Fate/Grand Order General

[MrSmokestack]

An SR Quick Saber that is better than Okita. Where have I heard this before?

Oh right. Saber Fran.

[DehNutCase]

The problem with trying to be better than Okita is the part where Okita without skills is probably better than you. That said, Saber Diarmuid's skillset is slightly better than Okita's, which should make up for the fact that Okita's generation stats are kind of bonkers.

If, you know, we ignore the 5 star 4 star stat disparity.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

7 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

The problem with trying to be better than Okita is the part where Okita without skills is probably better than you. That said, Saber Diarmuid's skillset is slightly better than Okita's, which should make up for the fact that Okita's generation stats are kind of bonkers.

If, you know, we ignore the 5 star 4 star stat disparity.

Exactly my thought

A certain SR Saber manage to be more broken than Okita.... but thats because his skillset is retarded enough he outdo everything Okita tried to do by facerolling button. Diarmuid didn't even have that

[MacLovin]

40 minutes ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

Exactly my thought

A certain SR Saber manage to be more broken than Okita.... but thats because his skillset is retarded enough he outdo everything Okita tried to do by facerolling button. Diarmuid didn't even have that

lancelot is so broken that I just spammed him from supports for the final raid in the prillya event about 8 times and beat it in 2 hours.

[DehNutCase]

19 minutes ago, Joe Cool said:

lancelot is so broken that I just spammed him from supports for the final raid in the prillya event about 8 times and beat it in 2 hours.

Surprised you didn't just add me and use my level 100 Drake. (Off-topic: Drake and Lancelot have surprisingly similar skillsets, for whatever reason.)

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

9 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

Surprised you didn't just add me and use my level 100 Drake. (Off-topic: Drake and Lancelot have surprisingly similar skillsets, for whatever reason.)

Yeah Drake honestly would have been stupidly good if she have 50% CDM buff. She don't have KoO, but between Pioneer, Golden Rule, and NP she would have been really solid

 

Also lets be honest most people only use Weiba Red Velvet on support list

I don't even notice you have L100 Drake

Edited September 6, 2018 by JSND Alter Dragon Boner

[DehNutCase]

3 minutes ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

I don't even notice you have L100 Drake

All the whales on my friend's list do.

Because I'm a jerk and never run Mona Lisa.

[MacLovin]

5 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

Surprised you didn't just add me and use my level 100 Drake. (Off-topic: Drake and Lancelot have surprisingly similar skillsets, for whatever reason.)

Spoiler

I forgot since I was swept up with irl stuff. oops.

 

there was one guy with a grailed summer mordred though. 

 

[MrSmokestack]

2 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

The problem with trying to be better than Okita is the part where Okita without skills is probably better than you. That said, Saber Diarmuid's skillset is slightly better than Okita's, which should make up for the fact that Okita's generation stats are kind of bonkers.

If, you know, we ignore the 5 star 4 star stat disparity.

Diarmuid having a worse quick card doesn’t matter when quick cards are garbage anyway.

He’s easily better than Okita and worse than Saber Fran. Okita is all damage while Diarmuid doesn’t die and can slap enemies with face cards using his NP.

Also obligatory “stats don’t matter” comment goes here. Obviously we can compare their bases and sing praises about Okita’s 5.0 quick, but it doesn’t mean much when that’s literally all she does.

EDIT: Oh yeah I’ll throw in this bit cause it’s interesting. Put into context, Okita’s Mana Burst and Mind’s Eye being on separate skills is better than having Diarmuid’s own Mana Burst try to mix both effects into one skill. In a vacuum, Mana Burst (Leap) is better than Shukuchi however.

Edited September 6, 2018 by MrSmokestack

[DehNutCase]

10 hours ago, MrSmokestack said:

Diarmuid having a worse quick card doesn’t matter when quick cards are garbage anyway.

???

Have you ever used servants with actual quick cards? Arts gain NP at 300/450/600, Quick at 100/150/200, this means that, when a quick card has 3 times as many hits* it gains just as much NP as an Arts card, with the minor damage demerit being compensated by dropping stars.

*IRRC no servant is quite this busted, however.

 

More reasonably, when an Arts card is the lead, Arts gains NP at 300/550/700, and Quick gains NP at Null/250/300, meaning it only takes 2.2 or 2.3 times as many hits for the quick card to gain more NP than an Arts card. Okita has 5 hits on quick and 2 hits on arts, which is 2.5 times as many hits. Her card deck isn't quite as busted as Jack's, who has 5 and 2 with 3 quick cards, but she also doesn't have Jack's .9 damage multiplier.

Edited September 6, 2018 by DehNutCase

[MrSmokestack]

25 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

???

Snip

All that post said is that broken Quick cards are comparable to regular Arts cards if not slightly better. And with a damage penalty.

Damage for stars is not a good trade because each hit of any card can only produce at most 3 stars. Even Quick comps with Jack and Okita as DPS still use non card-based stargen which makes the amount of stars gained from NPQQ turns complete overkill. Diarmuid even has an Instinct tied to his Star Absorption while Okita is just...

What I meant by Quick cards being “garbage” is that the returns from boosting a Quick fall off significantly compared to boosting Buster or Arts. They also require the extremely uncommon hand of NPQQ for maximum benefit on a double Skadi team. That’s only barely better in damage to BNPB while losing hard on the survivability front.

Diarmuid isn’t as vulnerable to this problem as Okita as he has two buffs in his kit that don’t care about what cards he uses—Atk and NP Gain. The Atk boost means he’ll fare better in BNPB chains (or any chain besides NPQQ) and the NP Gain boost makes his Arts card better than Okita’s basically forever. He’s also less prone to exploding thanks to his built-in defense buff. As if that wasn’t enough, the Defense removal on his NP means he isn’t cockblocked out of burst turns because the enemy threw up a dodge or invuln, so your skill cycling doesn’t go out of sync.

Overall, my main point is that Okita having slightly better damage in a single turn with a lot of setup doesn’t make her better than Diarmuid. Diarmuid is more consistent and therefore better than Okita.

[DehNutCase]

16 minutes ago, MrSmokestack said:

All that post said is that broken Quick cards are comparable to regular Arts cards if not slightly better. And with a damage penalty.

Damage for stars is not a good trade because each hit of any card can only produce at most 3 stars. Even Quick comps with Jack and Okita as DPS still use non card-based stargen which makes the amount of stars gained from NPQQ turns complete overkill. Diarmuid even has an Instinct tied to his Star Absorption while Okita is just...

What I meant by Quick cards being “garbage” is that the returns from boosting a Quick fall off significantly compared to boosting Buster or Arts. They also require the extremely uncommon hand of NPQQ for maximum benefit on a double Skadi team. That’s only barely better in damage to BNPB while losing hard on the survivability front.

Diarmuid isn’t as vulnerable to this problem as Okita as he has two buffs in his kit that don’t care about what cards he uses—Atk and NP Gain. The Atk boost means he’ll fare better in BNPB chains (or any chain besides NPQQ) and the NP Gain boost makes his Arts card better than Okita’s basically forever. He’s also less prone to exploding thanks to his built-in defense buff. As if that wasn’t enough, the Defense removal on his NP means he isn’t cockblocked out of burst turns because the enemy threw up a dodge or invuln, so your skill cycling doesn’t go out of sync.

Overall, my main point is that Okita having slightly better damage in a single turn with a lot of setup doesn’t make her better than Diarmuid. Diarmuid is more consistent and therefore better than Okita.

