DehNutCase

Okada Izo seems like a pretty easy fight, but I like the mechanics of it, making you care about the last attack card in a turn. It feels like it's a bit too easy to make Arts the one that gives a basically irrelevant demerit, though, since crit stars doesn't matter as much enemy crit damage up or a stun & casters tend to have tons of Arts cards. If I knew about the mechanics beforehand I would've went with a Melt + Caster Nero combo rather than just running a full lineup of casters, though, since Melt's buff dispel is pretty relevant & her having a Quick NP type along with Nero's Buster and a bunch of caster Art face cards makes controlling what card type I use really easy.

I accidentally went into Leonidas with the lottery drop CE rather than the damage CE, LUL. I don't know if the break bar would change things, but considering I wasn't having much problems slowly chipping Leonidas down without the damage CE I don't see Leonidas being a problem once I actually use relevant CEs. Assuming the 2nd break bar doesn't have hilarious amounts of hp, it should be pretty doable even without damage CEs. (A tanky team with Prisma Cosmos should be able to stall pretty much forever, and skill seal isn't an issue if you run Jeanne since her NP dispels. Edit: Apparently the debuffs are undispellable, feelsbadman.) Edit: Kind of wish I used Semiramis rather than Eresh as my damage dealer in the Eresh/Merlin/Jeanne comp---Semi does way less damage but she has 2 more Arts cards in her deck + her defense buff is tied to her NP rather than a skill, so the more you spam her NP the tankier the team gets, and a team with 9 arts cards + 2 arts NPs spams a LOT of NPs. I'm actually considering picking up NP2 for Jeanne since it gives 10% more defense when she uses her NP. Double Edit: Took 47 turns, but nobody died and it was pretty safe overall. Would be hard for Eresh to do a no damage CE run, because without damage CEs the enemy mooks will get to stack a lot of offensive buffs, meaning you'll want a team that can stack a bunch of defensive buffs. Semi might be able to do it, like I mentioned, but Jeanne also might need NP2 for the extra 10% Defense on her NP.

Huh... apparently Medusa Lily is kind of outrageous in single target fights. First time through I wasn't sure if it was a ST fight or not, so my damage dealer was Eresh + a backup support Scathach, which didn't work so well because I didn't pack enough dispels to make sure I can actually attack. Second time through I basically played a stall team with Medusa Lily, Merlin and Skadi---lost Merlin because once the bar breaks a single buster crit does 20k or something, but since BB was right behind him it meant I picked up a dispel and a stun in return, so the fight ended basically immediately after that. (Since Medusa Lily does 1.5 million damage per NP for some reason---probably because the buffs from rice balls have outrageous numbers on them.) The fact that I swapped to the Atlas Mystic Code also helped---all three skills are extremely relevant for the fight.

