MMM - Serpentine Saber Stares Sinisterly, Shocking Sinner's Souls, Shod in Sacred Shape which Stipulates Supplication (Medusa Saber)

The Modern Magus Magazine

Well, the good news is that Medusa Saber was in NPC jail for less than a month. Something I can’t say for a certain batty boy from LB7. The bad news is I’m not anywhere near as hyped for the new Servant and/or event as I would be otherwise as a result.

Before you dogpile me and presumably shred me to tiny ribbons, Medusa fans, it’s nothing against the girl itself, simply that I have way too many Sabers in my roster to really care about any new Saber put in the game unless they’re completely unhinged in a good way… or they’re some form of variant of Shuten / Ibuki. Or Okita. Or BB.

I have my tastes, all right? Even if it’s resulted in me getting into this Saber situation to begin with.

Introduction

Let me tell you, if Medusa is apt at anything, it’s following what I call the “Vritra school of Noble Phantasm attainment” - Getting things as a Noble Phantasm because either they killed you or they exist because you died. Harpe, Pegasus, and now Chrysaor, she’s out here claiming everything even tangentially related to her legend as a NP.

Though to be fair I like how FGO twisted the rules a little. Chrysaor in Fate lore is a golden sword, the NP she uses in this form, but in actual Mythology is a dude. Whose name means… “He who has a golden sword”. Yeah, Fate sometimes makes some leaps in logic, but I think this one is pretty fair.

Servant Data

Saber

QQQAB (Assassin)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

4

2

4

5

9

Attribute	Earth
Alignment	Chaotic Balanced

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

Max HP 14,248

HP Rank

Max ATK 12,015

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,856	Base HP	2,089
Max Atk	12,015	Max HP	14,248
Grail Atk	13,152	Grail HP	15,609

Traits

Card Hits	4	2	4	5	9
Per Hit	1.14%	1.14%	1.14%	1.14%	1.14%

	NP per Hit (%)	1.14%
NP when Attacked (%)	3%

	Star Absorption	97
Star Generation per Hit	9.9%

Stun

Breaker Gorgon B

Inflict Petrify on an enemy (1 turn).
Increase own Quick Card Critical Strength (3 turns).
Apply buff to self (3 turns): When attacking with Quick Cards, inflict Curse on the enemy (5 turns, 500 dmg).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Petrify Chance +	50%	55%	60%	65%	70%	75%	80%	85%	90%	100%
Crit Dmg (Quick) +	30%	32%	34%	36%	38%	40%	42%	44%	46%	50%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

First on her skill lineup is Breaker Gorgon. A skill form of the NP that frankly…is severely under-utilized by Medusa in the series.

It’s hilarious how Breaker Gorgon is essentially an insta-kill technique on the level of Medusa’s Mystic Eyes, able to trap an enemy in an anti-magic seal, but 95% of the time she uses it just to seal her own Mystic Eyes. And the other 5% is to have lewd sex dreams. No, I’m not joking.

Based on how I’m reading into it, Medusa probably doesn’t use it offensively because of some internalized trauma over Perseus reflecting it back on her with the famous mirror strategy and locking her in an endless nightmare before she died, but regardless it’s funny how such a potentially powerful NP doesn’t really get credit for it.

In terms of gameplay, this has a 100% chance to Petrify (Stun) a single enemy for 1 turn, and also provides a duo of 3-turn offensive buffs for Medusa - a 50% Quick Critical Damage buff, and a buff that inflicts a 500-damage, 5-turn Curse debuff every time she lands a Quick card.

For difficult content, having access to an on-demand Stun skill is incredibly useful, but the secondary buffs (well, one of them) are also good to have around. More Quick Critical Damage when she’s packing a bunch of Quicks and superb stargen is naturally a great combo, and while not particularly impactful, the Curse debuffs are still bonus damage to improve her damage output. The Stun and Critical Damage buff are still pretty good effects, even if they’re not as immediately useful as some other skills can be.

The 8-turn cooldown on this skill is pretty long considering the low power of the offensive buffs, but Stun skills are always pretty powerful so it’s not unexpected to see the cooldown take a hit.

Start Np

Bloodspring of Monsters A

Increase own NP Gauge.
Increase ATK for all allies (3 turns).
Increase Critical Strength for all [Demonic] allies (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
NP +	30%	32%	34%	36%	38%	40%	42%	44%	46%	50%
ATK +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
Crit Dmg +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Next is Bloodspring of Monsters. This is the time-old classic, a 50% gauge charger. While naturally that should take up the bulk of your interest in the skill, it’s also packing some other effects.

