Leonardo da Vinci

“I’m pretty much universally amazing.”

The Renaissance Man of Italy materializes in the form of what he deems as true beauty. The “Mona Lisa” moves beyond the role of friendly shopkeeper and joins the front line as a Caster class Servant! Da Vinci is an Arts damage dealer with a varied selection of selfish buffs and survivability tools.

For survivability, Da Vinci has an assortment of direct and indirect tools, namely Guts, Defense up, Critical Chance Down, HP regen per turn, and a two-turn Debuff Immunity. Each of these effects synergize well with each other and usually only the most powerful enemies can punch through her defenses. On the offensive side she has NP damage up, defense ignore and Ignore Invincible utility, and Critical Star creation. However, as all these buffs and effects are generally self-directed, Da Vinci is firmly a Caster oriented towards offense and provides little support to others.

Da Vinci’s NP Uomo Universale does very decent AoE damage, ignores defense, and adds a Crit Chance down debuff. Especially after her second Interlude, she becomes one of the strongest AoE Casters available. Da Vinci also gains NP comfortably with her 3-Arts card deck, decent NP generation, and not just one but two skills that charge her NP. Altogether she can pull off successive NPs if needed.

Overall, Da Vinci is a solid damage-focused AoE Arts Caster who is able to employ her NP frequently. She has great survivability and an interesting array of utility effects, but her Caster class damage and lack of team support does limit her use.

High NP Gain & NP Charge Skills

Three features of Da Vinci’s kit contribute to her NP gain. First, her deck has three Arts cards, which enable Arts chains, and she has evenly balanced hit counts across her cards. Secondly, Golden Rule (Body) B charges her own NP gauge by 10% per turn for 3 turns. Finally, Pioneer of the Stars EX charges her NP gauge by up to 50% at max level. With just her skills alone, she is able to get to 80% NP charge without any outside help, which enables her to use her NP with less support than other Servants.

Good Caster AoE Arts Damage

Da Vinci is able to output decent damage through her AoE NP. Combined with her great NP charge skills, she’s a splendid contributor during farming sessions. Her Arts focus also synergizes well with her fellow Casters as any of her NP turns can be part of an Arts chain unlike some of her competition with their Buster NPs.

Good Utility

Da Vinci’s third skill (NP charge) additionally grants her Ignore Invincibility for 3 turns, which allows her to get around Evade or Invincibility moves. This is particularly useful as Assassin class enemies tend to have Evade skills. Her NP also ignores defense, and she is able to grant herself debuff immunity, both effects that are highly prized for certain challenge quests.

Decent Survivability

Inherent Wisdom grants Da Vinci Guts (1 time, 3 turns) and a chance for a three turn defense buff. She also can recover up to 1000 HP per turn and gain debuff immunity for multiple turns with her second skill. Her HP pool is also above average for the Caster class, so she can usually keep herself on the field for a decent amount of time.

Caster Class Damage

Despite having high AoE NP damage for a Caster Servant, Da Vinci’s damage is still somewhat lackluster due to a combination of her low attack rating,the lack of personal buffs to boost her command card damage, and the 0.9x damage multiplier associated with her class. As a damage dealer, she is best used in situations where she has class advantage.

Selfish Skill Kit

Unlike most Casters, Da Vinci has little supportive ability, and thus cannot compensate for her lower Caster damage with useful effects for the team like her competition does. Because all of her buffs are self-targeted, her support is limited to Arts chain potential, instant Critical stars, and Enemy Critical Chance down.

RNG Buffs

Da Vinci is a capricious Servant: her first skill’s defense and NP damage buffs have an 85% chance of success, which means her ability to perform at her best is sometimes left up to chance.

Da Vinci's skills are split across self-steroids and self-survivability skills. The NP charge provided by Pioneer of the Stars scales with level and maxes out at a whopping 50% charge, providing good reason to level it first. However, leveling all her skills is ideal for her kit. In the end, after Pioneer of the Stars, it is up to the Master whether they would like to prioritize offense (Inherent Wisdom) or sustained performance (Golden Rule (Body)).

• Leveling Inherent Wisdom Ex increases the  defense / NP damage bonus values that each have 85% chance to activate, as well as the HP recovered from its Guts activation. As this skill improves Da Vinci’s overall performance as a damage dealer, it is worth leveling second in most cases.

• Levels in Golden Rule (Body) increase the amount of HP regeneration per turn up to 1000, increasing Da Vinci’s survivability. Reducing the cooldown on this skill increases the uptime of the HP/NP regeneration buff and is mostly valuable for long fights. This skill is worth leveling, but has lower priority. Do note that leveling this skill does not increase the NP charge per turn.

• The NP charge gained from Pioneer of the Stars EX increases per level, up to 50% at maximum. With a 50% NP charge skill, she can comfortably run any 50% Starting NP Gauge craft essence and NP at will, which makes this skill worth leveling first.

OVERALL: Da Vinci benefits the most from craft essences with either Starting NP Gauge, NP Gain, or with an Arts Performance Up effect. Below are some examples of CEs that accomplish this, along with some other supplemental effects that are of secondary use.

• Golden Sumo / Azure Magical Girl / Holy Night Supper / Little Halloween Devil / Dive to Blue: Given Da Vinci can charge her own NP bar quickly, a hybrid CE with Starting NP Gauge is perfect for a balanced bonus between performance and farming.

• Black Grail: The Black Grail provides an immense increase to her NP damage output, while the HP per turn demerit can be easily offset by her Golden Rule (Body) skill.

• Formal Craft / Projection: These CEs give Arts performance buffs, which enhances her three Arts cards and boosts the power of her NP further.

• Kaleidoscope / The Imaginary Element: Additional starting NP gauge (combined with her second and third skill) potentially allow her to NP once, and then quickly fire off an NP again with the help of her skills, support and/or additional Arts cards.

• Prisma Cosmos: Combined with Golden Rule (Body), Prisma Cosmos is even better for passive NP gain, giving Da Vinci 18 or 20% NP Charge per turn for a bit.  This allows for more reliable NP spam without having to use her Arts cards constantly.