Club: Fate/Grand Order Club

Editing this post as I go re 7th Anniversary pulls:
1. Arcueid in under 300 SQ. Also spooked NP3 Karna, NP5 Nightingale
2. Xu Fu NP5 in the same Arcueid roll, and also MLB'd the 5 star limited CE
3. GSSR banner chose Berserker, got 1x Summer Musashi + 1x Morgan
4. Build your own GSSR, got Summer Okita Alter
5. Got Zhang Jue from NP2 to NP5
6. Nothing from 40 tickets
7. 600 more SQ later, did not get Arcueid to NP2
8. At the 700 SQ mark, got NP2 Arcueid, so still better than pity rate! Just not "ideal"
9. At the 1,000 SQ mark, no more Arceuid, probably time to stop now and save resources for the other banners before trying again (Proto Merlin, Summer Ibuki, Summer Skadi)

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Today's damage: 800-ish SQ + 17 tickets for 1 Arcueid, a grand total of 4 SR Servants, thankfully NP5 Xu Fu, and a feeling of defeat most miserable. I want to cry. In retrospect, I really should have settled for 1 copy and stopped after that rainbow spin of happiness 210 SQ in... But it is what it is, and we live with the choices we make.

I intend do some follow up rolls at some point - the summer banners, despite all of their practical usefulness, are of little interest to me, and getting another copy of Arcueid is much more worthwhile. Unfortunately, the banner ends 2 days before my birthday so I will not be able to make that follow up part of the celebration. Oh well. Anyway, I hope I can get her to NP2 still. I had had NP1 Arcueid on JP for a year, and I had brought her to bond 13 in that time due to bringing her to basically every fight until I would hit a wall, usually at lv90 or lv90+ event nodes. Playing her was great even back then but I cannot deny that the damage output cap was limiting, and after getting a taste of her at NP2 lv120 since the following year's GSSR I would rather skip straight to that on NA...


Congrats! And I hope good luck stays with you for the other games as well.

The impossible happened: I have NP2 Archetype Earth.

So, that means I blew my luck for DBZ Dokkan Battle's 9th Anniversary and getting Summer Rosanna at Nikke.

She is a decent Arts looper with a good special damage Overcharge (anti-evil) and some party utility. If her first skill were targettable or had better numbers she could have been a decent support option, too, but with just a 30%/10% battery it falls behind the competition.

At the same time, she is unfortunately a Rider class Arts looper, which means we need to look for reasons to bring her over the basically guaranteed NP5 Habetrot and, in the future, the free NP5 Santa Nemo as well. With that in mind, I would not roll for her just for gameplay purposes. I love her design, personality, and voiceover, though, so I am quite happy to have her anyway and will likely use her whenever there is an opportunity to.

Congrats! Am I to take it then that Bakin is otherwise not worth rolling from a gameplay perspective? So far, I haven't rolled.

While watching Myst suffer a bit I have decided to do my token multi for some event CEs...

Emboldened by that unexpected twist I have tried my luck again.

What can I even say to that? Task failed successfully. 😂

Edit: I have rolled again after getting a Great Success while leveling Bakin. I now have one copy each of the 4* and 5* event CEs. Yay~ I feel like Murphy is breathing down my neck now... Let's hope that is just the evening breeze.

Roland is quite underappreciated, in my opinion. He has better survivability than most Servants and excellent offense, consistent damage output thanks to his low CD skill 3 and NP Overcharge, great CQ utility (self debuff cleanse, AoE buff removal, Invulnerability Pierce), and great looping specs. His NP Overcharge is unexpectedly strong, especially for a 4* Servant, for both looping and longer battles. Neither Koyanskaya of Light nor Oberon give Attack buffs so it is the most undiluted damage amplifier a Buster Servant can have. The combination of Attack and critical damage is also excellent for CQs as it allows him to maintain considerable damage output even during downtime on skill effects. His battery being split between two skills also grants some flexibility on when to top him up, which can be useful in longer battles. His biggest shortcoming, in my opinion, is his middling NP gain, though that is alleviated somewhat by frequent crits.

