Tier List Change Log for October 28, 2018
It's been a while since the last batch of Servants. Halloween 2018 introduced three new Servants to the roster and their initial tier placements are detailed below.
Furthermore, the 4* Lancer placements have been a point of contention within the Gamepress team and they have been readjusted. Saint Martha (Ruler)'s placement has also been adjusted.
Finally, EMIYA was moved as soon as his Strengthening was announced.
5* Servants
Placed into Tier 3: Currently AoE Assassins are a rare niche. Cleopatra directly competes with the two most prominent AoE Assassins in Scathach (Tier 3 among 4* Servants) and Shuten Douji (Tier 5). Her damage output is generally better than Shuten Douji while packing just as much self-sufficiency and more survivability. Compared to Scathach, Cleopatra edges out in NP generation rate and survivability by a wide margin, but loses out in term of damage per Noble Phantasm due to her lack of Interlude.
As such, we decided to place her into Tier 3 amongst 5 stars to reflect her status as one of the best Assassins in the game, but not strong enough to challenge Servants like Jack the Ripper or, say, Gilgamesh for a spot in Tier 2.
4* Servants
Placed into Tier 3: The Prince of Wallachia has a very solid skill set with fantastic values and a high uptime. His Noble Phantasm’s overcharge effect is also good as it hits a large enough roster of Servants to be relevant often. He is, however, hindered by lower Attack compared to other Lancers, lack of powerful card performance buffs, and fierce competition from many other single target Lancers.
Hence, he is placed into Tier 3 to reflect his relative performance compared to other Lancers.
Placed into Tier 3: Chaldea’s “favorite” idol is back with another costume. Being a welfare, she naturally has the advantage of high NP level compared to other Sabers. Her signature third skill is extremely RNG-reliant and costly to use, and in practice rarely ever warrants a button press. Thankfully for Liz, her base stats are good and her first two skills are good, albeit not great.
All in all, for a free single target Saber, one could do much worse than her. As such, we decided to place her into Tier 3 as she is not extraordinary, but solid enough to perform as a single-target Saber.
Moved to Tier 3: Kiyohime (Lancer) faces the direct competition of the newly released Vlad III. Compared to him, she has a weaker skill set but better base stats. Their performances are roughly on the same level, with Vlad III getting the advantage when dealing with Evil-alignment Servants.
As Vlad III is being placed into Tier 3, Kiyohime will follow suit.
Moved to Tier 3: Li Shuwen has the advantage of occupying the very rare niche of Art Lancer. His one turn burst is great, but overall his performance is not particularly consistent, especially with his long cooldowns. Furthermore, his NP generation rate is not great enough for consistent NP spamming even with Arts supports.
Moved to Tier 3: Saint Martha (Ruler) is a very unique Servant as she is the only single target Ruler in the game even in JP content. While her resistance against six other classes is great for survivability, Martha’s damage is unfortunately lacking due to both the lack of strong, consistent self-buffs and an Interlude to boost her Noble Phantasm damage.
Furthermore, the lack of offensive class advantage means Martha will often lose her place in favor of Servants with class advantage for better overall performance. Therefore, her niche is rarely in demand.
Moved to Tier 2: The 4M Download Campaign brought Emiya his long-awaited buff to Clairvoyance. Now named Hawkeye, the skill is an incredible Critical steroid that allows him to be a great self-sufficient Critical Damage Dealer with no strings attached.
Though he is not at the level of his precious sister just yet, Emiya can now proudly join the Tier 2 squads as one of the best 4 Star Archers in the game.
