Avenger of Shinjuku

Avenger of Shinjuku is an unusual Servant, manifesting as the first gold Avenger available in the common Summoning pool. Featuring all of the Avenger class’s characteristics, the Avenger of Shinjuku serves as a decent neutral Quick damage dealer as well as a counter to any elusive Ruler bosses.Avenger of Shinjuku’s Attack stat is quite amazing, outpacing most of his 4 Stars peers. With a single target Quick Noble Phantasm, a decent steroid in Monstrous Strength, a passive (and active post-interlude) Critical Damage boost, and a means to increase his own Star Weight through Fallen Demon, Avenger of Shinjuku’s overall burst potential is quite noteworthy. His NP generation is not shabby either with decent NP generation per hit and multiple passives that provide a boost to his NP gauge. Additionally, Avenger of Shinjuku has some useful utility effect, with his NP granting him Sure Hit for a turn (ignores Evasion effects), and access to a powerful on-demand buff removal skill in One Cloaked in Death, which also doubles as a decent Attack debuff and a more niche Instant-Kill Resistance debuff.On the other hand, Avenger of Shinjuku’s fair shares of flaws are quite apparent. Due to his poor Star Generation per hit and relatively low hit counts on his cards, his Star Generation is lacking, despite being a Quick-focused Servant. Furthermore, his survivability is mediocre at best, with no hard-survival skills and a low HP pool for a 4 stars Servant. Finally, while his skills all have relatively low cooldowns, Avenger of Shinjuku’s sustained usefulness is underwhelming due to the poor uptime on all of his skills. A problem that isn’t aided by his status as an Avenger class Servant that deals neutral damage to most common enemies, which often leads to him being phased out for Servants with class advantage.All in all, Avenger of Shinjuku brings powerful burst potential and potent utilities. Nonetheless, without class advantage his Avenger class and poor sustain makes it hard to justify building a team around him until his Interlude upgrades his potential.

Gameplay Tip

Avenger of Shinjuku is one of the few Servants that can inflict Instant Death through his Noble Phantasm, a feat that is further boosted by his third skill - One Cloaked in Death which reduces enemies’ Instant Death Resistance.

However, Instant Death has always been a highly inconsistent feature, and misleading in nature. It triggers too randomly and the percentages show a far rosier picture than what happens in practice. It does not trigger reliably enough to count on and may even interrupt an attack sequence meant for generating NP gauge. The Average death resistance on powerful enemies typically renders it useless in practice against strong enemies.

High Neutral Damage

Avenger of Shinjuku has an astounding 10,628 Attack at base, which after taking his Avenger modifier into account, results in a staggering 11,690 Attack, outclassing even many 5 Star Servants. Adding in a notable steroid in Monstrous Strength, and a single target (upgraded) Noble Phantasm, and Avenger of Shinjuku will start outputting impressive numbers. Furthermore, provided he has enough Support, he can work as a decent Critical Damage Dealer with his passive granting Critical Damage, his post-Interlude NP providing a sizeable 20% crit steroid, and his Fallen Demon increasing his Star Gathering rate. His QQAAB deck does put a small dent in his overall offensive potential, but with a decent amount of Critical Stars, Avenger of Shinjuku can certainly hold his own in the damage department even when his Noble Phantasm is not available.

Good NP Generation

Avenger of Shinjuku’s NP generation per hit isn’t particularly amazing, scoring at 1.58 NP per Arts card and 2.37 per Quick card at base. What truly makes him more consistent in generating NP is his innately high NP generation upon being attacked and his passive NP generation per turn. While he will appreciate NP batteries just like most Servants, Avenger of Shinjuku won’t have too much trouble prepping his own Noble Phantasm most of the time.

Buff Removal Niche

One Cloaked in Death grants Avenger of Shinjuku a valuable niche in on-demand targetable buff-removal, which is highly useful in many challenging battles. This skill also inflicts a sizable Attack debuff for 1 turn, which can be crucial in surviving some bosses’ attacks.

Poor Survivability

Due to his low HP pool compared to his peers and his lack of hard defensive skills, Avenger of Shinjuku will have a lot of trouble staying on the battlefield for an extended period of time. His first skill does grant a 40% Defense buff, but it only lasts for one turn and is tied to one of his main damage tools, and thus more often than not one of the two effects will be wasted.

