Rabbit’s Reviews #396: Dobrynya Nikitich (4* Lancer)

In contrast to Ciel, Summer Dobrynya is an extremely simple unit. She’s a generic ST Arts looper with some crit tools, passable ramp, and some niche damage. Her kit is actually quite similar to Kagetora’s, but with a handful of extra bells and whistles. This means Dobrynya is almost strictly better at equal NP levels… but Kagetora already does the role well enough, and is free besides. Overall, Dobrynya’s a solid but unexciting Arts ST. If you happen to pull multiple copies—whether because you’re targeting one of the other Servants on her banner, or because you love Dobrynya specifically—she’ll be a small upgrade over her direct competition. Otherwise, though, she’s easy to ignore.

Dobrynya has relatively high attack and low health relative to SR Lancers as a whole. This isn’t a bad starting point, though she is still working with SR stats. Her Arts card NP gain is pretty average for her deck, while her Quick card is pretty weak. She’s also an Arts Servant, and her hit-counts aren’t super high, so active NP gain won’t be a strength. She also only has basic passives: Magic Resistance, for occasionally avoiding debuffs, and Riding, which is mostly useless.

In terms of Appends, Nikitich is a 30% charger, so Mana Loading is helpful for loop and NP access reasons. None of the others are unusually notable; the typical benefits apply.

Ascension Materials

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	50,000	x4 Lancer Piece Open Lancer Piece configuration options
3	150,000	x10 Lancer Piece Open Lancer Piece configuration options x6 Meteor Horseshoe Open Meteor Horseshoe configuration options
4	500,000	x4 Lancer Monument Open Lancer Monument configuration options x8 Shell of Reminiscence Open Shell of Reminiscence configuration options x3 Primordial Lanugo Open Primordial Lanugo configuration options
Max	1,500,000	x10 Lancer Monument Open Lancer Monument configuration options x5 Primordial Lanugo Open Primordial Lanugo configuration options x4 Dragon's Reverse Scale Open Dragon's Reverse Scale configuration options

Skill Enhancement Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100,000	x4 Gem of Lancer Open Gem of Lancer configuration options
2 → 3	200,000	x10 Gem of Lancer Open Gem of Lancer configuration options
3 → 4	600,000	x4 Magic Gem of Lancer Open Magic Gem of Lancer configuration options
4 → 5	800,000	x10 Magic Gem of Lancer Open Magic Gem of Lancer configuration options x4 Shell of Reminiscence Open Shell of Reminiscence configuration options
5 → 6	2,000,000	x4 Secret Gem of Lancer Open Secret Gem of Lancer configuration options x8 Shell of Reminiscence Open Shell of Reminiscence configuration options
6 → 7	2,500,000	x10 Secret Gem of Lancer Open Secret Gem of Lancer configuration options x4 Meteor Horseshoe Open Meteor Horseshoe configuration options
7 → 8	5,000,000	x8 Meteor Horseshoe Open Meteor Horseshoe configuration options x10 Great Knight Medal Open Great Knight Medal configuration options
8 → 9	6,000,000	x30 Great Knight Medal Open Great Knight Medal configuration options x8 Dragon's Reverse Scale Open Dragon's Reverse Scale configuration options
9 → 10	10,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore Open Crystallized Lore configuration options

Append Skill Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100000	x4 Gem of Lancer Open Gem of Lancer configuration options
2 → 3	200000	x10 Gem of Lancer Open Gem of Lancer configuration options
3 → 4	600000	x4 Magic Gem of Lancer Open Magic Gem of Lancer configuration options
4 → 5	800000	x10 Magic Gem of Lancer Open Magic Gem of Lancer configuration options x10 Dragon Fang Open Dragon Fang configuration options
5 → 6	2000000	x4 Secret Gem of Lancer Open Secret Gem of Lancer configuration options x20 Dragon Fang Open Dragon Fang configuration options
6 → 7	2500000	x10 Secret Gem of Lancer Open Secret Gem of Lancer configuration options x3 Primordial Lanugo Open Primordial Lanugo configuration options
7 → 8	5000000	x5 Primordial Lanugo Open Primordial Lanugo configuration options x5 Eternal Ice Open Eternal Ice configuration options
8 → 9	6000000	x15 Eternal Ice Open Eternal Ice configuration options x20 Sun Leather Open Sun Leather configuration options
9 → 10	10000000	x1 Crystallized Lore Open Crystallized Lore configuration options

Dobrynya only asks for old mats, so she should be pretty easy to max out. The biggest likely roadblock is gems, and even then only if you’ve invested heavily in a bunch of other Lancers—in which case you probably don’t have much need for Dobrynya anyway.

Dobrynya has a pretty standard Arts looper skillset. Recommended skill order is 1>2>3.

Dobrynya’s usage is super straightforward. If you want to kill fast, you run double Castoria with a third support of your choice—Tamamo and Oberon both come to mind—and if you want to play slowly, you take Castoria and any of Reines, Tamamo, and Lady Avalon. Lady Avalon is usually my preferred option for Castoria stall teams, and Nikitich’s star burst can let her take advantage of Lady Avalon’s crit buffs, which is nice.

Outside of optimized teams, any generic Arts supports will work well. Xu Fu is always a good option, and Dobrynya can make solid use of the NP gain buffs from Servants like Paracelsus and Asclepius. There’s really nothing unique here—anything that works for a typical Arts Servant will work fine here.

For CEs, there’s little reason not to run the Black Grail if you have it. Nikitich has pretty reliable NP access, and she can heal off the demerit. It’s the best damage boost available for any NP-focused Servant, and that holds true here. If you don’t have BG, you can opt for whatever CE you do have that pushes damage most—Heaven’s Feel, Formal Craft, and Mark on a Smiling Face are all solid choices.

Dobrynya has low in-kit crit buffs and passable crit access, making crit damage CCs an obvious choice for her. There’s nothing else she particularly wants, so you might as well use CCs to push her damage.

As an SR, Dobrynya benefits a lot from a pair of grails—two grails for ten levels is usually a good trade. That said, she’s not remarkable enough to necessarily merit even that investment. She’s certainly not bad, and if you know you’ll use her, you might as well give the extra stats, but grails aren’t going to suddenly make her amazing.

There’s really nothing wrong with Dobrynya. She’s got solid damage, good NP gain, multiple niche cases, and some utility. She’s cleanly better than her direct competition, too—at equal NP levels, she’ll definitely outperform Li and Kagetora. It’s just hard to be excited about such a mechanically plain unit. If you’re really hurting for an ST Lancer, Dobrynya will absolutely satisfy, but she doesn’t do anything unique enough or powerful enough to merit targeting her if you already have a solid Lancer. She’s a nice pickup if you’re targeting her banner anyway, and if you like her, she’ll do well for you, but overall she’s a pretty forgettable unit.

Overall: 8/10
Single-Target DPS: 8/10
AoE DPS: N/A
Survivability: 4/10
Offensive Utility: 3/10
Defensive Utility: 4/10
Farming Usefulness: 2/10
Dragon Horse: 10/10