Quick cards are comparable to arts on a servant with a deck and hit count built for them. This means, effectively, Jack has 4 Arts and 1 buster, and Okita has 3 Arts and 2 buster. And it's much better for Jack to give some of her damage to another servant than for jack to buff herself---Buster Cards deal almost double a quick card's damage, meaning you'd much rather a servant with good busters get the crit stars---this is why I usually think of Scathach (Lancer) as a Buster Crit servant with an odd niche of quick support than an actual quick servant. Her buster cards are just outrageous in how good they are.

 

Scathach (Lancer), Saber Diarmuid, Saber Fran etc. basically have 3 cards, since their quicks are so bad. You can't say Diarmuid is more consistent when 40% of his deck is unclickable. 4 hit quick and 3 hit arts (or for Scathach, 2 hit quick and 3 hit arts) makes quick NP gain utterly worthless, and 4 hits simply enough enough stars to be worth it---Drake's quick card is clickable despite her Arts having 4 hits because she has 6 hits on it.

 

Edit: Also, unlike Stargen+, Quick Performance up increases star drop multiplicatively. A 50% Performance up on a quick card is an extra 40/65/90 stargen, and, of course, 50% damage and NP gain.

Edited September 6, 2018 by DehNutCase

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

1 hour ago, DehNutCase said:

Quick cards are comparable to arts on a servant with a deck and hit count built for them. This means, effectively, Jack has 4 Arts and 1 buster, and Okita has 3 Arts and 2 buster. And it's much better for Jack to give some of her damage to another servant than for jack to buff herself---Buster Cards deal almost double a quick card's damage, meaning you'd much rather a servant with good busters get the crit stars---this is why I usually think of Scathach (Lancer) as a Buster Crit servant with an odd niche of quick support than an actual quick servant. Her buster cards are just outrageous in how good they are.

 

Scathach (Lancer), Saber Diarmuid, Saber Fran etc. basically have 3 cards, since their quicks are so bad. You can't say Diarmuid is more consistent when 40% of his deck is unclickable. 4 hit quick and 3 hit arts (or for Scathach, 2 hit quick and 3 hit arts) makes quick NP gain utterly worthless, and 4 hits simply enough enough stars to be worth it---Drake's quick card is clickable despite her Arts having 4 hits because she has 6 hits on it.

 

Edit: Also, unlike Stargen+, Quick Performance up increases star drop multiplicatively. A 50% Performance up on a quick card is an extra 40/65/90 stargen, and, of course, 50% damage and NP gain.

I don't think at the point of Dia and Fran, the quick even count as bad anymore. Same with Brynhildr really. 3.0 base is when Quick card started to be solid, with 4.0 onwards when its super broken. Yeah their arts to quick ration isnt good, but their Arts is 2.0, not 1.6.

 

1 hour ago, MrSmokestack said:

All that post said is that broken Quick cards are comparable to regular Arts cards if not slightly better. And with a damage penalty.

Damage for stars is not a good trade because each hit of any card can only produce at most 3 stars. Even Quick comps with Jack and Okita as DPS still use non card-based stargen which makes the amount of stars gained from NPQQ turns complete overkill. Diarmuid even has an Instinct tied to his Star Absorption while Okita is just...

What I meant by Quick cards being “garbage” is that the returns from boosting a Quick fall off significantly compared to boosting Buster or Arts. They also require the extremely uncommon hand of NPQQ for maximum benefit on a double Skadi team. That’s only barely better in damage to BNPB while losing hard on the survivability front.

Diarmuid isn’t as vulnerable to this problem as Okita as he has two buffs in his kit that don’t care about what cards he uses—Atk and NP Gain. The Atk boost means he’ll fare better in BNPB chains (or any chain besides NPQQ) and the NP Gain boost makes his Arts card better than Okita’s basically forever. He’s also less prone to exploding thanks to his built-in defense buff. As if that wasn’t enough, the Defense removal on his NP means he isn’t cockblocked out of burst turns because the enemy threw up a dodge or invuln, so your skill cycling doesn’t go out of sync.

Overall, my main point is that Okita having slightly better damage in a single turn with a lot of setup doesn’t make her better than Diarmuid. Diarmuid is more consistent and therefore better than Okita.

Quick card is garbaje only when its not Kintoki onwards level. If its Kintoki onwards its "just as good as Arts" yes, but being just as good as arts isn't bad when Arts is broken and AQQ on that level beats up most Arts cards unless its bullshit like Sheba and Sherlock. Whether its worth the trade off from less arts chain is another question though

 

Also Dia is worse in terms of overall DPS than Okita by miles from both stats(they would separate in like what 15% damage from stats) and Minds Eye crits. Obviously if you dont pop Mind's Eye, Dia would do better off the fact his 2nd lasts 3 turns

[MrSmokestack]

2 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

Quick cards are comparable to arts on a servant with a deck and hit count built for them. This means, effectively, Jack has 4 Arts and 1 buster, and Okita has 3 Arts and 2 buster. And it's much better for Jack to give some of her damage to another servant than for jack to buff herself---Buster Cards deal almost double a quick card's damage, meaning you'd much rather a servant with good busters get the crit stars---this is why I usually think of Scathach (Lancer) as a Buster Crit servant with an odd niche of quick support than an actual quick servant. Her buster cards are just outrageous in how good they are.

A couple of things:

-Wanting to give additional damage to another servant strongly depends on the team composition. In a 1D, 2S setup this doesn’t make sense. In 2D, 1S, there’s an argument for it. There’s also crits giving NP gain to your supports for more NPs, but that’s reaching a little.

-The problem with Quicks being as good as Arts cards is that they’re still not Arts cards. You can’t Arts chain with them. This isn’t a peg on any specific servant, just in general.

Quote

Scathach (Lancer), Saber Diarmuid, Saber Fran etc. basically have 3 cards, since their quicks are so bad. You can't say Diarmuid is more consistent when 40% of his deck is unclickable. 4 hit quick and 3 hit arts (or for Scathach, 2 hit quick and 3 hit arts) makes quick NP gain utterly worthless, and 4 hits simply enough enough stars to be worth it---Drake's quick card is clickable despite her Arts having 4 hits because she has 6 hits on it.

“Consistency” means more than just damage. It includes survivability, effect duration, and NP generation as well. Okita’s effects do nothing beyond additonal damage, while two of the units you mentioned have effects that extend beyond just damage. That says nothing about how much more useful those effects are, too. Diarmuid has defense buff purge and NP Gain + Defense Up 3/5 turns, and Fran has 3-turn damage and NP Gain. While Scathach is mostly damage too, (chance-based) Crit Strength and Star Absorption, stun on NP and those godlike busters put a rift between her and Okita.

There’s also Fran having buff purge and one of the dumbest NP gain boosts in the game, and Shishou having absurd crit capability assuming you can supply her with stars. Okita’s kit being so vanilla holds her back greatly.

Saber Fran is generally seen as much better than Okita for a reason.

Quote

Edit: Also, unlike Stargen+, Quick Performance up increases star drop multiplicatively. A 50% Performance up on a quick card is an extra 40/65/90 stargen, and, of course, 50% damage and NP gain.

Stargen still caps at 300%. Extra damage and NP Gain are good, but it’s only for one card.

It’s true that Diarmuid has worse Quicks than Okita, but his NP gain boost is actually greater—56%. It’s still not better than Okita even without Shukuchi, but the kicker is that 30% of it applies to his Arts, which as stated previously is just better than hers. Vanilla boosts in a vacuum are rarely better than a mixed boost unless you’re Brynhild.

