Parvati & Interlude Campaign Part Two

Official News post can be found here.

With the introduction of Parvati, the Lancer class has finally started its march into the soon-to-be-lucrative Quick AoE market. Parvati is a solid Servant even now, but her support options are still painfully limited. Yet, our Tier List is set for the current state of NA, and thus like many strong Quick-based Servants before her, her current placement is not indicative of her future performance. 

To help clarify that, we've added a new feature to the Tier List that indicates a Servant's movement upwards (or downwards) in the future, which we are going to apply to many Servants that show a very clear and marked improvement after a new Support release and/or a powerful NP/Skill Upgrade. 

In addition to Parvati, we're also graced with new NP Upgrades, the most eye-catching is the one to the beloved slayer of Lancer bosses, Bedivere. None of these NP Upgrades really shake up the way these Servants are played, but rather they help make them more competitive in the current landscape. 

Apart from that, a 1/2 AP Campaign for Interludes is also available. Now is a prime moment to finish any Interludes that have yet to be completed.

Switch On - Airgetlám C+: Bedivere's biggest problem has always been his availability. For a Servant with such an immensely powerful Noble Phantasm, his performance at NP1 was not all that far removed from Caesar. Luckily, with this NP Upgrade, even Master who have neglected to snag a copy of Bedivere from any of the Saber class banners can enjoy some Lancer smashing. 

Bedivere not just gains additional NP Damage, but he also has a more powerful Buster Performance buff from his Overcharge - which stacks together rather nicely! Any Master with an NP2+ Bedivere will enjoy some very nice damage numbers indeed. 

Now, Bedivere's main benefit remains his NP Damage and NP Charging combination. This makes him an ideal Raid Event Servant, and he will be able to show of his chops in April 2020. Masters who lack a powerful Saber with an NP Charge would do well to have their Bedivere ready by then. 

While we did consider a movement to Tier 1 since his NP5 performance is so powerful, we do not consider him as essential as the other Tier 1 Servants and let's face it, many Masters will still have him at NP1. If there is such a thing as aTier 1.5, Bedivere would be in it.

Bedivere's thus remains in Tier 2.

Nightingale Pledge C+: Nightingale's support always straddles a thin line between an enemy NP that can wipe the party despite the NP Damage Down, or surviving the enemy NP without an issue. Of course, some bosses then kill the party with the attacks that follow, but Nightingale now comes prepared to counter even that. 

With an added 50% Attack Down, Nightingale's NP now effectively reduces enemy NP Damage by 75% for 1 turn. Sometimes even that may not be enough, but with further Defense stacking, Masters can reach the 100% Defense benchmark quite rapidly (one will need 50% Defense Up more). The key problem though is that quite a few enemy bosses have Debuff Immunity and/or buff their own Attack. An enemy buffed with a 20% Attack Up will have their Attack reduced by only 30% from base after Nightingale's NP. 

Anyway, Nightingale remains a great option against buff-wiping NP bosses, but her main issues are still the same as before. She's just better at it. Thus, she mainly holds onto her current Tier Placement, as someone like Merlin will ever be her ridiculous competition. 

Nightingale remains in Tier 3. 

Masters who have cleared the Sixth Singularity, ascended Gawain twice, and raised his bond level to 1, can expect to receive an additional Saint Quartz. 

Zabaniya (Hundred Personas) B++: Some Servants, especially the 1-3* Assassins, don't receive the spotlight very often. Which is a bit of a shame, because Hassan of the Hundred Personas really is rather fun to use. In fact, with this NP Upgrade, she becomes remarkably good at shutting down enemy Rider bosses. 

Thing is, despite the lowered NP per hit on her NP, it's 13-hits grants amazing NP refund if Hundred Personas is also under the effect of her NP Gain buff and her 80% chance Arts Performance buff. Now that her NP applies an Arts Resist Down, even her basic cards can provide rather good NP Gain. If Masters can spam her NP turn after turn, the Arts Resistance Down stacking becomes downright gruesome! Given her 50%+ Critical Chance Down on NP is pretty strong against enemy Riders (who love to crit), her team also gains a decent improvement in their defenses. Fun stuff overall, but not so easy to pull off.

There are 2 main caveats here: her Zabaniya doesn't really do all that much damage except if stacked a couple of times (thus sustained damage vs burst), and to unlock her performance does require some more expensive supports than a new Master typically has access to. 

What remains is a pretty good Assassin for a 3* Servant, although with Ryougi Shiki (Assassin) coming back in 6 months, she has to face some incredibly steep competition. 

Hassan of the Hundred Personas 's Tier placement has improved from 4 → 3.

Masters who have cleared the Sixth Singularity, ascended Lancelot (Saber) twice, and raised his bond level to 4, can expect to receive an additional Saint Quartz. 

Masters who have cleared the Fifth Singularity, ascended Rama three times, and raised his bond level to 5, can expect to receive an additional Saint Quartz. 

Failnaught A+ Tristan was one of the much-discussed Servants last month as a pick for the free 4* Servant, what with his Story-lock status and highly valuable teamwide Evasion. This NP Upgrade improves his overall bag of tricks even more, adding Ignore Defense to his ever-widening arsenal. Of course his damage has also been shored up a little, but his lack of actual steroids remains ever an issue.

But Tristan was never really important for his damage anyway. Tristan was good, and Tristan remains good for his rare to find buff removal and teamwide Evasion. But he isn't powerful enough (and Merlin/David too readily accessible via Support) to be worth a higher Tier placement. 

Tristan remains in Tier 2.

Masters who have cleared the Sixth Singularity, ascended Vlad III (Extra) twice, and raised his bond level to 4, can expect to receive an additional Saint Quartz. 

The explanation button on the Tier List brings up a personalized explanation on why we placed a Servant in the Tier that they are in. For the Heaven's Feel Campaign we added the following Tier List Explantions: