Fate/Grand Order III - Protecc those Smiles

[Resileaf]

So, for the case of single rolls, I tossed 15 or more single rolls and a ten roll at the first summer banner, getting only 3 gold event CEs, two of which were the 5 star ones. But just in the last while I tossed one more single roll on the Lancer stage of the First Banner, and got a gold lancer to show. So now I have NP 2 Summer Kiyo. Would have really liked Mordred or Summer Tamamo, but Kiyo being at NP2, having gotten her last year, is a nice consolation prize. But that's basically 35ish rolls done, getting a single gold Servant. Would I have had such luck if they were all 10 rolls? Would 30 SQ and 10 rolls have gotten me anything better if they were done one at a time rather then all at once? Who can really say? Still not feeling like doing 111+ rolls one at a time for Nero once that banner hits. Cause I unless that's on a day off from work, I'm not sure I have that amount of time.

Speaking of the Second Summer event, who wants to take guesses when it will start? In JP there was a week between the events, but in that case it was filled by All The Statesmen. Given that event is over and done with, its up in the air if we will have a break week, or if we will launch right into the new event. Could see it start on the 29th, likely being announced on the friday. Or it could be saved until August actually starts, on the 2nd or 3rd or something similar. Anyone want to take guesses?

I've been told that we won't have any rest between this summer and the second summer event. I'd expect the farming to continue on.

[Saambell]

Oil and Concrete farming feels broken. Like, they really should have swapped Lancer's and Saber's boosts. That or the farming map I'm reading on the wiki mixed up which are the better places for Oil and Concrete. A node full of archers and yet sabers boost the drops from that node. A node full of lancers, and lancers boost that node's drops. Something really tells me they should have been switched.

[Velaryon]

Oil and Concrete farming feels broken. Like, they really should have swapped Lancer's and Saber's boosts. That or the farming map I'm reading on the wiki mixed up which are the better places for Oil and Concrete. A node full of archers and yet sabers boost the drops from that node. A node full of lancers, and lancers boost that node's drops. Something really tells me they should have been switched.

I agree. It breaks the pattern established pretty much everywhere else in this event and makes oil frustrating to farm, especially if you don't have great assassins to fall back on.

[Nerocite]

Oil and Concrete farming feels broken. Like, they really should have swapped Lancer's and Saber's boosts. That or the farming map I'm reading on the wiki mixed up which are the better places for Oil and Concrete. A node full of archers and yet sabers boost the drops from that node. A node full of lancers, and lancers boost that node's drops. Something really tells me they should have been switched.

The Oil and Cement nodes both drop both, so I just bring a front line of Lancers for Oil, and Berserkers for Cement.

[Resileaf]

Oil and Concrete farming feels broken. Like, they really should have swapped Lancer's and Saber's boosts. That or the farming map I'm reading on the wiki mixed up which are the better places for Oil and Concrete. A node full of archers and yet sabers boost the drops from that node. A node full of lancers, and lancers boost that node's drops. Something really tells me they should have been switched.

Basically the devs mixed up the cement/oil farming spots to decide who got what bonuses.

[Hunter Noventa]

My idiot son Mordred came home after only 8 tickets, truly a joyous day.

[nightwyrm]

40 tickets, no gold servants. :(

[Resileaf]

Managed to complete the challenge quest with a team of Jalter, Mash and Merlin on my front line, with Chloe, Kintoki and Jeanne on my backline. Good thing the big boars don't hit as hard as their levels might indicate. Spammed as many Merlin and Mash NPs as I could. Still needed to use command seals to complete the challenge when two boars were left though.

[NeoPhoenix0]

for the boar challenge i found a winning recipe... though i probably shoulda gone with shuten for a damage dealer instead of archuria... i have mash and tamamo running np spamfest heal and 0 damage defense buffs. and just incase the cooldowns don't line up and a boar is about to NP, i have the atlas acadamy code, but that isn't really being used. i haven't won yet but i am 30 turns deep. i am not sure if shuten would have been better though, she doesn't have a np drain nor a massive np refund.

edit: it took nearly 60 turns... but at least no one ever dropped below half health and once i got going they spent most of the time at full health never dropping below 3/4.

[Nerocite]

My BBQ Boar team was Mash, Merlin and Mama. Sur-Mo seems OP for it, AOE charge down and very easy to spam NP.

