Fate/Grand Order V - Salty Theoretical Phenomenon

[NeoPhoenix0]

Interestingly, Kagetora might be the best of the bunch as 'secretly female in history'... Because she's the only one who actually have might been one. Apparently there is fairly compelling evidence that she was a woman in disguise, including regular monthly cramps, interest in more traditionally feminine subjects in life, being allowed to enter the women's quarters in the Imperial palace of Kyoto, and some people have recorded her cause of death as uterine cancer.

the sourcing for those tidbits is a bit problematic, but it does seem a possibility.

[Red Fel]

Interestingly, Kagetora might be the best of the bunch as 'secretly female in history'... Because she's the only one who actually have might been one. Apparently there is fairly compelling evidence that she was a woman in disguise, including regular monthly cramps, interest in more traditionally feminine subjects in life, being allowed to enter the women's quarters in the Imperial palace of Kyoto, and some people have recorded her cause of death as uterine cancer.

That particular cause of death, notably less funny than the previous assumption, "assassinated by hidden toilet ninja." And thankfully, that seems to be the version FGO goes with.

I'll be honest, Kagetora having a conceptual weakness to toilets - like Medb with cheese - would keep me laughing for a long time.

[Velaryon]

I threw some tickets at the Dantes banner this morning, and I got Arjuna instead.

[Tsuzurao]

Random statement, but I'm kinda offended that they made Heracles a 4-star. He's like the ur-example of a Berserker, and is ridiculously OP in the fluff.

And on that note, why is Xiang Yu a Berserker at all?

From what I remember, Xiang Yu is a Berserker because the masses couldn't comprehend his logic in his time. Xiang Yu acts almost entirely by running simulations of the future and acting based on what will produce the results he desires in the long term... but he seldom communicates what/why he's doing something. As such, he was seen as some form of insane.

Following that logic why aren't all the servants from stay night 5 stars minus emiya and kojirou?

But it might be cause berserker isn't his main class *shrug*

As noted, the writers and devs have specifically said that they spread around the rarities of Servants that originated in some of the earlier works (especially Fate/Stay Night) so there would be some familiar faces for franchise veterans that are easier to acquire. That, and a Servant's rarity has very little to do with the individual themselves. It's not a measure of fame (Heracles would be higher than 4*, and the upcoming Mandricardo would be lower than a 3*), it's not a measure of power (Jack the Ripper would not be a 5*, Arash wouldn't be a 1*, and both Stheno nor Euryale would be in the Bronze range), and it's not a measurement of difficulty to summon that particular hero by an in-universe perspective.

Also, "main class" might be the wrong way to look at it. Many Heroic Spirits have potential to fit multiple classes, and Heracles is a prime example. Officially he can fit into any of the base seven classes except for Caster.

Archer Herc actually exists in Fate lore somewhere or another. Probably in Strange Fake, that's where most of the weird Servants tend to hang out. IIRC, he was described as being pretty much broken, to the point that Gil and Enkidu had to work together to give him a decent fight.

Frankly, there's a lot of Servants that either probably should have better versions or exist at all but don't because FGO is pretty heavily biased towards Japanese characters and alternative versions of popular ones. I'm willing to bet that if you asked a million people on the street 'name a famous archer', outside of Asia close to a million of them would say 'Robin Hood', as a quick example. He really deserves better than the deeply mediocre Robin in the game. But there's plenty of others. Roland the Paladin, the inspiration for Arthurian myth and the foundation of the concept of knightly chivalry, not to mention still one of the best-known heroes of France. *Snip*

Archer Heracles does indeed exist in Fate/Strange Fake... though he gets corrupted shortly after introduction by his Master (with this changing some of his Noble Phantasms, as well as other aspects of him) so his involvement in FSF doesn't properly reflect his character in a normal state (because the authour of FSF didn't feel he could actually do the legitimate Archer Heracles justice).

"Robin Hood" is noted to be a legacy name in the Fate worlds, sort of like "Hassan" is among the Assassins. The Robin Hood we summon is just one of many people who have taken up the name and role at some point, but he's explicitly not "Robin of Loxley" - that's a different Robin Hood who has been glimpsed elsewhere, but hasn't been summoned in a Fate-series work as of yet.

