Scathach-Skadi

“Do not forget: You serve me.”

Ice, snow, and cold all bow down to the ever loving goddess of Scandinavia, representing yet another aspect of Scathach in a different mythology. An Arts Support Servant with the ability to supercharge Quick cards and a hefty NP charge, Skadi isn’t just a great Servant, but a Servant who will change how Masters play the game.

Skadi is the undisputed Goddess of the Quick. Taking from her Scathach aspect, through Primordial Rune (Skadi) she grants any servant a massive 50% Quick up boost as well as boosting their Quick critical damage, generating masses of critical stars and improving Quick card NP gain. Not only that, but she’s able to boost any Servant’s NP gauge by 50% with Allfather's Wisdom B+. With these two skills combined, Skadi (with a combination of other Servants) can enable the use of Noble Phantasms three times in a row for a subset of AoE Quick Servants. Her second skill, Shivering Blizzard B, isn’t wasted either, further increasing damage on a single wave via a 3-turn defense down equivalent to some of the strongest attack buffs in the game. If that isn’t enough, her Noble Phantasm, Gate of Skye A+ will boost up her allies’ critical capacity while giving them an evasion, death immunity, and damage cut.

While Skadi has impressive support capacities, she is by no means perfect. Given her Caster classing and lack of offensive Noble Phantasm, her own offensive output will be minimal at best. She also lacks on-demand survivability, with it tied to her Noble Phantasm instead of a skill, and only providing a one-hit evasion. Her NP recharge is also fairly poor since she only has 2 Arts cards compared to the standard 3 for a Caster class, but her high Quick hit counts can make up for the poor spread. She has some difficulty in sustained fights as well, having few sources of damage mitigation (solely damage cut tied to her Noble Phantasm), and no means of restoring health or stalling the enemy. She ultimately is built for encounters that are meant to be over quickly.

Teams built with Skadi as a feature are among the best farming teams in the entire game. Masters would be well served to use her to loop Quick Noble Phantasms and mop the floor with their enemies, even if Skadi doesn’t like killing anyone and is only really interested in ice cream.

Noble Phantasm Looping (Quick)

Skadi creates an entirely new meta in the game, giving Servants with high hit-count AoE Quick Noble Phantasms the ability to use them up to three times in a row. By boosting their Quick cards 50% they can gain just enough gauge with each Noble Phantasm that her 50% charge will boost them up again. This is facilitated by the use of two Skadi (with Support), where stacking both Quick Card buffs ensure the NP gauge refund will be sufficient, and both Skadis can each charge the NP Gauge by 50%, one for turn 2, and another for turn 3.

Noble Phantasm Charging

Not many servants in the game can offer an on-demand 50% targetable charge skill. With a Chaldea Combat Uniform and friend support, this does provide a possibility for a 150% charge using a Waver and either a second Skadi or second Waver, giving access to some nice overcharge effects such as on Rider Kintoki or Illya (if supported with a 50% starting charge CE). 

Massive Damage Boosts

While Skadi’s primary benefit is creating an opportunity for NP Looping, one should not discount her boost to sheer damage output. With 50% Quick damage up and a 50% charge, she can afford Servants the opportunity to use certain Craft Essences like the Black Grail or Holy Night Supper to levy a boatload of damage against enemies. To make matters even worse for her enemies, she packs a nasty punch with her 30% Defense down to all enemies.

Critical Boosts

With a boost to Quick comes a boost to Critical stars, and with a boost to Critical stars comes more Critical hits. Skadi completes the circuit by boosting Critical damage via her Noble Phantasm, offering her allies great sustained performance even when she is not used for looping. With her Primordial Rune she can also boost up Quick critical damage alone, making it on par with stronger cards.

Poor Offense

Make no mistake, Skadi is a support Servant. One should not be expecting to use her for much more other than boosting her allies and changing the entire game into a Quick-oriented one. She has low attack for a 5-star Servant, which is made even lower by her 0.9x Caster modifier, and she lacks an offensive Noble Phantasm.

