Should You Pull? 72H Starter Festival (7 April 2023) Parts 1-3

Z1 Marisa Kirisame is all about raw firepower and a mix of elemental breaking across Star, Sun, Fire, Earth and even a bit of Water.

In Her Element

When you look at her Spell Cards, they are loaded with all kinds of elements, with Star being the most common one. You also get to see a bit of Sun, Earth, Fire and Water across her kit.

Anomaly Aftermath

The Witch of Scarlet Dreams leaves all her enemies in flames after using either Spell Card, as they will be inflicted with 1-2 Burn anomalies. And while Z1 Marisa breaking those Burn anomalies is nothing more than a scarlet dream, she may get some kind of mileage with allies that can break these anomalies.

Lack of Killers

Z1 Marisa’s firepower for a time was definitely nothing to sneeze at, and while that cannot be denied, she doesn’t have the Killers that other recent units have, which hinders her damage at times. This is especially obvious in her Last Word, and even with the little bits of Incident Resolver and Scarlet Devil Mansion Killers elsewhere, they are both uncommon in her kit and don’t have a very wide range.

Needs to be supported

Despite having Evasion and CRIT Evasion down on her second Skill, the Witch of Scarlet Dreams doesn’t give much to her teammates to work with as she is a rather selfish unit. She doesn’t provide a whole lot of buffs for herself either, and with her effects on her Skills having very low durations, she will definitely need a lot of backup to really bring out her full potential.

The tiny version of Yuyuko Saigyouji cooks up Water breaks, uses Poison and Freeze anomalies to boost her damage and is about dealing damage.

Solid access to Water Breaks

R2 Yuyuko is a solid Water breaker, and there is not much else to add on that point. While her Water breaks on her spells are the average amount of 3, her 6/6 Water Last Word more than makes up for it.

Killers and Slice

R2 Yuyuko has a frontloaded, 3-1-1 Last Word if the need to do immediate damage ever arises. Accompanied with great Slice values on the second half of her attack, as well as CRIT ATK buffs from her self-inflicted Poison anomalies, with enemies susceptible to R2 Yuyuko’s Killers (most notably Youkai), they will most likely have to take a massive beating.

Low team utility

Yuyuko's kit may be devastating in terms of damage, but that's all she is really here to do. None of her buffs on her spells or skills are partwide outside of a small Agility buff on her first skill.

Damage suffers if she needs to Graze

In longer fights, R2 Yuyuko's damage may suffer if she needs to utilize Grazing to stay alive. This is detrimental because of her Agility buffs via Grazing as well as her offensive buffs from Poison anomalies like Yin ATK and CRIT ATK, which will be lower if Yuyuko needs to give up more than one Barrier over a more challenging fight. Without any natural form of Barrier restoration, R2 Yuyuko could be in a bit of a pickle from ti me to ti me.

The Mysterious Sword Master, R8 Youmu Konpaku cuts in with high Slice scaling, a healthy mix of Yin and Yang and a mix of the Metal, Fire and Wood elements.

Slice and Dice

R8 Youmu may not have the highest base Agility Stat at 1150, but don’t let that fool you, as her constant Agility buffs and very high Slice scaling will more than make up for that. In addition, her Yin and Yang ATK stats are perfectly balanced, from their 1600 Stat totals, to their fair share of buffs across Skills, Spells and Last Word, making her one of few units able to get away with the mix of Yin and Yang.

Very good access to Metal, Fire and Wood elements

Metal, Fire and Wood features heavily on Youmu’s bullet lines, with Metal naturally being the most frequent of the 3.

Next to zero utility

R8 Youmu is all about getting her Agility, Yin ATK and Yang ATK up, all for herself. Unfortunately, this doesn’t do much for her allies, and while the vagabond in question does have the potential to break Burn and Paralyze anomalies via her first and second Spell Card respectively, it’s still overall very lacking on the support side of things.

Heavily lacking in Spirit Power, Accuracy and CRIT ATK

With no Spirit Power, Accuracy or CRIT ATK to speak of regarding R8 Youmu, she is going to struggle a lot on her own when it comes to keeping her Spirit up, connecting all her slashes, and landing critical hits. Whether it be Story Cards or help from allies, she will most definitely appreciate the helping hand in this form.

