Should You Pull? Festival: 'Tis the Season for Bullets Part 2

Maybe, but veering toward a No. Just like the first part, this Festival is themed around the current Event Rerun: 'Tis the Season for Bullets. But rather than this Festival being based on Friends that are featured during the event, these four don't even appear in it! What's the deal, then? Well, they still have special New Year's Costumes that can boost your event points when obtained, which relate to the New Year's theme of the event's final part and Extra stages. It is strange that these four did not appear during the event, but perhaps in the future....

The reason this banner is a hard sell is a combination of its co-runners and especially its timing. Since the event ends in a week, this prayer will follow and end June 10th, giving rather little time to consider if pulling on this Prayer is worth it. With 3 amazing Ultra Festival Friends currently up for grabs, along with Nazrin, Nue Houjuu, and the upcoming Mononobe no Futo and A10 Sanae Kochiya, the Friends on this prayer are still definitely good, but not as relevant as anyone else currently available. This can still be a good prayer to obtain a Festival Friend you missed, but otherwise you should likely look elsewhere.

This prayer comes with an Ascending God Crystal Step-UP for those who want to just invest a small amount of God Crystals for one attempt at the Featured Friends. Like Part 1, since all Friends featured are of Festival rarity, they will all require 150 Exchange Points for a single copy.

+ Powerful Last Word, dealing quite high damage at 1 Power and scaling tremendously at 3.
+ Relatively strong event farmer
+ Self Charge on Skill 3 means she works well with any supporter
- No utility
- Only brings Wood element and lacks many elemental bullets nowadays
- Fell off hard with the introduction of many stronger Friends

+ Respectable damage turn 1 on a Solo-targeting Last Word
+ Slightly above average access to Fire breaks, with both Solo and All access to 1/1/3 Breaks for 0/1/2 Spirit Power
- No team utility
- Somewhat low ceiling on damage

+ Unparalleled team-wide Barrier restoration, restoring 2 Barriers every 5 turns team-wide
+ Access to Earth on a Basic Shot at 0 Power
+ All targeting Spell Card with 2 Earth and Sun Breaks at 3 Power
+ Very solid damage on All Last Word at 3 Power
- Last Word deals low damage at 1 Power
- Utility is entirely defensive, leaving her somewhat lacking for shorter fights

+ Great burst damage to singular targets
+ P0 All-targeting Sun on a Basic Shot
+ Self Charge makes her easy to support
+ Decent amount of teamwide Accuracy and Yin ATK support
- Can't hit as hard as the highest tier of attackers, and her support doesn't make up for that
- Yin ATK support isn't particularly helpful with top-tier attackers and Miko doesn't benefit from it herself

Youkai of the New Year: Netherworld Buddies

The pairing of Yuyuko Saigyouji and Yukari Yakumo has been one ever since their origins, dating back to Perfect Cherry Blossom. They have been established as rather close friends with one another, which only makes you wonder if Yukari ever confides her devious plans to Yuyuko in their free time...as for their New Years costumes, Yuyuko veers toward the theme of peace while Yukari goes for safety.

The story of Yuyuko Saigyouji is a rather simple one: being the game's first Festival Friend, she easily rose to the top due to sheer damage alone. Reaching her to 10 levels of Yang ATK UP is a piece of cake thanks to her first skill, first spell, and Last Word providing 3 + 2 + 5 levels of buffs. As overkill, even her Boost provides Yang ATK UP. With even Accuracy support on her third skill, it seemed like Yuyuko was almost untouchable in terms of damage. However, as time went on and more Friends began to offer even higher damage numbers and, more importantly, actual team support and utility, the value for Yuyuko began to waiver. Without any teamwide buffs or support of her own or even good elemental breaks, Yuyuko remains a strong nuke, but perhaps there are other things to consider other than damage nowadays.

The same story is nowhere near as true for Yukari Yakumo, however. Yukari has always been a strong tank due to a combination of defensive buffs and barrier restoration. Only taking 5 turns to cooldown her 2 barrier-restoring skill is a glorious boon in its own right. This became even more relevant upon the Focus rework, having units that cast Focus UP (such as Yukari) soak up more All-target damage than their allies. With good barrier restoration, Yukari can block more attacks without taking too much damage. Even greater is the fact that she can provide teamwide Yang DEF from her skills and even Boosting, giving her great utility for any challenging fight. At worst, she lacks in buffs and offensive buffs for her team, but she already does such a good job at defense that this is only a minor concern.

Mind Readers of the New Year: Safety Scouts

These two are a lot more weirder to pair together, but have their own reasons for being grouped (outside of matching the structure of other articles). For one, their abilities are rather similar, with Satori Komeiji being able to use her Third Eye to read the minds of anyone at any time and Toyosatomimi no Miko having the capability to listen to ten conversations and inner desires at once. Additionally, their New Years costumes are suited for the theme of safety...just like Yukari, now that I think about it. Did Yuyuko just miss the memo and go with the wrong theme?

Miko is your standard Festival nuke, aiming to buff herself only for a powerful Yang Last Word. She does a rather alright job at elemental breaking with Sun on her spells and a 0P Spread shot, as well as a small bit of Metal sprinkled in. Being able to boost herself to 3P on turn 1 with her second skill definitely does a lot to help optimize her early damage, although she has two major flaws. For some reason, her first spell and third skill aim to raise Yin ATK, a stat rather pointless when it comes to her Last Word due to it being Yang-only. Additionally, with being a selfish attacker that doesn't even hit the high numbers compared to other nukes, her damage may end up not being what you desire. Still, the saint is here to listen to your desires and try her best to deliver!

Satori boasts the Debuff-type, with the main goal of doing just that. All of her skills debuff the opponents stats, with a flaw being she is aiming for offensive stats such as Yin ATK, Yang ATK, and Accuracy. Unless your team is squishy and needs to tank a couple of hits, these debuffs are rather pointless in comparison to crushing the foes' defenses. She can raise the CRIT Evasion of the party with Grazes, but this minimal team support is not as useful as her first spell's ability to decrease a target's Evasion for indirect accuracy support. Just when you thought Satori doesn't have anything left though, she hits you with 7 levels of Yang ATK UP upon using her Last Word! While this makes it difficult to optimize her damage further due to such a high Yang ATK buff, Satori still proves she has a fair amount of use in harder battles.