Rabbit’s Reviews #427: Huyan Zhuo (4* Berserker)

22whiterabbit22
 Huyan is an utterly generic AoE Quick DPS. She has all the baseline things you’d expect from the role: damage, survival, NP charge, niche, and a bit of utility. Normally, a Servant with this kit would be totally fine but mostly unremarkable. Huyan, however, has two very important qualities that make her noteworthy: she’s a Berserker, and she’s free.
Were Huyan a limited SR, she would be notably good but not exceptional.  NP level for NP level, she roughly matches Sen-no-Rikyu, who is a very good Quick unit but very much not top-tier in the current environment. Huyan, though, is automatically NP5. She can’t loop without Summer Chloe or a starting charge CE, but aside from that she competes with all but top-end, high NP AoE SSRs. That is to say, Huyan Zhuo is an excellent AoE who will be sufficient for almost all content. She won’t generally be able to handle 90++ farming, but just about anything shy of that should be doable, and for a free Servant that’s truly fantastic.
Huyan Zhuo (Berserker)
loader-2
loader-2
Huyan has middling attack and low health relative to SR Berserkers as a whole, but because Berserkers are naturally attack-oriented, this means Huyan has a strongly offensive stat spread relative to SRs as a whole. While she could be stronger, this is still a good starting point for a DPS. Her NP gain is on the low side for a single-Arts Servant, with a just-below-average Arts cards and underwhelming Quicks. Her deck and hit counts mean she’s good at active star gen, at least.
Huyan’s only passives are Madness Enhancement and a unique passive that slightly boosts Buster card star weight. A 10% boost to Buster card star weight will be completely negligible—consider that Berserkers need star weight boost values in the thousands to crit reliably—but Madness Enhancement EX is nice for strengthening Huyan’s already-respectable Buster crits.
Huyan is a 30% charger, so Mana Loading is her most important append, making it easier for her to access and loop her NP. Aside from that, Skill Reload is okay for stall (something that’s feasible for Quick now, thanks to Tiamat!) and the crit damage buff is decent for increasing Huyan’s crit damage outside of her burst turn. Extra Attack damage up is of marginal benefit, and anti-Assassin crit resistance is mostly useless.
loader-2
Huyan is a welfare, so she’s very easy to ascend provided you do her event. The node that unlocks her even gives some extra experience to make it easier. There’s really no reason not to level her. Her skill mats, too, are pretty easy, with the mats she requires being relatively plentiful and the most recent one she needs coming from LB5.
Huyan has a generically strong DPS skillset, which for a free unit is really good. Recommended skill order is 3>2>1.
loader-2
Star of Heaven is mostly just a 3-turn 30% attack buff, which is solid and helps prop up Huyan’s overall damage. It also applies ignore defense for three turns, which is a pretty rare effect. Huyan doesn’t have an in-kit way to get past invulnerability and the like, but provided you aren’t dealing with that Huyan’s damage should be highly consistent, which is nice for gimmick fights. On top of that, the skill boosts Huyan’s star weight for a turn. It’s a little unfortunate that the star weight buff doesn’t last longer, but the one-turn boost pairs well with Huyan’s third skill, and if Huyan is looping there’s a good chance you’re flooding the field with stars anyway, in which case this only matters on turn 1. This is a really good skill overall, and it works quite well with Huyan’s kit.
loader-2
Self-Esteem Issues is an interesting 3-turn Quick buff that only provides 20% at base but that gives an extra 10% every time Huyan is healed, up to 10 times. Sadly this doesn’t apply to things like command codes—which could otherwise further increase Huyan’s effective power ceiling—but it does work with both the new plug suit’s heal and with Archer Tiamat’s heal, which means this skill will effectively be at least 30% Quick up in most cases where you’d bring Huyan. The skill also gives a two-hit dodge for good measure, which is always great for survival.