The High-Tech variant of Reimu Hakurei uses her Sun and Wood breaks, Youkai Killer, and mix of offense and defense to exterminate her foes.

Sun, Wood and Burn breaks

Shaman isn’t lacking when it comes to her breaks, as she has 3 Sun breaks on her second Spell Card and 4 Sun breaks on her Last Word. Her Wood breaks are slightly less common with only 2 on her Last Word and 3 on her first Spell Card. Finally, while not being able to break Burn anomalies by herself, if other enemies can provide the Burn anomalies on the enemies, B3 Reimu can break these at 3P on her second Spell Card or Last Word.

Great damage potential, especially with the right support

With a lot of good stuff going for her, like Youkai Killer, and both Hard and Slice scaling, B3 Reimu can really bring the hurt on a good chunk of her enemies. Already giving herself Yang ATK, Yang DEF and Agility buffs to further bolster her numbers, the power only increases with even more support and a fully charged attack.

Unyielding Shrine Maiden

Despite not even having the Defense Class, B3 Reimu still stands as a well respected tank, having a Passive effect that heals 20% of her HP every turn, having no elemental weakness, having both Yin DEF and Yang DEF covered and even being capable of soaking up damage for her allies via Focus buffs from Grazing or bullet lines on her Shots, this shrine maiden will definitely make it as hard as possible for her to go down.

Missing out on Accuracy and CRIT ATK buffs

What is holding back B3 Reimu here from eliminating threats as easily is being self-sufficient with Accuracy and CRIT ATK buffs. Accuracy helps a lot with making sure her supercharged bullets connect, with CRIT ATK making her Youkai-Killer even more effective.

This enchanting variant of Marisa Kirisame focuses on immediate damage, Star and Fire breaks, a bit of offensive team support and burning her enemies to cinders.

Incredible damage output

As expected from Ultra Festivals, Marisa is easily able to serve a damaging meal, starting off strong with 6 levels of Yang ATK UP upon using her Last Word. She can also boost her own Yang ATK and CRIT ATK/CRIT Accuracy with skills to make her damage output good on her spells. Finally, she gives heavy Accuracy buffs to herself to ensure her amazing damage is consistent.

Offensive Supporter

Not only are her Yang ATK, CRIT ATK and CRIT Accuracy buffs good, but most of them, particularly on her skills, are partywide. This is especially helpful for CRIT-focused attackers as well as helping out Yang attackers a bit.

Leaves her foes all burned up

With Spell Cards providing Burn anomalies to her enemies, and with how they will bring down Yin stats a bit, B3 Marisa is able to either make way for enemies to be subject to her allies’ potential Yin attacks, leave them open to Burn anomaly breaks, or simply swoop in with her Specular Bullets.

Damage reaches its peak early

While B3 Marisa’s initial burst of damage is bewitching, it doesn’t get much better than that sadly. On top of that, having Killers limited to Fairy, Magician and Lunar Capital isn’t very impressive either, so unless the enchanter is lucky enough to capitalize on one of those tags, it will be harder to compete with the elite ranks in damage.

Serving up a plethora of Agility and Accuracy buffs for her team, the ice-cold variant of Sakuya Izayoi dishes out Moon and Metal breaks as well as Freeze anomalies onto her enemies.

Good Moon and Metal breaks

With great access to Moon and Metal across her kit, leaning towards the former, B3 Sakuya is a very reliable breaker in terms of these elements, with the first Spell Card having 1 Metal at 0P followed by 3 Moon, and the second Spell Card with another 3 Moon, but also with 2 Metal and sealing the deal with 4 Moon and 2 Metal.

Multitude of Agility and Accuracy buffs for the team

The Servant treats her allies well with Agility and Accuracy buffs, which can be performed with her Skills and Spell Cards. With making sure her comrades have perfect aim and elegant swiftness, there are definitely merits to these buffs.