As for Roland, it's not like they aren't aware of him. They've teased his existence in an interlude before (complete with an art design), and they've pulled several other characters from the tales of Charlemagne and his Paladins (Charlemagne himself appears in two separate forms in Fate/Extella Link, and we've already had Astolfo and Bradamante appear in FGO, plus there's another such upcoming character due to arrive in FGO English by the end of the year).

At least the ones that are nothing but mindless growling brutes. I would love to see a non-zerker version of Lu Bu (Red Hare doesn't count), but I do not particularly need a non-zerker version of Florence Nightingale, for example.

Too bad, we'll be getting a non-Berserker Nightingale at the tail end of the year anyway.

*Snip*
Speaking of which, the described Saber Raikou sounds an awful lot like Altria Alter - all business, no personality. No thanks.

Saber Raikou is implied to be always in the "Lone Warrior Mode" that gets shown in Berserker Raikou's second interlude. Straight to the point with eliminating any possible threat in sight, not a drop of her former motherly attitude to be seen anywhere, someone who has lost hope of achieving her dreams in life and so has nothing to live for except being a total workaholic... and "work" in this sense is 'defending the city against any threats'. It's actually a kinda sad interlude.

That said, I'm not sure I'd call Artoria Alter "no personality". Pseudo-Singularity Shinjuku alone should argue against that idea, and there's also her Summer Rider version.

[Forum Explorer]

Too bad, we'll be getting a non-Berserker Nightingale at the tail end of the year anyway.

I actually really want to see how they do a non-Berserker Nightingale.

[Saambell]

I actually really want to see how they do a non-Berserker Nightingale.

She's the Christmas gift character, so don't expect too much.

[DaedalusMkV]

"Robin Hood" is noted to be a legacy name in the Fate worlds, sort of like "Hassan" is among the Assassins. The Robin Hood we summon is just one of many people who have taken up the name and role at some point, but he's explicitly not "Robin of Loxley" - that's a different Robin Hood who has been glimpsed elsewhere, but hasn't been summoned in a Fate-series work as of yet.

As for Roland, it's not like they aren't aware of him. They've teased his existence in an interlude before (complete with an art design), and they've pulled several other characters from the tales of Charlemagne and his Paladins (Charlemagne himself appears in two separate forms in Fate/Extella Link, and we've already had Astolfo and Bradamante appear in FGO, plus there's another such upcoming character due to arrive in FGO English by the end of the year).

I am aware of their excuse regarding Robin, but it doesn't really change the fact that there's a character in-game known as Robin Hood who really doesn't fit with the legend of Robin Hood at all, and no character who does. We get fixes for Orion and Romulus eventually, but Robin as far as I'm aware probably never will get a version that isn't a crossbow-wielding poisoner. I just want a Robin with a bow and a sword and a band of merry men. Is that so much to ask? Make him a cute girl for waifu-dollars for all I care, it would make as much sense for Robin Hood as anyone else. At least the Hassans look like badass skull-and-cloak themed assassins and have their extremely powerful and intimidating progenitor to back up their legacy status. For Robin, it's just an excuse for some questionable design decisions made in the Extra series.

As for Roland... I wasn't aware he was in Astolfo's interlude, but... They pretty much couldn't have been unaware of the Song of Roland, with Astolfo in the game (Bradamante... Isn't a Song of Roland character, so much an homage to it), so obviously they know of Roland. It's just... He's the Paladin. The ur-Knight, the figure upon which medieval chivalry was based. He cracked a mountain in half by throwing his magical sword, as part of an effort to keep it out of enemy hands prior to his death (which, A: Would make an amazing Noble Phantasm, and B: May have inspired the legend of the sword in the stone which would later show up in Arthurian myth. Durandal certainly is the archetypal magic sword). He held off entire armies by himself. He'd make a perfect Heroic Spirit, and it's just kind of a shame he's not in the game.


