Saint Martha

"What? You want a piece of me? Ahem..."

The waterside saint who tamed a dragon with her fists of compassion, Saint Martha is a supportive Rider with the ability to both remove beneficial buffs from enemies, and cleanse detrimental debuffs from allies. With both a Buster AoE NP and an Arts-deck, Martha can fit in a variety of teams based on whether her specific capabilities are required.  

Martha's utility is her primary selling point, as her Miracle is one of the few skills with an on-demand cleanse that removes debuffs on the entire party at once - a feat typically reserved for support NPs. In addition, her Oath of the Holy Maiden provides more utility by stripping an enemy of their buffs while inflicting a hefty up to 30% Defense Down. The 3-turn AoE scaling Defense Down on her NP Tarasque provides further support (and allows her NP to be an excellent start to an NP Chain), while she keeps her team topped off with AoE healing. Lastly, her combination of high Rider-level Star Weight, triple Arts card deck, and extremely high base NP Generation rate per hit will ensure she can charge her NP very quickly. 

However, Saint Martha is pretty weak in terms of offense. Her low base Attack and single Buster card reduce her damage output turn to turn, while her NP pre-Rank Up only profits from the single Defense Down from Oath of the Holy Maiden. The Rank Up for her NP does improve her damage output, but it still lags behind those of her peers even afterwards. Martha's overall support is also less powerful for basic quests, where her debuff cleansing and buff-stripping utility are often unnecessary. Lastly, her support role is heavily encumbered by her high Rider-class Star Weight, as Martha will soak up the critical stars the main damage-dealer would typically prefer to use. 

At first glance, Saint Martha is a sturdy AoE Arts-oriented Rider with weak offensive capabilities. But beneath the surface lies a situationally incredibly powerful Support whose on-demand utility makes her a powerful Servant for challenging fights where buff-stripping and debuff cleansing are key. 

Team Debuff Cleanse & Enemy Buff Removal

Team debuff cleanses are rare, and team debuff cleanses on a skill are even more so. Martha grants access to one, while also carrying valuable buff-stripping utility. The on-demand nature of skills compared to NPs makes them incredibly convenient and skills can typically be activated without prior preparation. As the hardest content in the game typically involves some of the most devastating debuffs and enemy buffs, cleansing or removing them can trivialize the encounter. This makes Martha an ideal candidate for use with the Chaldea Combat Uniform as Masters can swap her in (or out) based on whether she is needed. 

Good NP Generation

With three Arts cards and ‘Caster’-style hit counts, Martha's NP gain is excellent, even allowing her to NP spam in the right conditions. Given her high base NP Generation, Martha greatly profits from card chains that start with an Arts card.  

Team Defense Down Support

Martha's NP inflicts a 20% Defense Down debuff on all enemies for 3 turns, while her Oath of the Holy Maiden inflicts an additional 30% Defense Down debuff for 3 turns to a single target. While Martha herself will not damage enemies too massively, she can still set up others to do so for her, especially given she can use her NP  quite often and her debuffs last for 3 turns. Furthermore, the healing from Miracle often helps to stabilize a team's HP after cleansing them of their debuffs. 

Decent Durability

The healing from both Miracle and Protection of the Faith makes Saint Martha very sturdy for any normal quest. In addition, she is near impervious to enemy debuffs while under the effect of Protection of the Faith, allowing her to save her cleansing capability for allies rather than herself.   

Poor Offense

Her low attack, single Buster card and single offensive steroid before her NP launches means even with her NP up she can’t hit particularly hard. Post 3rd Rank Up her offensive presence is improved, especially if she is to be used for farming with her NP, but she still finds few opportunities to deal decent damage. The mismatch between her Buster NP and Arts deck also reduces her damage output and support indirectly, as any Arts-led chain grants tremendous NP Generation from the Arts card first bonus.

Limited General Support

While Martha packs a huge variety of support tools, her usage for normal quests can be rather limited. Defense Downs do not carry over between enemy waves, her cleansing and buff removal utility are often unnecessary for basic quests, and her own damage isn't really high enough to farm some waves of enemies well enough compared to her peers even after she gain her NP Upgrade. As such, Martha is mainly a powerful specialist for challenging encounters where her utility shines. 

Rider Class Unsuited For Support

Rider-class Servants have naturally high star weight which results in them attracting the majority of critical stars whether they want to or not. As a support Servant with limited offensive potential, Martha often hinders allies that rely on their critical capabilities who can use those critical stars to better effect. 

The main utility in Martha's skills is fully accessible even at skill level 1. Odds are, especially if she is to be used with Order Change, that she won't even need to use her skills twice. As such, Masters can wait to level her skills until later if resources are tight. However her support capability does noticeably improve with levels, especially if she's fielded for long stretches of time. 

• Protection of the Faith A improves both Martha's self-healing and Debuff Resistance. However, the debuff resistance is already rather potent at base, and the skill itself does little to improve Martha's overall support capability. Thus, Masters can leave it for last. 
• Martha's identity as a support Servant is based around Miracle D+, as it has one of the rare perks of being a teamwide debuff clearance skill. Miracle proves invaluable during challenging content and it can quite beneficial to have it maxed to get a hefty 2 turns cooldown reduction and an improved healing effect. However, since it's not a very useful ability outside of hard content, it can be leveled second or simultaneously with Oath of the Holy Maiden. 
• At max rank, Oath of the Holy Maiden C gives Martha a particularly useful 30% Defense Down debuff for 3 turns with a 5 turn cooldown for hard boss fights, alongside a fantastic ability to remove buffs on target (such as against a stacking Imperial Privilege Nero). Since it aids in both her general usage and during Challenging content, this skill is often leveled first. 

Saint Martha can use a variety of CEs depending on her role. Masters who wish to make use of her AoE NP damage will want to look for CEs that grant NP Damage Up or NP Gain as they work well with Martha's mismatched NP and card deck. Of course, Starting NP Gauge is ideal if Masters want to quickly chuck out her NP for farming. Lastly, Martha can run the standard support CEs with Passive Stars per turn or Passive NP Gain, but she is also highly effective with CEs that grant effects on Entry.

• Prisma Cosmos / A Fragment of 2030: For Martha's who will not actively use their command cards, these options work great. Do note that Fragment is only effective with similar high star weight Servants. 

• Golden Captures the Carp / Ox-Demon King: Martha is an excellent swap-in with Order Change. These CEs grant hefty bonus effects if Martha enters the battlefield.

• Black Grail / Heaven’s Feel: With a great amount of healing in her kit, Martha can carry the Black Grail easily enough if a Master wants her to deal damage. The) NP damage buff will make it hit  much more like a typical AOE NP will. Thanks to Martha’s good NP gain, she won’t have much issue charging up Tarrasque either.

• Cute Orangette / Divine Banquet: For better NP spam, NP Gain CEs are excellent options With proper critical star support, it may be possible to stack defense debuffs from her NP for massive damage, although straight NP Damage CEs grant more personal damage.

• Kaleidoscope / Holy Night Supper: For a Quick NP, these CEs are best. Given Martha's own buffs and deck, she ideally wants NP Damage on her hybrid CE.