MMM The End Part 2 - Sentimental Snake Sorts Sorority with Sylvan Sprite, Scared of Sniffing Stray Scratching her Stem (Chaldean Floriala)

With a base NP gain of 0.56% and a BAAQQ card deck, Okina’s 4-hit Arts cards provide a very respectable 2.36 base Arts gain, well above Average for a Servant with his card deck, and that even comes without much of a sacrifice in his other cards. His 6-hit Quick cards are spectacular for NP gain and star generation alike, and his 5-hit Extra card is simply a little below average.

As I’ve already implied, his star generation is also very good, his Quick cards having the highest hitcount possible in the game thus far, and the high number of hits on his other cards also supplies a fine sum of critical stars when put into the ring. He simply won’t have any issues producing criticals and NP gauge off his own merits.

Skill 1

First for the skill lineup is Rare White Dog, the theoretically only supernatural aspect to this old geezer. The dog is a very good boy, providing a standard dual-card buff effect of 30% Quick and Arts Up to his master for 3 turns, as well as a respectable 30% gauge charge upon use.

There’s not much to break down here, but the boost to Okina’s primary damage cards and their NP gain / star generation is pretty significant given how good he has it already. Any gauge charger is naturally great, too, though the mere 30% on this skill isn’t the end of that story. This skill’s 8-turn base cooldown is standard for something packing a gauge charger, so there’s nothing untoward there.

Skill 2

Next up is “Over here, woof woof!”, a quote you should have to say every time you use it. Representing the dog’s capability to unveil treasures and traps both, this skill dishes out boons for your team and some nasty surprises for the enemy.

Okina’s allies get 20% gauge charge on use and a solid 30% NP Strength Up buff for 3 turns, while the enemy side gets slapped with a 1-turn NP Seal and 1k damage Poison for 3 turns. The supportive angle on this skill is naturally excellent, elevating Okina’s own gauge charge to 50%, while also providing the team with the same benefits in gauge charging and damage output. The debuffs to the enemy are less notable, but NP Seal does slow down enemy NP charge for a turn on top of preventing a NP from firing on that turn, so it’s a handy tool for buying time against otherwise-lethal blows.

For the power of this skill and the offensive might it sums up to for Okina, its 8-turn base cooldown is pretty generous, and remains in line with the cooldown of his prior skill, too.

Skill 3

Last but far from least is Gravestone Mortar. A plethora of effects are packed into this thing, but it’s primarily a team Charisma buff with some unique bonus effects, providing 20% Attack Up and 30% Critical Damage Up to the team for 3 turns, as well as a 3-turn buff that provides his allies with 100% Overcharge boost for their next NP when they make a normal attack. While that alone seems good, Overcharge boost, unlike a lot of “1-time” based buffs, does stack with itself, so a single Servant doing a Brave chain with this buff active essentially guarantees their next NP is at 500% Overcharge. A better way of putting it would be this skill essentially bottles up 900% Overcharge over the next 3 turns which is then distributed by your card selections, and for some Servants getting that much Overcharge for free is absurd.

And that’s not even the end of the effects - it also makes all enemies start taking a 1k Curse debuff each time they make an attack, and reduces their Critical Rate by 30% for 3 turns. Nowhere near as impactful, for sure, but making the team crit-immune essentially for 3 turns is always handy.

As you might expect for the impact of that Overcharge buff, this skill has a heftier 9-turn base cooldown.

Tying the whole kit together is Okina’s NP - Kareki ni Hana o Sakasemashou. And from here onwards I shall call it Haru Urara for no particular reason.

This is a Quick AOE NP that has a whole lot of effects behind it, so let’s crush those first. Before anything else Okina dishes out his damage, a standard AOE Quick NP with a Super-Effective modifier against Evil alignment that scales with Overcharge. As I often say, Evil is probably the best Alignment to target in the game, since we pretty frequently face down Servants with Evil alignment as story bosses, and a good number of NPC-only bosses have Evil alignment slapped on them, which is partially why Astraea is such a menace for boss-killing. Okina’s NP being AOE and not as easy to empower with NP level and strengthening means the impact of this bonus isn’t great, but it’s still better than many effective damage modifiers out there.

After the damage comes all of the interesting parts. Okina slaps a grab-bag of debuffs on every enemy, including the +100% Burn/Poison/Curse damage amplification debuffs for 3 turns, and his own unique kind of Burn Debuff, Ash blossom. It’s identical to normal burns in every single way, except that it turns on the NP damage boost from his passive when a unit on the field is debuffed with it. As a result, it’s the only Burn effect in the game that actually “inflicts” significant damage…okay that’s a little mean. To give credit to DoT effects, between the trio of amplifiers Okina himself inflicts and the Curse his third skill inflicts, a single enemy getting plastered by Okina’s Haru Urara and debuffs will start damaging themselves pretty rapidly with Curse - by the end of turn 2, if he NP’s two turns successively, you’re looking at 18k damage a turn from the Curse debuff alone.

