F/GO Watch!

Guess I'll be sticking to Mordred as my go to saber for the time being then and wait for Jalter. Mordred should be much easier to level now that those damned crystals are in the event shop at least.

I'm prioritizing the Pages, myself. I need to get Waver to his third ascension. >.o

That said, I did grind a lot of Rider chocolate coins, and got Santa Alter's Valentine's CE to help grind more.

https://i.servimg.com/u/f62/17/49/75/42/img_0010.jpg

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DoubleEdged wrote:https://i.servimg.com/u/f62/17/49/75/42/img_0010.jpg

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XD

JP News: There's going to be a Fate/Extra: Last Encore campaign tie-in (not an event) coming up that takes place from Feb 28th JST to Feb 5th JST. Rewards are seven quartz, one of each class piece, and one ticket. There's also a rate up for every servant from Fate/Extra.

Except Tamamo and Emiya.

Limited CEs which feature Robin, Drake, Gawain, Li Shuwen, Vanilla Nero, and Nursery Rhyme (but not Tamamo or Emiya) are also on rate up.

Robin, Drake, Gawain, Li, Nero, and Rhyme also get 1/2 AP reduction for their Interludes and Strengthening Quests, plus give double the amount of FP when used as supports (but not Tamamo or Emiya).

If you did not do it, you can unlock the AnimeJapan 2016 EXTRA collab quest in the rare prism shop now, which allows you to get the 4 star CE Last Encore (10% Arts Performance up and gain 3 crit stars per turn). This is not available if you had already completed that quest.

Gacha details:
28th Jan 2018 (Sun) AM0:00 (JST) - 11th Feb 2018 (Sun) PM:23:59 (JST)

28 Jan: Gawain, Nero, Li Shuwen, Nursery Rhyme
29 Jan: Nero
30 Jan: Gawain
31 Jan: Nursery Rhyme
1 Feb: Li Shuwen
2nd Feb: Gawain, Nero, Li Shuwen, Nursery Rhyme
3rd - 4th Feb: Nero
5th - 6th Feb: Gawain
7th - 8th Feb: Nursery Rhyme
9th - 10th Feb: Li Shuwen
11th Feb: Gawain, Nero, Li Shuwen, Nursery Rhyme (final day)

5* Francis Drake is on rateup for all days

CE pickup:
The following CEs will be added in the Fate/EXTRA Last Encore gacha

5* Pirates Party (Summer 2016 exclusive)
5* Knights of Marines (Summer 2016 exclusive)
5* Praise Me! (Nerofes 2016 exclusive)
5* Battle Olympia (Nerofest 2017 exclusive)
5* Summer Little (Summer 2017 exclusive)
5* As You Wish (Whiteday 2017 exclusive)
4* Four beasts in the moonlight (Whiteday 2016 exclusive)
3* Neverland (Whiteday 2017 exclusive)

Nero's pushing her weight around, isn't she? Seems that this might indicate that Tamamo and Emiya won't be appearing in Last Encore, which makes me less likely to actually watch it. :<

Also, obvious bait gacha, especially with JP version having its Valentine's event right around the corner. Just take the rewards and take advantage of the Interlude/Strengthening AP reductions and run.

Eh? I could have sworn I was hearing about a team of Female protag and "Nameless," even if they weren't the leads. And if we go by how Extella decided to canonize the story, Tamamo should at least become a rival at some point, and towards the end, a "Sub-Servant" to the MC (where Nero is the "Primary Servant").

That Last Encore CE seems interesting enough, for being a combination of awesome traits (but at a not-so-awesome level).

That is all the stuff that was in Extella Zero, the official backstory to Extella that explains how all three servants could exist at the same time in Extella and is basically just Nasu retconning that game. Lots of people thought that would be what Last Encore would be adapting, but apparently that's not the case and the Extra anime is it's own original thing? Not sure, haven't watched yet because there's no English subs out.

The Valentine's event for JP has just been announced. It'll take place from January 31st to February 15th JST. Requirements to play the event are that you need to have cleared the prologue. A Challenge Quest is also available with the same kind of criteria to participate as in previous Challenge Quests (clear the event's main story and the Solomon Singularity).

More info can be found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/grandorder/comments/7tzrxu/valentines_2018_news_and_here_she_is/

Finally, another meme has been broken: Semiramis is the 5 star limited on rate up for this event. Rate up banner for the event gacha will be split into two halves.

