Rabbit's Reviews #317: Manannan mac Lir (Bazett) (5* Alter Ego)

Whatever else she may be, Bazett is unique. Bazett is built around a new mechanic: counterattacking. Her NP, Fragarach, deals no damage on its own. Instead, it preps Bazett to counter incoming fire, letting her deal damage each time she’s targeted with an attack or a debuff.

Initial views on how useful this is—and how useful Bazett is—have been all over the place, ranging from “nearly the worst ST SSR in the game” to “functionally better than anyone else due to her impressive ceiling.” There are valid arguments in both directions. She takes a lot of work to get going, and her benefit over other STs once you get there is questionable. On the other hand, she’s arguably not much more RNG-dependent than other ST units—she just moves the RNG around to different places—and in exchange she can do certain things literally impossible for anyone else. It’s a question of what you value, and how useful you expect her to be in the long term.

Personally, I’ve come down somewhere in the middle. She takes different thinking and different strategies to get her working properly, which is a disadvantage in a game where most Servants need the same set of tools to operate (and therefore most players invest in those tools and strategies). She’s also more vulnerable to bad luck than most STs in that, if things don’t work out for Bazett, she can end up doing absolutely nothing, rather than just operating at a lower level than usual. That said, she effectively gets four turns of full damage output, rather than the usual three, and her damage ceiling is remarkably high against Cavalry. She’s an interesting unit with very real pros and cons, and while I wish she had a few small tweaks to make her more cleanly powerful, she has enough potential to by and large offset her weaknesses.

Bazett ties Kingprotea for the highest attack of any Alter Ego, although she has slightly less health. An offense-oriented stat spread is usually great for a damage-dealer—and Bazett does make good use of the attack—but Bazett actually needs HP to work fully, so her relative fragility is a disadvantage. Her active star gen, meanwhile, is very good, with high-hit-count Quicks and a guaranteed 10 stars each time her NP procs. She also has quite good active NP gain, with cards roughly on par with Rider Kintoki. Her NP does only hit once each time it activates—limiting its refund potential—but ST Quick Servants are generally more reliant on cards and batteries than on NP refund anyway. For passives, Bazett has three standard skills in Magic Resistance, Riding, and Divinity. Riding is a great persistent damage and NP gain buff on Bazett, while Magic Resistance is a marginal stability buff and Divinity is basically just flavor as usual. Bazett’s final passive is a unique one. God’s Holder gives a small crit damage buff, and (more importantly) it makes Bazett’s offensive buffs last half a turn longer, carrying over into the enemy turn. This is crucial for making her NP make sense, as Bazett will often attack outside of her turn.

As far as appends go, Mana Loading is the most important, as usual. It gives Bazett more flexibility in terms of both supports and battery distribution, which is especially important given Bazett’s unusual needs. The Extra Attack buff is the second-most valuable skill, as Bazett needs to maximize her card damage on turn one, and boosted Extras will help with that. Anti-Avenger damage is the least important skill here; it can make Bazett a decent Avenger-killer, but you can usually do that well enough with a Berserker or one of the Moon Cancers when it’s relevant.

Ascension Materials

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	100,000	x5 Rider Piece Open Rider Piece configuration options x5 Caster Piece Open Caster Piece configuration options
3	300,000	x12 Rider Piece Open Rider Piece configuration options x12 Caster Piece Open Caster Piece configuration options
4	1,000,000	x5 Rider Monument Open Rider Monument configuration options x5 Caster Monument Open Caster Monument configuration options
Max	3,000,000	x12 Rider Monument Open Rider Monument configuration options x12 Caster Monument Open Caster Monument configuration options

Skill Enhancement Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200,000	x5 Gem of Rider Open Gem of Rider configuration options x5 Gem of Caster Open Gem of Caster configuration options
2 → 3	400,000	x12 Gem of Rider Open Gem of Rider configuration options x12 Gem of Caster Open Gem of Caster configuration options
3 → 4	1,200,000	x5 Magic Gem of Rider Open Magic Gem of Rider configuration options x5 Magic Gem of Caster Open Magic Gem of Caster configuration options
4 → 5	1,600,000	x12 Magic Gem of Rider Open Magic Gem of Rider configuration options x12 Magic Gem of Caster Open Magic Gem of Caster configuration options
5 → 6	4,000,000	x5 Secret Gem of Rider Open Secret Gem of Rider configuration options x5 Secret Gem of Caster Open Secret Gem of Caster configuration options
6 → 7	5,000,000	x12 Secret Gem of Rider Open Secret Gem of Rider configuration options x12 Secret Gem of Caster Open Secret Gem of Caster configuration options
7 → 8	10,000,000	x8 Shell of Reminiscence Open Shell of Reminiscence configuration options x8 Forbidden Page Open Forbidden Page configuration options
8 → 9	12,000,000	x9 Scarab of Wisdom Open Scarab of Wisdom configuration options x9 Egg of Truth Open Egg of Truth configuration options
9 → 10	20,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore Open Crystallized Lore configuration options

