Fate/Grand Order V - Salty Theoretical Phenomenon

[Saambell]

Salt.

I spent the last few months getting everything ready for Kama. Gems, Materials, QP, Embers. I was all ready. Instead the Gacha gives me Altria(3rd copy), Nightengale(3rd copy), Waver(4th copy) Vlad(2nd copy), Orion, and Tamamo. But no Kama.

Salt.

But that is a lot of 5 Stars. The Gacha LOVES giving me good stuff, but never the stuff I want. Its why I kind of expect to get Nobbu Avenger when rolling for NP 5 Mori. But yeah, 6 SSR servants, none of them Kama. Even though I have been wanting Tamamo for years now. And NP2 Vlad would be awesome, but comes at a really awkward time given very recent events in JP. So I finally get 2 good characters, but with the knowledge that they get kind of replaced by better stuff down the line.

But yeah, SALT.

EDIT: ONE LAST HAIL MARY GOT HER! Salt free baby!

[Leon]

One ten roll and a ticket and i got Parvati NP3 so im happy, didn't want the new assassin. Until the Arts/Buster Lancer comes along later this year she will keep on being my main lancer and even after will still be a worthy servant to have.

[Hunter Noventa]

9 tickets, 300 SQ, NP2 Ibaraki, NP4 Parvati, no Kama.

Might roll more later, we'll see.

[Resileaf]

I threw 100 quartz at the banner, mostly for CEs. Sadly, nothing except NP2 Heracles, and shockingly, barely any event CEs. Usually it'll throw 3* CEs at you when you roll the event banner, but I only got one 3*, three 4* and one 5*, so that feels like those quartz were a bit wasted.

[Hunter Noventa]

Said screw it, went ham, got Kama with 330 SQ left in the bank

[NeoPhoenix0]

Why does this event locked behind lb3? I've only dipped my toes into the event but it already seems pretty fun to me, though I kinda like exploring and dungeon crawling type experiences so I understand if it is just me. I feel bad about the people who are going to miss out

[Resileaf]

Why does this event locked behind lb3? I've only dipped my toes into the event but it already seems pretty fun to me, though I kinda like exploring and dungeon crawling type experiences so I understand if it is just me. I feel bad about the people who are going to miss out

It's the same type of event as SERAPH. It's part of the main storyline, but as an event.

[Kitten Champion]

Yeah, they say directly that this is the time between China and India.

I actually kind of blurred through that - I was really tired - but they mentioned something about how they need to go to India for Wandering Sea/Chaldea Novum to get something before going through to the Atlantic Lostbelt.

[Saambell]

Why does this event locked behind lb3? I've only dipped my toes into the event but it already seems pretty fun to me, though I kinda like exploring and dungeon crawling type experiences so I understand if it is just me. I feel bad about the people who are going to miss out

It also very clearly takes place right after Lostbelt 3. And it ties in closely to events of Lostbelt 4. It very much has to go between them. Kind of like how Seraph would not make much sense unless you had played Solomon. Yeah its not nice that it needs people to be up to date, but the good thing is this is pretty much the last one that does for like a year or two, not counting a few reruns.

[spectralphoenix]

The dungeon crawling mechanic seems cool, but I do wish they could start these events on Saturdays so I have time in the morning to go through a half dozen story nodes when the event kicks off.

Put in five tickets and a 10-pull, got a few event CEs. Might put in more later.

[Velaryon]

I'm pretty low on SQ so I'm inclined to skip this banner, but I've heard a lot of buzz about Kama so I'm getting a bit of FOMO there. What makes her so sought after? It certainly doesn't appear to be her skills.

[Saambell]

I'm pretty low on SQ so I'm inclined to skip this banner, but I've heard a lot of buzz about Kama so I'm getting a bit of FOMO there. What makes her so sought after? It certainly doesn't appear to be her skills.

A few things.

