GamePress

MMM - Solitary Sister Serves Scrumptious Seasonal Snacks, Simultaneously Scathach-Skadi Scores Supportive Strengthening (Christmas 2021)

Submit Feedback or Error

The Modern Magus Magazine

Children of the land, do you hear? Gremlins of eld, are bound to appear - Borne of red and white, and UMU’s they doth whine, harkening a season of despair.

But lest we become overrun by the horde of PADORU’s unleashed upon the world because our present month is now divisible by both 3 and 4, let’s focus on 2021’s Christmas event and its new gacha Servant!

Boy, this Scathach-Skadi lady is a pretty impressive Quick support, even if she seems oddly familiar. But she must be new, after all, as we wouldn’t get an event with just a new welfare Servant, riiiiiight?

…right?

Christmas 2023 Banner
NA Release Date: 12/07/2023
Introduction

Boy, Tarrasque never gets it easy, does he? If being used as an ICBM in not one, but two separate Martha NP’s wasn’t enough, he has to serve as a portable grill for the Christmas season. And believe me, having to endure all that heat, oil, and spillages on your pristine draconic self isn’t fun.

Just saying…if Martha ‘happened’ to ‘accidentally’ get eaten by Tarrasque, I’d be shocked, sure, but I wouldn’t blame him.

Servant Data
Caster
Territory Creation B

Increase your Arts Card effectiveness by 8%.

Item Construction D

Increase your Debuff Chance Rate by 4%.

Riding EX

Increase your Quick Card effectiveness by 12%.

Overview

Being a support Caster, it’s unsurprising that Martha Santa is quite defensively-leaned in her base stats. With the 3rd worst Attack stat of her class and rarity and 2nd best HP stat, she gets a reasonably good deal out of it, packing some great bulk for her rarity, even if her damage output isn’t gonna be too great in exchange.

Martha’s passive lineup, meanwhile, is typical for a Caster with a bonus passive. Her Territory Creation grants a decent 8% Arts booster, while her lesser Item Creation at least makes her debuffs slightly more consistent, yet the main star of her passive lineup is her EX-rank Riding, boosting her two Quicks by a significant 12%. She needs the Riding rank to use Tarrasque, after all.

With both her strong durability and decent passive lineup in play, Martha Santa has a good start in her base statistics.

NP Generation
Servant Skills
Noble Phantasm
Conclusion

So how is Martha Santa on the whole?

On one hand, she’s certainly a feast for all the family:

Martha’s offensive support is quite powerful, and is notably not dependent on card type in the slightest, which allows her to slot into a wide range of compositions. A damage dealer paired with Martha is getting potentially 70% Attack Up (counting her defense down as an attack buff) and 50% Effective damage versus a very broad range of traits, which cumulates into a whopping 155% damage steroid. Needless to say, that’s huge, especially as all the buff sources last 3 turns.

Martha doesn’t slack in supplementing critical-focused compositions, either. Her kit provides a number of star bombs to support her allies, on top of a powerful star focus buff and her own respectable stargen and Quick focus means she can effectively supplement a Servant with powerful critical buffs of their own, or just one being supported by a friendly Merlin/Koyanskaya/Skadi.

It probably deserves a bullet point of its own, so here - a targetable 20% gauge charge is really nice to have, regardless of where it’s from. When paired with the offensive buffs Martha Santa can hand out, it makes her a decent battlesuit swap candidate for a last push on NP gauge or damage in farming, even if she lacks the conventional buffs that make one suited for supporting a farming party.

However, she’s also as half-baked as your Grandma’s apple tart on Christmas:

While Martha has a pretty good supportive kit to bring to the table, it’s notably lacking in any defensive support, barring healing, which leaves the other support, or worse, the damage dealer, to fill that gap. It isn’t world-ending, sure, but for Quick especially the premier support isn’t too good on the defensive front to begin with (sorry, Skadi), leaving an even larger hole to fill, or worse the reality that Martha Santa may not be the right pick.

As good as Martha may be for offensive support paired with a gauge charge, there are competitive options for that role in farming out there, even on a budget - Da Vinci Ruler makes for a stronger pick overall unless you’re trying to hit a really high damage benchmark, and 3* support options like Ascelpius have their value if the goal is merely to get more NP refund for Arts/Quick teams. As a result, she may end up relegated to difficult content over anything else, if she can even compete with a Master’s SSR support lineup.

I will lend it to DW, balancing a welfare support is difficult. Make them too weak and they just look terrible in comparison to both high-roll SSR and accessible low-rarity options alike, while making them too strong can kind of just throw the power level of all players in the game and the loss of not scoring them in their event into disarray.

But with that in mind, Martha Santa strikes that balance fairly well - she packs one of the craziest sheer offensive boosts available to any support if she meets her trait bonuses, and her access to gauge chargers keeps her competitive with other budget support options out there, but that comes in exchange for very little ability to boost NP refund, and a lack of defensive support tools that keep her in check for farming and difficult content both.

So while she won’t be a mainstay to any specific team type for a certain type of content, she has enough on hand that it’s unlikely you’ll never find a good use for the gal. If nothing else, Tarrasque deserves some recognition for being reduced to a series of kitchen utilities when the time is appropriate. Rath™ Seal of Approval.

Outro

Well…I wasn’t expecting to get off with just a welfare for this year’s Xmas event, but life is full of surprises. It creates more opportunities for me to play FFXIV, so I consider this an absolute win!

But in reality, the content this month is going to come with LB6.5. Her addition to Chaldea as a premier support might’ve softened us on Koyanskaya, but remember she’s still Tamamo Bitchy, and I’m unsure if I want to run from the eldritch monstrosities made of gatling guns or join them. It’s sure to be a riot nonetheless. Until then!

Enjoyed the article?
Consider supporting GamePress and the author of this article by joining GamePress Boost!
Join!

About the Author(s)

Comments