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Angra Mainyu
Avenger
0*
Debuts in Fate/Hollow Ataraxia. Technically he's both mentioned and shown in Fate/Stay Night, but not really in the context of an actual character in the narrative. And back in those days we just called him Grail-kun.
Originates from Zoroastrianism

Cards: Quick/Quick/Arts/Arts/Buster

ATK: 5635
HP: 7981

Skills
Left Fang Grinder: Decrease target enemy's critical hit rate by 30%/50% for 3 turns. (Cooldown: 8/6 Turns)
Right Fang Grinder: Decrease target enemy's NP Charge by 1, and their attack by 10%/30%. (Cooldown: 8/6 Turns) (Unlocks after 1st Ascension)
Void Wish: Increase Quick Card Performance by 20%/40% per turn, up to 100%/200% on turn 5. Die at the end of the fifth turn. (Cooldown: 10/8 turns) (Unlocks after 3rd Ascension) (Interlude: Cooldown reduced to 9/7 Turns, gain a 50% HP Guts for 6 turns that can be layered on top of other Guts effects)

Noble Phantasm
Verg Avesta - Falsy Copy of Inscribed Creation (Arts): Stun self for 1 turn. Restore 1000 HP to self. At end of enemy's turn, deal damage to all enemies equal to two times the amount of damage taken during the stun. (Overcharge: Increases health restored)

PROS
+Stargen isn't terrible
+Neither is NP Gain
+Void Wish is a ridiculously strong buff at max power - his quick cards are hitting harder than Jack's, once you account for the Assassin Tax
+Verg Avesta is useful on certain gimmick fights, since the amount of damage it deals is set and therefore is a 'true' defense ignore. Some bosses have an inherent defense buff that even defense ignoring NPs don't fully ignore, but Verg Avesta deals its damage no matter what.
+Is the best character in the franchise
+Right Fang Grinder is a guaranteed NP Charge reduction
+HP is decent for a 3* Avenger
+Grailing him will win friends and influence enemies


CONS
-Left Fang Grinder might be the most worthless skill in the game
-Right Fang Grinder is pretty underwhelming
-Kills himself
-Verg Avesta's max damage is equal to 2x Angra's HP -2, since it doesn't go off if he dies and gets guts'd back to life. So his max damage is somewhere in the 20k range. Literally any AOE NP except like, unbuffed Babbage, does that much.
-Attack stat is pathetic even for his rarity
-Despite being a 0*, is not free cost-wise. Functionally, he's a 2*.
-Even with his buff at max performance, is outperformed by pretty much any Quick attacker, once you factor in that most of them also have self-buffs
-Can't even quick brave chain
-Maybe 1% of the game's players will ever roll him

Overall Opinion: Angra's gimmick is intentionally being the worst servant in the game, and he manages to fail at even that, which is kind of poetic for his life. Do not take that as him being 'good,' but if you have him he's easy enough to level that you might as well do it so you can kill the crabs in Summer Part 1. Or Siegfried in Nerofest. Or whatever. Don't ever expect him to actually accomplish much outside of that, and even leaning into his Void Wish gimmick is more actively harmful than anything. Also you can kill the crabs with curse/poison damage. But hey! He's probably better than Babbage. Maybe. There is all of one scenario where Angra is more helpful than most servants, anyway.

Score: 3.5/10



Hundred-Faced Hassan
Assassin
3*
Debuts in Fate/Zero
Originates from 11th Century Persia

Cards: Quick/Quick/Arts/Arts/Buster

ATK: 6686
HP: 9310

Skills
Library of Stored Information C: Buffs own np gen rate by 10/20% and crit star gen by 20/40% for 3 turns (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns)
Expert of Many Specializations A+: Grants self a 1-turn evasion, and an individual 60/80% chance to proc a 30% 3-turn buff to each card type (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns) (Unlocks after 1st ascension)
Battle Retreat B: Heals self for 2000/4000hp (Demerit: Removes own buffs) (Cooldown: 8/6 Turns) (Unlocks after 3rd Ascension)


Noble Phantasm
Zabaniya (Arts): Big damage to one enemy and reduces crit chance by 10/50% for 3 turns. Interlude buffs damage and adds an arts resistance debuff by 20% for 3 turns. (Overcharge: Increases effect of crit chance reduction)

