Meltryllis

"A Master and Servant relationship...what are you talking about? We merely have interests that coincide. Never forget that."

One of the first Alter Ego class Servants available to Masters, the domineering and sadistic Meltryllis is an artificially created Heroic Spirit from Fate/Extra CCC. In Fate/Grand Order, she touts a largely selfish skill kit with an Assassin-like Quick kit and a buff-removing Quick ST NP.

Offensively, Meltryllis has three flavors of self damage buffs she can apply to herself, including Attack Up from Sadistic Streak, NP Damage Up from Melt Virus, and a Quick Card buff from her NP, Sarasvati Meltout (albeit the Quick buff applies after her NP deals damage). In addition, her NP has a buff removal effect that applies after doing its damage, which increases her utility, coming in handy during challenging content. She also has a bit of durability with Crime Ballet, which is a 2-hit Evade lasting 3 turns that provides bonus critical stars. Finally, of the cards in her deck, her Quick card is a standout, with its high hit counts providing good Crit Star drops and fantastic NP gain, particularly with an Arts card starter.

However, despite being a Quick-oriented Servant, she does not have critical damage boosts in her own kit aside from her passives. She also can be somewhat unwieldy, with Melt Virus being a delayed buff that must be used the turn before her NP. However, Post-Rank Up, Melt Virus no longer has the turn delay and takes effect immediately (and the NP Damage buff becomes stronger and lasts for two turns), which makes her much easier to use. Finally, given her Alter Ego class, she usually is not the optimal choice even against Cavalry class enemies due to her 1.5x class advantage modifier unless entering a mixed-Cavalry class node.

Overall, Meltryllis is a strong Quick-based single target damage dealer with frequent access to buff removal whose class hinders her potential damage ceiling in many encounters in return for greater flexibility. With her Rank Up, she becomes much easier to use, and with the release of Quick supports such as Skadi, her performance will greatly improve as well.

Strong ST Damage

Meltryllis boasts among the highest raw NP damage against a single target without factoring in class advantage. She covers the entire spectrum of NP buff types with her kit, with Attack and NP Damage buffs on her skills, and a Quick buff on her NP.

Decent Utility

Sarasvati Meltout’s Buff removal is particularly useful in several difficult quests and challenges. Meltryllis has access to buff removal on her NP (after damage), which allows for contributions beyond her high damage output. In addition, Melt Virus’s NP Damage down effect scales up to 50%, which can be useful when stacked with other NP Damage down debuffs. Stacked up to 100%, it essentially mitigates all NP damage for a turn.

High Quick Hit Counts

Meltryllis’s Quick and Extra cards have high hit counts and her Quick benefits from her Riding passive, making them potent Critical Star and NP Gauge generators. Meltryllis’s NPQQ chain in particular allows her to refund between ~30-45% NP Gauge depending on crits, while her AQQ chain can provide up to ~40-70% NP Gauge depending on crits. This enables her to quickly ready her NP again and continually strip buffs off of a boss while doing decent chunks of damage.

Alter Ego Class

Both a strength and a weakness, the Alter Ego class allows Meltryllis to be used in mixed Cavalry encounters given her advantageous (1.5x) damage against all Cavalry classes. This is especially useful against Assassin enemies, as many Caster Servants are not specialized for damage. The Alter Ego class is also the only class that is strong against the Foreigner class, which appears in the latter chapters of Epic of Remnant and onwards.

Delayed Buff Usage Difficulty

Melt Virus provides an NP damage buff on the next turn after usage, which makes the skill difficult to time correctly. Further complicating things, Melt Virus decreases NP damage for all allies on the same turn it is used, which can decrease the performance of the rest of the party if trying to set up her NP on the next turn while wishing to fire off a damage-dealing NP on the turn beforehand. Much of this is remedied with her Rank Up, which causes the NP damage buff to become active on the same turn as it is used.

Alter Ego Class – Fragility and Lower Damage Cap

As an Alter Ego Servant, Meltryllis is generally not the ideal offensive pick against single class Rider, Caster, or Assassin enemies due to her lower damage multiplier (1.5x vs 2x), while also taking neutral damage rather than half damage from them. In addition, even when she functions relatively well in mixed-Cavalry nodes, her ST damage focus means that she is not as effective in clearing waves of multiple mixed class enemies. Instead, she would theoretically excel in a quest with multiple waves of single enemies, in which the enemies cover multiple Cavalry classes (which in all practicality, are not very common).

Meltryllis’ first priority skill depends somewhat on the Master’s priorities. If running Meltryllis for general use, the extra survivability provided by having Crime Ballet’s 2-hit Evade on a lower cooldown is immense, and makes it worth leveling to reach the cooldown thresholds (Lv6, Lv10). However, Meltryllis’s ultimate goal is to nuke enemies, and leveling Sadistic Streak would be more effective as it increases her damage a decent amount per level. The recommendations are made with a focus on her damage-dealing capabilities.

• Crime Ballet A is an Evade skill that works 2 times and lasts 3 turns. The skill is on a 5 turn cooldown at max level, which allows her to keep her primary survival skill up for a decent amount of uptime. As an added bonus, she generates a sum of critical stars upon use of the skill. Given that she takes neutral damage from almost all enemies, and that she likely will frequently have this skill up, Masters can get more mileage out of this skill when it is leveled to Lv6 or Lv10, where the cooldown is reduced by a turn.
• Sadistic Streak A provides an Attack buff that increases with levels (from 10% to 30% at max) and provides a static 10% Defense down demerit for 3 turns. This skill provides the largest return per level of investment as far as offensive performance goes. Given that offense is Meltryllis’s strong point, this skill can be leveled first.
• Melt Virus EX provides a fixed NP damage boost. What changes with level (besides the cooldown) is the value of the NP Down debuff for enemies. Given that NP Down is somewhat niche, and only really effective if a second source of NP Down is available for the party, this skill can be left for last or even not leveled pre-Rank Up. Post-Rank Up the NP damage boost also scales with levels, and although the return per level is low (20% to 30%), the skill is worth reaching level 10 after Rank-Up.

OVERALL: Meltryllis aims to pierce and trample her enemies with her Quick NP. For general performance and her NP, Quick Performance Up works well, while NP Damage Up generally maximizes her damage overall in well-supported setups. Critical Damage Up CEs are viable, but generally perform less well than a focus on her NP potential. Naturally, Starting NP Gauge is excellent for any shorter quests.

• The Black Grail / Cute Orangette / Heaven’s Feel: These CEs provide a sizable NP damage boost and allow her to maximize her NP damage.
• Knights of Marines / Golden Sumo: Boulder Tournament / Holy Night Supper: These hybrid CEs provide some starting NP gauge along with damage boosts and attack stats that increase Meltryllis’s overall performance.
• One Summer: A hybrid CE alternative whose stat budget inexplicably is allocated towards HP. Useful, yet generally inferior to the options listed above.
• Imaginary Around / Gandr: Strict Quick buffs are useful for Meltryllis as they will boost the star generation and NP Gain of both her Quick cards and NP in addition to a damage boost. For more prolonged battles in which an initial NP is less important, these CEs can be useful to run.
• Kaleidoscope / The Imaginary Element: The Starting NP Gauge provided by these CEs allows Meltryllis to get an NP out the gate more quickly.