Fate/Grand Order General

[MacLovin]

3 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

The final boss was very much a 'show off' fight for Mash and Bedivere. If you've been raising Mash properly, and brought in Bedivere as support (he's level 90 that fight, he's crazy), it's actually pretty easy. 10/10/10 Mash has enormous uptime on her NP on top of her already amazing defensive skillset. Add that to the fact that, if your third servant can NP Seal, Drain, Stun, or whatever, Bedivere would have HIS defensive buff up everytime the boss NPs, and you take trivial damage for the whole fight.

 

Honestly, that was the fight which made me regret my servant choices for the singularity---I should've brought in Nero 4* a lot earlier. She would've made my runs a lot smoother thanks to consistent damage (the only Archer boss is weak to Saber damage), and her natural self-sustain would've let her be on the frontlines smacking away for the whole fight.

 

 

Off-topic: Camelot was honestly the place where I realized how busted Merlin was going to be. Yeah, I pulled Waver real early so I'm spoiled by good supports, but just Waver doesn't actually break much. The problem is when you have multiple supports as good as Waver. Mash got to that point once she ascended, and obviously Merlin is also on Waver's level.

Merlin is busted to the point of DW actually noting it in interviews and shit iirc.

But hey, Waver and Tamamo aren't straight out as broken as he is even early on (I've had Tamamo since my first week, she's good but getting her to FA took forever).

Mashu+(Support Trinity Member) + DPS is so stupid in this game, even before the promotion pf Mashu. I mean as a 3*, Mashu/Tamamo/Vlad was still a viable team. Afterwards it's kinda ridiculous with Vlad being almost incapable of dying.

[DehNutCase]

28 minutes ago, Mister Rogers said:

Merlin is busted to the point of DW actually noting it in interviews and shit iirc.

But hey, Waver and Tamamo aren't straight out as broken as he is even early on (I've had Tamamo since my first week, she's good but getting her to FA took forever).

Mashu+(Support Trinity Member) + DPS is so stupid in this game, even before the promotion pf Mashu. I mean as a 3*, Mashu/Tamamo/Vlad was still a viable team. Afterwards it's kinda ridiculous with Vlad being almost incapable of dying.

I honestly never felt that Tamamo was near the level of Waver. She has sustain, yes, but it just costs so much damage to provide that sustain. Her NP doesn't deal damage, meaning that's one damage card less every time she uses it---Waver's at least reduces defense, and Mash's increases attack.

 

50% Arts up gives you around 30% more NPs, depending on how much you depend on your Arts card for NP gen, but that's only for one unit. Again depending on how important your Arts card is, 50% Arts up probably gives around 30-40% damage.

Waver has 30% damage up, for the whole team, and Mash's NP gives 30% for two teammates. And Waver even has 50% crit up on top of that 30% damage up, even if it's single target. If his skills didn't give NP gauge I'd say it's a fair trade... but they do.

 

Basically, the problem is that Waver feels just about as good as Tamamo on Arts teams. Which is kind of a problem, seeing how Waver is by far the more general purpose support.

 

Edit: I'm not saying Tamamo's bad, of course. More that Waver is kind of utterly ridiculous.

Edited July 3, 2018 by DehNutCase

[MacLovin]

8 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

I honestly never felt that Tamamo was near the level of Waver. She has sustain, yes, but it just costs so much damage to provide that sustain. Her NP doesn't deal damage, meaning that's one damage card less every time she uses it---Waver's at least reduces defense, and Mash's increases attack.

 

50% Arts up gives you around 30% more NPs, depending on how much you depend on your Arts card for NP gen, but that's only for one unit. Again depending on how important your Arts card is, 50% Arts up probably gives around 30-40% damage.

Waver has 30% damage up, for the whole team, and Mash's NP gives 30% for two teammates. And Waver even has 50% crit up on top of that 30% damage up, even if it's single target. If his skills didn't give NP gauge I'd say it's a fair trade... but they do.

 

Basically, the problem is that Waver feels just about as good as Tamamo on Arts teams. Which is kind of a problem, seeing how Waver is by far the more general purpose support.

 

Edit: I'm not saying Tamamo's bad, of course. More that Waver is kind of utterly ridiculous.

she's also got skill cooldown reduction, which is fantastic for everyone. 

[DehNutCase]

Just now, Mister Rogers said:

she's also got skill cooldown reduction, which is fantastic for everyone. 

I mean, yeah, it's a NP. I'd hope it does something.

 

It's really hard to make the fact that the NP doesn't deal damage worth it, though, even if you consider the 25% guage increase to everyone as well.

 

The math is just... uncomfortable if you do it. Waver has the best Charisma variant at the moment, at 3 duration, 6 cooldown for 30%. A 'standard' Charisma would be 3 duration, 5 cooldown for 20%.

Assuming Tamamo gets to NP every 5 turns (which is a very uncomfortable assumption, since that means you're using her arts cards, and she hits for typical caster damage), Waver has an effective CD of 5, and a 'standard' Charisma has an effective CD of... 4.2 or something. Let's just round down and call it 4.

 

Waver goes from 30% * 3/6 to 30% * 3/5, or 15% to 18%. A standard Charisma goes from 20% * 3/5 to 20% * 3/4, or 12% to 15%.

In other words, a 3% increase in damage for both Charisma variants. If you had two Charisma skills on the team, that's 6% extra damage. You use 15 cards every 5 turns, if one of those is Tamamo's NP, you lose 1/15 worth of damage. 1/15 is around 6.6%.

If you have two charisma skills on the team, Tamamo is still lowering your damage when you use her NP. (But, obviously, she gives massive sustain in return.) If your damage is primarily Arts based, then the lower CD on her Arts buff should make up the difference. That is, if all the stars are aligned, her NP gives around as much damage as a regular damage card.

 

Basically, your other two NPs have to be really something for her NP to be worth it, offensively speaking.

Unfortunately, Tamamo provides sustain, but not durability (she has personal durability from Shapeshift, and stall from Witchcraft, but you still have to face-tank that enemy NP eventually). Meaning you need one hell of a support to provide that team durability. And the kind of people who provide extreme amounts of durability don't tend to have amazing damage. (Mash, Jeanne, Waver are the first three that come to mind, and none of their NPs deal damage. Eurayle when she works is very nice, though, charm + NP drain + high damage NP to stall just long enough that the boss dies before firing off an NP.)