In terms of skills, shes pretty much the ONLY Anti Alter Ego in the game, with her 3rd skill giving her effectiveness versus them. She also has a 50% NP Charge for herself, and a NP Overcharge skill she can target. Along with her own Crit Damage Up skill, a 3 turn Quick boost on her NP(which is Overchargable) she is a VERY good boss remover along with Skadi. She also has a Charm on her NP which isn't limited in targets, as well as a Charm Resist Down debuff on one of her skills. Her Guts skill has no turn limit for the Guts effect meaning it sticks around until used, while the Attack Up is a solid 30%. She is a prime boss killer mechanically, and isn't limited to Anti Female like Jack needs to be to get the most of her.

Design wise she is inspired by Sakura from the original Fate series, in particular events of Heavens Feel, which are spoiler-riffic. And if Fanservice designs don't annoy you, her 3rd form is VERY VERY much Fanservice. Lore wise she is the Indian Goddess of Love, and is a reincarnated Parvati, hence her hate of Parvati in this event.

Spoiler: BIG EVENT SPOILERS

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She is also Beast III/L, the other half of Beast III/R, aka Kiara Sessyoin from the SE.RA.PH. event just passed. So if you liked that event like some, and like the idea of being able to use the big evil characters from the game's plot, that's another reason to roll. I do have plans to try using both of them in the same team. Which would be funny, as the two halves of Beast III hate each other, being opposing sides of the concept of Lust.

So she has a lot there, from OG Fate design, to FGO Big Lore reasons, as well as a sought after gimmick, and in the end, a huge chunk of fanservice once you level her.

[Kitten Champion]

I'm pretty low on SQ so I'm inclined to skip this banner, but I've heard a lot of buzz about Kama so I'm getting a bit of FOMO there. What makes her so sought after? It certainly doesn't appear to be her skills.

She's a spectacularly well-rounded Servant and everything you'd need in a ST Assassin.

Sure, looking at her skills and there isn't anything too ludicrously broken other than her indefinite Guts maybe and despite that she's not exactly Hercules or Cu. Still, you could say the same of Jack... actually her skills are somewhat worse especially having her hard Survival option tied directly to her only damage steroid and neither lasting more than a turn.

It's when you put Kama's kit together with her NP gain and star generation and start looping her NPs and landing crits into dizzying levels of damage, the fact that she is also so survivable and will keep on dealing this consistently high damage through much harder content is where you see the real value of Kama as a whole.

She doesn't really have a meaningful downside, is the thing.

I would say if you're planning to draw Jack from next year's SSR ticket then don't worry about Kama, but otherwise there's nothing coming down the line for the foreseeable future that's going to overshadow her.

[DaedalusMkV]

Happily not participating in the event or rolling on the banner, here. I did cave and throw a couple of tickets at Moriarty, because I love his aesthetic, but otherwise I'm still just saving. 120 SQ and 20 tickets saved up now, hoping to double that before Gudaguda to have at least a halfway decent chance at the 5*. Should be doable with two months to save and lots of SQ flowing in from story quests.

Without an event to distract me, I've been doing a mix of farming (I have a dreadful shortage of blue skill gems), clearing out the interludes/rank ups available to me and getting into the first Lostbelt. I'm... A little ways in? Just met a couple of familiar faces, very much enjoying it so far. You can really tell that they have a much higher budget now than they did back in the Singularity days; random NPCs get unique portraits, you don't have a dozen characters sharing the same non-animated stock portrait, the cast of characters is larger and more diverse and Da Vinci is now lovingly animated with a wide range of expressions instead of a dead-eyed soulless marionette. I'd expected another difficulty spike, but so far it's a bit easier than Babylonia all told. I'm sure towards the end it'll stop pulling punches.

[Forum Explorer]

Bleh, these banners keep tempting me, so I can't build up any SQ to make a real run at any of them. For the record, spent 90 SQ on this banner, got nothing. Well that's not entirely true. I did get Origin Round which will be very useful eventually. But that's it.


On a different note, I'm finding Salem's story unbearable, and have just decided to skip it. Am I alone in this? Or were there any other arcs that you just decided to skip all the cutscenes for?

