The Modern Magus Magazine
It’s a big ‘ol nine years we’ve all been here, and boy have things changed. It’s scary that we’re creeping up so close to FGO being 10 years old, and somehow it lived for that long.
And with Part 2 set to end in 2025, maybe it won’t go on much longer, but that’s definitely delving into pure speculation.
In any case, it’s a time for celebration, a number of changes to the game that have major implications - The new Append Skills shift the farming game for a number of Servants, 3 Command Seals a day means you can use the Command Seal gauge charge for farming if you want, and so on…but the thing you’re all here for is the new Servant, so let’s leap straight into it.
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It’s funny, before the Anniversary I had to endure a lot of hoping and coping for a Summer Ereshkigal, and somehow not only did she become reality, but as the big ticket Anniversary gacha Servant at that.
Not only that, but she’s also the second playable Beast Servant in the game, yoinking Tiamat’s number and turning her focus on the regression of Humanity to, and I’m not joking here, going through a dating sim-like affection metre with every battle, then “Regressing” it back afterwards, experiencing love all over again. Yes, that’s actually the lore of the mechanic, though I’ll be talking about the gameplay function in a bit.
Base Atk | 1,766 | Base HP | 2,131 |
---|---|---|---|
Max Atk | 11,427 | Max HP | 14,530 |
Grail Atk | 12,509 | Grail HP | 15,918 |
![](/sites/default/files/styles/45x45/public/2019-01/Immune_Debuff.png?itok=ck6DHYLi)
Apply Debuff immune to self (3 times).
![](/sites/default/files/styles/45x45/public/2024-08/skill_00515_Attack_Bonus_Buff.png?itok=2K2uDxoY)
Apply buff to self: Increase own NP Gauge by 5% when normal attacking.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/45x45/public/2018-09/Goddess_essence%5B1%5D.png?itok=qWmGClo6)
Apply Damage Plus (Total Card Damage +140).
Increase Debuff Resist for yourself by 14%.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/45x45/public/2017-07/Critdmg_0.png?itok=maiZYrQn)
Increase own Critical Strength against [Servant] enemies by 20%.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/45x45/public/2017-07/Independent_action.png?itok=yVpr_WwO)
Increase own Critical Strength by 1.5%.
Increase own Instant Death Resist by 1.5%.
Increase own Mental Debuff Resist by 1.5%.
Apply Stun / Petrify / Bound / Pigify Immune to self.
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Space Ereshkigal has a [Master Favorability] Gauge, which ranges from 1 to 10. Actions can increase [Master Favorability], and for every 10 steps, level increases by 1. This value is reset after each battle.
Actions that increase [Master Favorability]:
- Reach Bond Lv5 or higher (+5)
- Include in the starting lineup (+5)
- Deploy on a [near water] battlefield (+10)
- Select one of her (valid) Command Cards (+3)
- Create a Brave Chain with her (+6)
- Use one of her skills (+3)
- Use her skills before other Servants on the field (+2)
- Activate her NP in an overcharged stage (+5 per stage)
- Target her with a Master Skill (+5)
- Target her with a Command Spell (+10)
* If used as a Friend Support, she will not have a [Master Favorability] gauge, and the level will not increase past 0.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/45x45/public/2019-03/NoEffect_0.png?itok=3K5WG3JL)
No Effect
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As the second member of her class, there’s not much ground for comparison, especially as, thus far, each Beast’s class advantages are entirely different. Unlike Draco, who has advantage versus every Knight/Horseman class, Ereshkigal’s unique class advantage is against every single Extra class, except Avengers, whom she has a weakness to.
At least the hierarchy of Mesopotamian space goddesses is maintained, huh?
In any case, Ereshkigal has a very middle-of-the-road attack stat for an SSR in general, but has a pretty high HP stat, though neither is spectacular in the grand scheme of things.
Ereshkigal does, however, have a very stacked passive lineup to compensate. Of those we’re familiar with, she has Independent Manifestation, providing a very minute boost to critical damage and mental debuff / instant death resistance, plus a more important immunity to all Stun and Stun-like effects (such as Circe’s NP), except Charm. She additionally packs Core of the Goddess, providing some debuff resistance and bonus damage on every attack. Boy, how come Lasengle lets you have such a tacked-on immunity, while Void Shiki has nothing, huh?
