JP Release Date: 08/11/2023
NA Release Date: 08/2025
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Berserker Castoria is great. She’s an excellent ST Arts unit with broad niche damage, fantastic NP access, lots of survival and utility, and crit access on top of that. She’s not the best at pure burst damage, and she has some antisynergy with base Castoria that limits her potential for longform stall, but for midrange fights—fights that can’t be reliably 3-turned, but that don’t need a perfect stall shell to clear—she’s quite possibly the best single-target option in the game. I wouldn’t say she’s better than her competition, and being largely a sidegrade of an SR (Kriem) and two non-limited SSRs (Vlad and Galatea) isn’t the best look for a limited SSR, but her direct competition is so strong that I personally think parity is preferable to superiority. Were Castoria strictly better than her competition, she’d be raising the power ceiling in most contexts. Instead, she provides a generally very strong option who is the best in some, but not all, cases. Very cleanly designed Servant.
Base Atk | 1,875 | Base HP | 1,862 |
---|---|---|---|
Max Atk | 12,134 | Max HP | 12,696 |
Grail Atk | 13,283 | Grail HP | 13,909 |
Traits
Tags
Increase your Buster Card effectiveness by 10%.
Increase your Debuff Resist by 17.5%.
Increase your Debuff Chance Rate by 2%.
Increase your Critical Chance Resist by 20%
Card Hits | 5 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Per Hit | 0.40% | 0.40% | 0.40% | 0.40% | 0.40% |
NP per Hit (%) | 0.40% | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
NP when Attacked (%) | 5% |
Star Absorption | 10 | |
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Star Generation per Hit | 5.0% |
SSR Berserkers vary pretty widely in stats, and Castoria has high-mid attack and low-mid HP. Her attack is quite high by SSR standards as a whole, so even though she’s overshadowed by a few Berserkers with much more attack, her stats are still quite good for a damage-dealer. Her NP gain is slightly low for a Servant with her deck, though she more than makes up for it with her skills. Her deck isn’t good for star gen, but her single Quick does have a solid 5 hits, which isn’t bad.
Castoria doesn’t have any unique passives, but the ones she does have are solid. Madness Enhancement helps make her Buster crits a little stronger, Magic Resistance is nice for avoiding occasional debuffs, and Fae Eyes is excellent on a Berserker—stray crits are likely to drop Berserkers outright, and for reasons I’ll get to later, Castoria can’t fully rely on conventional defensive shells to keep her safe. 20% crit resist will prevent most crits against Castoria unless crit buffs are in play, and her NP further reduces enemy crit chance, to the point where even with buffs, most enemies won’t be able to land crits against her. This means Castoria can more reasonably survive a hit or two, and a team with Lady Avalon or Tamamo can recover from incidental damage fairly quickly. Item Construction is pretty minimal in strength, but it contributes to this, too, as Castoria’s only debuff is the crit chance debuff on her NP.
For passives, Mana Loading is Castoria’s best option, as it makes her looping even easier and helps her get rolling faster. The Extra Attack buff is the second-most useful, pushing Castoria’s effective damage slightly if she can brave chain. Anti-Pretender crit resistance is basically useless—Pretenders are much too rare for this to be valuable, and Castoria has so much in-kit crit resistance already that this will essentially never matter even when you are fighting a Pretender.
Ascension Materials
Stage | Cost | Materials |
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2 |
100,000
|
|
3 |
300,000
|
|
4 |
1,000,000
|
|
Max |
3,000,000
|
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 |
Castoria’s skillset is very good. She’s a little light on NP-applicable damage buffs, but aside from that, it’s excellent. Recommended skill order is 1>2>3.
Increase own Critical Strength (3 turns).
Increase own Critical Star Gather Rate (3 turns).
Increase own NP Gauge.
Lvl | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Crit Damage + | 30% | 32% | 34% | 36% | 38% | 40% | 42% | 44% | 46% | 50% |
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Absorption + | 3000% | 3200% | 3400% | 3600% | 3800% | 4000% | 4200% | 4400% | 4600% | 5000% | NP + | 30% | 32% | 34% | 36% | 38% | 40% | 42% | 44% | 46% | 50% |
CD | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 6 |
Pulse of Spring is great. It’s a 50% battery, which is always strong, especially on an ST Berserker. It comes paired with a self-modification type effect, boosting Castoria’s crit damage by 50% and massively increasing her star weight for 3 turns. Arts Servants aren’t typically great at crit damage, and that’s still true of Castoria by and large, but crit access on a Berserker is always very strong and this ensures Castoria’s card damage is at least good, even if not amazing.
