Fate/Grand Order IV - Are you my Master? [Rerun - Lite]

[DrakeRaids]

What does Skadi do that Waver and a few starting NP CEs dont? As someone with several 3 turn teams already, why should i "waste" sq on a character that does something i can already do? Why waste sq on skadi when summer is soon after?

Skadi has a 50% quick up that can allow a handful specific servants to loop their noble phantasm three times in a row with help from her 50% Gauge boost allows masters with her to clear most farming nodes in three turns assuming all her skills are ranked. She's a really strong farmer, and a large portion of the games content is farming. If you can already three turn clear most farming nodes or don't care about three turn farming in general she loses a lot of luster.

[Resileaf]

Skadi changes the meta the way Merlin did by making quick servants violently more effective than they were before. If you love quick servants and want to wreck the game with them, she's the way to go. Double Skadi with specific servants can destroy most challenging quests.

[DrakeRaids]

It's worth noting that Skadi does not make quick cards good. She makes quick noble phantasms good. Skadi is fast-burn personified. The arch typical glass cannon. She has no sustain options and fairly weak defensive tools. And while she enables looping unless she can finish a CQ in 3 turns (and without losing someone important), she's going to have a bit of a rough time.

[Leon]

I am interested in her for the fact that she seems to be one of two casters who are Quick Arts, i prefer Buster Arts more but something different over the overwhelming Arts casters is a nice change up.

[Saambell]

Well, a one off ten roll on Brynhildre's banner got me my third berserker lancelot. Guess I kind of have to roll for Skadi now. What other characters are Skadi compatable? And how many need a certain NP level?

Edit: Is there any point to getting Skadi past level 70 10/1/10? As I hear it shes only good for those two skills. And calling her Merlin for Quick is not true. Shes more Tamamo with a NP battery. She even does the same thing Tamamo does which is make someone NP loop. While Merlin does EVERYTHING and Waver helps the whole party toss out their NPs.

[NeoPhoenix0]

Well, a one off ten roll on Brynhildre's banner got me my third berserker lancelot. Guess I kind of have to roll for Skadi now. What other characters are Skadi compatable? And how many need a certain NP level?

Edit: Is there any point to getting Skadi past level 70 10/1/10? As I hear it shes only good for those two skills. And calling her Merlin for Quick is not true. Shes more Tamamo with a NP battery. She even does the same thing Tamamo does which is make someone NP loop. While Merlin does EVERYTHING and Waver helps the whole party toss out their NPs.

Calling skadi similar to tamamo seems not right since tamamo has skill cool down reduction, healing and a np drain. Tamamo scales into endurance matches much better than skadi or waver, and has that whole arts stall angle for when you just want more time.

Edit: then again it has been ages since we have had true endurance matches.

[Saambell]

I mention Tamamo due to having a 50% boost to a card type with little other benefit. I was going to say Tamamo plus Waver makes Skadi but that's not fair to either. Tamamo has her stall power and Waver has his pile of buffs on top of his np charging. Skadi only has the card up and np charge. Her np is ignorable and her second skill is lackluster. Tamamo and a servant with targetable NP Gain can do the same job Skadi does with any arts aoe character. Its just there's fewer arts aoe characters compared to quick aoe characters.

[DrakeRaids]

Is there any point to getting Skadi past level 70 10/1/10? As I hear it shes only good for those two skills. And calling her Merlin for Quick is not true. Shes more Tamamo with a NP battery. She even does the same thing Tamamo does which is make someone NP loop. While Merlin does EVERYTHING and Waver helps the whole party toss out their NPs.

You absolutely want to level her second skill. 30% defense down is hefty and can be the difference between the last bit of overkill you need to successfully loop, and the entire chain breaking. Her cards are pretty feelbad though so it's not a huge deal not to take her 90.

Calling skadi similar to tamamo seems not right since tamamo has skill cool down reduction, healing and a np drain. Tamamo scales into endurance matches much better than skadi or waver, and has that whole arts stall angle for when you just want more time.

Edit: then again it has been ages since we have had true endurance matches.

