Kyokutei Bakin

 “Master, you're deserving of Kyokutei Bakin's attendance. Be assured. You say Servants cannot choose their lords? Nay, I vehemently disagree.”

Kyokutei Bakin, the renowned author of the “The Eight Dog Chronicles”, manifests as an AoE Arts Rider. Her kit has a wide variety of supportive effects that she can provide to an ally of choice, while she also has a niche against Demonic or Evil alignment enemies.

Bakin’s skill set revolves around empowering their team and themselves, with Svabhava B providing herself with a 30% NP charge and allies with a smaller 10% charge, and a sum of Critical Stars to work with. Eight Benevolences and Righteousnesses A, as befitting its name, bestows a total of eight buffs upon a chosen ally, from increased Card effectiveness for all types and NP/Crit Damage buffs, to HP restoration, Debuff Immunity, and a one-time Evade. Meanwhile, Lost in Writing A augments her own Arts Card performance while providing a small attack boost to the party when utilizing Arts Cards. Taken together, her skill set makes her a welcome addition to almost any team, and makes her a flexible and widely adaptable support option.

Her Noble Phantasm, Nansou Satomi Eight Dog Chronicles, named after her masterpiece novel, is an AoE Arts NP that is fully capable of looping with proper Arts support. It not only inflicts substantial damage upon all foes but also grants a small number of Critical Stars to fuel subsequent assaults. Additionally, it possesses a Special Attack and Supereffective damage against Demonic and Evil alignment enemies, respectively, further solidifying her role as a formidable ally in battles against such foes.

Overall, Kyokutei Bakin makes for a flexible and powerful AoE Arts Rider option for Masters who are lacking a Servant in the role. She loops relatively comfortably and has a large array of buffs that can come in handy in both farming and challenge situations. With Bakin at the helm, Masters can rest assured that their team will have the guidance and support needed to overcome even the most daunting of challenges.

Arts Looping

As with most AoE Arts Servants, Kyokutei Bakin is fully capable of looping her NP with premiere Arts Supports such as Altria Caster. With the help of her own NP charge skill she also is capable of unleashing an NP right out of the gate with a 50% starting NP gauge CE and a maxed second Append Skill.

Versatile Ally Support

Eight Benevolences and Righteousnesses provides a comprehensive array of buffs tailored to enhance the effectiveness of a chosen ally. She provides buffs for all three Card types, NP/Crit Strength, healing, evade, and debuff immunity, all of which can come in handy in many situations. Additionally, she provides 10% NP charge to the party and Stars on demand. The values for all the buffs are somewhat conservative given that she covers so many options, although she still makes for a great secondary supportive option to keep in mind.

Trait Bonus Damage

Her Noble Phantasm deals Supereffective damage against enemies with the Evil alignment, and also deals Special Attack damage against Demonic enemies. These two traits are decently frequent, so she will be able to take advantage of her trait-based bonus damage quite well.

Single Ally Focus

While Kyokutei Bakin’s skills offer potent buffs, they are primarily targeted towards a single ally, limiting their ability to support the entire team simultaneously. This may necessitate strategic decision-making to prioritize which ally receives buffs based on the current situation, for example masters may need to choose between buffing Bakin herself or another damage dealing ally.

All of Kyokutei Bakin’s skills are worth leveling and help her overall performance as a farmer. Depending on the setup (such as availability of the Kaleidoscope CE), Masters may not need to level her first skill to still achieve 3-turn looping. Meanwhile, her second skill has a multitude of effects that benefit from leveling and greatly boost her damage output. The recommended order is 2 > 1 = 3.

• Svabhava B – Bakin’s NP charge skill, the value scales with level, although for her to loop she doesn’t necessarily need this to be maxed. However, it does enhance the flexibility of her looping setups if she does have this maxed, so it can be helpful to level if materials are available. Otherwise, the Critical Star values also scale with level and can come in handy.
• Eight Benevolences and Righteousnesses A – This skill comes with a total of 8 buffs, all of which can come in handy in various situations. Six of them benefit from levels at decent scaling, making this skill very much worthwhile to invest in. Masters can prioritize this skill first.
• Lost in Writing A – This is Bakin’s self Arts buff skill, which also comes with a minor ATK buff for the party when using Arts Cards. Only the Arts buff scales with level, but does improve her NP damage and refund values, so this skill is worth leveling at second priority.

As an Arts Looper, Kyokutei Bakin benefits from Starting NP Gauge, Arts Performance, NP Damage, and ATK buffs.

• Holy Night Supper / Golden Sumo: Boulder Tournament / Star’s Day Off / Grand Puppeteer / Dive to Blue / Ocean Flier / New Beginnings / Battle Olympia - These are hybrid Craft Essences that provide a form of damage buff in addition to at least 50% starting NP Gauge. These should provide enough starting NP for Kyokutei Bakin to NP right off the bat when combined with a maxed first skill and second Append skill. 
• Kaleidoscope / The Imaginary Element / Winter Crystal – These are Starting NP Gauge CEs without additional effects. Either a non-MLB Kaleidoscope or MLB version of either Imaginary Element / Winter Crystal allows Kyokutei to NP with just her first skill without need of an Append Skill.
• The Black Grail / Heaven's Feel – For Masters who wish to deal the most damage possible, these CEs provide a huge boost to Bakin’s damage.