Increase NP Gauge for an ally.
Increase NP Overcharge Level by 2 for an ally (1 time, 3 turns).
Increase NP Gain for all allies (3 turns).
Lvl | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | NP + | 10% | 11% | 12% | 13% | 14% | 15% | 16% | 17% | 18% | 20% |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
NP Gain + | 10% | 11% | 12% | 13% | 14% | 15% | 16% | 17% | 18% | 20% |
CD | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 6 |
Summer Fae is a neat variation on the original Castoria’s second skill. It’s a 20% targeted charge that also gives the recipient a nice overcharge buff and increases the whole team’s NP gain. This gives Castoria 70% total self-battery, if she wants it, which is really nice for farming. Unlike most damage-dealers with targeted batteries, though, Castoria won’t necessarily want to use this on herself in CQs. Against Divine or Chaotic enemies, this gives Castoria a huge effective damage buff for a turn, and thus is usually best used selfishly, but against other enemies it can comfortably be splashed to an ally. Caster Castoria and Lady Avalon both benefit a lot from overcharge, and Berserker Castoria has good enough innate NP gain that she probably doesn’t need the extra charge in a lot of cases, making this more useful as a support/utility tool. This is a really good example of a flexible skill that invites interesting tactical decisions, as it will be useful regardless of who receives it and will be more valuable being used in different ways in different contexts.
Increase own Arts Card effectiveness (3 turns).
Apply to self: Gain 10 Critical Stars each turn (3 turns).
Apply Invincible to self (1 turn).
Lvl | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
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Arts + | 30% | 32% | 34% | 36% | 38% | 40% | 42% | 44% | 46% | 50% |
CD | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 6 |
Holy Sword Operation is Castoria’s primary steroid, and you’ll generally want to use it whenever it’s available. 50% Arts up for 3 turns is very nice, though it’d be more impressive if it wasn’t Castoria’s only NP-applicable damage buff. The skill also gives 10 stars per turn, which isn’t enough to let Castoria crit reliably on its own, but which helps supplement the likes of Lady Avalon. The skill also comes with a selfish invuln, which is nice to have, but since you really need to use this proactively for damage, it can’t really be saved for emergencies. Fortunately, Castoria’s NP also provides some hard defense, so it’s not a huge drawback—what the invuln really does in most cases is ensure Berserker Castoria survives until at least turn 2, if you aren’t running her with Caster Castoria for some reason.
Apply Anti-Enforcement Defense [Reduce damage to 0; disregards Ignore Invincible] to all allies (1 time, 1 turn).
Deal damage to a single enemy.
Deal 150% supereffective damage against [Threat to Humanity] trait enemies.
Decrease Critical Rate for an enemy by 20% (3 turns).
<Overcharge>
Apply Special ATK [Chaotic] alignment to self (1 turn).
Apply Special ATK [Divine] trait to self (1 turn).
Hopewill Camelot
Sword of Hope that Joins Desire
Rank | Classification | Hit-Count | |
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A+ | Anti-God | 6 |
Effect | Apply Anti-Enforcement Defense [Reduce damage to 0; disregards Ignore Invincible] to all allies (1 time, 1 turn). |
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Level | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
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1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
900% | 1200% | 1350% | 1425% | 1500% | |
50% | 50% | 50% | 50% | 50% | |
20% | 20% | 20% | 20% | 20% |
Overcharge Effect | Apply Special ATK [Chaotic] alignment to self (1 turn). |
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Charge | 100% | 200% | 300% | 400% | 500% |
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50% | 62.5% | 75% | 87.5% | 100% | |
50% | 62.5% | 75% | 87.5% | 100% |
Hopewill Camelot is one of the best single-target NPs in the game, with good refund, three separate damage niches, and a ton of defensive utility. It gives a partywide hit of Enforcement Defense every time it’s used, which should be nearly every turn provided buffs are still active. If you’re lucky with enemy targeting, this can theoretically completely protect the party from a standard three attacks per turn, and it makes you basically immune to NPs in single-target fights. That said, enemy AI won’t always cooperate, so the team will take incidental damage while Castoria’s looping, leaving her teams a bit at the mercy of RNG. This makes healing particularly valuable to Berserker Castoria teams. Fortunately, the NP also stacks crit chance down, which substantially increases the likelihood of the team surviving and being able to heal through that incidental damage… so that’s nice.
