Rabbit’s Reviews #376: Takeda Shingen (5* Rider)

Shingen is, at his core, outdated. He has the basic things that make for a functional AoE Buster unit—persistent steroids, a Koyan-compatible battery, and some utility. Unfortunately, his damage output is far too low to be relevant for modern content, and the utility he does have, while nice at the lower end, isn’t enough to give him a unique or interesting place in hard content. He’s a decent point servant for a Himiko/Castoria team, but he’s nowhere near the best in that role, and as a farmer he falls well behind pretty much any half-decent options. He’s about on par with Europa, which is not a flattering comparison in the current state of FGO. Alas.

Shingen has decidedly middling stats, with average attack and average health. This isn’t an actively terrible starting point, but it also doesn’t help him either. His NP gain is also middling for his deck, with an average Arts card and a slightly below-average Quick. As a triple-Buster Servant, this means Shingen is fairly reliant on flat batteries to gain access to his NP. He has decent hit-counts, though, so he can generate a passable number of stars with a star gen buff in play.

Shingen has Riding and a variant of Territory Creation for passives, slightly boosting his middling Quick and Arts cards—though sadly he does not have Madness Enhancement, or any other passive that would boost his NP. Shingen’s unique Territory Creation variant gives him a slight crit chance resistance buff, too, which is nifty albeit marginal. He also has low-level Magic Resistance for occasionally staving off debuffs.

Shingen gets relatively little from appends, all things considered. Mana Loading is the most useful, as usual—it can give a bit more flexibility in some atypical setups, and it can let Shingen loop farm with an event CE that gives starting charge without needing to MLB the CE first. The Extra Attack buff is the second-most useful, though Shingen’s cards aren’t good enough at base for boosting his Extra to really do much. Ant-Ruler damage is basically useless—you should essentially never be bringing Shingen to fight Rulers.

Ascension Materials

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	100,000	x5 Rider Piece Open Rider Piece configuration options
3	300,000	x12 Rider Piece Open Rider Piece configuration options x8 Eternal Gear Open Eternal Gear configuration options
4	1,000,000	x5 Rider Monument Open Rider Monument configuration options x10 Meteor Horseshoe Open Meteor Horseshoe configuration options x3 Primordial Lanugo Open Primordial Lanugo configuration options
Max	3,000,000	x12 Rider Monument Open Rider Monument configuration options x6 Primordial Lanugo Open Primordial Lanugo configuration options x5 Spirit Root Open Spirit Root configuration options

Skill Enhancement Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200,000	x5 Gem of Rider Open Gem of Rider configuration options
2 → 3	400,000	x12 Gem of Rider Open Gem of Rider configuration options
3 → 4	1,200,000	x5 Magic Gem of Rider Open Magic Gem of Rider configuration options
4 → 5	1,600,000	x12 Magic Gem of Rider Open Magic Gem of Rider configuration options x5 Meteor Horseshoe Open Meteor Horseshoe configuration options
5 → 6	4,000,000	x5 Secret Gem of Rider Open Secret Gem of Rider configuration options x10 Meteor Horseshoe Open Meteor Horseshoe configuration options
6 → 7	5,000,000	x12 Secret Gem of Rider Open Secret Gem of Rider configuration options x5 Eternal Gear Open Eternal Gear configuration options
7 → 8	10,000,000	x10 Eternal Gear Open Eternal Gear configuration options x4 Warhorse's Young Horn Open Warhorse's Young Horn configuration options
8 → 9	12,000,000	x11 Warhorse's Young Horn Open Warhorse's Young Horn configuration options x10 Flaming Oni Lantern Plant Open Flaming Oni Lantern Plant configuration options
9 → 10	20,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore Open Crystallized Lore configuration options

