Kijyo Koyo

“Graaaauuh uuh. Rrragh.”

Despite appearances, Kijyo Koyo is an oni, rather than a dinosaur, although she could be easily mistaken for an intimidating prehistoric specimen. Being a single-target Buster Berserker, Kijyo Koyo primarily deals damage, although she has a surprising amount of party support for an otherwise damage-oriented Berserker.

Kijyo Koyo comes with a solid array of offensive buffs, with Buster and Quick buffs for herself from Kuzuryu Lightning, and an ATK buff that occurs before damage on her Noble Phantasm, Momijigari. She also is capable of increasing the NP Overcharge level for an ally by 1, which would further strengthen her NP’s ATK buff if she were to use it on herself. She also can reliably gain access to critical hits for a turn via a self Critical Star Gather buff with Morph (Dinosaur), which also doubles as a defensive tool with its DEF buff that lasts three turns. Her third skill, Rope of Life, is an ally support-centric skill that heals the entire party, removes one debuff (starting from the latest applied), and grants all allies immunity to Instant Death for three turns. Her NP itself deals a high amount of damage to a single target, while inflicting a minor burn demerit on herself, in addition to the aforementioned ATK buff.

Her triple-buster deck lends itself better to damage, although her innate NP gain and hit counts allow her to get a decent amount of gauge from her single Arts card, especially if the Arts card manages to crit, which can be facilitated with the help of her first skill. However, since her kit is somewhat of a balance between offensive and supportive effects, her damage within the ST Berserker archetype lies somewhere close to the middle of the pack. Supportive effects, particularly healing, can be somewhat less effective for Berserkers since they innately take more damage in most situations due to defensive Class disadvantage. She also lacks a hard defensive option, and certain party support options she offers such as Overcharge and Instant Death immunity are somewhat niche.

Overall, Kijyo Koyo has a surprisingly balanced offering between offense and party support as a single target Berserker. She may not always be the top pick for damage dealer for most scenarios, but she is still more than capable of tearing apart the Master’s enemies while keeping her allies healthy.

Decent Card Hit Counts

Her cards all have decent to good hit counts, with 3 on each of her face cards, 5 hits on her extra, and 10 hits on her NP. She generates a modest amount of NP Gain with her Arts / Quick and Extra chain, which is further improved with critical hits, and a decent sum of stars for her class, which she can take advantage with her star gather skill.

Overcharge Support

NP Overcharge level support is somewhat rare, and although the effectiveness of this buff will depend on how useful her allies’ overcharge effects are, she does offer to the roster another way to boost overcharge level when entertaining specific setups that take advantage of overcharge.

Healing and Cleanse Support

She can heal and cleanse debuffs from allies, although she only can remove 1 debuff (the latest one applied). Even then, this can come in handy in situations where the only debuff applied to an ally was a stun/charm or similar. She also additionally provides the somewhat niche Instant Death immunity buff, which while it won’t come in handy very often, is a nice-to-have when it does.

No Hard Defensive Option

Although Kijyo Koyo has access to a defense buff and a party heal, she has no Evade or Invincibility option, which means an enemy NP or stray critical hit could spell an early death for her. Defensive support from allies go a long way towards helping to keep her on the field.

Lack of Specialization

Kijyo Koyo offers both offense and support for allies, although the values on her self buffs are quite modest, making her not quite as effective as she might be if her entire kit was focused on offense. She does not quite supersede any dedicated supports with her kit, either, with all the effects she provides being available from other Servants without the fragility of a Berserker.

Niche Supportive Utility

Outside of her modest self buffs, NP damage, and party healing, much of the unique support that Kijyo Koyo provides (Overcharge, Instant Death immunity) is not applicable or useful in all situations, which can count as a demerit to her usability in some teams or encounters when compared to other Servants.

Kijyo Koyo’s first two skills are the most important to focus on, having the most effect on improving her performance. However, leveling all three skills is still useful if Masters wish to get the most out of using her, particularly for reducing skill cooldown at levels 6 and 10.

• Morph (Dinosaur) C – This skill provides a 3-turn DEF boost and a 1-turn Crit Star Gather buff to Kijyo Koyo, both effects increasing in value with level. Although the value provided by additional investment in this skill is somewhat small, it at least does provide value improvement with levels. This skill can be leveled second.
• Kuzuryu Lightning A – This is Kijyo Koyo’s primary offensive buff. It provides both Quick and Buster buffs for 3 turns, along with an ally-targetable NP Overcharge buff for 1 time across 3 turns. The NP Overcharge effect does not scale with level, although the Quick and Buster buffs do, and at modest values, so this is worth leveling first.
• Rope of Life B – This is a strictly supportive skill, recovering HP for allies, removing 1 debuff, and applying 3 turns of Instant Death immunity to allies. The only effect that scales with level is the HP recovery, and it scales very conservatively, so this can be left for last. If players plan to use her often, leveling this skill is still useful since it provides reduction to its skill cooldown.

Kijyo Koyo benefits from Craft Essences that can provide bonuses to NP Damage, Buster Damage, Critical Damage, or Starting NP Gauge. Starting NP Gauge Craft Essences are particularly helpful since Kijyo Koyo has no NP Gauge charge skill of her own. 

• The Black Grail / Heaven’s Feel: For the highest improvement in raw NP damage, these CEs are the best choice. Kijyo Koyo does not innately have an NP damage buff, so these can stack multiplicatively with her own Buster and ATK buffs.
• Limited/Zero Over / Verdant Sound of Destruction: These provide a pure buff to Buster damage, which is effective for Kijyo Koyo given she has three Buster cards in deck.
• Holy Night Supper / Partake with the King / Starry Nights / Round and Round / Golden Sumo: Boulder Tournament / First Sunrise / Battle Olympia: Since Kijyo Koyo has no NP Gauge charge skill of her own, theese hybrid starting NP CEs are an excellent option. All of these also provide an offensive buff that is useful to her damage output. Holy Night Supper in particular provides an NP damage buff that covers Kijyo Koyo’s lack of one of her own.