Fate/Grand Order General

[Shiki]

28 minutes ago, MrSmokestack said:

Anyway, anybody else have analysis suggestions? I'm already doing Tamamo Cat and Emiya, so might as well pile it on.

I want to hear something about 2 Servants.

One would be Suzuka Gozen. If I'm not wrong JP had a 4* giveaway which included her with other recent 4*s (notably Lancelot and Gawain). Does she an advantage over those two or is she strictly inferior to them?

The 2nd one is more or less general; which are best budget AoE-NP wielders? Medusa and Kiyohime are widely mentioned but are there others? I kinda want to train Alexander (since I will never pull Iskandar) but he is inferior to them, isn't he? How does his damage scale compared to Medusa?

Edited November 2, 2017 by Talandar

[MrSmokestack]

@Talandar What black magic is this?

Double posts are everywhere but never have I seen a misquote like that.

[Emeraldfox]

Add Passion Lip and Nightingale too

[Time the Crestfallen]

23 minutes ago, MrSmokestack said:

@Talandar What black magic is this?

Double posts are everywhere but never have I seen a misquote like that.

I am MrSmokeStack now.

1 hour ago, Talandar said:

I want to hear something about 2 Servants.

One would be Suzuka Gozen. If I'm not wrong JP had a 4* giveaway which included her with other recent 4*s (notably Lancelot and Gawain). Does she an advantage over those two or is she strictly inferior to them?

Suzuka is better cause she's a waifu.

The only thing they really share is that they're both crit based. Lancelot is Single-Target Arts, while Suzuka is AoE Buster. Generally speaking, I'd say Lancelot is better in most situations, but it also depends on what support options you have. If you have Merlin but not Tamamo, then Suzuka is gonna be better, but Lancelot is better the other way around. So this can go either way and it depends on these factors;

-Who do you like better (obviously)?
-Arts or Buster?
-Single-Target or AoE?
-Pure damage or some utility?
-Support options

Also, both of them are strictly better than Gawain imo, but especially Suzuka since they occupy the same role in a team. No reason to use Gawain if you have Suzuka from a meta standpoint.

1 hour ago, Talandar said:

The 2nd one is more or less general; which are best budget AoE-NP wielders? Medusa and Kiyohime are widely mentioned but are there others? I kinda want to train Alexander (since I will never pull Iskandar) but he is inferior to them, isn't he? How does his damage scale compared to Medusa?

If you're only looking at the AoE NP, Medusa is better than Alexander no question. Both of them have a Stun, but Alexander has more team support whereas Medusa is more focused on herself. Alexander actually makes a pretty good support for Medusa actually, so you can use both if you want.

6 minutes ago, Emeraldfox said:

Add Passion Lip and Nightingale too

Tamamo Cat
Emiya
B.B.
Anne Bonny & Mary Read
Suzuka
Passionlip
Nightingale

Anyone else?

Edited November 2, 2017 by Archer of Red

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

Do Saberlot and Romulus plz

[MrSmokestack]

1 hour ago, Archer of Red said:

I am MrSmokeStack now.

That means you inherit my overwhelmingly positive opinion of Hans compared to Dick Wizard. Enjoy your new identity.

Can’t say whether some people might be after me or no. Just make sure you look behind you every now and then when you’re browsing late at night!

1 hour ago, Archer of Red said:

Tamamo Cat
Emiya
B.B.
Anne Bonny & Mary Read
Suzuka
Passionlip
Nightingale

Anyone else?

Even though I know she’s good, I’m going to suggest Tomoe Gozen. Can’t wait to roll for her two years from now~

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

1 minute ago, MrSmokestack said:

That means you inherit my overwhelmingly positive opinion of Hans compared to Dick Wizard. Enjoy your new identity.

Can’t say whether some people might be after me or no. Just make sure you look behind you every now and then when you’re browsing late at night!

Even though I know she’s good, I’m going to suggest Tomoe Gozen. Can’t wait to roll for her two years from now~

Did you even pull Salter yet

 

*runs

[Time the Crestfallen]

31 minutes ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

Do Saberlot and Romulus plz

29 minutes ago, MrSmokestack said:

Even though I know she’s good, I’m going to suggest Tomoe Gozen. Can’t wait to roll for her two years from now~

Tamamo Cat
Emiya
B.B.
Anne Bonny & Mary Read
Suzuka
Passionlip
Nightingale
Saberlot
ROMA
Tomoe

I'm up to 10k words of gameplay analysis. A saner man then I would have regrets. I don't though, so anyone else?