All in all, I believe Roland is the best ST Buster Saber in the game for most situations and will remain such until the Samurai Remnant collab gives us Iori.

Edit: ...Aside from Musashi. [DATA LOST], indeed, as I keep forgetting about her. Anyway, she has much worse downtime but better peak performance. Roland's CQ tools are better than hers (Musashi's buff removal is single target and only applies after NP damage, her Invulnerability Pierce has a much worse uptime, and Roland's defenses are harder to penetrate) but she will probably outperform him in CQs anyway thanks to her upgraded first skill. His looping specs are better but her NP is upgraded and she has better Oberon compatibility due to having an NP damage buff, which boosts her turn 3 damage significantly. He needs NP2 to outperform a NP1 Musashi on turn 3, NP4 to outperform a NP2 Musashi, and falls only slightly behind a NP3 Musashi at NP5. Considering we are comparing a standard banner SR to a limited SSR with an upgraded NP, I dare say that should be considered high praise.


That is good to hear.

Here are some updated observations on Aoko to add to the pile:
- Rather than her AoE cards being mediocre due to her shortchanged NP scaling, they are just plain mediocre. The halved damage really hurts her performance with them.
- Related to the above, I have mentioned previously that she favours colour agnostic buffs due to distributed damage. I would like to amend that - unless you are running her solo, the majority of her damage will come from her NP so it is best to focus on Arts buffs after all. When she is on a team, it is much easier to spam her NP than to spam her Extra Attack, and buffing her NP is both easier and more effective due to its much higher base damage modifier compared to her Buster and Extra cards.
- Her Extra Attack eating all of her bullets can be a problem in the above scenario since you want to save those for her NP. It may be best to avoid using it outside of NP turns.
- If you are running her with a crit damage focus (i.e., a Clytie + Koyanskaya/Merlin team), it is straight up better to avoid transforming unless you are facing 3 enemies.
- Her Super form's third skill is actually very good in single core setups. I have just been missing the obvious - that some supports' NPs are really damn good and usually harder to refill than your main damage dealer's. It is basically an acceleration button to reduce your supports' downtime without sacrificing damage output from Aoko's face cards.

Overall, my impression of her has improved in these few days. I stand by my opinion about farming with her - it's clunky and not advised unless you are willing to run an Arash/Habetrot/etc. to clear the first wave, then have Super Aoko take care of the other two. In longer battles, she is an excellent option as a damage dealer on an Arts stall team, offering a significant improvement in offense over most alternatives without compromising the safety and stability of the approach. In particular, running her with Tamamo is amusing as her skill 3 does a lot of the same things as Tamamo's NP so you have Aoko feeding her NP gauge into Tamamo who feeds it back into Aoko, all the while reducing each other's skill cooldowns.


Fate/Zero flashbacks intensify...

Also, I have found a new reason to be annoyed with Edison - Hero's Proofs. He needs 132 of the things, and that is one hell I've been walking into too many times already...


Uhh... I would love to tell you but I still ST farm with Vlad. I have only opted to use other ST Servants during events featuring both the character and a viable ST farming node to use them in. Of those, I remember using Roland in this year's CBC, Saika in the GudaGuda raids (which, btw, is not viable at all on the highest difficulty), and Berserker Artoria Caster in last year's Summer Festival. Kriemhild has a bonus in Wandjina's World Tour, and from what I recall she should clear the 90++ node without much trouble. Here is a sample run with a Grailed one:

At an estimate, NP3 should have enough damage on turn 1 even without the Grails.

She also gets a solo rate up during that time alongside Wandjina herself. It is probably the best time to get more copies of her if you decide to try, and you won't even be risking a Brynhild being dropped into your lap along the way.


Congrats on both.

My recommendation would be to wait until one of her solo rate ups if you want additional copies. I will also point out that Kriemhild will be available as a free pick during the 3000 days anniversary campaign, which should happen in September 2025 for NA.

I've just rolled 10 more tickets, on ticket 3 I pulled NP3 Charlie before on ticket 4 finally pulling NP3 Kriemhild. She's proving quite elusive.

