If you can have only one pt 3: Cu Alter Vs Raikou!

is this even supposed to be a choice?
90% of this game is farming.
I hate her design, but let's be real, Raikou besides being the best farmer in the game it also generates lots of critical stars with her np and can do obscene amount of damages to earth and sky enemies even if she is AoE.
I would chose her any day of the week.

I am going for Cu alter.
As i have him i know how brutally op he is.
He can pull you trought any challange as it is nothing.
Mama can be better for weave, and sometime for boss killing, but her weakness is in her superior burst.
Having evade and mana burst in the same skill is alweys a bad thing,
Plus her steroid is , not thet good actually.
Some say cu have no steroid, but he actually have a 30% attack (and defence) in his np, making a NP BB chain as strong as (if not more since is ST and better attack) then a raikou np

Stats wise Cu win by a mile. Way more attack, more survivability, and less selfish kit.
What raikou have is a better kit with 2 arts, but, in my opinion, thet is actually hurting her.
Let me explain.
First, her ideal game play is to np the weave before the boss, and then buster crit the boss with a BAB or BBA chain. good.
She have no steroid in her np, so doing a NPBB chain is actually bad for single target damage.
If she had a BBBQA deck like normal berserker, she could have done more damage.
An AAQBB deck like hers is better for prolonged battle, but she is a berserker with only an evade and mediocre Hp, so prolonged battle are quite hard.
Cu alter on the other hand, if he had a AAQBB deck, oh boy... thet would have be insane.
All of her skill are good, but none is actually "really good", and they dont have thet much sinergy except for her np star drop and her 1. she create star and she can crit with her 1, but then she have no crit steroid, her damage steroid is either limited by attribute or single turn (and the evade).
On the other side Cu have a very sinergyc kit. Evade and guts as hard defence, and LOT of def up and attack down.
He can actually survive an Np without evade and guts, just by stacking def up (20% attack down, 16% def, and 30% def).
His staying power is absurd, and his damage have no downtime or condition. He do a lot of damage. And he will NPBB chain almost alweys. plus he work best when paired with support like mash and merlin, who are op.
Raikou need more defence then cu, and need some form of crit star generetor (meaby a merlin and a couple of 2030 is enought, but you need to have those) to be as constant as cu.
As for farming strenght... she kind of relay on a kaleidoscope to be thet good for farming. Not a complay ok, but not anyone is so lucky to have 1.... but she is waaaaaaaaaaaay better then cu here, not even close. Still, her low attack kind of make her a better second weave clearer then a boss weave, but is ok, she will still crit them to death
So....
Stat wise Cu >Raikou
Skill wise Cu > Raikou
Team wise Cu > Raikou ( as i said before, cu have better sinergy with the team and he can go for stall team, zombie team, buster team ecc ecc. Raikou can only be the main dps in a team who is built for her protection and star gen, and buff)
Farm wise nicocought Raikou > Cu (obviously)

And then we talk about the 2 big reason to chose Raikou over Cu.
1. this game is about farming. Yep.
2. Hercules. We all got our herc in the training summon, and we all know how absurd he actually is ( he actually have more attack then raikou at the same level). He is not trully a replacement for Cu alter. i mean he is great. But is close. The only "close one" to raikou is Zerkerlot. yep, the servant with the worst np game in history, and we are still talking.

So for me
Cu is the strongest servant among those 2 by a landmile.
But raikou is a better farmer and we farm all the time.

Still vote for the Mad King

One is a reliant to the team and can cultivate the soils, one can work alone and do team work as well.
This one is pretty difficult to choose, but it's interesting to see which servants have the better favor in their gameplay qualities.

This time, i'm sided with OP because Raikou is a beast of farming and boss killing. For general purpose, she's doing great and for her niche, she's technically not a situationals Berserker.
Since we can only have one Zerker between Chu Alter and Raikou, i choose Heracles ( he's on the neutral side lol ) as my backliner and Raikou as my universal frontliner and farmer.

