Eden Zigurrat Quasar...Edin Shugura Quasar...this NP’s katakana is a real pain to translate, let me tell you. “Shugurra” doesn’t mean anything in any language I’ve looked it up in, and I disagree with some translators decision to make it “Shukra”, a Sanskrit word unrelated to Ishtar’s lore, or the fact that the Japanese can distinguish “gu” from “ku”. I’ve actually delved into an Asyrrian dictionary over this, and I can say that if Nasu meant for it to be Asyrrian, then it’s “Sugurru”, the word for Payment for goods or services. Very fitting for Ishtar, but obviously incorrect.

So after someone who actually knows what they’re doing looked into translating it, it’s “Shugurra”, a crown associated with the goddess Inanna. That’s one problem solved.

Quasar is very simply, an excellent NP. As an AOE it is straightforward - it gets a damage buff, does the damage, then gives Ishtar a neat Extra atk special damage buff (like effective damage skill buffs) for the remainder of her chain, doubling the Extra card’s damage. And for those who may not be familiar with the Extra card damage output (as it’s not very commonly talked about), it does slightly less than a 3rd card Buster, but more than every other kind of card. If it’s a Buster/Arts/Quick Brave chain extra card, then it does much more than even a 3rd card Buster. A Buster Brave chain Extra card from Space Ishtar will do roughly four times the damage of the 3rd Buster card in the same chain.

So don’t let anyone tell you that damage bonus isn’t significant, it can often result in a 20k or so increase in damage from a brave chain, even more if Ishtar has a lot of atk up buffs.

With that out the way, the real benefits from Quasar is the fact its pre-damage steroid, a chunky 20% NP damage up, has a 3-turn duration, and this NP can, in fact, be looped.

I’ve done a pretty dumb amount of math on this subject, so I’ll cut down to the brass tacks. If you have any three (not counting 2 CE’s) of: Paracelsus, Nero Bride, Tamamo, Kaleidoscope, Lanling Wang, LB Miyu / Puchi Devil, and Ascelpius, then you can probably make a loop setup for Space Ishtar. Her ideal setup is Double Nero Bride and Paracelsus using LB Royal Icing, but she can do budget setups with Tamamo, Paracelsus, Ascelpius and a 50% gauge CE.

She’s not as good at getting a consistent loop as Archer Jeanne or Summer Mordred, but at the same time she does significantly more damage than them with her consistent setups, and has no class weakness quests that stop her.

Oh right, and speaking of damage. Ishtar has a 20% atk buff, 40% NP dmg up, and 20% Arts up for her NP, resulting in a 101.6% damage steroid for her NP turn. Or should I say, turns. On a second loop she has the same steroid (as her NP’s dmg buff lasts 3 turns), and on a third loop it’s actually higher, at 130.4%, due to the triple-stacked NP damage buffs.

As a result, Ishtar completely decimates common farming quests like doors or hands, regularly inflicting over 30k damage on class-neutral enemies, which only increases with successive loops. Compared to someone like Dantes with a Skadi looping composition, she tends to do more damage on her first 2 NP’s, but her 3rd NP gets outdone by Dantes and both Skadis popping their atk up / def downs.

I will add a disclaimer that, especially in the case of comparing Space Ishtar directly to Summer Mordred and Archer Jeanne, her higher damage doesn’t actually reach the truth of the situation, due to the number of hoops she has to jump through to have a consistent, budget setup compared to them. She still reaps her higher-damage looping if you’re willing to risk the 80% chance for her Arts up, however, but “inconsistent 3-turn” kind of defeats the point of a 3-turn.