JP Release Date: 08/17/2022
NA Release Date: 08/2024
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At long last, we have our new meta Quick support, and it’s… just Skadi again. I don’t just mean that in the literal character sense, either—Summer Skadi is basically just base Skadi with marginally better values and a few quality-of-life tweaks. Those better values and QoL changes are enough bring Quick largely up to being competitive with Buster, sure, but it’s such a boring development.
This is going to be a long review. As with all new top-of-the-line meta supports, there are a lot of considerations here, and a lot of things to work through. The thing is, though, that Summer Skadi is not actually anything particularly new. You use her exactly like you would use base Skadi (for everything except Quick stall), and she does it exactly the same way, except she’s better at it. That’s all. If your favorite units are Quick or you really care about being able to enable all three card types, you need her.
Base Atk | 1,679 | Base HP | 2,178 |
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Max Atk | 10,868 | Max HP | 14,850 |
Grail Atk | 11,897 | Grail HP | 16,269 |
Increase your Debuff Resist by 25%.
Increase your Arts Card effectiveness by 10%.
Apply Damage Plus (Total Card Damage +250).
Increase Debuff Resist for yourself by 25%.
Card Hits | 4 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
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Per Hit | 0.78% | 0.78% | 0.78% | 0.78% | 0.78% |
NP per Hit (%) | 0.78% | |||||||
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NP when Attacked (%) | 3% |
Star Absorption | 102 | |
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Star Generation per Hit | 9.8% |
Skadi has mid-high attack and mid-low HP for a Ruler, which still leaves her with a defense-oriented stat spread overall due to Rulers’ innate defensive stat lean. Having more attack and less health (relative to the class average) is probably a good thing on a burst-oriented support like Skadi, and it’s especially nice when you factor in her ability to double as a DPS. Meanwhile, Skadi has a weird deck for a support, with a Quick NP and only one Arts card, but her internals are pretty good, at least—her Arts card NP gain is pretty respectable for a QQABB deck, and her Quicks fall solidly in the “good” range. She also has quite a bit of active star gen potential thanks to her deck and hit-counts.
Unlike our other recent Extra-class Servants, Skadi doesn’t have a huge range of passives. Instead, she gets an entirely typical set: Magic Resistance, Territory Creation, and Core of the Goddess. This is more interesting than it might otherwise be, though, as Magic Resistance and Core of the Goddess collectively give Skadi 50% debuff resistance up. A passive one-in-two chance to avoid most incoming debuffs is nothing to sneeze at. Territory Creation is okay here, too—it only applies to one card, but it meaningfully improves the NP gain of that one card, so it gets some value here.
Skadi isn’t likely to leverage any of her appends while in a support capacity—she’s not expected to output damage and might as well not have an NP—but for a DPS Skadi, Mana Loading is, as always, the best append. It helps Skadi get going faster and can make looping more accessible depending on your setup. Anti-Caster damage is the second-best append, as it makes Skadi a pretty reasonable Caster farmer, between the increased damage and the innately increased refund Casters provide. Extra Attack damage up is the least useful append to Skadi, but her base NP gain is good enough that it can still have some value in CQ contexts for purposes of pushing brave chain NP gain a little.
Ascension Materials
Stage | Cost | Materials |
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2 |
100,000
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3 |
300,000
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|
4 |
1,000,000
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Max |
3,000,000
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Skill Enhancement Materials
Level | Cost | Materials |
---|---|---|
1 → 2 | 200,000 | |
2 → 3 | 400,000 | |
3 → 4 | 1,200,000 | |
4 → 5 | 1,600,000 | |
5 → 6 | 4,000,000 | |
6 → 7 | 5,000,000 | |
7 → 8 | 10,000,000 | |
8 → 9 | 12,000,000 | |
9 → 10 | 20,000,000 |
Append Skill Materials
Level | Cost | Materials |
---|---|---|
1 → 2 | 200000 | |
2 → 3 | 400000 | |
3 → 4 | 1200000 | |
4 → 5 | 1600000 | |
5 → 6 | 4000000 | |
6 → 7 | 5000000 | |
7 → 8 | 10000000 | |
8 → 9 | 12000000 | |
9 → 10 | 20000000 |
Summer Skadi’s skillset is basically just a stronger version of base Skadi’s. Recommended skill order is 3>1>2.
