Fate/Grand Order General

[Shiki]

Even with Skadi in mind I would argue that both Carmilla and Cleopatra are a league above her. MHX isn't terrible but she is basically pure stats with an Interlude NP (as her NP has nothing worthwhile on it besides hitcounts).

EDIT:
Shiki's additional Def debuff scales with NP level, starting at 10% but capping out at 20%.
*drops dead from euphoria*
Why bother with Old Li, right?

Edited April 25, 2019 by Magus of Memery

[DehNutCase]

There's a point where pure stats starts beating having good skills, and MHX is at that point. Like, saying MHX's NP has nothing good about it except its hit count is kind of like saying Archer Artoria's NP has nothing good about it except the NP refund. MHX's NP isn't at Artoria's level in terms of refund*, but Artoria's NP doesn't drop 15 stars every time you click it. (Artoria is far better as a servant, and an Assassin Artoria that goes down to .9 damage multiplier but assassin star gen bases would be basically the best all around assassin, I think---although there'll still be fights where stuff like Jack's Information Erasure or anti-Female comes into play---but Artoria is stupid good.)

*But it is on Shiki's level---assuming Shiki has her mana burst up every time she NPs, which is quite likely because Shiki can't spam NPs the way MHX or Jack could.

 

MHX has EX Riding, Cosmo Reactor, and 25.6% base star-gen---her NP drops 15 stars by default. She's a bit worse at looping NPs than Artoria---so her damage output will be far worse, because of how buff stacking works---but the total number of NPs MHX can do should be about the same or better. She also starts faster because her non-NP NP gen is quite a bit higher, and 20 crit stars and 12% Quick up is way better at burst NP gen than 30% Arts up, and afterwards she keeps pace---although in a 2 turn cycle of NPs and crits rather than just NP every turn---with all the crit stars she drops. (I don't usually do this, though---for me MHX tends to be on a team with someone who really likes eating stars, like Scathach or even Archer Artoria herself. But occasionally the way the cards line up means that it's MHX using her own stars.)

 

MHX with nothing except her bases and Star of Saber is already a very high pick for me, providing very good stargen without the typical stargen demerit of lowering damage---a lot of her stars comes from her NP and Star of Saber, meaning you don't lose damage for clicking a quick card or using a 2030. And flat out ignoring the sheer amount of Sabers and Saber-faces in the game is somewhat... interesting. She's not going to be your main damage dealer against those people (that's what Archers are for---a Rider or Saber Saberface is completely fucked, and lets MHX play a main damage dealer role, but it's not why I'm bringing MHX most of the time), but it does make her even better at her main role, which is Stargen unit with high damage across the board.

Typically speaking, getting stars costs damage---it's how 2030 works, it's how Jack's 3 Quick cards work, etc. etc. MHX doesn't do that---the majority of her stars come from Star of Saber and her NP, neither of which costs damage to use, since it takes some absurd buff stacking for a regular card to beat an NP, and even then you can always just wait until the buffs drop before clicking the NP. Carmilla is similar because she has an innocent monster type skill, but her stargen is way worse, their bulk is similar (Carmilla has better sustain, MHX better durability), and their utility about the same. Both provide massive damage on the right targets and a way to slow the fight down---80% is pretty unreliable for both of them, but personally I don't mind that. Saying 80% stun or 80% NP drain is bad is kind of like saying not being able to NP loop Artoria every single turn makes Artoria bad.

Personally I don't think Skadi would change anything about when I pick MHX. MHX likes what Skadi does for her, but Waver does like 80% of what Skadi does for MHX and it's not really MHX's job to smack things as hard as possible---just hard enough that clicking cards for stars doesn't suck in terms of damage.

 

Mind, I tend to rate units based on 'how often am I happy bringing this person' rather than 'how great is this person when I do bring them,' which heavily favors people with a good general purpose role like Waver, Nero Bride, MHX, and Archer Artoria over people like Tamamo, Jeanne, Skadi or MHX against a Rider\Saber Saberface. A lot of the most broken units tend to be amazing in general and in specific situations, like Jack, but Jack's and MHX's 'average case' is close enough that I actually prefer MHX most of the time, since MHX hits harder when they're doing their overlapping roles of star gen, damage support (from a quick to charge NP and occasional damage multiplier), and light sustain (from healing or 80% stun).

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

9 hours ago, Magus of Memery said:

Even with Skadi in mind I would argue that both Carmilla and Cleopatra are a league above her. MHX isn't terrible but she is basically pure stats with an Interlude NP (as her NP has nothing worthwhile on it besides hitcounts).

EDIT:
Shiki's additional Def debuff scales with NP level, starting at 10% but capping out at 20%.
*drops dead from euphoria*
Why bother with Old Li, right?

