Duryodhana

“Listen, there is no shame in using trickery to win. Pulling a dirty move is better than defeat. Remember that.”

The eldest of the Hundred Princes from the epic Mahabharata, and a sworn enemy of the Five Princes which include Arjuna and Bhima, Duryodhana manifests as an AoE Arts Berserker with great looping capabilities.

Duryodhana’s skill set comprises primarily offensive buffs and critical damage-related buffs, with little in the defense department. Charisma of Vice B- is a Charisma buff with a twist, providing ATK and Critical Damage buffs to all allies for three turns, and a massive Crit Star Gather Rate buff for one random ally for one turn. His second skill, Cudgel Techniques A (Duryodhana) is a selfish buff that improves both his Arts and Crit Damage for three turns, while providing a burst of up to 15 Critical Stars. Finally, Child of Ill Omen EX gives him an ever helpful 10% NP Gauge regen and up to 20 Stars per turn for 3 turns. Additionally, he can target an ally to buff their Crit Star Gather Rate massively for 3 turns, and also decreases debuff resistance for the enemies for a turn.

His NP, Jai Kaurava, first debuffs all of Quick, Arts, and Buster Resist for three turns before dealing damage to all enemies. With a generous hit count of 6, Duryodhana can extremely respectable refund, which when further combined with his 10% NP per turn, make him an excellent lower rarity omni-farmer option. He is fully capable of looping with Black Grail or with Altria Caster / Xu Fu for more budget looping setups, making him a particularly desirable Servant for those currently lacking an omni-farmer. These aspects make it potentially disappointing that he is Story-locked rather than available in the general pool.

Overall, Duryodhana is an excellent Arts looping option with wide coverage due to his Berserker Class, and for Masters in need of a general farmer, he makes for an excellent Servant to have available. His ease of looping mostly makes up for his kit’s complete lack of defensive options. However, for more challenging content outside of farming contexts, it can be difficult to keep him alive without further support. He pretty firmly excels in the farming niche but can struggle outside of them when 3-4 AoE bursts are insufficient to clear the encounter. Regardless, the prince is an excellent asset to have in Chaldea as a more budget / lower party cost looping option.

Excellent Arts Looping

Duryodhana’s high hit count AoE Arts NP and his third skills 10% NP Gauge per turn effects combine to give him some of the most comfortable looping in the roster. He is capable of Black Grail looping, as well as looping without Order Change and with Xu Fu instead of double Altria Caster for Masters who may not have Altria Caster available. His Berserker Classing makes him a good offensive option against almost any enemy waves in the game aside from Foreigners, so having him built allows Masters to farm nearly any node with relative ease. This all is possible for him despite him not even having his own instant NP battery skill.

Lower Rarity Looping

As an SR Servant, he can loop effectively at lower Party Cost, which provides more room for potential event bonus CEs or other CEs used for bond EXP farming, etcetera.

No Defensive Skills

Defense is not the name of the game for Duryodhana, as he does not have even a single defensive effect to his name. This means that he will be heavily reliant on any supports to provide defensive effects for any enemies that are not immediately eliminated by his NP.

Duryodhana’s skills for the most part are already quite effective at base, although they all help to improve his overall performance if leveled. The most important skill for his looping performance is his second skill, since it also indirectly improves refund by buffing Arts effectiveness. His second skill also helps his overall damage. His third skill, while extremely important to his looping for the 10% NP charge per turn, doesn’t have this effect change with level and is already potent at base. The overall leveling recommendation order is 2 > 1 > 3.

• Charisma of Vice B- – His party-wide ATK / Crit strength buff that also increases a random ally’s Star Gather Rate, levels in this skill will improve both the ATK and Crit Strength buffs, and are useful for his overall damage output during looping. If Masters are lacking materials, however, this can be left at level 6.

• Cudgel Techniques A (Duryodhana) – This is his primary Arts steroid, and levels in this skill will improve all three of Arts effectiveness, Crit Strength, and Crit Star bomb effects. Levels in this skill most directly improve his looping capacity, and Masters should prioritize leveling this skill first. He is fully capable of looping without this skill fully maxed however, and masters can also leave this at level 6, although maxing this will further improve his damage output.

• Child of Ill Omen EX – This skill is highly important to his looping, since it provides 10% NP charge per turn across three turns. However, this effect does not change with level, so it technically can be left at level 1 without any detriment to his looping capacity. The effects that do change with level are the Stars per turn, and the Star Gather Rate buff to a targeted ally, along with the AoE debuff resist debuff effect, which are not crucial to farming.

With no NP charging skill in his kit, having Starting NP Gauge on his CE will be extremely useful to help get his looping started. However, he loops fine with 50% starting gauge. He also benefits from Arts Effectiveness, NP Damage, and ATK for his overall offensive performance.

• Kaleidoscope / Winter Crystal / The Imaginary Element – These are pure starting NP Gauge CEs that will enable Duryodhana to perform 3-turn loop farming, even if not MLB, so long as sufficient Arts Support (Altria Caster + Xu Fu) are available.

• Ocean Flier / Cradle Song / Battle Olympia / Mission Start / Grand Puppeteer / Chaldea Anniversary / Dive to Blue / Painting Summer / Star’s Day Off / Golden Sumo: Boulder Tournament / Holy Night Supper – These are hybrid CEs that provide at least 50% starting NP Gauge and at least one other offensive effect beneficial to Duryodhana’s performance. Many of these were relatively easily obtained in a past event so that they could be more easily MLBd.

• The Black Grail / Heaven's Feel – These are CEs that provide a pure NP Damage boost, and provide the overall largest damage boost for Duryodhana. Some additional support may be required to get three turn looping (+ Order Change) with Black Grail, but he is entirely capable of doing so.