Rabbit’s Reviews #354: Takasugi Shinsaku (5* Archer)

Takasugi is… fine? He’s pretty thoroughly mediocre. At a base level, he does have the core AoE quick things—persistent steroids, serviceable loop specs, and a battery—but he has nothing at all in addition to that. He feels like 80% of a kit, missing the unique bits that would set him apart and make him shine. It’s not a terrible starting point, since a good buff somewhere would make him work well, but we’ve gotten a bunch of similarly generic Quick loopers since Summer Skadi released, and all of them are basically Sen-no-Rikyu but worse. Takasugi is arguably the most egregious of these by virtue of not even having a niche of his own to put him over the top. Still, the core is there, so it could be worse.

Takasugi’s in an odd place stats-wise—he has identical base stats to Sei, giving him an offense-leaning stat spread and fairly high attack in a vacuum… but still middling attack relative to SSR Archers as a whole. There are a lot of Archers with attack stats in the low 12000s, so even with a good attack stat, Takasugi isn’t at the top of the class. This is mostly trivia, though, since it doesn’t matter that there are a bunch of SSR Archers with higher attack when the difference is very small. High attack is good for a DPS, so no complaints.

Takasugi is an AoE Quick unit with high hit-counts, so he’s quite good at active star gen. His NP gain is solid too, with a good Arts card and passable Quicks. For passives, he has Magic Resistance and Independent Action—both standard—and a unique passive in Hero of the Meiji Restoration (Strange), which boosts his Arts card and his crit damage. Neither is very useful—Takasugi only has a single Arts, and a small crit damage buff on a Servant already loaded with them won’t do much. For appends, Mana Loading is basically a requirement, and the other two are irrelevant—Takasugi’s Extra card won’t be impactful enough to ever matter, and if you’re using Takasugi to swing at a Ruler, something has gone very wrong.

Ascension Materials

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	100,000	x5 Archer Piece Open Archer Piece configuration options
3	300,000	x12 Archer Piece Open Archer Piece configuration options x15 Void's Dust Open Void's Dust configuration options
4	1,000,000	x5 Archer Monument Open Archer Monument configuration options x10 Eternal Gear Open Eternal Gear configuration options x15 Mystic Spinal Fluid Open Mystic Spinal Fluid configuration options
Max	3,000,000	x12 Archer Monument Open Archer Monument configuration options x29 Mystic Spinal Fluid Open Mystic Spinal Fluid configuration options x36 Mystic Gunpowder Open Mystic Gunpowder configuration options

Skill Enhancement Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200,000	x5 Gem of Archer Open Gem of Archer configuration options
2 → 3	400,000	x12 Gem of Archer Open Gem of Archer configuration options
3 → 4	1,200,000	x5 Magic Gem of Archer Open Magic Gem of Archer configuration options
4 → 5	1,600,000	x12 Magic Gem of Archer Open Magic Gem of Archer configuration options x5 Eternal Gear Open Eternal Gear configuration options
5 → 6	4,000,000	x5 Secret Gem of Archer Open Secret Gem of Archer configuration options x10 Eternal Gear Open Eternal Gear configuration options
6 → 7	5,000,000	x12 Secret Gem of Archer Open Secret Gem of Archer configuration options x10 Void's Dust Open Void's Dust configuration options
7 → 8	10,000,000	x20 Void's Dust Open Void's Dust configuration options x4 Reactor Core of Dawn Open Reactor Core of Dawn configuration options
8 → 9	12,000,000	x11 Reactor Core of Dawn Open Reactor Core of Dawn configuration options x10 Flaming Oni Lantern Plant Open Flaming Oni Lantern Plant 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 Archer Open Gem of Archer configuration options
2 → 3	400000	x12 Gem of Archer Open Gem of Archer configuration options
3 → 4	1200000	x5 Magic Gem of Archer Open Magic Gem of Archer configuration options
4 → 5	1600000	x12 Magic Gem of Archer Open Magic Gem of Archer configuration options x15 Mystic Spinal Fluid Open Mystic Spinal Fluid configuration options
5 → 6	4000000	x5 Secret Gem of Archer Open Secret Gem of Archer configuration options x29 Mystic Spinal Fluid Open Mystic Spinal Fluid configuration options
6 → 7	5000000	x12 Secret Gem of Archer Open Secret Gem of Archer configuration options x15 Mystic Gunpowder Open Mystic Gunpowder configuration options
7 → 8	10000000	x29 Mystic Gunpowder Open Mystic Gunpowder configuration options x3 Mysterious Divine Wine Open Mysterious Divine Wine configuration options
8 → 9	12000000	x8 Mysterious Divine Wine Open Mysterious Divine Wine configuration options x24 Scale of Fantasy Open Scale of Fantasy configuration options
9 → 10	20000000	x1 Crystallized Lore Open Crystallized Lore configuration options

All of Takasugi’s skills are fine, but none of them is particularly good or noteworthy. One or two “fine” skills can be okay if there’s a showstopper somewhere in the kit, but Takasugi unfortunately lacks that. Recommended skill order is 3>1>2.

Takasugi is bland Quick looper. He can technically farm 3/3/x nodes CE-less, but he needs either Castoria (who gives Takasugi exactly 50% refund per wave) or Oberon with a whole bunch of overkill. With starting charge, his loop specs are much more lenient, but this means losing a bunch of damage from Black Grail, or potentially losing out on a drop CE. His damage is pretty reasonable, though, with normal steroids and good attack, though the lack of niche damage means he probably won’t work for 90++, even if he’s somehow able to secure the loop.

Outside of farming, Takasugi likes triple-Skadi teams so he can clear as quickly as possible. These teams lean into using his crit damage buffs to deal good AoE damage and better damage against a single target, making it a solid choice for fights with one strong enemy and several adds. You can also run Caster Skadi/Castoria for a decent stall shell.

At the lower end, Takasugi brings some small party buffs, which makes him decent for semi-support-oriented Quick teams. He synergizes decently with Barti and Laksmibai, for instance, and while a Barti/Takasugi/Laksmibai team won’t be good, it should be workable for low-end content, at least.

The Black Grail is Takasugi’s best damage CE and should be chosen for fast clears. If stalling, though, the damage demerit can be annoying. Traces of Christmas is a good starting charge option, both for making loops easier and as a CE pick that isn’t Black Grail.

Takasugi’s lack of anything special means there aren’t any CCs that really jump out as being great for him. Crit damage CCs are solid, I suppose, since he wants to leverage his cards for crits where possible, though the extra damage will be extremely marginal, so eh.

Archers are weak grail targets and Takasugi is utterly unremarkable. I’d skip this one.

There’s really not a lot to say about Takasugi. There’s nothing particularly wrong with him except for the fact that there’s also nothing particularly right with him. He’s a good buff away from being a great Quick Archer—an Interlude with a solid niche, for instance, would make him instantly much more valuable—but as-is there’s just no reason to go for him. He’s not terrible, but that’s about all.

Overall: 5/10
Single-Target DPS: 6/10
AoE DPS: 4/10
Survivability: 4/10
Offensive Utility: 4/10
Defensive Utility: 2/10
Farming Usefulness: 5/10
White Day Servant Selection: 10/10