Rabbit's Reviews #303: Kama (5* Avenger)

Introduction

Kama is, above all else, an extremely powerful AoE Arts Servant. She has a couple small gimmicks here and there, but by-and-large she’s “just” an alternative to Spishtar and company. I put “just” in quotes because being in contention with the likes of Muramasa and Summer Kiara puts Kama among the best offensive Servants in the game. With great refund, a great Class Container, and a 50% battery, Kama is well positioned to clear CQs and farm tricky nodes. She’ll need NP levels in order to hit damage thresholds, but that’s true of basically everyone. She doesn’t do anything particularly new, so established players may not have need for her, but for anyone without a top-tier Arts looper, Kama’s an amazing Servant.

Servant Data

Avenger

QQAAB (Archer)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

4

3

5

4

Attribute	Heaven
Alignment	Neutral Evil

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

April Fool's

Max HP 11,790

HP Rank

Max ATK 13,213

ATK Rank

Base Atk	2,042	Base HP	1,729
Max Atk	13,213	Max HP	11,790
Grail Atk	14,464	Grail HP	12,916

Magic Resistance A

Increase your Debuff Resist by 20%.

Riding A

Increase your Quick Card effectiveness by 10%.

Avenger B

Increase NP Gain when damaged by 18%.
Decrease Debuff Resist for all allies (including sub-members),
except yourself by 8%. [Demerit]

Oblivion Correction B

Increase your Critical Strength by 8%.

Self-Restoration (Magical Energy) A

Increase NP Gauge each turn by 3.8% for yourself.

Independent Manifestation E

Increase your Critical Strength by 2%
Increase your Mental Debuff Resist by 2%.
Increase your Death Resist by 2%.

Core of the Demon King (?) B

Apply Damage Plus for yourself (Total Card Damage +225).
Apply Charm Immune to self.

Card Hits	4	3	3	5	4
Per Hit	0.52%	0.52%	0.52%	0.52%	0.52%

	NP per Hit (%)						0.52%
	NP when Attacked (%)						5%

	Star Absorption	29
	Star Generation per Hit	6.1%

Overview

Avengers tend to have good stats, and Kama is notable in that her stats are nearly identical to Jalter’s. Kama has very slightly less attack and very slightly more HP than Jalter does, and—considering Jalter has the single most offense-oriented stat spread in the game—that’s a great starting point for a damage-dealer. On the flip-side, Avengers tend to have relatively low NP gain, and Kama is no exception. Her Arts cards are a little below the norm for her deck, and her Quicks are just okay. She makes up for this in other ways and probably won’t feel like she has NP gain issues—again, this is typical for the class—but her bases are still somewhat low. That said, her star gen is better than usual for an Arts Servant, as she has two Quicks and relatively high hit-counts, so that’s nice at least.

Kama has a whopping seven passives, plus appends. She starts with a fairly high level of Magic Resistance, which is occasionally nice for resisting debuffs. She also has Riding A, which helps her Quicks a little. After that, she gets the three default Avenger passives. Avenger boosts defensive NP gain, which is cool for CQs and can let Kama charge her NP substantially when fighting enemies with high-hit-count attacks and NPs. Oblivion Correction (and also Independent Manifestation) boosts Kama’s crit damage a little, which is decent, although Kama has no good way to crit and her kit doesn’t leverage crits either. Self-Restoration gives Kama a solid 3.8% NP charge every turn, which makes it easier to hit NP gain thresholds when farming, on top of being generally nice for CQs. After that, she gets Independent Manifestation, which, in addition to the aforementioned crit buff, gives her marginal resistances to mental debuffs and instant-kills. This passive is mostly flavor, but it still could be helpful on rare occasions. Last up is Core of the Demon King, which is Divinity plus an innate charm immunity. As with all specialty debuff immunities, this is usually useless but will be extremely nice on the rare occasion when it happens to matter. Negating random charm spam can go a long way towards mitigating frustration in fights that use it.