Mind, I'm nearly as into FGO as I'm into FEH, so I could be missing some obvious servant choices.

[MacLovin]

55 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

I mean, yeah, it's a NP. I'd hope it does something.

 

It's really hard to make the fact that the NP doesn't deal damage worth it, though, even if you consider the 25% guage increase to everyone as well.

 

The math is just... uncomfortable if you do it. Waver has the best Charisma variant at the moment, at 3 duration, 6 cooldown for 30%. A 'standard' Charisma would be 3 duration, 5 cooldown for 20%.

Assuming Tamamo gets to NP every 5 turns (which is a very uncomfortable assumption, since that means you're using her arts cards, and she hits for typical caster damage), Waver has an effective CD of 5, and a 'standard' Charisma has an effective CD of... 4.2 or something. Let's just round down and call it 4.

 

Waver goes from 30% * 3/6 to 30% * 3/5, or 15% to 18%. A standard Charisma goes from 20% * 3/5 to 20% * 3/4, or 12% to 15%.

In other words, a 3% increase in damage for both Charisma variants. If you had two Charisma skills on the team, that's 6% extra damage. You use 15 cards every 5 turns, if one of those is Tamamo's NP, you lose 1/15 worth of damage. 1/15 is around 6.6%.

If you have two charisma skills on the team, Tamamo is still lowering your damage when you use her NP. (But, obviously, she gives massive sustain in return.) If your damage is primarily Arts based, then the lower CD on her Arts buff should make up the difference. That is, if all the stars are aligned, her NP gives around as much damage as a regular damage card.

 

Basically, your other two NPs have to be really something for her NP to be worth it, offensively speaking.

Unfortunately, Tamamo provides sustain, but not durability (she has personal durability from Shapeshift, and stall from Witchcraft, but you still have to face-tank that enemy NP eventually). Meaning you need one hell of a support to provide that team durability. And the kind of people who provide extreme amounts of durability don't tend to have amazing damage. (Mash, Jeanne, Waver are the first three that come to mind, and none of their NPs deal damage. Eurayle when she works is very nice, though, charm + NP drain + high damage NP to stall just long enough that the boss dies before firing off an NP.)

Mind, I'm nearly as into FGO as I'm into FEH, so I could be missing some obvious servant choices.

and there's a reason Tamamo's a support caster. She's not there to deal damage outside of Onigashima. All she does is support arts teams. 

Yes, Waver's a generalist support, which means he's fitting into more team comps. But again, if you've got Tamamo on the team, chances are that there's also one of Waver/Mash/Hans as well as the DPS. It's not difficult to get through battles. (Unless you do something like bring her as part of an all caster team vs Ozy or something.)

Shiki, Shuten, Nero Bride, Lancelot, Vlad, and Orion are all gold rarity arts DPS. They rely on their skills and NP spamming. Guess what Tamamo brings to the party?  She lets them deal massive amounts of damage via NP spam due to arts chains. Waver helps of course. It's just that arts teams have a slower playstyle since they're kinda NP centric.

[QKumber]

Also worth to mention, while Waver`s atk buff is super strong, it is a fairly common kind of buff. Tamamo buffs ARTs cards, meaning it usually works better being a dif kind of buff.

3 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

If you have two charisma skills on the team, Tamamo is still lowering your damage when you use her NP. (But, obviously, she gives massive sustain in return.) If your damage is primarily Arts based, then the lower CD on her Arts buff should make up the difference. That is, if all the stars are aligned, her NP gives around as much damage as a regular damage card.

I think the main proposition of a team using Tamamo is allowing her team to loop NPs over and over. You have to factor the DPS unit aswell when you thinking of fox wedding/Tamamo np.

Giving teamwide np gain + reducing CDs on skills is USUALLY more important and a bigger factor then 1 regular card (assuming you are not setting up crit turns when you pick Tamamo NP). 

Personally I think Tamamo works the best with arts attackers that do not have self arts buffs and those that somehow have lackluster np gain. She patches those weakness like noone

[MrSmokestack]

On 7/2/2018 at 9:03 AM, The Priest said:

Keep in mind that I evaluate him at his current state. When his Interlude arrives I will re-evaluate his position but based on what he has now he is not S-Tier ... yet.

For a F2P list that is a big deal considering you will have to dedicate spending SQ for that man.
imo it's worth it because Bedivere is really good but for people who want to save their precious SQ it's not necessarily ideal.

Our boy deserves it.

8 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

The final boss was very much a 'show off' fight for Mash and Bedivere. If you've been raising Mash properly, and brought in Bedivere as support (he's level 90 that fight, he's crazy)

Cirno was my reference for the final node, and it lists him as being severely underskilled and underleveled. I should have double-checked though, since having a 10/10/10 Bedi for that fight would have been so much fun.

It won’t be the last time we see OP story supports in the Main Quest, though.

Spoiler

Caster Gilgamesh resummons himself into his archer incarnation for the Tiamat 2 fight, where he is NP5, Lv 90, and 10/10/10, complete with all of his Interlude and Strengthen buffs. I brought only Shielder and Hans as support for that fight and he carried it completely by himself.

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Off-topic: Camelot was honestly the place where I realized how busted Merlin was going to be. Yeah, I pulled Waver real early so I'm spoiled by good supports, but just Waver doesn't actually break much. The problem is when you have multiple supports as good as Waver. Mash got to that point once she ascended, and obviously Merlin is also on Waver's level.

I agree. I’m starting to have the opinion that none of the supports by themselves are too overpowered, but combining them with other supports is.

Double support + DPS carry is the most skeleton a skeleton crew can get, and it still gets a lot of mileage in JP. I most recently used Shielder and Merlin for the final challenge quest in GUDAGUDA 3, then Shielder and Jeanne Ruler for the final Summer 2017 Part 1 Challenge Quest. Both of these are fights I had no business attempting with my low-level roster—and I was still able to beat them, albeit with some very close calls.

I really think you are underselling Tammao, though. On a team where only one unit needs to be dealing damage, Fox Wedding is a swiss army knife; it heals them, buffs their damage, and buffs their NP gain. The skill cooldown on her NP might seem underwhelming, but it really starts to shine when you’ve leveled skills on your units to further reduce cooldowns. It’s also something that only two other things in the entire game can do: a mystic code and a limited SSR who would rather use that skill on herself.

Her main weakness is her garbage NP gain, but a team that passively generates crit stars or gives NP per to the whole team (and no, Merlin isn’t the only one that can do this) can give her greater NP uptime. Also, her NP exists to be overcharged. On a proper Arts team, it’s not terribly difficult to get her to 300% without slowing down the team.

Waver is better for daily grinding, no doubt. But Tamamo has a utility that simply cannot be replaced in long, difficult quests.

[eclipse]

I use Tamamo if I need sustain, and Waver if I need to charge NP gauges in bursts.  IMO they have different roles.

Still going through the story, and. . .

Spoiler

. . .holy crap, Da Vinci's replaced by a hologram in the Shop.  Now THAT'S attention to detail.

 

[DehNutCase]

4 hours ago, MrSmokestack said:

I really think you are underselling Tammao, though. On a team where only one unit needs to be dealing damage, Fox Wedding is a swiss army knife; it heals them, buffs their damage, and buffs their NP gain. The skill cooldown on her NP might seem underwhelming, but it really starts to shine when you’ve leveled skills on your units to further reduce cooldowns. It’s also something that only two other things in the entire game can do: a mystic code and a limited SSR who would rather use that skill on herself.

Actually, every single stun acts as a CD reduction. A turn where the enemy did nothing is effectively -1 CD on all skills. (Waver's NP might only have a 50% stun chance, but that's basically -1 CD every other time he uses his NP.)

Now, if you can stack enough -CD to OVERLAP buffs, now that'd be a whole different ball game. Double Waver defense up means you take 0 damage from regular hits and chip damage from NPs, but it's kind of... difficult... to get -4 cd in 6 turns.

4 hours ago, QKumber said:

Also worth to mention, while Waver`s atk buff is super strong, it is a fairly common kind of buff. Tamamo buffs ARTs cards, meaning it usually works better being a dif kind of buff.

I think the main proposition of a team using Tamamo is allowing her team to loop NPs over and over. You have to factor the DPS unit aswell when you thinking of fox wedding/Tamamo np.

Giving teamwide np gain + reducing CDs on skills is USUALLY more important and a bigger factor then 1 regular card (assuming you are not setting up crit turns when you pick Tamamo NP). 

Personally I think Tamamo works the best with arts attackers that do not have self arts buffs and those that somehow have lackluster np gain. She patches those weakness like noone

Bear in mind that Waver also has a 50% Crit buff to stack with his 30% Atk Buff. And, of course, that he also charges NP guage, albeit with his skills rather than his NP. I have nothing against performance up skills---Tamamo's 50% for 3 turns is actually pretty busted---it's just that the rest of her kit is kind of disappointing. Not bad, by any means, just... slow as molasses if you're trying to do anything.

 

Honestly, the rarest buff is probably NP damage, and... I'm pretty sure Drake's Voyager of the Storm is the only NP damage up variant that's worth a damn, since every other one is like 5cd for 15% or some nonsense. Drake is at least 17% NP damage, 17% Charisma, even if it only lasts for one turn.

On the plus side, Black Grail gives 80%, so if you have a unit that can actually use the Grail you can just pretend Military Tactics doesn't even exist. Unfortunately I'd say only people with absurd NP gauge skills can use the Grail properly. Meaning...

You know...

The Pioneers of the Stars.

i.e. Drake.

(lul)

 

Anyway, the main problem with using Tamamo to loop NPs is that, because of her weakness in terms of team durability (she heals, but she doesn't give defense up or evasion or anything like that, so you still need to make sure everyone can actually survive an NP going off in their face), you often need to bring in servants who don't do very much damage with their NPs. Waver\Mash\Jeanne easily fixes the durability issue, but that leaves you with exactly one servant carrying the entire team's damage.

[YotsuMaboroshi]

1 minute ago, DehNutCase said:

Actually, every single stun acts as a CD reduction. A turn where the enemy did nothing is effectively -1 CD on all skills. (Waver's NP might only have a 50% stun chance, but that's basically -1 CD every other time he uses his NP.)

Now, if you can stack enough -CD to OVERLAP buffs, now that'd be a whole different ball game. Double Waver defense up means you take 0 damage from regular hits and chip damage from NPs, but it's kind of... difficult... to get -4 cd in 6 turns.

Bear in mind that Waver also has a 50% Crit buff to stack with his 30% Atk Buff. And, of course, that he also charges NP guage, albeit with his skills rather than his NP. I have nothing against performance up skills---Tamamo's 50% for 3 turns is actually pretty busted---it's just that the rest of her kit is kind of disappointing. Not bad, by any means, just... slow as molasses if you're trying to do anything.

 

Honestly, the rarest buff is probably NP damage, and... I'm pretty sure Drake's Voyager of the Storm is the only NP damage up variant that's worth a damn, since every other one is like 5cd for 15% or some nonsense. Drake is at least 17% NP damage, 17% Charisma, even if it only lasts for one turn.

On the plus side, Black Grail gives 80%, so if you have a unit that can actually use the Grail you can just pretend Military Tactics doesn't even exist. Unfortunately I'd say only people with absurd NP gauge skills can use the Grail properly. Meaning...

You know...

The Pioneers of the Stars.

i.e. Drake.

(lul)

 

Anyway, the main problem with using Tamamo to loop NPs is that, because of her weakness in terms of team durability (she heals, but she doesn't give defense up or evasion or anything like that, so you still need to make sure everyone can actually survive an NP going off in their face), you often need to bring in servants who don't do very much damage with their NPs. Waver\Mash\Jeanne easily fixes the durability issue, but that leaves you with exactly one servant carrying the entire team's damage.

Stuns aren't effectively 1 turn CD reduction, because the enemy still gains NP during the stun, unless their gauge is full.  Stone Sentinel Maze can fake it to a certain degree because it always removes 1 gauge with a possibility to stun, but it's still not the same thing.

