Rabbit's Reviews #300: Okita Souji (Alter) (5* Saber)

The first SSR in Summer 6 is Majin Saber, back in her proper class. With her sword, Rengoku, severed from her spirit origin, she’s no longer a conglomerate Alter Ego, but rather a proper Saber. She fills a mostly-nonexistent role, too, as an AoE Quick Saber who can loop easily, besting Lakshmibai (who’s mostly a support anyway). Not only is Okita a loop-enabled Quick Servant, but she’s actually among the best in the game, with strong sustained steroids and fantastic internals. Okita is right up there as a farmer with Dantes and Caren, and she doesn’t have the caveats of either. She has a solid mix of CQ utility as well. Okita’s only notable disadvantage is that Quick is currently disfavored—Skadi is just a weaker support than Castoria and Koyanskaya are, and Quick has fewer alternative support options, which means even a best-in-class Quick unit won’t be as impressive as comparable Arts and Buster alternatives. Altogether, this means Okita is simultaneously late to the party and (potentially) ahead of her time. Two years ago, Okita would have been rivaling Dantes for the title of best farmer and best CQ unit. Similarly, if Quick gets a new powerhouse support (or Skadi gets buffed or some such), Okita’s toolkit is so generically powerful that she’s very likely to land among the upper echelons of AoE Servants. Unfortunately, she’s currently held back by the limitations of her card-type, so what top-end pull value she has is mostly speculative and future-focused.

Okita has a very good stat spread. She’s tied for second-highest attack of the SSR Sabers, and while her HP is a little on the low side as a result, low is relative, and Sabers tend to have high stat pools in general, so Okita isn’t even especially flimsy. It’s a great starting point for a DPS. Moving on to internals, we get to probably the most spectacular part of Okita’s kit. Great internals have been Okita’s claim to fame ever since her original Saber version, and fortunately, Majin Saber keeps with the trend. Okita has very high hit-counts, a favorable Quick-to-Arts ratio, and good base NP gain. Her Arts card is well above-average for decks of her type, and her Quicks are also very good. Her NP, too, has a high hit-count. Altogether, her NP gain and her refund are both noticeably higher than Dantes’, and Okita has higher total NP gain buffs (albeit in different brackets). Given that Dantes was more-or-less the poster boy for classical Quick looping, the fact that Okita surpasses him with room to spare—and has a battery to boot—is a testament to how great her NP gain is. Her star gen is also very good, of course, with a high-hit-count AoE Quick NP and 5-hit Quick cards. She’ll be critting reliably, in typical Okita fashion.

Okita’s passives are pretty straightforward, with Magic Resistance for occasional debuff mitigation and Independent Action for stronger crits. Both of these are generically useful, especially given Okita’s excellent star gen, but neither is remarkable. For appends, Okita is a rare Servant who benefits meaningfully from all three skills. Given Okita’s excellent internals, boosted damage and NP gain on Okita’s extra attack will help push her effective NP gain further. Mana Loading is, as usual, the most important of the three, opening up additional farming setups not possible without. Her extra damage append boosts her damage output versus Berserkers, which can help her hit damage thresholds against Berserker waves and also has potential value in difficult CQs and story fights with Berserker enemies.

Ascension Materials

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	100,000	x5 Saber Piece Open Saber Piece configuration options
3	300,000	x12 Saber Piece Open Saber Piece configuration options x8 Shell of Reminiscence Open Shell of Reminiscence configuration options
4	1,000,000	x5 Saber Monument Open Saber Monument configuration options x10 Homunculus Baby Open Homunculus Baby configuration options x5 Refined Magatama Open Refined Magatama configuration options
Max	3,000,000	x12 Saber Monument Open Saber Monument configuration options x10 Refined Magatama Open Refined Magatama configuration options x5 Tsukumo Mirror Open Tsukumo Mirror configuration options

Skill Enhancement Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200,000	x5 Gem of Saber Open Gem of Saber configuration options
2 → 3	400,000	x12 Gem of Saber Open Gem of Saber configuration options
3 → 4	1,200,000	x5 Magic Gem of Saber Open Magic Gem of Saber configuration options
4 → 5	1,600,000	x12 Magic Gem of Saber Open Magic Gem of Saber configuration options x5 Homunculus Baby Open Homunculus Baby configuration options
5 → 6	4,000,000	x5 Secret Gem of Saber Open Secret Gem of Saber configuration options x10 Homunculus Baby Open Homunculus Baby configuration options
6 → 7	5,000,000	x12 Secret Gem of Saber Open Secret Gem of Saber configuration options x5 Shell of Reminiscence Open Shell of Reminiscence configuration options
7 → 8	10,000,000	x10 Shell of Reminiscence Open Shell of Reminiscence configuration options x4 Reactor Core of Dawn Open Reactor Core of Dawn configuration options
8 → 9	12,000,000	x11 Reactor Core of Dawn Open Reactor Core of Dawn configuration options x10 Mysterious Divine Wine Open Mysterious Divine Wine configuration options
9 → 10	20,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore Open Crystallized Lore configuration options

