Patchouli Knowledge (Scarlet)

A6 Patchouli Knowledge  was released on July 19th, 2022 in "Festival Prayer: Librarian of the Scarlet Night." For more up-to-date analysis, be sure to visit the  Official Discord Server.

Patchouli Knowledge, like Alice Margatroid, is a youkai magician that has devoted herself to the studies of magic. While details of her upbringing and background are unclear, this has landed her as the librarian of the Scarlet Devil Mansion’s great library, putting the knowledge in her name to good use. While her wisdom is great, the same cannot be said about her health, as being exposed to so much magic has given her harsh asthma and has forced her to stay in her library to avoid the sunlight. This makes staying inside favorable to her, partially explaining why she was not shy to attempt to kick out the incident resolvers, Reimu Hakurei and Marisa Kirisame, during the Scarlet Mist Incident. She became somewhat more social after the incident was resolved, but due to coming from a Gensokyo where the incident has not been resolved yet, this Patchouli remains a decent threat.

For the purposes of purely dealing damage, Patchouli attempts to summon destruction with her Yin-only Last Word, Prototype Ruby Elixir. She buffs both her Yin ATK and CRIT ATK by 2 levels (3T) upon activating the attack, with a lot more Yin ATK UP coming from her second skill, Courageous Fire, which provides 3 levels of Yin ATK UP (3T). This prepares her well on the Yin-side of things, but her CRIT-based damage is a bit more problematic. She gets the very strong Human-Killer on Prototype Ruby Elixir, but she needs to be at 3P to access them, on an attack that is already backloaded with a 1-1-3 bullet line spread. Fortunately, her third skill, Robust Earth, attempts to mitigate this with an impressive 1.75 Spirit Power buff, putting her at 2.75 Spirit Power on turn 1.

Outside of the damage, Patchouli can use her magic for team support and special barrier breaks. Her skills are the main source of partywide buffs, such as her first skill, Mighty Wind, and its ability to buff the team’s CRIT Accuracy by 2 levels (3T). While CRIT Accuracy for other allies is somewhat more situational if said allies already ensure critical hits from Killer bullets, the increased CRIT chance can be used by Friends without that privilege. Thanks to her character ability, Capable of manipulating all elements except star, she can provide more CRIT Accuracy UP for every use of Graze. Courageous Fire has two other team support buffs, that being 2 levels of Yang ATK UP (3T) and 1 level of Accuracy UP (3T). While 1 level of increased Accuracy is low, the 3-turn endurance makes it a very practical support option for longer fights. Additionally, Patchouli’s second spell, Metal & Water Sign: Mercury Poison, drops a single target’s Evasion by 2 levels (3T) to provide even more indirect accuracy support. Last off, while not exactly team support, she can also cast self-Charge on herself by using Mighty Wind, which lets her synergize well with Friends that debuff while attacking, allowing Patchouli to sweep in after foes are weakened.

When it comes to barrier breaks, Patchouli is in a strange position, but not a bad one. The uncertainty mainly comes from her elemental breaking potential, as just like her base form, the magician focuses more on a variety of elements rather than specializing in one. She still gets a 0P break on a shot, particularly 0P Water on her Focus shot, Frozen Sun. However, the rest of her spells are a great mix of elements. Her first spell, Wood & Fire Sign: Forest Blaze, is 2 Fire and 2 Wood, Metal & Water Sign: Mercury Poison is 3 Water and 3 Metal, and Prototype Ruby Elixir is just a great mix of Fire, Earth, Metal, Water, and Wood. It’s not that her elemental breaks are bad, but you will be using them as a supportive role instead of being a primary elemental breaker. Instead, Patchouli is a great anomaly breaker, specifically regarding Burn and Poison. Wood & Fire Sign: Forest Blaze applies 3 layers of Burn on all foes, and when the spell is at 2P, will immediately break those 3 inflicted barriers. Metal & Water Sign: Mercury Poison is similar, instead applying 2 layers of Poison to one target and being able to break them at only 1P. If Patchouli wants, she can also just keep the spells at 0P to inflict the anomalies to serve as Yin debuffs (for Burn) or Yang debuffs (for Poison) as long as the inflicted barriers aren’t broken. This gives Patchouli great flexibility, especially for a Friend that would have some trouble Full Breaking foes without the anomaly breaks.

Overall, A6 Patchouli takes a slightly different approach from other A-Type Friends and keeps a somewhat similar role to her L1-self when it comes to elemental breaking. The main exception is, of course, a greater focus on CRIT-based destruction, team support, and even anomaly breaks. Is the lack of change between A6 Patchouli and L1 Patchouli a sign of how close the two are in mastering magic? Or did L1 Patchouli still not get as much time in the sun as she should have?