[Velaryon]

Okay, thanks for the info. I think I was overly focused on the anti-Alter Ego skill, and I guess... I just never saw that as a niche that particularly needs filling? Especially since it's tied to a class that Alter Egos are also strong against. Seems to me like that would be something that makes more sense for one of the Knight classes to have. As for the rest, contrasting with Jack helps a lot to contextualize her kit.

Design-wise, I got that she's supposed to be a Sakura-face from the dialogue between her and Parvati in her first appearance, but I don't see it. She doesn't look anything like Sakura to me, at all. As for fanservice... eh, I'm kinda neutral on the concept as a whole, except that I think this game WAY overdoes it. And I definitely do not like when it's done with lolis, as that comes off extremely creepy to me.

Anyway, I hear of Kama talked about as THE neutral damage dealer, and while she seems to have some good self-buffs I'm not sure I see it. Probably doesn't help that I have almost none of the tools needed for abusing quick servants for NP looping shenanigans.

Despite all that, I decided to roll for her anyway. I had decent luck when it comes to event CE's (although that means a LOT less when I can only bring 2 servants plus a support). Then the game decided to troll me hard. I got gold sparks and a gold assassin card not once, but twice. First time it was NP2 Yan Qing. Second time it was NP2 Emiya. I'm sure if I kept going I'd have pulled Stheno again, but I only had enough quarts and tickets for about 20-25 pulls.

[Forum Explorer]

Okay, thanks for the info. I think I was overly focused on the anti-Alter Ego skill, and I guess... I just never saw that as a niche that particularly needs filling? Especially since it's tied to a class that Alter Egos are also strong against. Seems to me like that would be something that makes more sense for one of the Knight classes to have. As for the rest, contrasting with Jack helps a lot to contextualize her kit.

Design-wise, I got that she's supposed to be a Sakura-face from the dialogue between her and Parvati in her first appearance, but I don't see it. She doesn't look anything like Sakura to me, at all. As for fanservice... eh, I'm kinda neutral on the concept as a whole, except that I think this game WAY overdoes it. And I definitely do not like when it's done with lolis, as that comes off extremely creepy to me.

Anyway, I hear of Kama talked about as THE neutral damage dealer, and while she seems to have some good self-buffs I'm not sure I see it. Probably doesn't help that I have almost none of the tools needed for abusing quick servants for NP looping shenanigans.

Despite all that, I decided to roll for her anyway. I had decent luck when it comes to event CE's (although that means a LOT less when I can only bring 2 servants plus a support). Then the game decided to troll me hard. I got gold sparks and a gold assassin card not once, but twice. First time it was NP2 Yan Qing. Second time it was NP2 Emiya. I'm sure if I kept going I'd have pulled Stheno again, but I only had enough quarts and tickets for about 20-25 pulls.

Design wise, Kama's gimmick seems to be growing up. First stage is child Sakura, second stage looks like a teenage Sakura, and third stage is an adult Sakura.

[DaedalusMkV]

On a different note, I'm finding Salem's story unbearable, and have just decided to skip it. Am I alone in this? Or were there any other arcs that you just decided to skip all the cutscenes for?

I skipped the entire Pseudo-Singularity line, for the moment. Nothing cares about completing those, aside from unlocking a few Interludes, but I need LB2 finished before September and LB3 before... I think January? Might be February, though... To not permanently miss any Event Servants. You can go straight to the Lostbelts without touching them, so I'll go back and play through them when I have free time and nothing else to fill it with.

I've also heard that they're mostly not that good, aside from Shimousa, and I've heard nothing good about Agartha (to the point that some people call it the worst story arc in the game).

