Oda Nobunaga (Berserker)

"I am the beach’s Demon King of the Sixth Heaven! That’s right, Nobunaga THE Rock’n’roll!” 

Oda Nobunaga’s Berserker form shows her unleashing a fragment of her Demon King of the Sixth Heaven's power, setting her on fire and turning her into a blazing rock star. This Nobu is a flexible ST Buster Berserker who has a wide range of valuable tools, from good NP gain, to party support, to survival options, to strong NP damage against Divine enemies.

Summer Nobu is a triple-Buster Berserker with easy critical attack access thanks to Atsumori Beat and Demon King on the Beach. With her ST NP factored in, her damage output is both quite high and stable, especially when Nobu is properly supported. Additionally, she’s more resilient than a typical Berserker due to the combination of Atsumori Beat’s passive healing and the Evasion effect on Fool's Tactic. Her most distinctive trait, though, is her unusually high effective NP gain relative to her deck, as Nobu’s high Buster card hit counts allow her to generate NP gauge with Arts-led Buster cards.

Unfortunately, while Nobu’s NP’s damage ceiling is high, two of her three damage boosts are situational, and the burning field Attack buff especially only rarely takes effect, which hinders her burst damage potential. Additionally, the damage boosts that apply to her normal attacks are rather limited, which means she will need support in order for her reliable critical attacks to really shine.

As a whole, Nobu is a powerful damage-dealer, especially in standard double-Caster team setups. Properly-built Nobu teams can clear most hard content without much difficulty, especially (but not exclusively) if the enemies are Divine. In short, Summer Nobu rocks.

Gameplay Tip

Nobu is one of the few Servants with high hit counts on her Buster attacks and high NP generation per hit. Thus, much like Scathach and Chacha, she can generate NP pretty well via her Buster cards.

Masters can force normal Buster cards to generate NP by starting an attack chain with an Arts card. In addition, any Arts-led brave chain will generate a significant sum of NP Gauge for Nobu as her Extra card is no slouch either.

High Sustained Damage

Between her high hit counts and critical-related skills, Nobu can easily fuel her own critical attacks every four turns at minimum. Her buffs (when she has access to them) are long-lasting, and she has an ST Buster NP that deals bonus damage to Divine enemies. Nobu’s sustained damage output is quite high, and she is remarkably easy to enable and use.

Resilience and Utility

While most Berserkers focus heavily on damage, Nobu brings a mix of survival tools and utility that help keep her and her team more stable. Fool's Tactic allows Nobu to protect herself for a turn, while Atsumori Beat restores health to Nobu and her allies while also generating critical stars and helping the whole team gain access to their NPs faster. Nobu also has the ability to pierce Evasion buffs using Demon King on the Beach

Reliable NP Gain

While Nobu’s base Quick and Arts card NP gain is a bit low relative to the average Berserker deck, the combination of her unusual hit-count spread, her passive NP gain, and her critical attack access allows her to build access to her NP more often than many comparable servants.

Situational High NP Damage

In an ideal situation, Nobu has access to two innate damage boosts and gets bonus NP damage versus Divine enemies. Unfortunately, the attack boost on Demon King on the Beach very rarely takes effect, and Nobu’s NP damage against non-Divine enemies is unimpressive relative to the other ST Berserkers.

Low Innate Normal Attack Damage

As the attack buff on Demon King on the Beach will only rarely apply, Nobu typically only has Madness Enhancement and Fool's Tactic to help boost her normal attacks. Her critical attack access allows her to reach high levels of damage when properly supported, but on her own she falls behind many other Berserkers.

Trade-off between Normal Attack Damage and NP Gain

While Nobu has the ability to fill her NP gauge using her Buster cards, this requires starting an attack chain with an Arts card, which reduces the overall damage from each attack. This will result in situations where masters are forced to choose between short-term damage in the form of stronger normal attacks and long-term damage in the form of more frequent NPs.

Nobu’s skills offer a range of valuable effects and all three skills are good, so ideally her skills should be leveled concurrently. The improved skill effectiveness and cooldown reduction granted by higher skill levels are particularly important for Nobu’s sustained-oriented playstyle.

• Fool's Tactic A doubles as Nobu’s primary survival tool and her most reliable damage buff. Having to choose between survival and damage is often an annoyance, but in Nobu’s case the skill often works well anyway. After all, Nobu’s sustained damage potential means she can usually make good use of the Buster buff, regardless of when she needs the Evasion effect. While this skill is valuable, it gains less from levels than Nobu’s other skills do and should be saved for last.

• Atsumori Beat B is notable for having the same set of effects as Garden of Avalon, albeit at different effect levels. Providing stars is valuable in itself, but the skill also helps Nobu and her allies to use their NPs more frequently, and the passive HP regeneration amounts to a sizable level of healing over the course of its uptime. There is no team that does not appreciate the effects of this skill, and it should be leveled first.

• Demon King on the Beach A- is a Star Gathering buff on a fairly short cooldown, and the skill should be leveled second so that Nobu is able to make use of it as often as possible. The secondary effects are nice when they happen to apply, but the main draw of this skill is the Star Gathering buff, as critical attack access on a Berserker is exceptionally valuable.

Nobu is lacking for strong innate direct damage buffs, but she has the other tools she needs to set up powerful damage turns. With CEs and support Servants to cover her direct damage buff needs, Nobu becomes a highly effective Servant. As such, CEs that provide Attack Up, NP Damage Up, or Critical Attack Damage Up are particularly valuable. Against Divine enemies, CEs that provide Special Attack [Divine] pair well (multiplicatively) with Nobu’s innate Anti-Divine NP and allow her to reach especially high levels of damage. In some situations, particularly those where rapid damage output is necessary, Starting NP Gauge may be more valuable in order to allow Nobu to use her NP immediately.

• Golden Sumo: Boulder Tournament: Aside from the rare occasions where Nobu is on a Burning Field, the Attack boost on this CE stacks multiplicatively with Nobu’s damage boosts for higher damage across-the-board.

• The Black Grail / Holy Night Supper / Cute Orangette: NP Damage buffs allow Nobu to output exceptionally high NP damage on a regular basis, especially against Divine enemies. Her strong innate NP gain relative to her deck type makes these CEs strong picks, and Cute Orangette in particular pushes Nobu’s NP gain further.

• Victor of the Moon / Joint Recital / Hot Spring Under the Moon: Nobu has easy critical attack access but no Critical Damage buff. These CEs solve that issue and give her strong sustained critical attack damage.

• Fondant au Chocolat / Versus: These CEs allow Nobu to deal unusually high damage to Divine enemies with both her NP and her normal attacks, largely solving her base damage issues.

• Kaleidoscope / The Imaginary Element: Starting NP Gauge CEs allow Nobu to quickly gain access to her NP in order to eliminate a dangerous enemy or to wipe a break bar early in a fight. As with NP Damage Up CEs, these are most effective against Divine enemies, where Nobu’s NP damage is highest.