Should You Pull? 72H Starter Festival (7/29) Parts 1 & 2

Heavily depends on your current Festival Friends and requirements. The 72H Starter Festivals are a collection of two Prayers including 6 rerunning Festival Friends, only around for…you guessed it, 72 hours! This time limit starts upon logging in once the 72H prayers are active, which will be after maintenance on July 29th. After 72 hours passes after triggering the prayer, Part 2 will begin with a new selection of Festival Friends. Once that prayer has lasted for 72 hours, the special deal is over.

Only 10-pulls are possible for these prayers, which can only be spent using God Crystals. Not to worry, however, as each God Crystal Pull is 50% off, meaning it only costs 300 God Crystals for 10 prayers and 10 Fortune Dust. On top of that, every 10-pull guarantees at least one of the featured Festival Friends! Do be wary, as you can still easily obtain the same Festival Friends on consecutive runs. You can only pull on each part a maximum of 3 times before having to wait for Part 2 or ending the event. 

Judging the value of this Prayer against its corunners is challenging due to how this is a special event that only takes God Crystals. Additionally, the average player will likely find more value in pulling for the Ultra Festival Friends: E1 Hong Meiling or even R2 Yuyuko Saigyouji. Instead, this Prayer’s value should be considered based on the Festival Friends you are lacking. 

Players who lack over half of the featured Friends on Starter Festival have a pretty good deal here, considering they have a base chance of over 50% to obtain a Friend they do not have, a powerful Festival one at that. This applies for veteran players as well, who might have the God Crystals to risk getting a copy of a strong Friend for farming or other content. Players who should take more caution (outside of players who already have all of the featured Friends) are newer players, who may want to save their God Crystals for later expenditures. They do start off with a good amount of God Crystals, so throwing some at this prayer for an easy good to great Friend is still a good choice.

+ Extremely high Turn 1 damage as well as set up damage.
+ Good set of elemental access with Moon and Star being the predominant ones.
+ Self-inflicts anomalies allows her to counter fights which inflict anomalies
+ Great spread of Killer bullets with Gensokyo-Killer.
- No notable utility.
- Wants to keep barriers without Grazing to keep buffs via anomalies

+ Devastatingly powerful DEF DOWN debuffs
+ Extremely strong Solo-target Last Word that's also frontloaded, making her good for farming and hard fights alike
- Breaks are merely average

+ Incredible damage output, including an All-targeting Last Word great for farming events
+ P0 Earth on her Focus Shot
- Selfish attacker, brings no utility
- Breaks are otherwise middling

+ 0P Water and Fire on Basic shots
+ Varied elemental access
+ Lots of Yin ATK UP and Accuracy UP for herself and also her team
+ Immune to Burn, Freeze and Blind and gains Spirit P for being inflicted with them
- Elemental variety is spread out, especially on Last Word
- Partywide Blind infliction can be detrimental for a lot of teammates

+ 0P Moon break on Spread
+ Last Word can hit hard after setting up from self-Blind buffs
+ Flash breaks on Spread and first spell; can be used for synergy
+ Specular bullets makes her Yin attacks target Yang DEF (more battle-dependent than a strength)
- Underwhelming Moon and Fire breaks overall
- Very low team synergy
- Blind anomalies on team forces team to waste a barrier
- Requires outside Accuracy support

+ 0P Earth on Focus shot
+ Amazing Earth, Star, and anomaly breaks on spells
+ Poison on second spell can be immediately broken at 2P
+ Incredible setup damage via Last Word
+ Team utility in the form of CRIT and Yang support
- Underwhelming turn 1 damage

Hecatia Lapislazuli

Hecatia wastes no time in attempting to destroy the enemies, be it with immediate damage or when setting up. Not only does she get plenty of self-Yin ATK and CRIT ATK UP buffs off with her skills, but any Freeze and Poison anomalies inflicted on her help as well, with Freezing giving her 0.20 more Spirit Power and Poisoning giving her offensive buffs. On top of that, her Last Word, Pandemonic Planet, is filled with Gensokyo-KIller bullets, guaranteeing critical hits on any resident of Gensokyo, which is pretty good in a game that mainly takes place in Gensokyo…As an added bonus, her third skill is good at giving the party CRIT Accuracy, herself more Spirit Power from Freeze anomalies, and even restoring her Barrier by 2 layers. With an extra dose of good Star-element breaks, Hecatia is a Friend that does almost anything you’d need, outside of extensive team support.

Shion Yorigami

If you are looking for team support, however, look no further than Shion! Don’t explicitly ask her for help, though, as she is a misfortune god. Instead, aim that misfortune back at the opponents with a heaping amount of debuffs! Her best ones come from her second and third skills, the second one debuffing Yin DEF and Yang DEF while the third skill does a number on their Evasion. Her Last Word, The Lost 20 Years, plays into this as well with a hefty Yin DEF debuff on a single target. Her self-Quick in her skills makes it easy for Shion to apply debuffs via her spells first and allow other attackers to go after, but Shion does good damage as well. She doesn’t do much else for teamwide buffs and is an above-average Fire-element breaker otherwise, but the indirect support she does apply is invaluable for any teams, especially ones specializing in Yin.