[Resileaf]

People's opinion of the stories of the Epic of Remnant pseudo-singularities depend entirely on what kind of stories they like. Most people enjoyed Shinjuku for the fairly interesting mystery elements (plus it was the only chapter where a servant's true name being hidden actually mattered), enjoyment of Shimousa depends generally on if you like the samurai movie approach to storytelling while Salem requires enjoyment from oppressive, eldritch Lovecraft type of stories. SERAPH, despite being an event, can be considered an actual story chapter and was also generally enjoyed as a solid chapter.

Agartha was the only one that has near-universal hatred of its story, for various reasons that don't need to be expanded upon too much.

[Forum Explorer]

People's opinion of the stories of the Epic of Remnant pseudo-singularities depend entirely on what kind of stories they like. Most people enjoyed Shinjuku for the fairly interesting mystery elements (plus it was the only chapter where a servant's true name being hidden actually mattered), enjoyment of Shimousa depends generally on if you like the samurai movie approach to storytelling while Salem requires enjoyment from oppressive, eldritch Lovecraft type of stories. SERAPH, despite being an event, can be considered an actual story chapter and was also generally enjoyed as a solid chapter.

Agartha was the only one that has near-universal hatred of its story, for various reasons that don't need to be expanded upon too much.

Well here's my review of them I suppose:

Shinjuku was alright, but nothing really special.

Shimousa had annoying mechanics, but the story was good.

Salem dragged on and on, and when they had a Servant be executed and the main character didn't stop it is where I stopped reading. Which I know is before it gets into the really eldritch stuff. But considering the sheer amount of danger the main character has put themselves in to save complete strangers, that one just came off as forced OOC BS. Like a bunch of villagers would be able to stop us from rescuing our friend.

Agartha I actually didn't mind. The creepy stuff existed, but I honestly didn't find it nearly as disgusting as well everything relating to Shinji and Zouken. Perhaps because it didn't in any way try and justify it, ever. It was seen as bad, called out as bad, and the story treated it as bad. I was more fascinated with what they did with Colombus. I think Agartha was the first time where they took someone who did awful stuff in history and played into it, having the character end up more evil than their real life persona. Usually it's the opposite (cough Elizabeth Bathory cough).

[Velaryon]

I'm apparently the weirdo that actually kinda liked Agartha, apart from a couple of minor things. Mostly I wasn't fond of the art style or character designs of the new servants that were introduced there, but it was still my second favorite of the four pseudo-singularities behind Shinjuku. Shimosa would have been fine except for some of the fights being very obnoxious, and going on way too long. Salem I wasn't too fond of.

But all four of them were better than the USA singularity. That was the weakest story chapter we've had so far, in my opinion.

[Resileaf]

I made a yolo roll after getting 30 quartz during the event.

It gave me Kama.

I can't even with this universe stuff.

[Hunter Noventa]

While it's nice not having this be a mission-based event, it's still tedious because of all the constant loading and reward screens while exploring the labyrinth.

[Kitten Champion]

I'm done the story and I've cleared about 75% of the shop, and there's still a week left. Almost all of that is because there were so many 5AP missions and most of the rewards - like the Gold Fous and Lore - were just given to you for clearing the labyrinth.

So, yeah, the loading was a bit annoying, but I could definitely get behind more events like this despite that.

Also, I used Kama for literally every node and I've very nearly got her to Bond 6 with the huge bond boost. So that's nice too.

Edit: Also, I just noticed they don't force you to use the Ortinax equipment on Mash like they did in New Years and I think Oniland event. It's understandable from a lore this-is-what-Mash-is-during-the-lost-belt sort of way, but she's so much more useful as vanilla Mash.

[Resileaf]

Alright, just completed the event myself.

Spoiler: Overall spoilers

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I found it rather humorous that Kama's villainous breakdown involved lamenting that she wouldn't get to keep tormenting humans all while bawling like a baby. Honestly, she was a pretty fun villain. She almost won, only to be undone by her own lazyness, often had really funny lines, especially when she's throwing temper tantrums, and her demon form (with the horns) and Beast designs were really cool. Kinda wish she had a demon lord ascension form we could use.

