Gray

"If it’s possible...this face of mine...would you hate it?"

With the Pendragon blood flowing through her veins, Gray wields the power of King Arthur’s Holy Lance, the Rhongomyniad. Much like her ancestor, Gray is able to unleash it to great and devastating effect, cementing her nature as a Quick Assassin with an AoE Buster NP.

Gray’s main strength lies in the impressive damage potential of her NP. Thanks to both Anti-Spirit Combat and Mystic Code Seal Release, Gray has access to powerful damage buffs for each main buff type. She also has an ever useful battery skill, and her welfare status grants easy access to NP5. In addition, her damage performance after NP is rather decent with Independent Action and a scaling Quick/Buster Performance Down on NP to clean up any remaining enemies. Lastly, Gray can utterly destroy Undead enemies due to the very potent Anti-Undead damage bonus she gains from Anti-Spirit Combat

Outside of her NP damage though, Gray struggles with her sustained performance. Her QQQAB deck hampers her regular card damage when her steroids are down, and her NP and Critical Star generation are lackluster for her Class and deck type. She’s also very fragile, with her only defensive measure, a 1-hit/1-turn Invincibility, sharing a cooldown with her primary NP steroid.

All in all, Gray’s skills and NP nudge Masters towards using her as a powerful farming Servant more than anything else. However, Masters without a strong main damage Assassin will find her performance more than adequate, with an especially good performance against Undead enemies.

Good Farming Potential

With access to her own 20% battery in Protection of World’s End, high base attack, multiple damage steroids and an easy NP5 courtesy of her welfare status, Gray excels at blasting one wave of enemies for massive damage by Assassin standards. In fact, Gray can clear even a wave of neutral class enemies without too much trouble.

Decent Sustained Damage

Even after launching her big NP, Gray’s overall damage via her Command Cards is quite good, with Anti-Spirit Combat providing her with a decent Attack Up (max 30%) for 3 turns on a 5 turn cooldown. In addition, her NP inflicts a decent scaling Buster/Quick Performance Down on the enemy for 3 turns, while Gray also has access to a high rank of Independent Action. The resultant multiplicative stacking of each of these buffs allows Gray to punch above her weight in pure damage.

Anti-Undead Niche

In addition to the standard 30% Attack Up aspect, Anti-Spirit Combat also boosts Gray’s damage performance by 100% against any Undead enemies for 3 turns. To put this in perspective, a level 10 Anti-Spirit Combat allows Gray to function pretty much as an effective class counter against any Undead enemy with neutral class advantage.

Poor Generation Performance

Despite a unique passive 10% NP Generation bonus in King’s Image, Gray’s NP generation is rather poor. With only a single good Arts card, and 3 mediocre 3-hit Quick cards, Gray is reliant on external means, her own NP Battery and critical hits to charge her NP, especially if it is to be used more than once. Her Star Generation isn’t much better, especially compared to her peers with access to a Quick NP.

Fragile

With base HP among the lowest of her rarity, and with Mystic Code Seal Release providing her with only a 1-hit Invincibility for 1 turn, Gray has to rely on her allies for survival in longer fights. With Mystic Code Seal Release functioning as Gray’s main NP steroid as well, Masters often sacrifice its defensive aspect for better damage performance.

Mismatched Deck

With a split between her Buster NP and her Quick-oriented deck, Gray cannot profit from the best aspects of either card deck. A Buster NP will prevent Gray from refunding part of her NP Gauge, while also inhibiting her star generation. Likewise, her Quick Deck is ill-suited for the massive damage chains a Buster chain can set up.

For most Masters, Gray’s primary role will be to clear a (final) wave of high HP enemies. Thus, both Anti-Spirit Combat and Mystic Code Seal Release skills are great options for raising all the way to 10, as both directly improve Gray’s NP damage. On the other hand, Protection of World’s End’s NP charge does not scale and Masters can generally leave it for last or at a lower skill level.

• Anti-Spirit Combat B is Gray’s high up-time Attack Up and Anti-Undead steroid. While the Attack Up portion improves only modestly (up to 30%), the Anti-Undead portion doubles in value. However, the true benefit is the cooldown decrease, as at level 10 the cooldown reaches only 5 turns on a 3 turn duration. For Masters who use Gray as their general Assassin, level this first.

• Mystic Code Seal Release C is similar to Mana Burst skills and provides Gray with a potent Buster Up and Quick Up (20%-40%) for 1 turn. The 1-hit Invincibility it provides is a nice secondary effect, but Masters typically use this skill for the damage boost. Level this first if Gray is to be used purely and only for farming (it scales slightly harder), but second otherwise.

• Protection of World’s End B is Gray’s least important skill to raise, as the NP battery does not scale with levels, while the Debuff Resist is relatively unimportant and scales poorly to boot. The main reason to raise this skill would be to reduce its cooldown for longer fights. Master can leave this skill for last.

Given her difficulty charging her NP alone and her farming role, Gray will want to stick with CE options that offer at least 50% Starting NP Gauge and/or one or two additional effects. Gray additionally benefits from NP Damage Up against any non-Undead enemies as it stacks multiplicatively with her own damage buffs. However, against Undead enemies the anti-trait buffs stacks additively with NP Damage, and Gray scales better Attack Up or Buster Up instead.

• Kaleidoscope / Imaginary Element: If an early NP is necessary and other sources of NP gauge are limited, pure Starting NP Gauge works best.

• Aerial Drive / Holy Night Supper: With pure Attack and with effects that scale multiplicatively with her own buffs, these 2 hybrid CEs work best for non-undead farming. 

• Golden Sumo / Partake with the King / First Sunrise: Against Undead enemies, hybrid CEs that forsake NP damage are better.

• The Black Grail: If Gray needs extra firepower to take out a powerful enemy wave with her NP, Black Grail offers her the highest damage bonus at the cost of taking longer to charge her NP gauge and making her even more fragile.

• Beautiful Dreamer: An alternative hybrid CE for Masters who missed out on any of the older options. The NP Gain boost will not solve her issues with NP generation sadly.