Rabbit’s Reviews #363: Medusa (5* Saber)

Saber Medusa is a really good unit. She’s got everything you want in an ST Servant: battery, NP gain, damage, niche, utility… She’s simultaneously powerful, bulky, and easy to use, and her specific mix of tools makes her a useful ST unit for certain 90++ nodes as well. She doesn’t raise the power ceiling—there are plenty of other powerful ST units, and Arts and Buster units are still generally more appealing—but she’s more than strong enough to justify her own existence.

Medusa has an offense-focused stat spread, with mid-high attack and mid-low HP as SSR Sabers go. Her internals are great: with a high-hit-count Quick NP and three 4-hit Quick cards, she’ll make a ton of active stars, and her NP gain is excellent, with a strong Arts card and three great Quicks. Medusa has no unique passives, but she does get a high level of Riding, which is great on a Quick unit. She also has Magic Resistance, for avoiding some debuffs, and Divinity for flavor and trait weaknesses. Mana Loading is always the most important append, though all three of Medusa’s are good: Anti-Berserker damage makes her into a particularly threatening Berserker-killer, and Medusa’s cards are strong enough that the Extra card buff also benefits her a fair bit.

Ascension Materials

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	100,000	x5 Saber Piece
3	300,000	x12 Saber Piece x6 Serpent Jewel
4	1,000,000	x5 Saber Monument x6 Warhorse's Young Horn x3 Tearstone of Blood
Max	3,000,000	x12 Saber Monument x6 Tearstone of Blood x12 Divine Leyline Spiritron

Skill Enhancement Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200,000	x5 Gem of Saber
2 → 3	400,000	x12 Gem of Saber
3 → 4	1,200,000	x5 Magic Gem of Saber
4 → 5	1,600,000	x12 Magic Gem of Saber x3 Warhorse's Young Horn
5 → 6	4,000,000	x5 Secret Gem of Saber x6 Warhorse's Young Horn
6 → 7	5,000,000	x12 Secret Gem of Saber x4 Serpent Jewel
7 → 8	10,000,000	x8 Serpent Jewel x6 Divine Leyline Spiritron
8 → 9	12,000,000	x18 Divine Leyline Spiritron x72 Remnants of Madness
9 → 10	20,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Append Skill Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200000	x5 Gem of Saber
2 → 3	400000	x12 Gem of Saber
3 → 4	1200000	x5 Magic Gem of Saber
4 → 5	1600000	x12 Magic Gem of Saber x5 Homunculus Baby
5 → 6	4000000	x5 Secret Gem of Saber x10 Homunculus Baby
6 → 7	5000000	x12 Secret Gem of Saber x3 Tearstone of Blood
7 → 8	10000000	x6 Tearstone of Blood x3 Egg of Truth
8 → 9	12000000	x8 Egg of Truth x72 Twilight Ritual Sword
9 → 10	20000000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Medusa’s skillset is both generically powerful and laid-out about as well as possible. The only drawback is that her steroids are pretty low before she starts ramping. Recommended skill order is 2>1>3.

Medusa is your standard high-powered ST unit. Her ideal team is triple-Skadi, though she might prefer two Caster Skadis and one Ruler over the reverse, as her triple-Quick deck benefits from Caster Skadi’s crit buffs. Because she has so many defensive tools, Medusa might be able to survive—and help keep her supports alive—long enough for a second buff cycle, meaning she’s a little less dependent on clearing quickly than most Quick units are.

Medusa is also a good point servant for Skadi/Castoria teams. While she doesn’t provide healing, her own invuln stacks nicely with the protection those two offer, and she can stun enemies in an emergency, making her a little less RNG-prone than most Quick Servants in those teams.

Medusa is a self-sufficient unit with great NP gain, so she’ll work well in lower-end or mixed-DPS Quick comps as well. She’s a nice partner for Jiang Ziya in particular, as they give each other buffs and neither is especially reliant on outside batteries. This is especially appealing in fights with multiple weak enemies and one strong target—Jiang Ziya can take out the adds, while Medusa focuses on the main enemy. Lower-end alternatives like Laksmibai, Rider Carmilla, and Barti can work similarly, even if they’re less powerful.

Unless you’re stalling with Castoria and Skadi, the Black Grail is likely Medusa’s best CE, as it amplifies her damage substantially, and she should be clearing quickly enough for the demerit to not be a problem. If you need starting charge or if the demerit is a concern, I’d recommend Traces of Christmas, as it gives a good balance of charge, damage, and NP gain.

Medusa is generally going to be flush with crit buff as-is, but she has such easy crit access you might as well give her crit damage CCs for the extra bit of damage. Healing CCs are another option, as they can help to offset incidental chip damage that gets through Medusa’s defenses, or the demerit from Black Grail.

Medusa’s a great ST unit. If you invest in maxing out her skills and you have the supports to back her up, she’s a good use of grails—extra attack can help offset her low-ish steroids and also let her hit more impressive damage levels against her favored enemies.

Medusa is a pretty straightforwardly strong unit. She has a good battery, ramp, good NP gain, a supereffective niche, and great defensive tools. She’s a lot like Assassin Kama, albeit a bit less selfish. There’s nothing paradigm-shifting here, but there’s nothing to complain about either. Medusa is solidly the best ST Quick Saber now, and she’s the only one who’s enough better than Caesar to be cleanly worth investing in over him. Great unit; no notes.

Overall: 9/10
Single-Target DPS: 8/10
AoE DPS: N/A
Survivability: 7/10
Offensive Utility: 5/10
Defensive Utility: 8/10
Farming Usefulness: 8/10
Sakura Love: 10/10