Fate/Grand Order General

[Sire]

The JP side of things seems to be doing rather well with the new reveals and other things.

As for me, Three Hopes has taken much of my time, and now I'm scrambling to finish the event before it expires.
-- At the moment I just cleared the Zombie arc and have around 65 missions completed.
-- Hopefully I'll be able to tackle all missions and complete the CQ, although I doubt I'll be able to clear the shop.

* * * * * EDIT * * * * *

Managed to speedrun through the rest of the event, getting everything done as well as getting most of what I needed from the shop (there's some of one mat remaining, as well as the Fous).
-- However, this "speedrun" also experienced the event in full instead of skipping scenes, so it lasted quite a while. I do not want to be rushing to finish an event like this again.
-- The CQ had me use Space Ishtar and Double Castoria, which flowed relatively smoothly. I was down to my last 3 units (Mash, Castoria, Herc Insurance) when the battle ended.

As an aside, I rolled on the banners for fun. I somehow got a Summer Abby out of it (which I wasn't going for), as well as a Summer Tomoe.
-- No Summer Illya though, which is a shame.
-- Now, hopefully I'll be able to start saving up on Quartz as there seems to be plenty of amazing servants ahead, although I'm not sure how many of them are "must-haves" for me...

Edited August 2, 2022 by Sire

[Alexmender]

The JP anniversary servant is quite something character and visual wise. Gameplay doesn't seem impressive but I wouldn't call it bad, more like it's just competent if a little boring. 

The Summer event was ok, I was a littled miffed by all the timegates but the Fujino date at the very end was pretty cute. I did the CQ twice, first with Da Vinci Rider, Double Castoria and Tamamo. Second with a borrowed NP4 Space Ishtar, Castoria, Paracelsus and Tamamo. Both runs were cakewalks where no one was even close to dying. 

I would've liked to get more Kama copies on the Ooku rerun but I only have like 60sq at hand so that's a no go. Kama performs excellently at NP2 level 100 2k/2k Fou so I'll leave her at that. I need to start saving for Koyan/Oberon next year, and if they don't go too badly then maybe get a NP5 Summer Kama. 

[DehNutCase]

Murasaki ended up steam rolling the new CQ thanks to Castoria letting her loop. Turns out a spammable AoE buff block is kind of stupid good. I should really get her NP2 one of these days.

[Alexmender]

My inability to save got me NP2 Kiara in 105sq and 1 ticket. Kiara isn't one of my favorite characters but she's interesting enough and for gameplay she has offensive advantage over like 6 classes or so. 

The JP Summer banners are going to be a pain. I'd like to get Erice and Wu but they are on different banners, Ibuki does nothing for me and Skadi remains a ? until her skillset and full art is revealed. 

[Sire]

Grail Front is a lot of fun! At first I tried going for the classic "eliminate all Servants," but with later Fronts I find myself just going to assassinate the enemy Master more while taking advantage of the weak AI.
-- It's also great to just use my Master piece to attack the enemy's Master, which is what I ended up doing for the "Pincer Tactics" battle to win.
-- I also like that Grail Fronts promote "solo" Servants vs the "farming" types. Herc is great when I can field him, but fielding Kama has also been working rather well.

As for lotto farming, currently on box 80 with 50 Golden Apples left to spend. Refilling my gem supplies and QP is great, as well as getting more materials.
* * * * *
For future Servants I want with their NA banner estimates...

September
– Okita (Mostly to just reunite with Nobu, although I may just use Tickets and continue to save Quartz.)
January 2023
– Space Ishtar (Mine is already at NP2, so this is more for append skills and potential levels beyond 100.)
February
– Caren (This is more for her design as I'm not sure if I'll actively use her. Probably will just use spare tickets.)
June
– Morgan (Really tempted to spend some Quartz on Morgan as I can use a Berserker with NP Charge. Then again, I do have Servants right now who can farm just fine, although my Arash will end up reaching Bond 15 and potential retirement soon...)
July
–Fae Lancelot [Melusine] (The main goal and a dream for NP2. The question is if I'll be able get enough Quartz and be lucky enough to pull it off)
– Koyanskaya of Light (I probably should roll for her since she opens up more options, but I don't have enough Quartz for everything. I may put spare tickets towards her.)
September
– Summer Kama (Yeah, I have Space Ishtar and will likely continue using Space Ishtar over S!Kama, but I have OG Kama and getting her summer version would be nice.)

