Hello everyone, /u/DefiantHermit here for another quick round of SYP with the Yuri Rate Up Banner!

Yuri

Element: Earth
Type: Sword
Role: Hit Generator

Overview:

Yuri is one of the initial Earth SSRs with a clear-cut role as a dedicated hitgen. He comes with below average HP and ATK, but also with the 4th highest DEF stat in current roster. This is a fine and expected spread for a support unit, but more HP wouldn’t hurt at all.

Yuri’s Awakening Skill is a mix of defense and offense: unrestricted 10% DEF to all allies and a 10% ATK to earth companions after 20 hits. Due to being a mixed spread, the skill doesn’t excel in any area, but both should be welcome buffs regardless. The hit count should be easily reachable with his own help and more bulk for your party is never bad.

His skillset is as hitgen as you can imagine:

First arte has an average-ish modifier and medium amount of hits, but a very fast cooldown, which helps getting some damage up for your dps on non-burst turns. The second arte has a higher modifier and a more significant amount of hits, but a decently longer cooldown to compensate. 5 turns CD is currently the highest amongst units and you definitely feel it when playing.

His Mystic Arte rounds up the package: 224% -> 230% ST 26 -> 38 Hits, costing a whopping 260 OL. The basic idea of the MA is excellent and it functions very well as a hitgen, especially if you manually time it to drop alongside his 14-hit arte, allowing Yuri to significantly ramp your DPS during burst turns.

That said, 260 OL is an extremely prohibitive cost. Off-element, you’re looking at 5 turns downtime with no external support unless you get 4 crits in a row. On-element, this is definitely better, as you guarantee a 4-turn cycle with his ascension board OL gains. Even with an MLB Genis stone, you still need to be on-element and crit-lucky to even dream of reducing this to 3 turns.

This high OL cost is Yuri’s most relevant downfall, as you might find it tricky to align his MA turns with your DPS while autoing raids, especially since the 3 turn MA threshold seems to be the popular meta for high contribution, as it aligns with the boss’ first break turn.

Regardless, the overall kit presented by Yuri is proficient at what it intends to do and he’s an excellent dedicated hitgen if you make use of him. As the game evolves, we’ll likely find ourselves running more synergistic/cooldown aligned team comps, which Yuri might have some issues in, but as of right now, he’ll do you just fine on all content available.

Elemental Context:

Yuri has direct competition in-element with S.Veigue, which I have already reviewed and compared in this SYP thread. The gist of it is that they’re both proficient at what they do and even face the same issue of high OL cost. The tradeoff is that Yuri has a ST-focused MA, while Veigue excels in multi-unit content with his AoE MA.

Off-Element Context:

There are dedicated hitgens spread out to most elements and while Yuri might still be a fine pick off-element, his high OL cost makes him more suited against Wind content due to the larger OL income. The sheer consistency of his hitgen kit is enough to warrant a spot on off-/multi-element content, but you’ll still might be pressed to use a non-dedicated hitgen simply due to elemental bonuses.

Memoria Stone:

To wrap things up, Yuri’s Memoria Stone offers 30% -> 60% Mystic Arte Damage with a Sword restriction, which is an interesting effect. MAs are shaping up to be the major form of damage burst for your DPS and a direct damage boost to that sounds great on paper. On practice, though, you still have to win the fierce competition vs CritDamage stones simply due to the sheer power of the break mechanic.

It’s currently very hard for a DPS focused stone to compete with > 90% Crit Damage boost and that’s also the case here. Just so numbers are more clearly laid out for everyone to understand:

As you can see, a Base Yuri stone is not too far off of a base 50% CritD stone, which makes if a fine substitute if you have no dedicated stones. However, compare to the free MLB Patty everyone should have at this point and you’ll see that it’s 21% less potential damage on a break turn.

Things obviously get much closer when you get a MLB Yuri stone, but I don’t think that’s a feasible comparison at this point in the game.

That said, Yuri’s stone does have the edge on non-break turns, as the MA damage boost happens regardless of a crit or not. So basically, if your MA can’t be timed to coincide with break turns but you’re still expecting to put out a lot of MAs (i.e long fight), it might be a serious consideration over CritD stones.

Even then, there’s also the possibility of using Yuri copies on Yuri itself, which is a very valid option, since it directly increases his hitcount on MA (aside from more bulk). I’d say unless you have a very clear plan to use an MLB Yuri stone, awakening the unit should be the better choice, as CritD stones are plentiful and powerful.

Should You Pull?

The answer to this is very much in line with the previous Dhaos SYP: it depends on your roster and current needs. Yuri is a great hitgen and gets significantly better if you can mitigate his high OL cost (either by running OL gen stones or by aligning his turn with your DPS). He can work decently well off-element if needed and on pretty much all content currently available.

That said, while hitgens are definitely nice, they are not entirely a necessity nor are they rare. They serve purely as a damage booster for your nukers and the role itself already has several good players in this reduced roster. If you have no available options and are not willing to use SR variants, Yuri is definitely a safe pick and will be a good addition to your roster.

It is completely fine to skip this banner as well, even if you lack good hitgen options. Yuri is a permanent pool unit and you’ll eventually grab him or other hitgens as off-banner pulls with the ridiculous “rate up” we’re seeing, right? If you do decide to pull and get Yuri, yaaaaay!