Rabbit’s Reviews #346: Elisabeth Bathory (Kumonryu) (4* Pretender)

A little over a year after Pretenders were introduced to the game, we get our first welfare Pretender. Pretender Liz is a nice addition to the game, if a situational one. She’s more or less a budget support—she’s not Koyan-compatible for farming purposes, but she brings party buffs and (most importantly) a partywide 20% battery. Free NP charge supports are always welcome. The closest thing we have to this is Asclepius, who isn’t completely free and brings no damage buffs. Liz’s value is mostly limited to new players, as well as to atypical AoE/ST hybrid farming nodes (which Liz’s debut event happens to have). She’s not an amazing unit, but she does have cases where she’s valuable, so (especially considering that she’s free) it’s hard to complain about this one.

Liz has slightly lower attack than Hephaestion (the only other SR Pretender at the time of writing), but her attack is still pretty high relative to SRs as a whole, which is handy when you need her to clear waves. Her NP gain is a little better than average relative to her deck, with good Arts and Quick cards. Her hit-counts are decently high as well, and especially on her NP turn Liz will generate a lot of stars actively. Her passives are not super impactful: Independent Action increases crit damage a bit, and Territory Creation (Mount Liang) gives small boosts to star gen and Liz’s single Arts card.

None of Liz’s appends make much of a difference here. The Extra attack buff is fairly unimportant for Liz’s most common use cases, and Anti-Assassin damage is borderline useless on a Pretender. Mana Loading is a decent pick here, if only because Mana Loading and Liz’s battery let Liz NP with two Castoria Charismas, which could be handy if you’re running (for example) Hephaestion as your primary DPS. Mana Loading is still not a huge deal, though, as in that kind of team, you can usually spare a 20% Castoria battery for Liz, since Liz herself is providing 20% charge to the DPS.

Ascension Materials

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	50,000	x1 Heavenly Stars' Twin Jewel
3	150,000	x1 Heavenly Stars' Twin Jewel
4	500,000	x1 Heavenly Stars' Twin Jewel
Max	1,500,000	x1 Heavenly Stars' Twin Jewel

Skill Enhancement Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100,000	x8 Dragon Fang
2 → 3	200,000	x8 Seed of Yggdrasil
3 → 4	600,000	x10 Octuplet Crystals
4 → 5	800,000	x10 Serpent Jewel
5 → 6	2,000,000	x10 Phoenix Feather
6 → 7	2,500,000	x12 Spirit Root
7 → 8	5,000,000	x12 Dragon's Reverse Scale
8 → 9	6,000,000	x12 Fragment of a Twinkling Star
9 → 10	10,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Append Skill Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100000	x8 Evil Bone
2 → 3	200000	x8 Ghost Lantern
3 → 4	600000	x10 Homunculus Baby
4 → 5	800000	x10 Lamp of Evil-Sealing
5 → 6	2000000	x10 Mystic Spinal Fluid
6 → 7	2500000	x12 Arrowhead of Malice
7 → 8	5000000	x12 Flaming Oni Lantern Plant
8 → 9	6000000	x12 Scale of Fantasy
9 → 10	10000000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Liz has a fairly classic budget support skillset, with a bit of utility, some gimmicky stuff, and low-but-not-negligible numbers. Recommended skill order is 2>1>3.

Liz’s biggest value proposition for players with established boxes is in farming 90+ or 90++ nodes with double-DPS setups. The fact that Liz deals solid damage, provides party NP charge, and provides damage buffs, makes her a good pick for clearing an AoE knights wave, especially in nodes that are otherwise ST. 1/3/1 nodes are probably her best case, as the positioning of the wave of 3 makes it hard to slot Arash, Chen, or Habetrot in cleanly.

For players with less-established boxes, Liz is also a pretty solid budget support unit. She provides generically useful buffs and a bit of party NP charge, making her something like a budget Oberon. There’s not a lot of complexity here; pair her with your DPS of choice and whatever other supports you have, and she’ll do fine.

There is a little bit of team composition nuance for a support Liz, at least. Neutral-aligned damage-dealers are the best partners, if you have them, as they benefit from Liz’s extra NP damage buff. Secondary supports (or damage-dealers) who provide crit damage buffs and critical stars can be also good options, since Liz can deal decent crit damage to Knights. Consider Barti and Hans as solid accessible examples.

Liz is a bit of an odd duck as CEs go, in that she can reasonably take a bunch of different CEs. Sometimes you may want starting NP gauge CEs like Kaleid in order to get Liz’s NP up easily, either for the damage or for the defense debuff. Sometimes you may want Black Grail or an event damage CE for stronger damage output. You can also consider things like 2030 for more reliable crits. It’s really a matter of looking at what you want Liz to be doing and giving her a CE that corresponds to that.

Crit damage CCs are a good pick for Liz, as she has fairly good crit access but low overall crit damage buffs. Aside from that, general support CCs—party healing, buff removal, et cetera—are solid options, given Liz’s budget support nature.

As a free NP5 SR, Liz is well-positioned to get the maximum value out of extra attack. A pair of grails isn’t a bad idea here—even if she’s situational, having the extra damage will occasionally make farming certain nodes easier.

Liz is a good unit. She’s a very nice budget support for new players, providing a free AoE charge tool—something that’s usually hard to come by and that can be very helpful. For more established players, she’s a bit more niche, but her combination of party charge, damage push, and AoE damage output makes her situationally useful for modern farming nodes. Overeall, she’s not an earth-shattering addition, but she’s a nice one to have, which makes her a solid welfare overall.

Overall: 8/10
Single-Target DPS: 5/10
AoE DPS: 6/10
Survivability: 3/10
Offensive Utility: 7/10
Defensive Utility: 4/10
Farming Usefulness: 7/10
Actually Being Liz: 0/10