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Alright we got servants from Summer 2 here. It should go without saying you're gonna see some half naked ladies here so don't look at this shit at work or other places you don't want to be called out for being a filthy degenerate in.

Also you'll have to excuse the discrepancies in some image sizes on this review, some uploaded fine not breaking the 512kb limit, but others required resizing

Another fyi, since all of these servants are limited I'm not attaching it to every rarity like I have in the past, you can infer it from it being a summer banner

Let's begin


Nero Claudius
Caster
5*
Debuts in Fate/Extra
Originates from 1st Century Rome

Cards: Quick/Arts/Arts/Buster/Buster

ATK: 1,677/10,857
HP: 2,007/13,685

Skills
1. Runaway Privilege EX: Charge own NP gauge by 30/50% and a 3-turn NP gain buff (30/50%) if health is less than 50% (Cooldown: 8/6 Turns)
2. Seven Crowns C: Buff own attack and defense by 30% each and ignores class disadvantage when attacked all for 3 turns (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns)
3. Undying Magus A: Targetable guts to an ally (1 Hp) and buff target's attack by 30/50%; both for 3 turns (Cooldown: 9/7 Turns)

Passives
1. Riding B: Quick cards buff by 8%
2. Territory Creation A+: Arts cards buff by 11%
3. Item Construction (Odd) EX: HP Recovery buff by 10%

Noble Phantasm
Laudă Lentum Domus Ilusterias (Buster): AOE Damage attack that applies NP damage buff and pierce to self before damage is applied for 1-turn (Overcharge: NP Damage buffs by 20/60%)

PROS
+One of the few gold buster based casters
+Several buffs that pour into attack stat combined with her NP buffs applying before NP damage give Nero high damage output when at her peak
+Seven Crowns is a pretty nutty skill that gives her big ass buffs to both her attack and defense while negating her defense weaknesses and is on a 5-Turn cooldown. She is able to take a decent bit of punishment from her disadvantaged types for about three turns making her especially scary against bereserkers.
+Targetable guts with an attack buff gives Nero support capabilities, but its main use is further jacking up her attack and giving her another sustainability option.
+Pierce applying before NP... never bad.
+Unsurprisingly, Nero synergizes with Merlin very well. Having two arts cards with double Merlin grants her pretty consistent Arts chains and combined with her NP charge and his charisma she can jump to NP pretty quickly. She works in conjunction with a good amount in supports owing largely to the fact most supports in this game are arts based and despite being buster her deck and classification can accommodate that.
+One of the best NP Animations in the game
+Twintails
+It's Nero with funnels what more are you looking for?
+Good luck Hazel

CONS
-Lower end attack stat for a 5* servant combined with caster tax. This will not be a massive concern when buffed, but if you are using Nero in challenge fights or bosses that tend to go longer her off turns have her hitting like a noodle on anything that isn't an assassin or zerker.
-Seven Crowns doesn't remove damage disadvantage so Rulers and Riders are still a problem for her even if she doesn't get run over by the latter now.
-Runaway Privilege EX is a good skill for the NP charge, but you will not realistically see the NP gain buff or at least a significant use from it. Most of the time you use this skill it's gonna be to push into NP or directly after you've used NP to begin building towards another. The latter it would be fine for, but the 50% hp conditional makes it so any point Nero could realistically see use from it come at a later point in the fight where the fight either would be ending or she would die soon. It's not the craziest condition, but in most of the fights you would use Nero in it's not realistic.
-Stargen itself isn't awful for a servant with one quick card, but you're going to want 2030s and Merlin NPs if you plan to use crits with her.
-Buffs are only stat based, no card buffing from her own skills requires her a support to buff her cards more.
-Loses twintails as she ascends, but tbh the long-haired variant with the white dress is still pretty good.

Overall Opinion: A strong start for the summer 2 servants to be sure. Nero boasts a lot both in firepower and personality being... well herself, but with a bigger focus on damage this time around. She has two separate attack buffs that both cap out at 50% and even has some solid sustain options too. Couple this with the focus on buster amplifying her damage potential more and you can see some pretty wild ass numbers rack up. Her only real weaknesses are the limitations of her own class and her somewhat lowish attack stat, otherwise she's pretty damn strong. Very fun get if you're planning to roll on her banner, I should know I got 3 copies of her!
Score: 8/10


Frankenstein's Monster
Saber
4*
Debuts in Fate/Apocrypha
Originates from Frankenstein

