Should You Pull? Epic Prayer “Summer Sashimi Slicer”

Half-Recommended, and Half-Depends on if you want to use that Cooldown-Reduction Skill. The swimsuits are back! They weren’t gone for long because of a certain Witch of Scarlet Dreams on Vacation, but like how they started 2023 this time last year thanks to the C3 Komeiji Sisters, we now have the C3 Netherworld duo to kick off the new year, one of those two being C3 Youmu Konpaku from the Epic Prayer, being Summer Sashimi Slicer! Like the counterpart Epic Prayer, there comes a limited Story Card that is sure to raise your Spirits. But with that said, it’s time to cut into all that the 7th variant of this Half-Human Half-Phantom can cook up with her cool kit!

Speaking of cool, this Technical-Class Epic Friend has a Skill that will reduce any cooldown durations of any used Skills apart from the Skill that does this. With Skill 1, you can have a lot of fun with how you go about this and this could make a bit of a difference in some scenarios. A little extra detail is that with allies that have a 1-Turn cooldown, such as C3 Reimu Hakurei’s Skill 3, is that by following a specific order of actions, you can use this skill twice in the same turn! For example:

Step 1: Use C3 Reimu’s Skill 3.

Step 2: Use C3 Youmu’s Skill 1.

Step 3: Use C3 Reimu’s Skill 3 again, thanks to Step 2.

This is all achievable in the same turn, and other examples you can work with include L1 Aya Shameimaru’s Skill 2, H5 Wriggle Nightbug’s Skill 3, B3 Komachi Onozuka’s Skill 1 and T5 Byakuren Hijiri’s Skill 1.

With Skill 1’s cool new mechanic covered, what else can C3 Youmu cook up? Well she is a very strong ice-breaker all things considered! Not only can she inflict Freeze anomalies via her Skills, Spell Cards and Last Word, but every attack of hers has a way of breaking those anomalies on enemies, all at 2P! With this being more ways of executing Freeze breaks than usual when compared to other Friends, C3 Youmu is a very reliable Friend when it comes to doing this, whether it's a specific enemy or multiple. She can also inflict some of these anomalies onto herself in order to boost her Accuracy, Agility and Evasion.

Something else you can count on C3 Youmu to do is dish out Yang DEF debuffs on enemies, such as through Skill 2 and her Spell Cards. This is also backed up by her solid support in the form of Spirit Power, Yang ATK, Agility, Accuracy and CRIT Accuracy, which on top of the cooldown reduction above should that be counted as support, does make her very reliable with her mix of that and Yang DEF debuffing. If you want to stack up Accuracy and CRIT Accuracy however, it may be worth looking to Story Cards and other allies to extend it as those team boosts via Boosting/Grazing only last 1 turn.

Unfortunately, we get into half-baked territory, as C3 Youmu does find herself struggling when it comes to finding enemies with tags that correspond with her Killers. While her mistress also has these same ones, C3 Yuyuko is fortunate that her Class being Destroy essentially allows her to naturally land CRITs on her later lines provided she has enough CRIT Accuracy. In this case however, the Killers here that are Aquatic, Swimsuit, Summer, Beast, Bird, Fairy, Beast Youkai, Kaiju, Eientei, Lunar Capital, Hell, Divine Spirit Mausoleum, Animal Realm, Frog, Insect, Dragon Kin, Flower and Phantom just don’t quite seal the deal in the grand scheme of things in most scenarios. That said, provided she can find an enemy to land these guaranteed CRITs, land effective elemental bullets and even boost her Agility for that Slice Scaling, she can do amazing damage. However, her elements in itself are also awkward as it is a messy mix between Water, Metal, Earth, Wood and Fire with Metal dominating her Last Word, Earth dominating Spell Card 2 and the rest is rather jumbled up in that regard.

Now as for Story Card Spotlight: Epic Edition, one of two special Story Cards introduced with these Epic Prayers feature on this Prayer, and that is Endless Summer Maiden! With the perks of granting 2.10 Spirit Power, and a 45% Boost in both Metal and Sun elements, this serves as a very strong alternative to Let the Oil Money Flow, but with no class-restrictions and with stats that give a slight edge to Yin units like F1 Reimu. For some, it might just be worth 50 pulls on this Prayer just for this Story Card, but depending on how many copies of Let the Oil Money Flow you gained from Sun EX (if you were able to overcome its difficulty), you might feel better off not going for it, and possibly get it in a future EX stage with a Limited Story Card up for grabs if previous ones are anything to go by.

With that covered, depending on your priorities, resources and interests in new mechanics, C3 Youmu Konpaku does have what it takes to shine should things fall into place for her, and both of these Epic Friends kicking off 2024 are key Friends to clear their respective VS Divergent Spirits stages, but especially compared to C3 Yuyuko, she is rather flawed (or half-baked in some aspects) all things considered. Her messy elements and her limited CRIT potential mainly as a result of her Killers are not great from a consistency standpoint, but if you are a fan of new mechanics like in this case, cooldown reduction, this can still be a solid Prayer to pull on (possibly for the Story Card alone). Whether it’s just for her Skill 1 alone, or for her mix of Yang DEF debuffs and support, she could still be helpful for some allies, even if she is short on Epic Paper Dolls. That said, out of who is recommended more between her and C3 Yuyuko Saigyouji, it would have to be C3 Yuyuko, especially if you’re willing to support her with the appropriate buffs to boost her damage. That said however, they do work very well together as one may expect of them. In terms of other Prayers to look out for that we know of, it’s also worth noting that Lr Flandre Scarlet (Pseudo-Servant: Nishita) will be lasting until January 7th 23:59 JST, while just after that on January 11th comes her fellow backup dancer, Lr Hata no Kokoro and on January 18th comes Reimu Hakurei (Karma Speed), so there is still a large selection of Friends to look forward to, some of those may still pique your interest if C3 Netherworld pair aren’t enough.

But with 2024 well and truly here, if you want to pick up the Half-Human Half-Phantom half of the C3 Netherworld pair, best of luck with your Prayers for the Sushi-Serving Swordwoman!

Happy New Year everybody!