1 hour ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

Also Dia is worse in terms of overall DPS than Okita by miles from both stats(they would separate in like what 15% damage from stats) and Minds Eye crits. Obviously if you dont pop Mind's Eye, Dia would do better off the fact his 2nd lasts 3 turns

This is fair. I never made the claim that Diarmuid was a better damage dealer than Okita—only that he’s more reliable than her.

Edited September 6, 2018 by MrSmokestack

[DehNutCase]

3 hours ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

I don't think at the point of Dia and Fran, the quick even count as bad anymore. Same with Brynhildr really. 3.0 base is when Quick card started to be solid, with 4.0 onwards when its super broken. Yeah their arts to quick ration isnt good, but their Arts is 2.0, not 1.6.

If their arts has 2 hits I'd agree---assuming they keep their current excellent NP gen on arts. The main problem is that having 1 arts card means that 2.8 Arts on Fran and 2.1 Arts of Diarmuid simply don't come up enough to matter. Especially in Summer Fran's case, but even Diarmuid suffers.

 

Summer Fran with Galvanism maxed and active in a QQA (you have to QQA for NP gain, her quick is Lancer Scathach level terrible) generates 1.12 * 1.8 * .7 * 3 * 1+ 1.12 * 1.8 * .7 * 3 * 1.5 + 1 * 1.8 * .7 * 4 * 6 + 1 * 1.8 * .7 * 5 = 47% guage.

 

Okita without a single ability active in a AQQ chain generates 1 * 1 * 1.09 * 2 * 3 + 1.02 * 1 * 1.09 * 5 * 2.5 + 1.02 * 1 * 1.09 * 5 * 3 + 1 * 1 * 1.09 * 3 * 1 = 40%, and Okita doesn't have to pay 10% NP gauge just to activate Galvanism. (She also drops like 10 extra stars or something.)

Mind, these numbers are very slightly off, Quick Performance NP gen only modifies the base quick card NP gen of 100/150/200, and not the extra 100 from Arts lead. But Okita's riding is low enough that she'll still have 40% NP gauge without the 2% quick performance.

 

Diarmuid with Maxed third skill with an QQA chain (his quick isn't as terrible as Frank's, but he still gets more NP from last card Arts than Arts lead) generates 1.08 * 1.3 * .73 * 4 * 1 + 1.08 * 1.3 * .73 * 4 * 1.5 + 1 * 1.3 * .73 * 3 * 6 + 1 * 1.3 * .73 * 4 * 1 = 31.1 %

 

Okita is literally better without using any of her skills at NP gen than these two with their NP gen skills permanently active. Even if we ignore the enormous amount of extra stars she puts out from having a quick card that's actually worth pressing.

2 hours ago, MrSmokestack said:

-The problem with Quicks being as good as Arts cards is that they’re still not Arts cards. You can’t Arts chain with them. This isn’t a peg on any specific servant, just in general.

Okita has just as many Arts cards as Frank and Diarmuid. And refer to above for her NP gen.

2 hours ago, MrSmokestack said:

“Consistency” means more than just damage. It includes survivability, effect duration, and NP generation as well. Okita’s effects do nothing beyond additonal damage, while two of the units you mentioned have effects that extend beyond just damage. That says nothing about how much more useful those effects are, too. Diarmuid has defense buff purge and NP Gain + Defense Up 3/5 turns, and Fran has 3-turn damage and NP Gain. While Scathach is mostly damage too, (chance-based) Crit Strength and Star Absorption, stun on NP and those godlike busters put a rift between her and Okita.

Okita's NP gen is permanently active, she's the definition of consistent. Her dodge is one turn worse than Diarmuid, but unlike Fran, she actually has a dodge.

Also, you can't say NP gen skills being on a unit is a plus when Okita's NP gen is better without skills. That's like saying a random ass 100 max Atk guy with 200% self only Atk up is the best unit in the game.

 

2 * crap is still crap, 1 * amazing is still miles above that.

 

Like, you're using some really strange definition of consistency that says 1.3 * 24 half the time and 1 * 24 half the time is better and more consistent than 1 * 40 all the time.

2 hours ago, MrSmokestack said:

Stargen still caps at 300%. Extra damage and NP Gain are good, but it’s only for one card.

Just because Okita doesn't generate 20 stars from a third slot quick doesn't mean she doesn't generate 15 stars, because, unlike Fran or Diarmuid, her quick has 5 hits. Refer to above NP gen calculations on why you don't want Fran or Diamuid's quick on the third slot pretty much ever, and also note that Okita loves her quick being in the third slot.

 

Further, because of the way Crit works you pretty much have to let other cards than quick get stars. Crit isn't a 100% performance up that stacks with everything, it's actually 100% damage and NP gain (multiplicative) and 20% stargen (additive). This means it's best on the card with most hits that isn't a quick card. (It's part of why Scathach's buster is absurd, 6 hits means a crit drops an extra 1.2 stars, on top of the fact that her busters give more NP than her quick cards because of how the hit counts shake out.)

Edited September 6, 2018 by DehNutCase

[QKumber]

6 hours ago, MrSmokestack said:

Vanilla boosts in a vacuum are rarely better than a mixed boost unless you’re Brynhild.

Really curious, but why is that the case on Brynhilda?

And this discussion is rather interesting sometimes! I am not such a number cruncher but it is good to see some once in a while :D

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

20 minutes ago, QKumber said:

Really curious, but why is that the case on Brynhilda?

And this discussion is rather interesting sometimes! I am not such a number cruncher but it is good to see some once in a while :D

Vanilla boosts is 50% boost to card

Mixed is say 30% to Card, 20% to ATK

 

Brynhildr is worse off being mixed for 2 reason and thats from her buff being lower in value than normal to begin with(standard Mana Burst is 50%, but MBF Bryn is 25 15 which results in 1.25 x 1.15 = 1.4375) and the other is Mana Burst flame in general did not make up the buff split reducing Buster card damage by applying multiplicative stacking

 

 

Multiplicative stacking in general is a myth, mind. I've calced it before and even BB's Pig Chalice is practically have irrelevant diminishing return min maxing prospect

[MrSmokestack]

5 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

Okita is literally better without using any of her skills at NP gen than these two with their NP gen skills permanently active. Even if we ignore the enormous amount of extra stars she puts out from having a quick card that's actually worth pressing.

I already explained why Okita generating a gratuitous amount of stars is overkill. The teams you run her on still need non card-based stargen to fuel those criticals that refill her NP in the first place. That’s why Okita generating 50 stars (or however many she generates, doesn’t matter) in a chain is irrelevant.

Quote

Okita has just as many Arts cards as Frank and Diarmuid. And refer to above for her NP gen.

Not really sure why you quoted this since I said the exact same thing you’re saying.

Quote

Also, you can't say NP gen skills being on a unit is a plus when Okita's NP gen is better without skills. That's like saying a random ass 100 max Atk guy with 200% self only Atk up is the best unit in the game.

Where did I say this?

If you read my post more carefully you’d see that I explained Diarmuid’s NP gain with the relevant skills maxed is worse than Okita without skills. The exception is the Arts on both him and Fran which completely blows Okita out of the water.

Quote

Like, you're using some really strange definition of consistency that says 1.3 * 24 half the time and 1 * 24 half the time is better and more consistent than 1 * 40 all the time.

That’s fair, but you completely skipped over the point on survivability.