Pickup 1: from 31 Jan to 15 Feb

31 Jan to 4 Feb: Semiramis
5 Feb: Semiramis + Altria (Saber)
6 Feb: Semiramis + Mordred
7 Feb: Semiramis + Altera
8 Feb: Semiramis + Orion
9 Feb: Semiramis + Altria (Lancer)
10 Feb: Semiramis + Nightingale
11 Feb: Semiramis + Jeanne
12 Feb to 15 Feb: Semiramis

Pickup 2: from 5 Feb to 15 Feb

5 Feb: Semiramis + Medb
6 Feb: Semiramis + Quetzalcoatl
7 Feb: Semiramis + Drake
8 Feb: Semiramis + Jack
9 Feb: Semiramis + Osakabehime
10 Feb: Semiramis + Sanzou
11 Feb: Semiramis + Scheherazade
12 Feb: Semiramis + Tamamo


We also have some NA News! The first batch of Strengthening Quests have been announced (two months earlier than in JP even). It'll start February 1st, and the last Strengthening Quest will be released the 7th. Each Strengthening Quest (being called a "Servant Rank Up Quest" in NA) will improve the Servant it's for in some way, as well as giving a Saint Quartz. Having past experience with this in the JP version, I can tell you that it's usually the addition of a new skill, or a buff to an existing skill. The first batch SHOULD be the following Servants: Spartacus, Eric Bloodaxe, Charles-Henri Sanson, Musashibou Benkei, Leonidas I, Boudica, and Martha.

In order to do these quests, you must already have the Servant, and that Servant must have reached their final ascension. If you do not own the Servant, then their Strengthening Quest will not be displayed; if you do own the Servant but haven't gotten their final ascension yet, it will be grayed out. You can take as much time as you'd like in getting their final ascensions, however, as these quests are not time limited.

Lack of Semiramis was a meme?

I can't access ANY of those new quests being mentioned, unless I decide to put the materials into Martha (which I can do at any time right now, until something else draws my attention where I'd need said materials). I haven't used Bronze Servants at all; I was getting close to having Andersen at a usable state, but then Waver crashed my Chaldea, never turned back.

Chocolate hunting is going pretty well. I didn't clear out the Mana Prisms entirely, but I got enough to buy my fourth Mona Lisa. Bought enough of the Fou cards to max out Mash's stats, the rest will go into Waver & Orion. Then I'll start getting the materials I don't have yet, or the gold EXP for Jeanne. But speaking of materials, I just used quite a bit of stuff to get Waver's attack booster to rank 8, and now I need 20 Phoenix Feathers for that one skill. Goddammit, if it's not Foreign God Hearts, it's Phoenix Feathers; something always has to haunt me. I still need some feathers for Lancer Alter's other two skills as well (but with my lack of Secret Gems, that may be a while).

I've been more focused on getting select Valentine's CEs (even though I wasn't intending on doing so at first).  Got the ones for Salter, Nero, Scathach, Bryn, Liz, Marie, Ushi, Santa Alter, Tamamo, and Tamamo Cat.  Probably going to stop there unless another Assassin enemy rate up comes along, then I'll do ones for Carmilla and Mata Hari.  But I'll be stopping there.

Cleared out all the pages and got Waver's third ascension, so that's done.  Working on the Crystals next, then I'll go to the Serpent Jewels if I have time.  I was planning on focusing more on clearing out materials and exp cards this event, but I honestly haven't really been too focused on that.  I'm slacking.  May change that up in a couple of days and actually start grinding more so I can at least get Waver to level 80 and get as many mats as I can.

And yes, lack of Semiramis was a meme for a good while, especially since a datamine of servants that were to be released had her listed, and a number of Servants from Apocrypha were either released at launch or within the first six month of the game's life.  That was over a year and a half ago.  It got to the point that Semiramis fans started making jokes at how certain servants were really Semiramis in disguise, or that the next event was a hint at Semiramis about to be released.

I'm going to try to roll for her myself, but I'm not expecting to get her, honestly.

Anyway, no need to worry about the Strengthening Quests. They're going to always be there until you complete them, so do them at your leisure.

More news for NA! Advance notice of a pickup gacha has been posted. It's called "The Three Knights/Four Calvaries & EXTRA" pickup summon. Each day of the rate up, a specific class gets servants on rate up. "Three Knights" refers to the Knight classes (Saber, Archer, and Lancer), and "Four Calvaries" refers to the Calvary classes (Rider, Caster, Assassin, and Berserker), plus EXTRA (which thus far is just Jeanne d'Arc), which is included with the Calvary classes.

