Rabbit’s Reviews #368: Melusine (5* Ruler)

Introduction

Melusine is one of the best AoE Arts units in the game. She’s probably better than Spish as a whole—she loses a bit of neutral damage in exchange for getting two niches and much easier looping—but unfortunately she launches in a world where Summer Ibuki also exists and makes her a lot less impressive. Melusine is strong enough to make her a good pick for a dedicated AoE Arts unit if you somehow don’t already have one, but most established players probably have favored options already, and for anyone who doesn’t, you’re still better off waiting for Summer Ibuki to come back around. This leaves Melusine as both a great Servant and an easy skip.

Servant Data

Ruler

QAABB (Saber)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

5

3

5

Attribute	Earth
Alignment	Neutral Evil

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

Max HP 13,500

HP Rank

Max ATK 11,495

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,776	Base HP	1,980
Max Atk	11,495	Max HP	13,500
Grail Atk	12,583	Grail HP	14,790

Magic Resistance B

Increase your Debuff Resist by 17.5%.

Riding A+

Increase your Quick Card effectiveness by 11%.

Tam Lin Knight C

Increase your Critical Strength against [Human] attribute targets by 12%.

Card Hits	5	3	3	5	5
Per Hit	0.42%	0.42%	0.42%	0.42%	0.42%

	NP per Hit (%)						0.42%
	NP when Attacked (%)						3%

	Star Absorption	102
	Star Generation per Hit	10.4%

Overview

Material Requirements

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	100,000	x5 Archer Piece x5 Lancer Piece x5 Rider Piece
3	300,000	x5 Saber Piece x5 Caster Piece x5 Assassin Piece x5 Berserker Piece
4	1,000,000	x5 Archer Monument x5 Lancer Monument x5 Rider Monument
Max	3,000,000	x5 Saber Monument x5 Caster Monument x5 Assassin Monument x5 Berserker Monument

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200,000	x5 Gem of Archer x5 Gem of Lancer x5 Gem of Rider
2 → 3	400,000	x5 Gem of Saber x5 Gem of Caster x5 Gem of Assassin x5 Gem of Berserker
3 → 4	1,200,000	x5 Magic Gem of Archer x5 Magic Gem of Lancer x5 Magic Gem of Rider
4 → 5	1,600,000	x5 Magic Gem of Saber x5 Magic Gem of Caster x5 Magic Gem of Assassin x5 Magic Gem of Berserker
5 → 6	4,000,000	x5 Secret Gem of Archer x5 Secret Gem of Lancer x5 Secret Gem of Rider
6 → 7	5,000,000	x5 Secret Gem of Saber x5 Secret Gem of Caster x5 Secret Gem of Assassin x5 Secret Gem of Berserker
7 → 8	10,000,000	x12 Shell of Reminiscence
8 → 9	12,000,000	x15 Dragon's Reverse Scale
9 → 10	20,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200000	x5 Gem of Archer x5 Gem of Lancer x5 Gem of Rider
2 → 3	400000	x5 Gem of Saber x5 Gem of Caster x5 Gem of Assassin x5 Gem of Berserker
3 → 4	1200000	x5 Magic Gem of Archer x5 Magic Gem of Lancer x5 Magic Gem of Rider
4 → 5	1600000	x5 Magic Gem of Saber x5 Magic Gem of Caster x5 Magic Gem of Assassin x5 Magic Gem of Berserker
5 → 6	4000000	x5 Secret Gem of Archer x5 Secret Gem of Lancer x5 Secret Gem of Rider
6 → 7	5000000	x5 Secret Gem of Saber x5 Secret Gem of Caster x5 Secret Gem of Assassin x5 Secret Gem of Berserker
7 → 8	10000000	x30 Great Knight Medal
8 → 9	12000000	x30 Scale of Fantasy
9 → 10	20000000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Servant Skills

Melusine’s skillset is straightforwardly strong, not offering anything particularly unique but doing the standard AoE things very very well. Recommended skill order is 3>1>2.