[Velaryon]

So it seems like doing heavy damage is not really what casters are about, but are there any casters (particularly easily obtainable ones) that are good for hitting fairly hard?

[Red Fel]

So it seems like doing heavy damage is not really what casters are about, but are there any casters (particularly easily obtainable ones) that are good for hitting fairly hard?

Well, yes and no.

Different classes have different base damage modifiers. For example, Assassins have great crit potential, but a base damage modifier of 0.9, whereas Sabers are solid all-rounders with a base damage modifier of 1.0, and Berserkers have advantage against every class and a base damage modifier of 1.1. This is before you take stats into account - Berserkers tend to have among the best ATK stat in the game, and Sabers tend to perform solidly across categories, but Assassins tend to have lower ATK. This plays into their respective niches - Berserkers are meant to be glass cannons dealing massive damage, Sabers are meant to be all-around Servants with a good balance of attack and defense, and Assassins are individually weak but become blenders when they start generating crits.

And then there are Casters. Like Assassins, Casters have a 0.9 modifier. That means they typically don't deal damage. And that's true - your typical Caster focuses on support skills and/or NP spam.

There are always, however, exceptions. Chief among them? Xuanzang. If you look at a chart of Servant stats, sorting by max ATK (not Grail ATK, though), you'll notice a few things. First, you'll notice that the top 10 spots belong exclusively to Avengers, Berserkers, Sabers, and Archers. This is not coincidence. Second, the majority of Servants in the top tiers are also Buster Servants - for example, Gramps comes in at #17, with three Buster cards and a Buster NP. Even that rule has an exception, though - Shuten-Douji, an Arts Assassin, comes in at #14.

Scroll down. Keep going. At #24, you'll find her. An offense-oriented Caster with a Buster NP. That's Xuanzang. Her kit is basically focused around spamming that NP - three Arts cards, an NP charge button (80% at level 10), and an NP gen up button. She also has Territory Creation to boost her Arts cards, and Divinity to boost her damage output. And, of course, her NP - a strong ST Buster NP that ignores DEF boosts (after her Interlude). She's...

... extremely adequate. If you need an Assassin-killer, she's a very decent choice. But she suffers a Caster's reduced damage modifier and, again, stats lower than 23 other Servants. That number includes both Meltryllis and Kiara, both of whom - as Alter Egos - deal bonus damage to Assassins. And Riders. And Casters.

Want another offensively-oriented Caster? The next one is Illya, also a Buster Caster... at #41.

Compared to other Casters, Xuanzang (and Illya, on her NP) is an offensive beast. But compared to Servants as a whole? She... performs a niche job. If you really need to kill a very strong Assassin-type enemy, and don't care to just bring a Berserker like everyone else. Or an Alter Ego.

As for easily obtainable offensive Casters? Oh, absolutely not. Casters are not typically slotted for offense, and the best (and generally, only) ones for the job are extremely rare, to put it charitably.

[spectralphoenix]

There's an important caveat there that Berserkers and Alter Egos only are 1.5x super effective instead of 2x like a normal class. That said, you're often better off using a Berserker to do the real damage while a caster supports them.

If you really want an 1-3 star offensive caster, your best bet is probably Babbage or maybe Medea. Babbage has two buster cards, a buster AoE, and a three turn attack buff. Medea has a weaker than normal NP but ludicrous NP gain, so she can spam it like mad. You could also try bringing Hans or Shakespeare (for Babbage) to help them out. Ultimately, neither will likely give you the raw numbers you want, however. There's a reason the deepest depths of the tier list houses so many low-star casters.

Edit: looks like the cards are hot tonight! Did a 10-pull and got spooked by Waver. Decided to burn some tickets to try to get Martha as well, and pulled her on the second try. Did another 10-pull while I was feeling lucky, and now she's NP2. Looks like I have some hands to kill when the event is over. Many, many hands, especially since I just broke down yesterday and gave Hijikata his first grail.

[Kitten Champion]

This is a really minor thing, but is there a way to efficiently remove the blinking *NEW* from everything? Because I've learnt from other games that there actually may be and never really noticed.

[Yael]

This is a really minor thing, but is there a way to efficiently remove the blinking *NEW* from everything? Because I've learnt from other games that there actually may be and never really noticed.

If it is from the buildings, I believe the only way is to actually play the option. Other than that, the quest stays new until you play it.

[Kitten Champion]

If it is from the buildings, I believe the only way is to actually play the option. Other than that, the quest stays new until you play it.

