Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova

“Offer thy life to me, the Tsarina of Romanov... Kidding. Don't take it seriously. This is already enough for me.”

The tragic final Grand Duchess of the Romanov dynasty, Anastasia is as beautiful and pure as she is mischievous, earning the nickname “Schwipsig” - “Little Imp” - for her playful nature. Anastasia manifests this quality in-game as a damage dealer with a wide array of powerful utility and straightforward support effects, and an AoE Arts Noble Phantasm well suited for Arts farming teams. 

Anastasia’s primary usage is her wave clear capacity, which is of course highly useful for farming purposes. Packing an incredible 50% NP battery from Schwipsig, an AoE Arts Noble Phantasm that is further boosted by a 50% Art Effectiveness buff from Mystic Eyes of Penetration, and a 20% Attack buff from Frigid Charisma, the Duchess is a great candidate for taking on waves of Assassins or Berserkers. Furthermore, thanks to her good base NP gain per hit and high hit counts on Viy Viy Viy, Anastasia gets a sizable amount of NP refund from each Noble Phantasm as well, allowing her to use it frequently and even loop her NP in the right setup. 

But Her Highness is more than just a wave clearer, as her kits also bring a slew of support and utility effects. Aside from being her main steroid, Mystic Eyes of Penetration also grants her a Ignore Invincible buff for one turn and inflicts a powerful Debuff Resist Down debuff at the same time on one enemy. This debuff ties very well towards the other components of her kit, as it allows the teamwide Attack Down debuff on Frigid Charisma, the Skill Seal and Defense Down debuff on her Noble Phantasm, and especially the targetable Stun from Schwipsig to hit much more reliably. This also helps her teammates, particularly those with powerful debuffing capacity like Shuten Douji to cripple enemies in lengthy battles. 

On the other hand, Anastasia's damage is far from outstanding. Her Noble Phantasm damage is highly reliant on her Mystic Eyes of Penetration Arts Effectiveness buff, and her mediocre base Attack and Caster modifier do little to improve her NP Damage. Seemingly inspired by her backstory, Anastasia is also a frail Servant as she has no hard survival capacity to call upon in dire need. Last but not least, her two most important skills Schwipsig and Mystic Eyes of Penetration have fairly long downtime as well due to their short duration, with the former especially having a long cooldown, which limits her sustained offense.

Overall, Anastasia is a strong Servant, albeit in a stacked roster of AoE Casters. Her usefulness in farming alone already makes her a worthwhile addition to any roster. In fact, even in tough fights Anastasia’s main flaws can be supported well by top Arts supports (Tamamo no mae, Waver. etc.) that protect her while limiting her offensive downtime.

Gameplay Tip

Depending on what order a Master is used to activating NP Charge skills and all their offensive buffs in a turn, Anastasia may frequently trip up your "rotation". You see, unlike most other Servants, if Masters want to stun the enemy they should first activate her Arts steroids and only then charge her NP to max (and stun the enemy). Doing it the other way around will often make the Stun miss, as the Debuff Resistance Down isn't in effect.

Good NP Gain and Strong NP Battery

Packing a respectable NP generation per hit, 3 Arts cards, a further boost to Arts Effectiveness from her Territory Creation passive and a whopping 50% NP Battery from Schwipsig, Anastasia has a much easier time charging her NP Gauge compared to most Servants. Furthermore, her Noble Phantasm also has a good hit count for an AoE Arts NP, granting her excellent refund potential when she is stacked with NP Generation and Art Performance buffs. In the right setup, Anastasia can even use her Noble Phantasm several times in a row. 

Decent Waveclear Potential

As an AoE Servant with a strong NP battery, it is natural that Anastasia would be competent as a farming Servant. When boosted by Mystic Eyes of Penetration and Frigid Charisma, Viy Viy Viy can deal respectable damage, and enough to take out most common Assassins or Berserker waves. A 3-turn farming set up is especially easy to create if masters clear the first wave with Servants such as Paracelsus, Avicebron or Nitocris who all have extremely powerful NP Charges.

Good Debuff-centric Support

Anastasia packs several debuffing components in her skill set, including Stun, Debuff Resistance Down, Attack Down, Defense Down and Skill Seal. Combined together, these debuffs can significantly improve the team performance. Furthermore, her Debuff Resistance Down is amongst the most potent of its kind, and can help allies landing their debuffs a lot more successfully, particularly against enemies with high innate Debuff Resistance.

