Chaldea Uniform - Arctic

Mystic Code Rank: 7/10 (Lower Levels)

Mystic Code Rank: 9/10 (Max Level...good luck)

• Available as a reward upon clearing Section 1 of Lostbelt 1: Anastasia.

To say Masters will become intimately familiar with this Mystic Code is putting it lightly. The Lostbelt Mystic Code is essentially an alternative version of the basic Chaldea Mystic Code, with similar skills, similar usages, but actually a very different emphasis. However, the largest change, is not that this Mystic Code requires ~9 Million Experience, or even ~71 Million Experience to max level, no it requires a whopping ~155 Million Experience to max. As such, getting this bad boy to max level is a huge project spanning months, if not years. 

The big elephant in the room therefore is that getting this Mystic Code up to scratch requires ridiculous Mystic Code Experience dumping before it starts becoming one of the best Mystic Codes.

Fortunately, the returns are great as well. Unlike any other Mystic Code, the primary damage buff, Illusionary Buff, grants two damage buffs at once. This hybrid Attack Up/NP Damage Up stacks remarkably well with almost every Servant (especially as NP Damage is a rare buff in general). Yet, while this damage buff combination could certainly be seen as a straight upgrade at max level compared to the basic Chaldea Mystic Code, the survival skills are a more mixed bag.

Skills Explanation:

• Purifying Recovery packs a similar healing amount to First Aid from the Chaldea Mystic Code, but gains the ability to remove any Defense Down debuffs as well. Unfortunately, it also has a longer cooldown period due the new cleansing effect. It's a useful skill still, but it will take a fairly long leveling period before the healing amount helps to absorb more than 1 hit. While cleansing Defense Down will help reduce some incoming damage, it's usually only a small boost in survivability.
• Illusionary Buff is what this Mystic Code is all about as it grants both Attack Up and NP Damage Up. Not only do these scale up to a total of 60%(40% + 20%), 10% more than equivalent buffs (excepting Anniversary Blonde's 60% Buster buff), it also multiplies with itself, effectively granting 68% damage up. Its high percentage total, and multiplicative stacking, makes it an ideal candidate for reaching high damage benchmarks during normal non-Event Bonus damaqe stacking without resorting to Order Change from the Chaldea Combat Uniform.
• Predictive Evasion is arguably where the balancing strikes the hardest. While its cooldown is a lot lower than Emergency Evade from the Chaldea Mystic Code, the Evasion will only last for a single hit over a span of 3 turns. Generally, this means an NP can be evaded, but any follow-up hits will remain a threat. Nonetheless, it's a decent fire-and-forget Evasion for Berserkers if one is face-carding or normal clearing a quest. And, if the mob does not attack the affected Servant, it will remain active until they do (in the next 2 turns). 

Notable Strategies and Users:

Considering the sheer Mystic Code Experience required, Masters will pick up how to best use this Mystic Code eventually. Fortunately, as Illusionary Buff is nearly always a powerful damage steroid, this Mystic Code is a great basic choice to enter any non-Challenge Quest in. Furthermore, as its survival tools are generally inferior to the likes of the Atlas Academy Uniform or the Chaldea Mystic Code, Masters should focus on how to best exploit the multiplicative buff stacking from Illusionary Buffs anyway. 

The most important observation is that NP Damage Up and Critical Damage Up always stack additively with Event Damage Bonuses. What that means is that this Mystic Code tends to be very weak for Raid Events, weaker for Events with Bonus Servant damage, and weak for Nero/Gil-Fest type High Difficult Events, especially as it is likely not maxed out as well. 

A second observation is that it is naturally fairly rubbish for damage Servants with no damaging NP, such as Qin Shi Huang, Superhuman Orion, or indeed, Stheno. It also is somewhat less effective if the damage after NP is just as important. 

Apart from that, it stacks best with Servants and supports that buff Card Effectiveness. Often Illusionary Buff is used to blow up the final wave as the damage requirements tend to be highest there. Supports like Scathach=Skadi, Tamamo no Mae, Merlin and Helena Blavatsky all tend to supply heavier Card Effectiveness than other damage boost-types. Meanwhile, while Servants such as Arash, Bedivere, Euryale, EMIYA, Mordred or Lancelot (Saber) will maximize most of the potential damage stacking from Illusionary Buff considering their lack of easy to access Attack/NP Damage buffs.

Yet, the Illusionary Buff split is 40% Attack Up and 20% NP Damage Up. It's going to be useful regardless of who you field most of the time. Servants with NP Damage Up (Karna, Arjuna, Frankenstein, Santa Altera) still scale well (although they may wish to use the Chaldea Mystic Code or the Chaldea Combat Uniform). Meanwhile Servants with a more minor portion of Attack Up still scale wonderfully, such as Altria Pendragon, Anastasia, Okita Souji or Ereshkigal.

A final piece of advice is that enemies that deal AoE damage (hydras, dragons, massive ghosts, etc.) all but make the Evasion a very minor damage reduction. Try to avoid fielding this Mystic Code against such enemies. Instead, it tends to work best to keep very fragile Servants alive for basic nodes where there's a small chance for a crit death - think Servants such as Berserker of El Dorado, Lancelot or Hijikata - all of whom use Illusionary Buff very well too.

Leveling Value:

There's a very good reason this Mystic Code is the only one that has two different scores. At base values, this Mystic Code is rather underwhelming, and it will be underwhelming for a rather long period of time. Fortunately, the scaling on Phasmal Reinforcement is very good, and Purifying Recovery becomes more potent as well. Masters need around ~52 Million Experience to reach level 6, and it is only at that point it starts to become a serious competitor to every Mystic Code except the Chaldea Combat Uniform. 

As said before, this Mystic Code is a project that will pay off eventually, and actually scales well with levels. Masters who have finished leveling their Chaldea Combat Uniform should start to consider starting their journey with this Mystic Code immediately.