Sessyoin Kiara (Moon Cancer)

“Please come play with the mermaid.”

What happens when you take a lewd nun, a magical girl, and a mermaid, and mix them all together? Sesshouin Kiara (Moon Cancer). As one of the premiere AoE Arts Noble Phantasm Servants capable of looping, Masters are not going to want to miss out on her… tail.

Kiara has all the makings of a powerhouse. She is a natural Arts looper under the double Castoria setup thanks to her Divine Power (Ink)’s battery and Clam Palace’s Arts resist down. She has nice durability too with a Guts skill, an Evasion, and optionally a second stackable Guts on her bond CE. But her true powers lie in her Mermaid’s Flesh power, which is a unique skill capable of improving any of her other skills as needed, giving her incredible versatility.

On the other hand, Kiara still is a Moon Cancer Servant. While her damage isn’t particularly bad, it will struggle to keep up with Servants who’d otherwise have class advantage. She also is not likely to produce much of anything in the way of a Critical hit, making all her damage focused around her Noble Phantasm. Her natural NP gain is also fairly weak, making her heavily reliant on supports.

Any Master with a Castoria of their own is going to want her, but she’s fairly powerful in her own right. Just be careful… she’s known to take people underwater and they won’t be seen again for decades!

Kiara’s Noble Phantasm, Nirmāṇarati Heaven's Foam A, gains power based on how many mental debuff stacks the enemy has, to the effect of 20% per stack. Kiara can use her third skill to inflict stacks of mental debuffs (typically 2 stacks on the third wave after a Mermaid's Flesh buff) and increase damage. However, her third skill is also tied in with her Arts Down, which is used for looping. So one needs to figure out when and how each can be used.

There are three different looping strategies for Kiara based off of class typing with the Fragment of 2004 Mystic Code. All assume double Castoria. Any other looping strategy involves a plugsuit swap for another charger or buffer.

• Vs. Casters - Black Grail capable. Use the Fragment of 2004 CE to buff her NP gain, and give all Castoria buffs to her. Will generate 100% on wave 1, and can use her second skill after wave 3 to fill in the missing amounts.
• Vs. Riders/Sabers/Lancers/Archers - Requires 2nd Skill Append unlocked and maxed. Black Grail Capable. Use the Fragment of 2004 to buff her NP gain and give all Castoria Buff except for one 20% charge/NP gain buff on wave 1. She will generate 80% gauge. You can use the remaining Castoria 20% buff to fill in the remaining gauge, and on turn 3 use her second skill to fill in the remaining amounts.
• Vs. Assassins / Berserkers - Kiara will have to accept a 3rd wave damage reduction and use her 3rd skill on wave 1, in addition to using a NP gain CE such as Sign of the Smiling Face and all Castoria buffs. Facing non-Casters without the append skill is similar. Most would want to use a plugsuit swap and Black Grail in these situations instead.

Arts Looping

With a double Castoria setup, Kiara can loop against pretty much any enemy set. While its requirements may differ (see gameplay tip), she has the capacity against all standard 3-3-x nodes without needing to switch in other Servants. 

Strong Durability

In her natural set, Kiara has both a guts and an evasion, both for one time on relatively short cooldowns. She also has a fairly high HP base, and her Moon Cancer typing means she will very rarely have Supereffective hits levied against her. Her ability to heal herself and remove her debuffs further contributes to this. And if one wanted even more, her bond CE provides a 1-time guts with 100% HP revive to add to this beefiness. 

Versatility

Mermaid’s Flesh is a unique skill, providing rank ups to her other 2 skills. She will gain 1 stack of rank up each turn, and when she’s ready to use it she selects the skill and it will consume up to 2 stacks of these rank ups. This allows her to choose if she wants a weaker 30% gauge charge or a stronger 50% later, and how much debuffing she wishes to do on her enemies before casting her Noble Phantasm. Good things come to those who wait.

Mediocre Damage

Kiara doesn’t have much in terms of damage buffs, with only a 20% NP strength modified. Most of her damage increases rely on her 3rd skill’s debuffs on her enemies, which only lasts the current wave and in 2004-looping strategies will not be available for the toughest 3rd waves against Assassins and Berserkers. Her Moon Cancer classing makes it unlikely she’ll ever see a true usage of class advantage outside of Berserkers. That said, she does have the best damage of any Moon Cancers, so one should always use her against Avengers when they appear. 

Poor Criticals

Kiara’s Critical capacity is her ability to generate a small pool of stars each turn and a tiny Independent Manifestation C damage buff. All her damage will come from her Noble Phantasm, so Masters should not rely on her cards for any real damage beyond that.

Low Natural NP Gain

Without the double Castoria looping strategy, Kiara struggles to get her gauge up more than once. Her base NP gain rate of 0.6% per hit is quite low, and with only a 4-hit Quick and 5-hit Extra she will not generate a ton of gauge on her own. She’ll be reliant on supports for the foreseeable future.

Despite their level up recommendations, Mermaid’s Flesh is the crux of all Kiara strategies. Masters typically use Mermaid’s Flesh on turn 1 to gain skill rank ups each turn, and then use their 1st stack on Divine Power (Ink) turn 2 to charge and Clam Palace turn 3 to debuff and increase damage. Divine Power is the only skill Masters really have to raise to 10, the other 2 could be left at lower levels.

• Mermaid’s Flesh is what makes Kiara unique. On the surface it is a simple healing spell to give guts, recover HP, remove debuffs, and increase NP strength. Additionally, however, it provides skill rank ups for her other skills, changing them from mediocre to powerful. Masters almost always cast this turn 1. Its level ups only provide additional HP recovery and guts HP, so it should be last to level. It could be left at low levels as well unless one is planning to use Kiara for an endurance battle, in which one would want it at level 10 to make use of its cooldown reduction.
• Divine Power (Ink) B->A is Kiara’s battery, providing anywhere from 30-50% charge depending on the number of rank ups. It does provide critical stars but these rarely see effective use due to Kiara’s poor Criticals. Masters typically use this to fill in her missing gauge after a Noble Phantasm hits. While the full amount is not always in use, it still should be leveled to max to take advantage of its full situational capacity.
• Clam Palace A->A++ creates a plethora of debuffs on the enemy such as Arts down, Defense down, and Crit Rate down, in addition to providing an evasion and removing Sure Hit. Most notably, the Crit Rate down debuff is treated as a mental debuff meaning it will increase the damage inflicted by her Noble Phantasm. Despite its versatility, the only thing leveling it does is increase its Defense down, so this can be leveled second to level 6 to take advantage of cooldown reduction.

In most  cases Masters who use Kiara will be using her to loop, making NP Strength Up CEs top and center. Mixed Damage/Starting NP Gauge CEs and Mixed Damage/NP Gain CEs can also make this possible to lesser effects. Kiara also has a particularly strong Max Bond CE if one wishes to use her for endurance purposes.

• The Black Grail: With proper looping support and strategy, Kiara is able to use a Black Grail to its maximum effectiveness.
• Painting Summer / Holy Night Supper / Golden Sumo: Boulder Tournament: Providing smaller increases to damage than a Black Grail, these mixed CEs make it easier to get her Noble Phantasm off on demand. 
• Distant Pilgrimage / Mark on a Smiling Face: On some tougher nodes, these CEs will allow for looping where BG will not.
• Palm-Top Multistoried Building: Despite only providing the Bond CE’s 100/100 ATK/HP, this Max Bond CE is a rare useful one for endurance fights. It is a stackable Guts, and one which fully revives Kiara to max HP.