MMM - Papal Philantrope Provides Players Plenty of Puddings from Passionate Paragons of Pan-Human History (Valentines 2023)

First in the skill lineup to address is Illusionary Saint. Named as such because (shocker), there was never a female Pope of her name and legend in history. A good ‘ol fashioned Medieval troll.

This skill is something of an unconventional Arts buff - providing a 5000% Arts star gather and 100% Arts Critical Damage buff for 3 turns to an ally, this skill manages to look like a traditional 3-turn supportive card Booster skill without actually being one. While the boost to both critical consistency and damage is greatly appreciated for offensive Arts Servants, the fact this skill provides 0 boosts to damage outside of crits, which is a little unusual for someone who is, spoilers, meant to be an Arts support.

The part of this skill that is universally useful, though, is the 10 stars/turn buff for 3 turns placed on Johanna as part of using it. Critical Stars are always nice to have a constant supply of, and this also means that whoever benefits from this buff is pretty much always going to have the
Stars to enable that huge damage boost when their Arts card crops up.

With an 8-turn base cooldown, this skill comes up reasonably fast, though I do think it could have a bit of a shorter cooldown, considering the damage buffs in practice aren’t too great.

Next up is Evaded Religious Procession. I’d probably dodge my own procession, too, if I were about to give birth. That’s just kinda nasty to display to the people.

This skill doubles up as both a team buff, providing 20% Arts Up and 1k Damage Cut to the team for 3 turns, as well as a 1-time Debuff Immunity buff for the same duration, as well as an all-important gauge charger, providing Johanna with a solid 30% NP gauge.

The supportive half of this skill may not look too powerful at first glance, but any damage boost, especially one that Johanna herself can use herself, is greatly appreciated, and Damage Cut is very effective at conserving HP over long-term fights. As enemies (usually) make 3 attacks every turn, in difficult content this buff essentially translates to 9000 HP across the entire party healed in advance. When you have class advantage, this often means the enemy is hitting for 0 damage on their normal attacks.

That kind of defensive buff does nothing to protect against NP damage or really overwhelming offense, sure, but in drawn out battles any amount of HP saved can end up mattering. The other part of this skill of value is the Debuff Immunity buff. While it’s only 1-time, sometimes being able to blank a single key debuff as part of the mechanics of a tough fight can be vital. The options, especially those who have good supportive tools, who can provide debuff immunity to the whole party are pretty limited, so this is certainly good to have.

Somehow I haven’t talked about the gauge charge yet. Johanna is, unfortunately, an Arts AOE Servant. I hope you’re all as sick as me of Arts Servants with farming NP’s being thrown at us over the past year, but regardless having a gauge charger when you have the potential for farming is essential. 30% isn’t as high as I’d like it to be, but any gauge charger is better than none.

This skill comes with a pretty shocking base cooldown of 9 turns. I’m not really sure which part is meant to validate such a harsh cooldown, but regardless you won’t be benefiting from this skill too often. Shame.

Rounding things off is Papal Debate. This skill is very unassuming on first glance, with only two effects, one of which being a typical Charisma-like buff, providing 20% Attack Up to the party for 3 turns.

The other, however, is a 20% NP gauge charge per turn buff for all allies for 3 turns. The numbers on this may be low on first glance, but remember, 20% across 3 allies is 60%, then for 3 turns is 180%, making this 180% gauge charge spread across the team, then again over 3 turns.

On paper that makes this one of the stronger gauge chargers in the game, and by far the strongest team-supporting gauge charger, but in practice it isn’t so simple. For farming purposes, the gauge charge on the 3rd turn shouldn’t come into play, so it’s essentially 40% gauge charge for the team, spread over 2 turns, in those situations. And of course there’s the fact it is delayed, so despite the huge power on paper, you can never get that gauge charge the turn you use it.

In spite of all that it really is a powerful skill - for Johanna herself it improves her looping potential greatly, on top of bolstering her damage, while also providing a large chunk of NP gauge for her supports, or damage dealers she herself is supporting, which can prove vital in the right situations.

The issue with this skill ends up being its base cooldown. 10 turns is incredibly high, though given the sheer value of the gauge charge on this skill it’s pretty understandable. It won’t be coming off cooldown very frequently, but while this skill’s buffs are active, you’ll be feeling the power.