F/GO Watch!

Found a post on the F/GO Reddit board that I think will give everyone some good news.

https://www.reddit.com/r/grandorder/comments/7cv3ng/na_psa_guda_guda_gumopoint_number_crunch_for_f2p/

In a nutshell, if you're running a free to play account, it's nearly impossible not to be able to get all five copies of Nobu and all her ascension mats.  And I'm going to assume this includes not having very good luck and not getting the 5 star event gacha CE.  The last quest (which is also the most difficult, granted) drops around 46 Hiragumos and 20-25k points on average.  It'll be released on day 13 of the event.  The way AP regen works (basically, if you use AP consistently, you'll have more throughout the day to run the Avici Hell quest), you should be able to get a third of all the Hiragumo drops (1288 if you DON'T have EX luck) and 560k-695k Points in those last few days if you make sure to use ALL your AP consistently.  And that's not including the Apples, nor the coming Points-only quests that will increase in the amount you receive.

Now what if you're running a paid quartz account?  Well, you'll just be in a better position due to having more of the event CEs, so you'll get bigger bonuses on the currency event drops.

It gets even better, though.  Say you started farming on day 8 (when the Lancer Hell quest drops).  You'd get 2254 gumo’s and 1 million 43K to 1 million 227K. That's nearly 75% of the gumo's/points needed to clear.

So please trust me when I say that GRINDING GETS BETTER STARTING WITH THE LANCER QUEST.  

Do keep in mind that (I think) the Avici Hell quest is a boss rush, and is likely to be the highest in difficulty for the event, so these numbers may not matter to you because you won't reach them due to ignoring the Avici quest. But that still means that grinding the Lancer through Archer quests will net you a considerable amount of Hiragumo and Points, not to mention that (if I recall correctly) the Points-only quests will get into the tens of thousands for the base amount you can receive (which means if you have four to five GUDA-O CEs and servants who get Points bonuses, you can break past 100k Points in the last three to four days).

Edit: Also, another thread to help with the grind, this one on strategy for the Lancer and Caster quest nodes for the event.

https://www.reddit.com/r/grandorder/comments/7curs8/40ap_lancer_caster_quest_farming_guide_for_new/

To sum it up:

Lancer: Bring an Okita support that has its third ascension at least, use the base Mystic Code, have a servant on your team that either can use a taunt ability (Benkei, St. George, or Leonaidas) or has the Post Girl CE (this is recommended to put on Cu due to the nature of his Evasion skill), and mitigate all damage that comes, keeping Okita alive as long as possible. Then just build up NP on Okita and everyone else and DPS the hell out of the boss. The other enemies you don't really need to worry too much about, because they don't have any damage NPs.

Caster: Pretty much the same, except swap the support Okita for a support Drake (again, at least third ascension).

Simply put: the Lancer and Caster quests are supposed to be considerably easier than the others. You'll likely be doing the rest of your grinding here, unless you move to the Hell Avici quest when it comes out.

Well when you put it that way, I have to wonder if I have been wasting my time by not farming 10 and 20 until Lancer day comes.

I'm having an easy time farming Rider by just bringing a high level Camilla friend, but honestly it is better to get the 10 and 20 grinding for those items out of the way before the Lancer quest pops up. I did that for the 10 AP at least.

Yeah, I probably should have been grinding the 10 and 20 AP quests myself. Did a bit earlier today to complete the weekly quartz fragments missions, but otherwise I've been focusing entirely on Hiragumos and Points.

Then again, I've just got one Skull left to go. I suppose I could start grinding the 10 and 20 AP quests tomorrow, even though you need less of their drops than you do the Hiragumo drops. I dunno...

And like Zero, I'm having an easy time farming the Rider quest. Brought my own level 70 Carmilla and a 60 to 70 support Carmilla. Drop two Tortures on Drake followed by two Phantom Maidens and I'm taking out over 180k hp on average. Typically she's left with between 55k-83k hp afterwards. Dual Vampirism skill also puts a serious cramp into Drake's NP charging.