Cards: Quick/Quick/Arts/Buster/Buster

ATK: 1,558/9,353
HP: 1,919/11,993

Skills
1. Summer Galvanism B+: Buff own NP gain by 40/80% for 3 turns (Demerit: Reduces NP charge by 10% on use, you need minimum 10% NP to use the skill) (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns)
2. Hollow Lamentation to the Intense Heat A: Removes an enemy's buffs and decreases their attack by 10/20% for 3-Turns (Demerit: Reduces HP by 500, needs a minimum of 501hp to activate the skill) (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns)
3. Moderate Load C: Buff own attack and NP strength by 10/20%, both for 3 turns (Demerit: Applies a 200hp burn to self for 5 turns) (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns)

Passives
1. Magic Resistance E: Debuff resist buff by 10%
2. Riding EX: Quick cards buff by 11%
3. Madness Enhancement E: Buster cards buff by 2%

Noble Phantasm
Skewered Plasma Blade (Quick): Single-target attack that has a chance to stun the target enemy and applies a delayed debuff that has a 20% chance to stun the enemy party after 1 turn (Overcharge: Stuns by a chance of 60/100%)

PROS
+Fran's NP gain is pretty damn good when buffs are available and she's able to swing into the enemy at full power. Her NP does multiple hits, if you manage to push the enemy into overkill and use crits it's gonna amp it up a shitton and you combine this with Summer Galvanism and she can refund a full bar off of NP and her quick cards.
+Fran's NP is also obscenely strong. Ignoring the pure damage you get out of some quick NPs, she has genuinely strong debuffs when they are able to be applied consistently. 60% stun normally isn't the most amazing thing, but when you can use said NP multiple times it gives you several chances at just negating the enemy's turn which means a lot in fights with Break bars. The 20% chance to stun all enemies is also a nice plus.
+Third skill is a pretty solid two buffs to get for a nothing demerit like 200 burn damage.
+Buff stripping on second skill gives Fran ways to fuck up enemies trying to either stop her from hitting them or with significant defense buffs.
+Average star absorb, but still enough to beat out her supports in situations where she isn't able to brute force stars
+Two of her three demerits are pretty easy to ignore. The only one worth concerning yourself with is the demerit for Summer Galvanism, but 10% isn't the most unsalvageable thing as there are mystic codes you can use for her that can give her for what she lost for what is an incredible buff.
+Is pretty hilarious in the Summer 2017/19 event

CONS
-This is one of the rare cases where a gorilla deck might've done Fran better than balancing it out with two buster cards. Fran gets a lot off of her quicks, they're pretty much the core of her gameplan. Adding another one would create consistency with using her and make turns where you get two quick cards not put your following turns at risk on getting NP/more stars.
-0 defensive options. You have to go in hard and fast with Saber Fran lest you put her into a war of attrition that she will most likely lose.
-Hollow Lamentation is not the most amazing skill. The buff strip is good, but Fran's mostly gonna use it as a reactionary tool. The attack reduction isn't bad, however it's not really doing anything for her either considering the character already has a significant lack of defensive options as is.
-This isn't a significant negative, but stun still has a decent margin for error and a massive one in the case of the partywide delayed stun. That's not to say it'll never happen, but it is realistic it could fail multiple times.

Overall Opinion: I feel like Fran alongside Nero probably made the best transition throughout the years. She started out pretty alright, but not particularly remarkable for the year she was in the game. Then with the addition of Skadi she, much like Edmond, benefited a lot from that character to the point it pushed her into being one of the best saber servants in the game. I wish her second skill did more and that the NP reduction on her first skill wasn't there so you could play with mystic codes on her more, but it is a small sacrifice for what is a very good summer servant.
Score: 8/10


Nitocris
Assassin
4*
Debuts in Fate/Grand Order
Originates from 22nd Century BC Egypt

Cards: Quick/Quick/Arts/Arts/Buster

ATK: 1,468/8,812
HP: 1,843/11,518

Skills
1. White Imperial Garments A: Buff own defense by 30% for a turn, buff own defense by10/30% and buff debuff resistance by 30%, both for 3 turns (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns)
2. Beach Panic EX: Reduce damage taken by 1000/2000 for 3 hits and 5 turns and applies taunt to self for a turn (Cooldown: 9/7 Turns)
3. Royal Road of Hot Sands A: Buff own attack by 20/30%, np damage by 10/20%, and np gain by 20/30% all for 3 turns (Cooldown: 8/6 Turns)

Passives
1. Presence Concealment A: Crit star gen buff by 10%
2. Divinity B+: Buff damage dealt by 185

