Mysterious Heroine X (Alter)

Mysterious Heroine X’s altered yet sane counterpart, the bookish Mysterious Heroine X (Alter) is a traveler with a sweet tooth from a Servant Universe far, far away. MHXA is a non-standard Quick Berserker with an Anti-Saber Servant Quick ST NP and the ability to manipulate Critical Star distribution.

MHXA’s primary strengths are her excellent NP generation and decent star generation for a Berserker. With a deck of QQABB, most of her damage is focused on using her NP rather than the more common Berserker focus on Buster Brave Chains, an NP she can use quite often. However, through both her Interlude and powerful Quick supports, MHXA can eventually unleash her full critical potential as well. Additionally, MHXA can both create stars on demand, and reduce the star weight of an ally, a combination which aids in and curates which Servants can get critical hits.

Yet, MHXA’s high HP and low Attack for her Berserker class is not an ideal combination for her role as damage dealer. MHXA’s damage potential in general is initially often lower than her fellow Berserkers given her lack of Buster Brave Chain potential and inability to fully profit from Madness Enhancement. She’s also rather fragile for high difficulty quests, where her own lack of hard survival tools and Berserker typing may lead to her death.

In the end, Mysterious Heroine X (Alter) is an atypical Quick Berserker Servant who can NP often, and provide some critical support on the side. While she will destroy Saber Servants with ease, MHXA may struggle to output the same damage as her Berserker competition. Fortunately, access to better Quick support and both an Interlude and a Rank Up will help to partly alleviate this issue in the long term.

Gameplay Tip

MHXA’s base release pales in comparison to her future potential. Her Rank Up alone will shore up her performance nicely, but access to better Quick support in the future will especially cause her generation performance to go into overdrive. Although Skadi provides everything she would want in terms of damage (a Critical Damage & Quick Up buff), her survival will still remain an issue even if her Interlude upgrades her healing.

Excellent Generation Stats

With high NP generation per hit, and superb hit counts where it matters, MHXA can quickly charge her NP and even provide a modicum of stars. Due to her high base NP gain, any Extra chain that begins with an Arts card will see excellent NP generation, especially with Overkill. While her Berserker class has low base star generation, her ability to perform an NPQQ Quick Brave Chain will result in enough critical stars to set up a critical turn.

High Damage NP

Quick NPs often slightly outperform other card types when it comes to damage, and after her Rank Up, MHXA follows this pattern. With Access to both her Charisma-like King's Invisible Hand and Ephemeral Shadowless Blade, her NP damage is among the highest of all Berserkers. Given her NP gain and the high hit counts on her NP, it will even refund a nice portion of her NP gauge.

Anti-Saber Servant Bonus

While MHXA’s kit does not revolve around her insane counterpart’s anti-Saber niche, her NP’s Overcharge effect still applies a significant damage bonus to any opposing Saber Servant. As a Berserker, MHXA can exploit this facet of her kit far more easily, making her NP hit for a metric ton of damage to any Saber Servant and capable of outdamaging even Archer Servants.

Star Manipulation

In addition to her decent star generation, MHXA has access to both an on-demand critical star generation skill as well as a unique targetable star gathering down in her King's Invisible Hand. The reduction in star gathering reduces an unbuffed Servant’s star weight to 0, which in turn can greatly reduce the stars required to guarantee a turn of critical hits for an ally. For example, using it on a Rider Servant may disable their star hogging characteristics for a turn, but likewise it can also be cast on a supporting Caster to draw even more critical stars to the main damage dealer.

Low Base Damage

MHXA’s biggest problem is extracting the full damage potential of her kit. Her card layout does not allow for any overpowering Buster Brave Chains, and her own star weight and lack of critical damage skills makes it difficult for her to do high critical damage by herself. King's Invisible Hand merely evens the playing field between her and the affected Servant, and she needs a healthy amount of critical stars to be able to pull off critical hits herself. In addition, she has rather low base attack for a Berserker, while her low rank of Madness Enhancement only affects her 2 Buster cards.

Lack of Hard Survival Tools

For day-to-day quests, the healing and the healing bonus provided by ∞ Black Bean Paste is generally enough to safely keep MHXA alive, especially after her Interlude. However, for harder quests, MHXA lacks access to an Invincibility or Guts skill that allows her to stay alive in the face of great damage. A powerful stray critical hit or NP will kill her without help from allies.

Until her Rank Up (and Interlude), MHXA’s skills are underwhelming. The main benefit to leveling her skills is to reduce their cooldowns rather than marginally increase their numerical values. Her damage potential only truly unlocks after her Rank Up, but investing in more damage is still the best way to go.

• ∞ Black Bean Paste EX/ ∞ Chestnut Paste EX is MHXA’s only survival skill, and synergizes particularly well with any supports or Mystic Codes that grant healing. Generally, healing effects are less effective on Berserkers as they take double damage, but the additional healing received partly offsets her own Berserker weakness. Note that the healing received buff triggers first, thus this skill heals for more in practice than is shown. After her Interlude, MHXA gains even more healing, and a nice additional 1-hit boost to her critical damage, once per Command Card type. It's still not as powerful offensively as her other 2 skills after her Rank Up, so this skill can be leveled last.

• With its Rank Up, Ephemeral Shadowless Blade C+  is downright incredible, giving both an up to 30% Quick Up for 3 turns and up to 20 critical stars. This skill scales very well with MHXA's base NP Gain, and has a fairly low cooldown at max rank. Thus, unlock this Rank Up as soon as possible and then level it first.

• King's Invisible Hand C is MHXA’s unique and signature skill. The star gathering down does not scale per level and wipes out any Servant’s base star weight for a turn. On low star weight allies (Casters, Berserkers, Avengers) this skill isn’t very effective by itself, but with high star weight allies (Archers, Riders) a Master can greatly manipulate the potential for critical hits with even a small amount of critical stars. The added Charisma buff for 3 turns does scale well and has decent values (up to 20%) to boot. Since this skill is initially MHXA’s main steroid, level this first, and level it second after her Rank Up is completed.

While MHXA can grant some part support through her star manipulation and generation, her main purpose is still to deal damage. Ideally, MHXA will focus on her NP for damage and thus prefers CEs that improve its damage or charge her NP faster. Quick Damage Up, NP Damage Up, and NP Gain CEs are ideal. For farming, Starting NP Gauge is always welcome.

• Imaginary Around / Dumplings over Flowers / Gandr: For longer fights, the main Quick CEs generally perform very well without having to adapt to a specific play style.

• Cute Orangette / Reading on the Holy Night: Providing high NP gain and NP damage, a fully supported MHXA after Rank Up will greatly benefit from the multiplicative interaction of her own buffs and the NP damage/NP gain from these CEs.

• Knight of Marines / Holy Night Supper / Golden Sumo: For day-to-day quests, the normal selection of Hybrid CEs will typically see the most use.

• Magical Girl of Sapphire / Little Halloween Devil/Jeweled Sword of Zelretch: If her NP is needed immediately, and if it is to be used repeatedly, these CEs all perform well. More relevant after her Rank Up.

• Black Grail/Heaven’s Feel: Due to ∞ Black Bean Paste and high NP generation, MHXA can actually use Black Grail, even if it pushes her even further into the danger zone. Ideal for blowing up that Saber Servant in one hit.