The important point is if Okina NP’s and an enemy is still alive after, he gets a handy +20% NP Strength buff, and he also slots nicely into DoT spam teams if that’s your jam.

The latter end of this NP’s effects are the supportive ones, providing a team debuff cleanse and 1k Regen to the whole team for 3 turns. Both of these are pretty damn useful, especially since he provides very consistent healing for Quick teams, a gap in their supportive capabilities that still hasn’t been dealt with by the inclusion of Summer Tiamat.

But with that all out of the way, we can address Haru Urara’s damage output, and farming aptitude. With all his own buffs live, his NP does a pretty mediocre 23k damage neutral, mostly due to the poor attack stats of the Caster class in general. Once his first NP comes out, successive ones will be dishing a more reasonable 26.5k damage, but that only really applies in difficult content, not farming.

So let’s break down the setup. With a 50% gauge charge CE and double Ruler Skadi (the most convenient setup, even if Summer Tiamat can provide more damage), Okina nets enough refund to perform a standard farming loop (albeit requiring Mystic Code assistance), dealing 80k damage neutral on waves 1 and 2, then 101k on wave 3. Enough to farm his class advantage, but not close to Universal farmer numbers.

However, as much as crunching the numbers for it hurts, you can perform Black Grail loops with Okina at level 10 Mana Loading, using Summer Tiamat’s skills and NP on the first turn then using Order Change to put the second Ruler Skadi in. In such a setup, Okina does 106k damage on wave 1, 146k on wave 2, and 180k on wave 3, just about past the standard damage output for a Universal farmer. This farming setup does predicate sitting through a Tiamat NP and performing an Order Change, so it’s far from the most efficient, but the old man can put in the work if you sit him next to another swimsuited babes. Just don’t tell his wife.

As for Hebi Nyobo’s generation stats, it’s a bit abnormal. Entirely contrary to the Assassin identity, her BBAAQ card deck with a base NP gain of 0.41% means her 4-hit Arts cards have a base Arts gain of 1.8, a little above average. This comes at the cost of relatively poor NP gain on her other cards, the typical tax for such high hitcounts on your Arts cards.

But as a supportive Servant who only wants to use their regular cards to build NP gauge, at least having solid Arts cards is a good start. On the other side of things, Hebi Nyobo’s star generation is fairly good in spite of her lack of Quick cards, both due to solid hitcounts across the board and the Assassin class’s excellent base star generation. Naturally, she won’t provide anywhere near as many critical stars as a Quick-focused Assassin, but them’s the breaks.

Skill 1

First on the skill list is Bundle of Bush Clover, a fittingly floral gift for this event. As you might expect from how often I’ve been stating it, this is a supportive skill for an ally, providing your chosen target with 30% Attack Up and 50% Critical Damage Up for 3 turns, and a minor 15-star bomb on use.

So far as single-target offensive buffs go, this is pretty standard, providing an especially notable boon to Critical Damage dealers with the star bomb priming a few crits in the coming chain, but the actual damage numbers are nothing exceptional, just making it a steroid for your damage dealer of choice. The 8-turn base cooldown on this skill is fairly long for its power, but I’d rather have a solid boost on a slightly long cooldown than a poor one on a short cooldown, at least.

Skill 2

Next is Lake of Sairyu, a skill literally encapsulating the lady in question making a whole-ass lake for her child.

Apparently, forming new aqueous landscapes provides a 30% Arts Up and Buster Up buff to the chosen ally for 3 turns, as well as a much-appreciated 20% NP gauge charge each turn for 3 turns. The value of the gauge charge might not be immediate, but for an Arts Servant you’re getting a significant of NP gauge both from directly and indirectly, with the Arts Up buff also improving the refund of one’s NP. A lot of Servants in the game are about 20% refund away from getting a full 100% refund after their NP, which opens up much more aggressive team compositions with them.

Point being, it’s a great supportive buff, even if NP gauge charge over 3 turns technically wastes a third of its value in farming scenarios. Much like the prior skill, it has an 8-turn base cooldown, which at least keeps their cooldowns aligned.

Skill 3

Last for the skills is Miidera Evening Bell, the tolling of which, for once, doesn’t harken thy name. Stop looking at me like that, King Hassan. Someone doesn’t have to die every time a bell tolls.