You are also over-valuing NP burst damage from running double DPS.  The "meta" in JP is 2 supports and one DPS, because you simply can't burst fast enough at that point, and need to sustain rather than burst.  Kill speed isn't everything.  For NA, safe kills via sustain or stall are just as reliable as burst kills at this point, but eventually pure burst is going to fall behind.

Discounting a strategy just because you don't have the patience for it is doesn't make the strategy less valid, or less powerful.

[DehNutCase]

Just now, YotsuMaboroshi said:

Stuns aren't effectively 1 turn CD reduction, because the enemy still gains NP during the stun, unless their gauge is full.  Stone Sentinel Maze can fake it to a certain degree because it always removes 1 gauge with a possibility to stun, but it's still not the same thing.

You are also over-valuing NP burst damage from running double DPS.  The "meta" in JP is 2 supports and one DPS, because you simply can't burst fast enough at that point, and need to sustain rather than burst.  Kill speed isn't everything.  For NA, safe kills via sustain or stall are just as reliable as burst kills at this point, but eventually pure burst is going to fall behind.

Discounting a strategy just because you don't have the patience for it is doesn't make the strategy less valid, or less powerful.

If both strategies win, the strategy that wins faster is the one I'm picking.

 

To put it another way, yes a slower strategy is worse, because it's slower.

 

The win is the most important part, but, until the point that Waver stops winning, he'll be better than Tamamo because he's faster about it.

[YotsuMaboroshi]

14 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

If both strategies win, the strategy that wins faster is the one I'm picking.

 

To put it another way, yes a slower strategy is worse, because it's slower.

 

The win is the most important part, but, until the point that Waver stops winning, he'll be better than Tamamo because he's faster about it.

People are pointing out Tamamo's strength lies in a different strategy, but your arguing comes across (to me, at least) as 'lalala I'm not listening, Tamamo is weak' rather than 'Tamamo doesn't fit my preferred strategy'.  You aren't addressing the points people bring up, you just keep pushing 'NP damage is everything'.

Tamamo's strength is consistency, which generally isn't needed in a standard burst comp.  If you are strictly evaluating her for a burst comp, then of course she comes up short.  Not everyone uses a burst comp as their strategy though.

Edited July 3, 2018 by YotsuMaboroshi

[DehNutCase]

Just now, YotsuMaboroshi said:

People are pointing out Tamamo's strength lies in a different strategy, but your arguing comes across (to me, at least) as 'lalala I'm not listening, Tamamo is weak' rather than 'Tamamo doesn't fit my preferred strategy'.  You aren't addressing the points people bring up, you just keep pushing 'NP damage is everything'.

Tamamo's strength is consistency, which generally isn't needed in a standard burst comp.  If you are strictly evaluating her for a burst comp, then of course she comes up short.  Not everyone uses a burst comp as their strategy though.

?

 

Are you saying Waver is inconsistent?

 

We're discussing the best units in the game, here. Cordelia is pretty amazing in FEH but even she'd have trouble competing against Reinhardt, and this is more or less the situation.

 

The problem with Tamamo is that, even in her ideal team, Waver is on her level. (Waver has sustain issues, but provides durability and damage. Tamamo has damage issues, but provides sustain and utility.) Outside her ideal team, Waver crushes her. When a generalist is just as good as a specialist in the specialist's own niche, the generalist is an overpowered mess. (Just like how Reinhardt can run CC Vantage sets just as well as people like Hector can run DC Vantage, because he can grab a -blade tome and go to town.)

[YotsuMaboroshi]

2 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

?

 

Are you saying Waver is inconsistent?

 

We're discussing the best units in the game, here. Cordelia is pretty amazing in FEH but even she'd have trouble competing against Reinhardt, and this is more or less the situation.

 

The problem with Tamamo is that, even in her ideal team, Waver is on her level. (Waver has sustain issues, but provides durability and damage. Tamamo has damage issues, but provides sustain and utility.) Outside her ideal team, Waver crushes her. When a generalist is just as good as a specialist in the specialist's own niche, the generalist is an overpowered mess. (Just like how Reinhardt can run CC Vantage sets just as well as people like Hector can run DC Vantage, because he can grab a -blade tome and go to town.)

I never said Waver was inconsistent, I said that burst comps don't care about consistency (because you really only need one good turn).  I'm probably using the wrong term, but what I meant was that Tamamo's strength is that she enables units to perform more reliably, via NP gen, stall, and CD reduction.  Waver is an enabler as well, but in a different fashion that is better suited to burst comps due to his skills front loading the NP gain and directly buffing the unit.

The discussion wasn't about "the best units in the game".  You talked about how Merlin was going to be busted, Tamamo was brought up as a relatively powerful support, you said Tamamo was overrated, and then people started pointing out Tamamo's strengths, and you pushing NP burst comp as a counterpoint.  The only time 'best units in the game' was brought up was in your response just now.

That aside, Waver isn't 'just as good' as Tamamo in her niche.  In an Arts team, Waver and Tamamo are complimentary because they provide different things (Tamamo's NP allows Waver's skills to be used more often, Waver's skills allow Tamamo's NP to be used more often), but generally, Tamamo's CD reduction and Fox Wedding are considered more important for an Arts team than Waver's skills.

[DehNutCase]

1 hour ago, YotsuMaboroshi said:

I never said Waver was inconsistent, I said that burst comps don't care about consistency (because you really only need one good turn).  I'm probably using the wrong term, but what I meant was that Tamamo's strength is that she enables units to perform more reliably, via NP gen, stall, and CD reduction.  Waver is an enabler as well, but in a different fashion that is better suited to burst comps due to his skills front loading the NP gain and directly buffing the unit.

The discussion wasn't about "the best units in the game".  You talked about how Merlin was going to be busted, Tamamo was brought up as a relatively powerful support, you said Tamamo was overrated, and then people started pointing out Tamamo's strengths, and you pushing NP burst comp as a counterpoint.  The only time 'best units in the game' was brought up was in your response just now.

