Rabbit's Reviews #267: Sessyoin Kiara (5* Moon Cancer)

Introduction

Continuing the trend of summer CCC Servants, Summer 5 opens with Sessyoin Kiara as the first banner SSR. Kiara is our third SSR Moon Cancer (stealing the class from BB), and she also happens to be a pretty silly powerful damage-dealer (unlike the relatively niche Summer BB and the more supportive Jinako). Kiara’s kit is, in a word, messy—each element of her kit is loaded with different effects, and she tops it all off with a unique gimmick that lets her modify her skills entirely. Kiara technically has access to seven different skills, with her second and third skills changing in accordance with her unique “Skill Rank Up” buff. Altogether she’s a loopable AoE Arts Servant with very high damage potential, and while she’s pretty solidly weaker than Space Ishtar and Summer Musashi at the high end, she’s in roughly the same league—which is to say, pretty ludicrously powerful for both CQs and farming in a world where Castoria exists. She also has some really excellent slowplay tools for good measure. Top-notch Servant.

Servant Data

Moon Cancer

QAABB (Saber)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

4

3

5

3

Attribute	Earth
Alignment	Lawful Evil

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

April Fool's

Max HP 15,336

HP Rank

Max ATK 11,128

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,719	Base HP	2,249
Max Atk	11,128	Max HP	15,336
Grail Atk	12,181	Grail HP	16,801

Territory Creation EX

Increase your Arts Card effectiveness by 12%.

Otherworldly Creation EX

Increase own NP Strength by 12%.

Independent Manifestation C

Increase your Critical Strength by 6%
Increase your Mental Debuff Resist by 6%.
Increase your Death Resist by 6%.

Logos Eater D

Apply Special Defense [Humanoid] for yourself (DEF +14% against Humanoid enemies).

Card Hits	4	3	3	5	3
Per Hit	0.60%	0.60%	0.60%	0.60%	0.60%

	NP per Hit (%)						0.60%
	NP when Attacked (%)						3%

	Star Absorption	50
	Star Generation per Hit	14.8%

Overview

Material Requirements

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	100,000	x5 Rider Piece x5 Assassin Piece
3	300,000	x12 Rider Piece x12 Assassin Piece
4	1,000,000	x5 Rider Monument x5 Assassin Monument
Max	3,000,000	x12 Rider Monument x12 Assassin Monument

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200,000	x5 Gem of Rider x5 Gem of Assassin
2 → 3	400,000	x12 Gem of Rider x12 Gem of Assassin
3 → 4	1,200,000	x5 Magic Gem of Rider x5 Magic Gem of Assassin
4 → 5	1,600,000	x12 Magic Gem of Rider x12 Magic Gem of Assassin
5 → 6	4,000,000	x5 Secret Gem of Rider x5 Secret Gem of Assassin
6 → 7	5,000,000	x12 Secret Gem of Rider x12 Secret Gem of Assassin
7 → 8	10,000,000	x8 Shell of Reminiscence x5 Tearstone of Blood
8 → 9	12,000,000	x9 Tsukumo Mirror x12 Fruit of Eternity
9 → 10	20,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Servant Skills

Kiara’s skillset is pretty wild, with a ton of effects across-the-board, on top of the aforementioned skill rank gimmick. Recommended skill order is 2>3>1.

Mermaid

Mermaid's Flesh EX

Apply Guts to self (1 time, 5 turns).
Remove debuffs from self.
Restore own HP each turn (3 turns).
Increase own NP Strength by 20% (3 turns).
Apply [Mermaid Nourishment] Status:
-[Skill Rank Up] state (4 turns) gained every turn (4 turns).
-When multiple Skill Rank Up states are active, using the 2nd and 3rd skills can use up to 2 [Skill Rank Up] stacks to enhance the effect of the skills.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Revive with HP	2000	2200	2400	2600	2800	3000	3200	3400	3600	4000
HP per Turn	1000	1100	1200	1300	1400	1500	1600	1700	1800	2000
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Mermaid is most notable as the skill that enables Kiara’s gimmick. At the end of each turn for four turns, this skill gives Kiara a buff that she can expend to power up her second and third skills. This skill gives that buff every turn for four turns, and the buff itself lasts four turns, so there’s no innate pressure to expend it quickly, and if you stagger usage of Kiara’s skills you can theoretically use both skills at max potential (since each needs at most two Rank-Up buffs and you get four in total). In practical contexts, though, there are trade-offs involved, as you can’t get either skill to max until at least turn 3, and if you want both at once you’ll typically have to pick one or the other to boost. Outside of this gimmick, though, this skill also provides a host of other benefits. It provides a 3-turn NP damage buff to nudge Kiara’s damage a little, it gives a guts and a passive heal to add to Kiara’s bulk, and it removes Kiara’s debuffs. You’ll generally want to use this whenever it’s up to keep the Rank-Up buffs ticking, but it brings a ton of value even outside of the gimmick.

