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Numbers listed on skills are listed as A/B with A being the base level of the skill and B being the max level of the skill. The same applies for potency listed on noble phantasm just swaped skill levels with NP levels, of course. If you have questions about any of the status effects or whatever just ask in the thread. This applies for all reviews going forward, so this will not be listed anymore from here on.

Attention: If you are new to FGO and using these reviews as a guide, they have gone under rewrites to educate a little bit more and also be less of a mess since when I first wrote these. Servants undergo changes in both skills and perspective from the playerbase so any number of changes can happen between now and later that renders something different so I will try to keep these updated relatively consistently, but I am also lazy and forgetful so keep that in mind when yelling at me.

With that said, let's go...



Mash Kyrielight (Galahad)
Shielder
3*/4* after Chapter 15-1 in Camelot
Debuts in Fate/Grand Order
Originates from Arthurian Mythology and the need for a mascot character for a mobile game

Cards: Quick/Arts/Arts/Buster/Buster

ATK: 1261/8730
HP: 6791/12877

Skills
1. Transient Wall of Snowflakes/Honorable Wall of Snowflakes: Increases party defense by 10%/15% for 3 turns after the skill change to Honorable Wall in Camelot Chapter 15-1 the buff becomes 15/20% for 3 turns and gains a 2000 damage reduction on the party for an attack (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns)
2. Obscurant Wall of Chalk: Grants one ally invincibility for 1 turn and raises NP by 10%/20%. (Cooldown: 9/7 Turns)
3. Shield of Rousing Resolution: Grants self taunt for 1 turn and increases NP regeneration rate by 200%/400% for 1 turn. (Cooldown: 8/6 Turns) (Unlocks after clearing London Chapter 4-2)

Passive Skills
1. Magic Resistance A: Increase debuff resist by 20%
2. Riding C: Increases quick card potency by 6%

Noble Phantasm
Lord Chaldeas (Art): Reduce damage taken by all party members by -100/-1000 for 3 turns. (Overcharge Effect: Increase party defense by 30%/50% for three turns.)
Lord Camelot (Art): Reduce damage taken by all party members by -100/-1000 for 3 turns and increase party attack by 30% except self for 3 turns. (Overcharge Effect: Increase party defense by 30%/50% for three turns.) (Unlocked by clearing Chapter 17-4 in Camelot)

PROS
+Great defensive skills
+Mash is strong defensive servant in general especially early game when you are building your archive of servants up and are needing ways to keep them safe.
+Arts based makes it easy to slot her into arts team and keep cycling her NP to make your team nigh invincible especially when coupled with general stall servants like Tamamo, Jeanne, or Waver.
+Has no weaknesses to any servants.
+Skills make her a solid tank using self-target with invincibility skill make her impossible to damage and drawing aggro from enemies in the same turn keeping the other servants healthy. The fact she can tank entire single-target NPs is a huge boon.
+Wall of Chalk is her best skill. It either provides a servant with protection, pushes them into NP, or both. Worst comes to worst you push them a little closer while keeping them safe.
+Being a 3* makes her less hungry for materials to upgrade her already really good abilities and she ascends along with the story making her cheap to ascend and her skills also cost like nothing to upgrade making her very effective for very little.
+Has 0 Cost making it possible to slot her on any team and if you're looking for filler she functions pretty well as that too.
+Later changes to a 4* servant in Camelot and receives an upgrade to her NP and first skill that make her even better.

CONS
-Damage is incredibly mediocre and has no strengths on anything to exploit.
-Upgrades alongside the story meaning you need to grind through the story to make her better.
-Due to needing to upgrade alongside story, she is actually quite shit for a large portion of the Part 1 story. She's missing skills and doesn't do enough on her own.
-After Bond LV5 she is capped and cannot gain anymore bond EXP. Even to this day in JP she has not had her bond levels expanded, so if you are someone who needs to minmax your bond exp this can easily be a bad thing.