Kama also is a rare Servant who benefits from all three appends. Kama has a decent Extra attack, and Follow-Up Technique Improvement increases its damage and NP gain. Mana Loading is the best of the three, as always, and it has the potential to enable some setups that would otherwise be impossible. Her specialty attack boost is versus Lancers, which can be good for occasionally hitting damage thresholds while farming. It’s also notable in that Kama has no innate buffs in the attack buff bracket outside of the post-damage debuff on her NP, which means this stacks more effectively than it does on most Servants. Generally speaking, Kama should prioritize Mana Loading, then Anti-Lancer Attack Aptitude, and then Follow-Up Technique Improvement.

Material Requirements

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	100,000	x10 Fool's Chain x10 Shell of Reminiscence
3	300,000	x10 Ghost Lantern x10 Homunculus Baby
4	1,000,000	x10 Phoenix Feather x10 Lamp of Evil-Sealing
Max	3,000,000	x10 Heart of the Foreign God x10 Glowing Star Fragment

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200,000	x10 Fool's Chain
2 → 3	400,000	x10 Ghost Lantern
3 → 4	1,200,000	x12 Homunculus Baby
4 → 5	1,600,000	x12 Shell of Reminiscence
5 → 6	4,000,000	x12 Giant's Ring
6 → 7	5,000,000	x15 Arrowhead of Malice
7 → 8	10,000,000	x15 Rainbow Thread Ball
8 → 9	12,000,000	x15 Glowing Star Fragment
9 → 10	20,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200000	x10 Evil Bone
2 → 3	400000	x10 Void's Dust
3 → 4	1200000	x12 Serpent Jewel
4 → 5	1600000	x12 Cursed Beast Gallstone
5 → 6	4000000	x12 Eternal Ice
6 → 7	500000	x15 Giant's Ring
7 → 8	10000000	x15 Divine Pulse Spirit Orb
8 → 9	12000000	x15 Bell of Amnesty
9 → 10	20000000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Servant Skills

Kama falls into the bucket of Servants who have straightforwardly powerful skillsets. Recommended skill order is 3>2>1.

Arts Up

Makara Floating A

Increase own Arts Card effectiveness (3 turns).
Apply Evade to self (2 times, 3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Arts +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Makara Floating is a pretty standard skill. It’s a 3-turn 30% Arts buff, which is always nice on AoE Arts units. It has a slightly longer cooldown than is standard for this type of skill, but in exchange it’s also a PfA-type dodge. As a 2-hit dodge on a 3-turn cooldown, Kama can safely use this offensively without worrying about wasting the survival component. This does force a survival-damage trade, but its not like Arts teams are lacking for defenses, so Kama doesn’t lose much for using the dodge preemptively.

Np Dmg

Hollow Evil EX

Increase own NP Strength (3 turns).
Chance to apply Charm to all enemies (1 turn).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
NP Damage +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
Charm Chance	50%	55%	60%	65%	70%	75%	80%	85%	90%	100%
CD	9	9	9	9	9	8	8	8	8	7

Empty Demon is the kind of long-cooldown skill that earns its cooldown, despite its relative simplicity. The skill provides a persistent NP damage buff, which is nice, but more importantly it’s an AoE charm that caps out at 100% accuracy. This makes the skill a powerful survival tool in CQ contexts, and Kama can justify using it offensively or defensively. Negating enemy card damage for a turn is worthwhile at any time, which means Kama can use this offensively and still benefit from the survival, while the NP damage buff isn’t massive, so Kama doesn’t lose a ton from saving this for survival purposes. Beyond that, though, this skill is also a stealth mana burst. Kama’s NP deals supereffective damage against charmed enemies, so in addition to locking the enemy team down for a turn, this skill significantly boosts Kama’s NP damage. In CQ contexts, this is strictly a good thing, although it makes using this skill just for survival reasons a little painful, since Kama loses a lot of damage if she doesn’t NP on the turn she charms the enemy team. In farming, though, it’s a little more awkward. Tying a mana burst to a persistent buff is a bit annoying, as it means Kama has to choose between doing more damage on waves 1 and 2 or maximizing her damage on wave 3. If she uses this skill on the first or second wave, she may struggle to hit damage thresholds on wave 3, while without the NP damage buff she may lack damage on the first two waves. On the flip side, this gives Kama flexibility to respond to farming setups with odd HP distributions. In a 2/1/3 setup, for example, she can use this skill to help with the one-enemy wave, which is likely to have more HP, and then still deal reasonable damage on the final wave. In other words, while it would be better if the NP damage buff were on Makara Floating, the ability to push damage for a turn gives Kama some useful flexibility regardless.