Tenshi Hinanawi

Anyone who knows Tenshi from Touhou Project is aware of how arrogant she can be at times, and her L1 self in LostWord is no different. She boasts heavy nuke damage, buffing her Yang ATK with every Graze and getting stronger as she buffs herself when using spells. As a finishing touch, she’ll use her Last Word, Trillion Ton Keystone Drop, to bury the enemies in an earthquake of damage. The problem is that this is really all that she does. She may have a 0P Earth-element break on her Focus shot, but the rest of her elemental prowess is very mediocre. Without any teamwide support or other utility, Tenshi is more of a Friend looking for support rather than providing it, no matter how precious she claims she is.

Nue Houjuu

Nue is an offensive force with a mix of great offense, breaks, and even support. Her Last Word, Who Goes There?, devastates opponents’ Evasion (which can be taken advantage of by later Friends’ attacks) and even applies Blind anomalies that can be broken at 3P of the same spell. Her elemental breaks are rather good as well, as she both has a 0P Fire-element and Water-element option on her basic shots and a good amount of Star-element to keep Star-weak foes on their toes. Last but not least, she provides the whole team Agility UP with her first spell, Accuracy UP on her first skill, and Yin ATK UP on her third skill, backing up the team with great offensive support. Just be wary of the 1-turn Blind she applies with her third skill as well, as it can easily throw off the accuracy of attacks that turn.

Seija Kijin

Don’t confuse the last black-haired attacker with this one, as Seija is unique from Nue…but also greedy. She prefers to keep the good offensive buffs to herself, only buffing the party’s Yin DEF with her third skill. Seija is good at breaking Moon-weak opponents with her 0P Moon-element Spread shot and variety of Moon-element on her spells. She can also break Blind anomalies she casts with her spells, but this has to be done with her Spread Shot or first spell at 3P. The other unique thing about Seija is that all of her attacks are Specular, meaning that she will attack the opposite Yin/Yang DEF stat than the one she is using, mainly being relevant for her Yin Last Word, Inverse Matrix, that will actually be targeting the enemies’ Yang DEF. It might be confusing for you as well, but taking good advantage of what stat to focus on will help strengthen Seija’s damage output.

Keiki Haniyasushin

Keiki is a Friend who, in all honesty, has basically nothing wrong going for her. She’s got immediate turn 1 damage may be underwhelming, but her setup damage combined with greant Yang ATK buffs makes her final damage perfect with her Earth-only Last Word, Transhumanize. Her heavy buffing isn’t limited to herself though, as Grazing grants the party Yang ATK UP and her third skill gives them Yin ATK UP. Not only is her Earth-element access great with a 0P Earth-element Focus shot, but she can break Poison anomalies as well at 2P of her second spell, which already casts 3 layers of the anomaly! All of this combined makes Keiki a very ideal Friend to have, being a good addition for any team.

Overall, Part 1 has a very strong selection of Friends, being filled with a lot of offensive power and perhaps a little less teamwide buffing than desired. The best Friends are between Hecatia and Keiki, while the worst one is likely Seija. Still, the latter has her time to shine and is definitely usable, making everyone have a purpose for going for in this rotation.

+ P0 Water on Focus Shot.
+ Powerful Last Word, especially when paired with her best story card.
+ Useful Wood Breaks.
+ Very solid Yin DEF and Agility Support for the team.
- Somewhat lackluster break potential aside from Last Word.
- Low barrier restoration is problematic, especially when using Graze for Yin ATK.

+ 0P Star on Focus shot
+ Fully Star Last Word hits hard with set up
+ Comes with her own Accuracy support
- Lacking in elemental breaking on spells
- Team support mainly on spells instead of skills
- Evasion debuff on Last Word is a tad excessive
- Rather fragile; little Yang DEF buffs

+ Very high and front-loaded damage which partially ignores elemental resistances
+ Both Spell Cards are All targeting, useful in farming and Arena alike
- Minimal utility
- Poor Barrier breaks

+ Powerful All-target and Yang damage
+ P0 Wood/Water breaks on her shots.
+ Can inflict up to a total of 7 Paralyze Barriers on all foes
+ Last Word possesses 2 levels of 2 Yang DEF DOWN
- Applies Paralyze barriers to her allies
- Weaker in longer fights, where she must spend Barriers to survive and thus cannot benefit from her character ability

+ High Turn 1 damage which can be increased with CRIT support.
+ Amazing Elemental access rivaling the best in terms of barrier breaks.
- Main sources of team utility are locked to her 2nd Spell Card and Last Word.