[MacLovin]

10 hours ago, Archer of Red said:

Tamamo Cat
Emiya
B.B.
Anne Bonny & Mary Read
Suzuka
Passionlip
Nightingale
Saberlot
ROMA
Tomoe

I'm up to 10k words of gameplay analysis. A saner man then I would have regrets. I don't though, so anyone else?

hector and benkei. :p

[Sire]

13 hours ago, Archer of Red said:

[Insert Servants Here]

I'm up to 10k words of gameplay analysis. A saner man then I would have regrets. I don't though, so anyone else?

Might as well toss in my requests: Georgios and Euryale.

[Shiki]

Welp, GudaGuda at the 8th of November.

It's time to farm EXP cards for Nobu.

[MrSmokestack]

38 minutes ago, Talandar said:

Welp, GudaGuda at the 8th of November.

It's time to farm EXP cards for Nobu.

That's a lot earlier than I was expecting. That's less than a week from now...

I'm really looking forward to Nobu. I've been loving all the archers in this game so far, and now there'll be more mats to ascend them and the other units for Guda point farming like Medusa.

I've heard this event is a substantial drain on golden apples, though. I think it was nearly 20+ to clear the shop and get the 1,000,000 or so points for NP5 Nobu?

[Time the Crestfallen]

11 minutes ago, MrSmokestack said:

I've heard this event is a substantial drain on golden apples, though. I think it was nearly 20+ to clear the shop and get the 1,000,000 or so points for NP5 Nobu?

I believe so, but we're coming off the Golden Apple farm that was Halloween and Honnouji Points also give Golden Apples as a reward, so I don't think it's that big of a problem.

[Emeraldfox]

Next week I'll get to ascend Elisabeth and Tamamo no Mae. Yeehaw

[Time the Crestfallen]

Well I finished my final exam, so analysis time. I'm only doing one cause I'm really fucking tired and since I'm doing it first-come-first-serve style, here's 1049 words on Tamamo Cat
 

Spoiler

Tamamo Cat is oft-maligned when compared to her more popular Caster incarnation and, generally speaking, less than stellar performance on-average as compared to the many other 4* berserkers and even a few of lower rank, notable examples of which include Kiyohime and Asterios. However, it would be foolish to dismiss her as useless and in fact, Tamamo Cat is a very good servant to have for grinding missions and mob clearing, although she has several weaknesses that can be outright crippling in prolonged battles with a single-target focus.

Her greatest strength would be her class and her AoE Noble Phantasm. If Tamamo Cat was a member of any other class, she would go from a generally mediocre pick that shines in a certain niche to completely outclassed and not worth being considered for any reason beyond an individual love for her as a servant. However, the combination of the Berserker class hitting all others for effective damage combined with an AoE Noble Phantasm makes her an excellent servant choice for clearing dailies and other grinding nodes, as well as clearing weaker mobs for story missions. Another advantage of her Noble Phantasm is the extremely high healing it provides, giving 3000 HP regeneration per turn for 3 turns at 100% charge after completing her interlude and increasing up to a completely ludicrous 7000 HP per turn at 500%. This gives Tamamo Cat the theoretical ability to heal 21000 HP with her Noble Phantasm which, while interesting to consider, generally won’t see too much use, if any, in proper gameplay. Furthermore, her Noble Phantasm being a 5-hit AoE Quick Noble Phantasm means that, on top of great damage, it gives both good star generation and NP refund. This is something that most other 4* Berserkers lack and should absolutely be considered when pondering whether or not Tamamo Cat would be an asset to your team

These aren’t her only strengths though; her Monstrous Strength B is an amazing attack steroid, granting a 30% attack increase for 2 turns, which is an amazing ability to have for both increasing Noble Phantasm damage or for completing BBBEX chains. Unfortunately however, this ability is utterly outclassed by other abilities, most notable Heracles’ Bravery A+, which grants a 31% attack increase for 3 turns as well as a significant increase to mental debuff resistance, clocking in at 42% for 3 turns. While this doesn’t seem to significant at first, many other 4* Berserkers will come out in the future with similarly powerful skills that make Tamamo Cat’s Monstrous Strength B look rather weak by comparison, with notable examples including Ibaraki Douji’s Demon Magic A and Beowulf’s Berserk A.