Ice Cold Maid

B3 Sakuya treats her foes with a taste of her Cold Knives, subjecting them to frostbite after her Spell Cards and/or Last Word is executed. With enemies inflicted with 1-2 layers of Freeze via Spell Cards, an enemy gifted 3 layers of it on her Last Word, and an enemy inflicted with Freeze every turn, B3 Sakuya runs circles around her shivering enemies. On top of that, if an enemy somehow survives a fully boosted Last Word from B3 Sakuya, they will be Stunned via Impact on Bullet Line 6 (unless they somehow move before B3 Sakuya).

Limited team support

B3 Sakuya doesn’t have everything a teammate would want, as she doubles down heavily on Agility and Accuracy buffs, as well as a mere 0.25 Spirit Power. With her Yang ATK buffs being selfish, allies aren’t going to be looking to her specifically for Yang ATK strengthening.

Suffers from damage limitations

Whether it be from her extremely limited Killers, or her lack of CRIT ATK buffs should she be able to take advantage of those Killers, there are definitely some setbacks maid to thwart the Servant’s mission. Only being able to capitalize on God and Lunar Capital enemies, this is a great hindrance compared to many other strong units and their more versatile Killer ranges.

The B3 version of Youmu Konpaku is all about Sun and Water breaks, leaving her foes Paralyzed, using Defense and Agility to increase her power and letting loose with her beam swords.

Sun and Water breaker

B3 Youmu's First Spell card boasts 4 Water Breaks, her second spell has 3 Sun Breaks, and her Last Word tops it off with 4 Sun and 2 Water. Being able to both spam these elements if needed and just dish them out in general makes for a very useful application for many fights.

Utterly incredible damage in both short and hard fights, both on her Last Word and Spell Cards

Both of B3 Youmu's spells increase her own Yang DEF, an attribute that is able to help increase the damage of her spells even more due to some small but useful Hard scaling. Their damage output in general is just great, especially her Last Word due to bulking up her Yang ATK by a staggering 5 levels for a single turn.

Solid teamwide buffs, including Yang DEF, Yang ATK, Agility and Accuracy support

As stated above, B3 Youmu's supportive utility is very varied and especially helpful for Yang-focused Friends. Yang DEF and ATK for the whole party comes from when she Boosts and Grazes respectively. Even more Yang DEF is given to the party through her third skill, and Agility is even given by her first skill, which can help Slice-based Friends. Finally, Accuracy is provided by her second skill to make sure everyone's damage output is more consistent.

Electrifying Gardener

The beam sword wielding warrior does a wonderful job at Paralyzing her enemies via her Spell Card and Last Word Post-ATK effects, as well as her Passive, striking a single enemy with a layer of Paralyzing every turn. This can either be used to help B3 Youmu or allies with consistent hits, or for setting up for an ally to break those anomalies up.

Struggles when it comes to Killers

A glaring weakness B3 Youmu is faced with is her weak Killer range and CRIT buffs. Without them, she ends up not reaching the heights of some other great units, as Soul and Lunar Capital cannot cover all enemies, but should an enemy have one of those 2 tags, she still needs external CRIT ATK support to truly hack and slash her enemies to pieces.

The Lunar War Variant of Reisen Udongein Inaba, is a more balanced fighter of the six Lunar War fighters; not outright excelling in one field of combat but instead doing very well in most of them. Reisen can guide everyone well in the front lines of battle.

Very good turn 1 Last Word damage

While not a front-loaded attack, B3 Reisen’s Last Word can still do heavy damage right off the bat at 2P thanks to an incredible 5 levels of Yang ATK UP upon use. She even gets 5 levels of Yang DEF UP to support the huge Hard scaling on the attack. Furthermore, she debuffs the targets' Evasion to serve as great accuracy support and hit even more bullets. With already good turn 1 damage, her setup damage only makes her stronger.

Many ways to Support her comrades

With many ways to help out her team, with varying levels of effectiveness, B3 Reisen provides the team with Yang ATK, Yin DEF, Barriers, HP healing and 0.25 Spirit Power. Not a bad mix of team benefits, but there are also ways for her to reduce Evasion of her enemies, helping with general consistency.

