Nero Fest 2019 - Three-Turn Lottery Farming Guide

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For those that are (somehow!?) not yet aware, Nerofest is a yearly event in FGO that many look forward to due to how bountiful its lottery is. Depending on one's lottery (i.e. Petal) currency bonus, which is boosted with the Cheer For Master CE, the lottery is the best way to farm everything it offers in any given time-frame. Most attractive is that every full lottery box contains 1 Gold Secret Gem for each Class, which is usually the biggest hurdle in maxing skills for Servants.

However, due to Nerofest's time-limited nature and rotating enemy lineup, farming can be a challenge between balancing Petal drop bonus and fight duration: too high a bonus means that the fights will often take a long time to complete, making it challenging to farm for long periods of time, while too low a bonus makes the ability to 3 turn a fight largely pointless if 1-2 extra turns would result in a much better return on one's time.

Setting the right balance is key and can make your life that much easier!

The main reason to 3-turn farm is to trade potential Petal drops for reliable and fast fight clears. The lower Petals earned per fight is made up by being able to drastically increase the number of fights that can be done during the limited time that Nerofest runs, assuming a large surplus of Golden Fruit or Saint Quartz is available to be spent on AP refills.

That said, there is a minimum requirement that is not easily prepared for before being able to 3-turn farm:

• Option #1 - At minimum: 1 regular Imaginary Element and 1 MLB Imaginary Element / regular Kaleidoscope

• Option #2 - At minimum: 2 regular Imaginary Element and personal (i.e. not Support’s) Waver

If the answer is "yes" to either, then 3-turn farming is something worthwhile to consider. Keep in mind that the above CEs can be replaced by better CEs (i.e. regular Imaginary Element replaced by MLB Imaginary Element or Kaleidoscope, similar for MLB Imaginary Element).

If the answer is "no" to both, it's better to simply stack as many Cheer For Master CEs as possible and slog through it with leveled Class Advantage or Berserker Servants, as attempting to 3-turn otherwise will result in too low a Petal bonus to make 3-turn farming worth doing.

Assuming that that the CE and/or Waver requirement has been met, the following 4 Servants will be useful for 3-turn farming every Champion difficulty fight in Nerofest, allowing for at least 3 CE slots to equip Cheer For Master:

• Arash

• Spartacus

• Shakespeare

• Friend Support Waver

The following Servants, in addition to the previous 4, can be used for specific Champion difficulty fights:

• Romulus (Qualifier)

• Jeanne d'Arc Alter Santa Lily (Qualifier)

• Nobunaga (Main)

• Chloe von Einzbern (Main)

• Kintoki (Rider) (Main)

• Shiki (Assassin) (Main)

• Medusa (Finals)

• Alexander (Finals)

• Altria Pendragon (Santa Alter) (Finals)

• Ishtar (Rider) (Finals)

All of these Servants are recommended due to possessing a NP battery skill, an easily obtained NP5, good damage buffs, or some combination of the above.

It's possible to reserve even more CE slots to Cheer For Master, but jumping past 3 slots means satisfying further requirements:

• Nitocris can open up 1 slot if used to Instant Kill Wave 1 enemies, though non-Bronze enemies may fail to be Instant Killed. Alternatively, a high NP level Nitocris can kill the Wave 1 enemies with raw damage.

• An extra slot can be opened up if utilizing Francis Drake or Altria Pendragon (Lancer) thanks to having AoE NPs with 50% NP battery skills, potentially replacing both Arash and Spartacus, though this requires high NP level and having something like MLB Kaleidoscope with double Waver or Waver/Merlin, or a regular Kaleidoscope and double Waver. Altria Pendragon (Lancer) in particular is useful since she has a "fake" 70% NP battery due to her NP granting her 20% NP gauge, which can be combined with her 50% NP battery.

• Mordred (Rider), in addition to her ideal event support team from Waver + Helena + Nero (Bride), can potentially 3-Turn farm with consecutive NPs each wave. NP1 or NP2 Mordred (Rider)s can rely on the event's Two Gods Three Legs event damage CE to greatly boost her damage, while NP5 can consider using yet another Cheer For Master for a potential 6 Cheer For Master slots. In both cases though it's important to weaken enemies with regular cards before using an NP so as to get additional Overkill refund ticks.

For the purposes of this guide, all Servants have +1000 Attack from Fous. Also, skills are considered to be level 10 for the sake of reliability, especially for Arash, Spartacus, and Support Waver. Level 6 or 9 can work for damage buffs from Servants that aren't regularly used, such as Romulus, but this will make their ability to clear a wave in a single turn from NP more difficult.

• Mystic Code = Chaldea Combat Uniform (aka Plugsuit)

• Arash (MLB Imaginary Element or regular Kaleidoscope, X/X/10 for skills)

• Spartacus (Level 20+ Two Gods, Three Legs, X/10/10 for skills)

• Support Waver (MLB Cheer For Master, 10/10/10)

• 1 Wave 2 Servant from the list for specific Champion difficult fights (see below for more info)

• Shakespeare (Cheer For Master, 10/X/1)

• Bond gaining Servant (Cheer For Master)

The Wave 2 specific extra Servant's CE will vary depending on the time of the Champion fight and overall CE options to consider. Most of the time these are the Servants that need Kaleidoscope to function, though some can work with a regular Imaginary Element (e.g. Jeanne d'Arc Alter Santa Lily during Qualifiers, Medusa during Finals), any 50% starting NP gauge CE (e.g. Chloe von Einzbern, Kintoki (Rider), Shiki (Assassin)), or even another Cheer For Master (e.g. Chloe von Einzbern or Kintoki (Rider) if utilizing Nobunaga in place of Spartacus for the Main Monarch fight).

Assuming a strict 3 slots for Cheer For Master, the typical Monarch fight proceeds as follows:

Wave 1

Arash uses his 3rd skill, then NP. The highest HP enemy can survive this damage, but regular card damage will finish it off.

Wave 2

Waver uses his 1st skill on Spartacus, followed by his 2nd and 3rd skills. The Wave 2 Servant uses their important skills, then proceeds to NP. Ideally the Wave 2 miniboss dies to NP damage, but regular card damage will normally finish it off the same turn as NP, especially if from a Brave Chain.

Wave 3

Plugsuit swap out Waver for Shakespeare via Plugsuit's 3rd skill, then use Shakespeare's 3rd skill on Spartacus, followed by Shakespeare's 1st skill and the Plugsuit's 1st skill. Finally, finish up with Spartacus' 2nd and 3rd skills before NPing.

Even with only a regular Two Gods Three Legs, Spartacus should be able to completely wipe each Monarch difficulty's Wave 3. When Two Gods Three Legs can be MLB, it's possible to save Shakespeare's 1st skill for a Buster NP Servant in Wave 2 to make clearing that wave easier, as Spartacus no longer needs the Buster Up from Shakespeare.

By and large, the same setups used for Petal farming can be used to farm Gold Medals, trading Cheer For Master CEs to gacha CEs as needed. Bronze and Silver Medal fights are easy enough that specific 3-Turn farming setups aren't worth dedicated CE slots for starting NP gauge CEs instead of using Cheer For Master or Bronze/Silver/Gold Medal gacha CEs.

Note: Considering that this banner is often skipped by many Masters after splurging on the Summer banners, and that borrowing options for MLB gacha CEs is often limited here, consider not fully clearing the Event Shop and instead grind the lottery even more.