Sitonai

“It feels weird to call someone master.”

What happens when one combines the Ainu Sitonai, the Finnish Louhi, and the Norse Freyja into one Servant? An adorable loli with a polar bear, that’s what! Sitonai serves as a single target Arts Servant, and is also the first non-limited Alter Ego Servant for Masters to summon.

Sitonai’s primary usage comes from her sustained damage. Having both a 3-turn Attack Up on Kamuy Yukar A and a 3-turn Arts Up on Emotional Freezing B, both with relatively low cooldowns, she can keep her Card damage higher for a longer time. She also has some nice survival options such as her invincibility on Snow Fairy EX. A 30% NP charge on Kamuy Yukar also provides her with easier access to her Noble Phantasm.

While she is incredibly cute, she is still incredibly lacking the umph that her Caster counterpart, Illya, has. Her damage is severely lacking due to her class typing, making her worse than many freely available options with respect to Noble Phantasm strength. She also suffers from poor durability when she does not have her hard survival skill up. To make matters worse, as an Illya-type Servant, she has to deal with chance based skills.

Masters looking for a non-limited Alter Ego would be best served to roll for her, and will find her most effective in roles against Cavalry and Foreigner Bosses. The loli goddess conglomerate will not disappoint. 

Sustained Damage

Sitonai comes equipped with two 3-turn damage boosts - one for her Arts and one for her Attack. This not only will allow her to hit harder on non-Noble Phantasm turns, but also to improve her (rather poor) base NP gain. 

Hard Survivability

Sitonai has two survivability tools up her sleeve - an Invincibility on a 6-turn cooldown, and her Noble Phantasm which causes a Dragon Enemy to lose one tick of their gauge. These hard survival options could help her last even longer in some challenging quests.

Gauge Charging

There is a huge difference in Fate / Grand Order between a 20% and a 30% charge, with a 30% allowing a Servant to use their Noble Phantasm with a 50% starting CE and either a Mage’s Association mystic code, or one of the many 20% gauge chargers.

Adorable

Hueeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee~

(Plus a Polar Bear)

Alter Ego Classing (Offensive)

The best usage of an Alter Ego in the game is due to their ability to counter waves of Cavalry opponents of mixed classes. However, without an AoE Noble Phantasm, they are almost always outdone damage-wise by a regular counter-class. Sitonai is no exception, as her Noble Phantasm struggles to keep up with Noble Phantasms of many lower-rarity counter classes. The only time she does benefit from double damage where no other class would is against Foreigners, which are very rare as an enemy type. 

Alter Ego Classing (Defensive)

As an Alter Ego, Sitonai will receive neutral damage against all classes except Berserker (1.5x) and Foreigner (0.5x). While she has her hard survival skill, she will often be taking far more damage than she would against class advantage. One or two poorly timed Critical hits in more challenging quests could wipe her out prematurely.

Chance Based Skills

All Illya Servants have a skill based on chance, designed to incorporate Miyu or Chloe into the fight to buff her back up to full. Sitonai has a particularly brutal one, losing her 20% Attack up should the Chance Based skill miss, harming her already mediocre damage.

As a damaging Servant, Sitonai should primarily focus on skills which damage her enemy. Both her 2nd and 3rd skill should be leveled high (with her 3rd to 10 for the full 30% gauge), but her first skill fails to benefit significantly from leveling and can hence be left at minimal levels.

• Snow Fairy EX gives Sitonai her hard survival and a team-wide damage cut. However, this damage cut improves only by a couple hundred points at max level making it near negligible in practice. A Master would only want to level this skill up to lower its cooldown, but for the most part it can be leveled last and only to level 4 (or 6 if 1st cooldown reduction is desired).
• Emotional Freezing B provides Sitonai with an Arts Effectiveness up buff, which increases her lower NP gain rate as well as her damage. While it also provides Debuff Immunity, this is not particularly crucial in most situations. This skill can be leveled second. Masters lacking in resources could hold this at level 9 with no real loss.
• Kamuy Yukar A is Sitonai’s charge, which also provides a chance at increasing her attack and giving the party Critical Stars. Like all charge skills, there is a huge difference between base and max, so this skill should always be leveled first to max level.

Like most damaging Servants, Sitonai works well with Starting NP Gauge CEs or Hybrid Starting Gauge / Damage CEs. Without either she could benefit from a Buff Success Up CE to minimize her chance of failing to maximize her damage.

• Kaleidoscope / The Imaginary Element: Either of the two primary starting gauge CEs will allow Sitonai to unleash her Noble Phantasm instantaneously.
• Holy Night Supper / Golden Sumo: Boulder Tournament / Painting Summer: With a 50% charge and a boost to damage, these CEs would allow Sitonai to increase her output at the cost of requiring a 20% support charger to top her off.
• Secluded Beauty / Queen’s Dream: While not in NA yet, these CEs can lower Sitonai’s chance based skills’ failure rate from 1 in 5 to 1 in 10. While not perfect, it makes her a much more reliable Servant.