So I see the term "grail for love" often thrown about and I wonder, what do people really mean when they say grail for love? Because it seems like a piss poor reason to invest the grails, qp and exp cards merely to show love. I mean, I love Mata Hari cos tits. That doesn't mean I have to grail her (If her tits get bigger with grails its a different story).
Gameplay on the other hand, is a much more convincing reason to grail. At least, to me it is. For example, I love Hans (MUDA). He is one of the best supporters, but is held back by squishiness. Grails help him with survival.
Take Sakata Kintoki (Rider) as another example. He is a free NP5, and will help immensely as a DPS. The relatively small cost of 2 grails will enable him to get to a 5*s level cap, increasing his damage and survivability. Also, I love him because he is GOLDEN. Using 2 grails on him is a no brainer.
Unless you're grailing for memes (Lv100, Phantom of the Opera, Geronimo), grailing for love alone seems rather arbitrary and doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Would anyone care to share their opinions on grailing?
EDIT: Did not expect so many replies to this thread at all. Thank you everyone for sharing your opinions!
Grail characters you like the most, because if you grail someone you don't like that much and get a better servant of the same role, you'll lose those grails you've spent.
Also, you're grailing Hans and Ridertoki because you like them, not only for gameplay perspective. Or I hope to see your Chloe, Heracles, Cu Chulainn grailed.
"Get a better servant of the same role" implies grailing for gameplay rather than for simply liking a servant. Gameplay is the overriding factor for me, as I have not grailed my Hans. I feel that using grails on a support servant, good as Hans is, is a waste when it would be better used on a fragile DPS who could use the health and atk. My grailed servants to Lv90 are:
Martha(Ruler) NP2
Heracles NP2
Kintoki(Rider) NP5
Lancelot (Saber) NP1
I didn't grail Chloe as I have Artoria Archer NP2.... And I haven't used Cu since the early game, except for very specific scenarios.
The issue is quite frankly you dont need to grail anything for any reason. I mean sure I could grail my jalter or archuria or maybe even arash/hans to make them do their jobs a bit better but they technically can function just fine without them. Even in nerofest exhibition matches you could solo them with an ungrailed servant provided it was the right unit for the job.
This all translates to grails being something you can give to a unit you either love to use or love the art/lore of because nothing requires it to be useful. Hence grail for love not gameplay.
I get what you're saying about loving the servant's lore/art/VA/animations etc, but to me, I ask myself this question: "What do grails actually do?". They increase a servant's level cap, therefore allowing for a stat increase, which translates to more efficiency/usability in battle. Of course, this is a purely utilitarian viewpoint. I'm sure there are plenty of people who grail their servants just to get a gold border....
Chloe is a good option for grailing because gameplay. But you didn't grailed her because you have Archuria NP2. If you had Ozymandias NP2 would you still grail Ridertoki? That's what I mean. The only servant I've grailed is Herc and was not for gameplay, but because he's one of my favorite servants from the franchise. The rest of my grails are wating for Shuten and Okita.
Well Ridertoki is the only strong rider I have, so I could justify spending the grails on him. Not to mention how absurdly strong he is with his NP spam and critting shenanigans.
Shuten and Okita? Grailing 5*s is never a good decision in my book but hey, your grails, your choice.
The point is that at any time you could get a better servant than what you currently have. In that case, a small increase in stats won't matter and you'd probably want to use the better servant (case in point: I got Ozy a couple of weeks after getting Ridertoki and I haven't touched Kintoki since). In that case you would have wasted your grails on a relatively inferior servant that you will likely not be using much after that. That's why people grail for love - in that case it's more of a status thing with having your favourite servant maxed out, and the fact that you will always be using them. That way you limit waste.
That said, from what you've written it seems you like all the servants you've grailed enough, it probably won't matter. As long as you like what you grail and intend to keep using them for a long time, there's nothing wrong with grailing with gameplay in mind.
Sometimes the servant you love is also good for your gamelay. Or you just use that much for love that you want it to be usable IN GAMEPLAY.
Also, Mata-Hari with 2nd and 3rd skills on 10, plus her NP fired on 100% OC, all in the same turn, gives a 60% def-down o the enemy.
Very strong actually, put a Record Holder MLB for her charm(s) to be less chanced, and she becames a top tier support. Then you grail to make her stats not so shitty (will still be kinda meh even at lv 100, mind you).
I grail mostly for game play, but only if I also like playing with the servant. When I started, I had no gold assassins and didn't like my silver ones much. But I loved playing kojirou, so I made him silver and had even more fun playing with him.
Same with cu, he's my best st lancer (because gatcha denied me kiyohime or tama lancer) and I wasn't to give his attacks extra umph. And I like him from UBW.
Saberlot, hardly ever play with any other saber. I just love watching him crit up a storm. But has no defense, so a couple of grails for more health.
Grailing for love is grailing for gameplay. It's just looking at it from a different angle.
It's ultimately about bringing out the full potential of a character, making it so that you have at least one you can always keep on the team. Pure gameplay is just picking the one with the best stats and skills (not my cuppa, as this isn't a "solved" game, and it's perpetually updating). Love is grailing a less optimal choice because you always want to use them.
It can also be "Hey, X character got cheated, they should be a higher star rating!" And "fixing" that.
It also, as Nitro said, doesn't really matter because you don't need any grails to beat this game consistently. So if it doesn't make a difference for winning, why not just make your favorite character better?
EDIT: Also, people play games for different reasons. No one is wrong for playing a different way.