PROS
+Great stargen with first skill, decent NP gain with first skill
+Has a dodge
+Post-interlude NP hits decently hard and has a good debuff
+Their buffs are decent if they all land
+Good HP
+Skills have low cooldowns


CONS
-Stargen and NP are mediocre and bad without first skill
-Second skill is pure RNG
-Third skill is kind of terrible
-Low attack
-The pre-interlude debuff on their NP is garbage

Overall Opinion: Hundred-faced is a pretty generic 3* Assassin. Jing Ke's NP does more damage, but on the flipside, Hundred-Faced is a decent general use Assassin due to her first skill. She can maybe be used as a partner to another Arts Assassin, like Ryougi, and work well in that role, but she's not exactly going to be setting the world on fire. There's nothing super wrong with her, and she works fine, so use her if you need an Assassin-shaped warm body. Honestly, despite being a star lower, I'd say Cursed Arm is the better of the two Hassans.
Score: 6/10



Iskander
Rider
5*
Debuts in Fate/Zero
Originates from 4th Century BC Greece

Cards: Quick/Arts/Arts/Buster/Buster

ATK: 11560
HP: 13219

Charisma A: Increase all allies attack by 10/20% for 3 turns (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns)
Military Tactics B: Increase all allies' NP damage by 9/18% for 1 turn (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns) (Unlocks after 1st Ascension)
Lightning Conqueror EX: Increase own buster card performance by 30/50% and stargen by 50% for 1 turn (Cooldown: 8/6 Turns) (Unlocks after 3rd Ascension)


Noble Phantasm
Ionioi Hetairoi (Buster): Big damage to all enemies, reduces defense of all enemies by 10% for 3 turns. Interlude adds more damage and a crit damage debuff. (Overcharge: Increases defense reduction)

PROS
+Has high star weight even for a Rider
+Very high Attack and HP, 4th highest of all Riders in both categories, and the ones with more Attack than him haven't been added to NA yet
+NP does incredible damage with all his buffs active
+Buster Brave Chain with third skill active is very damaging
+Especially if he crits

CONS
-NP gain is mediocre, verging on bad. His interlude also slightly increases his NP Gain, but it still isn't great.
-Barely generates stars, with only one Quick card. And it's a bad Quick card.
-Every skill he has is just 'do more damage,' has no utility or niche
-No defensive capabilities whatsoever
-Requires dedicated support to even get him to his NP
-Hetaroi might crash the game if your phone is bad

Overall Opinion: Iskander exists to one thing: nuke a wave off the face of the earth. He's incredibly good at farming and waveclear and incerdibly bad at dealing with anything that might live through his NP. With the defense debuff on his NP and the party-wide nature of his first two skills, he can function very well in a full farm team where the goal is to basic attack down the first two waves then nuke the third. Blackbeard/Ushiwakamaru/Iskander is a budget team that can deal with pretty much any Caster node in the game that doesn't end in a story boss.

But he has no NP Gain, so if he uses his NP and the wave lives, well, that's his job done. At that point he's almost literally just a ball of stats and nothing else. He's outclassed by Drake in everything that isn't nuking waves, and Drake isn't that far behind him in that category, only really lacking his third skill and the defense debuff on her NP. If he can maybe get some crits going he isn't terrible, but you can say that about every Rider. Ultimately, Iskander isn't bad, but he's a luxury item to slightly speed up farming certain nodes/events, not a staple of high-end boss killing teams.

And yes, this does mean that Waver with a 2030 equipped is his best friend.

Score: 5.5/10




Kiritsugu Emiya
Assassin
4*
Debuts in Fate/Zero
Originates from Kamen Rider Gaim

Cards: Quick/Quick/Arts/Arts/Buster

ATK: 8958
HP: 11168

Skills
Magecraft B: Buffs own Arts Card Performance by 24%/40% for one turn. (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns)
Lover of the Holy Grail A+: Grant self Invincibility Pierce for three turns, buff own Crit Damage by 30%/50% for three turns. Reduce Debuff Resistance of all allies except self by 20% for three turns. (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns) (Unlocks after 1st Ascension
Scapegoat C: Grant an ally Taunt for 1 turn. Gain 3/15 Critical Stars. (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns) (Unlocks after 3rd Ascension)

Noble Phantasm
Chronos Rose (Arts): Big damage to single target, reduce enemy NP gauge by 1, and reduce crit chance by 10/50% for 3 turns. Interlude makes the attack ignore defense and increases damage. (Overcharge: Further reduces crit chance)