Noble Phantasm
Sneferu Ḥ'pī Nile (Arts): AOE attack that applies a 20% defense reduction for 3 turns and has a chance to instantly kill enemies (Overcharge: IK chance increases by 30/70%)

PROS
+Incredibly effective defensive buffs make a tanky character out of Nito combined with her taunt which can let her take the heat off of some team members
+Royal Road is a strong skill which improves Nito's offensive capabilities and when used in conjunction with her taunt and arts chains can give her some pretty solid np gain
+Damage against preferred class is actually pretty good and she can be run very well on farming nodes for Riders and even some more challenging stuff that is Rider heavy
+NP is good for farming with instant kill which can remove some problematic enemies even her disadvantaged types
+One of the few AOE arts Assassins, it's basically just her, Phantom, and Shuten.
+Is a pretty ridiculous and funny character

CONS
-Fills the very bizarre niche of tank assassin which while not bad, is somewhat unnecessary?
-Damage output is not particularly amazing. She suffers from assassin tax and having one of the lowest attack stats of the gold assassins. With her buffs against stuff like riders she'll do fine and if you can consistently get her NP off the defense debuffs will stack to open up her damage more, but she's very limited in this spot.
-None of her skills enhance her chances of instant kill. Her base multiplier at 100% charge is 30% which leaves a shitton of room to whiff on the instant kill. It's rather bizarre they didn't bring over her IK success chance buff from her caster version as it's one of the things that makes that version of her really strong.
-Crit potential with her is rather low. Her quick cards aren't very good and will more than likely be used to build NP more than anything else. Having two of them means she can at least quick chain with team servants, but considering she'll be on arts teams there aren't a lot of quick cards to go around as is. Also she has average star absorb so if you stick her as a support she will probably end up stealing some stars from your preferred dps.
-Loses the Medjed sheet as she ascends into a kind of boring tiara and bikini.

Overall Opinion: Assassin-class seems to be one of the most prominent dumping grounds for bizarre servant concepts. Never did I think I'd see an assassin tank as a niche being fulfilled, but damn it happened. Despite the weird role, Nito's pretty damn simple. You're gonna use her NP to burn down waves of enemies, go into the next turn with tanking stuff to help build her NP and do it again. Her damage isn't the most amazing thing in the world, but it works for her in ideal scenarios and she can flex a decent bit here and there. Her host of defensive buffs that last for multiple turns make her incredibly durable and having IK on her NP is a nice addition. She's not up there with some of the better servants and is definitely lacking, but it isn't the death of her.
Score: 7/10


Nobunaga Oda
Berserker
4*
Debuts in koha-Ace
Originates from 16th Century Japan and a goofy ass pun on her title

Cards: Quick/Arts/Buster/Buster/Buster

ATK: 1,691/10,146
HP: 1,603/10,023

Skills
1. Foolish Murder Style A: Buff own buster cards by 10/20% for 3 turns and applies an evade for 1 turn (Cooldown: 8/6 Turns)
2. Atsumori Beat B: Gain 5/10 crit stars per turn, regen to party for 300/500hp per turn, and 3% np charge to party; all for 5 turns (Cooldown: 10/8 Turns)
3. Sixth Heaven Demon King of the Beach A-: Increase own attack by 10/20% on burning stages for 3 turns, applies sure hit to self and increases own crit star absorb by 1000/3000%; both for 1 turn. (Cooldown: 6/4 Turns)

Passives
1. Madness Enhancement C: Buff buster cards by 6%

Noble Phantasm
Nobunaga THE ROCK 'n' ROLL (Buster): Single target attack and does additional damage to divine enemies (Overcharge: Divine damage multiplier raises by 150/200%)

PROS
+Triple buster deck gives her consistent damage output and combined with proper support and her own skills can turn out solid numbers
+King of the Beach is honestly an incredibly good skill even if you're not in a burning stage. Amping up her awful star absorb and letting her blow through dodges is a very valuable thing and in ideal situations it even further buffs her damage. Once max levelled it has 4 turn cooldown which makes it a pretty reliable skill to have in extended fights.
+NP is very strong against divine enemies of which there are a significant number of. Her being a berserker gives her extra damage against all of them too leaving none of them out of her ideal damage range due to class specification.
+Damage negation in the form of her dodge.
+Her buster cards are fucking amazing. They have 6-hits each and when used with her Quick or Arts card at the start of a chain she can get a solid amount of both out of them.
+Atsumori Beat helps Nobu out with her stargen and NP gain problems. While they aren't going to be enough on their own to do the job, combined with proper support Nobu can pretty consistently see crit damage and her NP over the course of a fight and it has such a long time active on top of that.
+It's Nobu but with somehow even more personality. The character is brimming with complete nonsense and goofy bullshit that makes an already absurd character even better.
+Awesome animations that sell more of her skeleton stand thing you don't see in her archer version at all and she DJs in the middle of one of her attacks with her weird ass turntable/guitar/chainsaw weapon.
+One of the absolute best NP animations in the game, it is easily a top 5 NP.
+It's fuckin pako dude, you know the art is on point