Feb 1st-3rd @ 3:59 am: Knight Classes
Feb 3rd-5th @ 3:59 am: Calvary+EXTRA
Feb 5th-7th @ 3:59 am: Knight
Feb 7th-8th @ 3:59 am: Calvary+EXTRA

Servants on rate up are as follows.

Saber: Artoria (5 star), Altera (5 star), Mordred (5 star), Salter (4 star), Nero (4 star), Siegfried (4 star), d'Eon (4 star), Caesar (3 star), Gilles (3 star), Fergus (3 star)

Archer: Orion (5 star), Tesla (5 star), Emiya (4 star), Atalante (4 star), Robin (3 star), Euryale (3 star), David (3 star)

Lancer: Liz (4 star), Artoria Alter (4 star), Fionn (4 star), Cu (3 star), Proto Cu (3 star), Romulus (3 star), Hector (3 star), Diarmuid (3 star)

Rider: Drake (5 star), Marie (4 star), Martha (4 star), Anne and Mary (4 star), Medusa (3 star), Boudica (3 star), Ushi (3 star), Alexander (3 star)

Assassin & EXTRA: Jeanne (5 star), Jack (5 star), Stheno (4 star), Carmilla (4 star), Jing Ke (3 star), Jekyll (3 star)

Caster: Waver (5 star), Tamamo (5 star), Medea Lily (4 star), Nursery Rhyme (4 star), Mephistopheles (3 star), Medea (3 star), Cu (3 star), Gilles (3 star), Paracelsus (3 star), Babbage (3 star)

Berserker: Vlad (5 star), Heracles (4 star), Tamamo Cat (4 star), Lancelot (4 star), Frankenstein (4 star), Beowulf (4 star), Lu Bu (3 star), Darius III (3 star), Kiyohime (3 star)

Login #200 for me. I'm close to enough quartz for 4x 10-draws. And I gotta say, I'm tempted to throw out one or two of those for Garden of Order.

One day left in the event. I still never got a Melty Sweetheart drop, going through the event on only three of my own copies (Didn't buy the fourth, hoping I could have SOME luck with drops). I could very well end up not being able to MAX limit break it. Still have to get the Crystallized Lore too. Speaking of Lore, I think I had over 100 million QP when this event started. Now I'm down to 2 million. Just from taking Waver's latter two skills to 8, and two of Mash's skills to 10. Good thing I'm actually planning on making that MLB Mona Lisa now, because I'm probably going to need it next time The Vault gets a half-AP campaign.

Well, this is disappointing. I managed to buy everything I had prioritized, but I never got a Melty Sweetheart drop once. Therefore, I don't get to have a Max Limit Break version of it to keep around for cases I'll need it.

Garden of Order was just announced on their Facebook page. Final Mona Lisa and best (utility) 4* Assassin, here I come.

Dammit, knew I forgot something. Thanks for doing that update, DoubleEdged. I can at least give details and my impressions on Assassin Shiki, having used her A LOT on my old JP main account.

Even up to this point in the JP version, Shiki is considered the best 4 star Assassin in the game. It comes down to how well her entire kit works. Her first skill gives her Pierce Invincibility, a self-targeting Arts buff, and decreases the death resistance of one enemy (all these effects last one turn). Second skill is Mind's Eye (Fake), which works exactly like Heracles's (1 turn Evasion, 3 turns Crit Strength up buff), and her third skill increases her NP gauge at the cost of losing 1000 HP (starting at a 20% NP gauge increase at rank 1 and ending at 30% at rank 10). Her passive skills are Presence Concealment (increase crit star drop rate by 6%) and Independent Action (increase Crit Strength by 10%). Her attack deck is Quick/Quick/Arts/Arts/Buster. NP gain is at .8% per hit, 4% when hit, and her base crit star generation rate is at 25.6%. Her Quick attack deals 4 hits, Arts deals 2, and Buster deals 1, with Extra attack dealing 5 hits and NP dealing 3 hits.

You can probably tell from just a few details, especially comparing the NP gain and crit star gen per hit percentages with her passives, that Shiki does well at generating her own NP gauge, and a bit better at generating crit stars. She's able to exploit this with a decent crit star absorption weight as well, which can turn into being able to crit with her Arts cards for extra NP gauge or even for a stronger Buster attack (which is made stronger with Independent Action and her crit strength buff from Mind's Eye). Aside from that, with her Evasion buff from Mind's Eye, she has some sustainability, the 1000 HP loss from using her third skill isn't actually that big of a deal (if you're at a point where 1000 HP matters to keep Shiki alive, you've either already used the skill by then, or you've just been flat out unlucky or not properly prepared for the fight), and her first skill is literally there to be paired with her NP. Her NP is Arts based, single-target, and deals a lot of damage that can bypass defense, with a chance of inflicting Death. Being able to get her at NP5 as an event servant means you can easily overcharge her NP, which increases the chance of inflicting Death on an enemy.

