Grail Front is over. I ended up running with Morgan whenever possible. Overall, it turned out getting all items in one run is indeed more challenging compared to clearing it. I missed some items in one of the quests and had to do it twice.
On the other news, LB3 memorial quests are up and as usual it’s two of the quests, each with normal and amplified HP versions. I ended up with the usual Merlin, Castoria, and Morgan/Himiko for most of them, I think.
New event coming up in few days. There isn’t much info yet but the early servant bonus listing seems rather… interesting? Izo and Hokusai isn’t that weird together but then comes Barghest and Hessian? What.
I just nope there isn’t any particularly interesting servant come up. Summer and anniversary is coming up soon and I only have a bit over 300 SQ.
NA
BB main interlude. Except it’s almost over. I’m kind of rushing through it. I should be able to make it on time. Just about.
It’ll be anniversary afterwards which means Castoria. Yay. I still hope they’ll implement skill speed up along with it.
There’s also memorial quests. I should get around finishing them next week…
And the filler event is Grail Front. This time there’s no global move cost and counted per servant instead. And with more items scattered than ever, this is probably closer to what the developers originally intended instead of the “lol ai” game they had for first few ones.
Some plannings are needed but overall it’s not too difficult. I took easy route with Morgan for the last few quests though because otherwise it’ll require more thoughts. It’s probably easier if I don’t go for all treasure boxes in one go.
There are also a lot of strengthening quests. Mostly for the Sakura Five. The two I have which are affected, BB Summer and BB, got pretty nice damage boosting buff. A bit interesting they both also got specific buff for EX attack card which is I believe the first of the type?
The event lasts for two weeks. The next event will probably start right after it ends.
NA
It’s Hunting Quests time here. The mats are pretty useful but I’m saving for box event. I’m also hoping they implement skill animation speed up earlier. Now I think about it, I’ll probably just save all the apples until the speed up happens.
There are only two weeks left until anniversary so the Ooku Rerun will probably be after anniversary. Or at least that’s what FGO Wiki (Fandom) says. Or maybe they mentioned it somewhere else, idk.
Next week will be rather empty. With JP also having no event – Grail Front should be over in few days with about one week extra for people to catch up or whatever – I probably should get around clearing the new chapters (both NA and JP).
More nothing week. Holmes got powerup of questionable usefulness. Siegfried got one as well and way more useful. Mine is still at skill level all 4 and I don’t think I have enough mats to level them up.
Otherwise nothing particularly interesting. No rerun announcement or anything either. Maybe they’ll just start something next Wednesday? Otherwise it’ll just be more dead weeks until new event end of this month.
NA
Summer rerun ending in few hours. I didn’t end up trying other comps for challenge quest and just cleared it with Merlin solo.
On other hand, using up the fever tickets took some time. It didn’t help the quest can’t be cleared in three turns. At least it netted me a lot of QP with no AP consumed so that’s nice.
There’s that very baity banner of area NP servants above. I rolled one for lulz but practically no one should roll this banner unless they’re very desperate and have a lot of SQ.
Coming up next (after Hunting Quests?) should be Seraph Main Interlude. I’m not rolling anything but the detour quests will be fun.
Blank week! There’s the new chapter 6.5 release but I still haven’t touched it yet. I’m still backlogged as far back as chapter 4 after all. One of these days I’ll read them all…
There will be an event around end of this month but it’s still a few weeks away and nothing else has been announced. Maybe a rerun of something?
On the side, I finally cleared all the Advanced Quest thingies. Nothing too difficult, it just took some time as I have them piled up and there are some gimmicks involved.
Oh and the chapter 6.5 prerelease quests, that was some interesting concept. Too bad I didn’t bother to think too much and ended up relying on taunt for the last few turns.
NA
I’m almost done with the event. Just need to finish a few more quests and then the challenge quest. The challenge quest itself shouldn’t be too difficult either if I go with my usual method of Merlin solo. Maybe I should try something else this time but there isn’t much time left.
Coming up next should be… hunting quest? And then Seraph Main Interlude, Ooku, and strengthening quests. It’ll be some tight timing considering amount of time left they have until anniversary which should be first week next month.
Yet another week of nothingness. There are a few advanced quests and mini challenge quests but the advanced quests aren’t time limited and the mini challenge quests are pretty easy with taunt servants like Georgios. And Avicebron with taunt CE and his invulnerability on death.