Oh Christ... I've only done 5 Lancer runs thus far. 3 of them dropped Claw of Chaos. Tempted to ascend Tamamo Cat on the spot.

Got all the Golden Skulls, and I'm over 500k points.

Noice~

Got a Claw drop myself, though I'm out of AP. Not going to start grinding in earnest for a couple of days, and I'm probably going to skip getting more gourd drops due to how little drops, even after having six of the 3 star CE on.

I'm over 450k Points, and I'm fairly close to getting my last Skull.

I'm at 455k still need two more skulls. need to work on that new lancer. so far not too tough.

Dont remember if i got any item drops from this fight but was more concerned about getting my new Oda. 3 down, 2 to go

Got a second GUDA-O to drop, so I don't have to spend the 300 Hiragumo for the last one in the shop. Yay. Picked up some Horseshoes, ascended Ushiwakamaru, took the Chaos Claws I had and ascended Tamamo Cat. Now I'll probably take the time to get the materials to ascend Caesar and Hans. After that, I don't have any ascension plans, so it'll be time to start saving materials for Boobie Tights Shishou and Lancer Alter.

Had a whoops moment: I wasn't at 450k Points, I was at 430k+ Points. NOW I'm at 450k+ Points, and I've gotten my last Skull. Going to work on getting Hearts and Claws in earnest now.

Aside from that, in the Christmas 2016 rerun event, I've made a bit of headway. Got all the Seashell mats, and I've gotten Swimsuit Raikou's second Ascension. I also have enough to get Swimsuit Salter's third ascension, just need to get Dragon Scales (which are in the shop!). Working towards the second Drunk Jalter CE now to increase my White Sock drop rate.

So after talking with some of my local friends playing, i decreed that i wasn't going to just focus on getting the ascension material and not the 5 star CE

Use the 7th sign in ticket....pull poster girl

while grinding level 20 to finally get enough blue stuff to get my last gold skull....Guda-0 drops

I will never understand my "luck" with this game

People are reporting on the stuff being announced at the current anime con. So far they're seeing-

-Scathach pickup immediately after Honnoji (just confirmed on Facebook myself)
-Expanded Second Archive, additional support setups coming
-Rare Prism Shop
-Paid Quartz summon with guaranteed 5* (the featured servants are Altria, Okita, Tamamo, Altera, Orion, Vlad, Francis, Waver, Jeanne)

Also, I decided to move on to Rider mission for regular running. Get some more Hearts out of it, while I clear the hiragumo shop. I'm gonna have to hurry and start using more fruits though, since there's only 5 days left, and lots of stuff other than the hiragumo items.

Got over 950k Points now, within throwing distance of my last copy of Nobu. Also making some decent headway into getting all the Hearts and Claws. I should feasibly be at 1.3 million Points with all the Claws and Hearts by the end of the event. Grinding the Caster quest still, since I tend to get around 30 Hiragumo each run for a minimal amount of effort.

Aside from that, doing well with the Christmas 2016 rerun event in JPN. Got all four copies of the event shop CE, and I should be able to get all five copies of JDASL. Then it'll be a matter of getting Hearts and Scales, which I should be able to get some.

Thanks for covering the most recent update for me, DoubleEdged. I was actually out with friends watching the first Heaven's Feel movie when that info dropped.

Here's a bit more info that came out today:

The Mona Lisa CE (which gives +10% bonus QP when fully LBed) will be available until February 22nd of next year. In addition, we'll also be getting 1/2 AP Dailies from November 22nd to December 1st; that is ALL Dailies. This is probably due both to the Mona Lisa CE being released, as well as Londonium being released in December. Considering the time frame that this 1/2 AP event is taking place in, we might see Londonium drop around December 7th. Don't quote me on that, though.

