Rabbit's Reviews #324: Charlemagne (5* Saber)

Wait, didn’t we already get this Servant?

Charlemagne is our second AoE Quick Saber at the SSR level. Not only does he share a card typing with Summer Majin Saber, he also shares… almost everything else. Their NP refund versus a single target is within a tenth of a percent of each other. They have similar damage output and identical batteries. Both have a hit-based invuln. They are truly bafflingly similar. Charlemagne has better damage in CQs and can protect an ally in a fight, while Majin Saber is a better farmer, has better cards, removes defensive buffs, and is generally easier to use. These are all pretty marginal differences, though, and if you’ve used one you know what the other does.

As such, the same things that I said about Majin Saber apply to Charlie: he’s a loop-enabled Quick Servant with a lot of strong tools and nothing really to complain about. Arts and Buster options (of which there are myriad) are going to well outperform him, though, at least until Quick gets a fancy new support. Furthermore, since Majin Saber dropped, Caren got an interlude, which widens the gap between what Majin Saber and Charlie bring and the top-end of what Quick can currently do.

If you haven’t already invested in a top-notch Quick AoE in advance of a new support, Charlie’s not a bad choice. He has great loop specs, solid damage, and some utility. Between Majin Saber, Molay, and post-buff Caren, though, there have been plenty of opportunities to do so in the past year, which raises the question of who Charlie is for. He’s a good Servant, no doubt, and if you don’t like any of the other options, you can go for this one. From a power-gaming standpoint, though, you probably already have a Quick Servant you favor, and if you don’t, you’re better off waiting for Caren—she’s just a lot better at this point.

Charlie has average stats as SSR Sabers go—with a slightly more defensive stat spread than Majin Saber—but Sabers have good stats, as a rule, so Charlie still has pretty high attack in a vacuum. He also needs to take hits in order to maximize his own damage, so having a bit of extra HP relative to Majin Saber isn’t the worst thing. His NP gain, by contrast, is iffy. Charlie has a whopping 12 hits on his NP, and his NP gain is high enough that he does get to leverage those hits—he surpasses the usual 5%-per-enemy-before-buffs threshold—but in exchange, his Arts cards are well below the standard for his deck, and his Quicks are also pretty weak (although in-kit buffs push them back up to reasonable levels). This is arguably Charlie’s biggest weakness relative to Majin Saber: while they have nearly identical NP refund, Majin Saber has a better deck and frankly excellent cards, while Charlie’s deck yields lower damage output and makes getting access to an NP harder when you’re not able to rely on NP refund and batteries. That said, Charlie’s 12-hit AoE quick NP does rain stars, making Charlie one of the best AoE Servants in the game for active star gen.

Charlie only has basic passives, but those passives serve him well. Magic Resistance A is nice for staving off occasional debuffs, and Riding A is a permanent boost to Charlie’s most important card type, increasing his damage and effective NP gain. Very nice. Charlie also benefits meaningfully from two of his three appends: Mana Loading and Anti-Berserker Damage (which Majin Saber also has, to further cement them being basically the same). Mana Loading makes Charlie’s loopage meaningfully more flexible, especially since he has a 30% battery, and anti-Berserker damage applies to a class advantage context, which is always excellent. The Extra Attack buff is less useful here given Charlie’s weak cards, so that one’s pretty easy to skip.

Ascension Materials

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	100,000	x5 Saber Piece
3	300,000	x12 Saber Piece x15 Great Knight Medal
4	1,000,000	x5 Saber Monument x8 Phoenix Feather x15 Proof of Hero
Max	3,000,000	x12 Saber Monument x29 Proof of Hero x36 Golden Ritual Sword

Skill Enhancement Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200,000	x5 Gem of Saber
2 → 3	400,000	x12 Gem of Saber
3 → 4	1,200,000	x5 Magic Gem of Saber
4 → 5	1,600,000	x12 Magic Gem of Saber x4 Phoenix Feather
5 → 6	4,000,000	x5 Secret Gem of Saber x8 Phoenix Feather
6 → 7	5,000,000	x12 Secret Gem of Saber x10 Great Knight Medal
7 → 8	10,000,000	x20 Great Knight Medal x6 Crown of Silvery Light
8 → 9	12,000,000	x18 Crown of Silvery Light x72 Golden Ritual Sword
9 → 10	20,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Append Skill Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200000	x5 Gem of Saber
2 → 3	400000	x12 Gem of Saber
3 → 4	1200000	x5 Magic Gem of Saber
4 → 5	1600000	x12 Magic Gem of Saber x15 Proof of Hero
5 → 6	4000000	x5 Secret Gem of Saber x29 Proof of Hero
6 → 7	5000000	x12 Secret Gem of Saber x4 Serpent Jewel
7 → 8	10000000	x8 Serpent Jewel x6 Aurora Steel
8 → 9	12000000	x18 Aurora Steel x24 Divine Leyline Spiritron
9 → 10	20000000	x1 Crystallized Lore

This is going to be a theme for the Traum servants, but Charlie’s mats are awful. Traum introduces not one, but two new bronze mats, and Charlie needs 36 of one of them (swords) for ascension, and 72 per skill. That’s 252 in total of a brand new bronze mat. It will take a lot of time or a lot of farming to get this guy maxed. He also needs a fair number of proofs (especially if you go for appends), and a bunch of medals and crowns, making it pretty likely you’ll run into something you’re short on, even setting aside the swords.