Overall Opinion: Mash is good, way good. She starts out bad, but when you beat the Part 1 story she shows her true shine. Her skills are very strong. After the buff the first skill becomes a genuinely solid way to mitigate a lot of damage, when combined with other servants with defensive buffs like Waver it gets obscene how much damage can be stopped. Taunt and Invincibility together is a good way to prevent anyone from taking damage for the whole turn and eating ST NPs. Her NP being arts means it is chainable to get full benefits and she can arts chain with other arts servants for more NP charge too. They give you a really good servant to use in this game on any team, it's just a shame you have to wait so long for her to hit her peak.
Score: (Prior to Camelot) 6/10, (After all of her buffs and ascensions) 10/10


Arash
Archer
1*
Debuts in Fate/Prototype: Fragments of Blue and Silver
Originates from Persian Mythology

Cards: Quick/Arts/Arts/Buster/Buster

ATK: 1057/5816
HP: 1424/7122

Skills
1. Toughness EX: Increases own defense by 10-20% and poison resistance by 80%-160% for 3 turns (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns)
2. Clairvoyance A: Increases crit star generation by 20%/40% for 3 turns. (Cooldown: 8/6 Turns)
3. Arrow Construction A: Charges own NP gauge by 20%/30% and self heals for for 1000/3000HP. (Cooldown: 8/6 Turns) (Unlocks from strengthening quest)

Passive Skills
1. Independent Action C: Increase crit damage by 6%
2. Magic Resistance C: Increase debuff resist by 15%

Noble Phantasm
Stella (Buster): AOE attack that kills user after damage calculation, has an upgrade gained through finishing his Interlude that increases the NP damage multiplier by 200% and overcharge damage multiplier is doubled from original values (Overcharge: Increases overall damage by 0%/400% changed to 0%/800% after Interlude)

PROS
+Requires minimal investment on materials and QP, you need to level up basically one skill ever with this dude and it's Arrow Construction.
+Is a great farming servant due to being able to nuke a wave and after nuking he dies so it lets you tag in the servant you're looking to clear the last two waves with.
+Low cost allowing you to play around with servants and ces on your team
+Has an awesome showing in Camelot
+Stella is one of the fastest NP animations in FGO
+Satoshi Tsuruoka

CONS
-Stats are all pretty lackluster to use him as a servant in an extensive fight
-The other two skills that aren't the NP charge don't really push towards his NP which is his big thing.
-If they ever update his NP animation it better never be lengthened if anything he should just explode immediately upon use

Overall Opinion: Arash is fucking awesome. In the endless hellscape that is the loop of playing this game you're guaranteed to do one of three things that require actual team comps: Story bosses, Challenge Quests, and Farming. Arash fits the last one like a glove. He nukes a wave for a shitton of damage, dies, and gets a new body in for the next two waves in no time at all. He even has the decency to have a short NP animation that competes with Bunyan's for one of the shortest ones in the game. The only thing he doesn't do is challenge content and tbh, he can do some of those sometimes depending on how you setup. Really, though being a significant enough farming servant at such a low cost gives him value over a ton of other servants, he's worth putting the investment into.
Score: 10/10


Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Caster
1*
Debuts in Fate/Grand Order
Originates from 18th Century Austria

Cards: Quick/Arts/Arts/Arts/Buster

ATK: 944/5195
HP: 1425/7129

Skills
1. Protection of the Muse (Fake) EX: Increases party's arts cards performance by 22%/44% for one turn. (Cooldown: 7/5 turns)
2. Aesthetic Appreciation B: Reduces one enemy's NP damage by 9%/18% for 1 turn. (Cooldown: 7/5 turns)
3. Eine kleine Nachtmusik EX: Receive 20/50 crit stars. (Cooldown: 8/6 turns) (Unlocked after strengthening quest)

