Rabbit's Reviews #320: Super Bunyan (5* Alter Ego)

Bunyan is a Servant nobody needs. She’s not terrible or anything—she has enough generically nice stuff to function—but there’s honestly just not a lot of call for an ST Buster Alter Ego at the SSR level without something meaningfully differentiating within the Servant’s kit. Bunyan is very standard in a lot of ways: fairly generic buffs, modest but unexciting utility, a fairly unobtrusive and unremarkable gimmick, et cetera. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but as an Alter Ego, Bunyan needs to bring something to make you want to use her over proper counterclass options or (perhaps even more importantly) Berserkers. She does not do this. Bunyan actually loses out in turn one damage to most SR Berserkers—at equal NP levels, no less—and while her gimmick lets her eventually catch up, needing to play to a gimmick in order to compete with cheaper and more broadly applicable units is not a great look.

Bunyan has pretty high production values, with nice art, two NP animations, and a fun conceptual gimmick via the inclusion of Learning with Manga Rider and Assassin. If you’re a fan of the character, she’s a serviceable ST Buster unit. For anyone looking at gameplay value, though, there’s just not much here to sell this one.

Bunyan has the lowest attack of the SSR Alter Egos, along with mid-high HP. This isn’t a great starting point for a DPS and is part of why she has damage issues. Her internals are decent: she’s a triple-Buster Servant, which makes consistent NP gain a challenge, but her Quick is decent and her Arts card is good, so especially with Koyan help NP gain isn’t a huge issue. Star gen is less of a strength, mostly due to her deck and her fairly standard hit-counts. For passives, Bunyan has Magic Resistance and Item Construction, both of which are nice-if-unexciting consistency buffs. She also has Like! Power, which is a unique passive that gives Bunyan a like every time she attacks or takes damage. We’ll circle back to this later, but for now note that it’s central to her NP gimmick. Also, unlike most on-attack buffs, this applies when Bunyan NPs as well.

Bunyan actually benefits a fair bit from all of her appends. Mana Loading is, as always, the most important, especially as Bunyan has a 30% battery at base, but the Extra Attack buff also helps Bunyan’s NP gain, and Bunyan gets bonus damage versus Berserkers, which does give her a small use case over ST Berserkers: full class advantage plus an extra 30% attack will put her ahead of the general Berserker competition when fighting other Berserkers at least. If you’re lucky enough to get NP3 Bunyan and you want to seriously invest in her, you might consider prioritizing unlocking appends over grailing past 100.

Ascension Materials

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	100,000	x5 Rider Piece Open Rider Piece configuration options x5 Assassin Piece Open Assassin Piece configuration options
3	300,000	x12 Rider Piece Open Rider Piece configuration options x12 Assassin Piece Open Assassin Piece configuration options
4	1,000,000	x5 Rider Monument Open Rider Monument configuration options x5 Assassin Monument Open Assassin Monument configuration options
Max	3,000,000	x12 Rider Monument Open Rider Monument configuration options x12 Assassin Monument Open Assassin 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 Assassin Open Gem of Assassin configuration options
2 → 3	400,000	x12 Gem of Rider Open Gem of Rider configuration options x12 Gem of Assassin Open Gem of Assassin configuration options
3 → 4	1,200,000	x5 Magic Gem of Rider Open Magic Gem of Rider configuration options x5 Magic Gem of Assassin Open Magic Gem of Assassin configuration options
4 → 5	1,600,000	x12 Magic Gem of Rider Open Magic Gem of Rider configuration options x12 Magic Gem of Assassin Open Magic Gem of Assassin configuration options
5 → 6	4,000,000	x5 Secret Gem of Rider Open Secret Gem of Rider configuration options x5 Secret Gem of Assassin Open Secret Gem of Assassin configuration options
6 → 7	5,000,000	x12 Secret Gem of Rider Open Secret Gem of Rider configuration options x12 Secret Gem of Assassin Open Secret Gem of Assassin configuration options
7 → 8	10,000,000	x8 Meteor Horseshoe Open Meteor Horseshoe configuration options x8 Octuplet Crystals Open Octuplet Crystals configuration options
8 → 9	12,000,000	x12 Primordial Lanugo Open Primordial Lanugo configuration options x9 Scarab of Wisdom Open Scarab of Wisdom 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 Assassin Open Gem of Assassin configuration options
2 → 3	400000	x12 Gem of Rider Open Gem of Rider configuration options x12 Gem of Assassin Open Gem of Assassin configuration options
3 → 4	1200000	x5 Magic Gem of Rider Open Magic Gem of Rider configuration options x5 Magic Gem of Assassin Open Magic Gem of Assassin configuration options
4 → 5	1600000	x12 Magic Gem of Rider Open Magic Gem of Rider configuration options x12 Magic Gem of Assassin Open Magic Gem of Assassin configuration options
5 → 6	4000000	x5 Secret Gem of Rider Open Secret Gem of Rider configuration options x5 Secret Gem of Assassin Open Secret Gem of Assassin configuration options
6 → 7	5000000	x12 Secret Gem of Rider Open Secret Gem of Rider configuration options x12 Secret Gem of Assassin Open Secret Gem of Assassin configuration options
7 → 8	10000000	x8 Homunculus Baby Open Homunculus Baby configuration options x8 Divine Leyline Spiritron Open Divine Leyline Spiritron configuration options
8 → 9	12000000	x12 Fruit of Eternity Open Fruit of Eternity configuration options x9 Spirit Root Open Spirit Root configuration options
9 → 10	20000000	x1 Crystallized Lore Open Crystallized Lore configuration options