Summer Fran is preferable to Okita for two reasons—the buff removal and Attack Down on her 2nd skill and (to a much lesser extent) the stun on her NP. Buff removal alone is a massive advantage that by itself arguably makes Fran better.

So Okita’s NP ignores defense? So does Fran’s, but she she has Pierce Invulnerability too, and the whole party can benefit from it. Attack Down, while less impactful, is still a small Defense boost to the whole team—a crucial point since Quick teams lack survivability. Since Tristan is a natural fit for Quick teams, he can also use his NP’s debuff resist down to give Fran 90% stun on her NP. It’s a bit of a gimmick, but a powerful one at that. Fran has no issues firing her NP off repeatedly despite her “weaker” cards.

You’re really getting hung up on the numbers when they were mostly irrelevant to my argument. You’ve demonstrated that Fran and Diarmuid base-wise are worse than Okita. No kidding, I already said 5.0 Quick is strong, but that alone isn’t enough to make Okita better. Both SR Quick Sabers have other tools that make them more reliable than Okita in difficult fights.

Of course, if you’re just concerned with maximizing damage, go ahead and pick Okita. She’s still a top damage dealer, but she is by no means the best in general out of the pool of Quick DPS units.

1 hour ago, QKumber said:

Really curious, but why is that the case on Brynhilda?

JSND already explained it, but Bryn’s Mana Burst (Flame) is a lower rank than Karna and Arjuna’s.

The buff value on the latter’s Mana Burst is 1.56 on NP (Vanilla Mana Burst is a straight 1.5), while the value on the former’s is approximately 1.44. This means that for Karna / Arjuna, their NP will do more damage while their Buster cards do slightly less. Unfortunately for Brynhild, she has both a smaller damage increase on her NP compared to a vanilla Mana Burst and less damage still on her Buster cards.

I generally consider mixed buffs to be better than vanilla buffs, though it depends on what stats are being boosted and by how much. Summer BB still has low NP damage even with Pig Chalice at Lv 10, but something like Paracelsus giving NP Gain and Arts Up can get degenerate pretty fast.

[Jingle Jangle]

Me being me, I use tickets as soon as I get then. Got:

Spoiler

My first ssr lancer, my luck is strong. I hope I didn't use it all up before getting Nero.

 

[DehNutCase]

3 hours ago, MrSmokestack said:

I already explained why Okita generating a gratuitous amount of stars is overkill. The teams you run her on still need non card-based stargen to fuel those criticals that refill her NP in the first place. That’s why Okita generating 50 stars (or however many she generates, doesn’t matter) in a chain is irrelevant.

?

If you're generating overkill amount of stars your team comp messed up. If you're running Okita in a team you're supposed to run a 'quick' Saber like Frank or Diarmuid in then of course she feels a bit worse than other options, because you're wasting part of her kit to to fix the deficiency of someone else's kit.

 

Okita doesn't have star problems---she can't be the only star generator on the team, being only 60% as good as Jack the Ripper at stargen, but she's still a net exporter of stars rather than importer, meaning she's good to pair with people like Scathach, Beserkers, and so on, who love stars but don't make much of it themselves. Okita and, say, Drake is already more than enough cards from command cards alone---their quick cards alone are something to the tune of 10-18 stars a turn.

Saber Diarmuid and Frank are star importers at best (not too sure why you want the people without natural Crit Damage Up to be critting, seeing how they only have one generation card worth using, while Okita has 3), meaning they fit in different teams.

The fact that Okita's quick generates NP while also generating stars is part of her kit. It's like how you use Drake's 6 hit quick that rains stars despite her subpar NP gen---you're not hitting that card for NP gauge, Golden Rule or not---Drake has 2 Arts cards and Pioneer---you click it when you want stars next turn and damage is already covered this turn. (Say, if you're planning to NP the wave down so you have 2 cards free, so you click a random card and then click Drake's quick before using, say, Drake's NP, so you can have 2 drake cards next turn and still give your beserker a full crit brave chain.)

3 hours ago, MrSmokestack said:

If you read my post more carefully you’d see that I explained Diarmuid’s NP gain with the relevant skills maxed is worse than Okita without skills. The exception is the Arts on both him and Fran which completely blows Okita out of the water.

It's pretty nice to know that .73 * 3 = 2.19 vs. 2 * 1.09 = 2.18 is getting blown out of the water, yet somehow something like 2 extra stars per quick card and .73 * 4 = 2.92 vs. 1.09 * 5 = 5.45 is apparently irrelevant.

And why are you valuing 1 card out of a deck more than 2 cads out of a deck? Even if Diarmuid's Arts is literally twice as good---I wonder where he got that other 70% of a Golden Rule from---as Okita's there's still the problem where Okita has 5 cards in her deck compared to Diarmuid's 3, unless you really like clicking Diarmuid's quick cards for some bloody reason.

 

The main problem is that, whatever you say about Okita's NP gain, you're treating it like her NP gain being bonkers by default is somehow worse than Diarmuid's and Franks' that are mediocre after skills. And then brought up some flimflam about 'consistency' being: 'survivability' and 'NP generation' and 'skill duration,' all of which point to Okita being better than Saber Fran, seeing how Okita literally has something close to a 100% Golden Rule that's permanently active, except it stacks better with other Golden Rules. And also has a dodge rather than 20% Atk down and a Stun on an NP.

(Also, you do know Okita's Star Grab being 1 turn duration is a plus, not a minus, right? She grabs all the stars for her brave chain and then steps aside so that another crit star user can take them for theirs. Unlike Diamuird who'll suck out a bunch of stars towards his quick cards almost no matter what, since his lasts 3 turns.)

3 hours ago, MrSmokestack said:

Where did I say this?

See below:

11 hours ago, MrSmokestack said:

“Consistency” means more than just damage. It includes survivability, effect duration, and NP generation as well. Okita’s effects do nothing beyond additonal damage, while two of the units you mentioned have effects that extend beyond just damage. That says nothing about how much more useful those effects are, too. Diarmuid has defense buff purge and NP Gain + Defense Up 3/5 turns, and Fran has 3-turn damage and NP Gain. While Scathach is mostly damage too, (chance-based) Crit Strength and Star Absorption, stun on NP and those godlike busters put a rift between her and Okita.

Regarding the above: You clearly implied that Okita's NP stuff being on her naturally---and therefore permanent in duration and effect---is worse than Diarmuid and Frank having NP skills. You also implied that purging defenses after the NP landed is somehow better than ignoring defenses to begin with, and that Frank's extra 20% damage for two turns is apparently better than just having 15% more Atk to begin with. (Level 100 Okita has 1885 Atk on level 100 Frank, if we give them equal amount of grails, that is, Frank is level 96, then Okita has an 2283 Atk lead.) And, yeah, Frank has a 20% Atk down. You know Okita has? A dodge. (And about double or triple Frank's damage, but never mind that.)

 

Your entire argument relied on ignoring Okita's bases, which are fucking bonkers. When I said Okita without skills is probably better than 'you,' implying a generic 4* Saber, I meant it. Okita without skills is kind of amazing. She basically has Clairvoyance 100% and Golden Rule 100% (compared to other Sabers) baked into her kit. Which, because they're her bases, happen to be permanently active.

 

Which is why, therefore, I argued that you'd say a 100 max Atk guy with 200% self-only Atk buff would be the best servant in the game, seeing how the 200% Atk buff is his skillset, but the 100 max Atk is only his bases.