I can see the similarity as they do both kind of do damage in the same ways, both Tamamo and Skadi are focused on making big NP hits while Merlin is more bustercrits.exe for his big numbers. The difference is Tamamo takes longer to get going in a quest, but once she starts going she doesn't stop. For some quests that can snipe you out before this happens she can have a real hard time. Skadi can go zero to ninety turn one but once her gas is gone that's basically it. Hope you can survive three turns of her doing nothing until she can explode again.

[Velaryon]

Well, a one off ten roll on Brynhildre's banner got me my third berserker lancelot. Guess I kind of have to roll for Skadi now. What other characters are Skadi compatable? And how many need a certain NP level?

Edmond Dantes is the big one aside from Zerkalot. I also see Parvati, Rider Kintoki, and a few others, but Dantes with a couple NP levels can be made to do stuff like this:

[Resileaf]

I didn't call Skadi Merlin for quick. I said she changed the meta the same way Merlin had when he was released.

[NeoPhoenix0]

Spoiler: minor story spoilers

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did they ever mention who it was who strengthened the bounded field for village 23? I might of missed it but i don't think they ever confirmed who it was.

[Kitten Champion]

Spoiler: minor story spoilers

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did they ever mention who it was who strengthened the bounded field for village 23? I might of missed it but i don't think they ever confirmed who it was.

Spoiler

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I don't... think so. They speculated on the identity and compared it to Musashi appearing in Russia, but no one surfaced to take credit. If it came up in the dialogue at the end then I definitely missed it.

I was expecting another Caster ally Servant to appear as a surprise guest near the climax, but it never happened.

[Resileaf]

Spoiler: minor story spoilers

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did they ever mention who it was who strengthened the bounded field for village 23? I might of missed it but i don't think they ever confirmed who it was.

Spoiler: It will be revealed...

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Later, in a future Lostbelt. But it's a very important character, you can be sure of that.

[Red Fel]

So, I've finally completed LB2. My thoughts in spoilers.

Spoiler

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Okay. First, characters.

• Ophelia: I'll be honest, I didn't love her all that much. I wasn't too mad about Kadoc either, but for different reasons. Kadoc was basically a dark reflection of the protagonist - another nothing mage, finally seeing a chance to be somebody, only to once again miss out. He had a chip on his shoulder but was kind of a jerk about it. Ophelia was at least nice to Mash, which I liked, but her whole concept was that she was perpetually in servitude to somebody. And I get that part of it was that she was under a curse, but mostly she was just tragic. And not in the "product of her own actions" tragic sense that the Greeks loved so much - the "life will continue to crap on you for not-your-fault reasons" tragic, which I strongly dislike. Still, her Mystic Eye was awesome, if a bit esoteric.
• Surtr: I kind of liked him as a villain. He was uncomplicated. He wanted to burn everything - that's a simple motivation I can get behind. In some ways, he was more sympathetic than Ophelia - like her, he was raging against an unfair fate, but unlike her he was actually trying to do something about it. Also, his seeming dependence on her, right up to the end, somehow made this alien concept of fire and destruction more relatable.
• Skadi: I came into this expecting to like her. I... kinda found her boring, honestly. Yes, they did a good job trying to make her motivations alien - she loves or she kills, no middle ground - and they did a good job explaining her ultimate impotence and her frustration with same, but that development came right at the end. For most of it, she was just... kind of bland? I'll be honest, but for the meta, this chapter did a poor job of making me want to pull for her.
• The Valkyries: They did a good job of humanizing them in the end. Basically, unlike their mass-produced counterparts, they had developed emotional sapience, and this had resulted in frustration - a theme for this Lostbelt - with their inability to do their actual job of selecting heroes. In a world of no conflict, there's no real point to Valkyries. I felt some of that frustration. But not enough to really dig into them as characters.
• Brynhildr: I'm going to level with you, I used to hate this character. Yet another yandere - like we don't have enough of those - but this one feels the compulsion to kill the ones she loves. This time, though? I actually almost liked her. They explored her tragedy nicely, and seeing her with Sigurd was... not my romantic ideal, but a little sweet. I've seen people comparing their final battle to a Sekiha Love-Love Tenkyouken, and I kinda see it. They are pretty decent together, as battle couples go in this game.
• Sigurd: Not enough screentime to really dig in. See Brynhildr above.
• Napoleon: Holy crap. This I did not expect. I immediately fell in love with his design, because I was instantly reminded of Broskandar - apparently a deliberate design choice. Things escalated once they started showing off his character as basically the ur-shounen trope. I love this magnificent bastard so much. I legitimately went back and forth between comparing him to All Might and Kamina. This guy is glorious. Perhaps the best part is that he is not a Limited Servant - he joins the permanent pool after this, I believe.
• Gerda: Oof. They did a good job with this one. Absolutely adorable, and simply too innocent to understand. And then we left without saying goodbye. And then... hop. And Gordy, dammit, just when I thought I could handle that, he has to come back and describe my feels to me. Speaking of...
• Mr. Chubby: I was kinda getting to like him before now. I know a lot of people have commented that he's a bit too tsun - another Olga - and whiny and useless, but this LB did a really good job of exposing his soft side as well. He genuinely seems to care about people, and it's sweet. I feel like this is what we could have had with Olga if we'd had more time.

