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

[DaedalusMkV]

I read in a guide that you should eventually start selling 3-star servants for Mana Prisms, but it wasn't clear on when it was a good idea to start doing this. At what point is it not worth it to use them as XP for your other Servants?

Considering they're pretty terrible for XP, being about equal to a 3* EXP card (actually a bit less, but eh), but give three times the prisms and QP, the answer is probably 'about the point you have one or two Servants of each class maxed'. I've already started burning silver Servants I don't intend to use in the future. Pretty sure that the prisms you get from them give better XP returns buying card packs from Da Vinci than if you use them straight for XP, considering 13 of them gets you 10 4* EXP cards. If you aren't buying all 40 EXP cards from the shop every month, you should have started burning them a long time ago.

[Forum Explorer]

Considering they're pretty terrible for XP, being about equal to a 3* EXP card (actually a bit less, but eh), but give three times the prisms and QP, the answer is probably 'about the point you have one or two Servants of each class maxed'. I've already started burning silver Servants I don't intend to use in the future. Pretty sure that the prisms you get from them give better XP returns buying card packs from Da Vinci than if you use them straight for XP, considering 13 of them gets you 10 4* EXP cards. If you aren't buying all 40 EXP cards from the shop every month, you should have started burning them a long time ago.

To be honest, I've been playing nothing but the story mode, but Camelot's difficulty spike has made me stop and start leveling instead. I've got no Servants of any class maxed, though that's partially because I got lucky enough to get Sitonai, and the majority of my XP cards have been spent getting her to level 50 and Mash to Level 41. Everyone else is level 30-35ish. My current plan is to return to story mode after I've gotten everyone up to Level 40 and Sitonai to Level 60.

[spectralphoenix]

You should take advantage of the 1/2 ap ember gathering quests this week. In addition to providing a big pile of gold embers, they provide enough Master xp that you'll probably level up a bunch, gaining more ap to get more embers. I was lucky enough to have one of those hit a week or two in and it helped speed things up immensely.

And yes, you're going to need leveled servants for Camelot - this is where picking the biggest beatstick from your friends list and going to town stops working.

You should get every character at NP5 before you sell. After that, the stuff in the prism shop is better than using them for exp. QP costs for leveling don't scale as well for smaller cards - I even sell silver embers unless I need one to get the last bit of xp for maximum level.

[Forum Explorer]

You should take advantage of the 1/2 ap ember gathering quests this week. In addition to providing a big pile of gold embers, they provide enough Master xp that you'll probably level up a bunch, gaining more ap to get more embers. I was lucky enough to have one of those hit a week or two in and it helped speed things up immensely.

And yes, you're going to need leveled servants for Camelot - this is where picking the biggest beatstick from your friends list and going to town stops working.

You should get every character at NP5 before you sell. After that, the stuff in the prism shop is better than using them for exp. QP costs for leveling don't scale as well for smaller cards - I even sell silver embers unless I need one to get the last bit of xp for maximum level.

Just to be sure, where are the ember gathering quests?

Also what's NP5?

[spectralphoenix]

Just to be sure, where are the ember gathering quests?

Also what's NP5?

The ember gathering quests are under Chaldea Gate -> Daily Quests. The top difficulty, which isn't very difficult, takes 40 ap (currently 20) and awards 8-9 gold embers of classes cycling throughout the week. This is the primary source of servant xp besides event shops. Additionally, the treasure vault is a farm for QP and the training grounds provide gems, pieces/monuments, and some mats.

NP5 is noble phantasm level 5. You can combine duplicate servants in the enhance menu to improve their NP. Higher NP levels mean more damage, even when not charged past 100%! The ease of getting NP5 is actually a significant advantage of 3* and welfare servants.

[Red Fel]

holy carp, the thanksgiving announcement... we're getting an extra chance at musashi and a bunch of other limited 5 stars... there goes all the SQ i started saving for summer, the chance at musashi is too good to pass up.

