another option for making those crits more reliable, though, and the crit damage bracket is pretty crowded when fighting Dragons, since power mod and crit damage share a bracket and thus stack additively.

Nikitich is pretty bad out of niche and just okay in-niche, which makes her an unappealing grail target. If you really want to make use of her for character reasons, grails will help. Otherwise, this is an easy skip.

Nikitich is an unfortunate case where too much of her potential is locked behind a small niche for her to be worthwhile. Furthermore, even against Dragon’s she’s just sort of okay—this isn’t the case of Jiang Ziya, who’s truly impressive in-niche. Between her inability to farm, her small niche, and her unexciting performance, I’d call her the first straight-up bad Servant we’ve had in a while, and almost certainly the worst Servant of 2021. That said, 2021 has been a year of exceptionally high Servant quality, so being the worst of the bunch isn’t the condemnation it would have been in past years. This is a Servant who could become valuable with the right buffs—she’s not unsalvageable or anything—but at release, at least, she’s not very good.

Overall: 4/10
Single-Target DPS: 4/10
AoE DPS: 6/10
Survivability: 4/10
Offensive Utility: 4/10
Defensive Utility: N/A
Farming Usefulness: 2/10
Russian Mythology Deep Cuts: 10/10