I mean my Craft Essences, Servants, Exp cards, and various Fous in the menus. I don't mind the quests.

[Hunter Noventa]

Punch Martha came home after only 2 tickets. I feel like I'm using up all my luck now.

[Red Fel]

I mean my Craft Essences, Servants, Exp cards, and various Fous in the menus. I don't mind the quests.

As far as I've been able to find, the only way to remove the NEW! icon is to go into the description.

Having it on embers and Fous and such doesn't bother me, because they're food, but consistently seeing it on CEs and Servants is annoying. At least with Servants, once you get them up to Bond 5, you generally won't see it anymore, but with CEs it's just there all the time. Really annoying.

[Kitten Champion]

As far as I've been able to find, the only way to remove the NEW! icon is to go into the description.

Is that it? I honestly couldn't decipher what I had done differently between the ones with NEW! and those without.

I was hoping that I could get rid of them all by going into that Servant/CE index in Myhome and looking at them all individually but the flashing NEW!s are apparently disconnected from one another's menus.

[Yael]

Steel Ball Run Dead Heat Summer Race has been officially announced!

This time we'll get a new batch of summer servants, plus a welfare. Most servants this time are good, and some are superb of their classes. The welfare is also good, outclassed by Rintoki, but still good (plus she's a god-tier waifu even if she's useless goddess).

[Red Fel]

Is that it? I honestly couldn't decipher what I had done differently between the ones with NEW! and those without.

I was hoping that I could get rid of them all by going into that Servant/CE index in Myhome and looking at them all individually but the flashing NEW!s are apparently disconnected from one another's menus.

Far as I can tell, yeah. You have to actually click on it and read it. And doing it in My Room won't change anything about what's in your inventory - you have to do that, too, but separately.

Small QoL fix, come on devs, get on that.

Steel Ball Run Dead Heat Summer Race has been officially announced!

This time we'll get a new batch of summer servants, plus a welfare. Most servants this time are good, and some are superb of their classes. The welfare is also good, outclassed by Rintoki, but still good (plus she's a god-tier waifu even if she's useless goddess).

Yeah, let's actually talk about this one.

Spoiler: Dead Heat Summer Race!

Show

This is a "cheer for your waifu" event. It works like this. The participating Servants will be divided into teams. Each team has Free Quests you can perform for them - doing so earns that team a point, and inches them closer to a win. You can also use support items to get bonus points for the team - certain items will give an even bigger bonus to certain teams. When one team has collected enough points, they win, and all players receive prizes based on which team won. Prizes go to anyone who participated in that round, so always do at least one Free Quest each time. You'll also receive QP for your participation - this is unaffected by which team wins. There will also be Main Quests which advance the event story - obviously, do those too.

The Welfare Servant this time around is Rider Ishtar. Yes, this technically grants her a type advantage over Caster Gil. Her Ascension materials can only be gathered during Part 1 of the event, so make sure you do that. (Her NPs are gathered during Part 2. Do that too.)

There are also shop item drops, because of course there are. The following Event Servants, available from the gacha, increase the drops of shop items by 2: Caster Nero, Saber Fran, Assassin Nitocris, and Berserker NOBU!. Rider Ishtar will also increase drops by 2. In addition, select Servants will increase drops by 1:

• Archuria
• Orion
• Papa Moriarty
• Tesla
• Lancer Tamamo
• MHX
• Xuanzang
• Scheherazade
• Atalante
• Archer Anne and Mary
• Lancer Kiyo
• Surfer Mo
• Assassin Shishou
• Presi-King
• Caster Marie
• Mama Penth
• ROAD ROLLA DA
• Boudica
• Babbage

In addition, you can use CEs to increase drops - the 5-star Seaside Luxury, which can be acquired from the event shop, and several which can be received from gacha.

There will be a Part 2 to this event, with similar mechanics but a different gacha. (Also, the bonus Servant list differs slightly.) If you are comparing the two, keep in mind that the second event's gacha will include Rider Alter, Archer Helena, and Lancer Raikou, instead of those listed above. So, really, the question is whether you want Beach Caster Umu or Beach Gunner Alter, Adorably Shy Pharaoh or Comically Overprepared Scientist, and Raging Rock God or Overly Affectionate Mama: Spear Version.

Or whale on them all, and abandon Eresh. You monster.

[spectralphoenix]

Looks like it starts on the 29th. I'll be honest, I was kind of hoping for a dead week to farm some exp and tune down the grinding a bit.