Start Np

Midsummer Sea Mara EX

Increase own NP Gauge.
Inflict Flame of Love (3 turns) when normal attacking (3 turns).
Apply Special ATK [Flame of Love]: Increase damage dealt to [Flame of Love] enemies by 10% per [Flame of Love] trait stack (3 turns).
(Maximum of 10 stacks = 100% damage)

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
NP +	30%	32%	34%	36%	38%	40%	42%	44%	46%	50%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

A Midsummer Sea’s Mara is a 50% battery, which is always excellent for farming. Aside from that, it has an unusual gimmick, letting Kama inflict a specialty debuff to enemies. Kama then gains a power mod effect against those enemies, scaling in response to the number of debuff stacks. In farming contexts, this isn’t a big deal. You don’t usually want to be reliant on cards for farming, although this can help Kama push her damage a little against a high-HP enemy. In CQ contexts, though, this is effectively a better version of Hokusai’s defense down gimmick. This skill lets Kama’s damage roll upward over the course of multiple turns against a single enemy, which can be good for cases where later break bars have more HP. The fact that Kama can only target one enemy at a time with this implies that she might function as a pseudo-ST Servant in CQ contexts, like Quirinus, but her damage isn’t really high enough to replace ST options. Instead, this is likely to be most valuable for CQs where one enemy is significantly more threatening or has a lot more HP than the other targets, as Kama can snowball against that target while still damaging the others.

Noble Phantasm

Kama Rūpāstra B

Deal damage to all enemies.
Decrease DEF for all enemies (3 turns).

<Overcharge>

Supereffective [Charm] bonus damage.

Show Info/Video

Kama Rūpāstra

Affection Brings With it a Summer of Love

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	B	Anti-Unit	4

Effect	Deal damage to all enemies. Decrease DEF for all enemies (3 turns).

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Damage +	450%	600%	675%	712.5%	750%
Def -	20%	20%	20%	20%	20%

Overcharge Effect	Supereffective [Charm] bonus damage.

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
Supereffective ATK +	150%	162,5%	175%	187.5%	200%

Kama Śūnyatā B

Reach 3rd Ascension

Deal damage to all enemies.
Decrease DEF for all enemies (3 turns).

<Overcharge>

Supereffective [Charm] bonus damage.

Show Info

Kama Śūnyatā

To Fall In Love Is To Meet Love's End

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	B	Anti-Unit	4

Effect	Deal damage to all enemies. Decrease DEF for all enemies (3 turns).

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Damage +	450%	600%	675%	712.5%	750%
Def -	20%	20%	20%	20%	20%

Overcharge Effect	Supereffective [Charm] bonus damage.

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
Supereffective ATK +	150%	162,5%	175%	187.5%	200%

Kama’s NP is pretty plain, all-told. It’s an AoE Arts NP with almost exactly the same refund as Spishtar’s (albeit a little better in practice due to Kama’s superior Arts buff and Self-Restoration). This means Kama will be able to loop farm in more-or-less the same cases as Spishtar. She’s not going to be able to universally omnifarm 90+ nodes like an optimal Melusine comp can, but this is still a flexible and powerful NP that will work in a wide range of situations. The NP also, as noted above, deals bonus damage to charmed enemies, letting Kama’s damage spike for a turn. The NP ends with a post-damage defense debuff. The fact that this is both a debuff and post-damage is a real disadvantage here, and it keeps Kama’s damage lower than it would otherwise be. Because this is a debuff, Kama can’t ramp her damage in farming contexts, which makes this NP look less impressive than Spishtar’s and Muramasa’s. This NP is at base an AoE Arts NP with good refund, though, so it could be worse.

Usage Tips

Kama is a pretty straightforward top-end Arts looper. For standard 3/3/3 enemy nodes, Kama can loop plugless with two Castorias, the 2004 Mystic Code, and any CE. Double Castoria lets Kama refund roughly 70% per NP, so Kama’s battery secures the loop on one turn, and 2004’s NP gain buff secures the loop on the other. Kama uses Makara Floating on turn 1, and she uses Empty Demon whenever she needs the extra damage. Pretty straightforward.

