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

[chainer1216]

i have a second, 3star only account and i can say for certain touta is a very good archer option, he's the Cu of archers in that he just doesn't die.

anyway my main accounts friend code is 656,067,621

[Velaryon]

Hi Daedalus! I sent you a friend request. My in-game name is SithCats. My account's not as powerful as some here, but I've got some good servants who can help with a lot of content.

With regard to your current servant situation, it could always be worse. My starting 4* servant was Stheno, and by the time I realized how ridiculously small her niche is (and how badly she's outclassed in that niche by Euryale), it was too late to reset my account without losing progress on events. Also, it took me a couple months to summon any Saber servant at all! Anyway, with time you'll summon more good stuff.

It sounds like you've identified some good choices among the servants you have access to so far. I will also vouch for Medea, but agree that her value is mostly in her NP and she's not great as an all-purpose Caster. It's okay though, between her and Lu Bu you'll be able to handle most Assassin enemies you're likely to encounter in the near future, until you have more options. Even at NP1 Lu Bu is worth investing into for now. With time it gets easier to build servants faster, so you don't have to worry too much about wasting resources on servants who might fall out of use in the future.

One piece of general advice for events that I learned the hard way: if there's an event shop with a limited Craft Essence available, it's usually a good idea to buy all available copies of that ASAP, because they will help you farm the other stuff faster. Leaving them til later because they're more expensive than the ascension materials or embers or whatever that you want is usually not a good idea. And that's how in my first event I failed to get either the event CE or the welfare servant fully maxed. Learn from my mistake!

[Kitten Champion]

One piece of general advice for events that I learned the hard way: if there's an event shop with a limited Craft Essence available, it's usually a good idea to buy all available copies of that ASAP, because they will help you farm the other stuff faster. Leaving them til later because they're more expensive than the ascension materials or embers or whatever that you want is usually not a good idea. And that's how in my first event I failed to get either the event CE or the welfare servant fully maxed. Learn from my mistake!

They're also - occasionally - quite good as just general use CEs, such that they're worth pursuing for their effects alone.

The upcoming Journey to the West event for instance has The Three Great Heroes that increases NP damage and crit star generation rate by 20% and starts battle with 40% NP gauge at max level. Which is easy to MLB as there are 4 available in shop and another from a free quest. It's also great for Shiki.

It's worth looking up their effects beyond just the drop rate increase.

[NeoPhoenix0]

lostbelt 1 post mortem

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I think this might be my second favorite chapter (i love samurai flicks so shimosa #1). the writing was top notch, the characters were great, the story was well written and i am honestly a bit amazed that they managed to pull off a story like that in this game without it feeling forced in some way, and as this is the beginning it didn't get super over the top yet. remnant had a habit of going super all out each chapter which is fine but after a bit it took away from the tension cause there was too much for too long.

so i love Mash's ortinax costume but i hate how it's almost worse in every way kit-wise appart from very niche applications.

as far as difficulty went despite the numerous boss battles i have to agree it wasn't too hard compared to things like the remnant boss battles, maybe somewhere between america and camelot. though i did under prepare for ivans first full battle and blew my seals on it cause i tried to get away with only a front line with bond grinding in the back and things didn't go quite well enough to get away with it. then i used one seal on kadoc and anastasia at the end to finish it with an np before they could finish off my servants with some bad luck or something. though even when i had full teams i just lazily put together class advantage and support rather than use actual serious teams.

finally, no nyalter or even any of the new CEs, just np 5 avicibron. time to pay off the gacha debt of summer and winter i guess.

[Hunter Noventa]

I tossed a weekly ticket at the first banner a couple days ago, was utterly shocked to come out of it with my very own Grand Duchess.

[Velaryon]

They're also - occasionally - quite good as just general use CEs, such that they're worth pursuing for their effects alone.

The upcoming Journey to the West event for instance has The Three Great Heroes that increases NP damage and crit star generation rate by 20% and starts battle with 40% NP gauge at max level. Which is easy to MLB as there are 4 available in shop and another from a free quest. It's also great for Shiki.

It's worth looking up their effects beyond just the drop rate increase.