Edit: speaking of QoL, it's nice to be able to filter supports for event bonuses, but would it kill them to let you filter your own servants and CEs that way? Or at least show the bonuses on the card when you're in the selection screen?

[Manticoran]

I am so happy for the new event. I burned out in Onigashima, and have been struggling to even make my log-in rewards because it has been just rerun after rerun after rerun...

[Saambell]

Looks like it starts on the 29th. I'll be honest, I was kind of hoping for a dead week to farm some exp and tune down the grinding a bit.

Edit: speaking of QoL, it's nice to be able to filter supports for event bonuses, but would it kill them to let you filter your own servants and CEs that way? Or at least show the bonuses on the card when you're in the selection screen?

You totally can, you can show all relevant Event CEs and Servants when selecting them for your team. It just doesn't work in events that use all servants in the game, but the CE selection should still work. It should be under the Filter button, or at least in that area. But yeah, it would be super nice to see the things those servants boost when selecting them.

Meanwhile, I have been waiting for this event since the day it happened in Japan. I have been waiting for Nero Caster since the instant she existed. This will be my chance. I am fully prepared to get her to level 90 10/10/10 day of. I just need the gacha to be nice and for that gold caster card to pop out for me, when I have never gotten a 5 star caster without having to resort to the GSSR. This will be the real test of my luck.

And once I level her, its going to be grind city as I have put off So Much Levelling due to limited space for Embers. Got a huge backlog of partly leveled servants and a ton of level 1s I haven't bothered with. ChaCha and Bunyan are still level 1 due to being near useless without Kaleidoscopes. And until I get one of those rare CEs, I don't think they are worth the embers.

[Resileaf]

You totally can, you can show all relevant Event CEs and Servants when selecting them for your team. It just doesn't work in events that use all servants in the game, but the CE selection should still work. It should be under the Filter button, or at least in that area. But yeah, it would be super nice to see the things those servants boost when selecting them.

Meanwhile, I have been waiting for this event since the day it happened in Japan. I have been waiting for Nero Caster since the instant she existed. This will be my chance. I am fully prepared to get her to level 90 10/10/10 day of. I just need the gacha to be nice and for that gold caster card to pop out for me, when I have never gotten a 5 star caster without having to resort to the GSSR. This will be the real test of my luck.

And once I level her, its going to be grind city as I have put off So Much Levelling due to limited space for Embers. Got a huge backlog of partly leveled servants and a ton of level 1s I haven't bothered with. ChaCha and Bunyan are still level 1 due to being near useless without Kaleidoscopes. And until I get one of those rare CEs, I don't think they are worth the embers.

You fool! The greed sensor will not forgive you for this!

[ellenate]

These people have absolutely no chill with the scheduling.


I was well prepared, so i didn't really burn myself out, but a break would've been nice. (speaking of, i didn't think finding mlb event ce's would be such a task. I guess everyone was sleeping during this even last year.)

[Leecros]

Well, this summer rerun was a bust for me. I was going to save for New Summer, but broke down and was really hoping for Artoria Archer.

Considering the incredible luck that I've gotten in the first half of the year though, I really don't have any room to complain about my luck now...So onward to Caster Nero!

I am so happy for the new event. I burned out in Onigashima, and have been struggling to even make my log-in rewards because it has been just rerun after rerun after rerun...

Same, I actually Lost my 300+ day login streak half-way through this summer rerun (right before i would've gotten my weekly ticket too).

These people have absolutely no chill with the scheduling.

Events = More Servants = More Money = More Events = More Servants = More Money

[ImperatorV]

I'm a little burnt out on re-runs as well - I haven't even started part two of the current event yet, although I'm basically finished everything I wanted from part one. Perhaps I'll just rush through the main story and call it for the time being.

[spectralphoenix]

And the good times continue to roll - got Saber Fran on a 10-pull! I might put in a little more when she's the only one on the banner. Originally I tried to avoid dupes like the plague, but these days I think the NP2 damage increase might be worth focusing my effort a little.

[Hunter Noventa]

Minor luck for me on the first banner. A few event CEs and a second Kaleidoscope among 5 rolls. But as much as I want Mobile Suit UMU, I need Huckebein Maid Alter more, so the rest of my rolls have to wait for part 2.

Also, give us the Super Robot Wars crossover you clearly want, Nasu you coward.