Melusine (Ruler)

“Honestly speaking, I want you to be by my side always, … but that would get into your work as a Master. Waiting for your return is also a duty of mine as your mate. It’s painful…”

Armed with new armaments of the summer, the Tam Lin Melusine returns with her usual explosiveness and finesse. An AoE Arts Damage Dealer with fantastic capacity for NP looping, strong Critical Damage output, and great bulk, Summer Melusine is a powerful farmer with great Challenge Quest performance as well.

An offensive powerhouse, Melusine’s skill set is packed to the brim with strong self-buffs. Her first skill - Faerie Pack A - has four different effects on a base 8 cooldown: an Arts card buff, a Critical Damage buff, and a Special Attack buff against Chaotic enemies, all to herself for over 3 turns, then a final Damage Cut buff to all allies except her. Azure Arms Mastery A is her main facilitator for her Critical hits. This skill gives her a Critical Star Gather Rate buff for 3 turns, and grants her 10 Critical Stars every turn for 3 turns, with an additional 20 Critical Stars every turn when she is in a [Water Battlefield] or [Airborne Battlefield]. Last but not least, Blue Horizon EX brings three simple but powerful effects to the table. This skill increases her NP Gauge by a whopping 80% at max level, increases her NP Damage by 30% over 3 turns, and grants her an Invincibility buff for 2 attacks over 3 turns. Sprite Albion B - Summer Melusine’s Noble Phantasm is an AoE Arts attack with three components: It increases her Attack (scaling with Overcharge) first for 3 turns before attacking, deals super effective damage against [Earth] attribute enemies, and then increases her Critical Damage by 30% for over 3 turns.

It is hard to design a better Arts looping kit than what Summer Melusine possesses. She has a humongous NP Gauge battery on demand, all three main damage buffs built into her kit that last over multiple turns, a ramping attack buff to ensure each of her consecutive Noble Phantasm hits harder, and she hits two highly common traits that enemies tend to possess in farming scenarios - Earth attribute and Chaotic alignment. But Summer Melusine is not just a one-trick pony. With her natural resistance to 7 classes from being a Ruler and an Invincibility buff, she can take a heavy beating before going down. Furthermore, Melusine’s Critical Damage is nothing to be trifled with, as she can ramp up her Critical Damage via both her first skill and her Noble Phantasm, and generate and absorb Critical Stars via her second skill. In Challenge Quests, Summer Melusine is a force to be reckoned with, with high AoE and single-target damage output and natural bulk.

Summer Melusine is not without her downfalls. Her class, while fantastic defensively, is a massive hindrance offensively. Its class advantage bonus against Moon Cancer rarely, if ever, comes up in farming. Thus, when not hitting the right trait, Summer Melusine’s damage can feel lackluster, and the only remedy is via increasing her NP Level, which can be costly. Furthermore, her second skill has a rather finicky condition for its extra Critical Stars generation, which can lower her Critical Damage consistency when there are not enough Critical Stars around. Nonetheless, these are very trivial flaws to an otherwise excellent Servant of her niche.

Strong Looping Specs and Wide Trait Coverage

Summer Melusine is a model Arts looper. She has great NP Gauge charging from her 3rd skill and NP refund, which gives her amazing flexibility when it comes to teammates and Craft Essences setup. Furthermore, she hits both Earth and Chaotic traits, which are common in farming scenarios. Summer Melusine is also one of the rare Servants that have all four types of offensive buffs in her kits: Attack, NP Damage, Card Effectiveness, and Supereffective modifier, with the Attack boost ramp up from multiple Noble Phantasm usage.

Great Critical Damage Output

Summer Melusine has several tools in her kits to deal devastating Critical Hits on demand. Her Noble Phantasm and first skill provide a lot of Critical Damage boost, while her second skills ensure that she can generate a stable stream of Critical Stars and make great use of them despite being an Arts Servant.

Great Bulkiness

Being a Ruler, Melusine takes half damage from 7 different classes, with 6 of them being the highly common Standard Classes. Furthermore, she even has a hit-based Invincibility buff on her 3rd skill that further amplifies her tankiness.

Damage May Be Lackluster When Not Hitting The Right Traits

Ruler has very poor class advantage coverage as a class, so even with its 1.1x Attack modifier, Summer Melusine’s damage may be insufficient when fighting enemies that do not fall into her trait coverage.

Summer Melusine should max out at least her first and third skills, with her third skill taking the highest priority. While her second skill is great for her Critical niche, Summer Melusine is used as a farmer most of the time, so it comes up a lot less than her other two skills.

• Faerie Pack A - All four effects of this skill scale with level, so it is a fantastic investment, especially if the Master wants to use Summer Melusine frequently.
• Azure Arms Mastery A – This skill is Summer Melusine's least important skill since it does not help her in terms of looping. It is still a great skill to raise to improve her performance in single-target scenarios like Challenge Quests.
• Blue Horizon EX – This skill is unquestionably her best skill, and is simply too powerful not to level. Both the NP Gauge and NP Damage effects scale with Skill level, so it is highly recommended to max it as soon as possible.

Thanks to her high NP Gauge Charge (80%), Summer Melusine can afford not to run Craft Essence with Starting NP Gauge, unlike many other Arts loopers. Furthermore, since she has all different types of self-buffs, she is also not picky when it comes to Craft Essence offensive effects. Generally, any combination of Starting NP Gauge, Arts Card Effectiveness, Attack, Critical Damage, and NP Damage is acceptable, depending on team setups. Craft Essences with high Base Attack are also highly recommended, as she has a 1.1x Attack modifier as a Ruler.

• The Black Grail / Heaven’s Feel / Inverted Rain of Mud: Summer Melusine is a great holder of these Craft Essences, since with Skill Append 2 and her third skill, she can instantly secure a Noble Phantasm on the first wave without external help, and these Craft Essences provide her a much-needed boost in firepower.
• Ocean Flier / Golden Sumo: Boulder Tournament / Thank You For Your Hard Work! / Magical Sion / A Reward For Your Studies: Farmable Craft Essences from Events with Starting NP Gauge and offensive buffs that Summer Melusine can take advantage of.