Okay, so the writing. This LB was pretty story-episode-heavy, which is honestly what took me so long to get through it - I can brainlessly plow through battle levels, but I want to be able to focus on story ones, and I'm usually too busy for that. But the story was good, if laden with foreshadowing. The setting was appropriately surreal and kept me guessing as to how it happened. The villages were idyllic, but the wilds weren't as depressingly bleak as Russia's were. The characterization, see above, was solid in most places. The pacing was good, too.

Oh, and the end scene. "All according to her calculations." Never change, Sion.

Overall, I'd give this LB a Hop/5.

[Saambell]

I am quite enjoying Gordy's progression and development from jerk noble to capable commander. Starts off as dead weight, but the need to be in control drives him to take more of a management role. He's more and more willing to take the advice of Mini Vinci and Holmes. Also a desire to protect the crew of the Shadow Border, growing from a "i can only survive cause they keep me alive" to empathy where he protects everyone to the level he protects himself. Even though he has little sense of how abrasive his words are, comparing him at the start of LB2 where he's "us or them" to the end where he's nearly as down in the dumps as everyone else at the results of the LB shows a great step in empathy and compassion.
Im very much looking forward to his continued growth. And that he's the son of Siegfried's master from Apocrypha is a nice connection.

[Velaryon]

Haven't gotten around to LB2 yet, but I'm glad to hear Goredolf is growing less obnoxious. In LB1 I was strongly tempted to start just fast forwarding all his dialogue because he was pretty unbearable. I think the only character in the entire game I hate more is Blackbeard.

[Red Fel]

Haven't gotten around to LB2 yet, but I'm glad to hear Goredolf is growing less obnoxious. In LB1 I was strongly tempted to start just fast forwarding all his dialogue because he was pretty unbearable. I think the only character in the entire game I hate more is Blackbeard.

I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say that his character does improve. With regard to Blackbeard, we are told once - and basically just the once - that the whole thing is an act to cause everyone to underestimate him. But then he goes right back to being the absolute worst, so forget him. With regard to Gordy, though, you learn pretty quickly once he's introduced that he's a man in way over his head just trying to make the best of an incredibly bad situation, and - again, no spoilers - LB2 further advances that by showing that, while he may be mostly what you'd expect of a Clock Tower mage - there's an actual person in there.

It's buried deep inside a very, very Clock Tower mage, but it's in there.

[Velaryon]

The "Blackbeard acts this way so people will underestimate him" thing does nothing for me to mitigate how annoying he is because 1) as you say, it's mentioned once as a throwaway, 2) it still bears no resemblance to the historical Edward Teach, 3) he's mostly relegated to being a comedy character yet is painfully unfunny, and 4) he's still doing it at all. And so I fast forward whenever he's on my screen.

As for Goredolf, I do hope he gets better quickly, because right now he does absolutely nothing for me.

On another note: I've had 2 data update downloads in as many days, and every time I eagerly rush to the summon screen hoping to see the next banner, only to see nothing has really changed. Stop it already!

[chainer1216]

The "Blackbeard acts this way so people will underestimate him" thing does nothing for me to mitigate how annoying he is because 1) as you say, it's mentioned once as a throwaway, 2) it still bears no resemblance to the historical Edward Teach, 3) he's mostly relegated to being a comedy character yet is painfully unfunny, and 4) he's still doing it at all. And so I fast forward whenever he's on my screen.

As for Goredolf, I do hope he gets better quickly, because right now he does absolutely nothing for me.