There's one time when i'm doing some farming and she got 3 Buster Card with more than 32 Crit Stars. I click the star absorbtion skill, click her second skill then i click her 3rd skill along with other buffs and she destroy the enemies like it's nothing.
For the damage, it's always more than 500K ++ full Buster Card. Her Buster Card damage is two - three fold higher or even far more than that compared to her NP damage.

Choosing Raikou doesn't mean i can't reveal both Raikou and Chu Alter strengths and weakness.
For Chu Alter, i rarely use him because of my Heracles still exist to take his job. Very2 tough anchor and he is also a strong boss killer, he can clear challenge Quest with lvl 90++ difficulty Nero Fest event alone without the help from other support servants ( lvl 1 Georgios and Leonidas is a basic set up of doing solos, must bring min 3 servants to begin the match ). Another names that can also did a lot of things he can do : OG Nero, King Hassan, OG Chu, Heracles, Marie.
That's something that Raikou couldn't do, destroying the entire armies alone and non-support reliant.
Each of the Soloist can at least kill a single neutral enemy with more than 500K ++ HP or a single enemy with almost 1M if we're on the class advantage position, with the right timing, CEs and MC plus our skill as their master it's doable. It still depends on the situations but for average, they can kill enemy boss with 350K ++ alone. Usually Anchors like them have their own league, lots of boss killer servants or ST can't do what they can do but these last man standing can do what they can't do.
Only the chosen can sit on the backbench, not everyone can do it.

Chu Alter :
Boss Killing - OK.
Solo - OK.
Harder contents and challenges - indeed.
Team work - not the best, but still good.
Farming - seriously ??? You can solo almost everythings but it's tiresome and your sanity is the price for this.

Raikou
Boss Killing - OK.
Solo - No.
Harder contents and challenges - need supports, OK.
Team work - indeed.
Farming - indeed.

They're also newbie friendly, at least beginner and newplayers can depend on someone like Chu Alter until players can farm on their own.
He's a beginner and newplayers hard carry, also used for memes by seasoned players and veterans.

Bonus : if i would choose servant purely from gameplay point, when there are Quetz or Ishtar or Raikou or Ozy or Chu Alter or Gilgamesh and we must pick only one, then i choose Raikou because she can counter almost everythings in this game. Zerker modifier modifier 1.1 plus Zerker class 1.5 damage to all plus Raikou fucking Passive EX rank Buster card. Put a strong back up and team cover and you can literally use her almost everywhere as you wish.
We farm everydays and grind lots of stuff by using Raikou or someone like Gil or Ishtar and Drake.
Chu Alter is very2 tough and strong but we only use him actively when there's a harder event or we need almost unkillable Last Man Standing like him.
This game is also more into teamwork, solo is more into challenges and as a last trump card.

Practical and every day use - Raikou wins.

Like i've mentioned above, i choose Raikou because we farm and clear tons of waves everydays lol.

I’d choose Raikou she’s great at farming which is most of the game and can still do just fine against bosses and in more challenging content. Cu is better against bosses and in most challenging content but being single target he obviously isn’t anywhere near as good at farming as Raikou is. So yeah I’d go with Raikou simply because I’d get ALOT more use out of her since as mentioned above she’s great at farming but still performs fairly well in challenging content.

Both are great, but I’d be doing Irish Heracles a dirty if I didn’t pick him. I’ve lost count of the amount of times he saved me soloing hard boss battles. His offensive power combined with survival skills are too amazing to pass.

Raikou is great for farming but I personally have a good amount of servants to fulfill that role.

I’d pick cu alter though I’m a little biased. I have cu alter and he is my go to for basically everything that isn’t small grunt wave clearing. He’s super strong and I love how he can stay alive almost entirely on his own rather than needing supports for this job. As for raikou, I tried to get her during one of her single rate ups. However instead of getting her, I got two other non 5 star rate ups during my quartz spending. Thus I have decided I will never ever summon her into my chaldea because clearly she hates me and now I hate her. Plus I already have units to do wave clearing anyway.

I prefer raikou
She ia more than she look on paper.
She can clear wave easily and after that give s lot of star that the can absorb to kill boss.
Cu on the other side more like boss killer and the last stand man.

Raikou all the way... She is my #1 FP generator + my go to farmer..
As others have mentioned she has great crit star generation plus a 1 turn evade.. as it is a team game (though solo-ing is great), Merlin has increased the overall value she brings to the table for harder content.

Unfortunately I do not have Cu Alter but have used him from friends list - I am very impressed with his kit and damage output and wish I had him my impression of him is TM simply pleasing the fans, his skill set on "normal" Cu is basically THE version of Cu whom we fell in love with from the series.. haha.. But he is really BOSS in solos and boss killing...

My vote: Raikou :D

i dont know if i cant make a new post, but i kind of feel the need to do it.
So many of this post are actually disregarding Cu alter as a mere soloist or or anchor.
This is one of the most sad error i could see.
Many say thet she work better for boss or in team.
This is not true. Cu work with the exact same team Raikou work, and more, becouse he bring something to the team, and less babysitting to keep her alive, so you can change some defence with attack.
And he is also better for boss killing.
He is not like herc, who work only as an anchor or a solo, but not in team. Hes team work is even better then raikou.

With this rant i am not saying you cant vote for raikou. This is about "if you can only have 1", and not "who is stronger"
She is by far one of the best farmer in a game of farm. so is only natural thet she is going to be more used.
I am just traying to explain thet she is more thet what you see the first time, but so is Cu.

i stick with raikou and my reason is for the fact that she fills the farming and boss slaying fairly well and since she haves a QAABB deck, she doesnt ruins a potential arts chain just because she haves another buster card(in the case if she had BBBAQ) and basically with fulfilling those 2 roles well at the same time is equal to the result of making my life more easier.
I would pick cu alter too, but his Deck and skill set is more for story fights and CQ and for farming he would need a kscope or imaginary element to do it faster.
In a brief conclusion, my reason of picking raikou is for making my life in the game easier with those 2 roles, Cu needs more help just for having a extra buster card and needs a starting NP charge CE, for his not so consistent np gain in farming.

This this discussion became intresting as hell.
I agree with what Exa says and side with Cu.
It's an irony that so many people say Cu is a mere soloist and like HE CANNOT DO FARM just because he has a ST Np.

Farming is... not always about np, you can do it with regular attack too(remember the basic stats) And because this is about "if you can have only 1" it's doesn't mean you only have Cu on Your CHALDEA...
I have to admit that raikou is the best farmer, but however strong an AoE Np is, you can only use it once and it's limited to just 3 enemy. If so, we have plenty of choice that can fill that roll.
Jalter lily can outdamage all class in The DAILY farm except against saber, but no worry, we have salter santa, gawain, bathory (caster and lancer), EMIYA, even kiyohime as an AoE Np. Use you all your servants to the maximum potent and shout PLUS ULTRA!

As for the comparison.
1. Raiko is like an expensive weapon we bring into a war that can do a huge damage. But need a bunch of protective. Wich is taking your damage potential
2. Cu is, in the other hand like an expensive weapon that can do a huge damage but can take care of himself also sabotaging the enemy potential. Wich is you can max the potential you have to maxing your attack
3. Pure soloist like herc, hassan. Cannot 'release' themselves if not really alone. We just can't put cu here

And for bosses. It's clear that Cu is better since he is ST. Doesn't mean Raikou can't do it. It just raikou's role as a farmer can be replaced with lower rarity. And Cu is better at taking care bosses more than almost every servant in the game

All in all. Good job with creating this healthy discussion, capize01.
And all my opinion is just like exa has