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MMM - Vicious and Vivacious Vixen Vitrifies Vodka-land in Violence, Valiant Vassal and Vana'dielian Visage Venture Victory (Tunguska Gacha)

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Article by GamepressRath
MMM Tunguska
Table of Contents

The Modern Magus Magazine

Well well well, season’s greetings to you all, and have a happy horrendous death at the hands of gun-morphed monstrosities and raid bosses that you gasp can’t just kill with Kintoki turn one!

I’m glad DW have learnt so much since their initial inclusion of raids in FGO, including ensuring they don’t end in less than 2 hours after they open despite being designed to run for a full 24 hours! They fixed that, right?

…right?

Tunguska Sanctuary
NA Release Date: 12/22/2023

Jiang Ziya

Introduction

Addition to the game’s pretty-boy roster (and boy, we’ve been lacking in those this year), and honorary member of the Akatsuki, Jiang Ziya finally finishes off the Servant silhouette image.

…boy, that ribbon on his weapon and the way his hands were posed made me think it was Archimedes for so long.

Extella collab when? Extella 2 when, even? There’s still a lot unresolved to deal with, there.

Servant Data
Rider
Riding A+

Increase your Quick Card effectiveness by 11%.

Overview

I find that two things are eternal for Riders: Medb’s statline never ceases to be hilariously bad, and Iskandar never stops getting powercrept by other Servants. Joining and surpassing Ivan in the Iskandar bullying gang as Achilles and Odysseus both look on with pride, Jiang has the 6th best Attack and 5th best HP of the Riders, meaning he has one of the strongest statlines in the class overall, even if not as offensively leaned as others.

Considering he’s certainly an offensive Rider, it’s not a bad place to be in.

His base stats are also supplemented by (sadly) only A+ rank Riding, something of an anomaly as he’s definitely not a recent enough historical figure to lack Magic Resistance. Ah well, at least the rank is high, giving him a notable boost to his primary card type - Quick cards.

NP Generation
Servant Skills
Noble Phantasm
Conclusion

So, how is Jiang Ziya overall? On one hand, he’s got a foxy fervor to exterminate that can’t be beat:

For an AOE Servant with normally-plain damage output, Jiang has the potential to hit really hard. Divine is hardly an uncommon trait, and the +125% (As each 1.5x multiplier stacks multiplicatively with each other) effective damage buffs built into his kit allow him to really bring the pain, especially if he has the proper support around him. For CQ scenarios, you add in the Quick Resistance Down his NP builds up and you’re looking at increasingly devastating damage on the regular.

Naturally, Jiang is a solid farmer. While he’s mostly relegated to Battlesuit setups on class advantage, which is hardly ideal, it’s still better than many Rider options out there, who often either lack gauge chargers or are Buster, requiring an even more action-intensive Koyanskaya Oberon setup to work. If he meets his trait damage bonuses he can be used on neutral nodes, but circumstances where that comes up and you can’t just use an alternative, more consistent farmer won’t be particularly frequent.

This may be overlooked by tunnel visioning on Jiang’s self-support, but he isn’t the worst swap-in out there to support a different damage dealer, especially if they’re Quick-focused. +15% Quick Up, Attack Up, and NP Strength Up is a very solid combination of damage buffs, and he can also provide 20% gauge and the assistance of his own NP’s damage+debuff if necessary. Hardly premier support, or even the best swap option out there, but he is reasonably adept at it.

However, he also needs to get whipped into shape:

By virtue of being a Rider farmer, Jiang faces pretty staunch competition from Habetrot. Hell, to even touch his event you will have Habetrot by default, so the comparison is practically handed to you. With how dominant Arts farming remains are present sheerly by convenience, it’s an uphill battle to outclass Habetrot, and Jiang has a tough time matching the fairy knight’s Black Grail setups even when he gets his trait bonuses. Naturally an individual’s Servant roster / support access can mean Jiang can still be a better option, but he really isn’t going to outperform Habetrot in most cases.

To my surprise, for a Servant who is pretty close to looking like a Caster (hell, he even qualifies for Grand Caster), Jiang lacks many utility options. Skill Seal is niche upon niche, but besides that he both lacks any defensive tools or other situationally useful support like NP Seal, gauge drain, Buff Removal Resist, whatever. He pretty much brings his offensive support and gauge charge, and that’s it. While it’s hardly a necessity to be useful, most Servants have…something of note.

