Rabbit's Reviews #62: Nursery Rhyme (4* Caster)

Nursery Rhyme (4* Caster)

https://i.imgur.com/Xvw84sc.png

As an Arts crit servant, Rhyme has a reputation for being a pretty good offensive Caster—a reputation she more-or-less deserves, albeit partially because offensive Casters tend to be underwhelming as a whole. Rhyme is, unfortunately, an AoE servant, but with enough stars to crit regularly she can safely spam her NP, which makes her a pretty solid choice, especially relative to the other SR Casters.

Stats:
ATK: 8629
HP: 11882
Attribute: Man
Growth Curve: Linear
Star Absorption: 50
Star Generation: 10.8%
NP Charge ATK: 0.54%
NP Charge DEF: 3%
Death Resist: 36%
Traits: Female, Humanoid, Servant, Weak to Enuma Elish

Cards: QAAAB
Q: 3-hit
A: 3-hit
B: 1-hit
E: 3-hit

Active Skills:
Self-Modification A (Self crit damage up 20-50% for 3 turns, Self star weight up 300-600% for 3 turns, 7 turn cooldown)
Morph A+ (Self defense up 10-30% for 3 turns, Self defense up an additional 30% for 1 turn, Self debuff resistance up 20-40% for 3 turns, 7 turn cooldown)
Once Upon a Time A (Self charge NP gauge 20-40%, Self recover 1000-2000 HP, Self debuff clear, 8 turn cooldown)

Passive Skills:
Territory Creation A (Self Arts card performance up 10%)

Noble Phantasm:
Nursery Rhyme
Type: Arts
Hit-Count: 3
Effects:
-Deals 450%* (600%* post-Interlude) damage to all enemies
-Reduce the defense of all enemies by 20% for 3 turns
-60%** chance to reduce enemies’ NP gauge by 1
*Scales with level
**Scales with overcharge

Total Ascension Materials:
-Caster Piece x14
-Caster Monument x14
-Seed of Yggdrassil x8
-Forbidden Page x12
-Ghost Lantern x8
-Phoenix Feather x8

Total Skill Materials (per skill):
-Gem of Caster x14
-Magic Gem of Caster x14
-Secret Gem of Caster x14
-Ghost Lantern x12
-Seed of Yggdrassil x15
-Homunculus Baby x20
-Phoenix Feather x16
-Crystallized Lore x1

Rhyme has fairly high attack for a 4* Caster, losing out only to Nitocris and Marie. She has the highest Caster NP gain—supplemented by an A-rank territory creation—tied with Nitocris. Nito’s hit-count spread means she has marginally better NP gain overall, but Rhyme should be critting more often, which more than makes up the difference.

Rhyme takes both pages and feathers, which can cause problems, as both are highly in-demand materials. Outside of that, though, her material requirements aren’t too bad.

Rhyme has a selfish skillset with a good balance of offense and defense.
-If Self-Modification looks familiar, it’s because Nobu has a functionally identical skill. Star weight boost and crit damage boost are a great pair of statuses. Three-turn star weight boosts aren’t usually my favorite as they’re less controlled than their one-turn cousins, but (as I wrote in Nobu’s review) the crit damage boost means Rhyme is probably the one you’ll want attacking all three anyway, so her stealing stars from the rest of the team isn’t as much of a concern as it might otherwise be. The biggest advantage of this skill, though, is that the star weight boost can allow Rhyme to crit regularly on her Arts cards and spam her NP.
-Generally speaking, Morph is just kind of okay as a skill, but a 60% defense boost for a turn is nothing to sneeze at. This boosts Rhyme’s overall survivability quite a bit, though you’ll still probably need a tank on the team to protect her from stray Noble Phantasms.
-Once Upon a Time is not particularly powerful as NP charge skills go—particularly relative to other Casters—though it comes with a small self-heal, which adds to Rhyme’s survivability, and it has a self-debuff clear to ensure Rhyme is able to hit for full damage when she wants to NP.

Rhyme’s NP is an AoE Arts NP, so it doesn’t hit particularly hard. It does have two nice effects tacked-on to it, though, both of which are even better given the NP’s potential spammability. The first effect is a pretty standard AoE defense down, which can be good if you’re able to use Rhyme’s NP again within the next few turns to take advantage of the extra damage and to prolong the effect, and the other effect is a chance to drain the enemy’s NP gauge, which is helpful when running Rhyme on stall teams.

Usage Tips:

Rhyme is an Arts crit servant who works especially well as a damage-dealer in stall teams. She provides a fair degree of survivability to herself and also helps the team by delaying enemy NPs. Paired with Jeanne, it should be pretty easy to ensure you’re never hit by an enemy NP without invincibility up. Running Rhyme with some combination of Jeanne, Waver, Tamamo, and Mash is probably ideal. You definitely want a pair of 2030s on the team, though, to make sure Rhyme can crit regularly.

Formal Craft is a great choice for CE here, boosting Rhyme’s damage and her NP gain. You could also go with something that just boosts NP gain in order to maximize her NP spammage and her stall potential.

Grail Potential:

Casters in general aren’t great choices for grails. Rhyme is a good offensive Caster, though, so giving her two grails could be helpful for Assassin-slaying, especially if you aren’t interested in Caster Gil or any of the offensive SSR Casters.

In Conclusion:

Rhyme isn’t the best servant out there, and her NP suffers doubly from being AoE and from Rhyme having no way to boost it. That said, she’s a good option for Arts stall teams, and she can be a good damage-dealer against Assassins.

Rabbit’s Arbitrary Ratings:

Overall: 7/10
Single-Target DPS: 6/10
AoE DPS: 6/10
Survivability: 7/10
Offensive Utility: 4/10
Defensive Utility: 4/10
Literary Nonsense: 10/10

She seems like a weird caster, given her self attack skills and aoe NP. She has one of the best April fools arts though.

I just finished her week in Extra, and I've got to say that she did not leave a good impression. Not someone I plan on pulling for.

Taking a quick look again at Rhyme i must say i actually like how her kit looks

Her art focus make her NP gen super good which work towards spamming that def down which also delays NP which is quite an impressive NP all things considered. The fact that her NP is arts enables easier access to Arts Chain

I weirdly enjoy Morph because i had an MLB Knights Pride heh

how does she compare to Halloween liz? the only other offensive caster we got

Squidkids posted...

how does she compare to Halloween liz? the only other offensive caster we got

Liz main value is actually her first skill and its the very thing that make Nursery Rhyme worth it even for F2P unless you have raised Hans and bump up his first and third skill. You take a support with 2030. Pop Innocent Monster EX and thats 20 stars for 3/5 turns

Activate Self Modification and watch Nursery Rhyme crit things

The area where Liz completely lose is her NP is terrible whereas Rhyme NP is passable(even if its lower on damage) but Liz lack of Self Mod secures it for Rhyme

also Medea :(

Cuteness: 10/10

FYI, I'll probably write Jack's review tomorrow so it's ready for the Christmas banner. After that I'll do Santa Alter and then move on to the Salem servants, assuming the datamine's out by then.

SHE’S CUTE BEYOND REASON!!!! She looks like a tiny little cupcake! I’m definitely rolling for her!