Rabbit’s Reviews #339: Wu Zetian (4* Caster)

Introduction

I suppose a summer that gives us two top-end SSR supports must also provide a strong SR support as well. Summer Wu is very good by SR standards. She’s not a loop farmer—she doesn’t have the battery values or the cooldowns to be Koyan-compatible—but in exchange she brings a really impressive level of damage push for a 4* Servant. Her steroid value actually tops most SSRs, with the caveat that a lot of her buff value is tied to debuffs on her NP. She’s a nice unit to have handy even if you have a stacked support bench, so no complaints here.

Servant Data

Caster

QAABB (Saber)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

5

3

2

5

Attribute	Human
Alignment	Lawful Evil

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

Max HP 10,914

HP Rank

Max ATK 9,492

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,582	Base HP	1,746
Max Atk	9,492	Max HP	10,914
Grail Atk	11,493	Grail HP	13,233

Territory Creation A

Increase your Arts Card effectiveness by 10%.

Item Construction A

Increase your Debuff Chance Rate by 10%.

Will of Ascension EX

Apply Mental Debuff Immune to self.

Card Hits	5	3	2	5	5
Per Hit	0.61%	0.61%	0.61%	0.61%	0.61%

	NP per Hit (%)						0.61%
	NP when Attacked (%)						3%

	Star Absorption	52
	Star Generation per Hit	10.7%

Overview

Material Requirements

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	50,000	x4 Caster Piece
3	150,000	x10 Caster Piece x6 Ghost Lantern
4	500,000	x4 Caster Monument x8 Shell of Reminiscence x4 Refined Magatama
Max	1,500,000	x10 Caster Monument x8 Refined Magatama x10 Soundless Bell

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100,000	x4 Gem of Caster
2 → 3	200,000	x10 Gem of Caster
3 → 4	600,000	x4 Magic Gem of Caster
4 → 5	800,000	x10 Magic Gem of Caster x4 Shell of Reminiscence
5 → 6	2,000,000	x4 Secret Gem of Caster x8 Shell of Reminiscence
6 → 7	2,500,000	x10 Secret Gem of Caster x4 Ghost Lantern
7 → 8	5,000,000	x8 Ghost Lantern x5 Homunculus Baby
8 → 9	6,000,000	x15 Homunculus Baby x20 Soundless Bell
9 → 10	10,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100000	x4 Gem of Caster
2 → 3	200000	x10 Gem of Caster
3 → 4	600000	x4 Magic Gem of Caster
4 → 5	800000	x10 Magic Gem of Caster x4 Eternal Ice
5 → 6	2000000	x4 Secret Gem of Caster x8 Eternal Ice
6 → 7	2500000	x10 Secret Gem of Caster x12 Fool's Chain
7 → 8	5000000	x24 Fool's Chain x5 Refined Magatama
8 → 9	6000000	x15 Refined Magatama x60 Ashes of Forgetfulness
9 → 10	10000000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Servant Skills

All of Wu’s skills have nice supportive value, which is really nice for an SR. Recommended skill order is 2>1>3.

Dmg Up

Empress's Charisma (Summer) EX

Increase ATK for all allies (3 turns).
Increase Buster Card effectiveness for all allies (3 turns).
Increase NP Gain for all allies (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
ATK +	10%	10.5%	11%	11.5%	12%	12.5%	13%	13.5%	14%	15%
Buster +	10%	10.5%	11%	11.5%	12%	12.5%	13%	13.5%	14%	15%
NP Gain +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Empress’s Charisma is an all-around performance buff. The NP gain buff isn’t a huge advantage to most Buster Servants, but it certainly doesn’t hurt. More importantly, the skill boosts Attack and Buster in equal proportion, which makes it a nice general damage boost for Buster Servants. There’s not a lot of complexity here—you use it, and the team goes faster.

NP Drain

Ill-Fated Princess of the Wu Dynasty A

Decrease NP Gauge for all enemies by 1.
Apply Special ATK [Undead] to all allies (3 turns).
Increase NP Gauge for all allies.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Special ATK +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
NP +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
CD	9	9	9	9	9	8	8	8	8	7

Ill-Fated Princess is Wu’s best skill. It drains enemy NP gauges, which can make this a decent delay tool if you aren’t using this turn-1 (which you probably usually are). That’s mostly an incidental bonus, though—the real appeal of this this skill is that it gives 20% AoE charge and gives 30% power mod against Undead enemies. The Undead power mod would normally be flavor, but Wu can set Undead on enemies through her NP, which makes this a universal damage buff assuming Wu can NP. Since power mod is in the NP damage bracket, Wu is a rare support who provides NP-damage-increasing buffs in all three buff brackets. For perspective, she gives a lot more extra NP damage than Merlin does, making her a situationally better pick. Merlin has other advantages and isn’t one of Buster’s top supports anymore, but that’s still a huge testament to Wu’s strength. And don’t overlook the AoE charge! 20% isn’t huge, but it lets Wu herself NP immediately with a Kaleid (even without Mana Loading) and can help reach NPs a little more reliably than you would otherwise in CQs. This is a great skill overall—every piece of it is good. It’s on a long cooldown, sure, but Wu shouldn’t be sticking around anyway.

Stun

Imperial Taoist Technique EX

Inflict Stun on all [Undead] enemies (1 turn).
Restore HP for all allies.
Clear debuffs for all allies.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Heal +	1000	1200	1400	1600	1800	2000	2200	2400	2600	3000
CD	9	9	9	9	9	8	8	8	8	7

Imperial Taoist Technique is Wu’s least important skill, but it can still be handy in CQs. It’s a party heal and debuff cleanse, which makes Wu a nice tech pick for CQs—she can replicate some of Asclepius’s value while also pushing damage—and it also stuns Undead enemies. You have to wait until turn 2 to have Wu’s undead trait in effect in order to benefit from the stun, but that actually works in this skill’s favor. On your first turn, the team eats some damage, and then on the second turn, Wu uses this skill to heal the party a bit and stun the enemies. This also means that, even if Wu is taunting, she can safely use this on her first turn on the field for the debuff cleanse without stunning the enemies and preventing herself from getting killed. This is a very tightly designed skill—the effects pair perfectly to be timed for maximum impact—and while it also has a long cooldown, it largely earns it.

Noble Phantasm

Come, Come, Cruel Jiangshis! B

Apply [Undead] trait to all enemies (3 turns).
Deal damage to all enemies.
Deal 150% supereffective bonus damage to [Human] attribute enemies.
Decrease DEF for all enemies by 20% (3 turns).

<Overcharge>

Increase own NP Strength (1 turn) [Activates first].

Show Info/Video

Come, Come, Cruel Jiangshis!

Come, Oh Cruel Jiangshi Army

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	B	Anti-Army	5

Effect	Apply [Undead] trait to all enemies (3 turns). Deal damage to all enemies. Deal 150% supereffective bonus damage to [Human] attribute enemies. Decrease DEF for all enemies by 20% (3 turns).

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Damage +	300%	400%	450%	475%	500%
Supereffective ATK +	150%	150%	150%	150%	150%
Trait - Undead
Def -	20%	20%	20%	20%	20%

Overcharge Effect	Increase own NP Strength (1 turn) [Activates first].

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
NP Damage +	10%	15%	20%	25%	30%

Wu has a really nice NP. It applies Undead and gives post-damage defense down, making this functionally a 50% damage buff to the party the first time Wu uses it. It also has the decency to apply the trait before dealing damage, meaning Wu benefits from her own power mod. On top of that, it increases Wu’s NP damage for a turn and deals bonus damage to Human attribute enemies. With Wu’s very-strong steroids factored in, this hits surprisingly hard for a Caster NP, meaning Wu contributes non-trivial amounts of damage even when using this for its support value. Sure, Wu’s not looping this, but for a burst-oriented support NP, it does its job well.

Usage Tips

Despite her offensive NP, Wu is a support through-and-through. If you need her to deal damage, you can give her a starting charge CE and back her with Buster supports, and hope you get the cards you need to use her NP consecutively. We can do better in support setups.

As a support, Wu brings a lot of damage. She’s not going to be useful in farming contexts, since batteries are at a premium there and Wu is heavily reliant on debuffs, but for CQs, she might be worth bringing over someone like Oberon for her higher damage push. In a team like Koyan/DPS/Koyan/Wu, you can plug Wu in after you’ve used one of the Koyan’s skills so that Wu can use her skills and NP for additional damage. Especially if your DPS has strong Arts cards that benefit from Wu’s first skill—Eresh, for instance—the extra bit of RNG Wu introduces can be worth it for the bonus damage.

One thing to note is that Wu’s lack of charge means she generally needs a starting charge CE, which by extension means she can’t run a taunt CE. This is unfortunate since her long-term value is very low. One way to get around this is to use Crane—Crane can set a 3-turn taunt on your other two teammates, which increases the chance Wu takes enough hits to die. Something like Wu/DPS/Koyan/Koyan/Oberon/Crane (plugging Koyan for Crane on turn 1) would give a ton of extra damage to the DPS, in exchange for a bit of randomness with regards to whether Wu or the DPS gets targeted.

At the lower-end, Wu is a very nice and relatively accessible damage support. You can pair her with Mash and a friend’s Arjuna Alter for a great Buster team that asks very little of your box. If you’ve been around long enough to have Nobukatsu and/or you’re fighting Divine or Sky enemies, you can grab an Avenger Nobu instead to accomplish roughly the same thing. These are both great pseudo-blitz teams with a surprising level of damage for having no meta supports.

Wu gets so much value off her NP that it’s really hard to justify bringing anything other than a starting charge CE unless you’re running her with enough party charge (such as from Arc and Castoria) to make up the difference. Kaleid, or something similar, is almost always the best CE pick.

Since she’s so committed to being a support, Wu wants CCs that increase her support capabilities. NP damage CCs are great as always, though CCs that remove buffs aren’t a bad choice either. I’d avoid defensive CCs, as Wu sticking around longer isn’t usually a good thing.

Grail Potential

Conclusion

Wu is remarkably impressive as an alternative damage support option for Buster unit. There’s not a whole lot of complexity to her—she just amps damage by a ton and provides a bit of defensive utility in the process. She’s not a necessary pull by any means, but her value is such that she can be nice even for players with more established boxes, and she’s a great get for new players. Solid consolation prize on Skadi’s banner.

Rabbit's Arbitrary Ratings

Overall: 9/10
Single-Target DPS: 3/10
AoE DPS: 5/10
Survivability: 4/10
Offensive Utility: 9/10
Defensive Utility: 5/10
Farming Usefulness: 4/10
Jiangshis: 10/10