MMM - Studious Somatophylakes-turned-Satrap Synthesizes Strategies of Sol and Selene, Situating Sengoku Sniper for Sneaky Satsujin (Grail Front White / Black Castle Gacha)

Table of Contents

Ptolemy
Sugitani Zenjubou
Theseus

The Modern Magus Magazine

This is certainly a change of pace. With Halloween events more or less having run their course (or Nasu ran out of outfit ideas to throw Liz in, more likely), we’re getting a different kind of event this year. And boy am I happy for it.

While Grail Fronts aren’t exactly the pinnacle of engaging and complex strategy gameplay, they at least add an additional axis of gameplay that FGO is otherwise lacking, and the battle format allows for Servants who might not shine in regular gameplay to become kind of busted. In other words, I’m saying it flips the game on its head and the ST solo god Servants are the kings while the NP spammer AOE farmers are niche. And boy, is that weird.

But all new events with story in tow usually come with new Servants, and this one’s no different.

Ptolemy

Introduction

Let me tell you, Ptolemy is absolutely the John Smith of the Greco-Roman historical world. There are like 20 different people of note called this name, many of whom were alive in the same time period, and when you name a Servant Ptolemy there’s at least like 5 of them that would be an interesting Servant.

Then again, the fact FGO is calling him Ptolemaeus, which doesn’t help narrow it down at all. So we’ll just call him “Ptolemy, who was one of Iskandar’s generals”. Surely that distinguishes him enough, no?

…What do you mean, there are three Ptolemy’s in Iskandar’s army? At least give me nicknames to distinguish them, sheesh.

It helps that he’s the most famous of Iskandar’s Ptolemys, the one who went on to found the Ptolemaic Dynasty of Egypt, and was instrumental of the foundation of the Library of Alexandria, which in Nasuverse lore is very closely tied to the Atlas Institute’s history. Which is fundamentally pretty cool.

Servant Data

Archer

QAABB (Saber)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

3

5

Attribute	Human
Alignment	Lawful Balanced

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

Max HP 13,965

HP Rank

Max ATK 12,016

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,857	Base HP	2,048
Max Atk	12,016	Max HP	13,965
Grail Atk	13,153	Grail HP	15,299

Magic Resistance B

Increase your Debuff Resist by 17.5%.

Independent Action A

Increase your Critical Strength by 10%.

Territory Creation A+

Increase your Arts Card effectiveness by 11%.

Spirit Origin Data Preservation A

Increase own Buff Removal Resist by 20%.

Overview

As I examined when assessing Durga a short while back, the SSR Archer pool is filled with some pretty highly-statted behemoths to compete with, and the situation has hardly changed for Ptolemy’s introduction. With the 6th worst Attack stat in his class and rarity bracket, he compensates with the 5th highest HP stat. With the Archer class’s 0.95 attack multiplier factored in, this plants his attack stat in the very average 11500 region, but he has a well-above average HP stat to compensate.

Not really the worst place to be for your baseline, but as always offenses tend to rule over durability, and Ptolemy’s small advantage in bulk is unlikely to matter in most places you deploy him.

Ptolemy does have a sizable lineup of passives to compensate, though. His threefold combo of Independent Action, Magic Resistance, and Territory Creation mean he’s durable against debuffs, and packs a pretty nasty sting on his crits, especially for his Arts cards, which get a very respectable boost to their damage and NP gauge generation passively.

His 4th passive, Spirit Origin Data Preservation, is a unique one based around his dual nature of a Servant, and how he uses Memory Partition (a staple magecraft of Atlas Institute, long-term Nasuverse fans may know it’s one of the Magecraft schools Sion is an expert in) to divide his Spirit Origin. In gameplay terms, this gives him a respectable passive Buff Removal Resistance. This won’t really come up often, but the few times difficult content tosses gauge break buff removals at you, Ptolemy’s small chance to just say “no” to it will certainly make you pop off.

NP Generation

Card Hits	3	3	3	5	5
Per Hit	0.43%	0.43%	0.43%	0.43%	0.43%

	NP per Hit (%)	0.43%
NP when Attacked (%)	3%

	Star Absorption	154
Star Generation per Hit	8.0%

Servant Skills

Dmg Up

Charisma of Salvation A

Increase ATK for all allies (3 turns).
Restore HP each turn for all allies (3 turns).
Apply to self: Gain Critical Stars each turn (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
ATK +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
HP Regen +	500	550	600	650	700	750	800	850	900	1000
Star Regen +	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	15
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

First on the skill front is Charisma of Salvation. As a fun tidbit, this skill is based on Ptolemy’s title of Ptolemy Soter, an honorific meaning Savior, given to prestigious liberators and kings around his time period, and sharing the term with pretty much all of the Greek Pantheon, as well as the man himself, Jesus. I wonder if that class from Extra will be making a comeback at some point…

As a Charisma skill, you can easily guess one component of this skill without me telling you - 20% Attack up to the team for 3 turns, as well as a 1k HP regeneration buff for the team and a 15 stars per turn buff on Ptolemy himself for the same duration.