The analysis on Aoko and Alice is very helpful. I've bumped Alice up a few places on the priority list as a result.

Circle walking is the curse of any evil priest FGO fan! Agree with the logic on Edison, that plugged in CDR and OC is high on utility.

The Blackbeard comment is on point. Just waiting for Bartholomew and his annoying covered eye fetish comments to get less annoying...

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Is NP2 Kriemhild sufficient to clear most nodes? As a story locked character, I'm looking at her future banners and there's not that many.

Answering this: only NP2 Roland so minimal "waste". Is he any good? I had edited in a question on him much later after.

Still reading the rest and will come back to it.

One thing that is worth mentioning, I feel, is that Chloe's most often brought up usecase as a battery provider in Buster teams is also the most problematic due to the rigidness of their composition, requiring 3 SSR supports. If you are using her instead as, say, an additional damage booster for an Arts team that needs no extra battery, both the party cost and the extra steps become much less of an issue.

Regarding Kukulkan, it is not the case that she has dropped off any - she remains arguably the strongest AoE character in the game, and from what I know her usage has not diminished much. Yes, the additional taps/clicks make her fall a bit behind the other contenders in ease of use. However, this only matters in farming, where the endless, mind-numbing repetition favours ease of use (in addition to the previously mentioned time and wrist strain, each extra tap/click is extra room for error, which is always annoying), and even then her sheer power does a lot to compensate for it in light of the rising damage thresholds for optimal farming nodes. In my case specifically, it is not the case that she has dropped off, either; rather, she has simply never taken off to begin with - outside of the flavour of clearing LB7 with her help I have never found sufficient reason to bring her over other characters I am more fond of. Looking back on it, I feel I should have emphasized the Arcueid comparison more - my Kukulkan is NP1 lv90, whereas Arcueid is NP2, level 120, 2k Fou'd, and max Fou pawed. My Melusine is all of that, too, but also NP3. Because of this, they win over her in both ease of use and firepower. So, yeah, my dedication to my favourites thus negates Kukulkan's greatest appeal. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


Congrats! Both are great characters. ...Though I still ST farm with Vlad. Alas, I cannot afford to make any rolls here with Arcueid on the horizon so I'll have to be content with just having them on JP.

...Out of curiosity, how many Rolands have you gotten, if any?


Reading Rabbit's reviews is a frustrating experience at times. He can make all the same observations and point out the same details about a Servant as I do, having me nod along most of the way through, only to then finish them with a baffling conclusion almost opposite to my own, which frustrates me to no end. This largely stems from his tendencies to confine Servants to predefined boxes/roles (point in case: classifying Aoko as "a mid-range Arts farmer") and overemphasize comparisons (i.e., "Summer Melusine does not stand out because Summer Ibuki exists", even though their roles outside of farming don't even overlap). Though, then again, it is not like I am bereft of preconceived notions of my own so I probably should not be casting stones...

...Anyway, Aoko. Aoko is a large part of the reason I have not gotten around posting the promised continuation of my previous post. I have gotten lucky, immediately getting her on my first multi, and thought to include her but she is not easy to write about. The polarized views are perfectly understandable as depending on the circumstances she can land anywhere on that spectrum. Evaluating her from a gameplay perspective is tough. That aside, her aesthetics are great, definitely.

One thing I can say with confidence, though - her NP scaling pisses me off. Most NP effects that cap at a 50% value start from 30% at NP1 (Super Orion's Attack buff, Reines' and Waver's Defense down, etc.). In her case, the starting value is 20% for no good reason of tempting people into rolling for more copies. At NP1 her AoE face cards, which are a significant part of her appeal, are mediocre.

