Rabbit's Reviews #255: Superhuman Orion (5* Archer)

It looks like Atlantis isn’t going to give us a true monarch due to plot structure shenanigans, but Buff Orion is the next-best thing. While Orion doesn’t have a damaging NP—or any of the defensive capabilities that often come with non-damage NPs—he has absolutely ludicrous self-buffs and can easily set up devastating crit turns. He’s not a Servant who’s going to make your life meaningfully easier if you already have strong Archers, but he’s a ton of fun to use and he absolutely holds his own with top-of-the-line ST Buster Servants.

Orion starts off with a pretty great stat pool, with the highest attack of the SSR Archers and a surprisingly high HP stat to go with it. The high attack is really important here—Orion’s unusual kit means he really does want every extra point of attack he can get his hands on. His NP gain is also very good, with an Arts card that nearly matches that of King Hassan. If you use Story Support Orion in Atlantis, you may notice that his NP gain in practice is pretty insane, but remember that story supports have inflated NP gain due to the CE they come equipped with. A native Orion will still refill his NP gauge pretty quickly, but not so quickly as his story version might imply. Active star gen, meanwhile, is not Orion’s strength, but he makes up the difference in other ways so it’s largely a moot point. For passives, Orion has Independent Action EX—a nice boost to crit damage, but one that ultimately doesn’t make that much of a difference in the face of his ludicrous in-kit crit buffs. He also has a pair of unique passives. Sea God’s Blessing is a Divinity variant that also gives Orion a permanent damage cut effect. While Divinity is basically meaningless offensively, damage cut can be really nice to have, especially with defense buffs in play. Scorpius’s Curse, meanwhile, is actually a demerit—it makes Orion slightly more vulnerable to poison debuffs. This is essentially just flavor—it’s highly unlikely to actually matter in practice.

Ascension Materials

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	100,000	x5 Archer Piece Open Archer Piece configuration options
3	300,000	x12 Archer Piece Open Archer Piece configuration options x22 Proof of Hero Open Proof of Hero configuration options
4	1,000,000	x5 Archer Monument Open Archer Monument configuration options x10 Octuplet Crystals Open Octuplet Crystals configuration options x3 Primordial Lanugo Open Primordial Lanugo configuration options
Max	3,000,000	x12 Archer Monument Open Archer Monument configuration options x6 Primordial Lanugo Open Primordial Lanugo configuration options x5 Cursed Beast Gallstone Open Cursed Beast Gallstone configuration options

Skill Enhancement Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200,000	x5 Gem of Archer Open Gem of Archer configuration options
2 → 3	400,000	x12 Gem of Archer Open Gem of Archer configuration options
3 → 4	1,200,000	x5 Magic Gem of Archer Open Magic Gem of Archer configuration options
4 → 5	1,600,000	x12 Magic Gem of Archer Open Magic Gem of Archer configuration options x5 Octuplet Crystals Open Octuplet Crystals configuration options
5 → 6	4,000,000	x5 Secret Gem of Archer Open Secret Gem of Archer configuration options x10 Octuplet Crystals Open Octuplet Crystals configuration options
6 → 7	5,000,000	x12 Secret Gem of Archer Open Secret Gem of Archer configuration options x15 Proof of Hero Open Proof of Hero configuration options
7 → 8	10,000,000	x29 Proof of Hero Open Proof of Hero configuration options x6 Arrowhead of Atonement Open Arrowhead of Atonement configuration options
8 → 9	12,000,000	x18 Arrowhead of Atonement Open Arrowhead of Atonement configuration options x10 Glowing Star Fragment Open Glowing Star Fragment configuration options
9 → 10	20,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore Open Crystallized Lore configuration options

Orion’s mats aren’t terrible, but they also aren’t especially easy. Proofs can be a pain, and a lot of servants released in the past half-year or so have asked for them. Orion also needs a fair number of arrows, on top of Atlantis’s new gold mat, so odds are it’ll take some time to accumulate the mats he needs for his skills.

Orion’s skillset is focused entirely on facilitating and boosting crits. Recommended skill order is 3>2>1.

Despite Orion’s strange playstyle, he slots into remarkably standard Buster Crit teams. Merlin and Waver will be great as always—though Waver more for his ability to stabilize Orion’s NP gain than for his actual buffs. Servants who offer stars per turn can also help Orion take advantage of his damage more reliably, with Hans and Jinako both being great partners for Orion. As Orion’s damage potential is directly tied to how many cards he has available, Summer BB can also be a strong partner in specially-constructed teams, theoretically allowing Orion to use three supercharged brave chains in a row.

Generally speaking, Orion wants a starting NP CE so that he can get rolling as quickly as possible. His in-kit buffs are so strong CE buffs are likely to get washed out—and NP damage up is totally useless—so focusing on minimizing his startup time is ideal. That said, because of how Orion’s kit works, any extra attack will make Orion that much more threatening, so a max-leveled Golden Sumo (or similar full-attack CE) may be worthwhile, especially if you have Waver handy to push Orion to an immediate NP anyway.

Orion has great base stats, and he also scales very well with anything extra you’re willing to give him, so if you like the way Orion plays and see yourself using him often, he’s a solid grail target.

Orion is an unusual type of Servant in some respects, but he commits hard enough to his excellent-crits concept that he ultimately functions as a fairly straightforward Buster crit bruiser. He’s nothing game-changing, but he’s strong, fun, and pretty unique. Definitely a good pull if you lack a big-damage Archer, and maybe worth pulling just for the variety regardless. Solid addition to the game.

Overall: 9/10
Single-Target DPS: 9/10
AoE DPS: N/A
Survivability: 5/10
Offensive Utility: 1/10
Defensive Utility: N/A
Farming Usefulness: 2/10
Muscles: 10/10