Mary Anning

“I'll introduce you to my crazy local friends! Ichthyosaurus! Dimorphodon! Plesiosaurus! And my dog!”

Riding in on a Plesiosaurus, Mary Anning is the bronze Servant available from Friend Point summoning for a limited time during the Learning With Manga Collaboration event. She is an AoE Arts Lancer who functions effectively as a low-cost farming option with a nice spread of offensive support to allies at modest values.

Her NP, Duria Antiquior, first buffs her own Arts Card performance for a turn before dealing damage to all enemies. It additionally has the utility effect of blocking buffs on all enemies for 1 time across 3 turns. To support her farming capability, her kit further has a mix of both offensive and NP gauge supportive effects. With Sea Lily Charisma, she provides ATK, Arts, and NP Gain buffs to herself and any female or unknown gender allies, albeit at somewhat lower values than average. She also provides NP Gauge support via Business Acumen, which provides a 10% NP Gauge to all allies regardless of trait, along with a Critical Damage buff and a utility AoE NP drain skill. These skill effects help enable her to loop her NP effectively at low party cost. Finally, she also provides critical support to the party, giving a generous infusion of Critical Stars via Madam Fossil's Great Discovery. 

Taken together, she has respectable coverage across different types of offensive support, especially for a 1-Star Servant. This makes her a great option to keep in the pocket if a low-cost offensive support is ever needed, particularly for female Arts allies. She also can loop her NP with the help of premiere Arts Support, although due to her low rarity she can have trouble reaching damage numbers to do so effectively in most scenarios.

Overall, Mary Anning has a varied kit with a lot of effects at low party cost and the ability to perform Arts looping, even if her damage is somewhat hampered by her rarity. If Masters have Friend Points to spare, she's very much worth keeping around in the roster as a low cost supportive option in the right teams.

Arts Looping

Mary Anning's 4-hit Arts NP, combined with her own kit's innate NP Gain / Arts / NP charge skills, make her a decent Lancer-Class looper if premiere Arts support such as Altria Caster are available. She may not be the best option when it comes to damage due to her rarity, but her ease of access and low cost make her a decent pick, particularly for Masters lacking other options.

Low Cost and Ease of NP5

Being a 1-star rarity Servant, Mary Anning requires only 3 party cost to field, making her relatively easy to slot into most parties. If Masters were around during the Learning With Manga collaboration and had Friend Points to spare, she can be relatively easily acquired and max NP5 leveled.

Party Support

Providing all of Arts, ATK, Crit Damage, NP Gain, 10% NP Gauge, and up to 30 Stars on demand, Mary Anning covers a wide variety of offensive buffs that come in handy quite often. It should be noted that her ATK, Arts, and NP Gain buffs are tied to trait, and only apply to Female or Unknown Gender allies, so keep this in mind if selecting her to provide support for allies.

Low Stats

Due to her low rarity, her base stats and subsequently damage are somewhat low. This can partially be remedied with grailing, although this can be expensive and may not be a desirable option for all Masters. As a result she at times can be limited as a farmer since she cannot comfortably clear higher HP waves.

Buffs of Below-Average Value

Both her ATK and Arts buffs are only valued at 15%, which is below the average of 20% for most supports. Additionally, her NP Gain and NP Gauge buffs are both only valued at 10%, which sometimes isn't quite enough since 20% charge is often the breakpoint for being able to access a full NP Gauge with many setups. As a result, when running support options, other Servants will usually be better, but she is still a good option if party cost is a concern.

All of Mary Anning's skills are helpful to her overall and supportive performance, although the values gained from levels are also all not very impressive. Many of her skills can technically be left at level 1 and still already be at 2/3rds effectiveness, although if Masters wish to maximize her performance and/or reduce her skill cooldowns, leveling her skills can still be useful. The general recommended priority is 1>2>3.

• Sea Lily Charisma C - This is both her primary supportive damage buff that also provides an NP Gain buff to all allies. The values from leveling this skill are unfortunately small (half of average), making this skill not as desirable to level. To get the most out of her performance, Masters will still want to max this skill out, and among her skills this is still probably the highest priority skill.
• Madam Fossil's Great Discovery A - This is her Crit Star bomb skill, which scales relatively well with level. This skill comes into less use during farming scenarios, however, so is lower priority. The fact that it scales well with level and arguably has better Crit performance return than leveling her third makes it better to level second (reaching max level for Skill 2 is an overall 100% Crit Rate boost, or 20% divided among 5 Cards, compared to a 10% Crit Damage boost from Skill 3).
• Business Acumen A - This skill provides a flat 10% NP charge to allies, has an AoE NP drain effect, and also provides allies with a 3-turn Crit Damage buff. The only effect that scales with level aside from cooldown is the Crit Damage buff, so this is not as important to level for her farming performance. Practically speaking, the important parts of this skill are already most effective at level 1, so this doesn't have to be leveled aside from cooldown reduction or if additional Crit support is needed.

Craft Essences that boost her damage and Arts performance are welcome. Being a low rarity Servant, Masters can also choose to take advantage of her low health pool by giving her CEs that have on-death effects or taunt effects for her to act as a low-cost support option that leaves the field promptly to bring in the backline.

• Kaleidoscope / The Imaginary Element / Winter Crystal: With her second Append Skill maxed, she is capable of NPing right off the bat with a non-MLB Kaleidoscope, or with an MLB Imaginary Element/Winter Crystal combined with her own NP charge skill.
• Mission Start / Painting Summer / Star’s Day Off / Grand Puppeteer / Dive to Blue / Ocean Flier / New Beginnings / Battle Olympia / Golden Sumo: Boulder Tournament: Hybrid Craft Essences that provide 50% Starting NP Gauge and some offensive benefits. However, since Mary’s NP charge is only valued at 10%, additional support will be needed to max out her NP Guage if using these CEs.
• Battle of Camlann – An on-death NP charge CE that has low cost, which can be useful to help further support to the party if Mary leaves battle.
• GUDAGUDA Poster Girl / Halloween Arrangement / Grand New Year / Outrage – Taunt CEs that can ensure that enemies will target Mary Anning on their turn so that Masters can set up all of her buffs for the party and have her take the brunt of the damage to swap out with a backliner.
• Black Grail / Heaven’s Feel: For maximum damage output, these options are the best, although since these do not provide starting NP Gauge, further support will be required to get Mary’s NP gauge to max.