Caster of the Nightless City

“Please do not kill me, that's all I wish for.”

A mysterious Servant serving as an advisor for the Nightless City, Caster is a woman with only one wish - to evade death, and her kit is filled with a combination of buffs and debuffs to achieve this end. Despite this defensive focus, she also has an offensive side, defined by her anti-King NP and high Arts NP refund.

The disdain for sovereigns clearly visible in her kit, Caster of the Nightless City’s anti-King NP possesses a super effective modifier higher than any other anti-trait AoE NPs. Furthermore ,it also applies an NP Damage Up buff on Caster for one turn - noticeably increasing the damage on her NP alongside the Arts Performance Up buffs gained from Storyteller and Territory Creation. Additionally, the NP’s high hit counts and AoE nature allows it to refund a substantial amount of NP charge, even enabling Arts NP looping with Overkill. Lastly, Caster’s assortment of defensive tools lets her thrive in challenging content, especially after Anti-Hero’s skill upgrade grants her access to a party-wide Guts.

Unfortunately, despite having two damage boosts, Caster is cursed with an incredibly low attack stat and the dreaded 0.9x Caster modifier, both of which make her struggle to create any sort of general damage impact before her essential upgrades arrive. This lack of damage has a massive impact on her various niches. Without her NP Upgrade (at NP1), she cannot reliably trigger Overkill to improve her refund potential nor deal the massive damage to Kings she wants to do. Even after her upgrades, Caster of the Nightless City’s AoE nature can often be at odds with her Challenge Quest-oriented kit, as her various skills are only situationally useful in farming situations.

All in all, Caster is a Servant with considerable potential, featuring a broad anti-King niche, high NP refund, as well as an affinity for difficult quests. While she has several major weaknesses on release, Caster of the Nightless City turns into a solid Servant following her two upgrades, a bane of royalty who excels at surviving through even the darkest of nights.

In terms of damage calculation, attack buffs stack additively with defense buffs, which makes it possible to combine the two for defense-stacking strategies. With maxed skills, Scheherazade’s second and third skill allows her to reach 90% effective defense buff against King enemies, effectively crippling their offensive power.

Kingslayer

Caster of the Nightless City’s high super effective modifier, as well as her two damage buffs, make her a very effective Servant against any sovereign (of which there are many). While her low ATK initially prevents her from maximizing this potential, her NP’s Rank Up quest greatly increases her NP’s damage, making Caster a decent pick even against class neutral kings.

NP Refund & Arts NP Looping

Caster’s AoE NP hits each of its targets 5 times, which, when combined with her substantial Arts buffs, allows her to instantly refill a considerable part of her NP gauge. Initially, this potential is hindered by Caster’s low damage preventing Overkill from triggering, but especially after her NP’s Rank Up, she is capable of refunding her NP Gauge completely in Arts farming compositions.

Challenge Quest Specialist

The various defensive tools in Caster’s possession work very well in harder quests, especially after she gains the ability to apply Guts to the whole party and her NP Upgrade adds a Debuff Resistance Down to help her land her AoE Male Charm. With multiple ways to hinder certain enemies and a substantial personal defensive cooldown, she pairs up pretty nicely with most defensive (Arts) supports.

Low Offensive Presence

Caster of the Nightless City’s attack stat is notably low for a 5-star Servant. Her 0.9x Caster damage modifier certainly does not help with this, and neither is her triple Arts deck suited for dealing damage. While her NP refund potential is noteworthy and her normal cards’ NP gain is decent, the NP’s AoE nature limits the amount of single-target burst Caster can output. Thankfully, her Rank Up quest partially solves this problem turning her NP into a reliable anti-King nuke.

Situational Kit

A lot of Caster’s value rests on her anti-trait gimmicks, especially her NP’s super effective damage. As such, she loses most of her main advantages when facing other enemies where her skills are also ineffective, and in these cases there is generally little justification to bring her instead of other damage dealers.

Caster of the Nightless City starts out with fairly long skill cooldowns. To have her skills up on a consistent basis and greatly improve her Challenge Quest compatibility, Masters will have to invest in maxing out all her skills. However, only her first skill offers any sort of offensive advantage, and whether the rest of her skills should be maxed depends on whether Masters intend to field Caster during Challenge Quests.

• The main draw for Storyteller EX is its Arts Performance Up buff, which is Caster’s only active damage boost. Fortunately, its NP Drain effect is fairly flexible, and it can easily find value even when the skill is used solely for the Arts buff. Aside from increasing the buff magnitude, leveling this skill also increases the chance of a successful NP Drain. Should be leveled first.

• While Bedchamber of Survival A+’s anti-Male charm is somewhat situational, it is applied on all enemies, making it a rather powerful skill under the right situation. Fortunately, anding the charm becomes substantially easier after Caster’s NP Upgrade adds a Debuff Resistance Down to all enemies. It also applies a strong defense buff on Caster, allowing her both to survive longer as well as enabling defense buff-stacking strategies. Still, considering the skill’s situational aspect as well as the fact that it gives no offensive bonus, it should be leveled after Storyteller.

• Anti-Hero A is essentially an upgraded Battle Continuation which also applies an attack debuff on an opposing King upon activation, and comes with a slightly shorter cooldown compared to its Battle Continuation peers. After its upgrade, it also applies a Guts buff on Caster’s allies, making it a very powerful tool for harder content. While this skill gives the least benefit in farming, it should be leveled before Bedchamber of Survival if Caster is to be mostly employed as a special anti-King unit in difficult quests.

As an NP-reliant Servant, hybrid Starting NP Gauge CEs are Caster’s best picks for more casual stages. As her super effective modifier stacks multiplicatively with all buff types, Attack Up and NP Damage Up CEs tend to provide the most damage, while Arts Performance Up and NP Gain Up effects offer benefits to her overall NP spam.

• Golden Sumo: Boulder Tournament / Holy Night Supper: These CEs are valuable picks for Caster when NP-charging allies are not around, allowing her to fill her NP gauge reasonably early while still giving long term benefits.

• The Black Grail: By far Caster’s best option when it comes to damage, the Black Grail’s buff is applied multiplicatively to her own super effective, turning her NP into a very potent Anti-King nuke.

• Formal Craft / Projection / Kaleid Sapphire: Despite being more generic options, Arts Performance CEs have the added benefit of increasing Caster’s Arts NP gain, allowing her to fire off more NPs in the long run.

• Cute Orangette: The mixture of NP damage, full attack and NP Gain is especially effective with Arts support during Challenge Quests with multiple enemies. Notably, NP Gain Up stacks multiplicatively with all Arts buffs and greatly boosts her refund potential as a result.

• Kaleidoscope / The Imaginary Element: With no NP charge of her own, pure Starting NP Gauge becomes essential for firing off her NP in turn 1 in Arts farming compositions and starting her NP Refunding loop. Also useful for simple farming stages in general compositions.