Append Skill Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200000	x5 Gem of Rider Open Gem of Rider configuration options x5 Gem of Caster Open Gem of Caster configuration options
2 → 3	400000	x12 Gem of Rider Open Gem of Rider configuration options x12 Gem of Caster Open Gem of Caster configuration options
3 → 4	1200000	x5 Magic Gem of Rider Open Magic Gem of Rider configuration options x5 Magic Gem of Caster Open Magic Gem of Caster configuration options
4 → 5	1600000	x12 Magic Gem of Rider Open Magic Gem of Rider configuration options x12 Magic Gem of Caster Open Magic Gem of Caster configuration options
5 → 6	4000000	x5 Secret Gem of Rider Open Secret Gem of Rider configuration options x5 Secret Gem of Caster Open Secret Gem of Caster configuration options
6 → 7	5000000	x12 Secret Gem of Rider Open Secret Gem of Rider configuration options x12 Secret Gem of Caster Open Secret Gem of Caster configuration options
7 → 8	10000000	x8 Divine Pulse Spirit Orb Open Divine Pulse Spirit Orb configuration options x8 Vision Scales Open Vision Scales configuration options
8 → 9	12000000	x9 Heart of the Foreign God Open Heart of the Foreign God configuration options x9 Fragment of a Twinkling Star Open Fragment of a Twinkling Star configuration options
9 → 10	20000000	x1 Crystallized Lore Open Crystallized Lore configuration options

Alter Egos take two classes’ worth of monuments and gems, in exchange for needing fewer other mats. Whether this is a pro or a con probably depends on how actively you farm lottos and how many other Servants you’ve leveled, but generally I find this to be a disadvantage; gems are always in short supply. All four of Bazett’s capstone mats, though, are old enough to be fairly easy to get at this point, so there’s that.

Bazett’s skillset is just okay, by and large. It’s not bad, per se—she gets a mix of generic good things—but there’s nothing super impressive about it, and there’s definitely room for improvement. That said, most of her value is on her NP anyway. Recommended skill order is 2>1>3.

Before launching into teams, it might be helpful to give a quick rundown of how Bazett operates in ideal situations. For Bazett to really benefit from her counters, she wants to break a bar on turn 1 with crits, so that she’s punching at bar 2 with her counters from the first turn. Then, on each subsequent turn, she NPs and uses her cards (or a support’s, if she has none available) to finish off the prior bar. If all goes well, she’s swinging at bar 4 on turn 3, which in most ST fights means she’s probably finishing the fight at that point. ST Servants will typically need to wait for their buffs to cycle in order to finish off an enemy with four break bars. Bazett doesn’t need to do that, which is her core strength.

Bazett is, in the end, a Quick unit who needs powerful crits to function. As such, Skadi is the obvious partner, and Bazett will benefit from the things Skadi brings. Outside of that, though, her options look a little odd. Two usual power supports, Waver and Oberon, are actively bad partners for Bazett. Waver’s NP can stun enemies, keeping them from proccing Fragarach, and Oberon’s will Sleep them, causing the same problem. Furthermore, End of the Dream procs at the end of the player’s turn, putting Bazett to sleep before she can counter. This can be mitigated by having a damage-over-time effect kill Bazett and proc a guts at the end of Bazett’s turn, which delaying Oberon’s demerits a turn and lets Bazett make use of the skill’s offensive buff, but the specific setups required are wildly impractical.

So, who is a good partner for Bazett? There are a few options.

The most obvious here is Reines. Reines has Volumen Hydrargyrum, in addition to a partywide defense buff, which makes Bazett a lot more likely to survive enemy hits. Reines’s NP also boosts NP gain, making Bazett a little more stable, and negates defensive class disadvantage, helping Bazett kill Berserkers more reliably. Reines is probably the best defensive option for Bazett, and a Skadi/Skadi/Reines team will make a solid generic shell.

Merlin is also a surprisingly good pick here, despite Bazett being Quick-oriented. One of Bazett’s problems is getting enough crit damage off two cards on turn 1 to break a bar. Remember that she also has to NP on that turn, which means she has to be able to break the first bar with something like a BNPQ chain or an NPQQ chain. Hero Creation helps with this in either case, giving Bazett another 100% crit up on that first turn, in addition to making her Busters stronger if she draws them on subsequent turns.