In a nutshell, Assassin Shiki is designed with a bit of staying power, but she's predominantly designed to do three things: 1. Generate NP and crit stars as she attacks. 2. Deal extra damage from her crits after taking advantage of the crit stars she's generated. 2. Get her NP as fast as possible so she can either outright kill the enemy or do a lot of damage to it that it cannot mitigate at all.

Since she's Arts-focused, she fits best in an Arts team composition, and she's a good substitute for Vlad for a Crit Arts composition (or you could go with a more offensive Crit Arts comp and swap out either Waver or Tamamo, but you'd need to balance things carefully if you did that). Adding a 2030 to her will only make her even more effective, so I'd recommend doing that if you have that CE. She's also good for some really annoying non-Servant bosses, such as True Dragons, Banshees/Banshee Queens, and Giant Boars, due to being able to buff her NP's effects (just got to keep her alive long enough with the Giant Boars. Fatty HP Berserkers whose standard attacks damage the entire party are a pain in my ass).

I’m on the fence with these two servents. They don’t sound bad from drgnmastralex’s breakdown, but I might hang on to my tix and quartz for something else in the future

What do you mean two? Assassin Shiki is FREE. Unless you have Jack the Ripper or NP2+ Carmilla, Shiki will be the best Assassin you'll get, and goddammit, you ought to be getting her to NP5 during this event. Also, you'll HAVE to work on leveling up and Ascending Shiki if you want to complete all the missions in the event.

Saber Shiki, yeah, a different story. Survivability (Her YinYang being the exact opposite of Assassin Shiki's: Trade 10% NP Gauge to heal herself, 5000 HP/4 turn cooldown at rank 10), Arts Team shenanigans, and AOE Instant Death (at a lower effectiveness than Assassin Shiki's ST Instant Death stuff). Though these abilities come with much lower ATK for a 5* Servant, even my Saber Alter will have more raw power behind her.

Ah, so the 4 star is another of the 'welfare' servant? I guess it's not that bad. (I do have a Camillia with NP 2) and frankly I'd rather have jack. Still I guess it wouldn't hurt to have a better assassin than my lower ones. Carm, MHX being my heavy hitters and a decent Charles and Mata Hari - tho both are made of glass.

What I'm saying tho is that these characters dont scream to me 'must have' like say saber bride or Jalter (who is on the horizon if I've heard correctly). I'd rather focus on building up what I have already and getting some stuff I'm missing as it is.

Well, another meme got broken today. Up until today, all the rerun events had been either holiday-related or were events contained with the game itself. No collaborative events had gotten any reruns, despite them being some of the most popular due to their content and special stories.

But as I said, up until today. Because the first rerun collab event got announced for JP, and it's probably the most popular one: Kara no Kyokai. So for those of us who are playing both JP and NA, we're getting two doses of the same event in the same month. XD

I honestly won't complain, though. This event is one of my favorites, and getting Assassin Shiki and a bunch of helpful mats and skill gems on my newer JP account will be very helpful for when I go through the EoR chapters and Season 2.

Speaking of which, I'm in section 8 of the Shinjuku chapter. Some battles are easier than I remember, but I am feeling a bit intimidated to the point where I'm considering leveling the 5 star servants I have at 80 to 90 just to compensate. Already used a command seal party revive on the second Hessian Lobo fight, and the hardest ones with him are to come. Although I might just take it slow and recharge command seals while doing some more of the story in Shinjuku until the KnK rerun, who knows.

As for KnK in NA, I'm doing well. Almost at 60 missions cleared (should reach that tonight within the next hour), and I'm close to clearing out all the bottled water currency items (except void essence, because that stuff drops everywhere, and the silver exp cards which I'll eventually get). Just have three copies of the Shiki event shop CE left to go to clear all those CEs out, and I've started buying up the gears (which I am in serious need of). Some of my friends in real life and online are already above 70 missions cleared and most to all of the event shop cleared out, and it's only been three days for the event thus far.

So apparently the KnK rerun in Japan introduced a limited 4* Archer- Fujino Asagami (Mystic Eyes of Distortion). Have there been limited 4* Servants before this? Anyways, she appears to be one of the strongest 4*s to date. By far strongest Archer, and her raw power even beats out Saber Alter. Oh, and single target Buster NP.