Yeah. As much as I'm still saving for the Ultimate Life Form, I gotta drop some SQ on Musashi. For reasons.

I read in a guide that you should eventually start selling 3-star servants for Mana Prisms, but it wasn't clear on when it was a good idea to start doing this. At what point is it not worth it to use them as XP for your other Servants?

Never use Servants as XP fodder. They're terrible XP fodder. First, use duplicate Servants to upgrade NPs. Then sell the extras.

Almost every Servant will be useful to you at some point. Even low-rarity ones. Almost all of them have a niche, and many of them receive bonuses in events. Also, until your Master Level gets high enough, you're probably going to be using them as team filler to keep costs low. So don't neglect your 3-stars.

Just to be sure, where are the ember gathering quests?

Also what's NP5?

The ember gathering quests are under Chaldea Gate -> Daily Quests. The top difficulty, which isn't very difficult, takes 40 ap (currently 20) and awards 8-9 gold embers of classes cycling throughout the week. This is the primary source of servant xp besides event shops. Additionally, the treasure vault is a farm for QP and the training grounds provide gems, pieces/monuments, and some mats.

NP5 is noble phantasm level 5. You can combine duplicate servants in the enhance menu to improve their NP. Higher NP levels mean more damage, even when not charged past 100%! The ease of getting NP5 is actually a significant advantage of 3* and welfare servants.

As Spectral says. Embers are the XP cards, and can be acquired from dailies. They're your best source of Servant XP. You can also buy embers from Da Vinci's store for Mana Prisms, but you're generally better off saving your Mana Prisms for rarer materials, like the special CEs that pop up from time to time.

And as Spectral says, NP stands for Noble Phantasm, which can be upgraded to 5. It is rare that a non-whale will have 4- or 5-star Servants with NP5 (other than welfare Servants), so you're probably only going to see NP5 on your lower-rarity Servants. And that's fine, some of them are really good as a result. Lu Bu, properly used, can consistently deal damage comparable to some of the most powerful Servants. So yeah, use your duplicates to upgrade to NP5, then burn the rest for QP/MP.

[DaedalusMkV]

To be honest, I've been playing nothing but the story mode, but Camelot's difficulty spike has made me stop and start leveling instead. I've got no Servants of any class maxed, though that's partially because I got lucky enough to get Sitonai, and the majority of my XP cards have been spent getting her to level 50 and Mash to Level 41. Everyone else is level 30-35ish. My current plan is to return to story mode after I've gotten everyone up to Level 40 and Sitonai to Level 60.

If I'm honest, that's probably not going to get you through Camelot if my own experience is anything to go by, barring maybe throwing three Command Seals at every difficult fight. I'm working through Camelot right now, and having occasional difficulty with teams in the level 70-90 range, with multiple strong characters essentially maxed out on skills and stat boosts from Fou cards. Some of the enemies in this Singularity will pretty much one-shot kill your entire team every turn with only level 40 Servants. There's only so far support Servants can carry you, really. Unfortunately, the best way to get your Servants stronger quickly in this game seems to be events (since in a lot of ways Ascension Materials, not EXP cards, are your most important limiter), but as others have pointed out you can do the Ember Gathering quests in Chaldea Gate's daily quest section to grind a decent number of XP cards if you want to. You also get some Mana Prisms for doing them once a day, so I do recommend doing that much at least.

I'm honestly kind of shocked you made it through E Pluribus Unum with those numbers. While I found it very easy, I was also doing it with Servants more than twice as powerful as yours...

[Resileaf]

I'm honestly kind of shocked you made it through E Pluribus Unum with those numbers. While I found it very easy, I was also doing it with Servants more than twice as powerful as yours...

Good supports can carry you all the way to Camelot. Starting with Camelot though, you need a proper team of your own, can't rely on what other people have available (except for like the lvl 100 bond 10 Hercules).