Offensive buffs are always something to appreciate, though in this case the bonus effects of this skill are pretty mediocre. Healing is often underlooked, but in all fairness it doesn’t have relevance to most content in the game, and is less effective than other tools at keeping the team alive. The star generation is certainly handy for Ptolemy’s own critical damage output, but it still means the skill is a bit lacking overall.

The true issue is the fact this skill is on an 8-turn base cooldown for no good reason. Like seriously, I can’t see any of these effects being good enough to necessitate giving it 1 turn longer downtime compared to, I don’t know, Merlin’s Charisma, with one of the best team gauge charges in the game tied to it?

This skill’s offensive benefits are still handy, but boy is that cooldown a spit in the face.

Arts/Buster Up

Memory Partition (King) A

Increase Arts Card effectiveness for all allies (3 turns).
Increase Buster Card effectiveness for all allies (3 turns).
Increase Critical Rate Resist for all allies (3 turns).
Increase own NP Gauge.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Arts +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
Buster +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
Crit Rate Resist +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
NP +	30%	32%	34%	36%	38%	40%	42%	44%	46%	50%
CD	9	9	9	9	9	8	8	8	8	7

If the Charisma clone is standard, then of course we need to follow up with the 3-turn dual-card buff skill. Sometimes this game feels a little bit too formulaic for my tastes.

Memory Partition (King) provides a plethora of buffs to the entire team for 3 turns - a 20% booster to both Arts and Buster cards, and a 20% Critical Resist buff, providing a notable bonus to damage output as well as an effective safeguard against random crits. In combination with Ptolemy’s Charisma buff, he has a pretty significant offensive steroid for the entire team, but somehow that’s not the main focus of this skill.

Yep, it’s a gauge charger, the classic among classics. This 50% gauge charge is naturally significant, providing Ptolemy with a leg-up to getting his NP off the ground, as well as cementing his first 2 skills as a pair of offensive buffs to bolster his NP which he’s all-but-assured to have ready once used. For once this also justifies the existence of a dual-card buff skill, too, which I’ll delve into very shortly.

For all the power of this skill, it’s inevitable that it would be stapled with a long, 9-turn base cooldown. While that’s a downer, for Servants who don’t aim to roll alongside Koyanskaya in farming, the cooldown of their gauge charger typically isn’t that significant, but it’s a downside regardless.

Sun and Moon Orbit

Attainment of Wisdom EX

[For Ascension 1/2]
Change to Ascension 3 form.
Increase own NP Gauge.
Increase own NP Strength (3 turns).

[For Ascension 3]
Change to Ascension 1 form.
Increase own NP Gain (3 turns).
Increase own Critical Strength (3 turns).
Increase own Critical Star Gather Rate (3 turns).
Gain Critical Stars.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
(Asc 1/2) NP +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
(Asc 1/2) NP Damage +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
(Asc 3) NP Gain +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
(Asc 3) Crit Damage +	30%	32%	34%	36%	38%	40%	42%	44%	46%	50%
(Asc 3) Star Gather +	300%	320%	340%	360%	380%	400%	420%	440%	460%	500%
(Asc 3) Stars +	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	20
CD	7	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6	5

The final skill on Ptolemy’s lineup is by far the biggest to digest, and for good reason. Attainment of Wisdom is a skill whose effects change depending on Ptolemy’s ascension form. The reason for this, in case it sounds familiar, is because Melusine’s formerly-unique status of having 2 different NP’s which she alternates between based on Ascension form and a skill to transition between them is no longer unique.

Ptolemy shares the same benefit, with this skill swapping him between each form on use, providing different buffs and an alternate NP. And unlike Melusine, he can freely swap back and forth between young and old forms as he pleases.

When used in his younger, Ascension 1 / 2 form, Ptolemy gets a 30% gauge charge and 30% NP damage buff for 3 turns, while in his older, Ascension 3 form, Ptolemy gets a host of 3-turn buffs - 30% NP gain, 50% Critical Damage Up, +500% Star Weight, and a 20-star bomb on top.

The intention of these buffs is pretty clear. In his younger form, Ptolemy transitions to his older form and gains buffs enabling an instantaneous NP, making his older form focused on his NP and its damage. Meanwhile the older form provides a host of powerful critical-based buffs to his younger form, meaning that form is focused on single-target damage output with his crits. Naturally that means you start Ptolemy in the form you don’t want to use for most of the fight, so that he can immediately reap the benefits of transitioning into his alternate, more desirable form.

Most impressive of all for this skill is probably just the cooldown. The buffs in either form of this skill are pretty good, and a 7-turn base cooldown means Ptolemy will be able to shift between either fairly regularly, reaping the benefits of either. You might think this isn’t much to speak of, but in difficult content, having access to a single offensive Servant who can start off as an AOE damage dealer (As his older form’s NP is AOE), then 5 turns in, once the weaker additional enemies are gone, can switch into a ST-focus form to finish off the primary boss is very handy. You can essentially get the benefits of two Servants in one party slot, which is great for both convenience and conserving deployment points.

Noble Phantasm

Bibliotheca Basileus (Ascension 3) A+

Apply Sure Hit to self (1 turn) [Activates first].
Deal damage to all enemies.
Decrease DEF by 20% for all enemies (3 turns).