CONS
-Had the lowest HP stat of the gold Berserkers until Jalter Berserker was added to the game. She is very fragile and when hit with crits will bowl over dead very easily.
-Her buster cards are great, but her arts card doesn't gen very much and her quick cards while multi-hitting are pretty fucking bad for actually getting stars. You will use these solely to start chains with her to get more out of her buster cards.
-The dodge and buster buff being attached to each other on Murder Style creates a situation where you're gonna have to give one up for the other, which is unfortunate.
-The amount of stages in the game that are burning are very small. It is mostly Fuyuki, Honnouji, and other various stages you see only once in a blue moon. You're very rarely going to see the attack buff.
-To get the most value out of Nobu she is going to want everything skill levelled as the less turns she has to spend waiting for shit, the better for her. This means investing 36 spinal fluids per skill and a lot of qp, which isn't crazy but is still a decent enough cost.
-The regen on Atsumori Beat is honestly not very noteworthy especially compared to how much more you get out of the other two things it does.
-NP is super basic and while incredibly damage against its preferred types, probably won't seem as powerful against various non-divine enemies and has nothing to really compensate for that.
-The third sprite looks good on art, but in game the fire effect around Nobu is incredibly garish and awful looking.

Overall Opinion: Zerker Nobu takes an already incredible character and makes her even more fun. Her animations are cool as hell and combined with her infectious enthusiasm make for a really enjoyable servant to have. As far as her utility as a DPS goes, she's not the most amazing ST Berserker, but she does a pretty solid stab at what she does. Her damage output can be pretty high in ideal scenarios and Merlin does a lot to fix some of her more noticeable issues. She's one of the few berserkers with high ass hit counts on her buster cards which makes her very unique in that case. She will suffer in some challenge quests and boss fights, but overall I feel like her positives are enough to make me think she can scratch up to being as good as some of the other decent Berserkers.
Score: 7/10


Artoria Pendragon (Alter) (Maid)
Rider
5*
Debuts in Fate/Stay Night
Originates from Arthurian Mythology and someone with a fetish for maids and guns

Cards: Quick/Quick/Arts/Arts/Buster

ATK: 1,665/10,776
HP: 2,090/14,256

Skills
1. Summer Sweeper! A: Buff own attack by 20/30% and party's quick cards by 10/20%; both for 3 turns (Cooldown: 8/6 Turns)
2. Coaching A: Targetable buff that reduces all skill cooldowns by 1 turn and buffs the target's crit star drop rate by 30/50% for 3 turns (Demerit: Reduce target's hp by 1000) (Cooldown: 8/6 Turns)
3. Reloaded C: Buff own quick cards by 20/30% for 1 time and 3 turns (Cooldown: 5/3 Turns)

Passives
1. Magic Resistance B: Buff debuff resistance by 17.5%
2. Riding B: Buff quick cards by 8%
3. Independent Action EX: Buff crit damage by 12%

Noble Phantasm
Sequence Morgan (Quick): Single-target attack that charges NP gauge by 10% and reduces enemy's crit chance for 3 turns (Overcharge: Crit chance reduction by 30/70%)

