Rabbit’s Reviews #431: Todo Heisuke (4* Avenger)

Heisuke has by far the lowest attack of the SR Avengers. Because Avengers are attack-oriented in general, his effective attack is still fine relative to SRs as a whole, but his defensive lean points in the direction of him being intended primarily as a tank. His active star gen is middling—he’s a Quick Servant, but his Quicks have weak hit-counts—and while his Arts card NP gain is decent-to-good relative to his deck, his Quick card NP gain is not good. Most of Heisuke’s NP gain will come from batteries, or (more importantly) from defensive NP gain, which is probably why is cards aren’t great.

For passives, Heisuke has Avenger for increased defensive NP gain, which plays nicely with his taunt. He also has Oblivion Correction E for a trivial crit damage buff, as well as Magic Resistance for occasionally avoiding debuffs.

Mana Loading is Heisuke’s most important append, as it makes it easier for him to access his NP when you need it. This is particularly important, as Heisuke’s NP is what lets you cycle him out, and Mana Loading will enable him to use his NP in cases where he otherwise couldn’t. Aside from that, Anti-Saber Attack Up can be decent when fighting Sabers, which is particularly relevant to Tiamat teams (as Tiamat also deals bonus damage to Sabers, by virtue of being an Archer). None of the other appends matter to him at all—he’ll almost never survive to a second buff cycle, and his cards aren’t going to do much in general.

As an Avenger, Heisuke doesn’t need any pieces or gems, and instead he asks for a mix of different mats. He doesn’t need many of any one in particular, but the sheer variety means there’s a good chance at least one of them serves as a roadblock.

Heisuke’s skillset offers a strong mix of damage and utility. Recommended skill order is 3>2>1.

Heisuke’s NP is pretty good. It gives pre-cast Quick up that scales nicely with overcharge, up to 50% at overcharge 5 (which he can feasibly reach in Tiamat teams). It also deals supereffective damage against Lawful enemies, a broad niche against which he has great damage. The NP also leaves the target with a defense debuff. It’s unfortunate that this isn’t pre-cast, but this also points towards Heisuke being mostly meant for CQs, where swapping out and increasing damage against a single enemy for the next few turns can be valuable.

And, of course, the NP kills Heisuke.

The sacrifice demerit is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it means Heisuke will never work as a conventional DPS. On the other, it means you can control when you want him to switch out for a fresh Servant. On the whole, his damage is high, but not that high, which makes the sacrifice demerit feel a little unearned… but it plays nicely with the rest of Heisuke’s kit and serves a clear purpose. I think he would be better without it, but he’d also be a lot less interesting and would be in more direct competition with Servants like ST Dantes, a comparison that would not be flattering to Heisuke. The self-sacrifice aspect of this NP gives Heisuke his own use-cases, which is not a bad thing.

In farming contexts, Heisuke is a great single-target Servant for multicore teams because he can use his NP without costing you a support slot, in the same way Servants like Arash and Habetrot can. Unfortunately, this will usually raise team cost to the point where you can’t run five 5* CEs, but if you’re running lower-rarity farming CEs or the like, this can be appealing.

The best support for this, in theory, is Tiamat, as she provides partywide buffs and party charge, along with an overcharge buff that Heisuke benefits from. The one caveat here is that neither Heisuke nor Tiamat has enough charge to NP without an outside source of charge, which means you need your other DPS to provide that charge for you. 10% party charge lets Heisuke NP on turn 2 but means you’ll only get one Tiamat NP off, while 20% party charge gets you a Heisuke NP turn 1 and Tiamat NPs on turns 2 and 3, and 30% party charge lets both Heisuke and Tiamat NP on turn 1. Tez and Noah are probably the best damage-dealers for these setups for all the reasons they usually work with multicore Tiamat teams. It’s also worth noting that if Heisuke NPs on turn 2 you’re probably only getting a single Tiamat NP off, and you also have much tighter loop conditions, due to not getting your third Tiamat’s skills up until turn 3.