Low Survivability

Skadi comes with two tools to mitigate incoming damage: A decrease to Critical chance for enemies on Shivering Blizzard, and her Noble Phantasm. While her Noble Phantasm is effective for mitigating damage via a one-time evasion for the short run and a small damage cut for the long run, it is still a Noble Phantasm requiring a full charge to use as opposed to being an on-demand skill. She also lacks further defensive options such as heals or defense which could bolster her party’s survival.

Hard to Charge Noble Phantasm

Skadi’s Noble Phantasm gain rate is admittedly decent thanks to her high hit-count cards. However, it can be difficult at times to raise her Noble Phantasm to max based on the compositions she is slotted into. Masters generally want their Quick DPS to do most of the attacking, so using her Cards is counter-productive, and a charge used on her to max her Noble Phantasm is generally a waste of resources which would better be served going to the Quick DPS for extra Noble Phantasm turns. The only exception is if an enemy NP is incoming, and no other means of damage mitigation aside from Skadi’s NP are available.

Skadi exists to boost up Quick Noble Phantasms, and her first and third skill work in concert in doing exactly this. Without a doubt, Masters will want to boost these skills up no matter what the expense. Her second skill is much less important, but to make a complete kit is also a requirement.

• Primordial Rune (Skadi) is Skadi’s bread and butter, providing any one Servant with up to 50% Quick up for three turns, as well as boosting the Critical damage of their Quick cards. As Skadi is the queen of Quick, a Master who doesn’t want to level up this skill would best be served with another Servant. This should be leveled to max second, only due to the versatility of charge skills.
• Shivering Blizzard B primarily serves to boost damage on a single wave via a defense down on all enemies. This is typically used on the last wave of an NP loop combo in order to provide certain Servants enough damage to kill the biggest HP enemy. It can also be used for a bit of survivability by reducing critical rates of the enemies, but this rarely comes into practice. The strength of this skill should not be underestimated due to just how much defense down it provides (30%), which is about as strong as any other 3-turn skill in the game for the group. This skill is still important to level, and to max, but can be left for last.
• Allfather's Wisdom B+ makes Skadi one of the select few Servants in the game capable of charging any ally’s Noble Phantasm gauge up by 50%. This skill not only allows for easy to access Noble Phantasms for allies, but at the same time offers certain Servants without a charge the option to use a Mixed Damage / NP Charge CE, or those with a charge to use The Black Grail for further damage increases. There is a huge difference between 50% charge and 46% charge, so this should be leveled first and always to the max level.

Skadi provides so much good to a team, there is not much that she is missing, so her Craft Essence selection should focus on supporting her allies. If a Master wants to access her Noble Phantasm, using a Staring NP Gauge CE with proper setups will allow her the chance. Alternatively, a Master may want to guarantee Critical stars to make use of her Critical Damage boosts, so Critical Stars CEs can be helpful. If a Master wants to protect her from incoming damage, an Invincibility CE may be the best option. Unlike most Servants, her Max Bond CE is also a great option to provide damage support.

• A Fragment of 2030 / Golden Captures the Carp – Skadi provides excellent Quick support and Critical support, but does not have any passive Star generation. By using a CE with star generation, she can provide the team with the tools they need to succeed. Sometimes these stars are only needed on the first turn to let the Quick chains do the rest of the work, so Starting Star CEs are effective.
• Kaleidoscope / The Imaginary Element / Dragon’s Meridian – Skadi’s Noble Phantasm is a powerful boost to her team, but it can be hard to access with her setup. Giving her access to an early gauge gives her a chance to use it.
• Volumen Hydrargyrum / Under the Sun / Parted Sea – Skadi’s damage mitigation is tied to her Noble Phantasm, so CEs which mitigate damage for her can be a boon. However they are often hit-based, making it harder to have an invulnerability ready for the needed Noble Phantasm turn. Volumen Hydrargyrum is the preferred CE, given it can stack separately with Skadi’s Evade, while the others offer an overlapping Evade effect.
• The Love the Gods Bequeathed - Typically, Servants do not want to use the Bond CE as it only gives them 100 ATK / 100 HP. However, Skadi is a support Servant and using her Bond CE to further boost up party Quick performance is a boon to all allies.