That aside, Waver isn't 'just as good' as Tamamo in her niche.  In an Arts team, Waver and Tamamo are complimentary because they provide different things (Tamamo's NP allows Waver's skills to be used more often, Waver's skills allow Tamamo's NP to be used more often), but generally, Tamamo's CD reduction and Fox Wedding are considered more important for an Arts team than Waver's skills.

What I said was:

"Tamamo isn't on Waver's level."

Or, to quote it exactly: "I honestly never felt that Tamamo was near the level of Waver."

 

For Tamamo to be on Waver's level, she needs to be just as good in Buster or Quick teams as Waver is good in Arts teams. Art teams are not Waver's specialty, but they are Tamamo's.

 

I have never once felt that Tamamo provided anything near Waver's support outside of her specialty. Jack the Ripper is a better support for Buster teams than Tamamo thanks to the sheer number of stars she puts out, the on demand buff clear, and low cd heal.

 

If we use the pokemon viability rankings, Tamamo is a clear A, while Waver is S.

 

Tamamo is the best in her niche, but Waver is the best or near the best just about everywhere. Like, Politoad is a mainstay in rain teams, but Landorus is everywhere.

[MrSmokestack]

2 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

Actually, every single stun acts as a CD reduction. A turn where the enemy did nothing is effectively -1 CD on all skills. (Waver's NP might only have a 50% stun chance, but that's basically -1 CD every other time he uses his NP.)

Untrue when there is more than one enemy. Unless you use something janky like MHX or Caster Gilles.

Quote

Now, if you can stack enough -CD to OVERLAP buffs, now that'd be a whole different ball game. Double Waver defense up means you take 0 damage from regular hits and chip damage from NPs, but it's kind of... difficult... to get -4 cd in 6 turns.

Off the top of my head, that’s possible without a ton of setup on Maid Alter’s 3rd at 10 with the Atlas MC equipped. 60% Quick Up is cute.

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On the plus side, Black Grail gives 80%, so if you have a unit that can actually use the Grail you can just pretend Military Tactics doesn't even exist. Unfortunately I'd say only people with absurd NP gauge skills can use the Grail properly.

Black Grail can be used on any unit. Seriously. Any unit. Sanzou, Medea, and Nitocris are some of the more prominent users of Black Grail due to their NP batteries, but in many cases it’s free damage.

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Anyway, the main problem with using Tamamo to loop NPs is that, because of her weakness in terms of team durability (she heals, but she doesn't give defense up or evasion or anything like that, so you still need to make sure everyone can actually survive an NP going off in their face), you often need to bring in servants who don't do very much damage with their NPs. Waver\Mash\Jeanne easily fixes the durability issue, but that leaves you with exactly one servant carrying the entire team's damage.

Sounds like a good setup to me. Shielder pairs well with Tamamo. One DPS tends to be the usual choice because otherwise, the damage units are stepping all over each other’s cards.

I also think you are overselling raw burst damage. It’s been mentioned already that this style of play falls off later on with the introduction of break gauges. This makes investing into damage at the expense of sustain unwise, since the enemy (or enemies) just proceed to their next phase and introduce another gimmick to the fight.

[LuxSpes]

So I decided to jump into this game out of curiosity, but I pretty much know zilch about the game and my Gacha knowledge starts and ends with FEH. I do know the basics from the tutorial, but more tips would be appreciated. 

And from FEH, I know getting a good start with your first pulls can really help further down the road and as such had question regarding what I got from mine. Aside from the tutorial pull, I played enough to do another full one and was wondering if what I got was worth keeping or if I'm better off re-rolling and if that's the case, what should I look for in my re-rolls. 

Tutorial Pull :

Spoiler

-Stheno
-Fergus mac Roich
-Romulus
-Hermitage
-Demon Boar
-Mooncell Automaton
-Robin Hood
-The Crimson Black Keys
-Primeval Curse
-Carmilla

Second Pull :

Spoiler

-Origin Bullet x3
-Storch Ritter
-David
-Covering Fire
-Ushiwakaru x2
-Jeweled Sword Zelretch
-Nitocris

 

[Shiki]

1 hour ago, LuxSpes said:

but more tips would be appreciated.

Yorokobe, shounen. Kimi no negai wa yoyaku kanau.

1 hour ago, LuxSpes said:

And from FEH, I know getting a good start with your first pulls can really help further down the road and as such had question regarding what I got from mine. Aside from the tutorial pull, I played enough to do another full one and was wondering if what I got was worth keeping or if I'm better off re-rolling and if that's the case, what should I look for in my re-rolls. 

That's true. Let's see what you got-
*sees Stheno*
REEEEEEEE. Your pull on the regular banner isn't that great either tbh.

Okay, here is a brief breakdown of the Tutorial summon.

Spoiler

In the Tutorial summon you only get a small selection of 4* (or SR) Servants from your Gold cards. You can't pull 5* (or SSR) Servants.

These include:
- Siegfried
- Chevalier D'Eon
- Emiya
- Elisabeth Bathory
- Marie Antoinette
- Martha
- Stheno
- Carmilla
- Heracles
- Tamamo Cat

Out of these I highly recommend these two:

Heracles
Easily the best 4* Servant you can get from this summon and one of the best in entire game. He stands out as a Berserker that can actually survive a very long time and still retains a very respectable offense. This is thanks to his excellent skill set, featuring two skills for survival and a basic but effective Atk boost. His NP is also very useful for slaying tough opponents.

Emiya
Emiya doesn't seem impressive at first but he will become a strong Archer once you get him leveled up and do the various power-up quests called Interlude and Strengthening. The reason why I recommend him is that he is featured many times in events where he gets some kind of bonus. Compared to Heracles who is ready right out of the box and after some leveling, Emiya is a more long-term investment.

The others aren't bad per se but they are more specialized in their roles compared the two who can fit in various team compositions.
So unless you have a connection to one of these characters (be it from the series, historical background, design etc.) or don't want to bother I would recommend to re-roll for these two.

You could re-roll until you get a 5* Servant from your first 30 SQ but that takes way too much time. tbf the current banner has a really good one but it's not required by any means.

Now for some basic tips and things you should look out for in your summons.