Remember that each copy of Mona Lisa costs 1000 Mana Prisms, and there are five copies; a non-fully LBed copy will only increase your QP gain by 2%. If you want to have a fully limit broken Mona Lisa CE (which gives you a 10% increase to your QP gain), then you had better have been saving up your Prisms, or you had better start spending Apples on the 30 AP exp quest now, since that gives out a large number of silver exp cards that give you 1 Prism for each one you burn. If you decide to burn all exp cards during the 1/2 AP event, you'll be getting close to a 1 Prism for every 2 AP spent run each time (since the 30 AP will be 15 AP during this period, and you get nine exp cards from killing the hands). You can also optionally grind for socks during the Christmas event, since there's a lottery gacha that takes those event drops that you can repeat continually until the event is over. It gives out a lot of prisms, so you can grind socks for prisms there (as well as get a lot of mats and skill gems).

There's also the Grab Bag 2017 that you can buy from the Mana Prism shop, which has some useful stuff in it, such as eight Gold Apples, 20170 FP, two Summon Tickets, four 3 star Atk Fou cards, and four 3 star HP Fou cards. This only costs 16 Mana Prisms.

Aside from that, there's also the Material Grab Bag, which has two of each material that's been released thus far; in case you need a list, here you go: Claw of Chaos, Heart of a Foreign God, Phoenix Feather, Serpent Jewel, Eternal Gear, Meteor Horseshoe, Octuplet Crystals, Dragon's Reverse Scale, Forbidden Page, Void's Dust, Proof of Hero, Ghost Lantern, Homunculus Baby, Evil Bone, Seed of Yggdrasil, and Dragon Fang.

The Material Bag costs 160 Mana Prisms, but considering that you're essentially getting two of the Claws, Hearts, Octuplet Crystals, Scales, Pages, Lanterns, Jewels, Gears, and Horseshoes, that's a pretty good trade.

Now for some details that you might've missed out on....

The Thanksgiving Campaign period itself will take place from November 22nd @ 7am UTC to December 1st @ 3:59 UTC. This means that, if you grind during the 1/2 AP part of this campaign enough, you may be able to buy the tickets for next month and use them towards getting Scath. But you'll only have a four hour window to do so.

In addition, there are log-in bonuses for the campaign:

11/23: eight 3 star Atk Fou cards, eight 3 star HP Fou cards, one Summon Ticket
11/24: twelve Saint Quartz, one Summon Ticket
11/25: sixteen 4 star Exp cards, one Summon Ticket

As for the Scathach rate-up, this is one a lot of us JPN players have been waiting for, and not just because of Scath herself. This rate-up also officially releases two 3 star Servants, Diarmuid (Lancer from Fate/Zero), and Ferghus (a Saber whose skills, NP, and attack card deck make him a pseudo-Berserker, so he's no slouch). These two 3 stars will be permanently added to the gacha after this rate-up is over. Plus, the long-anticipated release of the CE "A Fragment of 2030", which is one of the best CEs in the entire game and used in all the best team metas. It's effect automatically generates 8 crit stars per turn on the equipped servant, as long as that servant is in battle. A fully LBed copy generates 10 crit stars per turn. But you want multiples (at least two), since that gives a significant DPS and NP generation advantage for any team (successful crits on Arts or Quick cards generate more NP than standard hits by a good margin).

Aside from this, Medea Lily also gets a rate-up, and Kintoki and Gilgamesh also get rate-ups during this gacha.

11/22-11/24: Scathach, Medea Lily, Ferghus, Diarmuid
11/25: Kintoki, Medea Lily, Ferghus, Diarmuid
11/26: Gilgamesh, Medea Lily, Ferghus, Diarmuid
11/27: Scathach, Kintoki, Medea Lily, Ferghus, Diarmuid
11/28: Scathach, Gilgamesh, Medea Lily, Ferghus, Diarmuid
11/29-12/01: Scathach, Kintoki, Gilgamesh, Medea Lily, Ferghus, Diarmuid

I'm personally going to be rolling solely in the period between the 22nd through the 24th, and then again on the 28th with any tickets and quartz I may have remaining. I don't want Kintoki, so I'm aiming squarely for Scathach (and if I can get Gil, that'll be nice too). After the 28th, I start stockpiling for the next five months.