Arts Up

Faerie Pack A

Increase own Arts Card effectiveness (3 turns).
Increase own Critical Strength (3 turns).
Apply Special ATK [Chaotic] alignment to self (3 turns).
Apply Damage Cut to all allies except self (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Arts +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
Crit Damage +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
Chaotic Damage +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
Damage Taken -	500	550	600	650	700	750	800	850	900	1000
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Faerie Pack is, at its core, a standard card-type buff. It helps Melusine with damage and NP refund, and that’s all it needs to do. It does provide a few other things, though they don’t have that much of an impact in practice. 30% crit damage up isn’t overly impactful as a damage increase, and Melusine will have trouble critting reliably outside of Waterside fields or Lady Avalon teams. Damage cut to allies is decent, too, but in fights hard enough for damage cut to be useful, Arts teams can usually count on Castoria NPs to negate all damage. 30% power mod against Chaotic enemies is the best added effect here, but it’s not a huge damage amp as niches go and doesn’t really go beyond being a nice occasional bonus.

Critical Star Absorption Up

Blue Sky Arms Mastery A

Increase own Critical Star Gather Rate (3 turns).
Apply to self: Gain Critical Stars each turn (3 turns).
Apply to self in addition when on a field [near water] or [in the air]: Gain Critical Stars each turn (3 turns).
Gain 10 Critical Stars.
When on a field [near water] or [in the air], additionally gain 20 Critical Stars.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
C Star Gather Rate +	300%	320%	340%	360%	380%	400%	420%	440%	460%	500%
Star Regen +	5	6	6	7	7	8	8	9	9	10
Near Water / In the Air Star Regen +	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	20
CD	7	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6	5

Blue Sky Arms Mastery is Melusine’s crit enabling tool, increasing her star weight and letting her generate stars per turn. It also gives a burst of stars when used, which is nice—stars per turn skills are sometimes annoying in that you have to use them at least a turn before you want to crit in order for them to be useful, and this gets around that. On water or sky fields, this gives 30 stars per turn in total, which is enough to more or less guarantee Melusine crits for the duration. Outside of that, though, it only gives 10, which isn’t enough to count on even with a star weight boost. Either way, though, Melusine doesn’t have a lot of innate crit damage up, and Arts teams don’t tend to offer those buffs either, so this skill isn’t going to matter much in most cases.

Ray Horizon

Blue Horizon EX

Increase own NP Gauge.
Increase own NP Strength (3 turns).
Apply Invincible to self (2 times, 3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
NP +	50%	53%	56%	59%	62%	65%	68%	71%	74%	80%
NP Damage +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Blue Horizon is Melusine’s signature skill, giving her a whopping 80% NP charge. This is the biggest thing that sets her apart relative to her competition. With Mana Loading, this skill, two Castorias, and an Oberon, Melusine only needs to refund 30% in total in order to loop CE-less, and her NP refund is more than good enough to make that feasible. She only needs 10% refund in a double Oberon setup, which, while a substantial damage loss, may also be sufficient for some situations. The battery alone would make this a great skill, but this also gives a sizable NP damage buff, along with a hit-based invuln. Hit-based invuln skills are always great for CQs, and the NP damage buff helps keep Melusine’s damage up and lets her scale a bit better with Oberon than she would otherwise.

Noble Phantasm

Sprite Albion B

Deal damage to all enemies.
Deal 150% supereffective damage to [Earth] attribute enemies.
Increase own Critical Strength by 30% (3 turns).

<Overcharge>

Increase own ATK (3 turns) [Activates first].

Show Info/Video

Sprite Albion

Pure Heartbeat Crossing the Rainbow

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	B	Anti-Army	5

Effect	Deal damage to all enemies. Deal 150% supereffective damage to [Earth] attribute enemies. Increase own Critical Strength by 30% (3 turns).

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Damage +	450%	600%	675%	712.5%	750%
Supereffective ATK +	150%	150%	150%	150%	150%
Crit Damage +	30%	30%	30%	30%	30%

Overcharge Effect	Increase own ATK (3 turns) [Activates first].