Those effects being, surprise, not only is it a typical gauge charger skill, but it’s also a Charisma clone in one! Boy, that’s novel. Providing a 20% Attack buff to the team for 3 turns, this skill also doubles up with a 30% Critical Damage buff for Demonic trait allies. Which Medusa herself is…not. Well, you win some and you lose some.

Regardless, having access to a potent gauge charger is a big positive, and an offensive steroid for the team on top of that is great. The secondary critical damage buff probably won’t come up unless you’re rolling with a particularly weird team lineup, but it is nice to have if it becomes relevant. With a base cooldown of 8 turns typical of a gauge charger, this skill is simply really good, though not particularly interesting to discuss.

Invi Shield

Factor Predation (War Goddess) EX

Apply Invincible to self (3 times, 3 turns).
Apply Debuff Immune to self (3 times, 3 turns).
Increase own Critical Rate Resist (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Crit Rate Res +	10%	12%	14%	16%	18%	20%	22%	24%	26%	30%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Last on the list is Factor Predation (War Goddess). With a very…anime name, this skill is fundamentally a huge defensive buff in one singular skill. I wonder if it’s meant to reflect Aegis, since War Goddesses make you think of Athena? Regardless, given the backstory of the Gorgon sisters, it’s kind of ironic to inflict that on Medusa.

As stated, this skill is just defensive buffs galore, providing Medusa with a 3-time, 3-turn Invincible buff and Debuff Immunity buff, and if that wasn’t enough, she also gets a 30% Critical Resistance buff for 3 turns. As you might expect, this makes Medusa incredibly resilient for its duration, whether you use it in response to a dangerous NP turn or just drop it when it’s live to shelter her from Debuffs and stray hits.

By this point it’s pretty clear as a ST Servant, Saber Medusa is very built for difficult content rather than farming, and this skill solidifies that role even further, as her kit generally leans toward utility and sustained damage rather than hard and fast damage output. While that makes her more unusual, on principle having such a solid defensive profile is a virtue that makes her stand out.

Like all her other skills, the 8-turn base cooldown on this skill is probably fair given the potency of its buffs, rounding out her cooldowns overall.

Noble Phantasm

Chrysaor A

Deal damage to a single enemy.
Deal 150% supereffective damage against [Human] attribute enemies.
40% Chance to inflict Petrify on an enemy (1 turn).
Increase ATK for all [Earth] attribute allies by 20% (3 turns).

<Overcharge>

Increase own Quick Card effectiveness (1 turn) [Activates first].

Show Info/Video

Chrysaor

Golden Blade Birthing Monsters

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	A	Anti-Army	9

Effect	Deal damage to a single enemy. Deal 150% supereffective damage against [Human] attribute enemies. 40% Chance to inflict Petrify on an enemy (1 turn). Increase ATK for all [Earth] attribute allies by 20% (3 turns).

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Damage +	1200%	1600%	1800%	1900%	2000%
Supereffective ATK +	150%	150%	150%	150%	150%
Stun Chance +	40%	40%	40%	40%	40%
Atk +	20%	20%	20%	20%	20%

Overcharge Effect	Increase own Quick Card effectiveness (1 turn) [Activates first].

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
Quick +	10%	15%	20%	25%	30%

As is often the case for ST Servants with a high-difficulty content-focused kit, Medusa’s NP will be important to her overall performance. Chrysaor is a ST Quick NP with a plethora of effects to it, so let’s go over them:

Before dealing damage, this NP applies a weak 1-turn Quick Up buff to Medusa herself, scaling on Overcharge. Having any sort of damage boost before dealing damage on a NP is nice, though fundamentally Medusa is pretty lacking in damage steroids so this isn’t as much of an improvement as one would hope, though it does also improve the stargen/refund if that becomes relevant.

Then this NP inflicts its damage, with an anti-Human attribute effective damage bonus, dealing 50% more damage versus such enemies. While the NPC enemy lineup with Human attribute is limited compared to other attributes, and usually only exists on weak enemies the bonus damage doesn’t matter for, it’s great for Servants, being the most common Attribute, and that’s what Medusa is going to be fighting most of the time.

Last is the two after-damage effects, having a low 40% chance to apply Petrify to the target for 1 turn, and applying a respectable 20% Attack Up buff to Earth-attribute allies for 3 turns (which, this time, includes Medusa herself). Both of these effects are excellent to have on a NP, especially if you can chain it in succession. We know from long-term difficult content legends like Kama and Enkidu that having a Stun/Charm on a spammable NP is incredibly potent in the right circumstance, though the low chance of this one succeeding is a damper on that potential. The damage ramping effect from Medusa buffing her damage output after each NP is more notable, which also doubles as team support with the right lineup backing her.

