Assassin of the Nightless City

“If we tell you our true name, you will prostrate yourself before us, unable to do anything else.”

Matching her infamous temperament and lavish personality, the haughty empress Assassin of the Nightless City is a Quick-based damage dealer and support hybrid. An unconventional Assassin, capable of providing a large contribution to the entire team’s damage output, she is also one of the more rare Quick support options.

Assassin of the Nightless City has an aggressive and easy to use skill set, featuring both team support capacity and selfish uses alike. Her Torture Technique and Empress's Charisma provide her teammates with a 40% damage boost against a single enemy, and effectively a 68% boost to their Quick card’s damage. But her own firepower is not to scoff at either as Imperial Privilege can grant her sizable, albeit chance-based, personal Attack and Defense buff. In addition, her two Buster cards and 50%+ Critical Damage steroid from her NP’s Overcharge enable her to continue her conquest after launching her NP. Upon receiving her second Interlude, her NP even gains a significant boost, upgrading its damage to potentially exceed that of higher rarity peers if Imperial Privilege triggers, with a useful debuff removal effect to boot.

On the other hand, she does possess some noticeable weaknesses that can make her hard to accommodate. Her sole means of survival is the healing and chance-based defense buff on Imperial Privilege, and it is generally nowhere near enough to protect her against tough enemy bosses. Furthermore, befitting a high-maintenance empress, Her Highness also demands constant attention from her followers when fielding her to take full advantage of all the steroids she has to offer, being more selfish than her kit implies at first glance. Lastly, she will struggle to use her Noble Phantasm often even though she has slightly above average NP generation stats, a result of her card deck that features but a single Arts card and a weak Extra card.

Overall, Assassin of the Nightless City is not a Servant to overlook. Her Highness’s potent blend of Quick-based support and remarkable personal damage steroids make her a fantastic option to quickly dissolve enemies.

Strong Offensive Support

Torture Technique and Empress's Charisma are both excellent means to improve the team’s damage output, providing a 40% attack bonus to the entire team against a single enemy, as well as a further 20% Quick buff for allies. This combination also has excellent uptime, as both skills last for 3 turns on a 5 turns cooldown. Post-Interlude, her Noble Phantasm also offers a buff removal effect after dealing damage, which is highly useful against enemies with annoying defensive buffs or powerful damage boosts.

Decent Damage Potential

Assassin of the Nightless City possesses enough steroids to partially mitigate the 0.9x Assassin modifiers. Aside from the buffs from both Torture Technique and Empress's Charisma, she also packs a powerful self-buff skill in Imperial Privilege, depending on if Masters win the dice roll. Furthermore, her Noble Phantasm also grants a 3 turn Critical Damage buff that scales with Overcharge level which scales well with her 2 Buster cards.

Powerful (Post-Interlude) Noble Phantasm Damage

Prior to her upgrade, her Noble Phantasm damage is already above average for an Assassin thanks to her plethora of buffs. Thus, it is not a surprise that her post-Interlude Noble Phantasm damage reaches outstanding levels.

No Reliable Survival Tool

Aside from the healing and defense buff from Imperial Privilege, Assassin of the Nightless City does not have any other way to improve her survivability. This is especially noticeable during challenging content, as her chance-based defense buff will not be enough on its own to mitigate a boss’s Noble Phantasm or Critical Hits.

Demands Attention to Fully Utilize

Despite all her team support, Assassin of the Nightless City requires a highly selfish playstyle to actually fully take advantage of all her self-buffs. In addition, even though she is a Quick Assassin, she does not excel at the role of a star generator with her mediocre hit counts and low Active Stargen. Instead, it is she who must be provided with frequent NP charge support and Critical Stars as focussing on her Command Cards will yield relative strong damage results.

Mediocre NP Generation

While her single Arts and 2 Quick Command Cards are decent, her weak Extra card and otherwise only slightly above average NP generation per hit make charging her NP repeatedly difficult. With such a strong Overcharge effect, it is a shame Assassin of the Nightless City can’t use her Noble Phantasm as often as she prefers.  

Assassin of the Nightless City is blessed with three useful and straightforward skills that do not require a lot of forethought in using. Their relatively strong uptime at max level also provides a decent incentive to raise her skill levels concurrently, as they all share the same 7-5 base cooldown. However, as she can be more of a complimenting Servant rather than someone to build the team around, leaving most of her skills at level 6 is already quite sufficient for general use.

• Torture Technique A is a decent supportive skill to raise the party’s damage against bosses. Defense debuffs are additive with any normal Attack buffs, so it will not scale particularly hard with the Attack buff from Empress's Charisma, but it’s a good skill nonetheless. Since it only affects one enemy, this skill is not as spammable as Empress's Charisma for battles that involve many enemies.

• Imperial Privilege B remains a gambling skill, and without the support of someone like Ozymandias, it is unlikely that Masters will reliably trigger both the Defense and Attack Up at the same time. While its values are excellent, its unreliability weakens its effectiveness. The heal amount, however, is quite significant. If Masters use her as the main Assassin, it might be worthwhile to prioritize this skill second.

• Empress's Charisma A is her best skill with excellent values, particularly in a Quick-centric team. Generally, prioritize leveling this skill over the other two skills as both the Attack and Quick Performance up effect scale well with levels.

Thanks to her multi-purpose skill set, Assassin of the Nightless City has a wide array of Craft Essences that cater to both her offensive potential and supporting prowess. As her kit does not offer either Quick Performance Up or NP Damage Up, these modifiers are excellent options to bolster her offensive presence. Starting NP Gauge is also a foolproof choice as she often has trouble getting her Noble Phantasm ready in time during fast-paced battles. Masters who want to use her in a purely supportive role can consider Passive Star Generation to provide additional benefits to the team.

• Kaleidoscope / Imaginary Around: Pure Starting NP Gauge CEs are particularly useful after her second Interlude as she does not need a lot of offensive buffs to deal massive damage at that point.

• Black Grail / Heaven Feel: For the largest damage boost to her kit, look no further than large NP Damage CEs. Post-Interlude, her Noble Phantasm will evaporate most common Rider bosses with relative ease when equipped with these Craft Essences.

• Knights of Marines / Dumpling Over Flowers / Holy Night Supper: Craft Essences that grants her several essential stats at once will provide a fantastic overall boost to her performance.

• Imaginary Around / Gandr: Quick Performance boosts improve not only her damage but also the NP Generation and Star Generation on her Quick cards.

• Fragments of 2030 / Final Destination: Passive Stars Generation Craft Essences are great choices if Assassin of the Nightless City is in a more supportive role.