Yu Mei-ren

“You humans really are tempted by the most insignificant things.”

It never is good to get enamored by a crimson beauty’s long flowing locks, brilliant red eyes, and slender body… there might just be a vampire like Consort Yu underneath! While many of her exact lore details are spoilers, she will still serve a Master as a faithful AoE Buster Assassin most notable for her quick-to-charge gauge and amazing design.

If there is one thing Yu does great, it is charge her gauge. With a pair of charges in Incarnated Elemental A and Vampirism C, she can self-charge in a hurry. To top this off, she has a great deck for gaining NP thanks to a relatively high natural gain rate and good hit counts on her Arts card. In addition, she provides some utility to herself with a charge drain on enemies and multiple ways to prevent debuffs, as well as being one of the first Servants to have buff removal resist.

While she is a vampire, this girl’s fangs do not have much bite to them. Her damage is significantly hindered thanks to a lack of offensive support skills and passives, along with her Assassin classing and low base attack stat. To make matters worse, she cannot benefit from outside buffs or support due to her Noble Phantasm, Eternal Lament C+, stripping all buffs off of her before she uses it. This is partially mitigated by Taoist Winged Sage A which gives her a one-turn buff removal immunity, but this means she can only effectively use her Noble Phantasm once every five turns.

Yu is a beauty, but a low-damaging one. Masters might find some use in her in a situation which requires a lot of debuff resistance, but for damage they are best off looking elsewhere.

NP Gain

Yu comes equipped with two tools to charge her NP gauge - a 10% per turn skill on Incarnated Elemental, and a (rather unfortunate) 27% charge on Vampirism both on a low 5-turn cooldown. In effect this will give her 47% free gauge by the third turn of any battle and allow for easier uses of stronger CEs like The Black Grail. Her kit also provides a fairly good gain with hit counts on the higher side and good base regeneration. 

Debuff Avoidance

Consort Yu does not like getting debuffed, and has two ways to avoid it. First she can use Incarnated Elemental to give herself a turn of debuff immunity (although this also triggers the charge skill). Alternatively, every time she uses her Noble Phantasm she purges all debuffs from herself before dealing damage.

Utility

While Yu does not have much in the way of team support, her Vampirism does give a chance-based ability to lower the enemy’s gauge by one tick. In addition she can give a low-level damage dealing curse on her Noble Phantasm, causing all enemies to feel a repeat of pain. The Curse damage’s ability to get around defense can also prove useful in some situations.

Low Damage

Consort Yu is plagued with everything which equates to low damage: Low base attack, no offensive buffs on skills, no passives to boost damage, and suffering from the Assassin class’s natural 0.9x damage modifier. In fact, at release she is the 2nd lowest damage dealing Assassin in the entire game (at expected NP levels).

Self-Buff Removal

When Consort Yu uses her Noble Phantasm, it purges off all debuffs and buffs in exchange for a 50% Buster Up (at Overcharge level one). While the Buster Up is a wonderful buff, it cannot make up for multiple support buffs provided by allies to boost her rather low damage. Taoist Winged Sage is supposed to be the counter to this, giving her a buff-removal immunity for a turn to attack with, but this negates all her viability in longer fights due to its 5-turn cooldown.

Yu’s leveling order depends entirely on how much risk a Master is willing to take. If a Master wants to risk her removing all her buffs when she is using her Noble Phantasm (her Buff Removal Resist at base is 50%), then they will want to prioritize her charging ability, which is her first skill. On the flip side, if a Master wants to play it safe and make sure she is utilizing all outside buffs on her Noble Phantasm, they’d prioritize her second skill such that her Buff Removal Resistance reaches 100%, to give her a guaranteed damaging turn. Either way, her skills all have the same general idea: Charge her gauge and avoid status changes.

• Incarnated Elemental A is one of two charge skills Yu has, giving up to 10% charge per turn for five turns. What is wonderful about this skill is it is on a five-turn cooldown, meaning she could effectively gain gauge every turn of the match. Unfortunately, this buff gets removed on Noble Phantasm usage making such a gain a pipe dream. It also does come with a bonus 1-turn Debuff Immune, but since Masters will likely be using this on Wave 1 it probably will not matter in practice. This skill could be leveled first or second depending on a Master’s priorities, but should be leveled to max to take advantage of the 5-turn effect and 5-turn cooldown (along with general bonus gauge).
• Taoist Winged Sage A gives Yu a small heal per turn, but more importantly, increases her Buff Removal Resistance. As her Noble Phantasm removes all buffs, this skill can allow her to negate that demerit. Like Incarnated Elemental, this skill can be leveled first or second, but should always be leveled to max to guarantee that her Noble Phantasm’s buff removal is negated.
• Vampirism C is a standard Vampirism skill with a chance to remove an enemy’s charge and a guarantee to fill Yu’s own gauge. Unfortunately at level C it has a max gauge of 27% which makes minimal difference compared to 20%. Masters should level this first to get to level 4 for the full 20%, but can otherwise hold off on this skill to last. Masters looking to maximize her gain could level this to max to keep its cooldown in sync with her first skill at 5 turns.

Although in a convoluted way, Yu is capable of reaching 50% gauge with her own abilities, making NP Damage Up CEs her best option when properly supported with a 50% Charge support Servant. If not, she can benefit from a Mixed Starting Gauge / Damage CE to fill in the other 50%. Due to her low-end damage, Masters may want to use her for an early wave, making Starting Gauge CEs a viable option as well while ignoring her first skill.

• The Black Grail: In a typical three-wave setup, Yu would be able to benefit from 10% NP Gauge up over two turns and a 27% vampirism charge before the third wave appears. If she’s able to get any non-Buster Card hit in, this would charge her at least 3% and allow for a support servant to give her 50% extra charge to fill the gauge. Thanks to Yu’s naturally low attack, The Black Grail provides not only a huge boost to NP damage, but to her base attack as well transforming her into a decent damage dealer. 
• Aerial Drive / Holy Night Supper / Golden Sumo: Boulder Tournament / Partake with the King / Starry Nights: Lacking a Black Grail or a 50% charge support, Yu still can generate 50% charge on her own in almost all cases. Boosting her general damage can be a substitute benefit.
• The Imaginary Element / Kaleidoscope: If a Master is looking to use Yu to kill off an early wave, they could use her Vampirism skill alone as a charge to allow for an instantaneous Noble Phantasm. As Vampirism is a 25% charge at level 9, The Imaginary Element would generally be a better choice here due to its lower cost.