In terms of unique passives, things get more interesting - her Anti-Magecraft passive slaps her with a 3-time, non-removable Debuff Immunity buff every single battle which is, well, frankly insane. Completely bonkers. I can’t believe they programmed a Servant with this. While in some fights this kind of effect can get ground down by a bunch of inconsequential debuffs, in many others this will block turn-changing effects when you need it most, and that’s on top of her just no-selling Stun, too. Continuing with the theme of insane passives, Spatial Conservation provides her with 5% NP gauge charge every time she uses a normal card, including Extra card. To phrase it differently, all of her regular cards have 5% more gauge charge than normal, which is typically a 30-50% increase in non-critical Arts card NP gain. To get such an effect on her Busters and Quicks, too, is incredibly powerful, especially since it can bypass certain fights where you get slapped with a billion NP gain down debuffs to stifle your NP gain from regular cards.
And with that all said, I’m not even done on the passives. Beast’s Authority provides her with a significant 20% Critical Damage boost versus Servants, the main source of difficult content in the game, and as for her last one…it’s a lot to take in.
II (Yes, it’s just roman numerals) is what provides Ereshkigal with her affection gauge, as I mentioned earlier. It starts at 0 every battle, and goes up to 100, with each interval of 10 increasing the tier by 1, with each affection tier providing increasing benefits. It can only ever go up, and the gauge is increased by the following:
- Bond 5 or higher (+5)
- Deployed on the frontline in battle (+5)
- Deployed on [Waterfront] field (+10)
- Select Ereshkigal’s cards for a chain (each) (+3)
- Ereshkigal Brave chain (+6)
- Use Ereshkigal’s skills (+3)
- Use Ereshkigal’s skills before any other on a turn (+2)
- Overcharge bonus (+5 per Overcharge level)
- Ereshkigal targeted for a Master skill (+5)
- Command Seal used on Ereshkigal (+10)
So for example, if you have a Bond 5 Ereshkigal and deploy her on the frontline in a quest, she’ll start at 10 points, or tier 1 as displayed.
While these tiers don’t provide any passive benefits, they heavily influence the power of Ereshkigal’s NP, so it’s worth keeping these bonuses in mind and paying attention to your skill use order.
Oh, and support Ereshkigals will default to 0 affection gauge no matter what, so she’s not exactly enticing to place on your support lineup, unless you wanna boast about having her.
But with all that out the way, we can actually continue talking about her kit.
So how is Ereshkigal in her Beast mode? Well on the one hand, Tsunderes are the primordial soup of human weebery, and Ereshkigal manifests the twisted heart of humanity perfectly:
However, she’s also an underworld wallflower, lacking the confidence of her sister and mirror, and frankly, tsunderes are for old men who still think EVA is peak anime. Bring on the new generation!
It can always be a little rough to properly assess a Servant both while in the storm of hype, and when they have so much about them that’s unique it’s hard to throw the word “outclassed” around. Heck, even within her own class she’s basically incomparable, but that’s more because the Beast class is specifically designed weird.
The takeaway here is to look at Ereshkigal how she is, instead of making comparisons. She’s a competent farmer who admittedly won’t get class advantage often, with absolutely spectacular tools to tackle difficult content, and damage output that similarly picks up in dragged-out fights. While the majority of time in FGO will be spent in farming, it’s important to recognize you still need the Servants that can carry you through the story and challenge quests to earn those rewards and even unlock farming nodes in some cases.
And for her position as a single Servant, Ereshkigal’s Beast form is like an all-in-one deal. The issue often with investing in Extra-class Servants is, excluding Pretender and Alter Ego, their class advantages are so uncommon they won’t often have time to shine, so it can be hard to compare them to say, just a good Berserker. But often the most difficult fights in the game are Extra-class enemies, and having an offensive Servant who can tackle all of them (except Avengers) can be incredibly handy. Just so long as you keep a Mooncancer in your back pocket.
While that focus means Ereshkigal does lose power the more Extra-class options you have, she remains competitive with other Extra-class damage dealers regardless - few can boast a similar mix of AOE damage and high-power single target crits, then again the degree of utility she can bring to bear.
In summary, as always, the Anniversary Servants are well worth looking into. Rath™ Seal of Approval, with a recommendation.
Outro
While that may be all for strictly new Servants, there’s a lot of game-changers coming this Anniversary that will have an impact on the game. The strengthening quests coming out this week can do a lot to change the viability of existing Servants, and the new Append Skills, albeit drowned in controversy, significantly increase the power of your team during the first skill cycle - even for Ereshkigal herself it lets her use her 50% gauge charge on turn 3 with the Atlas Academy Mystic Code, but I chose to not consider this simply because having both Mana Loading and the skill reduction append skill is too much to assume, and Mana Loading is generally more useful for farming.
The landscape might shift even more, and that’s ignoring the Summer event and its new Servants coming later this month. As always, this season is the game's busiest, and that makes this Magus particularly busy, too. Hoo boy.
Well, next you see me, I’ll be labouring over the sudden influx of swimsuit-clad Servants. Wish me luck, I’ll have Karna in a hot new outfit to tide me over, at least!