Other observations:
- She really wants her first append for the Extra Attack damage buff, possibly more so than her second append, even. Her AoE face cards have nerfed damage modifiers, in line with the difference between ST and AoE NPs. This also pisses me off as NP5 + maxed skill 3 just puts her back to where she should be, imo.
- That said, even with the nerfed damage output using her AoE cards feels very satisfying. Her Buster, in particular, is great because it breaks her action chain, allowing to move on to a new target with the following attack instead of overkilling.
- Using her as a single core Arts looper is a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad idea.
- Her Super form's skill 3 is basically dead weight for that purpose so you want to use skill 3 before transforming for the Arts buff... but that has a 3 turn duration so its effect will expire before the final wave. You cannot use her super form's skill 3 to double down on your supports' buffs, either, at least not in a typical setup as 2 of Castoria's skills have a 6 turn cooldown.
- Since her Super form's skill 1 has a 30% Arts buff you want to use it as soon as you go Super. At the same time, that means wasting the 6 bullets on the first wave, and you often really want the extra oomph on the final wave, especially if you are running her with no starting charge as skills you use on turn 1 to gain charge will expire before the final wave.
- In longer battles, on the other hand, she is quite great and can be a lot of fun despite the contradictory deck. She is very obviously designed with challenging content in mind rather than farming.
- Having 2 separate skill sets gives her a lot of flexibility at the start of battle. No other Servant has this many options on how to approach the fight.
- Because of her divided damage options (3 Arts cards + Arts NP versus strong self-buffs for her lone Buster card and Extra attack) she benefits more from colour agnostic buffs (attack, crit damage) than colour specific ones.
- Personally, I have used her the most as a flex pick support rather than as a primary damage dealer. 30% rainbow buff, 30% crit damage, and 2k HP regen for 3 turns, 20 stars on demand every other turn, 10 stars and 20% NP gauge per turn... Why even transform? It's quite a solid amount of buffs for challenge quests. The only downside is that her skill 2 effects require her to stay on the field so you cannot shuffle her out.
- Protagonist Correction is a fun gimmick. (Assassin) Okita-san Daishouri~!
- Some people swear by her Super form's skill 3 in multicore setups but I have not found much use for it so far. It feels like too much effort for too little payoff even with the 50% battery. One
notable exception is when her teammates have skills with a 5 turn CD, in which case the CD reduction allows to double down on their buffs on turn 3; if you are running a double Aoko setup, this extends to any skills with up to 7 turn CD. In a way, it is similar to Aesc's third skill - it works wonders when it works but making it work is a hassle and requires strong Servants to pair her up with. In other words, it's whale bait the value of this application rises the more developed your roster is as more team compositions will meet the damage thresholds for these setups to work.

I still cannot give a straight answer on whether she is a good Servant or not from a purely mechanical standpoint. But I can definitely say that I am having fun figuring that out.

Moving on to Alice...

...

...I finally have my pick of a Caster to Grail to 100. I love everything about her. If Aoko's aesthetics are through the roof then Alice's undoubtedly reach escape velocity and fly me to the oil of the moon. Her outfits are tasteful and practical, things I can easily imagine a woman wearing in real life, yet also elaborate and memorable. Her attacks, especially in third ascension, are up there next to Arcueid's third ascension in flashiness but at the same time they feel more natural (the extraneous flourish of Arcueid's own movements during her attacks is a bit forced, imo). Her NP animations may be the tamest part of her visuals, ironically, though admittedly at least part of that impression is because I can't help but keep comparing Flat Snark to its rendition in the VN, which is probably unfair to Lasengle... Wandersnatch is unexceptional in terms of animation but solid direction and Hanazawa Kana's stellar execution of the voicelines elevate it to one of the best NPs in the game for me. Speaking of voiceover, though, Hanazawa Kana leaves me in awe once more; her performance here is immaculate.

Mechanics wise, she is one of the strongest Quick Servants in the game, especially for challenging content. She has outstanding survivability. An unremovable, unpierceable invulnerability on a 2 turn cooldown can be a game-changer by itself. Combined with AoE Terror on her very spammable NP, it can render her almost invincible in any fight where enemies do not have debuff immunity. Her Folklore Defense is also very strong for battles that prominently feature DoTs as it gives a 400 damage cut per instance of an ailment. Most enemy DoTs deal either 500 or 1000 damage, the real issue being the sheer number of them being inflicted, and Alice reduces that to 100 or 600 damage per debuff; that is a lot of mitigation. Offensively, her 2 Arts cards have 3.57% NP gain when her skill 1 is up. Usually, when a Quick Servant has high hit count Arts cards it means their Quick cards have awful NP gain but in Alice's case, it just means her Arts cards are out of this world. Bringing her to a longer battle where she gets to use those face cards is a joy. In fact, due to the sheer power of her Arts cards her best team outside of looping is Castoria + Caster Skadi. (She has just one Buster card so she gets less mileage from Ruler Skadi's crit buffs, and Caster Skadi's NP is arguably the third best support NP in the game after Castoria's and Reines'.)