Another advantage of Tamamo Cat relative to other 4* Berserkers is that the combination of her having the highest HP of any 4* Berserker, Morph B and the healing of her Noble Phantasm serves to make her quite a bit more tanky than the average berserker. While she isn’t as survivable as Heracles for example, this doesn’t stop her from being a noteworthy consideration if you want a powerful AoE Noble Phantasm without having to worry as much about the risk of your servant dying before they have the chance to use it.

However, Tamamo Cat has quite a lot of weaknesses that make her an extremely ineffective choice for challenging content, such as boss battles and challenge quests. One of the most immediately notable weaknesses is that her tankiness comes entirely from an increase to defense and the healing provided by her Noble Phantasm. While this may suffice for grinding and mob clearing, in challenging content this is not enough for a Berserker class servant to survive the kind of damage one should expect from this sort of content. This leads to a rather significant falling-off as compared to Heracles, whose survivability comes from his access to Battle Continuation and a turn of evasion, which is far more useful for this particular sort of content.

Another weakness Tamamo Cat she has is the extremely poor scaling on her skills outside of her Monstrous Strength B, with her other skills capping at a 60% chance to reduce an enemy’s NP gauge by 1 and a 27% increase in defense. These skills are utter garbage in non-grinding content; a 40% chance to miss the chance to drop an enemy’s NP gauge by only 1 charge is unforgivably and, while it will suffice in grinding content, a 27% defense increase is not enough to migitate the damage that should be expected in challenging content, especially on a class that will take effective damage from every enemy in the game. This leaves Tamamo Cat in the unfortunate position of needing multiple strengthening quests before she can be considered even sub-optimal for such content.

Her other weakness, and her most crippling one, is that her Noble Phantasm carries the demerit of having a 500% chance to stun herself for 2 turns after using it. While obviously not ideal for grinding content, one can reasonably expect that most, if not all enemies, will be dead long before they have the opportunity to take advantage of it, this is an inexcusable weakness in other kinds of battle both because it prevents her from performing EX chains and because a main damage-dealer being unable to deal damage for 2 turns flies in the face of all common sense. While this weakness can be mitigated by bringing a servant capable of removing debuffs, with Martha, Medea Lily, and post-interlude Jeanne being noteworthy examples, this not only doesn’t prevent her from being unable to complete EX chains, but also necessitates the usage of a slot that could go towards a more useful ally on top of the sacrifices made by bringing Tamamo Cat instead of a more optimal damage-dealer.

In conclusion, while Tamamo Cat is an excellent unit to use for grinding and mob-clearing nodes, the combination of bad scaling on already bad skills, defensive capabilities based on healing and damage reduction rather than evasion and guts, and a 2-turn stun on an AoE Noble Phantasm makes her at best a poor choice to bring along for single-target and challenge missions, and at worst leaves her in dire need of several strengthening quests in order to bring her into line with other, more recent 4* Berserkers.

 

Edited November 3, 2017 by Archer of Red

[Emeraldfox]

Actually she has Morph B

[Time the Crestfallen]

5 hours ago, Emeraldfox said:

Actually she has Morph B

I wrote it at like, 1:30 after a night exam. Cut me some slack >_>

[MacLovin]

For the gudaguda event, there's servants with bonuses, right? I like Oda's design so I'm gonna go for her. The only event bonus servant I don't have is Emiya(and Okita), would I need to focus on building up my Cu, Ushi, Medusa, and/or Mephitopheles/Benkei?

Gonna save quartz for the Scatach event because I love that lore. I'll just use my tickets on okita and try my luck.

 

 

Man Tamamo+Hans makes every NP spammable. I love using the support Saber Alter and Gilgamesh with those two.

[MrSmokestack]

You should, since the bonuses stack. Each node in the GUDA event gives a set amount of GUDAGUDA points that can be increased based on the units in your team. Since many of them can only be done once, you will want a full team of bonus units, including a support Okita along with the 3* CE to maximize gains. The last GUDAGUDA point milestone is set at 1,500,000 points.

You'll be able to get the ascension mats for most of the bonus units during the event itself, especially Claws for Cu, so no need to grind them beforehand. Just grind EXP for Nobu.