Jiang Ziya is one of those Servants who surprisingly looks like they were built to be very meta-oriented but ultimately they just don’t have the juice or versatility to be that crazy.

It’s not to say he’s bad, or even mediocre. He remains a solid farming option with occasional applications in difficult content, owing to his potential to dish out insane damage to enemies with his trait bonuses. It’s just that he doesn't really offer much in the way of utility for CQ’s, and his farming is still ultimately inferior to welfare options in most circumstances.

A perfectly serviceable Rider for what he offers, and one that would probably be incredible were it 2 or more years ago he released, but in present times, mostly another good non-universal farmer to add to the pool. Rath™ Seal of Approval.

SERVANT 2 NAME

Introduction

For as much as I’d like to be outraged over the artist for Dobrynya basically modelling them after their Mistral OC from FFXI, I’d probably end up doing the same if I had the opportunity and/or artistic talent. Since I lack either.

And that aside, Dobrynya’s profile actually leaves it vague whether the catgirl is either Dobrynya himself or his wife, with the dragon being rode being the badass russian dude. Confusing all round, but it’s not like Fate isn’t full of similar Schroedinger’s Cat-type situations. Take Drake possibly being Elizabeth I in disguise, for one.

Servant Data
Rider
Riding EX

Increase your Quick Card effectiveness by 12%.

Magic Resistance A

Increase your Debuff Resist by 20%.

Overview

As an SR Rider, Dobrynya comes packing with a very hard offensively-leaned statline. Bearing the 2nd best Attack stat of her class/rarity and tied 2nd worst HP, she’s definitely following the route of a glass cannon, though as always, she’s entirely outclassed in raw stats by Rider Kintoki, since that boy is just a madman.

In the Passives lineup, Dobrynya furthers her aggressive statline with EX-rank Riding (well, you need it to ride dragons, anyway) and impressively-high A-rank Magic Resistance, giving her a neat line of protection against debuffs.
On the whole, Dobrynya has a pretty good start from her bases and passives.

NP Generation
Servant Skills
Noble Phantasm
Conclusion

So how is Dobrynya on the whole? On one hand, she’s geared up to unleash a Burst Stream of Destruction all over the competition:

Dobrynya, outside of her own damage output, has a number of utility tools at play. Providing that Critical Damage and Dragon-effectiveness buff to her allies can be useful at times, and she has a fairly frequent Guts and Debuff Immunity to pop on herself that may make the difference in challenging content, especially if her Defense-pierce NP is set to come in handy.

When hitting her Dragon-trait effectiveness, Dobrynya can dish out a very respectable can of whoop-ass. The sheer buff numbers she produces for herself, especially if she can take advantage of her NP’s defense drop, can get pretty high, though it comes with the restriction of not being a very looping-friendly Buster Servant.

However, she’s also doomed to get Busted by the Blade of a Dragon-Destroying Swordsman before long:

I’ll just put this in one bullet point for conciseness: Dobrynya is ultimately just Rider Siegfried. There, I said it. While she certainly has more bells and whistles to work with, the bottom line is she’s inferior to almost every other option versus non-Dragons, and even when facing off Dragons she’s only competitive, not the premier choice around. To be utterly inept at farming, and only niche for CQ scenarios ultimately means, well…

Well, I can at least take solace in the fluffy catgirl, if nothing else. Dobrynya is a case of a Servant leaning too hard into the possible merits of an intense anti-trait focus, and not having the right tools to be viable, well, generally. It’s funny seeing her side-by-side in a gacha with a Servant who has a similar niche, but actually manages to perform outside of it, becoming a reasonable pick for certain farming and CQ scenarios instead of, as Dobrynya is, something you take as a meme or for thematics.

At least, unlike Siegfried, you can pair her with Georgios in a quest and not feel out of place from your class selection. I would just use Georgios to kill the dragons at that point, however.

Isn’t it sad, Nikiticchin?

Outro

I’ve got to say, writing the MMM isn’t exactly the ideal activity to perform on Christmas Eve, but it certainly does take your mind off family gatherings for a day. Tunguska itself is also a welcome distraction, for as long as the unfortunate raid bosses remain alive, acting as fuel to our tea-addled Bond-burning minds.

…I’m trying my hardest to get Karna to Bond level 12 so I can get him to 120, okay? I’m not addicted to Kama’s bath water tea!

Christmas is hardest on the downtrodden addicts, whether it be gacha or otherwise. With that in mind, remember to be kind and generous this Christmas and I hope you all have a great Holiday season. See you all in the New Year!

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