All three of Charlie’s skills are solid, and all three are important to his functioning, so (unfortunately) you’ll need to commit to leveling all of them if you want to use him effectively. Recommended skill order is 2>3>1.

So, Charlie’s tools are so similar to Majin Saber’s that basically everything I wrote about her applies again here. In fact, Majin Saber’s review is so applicable here, I’m actually going to copy most of her usage tips section in here and replace her name (and a few details) with Charlie’s. It’s a good breakdown, and every piece of it applies here as well. If you’ve read hers and don’t want to reread it in this context, feel free to skip down towards the bottom of the section; I’ll mark the beginning and end of the copied bits.

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Charlie is an entirely classical Quick farmer. He refunds 50% against three enemies with double Skadi, no questions asked. His own battery lets him reach his first NP with the help of Kaleid or The Imaginary Element, so he doesn’t need a third support or specific mystic code to farm standard 3/3/3 nodes plugless, making him 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 Charlie’s battery gives Charlie 50% charge right out of the gate, letting him use more powerful CEs like Tenkihime, Holy Night Supper, or Traces of Christmas for extra damage push,

With plug in play, Charlie’s loop conditions get even easier. With Mana Loading and any 50% charger (or Oberon’s first skill instead of Mana Loading) Charlie can tri-loop standard nodes with any CE. Mana Loading (or Oberon) plus Charlie’s battery takes Charlie to 50%. One Skadi takes him to 100%. He refunds 50% on waves 1 and 2, and Skadi and the other charger pull him up to 100%. This lets Charlie 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 Charlie 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 Charlie loop slightly trickier enemy groups. Charlie 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 Charlie can handle them easily.

In CQ contexts, Charlie’s gameplan is basically the same as when farming. He has great sustained damage and loops trivially with cards in play, so you give him two Skadis and a third support of your choice—probably Oberon for damage or Castoria for safety—and set him loose on whatever you’re fighting. He suffers from the usual Quick disadvantages of not being great for long fights, but for short-to-mid-length fights he 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->Charlie->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 Charlie’s great NP gain and targeted invuln mean he’ll also be able to pull his 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 Charlie’s generically powerful kit means he can slot easily into pretty much any standard Quick setup.

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There are two notable differences between how Okita and Charlie operate that I’d like to call out here. For one, Charlie is somewhat less self-sufficient. His weaker cards make it harder for him to work well in lower-end Quick teams, and losing out on Majin Saber’s defensive buff removal means Charlie may need supports like Sherlock to overcome various gimmicks. The other notable point relates to Charlie’s damage-scaling gimmick.

In order to maximize Charlie’s NP damage in CQs, Charlie needs to get hit repeatedly. There are a couple of ways to do this—anyone with a targeted taunt can help—but the best option is to use Crane. Crane’s self-battery applies a 3-turn taunt to both other team members. If you have Crane use this on the first turn and then plug out your other support, you’re left with a 3-turn taunt on Charlie alone, guaranteeing all enemy attacks will give Brave King stacks, and making sure his damage scales as much as possible.

This does, however, leave Charlie quite vulnerable. For your fourth support—the one who comes in after Crane swaps out—it’s a good idea to bring Reines or Castoria, so you have a targeted invuln ready to go to keep Charlie from dying while accumulating Brave King stacks. Something like Crane/Charlie/Skadi/Reines/Skadi will maximize Charlie’s damage, and while turn-1 damage will be low, turn 3 damage will be genuinely impressive, even on neutral.

CE choice depends largely on what you’re doing. For farming, you want a starting NP charge CE if going plugless or farming 90+, or an event CE or Black Grail if using plug. For CQs, Black Grail is always great for maximizing damage, though Traces of Christmas is nice for loop stability as well, if damage isn’t an issue. It’s also worth mentioning GudaGuda Poster Girl for min-turn shenanigans, as it gives Charlie a 3-turn taunt for free (making for easy Brave King stacks) and increases damage by almost as much as Black Grail in the first three turns.

Selfish defense is the biggest gap in Charlie’s kit, so CCs that provide self-healing or damage cut are a good choice, especially if you plan to try to leverage Brave King stacks. You could also give Charlie CCs that offset his weak card-based NP gain, though there’s limited value to this when his NP refund is still quite good.

With grails being more common than they used to be, taking a Servant to 100 is no longer a huge commitment. If you plan to make Charlie your go-to Quick AoE, extra stats will help him a lot, and I think he’s worth the investment.

Charlie is really good. He has great refund, solid-to-great damage, and a bit of utility. He’s a conventionally powerful Quick looper—something that used to be a rarity but isn’t really anymore. Ultimately there’s not much to complain about here, except that we’ve seen this before, and Quick is still behind the curve. At the point Quick gets a new top-tier support, Charlie will probably be excellent, so if you didn’t already invest in Majin Saber he’s not a bad pull. That said, Caren especially is better and Charlie doesn’t do anything particularly notable that others don’t also do, so if you have the role filled already or want to wait for the best-in-class option, there’s no pressing need to pull for him.

Overall: 9/10
Single-Target DPS: 5/10
AoE DPS: 9/10
Survivability: 4/10
Offensive Utility: 4/10
Defensive Utility: 4/10
Farming Usefulness: 7/10
Paladins: 12/12