Her looping is a bit tight even with triple Skadi if you want to run a Black Grail on her, which is unfortunate, especially since I do not have a Ruler Skadi of my own. Oh well; I'll have to figure something out with an additional swap in and/or Chloe, perhaps. I really want to bring Alice everywhere I can right now so the extra steps most certainly feel worth it.

Also, hot take: the worst part about Quick is its poor reputation. In a post Ruler Skadi climate, Quick looping is in no way worse than Buster looping on nodes with standard 3/3/x enemy waves. In many cases, it is outright better due to higher turn 1 and 2 damage. What makes it worse in practice is that most people always remember to update the CEs on their Koyanskaya of Light and Oberon but finding a Ruler Skadi with an event CE is an exercise in futility.

And finally, Soujuuro is indeed pretty cool. Alas, I do not see myself using him much for the same reason I have never used Arash much - having my characters repeatedly sacrifice themselves on farming runs does not feel right.

P.S. The late continuation of my previous post... Turns out I had less left to say than I had thought.


I have recently started using both of them on JP (OC2 basically demands you use Avengers for everything), and Nitocris Alter has some neat advantages over Space Ishtar, such as having an easier time with nonstandard waves thanks to her 100% battery. Space Ishtar's main advantage, meanwhile, is the ramp up effect on her NP, giving her much higher damage output on turn 3. I feel like if Nitocris' Overcharge had a 3 turn duration she would be a straight up upgrade to other AoE Arts Avengers, at least for looping purposes. As is, though, she is still a solid sidegrade.


500% stun on a spammable NP is silly. In Plushie Mistress' words, the enemy can consider themselves lucky if they don't die before they get to move. Whoever has decided this is a good idea... needs to get a pay raise, because it is.


Arguably the best SR in the game. (Cnoc na Riabh would be her peer if not for the teensy "oopsie" of her skill seal being resistable.) She can provide greater damage buffs than most SSR supports if you can provide your damage dealer with a Quick and Buster buff. Excellent on Quick teams with Ruler Skadi, though most Quick Servants' tight refund even with triple Skadi setups can get in the way of using her for farming.

Oh, and since she has been mentioned, thanks to her NP upgrade Summer Musashi is now the best AoE Archer in the game, and it's not even a contest. If not for MHXA she could be argued to also be the best ST Archer as well.

P.P.S. The recent free SR ticket has had me discover new things about myself. I have spent more time than reasonable thinking circles on whether to pick Ashwatthama or Yu Meiren for love, to NP2 Hephaestion for farming usefulness (at NP1 she cannot one-shot Ganesha in the QP node with my usual setups), or to NP3 SAlter just for the extra overkill. I had reservations about the first two because I have used this ticket to get Ashwatthama on JP only to barely ever use him, and while I do occasionally bring along Yu Meiren on JP... she is NP5 and Grailed to 90, a farcry from a lv80 NP1. On the other end of the spectrum, I do not care much about Hephaestion outside of her gameplay, and getting 4 turn QP runs sometimes is not that bad. And as much as the idea of making SAlter's big numbers bigger still tickles my fancy, I have a NP2 Mordred to get that fix from, and she will even get some Grails if I ever get Koyanskaya of Light.

Anyway, that was me, indecisively walking circles and rushing myself because I have squandered one SR ticket because of similar hesitation previously.