Passive Skills
1. Territory Creation B: Increases potency of arts cards by 8%

Noble Phantasm
Requiem for Death (Arts): Enemy party debuff that has a separate 60/80% chance to proc an attack and defense debuff and always inflicts curse for 3 turns (Overcharge: Increases potency of the debuffs by 20/40% for the attack and defense and damage from curse is 500/2500HP per turn)

PROS
+Lower cost support based caster
+First skill is really good for arts shenanigans
+Third skill is good for any team at max level because it's 50 stars which guarantees 100% on all five cards, combined with the plugsuit mystic code and you use him to turn one grant 50 stars and tag him out for a support caster with strong buffs and go to town the second the fight starts.
+NP chaining is a really good thing with him. Not only do the defense and attack debuffs become even more powerful at that point, but after the addition of CEs like Demonic Boddhisattva it becomes even easier to achieve without having to touch overcharge at all
+Arts chains on arts teams plus arts buff can help stack up NP very quickly, when paired with another support caster and DPS his debuffs can stack pretty consistently
+Ironically he synergizes rather well with his rival, Antonio Salieri.

CONS
-1* servant means he is made of paper and does jack shit for damage. He will more than likely not see the end of a fight unless debuffs and defense are being stacked so high as to make him impossible to hurt.
-Is only going to be used to his full potential on arts based teams you will never see him on another team except maybe to take advantage of his crit stars skill.
-Both stat debuffs are chance based meaning you can just whiff on his NP entirely and get only curse and DOTs in this game are good in very few scenarios
-The only thing he really has over higher ranked casters is his third skill, he's not that special once you get access to characters like Waver or Caster Gilgamesh. This is not to say he is entirely irrelevant, of course.
-Second skill is ass

Overall Opinion: Mozart is a decent enough support caster for what is a 1* servant. He doesn't stand the test of time like Andersen did, but he's hardly bad. Reducing enemy attack and defense is always a good thing especially when the base is 20%, the only problem is how RNG it is. His second skill is only gonna reduce damage so much, you will more than likely still die to any given NP it reduces the damage of. His most significant skill needs an investment to level 10 to get you max stars, it doesn't need that if you already have some stars but you still generally want to get it as high as you can to guarantee it. Mozart's solid and while he does drop off after a bit, he'll serve pretty well early game and through some more generic content before he really sees any hit in usefulness. That all being said, Mozart's still got a ton of value in him for a 1* and I feel like I should increase his score because of that, if only a little.
Score: 8/10


Kojiro Sasaki
Assassin
1*
Debuts in Fate/Stay Night
Originates from Sengoku Era Japan

Cards: Quick/Quick/Quick/Arts/Buster

ATK: 1042/5735
HP: 1244/6220

Skills
1. Mind's Eye (Fake) A: Grants Evasion (Damage negation) for 1 turn and increases crit damage by 20%/40% for 3 turns. (Cooldown: 8/6 Turns)
2. Vitrify B+: Remove debuffs and receive 5/15 crit stars. (Cooldown: 6/4 Turns)
3. Knowledge of the Sowa B/B++: Ignores Evasion and increases crit star generation by 10%/30% for 3 turns, after strengthening it becomes Knowledge of the Sowa B++ which increases crit stargen by 30/90%, keeps Sure Hit, and adds an increase to star absorb by 200/500% all for 3 turns (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns)

Passive Skills
1. Presence Concealment D: Increases crit star gen rate by 4%

Noble Phantasm
Tsubame Gaeshi (Quick): Extremely powerful attack to single enemy and grants crit stars after damage, after second strengthening the damage multiplier is increased by 400% and 20% 3-turn quick buff is added to the NP that applies before damage (Overcharge: Receive 15/35 crit stars)

PROS
+Stars generate easily from Vitrify, NP, and quick cards
+NP gain is okay and accelerates well from crit stars
+Has a self cleanse and a 3-turn sure hit which makes him a decent choice against any enemies with dodges
+After NP buff it is even more absurdly powerful and also empowers his quick cards now after use
+After NP buff and addition of Skadi to the game, can see more use than as a meme character
+New animations are amazing
+Is still a meme
+Is the main event of Shimosa (Epic of Remnant 3 Spoiler)
+LEGEND OF THE SAMURAI (Final Boss of Part 1 spoilers)