Chaldea Boys Collection announced over here, as well as half-AP Main Quests leading into the Prison Tower event a week later. Everyone will get a voucher for one of the Boys Collection CEs, though I'm sure everyone will pick one of the 5*s. I'm leaning towards Teacher and I myself.

Summer events have had limited 4 stars before.

There have been limited 4 star servants in the past, yes.  First example of this was the first summer event, which had five of them.  Next example was Passionlip for the Extra CCC collab event, followed by the second summer event with five more limited 4 stars.  The thing about these limited 4 stars is that, outside of the summer events giving a second rate-up for the previous summer's limited servants, none of them have had other rate ups.  They've got a higher demand because of that, and could be considered rarer than the likes of Gil, Scath, or Nero Bride, even after factoring in rate ups and 4 stars having better odds of being rolled than 5 stars.  I'm lucky enough to have gotten Swimsuit Raikou and Swimsuit Nobunaga on my JP account (wanted Swimsuit Nitocris too, but I had run out of quartz by that time).  I was never able to get any of the first summer event's limiteds.  AT ALL. Which means I'm never getting Ruler Martha, who's one of the better 4 stars in the game.

For the Chaldeas Boys' campaign, I plan on getting "Kiss Your Hand", "Moonlit Four", or "Glassful Sweet Time", because the effects of those three seem the most useful to me going forward.  I'll probably go with "Kiss Your Hand", since that's the 5 star CE out of that bunch, which would make it harder to roll for normally.  

Don't plan on rolling in the Chaldeas Boys' gachas to get any more copies of those CEs, though.  Got at most five weeks before Jeanne Alter gets her first rate up, and I need to be as ready as I can be for that.  Currently have 261 quartz and eight tickets.  If I don't touch those and let my resources build up, I'll have over 300 quartz from log-in bonuses/weekly missions/maintenance, as well as all the quartz from the America Chapter quests; should also have at least 23 tickets by that time as well, from successive log-in bonuses, the prism shop next month, and the Dantes Challenge event in March.  Kind of wish I hadn't burned 120 quartz during the Valentine's event to get event CEs to help the grind now (especially since that was an abject failure), because that'd put me in a better position.  Here's hoping I have some good luck and get Jalter.

Can't really take advantage of the 1/2 AP Main Quest campaign because I'm already caught up on everything.  I'll just grind dailies until the Dantes event.  

Gah, I should’ve realized that. Oh well. Still, she’s reportedly extremely powerful, and summons a bridge just to crush her target in the distortion of said bridge.

We already got the news on the Chaldea Boys and 1/2 AP story quest campaigns, but here's some JP news!

An announcement for a Winter Celebration Campaign has been released. Rewards are as follows.

Log in daily for 10 quartz, 7 chains, 2 lamps, and 1 scarab.

That's pretty much it there. But there is more! A rate up is occurring during this time. Ozymandias and Cleopatra are the featured 5 stars, Nitocris (Caster) is the featured 4 star, and Alexander is also on rate up. Schedule as follows:

21 Feb - 23 Feb: Ozy & Cleo
24 Feb: Ozy
25 Feb: Cleo
26 Feb: Ozy
27 Feb: Cleo
28 Feb - 1 Mar: Ozy & Cleo
2 Mar: Ozy
3 Mar: Cleo
4 Mar: Ozy
5 Mar: Cleo
6 Mar - 7 Mar (until 12:59 JST): Ozy & Cleo (final day)

Chaldea boys and the Amakusa/Astolfo/Kid Gil rate ups were delayed an hour, but they're now live.  There's also a trio of trial quests where you can test out the above rate up servants.  Rewards are servant pieces and a ticket for the last part, and there are some good drops to be had.  I got a Heart, Spirit Lantern, and Serpent Jewel from them all.

Grabbed the CE "Kiss Your Hand", like I had planned.  I won't be rolling in this gacha, though.  Good luck to those who are rolling for Amakusa and Astolfo, though even if you don't get Astolfo now, chances are you'll eventually get him.  

Got four days left for the KnK collab rerun in JP, so I'm trying to make up for lost time by using apples. Thankfully, they made clearing the event missions a bit easier. It took 20 Rapunzels in the original version of the event to unlock room 604, right? Well, the rerun has dropped that to 10. Pretty damn helpful to clear it faster. I think they also swapped out the QP rewards for certain missions with 4 star Fou cards.