Rabbit's Reviews #286: Kiichi Hogen (4* Assassin)

Keeping with the past year’s trend of excellent Quick Welfares, Hogen is our first AoE Quick welfare who’s also an unqualified looper. It’s a bit tight, and she needs some combination of overkill, starting NP, and a plug support, but she can still reasonably farm 3-enemy nodes, especially if the enemies are Riders. This is less notable in the Castoria era than it would have been before Castoria’s release, as plenty of Arts Servants can do the same thing easier and with higher damage values, but it’s still notable and good that we now have a welfare who can loop farm with Skadi.

Hogen has the third-highest attack of the SR Assassins (just behind Gray and Assassin Ushi), and her HP is surprisingly high given her offense-oriented stat spread. Assassins don’t have the best attack stats in general even before their innate attack penalty, but a relatively offense-oriented stat spread is still an advantage for a damage-oriented Servant. Internals-wise, Hogen has a pretty standard Arts card relative to her deck, but her hit-count spread means her Quicks are pretty awful for NP gain—which is to say, if she’s not looping, she’ll have trouble reliably getting access to her NP. That said, as a high-hit-count Assassin with a 7-hit AoE NP, Hogen should be critting consistently, which will help both her damage and her effective NP gain. For passives, Hogen has the fairly standard Presence Concealment and Magic Resistance, along with Territory Creation to push her NP gain on her Arts card a bit.

Ascension Materials

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	50,000	x1 Daitengu's Mask Open Daitengu's Mask configuration options
3	150,000	x1 Daitengu's Mask Open Daitengu's Mask configuration options
4	500,000	x1 Daitengu's Mask Open Daitengu's Mask configuration options
Max	1,500,000	x1 Daitengu's Mask Open Daitengu's Mask configuration options

Skill Enhancement Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100,000	x4 Gem of Assassin Open Gem of Assassin configuration options
2 → 3	200,000	x10 Gem of Assassin Open Gem of Assassin configuration options
3 → 4	600,000	x4 Magic Gem of Assassin Open Magic Gem of Assassin configuration options
4 → 5	800,000	x10 Magic Gem of Assassin Open Magic Gem of Assassin configuration options x5 Seed of Yggdrasil Open Seed of Yggdrasil configuration options
5 → 6	2,000,000	x4 Secret Gem of Assassin Open Secret Gem of Assassin configuration options x10 Seed of Yggdrasil Open Seed of Yggdrasil configuration options
6 → 7	2,500,000	x10 Secret Gem of Assassin Open Secret Gem of Assassin configuration options x4 Forbidden Page Open Forbidden Page configuration options
7 → 8	5,000,000	x8 Forbidden Page Open Forbidden Page configuration options x5 Soundless Bell Open Soundless Bell configuration options
8 → 9	6,000,000	x15 Soundless Bell Open Soundless Bell configuration options x8 Mysterious Divine Wine Open Mysterious Divine Wine configuration options
9 → 10	10,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore Open Crystallized Lore configuration options

As a welfare, Hogen doesn’t need any mats for ascension provided you do her event. Her skill mats aren’t bad, either, which is good considering she really needs all her skills maxed in order to operate at maximum efficacy.

Hogen’s skillset is all about loopage. Recommended skill order is 2>3>1, but she really does need all three maxed.

Hogen really wants double Skadi, and she really wants to loop. Her best team is going to be Skadi/Skadi/Bride, with a 50% charge CE on Hogen. On turn 1, you use Bride’s buffs and Hogen’s battery, then plug Bride for a Skadi and loop normally. You can accomplish something similar with Waver, Reines, and Castoria, using Castoria turn 1 for her NP gain buff or using a Skadi battery turn 1 and swapping in Waver/Reines to cover missing charges with their skills on subsequent turns. Castoria and Waver bring less attack than Reines and Bride, and Reines and Waver don’t get to apply their attack buffs until later turns, but ultimately they all work pretty similarly.

You can also run a standard Kaleid with Paracelsus or Asclepius reasonably effectively. The NP gain buffs the two provide (along with Asclepius’s battery) help Hogen to loop more reliably, although they don’t push damage so your farming thresholds are much reduced. If you have an MLB Kaleid, you can accomplish a guaranteed loop using just double Skadi and 2004 or the Clock Tower mystic code, too.

Kaleid is obviously a great CE pick for Hogen if you don’t have the tools to let her loop without it, or if you have an MLB Kaleid and want to loop without using plugsuit. As 50% charge CEs go, Holy Night Supper and Tenkihime are great for damage as always, while Traces of Christmas boosts Hogen’s loop consistency.

There’s not a lot Hogen needs that CCs can provide. If anything, you might stick the NP-damage-boosting CCs on her Buster cards for a little extra damage if you happen to get lucky with card draws.

Assassins are weak grail targets in general. That said, if you happen to have a max level Holy Night Supper, Bride, and Skadi, a level 100 Hogen just barely crests 160k on her NP. This could make her a worthwhile grail target if she’s your only omnifarmer, as 160k is enough to farm most standard nodes.

Hogen may not be a particularly amazing Servant in a vacuum, but the fact that she’s a free Servant with good damage who can loop farm makes her a really excellent welfare. Her actual value is largely dependent on whether you have alternatives, but at the very least she ensures all players will have a Quick Servant who can loop with Skadi, and that’s not nothing.

Overall: 8/10
Single-Target DPS: 6/10
AoE DPS: 8/10
Survivability: 4/10
Offensive Utility: 5/10
Defensive Utility: N/A
Farming Usefulness: 8/10
Shapeshifting: 10/10