Rabbit's Reviews #247: Mysterious Alter Ego Λ (4* Lancer)

Melt is only the second AoE Arts Lancer to be added to the game, and the first since Fionn. She doesn’t really have all that much to recommend herself over Fionn if you already have him, but she’s a passable DPS otherwise provided you have the tools to enable Arts-themed fastplay.

Melt has pretty average stats, not leaning obviously in the direction of offense or defense. While she’s Arts-oriented, her Quicks can still generate a decent number of stars. Her Arts card NP gain is slightly low for her deck, but in exchange she gets an effectively permanent Arts buff that makes up the difference, and her Quicks are pretty strong. For passives, she gets Magic Resistance and Core of the Goddess for significant debuff mitigation, along with Riding to boost her Quicks and a high level of Independent Action for boosted crits.

Ascension Materials

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	50,000	x4 Lancer Piece Open Lancer Piece configuration options
3	150,000	x10 Lancer Piece Open Lancer Piece configuration options x6 Shell of Reminiscence Open Shell of Reminiscence configuration options
4	500,000	x4 Lancer Monument Open Lancer Monument configuration options x5 Warhorse's Young Horn Open Warhorse's Young Horn configuration options x4 Phoenix Feather Open Phoenix Feather configuration options
Max	1,500,000	x10 Lancer Monument Open Lancer Monument configuration options x7 Phoenix Feather Open Phoenix Feather configuration options x10 Aurora Steel Open Aurora Steel configuration options

Skill Enhancement Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100,000	x4 Gem of Lancer Open Gem of Lancer configuration options
2 → 3	200,000	x10 Gem of Lancer Open Gem of Lancer configuration options
3 → 4	600,000	x4 Magic Gem of Lancer Open Magic Gem of Lancer configuration options
4 → 5	800,000	x10 Magic Gem of Lancer Open Magic Gem of Lancer configuration options x3 Warhorse's Young Horn Open Warhorse's Young Horn configuration options
5 → 6	2,000,000	x4 Secret Gem of Lancer Open Secret Gem of Lancer configuration options x5 Warhorse's Young Horn Open Warhorse's Young Horn configuration options
6 → 7	2,500,000	x10 Secret Gem of Lancer Open Secret Gem of Lancer configuration options x4 Shell of Reminiscence Open Shell of Reminiscence configuration options
7 → 8	5,000,000	x8 Shell of Reminiscence Open Shell of Reminiscence configuration options x5 Eternal Frost Open Eternal Frost configuration options
8 → 9	6,000,000	x15 Eternal Frost Open Eternal Frost configuration options x8 Egg of Truth Open Egg of Truth configuration options
9 → 10	10,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore Open Crystallized Lore configuration options

Melt doesn’t have any particularly nasty mat asks, though her mat pool does skew generally in the direction of Lostbelt mats, which will make her a bit inaccessible to new players in particular. The eggs she needs for her top skill levels are especially annoying to farm.

While it may look gimmicky at first glance, Melt’s skillset is actually pretty straightforward in practice. Recommended skill order is 3>1>2.

Melt really wants to run in a team that will let her loop for big damage. Her best setup is probably Bride/Tamamo/(Bond CE) Lanling. So long as Bride and Tamamo have at least 30% in starting NP that Melt can steal, Melt can immediately NP from zero using just her own battery along with Bride’s and Lanling’s. If looping capability is an issue, Para might be preferable to Tamamo, but Tamamo will lead to much higher damage and should generally be the better option.

If you’re using Melt, you really want to run The Black Grail, as her compatibility with the CE is the biggest advantage she has over Fionn. If that isn’t available, any CE that will boost her damage (or her NP gain) will be valuable. It’s also worth noting that Golden Captures the Carp is an excellent CE for Melt’s Allies, as it gives starting NP for Melt to drain and also provides a bunch of stars.

Lancers are fairly strong grail targets and if you’re able to enable Melt-centric fastburn comps and you have her at higher NP levels, it might be worth grailing her to make it easier for her to hit damage thresholds. Her performance outside of those very high-end comps is likely to be iffy, though, so I’d pass if you can’t enable that sort of play.

Melt almost qualifies as a solid-if-bland AoE Arts servant, but her odd battery forces her into something of a unique role. If you have the tools to enable Melt-centric fastplay, she might have value, but if you don’t have the right CEs and servants to make her shine she’s likely to fall flat—especially relative to Fionn, who’s generally excellent now that he’s been buffed. This leaves her in a pretty rough spot overall. Her ceiling is just “passable” and her floor is quite low. She’s not particularly good.

Overall: 5/10
Single-Target DPS: 4/10
AoE DPS: 8/10
Survivability: 5/10
Offensive Utility: -2/10
Defensive Utility: -2/10
Farming Usefulness: 7/10
Leviathan Parka: 10/10