Shuten-Douji

“Come, have a drink.”

As drunk as they come, Shuten Douji, one of the big three yokai of Japanese legends, stumbles in with a sword in one hand and a bottle in the other. Surprisingly, the liquor doesn’t prevent her from being a strong AoE Arts Assassin who provides decent support for her teammates.

Shuten’s primary strength as a servant comes from the interplay between her powerful NP and her support skills. With a 3-turn 20% Attack buff from Demonic Nature of Oni and a 3-turn 20% Defense debuff from Intoxicating Aroma of Fruits, Shuten effectively provides a potent 40% Attack buff for 3 turns regardless of card type. These two skills alone, plus the 30% Noble Phantasm damage up on Demonic Nature of Oni, lead to Shuten having a hard-hitting AoE useful for clearing waves, especially post Rank Up. Her Noble Phantasm further serves as additional support and utility, decreasing enemy’s Debuff Resist, Defense, Attack, NP Strength, Critical Rate, and inflicting Skill Seal. Lastly, although somewhat unreliable, Shuten also has a 60% chance to inflict Charm to all enemies (of any enemy type) via Intoxicating Aroma of Fruits, which helps stall and indirectly reduce the amount of enemy attacks.

Unfortunately, Shuten is not a heavy damage dealer herself outside of her NP. With her standard 0.9x Assassin modifier and a QQAAB deck, her basic card damage falls on the lower end despite a high base Attack stat. In addition, her NP gain is mediocre, and she will have to rely on Arts Chains and CEs to charge her NP bar effectively. Furthermore, Arts Assassins in general have issues as the supports who can best help them with Art Chains and Arts buffs, Casters, are weak to their favored opponents, Riders. Shuten is also relatively fragile, having to rely on a single guts skill, Battle Continuation, for survivability.

On the right team, Shuten can shine through with her impressive utility and support. As long as one is not reliant on her Charm skill for anything more than damage reduction, Masters will find themselves quite satisfied using this hard-drinking yokai with a charming voice.

Hard Hitting AoE Noble Phantasm

Excellent Team wide Support

Good Utility

Large Number of Traits

Low Card Damage

As an Assassin, Shuten suffers from the class 0.9x damage modifier in the worst way possible. With no passives to notably boost her damage, her cards in general fail to generate much damage. In addition, her QQAAB deck is more focused on NP generation than damage or Critical damage, lowering her overall output.

Mediocre NP and Star Gain

While Shuten has a decent Extra card with 6 hits, her other cards do not perform as well for her. With her low-ish NP gain, her 3-hit Arts cards in particular are below average in performance. Additionally, as she has access to only two Quick cards, Shuten's star generation isn't very strong for an Assassin.

Poor Synergy

Shuten’s role as an Arts AoE Assassin complicates matters when building a team around her. Most servants who would support her to compensate for her weaknesses are Casters, meaning they are weak against the Riders Shuten has class advantage against. With her NP gain being a sticking point, and with no NP battery of her own, she often finds herself supporting more than being supported.

In most teams, Shuten’s primary roles are to support her party’s damage and deal damage herself. As such, Demonic Nature of Oni and Toxic Aroma of Fruits are great options to maximize, as both increase party damage. Her Battle Continuation modifies nothing except for revival HP on her guts, and as such should be leveled last and does not necessarily warrant maxing.

• Toxic Aroma of Fruits A is Shuten’s charm and Defense down skill. The AoE charm, at a 60% success rate, is unreliable and at best is rolling the dice to mitigate damage. Masters would be best not to rely on it overly much. Her defense down scales to a powerful 20% for 3 turns, although this only applies to the current wave. As such, level this second.
• Demonic Nature of Oni A is Shuten’s primary steroid, and the second of her AoE buffs. Scaling to 20% attack up for the party and 30% NP damage up for Shuten herself for 3 turns, this skill is the most important skill in her kit. Level this first.
• Battle Continuation A+ is Shuten’s Guts skill, which increases revival HP as it is leveled. Even at A+ level and maxed, she only revives with 2700 HP, which still puts her a turn away from another death. Due to the low scaling of the HP revival, this skill should be leveled last.

Shuten’s biggest needs stem from her mediocre NP Gain and low card damage. A CE which boosts Stating NP Gauge can compensate for her first NP. In longer fights, a hybrid Starting NP Gauge CE can help with both damage and getting her first bar filled. In addition, her NP gain can be compensated somewhat with an Arts Performance Up CE, which will also stack multiplicatively damage-wise with her skills. Alternatively, if focusing on her support role, a Critical Star Per Turn CE can supplement her general support to the team.

• Kaleidoscope / Imaginary Element: For fast farming, being able to fire off an NP rapidly can quickly take care of a Rider or Berserker wave.
• Holy Night Supper / Golden Sumo / Dive to Blue: Combining NP charge with damage, a mixed CE will help Shuten reach higher damage benchmarks.
• Formal Craft: As an Arts Assassin, Shuten benefits both in terms of damage dealt and NP generated by buffing her most prominent card type. As her skills do not boost Arts Performance, it stacks especially well with her in-kit steroids.
• A Fragment of 2030 / His Rightful Place: If Shuten is to be used primarily for her support, boosting her otherwise weak star generation improves her overall support potential.