Old Li is very much still competitive. Ease of critical hits is something valuable in EVERY team archetype, but it reach critical mass in Arts and this is no different. Or you whale for NP2 Li kek

Cleopatra have issues where AOE NP demands more from the user to be good - sitting at sub 27k, chances are Cleo can't "murder shit dead forever" with that NP alone without E sports level min maxing and this hurts when Assassin card's isn't that good

I hyped Carmilla a lot and hell no she's even close to MHX at any point but the period of time when Carmilla have her Interlude and Skadi isn't released yet. The thing about this game is at the end PURE POWER can break through - MHX not only have comparable NP generation to Carmilla, her damage used to be SO MUCH better - sitting at 37000 in comparison to 23400 of Carmilla. On top of this Carmilla's NP used to cap at 28000 ish when hitting female because Carmilla's Female Strike used to be 20% instead of the average 50%

 

I used Carmilla during Onigashima and it was torture compared to MHX really

 

 

.....Seriously speaking though where were you guys when i was preaching that Parvati is overpowered as fuck and MHX is stupidly good

 

2 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

There's a point where pure stats starts beating having good skills, and MHX is at that point. Like, saying MHX's NP has nothing good about it except its hit count is kind of like saying Archer Artoria's NP has nothing good about it except the NP refund. MHX's NP isn't at Artoria's level in terms of refund*, but Artoria's NP doesn't drop 15 stars every time you click it. (Artoria is far better as a servant, and an Assassin Artoria that goes down to .9 damage multiplier but assassin star gen bases would be basically the best all around assassin, I think---although there'll still be fights where stuff like Jack's Information Erasure or anti-Female comes into play---but Artoria is stupid good.)

*But it is on Shiki's level---assuming Shiki has her mana burst up every time she NPs, which is quite likely because Shiki can't spam NPs the way MHX or Jack could.

 

MHX has EX Riding, Cosmo Reactor, and 25.6% base star-gen---her NP drops 15 stars by default. She's a bit worse at looping NPs than Artoria---so her damage output will be far worse, because of how buff stacking works---but the total number of NPs MHX can do should be about the same or better. She also starts faster because her non-NP NP gen is quite a bit higher, and 20 crit stars and 12% Quick up is way better at burst NP gen than 30% Arts up, and afterwards she keeps pace---although in a 2 turn cycle of NPs and crits rather than just NP every turn---with all the crit stars she drops. (I don't usually do this, though---for me MHX tends to be on a team with someone who really likes eating stars, like Scathach or even Archer Artoria herself. But occasionally the way the cards line up means that it's MHX using her own stars.)

 

MHX with nothing except her bases and Star of Saber is already a very high pick for me, providing very good stargen without the typical stargen demerit of lowering damage---a lot of her stars comes from her NP and Star of Saber, meaning you don't lose damage for clicking a quick card or using a 2030. And flat out ignoring the sheer amount of Sabers and Saber-faces in the game is somewhat... interesting. She's not going to be your main damage dealer against those people (that's what Archers are for---a Rider or Saber Saberface is completely fucked, and lets MHX play a main damage dealer role, but it's not why I'm bringing MHX most of the time), but it does make her even better at her main role, which is Stargen unit with high damage across the board.

Typically speaking, getting stars costs damage---it's how 2030 works, it's how Jack's 3 Quick cards work, etc. etc. MHX doesn't do that---the majority of her stars come from Star of Saber and her NP, neither of which costs damage to use, since it takes some absurd buff stacking for a regular card to beat an NP, and even then you can always just wait until the buffs drop before clicking the NP. Carmilla is similar because she has an innocent monster type skill, but her stargen is way worse, their bulk is similar (Carmilla has better sustain, MHX better durability), and their utility about the same. Both provide massive damage on the right targets and a way to slow the fight down---80% is pretty unreliable for both of them, but personally I don't mind that. Saying 80% stun or 80% NP drain is bad is kind of like saying not being able to NP loop Artoria every single turn makes Artoria bad.

Personally I don't think Skadi would change anything about when I pick MHX. MHX likes what Skadi does for her, but Waver does like 80% of what Skadi does for MHX and it's not really MHX's job to smack things as hard as possible---just hard enough that clicking cards for stars doesn't suck in terms of damage.

 

Mind, I tend to rate units based on 'how often am I happy bringing this person' rather than 'how great is this person when I do bring them,' which heavily favors people with a good general purpose role like Waver, Nero Bride, MHX, and Archer Artoria over people like Tamamo, Jeanne, Skadi or MHX against a Rider\Saber Saberface. A lot of the most broken units tend to be amazing in general and in specific situations, like Jack, but Jack's and MHX's 'average case' is close enough that I actually prefer MHX most of the time, since MHX hits harder when they're doing their overlapping roles of star gen, damage support (from a quick to charge NP and occasional damage multiplier), and light sustain (from healing or 80% stun).

 

I would say i agree that SKadi didn't change the situation where MHX is great to use, but the powerspike she gives to MHX vs Waver is not even close to just 25% better

Going lazy route here Waver only bumps damage by 30% without using NP - aka having to pick the right moment to use his NP. Waver boosted MHX is only 48k, whereas Skadi Boosted MHX is 72k.

