Scathach (Assassin)

"Now dance splendidly for me."

With various Gae Bolg in hand, the mistress of Summer Scathach makes her debut as a welfare Servant in the Assassin class. While her skill set contains a mishmash of effects, Scathach's main value lies in her powerful, and fully upgraded, Area of Effect Quick NP. 

For most Masters, strong AoE Assassins are a relative rarity without resorting to rolling the gacha. With spread out hit counts and decent NP generation, charging that NP is usually fine, especially as Scathach can taunt enemies with high hit counts to charge her NP for her. Furthermore, through her vast toolkit of skills, this Scathach dips her toes in many other different waters. She can Taunt, heal, protect, critical hard, Pierce Invincibility, and even inflict the (sadly mostly useless) Instant Death effect. Her Quick-deck also provides enough star generation potential that she can step into the role of providing critical stars to the team, especially when she launches her NP against multiple enemies. 

Yet, Scathach's general competence in many facets is also her major flaw. With her skills so spread out and with so many different effects, she is a master of none that doesn't truly carve out a niche for herself outside of her accessible AoE NP. In addition, making optimal use out of each of her skills is difficult to do considering all her skills possess two different effects, that in many cases are ideally used at different times. This problem is made even more noticeable by the long cooldowns on her skills considering all her skills last for only a single turn.

In the end, Scathach (Assassin)'s lack of focus limits her use immensely outside of farming. Yet, there are few Assassins better suited for dealing high AoE damage to groups of rowdy Rider enemies

Powerful Noble Phantasm

Scathach (Assassin)’s most useful aspect is her powerful AoE Noble Phantasm. With easy access to a fully upgraded NP, high attack for an Assassin and a significant Quick steroid in Midsummer Mistake, Scathach can clear the field of any Rider opponents. Furthermore, Scathach will be able to create a good amount of stars while doing so.

Decent Star Generator

With a Quick-deck and an AoE 5-hit Quick NP, Scathach can fill in as a star generator. With her summer attire being the opposite of “subtle” though, Scathach’s Presence Concealment comes in at a measly 2% which doesn’t improve her relatively low 3-hit Quick card very much. Thus, without her NP Scathach provides a decent, if average, amount of stars to a team for an Assassin whereas her 5-hit Quick NP will generate significant sums of stars against a full enemy team.

Team Utility and Support

Despite the mishmash nature of her skills, Scathach (Assassin) can provide some very useful team support and utility in the right moments. These skills are best combined with other skills to extract their full value, such as combining an Evasion/Invincibility with her Beach Crisis’s Taunt or combining Primordial Rune (Sea) with another defense buff.

Master of None

While having the flexibility to respond to many different situations is great, it comes at a price.  Similar to Li Shuwen, her skills have higher cooldowns at max rank, last for a single turn and offer multiple effects. Yet, as a Master’s roster keeps growing, completing a quest often comes down to picking the best specialized tool for the job.

Scathach unfortunately suffers from having a very all-round kit without being devotedly strong at a niche like star generation or team support. Ultimately, Scathach is simply a massive AoE Assassin stick with which to ferociously beat enemies with.

Opportunity Cost

Scathach (Assassin)’s kit is potentially very flexible, yet requires a Master to bring together some very specific circumstances to fully make use of each aspect. For example, Beach Crisis packs a very useful taunt, yet also contains Scathach’s critical steroid. A turn where Scathach needs to tank for another doesn’t often overlap with a turn in which she can deal tremendous critical damage. Primordial Rune (Sea) heals for a significant amount, but also reduces damage and therefore would be useful before damage is received. Furthermore, should it be used with Scathach's taunt, or used to protect another? In practice, Scathach (Assassin) often has to make some sacrifices.

For most Masters, Scathach (Assassin)'s main purpose is serving as a powerful AoE farming Servant. Thus, prioritizing pure damage performance is ideal. Given her base cooldowns are so long, going all the way isn't necessary and Masters can elect to leave her skills at 6 or lower if Ascension Materials are right. However, Masters that lack a powerful AoE Assassin are advised to go all the way on Midsummer Mistake to be able to hit higher damage benchmarks during Rider farming sessions.

• Beach Crisis A+ provides Scathach (Assassin) a taunt and her critical steroid for 1 turn. It’s a decent skill, yet the critical steroid is often harder to fully make use of when Scathach is the primary star generator. In practice, this skill can be abused versus high hit count opponents to quickly charge Scathach’s NP as Assassins possess a higher NP gain upon being hit. The cooldown on the skill is substantial for a 1 turn effect though and should be leveled simultaneously with Primordial Rune, depending on personal preference.
• Primordial Rune (Sea) A provides a significant amount of healing and a flat damage cut for 1 turn. The increase per level is substantial but the cooldown remains long for such a short skill. For more powerful team-support, level this second or simultaneously with Beach Crisis.
• Midsummer Mistake C is Scathach’s primary damage skill and boosts her most important contribution: doing NP damage and generating critical stars. The Pierce Invincibility is merely a niche cherry on top. Level this first!

In general, there are three primary effects that Scathach (Assassin) benefits tremendously from. Providing her with Quick Performance Up will aid Scathach in her sustained performance as it boosts the star generation, NP gain and damage for her Quick cards. NP Damage Up meanwhile significantly buffs the strongest aspect of her kit for Masters that need one very hard-hitting NP. Finally, Starting NP Gauge CEs are required for farming quickly with her NP.

• Golden Sumo/Holy Night Supper: In practice, Scathach will be farming a lot and these two Craft Essences stack multiplicatively with her large Quick Steroid unlike Knight of Marines.

• Knight of Marines: With Starting NP gauge and a Quick boost, this CE offers both a good boost to her sustained performance and her farming potential. Perfect for uncertain situations.

• Kaleidoscope/The Imaginary Element/Dragon's Meridian: Pure Starting NP Gauge is essential if sources of NP charging are limited during farming sessions

• Imaginary Around/Dumplings Over Flowers/Gandr: For good performance during extended battles, Quick CEs are best and a good catch-all for Scathach’s roles in a fight. Dumplings over Flowers provides a nice balance between her NP damage and general performance. 

• Black Grail: For monstrous NP damage, look no further. Primordial Rune (Sea) at max rank can alleviate the negative effects of Black Grail to some extent. For if you need to obliterate one wave of massive Rider mobs.