Increase Quick Card effectiveness for an ally (3 turns).
Increase Buster Card Critical Strength for an ally (3 turns).
Lvl | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
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Quick + | 30% | 32% | 34% | 36% | 38% | 40% | 42% | 44% | 46% | 50% |
Crit Damage (Buster) + | 50% | 55% | 60% | 65% | 70% | 75% | 80% | 85% | 90% | 100% |
CD | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 6 |
Primordial Rune is the same as base Skadi’s version, except it boosts Buster crit damage instead of Quick crit damage. This is a straight upgrade for most Quick units, as Buster is a much, much stronger card type at base. Were it not for Caster Skadi’s Quick-specific crit buffs skewing things, Quick units would generally be better off using the star gen from the Quicks to fuel crits with their Busters, rather than prioritizing Quick cards always. Summer Skadi matches this more natural playstyle by amping the damage on those crits. This also pairs nicely with base Skadi’s crit buff—additional Quick crit buffs on top of what Caster Skadi brings would not be especially useful to Quick units, since that bracket is so full already, but Ruler Skadi’s crit buffs being on Busters specifically means you can pair the two Skadis for nearly-across-the-board crit coverage. As with base Skadi, though, this is also a 50% 3-turn Quick buff, amping NP damage and refund for Quick units. The most notable thing about this is that the existence of both Skadis means Quick now has two full-damage supports, letting it hit damage thresholds in CQs that are more comparable to what Buster and Arts have historically been able to do. Also, Quick units can now function at more-or-less full capacity in fights that block doubled units by just running both Skadis, which is kind of nice. While the other card types have multiple strong supports each, Quick is the only one that effectively gets two copies of its meta support, meaning it’s the only one that can run relatively conventional double-support teams even when doubles are blocked.
Increase ATK for all allies (3 turns).
Increase Quick Card effectiveness for all allies (3 turns).
Increase Buster Card effectiveness for all allies (3 turns).
Apply to self: Gain Critical Stars each turn (3 turns).
Lvl | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
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ATK + | 10% | 11% | 12% | 13% | 14% | 15% | 16% | 17% | 18% | 20% |
Quick + | 10% | 10.5% | 11% | 11.5% | 12% | 12.5% | 13% | 13.5% | 14% | 15% |
Buster + | 10% | 10.5% | 11% | 11.5% | 12% | 12.5% | 13% | 13.5% | 14% | 15% |
Stars per turn + | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 15 |
CD | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 7 |
Midsummer Ice Cream is an inversion of Shivering Blizzard. Where Shivering Blizzard inflicts a defense debuff and reduces enemy crit rate, Midsummer Ice Cream gives damage buffs to the party and gives stars each turn. This being a buff instead of a debuff is a huge deal, and it’s the biggest advantage of Summer Skadi relative to base Skadi. Base Skadi teams struggle in part because of the weaknesses of Shivering Blizzard—Skadi cannot use it to push damage on earlier waves in farming without losing damage on later waves, and in both farming and CQs it can whiff against enemies with Magic Resistance. Skadi teams also sometimes run into the defense down cap (as defense debuffs stop having any impact beyond the 100% mark), which is annoying for Servants like OG Okita who can easily surpass that threshold, as well as for teams that include Waver or Reines. Midsummer Ice cream solves all of these problems just by trading defense down for attack up. It also provides more overall damage push by splitting itself into an Attack buff and a Quick/Buster buff. The extra Quick buff also means Summer Skadi teams have slightly more NP refund potential than base Skadi teams (though the difference is so small as to be negligible in most cases), and the Buster buff supports Quick Servants’ Buster crit damage while also letting Skadi work as an off-support for Buster units if you don’t have anyone better. Usually Buster Servants will be better off with a support with more charge (Oberon), divisible/party charge (Waver, Reines, Castoria, Oberon), or more substantial NP-oriented damage buffs (Merlin, Oberon), but if you’re really focusing on Buster crits and you don’t need more flexible batteries, or if you don’t have all of the top-end Buster options, Skadi is a solid pick. This skill even facilitates crits for non-Quick units thanks to its passive star gen. Really solid all-around. The only drawback for this skill is that it’s on a long cooldown, which brings me to the big difference between Summer Skadi and base Skadi: Summer Skadi is much more burst-oriented than base Skadi. OG Skadi isn’t exactly known as a pinnacle of stall, so Summer Skadi being even worse at stall is not a flattering look. That said, Summer Skadi is much better at anything lasting three turns or fewer, which more than makes up for her slowplay weaknesses.