PROS
+Maid Alter's honestly got a decent amount going for her as the sole 5* ST Quick NP. Beyond the obvious shit that Skadi can bring out of even the most mediocre servants, her NP gens a lot of stars and actually charges as a side benefit on top of having a high hit count, her ideal enemy type naturally gives more NP than any other class on hit, and she's got high star absorb so she'll be the one eating most of the stars which helps consistency with her crits on enemies when she's not brute forcing the star count. This all goes in to making a pretty solid ST quick boss killer.
+Summer Sweeper is a really good attack buff for 3 turns and has the added benefit of buffing allies and her own quicks to add to star gain on off turns where Maid Alter might not have her cards up aside from NP.
+Coaching is a very unique ability in that it can be used well as either a way to enable her own shit more or to push support allies into their stuff faster instead.
+Short cooldown on Reloaded combined with Coaching can turn it into a 2 turn cooldown that allows Maid Alter to get the ability again while still on her Skadi buffs.
+Maid Alter's NP is really damn good. Aside from general quick np modifier just being asinine, the NP charge it provides just adds to her looping consistency and reducing crit chance benefits her allies a shitton so as to prevent them from getting stuffed out randomly. You will be using this NP two or three times in a row in some scenarios so those debuffs stack up quick.
+Highest hp of any Rider in the game as of this writing. She can take a lot of punishment before she gets put down.
+Her final ascension art is pretty great and I wish her with the coat was an actual sprite she had. Also Takeuchi finally drew a good butt for once.
+I'm not gonna lie that NP animation is a personal favorite of mine, it's goofy as hell but it's also pretty cool.

CONS
-Her attack stat is the second lowest of the 5* Riders and the divide between it and Rider Kintoki's is not that wide. She will hit like shit on off turns against anything that isn't a caster or berserker.
-Her third skill is bad. Not because buffing her own quick cards is bad obviously, but because it is only active for 1 hit. So when you decide to go in with her, this means only her NP is going to get the benefits from this card in ideal chain setups. Which isn't terrible itself, but it makes no sense why the buff can't be a 2 or 3 hit buff so you can get more value out of it. It wouldn't even make her crazy, so much as she'd just be pretty good at that point. I guess they feel the short cooldown justifies it, but like getting the buff a second time on the last turn where all of your buffs are gonna be active for only the first NP again feels like such a weird tradeoff to make.
-NP charge on arts is a little bit on the lower end. Not that it's terrible, but you're only gonna see a significant pull in NP from them on casters and crits. She can at least arts chain with some consistency though so that's nice.
-It should go without saying that you want her skills all at max level. The cooldown on her stuff being reduced matters a ton to the character in general, so you're gonna need to shell out an assload of fangs and knights medals per skill.
-I honestly kind of hate the last sprite with the dress and the crown and the comically oversized rifle and excalibur morgan. It feels so overwrought with stuff compared to her first and second ascension that it really makes it annoying to look at her in that sprite.

Overall Opinion: Maid Alter's complicated to talk about because the character when she came out was considered alongside the next servant to be pretty bad. None of her kit really worked towards any realistic goal that was achievable and she was considered to be less worthwhile than just using Kintoki unless you actually liked the character. Now Skadi is out and a lot of her skills and NP feel far more justified and solid. She's not a huge ass kicker, but she's definitely strong and having the ability to completely neuter enemy crit chances means a ton for not having servants on your team randomly deleted by enemies. If they ever start actually buffing summer servants, a buff to either her third skill or her NP in some way would make her pretty damn nuts.
Score: 7/10


Helena Blavatsky
Archer
4*
Debuts in Fate/Grand Order
Originates from 19th Century Russia

Cards: Quick/Quick/Arts/Arts/Buster

ATK: 1,574/9,446
HP: 1,824/11,404

Skills
1. Summer Vacation! A+: Charge party's NP gauge by 10/20% and gain 5 crit stars per turn for 5 turns (Cooldown: 10/8 Turns)
2. NYARF! B: Apply damage plus for 1000/2000 damage for 5 turns and 5 hits and reduces enemy's NP gauge by 1 (Cooldown: 8/6 Turns)
3. Colonel's Summer Vacation B: Buff own arts cards by 20/40% for a turn and apply a 1 time debuff immunity to herself for 5 turns (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns)

Passives
1. Magic Resistance C: Buff debuf resistance by 15%
2. Independent Action C: Buff crit damage by 6%

Noble Phantasm
Sanat Kumara Wheel (Arts): AOE Attack that applies a debuff resistance and defense down debuff (Overcharge: Both debuffs potency increases by 10/30%)

PROS
+Retains her party wide np charge from her caster self enabling the team's NPs more
+Arts-based gives her consistent NP gain allowing her to build NP pretty reliably over the course of the fight, combined with her aoe NP that hits 4 times, her good arts cards, decent enough quick cards, and first skill, Helena can pretty reliably burn through her NP more than a few times.
+Star gain per turn grants Helena some stars and when used in conjunctions with either Andersen's Innocent Monster/Little Mermaid's Love skill or 2030s can open up crit potential for her thanks to her high star absborb due to being an archer.
+Only Summer Vacation has a long skill cooldown, otherwise both of her remaining skills have pretty standard cooldowns. This means that when used in conjunction with Tamamo, Helena is able to see her skills more often and Tamamo NP also enables her more NP gain on top of the cooldown reduction.
+Has a surprising amount of utility in some challenge quests. Between her working together with a decent amount of other arts character who see consistent use in CQs pretty well, her NP gauge drain, and her ability to open up debuff options more with her NP she can see a lot of use in extending fights and sabotaging the enemy's chances at popping off. having debuff immunity also matters a lot as CQs usually have a decent amount of debuffing in some way and Helena not having to deal with something problematic even if it is just one debuff can matter a lot.
+It is still Helena
+Never did I think in my life that I would see a Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds reference in a Fate thing, but they did it the fucking madmen
+Ultraman's pretty cool too