Bunyan’s skills are very plain. She gets most of the normal DPS things, but without anything that goes above and beyond, she struggles to overcome the disadvantages of her class. Recommended skill order is 2>1>3.

Buster units are generally at their best when they’re outputting as much damage as possible over three turns. The basic setup for this with Bunyan is the same as with almost anyone else: double Koyan and Oberon. There’s not much to say about this other than that you use your damage buffs as soon as you can and batteries whenever you need them. A few Bunyan cards on turns 1 and 2 secures you the loop pretty easily… and if you don’t get Bunyan cards early, you’re probably resetting the fight anyway, since that also means Bunyan isn’t getting the likes she needs to scale her damage to passable levels.

In order to maximize Bunyan’s damage, you want to make sure she’s scaling up to maximum likes as quickly as possible. This makes Chen Gong an even more interesting pick than usual: instead of using his taunt on himself, you can pass his taunt to Bunyan in order to make her more likely to take a few hits on turn 1 and scale her likes faster. This does mean you’re stuck with Chen on the field in the long-term, which is a problem if you want to fully cycle supports… but as long as Chen NPs, you can still get access to two Koyans and an Oberon, so it may be worth it for the extra likes. Note, though, that Bunyan has no way to mitigate the damage she’s taking while taunting, so this won’t work in high-damage fights, as Bunyan is liable to just die while accumulating likes.

Miss Crane is an even better option than Chen here. If you start with Bunyan/Koyan/Crane as your front line, use Crane’s second skill, and then plug Koyan out for your second Koyan, you get a three turn taunt on just Bunyan, which will let Bunyan quickly rack up likes (provided, again, she doesn’t get killed in the process, which isn’t a given). Crane also gives Bunyan crit damage buffs and increases her NP damage output, alleviating two of her core issues.

The Black Grail is the obvious CE choice for amping Bunyan’s damage. That said, if you aren’t using Crane, GudaGuda Poster Girl is also a really good CE pick for fastplay. Its taunt effect ensures Bunyan will take hits and gain likes, and it also provides a massive attack buff for three turns. This will amount to less NP damage than Black Grail, as np damage up is a better bracket than attack up and Black Grail also provides a flat attack increase, but Poster Girl’s attack buff also applies to cards and therefore helps with crit damage. It’s worth trying if you happen to have the CE.

Crit damage CCs are great for Bunyan, as Bunyan lacks any in-kit crit buffs and therefore benefits fully from what they provide. Star gen CCs can be useful for the same reason. It’s also worth considering NP damage CCs, as Bunyan will sometimes want to put cards before her NP for the extra likes anyway, and NP damage CCs will make that even more appealing.

If you really like Bunyan and want to make her work well, I’d strongly suggest grailing her to level 100, as she needs all the extra damage she can get. If you aren’t attached to the character, though, this is one to pass on—you’ll get a lot more value out of grailing basically any Berserker, or even a better ST Alter Ego (like Bazett).

Bunyan is an undertuned Servant in a class that really doesn’t give leeway for being undertuned. It’s tempting sometimes to look at an Alter Ego as half a Berserker with none of the benefits, and Bunyan is a great example of why that’s sometimes true: a Berserker with Bunyan’s exact kit would hit a little harder thanks to the class’s innate damage bonus and would, if nothing else, work pretty much everywhere. As an Alter Ego, though, Bunyan just doesn’t bring anything to the table that can’t be better accomplished with cheaper and more flexible units. She’s not terrible at base—she has the core things she needs to work—but it takes everything Bunyan has to keep up with her direct competition in ideal situations, and pretty much anything that would swing the comparison away from Bunyan’s favor will leave her in the dust. There’s no real appeal here from a mechanical standpoint, so unless you love Bunyan, this is a Servant to ignore.

Overall: 6/10
Single-Target DPS: 5/10
AoE DPS: N/A
Survivability: 2/10
Offensive Utility: 3/10
Defensive Utility: 4/10
Farming Usefulness: 4/10
Pocket Friends: 2/2