Amusingly and bemusingly, after checking which story locked Servants I lack I have ended up with an out of left field Edison as my shiny new SR. That was an odd moment as I had been sure I had him; I had even thought for a moment whether he could have become a rare prism at some point... But MyRoom listing showed his ID unlit so that cannot be the case. It also seemed a bit weird that he immediately felt like the obvious pick as soon as I had noticed his absence. Reflecting on that feeling has made me realize just how much my initial dislike for his aesthetics and far-fetched lore has faded over time, and how much my appreciation of his goofiness, portrayal in events, and general usefulness (most notably as a damage booster for Arcueid) has grown. A few years ago I would not have considered him at all but today it has barely taken me a few minutes to put aside other options in his favour.

The takeaway from all that is... I actually like Edison now, huh... I wonder if this is how some people have felt about Blackbeard winning them over after a few events.

Very interesting comments on Chloe. In essence, it sounds like while she can enable new things... the usage is overall clunky due to extra steps and/or increased party cost. Interesting to hear the dropoff on Kulkulkan as well.

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EDIT: rolled on Traum today and got NP2 on both Charlamagne and Kriemhild! The NP2 on Charley came before Kriem. All in, 270 SQ and 40 tickets, so a very good return.

Is Roland good? I've seen mixed reviews, though personally I'm not too impressed (and I also dislike his character).

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In other news, the new Mahoyo banner is positively exciting, with Aoko's... unique build. Would love to hear your thoughts on her! Reading something like Rabbit's review (https://gamepress.gg/grandorder/rabbits-reviews-391-aozaki-aoko-5-foreigner), I understand there's polarized views of "worst SSR ever" to "best SSR ever". Mechanics aside, the aesthetics are through the roof.

As to the non-Aoko parts of the banner, 2 years ago Alice would have been amazing... but by today's standard while she's still hitting high damage thresholds, she's burdened by the Quick curse. That said, her substitute ability is pretty unique, and reminds me of the substitute move in Pokemon.

Soujuurou is pretty cool, an ST, berserker-class version of self-destructing Arash is an awesome tool to have! He even has the unique quality of being, I believe, the first servant to have ignore damage cut, right? He's also a welfare to boot.

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Hmm... I've been meaning to write down my thoughts on some new and old Servants here for a while now; may as well do it today. Thanks for providing an incentive to stop stalling, CDB-Man.

Kukulkan? More like Whokulkan. ...No? Okay, I'll see myself out.

Anyway, funny thing... I have barely used her after LB7. There are 3 main reasons for that, though two of them are quite specific to me. Firstly, Arcueid had basically monopolized my attention since her release, her wide applicability and ease of use making her the optimal pick for most nodes. (Why would I want to deal with swapping in Oberon when I can do just fine without and save almost a minute on every farming run?)

Secondly, my Koyan has hit bond 15, and while I have joked in the past about that spelling the death of Buster meta, that actually happening has nonetheless come as a surprise. Sure, there are Buster Servants who can loop without her but double Oberon setups are just not comfy at all so since then the only Buster teams I have used for farming are multicore setups, most commonly with Koyanskaya of Darkness.

Finally and most relevantly, the extra clicks and mouse movement Kukulkan's skills require are a bit of a pain in the wrist. I had not expected that to matter but after a while it became somewhat noticeable. As long as that last point does not become an issue, though, she excels at basically everything. She even has some multicore support value thanks to the teamwide Attack buff and the targetable 50% battery, and the Evasion on her battery can also prove useful in challenge quests if you need to protect a support.


Super strong, super versatile.

...But I still ST farm with Vlad.

Memes aside, I am surprised they have not been featuring more Extra class Servants in boss battles and challenge quests since her release. Even Ordeal Call 1 had mostly enemies of the 7 main classes. She is arguably the first pick for most difficult battles between her release and OC2.


