Carmilla

Ever since the game’s launch, Carmilla has always been one of the more reliable 4-star Assassins. The main reason for this is her NP, which has a built-in ATK up and is extremely effective against female enemies. Thanks to Carmilla’s first skill as well as her good NP gain stats, she is able to spam it rather reliably, allowing her to deal considerable damage consistently, something further boosted by her second skill’s defense down. Her third skill provides additional critical stars for the team and applies a huge critical chance debuff to an enemy, which although situational, is useful against certain Rider enemies such as Dragons.

On the other hand, Carmilla has some limiting weaknesses. Her triple-Quick deck and the Assassin-class' 0.9x damage modifier means her damage can be lacking at times. It is also important to note that although using Carmilla’s NP heals her, she has no other defensive/sustain skills to speak of, which means she would have to rely on external support in that regard. Overall, Carmilla is an extremely versatile offensive Servant with reliable performance.

Good NP Gain

With good NP gain stats and the Vampirism skill, Carmilla is able to refill her NP gauge reliably. This allows her consistent access to her NP’s damage, ATK buff and heal, as well as the Buster first card bonus it provides.

Decent Star Generation

Although Carmilla’s Quick cards only consist of 2 hits, having three of them means that she would be able to produce a passable amount of critical stars. While this doesn’t normally amount to much, when her third skill’s critical star generation effect is active, the amount she is able to produce is decent at the very least.

Strategic Versatility

Carmilla’s NP drain and formidable critical chance debuff (up to 50%) make her a very versatile choice for difficult quests. The latter in particular essentially turns the critical chance rate of any enemy, including bosses, to zero (barring special cases such as heavily critical chance-buffed Spriggans). A lot of Rider bosses are also female, which means that her extra damage against female enemies often comes in handy.

Damage Potential Limited by Card Deck

Despite having a higher ATK stat than most other Assassins, Carmilla’s triple-Quick deck is unsuitable for damage dealing. In addition, she is also subject to the 0.9x damage modifier of her class. As a result, she has to rely on her NP which fortunately packs a real punch due to the ATK buff and anti-Female super-effective modifier.

No Defensive Capability

Although Carmilla’s heal on NP makes up for her lower health pool, she has neither a defense up nor a hard survivability skill. This means that she can be rather fragile in stages with harder-hitting opponents, so bringing along defense-oriented allies may be beneficial when building a team with her.

All of Carmilla’s skills grant considerable leveling benefits; as such, her skill leveling priority often depends on the Master’s preference. The following section details the leveling considerations for each skill.

Vampirism C: There are three main benefits of leveling this skill, one of which is the increase in NP drain chance. At minimum level, the NP drain hits but 60% of the time, which may make it unreliable in boss fights. The second benefit is that improving this skill also increases Carmilla’s NP gauge boost. Finally, the lowered cooldown allows Carmilla to use the skill more often.

Torture Technique A: By providing a damage increase for the whole team against a single target, Torture Technique is a great skill to have, especially considering its low cooldown. However, as it only affects a single target, it is slightly less flexible than skills such as Charisma. Furthermore, it can also be be resisted by opponents with Debuff Resistance.

Bath of Fresh Blood A: Leveling this skill increases the amount of critical stars it generates as well as the magnitude of the critical chance debuff, though it has to be noted that even at minimum level, the critical chance debuff should be enough to neutralize most enemies’ critical hits. Overall, these benefits allow Carmilla to work better with her team, especially in harder quests. In addition, the cooldown reduction on this skill is particularly important against select bosses, as the extra uptime could mean the difference between life and death for a team.

• The Black Grail / Heaven’s Feel

The use of these CEs aims to maximize Carmilla’s NP damage. Thanks to her good NP gain, her NP can be used pretty often. In addition, the NP damage buff scales well against commonly found buffs, further increasing the usefulness of these CEs.

• A Fragment of 2030 / His Rightful Place

These CEs are to be used when Carmilla is acting as a secondary damage dealer. Their effects, combined with Carmilla’s natural star generation (mainly from the third skill), allows her to provide enough critical stars for the whole team.

• Divine Banquet: 

Divine Banquet increases Carmilla’s considerable NP gain even further and scales very well with her immense AQQ chains.