Nitocris (Assassin)

“Its true identity was me, Nitocris! I was so embarrassed that I covered myself up in this imperial garment. Huh? You knew? From the start?”

The pharaoh Nitocris joins the summer festivities hidden under a Medjed-like appearance, certainly fooling her fellow pharaohs with her clever deception! While her NP’s instant kill pays homage to her Caster version, Nitocris (Assassin) is a vastly different Servant, taking the role of a hybrid Arts-based AoE Assassin who dives in head-on (literally) into fights both offensive and defensive.

Strikingly, Nitocris boasts a high durability resulting from the Defensive buffs from White Imperial Garments and Beach Panic, which when used together also allow her to effectively use her one-turn Taunt to soak a full turn of damage for the entire team. Furthermore, she also harbors an offensive side, owing to her damaging NP as well as the gamut of offensive buffs from High Road of the Hot Sands. Lastly, Nitocris with her buffs up can charge her NP fairly well off the back of her NP and the defensive NP Gain forced by high hit enemy attacks when her Taunt is active.

On the other hand, Nitocris’ marriage between offense and defense also serves as her weak spot, as it results in a lack of a distinctive niche. For example in terms of team protection, while Nitocris is able to utilize her Taunt very well, she is unable to use it very frequently given its 7-turn cooldown at max. Similarly, despite having a strong steroid, her offensive side suffers from a middling Attack stat, the Assassins’ 0.9x damage modifier, decently long cooldown on her main steroid, and weak base NP Gain from her Quick and Arts cards. 

Overall, Nitocris (Assassin) can be seen as an Arts-based hybrid damage dealer who makes up for her lack of raw damage with decent off tank potential from her defensive buffs and a sweet Taunt. Yet, while her performance with High Road of the Hot Sands active is pretty good, her lack of a true niche limits a wider usage.

Nitocris (Assassin) is one of the few Servants that can inflict Instant Death through her Noble Phantasm. 

However, Instant Death has always been a highly inconsistent feature, and misleading in nature. It triggers too randomly and the percentages show a far rosier picture than what happens in practice as all enemies have some measure of Instant Death Resistance. The Average death resistance on powerful enemies typically renders it useless in practice against strong enemies.

Annoyingly for Nitocris (Assassin), it may even interrupt an attack sequence meant for generating NP gauge, as any affected target will not be hit by the hits on her NP. Thus, refunding a good portion of Nitocris's NP bar is often unreliable against very weak and/or Undead enemies (that tend to have weak Instant Death Resistance).

High Survivability

Nitocris’ most noticeable feature is her ability to tank incoming damage, which can be achieved by using her first and second skills in tandem. The combined force of White Imperial Garments’ double Defense Up buffs and Beach Panic’s flat damage reduction enables her to survive her Taunt turn in a highly reliable manner, while the former also grants her extra survivability for the next two turns.

Taunt

Nitocris can use her Taunt to 2 great effects. The strategic value of Nitocris’ on-demand damage redirection cannot be underestimated, as it allows her to quickly come to the rescue of her allies when the team’s other defensive measures are down. However, Masters can also use it offensively, as Assassins have high defensive NP Gain. High hit count enemies will charge Nitocris’s NP bar for her, especially if her NP Gain buff is active. 

Successive NP Potential

Thanks to High Road of the Hot Sands, Nitocris’s AoE NP deals acceptable damage, and applies a nice 20% Defense Down denuff on all enemies, helping to weaken higher HP enemies. Between her Taunt, her NP Gain buff, and Arts Chains, Nitocris can unleash her NP twice in the same 3-turn window if set up well.

Lacks a Defining Niche

Nitocris possesses several skills which may look formidable on paper, but they only compliment each other in a limited manner, placing her in an awkward spot where she excels at neither offense nor defense. Similarly, the lack of any skill supporting her NP’s low-chance instant kill makes it generally more of a nuisance, as a successful instant kill reduces the NP refund she gets from her NP.

Low Offensive Presence

The infamous 0.9x Assassin damage modifier plagues Nitocris alongside her unexceptional Attack stat, creating a poor offensive base. Furthermore, her QQAAB deck is also unsuited to dealing damage, and despite her Arts leanings, Nitocris’ mediocre NP gain prevents her from spamming her NP especially when her skills are down.

Mediocre Generation Performance

Despite having decent hit counts on her Quick and Extra cards, Nitocris’ generation stats are rather poor. With only 2 hits on her Arts cards, her Arts cards noticeably underperform unless boosted by High Road of the Hot Sands. On the critical side, her two Quick and one Extra cards are not nearly enough to provide Critical Stars in a consistent manner unless supplemented by external help.

Generally, despite some defensive benefits, Nitocris core purpose is still mainly offensive. Given Nitocris’ defensive skills are already pretty good at their base level, leveling them is generally done after improving High Road of the Hot Sands. As High Road of the Hot Sands acts as both her Noble Phantasm steroid and her main NP gain buff leveling it is crucial to Nitocris’ performance.

• The extra Defense buff gained from maxing White Imperial Garments A allows Nitocris to survive harder hitting attacks more reliably, increases her long-term survivability, and allows her to utilize defense stacking tactics more effectively. In addition, it packs a small static Debuff Resistance buff. Thanks to its low base cooldown, it is recommended to level this skill second.

• Beach Panic EX’s Taunt is a notably strong tool. However, its primary benefit doesn’t scale with levels, while the increase in damage reduction by itself does not warrant maxing the skill. Furthermore, due to its long base cooldown(9 turns!) and 1-turn duration, the cooldown reduction gained from leveling it would only come to play in rare situations. Level it last.

• Nitocris’ main offensive tool, High Road of the Hot Sands’ various benefits last for three turns, potentially allowing two of her NPs to benefit from a single usage. Due to her aforementioned offensive problems, leveling this skill is imperative for her to be able to reliably clear enemy Rider or Berserker mobs. This skill should be leveled first.

As Nitocris ultimately leans towards the offensive side, Arts Performance Up CEs serve as her primary choice in longer fights as they also stack multiplicatively with her NP Gain buff. NP Damage Up ones can also be picked if she is going against higher-HP mobs. As she lacks an instant NP battery, Starting NP Gauge CEs are recommended for farming situations. Lastly, Nitocris can support the team well with Passive Critical Stars per Turn in her hybrid capacity, or stack further Taunts for more defensive support.

• Dive to Blue: The Event CE from the event she debuts in is a solid hybrid CE choice for general farming. Still, it's split Attack/HP stat budget is less than ideal at higher level. 
• Golden Sumo / Holy Night Supper: Alternative hybrid CEs, of which Golden Sumo scales especially well.
• Formal Craft / Kaleid Sapphire / Projection: In situations where multiple NPs are required, Arts Performance tends to work best. Charging her first NP might take a while though. 
• The Black Grail / Heaven’s Feel: To make up for her lack of high damage potential, Masters can run her with pure NP Damage. Her own defenses should keep her alive long alive to make use of them.
• Fragment of 2030 / Chocolatier: Nitocris does not generate Critical Stars very well, but with some additional help, it's passable.
• GUDAGUDA Poster Girl: Any Taunt CE is fair game to extend her protective capabilities, but Poster Girl stands out for its duration.