Hmm... As a disclaimer, I love Chloe to bits, and she is just 232k points shy of bond 14. That said... My active use of her has dropped off significantly after the novelty has worn off and I have settled back into a routine with my farming setups. She has a great niche but, unfortunately, that niche has narrow applicability on a well established account. Unless I am experimenting for the fun of it, I just don't find it necessary to field her, and if she is not necessary then the time her actions take is time and wrist pain clicking that can be saved. Additionally, in farming the cost of fielding her can be prohibitive. Not just in terms of team cost, even - a Buster looping team with her leaves you with only 1 free Servant slot, and in events, at least, I prefer bringing more featured Servants in my backline for the increased bond gains. Some events also give additional drops based on class (i.e., Water Monster Crisis), and you may want more leeway in whom to bring to optimize your material gains. So, if possible, I would pick a setup that achieves the goal with a lesser number of Servants.

Summer Chloe has had a bit of a resurgence after my Castoria has hit bond 15 and I have started getting creative with my Arts teams but... Arts has options, perhaps even too many options, at least compared to the other card types, and as a consequence Chloe is not really necessary to facilitate Arts looping even without Castoria. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Her most prominent contribution since then has been in the new 90* difficulty node on bleached Earth, which features a 571k HP Lancer as the first wave and a 1 million HP Stheno as the second. The best feature of this node is its base bond gain of 3,164 so bringing my bond 15 Castoria feels like a waste, which kneecaps my Arts damage output. I used Chloe there just for the damage boost, which allowed Vlad to 2 turn the node. Soon after, though, Yui Shousetsu happened, leaving Chloe jobless once more.


My most played Servant right now, and she has just hit bond 14 today. I dread the day she is bond 15. Meluko has spoiled me rotten, and I expect I'll be experiencing withdrawal symptoms. (Here is to hoping they release a Santa Melusine before that. ) Though, maybe that will force me to remember other Arts AoE damage dealers exist... I have had Space Ishtar for almost 2 years now, a year longer than Summer Melusine, and Avenger Nitocris has spooked me about half a year ago. They are still at bond 3 and bond 0 respectively.

...But I digress. Anyway, you likely know this but I still want to say it - Meluko is much more than just "Space Ishtar v2". She can loop 1-1-1 nodes. She has two damage niches, spiking her damage greatly when facing appropriate enemies. She has strong crits. Being a Ruler makes her outstandingly resilient. Despite having even less tools to deal with challenge quest gimmicks than her original iteration (who has Invulnerability Pierce) she actually performs better in them, primarily due to being more self-reliant and having a better ramp up effect. Speaking of which, that is one of the most notable differences between her and Space Ishtar - SpIshtar only ramps up her NP damage; if she cannot NP, she gets no use out of it. She lives and dies by her NP uptime. Melusine's ramp up, on the other hand, consists of Attack and Crit Damage buffs, improving both her NP damage and face cards. Because of this, she suffers a much lesser dip in performance during skill downtime.

Super strong, super versatile.

...But I still ST farm with Vlad.

Memes aside, the strongest character released last year, no contest. A bit bland as a consequence, though. Running her feels a bit like running the invincible team.


Impressive and unique. Her Buster farming is somewhat underwhelming, however, as she can't properly utilize her strengths in 3 turn battles. All in all, imo she is not a character you use often but when you do it is always a fun time.


One of last year's biggest surprises for me - after Castoria has hit bond 15 she has somehow become my go-to Arts support. She requires some creativity depending on which Arts Servant I am running because her immediate NP battery is for herself only but since I have been mostly just clearing everything with Summer Melusine this has not been much of an obstacle. It is in challenge quests that she has shown her true worth, though. Her crit buff is her best support ability, and obviously it goes unutilized when you are just looping NPs. Her Ruler class combined with the 1000 damage cut on her second skill makes her very resilient; it being a teamwide effect helps keep her allies alive, too. And finally, this detail can easily get overlooked but her easily spammable NP inflicts AoE buff block, and that is amazing.

...She could really stand to lose a turn of cooldown on her skills, though. Those are just unreasonably long.


...Alter-Ego as a class is such a disappointment all around. I don't really know what else to say; so to say, he has not seen the light (much) this year. Heh. Maybe I'll start using him more when Meluko hits bond 15...

Super strong, super versatile.

...But I still ST farm with Vlad.