The crux of how effective this NP will be is its refund. With just Medusa’s own buffs in play, this NP produces a refund of 12.3%. All in all pretty respectable, though nothing crazy in a vacuum. With the support of double Summer Skadi it’s a whole different picture - in a typical 50% gauge CE setup she’ll be putting out a whopping 31% refund from her NP alone. Such a NP isn’t lacking on damage, either, dealing 122k damage neutral, going up to 184k if she’s hitting her effective damage bonus.

While that amount of refund isn’t enough to simply NP again, this is where Medusa’s superb regular card NP gain comes in. A single Quick crit when buffed up in this setup provides a full refund on top of her NP refund, so provided her cards are distributed fairly evenly she’ll often be able to set up NP’s in succession.

And as I’ve established, Medusa is kind of scary when she can chain multiple NP’s - more chances at landing Petrify, ramping damage, it’s pretty scary.

Conclusion

So how is Medusa Saber, overall? On the one hand, she’s looking like a goddess incarnate, with the arms and battle prowess to match:

While on paper Medusa’s damage output shouldn’t look that great, in practice she’s quite the offensive monster if she’s given the proper support. Her access to a gauge charger and a number of offensive buffs to take advantage of her high stargen means she comes out of the gates swinging and has the momentum to run with it. NP spam or Crit chains on their own result in some pretty solid damage, but together Medusa can really come into her own.

So far as ST damage dealers go, Saber Medusa has some of the best utility in the game. Her multiple sources of Stun, powerful defensive tools, and solid team support make for a strong combo, especially when those tools can also be used in the context of a solo clutch Servant, able to essentially assure 2 survival turns from her Stun and Invuln skill, and even more if she lands some Stuns off of her NP. While it doesn’t come without some cost, it does mean she’s a versatile and resilient damage dealer with few shortcomings to compensate for.

However, the goddess in question is something of a turbo bitch responsible for multiple monster-fications and wars, so fuck Athena:

Though it’s theoretically possible in a battlesuit swap setup, Medusa Saber isn’t really a premier option for ST farming. Her damage output, while more than sufficient in difficult content due to how it’s built for sustained damage over time, is less appropriate for farming where ST Servants often have to hit in excess of 300k damage, even on neutral targets, and as high as 1m versus the dreaded 90++ farming nodes. As a result she isn’t as effective across multiple forms of content as she could be.

A problem formed from the same symptom, Medusa’s damage steroids on her own aren’t really that great. A 20% Attack Up buff and 20% Quick Up is pretty pitiful for your first NP, and Medusa only compensates for it with her critical damage output and sources of ramping damage. In situations where your support buffs aren’t active or the cards don’t go your way, Medusa can suddenly feel like a toothpick-wielder, rather than a swordswoman.

It feels like it’s been a while since we’ve had a Servant that so definitively is focused on the difficult content of FGO, though realistically speaking the last one was Drago. I just have awful memory. But case in point, this kind of Servant can be hard to evaluate, since the performance of such high-specialization Servants often depends on a player’s pool of supports available, and doubly so for Quick Servants, as Summer Skadi is statistically the most elusive support to have in one’s collection. And having regular Skadi isn’t exactly simple, either.

With the proper setup, Saber Medusa definitely has the tools to become a competent and dependable damage dealer, and one that’s fun to use at that, as with all critical-focused Quick Servants that spew out critical stars like a useless goddess having one drink too many on a celebratory binge. She certainly isn’t breaking any new heights or filling all your desires by adding her to your collection, but so far as ST Saber options go, she’s pretty high up. Rath™ Seal of Approval.

Outro

I have to say, FGO sometimes isn’t the most child-friendly game. With all the scantily-clad Servants, often of questionable body types, and suggestive voice lines it’s no wonder, but generally I tend to compartmentalize it in the “tasteful” zone of mobile games, one that doesn’t include clothes-stripping damaged arts or ads with a particular penchant for presenting posteriors.

But, I have to sincerely say, to the Lasengle employee with a foot fetish, you weren’t fooling anyone with the excuse of this event “rating shoes” as the main premise. Stand up with pride, not with pretenses.

And with that said…good taste. A very fine note to lead into the game’s anniversary.

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MMM - Serpentine Saber Stares Sinisterly, Shocking Sinner's Souls, Shod in Sacred Shape which Stipulates Supplication (Medusa Saber)

The Modern Magus Magazine

QQQAB (Assassin)

Quick Card

Quick Card

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

Traits

Tags

Stun

Start Np

Invi Shield

Chrysaor

Outro

Links

About the Author(s)

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