[DehNutCase]

Grail Front was quite fun, and it kind of plays like an actual board game. Kind of wish it was more obvious what you needed to do to field multiple servants (or at least told you beforehand which servants would participate if you started a fight), but I guess since there's not many maps it'd be kind of a waste of time to give a tutorial on mechanics.

[Alexmender]

Reached 201 boxes on the lotto. Using FGA is certainly a blessing for lotto farming. I don't plan on getting all my servants at 9/9/9 so I should be fine on proofs and bones for the time being. 

Grail Front was nice, I messed up at the beginning as I didn't read how it played and almost lost. After getting the hang of it I used Kama whenever she was available to cheese the whole thing with her infinite guts. I had heard that Super Orion was great in this mode but he died very quickly to crits when I tried to use him, which is very disappointing as I can't find a use for him. 

Edited September 3, 2022 by Alexmender

[Sire]

Ended up on box 132, using up my Golden Apples to farm.
-- Second Archive is filled up with EXP, but I sadly had to sell off some of my EXP as I just didn't have the space to store them (present box or inventory).

I ended up spending all existing Quartz on the MHXA/Illya/Miyu banner and ended up getting Miyu last minute, so she ended up eating the Present Box EXP after I cleared the "excess EXP."
-- Now I plan on saving for NP3 Space Ishtar for Append Skill purposes, then attempt to fully save for Melusine in July. There are other servants I would like to get (see previous post), but having no quartz whatsoever at the moment means it's time to rebuild the stash.

* * * * *

That said, some info from the JP side regarding the future of re-runs is concerning, as it seems they may not be re-running events anymore.
-- I don't know its its just full stop no more re-runs, or if they "secretly" have a plan to incorporate past events so players can play them any at any time.
-- Also, apparently the latest summer event (Arctic Summer) was a bust story-wise. It's a shame, especially since I love the Valkyrie and Skadi servants.

[Sire]

double post time

Finished the event, although I didn't get to clear out the shop or fully upgrade all the structures. At least I got the important stuff!
-- This is the first event I skipped through the story as I was pressed for time but still wanted to claim all the rewards. Hopefully I'll get around to reading the story via the replay function or a potential re-run...
-- I also didn't get to play around with any of the Raids, but apparently I didn't miss much so I'm not too worried about it.

As for the challenge quest, I went in with my usual team of Space Ishtar, Castoria x2, BB, Mash, and Herc Insurance.
-- I got blindsided by Avenger Nobu's "remove defensive buffs on Divine servants," so Space Ishtar got annihilated and I lost one of my Castorias to a crit.
-- Luckily, BB with a non MLB Damage Bonus CE carried the rest of the match, even though I ended up losing the other Castoria and Mash. Herc got the last hit with his NP.

* * * * *

I still need to finish Olympus with regards to the main story. One day I'll be able to sit down and play through it properly...

[MagicCanonBalls]

On 9/26/2022 at 8:01 AM, Sire said:

This is the first event I skipped through the story as I was pressed for time but still wanted to claim all the rewards. Hopefully I'll get around to reading the story via the replay function or a potential re-run

I mostly read them on youtube before/after. You can adjust the video speed accordingly and not having to press the screen much.

Without spoiler this event's story is meh by GUDA standard, not enough humor and not serious enough. It's also quite short.