CONS
-Helena's stat spread is painfully average which while not bad does not show off any specific talents of hers. For what is a character who has a spread that points towards her being an AOE damage character she doesn't have a lot in the way of self damage buffs and doesn't enhance her crit damage. She seems to be some midrange between being both a damage-based character with support options, but does neither exceptionally.
-By the same token that she is usable in some challenge quests, she is incredibly situational. There are not a lot of CQs that have need for an AOE Archer. In the scenario you are fighting a saber enemy with other enemies that are various types she can see use, but should it be something like a berserker or lancer Helena puts herself at serious risk. This also says nothing of the fact that should you be fighting an enemy who does not get debuffed easily, her opening them up requires aggressive use of her NP which should you not be able to do it hurts her a lot. She can work with some of the best supports in the game, but you have better options in almost all areas that Helena really does not stand head and shoulders above the rest.
-I feel like I say this a lot for characters who are relatively mediocre in some way and have a balanced deck, but it feels like in the case of someone like Helena who has a really good arts card and gets a lot out of her NP that they should really just go whole hog and make it a 3 arts deck. Not that her quick is bad, but it definitely feels like it hinders her a bit.
-Single turn arts buffed is kinda... lame? For what is a character that'll be seeing a longer fight than most other card types. The 5-turn cooldown does open it up to be more useable consistently through Tamamo's NP, but like why can't this be a 3-turn buff?
-The base reduction on the debuff resist and defense is 10%. You would need to overcharge like crazy to get decent value out of this thing and doing that halts Helena's NP gain for a turn which could also end up hurting her. Combined with her damage just not really being all there and her NP is not particularly strong.
-No defensive abilities. Helena relies entirely on a team that can steer the enemy away from using their NP otherwise she dies.
-Idk about you, but whenever I see a character require dust I immediately wince in pain. She only needs 40 per skill, but it is one of the most demanded bronze mats by the cast and so many better characters than her need it that it really feels better spent on them unless you really like Helena (Which I do, so I did it of course).
-I'm going to get a million years of posts for using the final ascension art as her art for this review

Overall Opinion: As someone who really likes Helena, I can not really say that she is good. I think that, with a decent amount of effort she is okay, but it requires more than a lot of the other servants in this batch do. Even Assassin Nito for all of her problems, doesn't ask the world of you to make her do stuff halfway decently. Meanwhile, Helena needs a pretty optimal team setup to make the most out of her NP and then needs to not be screwed on card rng or other various factors. I feel like if her NP had better base reductions on the side effects she'd see a lot more success and be able to open up for damage or debuffs more, but as it stands she would need an NP buff and maybe a buff on one of her skills to be brought up to being good. Mind you, that's not the worst thing because those are pretty consistent updates that DW does, but her being a summer servant puts her way lower on the totem pole for that sort of thing. As it stands I don't feel Summer Helena is awful and I think she gets a lot of shit because she's in a generally pretty good listing of servants and is a gacha servant, but she's very much not up to the standards that a lot of other characters on this banner are. Oh well, at least she references Jack fucking Atlus, my boy.
Score: 6/10


Minamoto no Raikou
Lancer
4*
Debuts in Fate/Grand Order
Originates from 10th Century Japan

Cards: Quick/Quick/Arts/Buster/Buster

ATK: 1,528/9,168
HP: 1,938/12,112

Skills
1. Public Morals Committee Chairman's Shadow A: Buff crit star absorb by 500/1000% and crit damage by 30/50%; both for 1 turn (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns)
2. Wrought Iron Handcart C: Targetable buff that buffs the target's buster cards by 20/40% for 3 turns and removes their debuffs (Cooldown: 8/6 Turns)
3. Summer Catastrophe EX: Buff party's attack by 10/20% and critgen by 20/30%; both for 3 turns (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns)

