Saya thoughts and opinions
Hello Flame from discord or however other people making guides greet here. After reading her kit, i've tried to be one of the cool kids and do an analysis of the hot girl from the popular visual novel Saya no Uta. But because Ryoko Tanbo is not added i had to switch my mind and write about Saya.
Part 1: The stats
Saya has lower than average stats, all of them being around 100. The most important stat here is her con, being also a bit low for a limited unit. Account level will help since its more hp.
Her base aliemus is 200. We'll see how that matters when reading her kit and wod.
Her secondary stats are i think (because BIVA screwed something up, but idk if the names or the icons) Sigil Yield and EITHER Death Resistance or Realm Mastery. Because she is sigil yield she's going to be a warden. If you don't believe me look at all the other sigil yield characters.
Part 2: The passives
JP CARO WOOHOO, ARE YOU EXITED? IF YOU ARE RAISE YOUR HAND AND KEEP IT THERE WHILE I LOAD MY SHOTGUN! Ok I don't mind this specifically, but what i am afraid is the possibility of every unit releasing from now on with these types of realms. I think they are fine for some units but not everyone.
Anyway Propagation: Caro. Embryo Fusion is basically doubled, but you now the bar is doubled which doesn't change passive gain, but every caro before this now have their charging capabilities lowered except for 1 but that's for later.
the embryo no longer gives crit stats. Nothing was changed. Now the important aspect, the first devour no longer gives shield and temp strength. This can be a bit bad for caro, since the shield was a powerful survival tool but now (as i expected) whenever a caro awakener devours first time in a turn an embryo, everything about their exalt is multiplied by 40%. Unlike pickman which is just dmg, shield and heal, this goes for str gain, str down, poison and counter(idk about alert so Agrippa stay tunned). Also 10% more max HP.
Crimson furnace is... i don't know if the maximum capacity is increased, how much you can gain now or all that, but you also no longer gain that at turn end so not much point in keeping embryos in your hand at battle end. Or so i think, it wasn't explained what happens to embryos in your hand at turn end. Gonna need to get an answer for that. Also 3 turn cooldown whatever. On usage, the furnace will also apply corrosion on the enemies depending on how full it is. from 1% equal to their max HP to 2%. If you finished arc 2 ch 5, you might like the idea of 2% of someone's max hp. Which basically means 6% of their hp.
Another important aspect, is that all awakeners (not just caro ones) gain 20 stacks of frenzy at every turn start. Frenzy is the thing that boosts exalt, so a caro character will end up doing 60% more with their exalt once per turn. Realm Mastery now gives 0.05 frenzy for every 1 realm mastery you have. Effect is doubled in pure and mono caro. With 100RM all your awakeners will do an additional 10%. Again caro characters will be getting 70% more from their exalts.
Now to her Soulforge. The passive gives the selected awakener 40 stacks of her exalt thing, which will make them do an additional 40% more on their exalt. So a caro character will have their exalt buffed up to 110%. Better use her with Aigis, right guys? She will inflict more corrosion on caro enemies and after exalt the next posse is played 2 times. Monochaos crying in the corner right now.
Part 3: The kit
Strike and Defense. Nothing special, at E2 they will give 15 embryo, up to 30. You can keep them or sell them.
Skill 1: Genetic Copy. +40 embryo fusion up to 80 depending on your hp and gain 1 stack of Gynoecium. 2 cost card that doesn't really do much. Worth using for the Gynoecium.
Skill 2: Viscera Blossoms. 0 cost, lose 10% of your hp, inflict corrosion on all enemies. Discards your hand and draws the same number of cards. Crazy people might use saya as a discard character who knows, but not me, i like playing good teams, like Lotan, Doll, Ramona and Ogier. Has retain.
Rouse: 3 Cost rouse, gives saya 50% of her base aliemus, this means she gets up to 100 from it. After using furnace, every card that does not have destroy, in your hand, draw and discard pile will get Perception Warp. This makes the cards disoluted, which hides their text, and makes them cost either more or less. Every first 3 cards played each turn with this effect give both saya and the awakener that owns that card 20 aliemus. VERY high risk high reward rouse. Pray to whatever religion you believe you wont screw up by playing a 3 cost strike. This effect is lost after the card is played or discarded.
Exalt: "This truly was a Saya no Uta". Gain big shield, selects 1 awakener that's not her and adds 1 base copies of their skills to draw and discard pile. Consumes all Gynoecium stacks, and for every stack consumed set the arithmetica cost of the copied cards to 0. On devour 2 random strike/defense cards get their arithmetica cost set to 0 and will take effect 1 more time. At e3, after this exalt, for every X Gynoecium consumed, the next Viscera Blossoms draws X more cards. Her first enlightment increases the base shield of this exalt and the corrosion she inflicts the more Sigil Yield she has. The Shield will also be way more than you think, don't forget the gimmick of PCaro.
Overexalt: The cards created by Saya take effect 2 times.
Absolute Axion: When you use the Furnace saya gains 50 aliemus.
Another case of a character who's kit is... kinda complete at e0. Her overexalt is probably not worth trying to charge, and her Absolute Axiom is for the fans who wouldn't mind throwing every single pull they have.
Part 4: Her Wheel of Destiny
Sigil Yield WOD. +1 ARITHMETICA LIMIT! This is really good and you know it. For every 10 base aliemus the user has, they inflict more corrosion and embryo fusion is increased. Wording is weird and i'm not sure i fully get what its supposed to mean. BUT +1 ARITHMETICA LIMIT, SO WHO CARES.
Part 5: The Thoughts
Like 80% of everything I've written is me talking about her kit and now i actually talk about my opinion on her. Wow i'm bad at this.
Saya is a support that will shield sometimes and enhance the already existing gimmick of PCaro. PCaro is based around exalting, since everything(or almost) is enhanced to do like double what they would normally do. This is good because it results in us having 2 clearly different caro type teams. Card based ones with thais in them, and exalt based ones who abuse the exalt enhance. Now for the caro characters who will make use of Frenzy the most according to me:
1# Leigh - Yes i am the biggest Leigh glazer. But in a saya team HP will matter, and with the buffs she has + the buffs from the realm, not only is she going to be the best healer in the game in caro, but her strength generation will also be no laughing matter from her exalt.
2# uh... Any caro exalt DPS - Yeah, Sorel, Doresain, Uvhash will do more damage when the realm gimmick becomes them doing more damage. I do think that for sorel it will be harder for her with the embryo limitation. Now what I will do is test Uvhash. Maybe he is saved. Or not.
3# Thais - This is SO weird right? It is. But its not because of thais kit, its because of her E3. It increases passive embryo fusion something which might or might not be important in a saya team. And she still has the big embryo nukes with her 2 cost.
4# Vortice Jumpscare - Saya can give vortice 0 cost strikes and defenses, add copies of her cards and i can not stress this enough, make her exalt deal ABSURD damage. you know what's worse? Vortice will just shit out 100+ realm mastery every exalt, making the caro gimmick stronger even in a realm not pure. And lets not forget, with saya in the team after her exalt, the next posse takes palce 2 times so uh... 2 pursuits every once in a while. Its not bad.
This concludes my thoughts on Saya. This is a long post and i have doubts many people will read all of it.