There will also be a Scathach trial quest, where you get to try her, Ferghus, and Diarmuid out in your party as supports. Rewards for beating this quest are as follows: Blue, Red, and Gold Lancer Gem, and a Summon Ticket. It's only available after clearing Fuyuki, though.

On the JP front:

A teaser video for Epic of Remnant chapter 4 was released, so expect it to drop sometime in December. Whether it's before or after the Christmas 2017 event is still up in the air. This sucks, as I'm still in the Londonium chapter of the story with my new JP main account. The events have been helpful in giving me exp and ascension mats to get over a dozen servants over level 50, as well as three welfare 4 stars thus far. The only issue is that from the Halloween 2016 rerun event onward, I've had little time to progress through the story in between grinding for exp cards and mats. I've gotten Herc, Swimsuit Salter, Mecha-Eli-Chan, and Okita at level 70 now. I'm going to work on JDASL, Osakabehime, Swimsuit Raikou, Swimsuit Nobu, and Kiritsugu, not to mention Nero and a few other helpful 3 stars like Cu, as I go through the story.

As for NA, it looks like once the Thanksgiving campaign is over, I'll be stockpiling quartz and tickets in preparation for when Jeanne Alter comes around. I'm hoping to have over 200-250 quartz and maybe 30+ tickets by then; if I get over 200 quartz when the Valentine's event comes around, I'll probably drop a 10 roll towards Nero Bride and whatever 5 star she's paired up with. But I'm not expecting much out of that, only a slight release so I don't impulsively blow all those quartz and tickets before Jalter comes around, as well as to get CEs to make the event itself a bit easier.

I have enough paid quartz at the moment to do the paid quartz gacha, too (I'm not expecting DW to release a New Years paid quartz gacha now, since the outcry from the Japanese players would likely be noticeable). I'm hoping to get either Waver, Okita, or Drake. I won't say no to Orion, Altera, or an NP2 Tamamo, either. I'll be miffed if I get Artoria or an NP3 Vlad (less so with Artoria, since that'll be a new Servant and Interludes to do). And I'll laugh and cry in absurdity if I get NP5 Jeanne from this. But I guess I should just be grateful that I'm getting another 5 star in the first place; hopefully just thinking that will throw off the desire sensor. I do mostly feel that way at this point in the game anyway.

Good luck to everyone on finishing up in the events, and I hope you all get Scath and whatever 5 star you're hoping to get in the guaranteed gacha!

Just saw this on the reddit: the EoR info pre-stream will be on the 28th.  If things go like they did for EoR 3, then chapter 4 could be released as soon as the 29th or 30th.  Most likely, it'll be released in the first week of December, which means that the 2017 JP Christmas event will likely drop around the 20th of December.

So....EoR will wrap up by the end of this year, as projected.  Good thing, too.  Though there's also a good chance that "Season 2" will be locked for players who haven't completed all the EoR chapters, since it's likely that the overarching stories of those will lead directly into the next part of the story.

I'm gonna have it rough for at least another few months as I try to balance getting through all of Season 1 while leveling alongside the increasing difficulty.  I'll have to start picking out who I'm going to be running/maining in my party.  Herc's a safe bet, as is Mashu.  I think once I've gotten Osakabehime to her second or third ascension, I'll have a solid Quick team of her, Swimsuit Salter, and Okita, and a decent Buster team of Swimsuit Raikou, Mecha-Eli, JDASL, and Herc paired with a Buster support like Merlin.  

Regardless, I'm going to be spending some of the 100+ gold apples I have on grinding QP, mats, and exp cards so I have options...