Moon and Earth breaks in the mix

Elemental breaks are worth taking into account with B3 Reisen, with a slight bias toward the Moon element. With 3 Moon breaks on her first Spell Card as well as 4 of these appearing on her Last Word, as well as 3 Earth breaks on her second Spell Card and 2 of them on her Last Word, you can definitely use these to your advantage should the opportunities present themselves.

Accuracy Debuffs are situational

B3 Reisen's spells and skills obsess a bit over debuffing the opponents' Accuracy. While it can definitely get you through some tight scenarios, the debuffs are definitely not as globally useful as what the rest of her kit boasts.

Mediocre Killers

B3 Reisen's Killer bullets only target Moon and Lunar Capital entities, something that not a lot of Lost Word foes can say they have. In order to optimize her CRIT damage, she will need support in the form of CRIT ATK and CRIT Accuracy.

B3 Sanae Kochiya, under the codename Oracle, wishes to successfully put her Star and Wood breaks to good use, use CRIT utility and high Slice Scaling to eviscerate the competition.

Breaking the ice with Wood and Star breaks

With 3 Star breaks appearing on both of B3 Sanae’s Spell Cards as well as 4 on her Last Word, as well as a more modest 3 Wood on her first Spell Card and 2 Wood on her Last Word, the Oracle is set to break loose with these two elements. On top of that, she can also break any Freeze anomalies that may be around via her first Spell Card and Last Word, both at 3P.

Great Slice Scaling Values

B3 Sanae's damage output is certainly great, as expected from an Ultra Festival Friend, and her high Slice scaling has a good portion to do with it. This is especially true with her Last Word’s scaling being 80%/80%/100%/125%/125%/150%.

Amazing CRIT DEF and CRIT Evasion Debuffs

B3 Sanae's spells and first skill prioritize a different type of support: CRIT support. Decreasing all of the foes' CRIT DEF and Evasion will help B3 Sanae get a little more insurance from her own critical hits, as well as help out allies with their own critical damage and Killer bullets.

Inconsistent damage output due to relying on her own CRIT Accuracy

Being especially centered about CRIT Debuffing, B3 Sanae can really hit hard with enough luck, but we can’t always rely on luck sadly. Not even the CRIT Evasion debuffing will be enough to ensure guaranteed critical hits across the board.

Middle of the road Killers

Part of the issue with CRIT Debuffing on the Oracle’s part is her limited Killer range, only hitting God and Lunar Capital. Unless the Killers connect, more often than not you’ll find inconsistencies with B3 Sanae’s bullets that connect, as some may be a critical hit, with others not doing that.

E1 Flandre’s Ultra Festival status and a newfound drive to protect her older sister goes a very long way to deal very high damage, leaving enemies in critical condition.

One of the best T1 damage caps. Setup still manages to improve her peak damage.

E1 Flandre's Last Word goes all out: debuffing every target's Yin DEF by 2 levels, increasing her own Yin ATK by 4 levels, and even raising her CRIT ATK by 2 more levels. Her CRIT rate is already high, and combined with Gensokyo Killer bullets, you will see the damage ramp up rapidly very often. It helps that two of her skills increase her Spirit P up to 2.65, allowing for access to 4 of the 6 bullet lines on her Last Word right out of the gate. Topped with her own Accuracy support, further CRIT buffs, and even more buffs from self-inflicted Freeze and Poison anomalies while setting up, E1 Flandre can end up dealing terrifyingly high damage.

Good CRIT support with some Spirit Power support to the party.

The partywide CRIT support comes specifically from her third skill, which grants 3 levels of CRIT ATK and CRIT Accuracy UP, making for a very immediate boost to any of the party's critical hits from either Killer bullets or just regular crits. E1 Flandre herself gets even more CRIT ATK and CRIT Accuracy upon applying Freezes to herself, although beware of accidentally Freezing allies that do not gain benefits from being frozen when using partywide self-Freeze inflictions. Even more support comes from her first skill, which grants the entire party 0.40 Spirit Power. While it may seem like E1 Flandre does not boast many buffs, the ones she does provide are rather helpful and the skill cooldowns are rather low to keep constant pressure up.