"Hey, X character got cheated, they should be a higher star rating!" Exhibit A: Heracles
Well of course everyone can play the game their own way. The beauty of this game is that there is no one set method for clearing it. I especially admire people who would take the effort to walk the path less trodden E.g Clearing Camelot with 1*-2* servants.
My opinions on grailing: Totally superfluous.
It makes a servant slightly better due to increased stats but doesn't change their overall role in a team. They just punch a little harder and can take a little more damage, E.G it won't suddenly turn Caster Gilles into a good servant.
That's why you grail for love. It keeps the servants you like on the field a little longer as well as allowing them to dish out a little more punishment but it will not cause a significant boost in performance. Cú and Herc are considered exceptions because of solo memeing. Grailing them to 90+ sometimes means they can survive one extra turn during those boss fights, allowing their evade skill to come off cooldown.
Great point about Cu and Herc. That extra 10 levels of stats made a difference and I don't know if I would have been able to clear the final boss in Camelot when I soloed with my max bond Herc if he wasn't 90. I barely cleared it at Lv90.
Either way. Grailing for beloved servants, grailing for meme, grailing for gameplay.
Grail for love especially reflected on SSRs since grailing them use lots Qb and their performance can only be slightly improved. Typically for supportive SSR servants.
It is not like using 2-4 grails for Herc, Lancelot, Kintoki and even Euryale to lv 90 to have better attack status, or grail Cu and Hans to make them more tanky, or using Grails for Hassn CA and Regend since they have excellent skill combo but low hp/attack status (especially Regend).
Sometimes lv100 for specific servants can obtain both gameplay and love role. Like lv 100 Jalter, Nero bride, Kuro, etc.
It is your FGO account, do what ever you want, just based on your instinct and opinion. Typically for grailing debates, different people have different opinions, it is quite common and respectful.
I respetct people even like grailing Gilles and Spartacus to lv100. It doesnt matter. I also see lv 100 3-10 Sanson multi times.
Myself rule is TO GRAIL Tamamo. Do lv 100 caster Tamamo make a great improvement? Nope. But it is my pleasure and love.
"Grail for love especially reflected on SSRs since grailing them use lots Qb and their performance can only be slightly improved". Interesting viewpoint, grailing 5*s is quite a commitment, grailing a support like Tamamo to Lv90 is even more so, especially since she is not a DPS.
'Grail for love' is one of those facile tropes that people throw around to try and sound smart without contributing anything to the discussion.
Well I created this thread as I saw "grail for love" being used in such a way, and was curious to understand people's real motivations behind grailing as the term "Grail for love" doesn't really explain anything in itself.
Some people love servants of a lower rarity and want to grail them for the gold border. Others just like to max out the servants they like. I've seen a grailed lvl 100 10/10/10 Boudica and Stheno before (dunno if it was for love or memes though). Personally I just hoard them for no reason.
The problem of grailing for gameplay alone is that what's the best grail today may not be the best grail tomorrow. Better servants come out, people get buffed, new supports are released, content changes, the challenges quest change their style, new strategies are discovered, new mechanics are introduced...any of that can happen.
Let's say you grail Musashi because she was the best ST saber at the time...well, there are better Sabers now for one reason or another.
Meanwhile you have cases like Sumanai, he becomes an extremely powerful Saber later on after being considered the worst 4* Saber along Lily for quite sometime...A similar case is Edmond Dantes.
Meanwhile if you grail favorites, you always win. If DelightWorks buff them well, that's a bonus since you were going to use them anyway. If they succ tomorrow, you will still use them while you defend them as "technical characters, high skill cap" lol
Yeah this is a game that is constantly updating after all. But the great thing about FGO is the low presence of powercreep, so servants that were considered strong early on could still be considered strong later in the game. Case in point: Gilgamesh (Archer), Jeanne D'Arc (Ruler), Jack the Ripper, Heracles.
>I mean, I love Mata Hari cos tits. That doesn't mean I have to grail her
meanwhile
Grail for what your truly desire, is it gameplay? Is it love/favorite? Or is it for meme/funs ?
Choose whatever you want the most.
FGO have 1-3 star as a game beater.
Simple, don't make things complicated. Each people have different taste.
Grailing is a complicated business due to scarcity of resources. Even more so if its not some arbitrary reason like having a gold border. Having knowledge of servants being released in 2 years time makes for an even harder decision-making process.
I think that grail should be for servants that you love and you will use a lot.
My only grailed servant is Shiki (assassin) she is my main dps on my Arts team and i love use her but before grail her I were checked all the current and future Assassins that will be release (jp server) that will works on an Arts team.
at the end I decided that she is and will be my main dps assassin and finally I grailed her. I'm so happy with that even if grail an assassin is considered a waste.
Fair enough. I regret not getting assassin Shiki as I started after Garden of Sinners and would have grailed her to 90 if I had obtained her.
Jakku Za Rippa
I didn't actually grail Jack... I just like to say "Jakku Za Rippa". I've only ever used 3 Grails. One for Hans, because I didn't like that his level ended in a 5 instead of a 0, and to make him a bit less squishy. Then I stuck two Grails on Chloe, because the chances of me ever getting another archer that fulfills her role are pretty slim, since I don't have any particular plans to try to roll for Squirtoria next summer.
I guess that if you grail for gameplay, then it's probably most optimal to Grail SR servants that you are pretty sure that you won't replace in the near future. Unfortunately, that's tough to predict, so I'll probably just wind up sitting on most of my Grails until the end of time. People probably "Grail for love" to avoid that scenario.
Exactly what I did. I grailed 4* servants that are unique and still perform well in the foreseeable future.