Spoiler

1. Learn the class advantage. Like FEH this is very essential. Especially early on where you don't have high-level Servants or the means to build a complete team counterclassing is an important strategy to get through fights.
2. Pick your Servants at the start and stick with them. In FGO most resources take some time to grind so you shouldn't try to raise a big roster right from the beginning. Focus on 1 Servant of each class at first, then start adding some more depending on your needs and interests.
3. Do no forget about the Friend Points (FP) gacha. Every daily reset you get a free 10x on that and it's the only way to 2* and lower Servants. Sometimes 3* Servants pop up there but it's quite unlikely (around the same as rolling a 5* Servant on the regular gacha).
4. The shop offers 5 Summoning Tickets every month for 20 Mana Prisms each. These are pretty much free pulls and you always want to clear these out each month. You can obtain Mana Prism from clearing the Daily Quests in the Chaldea Gate or burning Servants (not recommended, at least until you have the one at NP5).
5. Get some friends! In FGO one of your team slots is occupied by a Support Servant which you choose from your friend list. Having a big friend list with strong Servants helps a lot at the beginning to grind out EXP from Daily Quests or get over some of the more challening fights.
Keep in mind that during story quests you sometimes get Story Support Servants that give 200 FP each. Sometimes it's better to pick those for the FP alone.
6. Using Command Seals is not shameful. Everytime your party gets wrecked the game offers you to revive them at the cost of 3 CS. This is very useful for harder fights where you were just a bit short to clear it. They are restored one by one on a daily basis.
7. Saint Quartz (SQ), the main currency, is very limited. Never spent them on anything else but the gacha and try to focus them on specific Servants that you really REALLY want. The rates here are that bad.

This game is perfectly playable with 3* and lower Servants because there are several gems among that pile, some of them being the best of the best despite their low rarity. I have made a tier list for F2P players with some explainations why these Servants are good or bad. (pg. 156, end of the page).

 

Edited July 4, 2018 by The Priest

[DehNutCase]

26 minutes ago, MrSmokestack said:

Untrue when there is more than one enemy. Unless you use something janky like MHX or Caster Gilles.

Off the top of my head, that’s possible without a ton of setup on Maid Alter’s 3rd at 10 with the Atlas MC equipped. 60% Quick Up is cute.

Black Grail can be used on any unit. Seriously. Any unit. Sanzou, Medea, and Nitocris are some of the more prominent users of Black Grail due to their NP batteries, but in many cases it’s free damage.

Sounds like a good setup to me. Shielder pairs well with Tamamo. One DPS tends to be the usual choice because otherwise, the damage units are stepping all over each other’s cards.

I also think you are overselling raw burst damage. It’s been mentioned already that this style of play falls off later on with the introduction of break gauges. This makes investing into damage at the expense of sustain unwise, since the enemy (or enemies) just proceed to their next phase and introduce another gimmick to the fight.

Stuns give a bit more damage (because you still get a full turn of damage that you 'skip' with cd reduction) in exchange for being a bit less reliable. Gilles is janky as all hells, of course, but Waver's NP is AoE. I'm not saying cd reduction is bad, just that there are actually ways to get it, or a similar effect, from sources other than Tamamo.

 

Using MC effects to stack buffs generally favor teams that can burst things down, since MC effects tend to be on 10 turn cds or the like. If you don't need to burst thing down, then you shouldn't need to stack buffs in the first place. You can also just pick a mystic code with the effect you're trying to duplicate in the first place---I don't think there's any defense ups, but even in that case you can use the plugsuit to swap in a fresh defensive support if you absolutely had to stack buffs.

 

Black Grail is usable on most units, sure, but there's a lot of requirements for it to be the best, or even one of the better choices. JAlter, for example, would have issues with it due to naturally low bulk (causing issues with the hp demerit) and mediocre NP gain, even though her NP hits like a truck. CuAlter, who I would say would be the other contender for the strongest pure damage servant, at least for now, 'suffers' from a triple buster deck if you're trying to use Black Grail, since his NP will take almost forever to charge. Mind, I like the CE a lot because it's one of the very rare 2400 Atk CEs, on top of more or less the strongest damage buff in the game---assuming you get a lot of damage from your NP card compared to your other cards, but it's fairly niche. Like Tamamo.

 

The Tamamo\Defensive Support\DPS setup is good, I'm not saying it's not. But the problem is that Tamamo forces most of her teams to be that exact setup---if you can't burst things down before they NP, then Tamamo's team has to have a support that provides the durability needed to survive an NP going off, which leaves only 1 DPS to carry the whole team's damage. Personally I think optimal damage is 2 DPS, 1 Support (not necessarily the optimal team, mind, just the most damage per turn). Over the course of 3 turns you get 15 cards, 5 from each servant, and use 9. This means 2 DPS servants gives you 10 cards that you can use for damage, whereas 2 support means that you have to use at least 4 non-damage cards every 3 turns.

Yes, you can't afford to run 2 DPS if you'll lose the fight because of it, but there's no need to over invest in defenses until you'll actually lose the fight because of it.

 

 

Bear in mind that I do think Mash is on Waver's level. And obviously I also think Waver is on Waver's level. They're not perfect supports---unlike Merlin, who has durability, sustain, damage, and utility all covered in one unit---but their flaws are as small as possible amongst the current pool of units.

The two of them have only 1 major weakness as supports, sustain. They can reduce incoming damage to trivial amounts, but any damage that gets through stays there without outside help. To put it another way, they can fit on any team where sustain isn't an issue.

This can be solved by either providing sustain in your remaining servants, or simply winning before you run out of hp.

 

Tamamo, on the other hand, has durability as the major weakness. (Her lack of damage is actually only a minor weakness, since taking longer is annoying rather than unplayable.) The problem is that servants that provide durability rarely provide damage---CuAlter is actually a major exception. He has an AoE -Atk, -Crit Rate debuff despite being a Beserker. But CuAlter is also a Berserker with 3 Buster cards, meaning he doesn't really care for Tamamo that much.

Summer Artoria will fix that issue, of course, being quite possibly the best Arts damage dealer in the game, who also happens to come with a 20% defense up. But I'm honestly having trouble thinking of anyone else who can fix an Arts team's durability without driving the team's damage output into the ground.