A double Skadi is around 120k or so whereas double Waver is around 58k. Toss in Black Grail and you get 240k damage on the former, and 116k on the later.

 

This is without considering that MHX's greatest aspect is her ability to created a second target on her STNP(her NP is roughly twice as good as standard Fionn Clone) so those bump from Skadi give a fucktons of refill

[MrSmokestack]

10 hours ago, Magus of Memery said:

MHX isn't terrible but she is basically pure stats with an Interlude NP (as her NP has nothing worthwhile on it besides hitcounts).

Nutcase covered most of what I wanted to say, but I’ll add this.

Quick servants live and die by their internal stats more than any other card type. Remember that debate about Okita and Saber Fran a while back? Fran’s Quick card even with her buffs in play is still worse than base Okita. Fran on paper seems better since she’s more stacked kitwise than Okita. However, Quick teams care more about damage, even at the expense of utility. Utility is nice in some situations, but only if you aren’t able to hit something really hard to kill it in the first place. I know, a total 180 on my stance from before

Okita, Jack, and MHX are all carried completely by their internal stats. Skadi just needs someone that can loop easily and she’ll do the rest. That’s how teambuilding should work—you have to consider how the DPS performs when properly supported. Unfortunately, this is easy to miss this when you only make 1-1 comparisons between servants.

Edited April 26, 2019 by MrSmokestack

[DehNutCase]

1 hour ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

I would say i agree that SKadi didn't change the situation where MHX is great to use, but the powerspike she gives to MHX vs Waver is not even close to just 25% better

Going lazy route here Waver only bumps damage by 30% without using NP - aka having to pick the right moment to use his NP. Waver boosted MHX is only 48k, whereas Skadi Boosted MHX is 72k.

A double Skadi is around 120k or so whereas double Waver is around 58k. Toss in Black Grail and you get 240k damage on the former, and 116k on the later.

Mind, I'm mostly thinking about MHX's supporting role, not the bits where she's killing Saberfaces or whatever.

Waver + MHX provides nice buffs & star gen while getting an extra 20% NP gauge between MHX and your other unit. If MHX is your main damage dealer Skadi is way better, but usually MHX would be filling the semi-support position for me, where who I stack buffs on is more based on card distribution than anything else. MHX would do worse damage with Waver around, but the total support a MHX + Waver pair provides wouldn't be too much different from a Skadi + MHX pair, with the 20% NP gauge making up for a lot of the lost damage from MHX.

[redlight]

That moment when you didn't understand how much of a chance you have when summoning for focus 3*s with tickets?. I'll have to wait for class banner this year for Bedi and somehow wing Salieri and Izō next year next to Fujino. Kill me now?. Thank god there's at least a 2 month gap between those three each next year

Edited April 26, 2019 by redlight

[Sire]

So I started the event and see why BB is loved by many. Yeah, that was one heck of a first impression. You keep being you and we'll get along just fine~

Also, I learned that this is not really an event but more of a "Singularity disguised as an Event." Here I was fielding all of my Bonus Servants while I did Story Mode and was cruising along for like 30 minutes until I ran into the "first boss encounter." Going for bonus loot was a mistake and I wished I had proper Servants lined up, but somehow I managed to win without having to use any Command Seals. (It didn't help I was down a CS. Melt told me to use one, so I did! How was I supposed to know a super hard encounter was coming, especially since I started doing this blind!)

I also wish I had a Ruler to use. I keep seeing everyone saying to use Punch Saint to get things done, so I may have to check my Support List and see if anyone has one for situations where I need her.

[redlight]

28 minutes ago, Sire said:

I also wish I had a Ruler to use. I keep seeing everyone saying to use Punch Saint to get things done, so I may have to check my Support List and see if anyone has one for situations where I need her.

Alexmender has summer Martha so you're in luck. Also, you need to just erase 1 bar of HP in BB's first fight

[Shiki]

7 hours ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

Old Li is very much still competitive. Ease of critical hits is something valuable in EVERY team archetype, but it reach critical mass in Arts and this is no different.

The problem is after landing that crit turn he doesn't do much and it doesn't help that his internals are very average. No doubt it is an advantage he has over Shiki but that and SSR stats is not that much, especially since as a Welfare that NP5 advantage is massive.
Even at release I was not overly impressed by Old Li.

7 hours ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

Cleopatra have issues where AOE NP demands more from the user to be good - sitting at sub 27k, chances are Cleo can't "murder shit dead forever" with that NP alone without E sports level min maxing and this hurts when Assassin card's isn't that good

In a vacuum, yes. But considering we're talking about them with their preferred support in mind Cleopatra being AoE is not that much of a detriment as she is a Buster-based Servant.