3 hours ago, MrSmokestack said:

So Okita’s NP ignores defense? So does Fran’s, but she she has Pierce Invulnerability too, and the whole party can benefit from it. Attack Down, while less impactful, is still a small Defense boost to the whole team—a crucial point since Quick teams lack survivability. Since Tristan is a natural fit for Quick teams, he can also use his NP’s debuff resist down to give Fran 90% stun on her NP. It’s a bit of a gimmick, but a powerful one at that. Fran has no issues firing her NP off repeatedly despite her “weaker” cards.

Quick team don't lack survivability, Frank does. Okita has dodge, Jack has dodge, Scathach has dodge, everyone and their grandmothers have dodge.

 

And... good for you that Fran can spam her NP. So can Jeanne. Most people build teams to have enough survivability to live until the end of the fight, and then stack as much damage as possible so the fight ends quickly. You're free to stall---which is basically what you're doing when you click Franks' quick cards, Okita's are more than twice as good for NP guage, meaning time to kill is pretty much halved (due to more NPs & more crits, thanks to better hitcounts)---but I don't see what that has to do with anything.

3 hours ago, MrSmokestack said:

You’re really getting hung up on the numbers when they were mostly irrelevant to my argument. You’ve demonstrated that Fran and Diarmuid base-wise are worse than Okita. No kidding, I already said 5.0 Quick is strong, but that alone isn’t enough to make Okita better. Both SR Quick Sabers have other tools that make them more reliable than Okita in difficult fights.

Of course, if you’re just concerned with maximizing damage, go ahead and pick Okita. She’s still a top damage dealer, but she is by no means the best in general out of the pool of Quick DPS units.

Why are you running units that are .7 all the time, all the time, when you can run the unit that's .9 90% of the time, 90% of the time, and then the .7 10% of the time? (Or, better yet, bring in Merlin so you can run the .9 100% of the time instead.)

When the factors that make Fran and Diarmuid better than Okita exists, you're free to run them, but when they aren't in a fight---which, 90% of the time, they aren't---you run Okita.

 

I'm hung up on the numbers because that's literally what it means for a unit to be better. A unit that does 2 damage is twice as good as a unit that does 1 damage.

You say 20% Atk up, 20% Np up for 3 turns makes Frank better than Okita and then turn around and ignore the fact that Okita does around double Frank's damage. You say 80% Galvanism makes Frank better and then turn around and ignore the fact that it only ties her with Okita 3/5 turns, and has Okita leaving her in the dust the other 2/5. You say 20% Atk down, buff clear makes Frank better and then turn around and ignore the fact that, crit stars, while not defensive utility, are, in fact, offensive utility. Crit stars give damage and NP gauge, and Okita gives out more of those and gives better control of how they're used---1 turn crit gather up is AMAZING star control, you grab every single star for your brave chain and then step back to let someone else use the crit stars you just made. You say the Tristan Frank pairing is somehow relevant when you can achieve better damage and equal survivability with a Merlin Okita pairing---you can give Merlin to Frank, too, Okita will still out damage, and the pair won't have durability issues either way.

Edited September 7, 2018 by DehNutCase

[Shiki]

Spent everything I had on the Lancer rate-up (37 tickets, 210 SQ) for Karna and maybe NP2 Li Shuwen.
Ended with Volumen Hydrargyrum, a Fionn (aka Rare Prism) and a rainbow spark ... that was Goddess Rhongomyniad.

... which ultimately sealed my chances for Karna. I won't have any SQ to spare next year because of Shimosa and I got Rhongomyniad instead. That being said she covers my empty spot in Lancer rate-up as the AoE Lancer very nicely, as she is probably the best Lancer for farming. She even has yet to get a NP upgrade in JP which might push her being relevant at some point, depending on what they will give her besides higher multipliers.
So yeah, I'm a bit disappointed but I can make use of this.

Now I can double down on the Horse Emblem @JSND Alter Dragon Boner.

[MrSmokestack]

9 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

?

If you're generating overkill amount of stars your team comp messed up. If you're running Okita in a team you're supposed to run a 'quick' Saber like Frank or Diarmuid in then of course she feels a bit worse than other options, because you're wasting part of her kit to to fix the deficiency of someone else's kit.

Okita doesn't have star problems---she can't be the only star generator on the team, being only 60% as good as Jack the Ripper at stargen, but she's still a net exporter of stars rather than importer, meaning she's good to pair with people like Scathach, Beserkers, and so on, who love stars but don't make much of it themselves. Okita and, say, Drake is already more than enough cards from command cards alone---their quick cards alone are something to the tune of 10-18 stars a turn.

Saber Diarmuid and Frank are star importers at best (not too sure why you want the people without natural Crit Damage Up to be critting, seeing how they only have one generation card worth using, while Okita has 3), meaning they fit in different teams.

The fact that Okita's quick generates NP while also generating stars is part of her kit. It's like how you use Drake's 6 hit quick that rains stars despite her subpar NP gen---you're not hitting that card for NP gauge, Golden Rule or not---Drake has 2 Arts cards and Pioneer---you click it when you want stars next turn and damage is already covered this turn. (Say, if you're planning to NP the wave down so you have 2 cards free, so you click a random card and then click Drake's quick before using, say, Drake's NP, so you can have 2 drake cards next turn and still give your beserker a full crit brave chain.)

If I wanted a star generator, I’d bring someone with utility worth a damn. Okita’s damage is not utility. Tristan, Lobo, and Jack’s buff removal is. So is Tristan’s Harp. And Lobo’s 70% Defense Up.

Not every fight is going to have a Berserker boss with no buffs that allows themselves to get steamrolled by crits. A few turns of burst isn’t always going to be enough to overcome them.

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It's pretty nice to know that .73 * 3 = 2.19 vs. 2 * 1.09 = 2.18 is getting blown out of the water, yet somehow something like 2 extra stars per quick card and .73 * 4 = 2.92 vs. 1.09 * 5 = 5.45 is apparently irrelevant.

It’s actually 2.8 Arts in the case of Diarmuid and 5.0 Arts for Saber Fran 3/5 turns. It’s not that close.

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And why are you valuing 1 card out of a deck more than 2 cads out of a deck? Even if Diarmuid's Arts is literally twice as good---I wonder where he got that other 70% of a Golden Rule from---as Okita's there's still the problem where Okita has 5 cards in her deck compared to Diarmuid's 3, unless you really like clicking Diarmuid's quick cards for some bloody reason.

Diarmuid’s Quick being “bad” doesn’t mean you can never click it. So is not having to click Okita’s cards every time you see them. Clicking Okita’s cards means you’re not clicking a support’s cards.

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(Also, you do know Okita's Star Grab being 1 turn duration is a plus, not a minus, right? She grabs all the stars for her brave chain and then steps aside so that another crit star user can take them for theirs. Unlike Diamuird who'll suck out a bunch of stars towards his quick cards almost no matter what, since his lasts 3 turns.)

This point is not relevant in certain teams. Doesn’t it make more sense to run two supports for one DPS? Why would Merlin or Waver specifically need stars for themselves?

Saber - Rider - Caster team is asking for trouble with star weight. Unless you’re somehow firing off Golden Wild Hunt for 40+ stars every other turn—to say nothing about how mismatched that deck is for chains—Drake will just take all the stars.

It also doesn’t change the fact that it’s a weak starpull with no other effects.

It’s worth noting that Okita is actually one of the worst Mind’s Eye servants in the game. Her crit damage boost is low and there’s nothing to supplement it, unlike the majority of Mind’s Eye users who are Buster or Arts. She has starpull and that’s it. In her case criticals literally only translate into more damage and NP gain, and seeing as how Buster or Arts crits are better by leaps and bounds, yeah. No.