Following the theme of the prior skills, this is yet another targeted ally buff, providing a much-appreciated 30% gauge charge on use, as well as 2-time, 3-turn Invincible and 100% Buff Removal Resistance once for a 3-turn period. It goes without saying all these benefits are great, the gauge charge complimenting with her prior skill for an absolutely staggering level of NP gauge charging support from a SR Servant, while the Invincible and Buff Removal Resistance effects are superb for difficult content.

Between this skill and the prior one, Hebi Nyobo is offering a quantity of gauge charge comparable to the greats of supportive capability like Oberon and Tiamat Archer, albeit for only one ally. But simply having those perks on an SR Servant’s cost is outstanding, and we’re not done yet.

While I get it’s meant to be a loving move of sacrifice, I can’t be the only one slightly creeped out by the idea of plucking out your own eyeballs and gifting them to someone.

Maybe it’s just a hangover from experiences with Naruto, but I naturally expect giving someone else your eyes will result in international calamities a decade or so after. And don’t get me started on Danzo…

Miniature rant aside, this is a supportive Arts NP which, unsurprisingly, provides a plethora of buffs to a single ally. Like Miss Crane’s NP, which frankly isn’t surprising given their similar origins, it selects the leftmost ally in the formation that isn’t Hebi Nyobo herself, and gives them an overwhelming combo of 100% NP gauge, 2k-10k Max HP Up for 3 turns (scaling with NP level), and 10% NP Strength Up for 3 turns, scaling with Overcharge.

While the fundamental mechanics of this are basically like Hebi Nyobo is gifting her own NP gauge charge to her chosen target, in the present meta there are a lot of offensive Servants and supports alike who provide team NP gauge charge that is essentially “wasted” in farming scenarios. Being able to take that gauge charge and funnel it into the damage dealer is great, and the other perks are also spectacular - a NP5 Hebi Nyobo essentially gives her ally a second HP bar’s work of healing, and if you stack 2 NP’s at the same time, you end up with enough HP to face-tank most NP’s with defensive class advantage.

And she also gets to die if she uses it twice! Hurray!

Wait, isn’t that meant to be bad? Well if you’ve followed the MMM long enough you know that self-sacrifice is essentially a team Order Change by proxy, as you can plan out your team formation to have another support Servant waiting in the backline with skills and NP ready to fire. It’s for this reason why Miss Crane is so curious to work with, and Hebi Nyobo basically does the same thing.

However…for farming at least, it’s not as great as it sounds. Even putting Hebi Nyobo’s capability to land two NP’s in a row aside, you would ideally order Hebi Nyobo’s NP after your damage dealer’s in the chain, to give them a full NP gauge for the next turn. However, if the damaging NP finishes off the wave, it immediately ends the chain and goes to the next wave, skipping over Hebi Nyobo’s NP. As a result, you would be forced to use it before the damaging NP, which provides 100% Overcharge, a minor NP Strength Up buff before damage, and nothing else. In some cases that would be worth it, but it’s a world’s difference from a full free NP at practically no cost.

So how this NP pans out in farming is a mechanism to kill off Hebi Nyobo by the 3rd turn at the cost of time, netting you an Order Change without having to run the necessary Mystic Code, or two Order Changes if you’re gonna go that far.

Thankfully it’s much more convenient to execute in difficult content, since you usually aren’t worrying about clearing waves cutting off the remainder of your turn. Regardless it’s a potent supportive tool that also enables more complex team compositions without truly losing anything.

With a BAQQQ card deck, Flora’s base 0.59% NP gain results in an impressive 2.6 base Arts gain on her sole Arts card, as decent Quick cards for NP gain, something she’ll appreciate given their overwhelming presence in her card deck. Her Extra card isn’t too bad either given the passive NP gain boost she gains from merely existing, and of course, her heavy focus on Quick cards means she can reap the boost in NP gain from crits more easily, too.

It goes without saying her star generation is good, too. Having 4 hits on all of her primary cards balances out to pretty good star generation, even if the Alter Ego class doesn’t have spectacular base star generation - her focus on Quick cards largely compensates for that drawback.

First on Flora’s skill lineup is Flower of Fertility. The fun part about being a flower Goddess is you get handed all the euphemisms for childbirth in the godly pantheon. Them’s the break of also being a Goddess of youth. Flora herself has a myth surrounding her where Juno (Hera) got jealous of Jupiter (Zeus) conceiving Minerva (Athena) as a literal brain-child, and asked Flora for help. Flora lent her a flower, and that flower alone got the Queen of the Gods pregnant with Mars (Ares).