In other news, I'd forgotten how much of a slog this event could be. It's nice that it's a bit of an epic, with tons of characters showing up, but you need to go ham to grind event points to get to the end and it's a bit annoying to have to stop every couple of battles to do a story thing until you finish the whole story. It adds up to a lot of text to read, and a lot of grinding to get it all done. It's a good thing I have all the CEs from last year, or I think I'd probably fail to finish again. That said, I did decide to roll for Heroine XX, and the Gacha was extremely kind to me. I put in 33 rolls (2 11-pulls, 10 tickets) and got 2 Saber Medbs (meh, will need to decide if I want to keep them or turn into cubes, but with the new free Servant coming up in the next event and summer Fran already on my roster I'm leaning towards burning), Summer BB (very unexpected, a niche Servant but one I'll definitely have use for in the future), Karna (really, 2 SSRs in one ten-pull? After getting Merlin in the GSSR? Is this what I get for going 250 rolls without getting anything last winter?), and finally the power-armoured Foreigner herself. Very nice. Hopefully it doesn't mean I come up empty on the new banner, where I plan to put in about 100 rolls.

[spectralphoenix]

Contrary to the reputation, Fate/GO doesn't actually genderbend that many characters anymore, especially outside of Japan and China. Post Solomon, not counting variants of existing servants:

Gareth (I'm guessing she was already described in the nasuverse)
Sima Yi (Really just Reines with support skills)
Kagetora
Koto Danzou
Hokusai
Nezha
Paul Bunyan
Musashi

They're reaching a bit harder to find waifus. I'm pretty sure most lists of heroes and antiheroes of legend would have Roland a bit higher than Abigail Williams or Anastasia. But it's not as rampant as the memes suggest.

[Saambell]

Roland appeared in Astolfo's interlude, but mostly as a cameo. And his role was more just to explain why Astolfo crossdresses. Turns out Roland is a habitual stripper/streaker. The only thing that keeps him from stripping is the presence of a lady. They wanted to hire a girl to watch over him but they knew that way lay harassment charges. So Astolfo volunteered to crossdress to trick Roland into not stripping. Its pretty dumb.

[Hunter Noventa]

So today I brought out my catalyst, and settled in for a bout of disappointment with the banner...

..and Summer BB came on my first 11-pull.

I'm in danger.

[Saambell]

Did the challenge quest. Took my seals, but I didn't need them for a while so it was fine.

Team was Lancelot/Zero, Skadi Twins, Waver, Goldie, and BerserCAR. All going up against the 8 Swimsuit characters from last year. Nobbu, Helena, Fran, Nitocris, Raikou, Artoria Alter, Nero, Ishtar.

Turn 1-3 was exactly how you expect any DSS Lancelot system goes, taking out the first trio and the break bars on the second trio, losing my Skadi to Nobbu's Break Bar NP. Nitocris then crit Lancelot to bring in my Gil, who did chip damage on his NP due to only having his own Charisma as an available buff, and takes a Critical Yo-Yo to the face. Now its all up to Hulk Smash, which he does, taking out Rider Alter, Nero(both bars) and Raikou. Ishtar in that time polished off Skadi and Waver, finally finishes off the all out of buffs Herc. And then Fujimura laughs and resurrects the entire party for a 6 on 1 beat down of the smug goddess. After 3 to 4 turns of flailing to do a mere 30k to break Ishtar's bar, she then crits down both Lancelot and a Skadi, bringing in Gilgamesh. Who promptly does to her the same thing as he did to Tiamat. This time it does a lot more then chip damage, and a Skadi backed Quick card finished the Challenge quest.

So with that, I'm done the event. All 3 points ladders filled, Shop cleared, All rare prisms gathered, and most of the doujins made. A few I missed, but I got them all last year so no big loss. Here's hoping Vegas starts on the 29th, looking forward to Musashi, Merlin, and Bunny. And I hear the event offers a LOT of QP, so that will be pretty great.

[Leon]

And I hear the event offers a LOT of QP, so that will be pretty great.

That's good to hear

[NeoPhoenix0]

hmm, on this repeat, i am somehow finishing the points ladders well before getting all the manga CEs... i don't know if i have the fortitude to get them all especially since i want to do some strengthening and interlude quests for the SQ before this year's summer event drops.

edit: wait i think i still have the copies from last time... yeah i will probably skip getting the rest of them then.

[Velaryon]

I am aware of their excuse regarding Robin, but it doesn't really change the fact that there's a character in-game known as Robin Hood who really doesn't fit with the legend of Robin Hood at all, and no character who does. We get fixes for Orion and Romulus eventually, but Robin as far as I'm aware probably never will get a version that isn't a crossbow-wielding poisoner. I just want a Robin with a bow and a sword and a band of merry men. Is that so much to ask? Make him a cute girl for waifu-dollars for all I care, it would make as much sense for Robin Hood as anyone else. At least the Hassans look like badass skull-and-cloak themed assassins and have their extremely powerful and intimidating progenitor to back up their legacy status. For Robin, it's just an excuse for some questionable design decisions made in the Extra series.