Also actually really appreciated Goredolf in this event when he temporarily got out of the mind control and decided to punch Kama just because we were giving her the stink eye and he knew that meant she was a villain.

[Hunter Noventa]

Just beat the event myself, and apparently not even the Universe can stand up to Mecha Elly-chan and her Infinite Rocket Punches.

[Velaryon]

Scraping up every single quartz as soon as it appears and throwing it at the summon banner finally paid off, and I now have Kama. Shame it didn't happen until after I'd bought and spent every ember in the shop, so she's trapped at low levels for the rest of the event.

So there are things I like about this event and things I don't.
First, the pros:

• new event type instead of same old, same old
• map exploration is fun, and there's funny bits of dialogue just in the descriptions of each room
• most of the fights are quick and easy
• the story isn't too bad for the most part
• some much-needed Reactor Cores of Dawn as quest drops

But there are also some things I don't like:

• being able to use only 2 servants plus a support means msot of the event CE's I pulled are useless because I can't equip them
• frequent load times are annoying
• spending AP 1 at a time makes it very difficult when I can only play for a little bit on my lunch break, meaning I am wasting lots of AP
• the lanterns are pointless and annoying
• not much in the shop worth buying for me

[Red Fel]

So there are things I like about this event and things I don't.
First, the pros:

• new event type instead of same old, same old
• map exploration is fun, and there's funny bits of dialogue just in the descriptions of each room
• most of the fights are quick and easy
• the story isn't too bad for the most part
• some much-needed Reactor Cores of Dawn as quest drops

But there are also some things I don't like:

• being able to use only 2 servants plus a support means msot of the event CE's I pulled are useless because I can't equip them
• frequent load times are annoying
• spending AP 1 at a time makes it very difficult when I can only play for a little bit on my lunch break, meaning I am wasting lots of AP
• the lanterns are pointless and annoying
• not much in the shop worth buying for me

I'm gonna agree with pretty much every part of this. Admittedly, I have less need of Reactor Cores, but the rest of the pros are all pretty spot-on for me. As for the cons, I agree with pretty much all of those - limited Servants means the CEs are wasted except on your Support team. Less of a problem for me since I didn't pull much. The frequent load times drag on. Levels costing only 1 AP is nice, but it also means that a normal play session - as in, spend all AP, go do something else - drags on forever. Lanterns basically exist only to block your way until you finish a given route, and yeah, the shop was pretty much a waste for me - my stockpiles are significant.

All that said, I enjoyed the event. I enjoyed the format, the villain, the story. I would enjoy it less if more events were like this, but as its own thing, it was pretty solid.

I really don't feel like taking on that challenge quest, though, Lore or no Lore.

[Leon]

So it sounds like the shop has a oddity in that the people who would get the most from it are the ones who cant access it because they are not up to date with the bleeding edge of the story.

[Kitten Champion]

Speaking of, the CQ took me five times to succeed. Probably should've burnt my seals and been done with it the first time, but I started swearing off doing that once I had a reasonably strong roster of Servants.

I used Double Skadi + Parvati to kill the first front line, then I'd have some combination of Mash, Kama, and [someone else] for the final slot.

I didn't appreciate that the backline also got NP gauge increases from the front-line's death in my first attempt, after that I started using the Mystic code to clear their gauges.

Then the next problem was either I went after Osakabehime for clearing my team's buffs while raising their HP/defense to the point that most of my damage was mitigated or I ignored her to go after Ibaraki before she removes any of the guts hard defense I was banking on. Buff removal is Kama's biggest weakness, though as I said that's true to some degree for most anyone who isn't Eresh.

I tried a few other options, but the one that I won with was when I traded the Skadi Support for a back-line Kiara and used Skadi + Waver instead. Mostly what I needed was Kiara's aoe buff cleansing, though her NP down combined with Waver's NP bought enough time to clear all the back-line enemy's first life-bars and when Kama showed up she could clean them up fairly quickly.

Still, I wouldn't call using three event Servants and two S-tier Casters to barely win to be all that graceful.