Should You Pull? Prayer “Time Cutter & Tiny Chef Ultra Festival”

Generally not recommended, even with Fantasy Rebirth. Our beloved R-Series souls from their version of Hakugyokurou return for another Prayer, it’s that ti me and pl ace again for R2 Yuyuko Saigyouji and R8 Youmu Konpaku! This Prayer will last for a whole week which is less time than the recent Anime Expo Ultra Festival Prayers, and to be honest, those also have stronger Friends in the spotlight too, more on that later though…

…But first, let’s go over what’s good about them! Firstly, R2 Yuyuko is a simple unit in terms of what she brings to the table; passable Water breaks and solid damage. Considering when she was released, this was nothing to sneeze at. Part of what makes her damage great, especially on her Last Word, is thanks to her Killers: Fairy, Soul, Undead, Swordswoman, Magician, Martial Artist, and of course, Youkai, and thanks to her Ability to gain Agility, Accuracy and Evasion via Freeze anomalies and Yang ATK, Yin ATK, CRIT ATK and CRIT Accuracy whenever she is inflicted with Poison, R2 Yuyuko is able to capitalize on her offensive power further, especially since her Poison inflicts give her more CRIT ATK, thus making better the most of her Killer range!

Meanwhile, R8 Youmu was the second Ultra Festival Friend to be playable, and came with some strong Slice Scaling, a healthy mix between Yin and Yang and doesn’t do too bad of a job with Metal, Fire and Wood breaks. If she is paired with teammates that can inflict Burn or Paralyze, her Spell Card 1 can break an enemy’s Burn anomalies whereas Spell Card 2 can break the Paralyze anomalies of all enemies, but she cannot inflict that herself.

Unfortunately, we have to get to the downsides. What makes these two weaker than some other Friends available is pretty much down to their outdated kits, showing their age from breaks being very mediocre, to lack of utility. In R2 Yuyuko’s case, the main 2 things she has going for her are Water breaks and a powerful Last Word, as so much of the rest of her kit underperforms in comparison, but at least her Poison anomalies can serve as a source of CRIT ATK. In R8 Youmu’s case, she is also lacking a lot of fundamental buffs like Accuracy, CRIT ATK and Spirit Power, and on top of that, her Killer range is the same as her small mistress, just lacking the sought after Youkai Killer, also being another obstacle. Needless to say, these two just don’t quite hold up compared to many newer additions to the game, what is also worth going over that may make up for some of their issues (mainly R8 Youmu) is their Fantasy Rebirth 2.0 upgrades…

While the available upgrades so far are only located in their Skills and Passives, they are still appreciated all the same. R2 Yuyuko is now able to cook up 2.00 Spirit Power instead of 1.70, granting her that instant access to 3P by herself instead of 2P, as Skills 1 and 3 now grant 1.00 Spirit Power instead of 0.85. On top of that, the other effects you see on her Skills such as self-inflicted Poison and Freeze, Team Agility, and her own Accuracy, Evasion and Yin ATK all get 1 extra stage, making her a little more powerful on her own, but since this does mean she inflicts herself with Poison and Freeze by 3 Layers via these Skills and you can only inflict up to 5, you might want to activate Skill 3 (Poison) before Skill 2 (Freeze) since Poison is the source of those offensive buffs, mainly Yin ATK and CRIT ATK and R2 Yuyuko is reliant on Poison for that. On top of that, her Passives are now rid of RNG completely! While her resistance to Soul enemies goes from 35% to 50% with a 100% success rate, Passives 2 and 3 that were once not set in stone now have their success rates at 100%, and with one of them having a boost in Spirit Power, that will help with her a lot as well!

Meanwhile, R2 Youmu has some upgrades of her own to explore, some of those actually came earlier this month! Her Skills have Steps 1/2 and 2/2, but they do definitely now help more with what R2 Youmu was struggling with before, such as Spirit Power, as Skills 1 and 2 finally grant her 0.75 Spirit Power each. In addition, her selfish buffs in the form of Yang ATK, Yin ATK, Agility and Evasion also grant her an extra stage of it, while Skill 3’s previous 1 Turn durations are extended to 2 Turns! As for her Passives, she gains more damage resistance to both Slash Bullets and Soul enemies, but now her chances of taking 0 damage when her HP is at 25% or lower goes from 35% to 50%. Overall, her mistress probably has it a little better when it comes to Fantasy Rebirth 2.0 so far, but there are some good upgrades here too!

With that said, compared to present Prayers and what we know of to come later this month, like a certain Witch of Relic Dreams and the third of those poltergeist icons, it’s not going to be easy for this Prayer to stand out compared to the rest of the competition, and maybe if you want to get one/both of these two because of Fantasy Rebirth, or you just like them by all means you can still go for them if you want, but if you care a lot about having the strongest units, then you don’t need to worry about spending your cubes here.

And now for those who would like to proceed and cut into this prayer, best of luck to you all, and may the ti me be now for their arrivals to your game!