Decent access to both Star and Water elements.

The elemental breaks on E1 Flandre’s spell cards are very impressive. This mainly comes from her first spell and Last Word, which ironically enough share a very similar elemental spread: 3 Star on the first three lines and 3 Water on the last three. If access to these elements wasn't enough for you, then you can always go for Poison and Freeze anomaly breaks at 2P or 3P of her first spell respectively, two elements that she can easily inflict herself. With how high Flandre's damage output is, she doesn't even really need to go for Full Breaks herself, but the ability to do so only makes her better.

Low durations on buffs.

While her third skill is very good in terms of CRIT support, the buff only lasts a single turn. This is somewhat mitigated by its lower 4 turn cooldown, but it still means that you have to be more precise when optimizing damage while taking full advantage of this skill in particular.

E1 Patchouli Knowledge boasts a set of powerful tools with damage, anomalies and breaks, helping your team dish out damage while doing her own share as well.

Great Damage Output

With an immense range of killers (such as Gensokyo and Youkai) as well as powerful buffs, E1 Patchouli can dish out a great deal of damage that is sure to make all her enemies quiver.

Strong Utility

With a fair amount of anomaly inflicted upon her enemies, E1 Patchouli also provides a decent amount of Yin ATK up, Yang ATK, Yin DEF, Yang DEF, and Accuracy buffs on her skills.

Cumbersome Barrier Breaks

Ultimately, E1 Patchouli’s biggest flaw is her barrier breaks, as her lack of focus on a singular or two elements make her relatively inconsistent as a barrier breaker against multiple enemies. Despite this, she can help break barriers through the use of anomalies.

This Tiny Devil Mistress has amazing support capabilities for Yin nukers, a good amount of barrier breaks, and destroys her enemies with critical power.

Good access to both Moon and Fire breaks while able to break Poison and Freeze anomalies

Both E9 Remilia's second spell and Last Word have the potential of 3 Fire and Moon breaks, with her first spell having 2 of each instead. Her elemental breaking is already good from that, but she goes on to do well breaking-wise with Poison and Freeze anomaly breaks. With the ability to inflict many Poison anomalies with her spell pre-ATK effects, the Poison breaks on her second spell are only made better, even if they only target one foe.

One of the best Yin supporters in the game

As expected for an Ultra Festival threat, E9 Remilia can easily reach 2P on turn 1, heavily increase her preferred attack stat of Yin ATK, and sprinkle in some CRIT support for good measure. Her Last Word itself might not have the most amazing Hard scaling, but more than makes up for it with the wide-range Gensokyo Killer bullets.

Amazing Damage All Around

Outside of her Last Word's Yin ATK UP, the Yin ATK buffs that E9 Remilia can provide are partywide, making her a great team supporter, especially Yin-wise. Both her first and third skill increase Yin ATK by 2 levels, with the first skill only having a cooldown of 4, making it an amazing back-up buff in extended fights.

Poison conflicts with her role as a Yin nuker

Poison is an anomaly that decreases a target's Yang ATK and DEF stats, something that E9 Remilia never really takes advantage of in her own kit. The only Yang attacks are in her shots, and it's not like she needs to debuff the foe's Yang ATK to tank more hits. Other Friends might be thankful for the Yang DEF debuffs, especially if they don't benefit from E9 Remilia's Yin buffs, but these anomalies are likely just going to be used for barrier breaks.

The Legendary Vampire Hunter that is E1 Sakuya Izayoi aims to critically damage her enemies with maxed CRIT ATK And CRIT Accuracy, high Spirit Power gain, and abundant Sun and Metal breaks.

Amazing Power Generation

Sakuya will never be short on Spirit P, with her Spell Cards generating more of it with every use, while her skill keeps her fueled from the get go.

A good spread of elements on her Spell Cards with Sun and Metal

These two go hand in hand as Sakuya can use the power generation that she has with her skills and Spell Cards to break multiple barriers that her enemies would have. Sakuya’s 3/3 spread of Sun and Metal on both her 1st and 2nd Spell Card break multiple enemies with ease.