Absolutely agreed. The CE I mentioned that I failed to max was Golden Sumo. That still hurts to this day.

[Saambell]

For anyone having trouble with the Grand Duchess fight, I have a NP5 Level 100 10/10/10 Ozymandias with MLB Origin Bullet on my support list. In game name is Fujiwara, ID is 445,861,011. Sorry I don't have much help for Ivan, as my assassins aren't that great. Got room for 4 people, but can squeeze in more if needed.

[TherianTheorist]

Still slogging through the lostbelt. Just did a 10-roll thinking I'd get Antonio Salieri for sure, maybe Ivan if I was lucky. Mostly because Salieri looks good, and I'm lacking in Riders*. (Mostly using Astolfo when I need one.)

Nope, not even Salieri. Got Yan Quing out of it, though. (Might stick him in a party with Moriarty and Lobo, once I have him leveled, Shinjuku boys~)

*Also I really haven't been optimizing my party so much as looking for nice lore, and/or attractive males. Hence why I spent a grail for the first time since I've started, on getting Karna to LV92.

[Leon]

I rolled on it twice because hey 3 star Avenger and a Rider i like the look of and i wanted some of the new CEs aswell. well first roll got me 2 of the avenger and thats about all (a second room guard CE which was nice) and the second one had nothing new in it at all.

[Friv]

Still slogging through the lostbelt. Just did a 10-roll thinking I'd get Antonio Salieri for sure, maybe Ivan if I was lucky. Mostly because Salieri looks good, and I'm lacking in Riders*. (Mostly using Astolfo when I need one.)

Nope, not even Salieri. Got Yan Quing out of it, though. (Might stick him in a party with Moriarty and Lobo, once I have him leveled, Shinjuku boys~)

*Also I really haven't been optimizing my party so much as looking for nice lore, and/or attractive males. Hence why I spent a grail for the first time since I've started, on getting Karna to LV92.

Unfortunately, the chance of getting Salieri is only about 1 in 25, so you need to do at least three ten-pulls to have a really good chance of getting him. (I did six, and got two of him; I was hoping for three, but I'll take it.)

And your Grail choice is a strong one. Karna is a nice boy.

I admit my grail choice have been all over the damn map. Caeser to 80 was an early choice, when I had no Sabers, and got me through some rough times, so even though he's not actually a good choice I don't regret it. Heracles to 100 was probably not the *strongest* choice, but he's a beast and pretty generically useful so I'm not sad. Astolfo to 90 was mostly just for me, as was Bunyan to 80. Robin Hood, Cu Chulainn, and Georgius to 80 helped beef up my lines for the purpose of having high-level low-star characters to toss in for point purposes. Arash to 70 made him a world-class farmer.

I think Salieri might be next. I love that weirdo already.

[Resileaf]

Unfortunately, the chance of getting Salieri is only about 1 in 25, so you need to do at least three ten-pulls to have a really good chance of getting him. (I did six, and got two of him; I was hoping for three, but I'll take it.)

And your Grail choice is a strong one. Karna is a nice boy.

I admit my grail choice have been all over the damn map. Caeser to 80 was an early choice, when I had no Sabers, and got me through some rough times, so even though he's not actually a good choice I don't regret it. Heracles to 100 was probably not the *strongest* choice, but he's a beast and pretty generically useful so I'm not sad. Astolfo to 90 was mostly just for me, as was Bunyan to 80. Robin Hood, Cu Chulainn, and Georgius to 80 helped beef up my lines for the purpose of having high-level low-star characters to toss in for point purposes. Arash to 70 made him a world-class farmer.

I think Salieri might be next. I love that weirdo already.

Heracles to 100 is a good choice. He's one of the best servants to solo tough quests thanks to his bond 10 CE.

[spectralphoenix]

I mostly suffer from decision paralysis at this kind of stuff. I currently have Lancer Vlad at 90 after he wrecked his way through Shinjuku and Hijikata at 100 for massive damage. But at this point, I figure I have pretty much all the firepower I need and should start grailing for character, or maybe some of the lower rarity folks with interesting mechanics. But choosing anyone as my favorite means choosing everyone else as my un-favorite, as well as precludes using those grails on someone cooler I might draw in the future, so my grails are all gathering dust in a closet in Chaldea.