Jiang Ziya is also a great support pick here, albeit for different reasons. Jiang Ziya’s first skill provides three damage buffs that last for three turns, pairing nicely with Bazett’s existing buffs. More importantly, though, he can inflict skill seal for a turn, effectively forcing enemies to swing at Bazett with all of their actions. This is usually a drawback of skill seal, but in Bazett’s case it’s the whole point; skill seal guarantees Bazett will get three counters off in a turn (usually), functioning as a substantial damage increase on whichever turn it’s needed.

With Mana Loading, Bazett can use both Merlin and Jiang Ziya together. You would probably want to run Merlin/Bazett/Jiang Ziya/Skadi, plugging Merlin out for Skadi on turn 1. Merlin’s, Jiang Ziya’s, and Bazett’s batteries get Bazett to her NP on turn 1, so she needs to generate 100% charge on one turn and 50% charge on another, which is definitely doable with good card draws, especially considering Bazett will be eating enemy fire and benefitting from defensive NP gain as a result. Additionally, if any of your supports have star burst CEs equipped (Carp, for instance), you can use Merlin’s Illusion on turn 1 and save Bazett’s dodge for turn 2, largely mitigating Bazett’s survivability issues.

Habetrot also deserves a shoutout here as an option. Bazett can benefit from Habetrot’s third skill, which, between the invuln and the guts, solves Bazett’s survival problems more or less single-handedly. It also kills Habetrot at the end of the turn, meaning Bazett doesn’t lose out on a support for this, as long as she doesn’t need the extra support on turn 1. Habetrot can also use her NP for free for a bit of extra damage and some more stars.

There’s also no shortage of alternative lower-rarity supports who will work to varying degrees of effectiveness. Barti, for instance, is a low-cost option everyone should have, and while he has limited long-term value, he can make it a lot easier for Bazett to crit and hit damage thresholds on turn 1, especially if paired with two Skadis. Santa Martha has a 20% battery and brings a lot of extra damage versus Divines, so she can replace Merlin or Jiang Ziya in the above team without a huge loss of efficiency. Utility picks like Santa Night and Sherlock are also valid options if needed. Bazett has a fair bit of flexibility with supports, provided she’s not at high risk of death, which is pretty nice.

As an added note, the fact that Bazett is functionally both AoE and ST means she could theoretically have some value for 90+ farming if you know for certain the enemies will attack or debuff on their turns. Not sure how practically useful it will be, but it is not outside of the realm of possibility, and it may work as a gimmicky farming solve if you don’t have something more reliable or just want something interesting to liven up your farming.

Bazett has a few CE options. If Bazett is hitting card damage thresholds, Black Grail is a good pick for maximizing Fragarach damage. Alternatively, CEs that boost crit damage (like Victor of the Moon or Knight’s Dignity) can help get past the first-turn damage gap. Survival CEs like Volumen or starting NP CEs like Traces of Christmas also aren’t a terrible idea if the damage is there but the consistency is not.

Bazett is an odd case in that her cards will always happen “before” her NP, technically, so the CCs that grant NP damage buffs are uniquely useful to Bazett. Most Servants have to choose between optimal NP placement and benefitting from the NP damage buff on those CCs. Bazett doesn’t have to make this choice, which makes them particularly nice on her. Crit damage CCs are also good for helping hit damage thresholds on turn 1. They’re better on her Busters than on her Quicks, as they’re likely to be washed out on her Quicks with Skadi buffs in play.

Bazett likes having more attack and having more HP. She’s not the most optimal grail target in the abstract, but she is highly unique, which makes her an appealing grail pick—as long as she’s the only Servant who can do what she does, grails will increase your overall ceiling for counter-focused gameplay.

Bazett is cool. Counters are usually a strong mechanic in turn-based games, and while Bazett doesn’t fully deliver on that promise, she does get to do some neat things no one else can do. If Bazett’s kit were a little stronger—if, say, her NP granted invuln, like QSH’s does—or if there were a perfect support for her—if Reines could inflict skill seal for 3 turns or some such—Bazett would be amazing. As is, though, there’s no good way to fully mitigate her randomness. When all goes well, Bazett can do some legitimately great, fully unique things, but if she gets unlucky, Bazett can end up doing nearly nothing. She’s a fun Servant for gimmicky CQ clears, and there are a handful of situations where she might be the best option, but she’s not a general-use kind of unit. As a friend of mine put it, “She can do stuff that no other Servants can do, and she has flaws that no other Servants have.” Not a bad place to be, all in all, and it makes for good overall Servant design.

Overall: 8/10
Single-Target DPS: 9/10
AoE DPS: 4/10
Survivability: 2/10
Offensive Utility: 2/10
Defensive Utility: 6/10
Farming Usefulness: 6/10
Fatal Counter!: 10/10