Increase NP Gauge for an ally.
Increase Buster Critical Star Gather Rate for an ally (1 turn).
Gain Critical Stars.
Lvl | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
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NP + | 30% | 32% | 34% | 36% | 38% | 40% | 42% | 44% | 46% | 50% |
Star Gather (Buster) + | 3000% | 3200% | 3400% | 3600% | 3800% | 4000% | 4200% | 4400% | 4600% | 5000% |
Stars + | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 15 |
CD | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 7 |
Lost in Thought is Summer Skadi’s 50% battery. It also gives a massive Buster card star weight buff for a turn, and it gives a burst of 15 stars. Especially if used on turn 2 or 3 (after Ice Cream has been in effect for a round) this should nearly guarantee crits with any available Buster cards. Unfortunately, battery timing is typically not very flexible, so there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to use this on whatever turn the crits would be most helpful. This is also on a one-turn-longer cooldown than base Skadi’s version, and unlike with Ice Cream, it’s not entirely clear that the skill deserves the extra cooldown. If anything, though, this emphasizes Summer Skadi’s role: she’s here for burst strategies and farming, and really nothing else.
Deal damage to all enemies.
Decrease NP Gauge for all enemies by 1.
<Overcharge>
Increase own NP Strength if [near water] (1 turn) [Activates first].
Deal supereffective bonus damage against [Lawful] alignment enemies.
Gate of Aegir
Gate to a Great Sea Brimming With Life
Rank | Classification | Hit-Count | |
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A | Anti-Summer | 6 |
Effect | Deal damage to all enemies. |
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Level | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
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Overcharge Effect | Increase own NP Strength if [near water] (1 turn) [Activates first]. |
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Charge | 100% | 200% | 300% | 400% | 500% |
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10% | 15% | 20% | 25% | 30% | |
150% | 162.5% | 175% | 187.5% | 200% |
In contrast to her supportive skillset, Summer Skadi has a fully offensive NP. It’s not a terrible one, either, with solid refund and reasonable damage. Backed by base Skadi and another Summer Skadi, Summer Skadi deals about as much damage as (for example) Majin Saber backed by two Summer Skadis. She also gets a tiny bit of extra damage on waterside fields, and she deals Supereffective damage against Lawful enemies. Together these all make Summer Skadi and effective farmer and damage-dealer in her own right, although her overall potential is lower than that of the Servants she would enable.
The NP also generates a fair number of stars and drains enemy NP gauges by 1. In DPS Skadi contexts, this likely means enemies won’t be able to NP while Skadi is looping, unless they spam batteries or have on-break effects that force NPs. Unfortunately, Summer Skadi has the same problem base Skadi does of having no good way to get access to her own NP without stealing resources from a DPS, so Gate of Aegir is unlikely to show up unless Skadi is operating in a DPS capacity.
And here we have the time-honored tradition of the absurdly long usage tips section for the new meta support. Skadi has added complexity here by virtue of also being a DPS. There will inevitably be teams, considerations, and ideas that get skipped here, so let me preface this by saying this is not a complete breakdown of every team Skadi can work in, everything she can do, and everything she can enable. In the interest of keeping this from turning into a novel, I have to pick and choose. If you’re wondering whether Skadi can work in such-and-such Quick team, the answer is probably yes! I’m going to highlight some of the most optimal and interesting setups, as well as address how Skadi changes several existing Servants, but there are plenty of other neat use-cases for her as well. Consider this a starting point for your own idea-generation.
To start with, though, lets address Skadi as a DPS, since that’s a little more intrinsically constrained.
Skadi refunds about 13% per enemy in a Base Skadi/Summer Skadi/Summer Skadi team. Against Casters, she’ll refund more like 16%, which (with a tiny bit of overkill) means she can loop standard nodes CE-less with a plug charger. Oberon’s extra 20% can cover for a missing enemy, too, making 2/3/x or 3/2/x Caster nodes possible. Riders also give bonus NP gain, but Skadi’s anti-Caster append makes Casters particularly notable.