[Resileaf]

I mostly suffer from decision paralysis at this kind of stuff. I currently have Lancer Vlad at 90 after he wrecked his way through Shinjuku and Hijikata at 100 for massive damage. But at this point, I figure I have pretty much all the firepower I need and should start grailing for character, or maybe some of the lower rarity folks with interesting mechanics. But choosing anyone as my favorite means choosing everyone else as my un-favorite, as well as precludes using those grails on someone cooler I might draw in the future, so my grails are all gathering dust in a closet in Chaldea.

Can't say I have problems with that myself. I Grailed d'Eon because they were my tutorial gold and they're sweet and lovely, and I'm reserving all my other Grails for Jeannes (two Summer Jeannes incoming this year, hopefully I get both).
As far as knowing what servants to possibly draw in the future, you can take advantage of us knowing everything Japan has had two years ahead of us.

[Kitten Champion]

My intent from the beginning was to grail some of my SSRs - Jalter, Artoria, or Eresh seem the likeliest at the moment - once I got them. However, I'm having such a QP crunch from financing skill upgrades that it's become a distant priority. I suppose it's the hazard of trying to raise all my gold Servants and quite a few 3-stars to max level and at least 6/6/6 skills.

I'm going to be a happy camper when we get our next endless lottery, which I guess is Gil-Fest a couple months from now.

[Red Fel]

I have Herc grailed to 100, with his Bond CE, because he's basically an SSR dressed as an SR. I also have Ruler Martha grailed to 90, because she kicks butt, and is probably my favorite Ruler until the Ultimate Lifeform arrives. (Sorry, Jeanne.)

And now, a retrospective on the first Lostbelt:

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Overall, I really loved the story. I had some issues with a few characters, but otherwise, wow.

Let's start with the characters. The turncoats - Atalante, Patxi - were hard for me to relate to. Not because of the betrayals - I get that - but somehow I feel like the characters were basically given one note and left to go with that. Atalante was taking responsibility for the weaker Yaga, and that was her whole thing from beginning to end. I never felt any kind of comradery forming between her and the MC the way I felt with, say, Billy or Beowulf. She just looked melancholic to me, and not just in terms of her picture. Likewise, Patxi's whole thing, aside from being our exposition dump, was to complain about how he doesn't get us. I get it, his way of life is alien. That said, his big finish was really well-executed. One of many feels I got out of this.

I understood Kadoc. And at first, I found him really sympathetic. But as it went on, I began to dislike him. A lot. It's one thing to be distraught over finally having achieved something only to have it taken from you. But it's quite another for this privileged little turd to constantly be pointing out how he can do everything you did, but better and with less death, and to constantly be crapping on your achievements. It's like they wrote two different characters - one, a sympathetic nobody with a lot to prove and an inferiority complex, and one, an angry teen who thinks he's better than everyone - and decided they needed to be played by the same part. It didn't jive well for me.

I liked Anastasia's character, even if I'm not a fan of her artwork. And I liked Ivan's, what we got of it. And I wish that freaking priest would pick one name and run with it, because he got a third alias and then immediately ditched that one too. Avicebron was a bit robotic, but he grew on me. Salieri was a bit of an edgelord, but I liked him well enough. I loved Billy and Beo, I enjoyed seeing Musashi again, and I really liked Mash's arc, even if I find her new skillset somewhat hard to use.

Storywise, this one was excellent. The details were excellent. The sense of something alien, the repeating messages about this being another world and the morality of the decision and all that - it was extremely well executed. They do a great job of explaining that this isn't merely about setting right a single moment in time, it's about ending another world in order to save your own. Even the usual chapter-finisher screen, where the burned-away foundation is replaced and cleaned up, was replaced by a screen where the tranquil snow world was DENIED harshly - it stung. That epilogue, with Salieri and the survivors, was pretty severe too. This franchise knows exactly how to punch your guts, and this is going to be an ugly roller coaster. I am here for it.

