Karna (Santa)

“Do you have something urgent for me to do? If not, then I’ll be off to do some roadwork.”

With Christmas arriving at Chaldea, Karna steps in the ring as 2022’s Welfare Santa Servant, complete with boxing gloves. Boxing gloves are a rather unconventional take on Santa Claus, although he's ready to defend Christmas wishes and spread joy to all. Karna (Santa)’s the first single target Quick Saber welfare Servant to grace the cast, and does so with impressive flair with his blindingly quick jabs and high-speed footwork.

Santa Karna’s kit provides a balance of offense, defense, and supportive utility. Footwork Santa acts as his primary offensive buff, increasing his Quick/Buster Card Performance and Critical Strength. Flash Fist also provides an additional Critical Strength boost to his Quick Cards at a higher value, increases Karna’s Star Gather Rate, and also doubles as Karna’s primary defensive tool with a 2-time, 3-turn Evade. Finally, Hero of Benefaction (Holy Night) is an ally-targetable NP Gauge charging skill, which also provides a useful 3-time, 3-turn Debuff Immunity effect. This effect can make him a valuable ally to bring for challenge encounters that have enemies that cast undesirable debuffs. All of the values on his buffs are relatively good, with the Quick Critical Damage buff being particularly notable.

Karna’s Noble Phantasm, Winning Arkaputra, is an 8-hit knock-out combo that buffs his own Quick performance before dealing damage to a single enemy. It also has a somewhat niche effect of removing Guts from the target, which can periodically come in handy, although this is more of a nice bonus on the side. Due to his Welfare Servant status, most Masters can easily reach NP5, and this makes his NP one of the strongest among all ST Quick Sabers. His NP works as a straightforward, yet exceedingly effective high burst of damage. Due to its hit counts, he also will generate a decent amount of Stars (and even more if he can manage an NPQQ chain), which he can take advantage of with his multitude of Crit Damage buffs.

Overall, Karna (Santa) is an excellent ST Quick Saber, with a straightforward offensive game plan that is extremely effective as an entire package. Masters in need of a boss slayer need look no further than Karna, who with a flurry of fists, can grant enemies a taste of the heavens.

Welfare Status

Karna (Santa) can be obtained for free and easily reaches NP5, making his damage is among the highest of his archetype as an ST Quick Saber, even without counting external Support. For Masters in need of an ST Quick Saber, or wishing to further push the envelope in that role, Karna is definitely worth picking up.

Strong Critical Performance

Karna has both a 3-turn Critical Damage buff (up to 50%), and a 1-turn Quick Card Critical Damage buff (up to 100%), putting his Quick Crits at +150% from his own buffs alone. He also has a Star Gather buff to help guarantee his Cards have the Stars to deal Crits. This is only further enhanced with the presence of premiere Quick support.

Ally Targetable NP Charge

His NP charge goes up to 20%, which is a comfortable value, and he can help either top off the NP gauge of an ally, or his own. This enables immediate access to an NP in combination with a non-MLB copy of Kaleidoscope.

Debuff Immunity

His NP charge also provides a Debuff Immunity effect, which lasts for 3 times across 3 turns. This effect can be surprisingly helpful in some of the more challenging encounters, providing pre-emptive protection against certain fight gimmicks.

Card Reliant NP Gain

Despite having an 8-hit count NP, since it only hits a single target, the amount of effective refund is on the low side, even with support. Karna tends to need to rely on his normal Arts or Quick Cards for NP charge, and ideally the cards Crit to maximize his NP Gain. To make sure he can land crits, often it works best for him if he gets his Quick NP off early so the crit star engine gets started. Otherwise, he can be dependent on external support for any additional NP gauge that he can’t top off with the 20% charge of his own.

All of Karna (Santa)’s skills benefit notably from leveling, and scale quite well, making it difficult to single out any skill as being worth leveling last. In the end, it may depend on the Master’s own usage or preference on which of the skills are prioritized.

• Footwork Santa A- – Santa Karna’s primary offensive buff, levels in this skill increase all three effects (Quick, Buster, and Crit Damage buffs) at decent scaling. In most cases Masters are using Karna for his damage capabilities, so leveling this skill first is a safe bet.
• Flash Fist A – This skill is both Karna’s defensive measure as well as an additional boost to his Quick Crit damage and Star Gather. The Quick Crit values scale impressively well with levels, making this very much worth leveling as high as possible, especially if focusing on Karna’s damage potential.
• Hero of Benefaction (Holy Night) EX – An NP charge skill, this skill’s value starts at 10% and scales to 20% at max level. Although this skill does not directly improve Karna’s offensive performance, depending on the setup that Karna (Santa) is used in, the difference between 10% and 20% NP Gauge can determine whether or not Karna can access his NP immediately. For those in need of the full 20% charge, leveling this to max is suggested; otherwise, his offensive buffs (Skills 1 and 2) are better to prioritize.

As a primarily offensive Servant, Karna (Santa)’s CE selection is relatively straight forward. He benefits greatly from Starting NP Gauge effects, since the earlier he can get his NP off, the more quickly the Crit Star and NP Gain engine can start. He also benefits from either Attack or NP Damage buffs, which stack multiplicatively with the Card buffs from his skills, although Quick Performance also works well on him.

• Kaleidoscope / The Imaginary Element: With a non-MLB Kaleidoscope, and his third skill maxed, Santa Karna can NP without further external support immediately from battle start (or if coming in from the back line).
• The Black Grail / Heaven’s Feel: As usual, The Black Grail provides the largest boost to Karna’s NP damage output, while Heaven’s Feel is a decent alternative if The Black Grail is unavailable.
• Golden Sumo: Boulder Tournament / Holy Night Supper / Knights of Marines / Crimson Teacher’s Pointer / Traces of Christmases Past / Cherry Icicle / One Summer: These Craft Essences provide a mixture of starting NP Gauge and Attack, Quick, or NP Damage buffs. It should be noted that Cherry Icicle and One Summer don’t provide pure ATK stat boosts and instead also have HP, so they are less desirable but are still workable options.