CONS
-1* stats mean his overall damage output and health are severely limited. Without proper support he is going to do jack shit for damage outside of NP. Even after the NP buff, it still takes a lot to get him to the insane numbers that he can potentially display
-NP gain outside of crits is lackluster. If you lead with his arts card on crits, you can get a decent bit through that but every other combination doesn't generate a lot and he needs support to get him more or CEs like Divine Banquet or any NP charge CE
-Is no longer wholly invalid after a certain point, but still is suboptimal. After you build a steady supply of assassins (Especially ST ones) there is no real reason to be using him unless you are me and love the character.

Overall Opinion: Kojiro's been treated pretty well this past year. He got a decent number of buffs to his NP, awesome new animations, and his card type finally got a support caster and she's really frickin good. The character still struggles from the problem of being a 1* servant with a burst toolkit, but he's definitely in a better place now. If he were a 3* he'd be a really good ST 3* servant, but as it stands that spot's gonna have to sit with Izo until they eventually make like a Saber Kojiro or something. There's still a lot of value in his toolkit despite his faults so he definitely deserves to be rated a bit higher now.
Score: 7/10


Mata Hari
Assassin
1*
Debuts in Fate/Grand Order
Originates from 20th Century Netherlands

Cards: Quick/Quick/Quick/Arts/Buster

ATK: 977/5377
HP: 1313/6565

Skills
1. Espionage A++: Increases stargen rate by 10%/30%. (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns)
2. Pheromone B: 30%/60% chance to charm Male for 1 Turn and reduce all enemies defense by 10%/20% for 3 turns. (Cooldown: 8/6 Turns)
3. Double-Cross B: Inflict Skill Seal on an enemy for 1 turn and reduce their defense by 10%/20% for 3 turns (Cooldown: 8/6 Turns) (Unlocks after Strengthening Quest)

Noble Phantasm
Mata Hari (Arts): 40%/60% chance to inflict charm on all enemies and applies a 1-turn attack and defense buff (Overcharge: Debuff potency varies between 20/40%)

PROS
+Disruption in the form of charm skill and NP
+NP, Double-Cross and Pheromone can stack defense debuffs on enemy to open up damage for the team more
+Skill seal is very good at locking out enemy servants with really scary abilities or from spamming evasion constantly
+Can setup a debuff hell if the team is built around her to some extent
+Works well with Shuten-Douji and fucking Phantom of the Opera, of all characters due to their abilities to open up more debuff resistance

CONS
-1* stats make her very squishy, needs to be lucky to not get completely stuffed out or supported
-Her skill charm only being usable on men severely limits it and it is also RNG with only 60% at max level limiting it further
-NP gain sucks due to heavy focus on quick cards with her one arts card, needs to hit crits to build it decently
-Stargen is bad with low hitcounts on her quick cards she is gonna need a QQQ chain to get a decent number even with her skill
-Needs specific CEs to help counter balance some of her issues like Record Holder opening up her chances to debuff more or Burning Tale of Love doing the same but also letting her deal some extra damage to her preferred enemy.
-There a few servants who support her quite well, but as she is a fucking support servant already getting support for your support is a little redundant

Overall Opinion: Mata Hari is one of the few servants who has made it from release to 3 and a half years later entirely untouched. This character has been largely discovered since then and the discovery that has been made is... she's bad. That's it. Her skill seal is a really good skill at any rate and that gives her a decent bit of value in itself, but when you couple it with how unreliable her stuns are without trying to force them more in some way it gets a bit ridiculous. Her NP gain suffers from her triple quick cards a lot and makes it incredibly difficult for her to use it with any consistency and she doesn't do much as a support servant is supposed to do. Her immediate contemporary in this rank is Mozart, who has a more generic toolkit than her and while it's been established he drops off eventually, he does not suffer nearly as bad as Mata Hari who is questionable in how usable she is from any skill level of the game. There are rare occasions when she gets to shine, but she still has so little value compared to so many other 1* servants and servants of the niche she is a part of.
Score: 4/10