All the buffs are interesting, although personally I don't care about buffs to 3*s and below---when you're used to using 5*s with NP2 and better lower rarities can't really compete. Well, pure supports might be an exception---if Hans get another buff I'll probably care. Atalanta is extremely self sufficient now, since she has 50% Buster Up (58% if you include her passive, but that's neither here nor there), 100% crit (1st and 3rd) and 20 stars tacked onto her absorb skill. On the down side, a double buster deck means you'll usually only have 1 of her Busters, but eh, you can't have everything. She's well suited for a secondary damage dealer position anyway, thanks to Crossing Arcadia, so you should have another damage dealer's card deck to work with as well. Suzuka is nice, but there's a lot of crit sabers, and the 5* ones have the advantage of better bases to work with. Nothing wrong with having a lot of options, though, since it means if you're a fan of her for reasons other than gameplay you can use her a lot more often\a lot less painfully. AoE Assasins suffer from the demerit of competing against AoE Beserkers and AoE Alter Egos, and thanks to the .9x Assassin damage multiplier the damage is 1.8x vs. 1.65x (1.5x effective * 1.1 Beserker mod) vs. 1.5x, and Assassins tend to have low base Atk in general. In that respect Semiramis might have it the best, since her kit is naturally suited to a secondary damage dealer position. Triple arts means she's good at helping the team build NP Gauage via arts chains, and 50% Buster Resistance Down is amazing for damage, albeit only for 1 wave. Shuten's buff is good, but a 30% battery (with a 7s cd at that), probably won't change too much about her, especially since her NP has basically negligible refund. Having 40% effective Atk Up between her debuff and team buff (50% after her NP) means her team support is comparable to Semiramis, so they're more or less comparable after the buff. I would very slightly favor Semiramis over her in general, but I'm a bit baised because I really don't like Shuten's art. Regarding Gilfest, I have a pretty consistent 3T clear of Garden, but it requires a Kaleidoscope (meaning no crazy 6 CE lineups like I used in past lotteries) and also needs Achilles to draw one of his Quick cards for the last turn. On the plus side, I use the shuffle Mystic Code to make up for the fact Kaleido isn't MLB anyway, so I can take a mulligan if the first draw doesn't pan. The fact that I need to click face cards also means it can't be automated, but eh. Odds should be 1 - 13/15 * 12/14 * 11/13 * 10/12 * 9/11 + (13/15 * 12/14 * 11/13 * 10/12 * 9/11) * (1 - 13/15 * 12/14 * 11/13 * 10/12 * 9/11) = 0.816326, or about 81% chance to 3T, assuming I did my math right. It's basically as consistent as relying on Helena's NP Damage Up for a 3T. Later on I'll probably try to find either a 3T clear that doesn't rely on Kaleido (will probably need Plugsuit, which is unfortunate since the shuffle Mystic Code is gaining exp still, but Plugsuit is maxed), or a clear that can be fully automated (I might have to use 2 CE slots for this, though). Since the best nodes in terms of material drops are during the finals, I'll probably wait until the finals to look for a fully automated 3T clear.

My only issue with Gilfest is that the best farming nodes in terms of drops, for me, is in the finals. I prefer to get my farming for events done early so that I can chill and only farm if I want to near the end of an event, so having the best farming nodes be at the end means that to be optimal I can't afford to do that. According to the wiki's farming guide the Garden difficulty in the prelims drops fangs, which would be great, but looking at the tournament page says the node only has one big dragon in it, meaning it's probably mostly (if not all) reverse scales. (The 30 AP node seems to drop fangs, but it's a 30 AP node...) On the plus side, I should be able to max out Skadi, finally, between void dust from the lottery and aurora steel from the last day.

Huh... When the CQ showed Saber and Assassin I was assuming it was Artoria & EMIYA, but it turned out to be Saber Diarmuid and EMIYA. ...I was running an Beserker Atalanta comp with 2 copies of Poster Girl, so the fight ended up really easy. Since all the damage went to the designated damage sponge. It's a bit annoying they walled the CQ behind all missions complete and another quest, though. Edit: Shop's cleared, of course, thanks to the massive piles of +drops I have from being a lunatic who always uses maximum drop boni---in fact, I had enough tokens leftover to buy 80M QP.

Eh, supports occasionally have all 3 skills and level 90 (regardless of rarity) even before this, although usually only for 'important' story fights. Like Sanzang and Bedivere in a few fights from Camelot. I remembered this fight being one of them for Waver, at least in the original event, but the wiki doesn't show what skills support servants have, so I don't know for sure.

Huh, weird, I could've sworn Waver had all three of his skills when I used him as the support for the fight against the Black Grail (in the original Fate/Zero event). Instead he's just in his 3rd ascension but with only his first two skills just like all the other story fights. Finishing all the missions will probably be a pain in the ass, but at least I get to skip the Irisivel ones since they already count as complete.

So I managed to pull the final copy of Archer Artoria, meaning I won't be pulling on her banner again. Somehow, I only pulled 2 copies of Ruler Martha and Caster Marie over all my rolls on her banner. (I don't mean just the rolls from this time, I mean during the event run, the rerun, and now this.) I didn't see a 4* servant during my rolls this time, and I think I did around 80 or so rolls? *Shrug* Time to go into hibernation with pulls until Christmas rolls around, at which time I'll try for MLB Starry Nights.