Append Skill Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200000	x5 Gem of Rider Open Gem of Rider configuration options
2 → 3	400000	x12 Gem of Rider Open Gem of Rider configuration options
3 → 4	1200000	x5 Magic Gem of Rider Open Magic Gem of Rider configuration options
4 → 5	1600000	x12 Magic Gem of Rider Open Magic Gem of Rider configuration options x4 Phoenix Feather Open Phoenix Feather configuration options
5 → 6	4000000	x5 Secret Gem of Rider Open Secret Gem of Rider configuration options x8 Phoenix Feather Open Phoenix Feather configuration options
6 → 7	5000000	x12 Secret Gem of Rider Open Secret Gem of Rider configuration options x2 Spirit Root Open Spirit Root configuration options
7 → 8	10000000	x4 Spirit Root Open Spirit Root configuration options x4 Reactor Core of Dawn Open Reactor Core of Dawn configuration options
8 → 9	12000000	x11 Reactor Core of Dawn Open Reactor Core of Dawn configuration options x24 Ether Light Collector Open Ether Light Collector configuration options
9 → 10	20000000	x1 Crystallized Lore Open Crystallized Lore configuration options

As a farmer, Shingen works with the typical Koyan/Koyan/Oberon setups, though his damage won’t be sufficient for high-end farming nodes. The same setup works for burst-oriented challenge quests, but he’ll run into the same sorts of damage issues there. Shingen is more suited to stall fights, where his defenses and utility have more opportunity to make a difference. He works decently in Himiko/Castoria teams, though he doesn’t provide the key thing those teams are missing—healing—and his low damage means there are plenty of better options available.

Shingen is likely at his best, relatively speaking, in low-end teams. Without a deep bench of supports to drawn on, Shingen’s defensive utility matters a lot more. If you don’t have high-end supports, you can pair Shingen with the likes of Mash, Hans, and Shakespeare, using their various supportive tools to help prop up Shingen’s damage, while Shingen mostly keeps himself alive.

It’s also worth noting Shingen can function as a support for Arc, as he provides the turn of cooldown reduction she’s missing. He’s still inferior to Ibuki in that role, but he’s better than Takasugi and Edison. Mana Loading, Shingen’s battery, and Arc’s partywide battery guarantees Shingen an NP, so on wave 3 he can use his NP to provide an extra 20% steroids (in addition to his Charisma), with the additional de facto damage push of whatever his own NP does. Ibuki provides Arc with 50% total steroids, and Takasugi and Edison provide 20% each, so Shingen’s 40% on wave 3 falls in the middle.

If you’re relying on Shingen to loop, 50% charge CEs like Cranking are your best bet. That said, Shingen has enough innate battery that he can actually use Black Grail for challenge quests provided he can brave chain on turns 1 or 2. This isn’t that hard to do, so if you’re willing to reset if you get unlucky, the Black Grail is Shingen’s best CE for bursting through CQs.

Shingen’s pretty likely to crit with his cards, between his own star bursts and the supports he’s likely to run with, but he doesn’t have any innate crit damage buffs, so crit damage CCs are the obvious choice for his cards. This is especially true for his Busters. Shingen’s damage is so low that any extra bit helps.

Shingen is not a good Servant. Even with heavy investment, he won’t do enough damage to be more than a flavor pick, and his gameplay isn’t interesting enough to be noteworthy regardless. This isn’t a Servant to grail unless you really love him as a character.

Shingen’s kit design feels lazy in many ways. He has the basic Buster things, but he doesn’t have anything interesting to go with it, and his damage is just too low to be a sufficient AoE damage dealer. He roughly matches Europa, and he’s weaker than Drake—who’s a spookable year 1 Servant, and not exactly amazing herself. He’s not unfixable, but he badly needs an interlude that also gives another form of damage push—ideally a supereffective damage multiplier against a broad niche. As-is, there’s really no reason to pull for him.

Overall: 4/10
Single-Target DPS: 2/10
AoE DPS: 3/10
Survivability: 7/10
Offensive Utility: 3/10
Defensive Utility: 6/10
Farming Usefulness: 4/10
Being swift as the wind, gentle as the forest, fierce as the flame, and stalwart as the mountain: 10/10