<Overcharge>

Increase own NP Strength (1 turn) [Activates first].

Show Info/Video

Bibliotheca Basileus (Ascension 3)

Library of Kings

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	A+	Barrier / Anti-Army	5

Effect	Apply Sure Hit to self (1 turn) [Activates first]. Deal damage to all enemies. Decrease DEF by 20% for all enemies (3 turns).

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Sure Hit
Damage +	450%	600%	675%	712.5%	750%
Def -	20%	20%	20%	20%	20%

Overcharge Effect	Increase own NP Strength (1 turn) [Activates first].

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
NP Damage +	20%	25%	30%	35%	40%

Pharos Tis Alexandreias (Ascension 1/2) B++

Apply Ignore DEF to self (1 turn) [Activates first].
Deal damage to a single enemy.
Decrease DEF by 20% for a single enemy (3 turns).

<Overcharge>

Increase own NP Strength (1 turn) [Activates first].

Show Info

Pharos Tis Alexandreias (Ascension 1/2)

Eternal Light, Unknown to the Moon

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	B++	Anti-Fortress	5

Effect	Apply Ignore DEF to self (1 turn) [Activates first]. Deal damage to a single enemy. Decrease DEF by 20% for a single enemy (3 turns).

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Ignore Defense
Damage +	600%	800%	900%	950%	1000%
Def -	20%	20%	20%	20%	20%

Overcharge Effect	Increase own NP Strength (1 turn) [Activates first].

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
NP Damage +	20%	25%	30%	35%	40%

As I’ve noted already, Ptolemy has 2 Noble Phantasms to call his own - Bibliotheca Basileus in his older form, and Pharos Tis Alexandreias in his younger form. These two NP’s may have different card types and hit different numbers of enemies, but most of their attributes are identical, so I’ll cover what they share, first.

Both NP’s apply a 20% NP damage buff for 1 turn before dealing damage, scaling with overcharge, then have 5 hits to their NP itself, then inflicting a 20% defense debuff to enemies struck for 3 turns.

The divergence is in the other buff they get before dealing damage - an Ignore def buff for 1 turn on the Buster ST NP of the younger form, and a Sure Hit buff for 1 turn on the Arts AOE NP of the older form.

The Buster ST NP is ultimately a straightforward damaging punch, inflicting a good amount of damage due to Ptolemy’s trinity of offensive buffs providing a 72% damage steroid total, as well as softening the targets struck for his strong critical damage output.

For his older form, however…well, it’s an Arts AOE NP, so it’s farming analysis time!
With his own buffs in play, Ptolemy’s Arts NP produces a very respectable base refund of 25%. When thrown into a typical double Castoria farming setup with a 50% gauge CE, that leaps up to 83%. With Overkill thrown in, he nearly amasses a full NP gauge off his refund, netting around the 95% mark.

So as we’ve established pretty easily, Ptolemy’s refund is stupidly high. But how’s the damage output? In the previous 50% gauge CE setup, he manages 81k damage neutral on waves 1 and 2, then about 101k damage for wave 3 if you’re using an optimal damage-boosting Mystic Code. While those are solid damage numbers for a neutral target, there’s a lot of gauge charge and NP refund potential being wasted - Ptolemy wants a Black Grail, so let’s give it to him!

With Black Grail, Ptolemy’s refund is hardly affected, gaining 78% NP gauge at a bare minimum from each wave, and with his own 80% gauge charge on the first turn, you can free up the Castorias’ own gauge charges to supplement him on later waves. Using the most efficient skill order, he’ll be doing 85k damage versus neutral targets on wave 1, 100k on wave 2, then 143k damage on wave 3.

And again, that’s with a damage-buffing Mystic Code, because Ptolemy’s NP refund is more than good enough to avoid using Battlesuit swap on most farming runs.

Those numbers are more than enough to qualify as a universal farmer, and doubly so as one who can use fairly low-effort setups on top. And naturally, versus his own class advantage you can probably fall asleep and he’ll still clear the quest.

Conclusion

So how is Ptolemy on the whole? Well, on the one hand, he’s spry and wise, brave and experienced, and a peerless soldier and king both:

Ptolemy is a pretty phenomenal farmer. The number of farmers who can do Black Grail setups without using battlesuit swap is relatively low, and Ptolemy does it with enough excess NP gauge to have little issue dealing with the low NP gain modifiers of Berserker or Assassin-class enemies, too. His damage output is also sufficient to farm pretty much any class, though not exactly overwhelming, so he makes for a welcome, newly-accessible and consistent addition to the Archer farming roster.

With his split nature as a Servant, you would think Ptolemy spreads himself thin trying to do multiple things, but thankfully he was designed cleverly, wherein he only ever gets specialized buffs when he’s switching to the form that needs them. As such, he’s also a solid ST damage dealer when needed. His critical damage output is fairly strong in his younger form, and with his capability to generate and soak up stars, he’ll be able to NP fairly often even with his poor NP gain overall. The defense pierce on his younger form’s NP is also quite handy in the right circumstance, as irremovable defense buffs aren’t too rare on bosses nowadays.