The lesson to be had? Don’t accept flowers from this lady lest you want a life-long commitment.

As for gameplay effects, this is a targeted support buff that gives an ally 1-time Guts and a 30% Attack Up buff for 3 turns, while also charging Flora’s NP gauge by 30%. This combo of defensive backup and solid offensive boost is certainly nice to have, and of course gauge charging is always great.

It’s also worth noting that Flora can take effective use of this buff herself if need be, the Alter Ego class, in spite of her defensive focus, still being a good offensive class, and she even has synergy with the Guts buff from her passives providing boosted healing and gauge charge when she triggers it. Regardless, it’s a solid if plain supportive buff, and one that comes at a pretty kind 8-turn base cooldown considering it packs both a Guts buff and gauge charge, usually taxing on skill cooldowns.

Next up is The West Wind which Snatched the Maiden. While a mouthful of a skill, it also comes with one heck of a package of effects, providing the whole team with a 20% Quick booster, 30% Critical Damage Up, and a whopping 100% Quick Critical Damage Up for 3 turns, boosting the damage output of Flora’s chosen card type massively.

While Flora herself uses this excellently, there’s also a wide array of Quick-focused Critical Damage dealers who can go insane with that kind of bonus - Ushigozen and Van Gogh come to mind, having both incredibly Quick-focused card decks and similarly powerful boosts to their critical damage.

And somehow that’s not the end of the benefits, also providing a 10% gauge charge to the attacker when they use a Quick card for 3 turns, which even works on NP’s. Needless to say, anything throwing multiple Quick cards in a chain will probably have 100% gauge by the end of it.

The potency of this team buff isn’t even tempered by its cooldown, having a standard 8-turn cooldown to keep it aligned with the rest of her kit.

Last but far from least for Flora’s skills is Flower Garden Creation EX. Remember that emotional anime or game you experienced where at the climax, a field of flowers suddenly comes into bloom and you start crying?

Yeah, that’s like hundreds of pieces of media. If you thought of Metal Gear Solid 3, you have my personal badge of approval, separate from the one I give to the Servants.

Regardless this skill is that effect, providing the whole team with 20% gauge charge and a 1-time, 3-turn Overcharge boost upon use, and a further, identical, Overcharge boost for the following 3 turns so long as Flora remains on field. As I’ve established earlier in this MMM, Overcharge boosts stack with each other, so regardless if you expend them instantly or let it build up, you get value out of this skill.

The Overcharge is largely a bonus to the team gauge charge, though - this level of support is rare on an SR, and spectacular on a Welfare Servant. Flora herself can use the total of 50% gauge charge she can access effectively, as well as the Overcharge to boost her supportive NP, but naturally the right allies can get exceptional results from it, too.

Flora’s NP is World’s End Flower Garden, one whose aesthetic and name immediately pulls my mind to the Umineko track of a similar name, played in scenes with similar scenery. I know it’s all part of a relatively common trope, but that can hardly be a coincidence, no?

In any case, this is a supportive Quick NP with a grab-bag of effects, the first of which is the field effects. Upon use Flora converts the current field type to Heaven, an effect which so far as I know only denies pre-existing field type effects and buffs Dante (good for him), while also applying a 20% Attack buff tied to the field for 3 turns, scaling up to 40% at maximum Overcharge. A pretty neat effect, given little to no effects in the game can remove it.

Paired with that is a fourfold package of beneficial effects for the team - charging their NP gauges by 20%, healing them for 4k HP (at welfare NP5), providing 30 Critical Stars, and a buff that gives them 10% NP gauge when they land a crit for 3 turns. All of this comes together for a pretty hefty buff package, and one that feeds into itself: Flora herself will be netting 20% NP gauge for each Quick Critical she does over a 3 turn period, and that’s not even factoring the gauge she gets from hitting a Quick Critical in the first place…which lets her use this NP again, which improves the NP gain even further…you get the idea.

The direct offensive boosts from this NP aren’t much, but it is a pretty neat laurel to put on the end of a NP chain to subsequently boost the impact of a critical chain on the next turn - given Flora’s capability for boosting Overcharge, you’ll be layering multiple 30-40% Attack buffs that will really stack up.

Last to consider is Flora’s capability as a solo carry Servant. The various boosts to Quick cards and Crits suddenly feel much more impactful when you have a guaranteed Quick Brave chain incoming every turn, and a fairly low-cooldown Guts buff to abuse in concert with potent healing whenever she NP’s. It’s probably not worth shifting gears for, but I can see her bringing the pain to a strong Foreigner boss if you want to do something unorthodox.