Passives
1. Magic Resistance C: Buff debuff resistance by 15%
2. Riding A+: Buff quick cards by 11%
3. Madness Enhancement C: Buffs buster cards by 6%
4. Divinity C: Buff damage dealt by 150

Noble Phantasm
Shakudai Kan'in Kongousho (Buster): Single target attack that ignores defense buffs and gains critical stars (Overcharge: Crit stars obtained by 20/40)

PROS
+Fuck dude, there's a lot to unpack about Raikou's damage. So Raikou has a pretty average attack stat, where her damage excels is in how much she is able to get out of her skills. She has an attack buff, a buster buff, a crit damage buff, combine this with even halfway decent supports she looks at high numbers, and with optimal supports she's fucking insane.
+Has to have some of the best critical star generation of a buster servant. Her quick cards are actually pretty decent for generating them, but her NP also guarantees 20 of them after it's used and she can use an absorb ability to distribute them to herself. This is not to mention the critgen buff on her third skill that effects the entire team.
+Speaking of her NP, it's fucking incredible. It does not care about defense buffs, grants stars, and is 6-hits so when her critgen buff is active it even generates a few stars on its own outside of the inherent ones.
+Can be used as an off support/sustain dps in the scenario where you don't have the ideal servants for buster buffs and want to use one for a buster servant of your preference. One of her skills directly benefits the team, the other is a targetable buster buff that can cleanse debuffs, and her NP can set up for star building for the other DPS option. The only skill of hers that doesn't support it is her first.
+NP gain is also pretty decent. Her arts card is good and in AQQ chains with crits she can see a pretty massive gain.
+Sukeban uniform is very powerful
+As are the yoyos
+She is out of control in fgo arcade
+Raita

CONS
-No defensive options so she relies a lot on her support to cover for her. In scenarios where support can't be relied on to save her you either meet a race the clock to kill the enemy before they kill you or try to cover it with mystic codes. The former has become a lot more difficult with break bars, especially if the enemy insta NPs on break.
-Due to her nature as a buster servant she is not able to generate any NP charge from using her own NP. This isn't the death of the character, but it's become more important that servants be able to generate some NP off of theirs as it moves them closer to having it again. Raikou has no skills that buff her NP gain and has to rely on support to do that for her, which while very doable still requires turns of building it and makes her a slightly slower servant due to that.
-HP stat is on the lower end of the gold lancers. She's not completely made of glass, but she can't take too many hits or it puts her at severe risk.
-No pierce or sure hit meaning she can easily lose momentum and have to risk running out buffs if she has them up when she gets NP
-If used as an off support option, it should be remembered that Raikou is pretty strictly offensive in how she supports. Using her as one means your team lacks another method of defense or more general support which could hurt you in some fights.
-For some god forsaken reason every time she uses NP it switches her outfit to her bikini, even if you have her in the sukeban uniform. Let me keep Raikou in her nice outfit, game. FGO Arcade lets her, why can't you?

Overall Opinion: Lancer Raikou was a pretty insane addition in 2017 and undisputed as the best servant to get from either banner. Her utility as a damage option is nuts, she has insanely good cards, and her NP is one of the best NPs in the game from every angle. The fact I have used this character as an off support for Penthesilea in runs and it has legitimately more often than not is also pretty incredible. The character's dropped off a little since quick meta became more of a thing, but even then she's still pretty damn strong and useful. You can't go wrong with rolling for another Raikou.
Score: 8/10


Ishtar (Rin Tohsaka)
Rider
4*/Free servant obtained after finishing the Main Story Quests of Summer 2017/19
Debuts in Fate/Stay Night
Originates from Mesopotamian Mythology

Cards: Quick/Quick/Arts/Arts/Buster

ATK: 1,600/9,603
HP: 1,710/10,692

Skills
1. Glittering Aquatic Gown A: Buff party's NP gain, buster, and quick cards by 10/20%; all for 3 turns (Cooldown: 7/5 Turns)
2. Accel Turn B: Buff own crit damage by 30/50% for 1 turn and applies an evade for 1 hit and 3 turns (Cooldown: 6/4 Turns)
3. Summer Breaker! A: Buff own np gain, crit damage, hp recovery, and debuff resistance by 30/50%, applies invinicbility to self, and a delayed debuff that stuns Ishtar at the end of the turn; all for 1 turn (Cooldown: 8/6 Turns)

Passives
1. Riding EX: Buff quick cards by 12%
2. Independent Action A: Buff crit damage by 10%
3. Core of the Goddess B: Buff damage dealt by 225 and debuff resistance by 22.5%

