So, I always hear this stupid meme about how even solo FSN Cu never dies, so I borrowed him lvl 90 10/10/10 a few times and was... extremely underwhelmed.
Maybe he had a wrong CE on him (dont remember honestly), maybe I used the wrong mystic code, maybe both or something else.
But he only had slightly more survivability than my at the time 7/1/1 lvl 90 herc (without lvl 10 bond CE), while dealing about a third of his damage.
So what's the big deal about him? Because honestly I don't see his use if all he does is survive one or two extra turns compared to a class advantage servant to deal overall less damage than them. Unless of course his fabled resiliece only happens against archers.
My Cu is 70 6/6/6 and Herc is 90 8/8/5. Cu's damage isn't great but his survivability is definitely better. Multiple opponents can use up his 3 attack evade quickly or kill him despite guts. He's only useful as a last man until you get Herc's bond CE. He's more available and his NP charges pretty quickly. The key to using him is alternating his guts and evade - use guts when evade is on cooldown as a safety net and heal him once guts has activated.
Part of it may be that it's situational at times. Against archers, yeah Cu will definitely last longer than Herc due to class advantage. Against sabers... most likely not. I also like to give him the Iron-Willed Training CE, which increases DEF.
Part of it is luck. Despite having Guts and a 3-use Evade, if the enemies decide to attack Cu too many times within a handful of turns then even he won't come out unscathed, or alive.
But if he's lucky enough that he only gets attacked once every turn, or every two turns, then it's very likely his skill cooldown will end, allowing him to refresh his Guts (7 turn CD) or Evade (5 turn CD) before the enemy can kill him, and even heal himself (5 turn CD).
Herc is better for me in that he can take out the enemies, due to his higher ATK power and all around x1.5 damage multiplier owing to his class, while having both Guts and a one-turn Evade to stay alive despite receiving double damage. In that regard, Cu MIGHT survive longer simply because he isn't receiving double damage from everything that hits him.
I don't think one is necessarily better than the other but if I'm up against a horde of archers I'm likely to pick Cu over Herc.
I believe it depends a lot on the player, I don't use him to his full potential but even so he proved invaluable for me in Rashomon.
Most of the time he managed to survive all fifteen turns while others he managed to inflict enough damage to finish the 3bp.
A prime example of a Cu master is Honako Green, there are a fair number of videos on Youtube where Cu is used to solo challenge quests during events.
Watch Honako Green's channel. It's stupid to explain it, watch how he clears most of this game using a lv100 Cu Chulainn solo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1W9CoTYU8M
Even without class advantage sometimes. Most of those feats, except the meme ones, are heavily dependent on those grails though. Lv100 Cu is Super Cu, you are not dealing with the average irish warrior anymore.
There's also stuff that Heracles can't clear that Cu can like Abigail...aaaand Abigail (there's also some Nero Fest stuff because Herc can't equip DamageEvent CEs without losing his meme godhood). So yeah, don't grail him unless he's your absolute favorite (Honako's case). Of course, there's some stuff you CAN'T solo
You just described my cu!
It does depend on how you utilize the skills, and on rng luck. I started by not using evade and guts until after he was close to death, then he would die before the skills came off cool down. Then I learned that the trick is to trigger Evade on turn one, guts / heal when it ran out, and immediately use evade again. That way cu stays at high hp the whole time. Sometimes rng let evade reset before the 3rd hit, other times he gets 3 hits in one turn. But usually if cu dies on me it is because I didn't pay attention to the number of evades left.
People covered most of the things I was going to say, but a few things to note:
He doesn't do damage. Don't expect him to do damage. You'd be disappointed. This can be said about most of the servants: emphasize on their strength, dont try to fix their shortcomings. Personally, I think his best go-to CE is Volumen, which can allow him to stay alive even longer, and rotate Protection from Arrows.
Also, Herc, or almost any zerk except Cu Alter maybe, are very volatile in their survivability. I have my Herc at Lv90, NP5, with bond and 10/10/10; sometimes when I don't run bond on him, I'm surprised on how quickly they die within a turn. Normal wave mob crits twice on Herc can sometimes instantly drop him, from full HP on turn 1. And I'm not just shitting on Herc individually, I'm speaking for most of the berserkers. It's just their nature as a class. If you crave some form of longevity from them, run bond on Herc, or Cu Alter. Or just don't run them at all.
Back to Cu, I really think he's overrated and his playstyle is kinda annoying and monotonous. It's just that, a meme. Don't overthink it too much. His potential is severely limited at his default 3* level which is 70. Good candidate to receive grails to though, because of Lancer mod and the fact that he needs all the stats he can get to do any tangible form of damage to literally anyone.
Quoting words from a wise man: "This is the dollar store. How good can it be."
Go watch Honako Green on YouTube. He solos a lot of things in the game using Cu.
He can be extremely tanky for a 3 star. If you have the atlas mystic code, he will last a lot longer. However, he does less damage for sure. That is why I prefer to use his proto version, which can deal more damage with crits and still has a good amount of tankiness.
Well, there are lots of deciding factors.
- if you're only use him few times, even if that Chu lvl is 100 + his skill is 10/10/10 and the pilot/user can't use him well, you're gonna review your piloting skill while using him.
To put it more simple no matter how strong or weak your servant is, it depend on the master ability.
- Stage mechanics or enemy gimmicks.
- enemy classes.
- Mystic Code for the right content, for example if you're fighting enemy that loves to give you nasty debuff you can use Atlas Academy MC.
- Craft Essence. for me it depend on the situations, though i prefer survival based CEs.
- Team Set up, for example you can use Georgios and Leonidas equipped with Battle of Camlan or even Georgios Bond CEs.
Sometimes taking 3 low level Taunters is also viable.
- there are more, i only write some of my experience while using my survival based unit, including OG Chu.
For me, myself i've tried lots of solo set up and doing solos very often.
Know your servant, know your skill and know your enemy.
Bonus : i have 3 Cockroach Servants, OG Chu lvl 90 + OG Nero lvl 92 + Heracles lvl 92.
All of them grailed because i love them and i like doing solo.
If OG Chu mechanics made you confused, just imagine how do you use the others last man standing like i mentioned above.
They're the best if you put them on the backline, but sometimes if the conditions met you can put them on the frontline too.