In retrospect, a team based on Caster Nero would've been a lot better for the CQ since the enemies mostly have hp in the 100k range (which is massively overkilled by a Black Grail Archer Archuria). Nobu instantly murdering Bride also wasn't cool, since it meant Archuria had to force her way through class disadvantage for Raikou, but she does 70k unbuffed anyway, so that didn't matter too much. Ended up using a command seal since I was 17% short of being able to use Archuria's NP when the enemy Nero's bar was full---Nero would've done enough to wipe my front line---but I'm not sure if it was necessary in retrospect. I would've been left with only Jeanne Alter, but there was a decent chance she can manage Nero and Ishtar (the only ones left) by herself.

Hmm, now that I pretty much finished the event (got all the doujins, but haven't done the CQ yet), I have to say that I really like the doujin scenes. Not just the scenes themselves, but also the way that you'll see them once in a while when farming. It's a nice way to break up the monotony. Character-wise, I was always pretty okay with Blackbeard in FGO, but this event made me like him a lot more. I don't think he actually had the most screen-time out of everyone in the event, but since he shows up in pretty much every doujin scene it feels like he does.

With Caster Artoria, Arts finally has a support that they aren't sharing with everyone else. (I value Bride and Waver over Tamamo for Arts teams, so practically speaking Arts didn't have a proper support until now, at least for me.) Bride having an offensive NP still gives her a niche in Arts teams, but Artoria should be better in general. Practically speaking Artoria should be Merlin tier---i.e. her kit's good enough to run even outside of Arts teams. She seems to suffer from the same problem as Skadi, though, in that she doesn't protect the team very well, so sustain is an issue. But she does have it easier than Skadi in that department, since her teamwide battery means that her teammates have an easier time picking up the slack when it comes to sustain. Regarding the strengthenings, Herc and Cu are interesting, but I don't use them much. Artoria's has the slight issue where, thanks to break bars, you might prefer to have Arts cards over Busters during her NP turn (if you're going to break a bar anyway you'd rather pick up more NP gauge), but overall it should be pretty amazing. I prefer EMIYA's, though, since changing the NP to Arts is a strict upgrade. (Strictly speaking, an Arts NP drops a little less stars than a Buster NP, but only to the tune of, like, 1 less star over 10 hits, and EMIYA's stargen comes from his skill rather than his card type anyway.)

Napkin math says it's around 3 apples per loop, so probably around 18-20? Hard to tell how much I spent since the event tosses so many apples at you, so the amount of apples I have didn't change all that much.

I think there's a guy on my friend's list that maxed out two of the point ladders already... That grinding speed is horrifying. I do like how the event is set up, the only downside is that it seems like you need a lot of grinding to complete the story, so more casual players might have problems. (Then again, it is a 20 day event, so maybe it's fine.) Edit: Took 6 loops to clear. According to the wiki you need 800k power points to clear, so I guess it's not actually too bad---a hilariously optimal run might be able to clear in 3 or 4 loops, but there's no reason to optimize for that kind of thing. Going to wait until 8/16 before I restart grinding (since that's when raids unlock).

Gacha is suffering, and that's all I'm going to say on the matter. (A look at my support list should give a pretty decent indication of what happened to me.) The rest of my budget this year is going towards NP5 Archuria and MLB Starry Nights, so there's no room to try for Summer Jeanne or BB anymore.

I seem to remember using command seals last time I did the bull of heaven, so I guess I did better this time since I didn't have to use one. (Took a few tries, though.) It's kind of stupid that double Merlin + Jack somehow ended up being the winning front line. Sustain is just too important---yeah, Merlin gets KO'd from full hp if the bull focuses him, but between the 3k heal from Hero Creation, 1 turn invul & crit down, and Merlin's NP he's still one of the better choices. A more stall focused build involving Jeanne could also work, but that would make a long CQ even longer, since I'd have to ignore my damage dealer's cards to click Jeanne's.