I’m failing to see the logic behind Weak Constitution and Mind’s Eye not being plain skills in a game where Self-Modification exists.

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You clearly implied that Okita's NP stuff being on her naturally---and therefore permanent in duration and effect---is worse than Diarmuid and Frank having NP skills.

It’s almost as if you read what I wrote then didn’t read what I wrote...

It is when the content in this game that’s actually worth making a team for isn’t something you can clear buffless.

The stat boosts actually matter since they make the two more comparable to Okita damage-wise. This does not mean the same thing as outdamaging her. Then you look at the everything else they have in their kit and you have to wonder whether the tiny damage lead Okita has over them is worth giving up all that utility.

I’ve only ever said that Diarmuid and Fran’s Arts is better though?

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You also implied that purging defenses after the NP landed is somehow better than ignoring defenses to begin with, and that Frank's extra 20% damage for two turns is apparently better than just having 15% more Atk to begin with.

Also dodge vs atk down lol

1) It actually is. Okita gets cockblocked by Evade and Invuln. Diarmuid has good refund on his NP due to being 10 hit Quick and can use his facecards to set up another NP for the next turn. There’s also Fran whose NP damage absolutely cannot be blocked.

2) See above. The buffs don’t let her outdamage Okita, but they make her more comparable.

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Your entire argument relied on ignoring Okita's bases, which are fucking bonkers. When I said Okita without skills is probably better than 'you,' implying a generic 4* Saber, I meant it. Okita without skills is kind of amazing. She basically has Clairvoyance 100% and Golden Rule 100% (compared to other Sabers) baked into her kit. Which, because they're her bases, happen to be permanently active.

I’m not ignoring Okita’s bases. I’ve conceded that they’re better than Fran and Diarmuid since the very start. Servants aren’t only their bases though, and believing a servant can get carried just by their bases when their kit is both vanilla and selfish is plain wrong. Skills matter more than bases do.

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Which is why, therefore, I argued that you'd say a 100 max Atk guy with 200% self-only Atk buff would be the best servant in the game, seeing how the 200% Atk buff is his skillset, but the 100 max Atk is only his bases.

The real counterargument is Vlad Berserker and Orion. Their bases are utter garbage. How can they be good with 1% Arts? The truth is in their skills. They take both of them from being virtually unsuable to some of the best Arts servants in the game.

If you’re gonna make a strawman, use one that actually exists in the game.

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Quick team don't lack survivability, Frank does. Okita has dodge, Jack has dodge, Scathach has dodge, everyone and their grandmothers have dodge.

Quick teams needing Merlin of all people for existant survivability says everything that words can’t express.

News flash: Quests last longer than three turns and NPs happen more than once every seven turns.

And what do you do if the enemy removes buffs or has Sure Hit? Guess I’ll die.

There’s no healing on support Quicks besides Osakabehime who is largely considered terrible in that role, and the main sources of defense come from Skadi’s NP and from the better Quick DPS servants like Lobo and Fran. Okita literally gives her team the finger if she can’t stop the enemy from NP’ing.

Skadi’s “sustain” can’t really be called sustain. Her lack of a AAA deck limits the number of Arts chains her team can make. She has one hit Evade on her NP and damage cut with no other boosts. She’s quite literally the worst of both Merlin and Waver.

That’s the core issue with all Quick teams; they are all burst and almost no durability.

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Why are you running units that are .7 all the time, all the time, when you can run the unit that's .9 90% of the time, 90% of the time, and then the .7 10% of the time? (Or, better yet, bring in Merlin so you can run the .9 100% of the time instead.)

When the factors that make Fran and Diarmuid better than Okita exists, you're free to run them, but when they aren't in a fight---which, 90% of the time, they aren't---you run Okita.

Take a look at the past several CQs in JP we’ve gotten and tell me if Okita’s damage alone is enough to stomp them.

It’s not. All of them have enemies from multiple classes, that can buff themselves, and that have break bars. Their HP in both breaks is also low enough that Okita’s extra damage actually doesn’t matter when bursting them down.

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I'm hung up on the numbers because that's literally what it means for a unit to be better. A unit that does 2 damage is twice as good as a unit that does 1 damage.

True on paper but not true in practice. Buffs exist. Skills exist. And not just skills that increase damage, mind you. I mean skills that can influence what situations you bring a servant into.

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You say 20% Atk up, 20% Np up for 3 turns makes Frank better than Okita and then turn around and ignore the fact that Okita does around double Frank's damage. You say 80% Galvanism makes Frank better and then turn around and ignore the fact that it only ties her with Okita 3/5 turns, and has Okita leaving her in the dust the other 2/5.

See above. Implying is another way of saying “I think you said...” and that’s wrong. Either I said “Fran does more damage than Okita because of her 3 turn buff” (and I’m wrong) or I didn’t say that and you didn’t put what I said into context.

I have never made the claim that Diarmuid and Fran can outdamage Okita. My claim has always been this: “Summer Fran and Diarmuid compensate for their lower damage and bases with skills that make their damage comparable to Okita while also having additional tools relevant to difficult content.”

Okita’s damage is great. But it’s her only advantage. And her competition, while worse at it, have other options that make them preferable to Okita in content where team composition actually matters.

To quote someone who actually uses Quick teams in JP more than you do, “...everyone deals damage. [DPS] just deal more of it.”

Any support a unit can provide is always more valuable than just more damage. Always.

And contrary to popular belief, 60% of the fight does in fact matter more than 30% of the fight.

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You say 20% Atk down, buff clear makes Frank better and then turn around and ignore the fact that, crit stars, while not defensive utility, are, in fact, offensive utility. Crit stars give damage and NP gauge, and Okita gives out more of those and gives better control of how they're used---1 turn crit gather up is AMAZING star control, you grab every single star for your brave chain and then step back to let someone else use the crit stars you just made. You say the Tristan Frank pairing is somehow relevant when you can achieve better damage and equal survivability with a Merlin Okita pairing---you can give Merlin to Frank, too, Okita will still out damage, and the pair won't have durability issues either way.

Quick’s good guys, just use Merlin.

Yeah no.

[DehNutCase]

1 hour ago, MrSmokestack said:

If I wanted a star generator, I’d bring someone with utility worth a damn. Okita’s damage is not utility. Tristan, Lobo, and Jack’s buff removal is. So is Tristan’s Harp. And Lobo’s 70% Defense Up.

Not every fight is going to have a Berserker boss with no buffs that allows themselves to get steamrolled by crits. A few turns of burst isn’t always going to be enough to overcome them.

Okita is the hybrid of Scathach and Jack. She generates about 60% the stars of Jack and deals about 60-80% the crit damage and NP damage of Scathach. The difference, however, is that Jack sacrifices damage to get those stars, and Scathach sacrifices stars to get that damage---2 Okitas will out damage Jack and Scathach in a pair.

 

You also apparently like bringing utility into matches where they don't matter. The thing about dealing double someone else's damage is that you'd deal comparable damage even if the boss is using evade every other turn---'utility' only matters insofar as they help you clear the boss.

1 hour ago, MrSmokestack said:

It’s actually 2.8 Arts in the case of Diarmuid and 5.0 Arts for Saber Fran 3/5 turns. It’s not that close.

Saber Fran has 5.0 Arts for 3/5 turns and 3.78 Quick for 3/5 turns, and 2.8 Arts and 2.1 Quick for 2/5 turns.