 

To put it another way:

Servants that fix sustain---whether through killing the enemy before they die, or simply out healing incoming damage---are a lot more common than servants who fix durability, particularly because Tamamo doesn't just want servants who provide durability. She wants Arts team servants that provide durability.

[eclipse]

44 minutes ago, LuxSpes said:

So I decided to jump into this game out of curiosity, but I pretty much know zilch about the game and my Gacha knowledge starts and ends with FEH. I do know the basics from the tutorial, but more tips would be appreciated. 

And from FEH, I know getting a good start with your first pulls can really help further down the road and as such had question regarding what I got from mine. Aside from the tutorial pull, I played enough to do another full one and was wondering if what I got was worth keeping or if I'm better off re-rolling and if that's the case, what should I look for in my re-rolls. 

Tutorial Pull :

  Reveal hidden contents

-Stheno
-Fergus mac Roich
-Romulus
-Hermitage
-Demon Boar
-Mooncell Automaton
-Robin Hood
-The Crimson Black Keys
-Primeval Curse
-Carmilla

Second Pull :

  Reveal hidden contents

-Origin Bullet x3
-Storch Ritter
-David
-Covering Fire
-Ushiwakaru x2
-Jeweled Sword Zelretch
-Nitocris

 

Nitocris is a good start.  So is getting Robin Hood and David early-on.  Not too sure on Stheno, though. . .

. . .wait, I see Carmilla.  Never mind, you're good.

So your current comps are the following:

- Saber: Fergus.  He's okay, and will do for now.  Luckily, there's a free Saber WAY down the story line that should be able to take over.
- Lancer: You are in the same boat as I was, with Romulus.  The difference is that I stuck with him, rather than jumping ship to Cu/Leonidas/Hektor.  He's serviceable, and takes a surprising amount of flak.  If you pull a SR/SSR Lancer, feel free to replace him (yes, even Fionn).  Most popular pick is original Cu, due to his inability to die.
- Archer: You have Robin Hood and David, you're good.  Keep an eye out for Eurayle, she's pretty good too.
- Rider: Ushi opens up some cool strategies, so combine your copies via Shop -> Noble Phantasm and have fun!
- Caster: Nitocris is an amazing start.  I'm a Day 1 player, and I have yet to pull a SR/SSR Caster.  You're doing better than me!
- Assassin: Stheno can be useful in certain niche situations.  Carmilla's great - she'll buy you some time, and heal herself with her NP.  Not bad!
- Berserker: Fortunately, there's a free one in the story.  She's not the absolute best, but she'll do in a pinch.
- Other: Raise Mash.  She's damn good for harder content.

Now head on over to the Friend Pull!  If you can get Hans out of that, you'll be more-or-less set.

[DehNutCase]

14 minutes ago, eclipse said:

- Berserker: Fortunately, there's a free one in the story.  She's not the absolute best, but she'll do in a pinch.

Honestly, I'm happier to see Kiyohime when I'm looking for berserker support than 90% of the stuff I see. It's all Hercules and CuAlters now, for some reason. I miss the days of Kaleidoscope Lancelots being half my berserker support pool.

I think I have one or two Raikous, though, so at least I'm not completely without AoE berserkers in my friend pool.

 

...I would raise my own, but I have Arash maxed already.

Edit:

@LuxSpes Regarding rerolls, if you're playing on an emulator, I would suggest waiting to reroll until there's some kind of login bonus that gives a bunch of quartz so you can do a 10 roll right after unlocking the gacha.

FGO, far, far more than FEH, is a game where having units you like is more important than having units that are good. To put it another way, any reroll that grabs the units that you like is a good reroll.

 

In terms of the 'one' unit who guarantees a good, easy run, however, I'd say it's a toss up between getting Waver or getting one of the many, many, amazing 5* damage dealers out there. Waver will last you forever, but an early 5* damage dealer will carry you through the story, class advantage or not.

 

Regarding your rolls:

Camilla is amazing. Jack the Ripper is the best assassin in the game right now, and Camilla is basically Jack at 80%.

Nitocrisis is a great farming Caster, AoE NP with the best NP gauge skill in the game---High Speed Divine Words.

If you ever pull a 5* rider (Ozy's banner is on right now), you'll be set for basically all the singularities that're opened to this point. Good luck ascending Ozy and Nito, though, considering his drops are all in Camelot, lul.

 

Having a full 'triangle' of either saber/lancer/archer or assassin/rider/caster means that, at worst, you'll be hitting for neutral damage with your main damage dealer, which makes team building a lot easier.

 

Most importantly, however, I think the best thing to know is... chill.

FGO is very relaxing as long as you take a relaxed approach to it and don't rush things. Events need certain singularities cleared to attend, but I'm pretty sure all the upcoming ones only need you to clear Fuyuki, which is the tutorial. You won't be able to fully clear event shops, but you should be able to grab all the time-limited stuff even with a low level team farming low leveled nodes.

 

(Don't forever to do the daily quests. The exp hands are probably the most important, followed by the QP doors. The specific servant dailies are decent for getting material drops, but we have enough singularities unlocked now that clearing the story will give you better and better farming locations for materials anyway.)

Edited July 4, 2018 by DehNutCase

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

2 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

 

Summer Artoria will fix that issue, of course, being quite possibly the best Arts damage dealer in the game, who also happens to come with a 20% defense up. But I'm honestly having trouble thinking of anyone else who can fix an Arts team's durability without driving the team's damage output into the ground.

 

Grailed Yagyu got my vote for this lol. 80% damage steroid, ability to loop NP and shit tons of damage cut. 1 turn be damned thats a shit tons of damage backed by 20%+ ATK down

[Shiki]

2 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

Camilla is amazing. Jack the Ripper is the best assassin in the game right now, and Camilla is basically Jack at 80%.

Nonsense. Aside from their Bonus damage against female opponents they are very different from each other. For one Carmilla's Stargen is one of the worst in her class while Jack is the absolute pinnacle in that regard. On the other hand Carmilla has better support skills while Jack is generally more selfish with better base stats (overall damage, NP gain etc.).
Yes, Carmilla is a really good Assassin but she is nothing like Jack in terms of their roles.