It would take a very particular node for a multicore Heisuke setup to be better than a single-core Tiamat team, as Heisuke setups may lose a Tiamat NP, can have trouble looping the other DPS’s NP, and lose some star gen and thus have less reliable crit access on turn 3… but it is an option and might be useful in certain very specific contexts.

If you only need a little bit of extra damage, Heisuke might work in multicore Castoria teams, too, as you can potentially swap one Castoria out turn 1 in order to ensure you have sufficient battery available for Heisuke. This has the disadvantage of providing Heisuke with less in the way of damage buffs, but it’s a little less awkward—though it still runs into the same team cost issues.

In CQs, Heisuke is cleaner and more straightforward: you use all his skills and let him soak up some hits. You either use his NP as soon as it’s available for a burst of damage and party cycling, or you let him taunt for the full three turns, only using his NP if he happens to survive to the end. If you plan to do the latter, you might sometimes want to use his second and third skills on turn 2, so that his buffs are still active on turn 4 when he NPs.

CQ Heisuke will be particularly good for fights where the enemy has very high single-target damage and can’t be easily bursted down in three turns—Heisuke buys you a bit of time, outputs some damage, and just generally does a good job of pushing you towards winning.

Heisuke has a pretty easy time accessing his NP in CQs, so you can safely give him a damage-boosting CE like The Black Grail. If you need him to NP immediately without the help of external batteries, you can give him a 50% charge CE… but if you’re farming, you don’t want to waste the CE slot, and in CQs you’re not using Heisuke to the fullest if you aren’t letting him taunt for at least a turn. In either case, starting charge is probably not the best option available.

Another option for Heisuke is Volumen Hydrargyrum, which gives him three hits of invuln. Between that and his three-hit dodge, Heisuke will almost certainly buy you two turns of safety, and he’ll probably buy you three, after which he can NP to ensure he leaves the field.

There aren’t any CCs Heisuke particularly benefits from. Since you can’t place his cards after his NP anyway, he’s a good candidate for the CCs that increase NP damage on the turn they’re used, provided you aren’t using them elsewhere—just remember to use his cards before his NP if you choose to do this.

Avengers are good grail targets and more stats will make Heisuke better at what he does. I don’t think Heisuke is “worth” the grails in the sense of being a particularly strong Servant who deserves better stats, but if you find yourself making use of him with any regularity, he’ll get a lot of benefit out of having more levels.

Heisuke has a lot of really good pieces that don’t completely cohere. I think he’s a very good tank for CQ purposes, but he’s not necessarily better in that role than free Servants like George. He certainly does more damage than the free tanks, and he’s more controllable in that you can get him off the field when you want him gone—and he also gives some party buffs, which is nice—but fundamentally he’s performing the same role as other free or nearly-free units, just in a slightly flashier manner.

That’s not to say he’s bad for this purpose. Three-turn taunts are always strong, and pairing that with a hit-based dodge and other benefits is great. If you have him and remember that he’s available, there will definitely be fights where Heisuke is helpful. There will not, however, be fights where you specifically need him.

For farming, on the other hand, Heisuke is theoretically cool due to his ability to NP and disappear, but his damage isn’t quite high enough and his kit not quite convenient enough for him to be well-suited for most nodes. I think there will occasionally be nodes and setups that cater to him, but I also think those nodes will usually be more easily cleared with other teams. He’s theoretically powerful but practically limited due to the realities of damage thresholds and NP refund, among other things.

If what you want is an SR who can survive for a while, do a ton of damage, and then die, Soujuurou does the same thing more effectively, and he’s free. The existence of Soujuurou doesn’t make Heisuke bad, but it does reduce the number of situations in which he’s appealing. His primary value is, I think, as a tank, and he’s pretty cool there, but most players probably don’t need the specific mix of stuff Heisuke brings.

At the end of the day, though, he’s an unusual servant, and he’s not terrible, so I can’t object to his addition to the game. I’d almost always take a neat Servant with mixed usefulness over a fairly strong Servant who’s boring.