[Kitten Champion]

On a similar note to Noble Phantasms, it should be noted that you can drastically raise the mechanical performance of Craft Essences by merging five of the same type together at the Da Vinci shop.

Dragon's Meridian for instance, which initially gives you a 30% NP boost at the start of battle, after combining four copies onto a base one it suddenly becomes a 50% boost. Which, for a 3* CE, is pretty great, as it in no way increases its resource cost.

Its something I didn't know for my first month or so, which hurt me when I started getting into events and didn't fully acquire all 5 copies of the event CEs. Unless there was a rerun I'd be stuck with CEs that are generally 20-to-40% weaker than if I had them at max limit.

[Velaryon]

Well, my willpower cracked again and I threw some tickets at the Thanksgiving banner. After a dozen tickets or so, I was able to welcome Gilgamesh to my Chaldea. Emiya breathes a sigh of relief that he's no longer my only AoE Archer.

But since I've been stealing embers from my hoard to level some lower rarity servants and farm their rank up quests for SQ, I sadly ran out before Gil got past level 65 or so. Guess I'm gonna have to get grinding for embers...

I read in a guide that you should eventually start selling 3-star servants for Mana Prisms, but it wasn't clear on when it was a good idea to start doing this. At what point is it not worth it to use them as XP for your other Servants?

Honestly, as soon as you've upgraded a servant of 3* and above to Noble Phantasm level 5, I'd sell all further copies. The mana prisms will do more for you in the long run than the slight XP boost of feeding them directly to other servants.

[Forum Explorer]

Good supports can carry you all the way to Camelot. Starting with Camelot though, you need a proper team of your own, can't rely on what other people have available (except for like the lvl 100 bond 10 Hercules).

To be fair, other that the occasional boss monster or Servant, the support characters the game gives you are more than enough. Also Sitonai is really good, and her, Mash, and Cu (Prototype), or her, Mash, and Assassin, is my standard boss starting line up. Gives me invincibility to survive the first Noble Phantasm and keep dealing damage. That'd be enough to get me a respectable distance in the past, and would let the Support clean it up, but Camelot has just too much HP on its base enemies, let alone its bosses.

Thanks for the advice everyone, I'll admit, I'm kicking myself for using up so many copies of my Medusa and Cu now that I know how it works.

[NeoPhoenix0]

Don't worry too much. You will get plenty more copies of most of the 3 stars. And when you get np5 medusa she will hit like a pile of nukes, especially when you get around to her interludes or strengthening quests. That no is stronger than my Drake's a lot of the time.

[Resileaf]

To be fair, other that the occasional boss monster or Servant, the support characters the game gives you are more than enough. Also Sitonai is really good, and her, Mash, and Cu (Prototype), or her, Mash, and Assassin, is my standard boss starting line up. Gives me invincibility to survive the first Noble Phantasm and keep dealing damage. That'd be enough to get me a respectable distance in the past, and would let the Support clean it up, but Camelot has just too much HP on its base enemies, let alone its bosses.

Thanks for the advice everyone, I'll admit, I'm kicking myself for using up so many copies of my Medusa and Cu now that I know how it works.

I personally always use story supports that are available. Not even for the FP (of which I have three million), just that it feels more proper to use story supports. In fact, I always suggest to new players that they use story supports to avoid the game being a cakewalk. Nonetheless, friend supports at this point in the game can and will carry through any difficult fight the early game might throw at you and it can make you complacent when the kid gloves come off.

[NeoPhoenix0]

The FP reminds me. Between command codes and the 5 star embers, the FP banner feels really worth pulling from suddenly for more than just early game and the occasional event 3 star CE

[Saambell]

So, anyone got those Rare Prisms yet? Still no sign of them on my end.