Spartacus
Berserker
1*
Debuts in Fate/Apocrypha.
Originates from 1st Century BC Thrace

Cards: Quick/Arts/Buster/Buster/Buster

ATK: 922/5073
HP: 1544/7722

Skills
1. Honor of Suffering B/B+: Regenerate 200/600 HP for 5 turns, after strengthening it becomes 500/1500hp per turn (Cooldown: 9/7 Turns)
2. Unyielding Will A: Is granted guts that revives for 1hp for five turns and increases NP gauge by 10%/30%. (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns)
3. Triumphant Return of the Sword B: Increase buster card potency for 1 turn and recover 1000/2000hp (Cooldown: 8/6 turns) (Unlocks after strengthening quest)

Passive Skills
1. Madness Enhancement EX: Increase buster card potency by 12%

Noble Phantasm
Crying Warmonger (Buster): Powerful attack to all enemies that ignores defense and restores hp, after strengthening, NP receives an overall buff in damage and healing by 100% and 1000hp respectively (Overcharge: Recovers 3000/7000 HP, 4000/8000 after strengthening)

PROS
+Strong sustain through all of the healing he has and the guts
+Berserker-class AOE NP makes him excellent for farming waves
+Generally good farming servant as a whole. He can buff his own damage, hits the NP damage modifier cap easily, and has a 30% NP charge at max level which accelerates his NP gain faster. After his strengthening buff his NP becomes stronger too
+Bond CE is honestly decent as far as bond CEs go. Spartacus has a lot of sustain already and adding another guts to that is good
+Has a decent number of strengthening quests meaning more quartz for you
+Gets an amazing scene in Lostbelt 3
+Satoshi Tsuruoka

CONS
-Berserk-class and 1* stats make him very susceptible to just instantly evaporating, be smart with his heals and guts
-Usefulness outside of farming and clearing waves is pretty limited

PRO/CON?
+/-His new animation update has him inflate and it looks weird and frightens me and I don't know if this is good or bad

Overall Opinion: A year ago, I wrote a review about Spartacus where I said he was barely much better than Mata Hari. Over the last year, I realize something, I'm a fucking idiot who was too used to what we had in JP and did not remember what it was like working with less stuff to do your farming while you scrape your way through 2015-2016 FGO. I will gladly eat my words and say, that in the same vein that Arash finds himself being so heavily used as a farming servant, Spartacus also finds his place there as well. He is able to accelerate gaining his NP, has damage advantage on most of the enemies, and not only can buff his own damage, but got quests to further buff his damage. He is a really good servant with a ton of value in him for the lowest servant ranking. Also he can actually be used in certain challenge quests pretty well.
Score: 10/10


Asterios
Berserker
1*
Debuts in Fate/Grand Order
Originates from Greek Mythology

Cards: Quick/Arts/Buster/Buster/Buster

ATK: 1097/6037
HP: 1320/6604

Skills
1. Monstrous Strength A: Increases own attack by 10%/30% for 3 Turns (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns)
2. Natural Demon A++: Increases attack debuff resistance by 50%/100% and increases defense by 20%/40% for 3 turns. (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns)
3. Labrys of the Abyss C: Increases star absorption rate by 3000%/6000% and buster card performance for 1 turn. (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns) (Unlocks after strengthening quest)

Passive Skills
1. Madness Enhancement B: Increase buster card potency by 8%

Noble Phantasm
Chaos Labyrinth (Arts): Reduce all enemies attack by 10%/20% and defense for 6 turns, after interlude another attack and defense debuff are added that reduces both by 40% for 1 turn (Overcharge: Enemy's defense reduced by 10/30%)