Noble Phantasm
An Gal Tā - Seven Colors
(Quick): AOE Damage that buffs own quick cards before applying damage (Overcharge: Quick buffs by 20/60%)

PROS
+Ishtar has pretty incredible buffs to supplement her own star gain and damage on her NP. Combined with all of the crit damage buffs and support she can receive, she can a pretty devastating damage option in her own right.
+Aquatic Gown is a really good ability the supplements Ishtar's entire team with several buffs that also enable her own damage and NP gain.
+If used in the right conditions, Ishtar can refund the entire NP bar back after using her NP. (Read: Double Skadi, Caster Enemies, NPQQ, both NP gain skills active, and maybe even some overgauge/kill)
+Ishtar can be used pretty reliably to farm doors and caster based nodes due to her nature as an AOE Quick Rider in conjunction with double Skadi. The fact that she has two separate NP gain buffs push her into this very well.
+Very good arts cards that do a great job at gaining Ishtar NP especially under her NP gain buffs.
+Rider star absorb makes it so even if Ishtar can't bring the star count to 50 she is all but guaranteed all of the stars she dropped. She is a very reliable character to do crit damage with.
+Two separate damage negations give her pretty solid sustain
+Summer Breaker is a pretty damn powerful skill not only in the amount of buffs it gives her but all of the buffs at max being 50%.
+Easy to NP5 due to her nature of being a welfare servant
+They gave Rider Ishtar the attacks and specials Rin used in Fate/Unlimited Codes which makes for a set of cool as hell animations especially coming off of her comparably more boring archer variant.
+HAPPY! GORGEOUS! ELEGANT!
+I'm a big of the vespa and pink jacket
+Kana Ueda and Rin

CONS
-Quick cards are surprisingly not amazing. They're only two hits and you don't get much out of them. They're fine for dealing damage and gaining NP when Ishtar is fully buffed and with crits, but outside of that they're pretty bad.
-Accel Turn isn't a good damage negation skill. You're going to want to use it for either having her tank an NP or the crit damage buff, usually the latter. As it stands it disappears after a single hit which gives it no real use other than to survive a blow that would kill her and if the enemy attacks her at death range anyways after the first hit she'd still die anyways. The skill has a short cooldown which helps it a little bit, but otherwise it's pretty there.
-As good of a skill as Summer Breaker is, Ishtar being stunned after the turn she uses it hurts her a ton. You have to use specific mystic codes like the Atlas Academy Uniform or Memoria of the Far Side of the Moon to work around this if you plan to use her to farm nodes or doors.
-Aside from the first skill, all of Ishtar's buffs are a turn. This means you need to try and stagger out the buffs and in the case of farming, use Summer Breaker on the second wave instead of the first if you want to get the most out of her buffs and also deal with problem enemies who might hold up turns.

Overall Opinion: You'll notice the theme of this summer's group of servants has been growth and aging and while we are all inevitably bound to die one day, there is no reason we must remain the same and can't become better versions of ourselves in the march of time. Sorry for getting existential on you in this, the Fate/Grand Order Summer 2017 Servants Review Page, but I promise I'm going somewhere with this. Rider Ishtar on her release in the hellscape that was reruns and buster meta fgo 2017 was not regarded very highly. She did not have a lot of things that allowed for her to thrive in the game at the time and by and large her only benefit was that her first skill was pretty generic in how good it was so it made her an option for buffing certain quick or buster servants under stuff like the plugsuit where you could tag her in for a better support after you got what you wanted from her. This is where most of the people reading this playing NA are probably going to be with the character in a few weeks.

Where JP is now though, this character is pretty incredible. The flow of time has been incredibly good to Rider Ishtar. Her crit buffs are now a more significant part of using her, she can actually be used as a solid AOE damage option for farming and caster nodes, and her third skill has actual utility outside of letting her eat damage for a turn and then leaving her to just eat shit the next turn instead. Her ability to loop through her multi hit NP, crits, and NP gain buffs is pretty invaluable and the fact that you get this out of a character you get for free is really damn good. The fact that you need to play around the stun hurts a bit, but it promotes use of lesser used mystic codes which I think is pretty cool. I feel like for as strong as plugsuit is, it's one of the first codes you're gonna max and going to these smaller ones to enable Ishtar more is a pretty nice feeling sometimes. I was a little hard on Archer Ishtar in her review, but I genuinely do believe that Rider Ishtar is a pretty damn good character in her own right.
Score: 8/10