Servant Rank Up Quests Part 7

Release Date: 2019-07-07 21:00 PDT - 2019-07-13 21:00 PDT

With a new batch of Rank Ups comes a new batch of Tier List changes. This time around, many of the affected Servants were already initially placed with some of these upgrades in the back of our mind. 

However, the recent Tier discussions within the writing team has made it increasingly clear that a single general list is starting to become more and more problematic. Boiling the various aspects of a Servant down to a single Tier placement is proving difficult as Servants kits become more specialized and the Servant roster grows ever larger. And, since the writing team contains new voices that value different Servant aspects, we've started discussing new ways of ranking Servants. 

As such, expect some of (older) Servants to move around a little in the 4* and 5* Tier List in the future.

If you do have any thoughts, ideas, feedback on the Tier List or these changes, feel free to share them with us in the Discussion Thread!

A quick Tip for global-only Master: In the future (ETA: August of 2020), all Rank Up Quests will reward 2 Saint Quartz instead of 1 for completion. This upgrade is applied retroactively - no Saint Quartz will be lost. Furthermore, completing a batch of 10 Rank Ups Quests will reward an additional 10 Saint Quartz, until Masters have completed 80 Rank Ups. 

(Note: The Japanese Rank Up Images will be replaced with the global versions once they are available).

First Folio: Shakespeare receives an upgrade to his NP Damage along with a slightly higher chance to stun enemies. Shakespeare's role has never been to actually do the killing himself, but he's surprisingly not that awful at it. After all, he can charge his own NP and he does have a 40% Buster steroid. For those of you on a budget, and with weak enemies to dispose of, Shakespeare is okay at doing so. He can then save the Buster buff for the last wave. 

But he's tiered for his Buster Support - which hasn't changed. 

Shakespeare thus remains in Tier 3.

Ephemeral Shadowless Blade: The first of MHXA's skill upgrades to arrive, and what an awesome upgrade it is. With a proper Quick steroid that lasts for 3 turns, and a much larger infusion of Critical Stars, MHXA can finally deal the NP damage her kit desperately wanted her to do. In addition the Quick Performance buff boosts her already strong NP Gain and NP Refund. 

But she is still a Quick Servant in a time where Quick Supports are but a whisper in the wind. Scathach=Skadi will give her everything she would want, and it is her introduction that truly makes MHXA's kit work as well as it does on the Japanese Server. 

At the time of her release we placed MHXA in Tier 4 in anticipation of this upgrade, now she truly belongs here, waiting for the inevitable arrival of her Quick Support. 

Mysterious Heroine X (Alter) remains in Tier 4.

Fleur de Lis: A Rank Up for Chevalier d'Eon! Finally, will their NP be worth using? 

Unfortunately, not quite. This buff increases the duration of the Attack and Defense Down debuffs by 1 (to 3 turns), and increases the base chance to Charm to 30% at 100% Overcharge. It's all very minor and only really has a noticeable effect for Masters with multiple copies of Chevalier d'Eon. Even then, it's only an okay buff, but nothing groundbreaking.

Chevalier d'Eon remains in Tier 3

Divine Judgement (Fake): Amakusa Shirou's pure damage numbers have never been spectacular, even if we account for his general lack of class advantage. Truthfully, his placement in Tier 2 was bit dodgy before now. 

But his performance during Challenge Quests is great, often capable of wiping out some of the most difficult AoE fights by himself by virtue of his Ruler-class flexibility and Buff Removal. Now, he has access to a 30% Buster Performance buff to speed things up a little. It doesn't change what he does massively, but it certainly makes things easier for him. 

Amakusa Shirou remains in Tier 2

Mechanized Armor: Charles Babbage has always been the odd man out from his peers, with a BBAAQ deck and Buster NP. His kit was always pretty solid, but lacked the damage to truly justify a Buster-oriented kit in the Caster Class. 

But that is the case no longer with both an upgrade in the value of the Attack buff and its duration. With NP Damage that now overshadows the likes of Elisabeth Bathory (Halloween) at full NP5, an Invincibility on a 5-turn cooldown, and some additional Star Gathering/NP Gain sauce, Charles Babbage is the best budget AoE Caster available. 

Charles Babbage's Tier placement has improved from 4 → 3.

Five Elements Mountain Buddha Palm: Sanzang's NP Charge is the centerpiece of her offensive potential. With 80% NP Charge it's easy to have that NP ready to go immediately, or even launch two of them back-to-back. However, the damage her NP did was never that great, what with Sanzang only having a single 20% NP Damage boost for 1 turn. 

Thus, the NP Upgrade is a very welcome addition and comes with a Defense-Ignoring utility upgrade as well. It still doesn't hit that hard, but Masters can field her with any CE they like and still have her NP ready to go, and her easy synergy with Merlin is a great boon as well. Thus, where other Servants have to run, say, Golden Sumo and Waver and NP on turn 1, Sanzang can run with Merlin and Black Grail and still NP on turn 1 for massive damage. 