Last Word Has great Damage Setup

Her Last Word, while not necessarily capable of insane damage on the 1st turn, can deal some great damage with setup. With a high peak due to her Last Word’s backloaded scaling of 1-1-3, Sakuya can make use of Yang ATK buffs to pump up her damage, as her Last Word only provides her with 2 levels of Yang ATK. However, thanks to her skills and pre-effects on her Spell Cards and Last Word, CRIT buffs are easily capped.

Selfish Character With Little Utility

Ultimately, what holds Sakuya back would be her lack of utility outside of CRIT buffs. While the CRIT buffs that she provides can be really powerful in the right hands, these buffs may not impact the field as much as other buffs due to who can possibly take advantage of these buffs.

E1 Hong Meiling has the ability to incorporate both offense and defense, as she goes from hard to topple, to a Star-studded Last Word with great Killers and Hard Scaling.

Burn anomaly breaks at 2P of first spell, which also inflicts them

E1 Meiling can easily break barriers right away with her first spell by casting 2 layers of Burn to all foes upon activating the spell. This is followed up with a Burn anomaly break at 2P of the attack, giving her very easy breaks to access whenever they are required. She can even break up to 3 barriers if she inflicts more Burn anomalies during the attack, which has a 50% chance to occur.

Last Word packs a punch with Gensokyo-Killer and Hard scaling

Thanks to E1 Meiling’s high Yin DEF buffs, the Yin-only Hard scaling of her Last Word gives her a very easy way to set up and dish out devastating damage. Combined with even more Yin ATK buffs within her kit and access to Gensokyo-Killer and Youkai-Killer bullets, she can easily kick out the invaders when they are done failing to break her defenses.

Insane defensive utility for self and allies

Not only does E1 Meiling heavily buff her own defenses and increase her Barrier count on her spells and skills, but these buffs are given to allies as well! This would already help their survivability tenfold, but our fellow Gatekeeper makes sure to be a responsible tank and buffs her Focus to high levels to ensure nothing goes by her unscathed. Afterwards, she can quickly heal off any heavier hits with her second skill and go right back to defending.

Rainbow-spread of elements hinders specific elemental utility

While every single bullet line on E1 Meiling’s spells has an element on it, these elements are very “rainbow-like” and target many different weaknesses, making it challenging to truly focus on one weakness of an opponent.Thankfully, this isn’t an issue on her Last Word, having 4 Star and 2 Wood.

E1 Koakuma provides the team with a set of skills and spell cards. Entailing barrier breaks, dishing out damage, or great utility, Koakuma is sure to serve you well.

Excellent Barrier Breaks

Barrier breaks are one of the factors that our butler excels in. Coming out with an emphasis on Metal and Moon elements to offer as well as anomaly breaks, mainly Incineration (burn breaks).

Amazing Damage Output

Gensokyo and Youkai Killers cover the majority of the cast in the game in which E1 Koakuma has access to all her spell cards including her Last Word. This will guarantee critical hits against them and thus, ranks her on the high spectrum of damage potential. Additionally, she also has access to Slice and Hard scalings which further increases her damage with Agility and Defense buffs respectively.

High Utility

E1 Koakuma can inflict anomalies via spell card and skills, although she can also do so towards her team which can prove beneficial or detrimental depending on who is slotted in the party with her. The main course, however, is the fact that she is able to dispel her party’s locks. In addition, she also has the ability to consistently provide YIN ATK + YANG ATK buffs, P UP support, and healing related effects.

No Innate Source of CRIT ATK Buffs

As excellent as E1 Koakuma is, she has her own demerits as well, one of the most observable factors is how she does not have any innate source CRIT ATK buffs at all. This impedes her damage potential as she is not able to fully maximize her powerful Killers and scalings. Hence, she needs to constantly rely on external sources - story cards and her party’s buffs.

Lack of Accuracy Buffs

Another detriment to cover is the lack of innate accuracy buffs as this might result in an inconsistency on her damage values. However, this may be overlooked if she overkills the enemy anyway as she has a relatively high accuracy to begin with.