Yang Guifei

“Hi! I'm Yuuyuu the Foreigner! Please let me stay by your side for maaaaaany years…”

Everyone loves Yang Guifei, to the point that she accidentally led to the end of the Tang Dynasty. Oopsie-daisy! As a Single Target Arts damage dealer, Yang primarily serves as a stalwart option for longer fights who becomes more dangerous as the fight goes on.

Yang’s primary role in a team is for longer fights. With Favors of Three Thousand Concentrated to One she will draw a male enemy’s attention to her while avoiding damage with an invincibility. With Sun of a Malignant Star she will then both burn them and apply a defense down with every time she’s hit. Then with Ruinous Beauty she will take the enemy’s charge and deal supereffective damage with her Noble Phantasm, Rainbow Feathered Robe, Vow of Eternal Love.

While this setup can create some truly powerful damage, it isn’t without its flaws. For one, Yang on the first turn of a wave is a very weak option as she needs setup. She also has generally low utility, serving best on Berserker and Foreigner bosses. Lastly, against frequently debuff immune bosses, she loses all usage.

Guifei is the true mistress of burn, and against Berserker bosses will become a mainstay. Masters will love her just as much as she loves the emperor. 

High Supereffective Damage

Many Servants in the game require specific enemy types in order to use their supereffective Noble Phantasms. At release, Guifei will be no different as her taunt only attracts male enemies. However, after her first Rank Up quest, she will be able to attract all enemy hits and inflict maximum stacks of her third skill’s Living Flame skill (10% defense down per hit) along with the requisite burn to apply supereffective damage to enemies. This damage can be among the highest in the game against traitless enemies.

Taunt

Yang’s first skill gives her a taunt turn with a tied-in invincibility. Not only does this take pressure off the rest of her supports on the team from likely Berserker damage, but it also helps with her NP gain. As mentioned before, the taunt in combination with her Living Flame buff also inflicts serious debuffs which leave the enemy particularly susceptible to her Noble Phantasm.

Sturdy

The combination of the invincibility on Yang’s first skill plus the defense up on her third lead to Yang being a nice damage sponge. Her classing as a Foreigner also means she will rarely ever take double damage from enemies, and she has a decent enough HP pool. 

Multi-Turn Requirement

Unless a Master is running a servant like Caster Liz as a support, Yang will not be able to use her Noble Phantasm to supereffective levels on the first turn due to the requirement of a burn debuff on the enemy. Even if she were to have a Caster Liz to inflict a burn via a skill against enemies, she would be lacking the benefits of defense downs from Sun of a Malignant Star and produce worse damage. She shines on turn 2 of a boss wave, while not so much on turn 1.

Low Utility

As a Foreigner, Yang’s primary advantage comes against Berserker type bosses. But even then she is looking for a single target enemy, making her moments to truly shine a rarity. 

Debuff Immunity Ruins Her

Yang needs to inflict her debuffs on enemies or she loses her supereffective modifier. Without the supereffective modifier, her Noble Phantasm is rather low damage and not worth the stress of raising her bar. As a result, an enemy who is debuff immune practically eliminates her from consideration.

When a Master uses Yang, they will want to use her first skill and third skill on turn 1 to draw enemy attention to her and inflict burn and defense down debuffs on the enemy, and then her second skill to charge her Noble Phantasm and fire. As far as offensive benefits go, only her second skill scales to improve her damage, while the others scale primarily to decrease cooldown.

• Favors of Three Thousand Concentrated to One A gives Yang a 10% charge every turn along with drawing the attention of enemy males and invincibility. Masters use this in tandem with her third skill to inflict debuffs and protect her allies. This skill also provides critical stars, but these usually wind up being useless for most applications of Yang. This can be leveled second to level 6 to reduce cooldown if Masters are low on materials. 
• Ruinous Beauty A is Yang’s primary charge and fire skill. While it potentially could charge up to 60% of her gauge against a 3-enemy wave on turn 2, it’s more likely she’ll be using this against boss enemies and charge 20%. This skill charges her gauge based on whether the enemy has a charge tick or not, so should never be used on turn 1 of a wave (unless by effects, the enemy starts with a charged NP bar). It also provides a significant defense down for enemies. This should be leveled first to max to take advantage of the charge skill.
• Sun of a Malignant Star A works in tandem with Yang’s first skill, applying burn and defense down debuffs any time she is attacked. This skill primarily scales her defense and burn damage which wind up being trivial, so it should be leveled last to level 6 for a cooldown reduction. 

Yang as a damage dealer is looking to increase her Noble Phantasm as quickly as possible to deal as much damage as possible. Due to her Overcharge ability directly increasing the Burn supereffective multiplier, Mixed Starting NP Gauge / Overcharge CEs are her best option. If this is not available, she can do well with Mixed Starting NP Gauge / Damage CEs or Starting NP Gauge CEs like standard damage dealers. With appropriate support, a NP Damage Up CE can also help her deal massive damage.

• Devilish Bodhisattva: Yang’s overcharge effect is to deal supereffective damage against enemies with a burn debuff. This CE increases that overcharge by 2, essentially allowing her to do 16% more damage compared to without it regardless of what buffs she has. Not only this, but at MLB it gives her a 60% starting gauge. If used properly she will gain 10% gauge turn 1 (skill 1), 9% gauge minimum from 3 enemy hits with her taunt, and 20% gauge turn 2 (skill 2). This gives her a guaranteed Noble Phantasm turn 2 regardless of support.
• Holy Night Supper / Golden Sumo: Bolder Tournament / Painting Summer: All other CEs of Mixed status do not give the guaranteed 100% without support. They do increase her damage compared to none at all, but only Holy Night Supper is capable of dealing more damage than Demonic Bodhisattva’s supereffective bonus. 
• Kaleidoscope / The Imaginary Element / Dragon’s Meridian: A fast Noble Phantasm is always an option for a damage dealer, and would allow Yang to potentially release her Noble Phantasm turn 1 if she has a burn supporter. 
• The Black Grail: If Yang has support, her damage potential multiplies exponentially with usage of The Black Grail. One would still use her in the same way aiming for a turn 2 Noble Phantasm, but use support to the rest of her gauge.