7 hours ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

I hyped Carmilla a lot and hell no she's even close to MHX at any point but the period of time when Carmilla have her Interlude and Skadi isn't released yet. The thing about this game is at the end PURE POWER can break through

Post-interlude Carmilla sits 31024 at NP1. At NP2 it's 38780 which trumps MHX in terms of neutral damage. She also has a much more common trait bonus so in terms of pure NP damage she is not lagging that much behind.

The only thing I can concede is Carmilla not having a completely optimal support choice to put her over MHX + Skadi. She has the problem of having triple Quick deck and a Buster NP meaning she either loses the benefits of having a stronger NP turn or has to settle with her average Quicks.

7 hours ago, MrSmokestack said:

That’s how teambuilding should work—you have to consider how the DPS performs when properly supported. Unfortunately, this is easy to miss this when you only make 1-1 comparisons between servants.

This might apply to Carmilla (see above) but I was talking about Cleopatra with Merlin. I think enough is said about this, no?

10 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

There's a point where pure stats starts beating having good skills, and MHX is at that point. Like, saying MHX's NP has nothing good about it except its hit count is kind of like saying Archer Artoria's NP has nothing good about it except the NP refund. MHX's NP isn't at Artoria's level in terms of refund*, but Artoria's NP doesn't drop 15 stars every time you click it.

Except it has a NP drain. Except it's Arts. Except it also has 10 hits.
That's not a good example.

10 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

Both provide massive damage on the right targets and a way to slow the fight down---80% is pretty unreliable for both of them, but personally I don't mind that. Saying 80% stun or 80% NP drain is bad is kind of like saying not being able to NP loop Artoria every single turn makes Artoria bad.

This comparison downplays the fact that Fire Support has an asinine CD of 8 (at max) while Vampirism only has 6 and immediately affects the target. Not to mention Carmilla has another slight edge in Torture techniques for a general damage increase that will benefit the entire team.

Edited April 26, 2019 by Magus of Memery

[MrSmokestack]

5 hours ago, Sire said:

I also wish I had a Ruler to use. I keep seeing everyone saying to use Punch Saint to get things done, so I may have to check my Support List and see if anyone has one for situations where I need her.

Martha is good for like two fights and becomes deadweight for the rest of the event.

I can put mine up if you want, NP2 and 10/10/10, but Mooncancers aren’t so difficult you need to class advantage them, in my experience.

4 hours ago, Magus of Memery said:

The only thing I can concede is Carmilla not having a completely optimal support choice to put her over MHX + Skadi. She has the problem of having triple Quick deck and a Buster NP meaning she either loses the benefits of having a stronger NP turn or has to settle with her average Quicks.

This might apply to Carmilla (see above) but I was talking about Cleopatra with Merlin. I think enough is said about this, no?

Cleopatra has the same issue as Carmilla, though less apparent since QQABB is better than QQQAB.

Quick teams rely on exploding things as quickly as possible. Cleo has a harder time doing this because of her innately lower NP damage and being harder to buff. Either she NPBB’s and gets  no refill at all, or she NPQQ’s and does significantly less damage compared to another AOE DPS.

Don’t get me wrong, Cleo and Merlin is balanced both offensively and defensively. She also has an interlude with Nullify Buff to shut down enemy offense. Once the ball gets rolling she’ll do really well. Unlike MHX though, she needs to compete with other AOE DPS’s, not just other assassins. And the AOE selection is far less forgiving than the ST one.

[Shiki]

4 hours ago, MrSmokestack said:

Quick teams rely on exploding things as quickly as possible. Cleo has a harder time doing this because of her innately lower NP damage and being harder to buff. Either she NPBB’s and gets  no refill at all, or she NPQQ’s and does significantly less damage compared to another AOE DPS.

I don't see how this is relevant as:
1. Obviously you choose NPBB Crit for maximum damage because of Hero Creation. 
2. Cleopatra is one of the few Servants with passive NP gain with Merlin further stacking it.
3. sustained damage isn't better or worse than the way Quick Servants operate who tend to be sitting ducks once their 3-turn buffs expire.

4 hours ago, MrSmokestack said:

Unlike MHX though, she needs to compete with other AOE DPS’s, not just other assassins. And the AOE selection is far less forgiving than the ST one.

That's strawmanning. Just because she is AoE she needs to be compared with other AoE but MHX gets the special treatment within her class? While I get why you're pulling this card it still doesn't put her in a favorable light.
Cleopatra's new NP interlude gives her a very respectable niche in the AoE department. Of course, damage-wise she is no Gilgamesh, Raikou or even Dantes but she still has the best AoE among all the Assassins and AoE buff prevention is entirely unique to her.

Meanwhile MHX doesn't even fare well in her own class. Jack kicks her in the gut in terms of pure internals and has functional skills while Kama does the whole NP loop shtick better. Both get a huge mileage from Skadi as well so she is completely outclassed being an ST Assassin.
Oh, her Saber niche? We had this one before and I still think you are better off using an actual Archer than her. Her skill does not replicate class advantage.