Put some rolls into MHX, as I have her Older Form, and her Roommate, so I figured I would try my luck at her. In 7 Ten Rolls, I got 5 SR servants. 2 more Astolfo to bring mine to NP3, Martha who I burned as I already had NP2, Ibaraki bringing mine to NP3, and Caster Gil bringing mine to NP3. But no sign of MHX, which is saddening.

Given the apparent reason for the Santa Samba event never getting a rerun, makes me wonder if they will even be able to localize it. Supposedly it being a parody of a manga series got the copy right holders of the manga mad, thus meaning they could never bring it back. Which makes me wonder if that will hold true for the NA version, if they will even be able to run it in the first place.

[Velaryon]

I have not received any rare prisms from this last event yet. Hoping that's still in the pipeline somewhere.

[NeoPhoenix0]

The rare prisms are slated to arrive on the 25th. It's all there in the post

[Saambell]

The rare prisms are slated to arrive on the 25th. It's all there in the post

Would be nice if they said this in game, for those of us who don't use twitter.

[Kitten Champion]

Did a 10-spin for Ishtar, because I like Ishtar and I wanted to spin. No Ishtar, but I got Berserkerlot and NP2 Doggo, so I call it a win.

I've heard you need Berserkerlot at a higher NP level to really make use of him for harder farming, which is why I was hesitant to pick him for the SR ticket over Nyalter who is pretty great right out of the box. I was more-or-less hoping I'd get him like this in a random drop to be honest.

I've got Hessian Lobo fully levelled already, but I haven't put anything into his skills yet as I've been waiting until his Interlude next March. Getting his mats has been something of any issue, and because I've got Jalter he hasn't been high on priority list. Still, he can do a lot of damage in my Quick setups and he looks really cool.

After his Interlude, at NP2, Lobo will be doing the same amount of damage as he currently does at NP5.

[NeoPhoenix0]

Would be nice if they said this in game, for those of us who don't use twitter.

they did say it in game. its under the issues tab in the post about issues with rare prism distribution. says:
Distribution Period:
Beginning at 2020-11-25 19:59 PST

[Saambell]

I've heard you need Berserkerlot at a higher NP level to really make use of him for harder farming, which is why I was hesitant to pick him for the SR ticket over Nyalter who is pretty great right out of the box. I was more-or-less hoping I'd get him like this in a random drop to be honest.

Not only do you need him at higher NP levels, you also need his 3rd skill at level 10, and a set of Max Limit Broken CEs, such as Kaleidoscope, Magical Girl of Sapphire, Little Halloween Devil, or Distant Pilgrimage. And for all of those besides the MLB Scope, better hope you got Waver along with your Skadi(and of course the Support Skadi). Like, he's got a lot of options for how to run him, but he requires so much investment and or very limited 5 star MLB CEs its questionable if its really worth it.

they did say it in game. its under the issues tab in the post about issues with rare prism distribution. says:
Distribution Period:
Beginning at 2020-11-25 19:59 PST

Silly me only checking the news section. I keep forgetting there's other tabs. Good to know I'm just blind rather then it being Twitter only.

[NeoPhoenix0]

however they also just announced that maintenance will also begin at that time so you will be unable to pick up your rare prisms until the 26th, which is also when SIN drops.

also the unscheduled maintenance stopped my AP drain and the quest to get through the last 5 of my strengthening quests... not that it matters much as i am 5 short of the 80 bonus, but at least i got through the 70 checkpoint.

[Kitten Champion]

Not only do you need him at higher NP levels, you also need his 3rd skill at level 10, and a set of Max Limit Broken CEs, such as Kaleidoscope, Magical Girl of Sapphire, Little Halloween Devil, or Distant Pilgrimage. And for all of those besides the MLB Scope, better hope you got Waver along with your Skadi(and of course the Support Skadi). Like, he's got a lot of options for how to run him, but he requires so much investment and or very limited 5 star MLB CEs its questionable if its really worth it.

I have Waver. I could also use the Mage Association Mystic Code and fill out the NP bar with that, I think. Though the NP level isn't something I can change at the moment regardless.

