Charlotte Corday (Caster)

Charlotte Corday’s skills are mainly centered around her own damage. They mainly act together by boosting her damage with the first skill, creating a supereffective with her second, and then charging to fire on her third. She will need some support to fill in at least 20% of a gauge, but that is easily found. She is the rare case where two skills, her second and third, are equally important to level. Her first skill is just general damage.

• Illusionist (Imposter) C+ is an Arts boost, an evasion for one-time one-turn for the party, and a confusion. While the Arts boost is decent, the main focus here should be the evasion and confusion. Her evasion can provide a critical chance to avoid damage, though it is easily countered. Her confusion is primarily a bonus, as if it procs on a turn that she is going to cast her Noble Phantasm, she gets a bonus turn of high damage. This can be leveled last due to its low scaling, and can be left at level 9 if missing materials. 
• Haphazard Show Planning A has a wide array of effects including star generation per turn, Noble Phantasm Strength up for three turns, and a skill seal. Masters are going to want to use this skill primarily for its skill seal on the turn they want the most damage out of Corday. At maximum level, this skill seal is a guarantee, save a few rare cases, and is penalized heavily with a chance to miss if it is not at max. This skill is practically tied with her third skill in terms of importance, but we’ll put it as 2nd to level, and has to be maxed. 
• Stage Magician Angel EX is a unique skill which gives Corday two options. First, she can give herself a 60% charge. Second, she can give herself 30% charge and an ally 30% charge. Which she chooses depends on the enemy composition and whether a Master is farming with one damage dealer or multiple. Like all charge skills, this should be leveled to max, and we’ll give it a “level it 1st” rating.

“Without further adieu, my magic show will now begin!”

Nothing quite says summer like magic from a girl who assassinated a guy in a bathtub… right? Well, Charlotte Corday has come to prove the doubters wrong, using her Caster magic to transform herself into a powerful Single Target Arts damage dealer with powerful skill seals and charges at her disposal!

Corday is a powerful Servant in terms of raw damage numbers. Thanks to her Supereffective trait which she can mostly guarantee with Haphazard Show Planning A or Illusionist (Imposter) C+ at a random chance, she has some of the most powerful Single Target damage for a Caster in the game. She’s also a beast at refund, being able to charge up to 60% on herself with Stage Magician Angel EX with fairly good natural refund and cards. Alternatively, she can be a decent support using Stage Magician Angel, spreading the charge around.

Despite this, Corday lacks much in the way of sustain. Her damage primarily comes from her Supereffective turn, and without that, she’s quite middle of the road. Her defenses are also quite suspect with only a 1-time 1-turn evade for hard resistance against damage. She also lacks the Critical capabilities her star generation would suggest she should have, making them a bit of a waste.

Corday fits a well-needed niche of a high-damage Arts Caster Servant, and with her 60% charge she is an important piece to a Master’s puzzle to fight bosses. Perhaps she’s going to just magic her way into your summons this summer!

Burst Damage

At first glance, Corday doesn’t seem like she’d be hitting for a bunch with just a 30% Arts up and a 20% NP damage up. However, her Noble Phantasm’s Supereffective trait allows her huge bursts of power, turning her from middling damage to top tier. Unlike most Supereffective Servants, she can guarantee this with her second skill, sealing the enemy’s skills to her benefit. Only debuff immune or high-debuff resistant Servants will present an issue for her, but her niche of Assassin bosses are rarely either. 

Great Refund

Corday is one of the rare Servants in the game to have a 60% charge skill at max. The first 30% of the skill will always go to herself, and the other 30% can also go to herself. Not only that, but she has Arts bonuses to boost her natural gain, and the traditional Caster triple Arts deck to top off any refund she may be missing. She generates a large amount of Critical stars as well to help with her NP generation with Critical card hits after hitting a boss with her Noble Phantasm. Overall, she has a lot of tricks up her sleeve for regen.

Decent Support

With Corday’s charge, she also has the option to give 30% of it to another Servant. This 30% boost is incredibly rare for a 4-star cost, with most non-5 stars having only 20% boosts. Further, she’s able to boost everyone’s NP Damage for 3-turns, and give an evasion as well. In situations where the party has multiple damage dealers, she could be a powerful ally.

Non-Burst Damage

Corday’s damage is mostly centered around the one turn she can skill seal enemies. While she can cast confusion for a random chance of skill sealing as well, this is not reliable. Without a skill seal, her damage returns to a middle of the road Caster damage and is easily topped by other Servants who are either free, Berserkers, or even a few neutral damage dealers. 

Poor Defenses

Corday only has a single time evasion effective for a single turn. Because of this, she may be able to mitigate some enemy Noble Phantasms, but not regular damage. To add oil to the fire, it is an evasion skill, and many Assassins have sure hit skills in their kit.

Poor Critical Damage

Casters are typically not meant to be critical damage dealers, but in Corday’s case it is a flaw due to the sheer number of stars she generates. While it is good for her refund, she won’t get any real critical damage bonuses from it, becoming highly Noble Phantasm reliant.

Like most damage dealers, Corday benefits from NP Damage Up CEs if she has the right supports and wants to try a little luck, Mixed Starting Gauge / Damage CEs to play it safe, and Starting Gauge CEs if missing her supports. Overall, Masters are trying to get the most Noble Phantasms out of her over her first couple of turns as possible.

• The Black Grail: Corday will likely want to run a Black Grail in situations where she is only going to cast two Noble Phantasms, or if she is aiming for three with double Castoria and Oberon as support. Against Assassins she will want to use her 60% charge and a 20% Castoria charge turn one (20% Append 2 assumed), refunding 21%. With the second Castoria’s 20% charge she refunds 26% so it makes little difference. Between the two Castorias and Oberon there is an 80% charge and a 70% charge remaining, so she needs to generate 10% on one wave with Cards. With three multi-hit Arts cards this should be possible in all but the rarest of situations, but it is still a chance she will fail to loop.
• Holy Night Supper / Golden Sumo: Boulder Tournament / Ocean Flyer: Giving Corday a starting gauge eliminates the randomness of a Black Grail, and guarantees her three turns of Noble Phantasms with the proper supports. 
• Kaleidoscope / The Imaginary Element / Dragon’s Meridian: Without proper supports, Masters will want to aim for two Noble Phantasms by providing a strong boost to her starting gauge.