Yukari Yakumo

Yukari Yakumo was released on June 11th, 2021 in "Festival Prayer: Sages of Gensokyo." She was initially a Festival on release and later added to the general pool. For more up-to-date analysis, be sure to visit the  Official Discord Server.

The Gap Sage, Yukari Yakumo is at once both a lazy trickster who sleeps the days away, and a protector of Gensokyo who loves it with all of her heart. As such, she has something of a mixed reputation - most days, she’s seen as something of a nuisance that most who know her don’t take all that seriously, in spite of her vast power and status. However, when things are truly dire, she uses the power of boundary manipulation (such as the boundary between day and night, turning dusk to dawn) to defend Gensokyo. Or when she’s just kind of bored and wants to mess around, with Yukari it really could be either one. Regardless, those powers live up to the reputation indeed.

For farming purposes, Yukari requires two to three turns, depending on the fight, in order to farm at all. If you can allow her that, however, her highly potent Last Word's backloaded nature will shine through, and slam down like a freight train on any foe unfortunate enough to be between you and precious, precious Scrolls.

For hard fights, it’s an entirely different story, one in which Yukari shines. First and foremost, you are not bringing her to any fight over in one turn - she provides no offensive utility, and her Last Word’s damage is back loaded. If you keep that in mind, she has a lot to offer - firstly, her defensive utility is simply unparalleled. Due to her third skill, she can restore two Barriers to her entire team every five turns - a number that nobody else can even come close to, allowing her to double your team’s durability in longer fights. She also has a fantastic amount of Focus, between her first skill, her second Spell Card, and Focus Shot - whilst this is more a footnote, she can easily hit and stay at the Focus cap for an entire fight, which can be extremely useful on occasion.

Offensively, Yukari’s no slouch either. Her Last Word may deal unimpressive damage at 1 Power, but get her to 3 Power (in, say, those longer fights she excels at) and that’s a different story - she’ll deal as much damage as the likes of Ran or a 3 Power Reimu, with the potential to do even more if you provide her offensive support. Additionally, her Break capabilities are also solid - her Focus Shot has 1 Earth Break at 0 Power, her Spell card 1 has a fairly average amount of Earth at 1/1/2/3 Breaks at 0/1/2/3 Power, and her Spell Card 2 has both All targeting and 2 Earth and Sun breaks at 3 Power - a fantastic thing to have when weaknesses are usually mixed, if somewhat letdown by needing the full 3 Power when she already needs 3 Power for her Last Word. Finally, she also provides 1 Level of Yang DEF Down to All foes from her second Spell Card, which goes well both with her own Last Word as well as other Yang attackers.

Overall, Yukari shines in a specific type of fight - any fight that lasts at least two turns, which in all fairness will make up the bulk of harder fights. She gets even more fantastic the longer fights go on, tweaking the boundary between defeat and victory in your favor.

Here are the chances for Yukari’s secondary effects, alongside her Hard scaling (per bullet):

Yakumo Summoning Ceremony:
Chance for Yang DEF DOWN: 40%/0%/0%/0%/0%/0%

Apparition Needle:
Hard: 40%/40%/0%/0%/40%/0%
Chance for Focus UP: 50%/0%/0%/0%/0%/0%

Abandoned Line: Aimless Journey to the Abandoned Station:
Hard: 0%/80%/0%/0%/80%/90%
Chance for Focus UP: 50%/0%/0%/50%/0%/0%

Shikigami: Ran Yakumo & Chen: 
Hard: 0%/50%/50%/70%/0%/0%
Chance for Yang DEF DOWN: 40%/0%/0%/0%/0%/0%
Chance for Focus UP: 0%/0%/50%/0%/0%/0%
Chance for Yang DEF UP: 0%/0%/0%/0%/0%/50%

Profound Bullet Barrier - Phantasm, Foam, and Shadow:
Hard: 0%/70%/80%/90%/90%/100%
Chance for Yang DEF DOWN: 100%/0%/0%/0%/0%/0%