However, he’s also brash and cranky, foolish and close-minded, general to a fallen king and dynasty both:

If there’s any specific area I’d say Ptolemy is lacking, then it’s his defensive capabilities. While his decent bulk and unique ability to shrug off buff removal is cool, he’s lacking any actual defensive buffs worth removing, meaning his survival is entirely in the hands of his supportive ensemble. That’s not exactly anything unusual, but the difference between a damage dealer who can cover their own hide in a pinch, and those who’ll get tanned can matter a fair bit, limiting Ptolemy’s long term endurance in difficult content.

Boy, in retrospect I feel like I was perhaps a little bit too kind to Durga, now that there’s another Archer occupying her space with a far better refund profile and better damage output versus the majority of enemies. It’s not like I could predict there’d be another, stronger Arts farming Archer right around the corner, though. Atlas probably could, the damn “all according to my calculations” bastards.

So case in point, for his older, farming form alone Ptolemy is a superb Servant, but the fact he runs double duty and can also function as a ST Damage dealer, even in the very same quest, is kind of absurd. Especially since he can go from AOE to ST, which typically tends to be more useful than the one-way transition Melusine has, and I considered that some pretty handy utility. Sure, it doesn’t come with an absurd +100% gauge charger and some of the craziest damage output in the game, but most of the time Melusine levels of damage is excessive.

In terms of bang-for-your-buck, Ptolemy is probably the best Archer in the game, but even with access to a Servant who outperforms him as a ST Archer, his farming capability is certainly the best in his class, and some of the best in the game. Rath™ Seal of Approval, with a recommendation.

Sugitani Zenjubou

Introduction

While Fate does tend to give their love to failed assassins from time to time, Sugitani has to be one of them with both the funniest failing and most gruesome end.

I can get wanting to assassinate Oda Nobunaga, but doing so because apparently you want to demonstrate your gunsmithing skill is certainly a motivation, doubly so because killing Nobu with a gun would be supreme irony. So Sugitani supposedly took 2 shots at Nobunaga and only managed to graze them, then went on the run.

As someone with a casual interest in firearms, let me tell you two facts. Matchlock rifles, Sugitani’s weapon of choice, are effective to ranges of up to 100m, and are near-100% accurate from around 30m or closer. Sugitani reportedly fired at Nobu from 20m away. Twice.

So either Sugitani’s gunsmithing skills were actually shoddy, or her marksmanship was awful, or possibly both. What a way to go down in history. That’s our heroic spirit!

Servant Data

Archer

QAABB (Saber)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

4

3

5

4

Attribute	Human
Alignment	Neutral Balanced

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

Max HP 9,682

HP Rank

Max ATK 7,647

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,364	Base HP	1,742
Max Atk	7,647	Max HP	9,682
Grail Atk	9,943	Grail HP	13,127

Traits

Servant Humanoid Feminine Appearance Hominidae Weak to Enuma Elish

Card Hits	4	3	3	5	4
Per Hit	0.66%	0.66%	0.66%	0.66%	0.66%

	NP per Hit (%)	0.66%
NP when Attacked (%)	3%

	Star Absorption	145
Star Generation per Hit	7.9%

Buster Up

Sniper's Nest C

Increase own Buster Card effectiveness (3 turns).
Increase own Buster Card Critical Strength (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Buster +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
Crit Damage (Buster) +	30%	32%	34%	36%	38%	40%	42%	44%	46%	50%
CD	7	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6	5

First on the lineup is Sniper’s Nest. It feels pretty weird for FGO to be portraying her as the long-range sniper-type like it’s COD Modern Warfare 1 while in reality she was shooting a dude from literally a stone’s throw away.

This is a straightforward damage steroid skill, providing both +30% Buster boost and +50% Critical Damage on Buster cards for 3 turns. That’s unfortunately all there is to it, so Sugitani is certainly going all-or-nothing on her Buster cards like Rusty shooting a rail cannon at 115% output...

I should really stop throwing my niche, seasonal interests into MMM evaluations, shouldn’t I? I’ll be utterly incomprehensible a decade down the line. Not that I’m stopping.

Point being, getting all those bonuses on just two-fifths of her card deck (plus her NP) isn’t exactly ideal, especially since the boosts aren’t exactly stunning to begin with. Compared to many Servants of her rarity the buffs are strong though, so it’s down to how well she can make it work.

The base cooldown of 7 turns on this skill is more or less what you should expect, though this skill could probably be a shorter cooldown without breaking its power.

Debuff Clear

Starting Over (Reloading) C+

Clear all debuffs from self.
Apply buff to self (5 turns): Increase own Critical Strength (1 time, 5 turns) every turn.
Apply to self: Gain critical stars each turn (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Crit Damage +	30%	32%	34%	36%	38%	40%	42%	44%	46%	50%
Critical Stars	5	6	6	7	7	8	8	9	9	10
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Next up is Starting Over (Reloading). While a bit unique, this skill is a pretty powerful one overall. On use, it removes all debuffs from Sugitani, then applies two buffs to herself - a 10 star per turn buff over 3 turns, fuelling her critical damage output pretty efficiently, and a 5-turn buff that applies a 1-time, 5-turn 50% Critical Damage buff to her at the end of each turn.