Against neutral NP gain classes, Skadi’s loop specs are a little tighter, but not unworkably so. If she gets three hits of overkill per enemy on the low-HP wave, she still refunds 50%, meaning she can rely on Oberon’s extra 20% charge to cover the other wave. She also has an even more reliable (if less-obvious) setup using Castoria instead. Castoria/Skadi/Skadi/Skadi uses all Castoria and support Summer Skadi skills, then plugs the support Summer Skadi for base Skadi, who uses her quick buff. DPS Skadi uses her first two skills and then NPs, refunding 50%, thanks to the bonus NP gain from Castoria. You then have the two Skadis’ 50% batteries to secure the loop on each subsequent turn.
Bride is actually marginally better for this than Castoria is, if you have her. She only brings 30% charge, but Mana Loading can make up the difference since you’re using those batteries on turn 1 anyway, and you get more damage buffs and NP gain buffs in exchange, letting Skadi loop even low-NP-gain enemies fairly reliably, while also amping damage against Sky enemies. Xu Fu also works, if you’re hitting damage thresholds regardless, as she brings the requisite 30% charge in conjunction with the missing NP gain buff.
For 90+ nodes, Skadi needs starting charge. If allowed a 50% charge CE, Skadi/Skadi/Skadi/Oberon should be able to clear 1/2/x or 2/1/x nodes with just a little bit of overkill on the wave of 2. A Skadi battery plus the charge CE gets you to your first NP. Two Skadi batteries cover the wave of 1, and Skadi only needs to refund 30% against the wave of 2 for Oberon to make up the remaining difference. On top of that, even if you have to rely on crits for later waves, you get 30 stars per turn, plus additional stars from the various batteries, plus massive crit buffs on most of DPS Skadi’s cards, cutting down on crit-based RNG. It’s really not a bad setup, and while it’s not quite as reliable as comparable Buster farming teams, it’s not that far below.
You can also do the same thing (albeit with reduced damage) with Castoria, Waver, or Reines, at least on 1/2/x nodes. For your team, you run [Charger]/Skadi/Skadi/Skadi, with Mana Loading on the DPS Skadi. On turn 1, you use 30% in total charge from the extra charger to reach 100% charge, and you use both frontline Skadis’ damage buffs. On turn 2, you use both frontline Skadis’ batteries and plug the support Skadi for the backline Skadi for the additional Quick buff. A bit of overkill gets you to 30% refund, at which point you can use the remaining 20% from the charger and the last Skadi battery to secure the loop.
You can also farm basically anything with Kaleid, of course. Kaleid Skadi actually has a plugless loop for any node with three enemies on wave one or two. You need either Mana Loading or an MLB Kaleid. You have three 50% charges available, so one wave is “free” in that you secure the loop with batteries alone. For the other wave, you can either run 2004 and use its NP gain buff to let Skadi naturally refund 50% off three enemies, or you can bring an MC with at least 10% charge to make up the difference with flat batteries. 2/1/x and 1/2/x nodes are theoretically possible with the Clock Tower mystic code as well, though you need a bit of overkill on the wave of 2 in order to hit the 30% refund you need to swing the loop. Alternatively, any plug charger guarantees you the loop under any circumstances.
For CQs, Skadi really wants to go as fast as possible, as her long cooldowns mean her average performance drops radically if she has to wait through multiple buff cycles. To that end, all of the above teams are workable. Reines is a particularly interesting pick, assuming you have a Kaleid or an MLB Imaginary Element handy to let her NP immediately, as she provides a lot of extra damage and also increases Skadi’s NP gain, which can be helpful if you’re bringing the Black Grail as Skadi’s CE (as you really should be).
Unfortunately, Skadi falls off pretty hard if you don’t have an optimal team to slot her into, or if you have to stall. The strongest conventional Quick stall shell (outside of specialty teams like Van Gogh’s) is Base Skadi/Castoria. Summer Skadi sadly doesn’t have much synergy with this team—the best point Servants for this setup have party charge and healing, neither of which Skadi brings—but it’s still a decent team in general and you can make it work if you’re willing and able to put up with Summer Skadi’s long cooldowns.
For lower-investment teams, you’re going to want setups that leverage Skadi’s partywide buffs as much as possible, and that are focused on moving quickly. Barti is a particularly good partner here, as he also provides partywide buffs and can help facilitate crits for whoever is benefiting from Skadi’s first skill. Especially if you have a Quick Servant with the potential for strong Buster cards—someone like Atalante Alter, Summer Sei, or ‘Zerker Lancelot—running Skadi/DPS/Barti will let the whole team output solid damage for three turns. This team is then fragile enough that your teammates can die off and make way for fresh damage-dealers or supports. This is a solid approach to short-to-mid-length, low-to-mid-difficulty fights.