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
Attack +	20%	25%	30%	35%	40%

Sprite Albion is a fairly simple NP, but it’s not worse off for it. It has a ramping, pre-cast attack buff tied to overcharge, increasing Melusine’s overall damage each turn. This is slightly worse than Spish’s ramp because Oberon doesn’t multiply it, but aside from that it’s a very nice effect. It also provides a small (though ramping) crit damage buff, so if Melusine can crit, she’ll have some decent card stretch by turn 3. Beyond that, the NP just deals damage, with a Supereffective niche against Earth enemies. SE damage is always good for being able to hit 90++ damage thresholds—or for high-damage CQs—so no complaints here.

Usage Tips

Melusine is a fairly standard AoE Arts DPS, albeit with very easy loopage. She refunds 23% per enemy with double Castoria, before overkill. Her best team in non-stall contexts is generally going to be two Castorias and an Oberon. Even if you don’t factor in the Castorias’ NP gain buffs (for battery timing reasons), Melusine refunds nearly 15% per enemy, meaning she can trivially loop anything that has two enemies on the first or second wave by dividing batteries appropriately.

She can also loop 1/1/x waves, provided she has the damage, with some clever skill timing. To do this, you run Castoria/Melusine/Castoria/Oberon (as usual). On turn 1, you use both Castoria Charismas and one targeted Castoria battery, plus Mana Loading, to let Melusine NP. She refunds nearly 19% before overkill, and even the one hit that secures the kill takes her above 20%. Melusine uses her own 80% battery to NP on turn 2, refunding about 20% again. On turn 3, you use the remaining Castoria battery, then plug Oberon in and use all of his skills to secure the loop.

For stall setups, the usual advice applies: run Castoria and one of Tamamo, Reines, and Lady Avalon depending on what you prioritize. Lady Avalon is a better pick here than she usually is, though, as her own crit tools synergize nicely with Melusine’s. Reines, meanwhile, is probably the weakest pick, as she can’t heal off the damage demerit from Black Grail and results in slower play in general.

At the lower end, you have a lot of flexibility, thanks to Melusine’s generally self-sufficient kit. The usual suspects—Xu Fu, Mozart, etc—all work well as supports, though given Melusine’s crit functionality, you might consider crit-oriented alternative Arts supports. Lanling, CasGil, and Sherlock all synergize quite nicely with what Melusine has to offer.

Melusine has such good loop specs there’s basically no reason not to give her The Black Grail, unless you’re running an event CE for farming optimization reasons. The only reason you might consider something else is if you have Reines natively and not Castoria, Tamamo, or Lady Avalon, and thus are trying to stall with a Reines/Castoria team… but honestly even then I’d recommend sticking some healing CCs on Melusine and using Black Grail anyway. It’s just so much damage, especially on a Servant who’s as NP-centric as Melusine is.

Unless you’re running healing CCs to offset the Black Grail (which isn’t usually necessary), Melusine strongly favors crit-damage CCs. Especially before she starts ramping, Melusine is light on crit buffs, and if she does get to crit, you want her to capitalize on that crit damage. This is especially important on her Busters, which are stronger cards in the abstract but won’t benefit from as many card-type buffs in practice. Extra crit damage will help them keep pace.

Grail Potential

Conclusion

Melusine is great. The only reason she isn’t more eye-catching is we got Summer Ibuki last year. Even outside of Summer Ibuki, Tez is still probably a better unit on the whole just by virtue of the sheer amount of utility he brings, plus his more common class-advantage context. There’s also Avenger Nito to consider, who has a lot of the same strengths as Melusine, with the trade-off of being spookable but having less damage. The end result of this is that despite being an amazing unit, Melusine doesn’t really stand out. She’s one more top-end Arts unit in a field full of them, which means her value is mostly contingent on not already having alternatives. This isn’t a bad place for a new Servant to be, to be clear, but it does make her a pretty easy skip in most cases, despite her overall strength.

Rabbit's Arbitrary Ratings

Overall: 10/10
Single-Target DPS: 4/10
AoE DPS: 8/10
Survivability: 6/10
Offensive Utility: 1/10
Defensive Utility: 1/10
Farming Usefulness: 9/10
Swimming: 0/10