Append Skill Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	20000	x5 Gem of Saber Open Gem of Saber configuration options
2 → 3	40000	x12 Gem of Saber Open Gem of Saber configuration options
3 → 4	120000	x5 Magic Gem of Saber Open Magic Gem of Saber configuration options
4 → 5	160000	x12 Magic Gem of Saber Open Magic Gem of Saber configuration options x15 Proof of Hero Open Proof of Hero configuration options
5 → 6	400000	x5 Secret Gem of Saber Open Secret Gem of Saber configuration options x29 Proof of Hero Open Proof of Hero configuration options
6 → 7	500000	x12 Secret Gem of Saber Open Secret Gem of Saber configuration options x5 Octuplet Crystals Open Octuplet Crystals configuration options
7 → 8	1000000	x10 Octuplet Crystals Open Octuplet Crystals configuration options x6 Soundless Bell Open Soundless Bell configuration options
8 → 9	12000000	x18 Soundless Bell Open Soundless Bell configuration options x24 Eternal Ice Open Eternal Ice configuration options
9 → 10	20000000	x1 Crystallized Lore Open Crystallized Lore configuration options

Okita’s mats aren’t all that bad. While she does need some mats that can be roadblocks—magatama, mirrors, cores, bells and proofs for appends, etc—she doesn’t ask for particularly large quantities of any of these things, which should make it pretty easy to fill in any gaps in your material stocks while raising her. The only real disadvantage here is that she benefits from append skills more than most Servants, which means she’ll need more gems and lores than usual if you really want to maximize her strength.

Okita’s skillset is a prime example of how plain skillsets can be very very strong. Recommended skill order is 2>1>3.

Okita is an entirely classical Quick farmer. She refunds 50% against three enemies with double Skadi, no questions asked. Her own battery lets her reach her first NP with the help of Kaleid or The Imaginary Element, so she doesn’t need a third support or specific mystic code to farm standard 3/3/3 nodes plugless, making her very slightly more flexible than Dantes (who needs one of level 10 Mana Loading, the Clock Tower mystic code, or an MLB Kaleid to do the same). Furthermore, Mana Loading plus Okita’s battery gives Okita 50% charge right out of the gate, letting her use more powerful CEs like Tenkihime, Holy Night Supper, or Traces of Christmas for extra damage push,

With plug in play, Okita’s loop conditions get even easier. With Mana Loading and any 50% charge (or Oberon’s first skill instead of Mana Loading) Okita can tri-loop standard nodes with any CE. Mana Loading (or Oberon) plus Okita’s battery takes Okita to 50%. One Skadi takes her to 100%. She refunds 50% on waves 1 and 2, and Skadi and the other charger pull her up to 100%. This lets Okita either run Black Grail for more damage, or bring a drop CE and still benefit from the extra damage push a third support brings. Oberon is really the best pick for a third support here, as Okita has no innate NP Damage Up, which means his buffs are maximally impactful, and bringing an extra 20% battery either saves you a lore or lets Okita loop slightly trickier enemy groups. Okita will reliably hit the 30% refund threshold against two enemies, so with Mana Loading, Oberon’s 20% charge can be used on a wave of 2 to cover the missing NP gauge. Being able to 6-drop farm 2/3/x or 3/2/x nodes isn’t especially exciting these days, as most 90+ nodes are more restrictive than that, but nodes of that type do exist, so it’s worth noting that Okita can handle them easily.

In CQ contexts, Okita’s gameplan is basically the same as when farming. She has great sustained damage and loops trivially with cards in play, so you give her two Skadis and a third support of your choice—probably Oberon for damage or Castoria for safety—and set her loose on whatever you’re fighting. Between her defensive buff removal and her hit-based invuln, she’s quite stable as a DPS, so while she suffers from the usual Quick disadvantages of not being great for long fights, for short-to-mid-length fights she should do great.

It’s also worth noting that Quick stall is also possible with a Skadi/Castoria shell. If you can line up a Skadi->Okita->Castoria NP chain, you’re left with one hit of dodge and three of solemn defense, which is usually enough to keep your team safe. The best damage-dealers in this setup provide healing and party NP charge to stabilize things (Sei Shonagon is great for this, for instance), but Okita’s great NP gain and general stability mean she’ll also be able to pull her weight well as a point Servant for this type of team. For longform CQs, Buster and Arts setups will of course be more reliable, but it’s not beyond a well-built Quick team to do this as well, and Okita’s generically powerful kit means she can slot easily into pretty much any standard Quick setup.