Sorry but it isn't convincing for me that MHX + Skadi is supposed to be better Cleopatra + Merlin.

Edited April 26, 2019 by Magus of Memery

[DehNutCase]

6 hours ago, Magus of Memery said:

Except it has a NP drain. Except it's Arts. Except it also has 10 hits.
That's not a good example.

You... do you know how Arts NP work, right? They drop jack all for stars (0% from the card, meaning everything comes from Artoria's 8% base star gen).

The arts & 10 hits part pretty much only matters for NP gen unless you stack a bunch of stargen on Artoria, and Nero Saber is just about the only one that does that well, and even then it's a whopping 5.8 stars. 

I'm not a fan of stacking 2030s for stargen (I tend to prefer Prisma Cosmos---mostly because I don't want the people who would be running 2030 to have to click their cards a lot just to build NP), but that doesn't mean I don't value crit stars, and trading ~30% NP gauge for 14.2 stars is a fairly decent trade for someone like MHX, because she has good enough cards to click as long as they crit, and that's kind of what crit stars do.

Did you just not do the math or are you just saying random stuff? Because stuff like 'except it's Arts and except it also has 10 hits' says jack all. It sounds kind of like you think Artoria's NP actually drops stars or something.

 

NP drain at 70% is very nice, don't get me wrong, but it has its own issues. (Mostly it comes up when you're using low duration defense buffs, which would force you not to use it when the enemy is about to NP---since you can neither guarantee that they'll fire it nor guarantee that they wont.) It matters in the same sense that MHX's NP refill from her NP matters, but it's not a critical part of the NP.

6 hours ago, Magus of Memery said:

This comparison downplays the fact that Fire Support has an asinine CD of 8 (at max) while Vampirism only has 6 and immediately affects the target. Not to mention Carmilla has another slight edge in Torture techniques for a general damage increase that will benefit the entire team.

CD doesn't matter too much for MHX vs. Carmilla unless somehow the fight goes to 20 turns or something, in which case you get another use of Vampirism. It technically matters that Carmilla's stuff cools down faster, but both of them tend to either have won the fight already or died by the time the CD difference actually comes into play. (Carmilla has it a tad harder since she doesn't have the durability to face-tank an NP, but if your team fixes that for her her better sustain means she'll live only slightly less long than MHX and her 5 cd Invincibility would.) Being good or bad at things that rarely come up matters, but it's not my main criteria when judging units.

 

And you do know damage is fungible, right? MHX's 2k extra Attack and EX riding is going to more than make up for Torture Techniques, you can add more damage output just by doing more damage. It's kind of why 5*s are good in general, because they have the higher Atk stats to do stuff.

[Shiki]

28 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

You... do you know how Arts NP work, right? They drop jack all for stars (0% from the card, meaning everything comes from Artoria's 8% base star gen).

The arts & 10 hits part pretty much only matters for NP gen unless you stack a bunch of stargen on Artoria, and Nero Saber is just about the only one that does that well, and even then it's a whopping 5.8 stars. 

10 hits in terms of NP refund. I thought that much was obvious. Or if you want estimates it's about 40% refund with the NP effect (without potential overkill).

29 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

I'm not a fan of stacking 2030s for stargen (I tend to prefer Prisma Cosmos---mostly because I don't want the people who would be running 2030 to have to click their cards a lot just to build NP), but that doesn't mean I don't value crit stars, and trading ~30% NP gauge for 14.2 stars is a fairly decent trade for someone like MHX, because she has good enough cards to click as long as they crit, and that's kind of what crit stars do.

30 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

Did you just not do the math or are you just saying random stuff?

I could ask the same of you. This entire sentence above is contradictive.
If people have 2030 I would argue they are looking for supports with 2030 over Prisma Cosmos (unless it's Saberlot but w/e). A single 2030 doesn't do enough by itself.

2030's greatest strength is in its reliablity. 2030 + another copy/Innocent Monster produce about ~16-18 stars. Generally a Servant with focus (or Riders) only needs ~30 stars at most to crit with an entire Brave chain. Producing 12~14 stars is not that much, usually you can get it relatively safe, especially if you a quality Quick card in there.
And that's the most expensive case. Usually you only get 2 cards for your Servant per turn which brings it down to 20. 4 stars are nothing. Even if with Arts cards you can get those.
Then we have those bastards that produce 15 stars per turn but I digress.

31 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

CD doesn't matter too much for MHX vs. Carmilla unless somehow the fight goes to 20 turns or something, in which case you get another use of Vampirism. It technically matters that Carmilla's stuff cools down faster, but both of them tend to either have won the fight already or died by the time the CD difference actually comes into play.

20 turns is an absurd estimate and I don't know why you're bringing it up. It's more accurate to say that you will get 2 uses of Vampirism over a single Fire Support within 12 turns which is more reasonable to assume for longer fights. It's certainly more probable than freaking 16 turns to get the 2nd use out from MHX.