And now we move on to Summer Skadi’s more interesting use case: as a shiny new meta Quick support.
The funny thing is there’s not actually a lot of complexity here. You use her in all the ways you’d use base Skadi, with the caveat that you don’t have to worry about skill 2 timing, and you can’t really use her for stall. Simple as that!
For CQ usage, this isn’t even really an oversimplification. Quick Servants want two frontline Summer Skadis, who use all their buffs on turn 1. You can plug in a backline base Skadi for maximum damage push (as well as nice distribution on crit buffs), or you can bring Castoria for NP gen and better sustain, or Oberon for more batteries and easier looping. The only major consideration here is choosing between cards—for maximum effectiveness, especially in ST contexts, you’ll want to learn to anticipate how much damage each of your cards do and how much NP gain you can expect off of them. You want to prioritize Buster crits, generally, but if choosing Busters over Quicks keeps you from looping, they may not be worth it. If you have a favorite ST Quick, I’d suggest bringing them to a replayable fight (such as either Beast III) and playing around with different teams to figure out what combination of supports you like the feel of most, and to get used to the damage and NP gain values you’re working with.
Since Skadi teams want to move fast anyway, you’ll get the best possible results from cycling through supports. With plug, you get access to three Support Servants for free. Miss Crane slots in as a natural fourth, since she removes herself from play. If you want a fifth, you’ll need a support who can die off reliably, which probably means a low-rarity unit. Hans is probably the best generic choice for this, as he brings decent buffs, gets to NP for free, and has low enough health to die without too much fuss assuming he’s taunting. In fights where you can rely on enemies dealing a lot of damage, Wu Zetian and Santa Martha are both good picks who bring a lot of extra damage. This is especially true in Martha’s case, if you can afford to toss a Skadi battery her way and you’re fighting divines. Nobukatsu is also an option for cases where you’re counting on crits, since he gives crit damage and Buster card buffs, while also removing himself for free assuming he’s given a Kaleid.
For these maximum-efficiency teams, you want to run Summer Skadi/DPS/Summer Skadi/Crane/Base Skadi/Sacrificial Taunt Support. On turn 1, you use all of the first Skadi’s skills, and then plug her for your sacrificial taunter, who uses their skills and then gets killed. On turn 2, Crane comes in and uses her NP to swap out. This brings base Skadi in on turn 3 for a final push of damage. Note that Crane’s self-battery puts a taunt on the rest of the team, so the sacrificial support does need to come first in this setup in order to die off reliably.
It’s also worth noting that Summer Skadi’s Buster-crit specific buffs give her unique synergy with triple-Buster Quick units. Xiang Yu and (especially) summer Sei are the big beneficiaries here, as they are Quick units with the potential for explosive Buster crits. Prior to Summer Skadi, Sei had to choose between bringing a Buster crit support or a Quick NP support. Now she gets to have the best of both worlds, which is a very nice buff for her.
Even if you don’t have a deep bench of supports, or if you don’t have strong native Quick damage-dealers and thus have to bring one off your friend list, Summer Skadi still wants to play as quickly as possible. The more NP chargers and damage-boosters you can work into your team, the better. Xu Fu doesn’t bring damage, but her combination of NP charge and NP gain makes her a good pick for single-Skadi teams that don’t have enough 50% chargers to fill out the roster. Barti, by contrast, brings a lot less charge in exchange for amping overall damage and making crits much easier. Barti is an especially good pick if you have Mana Loading on him and can give him a Kaleid or an MLB Imaginary Element, since his NP gives an additional party damage buff in the form of defense down.
Farming is also not especially changed by Summer Skadi, except in that damage thresholds are more easily reached. Summer Skadi completely replaces base Skadi in most cases: AoE Quick units want to run two copies of Summer Skadi, along with a third support, in order to farm most effectively. There are three main options for that third support: base Skadi, Castoria, and Oberon. Base Skadi gives the most damage, but she gives the least overall NP gain and charge. Castoria maximizes NP refund in most cases—the Quick up bracket is so full in Summer Skadi teams that 30% NP gain up typically leads to more refund than 50% Quick up—which matters to a handful of specific Servants. Oberon gives the most flat charge, which in all cases amounts to the most total NP gauge (meaning Castoria is only better when you need the extra NP gain distributed across multiple waves).
