Huang Feihu

“I am the prince of Wucheng, Huang Feihu. I have arrived so that I may serve you as my lord. Are you a benevolent ruler like King Wen, or are you a tyrant like King Zhou? I will judge for myself.”

Huang Feihu, a figure from the Chinese epic fantasy novel The Investiture of the Gods, manifests as a single target Buster Rider in the Halloween 2024 event. He is a primarily offense-focused Servant with an array of self-buffs with a small amount of offensive support provided to allies.

Huang Feihu's Five Checkpoint Resistance, Tianhua's Sword of Mo Ye is his NP, and is a pretty straightforward burst of damage that comes with modest-valued 3-turn Card buffs that activate before damage is dealt. The 3-turn duration Card buffs help his sustained damage output over time. However, being Buster type, his NP does not generate refund innately, so it can be a bit difficult to stack buffs from his NP across multiple turns. His second skill Divine Golden-Eyed Warbler helps with this somewhat by providing up to 20% NP gauge to him each turn, although further support is likely needed for him to use consecutive NPs for additional buffs.

The rest of his skill kit include Prince Wucheng, which provides the entire party with Arts and Buster buffs, and also swaps his own alignment from Chaotic to Lawful for 3 turns. This compliments his second skill, the earlier mentioned Divine Golden-Eyed Warbler, whose effects change depending on his own alignment. In most cases, his Lawful-aligned effect (Crit Damage) is more desirable than his Chaotic-aligned effect (NP Gain) due to his Buster typing reducing the NP Gain potential of his deck. His second skill also functions as his survival measure, providing him with a 1-time 3-turn Guts buff. His third skill, Five-Colored Divine Ox, is purely offensively focused, providing himself with ATK, Crit Damage, and Stars per turn, all for 3 turns. In total he has two self Crit Damage buffs and a source of Stars each turn, which when combined with his passives that provide 2 Stars each turn and Buster Crit damage, along with his innately high star absorption due being Rider class, make him a respectable Buster Crit Servant.

Overall, Huang Feihu is a generally straight forward single target Buster Crit damage dealer who can provide Caster-slaying services where needed. Despite having multiple sources of offensive buffs, however, his NP damage is not particularly impressive, being on the lower end among ST Riders. He shines most with Critical damage enhancement and support. Since he does not have any particular specialty or niche, he may not always be a better choice provided there are many other powerful ST Riders in the roster, although he is more than capable of filling in for the role if Masters do not have other options available.

Strong Buster Crit Performance

Within his own skill kit, he has a total of 80% self Critical Damage buffs from his second and third skill, plus an extra 10% to Buster Crit Damage from his passive. Additionally, he always generates 2 Crit Stars each turn, plus up to 10 more stars each turn if his third skill is active. As a result, his overall critical damage is quite good. Due to his high innate Star gather rate, he also is very likely to pull Stars to his cards as well.

Flexible Alignment Trait

Huang Feihu can alternate between being Chaotic or Lawful-aligned. This primarily comes into play for his second skill, which changes effects based on alignment, allowing the Master to essentially choose which effect they would like active depending on his alignment. In most cases this is otherwise somewhat of a gimmick, coming into play in assembling teams with Servants that have skills that affect Chaotic or Lawful allies. This also potentially can be used to swap alignment if fighting an opponent that has anti-Chaotic or anti-Lawful bonus damage or effects, although this also rarely comes into play.

Low Burst Damage

Despite having multiple sources of ATK and Buster buffs, his single target Buster NP deals damage on the lower end of the ST Rider roster. The card buffs that his NP provide before damage also aren’t of the highest value (only 10% at lv1 overcharge, and 20% at max lv5 overcharge), so the difference in his damage even with consecutive NPs doesn’t change very substantially in most scenarios. He mostly will be relying on his critical hits to deal damage.

All of Huang Feihu’s skills boost his offensive performance if they are leveled, although all of them also have relatively similar return per investment. His third skill is the least situational and has the most direct, immediate benefits that scale with level, so it is suggested to level this first. For Masters who wish to make the most out of Huang Feihu, all skills are useful, although if leaving at 6/6/6 he is still serviceable. The suggested leveling order is 3 > 2 > 1.

• Prince Wucheng EX – The party buff to both Buster and Arts performance, which also has the Lawful alignment swap for himself. The alignment effect doesn’t change with levels, and the values for Arts/Buster buffs do not increase that much with level, so this is last priority.
• Divine Golden-Eyed Warbler A – The most helpful effects for this skill are the NP per turn, along with the Crit Damage buff if he is Lawful alignment. Both of these effects scale quite well with level, making this worth leveling. Depending on whether Masters wish to gain access to his NP more quickly, this should be leveled first. If focusing on crit performance, perhaps his third skill should be done first.
• Five-Colored Divine Ox EX – All three of the effects on this skill improve with level, including the ATK, Crit Damage, and Stars per turn effects. Overall, this provides excellent return per level of his three skills overall. In most cases this skill provides the greatest boost to his performance, with the additional stars ensuring Crits on his Cards.

Huang Feihu is a primarily offense-focused Servant, and benefits from Crit Damage, Buster Performance, and Stars per turn buffs. He also secondarily benefits from Starting NP Gauge CEs, although since his NP damage isn’t the highest he may not always be the first choice for an ST Rider Servant if needed a big NP nuke. He can still fill this role however, and having starting NP gauge will help him accomplish this role more efficiently.

• Hero on the Beach / Dancing on Lotus Blossom / At Trifas / Empty Garden / Hot Spring Under the Moon / Joint Recital – These CEs all provide some mixture of Buster buffs, Crit Damage buffs, and Stars per turn, with Hero on the Beach providing all three.
• Kaleidoscope / The Imaginary Element / Winter Crystal – For Masters wishing to have him bring out his NP as quickly as possible, these starting NP Gauge CEs are the best choice. He requires either an MLB Kaleidoscope or maxed second Append Skill and non-MLB Kaleidoscope to NP immediately.