Rabbit’s Reviews #405: Louhi (5* Berserker)

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 At first glance, Louhi is not particularly exciting. She’s an AoE Quick unit with low base steroids and no niche, in exchange for some party support and a big battery. What she does have, though, is ramping NP damage and situational Black Grail viability, the former of which turns out to add up really fast with Oberon, and the latter of which might as well be a niche. With an MLB Black Grail, Louhi reaches 90++ damage levels somewhere around NP5 and level 100, when most generalists need 120-ish and/or a substantial niche. Even with a 50% charge CE, her damage is comparable to out-of-niche Summer Ibuki, and at level 120 with gold Fous and Class Score she’s pretty close to doing a million damage against all targets. What this means is Louhi can easily handle anything below 90++ at even “normal” levels of investment, and a heavily-invested Louhi can do a lot of top-end content as well. Her utility isn’t bad either, so she ends up being one of the best AoE units in game. And she can spook! So bonus points for that.
Generally speaking, if you want to farm 90++ nodes, you either need a maxed-out top-tier generalist who can clear most nodes, or a mix of high-tier Servants in a range of classes at NP2-3. Whether it’s more feasible to max out one unit or invest a bit in several depends in part on your pulling strategy, and FGO is old enough that many players interested in having a maxed-out generalist likely already have one, but if you do want a max-investment top-tier DPS and you don’t have one already (and you have Summer Skadi and Oberon), Louhi is a good candidate for that.
Louhi
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 Among Louhi’s many strengths is that she has the second-highest attack of any Berserker, just behind Summer Ibuki. While she’s quite flimsy in exchange, this is still a great starting point for a damage-dealer. Her internals are more typical, with fairly average Arts-card NP gain, underwhelming Quick card NP gain, and pretty good star gen just by virtue of being a Quick Servant. For passives, she gets Madness Enhancement and Territory Creation—both nice but unremarkable boosts to her secondary card types—and Magic Resistance for occasionally avoiding debuffs.
Mana Loading is critical to Louhi, as it allows her to loop CE-less against 1/3/x or 3/1/x nodes, where without it she’s locked to 2/3/x or better nodes. None of the other appends are particularly useful.
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 Louhi’s mats are quite reasonable, as she wants things that are not in terribly short supply. She does need some LB7 and OC3 mats, though, which may be annoying for newer players if she happens to spook.
 Louhi’s skillset is pretty good overall, with her massive battery being the most notable feature. Recommended skill order is 3>1>2.
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Celestial Orbit Adjustment is a decent partywide buff, giving a small Quick and Buster boost, along with a partywide hit of dodge. In most fastplay contexts, the damage buffs only matter to Louhi, and she would be better off if the buffs were larger and selfish—but her damage is so high anyway it’s hard to complain about this. The partywide dodge might occasionally get you through an on-break NP in CQs, which is nifty. The skill also sets Darkness field, which only matters to a few Servants (of which Louhi herself is not one) so it’s mostly flavor.
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Calamity of the North is a great CQ utility skill, inflicting partywide stun and stripping defensive buffs. Louhi will usually want to clear fights quickly, but you can still use this to get around annoying defensive buffs or to delay an otherwise-dangerous enemy turn. In fact, between this and Louhi’s first skill, you have everything you need to mostly guarantee Louhi survives through a full buff cycle, which is great for high-volatility fights. The skill also halves the targets’ healing received—a small and situational benefit—and inflicts a 2000 damage poison and 2000 damage curse. The damage-over-time effects might in very rare cases be relevant for farming, as (with her NP factored in) Louhi can deal a flat 5000 damage in damage-over-time against a wave of enemies if necessary, which could cover for a low damage roll if the numbers shake out right. Mostly, though, this is just a strong CQ skill. As is typical for AoE stun effects, it’s on a long cooldown, which is probably warranted.
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Challenge of Ruin is an 80% battery, which is what lets Louhi loop CE-less in some contexts. This is, of course, really really good, and it would be excellent even if there was nothing else on this skill. On top of that, it gives 20% partywide charge and effectively negates crits from enemies that don’t boost their own crit rate, both of which are cool tools for CQs. This skill is, of course, on a long cooldown, but again it more than earns it.
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Louhi’s NP is quite simple, but it also does basically everything you’d want it to. It provides a ramping NP damage buff, which of course scales brilliantly with Oberon. It also provides a ramping NP gain buff, helping with looping—and both those things apply to allies as well, which may be nice for CQs on occasion. Aside from that, you have damage and a mostly-for-flavor burn. There’s nothing particularly unique here, but ramping NP damage on an AoE Berserker with good loop specs is so strong the relative simplicity is totally fine.
With two Summer Skadis, Louhi refunds about 10% per enemy. This means she can loop 2/3/x nodes CE-less without Mana Loading, or 1/3/x or 3/1/x with. Without Mana Loading, you use both Skadi batteries on turn 1, Louhi’s battery on turn 2, and Oberon’s on turn 3. With Mana Loading, you use Louhi’s battery on turn 1, Oberon’s 20% battery after the wave of 1, and the other 50% batteries to make up the rest of the difference.
Louhi can also loop any node provided she gets a 50% starting charge CE (or 30% plus Mana Loading). On the first turn, you use a Skadi battery, and after that, you use a Skadi and Oberon 50% battery on one turn and Oberon’s 20% plus Louhi’s personal battery on the other. This naturally leads to lower overall damage than running Black Grail, but Louhi still hits plenty hard for most purposes.
For CQs, the same sorts of setups will work, though you can swap Oberon for a Caster Skadi if you want more early-turn damage and less turn 3 damage, or if you can’t guarantee you’ll finish the fight in 3 turns. Louhi also has some decent sustain tools, making her an alright point Servant for Caster Skadi/Castoria teams—though Louhi’s AoE dodge will interfere somewhat with Skadi’s.
On the lower-end, Louhi can guarantee her own NP and provide some support to the team in the process, so if you don’t need optimization or don’t have ideal supports you can honestly pair Louhi with anyone and do decently. Servants who bring both partywide buffs and damaging NPs—Barti, for example—are natural partners, since Louhi benefits from their buffs and they benefit from hers.
For farming, if you need the extra damage and there’s a wave of 3, Black Grail is Louhi’s best CE. Otherwise, 50% charge CEs like Holy Night Supper still work well enough for anything shy of 90++. In CQ contexts, Black Grail is pretty much always your best choice, as even in cases where NP refund is insufficient you can make up the difference with a card or two.
Louhi won’t be hurting for crit damage with Skadi in play, but there’s nothing else she especially needs that CCs can provide.
Louhi is a great Servant and Berserkers are great grail targets. If you happen to get a high-NP Louhi, I strongly recommend grailing her so you can fully leverage her strengths.
Louhi is straightforwardly strong, but she’s so strong it’s hard to complain about her. Her damage is comparable to Servants like Summer Ibuki and Arjuna Alter, and she can often run Black Grail. Functionally speaking, being able to run Black Grail is Louhi’s niche—unless she’s truly maxed out, she’ll need it to clear 90++ nodes—but top-end farming setups that meet her loop criteria aren’t all that rare. On top of all that, she has some nice CQ utility, too.
Louhi is pretty solidly the best AoE Quick unit to-date, and her combination of damage and battery means she can compete with top-end Arts and Buster units despite being in a weaker card type. Her only real drawbacks are that Quick teams aren’t ideal for stall and that generalists take more investment to clear top-end content than specialists do—but those are both entirely forgivable problems. Truly excellent Servant all-around.
And she can spook! Wow!