This is, on average, 4.12 Arts, and 3.1 Quick. And also costs 10 NP every 5 turns.

 

Diarmuid has 2.84 Arts for 3/5 turns and 3.8 Quick for 3/5 turns, and 2.19 Arts and 2.92 quick for 2/5 turns.

This is, on average, 2.58 for Arts and 3.45 for quick.

 

Okita has 2.18 Arts and 5.45 Quick.

Over the course of 5 turns they draw 5/3 * 1 = 1.67 Arts cards and 5/3 * 2 = 3.33 Quick cards. Assuming an 'average' case where every card is in the second slot (practically speaking Okita would want every one of her cards in the third slot, while Diarmuid and Frank would want their Arts in the third slot but their quicks as early as possible), and that there are no Arts leads ever (Okita benefits far more from Arts leads due to her quick card being almost twice as good) the gains are:

 

Saber Fran generates [450% * 1.67 * 4.12 = 30.96% + 150% * 1.12 * 3.33 * 3.1 = 17.34% - 10%] = 38.3% NP gauge from Arts and Quicks.

Saber Diarmuid generates [450% * 1.67 * 2.58 = 19.38% + 150% * 1.08 * 3.33 * 3.45 = 18.6% ]= 37.98% NP gauge from Arts and Quicks.

 

Okita generates [450% * 1.67 * 2.18 = 16.38% + 150% * 1.02 * 3.33 * 5.45 = 27.76% ] = 44.14% NP gauge from Arts and Quicks.

 

Note that Okita gets 28% of her NP gauge from the quick card half, which gets boosted around 67% by an Arts lead, but only 16% from the Arts half, which only gets boosted around 20% by an Arts lead.

This calculation is as favorable as it gets for Fran & Diarmuid, since we're ignoring crit stars and Arts leads, and Okita is still 15% better.

 

1 hour ago, MrSmokestack said:

I have never made the claim that Diarmuid and Fran can outdamage Okita. My claim has always been this: “Summer Fran and Diarmuid compensate for their lower damage and bases with skills that make their damage comparable to Okita while also having additional tools relevant to difficult content.”

Okay, I misunderstood you. But here the thing about utility---it only matters if it actually helps enough to matter.

 

Lets say a boss evades every other turn---Okita gets her damage slashed by half, Fran gets her damaged slashed by 30%---the fact that Okita tends to do DOUBLE Frans damage (from more crit stars, better NP gen, faster start---she doesn't have to get 10% gauge before she can actually use her NP gain) means that regardless of whether or not the boss has 'difficult content stuff' Okita is still better. If the boss evades every turn Okita drops whatever useless CE she's running and runs Decapitating Bunny or something.

Okita is also more survivable than Fran due to having an Evade, and difficult content tends to check both durability and sustain---both of which Okita is better. Durability because Dodge is significantly better than Atk down, Sustain because Okita is merely 'no sustain' while Frank is 'negative sustain.'

 

Diarmuid's problem is that his utility is baked into his NP doing 0 damage. If you use it to clear defenses his NP got gimped hard, whereas Okita both has a ignore defense up front and a 30% defense down, so she both does her NP damage and makes the damage after her NP higher. Diarmuid is a bit more durable than Okita (ignoring Okita's higher HP for a moment), but I would've liked him to have sustain rather than durability---dodge already solves any durability issues that might exist, outside weird cases like Amakusa.

1 hour ago, MrSmokestack said:

This point is not relevant in certain teams. Doesn’t it make more sense to run two supports for one DPS? Why would Merlin or Waver specifically need stars for themselves?

Not really. A hypothetical Nero 4* + Archer!Artoria + support Nero 4* or Archer!Artoria would still clear difficult content absurdly fast while ending the fight at full hp. The team wouldn't have much stars, but then, the team will probably be clicking NP cards almost as often as regular cards, so crits would be hard to use anyway.

 

Teams need:

Durability first and foremost, Sustain Second, Damage Third. If you die, you lose. You die over a long time, you still lose. If the other guy doesn't die, you're there all day.

 

The main reason people need 2 supports is because most damage dealers tend to be selfish at best about their durability and sustain, and usually don't actually have durability and sustain, while every support but Merlin is missing one of those three components. This is why I would run Merlin over Skadi in quick teams---Skadi is Waver level in quick teams, that is, about as good as a support can get, whereas Merlin is Merlin in quick teams, that is, slightly better than as good as a support can get. Losing Buster Up still doesn't change the huge amount of damage (Atk up, Crit up, Crit star regen, Np regen) he gives, and the hilarious amount of durability and sustain he gives (hp regen, invul, hp up).

Merlin is the easy way out if you only want 1 support on the team, but a lot of the best damage servants do happen to give teamwide sustain or durability as well as having selfish durability or sustain. (Jack has a targeted heal---which, admittedly, is fairly weak---and an evade, Archer Artoria has a teamwide defense up---fairly weak, admittedly, but her raw bulk means that if she's partnered with other people with her level of bulk 20% is good enough---and a selfish heal.)

1 hour ago, MrSmokestack said:

The real counterargument is Vlad Berserker and Orion. Their bases are utter garbage. How can they be good with 1% Arts? The truth is in their skills. They take both of them from being virtually unsuable to some of the best Arts servants in the game.

If you’re gonna make a strawman, use one that actually exists in the game.

You have seen Archer Artoria's bases, right?

 

If you want someone whose skillset carries them over their bases it's Eurayle from the Arts archers, not Orion---Orion at least has 5* stats, Eurayle is 3* and manages to be comparable.

1 hour ago, MrSmokestack said:

Quick teams needing Merlin of all people for existant survivability says everything that words can’t express.

News flash: Quests last longer than three turns and NPs happen more than once every seven turns.

And what do you do if the enemy removes buffs or has Sure Hit? Guess I’ll die.

What does Fran or Diarmuid do? They'll also die. If a quest lasts 7 turns Diarmuid's minuscule bulk lead from 30% defense isn't going to matter, because it's Merlin's sustain that's saving everyone's asses in long fights, not his invul.

1 hour ago, MrSmokestack said:

Quick’s good guys, just use Merlin.

Yeah no.

You bring the strongest servant to any given team, regardless of whether or not that Servant fits your idea of what the team is.

 

Merlin is the best quick support in the game because he provides Damage, Sustain, and Durability. Just because Merlin is a better Buster Support than he is a Quick Support doesn't mean he isn't the best quick support. If we removed his 50% buster up today, but gave his 100% crit up 3 turns to compensate, Merlin is still the best challenge quest support in the game. Hell, if we removed his 50% buster up and gave him nothing back he'd still be the best.

Edited September 7, 2018 by DehNutCase

[QKumber]

15 hours ago, MrSmokestack said:

JSND already explained it, but Bryn’s Mana Burst (Flame) is a lower rank than Karna and Arjuna’s.

Ah that was the reason, makes sense. I remember I saw her lower rank before but never paid much attention :P

I still have to see the need of that much min-max for this game (keep in mind, NAland player) so for now, I`ll just slap random buffs and go to town until it stops working :D

In the end, dif buffs have diff dmg in the end, but not soooo much for me to not use a more liked unit over a better buffer!

Thx guys o/ ove ya all

[MrSmokestack]

6 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

Okita is the hybrid of Scathach and Jack. She generates about 60% the stars of Jack and deals about 60-80% the crit damage and NP damage of Scathach. The difference, however, is that Jack sacrifices damage to get those stars, and Scathach sacrifices stars to get that damage---2 Okitas will out damage Jack and Scathach in a pair.