Memes aside, she is not really a farming Servant, anyway. I am even more biased towards her than Meluko, and of the three premier ST Arts damage dealers released last year she is my favourite. She hits that "just right" spot for me where I feel powerful playing her but not straight up invincible like Berserker Artoria Caster and Draco. Buff removal may not be as good nowadays as in years past since the most annoying buffs tend to be unremovable but on an NP as spammable as Kenshin's it is still a wonderful boon that can often trivialize an otherwise very troublesome battle. Her internals are also outstandingly good even by GudaGuda already elevated standards. With her NP gain buff active she has the third best Arts card in the game after Ereshkigal and Koyanskaya of Light. Unlike them with their QQABB decks, though, Kenshin has two of those Arts cards and much more reliable crits.


Any earlier year he would have been near the top of the list. Last year was ridiculous, though, so he has left less of an impact. Each of his modes is an impressive Servant of their own, and I would hesitate to sat there are better options, at least for short fights. He has the best looping damage among Archers in a no plugsuit setup, and sits third best in a three support setup, only falling behind Gilgamesh and Takasugi. His refund is below Durga's and Archer Jeanne's but his 80% battery does a lot to compensate for the difference. His first two skills also grant teamwide buffs, which is helpful for multicore setups. 20% Attack and 20% Arts and Buster are a noteworthy boon.

His biggest problem is the fact that his third skill becomes utter dead weight after first activation - if you have brought an Arts team for an AoE challenge quest, you don't care to transform into a ST Buster unit 5 turns into the battle and waiting another 5 turns to turn back. Neither Melusine nor Barghest have had this issue as Melusine gets a different effect after the first activation of her third skill that is still very useful and relevant, and Barghest gets to choose the transformation and gets the other skill effects every time. IMO, Ptolemaios would have been much better and much more interesting if his third skill let you pick which direction the transformation should go and get corresponding buffs, perhaps slightly diminished if you decide to not actually shift forms.

...Tired. Sleepy. Rest now, the rest perhaps tomorrow.

My rolling goals:

1) GIVE ME SOMETHING ALREADY, YOU PIECE OF SHIT!

Updating my roll list to include JP 2024 servants. Decided to skip Daikokuten, and rolled for NP5 Mary Anning in the FP gatcha. Really waiting for the massive summer wave at this point!

Is there any benefit to having a 2nd copy of Mary Anning at level 1? E.g. in a similar vein to Chen Gong or Goergios. I see she's an event limited FP servant like Nobukatsu, so if there's no point in a level 1 copy, I'll dodge the annoyance of spamming the FP gatcha for more copies.

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I lack Oberon too because a similar thing occurred T_T.

My condolences; that's a familiar feeling.

I only have Vitch on JP, and that had taken 450 SQ on the dot. On NA, I have thrown 810 SQ into her initial banner, then another 300+ SQ into her recent rerun during the New Year's. Two more multis, and it'll be over 1200 SQ total offered to that greedy fox. I hope I can get her next time.

When I said I were one Vitch short of making Arjuna loop I just meant that I had Oberon but no Vitch of my own... Though, now that I've thought about it I guess that is already enough to make him loop, if only with a Kaleidoscope + 2xOberon + Reines/Waver. Huh.

Least you have a vitch, I rolled 400 SQ and 60 tickets and did not see her in either form.

I've done a dumb and blown my load all over Arjuna Alter's banner. I've gotten him (yay) as well as a sixth copy of Saito, a pair of Bediveres, bringing him to NP5, Asclepius, also bringing him to NP5, a Caster Gilles, a Salieri, and my first ever Columbus on NA, as well as a bunch of CEs that I'll likely never use after the event's over. All in all, a nice haul. On the other hand, though, post-roll clarity keeps reminding me that I now have 61 less rolls in store for Arcueid...

...Meh, it is what it is; I've been feeling down, and this injection of endorphins has helped somewhat. Too bad I am one Vitch short of making Arjuna loop but oh well, hearing him offer to study together is all I need, really.

Soooooooooo... what should I sacrifice to get Oberon now?

Also: https://twitter.com/usadapekora/status/1756612382351298942
>Pekora as Shielder