Start Np

Divine Power (Ink) B

Increase own NP Gauge.
Gain Critical Stars.
Each [Skill Rank Up] buff increases NP Gauge charge by 10%, Critical Stars gained by 5.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
NP +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
Crit Stars +	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	20
CD	7	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6	5

Start Np

Divine Power (Ink) B+

Increase own NP Gauge.
Gain Critical Stars.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
NP +	30%	31%	32%	33%	34%	35%	36%	37%	38%	40%
Crit Stars +	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	25
CD	7	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6	5

Start Np

Divine Power (Ink) A

Increase own NP Gauge.
Gain Critical Stars.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
NP +	30%	32%	34%	36%	38%	40%	42%	44%	46%	50%
Crit Stars +	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	30
CD	7	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6	5

Divine Power is, at its core, a battery and a star burst. It’s a 30% battery at base, scaling to a 50% battery at max. Unfortunately, the rank-up gimmick forces a damage trade in blitz or farming contexts, as using this skill on turn two keeps Kiara’s third skill from being at full power on turn 3, and using Kiara’s third skill first drops the battery back down to its 30% base. Kiara gets a lot of extra damage out of ranking-up her third skill, so in an ideal world Kiara doesn’t need this until turn 3, and then only needs the 30%. Still, 50% battery and 30 critical stars is quite powerful even if you do have to give up damage to use it, and in slower teams the tradeoff isn’t so direct regardless.

Evade

Clam Palace A

Apply Evade to all allies (1 time, 3 turns).
Remove Sure Hit buffs from all enemies.
Decrease DEF for all enemies (3 turns).
Decrease Arts Resist for all enemies by 20% (3 turns).
Apply [Fascination] Status on all enemies (3 turns):
-[Fascination]: This debuff is treated as a Mental Debuff. Decrease Critical Rate for an enemy by 10%.
Each [Skill Rank Up] buff increases number of [Fascination] stacks by 1, enhances DEF Debuff by 5%, and Arts Resist Debuff by 5%.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
DEF -	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Evade

Clam Palace A+

Apply Evade to all allies (1 time, 3 turns).
Remove Sure Hit buffs from all enemies.
Decrease DEF for all enemies (3 turns).
Decrease Arts Resist for all enemies by 25% (3 turns).
Apply 2 stacks of [Fascination] Status on all enemies (3 turns):
-[Fascination]: This debuff is treated as a Mental Debuff. Decrease Critical Rate for an enemy by 10%.
Each [Skill Rank Up] buff increases number of [Fascination] stacks by 1, enhances DEF Debuff by 5%, and Arts Resist Debuff by 5%.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
DEF -	15%	16%	17%	18%	19%	20%	21%	22%	23%	25%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Evade

Clam Palace A++

Apply Evade to all allies (1 time, 3 turns).
Remove Sure Hit buffs from all enemies.
Decrease DEF for all enemies (3 turns).
Decrease Arts Resist for all enemies by 30% (3 turns).
Apply 3 stacks of [Fascination] Status on all enemies (3 turns):
-[Fascination]: This debuff is treated as a Mental Debuff. Decrease Critical Rate for an enemy by 10%.
Each [Skill Rank Up] buff increases number of [Fascination] stacks by 1, enhances DEF Debuff by 5%, and Arts Resist Debuff by 5%.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
DEF -	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Clam Palace is another loaded skill. At all levels it’s an AoE 1-hit dodge and it removes enemy pierce evasion buffs, which makes it a great defensive tool by default. It then also gives defense down, Arts resist down, and a unique mental debuff called Bewitchment, with the strength of the defense and Arts resist debuffs and the number of stacks of bewitchment increasing with rank. Kiara’s NP deals bonus damage per mental debuff, so at max this skill amounts to roughly 170% in total effective NP steroids (1.3*1.3*1.6 = 2.704). The actual impact on damage will be a little lower in practice due to FGO’s additive scaling, but still, in an ideal case this makes for a huge burst turn. In fact, burst-turn Kiara using this skill at maximum strength approaches Arjuna Alter’s in-kit damage numbers. It’s silly strong. The catch, of course, is that she can’t do this until at least turn 3, and it implies giving up the stronger version of her battery. The debuffs can also miss, which hurts Kiara’s damage considerably. Fortunately this gives a lot of extra damage even at lower ranks and the debuffs aren’t all-or-nothing (i.e. one can miss and Kiara still benefits from the others), so even in less-than-best-case situations this is a powerful-as-heck skill.

Noble Phantasm

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
A	Anti-World	3

Effect	Deal damage to all enemies. Deal 20% extra special attack damage per [Mental Debuff] stack (up to 10 stacks).

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Damage +	450%	600%	675%	712.5%	750%
Add. Damage +	20%	20%	20%	20%	20%

Overcharge Effect	Chance of inflicting Instant Death.

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
Death Chance +	100%	112.5%	125%	137.5%	150%

Usage Tips

Grail Potential

Conclusion

Kiara is very strong at all levels of play. While she’s not the best blitzer, the best farmer, or the best slowplay pick, she’s near the top in all of these categories, and she’s good enough at each of them that she should be more than sufficient as a go-to Arts DPS no matter your level of investment. She has sky-high damage potential, battery access, a loopable NP, and strong utility on top of all that. No complaints here.

Rabbit's Arbitrary Ratings

Overall: 10/10
Single-Target DPS: 8/10
AoE DPS: 9/10
Survivability: 8/10
Offensive Utility: 4/10
Defensive Utility: 6/10
Farming Usefulness: 9/10
Little Mermaid: 10/10