Overall? I rate this chapter a 4.5/5. Fantastic.

In gacha news, I did some ticket pulls on the first banner and some SQ pulls on the second. For my troubles, I got some CEs, Atalanta Alter, two Salieris, and a Circe of all things. I need a birdwitch like I need a hole in the head, but here we are.

[Leecros]

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Let's start with the characters. The turncoats - Atalante, Patxi - were hard for me to relate to. Not because of the betrayals - I get that - but somehow I feel like the characters were basically given one note and left to go with that. Atalante was taking responsibility for the weaker Yaga, and that was her whole thing from beginning to end. I never felt any kind of comradery forming between her and the MC the way I felt with, say, Billy or Beowulf. She just looked melancholic to me, and not just in terms of her picture.

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One thing that I really liked was seeing the Heroic Spirits struggle and be rather confused at the situation. The entire lostbelt situation has their internal moral compass spinning in confusing directions. They want to save the world, but in order to save the world they have to destroy it, but they don't want to destory the world. It's an interesting facet of the situation the characters are in, but I hope they don't dwell on it constantly like they did with Atalante. She's basically the poster child of this existential crisis right now. I don't necessisarily have a problem with surprise betrayals, but in the future I hope most of them pick a side and stay on it.

In gacha news, I did some ticket pulls on the first banner and some SQ pulls on the second. For my troubles, I got some CEs, Atalanta Alter, two Salieris, and a Circe of all things. I need a birdwitch like I need a hole in the head, but here we are.

My Gacha news is a lot less exciting.

I tried to get Atalante and Ivan and got...

...

nothing.

I got some 4-star CE's and a 5-star CE, but basically nothing else after doing about 25-30 rolls on the two banners.

[DaedalusMkV]

I've had a busy couple of days, not much attention to spend on this game. Got a second copy of Lu Bu, and levelled him up to 40. Where he's stuck, because stupid horseshoes. At least I'm getting a decent number of them thanks to the daily ticket offering them.

i have a second, 3star only account and i can say for certain touta is a very good archer option, he's the Cu of archers in that he just doesn't die.

anyway my main accounts friend code is 656,067,621

Yeah, looking at his skill set, I can totally see that. I'm still hoping I pick up a 4* or better Archer before Euryale can't keep things together, but if I don't I'll keep him in mind. I have three already, so he's got some oomph on his NP.

I sent you a friend request, I think you already responded, so that's a thing.

Hi Daedalus! I sent you a friend request. My in-game name is SithCats. My account's not as powerful as some here, but I've got some good servants who can help with a lot of content.

With regard to your current servant situation, it could always be worse. My starting 4* servant was Stheno, and by the time I realized how ridiculously small her niche is (and how badly she's outclassed in that niche by Euryale), it was too late to reset my account without losing progress on events. Also, it took me a couple months to summon any Saber servant at all! Anyway, with time you'll summon more good stuff.

It sounds like you've identified some good choices among the servants you have access to so far. I will also vouch for Medea, but agree that her value is mostly in her NP and she's not great as an all-purpose Caster. It's okay though, between her and Lu Bu you'll be able to handle most Assassin enemies you're likely to encounter in the near future, until you have more options. Even at NP1 Lu Bu is worth investing into for now. With time it gets easier to build servants faster, so you don't have to worry too much about wasting resources on servants who might fall out of use in the future.

One piece of general advice for events that I learned the hard way: if there's an event shop with a limited Craft Essence available, it's usually a good idea to buy all available copies of that ASAP, because they will help you farm the other stuff faster. Leaving them til later because they're more expensive than the ascension materials or embers or whatever that you want is usually not a good idea. And that's how in my first event I failed to get either the event CE or the welfare servant fully maxed. Learn from my mistake!

Joke's on you, I'm pretty sure I used your Herc like six times immediately just because I could!