Well, these rolls explain why I didn't get Okita when I tried dropping almost seven 10 rolls towards her.

Did the paid quartz gacha first, got Waver. That's one of three I really wanted, and objectively probably the best scenario out of rolling. Then I had two 10 rolls left over from getting 20 bonus quartz for my 150th day log in. First 10 roll got me the new 4 star CE in this limited gacha and an NP4 Carmilla.

Second 10 roll got me three copies of Diarmuid.

....plus private training. Hopefully I don't get distracted by the bodysuit. :3

Geez, all sorts of news dropping this week!  This time on the JP version's end.

11 Million Download campaign has gone live.  Here are the details:

Login daily from 23rd Nov 4 AM JST ~ 30th Nov 4 AM JST to get:

Day 1: 10 silver apples
Day 2: 10 gold apples
Day 3: 10M QP
Day 4: 10 gold EXP
Day 5: 10 3* HP Fous
Day 6: 10 3* ATK Fous
Day 7: 10 summoning tickets

Complete the final singularity within the duration of the campaign and get 30 quartz as a reward.  Campaign duration: 22nd Nov 18:00 JST - 29th Nov 12:59 JST.  You must claim the quartz by 10th Dec 23:59 JST.  If you have already completed the final singularity, the mission will automatically be cleared.  (Sadly, I don't think I'll be able to take advantage of this.   )

On top of the permanent 1/2AP for part 1, there will be a further 1/2AP campaign for part 1 story quests for a total of 1/4AP. This will apply for all singularities in part 1.

All story quests in Epic of Remnant are also now 1/2AP off for the duration of the campaign.

Great Success and Super Success rates for leveling Servants and CEs have been doubled for the duration of the campaign.

Starting from 23rd Nov 0:00 JST to 29th Nov 12:59 JST, all EXP and class dailies will be unlocked and available every day. For the duration of this campaign, the mana prism rewards upon clearing will not be reset.

There will also be new free quest commemoration missions in the mission list. The missions are as follows:
Mission                                                                  (Reward)
Clear 1 free quest in a "burning" map        (November mats exchange coupon x 1)
Clear 1 free quest in a "forest" map            (November mats exchange coupon x 1)
Clear 1 free quest in a "hilly" map                (November mats exchange coupon x 1)
Clear 1 free quest in a "castle" map        (November mats exchange coupon x 1)
Clear 1 free quest in a "wilderness" map        (November mats exchange coupon x 1)
Clear 1 free quest in a "desert" map        (November mats exchange coupon x 1)
Clear 1 free quest in a "waterside" map        (November mats exchange coupon x 1)
Clear 1 free quest in a "mountain" map        (November mats exchange coupon x 1)
Clear 1 free quest in a "grassy plains" map (November mats exchange coupon x 1)
Clear 1 free quest in a "temple" map        (November mats exchange coupon x 1)
Clear 2 free quest commemoration missions (1M QP)
Clear 4 free quest commemoration missions (2M QP)
Clear 7 free quest commemoration missions (3M QP)
Clear all free quest commemoration missions (4M QP)

All items in the Da Vinci mana prism shop have been restocked and will be available only for the duration of this 11M DL campaign.  You can also unlock the ability to purchase the Chaldea Lunchtime CE by using 1 rare prism.

Aside from that, King Hassan has a rate up, alongside Hassan of Serenity and Hundred Face Hassan.  That will take place from November 23rd @ 6pm JST to December 6th @ 12:59pm JST.

I dunno, maybe if I start on the story after I get up, I can make it to Solomon in time before the week is up.  I'd have to skip all the Free Quests and focus solely on advancing through the story, though.  But I have the apples to do so, and I've got Swimsuit Salter, Okita, Herc, and Mecha-Eli at 70, with a couple of others at 60...

I'm going to need hard carries, though, and quartz to do party revives.  