[MacLovin]

Eh I got Medusa and Ushi at their second ascendance Waiting for the day when rider exp is farmable. Idk if it's worth investing in mephitopheles or benkei past one ascension. 

How does Oda play? I mean She's a welfare and all so she should be decent at the very least, right?

 

Getting Spartacus to first ascension. Already got him to np5 so I should have a little fun. On another note, is Darius worth using? I got him through friend point summons.

[MrSmokestack]

Medusa will be good for grinding the event because of having an AOE NP. Ushi is good too but later on.

I haven't used Meph but Benkei is worth raising if only for his taunt. His niche is being able to freeze enemy skills and NPs, though honestly Leonidas is easier to use, has multiple taunt skills, and provides damage support with Buster up on top of that.

I haven't used Darius, but as far as lower rarity berserkers go Lu Bu is the one to focus on. At NP5 he outdamages Heracles and has a similar skillset to him, with a Buster NP and a raw Atk increase on his first skill. He lacks the survivability that Heracles has though, since a Def up isn't nearly as good as having an Evade and four Guts skills. Kiyohime is good for farming I guess?

Oda is great for a welfare servant. Her first skill at Lv. 1 is the Lv. 10 equivalent of Ushi and Saber Lily's NP gain skills. Divine, while not having as much coverage as Dragon, still contains a diverse cast of units which props up her Atk, which is very respectable at her rarity. Of course, NP5 is her main draw but the bonus damage against Riding also hits a varied group of targets, though it's mostly just Sabers that she will be getting that bonus damage on.

Probably her main draw is her third skill. It synergies with her crit damage passive and it lasts three turns. Combine that with her Arts cards and NP gain skill and she can build NP pretty quickly on crits.

[MacLovin]

Oda sounds like she'd go well with Tamamo and maybe Ushi.

Ugh for the love of rngesus I cannot seem to pull Lu Bu, Caesar, or St. George from the FP summons.I'd really enjoy having more options to play with for sabers aside from 'Eon. Must be karmic backlash from getting tamamo through a ticket use.

 

I just looked through the list of servants in the JP version and I found ones I'm looking forward to (Beowulf and Fionn Mcuil, I'm a fan of their legends) and some that I'm legitimately surprised (Sherlock Holmes as a ruler? The Count of Monte Cristo? Guess it's only a matter of time before we get a Captain Nemo that's rider class or all three of the Three Musketeers.)

[MrSmokestack]

I’d actually suggest running her with stargenners instead.

This might be more niche than I’m making it out to be, but Caster Liz and Hans have the Innocent Monster skill, which when upgraded gives a flat number of stars per turn for three turns. Their naturally low crit weight and Oda’s third skill ensures that Oda will get most of the genned stars for herself.

Once Scathach comes out we’ll also be getting Fragments of 2030, a 5* CE which gives 8 crits stars per turn...every turn. This is by far the best way to gen stars for crit based strategies, and can help with genning NP or doing burst damage.

I personally used this exact strategy for the Halloween Lv. 90 node a few days ago, popping both Caster Liz and Hans IM, then using my support Gil’s Collector skill for the Sumanai wave. The crit damage alone allowed me to save Gil’s NP for the next wave.

But then again, PEMN. I suggest giving this a look though.

Edited November 4, 2017 by MrSmokestack

[MacLovin]

maaaaaan Scathach looks like someone I'd want. I'm gonna try farming quartz to try to get her.

I've got no excuse to not invest in Caster!Liz for the hell of it. I got all her ascension material AND her NP is lvl 5. I'll try veering off resources from hans and tamamo when I'm done with them towards her.

I'm considering making David my go to archer over Robin because that group heal+avoid is just too good. Or maybe I'll just run Tamamo+David+(NP Spammer) for the fun of it. 

[MrSmokestack]

David and Hood are suited to different roles, but I enjoy using both. David’s Harp is great for avoiding AOE NP’s, but Hood can hit extremely high damage numbers on his NP so long as his target is poisoned. Tamamo’s 3rd skill is great for boosting the damage on it even further.

I tend to field both. Hood usually sits in the back for a high HP boss in lengthier fights, or I will just keep him in the front with Black Grail and a Waver support to fire off his NP as quickly as possible.

David would have been perfect if his NP wasn’t Buster. It doesn’t mesh with his Arts deck and it holds him back somewhat. He does have the highest Atk out of 3* archers though.