With regards to my Servants... Honestly, I hadn't considered myself in too bad of shape, aside from the lack of Casters and Berserkers. I've got lots of good Servants, even if most of them are 3*s. Then I started doing the math, and realised that... I'm pretty sure I have like half as many 4* Servants as the statistics say I should. With only three dropped 4*s (d'Eon, Siegfried, Passionlip) in somewhere in the realm of 200 rolls on Quartz banners, I'm actually a bit unlucky in that regard. Oh well. Statistics will even out in time. There are plenty of good silver Servants, though, and it's not hurting my progression any, so I don't mind.

Anyways, I have been looking at the event CEs, and I have MLB bonuses of all the Garden of Sinners ones squirreled away, but didn't bother buying the Saber Wars ones. They didn't increase drop rates, were prohibitive to get MLB on and you got one copy for free from point progression pretty early on. The GoS ones are pretty awful, but I'll totally use good ones. Sucks you missed out on Sumo. I hear that's one of the best CEs in the game.

Regardless, I'm still soldiering on, levelling up my team and working through Septem. It remains... Pretty boring. Julius Caesar was, so far, pretty much the only high point aside from Nero being her usual ridiculous self. Still hoping it picks up at some point.

[NeoPhoenix0]

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One thing that I really liked was seeing the Heroic Spirits struggle and be rather confused at the situation. The entire lostbelt situation has their internal moral compass spinning in confusing directions. They want to save the world, but in order to save the world they have to destroy it, but they don't want to destory the world. It's an interesting facet of the situation the characters are in, but I hope they don't dwell on it constantly like they did with Atalante. She's basically the poster child of this existential crisis right now. I don't necessisarily have a problem with surprise betrayals, but in the future I hope most of them pick a side and stay on it.

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but no one ever really switched sides. Atalenta was always on the side of the young and weak yaga. Patxi was always trying to survive. and your team was always trying to save humanity, they were jsut trying to come to terms with having to destroy everything. obviously Kadoc had his whole Anastasia thing. with Atalante especially it was always a give and take, a trade of services, allies for the sake of taking down an enemy. there was a lot of people with common obstacles in this story but with a lot of different end goals. the biggest problem most sides had was they had to sacrifice more than they wanted to accomplish their goals. you don't want to destroy the yaga, atalante doesn't want to forsake proper history entirely, patxi didn't want to sacrifice the weak for his survival.

[Leecros]

Regardless, I'm still soldiering on, levelling up my team and working through Septem. It remains... Pretty boring. Julius Caesar was, so far, pretty much the only high point aside from Nero being her usual ridiculous self. Still hoping it picks up at some point.

You might be disappointed. Septim is generally considered one of the weakest chapters until you hit Agartha.

[Resileaf]

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but no one ever really switched sides. Atalenta was always on the side of the young and weak yaga. Patxi was always trying to survive. and your team was always trying to save humanity, they were jsut trying to come to terms with having to destroy everything. obviously Kadoc had his whole Anastasia thing. with Atalante especially it was always a give and take, a trade of services, allies for the sake of taking down an enemy. there was a lot of people with common obstacles in this story but with a lot of different end goals. the biggest problem most sides had was they had to sacrifice more than they wanted to accomplish their goals. you don't want to destroy the yaga, atalante doesn't want to forsake proper history entirely, patxi didn't want to sacrifice the weak for his survival.

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There's a bit more to it. The main character doesn't know that to save Proper Human History means destroying the Lostbelt. As far as they know, until Yvan spells it out for them, saving the Lostbelt will make it return to normal, not destroy it entirely. When that revelation comes, the truth is so terrible to understand that they just give up and try to let Atalante kill them and it takes Patxi sacrificing himself and giving them a pep talk for them to decide fighting is still worth it. As far as Atalante goes, she may have suspected it from the beginning, but she didn't want to acknowledge it until it was said to her face.

[Yael]

You might be disappointed. Septim is generally considered one of the weakest chapters until you hit Agartha.

Basically this.

Arc 1 has few good stories, as most of the first chapters are straightforward fight, fight, fight, on the second half it gets really good tho.

[Velaryon]

You might be disappointed. Septim is generally considered one of the weakest chapters until you hit Agartha.

I need to go back and reread the part of this thread from when Agartha was new. I didn't get to it until much more recently, and aside from a couple particular battles, I didn't really hate it like most people apparently do.

