Amor (Caren)

“Seeing happy, healthy people makes me want to vomit.”

One day, Caren became bored with her job as an elementary school nurse since nobody came in half-dead, so she decided to kill people herself. As an AoE Quick Ruler she serves this role well to become one of the forefront loopers in the game.

Caren’s kit is surprisingly strong both for farming and in more challenging quests. In farming, she is an exceptional looper, being only one of the few capable of unleashing three Noble Phantasms in a row with two Skadis and any MC she desires. She is also the first Servant capable of Quick Looping with a Black Grail. Outside of looping in regards to farming, she has two on-demand self charges in Golden Arrow A and Mana Burst (Love) A, as well as a three turn NP gauge leech, making her refund potential off the charts. She also carries extreme durability in the form of a three-hit three-turn invincibility on Shroud of Valentinus A along with an innate Class resistance to all classes save Berserker and Extra classes. On top of that, she can even negate an entire enemy Noble Phantasm by using that skill. On top of that, she has a nullify buff effect on her Noble Phantasm which can erase some of the trickier buffs enemies get in Challenge Quests.

Her main shortfall is that while she is great at looping, she doesn’t do much damage to go with it. As a result of her being a Ruler class and there very rarely being Moon Cancers in the game, she often stands as a tank as opposed to a machine gun. She also requires very specific setups to work at her best, making her much weaker for Masters without specific Servants.

Caren may hate children and confuse a stroke with dizziness, but she knows how to apply the hurt time and time again. Just don’t ask her for a bandaid or she’ll give you the entire first aid kit!

Caren has two primary ways of looping aside from the traditional MLB KScope Skadi/Skadi and plugsuit Altria/Waver. 

1. Use two Skadis with at least 20% starting gauge. By popping Caren’s Shroud of Valentine, she will leech 10% from each of them per turn for 20% total. Added together with a 50% charge from Skadi and a 20% self-charge, she needs 10% total refund to loop (which is possible against almost all enemies).
2. On most Caster waves and some Rider waves, Caren can run a Black Grail using Caster Altria and Two Skadis. Have the two Skadis on the front line, and use their Quick skills and one of their charges on her. Swap this Skadi out for Caster Altria, who provides the 30% AoE charge and 20% targetable of Caren. This will provide her leeching skill, and should refund 30% with both Quick buffs, and she’ll leech 20%. Use Caren’s charges turn 2 and Skadi’s charges turn 3 to complete the loop.

Caren’s Passive, Masochistic Spiritualistic Disposition EX gives her a 20% attack bonus if she has a debuff on her. It is often wise to put Anra Mainiiu in the 5th slot of the team as his passive gives a debuff to all members of the team even when he is not on the field, so she can take advantage of her passive ATK buff. Note that her taunt does not count as a debuff.

Looping

Caren’s 5-hit AoE Quick Noble Phantasm gives her decent refund on her Noble Phantasm. Having two self-charges and a 3-turn leech make it so that she can use her refund and two Skadis to release 3 Noble Phantasms with very few exceptions (assuming a Master has an MLB Kaleidoscope, or can start with another 50% charger to charge her up to 50%). She’s also the first Servant who can AoE Quick loop using a Black Grail. 

Durable

Like all Rulers, Caren takes half damage against almost every enemy type. With her high HP base, she’s tough to bring down as is. But when one considers her 3-hit 3-turn invincibility on a moderately short 6-turn cooldown, she becomes hard to touch without specific skills. And when one considers how she can both reduce incoming damage from enemies by 20% and has two NP drains, it’s going to be tough to knock her out.

Strong Support

While Caren’s NP leech seems to be the exact opposite of support, she’s actually a great support for the team capable of boosting their NP gain rates, lowering incoming damage, and taking a 1-turn taunt. Most notably, her Shroud of Valentinus gives an on-demand 1-hit Invincibility to the party, negating the effects of any unbuffed enemy Noble Phantasm which could arrive the next turn. Even better, she can trivialize a Challenge quest via her Noble Phantasm’s nullify block, which will have the enemies use their timed buffs but lose their effects (as opposed to a skill seal which simply delays them for a turn or two).

Low Damage

Caren has very rare situations where she can utilise her class advantage against Moon Cancers (especially in an AoE setting), meaning she is almost always going to be dealing neutral damage. Her skills also do very little for her damage outside of a 20% Quick up and a passive to gain 20% attack up if she is debuffed. Most of her damage boost will come from supports and CEs.

High Bar of Entry

For Caren to work at her best, Masters might need 112 points for their team to use 5 event CEs (which may be SSRs at 12 points a piece),  5 SSR Event CEs (60 points), 3 specific support SSR Servants (48 points), and Angra Mainyu (4 points). The SSR Servants which make her work, Skadi and Altria Caster, are highly limited as well. Without these requirements, she becomes mediocre in scope.

Caren’s skills carry a huge list of effects, but when it comes down to it, they consist of three charges working in different ways. Masters should prioritize skill levelling based on how to best charge her.

• Shroud of Valentinus A is an amazing skill which grants her invincibility for three hits over three turns, and the rest of the party one hit. Even better for her, it will leech 10% NP from every ally on the field for three turns, enabling her looping with lower refunds. Masters will want to use this skill either at the start when looping, or when the enemy is about to use a Noble Phantasm. The NP gain rate for allies in practice is near trivial, and the only thing which scales with leveling. Masters should raise this last because of this, although reaching level 10 is still ultimately desirable to get the 6-turn cooldown. 
• Golden Arrow A is the first of Caren’s two charges, which takes away 1 tick of charge from an enemy, while at the same time giving one to herself. This is a great skill for when multiple enemies are about to unleash Single Target Noble Phantasms, as it provides a 20% attack and defense down debuff on all enemies, and focuses all attacks onto Caren. With a 3-hit invincibility, this negates all enemy Noble Phantasms for the turn (or 2 of them, as 1 will be unable to NP due to the drain). As this skill’s charging is immediately relevant for looping, this skill should always be leveled first and to the max. 
• Mana Burst (Love) A is the second of Caren’s two charge skills, taking away 1 tick of charge from an enemy. This is also her only steroid, providing a 20% Quick up which is for the most part trivial for looping and damage. While it gives 20% card up for Arts and Buster as well, these rarely make any difference. This should be leveled to max, and second as the extra Quick buff is less important than the attack decrease in Golden Arrow, and this skill’s NP charge ceiling is lower.

As Caren is applicable in both farming and challenge quests, Masters will want to use CEs for the situation. When farming, Masters will want to use a Starting NP Gauge CE, potentially with a Mixed Starting Gauge/Damage effect to enable a 3-turn loop. In the case of using her against Casters, Masters may even want to consider NP Damage Up CEs to boost her damage. If using her in a challenge quest, Masters will still want to use her Noble Phantasm as often as possible via NP Regen Per Turn CEs.

• Kaleidoscope / The Imaginary Element / Holy Night Supper / Knights of Marines / Golden Sumo: Boulder Tournament - Caren is a looper, making an MLB Kaleidoscope a must have. Without it, any CE which provides at least a 50% charge will work using a Plugsuit. The best ones are the ones which will increase her damage. NP Gain CEs such as Magical Girl of Sapphire are often wasted on her as she refunds enough without further NP Gain support.
• The Black Grail - Using the Altria and double Skadi strategy against Casters and some Riders, Masters will want the largest boost possible to her Noble Phantasm damage. 
• Prisma Cosmos - In a non-farming situation, Caren will want to use her Noble Phantasm as many times as possible to damage and debuff the enemy with Quick Downs. 10% a turn will add up to far more than a starting gauge in a longer fight.