Still, between Nyalter, Sitonai, Jalter Berserker, and the random Frankenstein I got this Halloween my Berserker supplies are pretty limited anyways. Getting QP to max out my remaining SSR's skills is my main concern now anyways, and it's pretty all-consuming.

[Saambell]

I have Waver. I could also use the Mage Association Mystic Code and fill out the NP bar with that, I think. Though the NP level isn't something I can change at the moment regardless.

See, that's the problem. The Mage Association MC only works with a MLB Scope. Otherwise you need to use Waver and the Chaldea Combat Suit. Again, I do not like using the Skadi Looping setup with Lancelot Zero. Its just such a pain to get working, with such a long process for running it, I really don't feel its worth it. Only like 4 Servants really work well for the easy and cheap(ish) Double Skadi Loop, that being Dantes, Atalante, Pavarti, and Valkyrie. They are the only ones who only need a single scope and the Mage Uniform to work. Of them, 3 can get by with a single skill maxed, though 2 of those really like having another skill maxed as insurance. And the one who needs two skills maxed is almost as resource intensive as Skadi herself.

[Resileaf]

Fortune was on my side today! In 150 quartz, I got Caster Nitocris, Penthesilea and Musashi! Three new servants, including the banner girl herself, all of whom I desired, I'm extremely satisfied of how today went.

[DaedalusMkV]

Fortune was on my side today! In 150 quartz, I got Caster Nitocris, Penthesilea and Musashi! Three new servants, including the banner girl herself, all of whom I desired, I'm extremely satisfied of how today went.

Huh. I went in about as hard as I ever go in for Ishtar, and threw 90 SQ at the banner. I didn't get the banner girl, but did get... Nitocris and Penthesilea. What even are the odds of that? I'm not sad, I'm likely to use both at some point (Nitocris before Penny for Jalter-shaped reasons), but I wonder if there isn't something wonky in their drop coding?


In main story news... I was not expecting Cursed Arm Hassan to be one of the breakout characters of Camelot at all. OG skullface himself is apparently one of the nicest, chillest Heroic Spirits around, and shockingly useful for a 2* to boot. I'm strongly considering moving him ahead of Osakabehime in the 'Assassins to level up and use' category. Getting him to level 60, or even 70, and ranking his skills up to 6 is cheap enough that it looks like a decent investment, and I've been enjoying the heck out of his role in the story so far. The only reason I'm not doing it straight-up is that Osakabehime is simultaneously one of my very few 5* Servants and the only Servant I have access to with a targeted NP Gain buff...

Other than that... Camelot is by far the best Singularity so far. I'm taking it quite slow right now thanks to a combination of work-related stuff and competition for my free time from other games, but I've been enjoying it quite a lot.

[chainer1216]

Dunno if anyone is going to be interested in this but...

Recently I got an OG Saber and Salter, I've heard that Salter does more NP damage and I've been farming Proofs for OG Saber so while I was doing I decided to compare them when used on this mission, then I realised I had a third Artoria saber with a buster AoE in saber lily, so I had to add her in the mix and then I remembered I have Suzuka Gozen too, might as well test her out too. I told my friends the result and my buddy realised that between us we have all the buster AoE(edit: missing Altera and Gawain) sabers so he ran his servants through the same mission with as close to the same set up as me to make this as accurate a comparison as possible.