So, who prefers Castoria to Oberon? The most notable example is Majin Saber, as the extra NP gain lets her loop 2/2/x nodes CE-less, where Oberon’s NP charge distribution would not. With Summer Majin Saber (and Mana Loading), you can run Skadi/Majin/Castoria/Skadi. On turn 1, you use all Majin skills and all Castoria skills, plug Castoria out for the other Summer Skadi, and use both Summer Skadi offensive buffs. Majin Saber refunds just under 25% per enemy in this setup—close enough that even the single guaranteed hit of overkill from killing the enemy brings her to 50% off two enemies. You then use a Skadi battery each turn to secure the loop.
This only works because Majin Saber has both her own battery and absurd loop specs. Even Charlemagne, who also has a battery and has almost as good of loop specs, is likely to fall short—he needs 12-ish total hits of overkill on each wave, which is pretty unlikely unless one of the enemies has very low health. Having run the numbers for all the other notable Quick AoEs, no one else seems to even come close. The fact of the matter is that an extra 30% Quick up relative to Caster Skadi teams, while nice, just isn’t enough of an NP gain boost to meaningfully impact loop potential except in the most extreme of cases.
That’s not to say Summer Skadi doesn’t help with farming, though—it’s just that in most cases you want base Skadi or Oberon as your third support. Generally speaking, you want base Skadi if you can loop without Oberon’s charge, as the extra damage helps push through high-HP enemy waves. Skadi will almost always be preferable if you’re running Kaleid (since looping is quite easy at that point). For 50% charge CE setups it will probably depend on the node. CE-less setups will depend heavily on the Servant—anyone with good refund will probably want Skadi for standard nodes and Oberon otherwise, while anyone who’s battery-reliant (like Molay or Caren) will prefer Oberon regardless. There are too many possible situations and shades of difficulty to realistically outline them all here, but the rule of thumb is Oberon if you’re having trouble looping and base Skadi otherwise.
Aside from that, loop farming is mostly unchanged, so rather than outlining how summer Skadi might work with every Servant around, I’d recommend looking back on old reviews for any loop farming suggestions there, as they’ll probably still apply (especially for Servants released since Oberon). Typically you’ll want to use a 50% charge CE, and then to divide up your batteries based on the distributions of the enemy waves. It’s pretty straightforward.
Ashiya Doman also has a weird double Oberon loop that works specifically for 2/1/x nodes. You run Skadi/Doman/Oberon/Oberon for this. On turn 1, you use the Skadi buffs, as well as Doman’s 80% battery (plus Mana Loading). He refunds 5% per enemy, for a total of 10%. You then use Skadi’s 50% battery and both Oberon 20% batteries, bringing Doman back to 100%. On the final turn you use both Oberon 50% batteries, securing the loop. Not that this does not work for 1/2/x nodes, as Doman must refund 10% on the first wave specifically. If he needs two 50% batteries on turn 2, Oberon’s battery’s demerit kills his refund on the following wave. This setup only works against Cavalry, of course, but it should be pretty reliable for those contexts.
Caren does the inverse: in double Oberon teams, she can clear 1/2/x nodes, but not 2/1/x nodes. In a Skadi/Caren/Oberon/Oberon team, Caren refunds about 5% per enemy, plus an additional 20% per turn from her first skill, provided her supports have NP gauge available (such as from Mana Loading). The double Oberon team has 300% in total charge with Mana Loading factored in, but the distribution of the batteries means at least 10% of that will always be wasted, so Caren needs to refund 10% on one turn to make up the difference. Unfortunately, Oberon’s battery’s demerit interferes with this, since you have to use one the Oberon batteries on turn 1 or turn 2 to avoid wasting charge, and that causes the demerit to eat into your refund on the following wave.