I agree, they did Robin Hood dirty and the "it's a legacy name" excuse doesn't change the fact that the one we did get has basically nothing in common with the Robin Hood legend other than being an archer.

In other news, I'd forgotten how much of a slog this event could be. It's nice that it's a bit of an epic, with tons of characters showing up, but you need to go ham to grind event points to get to the end and it's a bit annoying to have to stop every couple of battles to do a story thing until you finish the whole story.

Yeah, this is one thing I don't care for in this event that I otherwise enjoyed quite a bit. At bare minimum, they could have made it so that after the main story concludes, in future loops you don't have to stop and do the other missions. Oh well, there's only a couple days left anyway.

Contrary to the reputation, Fate/GO doesn't actually genderbend that many characters anymore, especially outside of Japan and China. Post Solomon, not counting variants of existing servants:

Maybe they're doing it less than they used to, but combined with the servants from part 1 that's still 23 gender-swapped waifu characters by my count, not counting characters that have multiple versions, Alters, or those who were historically ambiguously-gendered like d'Eon or Ibaraki-Douji. If nothing else, it's no longer even remotely surprising as a twist to reveal that a character who is historically male is actually female in the Nasuverse.

[NeoPhoenix0]

I have successfully completed every interlude (except angry man) and strengthening quest available to me.

Less successfully, I have just over a day to accumulate embers for Thursday's SQ dump. I have like 30...

[Hunter Noventa]

Well, 2 pulls netted my NP3 Carmilla, I think that's a good place to stop.

[NeoPhoenix0]

500 sq got me.... 1 carmilla... And 1 artoria... Literally no other SR or higher servants

[Saambell]

Took a bit, but I got NP2 Osakabehime Archer, NP1 CARmilla, and Musashi Summer. Along with 4 Welcome Bunny, and like, 12 Purple Eyes. Got spooked by Elizabeth, which is a nice Rare Prism as I already have NP5 of her. Time to wait for Sunday to do another big SQ dump for Mister Mystery.

[DaedalusMkV]

33 rolls got me CARmilla and Osakabehime, plus Astraea showing up confusing me with a golden Ruler card. "Wait, I'm pretty sure bunny girl isn't in this pool. Did I get Jeanne!? ... Oh, right, Astraea is in the general pool."

Pulled no less than 4 copies of Be Elegant as well, which is weird and kind of cursed. It's a pretty awful CE, so I guess those are a bunch of prisms... Not much luck on event CEs, just 3 of the silver ones and 1 Purple Eyes, so I'm going to be operating on reduced efficiency for the event until the next banner shows up. I have 71 rolls to try to collect the penguin Meltscot and jet fighter Okita. Makes me sad I don't have access to them on a banner with Musashi, since I'd much rather pull her than bunny girl (for reference, at this point the only Rulers in the entire game I don't have are Jeanne and Santa Quetz. I am absolutely glutted on Rulers).


In other news, I knew how powerful Merlin was, I knew that pulling him would be a gamechanger, and yet I still underestimated how much work he'd do. He was in my party pretty much without exception all the way through the last event, and I think I might not have actually finished it without him thanks to summer work schedule. He makes everything so much faster. XX also impressed me a lot this event. She's just really solid all-around, and I'm very glad I invested in her. Will use cute power armour girl going forwards.

[Yael]

I rolled 10 tickets, I wasn't going to but ended up doing it anyway to get some CEs to speed up the event. I ended only getting 1 4* CE, but in those 10 rolls, I got NP2 Musashi and a single Osakabe.

I don't know what even to think anymore, as I wanted Okita from the second banner, there goes my luck I guess.

[Velaryon]

Meanwhile I dropped about 300 SQ for Musashi and haven't gotten her yet. I guess I did get Osakabehime and 2 copies of Carmilla, but have still not obtained my primary target.