loader-2
Chained Horses is first and foremost a 30% battery, which is important for all the usual NP access and loopage reasons. Aside from that, it gives a mix of crit functionality: a burst of 20 stars, 30% crit damage up for 3 turns, and 100% crit damage up for 1 turn. Notably, the two crit buffs stack, meaning Huyan gets a whopping 130% crit damage up on the turn she uses this skill. 30% crit damage up isn’t enough to be particularly noticeable, especially with Skadi and Tiamat buffs in play, but it’s better than nothing, and Huyan should have really good card damage on the turn she pops all her buffs. In CQ contexts, Huyan is a great choice for cases where you need to do good AoE damage while also bursting down a dangerous high-health target. It’s a little unfortunate that her crit damage drops off after turn 1, but there are cases where a huge boost of damage on one turn is exactly what you need, and she’s still a totally functional AoE unit even outside of crits.
loader-2
Huyan’s NP is pretty good as welfare NPs go. She doesn’t get any ramp, sadly, but she does deal supereffective damage against Lawful enemies. This is a reasonably broad niche and it scales with overcharge, making Huyan a lot more threatening in certain fights. Aside from that, it applies a stacking crit chance reduction, negating most enemy crits, and has a small chance of inflicting stun. The stun will almost never proc against anything with any debuff resistance at all, and some Servants have enough innate debuff resistance to completely negate this, but for anything without magic resistance this will occasionally prevent incoming damage for a turn, which is nice! Mostly this NP is just a source of damage, though, and it does a reasonably good job at that.
In a Summer Skadi/Summer Skadi/Oberon team, Huyan refunds about 10% per enemy. Since she only has a 30% battery, she needs a 50% charge CE to loop, and even in those cases she’s limited to 3/1/x or 1/3/x nodes. On turn 1, you use all Skadi buffs and all of Huyan’s skills, after which you can use two of your available 50% batteries on one turn (the wave of 1) and a 50% battery plus Oberon’s 20% battery on the other turn (the wave of 3) to secure the loop.
Tiamat/Tiamat/Oberon, interestingly, has similar loop parameters for Huyan, requiring specifically 3/1/x in order to loop. In this setup, Huyan uses her first and second skills, but not her third, on turn 1. Both Tiamats use their first and third skills, and one Tiamat uses her battery. You also use the new plug suit’s heal on Huyan on turn 1. Huyan then refunds about 7.5% per enemy. Against three enemies, she clears 20%, and the passive Tiamat batteries bring her to 40%. You use Huyan’s third skill and the remaining Tiamat battery to take Huyan to 100% charge, and then you use both Tiamat NPs, followed by Huyan’s. Huyan refunds about 10% against a single enemy with the buffs from the Tiamat NPs, she gets 20% passively from the two Tiamats’ third skills, and then Oberon’s 70% charge secures the loop. With both Tiamats at NP1, this setup is very slightly better for Huyan’s damage than the Summer Skadi setup, due to the distribution of buffs (you get slightly more attack and slightly less Quick relative to Skadi, which results in more favorable multiplication). NP2 or higher Tiamats win solidly, with the caveat that you have to sit through two extra NP animations and your turn 1 damage is lower than with Skadi.
Huyan can also loop CE-less against 3/3/x nodes if you slot Summer Chloe into a Summer Skadi team. For this team, you run Chloe/Huyan/Summer Skadi/Oberon/Summer Skadi. On turn 1, you use Chloe’s first skill, all of Huyan’s skills, and all of Skadi’s skills. You then plug Skadi out for the other Skadi and use her damage buffs, plus the plug suit’s heal. Huyan refunds 10% per enemy, for a total of 30%. On turn 2, you use both of Chloe’s remaining skills, giving Huyan another 30% charge and getting Chloe ready to plug out. You also use Skadi’s battery, and Huyan NPs, refunding another 30%. Chloe then swaps out for Oberon, who secures the loop. This lets you run a high-damage CE (like The Black Grail) or a farming CE,  and it increases Huyan’s base damage on top of that thanks to Chloe’s buffs. In exchange, you have a higher base team cost and can’t loop more restrictive nodes.
The above setup is also technically feasible for 5/1/x nodes, as you get enough charge from your refund plus Chloe’s battery that you can afford to save Huyan’s battery for turn 3, but this case is so rare as to be functionally irrelevant. I only bring it up for Huyan because this setup does have 90++ tier damage, and 5/1/x 90++ nodes are probably about as common as 3/3/x ones, if not moreso. The vast majority of top-end farming nodes are more restrictive than this, but there have been a couple that meet these criteria.
