Miyamoto Iori

“I am not very knowledgeable about magic, but I understand that you have expended great resources on me. I owe you a great debt. I shall wield my sword to repay your kindness.”

Miyamoto Iori is a swordmaster known to be the apprentice of Miyamoto Musashi, and thus inherits the famed Niten Ichi-ryuu sword style. Just like his Master, Iori is a Buster-centric Single-Target powerhouse, capable of outputting very respectable damage numbers via both his Noble Phantasm and his Critical hits.

Iori’s skillset is very offensive-oriented, with all of his skills being geared toward directly improving his damage output. Like Ice B is his main Critical steroid. This skill increases his Critical Star Gather Rate, Crit Damage, and Mental Debuff Resist for 3 turns, and further gives him 10 Critical Stars every turn at max level to take advantage of those Crit buffs. Crimson Codex B has 4 effects, namely a self NP Charge, a 3-turn Attack increase, a 20 Critical Star bomb, and a teamwide Burn debuff onto all enemies. Blade of Five Rings A is another offensive steroid, but this time packs with some survivability. It increases Iori’s all card types’ effectiveness by 20% for 3 turns, and grants him a small Damage Cut for 3 turns, and a 2 times Evade buff for 3 turns. Hidden Sword, Soaring Brilliance - is Iori’s Noble Phantasm. Before dealing damage, this Noble Phantasm will grant a 1-turn Sure Hit buff to himself and increase his Buster and Quick cards’ effectiveness - his two main card types for 3 turns. After dealing damage, it gives him some Critical Stars, scaling with Overcharge levels.

Thanks to being a Welfare Servant, Iori gets NP Level 5 for free, which vastly improves his overall performance. His playstyle is very simple, but also quite impressive for its straightforwardness. With Buster Support Servants such as Koyanskaya of Light and Oberon, Iori can repeatedly unleash his Noble Phantasm and Critical Hits with numbers that can make many limited Servants envious. Due to the ramping buffs from his Noble Phantasm, Iori’s damage output gets better as he consecutively fires off this Noble Phantasm, and also generates a constant stream of Critical Stars for him to make use of. This competency in both NP Damage and Crit Damage lets Iori play well with either fast-burn Supports like Oberon for a strong burst turn, or with slow-burn Supports that grind out the battle like Merlin. With his third skill, Iori is also not exactly a glass cannon and can hold his own on the battlefield even without defensive support.

Iori does have some notable drawbacks, namely his complete lack of team support and utility. He is also a very selfish damage dealer that requires both the team to cater to him and the Master’s attention to maximize his damage output. While the need for premium Buster Supports is not a problem solely endemic to Iori, his damage output does fall tremendously without these specific units, with little compromise, especially if Masters want to use him as a farming Servant in high-level farming nodes.

To conclude, Iori continues the tradition of welfare units being strong because of how accessible they are. Even for Masters who have a broad roster with numerous options, Iori can still be surprising for how good his damage ceiling is when properly built, and is definitely a competitive Single-Target Saber option for most Masters.

Great Single Target Damage Output

Iori’s damage comes primarily from two sources: his Crit Damage and his Noble Phantasm. For the former, he has a sufficient amount of Crit buffs in his kits, albeit not super potent, and a stable stream of Critical Stars. For the latter, Iori has a standard 30% NP Gauge Charger, Attack, and Cards type buffs from his skills, and notably 3 turn Buster/Quick buff from his Noble Phantasm, which many Servants covet due to its ramping nature if he manages to get off his Noble Phantasm multiple times in quick succession.

These two components have perfect synergy with the bursty playstyle that Koyanskaya of Light and Oberon enables. As a result, Iori can make quick work of a lot of encounters within the three-turn timeframe that this setup would give even without perfect conditions, a feat not many Single Target Damage Dealer is capable of achieving.

Complete Lack of Team Support & Utility

Iori is an extremely selfish Servant. Not only does he not provide any teamwide or targetable buffs for the team, but he also does not bring any utility beyond a 1-turn Sure Hit on his Noble Phantasm. This means Iori does not really fit well in a multi-core setups where everyone buff each other, and he also responds poorly to bosses that require different utilities to deal with.

Very Reliant On Specific Supports

Due to his very bursty playstyle over a short duration, Iori is quite dependent on certain Supports such as Koyanskaya of Light, Oberon, or Merlin. Other Damage Dealers often have a much bigger roster of Supports to choose from, but Iori’s damage output will suffer quite noticeably without these units.

As Iori comes at NP Level 5, he is a worthwhile Servant to invest in, especially for any accounts that need a strong Single-Target Damage Dealer. Of his skills, his second is definitely the most important to help him do any 3-turn looping setup with Oberon and Koyanskaya. The other two skills are both decent but take lower priority.

• Like Ice B - All the effects from this skill are quite good and scale with level. This skill is the primary Crit buff that he has, so if Masters relies more on his Noble Phantasm to deal damage, they can leave this skill for last when leveling.

• Crimson Codex B – The primary reason to max this skill is for the NP Gauge Charge, but the Attack buff also scales with level, so it is a no-brainer skill to raise if Masters want to use Iori.

• Blade of Five Rings A – The all card types’ effectiveness buff is quite useful for his damage, and this skill doubles as a defensive tool as well, so this is a pretty good second skill to raise.

In most of Iori’s setups, Masters want to look for the Starting NP Gauge so that they can set up a 3 or 4-turn NP spam effectively, depending on the Supports and Append Skills level. For damage boosting, Iori lacks two stats from his skill set: NP Damage and Specific Damage Bonus. With Oberon on the team, NP Damage is extremely valuable for Iori to raise his overall Damage. And since Iori has a Burn debuff on his skill, Bonus Damage Against Burned Enemies is a very interesting stat to consider. Attack / Crit Damage / Buster Cards Effectiveness are also acceptable secondary stats that Masters can look for.

• Honey Lake / To Myself from a Distant Planet / Dual Burning: Craft Essences with Bonus Damage against enemies with Burn and good secondary effects that Iori can take advantage of.

• The Black Grail / Inverted Rain of Mud / Heaven’s Feel: With Iori often tied to Oberon and his lack of NP Damage, these Craft Essences have massive value if the Masters can deal with their lack of Starting NP Gauge.

• Sleeping Warrior / Sewing a Beloved Doll / First Day of Filming: Craft Essences with a combination of Starting NP Gauge, NP Damage and other offensive stats that Iori can use.