Anastasia & Viy (Archer)

“GODDAMN HOT!”

Tired of the summer always being so GODDAMN HOT, Anastasia decided that she herself would instead become GODDAMN HOT. With one of the prettiest fourth ascension artworks in the game, Anastasia and Viy serve as a powerful Single Target Arts Damage Dealer capable of bringing down powerful bosses.

Anastasia and Viy are incredibly powerful in the damage department. When combining the Arts bonus of Shwipsig (Summer), the Arts resist down on her Noble Phantasm Snegleto Snegurochka, and her Noble Phantasm damage up of Accelerated Viy Viy Viy, she can easily hit the upper damage tiers for her class. In addition, she has great refund with her cards, already boosted by her skills, along with her 50% charge on Shwipsig (Summer). To make matters better, she has strong critical potential, capable of not only gathering and boosting damage of Stars with Accelerated Viy Viy Viy, but she can also create her own stars with a starbomb skill, Freezing Summer Time A.

Despite these powers, Anastasia and Viy have some crippling weaknesses. For one, the cooldown of her first skill is incredibly long, which can pose a problem for a Challenge Quest or Boss fight. In addition, outside of the starbomb turn, she will struggle to generate stars she can actually use with her third skill. Her invincible skill is also unfortunately tied to her starbomb, so in extended fights it can cause linking issues.

Typically Masters want Anastasia and Viy as a 50% Charge Arts Servant to kill bosses, especially if they missed out on earlier free Servants who do similar. Those with older free welfares may only benefit if Anastasia and Viy are at higher NP levels. However, all Masters should still roll for her because her fourth ascension art is just too GODDAMN HOT!

Damage

Anastasia benefits from having both Arts up and NP Damage up skills in her kit, stacking easily with each other. As most Masters will use Caster Altria to support her, this NP Damage up is crucial for multiplicative stacking with Caster Altria’s Arts and Attack bonuses. What sets her apart from earlier welfares is how her skills last for three turns, giving her excellent sustain for traditional 3-turn fights. As for burst, due to her NP Damage bonus, she benefits especially well from Oberon for the final turn of a fight, hitting higher damage caps than she’d otherwise have. 

Good Refund

While Anastasia and Viy’s card hit counts are not too great, they are sufficient for generating gauge off of bosses after a Noble Phantasm. Boosting this is also her ability to absorb critical stars on her Arts card on her third skill, which will offer a larger refund every time with successful crits. Of course, the 50% charge on her first skill has to be talked about too as an excellent way for her to get Noble Phantasm gauge!

Critical Potential

With her third skill and passive, Anastasia can effectively boost her Critical damage by 40% over 3-turns. While not the god-tier Criticals of other Servants, these can help with a sustained fight. As her third skill has a low cooldown, this skill can almost always be up at all times.  

Cooldown

As a single target damage dealer, Anastasia and Viy often are used in boss fights which last more than 3 turns. However, her first skill’s cooldown is a whopping 7 turns at max level. Which the charge itself could be worked around, this also is tied into her Arts up skill, making it hard to ignore. 

Star Generation

Anastasia typically will struggle to get any stars in her typical setups, having low hit-count Quick cards, a low star generation rate, and only one skill capable of dropping stars for her. This will make it hard for her to gather stars for her third skill.

Tied Skills

As mentioned before, since Anastasia’s Arts and charge skills are tied together, they are typically only used on the first turn of a battle, making it harder to choose what support charges to use where. Further, she tends to be used against Saber bosses who will use a Noble Phantasm every five turns. Her invincibility thankfully has a five-turn cooldown, so she can pop it every time if they don’t have a charge, but in doing so she will lose access to her star bomb on demand.

Anastasia and Viy’s kit is primarily designed to get a large burst of damage over the first couple of turns. Most Masters will pop her first and third skill immediately to take advantage of their damage boosts to her Noble Phantasm. Her second skill is situational as described below. All skills benefit from max level for various reasons, but Masters should definitively prioritize her first skill above all.

• Shwipsig (Summer) B is Anastasia and Viy’s primary damage boost, giving a massive 50% NP charge while also boosting her Arts card effectiveness for three turns. This is a relatively simple skill that Masters want to take advantage of as soon as possible for the fight. This should always be leveled first and to max to take advantage of the full 50% charge. 
• Freezing Summer Time A gives buff removal resistance, which is rarely relevant, along with invincibility for a turn and a large 20-star drop at max. This skill’s usage depends on the fight strategy. If a Master is looking to cast Anastasia and Viy’s invincibility any time an enemy uses a Noble Phantasm, this skill is one which should be saved only for that turn. However, if a Master is looking to finish a boss fight quickly, they should pop this on the turn Anastasia and Viy’s Arts card(s) appears to generate better refund after the Noble Phantasm. In a typical Castoria - Castoria - Oberon support setup, she will just barely miss being able to cast three Noble Phantasms in three turns, so will need just a bit more refund from her cards to make it work. This can be left to last, but it should be leveled to max if planning to time her invincibilities with the enemy’s Noble Phantasms due to cooldown. 
• Accelerated Viy Viy Viy B is a skill with an incredibly descriptive name. It also is a skill with a spectrum of effects including Sure Hit, NP damage up, as well as boosting Critical Star Gather (Arts) and Critical Damage effects, all for three turns. Most notably, this skill has a short 4-turn cooldown at max, so can almost always be up during a fight. Masters cast this skill first to make Anastasia and Viy just generally perform better throughout the fight. Level this second, and to max to take advantage of the 4-turn cooldown. 

Anastasia and Viy is a typical damage dealer, so she benefits primarily from damage dealing Craft Essences. If a Master is looking for the biggest damage numbers at risking bad luck, a NP Damage Up craft essence is the way to go. A Master who is all right with smaller damage numbers for more guarantee does much better with a Mixed Starting NP Gauge / Damage CE. If lacking supports, Masters will likely want to go with a Starting NP Gauge CE alone to get at least two Noble Phantasms out of her.

• The Black Grail: Anastasia and Viy are just a tiny bit short of being able to truly loop 3 Noble Phantasms in with this. In a double Castoria + Oberon setup, a Master will want to have her Append 2 unlocked and use her self-charge and both Castoria 20%s on Anastasia and Viy turn 1 (to 110%). This will generate 30% refund. As the Castorias can provide 60% and Oberon 70% (50% of which should be left for W3), she will be missing about 10% charge. So Masters are risking not having an Arts card available W1 or W2 (or 2 Quick cards in one wave) and failing to loop by running this. However, it is by far the best damage. 
• Holy Night Supper / Golden Sumo: Boulder Tournament / Ocean Flyer: However, the demerits of The Black Grail go away by simply giving Anastasia a starting charge. She benefits the most from mixed CEs with NP damage, especially if Oberon is in the mix, and the least from Arts bonuses. 
• Kaleidoscope / The Imaginary Element / Dragon’s Meridian: If a Master does not have the proper supports, they will not likely be able to get Anastasia to cast three straight turns of Noble Phantasms. So instead they should aim for two, using her abilities and support to generate the NP gauge required for it.