Prince of Lan Ling

“I can't calm down without my mask. Other people's gazes are impolite, after all.”

The Prince of Lan Ling’s true name is Gao Changgong, a general famed for both his valor as well as his beauty. In fact, he is so beautiful that he is forced to wear a mask in order to not distract the soldiers with his looks. A generous and inspiring commander, the Prince of Lan Ling is an Arts-oriented Servant who specializes in boosting his allies’ offensive performance.

Everything within Lan Ling’s kit is built to support, but chief of all these is his third skill Demonic Visage, which grants Arts Performance Up as well as (chance-based) Critical Star Drop Rate Up and Critical Strength Up to the entire party; at max level, this skill has a 60% uptime, which is quite impressive. He also provides Attack Up buffs through his first skill Mask of Concealing Beauty and NP Prince of Lan Ling in Battle, each of which also comes with an extent of defensive benefit. The icing on the cake is his second skill, Great Vigor, which charges an ally’s NP gauge and increases their buff success rate, a welcome sight for Servants with skills such as Imperial Privilege.

A phenomenal Servant overall, there is not much to be said in terms of Lan Ling’s weaknesses. His lacking damage is expected of a support, and in practice it’s far outweighed by the offensive benefits he brings. In truth, the only real weakness Lan Ling has is his lack of long-term sustain and limited defensive options, though it can be argued that a majority of fights generally don’t last long enough for these to become an issue.

All told, Lan Ling’s worth as a Servant does live up to his reputation. While not quite on the level of Zhuge Liang, he is able to fill the damage support role very convincingly (especially in Arts teams), with a rare niche in the form of the buff success rate increase. Truly, the Emperor of Qi was a fool to have served poisonous wine to such a magnificent Servant!

Excellent Damage Support

Lan Ling’s damage supporting capabilities is by far his greatest boon, totaling at 20% Arts Up, 50% Attack Up, 50% Critical Strength Up with all his buffs active. Furthermore, all of these buffs are applied to the entire party, making him well-suited to farming compositions featuring multiple damage dealer Servants. Indeed, even without taking the Arts buff into account, his other buffs are so massive and have high enough uptime that he still performs very well even in other (Buster or Quick) critical-oriented compositions.

Targetable NP Charge and Buff Success Rate Up

While 20% NP Charge is not particularly impressive, the targetable nature allows Lan Ling to help his allies with charging their NP, making him a good pick for switch-in NP looping compositions. Furthermore, the Buff Success Rate Up part of the skill, while seemingly niche at first, is far from situational as it can also be used to ensure that allies will gain Lan Ling’s Critical Strength and Critical Star Drop Rate buffs when applied to himself.

Flexible CE Choice

As a Servant whose performance relies mostly on skill usage, Lan Ling’s CE picks are very flexible, making him a good option to carry things such as event drop CEs, bond/QP bonus CEs or the like. When this is not necessary, his CEs can be used to enhance his supporting capability, benefiting the team in various unique ways.

Lacks Party Sustain and Limited Defensive Options

While Lan Ling is himself quite tanky thanks to his first skill’s Invincibility, his defensive supporting capability is limited to his NP’s NP Drain, Critical Chance Down and (minor) Damage Cut, which are on their own often insufficient to protect the party from real threats. Nevertheless, these work wonderfully when used to complement another defensive support, who would cover the direct damage mitigation aspects (through either Defense Up or Invincibility/Evasion buffs) as well as sustain/healing in longer fights.

As a support, Lan Ling’s worth lies in his skills, and thus it’s highly recommended to try and get them to as high a level as possible. In particular, his second skill might need to be at max level to accommodate certain switch-in NP loop farming compositions, despite not being the top priority in terms of skill leveling.

• Mask of Concealing Beauty A is sort of a combination of Charisma and Protection from Arrow skills, applying an Attack Up buff to the entire party and a 2-hit, 3-turn Invincibility to Lan Ling himself. In exchange, it has a slightly longer cooldown compared to normal Charisma skills. This skill should be leveled last.
• Great Vigor C is a targetable NP Charge, which also has an added benefit of increasing the target’s Buff Success Rate. Its single-target nature and the relatively low NP Charge magnitude can make it seem slightly underwhelming at first glance, but the skill’s Buff Success Rate Up is deceptively powerful, especially as it can help ensure Lan Ling’s third skill’s critical buffs to be applied. In general, this skill should be leveled second in order to keep its cooldown close to that of the third skill.
• Lan Ling’s third and by far most impactful skill, Demonic Visage EX applies a party-wide Arts Performance buff as well as a further 60% chance to apply Critical Strength and Critical Star Drop Rate buffs. The fact that all three of the skill’s buffs scale with level in terms of magnitude (the application rate of the critical buffs, unfortunately, do not) makes leveling this skill a very worthwhile affair, and it should be prioritized above his other two skills.

As a support, Lan Ling is pretty flexible with his Craft Essence picks. From normal passive Star generation and NP Charge per Turn effects, to even Taunt and on-entry CEs, Lan Ling’s CE choice generally depends on which of his options would best suit the party composition’s overall strategy.

• A Fragment of 2030 / His Rightful Place: As an Arts-oriented critical support, passive Star generation CEs are a very powerful option for Lan Ling, helping ensure that the team will be able to make the most of his Critical Strength Up buff.
• Prisma Cosmos / Afternoon Party: These CEs allow Lan Ling to unleash his NP more often without having to rely on his command cards as much, increasing the uptime of the NP’s Attack buff as well as the availability of its NP Drain effect.
• Golden Captures the Carp / Scenic Beauty / Ox-Demon King: These CEs can be used when he is used as a switch-in Servant, granting the party with further instant offensive benefits.
• GUDAGUDA Poster Girl: As a Servant whose primary value lies in his buffs, multi-turn Taunt CEs such as Poster Girl can be used to force him to retreat early and allow other buffers entry into the fight.
• Grand New Year / Outrage / Halloween Arrangement: While single-turn Taunt options are far less effective in terms of forcing Lan Ling’s retreat, they can still be used to absorb early damage and alleviate pressure from the team, especially considering Lan Ling’s own considerable innate survivability. 
• Chaldea Lunchtime / Flexible: Lan Ling is an excellent bearer of bond/QP bonus and event drop CEs, being able to equip them without much, if any compromise in terms of overall performance.