+ Very high damage potential in longer fights
+ Abundance of Barrier Breaks, including P0 Fire on a Basic Shot
+ Solid CRIT and Killer support
+ Star Element is a nice aid in farming event stages with one boss, as Star weakness is relatively common.
- Somewhat inconsistent due to CRIT-based nature
- Reliant on (very common) Killers.

Yachie Kicchou

At first glance, Yachie may appear to be another selfish attacker who heavily buffs her own Yin ATK and Yin DEF to maximize the Hard scaling on her Last Word, Ambush in the Dark. However, this is far from the case, as Yachie’s partywide Agility and Yin DEF buffs to the party can serve as decent defensive support while also buffing secondary scalings of Slice and Hard respectively. The Burn and Poison she applies with Ambush in the Dark also serves great team utility, either being the fuel for anomaly breaks or just being debuffs on their own, as Burn debuffs Yin stats and Poison debuffs Yang stats as long as the inflicted barriers are not broken. Not that Barrier breaks are an issue for Yachie, as she has 0P Water-element on her Focus shot and Ambush in the Dark is fully Wood-element to teach any Wood-weak targets a lesson they will not forget.

Shinmyoumaru Sukuna

For someone so small, Shinmyoumaru makes sure that it doesn’t get in the way of thrashing enemies. Her skills have plenty of Spirit Power restoration so that she can quickly build up to her Last Word, Giant Killing. Her spells are somewhat low on elemental breaks, but she still has a 0P Star-element Focus shot and Giant Killing is fully Star-element. Outside of that and the heavy damage she can apply, though, her utility is limited to her spells that buff party’s Yang ATK and Yang DEF. These buffs not being on skills makes them somewhat problematic, as they cannot be spammed as easily and are more limited in use. Even then, Shinmyoumaru is a great Friend to rely on when damage is the main thing needed to escape a battle with victory.

Yuuka Kazami

Speaking of pure damage, here’s Yuuka! With the ability to reach 3P on turn 1 thanks to two skills that increase Spirit Power by 1.00 and a hefty amount of Yang ATK buffs, Yuuka quickly makes it apparent that she’s here for blood. What her Last Word, Blooming Beauty - Master Spark, makes up for in damage, however, it lacks in elemental breaks. Her kit as a whole is low in breaks, even with a 0P Wood-element on her Focus shot. Furthermore, all of her buffs are purely greedy and she does not give back much to the rest of the team. She is great for stages filled with foes due to her All-target spells, but don’t expect much else from her outside of hitting hard.

Iku Nagae

Iku is a Friend with a great variety of uses. For dealing damage, she goes in hard with the Agility buffs to maximize the Slice scaling of her Wood-element-only Last Word, Diggin’ the Shrine Princess. Her breaking expertise also expands to having 0P options for Wood-element and Water-element in her basic shots. While she cannot break them, she can also inflict a very heavy amount of Paralyze anomalies that allies with Paralyze anomaly breaks will appreciate. She also Paralyzes herself, which gives her even more Agility and Accuracy buffs. Just watch out that your team doesn’t get shocked by her third skill, and Iku can show off why she is the messenger of the Dragon Palace.

Saki Kurokoma

Saki is another Friend that specializes in speeding herself up to get an advantage in battle. Both her spells and skills provide Agility UP, which goes back into buffing her Slice scaling on her Last Word, Oharida Palace Stomp. Her elemental prowess is incredible, as Oharida Palace Stomp is fully Fire-element, her basic shots have 0P Fire-element and Wood-element, and even the rest of her spells are high in elemental bullets. For team support, she is a bit greedy in buffs, but she still gives back a bit of Agility UP so the rest of the party can keep up. She slows down the foes as well with Evasion DOWN on her second spell, serving as indirect accuracy support for the whole team. Saki is very powerful, being easy to setup her high damage while providing utility at the same time.

Okina Matara

Okina acts rather high and mighty, but she at least has good attributes to back up that behavior. She is a greedy buffer, mainly putting her Yin ATK and CRIT-based buffs toward herself to buff her Last Word, Fantasy Simulation Hypothesis. The CRIT ATK UP comes in handy when Okina’s Youkai-Killer and Human-KIller bullets activate, heavily increasing her damage output. Still, her third skill gives CRIT ATK UP to the party while her Grazes provide CRIT Accuracy to assist the rest of the team’s critical hits. Her elemental access is not the best, but she is still a decent Star-element and Fire-element breaker, especially with her 0P Fire-element Focus shot. Overall, Okina isn’t going to be game-definining, but given the right foes and circumstances, she can easily come out on top.

Part 2 might not have any downright star players like the first part did, but that doesn’t mean the quality of the Friends here are low whatsoever. Iku will likely provide the most variety in a team, but Yachie and Saki are definitely tough contenders as well. Okina may have the least to offer in specific scenarios, but she is still a great choice for CRIT support and whenever she can get her own Killer bullets off.