MMM - Classily Costumed Celt Causes Confusion and Chaos, Cause? Countering Catastrophe (Valentines 2022)

Let’s get into it. The “Answerer”, Fragarach, is more or less a NP with unique mechanics surrounding it. I’ll explain how it functions before talking about damage or effects, beyond those necessary to describe its mechanics.

Fragarach is a Quick NP which applies two important buffs (which can’t be removed by buff removal) to Bazette - a 1-turn Taunt and the 1-turn Fragarach Counter buff. When Bazette is attacked OR targeted by a skill which consumes a normal enemy action during the enemy turn, she counters after it happens with Fragarach on the enemy which did the attack/skill.

Yeah, I know that isn’t how Fragarach works in lore, but making it happen before the attack was probably too hard to program.

I digress - a “normal enemy action” is defined as something which contributes to the action limit enemies have each turn. You might have noticed that enemies only ever act (regardless of number, unless it’s those special battles with 6 enemies) up to 3 times a turn, attacking or using skills. With 3 enemies they each act once, with 2 one of them acts twice, and with 1 enemy they usually act a number of times corresponding to their class icon border (Once for Bronze, Twice for Silver, and Three times for Gold, with a few exceptions). These are the types of actions that Fragarach can counter.

So in other words, Fragarach will counter:

• Regular attacks which target Bazette.
• Noble Phantasms / Max NP gauge attacks which target Bazette.
• Skills which debuff or otherwise negatively impact Bazette, even if they don’t target her specifically.

But won’t counter anything else:

• Attacks which don’t target Bazette.
• Skills which occur due to fight mechanics, gauge breaks, or at the start/end of turns (e.g. the Mud waves in Babylonia)
• Skills which don’t target Bazette in any way, such as skills only targeting other party members, or self-buffs/heals.

Fragarach will make a counterattack for each instance that Bazette is attacked during the enemy turn. In other words, Bazette can attack with Fragarach up to 3 times in a turn, 6 if it’s a battle with a 6-enemy limit. This counterattack always occurs, unless Bazette is Stunned/Charmed/Asleep at the time she should be using Fragarach.

And probably the last mechanical point to mention - Fragarach can’t break gauges. That’s simply to do with balance, otherwise Bazette could theoretically blast through bosses in a single enemy turn. Even if she could only break one, the way Break Gauges are designed means that breaking one mid-turn would present a lot of programming issues, most likely. Such as bosses which change sprite, apply significant effects when they gauge break, or are meant to end the battle when they gauge break a certain number of times.

This doesn’t mean Bazette can’t plough through Break Gauges faster than most Servants, though - she can break a gauge during the player turn with Fragarach set up then cut down the next one from Fragarach counters, which is certainly handy.

I’ll get back on topic, though. The most important thing to remember is that she only counters on normal action attacks/skills that target her, and it’s mechanically capped at 3 times a turn, outside of some rare battles.

With that said, let’s look at the effects. Besides those already described, Bazette gets a 10% Attack buff for 1 turn, scaling with overcharge, which, due to her Gods Holder passive, will last into the enemy turn and boost Fragarach’s counter damage. Then, each Fragarach itself does damage equal to an AOE Quick NP (despite being single-target), applies a 10% Quick Resistance Down debuff to the target for 3 turns, and provides 10 Critical Stars for the following turn.

…and if you’re curious, this NP does provide refund, though the singular hit of Fragarach means it’s usually 1%, or less. You might as well consider the defensive NP gauge she gets from being hit the refund, if anything.

So, how’s the damage? Each individual Fragarach hit is doing, with Bazette’s skills active, 21.8k damage neutral. Even for an AOE NP, that’s pretty low for an SSR, especially since it’s ST in actuality. But things get much better when Bazette has class advantage, dishing out 32.7k to Horseman classes (43.6k to Foreigners), and 42.2k to Casters specifically. Comparatively speaking, it’s pretty high for a ST NP.

But you need to remember, that’s one Fragarach hit. While Bazette’s theoretical maximum is 3 hits in a turn, you’re kind of subject to the whims of enemy AI picking actions which triggers Fragarach. While I will say that modern FGO AI tends to avoid just using self-buff skills all turn, I think it’s safe to assume Bazette will get off 2 Fragarach counters on average. So we’re looking at, in actuality versus a neutral target, 21.8k + 23.3k (boosted by Quick Resistance Down) = 45.1k damage.

That’s probably best compared to Meltryllis’s own damage output, a fellow Quick ST Alter Ego, who dishes out 47k damage on her own NP.

So, for all the extra shenanigans around Bazette’s NP, she is realistically just hitting on par with her competitors. Naturally, that can be thrown out the window a little when considering the possibility of a triple Fragarach counter, but most of the time 2 triggers is a reasonable assumption.

And with that out the way, comes the painful part to discuss.

Bazette can farm. Yes, she can do a 3-turn loop with Fragarach. And, depending on the enemy lineup, it’s reasonably consistent. But it’s entirely pointless.

You see, even if Bazette meets the damage output to farm versus her class advantage, and can get the necessary gauge consistently, farming with her is entirely a meritless affair, because it’s slow as hell. Most Servants are judged for how easy they are to farm with based on a number of factors, one being how many button presses / time you have to invest to clear a node. In Bazette’s case, she’s automatically the worst at it, since you have to let the entire enemy turn take course before she clears the wave. You’d almost be faster returning to 2015 FGO monke mode and making BBB chains with 3 Berserkers. At least then you’d actually kill some of the wave before they attack you.

Long story short, Bazette can farm. She is technically a consistent farmer. But for the love of god, use anyone else. It’s much less of a headache for you and me both.