While the nature of said buff means that it’s gonna be consumed on the first card she uses next that crits, it’s still a pretty good critical damage buff. It doesn’t allow for big, one-turn bursts of damage, but a chunk of 250% bonus critical damage distributed across 5 cards or applied to a single one all at once is pretty potent. The long-lasting duration of this means so long as she sticks around, Sugitani will certainly get her money’s worth out of this skill, and it can even stack on top of itself with skill cooldown reduction, as it has a relatively short 8-turn base cooldown.

So while this doesn’t have overwhelming power on the surface, it’s almost like a second passive, providing Sugitani with consistently high critical damage output over time, on top of the star supply and occasional debuff removal. Not bad in the slightest.

Evade

Sniper's Camoflage B

Apply Evade to self (3 times, 3 turns).
Increase own Buster Card Star Gather Rate (3 turns).
Apply buff to self (3 turns): Increase own Buff Success Rate by 15% (5 turns) every turn.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Star Gather (Buster) +	300%	320%	340%	360%	380%	400%	420%	440%	460%	500%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Last of all is Sniper’s Camouflage. Not sure the camo was effective historically considering she was identified and hunted down for interrogation and execution.

This is a skill of 3 disparate buffs, but all are pretty good. First is a 3-time, 3-turn Evasion buff to herself. Hit-based Evasion is one of the best kinds of defensive buffs you can get, especially with a solid window for it to be used up. Meanwhile, on the offensive side of things, Sugitani gets a +500% Star Weight buff for Buster cards for 3 turns, and a 3-turn buff that applies a 15% Buff Success rate up buff to herself for 5 turns at the end of each turn.

That’s a bit to digest, but essentially Sugitani gains up to +45% Buff success rate up over time, with the max buff period lasting 3 turns. Up until now we haven’t seen any buffs with a %-based success rate in her kit, but that’s because they’re all loaded into her NP, which we’ll cover shortly.

But needless to say, the longer Sugitani sticks on the field, the more powerful she’ll get, which appears to be her overall theme. And much like the prior skill following this theme, the cooldown on this skill is 8 turns at base, meaning she also can keep those buffs stacked up more or less permanently.

Noble Phantasm

Futatsutamanite Uchitesourou C+

85% chance to apply Sure Hit to self (1 turn) [Activates first]
55% chance to increase own NP Strength by 20% (1 turn) [Activates first].
55% chance to further increase own NP Strength by 20% (1 turn) [Activates first].
Deal damage to a single enemy.
Remove all [Buff Success Rate Up] buffs from self [Demerit].

<Overcharge>

70% chance to increase own Arts Card effectiveness (1 turn) [Activates first].
70% chance to increase own Buster Card effectiveness (1 turn) [Activates first].

Show Info/Video

Futatsutamanite Uchitesourou

Shooting With Two Bullets

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	C+	Anti-Personnel	4

Effect	85% chance to apply Sure Hit to self (1 turn) [Activates first] 55% chance to increase own NP Strength by 20% (1 turn) [Activates first]. 55% chance to further increase own NP Strength by 20% (1 turn) [Activates first]. Deal damage to a single enemy. Remove all [Buff Success Rate Up] buffs from self [Demerit].

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Sure Hit
NP Damage +	20%	20%	20%	20%	20%
NP Damage +	20%	20%	20%	20%	20%
Damage +	600%	800%	900%	950%	1000%
Buff Removal

Overcharge Effect	70% chance to increase own Arts Card effectiveness (1 turn) [Activates first]. 70% chance to increase own Buster Card effectiveness (1 turn) [Activates first].

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
Arts +	20%	25%	30%	35%	40%
Buster +	20%	25%	30%	35%	40%

Sugitani’s NP is a mouthful, named Futatsutamanite Uchitesourou, or Shooting with two bullets in the land of kaigai-nikki and hamburgers. While I’d like to say the NP itself is simpler to digest, it’s simply not.

A Buster ST NP, this thing has an absolute cavalcade of effects which apply before dealing damage, so let me go through them all:

First, Sugitani has an 85% chance to apply Sure Hit to herself for 1 turn.

Then, she has a 70% chance to apply 20% Buster Up and 20% Arts Up for 1 turn individually, scaling with Overcharge.

And finally, she has two 55% chances to get a 20% NP Damage Up buff for 1 turn.

The astute among you already have realized this means if she sticks around for 3 turns she gets a total of +45% Buff Success Rate Up, which adds together with the rates shown to make every buff 100% chance. Furthermore, each “layer” of buffs becomes guaranteed with each turn she waits to get the buffs, as the “missing” buff success rates are multiples of 15%.

So if she gets the full power out of this NP, she’s piercing Evasion buffs and gets a pretty chunky 68% damage steroid to the shot. Not bad at all, but I suppose Nobu just had an Invincible buff that day.

After all is said and done, Sugitani unfortunately loses all her accumulated Buff Success Rate buffs, so she would need to wait for her 3rd skill to proc again to get any assured buffs from this NP, though you can always gamble instead of waiting.

