Rabbit's Reviews #322: Mary Anning (1* Lancer)

Mary Anning is a weird Servant. Our first bronze since Nobukatsu, she (like Nobukatsu) is functionally the welfare for her debut event, available as a technically-limited Servant through the event’s FP pool. Anning is a rare bronze who’s more-or-less equally viable as a support or as a DPS. She’s not fantastic in either role—there are better cheap supports, and better cheap damage-dealers—but she does do both, and there are cases where you might want her in each. Anning is probably the most interesting Servant in this batch, and while her value proposition is a bit questionable between Mozart and the plethora of looping Lancers that exist, decent free tools are always fun to have access to.

Anning is, perhaps surprisingly, our first-ever 1* Lancer, so there’s no one to directly compare her stats to. That said, as a 1* Servant, her stats are quite low, which is the biggest thing holding her back as a DPS. Even coming out of the box at NP5, her damage is very very low, so she’ll probably need grails and the like if you want to her to start doing worthwhile damage. He internals are also pretty bad, with low hit-counts leading to low star gen, and pretty terrible Arts and Quick cards from an NP gain standpoint. She’s very reliant on NP refund for NP gain purposes, and even that refund isn’t really remarkable. Her only passive is Magic Resistance E, which is… not super impressive, as not only does she not get any other bonuses, but her debuff resistance is a measly 10%. Her appends are also unremarkable. Mana Loading is great as always, but with weak cards the Extra attack buff won’t do much, and anti-Alter Ego damage isn’t useful on a Servant who needs to be counterclassing to deal decent damage.

Ascension Materials

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	10,000	x2 Lancer Piece
3	30,000	x4 Lancer Piece x6 Dragon Fang
4	90,000	x2 Lancer Monument x3 Serpent Jewel x2 Octuplet Crystals
Max	300,000	x4 Lancer Monument x4 Octuplet Crystals x2 Dragon's Reverse Scale

Skill Enhancement Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	10,000	x2 Gem of Lancer
2 → 3	20,000	x4 Gem of Lancer
3 → 4	60,000	x2 Magic Gem of Lancer
4 → 5	80,000	x4 Magic Gem of Lancer x2 Serpent Jewel
5 → 6	200,000	x2 Secret Gem of Lancer x3 Serpent Jewel
6 → 7	250,000	x4 Secret Gem of Lancer x4 Dragon Fang
7 → 8	500,000	x8 Dragon Fang x2 Shell of Reminiscence
8 → 9	600,000	x6 Shell of Reminiscence x4 Cursed Beast Gallstone
9 → 10	1,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Append Skill Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	10000	x2 Gem of Lancer
2 → 3	20000	x4 Gem of Lancer
3 → 4	60000	x2 Magic Gem of Lancer
4 → 5	80000	x4 Magic Gem of Lancer x1 Claw of Chaos
5 → 6	200000	x2 Secret Gem of Lancer x2 Claw of Chaos
6 → 7	250000	x4 Secret Gem of Lancer x1 Tearstone of Blood
7 → 8	500000	x2 Tearstone of Blood x1 Egg of Truth
8 → 9	600000	x3 Egg of Truth x4 Fragment of a Twinkling Star
9 → 10	1000000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Most of Anning’s value lives in her skillset. Recommended skill order is 1>3>2.

Because Anning’s damage is so low, DPS Anning really wants optimal supports: two Castorias and a Tamamo (for damage), a Reines (for stability and NP gain), or an Oberon (for raw charge).  Anning refunds about 60% off three enemies with double Castoria, so for farming she’ll need a starting charge CE, and for CQs she’ll need cards to loop. She’s pretty straightforward in both cases, though—your usual Arts strategies will work for her provided she hits damage thresholds.

I’m not going to bother going into detail about lower-tier DPS setups for Anning since her damage is too low to make anything sub-optimal particularly viable, but if you want to try it, there’s a plethora of alternative Arts supports available. Sherlock and Lanling can play into her crit tools (although they don’t benefit fully from her buffs), Mozart and Paracelsus are generally nice budget supports for any Arts DPS, et cetera. You can just play around with whatever you have until you find a setup you like.

Support Anning is somewhat more interesting. She’s only worthwhile if she’s supporting non-Male Arts Servants, for obvious reasons, but even in those cases she has to compete with Paracelsus and Mozart. She sort of splits the difference between the two, bringing more consistent NP gain than Mozart (but less than Para), and more damage buffs than Para (but less than Mozart). In most cases you’ll want Mozart or Para for their specializations, but if you need something between the two—or really want crit damage buffs, NP charge, or buff block—Anning can stand out.

Support Anning will generally be best if she can drop her stuff and then go away. A taunt CE makes this pretty easy if Anning doesn’t need to NP. If you need the buff block, though, you can accomplish something similar using Chen Gong to explode Anning after her NP goes off. Anning’s CDs are short enough that you can keep her around, but that’s generally going to be less effective than replacing her with a fresh support asap.

Anning’s CE picks are pretty simple. In CQs she wants the Black Grail to offset her damage issues. For farming she wants Ocean Flyer or Painting Summer, since she needs the extra charge. As a support she either wants Kaleid for an instant NP or one of Outrage and GudaGuda Poster Girl to get rid of her quickly.

Utility and star gen CCs are good picks for Anning. Star gen CCs can bring Anning closer to flooding the field with her second skill, and utility skills (like party NP damage buffs, heals, and buff removal) make Anning a better support.

Support Anning generally wants low HP so she can die faster, in which case grails are a bad choice (and, in fact, Anning may be best served staying unfou’d and at level 40 for this reason). For DPS Anning, though, you want to push her stats as high as you can, in which case grails will help her damage hit more reasonable levels.

Anning has some nice stuff in her kit, but her value over other alternatives is a bit questionable. Mozart and Paracelsus are both generically better at their specialties—damage and NP gain respectively—meaning Anning only really has value if you need the specific utility she brings. That will happen sometimes, but she’s definitely a lower-value budget support relative to the others. Her DPS potential is also held back by her very low damage and weak NP gain, and there are so many great AoE Lancers that Anning’s necessity in the DPS role is questionable. That said, there aren’t any other silver-or-lower Lancers with damaging Arts NPs, so Anning is there if you want her. She’s a nice addition to the roster, even if she’s not particularly important.

Overall: 8/10
Single-Target DPS: 3/10
AoE DPS: 5/10
Survivability: 2/10
Offensive Utility: 7/10
Defensive Utility: 3/10
Farming Usefulness: 5/10
Paleontology: 10/10