Ushiwakamaru (Assassin)

“Since I can’t lose to the others, I’ll change my clothes.”

Once upon a time, Ushiwakamaru trained in stealth to steal her Master’s sword. So when she decides to play (or train, since the two are equivalent) at the beach, she turned into an Assassin when she changed her clothes! Wielding a high hit-count Quick AoE Noble Phantasm, Ushi excels against 3-enemy Rider waves, and is irreplaceable if one has access to both a Skadi and Waver for looping.

Ushiwakamaru’s greatest strength lies in the tools she has to refund her Noble Phantasm gauge. Tengu’s Play (Summer) EX aids in this with a 3-turn Quick up boost, which when combined with Animal Communication D’s 40% gauge charge, will allow her to use her Noble Phantasm twice within three turns with minimal support. In fact, with a team using two Skadis and a Waver, she is more than capable of using three Noble Phantasms in three turns, each boosted with her Quick up bonuses. In addition, she has two methods of buff removal, using either her Noble Phantasm’s extra effect (offensive only), or by using her Heaven-Sent Child of Kurama A+ skill and normal attacking (40% chance). In the event she is not used for looping purposes, she can also produce a decent amount of Critical stars for the team thanks to her Presence Concealment C- and her high hit counts on her three Quick Cards and Noble Phantasm.

While Ushi does have one of the highest Attack stats in the game, she is still an Assassin with a lower base damage multiplier. Without proper support, her damage will be low and can be easily outdone by a 1-star Berserker against even Riders. Her high Attack stat comes at the cost of a lower HP pool, and with only a one-turn evasion to survive on, it will be hard to keep her in the loop. To make matters worse, that evasion is tied to her only damage steroid, making its usage in most scenarios never the most ideal.

Ushiwakamaru Assassin packs a diverse kit with much farming potential, especially when used in looping. Masters would be well served to get her if they need an effective wave-clearing Assassin. If a Master has Skadi and a Waver, however, she becomes a must have.

Quick Noble Phantasm Loop Potential

Ushi has an AoE Noble Phantasm with more than 2 hits, which gives her the potential to use her NP refund and supports to fire it more than once. With two Skadis and a Waver, she is capable of firing off three Noble Phantasms in a row in almost all cases against her advantage class (Riders). Even without these supports natively owned, she still can generate a lot of gauge just from her Tengu’s Play and Riding A+, creating many situations where she can fire it off twice. Her Animal Communication Skill’s NP charge plays a key role in her ability to loop.

Buff Removal

There is a lot to say about Ushi’s buff removal, having it guaranteed to remove all offensive buffs on her Noble Phantasm, and providing a 40% chance to remove buffs on normal attacks with her third skill. In a challenging fight, these skills can cripple an enemy’s challenging aspects and make killing them much easier. However, she is lacking a guaranteed buff removal regardless of type so against Defensive buffs she may not be as effective.

Good Star Generation

Ushi has the trifecta of star generation: high Quick hit counts, high star generation rate, and high Presence Concealment. When using her Noble Phantasm she will litter the field with Stars, and having three Quick cards and a Quick Noble Phantasm means she will generate plenty of Quick chains. It is likely that many more hits after the first turn will be a Critical hit with her around, helping the team out in more ways than one.

Low Damage

Ushi is an Assassin, and Assassins come with an inherent 0.9x damage multiplier. She lacks any kind of Attack Up skill, and her Quick up buff is only middling in value. Further, Quick cards are the least damaging of all cards, making her deck less damage focused than others. As a result, without any support she has relatively mediocre Noble Phantasm damage, and poor sustain outside of it.

Middling Survivability

Ushi has a high base attack which can be seen as a boon to make up for her low damage, but it comes at the cost of her HP pool. Outside of a 1-turn evasion, she’s going to be taking huge percentage chunks out of her HP every time she is hit, to the point where an ill-timed Berserker critical hit could take her out in one or two shots.

Damage Linked to Survival

Tengu’s Play (Summer) is Ushi’s only hard evasion, but it also comes with the most critical component of her kit: the three turn Quick Up. For Masters looking to use her in longer fights, this often means choosing between damage and Quick Card NP gain, or a saving it to use as a hard survival skill later in the fight.

Most masters who use Ushiwakamaru will be using her to loop Noble Phantasms. As such, the focus in leveling skills is to enable more compositions where she can fire her Noble Phantasm multiple times. Even when not using her to loop, the leveling strategies remain similar, as NP charges and Quick performance buffs are much more useful than extra Star gather rate.

• Animal Communication D is Ushi’s charge skill, providing up to 40% at max. Surprisingly, this 40% is not needed in many of the loop compositions using her and can be safely put off if Masters are lacking resources. This should eventually get levelled to max as more charge enables more compositions (Skadi or not), but can be left until second.
• Tengu’s Play (Summer) EX provides a three-turn Quick up boost as well as a one-turn Evasion. This is the bread and butter of Ushi’s loop compatibility as well as her main steroid, so this should be leveled first. A Master may be able to get away with leaving this skill at level 9.
• Heaven-Sent Child of Kurama A+ increases Ushi’s Star Gather rate, gives her a one-turn debuff immunity, and a 40% chance to remove enemy buffs upon normal attacking. While it seems like a useful skill, she often has more than enough stars to guarantee a hit due to her high generation, and the buff removal aspect is not guaranteed, so Masters may wind up just ignoring the skill. They can ignore leveling it as well unless they particularly love her, given it only boosts her star gathering rate and skill cooldown. The skill’s star gathering rate is already high enough at base to essentially guarantee her cards will gather the majority of stars, so it is suggested to level this last.

In order to loop effectively, Ushi requires a starting Noble Phantasm gauge. One way to provide this is via Starting Gauge CEs. Another way is to provide her with a Mixed Starting Gauge / NP Gain CE to both increase her natural generation rate as well as providing her a starting point. Should a Master not be interested in looping with her, she would be well served with a Critical Damage Up CE to make use of her high Critical star generation and gathering skill.

• Kaleidoscope / The Imaginary Element / Knights of Marines / Chaldea Anniversary / Devilish Bodhisattva – Any CE providing Ushi with at least a 60% up charge will give her a chance to loop by allowing her to use her skill to fill up the first 40% charge and then using the double Skadi / Waver system (and her refund) to fill in the rest. A MLB Kaleidoscope is in a league of its own, providing a guaranteed 3-turn loop against any node containing 3 enemies per wave. Without a Skadi/Skadi/Waver system, Ushi still can benefit by having early access to her Noble Phantasm.
• Magical Girl of Sapphire / Little Halloween Devil / Distant Pilgrimage – Providing Ushi with a starting gauge and increasing her NP refund will open up even more situations where she can loop properly. These CEs at Max Limit break are more versatile in setting her up than any of the Starting Gauge CEs with the exception of a MLB Kaleidoscope. Without a Skadi/Skadi/Waver system they still will help generate her gauge and provide her easier access to fire it multiple times.
• Gem Magecraft: Antumbra / Hot Spring Under the Moon / Knight’s Dignity – Ushi generates a good amount of Critical Stars and has a skill to gather them to herself for a turn, so boosting her Critical damage means boosting her overall sustained damage.