[Saambell]

Rolled for merlin this morning. Got Helena, Ibaraki, Seigfried, Achilles, and Merlin. Those first 3 became NP ups, was surprised by Achilles, and am very happy to have pulled Merlin. Though given the reveal just today from JP, its maybe a little poor timing. But hey, for now its great. Though I'm now very short on caster gems, which I need for Bunny. Who I'm hoping comes out this thursday.

[Hunter Noventa]

I too went for Merlin. The very first card from my 11-pull was Merlin. I don't know what to think anymore.

[Forum Explorer]

Went for Merlin. Got him after about 150 SQ and 35 Tickets spent. But along the way I also got a Heracles, Seigfried, Beowolf, and got my Martha up to NP 2.

Seems like this particular banner has been pretty blessed for everyone.

[Resileaf]

Yup, went for Merlin too, took three 11-rolls to pull him. Also got another Siegfried and Penth out of my rolls. Happy day is today.

[Leon]

Allocated Three rolls for Merlin but he has declined to give me a NP2 but i did get a bunch of Event CEs that will help boost things a bit (4 of the main ones each from that draw so almost MLBable if i feel like it once its done)

[NeoPhoenix0]

I've been waiting for the announcement of that servant in jp since the lostbelt poster was revealed... Also hot damn that's a lot of nice qol changes.

[Yael]

Spoiler: JP

Show

Wow, the anniversary was wild. Even more stuff to upgrade, with the servant coin feature, breaking the level cap up to 120, plus adding another 3 set of skills called Append Skills to every servant to further empower them with either dupes or bond you've accumulated.

Finally a 5* experience farming node, which will help a lot with those new level caps. Same with a new QP node that drops a statue with a value of 2M if you get the good drop.

Drop rates from main and free quests will be increased.

Also koyanschihuahua, but I don't really care about her even if she's another game-breaking support unit.

I don't know about the append skills, they cost the same to upgrade their active skills, and the effects are not that good for their cost, some CEs are just better and less situational (read: less expensive to grow), as unlocking each append skill is pretty expensive. Also, some skills "may" make sense lore-wise, but gameplay-wise they aren't that good. Ishtar with a bonus vs Rulers? I guess I'd take an avenger instead, for example. MHX's one is actually useful because it stacks with her overall Saber damage, but still is less effective to upgrade the skill.

I guess it's a nice thing to have, but not something I'm looking forward to get.

The free SSR is great, though.

[Hunter Noventa]

Spoiler: JP

Show

Wow, the anniversary was wild. Even more stuff to upgrade, with the servant coin feature, breaking the level cap up to 120, plus adding another 3 set of skills called Append Skills to every servant to further empower them with either dupes or bond you've accumulated.

Finally a 5* experience farming node, which will help a lot with those new level caps. Same with a new QP node that drops a statue with a value of 2M if you get the good drop.

Drop rates from main and free quests will be increased.

Also koyanschihuahua, but I don't really care about her even if she's another game-breaking support unit.

I don't know about the append skills, they cost the same to upgrade their active skills, and the effects are not that good for their cost, some CEs are just better and less situational (read: less expensive to grow), as unlocking each append skill is pretty expensive. Also, some skills "may" make sense lore-wise, but gameplay-wise they aren't that good. Ishtar with a bonus vs Rulers? I guess I'd take an avenger instead, for example. MHX's one is actually useful because it stacks with her overall Saber damage, but still is less effective to upgrade the skill.

I guess it's a nice thing to have, but not something I'm looking forward to get.

The free SSR is great, though.

More spoilers for JP

Spoiler

Show

Mash finally gets NP5, level 90, and more bond levels, but only up to 8.

Up to 6 enemies on screen at a time now.

A new servant actually follows you home after LB6.3 apparently.

[Yael]

More spoilers for JP

Spoiler

Show

Mash finally gets NP5, level 90, and more bond levels, but only up to 8.

Up to 6 enemies on screen at a time now.

A new servant actually follows you home after LB6.3 apparently.

Spoiler: Yep, spoilery talk

Show

Indeed, Mash finally got her upgrade, but NP5?! Did she? I just checked and it's still NP3 so...

She deserves her bond upgrade, I long that, in 4 more years at this pace, we'll get her Bond CE and I wish it would be actually useful.

The 6 enemies actually caught me off guard, which is kind of a buff to Arts/Quick looping, but w/e.

Also, we finally get another servant from finishing a story chapter, which it's been way too long since then.