Damage-wise, this NP won’t be all that impressive (at least by Berserker standards) unless Castoria’s hitting niche. If she is hitting a niche, though, she ends up hitting more or less like a strong class-advantaged Servant, and if she hits two niches she well surpasses that. If she gets all three niches—Chaotic, Threat, and Divine—she’s hitting for nearly triple damage (accounting for damage brackets), or more with overcharge. Currently, this applies to Abby, Hokusai, Summer Hokusai, Van Gogh, and Yang Guifei—that’s five total Servants, most of whom are Foreigners. On the one hand, it’s a little annoying that most of Castoria’s theoretical best damage targets are in one of the two classes she gets offensive class disadvantage against. On the other hand, the niche damage almost exactly offsets the damage swing involved, which means Castoria can work decently against a handful of Servants she would otherwise be useless against, which is kinda neat. Aside from that, Divine and Chaotic are both decently broad niches, and Divine Servants show up in fights with much more frequency than their number would imply, which means Castoria will often get at least one of her niches.
There are only two notable drawbacks that keep this NP from being clearly the best in the game. The first, and more obvious, is that there’s no damage ramp. Castoria’s most notable direct competition—Vlad, Galatea, Kriem, and even Hephaestion despite not being a Berserker—have damage ramp built into their NPs, while Castoria’s damage will remain the same from turn to turn. The less obvious drawback is that Enforcement Defense doesn’t stack, which means Berserker Castoria can’t use her NP to grant an overcharge level to Caster Castoria, like a typical DPS would. She’s basically limited to one partywide hit of Enforcement Defense per turn, in most cases—which is still really dang good, to be clear, but it locks Castoria out of the most stable Arts teams and makes her less reliable than others for very long fights.
Castoria’s slightly unusual as ST Arts units go. She can work in conventional bursty setups, with two Caster Castorias and a damage-booster (probably Tamamo or Oberon), letting Berserker Castoria loop three times and hopefully clear the fight. Castoria isn’t bad at this, to be clear—at the end of the day, she’s an Arts Berserker with great loop specs, so if damage thresholds aren’t too high and/or she has niche damage, she might suffice—but she’s not the best at it, and the better alternatives are old enough and plentiful enough that there’s a good chance established players have at least one of them.
Where Castoria shines is in teams designed for slightly longer fights. Caster Castoria brings so much of value that you probably still want at least one copy of her on the team—and, in fact, might still start the fight with two Castorias and plug one of them out for a third support. Ultimately, Berserker Castoria still wants to clear fights as quickly as possible, even if going for a mid-range setup, so using plug to speed up the first few turns is probably a good play. You can also replace one of the Castorias with Cnoc na Riabh, who brings more overall damage—though her drawbacks are such that she’s probably not the best choice unless you don’t have better options. If you don’t have Caster Castoria natively, though, she can be a good choice for getting things rolling.
For your second support in the long-term, you want either Lady Avalon or Tamamo, and each comes with their own advantages. Both bring healing—important for offsetting inevitable chip damage—along with damage buffs and NP charge. Lady Avalon brings skill-based charge, overcharge (which can add damage for Berserker Castoria and helps Caster Castoria protect the team during off-turns), an emergency party defense buff (also good for off-turns), and crit tools to complement Berserker Castoria’s. Tamamo, on the other hand, offers cooldown reduction. That’s a lot more points in Lady Avalon’s favor than Tamamo’s, but CDR is massively useful for Berserker Castoria teams in particular, as those teams are much safer while Castoria is looping, and Castoria is probably only looping while everyone’s skills are active. A Lady Avalon team has more ways of surviving through dead turns, while a Tamamo team just has fewer dead turns.
Caster Castoria’s role in these teams, aside from providing charge and the like, is to use her NP whenever Berserker Castoria can’t. If you can save Berserker Castoria’s second skill for when Caster Castoria is ready to NP, you can get three hits of Solemn Defense for the party, which may be enough on its own to protect the team until all skills are off cooldown. Lady Avalon makes this even easier, providing an overcharge level with her Charisma and potentially another by using her NP before Caster Castoria’s, and Tamamo reduces the need for overcharge levels by virtue of effectively shaving a turn or two off the time Caster Castoria has to stall.