40 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

And you do know damage is fungible, right? MHX's 2k extra Attack and EX riding is going to more than make up for Torture Techniques, you can add more damage output just by doing more damage. It's kind of why 5*s are good in general, because they have the higher Atk stats to do stuff.

If you solely look at MHX, yes. But I'm talking about the application in team settings in which case it's basically a Charisma buff against a single enemy.
Also I'm starting to wonder what you're arguing for. You say you look at MHX as semi-support but aside from being an Assassin she doesn't offer anything else. Fire Support plain sucks. In comparison Carmilla has an entire set that benefits her and other party members with similar star gen. Internally she doesn't hold up in raw stats and actual star gen but she still retains respectable NP damage and NP gain.

[DehNutCase]

1 hour ago, Magus of Memery said:

I could ask the same of you. This entire sentence above is contradictive.
If people have 2030 I would argue they are looking for supports with 2030 over Prisma Cosmos (unless it's Saberlot but w/e). A single 2030 doesn't do enough by itself.

2030's greatest strength is in its reliablity. 2030 + another copy/Innocent Monster produce about ~16-18 stars. Generally a Servant with focus (or Riders) only needs ~30 stars at most to crit with an entire Brave chain. Producing 12~14 stars is not that much, usually you can get it relatively safe, especially if you a quality Quick card in there.
And that's the most expensive case. Usually you only get 2 cards for your Servant per turn which brings it down to 20. 4 stars are nothing. Even if with Arts cards you can get those.

The fact that you ignore how strong CEs are is why you overvalue 2030.

Take my MLB Knights of Marines, for example, it has almost 2k Atk on it and 15% Quick up---we're ignoring the 60% starting NP, although that's the main reason I run it---this is roughly a 40% increase in damage for a Servant's quick card, and about 20% for other cards. This is why MHX's cards are worth clicking if they crit, because they do ~280% of base rather than the ~200% of base you'd get if you stuff her with a 2030 for some reason. By default her damage is Waver tier (although her generation is way better), and I try not to click Waver's cards if at all possible, but MHX tends to have a damage CE and Waver doesn't.

For the primary damage dealer this doesn't matter too much (it still matters, since you sound like the kind of person who picks star absorb CEs, meaning you're leveraging less of the damage from the CE slot), but my secondary damage dealer is going to dumpster your supports to the point where their non-crits will out damage your supports crits.

While you're criting with 4 or 5 cards on your main damage dealer over three turns I'm using 6 to 8 cards on my two damage dealers, and, because of how easy it is to count cards, I'll crit nearly as often as you for the cards that matter (i.e. from the servant with crit buffs), since I can just NP with MHX the turn before the brave chain, or click Star of Saber if I didn't manage to do that.

 

Fundamentally, the reason 2030 isn't busted is because critical hits are a damage and resource generation multiplier, and for crits to have maximum effect you need the base damage and resource generation to actually multiply. And that's exactly the stuff a HP CE without Quick, Arts, or NP gain up doesn't give. Further, criting only on the 1 turn out of 5 you have a brave chain with full buffs while not criting every single other turn only lowers your damage by, like, 30%. Which is less than the damage increase you'd get from running a good damage CE on your secondary damage dealer.

Assuming 200% extra damage from crits on that turn (from Crit ups, Atk ups, Card Type ups etc.) then the brave chain does around 1800% of normal damage (200% base damage for a crit * 3 cards * (100% + 200% damage)), plus an Extra card.

You'll have another 'straggler' with 200% extra damage before the buffs fall off, and then 4 or 5 normal damage crits, which is a total of 300% + 800% or 300% + 1000% damage, which is 1,100% to 1,300%.

The non-crit line would deal, say, 150% with his non-crit card before buffs fall off, and then 4 or 5 normal damage hits, which is a total of 150% + 400% or 150% + 500% damage, which is 550% or 650% damage.

 

That is, the unit that crit on every single card for 5 turns would deal around 1800% + 1300% = 3100% damage, and the unit that only crit on the fully buffed brave chain and nowhere else would deal 1800% + 650% = 2450% damage.

(3100 - 2450) / 2450 = 26.5%. That is, criting on every single card versus only the turn that matters increases your damage by 26.5%. Reminder that Knight's of Marines is a roughly 20% extra damage for cards that aren't Quick, and a third of KoM's stats is in its starting NP.

1 hour ago, Magus of Memery said:

If you solely look at MHX, yes. But I'm talking about the application in team settings in which case it's basically a Charisma buff against a single enemy.
Also I'm starting to wonder what you're arguing for. You say you look at MHX as semi-support but aside from being an Assassin she doesn't offer anything else. Fire Support plain sucks. In comparison Carmilla has an entire set that benefits her and other party members with similar star gen. Internally she doesn't hold up in raw stats and actual star gen but she still retains respectable NP damage and NP gain.

