Barghest

“The weak obey the strong, is that clear?!”

It is time to put social evolution to the test, with only the fittest surviving! Barghest has come to show just who is the strongest and who is to be subservient! With a kit leaning equally to offense and defense, along with an AoE Buster Noble Phantasm, Barghest will be looking to put on the hurt to an unsuspecting foe.

True to the thick armor her first ascension wears, Barghest is a sturdy Servant who will not go down easily. By a combination of a damage cut on Foul Weather A and the feasting buff on Wild Rule A which heals her every hit and removes buffs, it’s hard to make lasting damage on Barghest. She also has significant ability to do sustained damage thanks to her triple Buster deck coupled with Madness Enhancement A+. Surprisingly, she can also offer fairly good support thanks to Foul Weather A’s party NP charge.

Unfortunately for someone who’s all about being the strongest, her burst damage is fairly weak. With a low Attack stat, even her Numeral of the Saint’s attack bonus and Wild Rule’s Buster bonus don’t add up to enough to overcome some Servants a master could summon for free. That is, unless it’s on a sunny field. She also has poor NP gain, stuck with only a single Arts card on a fairly mediocre NP gain stat. In the Critical department, she is quite lacking, making her triple Buster deck have much less effect than it should.

Barghest, despite her love of being strong, simply is not that strong. She will take a few hits for her Master, but in terms of Attack there tend to be better options. But maybe if it’s a sunny day she would see some use!

Survivability

Barghest has a massive HP stat, along with a damage cut on her third skill. Most notably, her second skill gives her a 3-turn buff which will give her a large heal every turn. In effect, this can turn into a 5,000 HP heal every 6 turns. Not to mention, every time she casts her Noble Phantasm, she will get an extra 3,000 HP to her already large pool. Aside from a large burst of damage such as from an enemy NP, it will be hard to bring her down. 

Good Sustained Damage

Barghest’s triple Buster deck will allow for a number of Buster chains, dishing out serious bonus damage to the enemy. As her skills last 3-turns on short cooldowns, and the fact that her Noble Phantasm lowers cooldowns every time it is cast, she will have no issue with keeping the enemy’s HP from falling. 

Support

Barghest is willing to contribute to the party, providing a sizable 15% charge per turn, along with sharing her defense boosts on her third skill. These extra boosts can allow for multiple Noble Phantasms across the party with more damage-oriented CEs.

Low Burst Damage

While Barghest has fairly good buffs, primarily in Buster performance with a little in Attack, there is simply no overcoming her low base Attack power. Almost all her stats are placed in HP, meaning her Noble Phantasm struggles to keep up with the damage of other Servants. As an AoE Servant, this makes her hard to use for farming of any sort. 

Poor NP Gain

Like her Gawain counterpart, Barghest has a triple-Buster deck. While this sometimes can work, for Barghest it hurts her thanks to her standard NP-gain stat. With standard Quick and Extra card hit counts, she’s not going to charge her bar in a hurry, and can only rely on supports and the 15% tick per turn to get her gauge up.

Poor Critical Performance

The biggest benefit of a triple Buster is Critical Damage potential, and Barghest does not have it. She has no Critical damage skills, or any skills related to Critical Stars, and her low Attack means whenever she does get a Critical it will be for standard damage.

Barghest’s skills primarily revolve around defense, with Wild Rule and Foul Weather working in tandem to both reduce incoming damage and heal the damage which is taken. On the attack side of things, Numeral of the Saint and Wild Rule work together to boost damage. As all skills last 3 turns, there is no worry about when to pop each. However, Barghest suffers from low scaling, making most of her skills optional to level.

• Numeral of the Saint B primarily provides Barghest a decent attack steroid. It is also where she gets her niche, gaining bonus damage on Sunlit fields (pretty much any daytime field outdoors). Unfortunately, these fields are hard to control for so it is not always reliable. It should be noted that if running with a Double Koyanskaya, Barghest can cast this skill 2 turns in a row and further boost her damage, turning her into a fairly decent damage dealer. This skill only scales Sunlit Buster buff with levels, and rather poorly at that, so can be left at low level unless using a Double Koyanskaya and desiring to take advantage of cooldown reduction. Either way, it should be leveled last. 
• Wild Rule A is what primarily makes Barghest so hard to kill, giving a 1000 HP heal every time she attacks. It also is capable of removing buffs from enemies, so while that invincibility buff may be annoying for one hit, if it can be removed, it will be gone for subsequent hits. To make matters better, if that does happen she’ll get a slight Defense down debuff on the enemy and amplify her damage! This skill is typically used for defensive purposes, but it does come with a nice Buster buff as well. This should be leveled first, and could be leveled to max if using a double Koyanskaya to get a second cast on turn 3. 
• Foul Weather A is a further boost to the overall defense of the team. But more importantly, it serves as a significant NP gauge boost for the party. When combined with Servants with charge or charge per turn as is often the case with sabers, this can allow for repeated NPs from the the other Servants in the party. However, most of the time there is very little difference between 10% and 15%, so it may not be worth leveling this charge if lacking materials. If a Master were to level it, level it to max and second. 

In order to get Barghest to effectively farm a node, she is going to need to cast her Noble Phantasm on turns 1 and 3, have 70% in excess charge available, and run with another damaging Servant. A Starting NP Gauge CE will help her with that. Alternatively, if a Master wants to use her Noble Phantasm frequently, a NP Gauge per Turn CE can also help. If a Master wants to focus on defense, either a Defense Up or Healing Up CE would help immensely.

• Kaleidoscope / The Imaginary Element / Dragon’s Meridian: By boosting a starting NP gauge, Barghest can unleash her NP fast, not only taking advantage of its damage but also its cooldown reduction. 
• Prisma Cosmos: Barghest already charges 15% Noble Phantasm gauge per turn. By adding an additional 10%, she can make up for her relatively low natural gain. 
• Under the Sun / Threefold Barrier / Iron-Willed Training: Barghest can benefit by having a hard evasion in their arsenal, or further reducing damage. Besides, this finally gives a reason to use the Kirei Abs CE which always comes with 10-rolls in the game. 
• Maid in Halloween / Present for my Master / The Scholars of Chaldea / Extremely Spicy Mapo Tofu: Maid in Halloween is practically broken on Barghest. By providing a 75% increase to healing, Barghest’s 2nd skill can heal 8750 HP in 3 turns in typical team play, or almost two thirds her entire bar. In a solo setting, this results in a 5250 HP heal every turn. It makes her near unkillable. Without that CE, there are other options which help Barghest with issues with start absorb and NP gauge. Or, of course, Masters can use their 100 summons of Extremely Spicy Mapo Tofu to increase healing to Barghest for low cost.