For 90+ nodes, Kama wants double Castoria plus a plug charger—ideally Oberon—in order to push damage further and to loop more difficult enemy compositions. Kama should just barely hit 50% refund against two enemies and 30% against one with double Castoria (thanks in no small part to Self Restoration), so Castoria/Kama/Castoria/Oberon should be able to farm 2/1/x and 1/2/x nodes… assuming Kama deals enough damage. Damage is likely to be the biggest issue here, but a high-NP Kama with proper supports will end up being about as reliable for 90+ as Spishtar—if not slightly moreso. Her NP animation (in stages 1 and 2 at least) is also a lot shorter, which is a meaningful distinction. A shorter NP means faster farming, and that’s a compelling argument for bringing Kama over Spishtar if Kama hits damage thresholds.

For CQs, Kama is pretty flexible. Double Castoria will, of course, maximize her power, but she’s self-sufficient enough that you can bring whichever Arts supports you happen to have and expect her to do well. Any of Tamamo, Jinako, Mozart, Lanling, etc will do well for Kama. She has a good mix of offensive and defensive tools, which means you can structure your team for survival or for fastplay and expect Kama to serve as a good point Servant.

It’s also worth noting that Servants who can inflict charm are unusually good partners for Kama by virtue of functioning as essentially a second Mana Burst. The best partners are those with reliable charms and also other buffs. If you have a taunt CE handy, Alexander and Marie are good options, as they can buff Kama’s attack, inflict charm, and then draw hits until they die. Medb also works if you’re fighting males, providing some attack up and defense down in addition to her charm. Wild as it is to recommend him, Phantom can also be interesting, as Mental Pollution takes his Charm’s success rate above 100%, and his NP can more-or-less ensure Kama’s own debuffs land, which makes him valuable against enemies with Magic Resistance. Phantom is also very flimsy, meaning he’s unlikely to stick around longer than you want him. Perhaps the best pick for this, though—against males, at least—is Stheno. Stheno’s charm skill is 100% accurate provided the target is Male, and she also provides 40% total attack to allies with Divinity (which Kama has). Her NP also provides more defense down, removes buffs, and has a second male-only charm. A Stheno-supported Kama can keep a male enemy charmed for 3 turns, protecting the team from that enemy’s attacks and also letting Kama use three supereffective NPs in a row. It’s very rare that Stheno’s support kit is legitimately strong, but Kama is pretty much Stheno’s ideal partner.

Unless Kama is running a drop CE for farming, Kama really wants Black Grail. Her NP gain is good enough that she doesn’t really need the extra help a starting NP gauge CE would provide, and Black Grail’s damage boost helps stabilize Kama’s own damage output. Failing that, Kama wants whatever your best damage-boosting CE is. Mark on a Smiling Face, for example, is great for Kama, as it usually is for Arts Servants.

Since Kama can push her NP damage by using cards before her NP, the NP damage up CCs are a good fit here. With those CC’s, Kama can further push her NP damage, helping her hit higher damage thresholds.

Grail Potential

Conclusion

Considering that we already have a few extremely powerful AoE Arts Servants, it’s easy to overlook how powerful Kama is. It’s true that she’s functionally just a less-powerful Spishtar, but she’s still in contention with Muramasa and company, which means she’s among the best offensive Servants in the game. For players with well-established boxes and lots of existing farming options, Kama will hold limited appeal, but if you don’t have a top-tier farmer yet—or if you want one with a shorter NP—Kama is extremely valuable. She’ll need NP levels in order to reliably hit damage thresholds, sure, but if you can offset her damage problems, she’ll farm with the best of them. She also has substantial CQ power for good measure. Kama is, all-in-all, a very good AoE Servant, and she’s a fantastic pull for anyone who doesn’t already have her role covered.

Rabbit's Arbitrary Ratings

Overall: 10/10
Single-Target DPS: 8/10
AoE DPS: 8/10
Survivability: 7/10
Offensive Utility: 2/10
Defensive Utility: 4/10
Farming Usefulness: 10/10
Being Definitely Just Mara: 10/10