PROS
+Incredibly good stargen due to high hit counts on his quick and buster cards.
+Selectable taunt on third skill is an incredibly unique niche that allows him to take advantage of servants who have defense buffs, invincibility, or evades in their kits.
+Arts based with an Arts NP, so it is very spammable.
+NP Reduces enemy NP Gauge, so he works well on an Arts stall team.
+NP in general is pretty strong after interlude
+Invincibility ignore lasts 3 turns, which is an incredibly long time for a defense ignore. Any enemies that rely on damage negation are helpless.
+Has a kind of cool outfit
+His VA gets drunk and sings about the plot of random episodes of 24 and CSI

CONS
-NP gain is really bad outside of arts chains and crits on arts cards.
-Very reliant on getting into a groove where he can spam his NP and his two arts cards to build his NP back up
-Star absorb is also bad. He has no real way of absorbing stars outside of other servants having worse star absorb rates than him and he has no way to influence them.
-His third skill can be useless on certain teams, if he and his other two allies are both squishy
-Only survivability skill is giving someone else taunt
-Attack stat is below average, and he is arts based. Damage on basic attacks can be pretty low.
-Bullied Arturia

Overall Opinion: Kiritsugu is a great Arts DPS who is unfortunately burdened by the phrase 'Arts DPS'. Arts teams have an inherent strength in their ability to spam their NPs, but they also have an inherent weakness in that they don't have crits or raw damage to their names, and while Kiritsugu can generate stars, he isn't amazing at using them, even with his crit damage buff, barring a team built around letting him do that. And if you're going to build a team around letting an Arts Servants with low star weight deal tons of damage with crits, I'd be happy to introduce you to Vlad.

However, Kiritsugu's still good. Scapegoat is a very unique skill that can work well with certain servants and skills, he does good damage for his attack stat, and his NP is pretty great. And he busts out a Counter-Strike ass Uzi in his buster animation, so points for that.

Score: 7/10



Irisviel von Einzbern
Caster
4*
Debuts in Fate/Zero
Originates from Why Didn't Arturia Just Fuck Her and All Of Their Problems Would Have been Solved: The Movie

Cards: Quick/Arts/Arts/Arts/Buster

ATK: 8237
HP: 12476

Skills
Commitment At A: Increases own healing potency by 30/50% for 1 turn (Cooldown: 9/7 Turns)
Child of Nature A: Grant self Invincibility for 1 turn and increases own NP Gain by 20/30% for 3 turns (Cooldown: 8/6 Turns) (Unlocks after 1st Ascension)
Magic Medicine A: Heal one ally 2000/3000hp (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns) (Unlocks after 3rd Ascension)


Noble Phantasm
Song of the Grail (Arts): Heal the party for 2000/3000hp, grant entire party Guts for 3 turns (Overcharge: Increases the amount of health Guts grants upon revival by 1000/3000hp)

PROS
+Good NP gain
+High HP
+Great on stall teams thanks to NP effecting the whole party
+An easily obtainable healer for if you don't have Medea Lily or another alternative
+NP is an incredibly unique skill - there are few ways of granting allies Guts, and no ways of granting the entire party Guys at once

CONS
-Damage is awful
-Her first skill has a ridiculously long cooldown for what it is
-Third skill being her only healing outside of NP limits her ability to sustain the team
-She is not a fire and forget healer, needs a dedicated Arts team to make full use of her NP
-NP can be awkward to spam since everyone needs to have blown their Guts already for it to be most effective
-Synergizes very poorly with servants with inherent Guts, or CEs with Guts


Overall Opinion: Irisviel exists only to give the entire team Guts. Her damage is terrible, her healing outside of her NP is medicore and limited, she has no cleanses or buffs or anything else, she just grants everyone Guts. On the other hand, granting everyone Guts is an incredibly strong thing to do. Enemy with a low charge AOE NP? Hey, here's Guts. Boss whose gimmick kills someone at a certain breakpoint, like half HP or when you kill their adds? Hey, Guts. She's basically the opposite of Iskander - she's useless at farming, but when it comes to very specific challenge content, she shines. She's the kind of servant who sits in your box for six months and then you bust out to beat a Singularity boss, or a challenge event. You're gonna be seeing a lot of her when Nerofest rolls back around, with all its gimmick bosses.

Score: 6/10