Personally I would put Drake above Ivan, it takes basically 100% Golden Rule to match 50% Battery because of how math ends up working. If you have 100% Golden Rule then getting 50% NP from regular attacks will end up giving you 50% from the Golden Rule, tying with a 50% Battery---because of how command decks work it's not really feasible to get more than 1 NP from face cards every 3 turns, which is how long Golden Rule lasts. Ivan's kit and bases are pretty amazing, but not having an NP battery really puts a damper on things. I'm not too big a fan of buff removal (it's nice to have, but it doesn't tend to change my evaluation of units just because they have them) since using buffs of the opposing type is pretty much the same as removing them anyway. Invul Pierce to 'remove' dodge/invul, Atk Up to 'remove' Defense Up, etc. There's also the slight issue of latency, since enemies get to use their offensive buffs for a turn before you get a chance to remove them. Drake having Invul Pierce also means that one of the most important categories of buffs to remove isn't as important when she's on your team. Ivan also has an Invul, which is great, and I wouldn't diss people for valuing it more than NP batteries, but my personal perspective is that killing things faster means you need less defensive buffs to survive. Achilles vs. Drake is pretty much how much you value refills and bulk vs. offensive consistency from Drake's Invul Pierce, so I'd put them more or less in the same tier. Drake probably does more damage and scales a little better due to her NP Interlude, but it shouldn't be enough of a damage difference to matter. Achilles should be better in CQs (unless Invul Pierce happens to matter) while Drake's better for farming.

I don't remember the CQ being this much of a pain last time around. Then again, I probably had Caster Nero* being the main damage dealer last time around, and her sustained damage is better than Artoria's. (Better face cards for getting NP & 3 turn duration on her 50% Atk Up compared to a 1 turn Mana Burst.) *It's also possible that I had Archer Artoria as the main damage dealer last time, don't really remember what I did. Once the first two Lancers are gone she'd be able to kill things off one by one at a steady clip while avoiding NPs. Ended up brute forcing it by using 2 command seals near the end, but I can't be assed to keep retrying different team comps.

The more important thing about helping a team is what drops during the aid battle itself instead of the rewards for ranking, tbh. Feathers and seeds are pretty decent to spam farm, and being an Assassin node means you get to bring Caster Nero (should be easy to find on support lists). Only downside is that the node drops silver mats rather than gold, so excessive farming isn't rewarding. (With a bunch of drop bonuses and using the boost item running a gold node drops about as much QP as doing 40 AP doors, so it ends up being really efficient since you get mat drops on top of the QP.)

Pretty much just farming whatever I feel like right now. I need either new mats from lostbelts, hearts, or dusts, but it looks like none of the aid battles drop them so I'm just doing whatever. Also, seems like Command Codes are bugged at the moment, because right now the healing ones just apply a buff that does nothing. : /

It's too bad Mash doesn't get 2 different set of command codes, since Ortinax wants some star absorb for at least one of her Buster cards, while OG Mash is a pure support, meaning star absorb is straight up counter-productive on a Buster. I'll probably just set her up under the assumption she'll be in Ortinax whenever I use her. Also it seems like we start with the QoL feature where 2* and below command codes can be removed by overwriting them, so that's nice. Not that it matters too much, most of the Codes we have right now are basically round error levels of improvement. Cure is probably the best, but it's niche.

@QKumber I have Nero (in all), assuming you still need her. In game name is 'DNC,' and I sent a request.

Huh... With Hokusai from the GSSR that makes it 3/3 in terms of me getting my highest priority servant from a GSSR. Only 4 copies of Salieri, but I don't really care about him too much, so whatever. I was going to shank wallet-kun for Skadi if necessary, so getting her wasn't a problem unless I suddenly ended up with F rank luck, but picking up another copy of Black Grail* in the process was nice. (Also picked up another copy of 2030, but I pretty much never use it.) A second copy of Parvati and NP1 Wu Zetian also popped up, but I doubt I'll use Wu much---not a fan of her art & Assassin is already covered anyway. *Already have an MLB, but I'm actually pretty close to a second MLB copy. Would've liked to pick up a copy of Tale of Hope and Love since it's limited, has good art, + the effect is pretty decent even non-MLB, but it's not important enough to roll for exclusively.