You can also theoretically run a Lady Avalon/Berserker Castoria/Tamamo team, which has more healing and gets the benefits of both Tamamo and Lady Avalon, in exchange for having less charge and a harder time surviving through dead turns. This is probably a weaker strategy overall, but it’s not a fundamentally unworkable one.
Castoria’s crit tools also mean she can potentially function in unconventional Arts teams pretty effectively. In fact, she’s actually something of a modernized Qin Shi Huang in a lot of ways, giving strong-but-imperfect party survival on her NP along with very good overall damage. It’s no longer really feasible with the way content has scaled, but I used to quite like running Lanling/QSH/Sherlock—it was a durable, crit-focused team where everyone was able to contribute and the kits synergized nicely. You can mostly swap QSH for Castoria and have a similar-but-stronger setup, bringing a lot of the same advantages, but with an actual damaging NP to fall back on.
Castoria’s a super self-sufficient unit, so if you don’t have the SSR supports, you can still get use out of her with lower-rarity Servants. Mozart and Mary Anning are both solid low-rarity Arts supports. Mary Anning even brings exactly enough charge to let Castoria NP turn 1 with a CE like the Black Grail—between Mana Loading and her own batteries, Castoria has 90% charge, so a tiny bit of extra charge gives her immediate NP access. Barti also brings exactly this much charge, and while he’s usually thought of as a budget Quick support, his buffs are actually type-agnostic and work well with Castoria. Barti brings crit buffs, too, and he makes it pretty easy for Castoria to crit on turn 1—something she doesn’t usually get to do unless you’re running Mozart.
As a final set of options, Xu Fu and Hans are also good picks. Both bring crit damage up and stars per turn, and around the same amount of overall damage push. Xu Fu is better if you need a bunch of charge all at once—say, if you don’t have Mana Loading and need 30% charge turn 1 to let Castoria NP immediately—while Hans is better if you want to prioritize Castoria’s crit damage potential or don’t have a way to get Xu Fu an immediate NP.
It's also worth noting that Castoria is a single-target Berserker with massive self-charge and situationally very good damage, which means she’s potentially useful for dual-core farming setups for 90++ nodes. She can even splash some of her charge to an ally, making the setups that much more flexible! Castoria will be particularly good for nodes that have a single enemy on wave 1 or 2, as Castoria will likely be able to drop the solo enemy on the early wave, and then NP again on wave 3 to help reach damage thresholds on the highest-HP enemy. It’s very similar to the things that make Hephaestion a good farmer, and her damage is even pretty comparable.
The Black Grail is definitely Castoria’s best CE, as it helps offset her lowish NP damage, Castoria isn’t really built for super long fights anyway, and you’re likely running her with someone who can heal off the demerit. There may be situations—particularly when farming—where a starting charge NP is more valuable for looping reasons, but Castoria has such easy NP access this will rarely be the case.
Crit damage CCs are a great pick for Castoria—she has easy crit access, and while she does have some innate crit damage up, Arts teams don’t usually have a lot of it otherwise, so a bit of extra damage push on Castoria’s cards is useful.
Berserkers benefit a lot from grails and Castoria is an excellent Berserker. She’s even a rare case where the extra HP is also meaningfully useful, as it lets Castoria more easily survive incidental hits. Especially if you pull multiple copies of her, she’s well worth grails.
Castoria is excellent, but she’s a well-balanced sort of excellent. Her strengths are fairly unique and they give her a playstyle distinct from her direct competition. She doesn’t outdo the other ST Arts Berserkers at their strengths, but she doesn’t need to. She’s a great example of best-in-context—she does some things better than anyone else, and those things mean she’ll be the best option in some circumstances, but other Servants are better in others… and, fortunately, she’s basically always at least good. Hard to argue with that!
Castoria is an easy skip if you have the alternatives, but if you pull her anyway (say, in the process of targeting Chloe), there will still be reasons to use her, and if you don’t have the alternatives she can easily serve as your primary Arts damage-dealer in most situations. Great addition to the game.
Overall: 10/10
Single-Target DPS: 9/10
AoE DPS: N/A
Survivability: 7/10
Offensive Utility: 2/10
Defensive Utility: 8/10
Farming Usefulness: 8/10
Stealing Rhongomyniad: 10/10