 

I just started Olympus and taking a break since no more AP half bonus. Plus with what I read on boss fights I need to take some time to seriously upgrade my servants. It's a miracle I was able to rush through LB3 to 5.1 after not playing for 2 years with just castoria/Skadi support and command spells. I don't have any avengers for those forced support + Ruler enemies fights, and saving for Senji Muramasa so I am not pulling for JAlter on the current banner. 

[ciphertul]

Well after failing miserably at both the anny and summer 5 (first time I’ve fail to keep the welfare servant) I next main hope is picking up Ibuki. I kinda how’d to nab Van Gogh but I don’t know if I should try or just keep hoarding until Hsian Ko.

[Alexmender]

I'm almost out of Saber pieces, never thought I'd see the day. I think I should be fine even then as I don't plan on getting a new Saber until Barghest (because I'll pull for Oberon and she appears on that banner). 

I've been hoarding SQ and will keep doing so until the Koyan banner (although I hope to get her with only tickets). Exceptions to this include any surprise Eresh banner. 

As for my 2023 rolling plans:

Everything up to the LB6 banners is probably a skip. I sorta want Caren for her design but she can wait until 2024. I'll probably throw some tickets on the Miss Crane banner for that Eresh CE. The first and second Morgan banners are a skip because she'll come back a third time and the whole Koyan-Oberon-Summer 6 gauntlet is too tight. I have mixed feelings about Melusine because I like her design and from what I've heard she's ridiculous in terms of firepower, but she's a farming Buster lancer and I plan to get NP6 Eresh (eventually) so they're going to overlap too much...we'll see how I feel about her after beating LB6 when she gets her second banner. 

Koyan is a must have, and same goes for Oberon. I can only hope it won't cost me too much to get them both at NP1 so I can safely throw all that's left at Summer Kama.

After the whole LB6-Anni-Summer craziness I think the only other banners I'd pull for that year would be the Halloweeen one Foreigner Molay is hot, ok. Don't @ me and the Gudaguda banner for the Quick Caster. I might hold off on the latter depending on whether I like the character or not. Sadly I can't find a lot about her because it seems she released during a time people went nuts about having almost no male servants that year and Gudaguda having a ton of good looking male NPCs, or something around those lines. 

Edited October 3, 2022 by Alexmender

[Sire]

*dusts off thread*

So, managed to finish the event and clear the CQ. MVP goes to MHXX, who was extremely useful for cleanup duty and handling hostile Foreigners.
-- Otherwise, the majority of the event was Space!Ishtar and double Castoria. To deal with "unknown" nodes, I swapped out a Castoria for Summer!BB to perform two AoE NPs.
-- Even the CQ was handled fairly easily with Space!Ishtar and the Castoria duo, although I'll admit having mine at NP2 and making use of Castoria's Overcharged NP helped a lot. The support Castoria ended up dying near the end, so Summer!BB came in to clean up.

Story-wise, it was fairly enjoyable! The extra act was a little contrived, but I guess it all wrapped up fairly well in the end.
-- Gameplay-wise, I did enjoy exploring the map tile-by-tile. I think I prefer this method compared to the dungeon crawling of Kama's event, if just because this method plays faster.

I guess the main thing for me is the concern about "no future re-runs" and the limited-time nature of these events. While I do enjoy playing FGO for its story, I dislike the time limitations of it. I wish I could just explore and play the content on my own time instead of being forced to rush through events and the like to get the full experience.

* * * * *

In other news, I'm happy I got a Grail to spend as I was full on Embers and had no more space. Grailing the Valkyries to 102 cleared that up real quick, although I left them at 101 so I can keep the embers in the Second Archive safely stored for the proper EXP success events.
-- I probably should have a spare grail on standby in case I need an Ember dump, as farming lottos gives me more embers than I know what to do with for regular raising of Servants and grailing some to 100.

[DehNutCase]

On the one hand, I want grail casting so I can burn embers. On the other hand, I'm not looking forward to rolling FP gacha like crazy to get servant coins, which is going to be a massive chore. (Should've rolled a bunch on Nobukatsu for coins, maybe, but I was too lazy.)