For me the low point story-wise (outside of the events, which are often downright stupid in terms of story) was probably the America chapter, whatever it was called.

[Kitten Champion]

Well, I finished the first Lostbelt. Used my Command Seals on Anastasia, which I kind of regret. I mean, losing the seals wasn't an issue as I beat the final fight quite easily, but I could've won cleanly if I rearranged things a bit and used a different Mystic Code if I was willing to lose that 25 AP.

Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. The climactic battle is pretty memorable and well setup, they've established a scenario similar conceptually but different enough from the Singularities that there's a lot of room for what they can do with them - as it's more Sliders now and less Nasu-verse Doctor Who - and it's just cool to have a human adversary.

I was watching a Youtube video a while ago about video game rival characters - like Virgil from Devil May Cry - that having an adversary which mimics your own skills and other recognizable aspects of being the PC is the closest you'll experience to PvP in that kind of single-player game experience. This is intended to give you the illusion of facing and defeating your - from a certain perspective - peer, rather than a more scripted experience against the computer. I think that's somewhat at play with these enemy Masters, or as much as you could do in FGO at least. Actual PvP would be a nightmare, as Learning with Manga suggested.

[TherianTheorist]

I've been losing the same battle over and over. Spent my command seals, and still didn't win. Haven't found a party lineup that works with two days of effort. Just frustrated at this point. Been throwing Merlin, Mash, and Raiko at it as a defensive strategy, but no luck, they tend to drop just before the first healthbar is empty. Back line tend to get oneshot, sometimes two, unless buffed immediately.

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It's Minotaur

Edit, Just after posting, I made it through with one command seal, using summer Tamamo instead of Raiko made the difference.

[Kitten Champion]

I've been losing the same battle over and over. Spent my command seals, and still didn't win. Haven't found a party lineup that works with two days of effort. Just frustrated at this point. Been throwing Merlin, Mash, and Raiko at it as a defensive strategy, but no luck, they tend to drop just before the first healthbar is empty. Back line tend to get oneshot, sometimes two, unless buffed immediately.

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It's Minotaur

Edit, Just after posting, I made it through with one command seal, using summer Tamamo instead of Raiko made the difference.

Did you consider using a Foreigner? My Abigail dropped him fairly easily.

Not that it matters anymore.

[NeoPhoenix0]

I've been losing the same battle over and over. Spent my command seals, and still didn't win. Haven't found a party lineup that works with two days of effort. Just frustrated at this point. Been throwing Merlin, Mash, and Raiko at it as a defensive strategy, but no luck, they tend to drop just before the first healthbar is empty. Back line tend to get oneshot, sometimes two, unless buffed immediately.

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It's Minotaur

Edit, Just after posting, I made it through with one command seal, using summer Tamamo instead of Raiko made the difference.

Don't use berserkers to fight berserkers. Berserkers do 1.5x damage to berserkers. Everything else besides mash does 2x

[Leecros]

I need to go back and reread the part of this thread from when Agartha was new. I didn't get to it until much more recently, and aside from a couple particular battles, I didn't really hate it like most people apparently do.

For me the low point story-wise (outside of the events, which are often downright stupid in terms of story) was probably the America chapter, whatever it was called.

I don't hate agartha. I think it had some interesting points. I even grailed Columbus to 90.


However, I think that Agartha was extremely poorly executed.

[TherianTheorist]

Did you consider using a Foreigner? My Abigail dropped him fairly easily.

Not that it matters anymore.

I don't have a foreigner. And I've been limiting myself to story supports the whole Lostbelt.

Don't use berserkers to fight berserkers. Berserkers do 1.5x damage to berserkers. Everything else besides mash does 2x

Note made.

Thank you both.

[Leon]

The friend system annoys me greatly sometimes. Doing some missions and using a friends servant and then they drop off the list and refresh after refresh they don't come back, cycle through the other servant classes just in case (its worked before) and still nothing. I have quite a few friends now but there are two who's selection of servants i like the most and they are the ones who most often just vanish.

[Resileaf]

A new part of the story was released in Japan. If you don't want spoilers, make sure to stay away from websites where those abound.