It’s an interesting analogy, albeit one that only works in a vacuum when the number of situations you can take double Okita into are not very many.

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You also apparently like bringing utility into matches where they don't matter. The thing about dealing double someone else's damage is that you'd deal comparable damage even if the boss is using evade every other turn---'utility' only matters insofar as they help you clear the boss.

Utility skills (buff removal, NP charge, and targetable buffs) are not the same thing as gimmicks (damage vs [attribute]). You seem to be conflating the two.

There is no situation where buff removal, NP charge, and targetable buffs are not useful. There are many situations where damage up against anything besides humanoid is a complete dud. It doesn’t matter how many times you can use it in a fight. It’s an option that will always give some value whenever it is used.

Diarmuid’s defensive buff removal is admittedly more situational, but Fran’s buff removal is something that Okita does not have, full stop. That alone is a significant advantage.

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Over the course of 5 turns they draw 5/3 * 1 = 1.67 Arts cards and 5/3 * 2 = 3.33 Quick cards. Assuming an 'average' case where every card is in the second slot (practically speaking Okita would want every one of her cards in the third slot, while Diarmuid and Frank would want their Arts in the third slot but their quicks as early as possible), and that there are no Arts leads ever (Okita benefits far more from Arts leads due to her quick card being almost twice as good) the gains are:

Snip

Note that Okita gets 28% of her NP gauge from the quick card half, which gets boosted around 67% by an Arts lead, but only 16% from the Arts half, which only gets boosted around 20% by an Arts lead.

This calculation is as favorable as it gets for Fran & Diarmuid, since we're ignoring crit stars and Arts leads, and Okita is still 15% better.

This is mainly just another demonstration of how good Okita’s 5.0 quick is. It’s also not an accurate representation of reality. The cards that are actually chosen on those turns, and the order they’re put in, depends on the NP gauges for the rest of your team. You may not have an opportunity to pick the DPS card in more than one or two hands in all likelihood.

But it’s for the sake of example so why nitpick

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Okay, I misunderstood you. But here the thing about utility---it only matters if it actually helps enough to matter.

See above.

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Lets say a boss evades every other turn---Okita gets her damage slashed by half, Fran gets her damaged slashed by 30%---the fact that Okita tends to do DOUBLE Frans damage (from more crit stars, better NP gen, faster start---she doesn't have to get 10% gauge before she can actually use her NP gain) means that regardless of whether or not the boss has 'difficult content stuff' Okita is still better. If the boss evades every turn Okita drops whatever useless CE she's running and runs Decapitating Bunny or something.

CEs make a comparison about as clean as buffstacking does so let’s ignore those.

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Okita is also more survivable than Fran due to having an Evade, and difficult content tends to check both durability and sustain---both of which Okita is better. Durability because Dodge is significantly better than Atk down, Sustain because Okita is merely 'no sustain' while Frank is 'negative sustain.'

One turn of Evade giving more durability depends on the enemy you’re fighting. Also, Fran’s Atk Down doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s meant to be stacked with other defense boosts. The cooldown is short at 5 CD, and 100% Def Up with a guarantee that the enemy won’t be buffed for damage means that you can no-sell any NP barring one that removes buffs. A potential Zero damage to the whole team for 3/5 turns (assuming your other defense boosts share the same CD) is better than 0 damage on one ally.

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Diarmuid's problem is that his utility is baked into his NP doing 0 damage. If you use it to clear defenses his NP got gimped hard, whereas Okita both has a ignore defense up front and a 30% defense down, so she both does her NP damage and makes the damage after her NP higher. Diarmuid is a bit more durable than Okita (ignoring Okita's higher HP for a moment), but I would've liked him to have sustain rather than durability---dodge already solves any durability issues that might exist, outside weird cases like Amakusa.

Re-evaluating Diarmuid over the course of this discussion, he’s probably worse than Okita. The buff purge removing only defenses is too situational for how much damage he loses out on.

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Not really. A hypothetical Nero 4* + Archer!Artoria + support Nero 4* or Archer!Artoria would still clear difficult content absurdly fast while ending the fight at full hp. The team wouldn't have much stars, but then, the team will probably be clicking NP cards almost as often as regular cards, so crits would be hard to use anyway.

Yet another hypothetical. We were talking about distributing stars to 2D 1S and the arguably more consistent 1D 2S. If supports are better than DPS servants (and they are) it would make sense to run more supports than DPS.

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The main reason people need 2 supports is because most damage dealers tend to be selfish at best about their durability and sustain, and usually don't actually have durability and sustain, while every support but Merlin is missing one of those three components. This is why I would run Merlin over Skadi in quick teams---Skadi is Waver level in quick teams, that is, about as good as a support can get, whereas Merlin is Merlin in quick teams, that is, slightly better than as good as a support can get. Losing Buster Up still doesn't change the huge amount of damage (Atk up, Crit up, Crit star regen, Np regen) he gives, and the hilarious amount of durability and sustain he gives (hp regen, invul, hp up).

Merlin is the easy way out if you only want 1 support on the team, but a lot of the best damage servants do happen to give teamwide sustain or durability as well as having selfish durability or sustain. (Jack has a targeted heal---which, admittedly, is fairly weak---and an evade, Archer Artoria has a teamwide defense up---fairly weak, admittedly, but her raw bulk means that if she's partnered with other people with her level of bulk 20% is good enough---and a selfish heal.)

Merlin is the most broken caster in the game, more at 11.

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You have seen Archer Artoria's bases, right?

Yes. Artoria existing doesn’t make Orion not worth using though.

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If you want someone whose skillset carries them over their bases it's Eurayle from the Arts archers, not Orion---Orion at least has 5* stats, Eurayle is 3* and manages to be comparable.

It’s true that Euryale is generally considered better than Orion, but her cards aren’t nearly as bad as his.

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What does Fran or Diarmuid do? They'll also die. If a quest lasts 7 turns Diarmuid's minuscule bulk lead from 30% defense isn't going to matter, because it's Merlin's sustain that's saving everyone's asses in long fights, not his invul.

Looking back, they’ll die to the buff removal but not the Sure Hit. Defense buff stacking is a very reliable way of no-selling NPs. While this is a bit more situational, Fran at least has a chance of being able to get a kill on an enemy before they NP if they put up a dodge or invuln on the NP turn.

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You bring the strongest servant to any given team, regardless of whether or not that Servant fits your idea of what the team is.

Merlin is the best quick support in the game because he provides Damage, Sustain, and Durability. Just because Merlin is a better Buster Support than he is a Quick Support doesn't mean he isn't the best quick support. If we removed his 50% buster up today, but gave his 100% crit up 3 turns to compensate, Merlin is still the best challenge quest support in the game. Hell, if we removed his 50% buster up and gave him nothing back he'd still be the best.

This is all true. It doesn’t negate my previous point that Quick teams are up a creek without Merlin, though. Merlin + Skadi is generally better than double Skadi for this reason. Or you can forgo Skadi entirely because she adds very little to the team compared to running another support caster.

Merlin is so overcentralizing that you can’t really call it a Quick team anymore. It’s a buster crit team using a subpar DPS.

The problem with bringing Merlin into the discussion is that he makes any servant look good. Support servants do the most carrying on any team. Merlin in particular distorts comparisons even more as the shortcomings of hard-hitting DPS like Okita or Jeanne Alter can be handwaved due to his 2nd skill and NP.