Pertinent notes:
the mission is Pirate ship in Okeanos.
I was using a lvl55 MLBed K.scope and my buddy was using a lvl20 non-mlbed k.scope.
All servants are ungrailed but otherwise max lvl with 1k fou except my friends Suzuka whose fous are only at 840, and his proto Arthur is lvl100 with 2k fou.
Both of us have a NP2 suzuka gozen so that helps show the difference between out k.scopes.
No buffs from skills are used.
All relevant interludes and rank ups are completed.
Damage in this games varies and we dont know which of these numbers come from high or low rolls, so keep that in mind.
Damage breakdown will be shown by enemy wave 1st / 2nd / 3rd


Np damage done, from lowest to highest:
(F)Suzu(np2): 21k / 41k / 27k
(M)Suzu(np2): 22k / 45k / 31k
Saber(np1): 29k / 57k / 36k
Siegfried(np1): 28k / 58k / 37k
Mordred(np1): 28k / 61k / 44k
Fergus(np5): 32k / 64k / 41k
Salter(np2): 35k / 67k/ 44k
Arthur(np2) 36k / 79k / 50k
S. Lily(np5): 41k / 81k / 56k

Conclusions:
Np level means a lot.
Attack stat means less than expected.
Suzuka Gozen's NP damage is dog****.
OG Artorias isnt much better.

[spectralphoenix]

Dunno if anyone is going to be interested in this but...

Recently I got an OG Saber and Salter, I've heard that Salter does more NP damage and I've been farming Proofs for OG Saber so while I was doing I decided to compare them when used on this mission, then I realised I had a third Artoria saber with a buster AoE in saber lily, so I had to add her in the mix and then I remembered I have Suzuka Gozen too, might as well test her out too. I told my friends the result and my buddy realised that between us we have all the buster AoE sabers so he ran his servants through the same mission with as close to the same set up as me to make this as accurate a comparison as possible.

Pertinent notes:
the mission is Pirate ship in Okeanos.
I was using a lvl55 MLBed K.scope and my buddy was using a lvl20 non-mlbed k.scope.
All servants are ungrailed but otherwise max lvl with 1k fou except my friends Suzuka whose fous are only at 840, and his proto Arthur is lvl100 with 2k fou.
Both of us have a NP2 suzuka gozen so that helps show the difference between out k.scopes.
No buffs from skills are used.
All relevant interludes and rank ups are completed.
Damage in this games varies and we dont know which of these numbers come from high or low rolls, so keep that in mind.
Damage breakdown will be shown by enemy wave 1st / 2nd / 3rd


Np damage done, from lowest to highest:
(F)Suzu(np2): 21k / 41k / 27k
(M)Suzu(np2): 22k / 45k / 31k
Saber(np1): 29k / 57k / 36k
Siegfried(np1): 28k / 58k / 37k
Mordred(np1): 28k / 61k / 44k
Fergus(np5): 32k / 64k / 41k
Salter(np2): 35k / 67k/ 44k
Arthur(np2) 36k / 79k / 50k
S. Lily(np5): 41k / 81k / 56k

Conclusions:
Np level means a lot.
Attack stat means less than expected.
Suzuka Gozen's NP damage is dog****.
OG Artorias isnt much better.

Interesting! The only thing I'd add is that most of them have NP damage interludes that improve their numbers. The exceptions are Arthur, who you've got at NP2 with other benefits, Salter, whose multiplier is naturally high to begin with, and Gozen, which is why her damage is so bad.

Most AoE sabers have a base multiplier of 300%. An interlude upgrades that to 400%. NP5 Lily has 700%, but her raw stats are significantly worse than other 4* servants. NP2 Salter has 550%. I'd say your numbers pretty much bear that out.

[chainer1216]

All relevant upgrades in the current version of the game were completed.

I think Suzuka is getting one in the future though, so that's nice.

[NeoPhoenix0]

yep, salter was better than blue back in year 1, when it mattered... cause it was possible to get np2 salter and therefore do significantly more damage.

i spent about 300 sq on musashi before i got her. ended up with a tamamo cat rare mana prism cause np5, nezha, tomoe, circi, and emiya assassin, the nezha and tomoe are especially nice as that is np 2 for them. circi seems to be my latest stalker and is 1 away from being np 5 even though i only recently got her... but yay i have musashi! now i just need to avoid pulling on anything at all until summer 2021 so i can get other musashi!!!