Altria Pendragon (Lancer Alter)

    "Whether friend or foe, it only takes a single attack to exterminate a traitor.” 

Altria Pendragon Alter, the corrupt King of Knights, manifests as a heartless enforcer of law. With the Rhongomyniad at her side, she qualifies for the Lancer class. Altria (Lancer Alter) is a rather standard Buster Crit servant, and her strong single-turn skills enable significant burst damage output.

Boasting high AoE Buster NP damage with access to good damage steroids as well as an NP Interlude, Altria can clear enemy waves with ease. Furthermore, this high damage is accompanied by an NP that both ignores defense and has a chance for NP Seal, utility effects that are particularly useful during some of the more difficult fights in the game.Yet, it is her Protection of World’s End that enables her to unleash an exceptionally powerful critical-fueled burst turn, as it provides instant Star Generation, Star Gathering, and Critical Damage Up all at once.

However, Altria’s single-Arts deck and weak Quick cards make it difficult for her to charge her NP gauge, hindering her self-sufficiency when it comes to getting her NP ready. She also struggles to keep herself alive in harder fights, as she has no innate survivability tools beyond the chance-based NP seal on her NP. This, coupled with her dependence on her short-duration skills, means Altria will struggle to output significant damage beyond her one or two burst turns.

As a whole, Altria (Lancer Alter) has strong burst damage potential, and with proper support she can shine as a strong Buster critical damage-dealer. She is a solid farming servant by default if fielded with a Kaleidoscope, and she has enough tools to be a good pick for many of the game’s more difficult fights as well.

Strong AoE Damage

    Lancer Alter has access to an unusually strong Mana Burst buff, increasing her Buster performance by up to 55%. Combined with her Charisma, her naturally high ATK stat, and her Interlude-upgraded NP, she can burst down enemy waves with her NP’s high damage.

Useful NP Utility

    Altria’s NP ignores defense buffs, has a chance to inflict NP seal, and inflicts curse. NP Seal in particular is very powerful as any NP Seal debuffed enemy will be prevented from casting their NP while also stopping their normal end-of-turn NP Gain. While each of these is somewhat limited in usefulness individually, altogether they make Altria a surprisingly versatile pick for challenging content.

Good Burst (Critical) Damage

    Lancer Alter can deal a good amount of critical damage due to her second skill, Protection of World’s End, which increases her star weight and critical damage while also generating a small sum of stars. This means that, if fed with enough additional critical stars, Altria can deal a highly damaging Buster Brave Chain with her NP-B-B cards, which is ideal for waves with one strong boss among multiple enemies.

Weak NP Gain

    While her Arts card is passable, Altria’s single-Arts deck, middling Extra card, and terrible Quick cards mean she will struggle to fill her NP gauge without outside help. This makes her highly dependent on supports for gaining access to big-damage turns.

Limited Survival

    As Altria has no innate survival tools, she is entirely reliant on her allies for protection. This can make her a poor choice for drawn-out fights, especially in cases where enemies bring high normal attack damage.

Lack of Sustained Damage

    Most of Altria’s damage and contribution comes in the one-turn window when she benefits from all of her skills at once. After a burst turn, she needs time to build up her resources before she can output big damage again. That said, Masters can spread out her skills across 2 turns, dividing her damage between an NP turn and a critical attack turn for somewhat more consistent damage output.

Ideally, Lancer Alter wants to max the two main skills related to her high damage output as soon as possible. This will both increase their effects and lower their cooldowns. Therefore, both Mana Burst and Protection of World’s End are a priority. Charisma, on the other hand, scales poorly with levels and can safely be left for last.

• Mana Burst A+ is Altria’s primary NP steroid. Stronger than a typical Mana Burst without any sort of drawback to compensate, this skill makes Altria better at wave-clearing and also pushes her Buster critical damage significantly. This should ideally be leveled evenly with Protection of World’s End, though if resources are an issue this skill should be second.

• Protection of World’s End A is an all-in-one critical-enabling skill, letting Altria easily output high levels of damage against a single target for a turn. In addition, it scales incredibly well with buffs from common Buster Critical supports such as Merlin. This skill is thus extremely important to Altria’s functioning, and it both scales well with levels and benefits significantly from the shorter cooldown, so it should be leveled first.

• Charisma E is quite weak. The skill’s buff does apply to the whole party, and it does stack multiplicatively with Altria’s other buffs, but the scaling is so bad it should be left for last.

Altria (Lancer Alter) benefits most from CEs that provide NP Damage Up, as that NP Damage Up stacks multiplicatively with both Altria’s innate buffs and the buffs provided by common Buster supports. Starting NP Gauge CEs meanwhile are useful for farming, as well as for harder fights where early access to big damage is important. Alternatively, Attack Up and Buster Performance Up CEs can be valuable for both increasing Altria’s burst damage and improving her damage output on non-burst turns.

• The Black Grail / Heaven’s Feel: NP damage buffs stack with everything in Altria’s kit and boost her NP damage to impressively high levels. This allows her to more effectively divide her skill usage between multiple burst turns, using her NP for one and her critical attacks for the other.

• Kaleidoscope / The Imaginary Element: These CEs are particularly helpful in farming contexts, though they also have some value in difficult AoE fights that ask for a lot of damage up-front.

• Aerial Drive: This CE is notable for providing all three ideal CE benefits, helping Altria access her NP sooner, hit harder with that NP, and also hit harder with Buster cards in general.

• Golden Sumo / Holy Night Supper: Alternative hybrid Starting NP Gauge CEs that also stack well with Lancer Alter’s skills.

• Victor from the Moon / Joint Recital: While both Buster Performance Up and Critical Damage Up stack additively with Lancer Alter’s kit, these CEs do work great while her skills are down and her supports supply her with ample Critical Stars.

• Limited/Zero Over / Hero Elly’s Adventure / Verdant Sound of Destruction: Altria gets somewhat less mileage out of Buster buffs relative to NP damage buffs, but these CEs all help to push her damage across-the-board, slightly boosting her burst-turn damage and also allowing her off-turn Buster cards to hit harder.