Habetrot

“Brides are splendid! Aren’t they just dazzling and soft, like a beautiful flower, or a radiant bird? There’s no reason not to like ‘em!”

This Servant profile is supposed to talk about Habetrot, but she can be a little hard to see. Just look down, and you’ll see her flying around in her airplane, ready to bust the enemy open as an AoE Arts Damage Dealer / Sacrifice Servant. But it’s not to worry, she’ll still let you summon her for free!

Habetrot has two main uses. The first is as a looping Arts Servant. With her massive charge and Arts boost on Quick Spinning B, she can easily fill her NP bar and loop against most classes when supported with double Castoria. The second use she has is as a fire-and-die Servant, capable of unleashing her Noble Phantasm and then killing herself in favor of another Servant, thanks to her Protector of Brides EX skill. She’s also a fairly good support Servant for female allies, capable of healing them with Weaving Thread of Fortune A and offering them further heals per turn and invincibility with Protector of Brides.

This little fae does have a few issues. For one, she’s on the lower side of damage, being freely available and only having one skill’s worth of damage boosts. For another, she’s rather squishy and will be hard to keep on the field if she’s hit. It should also be mentioned that it takes a good amount of time and effort to summon enough copies of her, so she may be locked out to Masters without significant amounts of Friend Points and time.

Despite her size, Habetrot makes sure to be a versatile component of any Master’s team, serving in multiple potential capacities. Just don’t be mean to brides around her!

AoE Arts Looping

Habetrot is among the premiere Arts loopers thanks to her 80% charge. This allows her to potentially loop even against nodes without 3 enemies per wave while using a Black Grail, dealing significant damage. In a double Castoria and Oberon setup, she can potentially loop on 1-1-x type nodes depending on if she can refund 30% on either of the first two waves. 

Dying

Habetrot’s third skill allows her to die after any turn. This can allow her to serve as a Servant similar to Arash, charging up herself, clearing a wave, and then getting out of the way. Thanks to her high charge, she is capable of using a Black Grail and dying, unlike Arash, as she can have her Append 2 skill at max and use the 80% charge. Even without it, using her to clear a wave allows other Servants to use a Black Grail when they otherwise would not be able to due to charging issues.

Support

Habetrot has all the benefits of a support Servant. To all Servants, she offers a general heal and debuff immunity. Further, she is willing to drop a good pool of stars off her Noble Phantasm for Servants in later waves, while gladly passing on the Stars herself with a Star Gather rate down buff on herself. Yet to Females she can offer even more, including Guts, Invincibility, and Healing per turn. She’s a huge support for her allies, especially in situations where she sacrifices herself.

Low Damage

Habetrot only has her a small Arts damage boost on her second skill and a NP damage boost on her Noble Phantasm. Compared to other Rider loopers she does not offer anywhere near the damage. She does benefit from the Black Grail if she can use it, but so can many other Riders. It should be mentioned that in a setup with two Castorias and an Oberon she gains a ton of damage on Wave 3 as most of her damage boosts will be from NP Damage up.

Low Durability

Habetrot’s third skill kills her. That should be enough to talk about her durability, but there are other issues in her kit. Her HP is on the lower end of things, and she has no real hard damage resists. Even her third skill which offers invulnerability for a turn will prove to be useless as she’ll still kill herself and revive with minimal HP. To make matters worse, her second skill damages her upon use. She isn’t going to stay long on the field if she takes damage from enemies.

Annoying Acquisition

Habetrot is one of the few 4-star Servants available in the Friend Point summoning pool, and is only added there after finishing Chapter 6. Her summon rate is 0.05% estimated, meaning a Master will need to spend about 400,000 Friend points per copy. This is not easy to acquire outside of lotteries, so many Masters will be stuck with her at lower NP levels and no way to acquire more copies. Further, she really starts shining with her second append unlocked, which is only possible with at least 2 copies or incredibly high bond levels.

Party Cost

Unlike her most standard comparison in Arash, she costs a full 12 points to the party. Because of this, a party cannot have all four of Oberon, two mainline 5-star Caster buffers, full 5-star CE slotted, and a 5-star Servant available after her death.

Despite having three skills, it is rare for a Master to use all three of them. In all cases, Masters will want to use her second skill in combination with a maxed Append Skill 2 to get her a full gauge on the first turn. Her third skill is typically used to kill her, bringing in another Servant after she has expended her gauge. It is suggested to cast her third skill on the same turn as she casts her NP for that purpose. While her first skill gives a small heal, it’s typically just ignored. 

• Weaving Thread of Fortune A is primarily a support skill, used to heal a Servant, give them debuff immune, and increase their star drop rate. This skill is typically not useful unless wanting to use Habetrot in a support role, and even then there are often better options. This skill should be leveled last and can be effectively ignored.
• Quick Spinning B is what gives Habetrot her true power. Besides being a small steroid, it enables her to fully charge her NP bar so long as she began with her Append Skill 2 maxed. Masters typically use this wave 1 if she is to be sacrificed, wave 2 if running with a double Castoria and a Fragment of 2004 setup, and wave 3 if running double Castoria and Oberon looping. This does come with a damaging demerit so this should be avoided if expecting to take damage after. This skill should be leveled first and to the max, to the point where it is almost a requirement to use her.  
• Protector of Brides EX is Habetrot’s primary skill for sacrificing herself. It can be used on any ally to apply the sacrifice to Habetrot, but if used on a female ally it will give them a few buffs. For one, it will give them invincibility and a sizable Guts for a few turns, and also heal them each turn thereafter. Its usage to cleanse damage over time debuffs is rare but can be helpful in some challenge quests. That said, Habetrot practically always just uses this skill to kill herself, and she can do that from level 1. This skill can be ignored for leveling purposes.

Habetrot is able to loop almost all nodes, but has issues with damage, so a NP Damage Up CE is often her best bet. She can also use her death to help other Servants, with On-Death Buff CEs. Masters wanting to use Oberon, double Caster buffers, and a 5-star Servant after Habetrot should look to using Low-cost NP Damage Up CEs to support party cost.

• The Black Grail: With low general damage, a Black Grail can raise Habetrot’s damage significantly. Its raw attack power is a welcome addition, and if using Oberon will see Habetrot’s damage effectively tripled.  
• The Merciless One / Battle of Camlann: If using Habetrot to die, why not get something out of it? Both these CEs offer the rest of the party an increased gauge, and Battle of Camlann is 3-star cost so would enable a full 5-star composition behind her.
• Dragonkin / Ryudoji Temple: If party cost is an issue, lowering the NP damage CE from a Black grail to a 3-star lesser version will enable the rest of the party to use 5-star CEs and be composed of 5-stars and Mash, for 113 party cost. Dragonkind is the stronger CE, but Ryudoji Temple does allow her to use her NP turn one without needing an append skill.