This leads to a weird factoid: clock debuffs activate in the order they were applied. That is to say, if you use Caren’s first skill before Oberon’s battery, Caren will gain her 20% charge, and then immediately lose it. If, on the other hand, you use Oberon’s battery first, Caren will drop down to 0% gauge, and then charge back up to 20%. Since we need Caren’s passive charge active every turn, we have to use that skill on turn 1. As such, in order to use one of Oberon’s batteries before Caren’s passive charge skill, we also have to use an Oberon battery on turn 1… which means any active NP refund from turn 1 gets effectively negated, and Caren has to generate her 10% gauge on turn 2. Hence, 1/2/x nodes only.
In order to make this work, you start with Mana Loading, Caren’s 30% charge, and an Oberon 50% battery. After using the Oberon battery—the order is important—you use Caren’s first skill. Caren NPs, refunding a little, dropping down to 0%, and then draining 20% from her supports. You then use Caren’s 20% battery, Oberon’s 20% battery, and Skadi’s 50% battery to reach 100%. Caren refunds a little over 10% against two enemies and charges up to 30%. The second Oberon then plugs in and uses his 70% charge to secure the loop.
Caren can also clear 2/2/x nodes in a more conventional setup: Skadi/Caren/Skadi/Oberon. With double Skadi, Caren refunds about 7% per enemy on top of her 20% per turn. On turn 1, Mana Loading plus Caren’s 30% battery plus a Skadi battery lets Caren NP. She refunds a bit over 10% and gets another 20% from her first skill. She uses her 20% battery and the other Skadi uses her 50% battery. On turn 2, she refunds another 10%, charges another 20%, and then lets Oberon’s batteries get her the rest of the way there.
So, on the whole, Quick farming is much less flexible than Arts and both more complex and less reliable than Buster. In exchange, Quick generally comes online with much higher damage on earlier turns. Buster farming, in particular, tends to have excellent wave 3 damage but iffy wave 1 and 2 damage. Thanks to Summer Skadi, Quick Servants now have much better early waves, making them more reliable farmers when you can get them to loop. This is probably a fair balance trade, especially since Buster also needs starting charge in all but a very small handful of cases, and CE-less Quick looping on standard nodes is possible for a decent number of units. This isn’t an exciting rebalance, and it doesn’t really give Quick a clear an obvious playstyle difference, but it’s there, at least.
DPS Skadi wants the Black Grail if possible, as she really wants to clear things as fast as possible. In a support context, she doesn’t massively benefit from any particular CE, since, again, she’s not meant to stick around long-term. Her NP also doesn’t have enough supportive value to bother prioritizing starting charge. Generally, if you’re giving support Skadi a CE at all, it should probably be crit-oriented. 2030 is nice for sustained crit access, and star burst CEs like Golden Captures the Carp are solid for jump-starting crits.
Summer Skadi isn’t missing anything particularly noteworthy that CCs can make up for. Star gen CCs are a decent choice, helping to facilitate party crits, but any benefit provided will be marginal.
If you’re planning to use Skadi as a DPS, grails aren’t a bad idea. Rulers benefit a lot from the extra stats, thanks to their effective doubling of their HP pool, as well as their innate 1.1x attack bonus. If you think you’ll mostly be using Skadi as a support, though, this is one to skip. Supports don’t benefit much from the extra levels, and you may prefer for Skadi to die off quickly once her buffs run out anyway.
Summer Skadi is the most boring possible way of making Quick better. She’s literally just old Skadi with more damage. Granted, the reasons for increased damage are somewhat interesting and solve very real problems with Quick—not being reliant on debuffs, especially, is a huge win—but still, relative to, say, Koyanskaya, Skadi is not an interesting Servant.
That said, the fact of the matter is that Quick is in a much better spot now than it was a week ago. Summer Skadi may be “just” a better Skadi, but a better version of the best support for a card type is still a meaningful improvement. Summer Skadi is now the gold standard for anyone wanting to run a Quick team, and if green is your favorite color, she’s a must-pull… assuming your resources aren’t already drained from Arc, Proto Merlin, and Ibuki.
I’m not terribly happy with Summer Skadi, personally. You’d think Lasengle could have come up with something more interesting that just giving us Skadi again. Quick supports appreciate the extra damage, though, and having more Quick buffs can matter in some circumstances. We were overdue for a new Quick support, and Skadi is here to answer that need, for better or for worse.
Overall: 10/10
Single-Target DPS: 5/10
AoE DPS: 8/10
Survivability: 3/10
Offensive Utility: 10/10
Defensive Utility: 1/10
Farming Usefulness: 10/10
Skadi: 11/10