The payoff for this all is a fairly hard-hitting NP, though not anything breaking the charts. With every buff hitting at NP5 (because that’s basically free for 3* Servants), she does a total of 55k damage neutral, which is barely trailing behind the damage of Servants like Musashi at NP1. Of course, it’s unlikely all her NP’s will be fortunate enough to have so much setup, but she’s more likely to hit all the buffs than none of them, so it’s better to think positively if you ask me.

Conclusion

So how does Sugitani shape up? On the one hand, she has all her preparations made, and she’s in position, ready to fire:

For a lower-rarity Servant, Sugitani packs a lot of firepower in her. Through her consistent ability to generate stars and offload with critical damage, she punches well above her weight class, and her NP’s damage output is similarly very high when all of its buffs come into play.

Sugitani packs a number of defensive and utility tools which make her more than just a damage-dealing boomstick. Her in-kit debuff removal and powerful Evasion skill come in handy for keeping herself healthy in more difficult content, and Sure Hit NP’s will occasionally prove their use, with a number of boss encounters in recent history having irremovable Evasion buffs to contend with.

However, she did ultimately miss her damn shot. Twice. How the heck do you do that?

Despite the focus on her NP’s buildup and damage output, Sugitani fails to actually provide a convenient means of well, charging her NP gauge. It isn’t really a herculean task given her solid NP gain and capability for crits, but regardless it does place a burden on her supports. It’s not the end of the world given she’s meant to wait at least 3 turns before firing anyway, but gauge chargers would be handy regardless.

While her damage output once prepared is certainly impressive, fundamentally FGO isn’t a game that has to be played that slow. A NP which does a lot of damage on a 3 turn delay is worse than a NP which does a decent amount twice as much in the same time span, or worse, one that can be spammed in a 3-turn loop. While most competitors capable of such feats aren’t also a compact, low-cost 3* Servant, it still stands that Sugitani’s idea of a game plan isn’t exactly the meta.

It’s been a fair while since we last had a 3* Servant inclusion, and honestly despite her flaws Sugitani isn’t half bad. She boasts better critical damage output than many higher-rarity Servants (the Critical Damage buffs she gets from her kit have more value than Sigurd’s, which is just very sad), and also packs a good chunk of utility that helps keep her alive for her high-power NP to strike home.

Sure, someone like Bedivere could hit harder and better use the tools Buster supports have available in a very brief time-frame, but it doesn’t mean Sugitani isn’t significantly better than many of the stinkers lurking about the lower-rarity Servant pools. She actually has skills which apply more than 1 buff each, for one thing. And her NP actually has useful effects.

So while she’s not a must-have damage-spewing machine, or a soloing god, or a new cost-effective farmer, she’s a strong Buster crit-focused damage dealer that can carry many a Master down on their luck should they have need of her specialty. Rath™ Seal of Approval.

Theseus

Introduction

You know, wouldn’t it be crazy if your event featured a new 3* Servant ON TOP OF the other one in it, but you don’t put it in the initial gacha, and in the other one with the less-desirable SSR instead, but actually don’t insert him into the game until the end of the story, just to solely torment the writer of this article? That would be crazy, right? It’d make him rewrite the entire outro anticipating a second gacha with a Pretender SSR in it.

Surely Lasengle wouldn’t do that, right?

Servant Data

Saber

QAABB (Saber)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

4

3

5

4

Attribute	Earth
Alignment	Lawful Good

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

Max HP 10,302

HP Rank

Max ATK 7,105

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,319	Base HP	1,854
Max Atk	7,105	Max HP	10,302
Grail Atk	9,616	Grail HP	13,968

Magic Resistance A

Increase your Debuff Resist by 20%.

Riding B

Increase your Quick Card effectiveness by 8%.

Overview

As an addition to one of the few number of 3* Sabers in the game, Theseus doesn’t have a large amount of competition, but what is there does set fairly high expectations for him, with Caesar and Bedevire being some of the better 3*’s in the game.

With the second-lowest Attack stat in the tier, Theseus isn’t exactly on a great start, but he compensates with a superb HP stat, tied with Mashu for the 4th highest of any 3*, but with an attack stat that’s still relatively high in spite of it. So while the lack of offensive might does hurt, he doesn’t walk away without a decent tradeoff for it.

As for passives, Theseus doesn’t have anything too abnormal for a Saber - Magic Resistance provides a consistent defense against debuffs, while his Riding rank provides a moderate boost to his singular Quick card.

NP Generation

Card Hits	4	3	3	5	4
Per Hit	0.55%	0.55%	0.55%	0.55%	0.55%

	NP per Hit (%)	0.55%
NP when Attacked (%)	3%

	Star Absorption	102
Star Generation per Hit	10.2%

Servant Skills

Arts Up

Ariadne's Prayer C

Increase own Arts Card effectiveness (3 turns).
Increase own NP Gauge.
Apply to self: Gain Critical Stars each turn (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Arts +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
NP +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
Stars per turn +	5	6	6	7	7	8	8	9	9	10
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

First on his skill lineup is Ariadne’s Prayer. A very important part of Theseus’s myth, it goes without saying he never could’ve been the hero he was without Ariadne. Also wouldn’t be the one he was without abandoning her after promising to marry her, so total dick move there.