Lackluster Sustained Damage

Similar to many of her Caster peers, Anastasia suffers from a poor class modifier (0.9x) and mediocre base Attack. Mystic Eyes of Penetration also lasts for one-turn only, and she does not have any Critical niche or strong modifier on her Noble Phantasm to salvage her damage over multiple turns. To unlock her sustained damage potential, Masters need to rely on Arts supports.

No Hard Survival

Anastasia kits feature no hard survival mechanism like Guts, Evasion or Invincibility to bail her out of sticky situations. While her targetable stun can be influential in boss fights, it is very unreliable without her Mystic Eyes of Penetration’s Debuff Resistance Down.

Long Downtime on Skills

Both Mystic Eyes of Penetration and Schwipsig have rather long downtime which significantly lowers her effectiveness in battles that last longer than a single round of skill activations. Mystic Eyes of Penetration has a reasonably 5-turn cooldown at max level, but all of its effects only last for a turn. Schwipsig has a much higher 7-turn cooldown at max level in compensation for two powerful effects.

All three of Anastasia's skills are powerful and scale well with levels. Of these, Mystic Eyes of Penetration and Schwipsig have the most impact on her performance and should be prioritized. In general, due to her farming nature and sound performance as an Arts DPS overall, Anastasia is a Servant that greatly rewards having all her skills maxed...should Masters farm enough Reactive Gunpowder.

• Mystic Eyes of Penetration A is Anastasia’s main steroid for her Noble Phantasm, offering both a standard 50% Arts Effectiveness at max level and an Ignore Invincible for 1 turn, this skill ensures her NP hits hard and reliably. It’s other usage is to combo with Schwipsig for a highly reliable targetable Stun and/or assist another debuff centric ally to land their debuffs. Generally it ought to be leveled slightly behind Schwipsig to help clear wave 3 opponents and/or improve the refund potential of her NP.
• Frigid Charisma B offers two simple but effective support effects for 3 turns and can generally be used immediately when off cooldown. While both effects are good, they are hardly game changing as the values are at standard values and do not scale particularly hard with skill levels. The Attack Down does stack particularly well with Servants like Mash and Waver, who provide additional Defense buffs. Therefore, it is often maxed last. 
• Schwipsig B is both her NP Battery and main stalling mechanism. Both of its incredible effects are central to Anastasia’s identity and scale well with level. Most importantly, as 50% NP Charge is essential to give Anastasia access to better CEs and instant NP potential. In general, Schwipsig is her most influential skill for farming and will be relied on the most. Generally, level this first.

As Anastasia is most often used as a wave clearer, Starting NP Gauge is ideal for any nodes where time to charge NP Gauge is not possible. With Schwipsig, Anastasia only needs a CE that grants 50% Starting NP Gauge to immediately access her Noble Phantasm, but CEs with higher values can help save the usage of Schwipsig for later. Since she has both an Attack and an Arts Performance buff, NP Damage Up grants her the biggest spike in terms of damage on her Noble Phantasm. Arts Performance Up and NP Gain Up are great secondary effects to look for when trying to refund her NP Gauge, however. In practice, Anastasia will do well with any hybrid Craft Essence that grants the above effect.

• Holy Night Supper / Painting Summer / Dive to Blue / Golden Sumo / A Pilgrimage To The Other Side: The prime hybrid Crafting Essences for basic farming. Try to adjust the choice to how much damage is needed and/or how much refunding is needed, although adjusting supports has a larger impact than a CE.
• The Black Grail / Heaven’s Feel / Emerald Float / Kaleid Sapphire: These Craft Essences grant the most increase in terms of damage by virtue of their high increase in Arts Performance and/or NP Damage. 
• Kaleidoscope / The Imaginary Element / Dragon's Meridian: These Craft Essences grant the most amount of Starting NP Gauge, which can be used in conjunction with other Servants who can fill teammates NP gauge like Zhuge Liang to help Anastasia fire Viy Viy Viy in consecutive turns. 
• Sign of Smiling Face / Cute Orangette: Hybrid Craft Essences that grant more than one beneficial effects to Anastasia, and can be used as placeholders for general purpose.