I prefer the old good Merlin more. Yes, he is probably outdated somewhere, but I like to use him. I have it in almost every team. And the fact that he is weak only against riders, and not against all cavalrymen, is a big plus for me. In addition to this, he has repeatedly helped me out. His second skill always helps when enemies have a fully charged np. He also has a very fast NP charge speed, so he can calmly heal 3000 HP. And yes, I use it on Quick and Arts servants.

Although Oberon hates Merlin but their chemistry still works greatly esp. Buster comps. Lasagna knows well that Merlin still alive despite not getting rank-ups but peeps will still want a piece of him. LA serves well for next art lineup if your Castoria is max-bonded (mine is about to lol)

True on the Pretender part. I forgot to consider that. Merlin definitely has a bit more durability due to that and thus works much better on survival teams.

Pretenders aren't weak against Cavalry defensively. Just offensively, which is irrelevant because you won't be using her as a DPS, or if for some reason you are you have 1.5X advantage over 3 classes and 2X against 2 classes (not counting beast), which is more versatile than 2X over 2 classes that Caster has. It's generally an unpopular opinion, but I really like Alter Ego and Pretender class affinity. Disregarding the card type buffs, I think LA is better in every way other than Merlin's invul CD being one turn shorter. Max HP up is better than healing, and the overcharge and other effects are just better than Merlin's.

If you ignore LA's self battery, their skills are identical. It's only Buster versus Arts.

NP wise, LA has better NP regen at higher NP levels, if you've gotten her more than once that is, but it only last for three turns instead of five.

For this reason alone I still would place Merlin slightly higher for extended fights.

Merlin has 5 turn cd invul. Proto merlin has 8. For nonmeta nonminturn teams (casual unga booga team), that cd could come in handy.

To be precise it's 7 turns Merlin against 8 turns LA, but yes.

(after reordering skills on their effect, it's 5,7,6 Merlin against 6,8,6 Lady Avalon)

Oops i completely messed up the skill order...

> other than him being a better fit for Buster teams and his HP regen with his NP.

Isn't that a natural that buster support is better for buster teams, while arts for arts teams?

> But if you compare their kits, LA is just better than Merlin.

Well, no, I don't think so... her skill effects are better, but they have longer cooldowns, which makes them to be on about the same power level. Also, while her NP is better effectwise it really lacks duration, so it might be harder to maintain it constantly.

Either way I already have both on NP5 and have the opposite problem, not because LA herself, but cause... I just don't like arts dpses as much as buster... so I probably would have a troubles with build arts teams...