PROS
+High attack stat for 1* servants
+NP lasts 6-turns and for one turn also has added debuffs that further neuter the enemy
+His damage is high enough to make something out of his buster based attacks and he can absorb crit stars with the same skill that buffs his buster cards
+Giving him any CE that buffs his NP gain or outright gives him charge is highly beneficial, IE: Kaleidoscope, Demonic Boddhisattva, Prisma Cosmos
+Works well with Waver and Mash who can both up his defense and grant him more NP charge
+If you can get him to pop off, he can sometimes just take no damage despite his weakness

CONS
-Is very prone to dying from random crits or just being focused more than a few times
-His NP gain is bad and he needs help from CEs and servants with party boosting NP to get it consistently
-Needs either Demonic Boddhisattva or NP chains to get anything out of his overcharge
-Due to poor NP gain and how powerful the 1-turn debuff on it is, you have to be incredibly patient with it sometimes as it's too powerful to not have ready for certain situations which puts Asterios at risk more
-Due to the above problems, long winded fights with Asterios tend to be pretty difficult and give him a higher learning curve on how to efficiently use him than most other 1* servants

Overall Opinion: Asterios is a servant who has largely remained the same from the start of the game until now, but he still finds use in fights due to how strong the debuffs he has are and that he surprisingly has good damage. That being said when you look at him critically, he's probably one of the most fragile berserkers in the game with his lack of damage negation or even a guts, really. The fact that he has stood the test of time and still finds use says a lot about how much worth he has in him. He can be a difficult character to use, but when his stuff goes off it is genuinely powerful and worth the struggle sometimes.
Score: 9/10


Paul Bunyan
Berserker
1*/Limited free servant from the All the Statesmen! event
Debuts in Learning with Manga! FGO
Originates from American & Canadian Folklore

Cards: Quick/Arts/Buster/Buster/Buster

ATK: 1099/6044
HP: 1239/6196

Skills
1. Happy Comrades: Buffs party's buster cards and crit damage by 10/20% for 3 turns (Cooldown: 8/6 Turns)
2. Lake of Bean Soup A: Heals party's hp by 1000/2000hp (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns)
3. Storm of Popcorn B: Decrease all enemies' defense by 10/20% for 3 turns and healing potency by 30/50% for 5 turns (Cooldown: 8/6 Turns)

Passive Skills
1. Madness Enhancement D: Buff buster cards by 4%

Noble Phantasm
Marvelous Exploits (Buster): AOE attack that also reduces the enemy party's defense for 5 turns (Overcharge: 10/30% defense reduction)

PROS
+Highest attack stat of the 1* servants
+Is very obviously a servant made for farming
+NP is the shortest in the game, it is absolutely a reference to Gudako's bitching about no NP skip
+Entire toolkit centers around reducing waves of enemies health while buffing your own party to shit on them more
+Has a party wide heal
+The first Riyo servant added to the game and suitably weird
+Low cost in both party and material wise to both ascend and buff her skills
+Is a surprisingly decent buster support character in her own right
+Babe is basically a blue basketball that Bunyan beats the enemy up with
+First bronze servant in the game since it launched

CONS
-1* stats, glass cannon, etc.
-NP gain is bad, you're gonna need to give her a CE that starts her with some level of NP charge if you want to get her to the point where she can do her job well
-Outside of wave killing, Bunyan's uses can be somewhat limited
-Is a limited servant attached to an event that runs near 2nd anniversary and again the year later, after that who knows if she's ever coming back because she doesn't get added to the friend gacha
-There's not a lot of negatives to say about her, she's incredibly simple

Overall Opinion: Bunyan was a big surprise when she first dropped and at first it was kind of weird, but as the coming days went on people realized she was not only incredibly useful for farming, but an actual funny character in her wacky ass event. Don't miss out on her when she drops after 2nd Anniversary because she is worth the get.
Score: 10/10