With Ilya not yet having her NP Upgrade, Sanzang is the clear victor...for now. The upgrade wasn't so large as to move her up a Tier as the same problems in her kit are stil there, she just punches a lot harder now

Xuanzang Sanzang remains in Tier 3. 

World Faith Domination: With no steroids to speak of other than his 4% Territory Creation, Caster-class Attack and 0.9x modifier, and an extreme niche in Overcharge boosting, one would think Edison is not going to see any changes even with an NP Upgrade. 

But, no, Thomas Edison is a sneaky Servant who is actually really potent with this NP Upgrade. The NP Upgrade has a new Attack Down component as part of its Overcharge, and Edison can stall for a long time between potential Arts supports, his NP Seal on NP, and all the Defensive tools in his kit. 

Of course, it's agonizingly slow, but it is possible! His second Rank Up will only make him even better at stalling.

As such, Thomas Edison's Tier placement has improved from 5 → 4.

Inherent Wisdom: Archer competition is fierce, and even without this upgrade, Nikola Tesla was a great AoE (farming) Archer. Now, he's become even better. With both a duration increase on his random NP Damage boost, and a new 20% Attack buff, Tesla will start putting out tremendous AoE Damage against Heaven or Earth enemies. 

He is certainly not weaker than Ishtar now, trading situationally higher damage for more certainty. 

As such, his Tier placement has improved from 3 → 2. 

All I Do Is Kill: With this NP Upgrade, Jing Ke solidifies her niche as the best budget Assassin for disposing of high HP Riders. Among the 1-3* Assassins she can deal the most damage, at least until Hassan of the Hundred Faces receives her NP Upgrade that allows her to refund amazingly well. 

Of course, she still can't generate Critical Stars despite the Overcharge buff, but active star generation isn't very strong anyway. 

Jing Ke's Tier placement has improved from 4 → 3.

Presence Detection: Not satisfied with just removing an Enemy's Evasion and reducing their Critical Hit chance, Enkidu now also has access to an Evasion on a 5-turn cooldown. As if this piece of clay wasn't durable enough! 

Enkidu's solo potential is incredible now, and their staying power throughout the fight is matched by very few. Against Divine enemies, Enkidu's ability to rotate stuns, Evasions and healing make them a superb choice regardless of the enemy class. 

Yet, does that make up for the damage deficit and mismatched card set Enkidu has in team situations? The 5* Lancer category is clumped (haha...sorry), with good choices. 

For now, Enkidu remains in Tier 3, but we intend to examine all the 5* Lancers anew and they might be moved upwards. 

Crying Warmonger: Spartacus's NP will now deal more damage, and recover an additional 1000 HP. Spartacus has always been amazing by virtue of his NP charge capability. He's one of the best, and fastest farmers around, and only his lack of pure AoE damage sometimes made him falter. But now his damage on NP rivals that of Darius, a 3* Servant (also with an NP Upgrade). 

In addition, any Master who levels him has 3 Rank Up Quests to clear for very cheap investment. That's 3 Quartz now (and effectively 9 Quartz total in the future) along with some material drops. If you haven't leveled him yet, what are you waiting for!?

Since he is not as essential as the current Tier 1 Servants, Spartacus remains in Tier 2. 

Star of Saber: Another vanilla Intuition bites the dust! Hurray! 

In isolation, this skill is really good with an actually impactful number of Critical Stars and an Invincibility on a 5-turn cooldown. Yet, it doesn't really solve MHX's problem of not being able to boost her damage output against non-Sabers or ...Saber-faces. Her passives are great, her NP Gain on Quicks is pretty stellar, what she really needs in other words is a great Quick Support. 

In any case, MHX has always had decent bases to work with. Now she is more durable and a better pick as a main Assassin for any content. She neatly slides into the definition of a Tier 4 Servant. 

Mysterious Heroine X's Tier placement has improved from 5 → 4.

Clairvoyance (Beauty): Ah Fionn, why did they give you such a weird kit to start out with. And what did they do to your Arts Cards? Such a shame. But no worries, Fionn will have his time to shine!

Just, not yet. 

The Skill Upgrade itself is actually really strong. 50% Star Generation is very noticeable for the team and the 30% NP Gain buff is great for Arts-based teams. Yet, it's not enough to salvage this kit. His farming potential will be unlocked with his second Rank Up, but until then, Fionn remains one of the weaker Servants in the 4* bracket (although his NP, if you can get it charged, hits quite hard). 

Fionn Mac Cumhaill remains in Tier 5.

Vasavi Shakti: The favoritism among the writing team probably lead us to judge Karna a bit too charitably in the lead up to this Rank Up. There is some immense competition among the 5* Lancers, and before this writeup Karna's NP didn't hit quite hard enough nor his Critical Damage too devastating enough. 

But he will certainly hit hard enough now. The Buster Card performance debuff (applied post-NP) will stack with his own buffs really well to let him unleash some devastating Buster Criticals. Meanwhile, the upgrade to his NP Damage makes him an even better (Divine) Archer killer as well as a better farmer. Still, he doesn't quite make the jump towards Tier 1. 

Karna remains in Tier 2. 

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 Sherlock and Paul bunyan we added the following Tier List Explantions: