Rabbit’s Reviews #342: Yamanami Keisuke (4* Saber)

Introduction

Keisuke is a weird unit. He’s a budget support, basically, but he brings about as much supportive value as many semi-supports, without an offensive NP to show for it. With a damaging NP, he’d probably be a pretty good DPS with some fun semi-support potential. Without a damaging NP, he barely does anything. 40% attack up to the party, and some incidental benefits. That’s it. He’s a lot like Miyu, actually, in that there are some neat ideas in his kit… but his actual values are just so so low that there’s very little reason to actually use him, and unlike Miyu (who has some interesting NP-fueling potential), none of what Keisuke does is particularly rare or unique.

Servant Data

Saber

QQAAB (Archer)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

3

2

3

5

-

Attribute	Human
Alignment	Lawful Good

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

Max HP 12,498

HP Rank

Max ATK 8,726

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,454	Base HP	1,999
Max Atk	8,726	Max HP	12,498
Grail Atk	10,565	Grail HP	15,154

Magic Resistance D

Increase your Debuff Resist by 12.5%.

Riding E

Increase your Quick Card effectiveness by 2%.

Card Hits	3	2	3	5	-
Per Hit	0.81%	0.81%	0.81%	0.81%	0.81%

	NP per Hit (%)						0.81%
	NP when Attacked (%)						3%

	Star Absorption	98
	Star Generation per Hit	9.9%

Overview

Material Requirements

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	50,000	x4 Saber Piece
3	150,000	x10 Saber Piece x18 Proof of Hero
4	500,000	x4 Saber Monument x8 Forbidden Page x2 Spirit Root
Max	1,500,000	x10 Saber Monument x4 Spirit Root x4 Scarab of Wisdom

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100,000	x4 Gem of Saber
2 → 3	200,000	x10 Gem of Saber
3 → 4	600,000	x4 Magic Gem of Saber
4 → 5	800,000	x10 Magic Gem of Saber x4 Forbidden Page
5 → 6	2,000,000	x4 Secret Gem of Saber x8 Forbidden Page
6 → 7	2,500,000	x10 Secret Gem of Saber x12 Proof of Hero
7 → 8	5,000,000	x24 Proof of Hero x4 Phoenix Feather
8 → 9	6,000,000	x12 Phoenix Feather x8 Tsukumo Mirror
9 → 10	10,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100000	x4 Gem of Saber
2 → 3	200000	x10 Gem of Saber
3 → 4	600000	x4 Magic Gem of Saber
4 → 5	800000	x10 Magic Gem of Saber x5 Seed of Yggdrasil
5 → 6	2000000	x4 Secret Gem of Saber x10 Seed of Yggdrasil
6 → 7	2500000	x10 Secret Gem of Saber x2 Scarab of Wisdom
7 → 8	5000000	x4 Scarab of Wisdom x5 Ball of Rainbow Thread
8 → 9	6000000	x15 Ball of Rainbow Thread x60 Twilit Ritual Sword
9 → 10	10000000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Servant Skills

Keisuke’s skillset is really undertuned for a full support. Recommended skill order is 1>2>3.

Dmg Up

"A Warrior but Literate" C

Increase ATK for all allies (3 turns).
Increase NP Gain for all allies (3 turns).
Gain 10 Critical Stars.

Show Info

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

A Warrior but Literate is a similar Charisma variant to Sen’s, providing partywide attack up, NP gain up, and some critical stars. As an all-around performance increase, this is nice, but the values are too low to make much of a difference on their own. On the bright side, this is card-type-agnostic, meaning Keisuke can help any DPS, even if only marginally.

Quick/Arts Up

Red Blossoms and Green Willows C

Increase own Quick Card effectiveness (3 turns).
Increase own Arts Card effectiveness (3 turns).
Increase own NP Gauge by 20%.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Quick +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
Arts +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Red Blossoms and Green Willows suffers from being selfish. If this were targeted—or, better yet, AoE—Keisuke would have reasonable steroids and some flexible team charge. As-is, this skill mostly just exists to help Keisuke himself access his NP, both through a small flat battery and through Arts and Quick buffs to make his cards stronger. While that’s nice, spending a whole skill slot on it is a hard sell, and Keisuke doesn’t make up for it elsewhere.

Evade

Sharp and Friendly Character B

Apply Evade to all allies (1 time, 3 turns).
Restore HP for all allies.
Clear ailment debuffs (Poison, Curse, Burn) from all allies.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Heal +	2000	2100	2200	2300	2400	2500	2600	2700	2800	3000
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Sharp and Friendly Character is a partywide, single-hit dodge. This can be nice for emergencies, letting you get through a single NP or possibly a turn of powerful crits, and the duration means it’s unlikely to be wasted… but it’s only one hit per teammate, which is iffy. It also comes with a small heal—nice for Castoria teams, I suppose—and it removes damage-over-time debuffs, which is pretty niche. As with Keisuke’s first skill, this is a decent support skill in a vacuum, but it’s not enough to carry a kit, and Keisuke doesn’t make up for it elsewhere.

Noble Phantasm

Yamasakura D

Increase ATK for all allies (3 turns).
Apply to self: Gain 10 Critical Stars each turn (3 turns).
Increase Critical Strength for [Shinsengumi] allies by 50% (3 turns).

<Overcharge>

Increase NP Gauge for all allies.

Show Info/Video

Yamasakura

Wild Cherry Blossoms

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	D	Anti-Army

Effect	Increase ATK for all allies (3 turns). Apply to self: Gain 10 Critical Stars each turn (3 turns). Increase Critical Strength for [Shinsengumi] allies by 50% (3 turns).

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Atk +	20%	30%	35%	37.5%	40%
Star Regen +	10	10	10	10	10
Crit Damage +	50%	50%	50%	50%	50%

Overcharge Effect	Increase NP Gauge for all allies.

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

Yamasakura could have the exact same effects, be a damaging NP, and feel strong but not unreasonably so. As-is, it feels like it’s missing an effect or three. The NP boosts party attack, with lower scaling than is normal for support NPs—20-40% with NP level, rather than the usual 30-50%—which means Keisuke caps out at a measly 40% total generic steroids at NP1, and 60% at NP5. Not impressive. The NP also gives a small NP charge effect to the party, scaling from 10% to 30% with overcharge. This has the same issue as Tamamo’s—it’s fighting with Castoria’s NP for both timing and overcharge—which is not a good feeling in this day and age.

Aside from that, the NP gives stars per turn, and it increases all Shinsengumi allies’ crit damage by 50% for 3 turns, which is a neat trick but not powerful enough to be worth sacrificing a real support, especially considering many of the meta supports provide better crit buffs than this without the trait limitation. The crit buff does apply to Keisuke himself, at least, so there’s that. His deck and attack stat do not lend themselves well to powerful cards, but he can try, I guess.

…And that’s his whole NP. It’s a mish-mash of what would be solid secondary effects on most other NPs, without a “primary effect” to sell the NP’s value. Sure, he gets four of those secondary effects, but none of them is enough to make this NP particularly valuable, which leaves Keisuke’s kit feeling really incomplete.

Usage Tips

Keisuke is a budget support unit who does a bunch of generically useful things at low levels of effectiveness. He brings a bit of damage, a bit of NP gain, a few stars, and some survival. Unfortunately, the fact that he doesn’t specialize in anything makes him unlikely to be the best pick, even compared against other free units, and his kit is missing a “centerpiece” that would otherwise tie it together. That said, Keisuke is card-type-agnostic, so you can use him with almost anyone and expect him to contribute a small amount of value.

Because he’s a very generic support, you can run Keisuke as a secondary support in any team type. Assuming you don’t have any better supports natively, you can run Keisuke/DPS/friend support for a decent team. As a random example from the current banner set, let’s say you pulled Keisuke and your own Okita, and you have no meta supports. You could run Keisuke and Okita together, snag a Summer Skadi off your friend list, and have a working, if weak, team. An added bonus in this particular case is that Okita is a Shinsengumi servant, so she gets to leverage Keisuke’s crit buffs, too.

Speaking of, Keisuke can also work as a sort of budget Van Gogh—since Keisuke benefits from his own crit buffs, you can run two Keisukes and a third support—probably someone with partywide buffs and some defensive tools, like Castoria or Waver—and have your two Keisukes prop each other up. Your overall damage will still be quite low, and this team lacks the durability Van Gogh teams have, but it’s there as an option.

Against lancers specifically, consider running Keisuke/Lanling/Keisuke. Especially if you have a high-NP Lanling, this team can be surprisingly durable, using Lanling’s damage cut in conjunction with class advantage to stave off damage. Lanling’s NP delays enemy NPs, and you can alternate Keisuke’s dodges to get through dangerous turns. You also have partywide buffs from all three teammates, keeping the whole team going strong. Again, not the best team, but it should be workable in theory.

2030 is a good CE pick for a support Keisuke, as he provides some stars, but not enough to reliably enable crits without extra help. You may also want something with starting charge to get his NP up and running faster—His Rightful Place is a good choice for that, since it also brings stars per turn. If you’re running double Keisuke and want him to be able to crit, CEs that increase his card damage are a good pick. Golden Sumo is probably the best option, being an across-the-board damage increase that also comes with full attack stats.

As a support, Keisuke benefits from CCs that increase his overall utility. Healing and damage cut CCs aren’t a bad choice, and buff-removal CCs can also be smart. Alternatively, you can lean into his ability to crit decently and give him crit damage CCs. The effect of these may not be noticeable in double-Keisuke teams, but more damage is more damage.

Grail Potential

Conclusion

Keisuke is, uh… less boring than Gareth, at least? He’s really terrible, and it mostly comes down to a combination of having inexplicably low values and just… not having any standout elements in his kit. Keisuke has a bunch of useful small things, but they all feel like they’re supplementary pieces that support a core value proposition. The problem is Keisuke doesn’t have that core value proposition, which leaves his kit unfocused and underpowered. There’s no reason to use this guy unless you really like unconventional—and bad—team comps.

Rabbit's Arbitrary Ratings

Overall: 1/10
Single-Target DPS: 1/10
AoE DPS: N/A
Survivability: 4/10
Offensive Utility: 4/10
Defensive Utility: 3/10
Farming Usefulness: 1/10
Desertion: 10/10