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Rabbit's Reviews #327: James Moriarty (5* Ruler)

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Rabbit's Reviews Ruler Moriarty
NA Release Date: 5/20/2024
Introduction

So, Moriarty is an AoE Arts Servant, in a class with an inherent attack bonus, with a 50% battery. That sounds like a recipe for a 10/10 Servant—after all, it describes Ryouma, Kama, and Spish—but unfortunately, Moriarty falls a little short. He’s just a bit undertuned in a whole bunch of different ways. Any one of his flaws would be manageable, but Moriarty is all flaws and no strengths, for the most part. He has few meaningful advantages over his competition—mostly limited to increased damage versus Good enemies—and he pays heavily for what he does have. At the end of the day, he’s a loop-enabled Arts SSR, so he’s not bad, but he’s also the least impressive of his direct competition. If you happen to get him, he’s fine, but with so many top-notch Servants who fill the exact same role, there’s very little reason to go for someone who is, ultimately, a noticeable step down.

Servant Data
Ruler
Independent Action A

Increase your Critical Strength by 10%.

Conspiracy Formation EX

Increase your Arts Card effectiveness by 5%.
Increase your NP Strength by 5%.

Panic Cut C+

Apply Charm, Confusion, Terror, and Skill Seal Immunity for yourself.

Card Hits 4 4 4 5 4
Per Hit 0.37% 0.37% 0.37% 0.37% 0.37%
NP per Hit (%) 0.37%
NP when Attacked (%) 3%
Star Absorption 102
Star Generation per Hit 10.0%
Overview
Material Requirements
Servant Skills
Noble Phantasm
Usage Tips
Grail Potential
Conclusion

Moriarty is very close to being very good. With better NP gain, or buffs instead of debuffs on his first skill, or substantially better attack, or a 3-turn buff on his NP instead of a 1-turn buff, or some other advantage, he’d be great. As it is, though, he just has one too many flaws and one too few meaningful advantages, which makes him look underwhelming, especially relative to his direct competition. If he had a meaningful class-advantage context, at least he’d have that argument in his favor, but as a Ruler he’s stuck hitting neutral in almost all cases.

At the end of the day, Moriarty is in the weird position of being the worst example of the best “type” of Servant. AoE Arts SSRs with multi-hit NPs and 50% batteries are fantastic as a rule thanks to their synergy with the best support in the game. Moriarty, though, has a ton of unique drawbacks despite falling into that larger category. Relative to SSRs as a whole, he’s fine—more than fine, really—but at the same time, when you’re inviting comparisons to Space Ishtar, you need to do better.

Oh well.

Rabbit's Arbitrary Ratings

Overall: 8/10
Single-Target DPS: 5/10
AoE DPS: 8/10
Survivability: 7/10
Offensive Utility: 5/10
Defensive Utility: 2/10
Farming Usefulness: 8/10
Ruler Proficiency: 10/10

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