This skill is frankly pretty shockingly powerful for a lower-rarity Servant, providing a 30% Arts booster to him for 3 turns, on top of a 20% gauge charger and a 10-stars per turn buff for 3 turns. Any gauge charger is naturally a superb thing to have, then again an Arts booster on an Arts-focused Servant, and a steady star supply to further supplement one’s damage output and NP gain alike.

The only real flaw to speak of on this skill is its 8-turn base cooldown, something that will become a theme with his entire skillset. Gauge chargers below 30% can probably be on lower cooldowns and be fine balance-wise, but unfortunately Theseus doesn’t get that mercy. Ah well.

Arts Star Gather Rate Up

Intuition (Labyrinth) B++

Increase own Arts Card Star Gather Rate (3 turns).
Increase own Arts Card Critical Strength (3 turns).
Gain Critical Stars.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Star Gather (Arts) +	300%	320%	340%	360%	380%	400%	420%	440%	460%	500%
Crit Damage (Arts) +	30%	32%	34%	36%	38%	40%	42%	44%	46%	50%
Stars +	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	15
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Next is Intuition (Labyrinth). Like all other Intuition skills, this is a star bomb, but thankfully it’s much more than that, so no waiting 5 years for a skill upgrade to actually make it usable.

On top of providing 15 Critical Stars on use, this skill gives Theseus a pair of potent critical-based buffs - +500% Star weight on his Arts cards, and +50% Arts card Critical Damage for 3 turns. While these make the man’s main focus pretty clear, he does fall into the same weakness as Sugitani does, focusing on a lot of damage buffs for a card type that he only gets 2 of in every 3-turn cycle.

That’s not to ignore that the damage output and NP gauge he’d gain from those Arts cards when they do crop up will be immense, but it’s an incredibly narrow channel to focus your damage into. Regardless, it’s a pretty good skill for a Servant of his rarity, and comes packaged with the aforementioned 8-turn base cooldown that he’s gonna have to deal with.

Dmg Up

Arms Mastery Retribution B

Increase own ATK (3 turns).
Decrease ATK for a single enemy (3 turns).
Gain Critical Stars.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
ATK +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
ATK -	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
Stars +	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	15
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Last on the list is Arms Mastery Retribution. In the lore this is a pretty cool skill, as it grants Theseus the ability to steal his opponent’s weaponry and utilize them with perfect skill, even using Noble Phantasms provided they aren’t in a specific number of categories.

This acts as his secondary offensive buff, providing a 30% Attack buff for himself over 3 turns, as well as debuffing the Attack of a single targeted enemy by 20% for the same duration. On top of all that, he also gets yet another 15-star bomb, allowing him to basically drown himself in stars.

The combination of both his 3-turn damage buffs makes for a pretty solid offensive profile, especially when he has so many critical stars to work with. The attack debuff may also come in handy, but its value is pretty low, so it’s more of a minor defensive boost than anything else, especially since you’d rather kill an enemy ASAP than let them live with a debuff.

And, yet again, this skill is on an 8-turn base cooldown. Straight 8’s across the board.

Noble Phantasm

Ariadne Apolyto Adis C++

Apply 50% Special ATK [Demonic Beast Servant] to self (1 turn) [Activates first].
Deal damage to a single enemy.
Deal 150% supereffective damage to [Giant] enemies.
Gain 20 Critical Stars.

<Overcharge>

Increase own Critical Strength (3 turns) [Activates first].

Show Info/Video

Ariadne Apolyto Adis

Thus the Thread Leads to the End

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	C++	Anti-Personnel	4

Effect	Apply 50% Special ATK [Demonic Beast Servant] to self (1 turn) [Activates first]. Deal damage to a single enemy. Deal 150% supereffective damage to [Giant] enemies. Gain 20 Critical Stars.

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Special ATK +	50%	50%	50%	50%	50%
Supereffective ATK +	150%	150%	150%	150%	150%
Damage +	900%	1200%	1350%	1425%	1500%
Stars +	20	20	20	20	20

Overcharge Effect	Increase own Critical Strength (3 turns) [Activates first].

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
Crit Damage +	50%	62.5%	75%	87.5%	100%

And to round everything off is Theseus’s NP, Ariadne Apolyto Adis. Shame that they made this his NP in gameplay, when his profile lists his second, arguable more powerful NP, Diskoria Spira, which is based on his Six Labours, similar to the Twelve of Heracles, and essentially acts as a Counter-NP in a similar vein to Fragarach, as those Labours were basically him inflicting the suffering that a bunch of wicked people did to others to themselves.

But let’s focus on the actual NP, here. This is a ST Arts NP with a surprising amount of effects, so I’ll go over it all. First, Theseus gets a hefty +50% Critical Damage buff for 3 turns, scaling with Overcharge. He then applies a +50% effective damage versus Demonic Beast-like Servants for 1 turn. This is a relatively rare trait, but eclipses basically every single Servant where you look at them and say, “Yep, that’s an animal person/dragon/dinosaur/Kiara cosplaying as a mermaid”...

Wait what? How does Summer Kiara count but not Atalanta Alter? This game sometimes…

At any rate, only 21 Servants in the game have this trait, including Asterios, obviously, and the number of NPC’s with it basically amount to alternate forms of playable Servants, so it’s not likely Theseus will be getting this damage bonus. A shockingly large number of the valid targets are Lancers or Berserkers though, so it’s not like you won’t run into an ideal situation to reap the benefits of this buff, eventually.

