Pope Johanna

“Battling is not my expertise, but…I can’t not lend a hand to those who yearn for salvation.”

Johanna is believed to be the only female pope recorded, with her existence being a contentious debate amongst historians. As a holy woman that helps others, Popess Johanna wields her saintly power as an Arts Critical Support Servant, bolstering both their offense and defense with fantastic buffs and utilities, while also functioning as an AoE Arts DPS on the side.

Illusionary Saint A essentially super charges any Servant into an Arts critical monster, increasing their Critical Star Gather Rate and Arts Critical Damage by an absurd amount, while also granting herself a buff that passively generates 10 Critical Stars per turn, with all effects lasting for a good 3 turns. Further amplifying her Arts Critical niche, Shunned Procession C increases all allies’ Arts cards’ effectiveness for 3 turns, grants them a Damage Cut and a 1 time Debuff Immunity buff for a similar duration and increases her own NP Gauge by 30% at max level. Papal Debate EX is a teamwide 20% Attack buff and 20% NP Gauge Regeneration for 3 turns.

Johanna’s Noble Phantasm - Legendum Papa Thronus A is an AoE Arts Noble Phantasm with several additional effects. Firstly, it buffs Johanna with a 50% Special Attack mod against enemies with [Evil] trait before dealing damage for 1 turn, which means her subsequent cards within the same turn will benefit from this as well. Furthermore, it does super effective damage against enemies with [Human] attribute, and also inflicts a Buff Nullification debuffs for 1 time, 3 turns to all enemies.

It is easy to see what Johanna excels at. On her own, she provides 20% Attack, 60% NP Gauge Charge over 3 turns, Star Gathering and Critical Damage on Arts cards, Critical Stars Generation, Buff Block, Damage Cut and Debuff Immunity. These are all outstandings effects for tackling high difficulty contents and combined with innate bulkiness, being a Ruler, makes Johanna stand out in the sea of strong Arts Support Servants. Johanna is also capable of farming as well. While her refund rate is nothing stellar, she can still 3T loops most standard 3/3/x nodes with her Noble Phantasm thanks to the staggered NP regeneration effect from her third skill.

However, Johanna’s downsides are also quite obvious. First of all, her Damage is quite lackluster when she is not hitting the right traits, partly due to her class having almost always neutral damage and low base Attack. Furthermore, Johanna’s skills, while strong, have quite a long cooldown, which is a notable downside in Challenge Quests. Last but not least, Arts is an archetype which has the most multi-faceted Support Servants, both offensively and defensively, so Johanna faces a lot of powerful competition.

All in all, Johanna has a lot of good things in her kit, but she is by definition a luxury Servant and faces too many competitive replacements. While she is a good option for many situations, she is one many accounts can do without.

Powerful Arts Critical Niche and Challenge Quest Performance

Johanna is one of the strongest Arts Critical Support in the game by virtue of just her first skill granting gigantic Star Weight, Critical Damage for any ally’s Arts card and a passive Critical Star Generation. Arts Critical Hits generate insane amounts of NP Gauge and are one of the staple for Arts team for Challenge Quest, especially when combined with other Arts Critical Support with passive Critical Star Generation like Lady Avalon.

She also packs a plethora of powerful team supports that allow her to tackle various Challenge Quest gimmicks, from Debuff Immunity, Damage Cut, Buff Block and teamwide NP Gauge Charging. Combined with her Ruler class and innate high debuff resistance, Johanna is naturally very bulky as well.

Good Looping Performance

Despite having a rather mediocre refund on her Noble Phantasm, Johanna has good looping capacity. This is due to her third skill granting a lot of NP Gauge staggered over 3 turns. This skill can also help other DPS as well in multi-core farming as it is essentially a 60% NP Gauge for everyone over 3 turns.

Johanna also has two anti-traits in her Noble Phantasm, namely Anti-Evil and Anti-Human, both are fairly common in farming scenarios, giving her decent coverage to be valuable.

Lackluster Damage When Not Hitting Traits

Johanna has very poor base Attack, even with Ruler class 1.1x modifier. Furthermore, Rulers very rarely get Class Advantage bonus, as Moon Cancer enemies are exceptionally rare, especially in farming scenarios. Thus, Johanna damage will be very lackluster when not hitting the right traits with her Noble Phantasm, making her a rather mediocre choice as an omni farmer.

Long Downtime On Skills

Due to their powerful effects, her skills are balanced by a very high cooldown. This makes her effectiveness drop noticeably in lengthy battles despite being a Challenge Quest specialist. There are other workarounds for this, namely running her with other units with Skill Cooldown Reduction such as Tamamo-no-Mae, but it is still a quite limiting factor.

Johanna Skills are quite strong and worth leveling as they all scale well with level. The priority should be her 3rd skill > 1st skill / 2nd skill depending on her usage.

• Illusionary Saint A - This skill is core to Johanna’s Arts Critical niche and scales very well with level. Thus it is worth maxing after her third skill if she is meant to be played as a Critical Support.

• Shunned Procession C – The teamwide Arts buff and NP Gauge Charge for herself both scales with level so this skill has higher priority than her 1st skill if Masters want to use Johanna as a looper for farming.

• Papal Debate EX – This is debatably Johanna’s strongest skill due to the large amount of NP Gauge for the whole team that it provides, which also scales with level. Another reason is that this skill is a 10 turns cooldown skill at base, so getting its cooldown lowered is quite impactful for lengthier battles.

There are two ways to run Johanna in accordance to the role she is supposed to fulfill. As a looper, she will want a combination of Starting NP Gauge, Arts Card Effectiveness, Attack, NP Damage and NP Gain on her Craft Essence. Craft Essences that grant purely Attack will be highly preferable as Johanna’s base Attack is low.

If she is to be run as an Arts Critical Support, then Critical Star Generation or Starting Critical Stars are both great options to help the main DPS kickstart their damage.

To make Johanna herself into an Arts Critical Damage Dealer, then stats like Critical Damage, Arts Critical Damage and Arts Card Effectiveness are all great options.

• The Black Grail / Heaven’s Feel / Inverted Rain of Mud: Johanna is one of the few Servants that can do Black Grail farming setup thanks to her staggered NP Charge from her 3rd Skill. Heaven’s Feel and Inverted Rain of Mud are both acceptable alternatives for the maximum amount of damage boost on her Noble Phantasm.

• Ocean Flier / Golden Sumo: Boulder Tournament / Thank You For Your Hard Work! / Magical Sion / A Reward For Your Studies: Farmable Craft Essences from Events with Starting NP Gauge in conjunction with offensive buffs that Johanna can use for farming.

• Another Ending / Labyrinth of Lingering Flowers / A' / Demonic Sun-Princess: These Craft Essences are all Critical-centric options that work well at boosting Johanna as the Damage Dealer.

• King of the Seraph / Fragment of 2030: These are the best Craft Essences that give passive Critical Star Generation so that Johanna can support other allies in Arts Critical teams.