Having a entire set that benefits other people doesn't matter if you yourself have cards that are just worse than your competitor's. The hell do I care about a Charisma from a unit that's costing me 20% damage just to be on the team? Yes, when torture technique is active or her NP +Atk buff is active she'll only be slightly worse than MHX, but they're not active all the time, meaning even with those in consideration MHX is out damaging Carmilla without using a single skill. And for team support MHX is an assassin with actual star generating quick cards and a 20 star Instinct.

Yes, Carmilla has amazing NP gen, but the problem is that you have to click her god damn quick cards to get that NP gen, which, again, is costing you damage from generating only 40% or so of the crit stars from MHX's quicks while also being quick cards from a 4* (i.e. garbage damage).

 

Having a full kit doesn't matter if you're using your NP's buff and one of your skills slots just to beat the other guy's bases. MHX's kit is fairly specialized, but the general purpose portions of her kit (Star of Saber, Fire Support, and her NP) is already enough to trump everything Carmilla has left.

[Shiki]

58 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

The fact that you ignore how strong CEs are is why you overvalue 2030.

Now you are putting words into my mouth.

58 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

Take my MLB Knights of Marines, for example, it has almost 2k Atk on it and 15% Quick up---we're ignoring the 60% starting NP, although that's the main reason I run it---this is roughly a 40% increase in damage for a Servant's quick card, and about 20% for other cards. This is why MHX's cards are worth clicking if they crit, because they do ~280% of base rather than the ~200% of base you'd get if you stuff her with a 2030 for some reason. By default her damage is Waver tier (although her generation is way better), and I try not to click Waver's cards if at all possible, but MHX tends to have a damage CE and Waver doesn't.

... what's the point of comparing a purely damage-based CE with 2030 which you are going to put on your Support anyway? Oh wait, you're assuming this:

1 hour ago, DehNutCase said:

but my secondary damage dealer is going to dumpster your supports to the point where their non-crits will out damage your supports crits.

Someone had this discussion with you and I cannot be bothered to continue this one.

1 hour ago, DehNutCase said:

Having a entire set that benefits other people doesn't matter if you yourself have cards that are just worse than your competitor's. The hell do I care about a Charisma from a unit that's costing me 20% damage just to be on the team? Yes, when torture technique is active or her NP +Atk buff is active she'll only be slightly worse than MHX, but they're not active all the time, meaning even with those in consideration MHX is out damaging Carmilla without using a single skill. And for team support MHX is an assassin with actual star generating quick cards and a 20 star Instinct.

How about you stop labeling MHX as a semi-support and address her properly as DPS? Because that's what you're describing; comps with 2 DPS + 1 Support.

1 hour ago, DehNutCase said:

Yes, Carmilla has amazing NP gen, but the problem is that you have to click her god damn quick cards to get that NP gen, which, again, is costing you damage from generating only 40% or so of the crit stars from MHX's quicks while also being quick cards from a 4* (i.e. garbage damage).

Did you ever bother to actually calculate their star gen? I think not because once her 3rd skill is accounted for they produce a similar amount of stars (e.g. for AQQ MHX gets ~23, Carmilla ~20). Obviously she has Star and her NP that ultimately puts her above Carmilla but as far as regular cards it's a small difference. It doesn't help that MHX has very average Arts cards and a QQAAB deck.
The only real thing MHX has over Carmilla is pure damage but that comes from comparing SR vs SSR.

Since you and I are likely not budging from this I'm not willing to continue this discussion. Reading your walls is, also quite frankly, too exhausting (no offense).

[MrSmokestack]

14 hours ago, Magus of Memery said:

I don't see how this is relevant as:
1. Obviously you choose NPBB Crit for maximum damage because of Hero Creation. 
2. Cleopatra is one of the few Servants with passive NP gain with Merlin further stacking it.
3. sustained damage isn't better or worse than the way Quick Servants operate who tend to be sitting ducks once their 3-turn buffs expire.

That’s probably where the divide is coming from. Cleo and MHX work in different playstyles. Cleo + Merlin is incredibly bulky and has consistent passive NP gen. MHX is a ball of stats that scales hard with Skadi.

Thinking about it some more, comparing AOE to ST isn’t a good idea because they’ll be used in different quests. You bring out STs when they can counter a specific quest—then they collect dust the rest of the time. AOE quests however favor high neutral damage—and by your own admission Cleo doesn’t look good next to Gil or Raikou. And with how common AOE CQs are in JP nowadays it’s a serious problem for her.

14 hours ago, Magus of Memery said:

Oh, her Saber niche? We had this one before and I still think you are better off using an actual Archer than her. Her skill does not replicate class advantage.

Yeah there is no justifying MHX skill-wise. She has Star of Saber for reliable crits and that’s about it.

Before Kama, MHX was the best Quick Assassin for handling Male Riders, if I recall correctly. Kama is slightly better in that niche though, and she’ll even outperform Jack against females over the course of 3 turns.