Mind the main issue with the 2 arts deck is that she's worse at making arts chains. Her personal NP generation isn't much worse thanks to the quality of her Arts cards, but the team she's on has worse NP gen in exchange. The fact that her arts cards have good numbers means you get the option to put her card third in the chain and get buckets of NP for her, but generally speaking a damage dealer's NP is more valuable than a support's*, so it doesn't really change the fact that the best slot for her arts card is near the start of the chain rather than the end. *There are exceptions like Jeanne's NP, and Reines herself is an exception if uptime on her NP is important for survival, but the issue with prioritizing a support's cards is that the boss takes longer to kill, so there's a definite trade-off. Regarding the support Caster being eaten by Rider enemies thing, I personally don't have too much of an issue with it thanks to the fact that my roster is pretty deep, but I do see how it can be valuable. I have non-Caster supports like Nero Bride and Semiramis, and I don't mind if my Caster supports bite the dust since the replacement would be almost as good anyway---not too much of a loss to lose Waver during the middle of a CQ if Merlin pops up to take his place, for example. Regarding cost, Dragon's Meridian (50% NP) and Kaleidoscope is 5 + 12 = 17 cost, versus 9 + 9 = 18 cost for double MLB Imaginary Element. Usually damage would be an issue since Dragon's Meridian has worse Atk than Imaginary Element, but Waver's AoE Atk Up compensates for that. (And Reines' better single target buff compensates for the fact that Kaleidoscope has better Atk than Imaginary Element.)

I mean, lots of people are better than Waver in their specific niches. Even Tamamo is better than Waver in her specific niche, minuscule as it might be. The issue is: A, Outside of their specific niches, Waver is better. B, Inside of their niches, Waver is probably something like the 2nd best pick anyway. Waver's NP battery is just way too good (yeah a lot of people tie him at 50% for a single target, but Waver has 90% battery if you consider the entire team), and his buff numbers aren't bad either. Reines specializes in supporting a single target, so Waver is noticeably better basically everywhere else. Take farming, for example, there are farming comps that only use a single damage dealer, but they're relatively uncommon. Whereas Waver's AoE Atk buff & better battery means that his teams have easier time farming, and even for single damage dealer comps Waver's not going to be significantly worse than Reines. For CQs Reines suffers from the fact that her face cards somehow manage to be worse than Waver's (double quick card deck rather than triple Arts, Atk demerit, and capping it all off with a Rider's star weight because why not) and that she isn't actually that much better than Waver's at preventing effective damage in exchange for her 2 hit invul buff. Assuming 2x effective damage to 1x damage, over 3 turns that's 300%. That is, we take 200% damage every turn, but we reduce it by 100% a turn, to 300% over 3 turns. 50% Stun prevents 100%---we take 200% a turn, but we have a 50% chance to prevent it for a turn. (Odds can be boosted with overcharge, item construction, and any debuff chance improving skills while lowered by stuff like magic resistance, but we'll ignore that.) And Waver's defense buff is also slightly better. Two Wavers would have 60% defense and 1k damage cut compared to two Reines with 50% defense and 800 damage cut. Over 3 turns a double Reines' team would take 600% -> 300% (Reines NP) -> 150% (50% defense, ignoring damage cut or enemy Atk Ups). Double Waver team would take 600% -> 500% (from 50% chance to stun for a turn on Waver's NP) -> 200% (60% defense, ignoring damage cut or enemy Atk Ups). Mind, I'm ignoring Reines' two hit invul here, which should be amazing for CQs. But I'm also ignoring the fact that you don't really run into situations where you take 2x effective damage on everyone unless you're a nutjob. 1.5x is more realistic (fighting Beserkers.) Reines would have the damage go from 1.5x effective to 1x effective, 3 turns preventing 150% damage. Waver's 50% stun prevents 75%---since we're taking 150% a turn. Double Reines team takes 450% -> 300% (Reines NP) -> 150% (50% Defense) Double Waver team takes 450% -> 375% (50% chance to stun for a turn) -> 150% (60% Defense). Double Waver and Double Reines is basically identical if you're fighting Beserkers, ignoring her invul. (Which, mind, is a huge thing to ignore.) It more or less just boils down to Reines having a heavier star weight, a worse deck (2 Quick cards, and crappy ones at that), slightly worse teamwide battery, and worse AoE Atk buffs in exchange for a 2 hit invul and slightly better single target Atk buff. Reines isn't bad or anything, but Waver's honestly kind of a freak.