Huyan’s damage and loop specs are generally insufficient for 90++ farming. However, if you can loop with Black Grail in an optimal farming team, a level 90 Huyan does theoretically break a million damage, even without niche. It’s pretty unlikely that you’ll run into a 3/3/x 90++ node and not have better options available, and you still need Summer Chloe to make it work… but a slightly grailed Huyan can theoretically farm in that specific case. She should also generally be sufficient for any lower-level farming node, except for the odd 90+ she doesn’t have the loop specs to clear.
All of the above setups will also work for shortform CQs. Ruler Skadi is better at enabling specifically Buster Crits than Tiamat is and has the advantage of not needing an NP to do it, while Tiamat is better for survival and supports crits of all kinds. A double Tiamat team can have both Tiamats use all their skills and NP on turn 1 to provide Huyan with more than 300% general crit up and 48 stars per turn for 3 turns, which will probably outdo what either form of Skadi can provide unless you really can’t afford to slot in the two Tiamat NPs on turn 1.
Tiamat is also a great partner for Huyan if you want to lean into slowplay. With a double Tiamat team, you can alternate Tiamat’s NPs to pretty consistently keep the whole team safe, and Huyan can lean on her own dodge to avoid damage while you don’t have a Tiamat NP up. This isn’t the type of team that’s trying to last indefinitely—instead, the goal is to prioritize damage output where you can while slotting in a Tiamat NP any time one is available. Huyan’s one-turn crit buffs actually work nicely with a Tiamat stall setup, as you can use those skills when you have Huyan cards for a burst of damage, and prioritize Tiamat’s NP gain cards the rest of the time. Aside from that, Huyan doesn’t have anything that specifically makes her a good point Servant for Tiamat stall, except for the fact that she deals good damage in general and high damage output means you don’t have to stall as long.
At the lower end, Huyan wants to kill quickly, so budget supports who provide charge and damage buffs are good picks. Barti and Hans are both solid for this, and Mash and Waver can do good work too.
If you’re looking for a good 50% charge CE for Huyan, Traces of Christmases Past is a solid option, as a full-attack CE that helps Huyan’s damage and NP recursion both. Holy Night Supper is another strong option, providing more damage and in a buff bracket Huyan otherwise doesn’t have access to, in exchange for losing the NP gain benefits. And, of course, if you have the recursion, The Black Grail will be your best CE for damage.
Crit damage CCs are the usual fallback for a DPS with reasonable crit access. Huyan’s in a bit of a weird position where her persistent crit buffs are low enough that crit damage CCs might be meaningful, but her peak crit damage buffs (especially with supports) are so high that they sometimes won’t matter at all. I still think crit damage (or perhaps anti-Lawful) CCs are Huyan’s best pick, mostly because there’s nothing else she really needs, but she won’t get as much out of them as some other Servants will.
Huyan is a really good free unit and a pair of grails—or even seven grails—makes her even stronger. If your AoE needs are already met, and especially if you have a maxed out Berserker or Avenger or the like ready to go, there’s not much reason to invest heavily in Huyan, but if you’re lacking a standout AoE unit, giving extra stats to Huyan can let her function nearly as well.
Historically, free AoE Berserkers have come with major drawbacks: low steroids, limited batteries, long cooldowns, and so on. Lasengle has been careful not to make them too powerful, probably because a sufficiently powerful free Berserker would mostly negate the need to pull for or invest in any other unit.
Huyan isn’t so strong that she solves everything forever—if you want to farm 90++ nodes and the like, you’ll usually need something higher-tier, and she of course doesn’t counter every CQ gimmick—but she is strong enough to solve most things. With FGO’s story coming to a close at the end of this year, Huyan feels like a gift who is meant to ensure all players have an AoE Servant who will be strong enough for everything they have to face. Huyan can handle most of your ordinary farming and clear most of your challenging story fights. For any players who don’t necessarily care about optimization and true top-end content, Huyan does everything you need a DPS to do. That’s really valuable, and very generous. She is, in other words, a perfect fallback. She’s not the best at anything, but she’s good enough at just about everything, and she can carry you to the end of the game.