Should You Pull? Tengu Paparazzi & Patrol

This banner has an increased pick-UP rate on two tengu: the crow tengu Hatate Himekaidou and the white wolf tengu Momiji Inubashiri. The former follows in another crow tengu’s footsteps and focuses on speed to release a strong All-target nuke while excelling in Accuracy support. The latter serves as a serviceable enough Yin DEF wall to protect weaker Friends. Either of them are sure to be helpful, even if insane damage isn’t their thing.

This is a General banner, meaning both Hatate and Momiji will be added to the general pool in the near future. Additionally, the banner has an ascending God Crystal Step-UP, featuring 10-pulls costing 60, 160, 260, 360, and 460, with two guaranteed friends on the final step instead of just one.

+Great Accuracy support: 3 levels for team and 2 levels of Evasion DOWN on all foes
+Heavy Agility buffs to coincide with Last Word Slicing bullets
-Mediocre Wood breaks on spells
-Selfish offensive buffer
-Rather excessive Accuracy support and unneeded on those with support already

+Plenty of Yin DEF self-buffs with quick cooldowns
+Singular target Evasion debuff
-Rather low HP for a Defense unit
-Underwhelming amount of Wood breaks
-Low Hard bullet scaling; doesn’t hit hard

It is easy to compare Hatate Himekaidou to one of her crow tengu peers, Aya Shameimaru, in many ways. Not only do they share the same race and reside around Youkai Mountain, but both of their professions lie in photography and reporting to their own news networks. Their methods, however, heavily differ. Aya brags to be the fastest in Gensokyo and uses her title to make reports at record-breaking speeds. Meanwhile, Hatate utilizes thoughtography to learn about events transpiring in faraway places and create photos and articles from the comfort of her own room. An unfortunate side effect of this ability is taking longer to write reports, meaning the Bunbunmaru Newspaper is usually more current than the Kakashi Spirit News. Nowadays Hatate usually goes out to find a scoop before Aya possibly can, even if the risk of running into her rival is always present.

Where Aya focuses on pure speed and uses it against her enemies, Hatate prefers to keep her information accurate to herself and her allies. Her first skill, Backscatter, provides 3 levels of Accuracy UP to the whole party, meaning she can allow other Friends to deal consistent damage along with her own attacks. Her first spell, Continuous Shooting: Rapid Shot, and her second skill, Kirlian Photography, both increase her own Accuracy by 6 levels, almost guaranteeing every shot will hit. Even her Last Word, Paradox of Phenomenal Judgment, contributes to accuracy by lowering all targets’ Evasion by 2 levels when the attack is boosted 3 times. It’s good to know one reporter in Gensokyo is trying to give accurate news to the people.

It also helps that Hatate has the tools to increase her own damage to make those accurate bullets hard-hitting. Skill 3, Moon (Far Side Photo), gives a direct damage boost from increasing her Yin ATK by 4 levels, perfect for her Yin-only Last Word. It also increases her Agility by 3 levels, which indirectly boosts the power of Paradox of Phenomenal Judgment thanks to Slicing bullets. Slicing bullets scale in power based on the user’s Agility, which is perfect for Hatate when she can get 8 levels of Agility UP herself from Moon (Far Side Photo), Paradox of Phenomenal Judgment itself, and Grazing due to her Character Ability to increase Agility by 1 level for each Graze. 

Although fast and strong, each of her skills come with drawbacks to decrease her defensive capabilities, specifically her Yang DEF and Evasion. Even with Focus DOWN from her second spell, Photography: Secluded Paparazzi, the danger of Hatate being caught off guard is always present. Make sure to give this tengu enough time to think up a good story, and she will serve as a very strong and supportive Friend.

All of the crow tengu seen so far were reporters; youkai seen around Youkai Mountain but usually moved all over Gensokyo to get the latest scoop. Momiji Inubashiri, by comparison, is around her mountain home more often, as she is specifically assigned to patrol the area. She makes sure that no one that seems suspicious climbs up the mountain, using her increased speed as a tengu for battle more often than the crows taking photo shoots. She is heavily bound to her duty, which perhaps explains why she decided to keep to defense in LostWord.

Defense is key throughout Momiji’s kit. She is guaranteed at least 6 levels of Yin DEF UP through skills, particularly 4 levels from her second skill, Bird of Boundaries, and 2 from her third skill, Clairvoyance. Even if the 4 levels from Bird of Boundaries only lasts for one turn, it only takes 2 turns to cooldown, meaning she can remain on the defensive very often. Her second spell, Mountain Nomad: Expellee’s Canaan, can give a further Yin DEF boost by 2 levels and potentially 1 more level with a 60% success rate. Finally, to ensure enemies try to take on her imperishable defense, Skill 1, Foliage Camouflage, lowers allies’ Focus by 3 levels and her raises her own by 4 levels, with her first spell, Dog Sign: Rabies Bite, also increasing her Focus by 2 levels while decreasing the target’s Evasion by 2 levels, with the same 60% chance of another level as Mountain Nomad: Expellee’s Canaan.

With a build focused on minimizing damage, Momiji doesn’t have many tools to maximize her own. Still, Clairvoyance gives herself 2 levels of Yin ATK UP and each Graze will increase her Yin ATK by 1 level thanks to her character ability. Additionally, she has some Hard bullets included in her Last Word, Thousand Wolves, meaning damage is scaled based on her own defense. Sadly this only applies as a 20% boost based on her Defense stats on her fourth and fifth line of bullets, with the fourth line relying on her Yang DEF, which she has no way of increasing herself. This makes any Yang-based opponents dangerous, and her low HP can make the increased damage from raising her Focus more challenging to survive.

Still, Momiji is a decent pick for any battles focused on Yin-focused enemies, as she can remove the attention from other Friends and keep the damage low. Take advantage of her time away from working on Youkai Mountain and use her defenses to the fullest.