After those buffs, Theseus deals his damage, with a +50% effective damage multiplier versus Giant enemies. Unlike the Supergiant trait, this trait basically covers every single humanoid that is bigger than a normal human by a notable margin. Which effectively covers everything that’s a literal Giant, large-sized variants of regular enemies like the Nobus, all the big Onis, Asterios (of course), and every member of Nasu’s giantess fetish club.

Neither of the effective damage traits on this NP are exactly common, but together they make for a decent spread of effective damage that has maybe a 1/20 chance of demolishing any given Servant, and a reasonable number of miniboss-type monsters.

The last effect to this NP is, unsurprisingly, a star bomb, providing 20 stars on its use. If nothing else Theseus will be supplying both himself and his team critical stars for their lifetime, and it pairs up nicely with the critical damage buff from this NP itself.

As an Arts ST damage dealer, though, we should obviously see how good his spam capabilities are. With just his own buffs in play Theseus can net a refund of 8.58% gauge from his 4-hit NP. Nothing spectacular, but thrown into a typical double Castoria setup, he’s getting 28% gauge per NP at a minimum, and with his all-but-guaranteed Arts card crits lined up, he’s pretty likely to get a full 100% refund if he can do a NP chain with an Arts card in the 3rd card slot. And with an essentially-free NP5 as a 3* Servant, he dishes out some very intense damage from both the NP itself and the critical damage chains it enables.

Conclusion

So how is Theseus overall? Well on the upside, he’s a great hero on the mend, and a walking legend who technically saved Athens from a monster:

Theseus is an absurd critical machine, and that cannot be understated. Even if he doesn’t touch a Quick card in his life, he’d still get more than enough critical stars to consistently land crits on his important cards, and even more so as an Arts-focused Servant, his capability for crits means he’s getting more NP gauge to spam his NP. It’s a potent self-perpetuating cycle that results in some absurd damage output for his cost.

While he’s not the greatest at it, Theseus is something of a budget ST farming option. With a 50% gauge CE and double Castoria he can manage 2 NP’s in a row fairly consistently, even if he doesn’t get a chance to supplement himself with regular cards. He’s admittedly not better than a welfare option like Summer Hokusai, but his lower party cost and general better accessibility can lend him the edge.

However, no matter how much he aims to make amends, he can’t change the sin of killing the bull boi and leaving Ariadne out high and dry:

As I noted in his evaluation, Theseus does suffer a little from focusing too much on boosting his Arts cards. If he had a BAAAQ card deck it’d make more sense, but the fact the majority of his damage boosts apply to landing crits on 2 cards out of the 15 you get in a 3-turn cycle means he could easily have to wait until turn 3 before his buffs actually get to apply to his attacks. This is somewhat mitigated by his NP’s critical damage boost applying to all his cards, but it is a drawback that can leave him susceptible to card luck, nonetheless.

As bad as it did feel at a time for many great Greek heroes like Jason and Heracles to have their power in FGO limited by external factors, whether it be their rarity in the game or simply the time of their original implementation, Theseus manages to have one of the strongest kits of any R Servant in this game, with a focused game plan, strong skill lineup, high damage output, and compatibility with the best strategy in this game across most content - Arts NP spam.

While he does face a lot of competition even among his own class from higher-rarity Servants like Yagyu, Hajime, and Dioscuri, Theseus’s accessibility, low deployment cost, and high NP damage output are all very strong benefits that often make him a more desirable choice. And of course, if you ever need to close the stat gap, using Grails on non-SSR Servants is pretty resource-efficient…

In any case, Theseus is a very strong offensive Servant that can fill in the position of a ST damage dealer, even when not tackling his class advantage, so I’d wholeheartedly suggest getting him at NP5 if you’re lacking in an Arts damage dealer. Rath™ Seal of Approval, with a recommendation.

Outro

I would like to take a small moment to make this place the grave-marker for the paragraphs of outro I wrote that sadly had to be deleted because Theseus dropped the day after I finished writing the MMM. I salute you.

At least I’m staying fairly on schedule for once. Doing my job properly, unlike a certain wannabe John Wilkes Booth. If we’re going to keep including failed assassins in FGO, I’m hoping for Gavrilo Princip next. He’ll have an EX Luck stat that somehow blunders himself into successfully killing his target even when he’s the most incompetent human on this planet.

But I’ll leave the fan-theorizing for my internal monologue, for now. Until the next issue!

Links

Rathilal's MMMs - Archive

MMM - Studious Somatophylakes-turned-Satrap Synthesizes Strategies of Sol and Selene, Situating Sengoku Sniper for Sneaky Satsujin (Grail Front White / Black Castle Gacha)

The Modern Magus Magazine

Ptolemy

Traits

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Bibliotheca Basileus (Ascension 3)

Pharos Tis Alexandreias (Ascension 1/2)

Sugitani Zenjubou

Traits

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Futatsutamanite Uchitesourou

Theseus

Traits

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Ariadne Apolyto Adis

Outro

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About the Author(s)

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