Poor Uptime on Skills

Most of Avenger of Shinjuku’s skills’ effects only last for 1 turns, with Monstrous Strength lasting for 2 turns. While they all have a base 7 turn cooldown (5 at max), their short duration results in significant downtime in between each cast and lowers Avenger of Shinjuku's effectiveness in longer battles. Post-Interlude, the 3 turns duration on his critical steroid provides a welcome long-term addition to his potential.

Few Opportunities to Utilize Class Advantage

Like most Avengers, Avenger of Shinjuku struggles to find many opportunities to be fielded over other Servants. This is due to a distinct lack of Ruler bosses throughout the game, be it for farming or Challenge Quests. While Avenger of Shinjuku certainly can do a great job against Berserker bosses thanks to his high attack, most of the time he will be sidelined for Servants with class advantages who offer more than what he could provide.

Difficult to Exploit Critical Niche

With 6% base Star Generation, 3-hit Quick Cards and only two Quick cards, Avenger of Shinjuku is not the best at supplying himself with Critical Stars, let alone the team. Furthermore, as his only mean of increasing his Star Gathering only lasts for 1 turns, it is hard to make consistently good use out of this niche.

Avenger of Shinjuku functions well at base skill levels, but his skills all have a low cooldowns and provide reasonable benefits for leveling them up. In general, raising the skill levels to 6 already provides enough of a boost to Avenger of Shinjuku, but Masters who are sure they can get a lot of mileage out of him could go all the way with leveling them. Of these, Monstrous Strength and Fallen Demon are quite central to his identity as an offensive Servant. While the incremental increase from leveling them aren’t particularly outstanding, the reduced cooldown makes him a lot more consistent at dealing damage. One Cloaked in Death is Avenger of Shinjuku’s main utility skill and is often not used as soon as it is off cooldown unlike his other skills, so it can be leveled last.

• Due to Avenger of Shinjuku’s low Star Weight, raising Fallen Demon A+’s level actually provides more consistency to his performance as a Critical Damage Dealer. Furthermore, reducing the cooldown also allows him to do his bursts of damage more frequently.

• A simple but highly necessary skill, Monstrous Strength B should be leveled first as it is Avenger of Shinjuku’s main steroid. In general, popping this skill before doing a Critical Brave Chain or using a Noble Phantasm is recommended, but thanks to its decent uptime, using it whenever it is off cooldown will still provide worthwhile benefits to Avenger of Shinjuku’s performance.

• Leveling One Cloaked in Death A will raise the potency of its Attack and Death Resistance debuff. While Death Resistance is irrelevant most of the time, Attack debuffs can help improve a team’s overall survivability against bosses. However, the duration of this debuff is only one-turn, reducing its value significantly in most extended battles. The reduced cooldown for buff clearance is good, but not enough to propel this skill ahead of his other two skills in terms of importance.

Avenger of Shinjuku benefits the most from Starting NP Gauge, Critical Damage Up, NP Damage Up, Star Gathering and Quick Card Performance Up from Craft Essences. Furthermore, due to his Avenger class high attack modifier, Craft Essences that grant pure Attack instead of HP will have better effectiveness. Notable examples of strong Craft Essences for Avenger of Shinjuku include:

• Kaleidoscope / The Imaginary Element: Avenger of Shinjuku’s damage primarily comes from his Noble Phantasm. Having earlier access to his Noble Phantasm is generally preferable in shorter battles, such as against a Berserker boss whose damage output may pose a problem if left alive for too long.

• Holy Night Supper / Knights of Marines / Golden Sumo: Boulder Tournament: These Craft Essences provide not only Starting NP gauge for Avenger of Shinjuku, but they also boost a relevant stat that improves Avenger of Shinjuku’s general offensive performance.

• The Black Grail / Heaven’s Feel / Dumpling Over Flowers: Black Grail is the bread and butter Craft Essence for heavy burst, providing both amazing Attack stats and an absurdly powerful boost to his Noble Phantasm. Heaven’s Feel is a decent substitute, but provides a bit less of both.

• Conversation on the Hot Sands / Teacher and I / Seal Designation Enforcer / Room Guard: These Craft Essences are for teams that can supply both Critical Stars and Critical Damage boosts to Avenger of Shinjuku (such as Servants like Hans or Zhuge Liang with Fragment of 2030). They help Avenger of Shinjuku maintain a decently high level of Star Weight to make use of his massive Attack stats.

• Imaginary Around / Dangerous Beast : Quick Card Performance buffs are highly effective on Avenger of Shinjuku as he relies on his Quick cards and Quick Noble Phantasm for almost everything he is required to do.