[DehNutCase]

Really feels like that you're supposed to be using your 3 command seals to revive your team just like for Goetia, at least if you aren't paying event currency to nerf the boss, since your front line kind of gets exploded into oblivion. (It could also mean that you're supposed to take advantage of plugsuit and stack like 5 or 6 sets of buffs onto one servant, by swapping your ultra-buffed front liner out, and then getting a new set of buffs once your front line explodes.)

The first 2 break bars feel simple enough to rush down (500k and 850k is basically peanuts for an ultra-buffed damage dealer), but it feels kind of... difficult... to damage race the boss once her hp gets even higher, since she removes all your buffs with her NP.

 

I'll probably end up just stomping the nerfed version after paying the currency, but going to run the max power mode for a bit and use up my command seals first.

Edit: Then again, you could just necromancer cheese it, lul. Gave Bride Nero (one of my front-line suicide buffers) Necromancy just to see if it'd work or not, and it does. I'll file that strategy under 'maybe if I have 20 hours to RNG abuse.'

Edited April 27, 2019 by DehNutCase

[Magical Glace]

1 hour ago, DehNutCase said:

Really feels like that you're supposed to be using your 3 command seals to revive your team just like for Goetia, at least if you aren't paying event currency to nerf the boss,

But you need to pay said currency to use command seals/quartz revivals.  You’re not intended to be able to beat full power Kiara (or Full power Kama) to begin with, the fact they are beatable is more a testament to how absurd Merlin is.

[DehNutCase]

1 minute ago, Glaceon Mage said:

But you need to pay said currency to use command seals/quartz revivals.  You’re not intended to be able to beat full power Kiara (or Full power Kama) to begin with, the fact they are beatable is more a testament to how absurd Merlin is.

Not using Merlin*---the damage output after the first NP feels survivable with just Medea Lily. (A lot of this is thanks to her NP's amazing debuff resistance, though.)

*Him bursting the crap out of the boss is real nice, mind, but I don't have the Buster units to take advantage of it. Artoria is my best damage dealer and she has neither the stargen nor enough Buster cards to take advantage of him properly. And his sustain\bulk options are a lot worse than other people's, since it looks like the boss removes buffs before the NP. I might try him later to see if his team-wide NP generation gives enough NP in the team for me to lock the boss out of her NP, though.

 

But yeah, didn't know about the needing currency for revivals thing.

[redlight]

Spoiler

Waver ga shinda!!!

SSR rider Reines with a AOE debuff that reduces defense and I think crit chance (or attack). She's support from what I understand that are people are saying.  Pseudo-servant of Sima Yi

SR Ruler Luvia, I think? ST. Pseudo-servant of a greek goddess of justice, Astrea

SR AOE Assassin Gray. Oh shit. sorry @Glaceon Mage I jinxed it. I jokingly said in response to your prediction that she'll be an assassin

Welp. I know what I'm saving for after Lanling and Liangyu

Edited April 27, 2019 by redlight

[Shiki]

So, the Welfare is Gray (SR Assassin), gacha servants are Astraea (SR Ruler, Luvia Pseudo-Servant) and ... Sima Yi (SSR Rider).
*internal screaming*

Sima Yi seems to be the same deal as Zhuge Liang which is at least fitting considering their relationship. Also, she has a no damage NP which is ... interesting?
Gray being not a Lancer though ... that makes no sense. EDIT: Her NP is AoE and inflicts Buster & Quick Resist down.
Oh and Astraea is going to get along well with Quetz. She suplexes her enemies.

Edited April 27, 2019 by Magus of Memery

[redlight]

8 minutes ago, Magus of Memery said:

Gray being not a Lancer though ... that makes no sense. EDIT: Her NP is AoE and inflicts Buster & Quick Resist down.

So we can expect a standard lancer deck. QQABB. Rhongo has been buster twice so I'm guessing this one is a Buster one as well. I'm hoping her quick hit count is good

[Magical Glace]

Well, now I have a pile of 150 Lancer EXP that I have no idea what to do with, we really needed a ST Lancer welfare whyyyyyyyyyyy.  Glad she's free though, She'll be immediately level 100 when this hits NA.

If Reines is really support oriented, I hope she has a self star absorb down of some sort.  Otherwise she'll be eating the DPS's stars, being a Rider.  I want all these CEs and I like Reines so I'll be pulling on this banner.

2 minutes ago, redlight said:

So we can expect a standard lancer deck. QQABB. Rhongo has been buster twice so I'm guessing this one is a Buster one as well. I'm hoping her quick hit count is good

It was also ST Arts once (MHXX)

[Silverly]

About damn time Luvia is in the game. Kinda wish she took up the mantle of a more interesting goddess though, I don’t know who the hell Astraea is.

[redlight]

1 minute ago, Silverly said:

About damn time Luvia is in the game. Kinda wish she took up the mantle of a more interesting goddess though, I don’t know who the hell Astraea is.

She's a greek goddess that's the inspiration/model of Lady Justice