On another note: I've had 2 data update downloads in as many days, and every time I eagerly rush to the summon screen hoping to see the next banner, only to see nothing has really changed. Stop it already!

Those are bug fixes, dont expect Skadi or the GSSR until the 6th.

[Leon]

All the statesmen is quite a funny event thus far

[Saambell]

The bit with Artoria, Gawain, and Erik make me suspect that at least some of the Monty Python jokes are actually in the original Japanese version. Cause there's little other reason to use those 3 in a scene.

[NeoPhoenix0]

On another note: I've had 2 data update downloads in as many days, and every time I eagerly rush to the summon screen hoping to see the next banner, only to see nothing has really changed. Stop it already!

as has already been said they are bug fixes, but to elaborate a bit, they jsut did a major engine update that needs to be smoothed out a bit now that it is in the wild and on so many different sets of hardware. there were also several mechanic updates that i don't think are all at 100%.

[Kitten Champion]

Oh~

Rolled Skadi with 120 SQ and 20 tickets. Didn't get much of anything else, sadly. NP3 EMIYA and NP3 Minidusa with the tickets, but everything else was in the Mapo Tofu side of things.

Still, I have 420 SQ left, so I can start saving up from that.

[Saambell]

Rolled on Skadi. Used 90 SQ, after having got 190 from the log in update. Got my second copy of Tomoe, my third copy of Waver, and Skadi. Each to a roll. Also rolled on the Extra Banner, and got Dantes. Was more hoping for Abi or Hoku, but Dantes was my third choice, so not mad at all. Sadly was way under prepped for Skadi, need a lot more Caster Embers, and a LOT more QP. Got her first skill to level 8 though, but am lacking Aurora Steel to finish it off. Then will need to get a whole pile more for her other big skill. Fine with leaving her defense down skill at level 6 for now.

[Velaryon]

400+ SQ and 45 tickets, and I failed to get Skadi. What's more, I didn't even get any other 5* either. I did pick up a few new 4* servants (Suzuka Gozen, Beowulf, Rama, Circe) and get NP upgrades for a few more 4*'s (Siegfried, Nitocris, Wu Zetian). Overall, a bit disappointing.

The GSSR banner, on the other hand, was a completely different story. I decided to roll on the Rider banner because I didn't have any 5* Riders, and I got: 2 copies of Achilles, Ivan the Terrible, and Martha. So that was a smashing success.

[spectralphoenix]

Got Skadi and Penth in 2 tickets and one 10-pull. Was less fortunate on the GSSR - pulled on archer since that was the only regular class I don't have a 5* in and got Arjuna, who was the one guy I didn't want. I think he was in one of the side properties before FGO, and maybe he was cool there, but I know him as that guy who went off on a pointless side fight in America.

Also, it looks like they subtitle as ascension dialogue now, so that's cool.

[Resileaf]

I used my tickets on the Skadi banner, but got nothing, and I'm not gonna use quartz. Those are getting saved for Jeanne archer. I will use the tickets from the challenge quests though.

As far as GSSR goes, I hesitated a lot on which one to roll for, but eventually opted for caster, since I still don't have Waver and Merlin would have also been pretty good. It ended up being Da Vinci, which in truth is also pretty nice as I don't have an AoE 5* caster.

[Leon]

GSSR = Meltryllis and three of Salieri so he is NP5 now. Not what i was hoping for but not bad, i would have preferred to have a Ruler as its one of the two classes i am lacking now, but that also ran the risk of getting the one servant in that pool who i didn't want (shiro).

Don't know what to do with the travel costumes as everyone o want is far past where i am upto.

[chainer1216]

I got Jalter for my GSSR, as well as 4 copies of Salieri.

As for Skadi rolls... well I got NP2 Zerkalot, and the last Emiya I needed to NP5 him.

Not great rolls, but I accept it because my rolls for Sigurd/Valkyrie were exceptional, NP5ed Sigurd and NP3ed Valk for less than 300sq.

[NeoPhoenix0]

got skadi with 1 ticket and 90 SQ leaving me with plenty to probably squander on summer...

On the GSSR I got Sigurd. while not my first choice i do like hime better than arthur and Atila, plus he isn't another copy of artoria 5 rare mana prisms.