Unfortunately for Okita, Quick falls off more than the other card types without optimal supports. It’s harder to put together a strong budget Quick team than it is to do the same for Buster or Arts. That said, Okita’s sustained steroids and top-notch NP gain mean she’s highly self-sufficient, so if you have a less-developed box and want to make use of her, you can grab whatever supports you do have and just prioritize Okita’s cards. Mash is always good, and Waver is of course excellent if you picked him as your free SSR. Barti also deserves a shout-out here, as he pushes Okita’s crit damage while making it easier for her to crit, and Voyager of the Storm gives a substantial one-time boost to Okita’s NP damage. Summer Da Vinci, who debuts in the same event, also has a suite of utility tools that complement Okita particularly well, pushing Okita’s damage and NP gain respectably. Da Vinci/Okita/(friend support) Skadi has just enough battery (assuming maxed skills) to let Okita NP right out of the gate, and if Okita is allowed cards she should still be able to loop her NP pretty easily.

Starting NP CEs are good on Okita for easy or reliable farming. If you have Rengoku and Mana Loading maxed, there’s little reason to run Kaleid and company when you could bring a 50% charge CE for added damage, although it’s worth noting that Kaleid + Mana Loading + Double Skadi + Oberon is a 100% guaranteed tri-loop, which might be handy for some particularly obstinate farming nodes. Traces of Christmas is my preferred 50% charge CE on Okita, as Okita’s strong bases mean NP gain boosts will feel more impactful than on many other Servants, so unless you specifically need to maximize damage, it feeds nicely into Okita’s strengths. If you do need damage specifically, Holy Night Supper and Tenkihime are great starting NP CEs as always.

If you’re using plug or are taking Okita to a CQ, there’s little reason not to bring The Black Grail. Okita’s easy NP loopage means she’ll benefit a lot from the boost it provides, and it also fits into the buff bracket Okita is missing, maximizing its impact. Okita generally prefers fast-moving CQ teams, too, which means Black Grail’s demerit won’t have much time to make itself felt.

Okita’s kit is so complete there aren’t any particularly obvious CC choices for her. CCs that boost crit damage may be nice on her Busters to aid in her damage stretch, while CCs that remove offensive buffs can help complete her buff removal utility, but none of these are going to drastically change her effectiveness as a unit.

Okita’s high stats mean she gets a little more mileage out of extra levels than many other Servants do. Extra damage also makes her more likely to hit damage thresholds, both for CQs and for farming. If you plan to make her your go-to farmer or your go-to Quick AoE, she’ll enjoy the extra strength.

While Majin Saber doesn’t really do anything special, she’s remarkable in that she’s a traditionally powerful Quick looper, which is something we haven’t really had since before Skadi released. The other notable Quick AoEs we’ve had in the past several years have been battery-dependent and/or had low damage. Okita has no such restrictions, which means she can comfortably do the same sort of things Dantes can—more effectively, in many cases. Okita’s kit reads in a sense like an acknowledgement that top-end Quick tools just aren’t the dominant force they once were—servants in this vein are “safe” once again.

What this means, ultimately, is that Okita is in a bit of a strange place. She’s one of the best Quick units in the whole game and slightly raises the ceiling of what Quick can do when farming. Unfortunately, that raised ceiling is still below top-end Arts and Buster, which means she doesn’t make quite the splash she might have otherwise. She’s a very good Servant with a kit that’s nearly flawless given what it’s trying to do, but the state of the game is such that she doesn’t shine as much as she would have a few years ago. Her value is mostly for players who don’t already have a top-end Quick looper and want to be prepared in case we get a new Quick support down the line who shakes things up again. There’s no guarantee we will, though, and Okita will presumably be back again next year, so while Okita is strong, you’re probably safe sticking to whatever powerful tools you’ve already invested in.

Before I close out this review, though, a final note: this is the 300th Servant Review I’ve written! It’s hard to believe I’ve been doing this for well over four years now, but I’m still going strong and don’t intend to stop anytime soon. Thanks to everyone who reads these, and especially to anyone who’s stuck around since the beginning. Here’s to the next hundred!

Overall: 9/10
Single-Target DPS: 6/10
AoE DPS: 9/10
Survivability: 6/10
Offensive Utility: 2/10
Defensive Utility: N/A
Farming Usefulness: 9/10
Independent Manifestation (Sword): 10/10