Finally got my first 5*. Unfortunately, it's not Shishou. It's Drake. I should've stopped summoning when I got her, because after that, I got nothing good. Other than her, I got 4 goddamn copies of Medea Lily within three 10-summons. That's the kind of luck I was wanting to save for Lancer Alter! But I guess that at least gives me a great healer, now that I take a close look at her abilities.

Now I have to start saving up again for London.

Also, goddamn, I'm not even going to get the hiragumo items done, much less everything else in that damn shop.

Nice!

All I got was crap essence tho a few decent ones and Duirmund in two 10 pulls :/ but that's my luck

Also guys dont forget in Da Vinci's workshop

They have the Grab bags and the Mona Lisa CE. they're a 1000 cubes a pop, but atleast theirs 91 days to pick them up.

My luck up until now was pretty bad already. It feels like it got good for the completely wrong things, so sorry if I don't seem more enthusiastic, especially when it feels that I've also ruined my chances with another pickup soon to come. I'm not sure what to do with four Medea Lilies; NP4 feels like I'm better off burning at least one copy, but her healing abilities look to good to throw away entirely (which I AM debating). Getting Drake is making me debate burning Martha. And after doing some calculations- I'm going to completely pass on Mona Lisa. The effort I would have to go through to obtain it, I'd probably earn more QP in the end with just the amount of AP put towards farming cubes for it without it. And even if I were to use every Golden Fruit I had during this 1/2 AP campaign (Over 40), I still wouldn't even come up with enough cubes to get 3 Mona Lisas.

I know I'll at least be getting through all the Chaos Claws before this event is up, then it's EXP farming time. I've got too many people to level up and ascend now. I may also get that Material Grab Bag; it feels expensive compared to event farming, but compared to normal farming, it's probably a godsend.

Honestly I feel like rare prisms don't give anything worth burning a gold servant for. As bad as Martha is, you usually want to keep at least one copy of a servant around for event bonuses.

Managed to grind enough to get everything needed for Nobu, though I didn't get too much from the shop otherwise. Have to split my time grinding this and grinding the Christmas event in the Japanese version which I totally underestimated.

I hit 1.5 million points last night, so I got the Lore. I wasn't going to do much else during the event with the time I had left anyway. All in all, a good run.

Aside from that, I've cleared Londonium in my JP account, and I'm past the halfway point in the America chapter. Using supports to carry has been pretty helpful, but surprisingly, I'm more prepared than I thought I was. I think I should be able to clear America before I go to bed, which will just leave Camelot, Babylonia, and the Solomon chapter. I should be able to clear those three in four to five days.

Also, had 40 quartz from all that plowing through story content and the 11M Campaign rewards that have been given out thus far, so I decided to do a 10 roll on the Christmas 2016 gacha for kicks. Turns out that eating turkey earlier must've attracted Ishtar, because I got her. >.>;

So, remember when I was worried about my luck for this event? I was very right two, 40+ pulls and no Boobie Tights >_< I mean, I've literally gotten everything else so far which isn't something I should complain about but Shishou IS MY FETISH! All featured CE including, Heaven's Feel, Black Grail, bunch of other good CEs and of course 2030, Fergus, Diarmuid, Medea, Medea Lilly, and even freaking EMIYA. I'd trade it all for her...

Oh, for my guaranteed 5 star pull I actually got Drake again, which I'm totally okay with because I wanted to juice up her NP.

http://fate-go.us/gudao/gudao32.html

Did some ticket pulls for Gil's rate up and got a copy of 2030 (yay!), Formalcraft (also yay!), Limit/Zero Over (yay again!), NP4 Diarmuid, and then I did a 10 roll on a whim.

Shouldn't have done that ten roll. It was fairly bad.

...

Well, I now have all 3 of the Gorgon Sisters
http://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/2904483?tags=stheno

and Tcat
http://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/2934187?tags=tamamo_%28fate%29_%28all%29

So, I'm happy

...:

Congrats!