Also just skimming through the entire discussion briefly, I have the impression that you're not really understanding what Tamamo actually does. The others have already tried but I'm just going to briefly point out 2 things.
- Stun is a debuff, cooldown reduction is not. Zhuge Liang's has only a 50% chance to stick at base which is so reliable, right? Especially in the optimal case of an Arts team they are spamming these over and over again. Guess which one will start failing you.
- The frequency Tamamo can use her NP and Fox's Wedding in Arts teams far outstrips the contribution Zhuge Liang can ever provide with his entire skill set. To say she tanks your damage in these teams is incredibly foolish since no other Servant accelerates your NP use like she does. It goes without saying that NP damage outstrips whatever normal attacks you're using (unless we're talking about Crits but that's an entire different matter).

In fact, the reason why Waver - Tamamo - DPS works so well as the definite Arts team is because of the interactions between the two; she fixes his issue with his long skill cooldown and adds another layer of NP drain to his NP, emulating an NP lock on a single enemy. Whatever damage you get from normal attacks is catched by his defense buff and pretty much erased by her heal. Plus he provides an excellent NP to get an overcharge level for her own NP.
If you penalize for her lacking defensive support than it is easy to blame Zhuge Liang for the lack of sustain and having high cooldowns which are far more important for an Arts team.

But honestly I don't think you can actually be convinced since it took an entire page so ... you do you.

Edited July 4, 2018 by The Priest

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

22 minutes ago, The Priest said:

Nonsense. Aside from their Bonus damage against female opponents they are very different from each other. For one Carmilla's Stargen is one of the worst in her class while Jack is the absolute pinnacle in that regard. On the other hand Carmilla has better support skills while Jack is generally more selfish with better base stats (overall damage, NP gain etc.).
Yes, Carmilla is a really good Assassin but she is nothing like Jack in terms of their roles.

Also just skimming through the entire discussion briefly, I have the impression that you're not really understanding what Tamamo actually does. The others have already tried but I'm just going to briefly point out 2 things.
- Stun is a debuff, cooldown reduction is not. Zhuge Liang's has only a 50% chance to stick at base which is so reliable, right? Especially in the optimal case of an Arts team they are spamming these over and over again. Guess which one will start failing you.
- The frequency Tamamo can use her NP and Fox's Wedding in Arts teams far outstrips the contribution Zhuge Liang can ever provide with his entire skill set. To say she tanks your damage in these teams is incredibly foolish since no other Servant accelerates your NP use like she does. It goes without saying that NP damage outstrips whatever normal attacks you're using (unless we're talking about Crits but that's an entire different matter).

In fact, the reason why Waver - Tamamo - DPS works so well as the definite Arts team is because of the interactions between the two; she fixes his issue with his long skill cooldown and adds another layer of NP drain to his NP, emulating an NP lock on a single enemy. Whatever damage you get from normal attacks is catched by his defense buff and pretty much erased by her heal. Plus he provides an excellent NP to get an overcharge level for her own NP.
If you penalize for her lacking defensive support than it is easy to blame Zhuge Liang for the lack of sustain and having high cooldowns which are far more important for an Arts team.

But honestly I don't think you can actually be convinced since it took an entire page so ... you do you.

 

Carmilla IS Jack 80%. When she got buffed she's one of the best star production in the game, and she always have Jack's broken parameter to begin with. Carmilla is taken as Assassin DPS who can provide stars, EXACTLY the same reason one would take Jack just in a different way(Jack through punching stuff, Carmilla through the best IM besides maybe Saber Lancelot, which equals to having 5 hit quick activating every turn as a bonus). Her second buff would then took her damage output to a very comfortable level to the point that she's basically budget might-as-well-be of Jack

 

Also Nutcase points are right. Stun is 1/2 cooldown reduction(the utility of that is very apparent in Onigashima). Also the primary reason Tamamo is even broken to begin with was because she reduces the CD of "skills you want to use" and Waver sits pretty at the very top of that.

 

1.7 x 7 is 10. Assuming Tamamo get to use 3 Arts chain with her own 3rd arts, she would get 90%, so really its not perfectly enough to get NP consistently. An NP prop IS required for TamamoComp whether its CasGil(Kings Return Crits) or Waver

 

I'm of the opinion that Tamamo is an OP Caster, but her vs Waver is very much a Chicken Egg situation that is slanted on Waver(Tamamo would be MUCH worse as a whole if Waver doesn't exists, arguably around 60% of her value lost right there. Waver without Tamamo is definitively worse, but only in so far as its a loss of 1 possible comp out of 90)

Edited July 4, 2018 by JSND Alter Dragon Boner

[Shiki]

25 minutes ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

When she got buffed she's one of the best star production in the game, and she always have Jack's broken parameter to begin with. Carmilla is taken as Assassin DPS who can provide stars, EXACTLY the same reason one would take Jack just in a different way(Jack through punching stuff, Carmilla through the best IM besides maybe Saber Lancelot, which equals to having 5 hit quick activating every turn as a bonus). Her second buff would then took her damage output to a very comfortable level to the point that she's basically budget might-as-well-be of Jack

Unless I'm calculating something wrong even at max. rank Bloodbath Carmilla doesn't reach Jack's level in terms of Star gen (assuming QQQ+E). Unless you mean Jack's Star gen is excessive which I would agree with.
Same for NP damage. Jack has a pretty hefty Quick booster and the bonus damage against females carries over so she should deal way more damage, no?

I mean I would argue that Carmilla might be even better than her if we take meme wizard into account. Her skillset makes Carmilla more versatile but I wouldn't call her 80% Jack considering that one's use is a straight railroad to Crit mania and dead women.

25 minutes ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

Also Nutcase points are right. Stun is 1/2 cooldown reduction(the utility of that is very apparent in Onigashima). Also the primary reason Tamamo is even broken to begin with was because she reduces the CD of "skills you want to use" and Waver sits pretty at the very top of that.

Didn't disagree with the Stun applications but in case of Waver it's not exactly reliable compared to cooldown reduction which always works.
That was kinda my point but that doesn't make Waver more important for Arts team than Tamamo. There are replacements for him (e.g. Caster Gil, Helena) but replacing her is much harder.

Edited July 4, 2018 by The Priest