Lu Bu Fengxian

“Yikes! Was he just glaring at me?”

The ruthless warlord notable for betraying everyone he ever worked for, storms in to crush his enemies for any Master who would risk commanding him. True to his nature, Lu Bu serves as a fragile Buster Berserker Servant quite capable of bursting any hapless enemy down, and then causing trouble for his allies.

Lu Bu mainly acts as one of the strongest budget damage dealers in the game with an incredibly powerful Noble Phantasm, especially considering the ease in bringing him to NP5. The combination of Madness Enhancement A, his Valor skill that further increases his very high base attack, and Chaotic Villain to increase his NP strength – all of which stack multiplicatively with one another– Lu Bu has the potential to outperform even his higher rarity counterparts. Beyond that, Chaotic Villain will also boost his Star Gathering to insane levels, allowing him the capacity to unleash a devastating NPBB critical chain. As an added kicker, his NP comes with a low chance of stunning the opponent for a turn and ignores the defense buffs of his opponent.

Yet, while Lu Bu’s burst is one of the best in the game, it is best defined as the “trick” of a one trick pony. He suffers from low effective NP gain due to having access to only a single Arts card, has to rely on others to generate critical stars for him, and he has next to no survivability with one of the lowest 3-star HP values in the game on top of the Berserker class defensive disadvantage. To make matters worse, his one defensive skill, Defiant, grants a fair 25% defense at the cost of reducing all offensive buff success rates on him by 50%. This means that normally guaranteed buffs like Charisma will have a 50% chance of missing him for 3 turns. Lastly, true to his nature as a betrayer, his Chaotic Villain skill will also reduce the party’s defense by 20% as well.

All in all, Lu Bu is an incredibly selfish servant with huge damage potential, but a huge amount of support is needed to let him perform at his best. Masters who provide him with this support will find themselves rewarded with some rather impressive damage numbers.

High NP Damage

Critical Capabilities

Consistent Damage

Low Survivability

Inconsistent NP Generation

Negative Team Support

Lu Bu packs an array of great skills if used properly. Priority should be given to skills that allow him to hit harder during his burst, ideally to skills with high uptime. While Defiant does grant him a bit of survivability, it can generally be leveled last as Lu Bu is often left to die after firing off his damage.

• Valor A is Lu Bu’s main steroid. This skill packs a whopping 27% attack up buff at maximum level for 3 turns, on a 5-turn cooldown. The added mental resistance up is niche at best, but it is a small bonus. As this skill boosts all forms of his attack, level this skill first.
• Defiant B is Lu Bu’s primary defensive mechanism. This skill at max level will raise his defense by 25% at the cost of a 50% reduction in buff success rate for 3 turns. Masters should make sure to use this after Lu Bu has received all his attack buffs, so as to not waste offensive buffs. Level this skill last.
• Chaotic Villain A is Lu Bu’s burst turn steroid. It increases both his NP strength by 30% and increases his star gathering 30 times over, and it is this skill that allows him to unload a devastating NPBB chain at the cost of 20% defense down for his allies that turn. Masters could consider leveling this first as it does scale harder than Valor with most supports, but since this skill lasts for only a single turn, level it second.

With access to such a powerful NP, the primary concern for Lu Bu is getting his NP ready as quickly as possible to dish out the major damage, with a secondary concern of improving his damage even more. As such, Masters should primarily equip him with Starting NP Gauge, while Buster Performance Up scales very nicely with his two main steroids. Critical Damage Up works very well with Chaotic Villain, while going full ham with NP Damage Up can be an extreme nuke option.

• Kaleidoscope / The Imaginary Element: Starting NP gauge CEs are generally the best CE choice for Lu Bu as they help mitigate his NP gain problems and potentially allow him to perform an NP Brave chain in the first few turns. While these CEs give him limited benefits in the long run, Lu Bu himself does not usually survive long enough for this to matter.

• Partake with the King / First Sunrise / Golden Sumo: Boulder Tournament / Holy Night Supper: Assuming support Servants with NP charge capabilities (e.g. Zhuge Liang) are available, the amount of starting NP gauge provided by CEs such as Kaleidoscope may prove redundant. In these cases, CEs with less starting NP value, but with additional benefits may be the wiser choice.

• Limited/Zero Over / Verdant Sound of Destruction: These CEs are best used in stages where Lu Bu’s NP is not strictly needed, allowing him to dish out more damage from his normal hits. They are also a good option for one turn kill strategies, where Lu Bu’s NP charge is fully taken care of by his allies.

• Black Grail / Heaven’s Feel: Aimed at maximizing Lu Bu’s NP damage, these CEs are less commonly used than the above options due to his poor NP gain. However, assuming that the team has sufficient ways to help him charge his NP, these CEs can be used with little problem for massive damage.