On the other hand, doing them with just single restriction – no taunt – is quite a lot more difficult. Especially on Caligula quest. Being berserker definitely isn’t helping and that there are 6 monsters at once makes things way more complicated.
Next Wednesday should see the release of the 6.5. I still hope there will be some new low rarity servants there.
Lastly, I tried rolling for Taikoubou and got jack shit. I only did 5 rolls so that’s pretty much as expected. I usually try 11 rolls but I find myself frequently falling into trap of rolling way more than I should be so I’m stopping at non-11 number this time.
NA
Servant coins system has been released over one year earlier. That was quite a surprise. It’s a nice help though especially I still don’t have MLB Kaleidoscope. Also for upcoming friend point summon on Himiko (so all those servants become actual coins) and making the Castoria system even easier, including for the box gacha event.
As for the event, it’s the usual summer rerun. As mentioned last week, I don’t think I’ll roll anything this time around.
It was a week of nothingness. The Bunyan even has ended and I dug a bit over 85 sites (?) in total.
Otherwise there’s nothing to do here so I’ve been slowly using up all the teapot as they’re expiring soon.
There’s an upcoming 6.5 but I don’t know if I want to do it right away. And this Constantine guy doesn’t seem all that useful either. Let’s see if the rest will be more useful.
NA
Also done with Fate/Requiem and I didn’t get that one last event CE drop ;_;
So I did the challenge quest with just 100% bonus and thankfully the team above did it.
Coming up next is Las Vegas rerun. I don’t plan on rolling for anything so it’ll be just farming as usual. At least I think I have plenty of event CE so it shouldn’t take too long.
25M download campaign has started. For free SR CE, I got the Crystallization of Winter just so I’m one step closer to MLB it. I still need three more though.
As for the servant, it’s that Nero above. I don’t particularly need anyone although technically a Faker would be nice. It’s just she’s not a limited servant so she may come up anytime whereas Nero is story limited and I probably won’t roll on her banner ever. Also it’s nice having some additional interludes and strengthening quests.
I did 11 rolls and Castoria hoping for some easy NP2 but no such luck this time. I did get Zenobia (now NP2) though so that’s nice.
Back to the Bunyan event though, all I’m doing is farming since the drops are nice. I’m limited by apples and I’ve used all the gold ones up so that kind of sucks. 100… maps(?) would be a nice number but I’m still quite far from it at 71.
NA
I’ve finished the Fate/Requiem main story and now clearing up the game board. Most of the tiles still have 3 more events/drops but annoyingly I have no more dice. I do still have to farm more anyway because there are quite a lot of store items left. I was hoping I can clear the event without apples but with only 4 days remaining I don’t think that will happen.
On unrelated note, coming up next is summer rerun. Doing some rolls on Okita Summer and Lambda would be nice but Castoria is quite a lot more important and I rolled a bit too much for Okita Alter last time so I’m quite limited in term of available SQ. At least Okita Summer will come back in a few years so there’s still hope getting her up to NP5.
Event done! Too bad the story was basically just visit area, short film, short trouble with solution being more funding. And closed with building statue of Bunyan. K.
Challenge quest isn’t all that difficult, just takes some time. I went easy mode with the team above. Habenyan deals all the NP as often as possible with the two supports doing their… supports. The lack of NP until first break bar means Castoria didn’t have much to do either. Oh and the CE for Habenyan was the invulnerability piercing + 50% NP CE. Now I think about it I should’ve used one that’s got bonus against caster instead. The piercing effect was needed so I don’t waste turn when one of those maids casts party wide evasion.
With event done all that’s left is farming all the mats. Those are pretty good so I’m using up all my gold apples and probably most of my silver apples. And maybe redo the challenge quest with lower rarity servants.
NA
Fate/Requiem! Too bad I’m not rolling for Voyager. He is quite useful actually although his damage is a bit too low at NP1.
As for the event itself, I’m slowly grinding through. I used some apples for previous one and I probably will need to use some as well here. That said, my main concern is clearing up the board without wasting too many dice. Last time I did it in JP I used quite a few more dice that I should have.
On unrelated note, I still have Jalter, Gilgamesh, Nobbu Summer, and Nagayoshi to ascend. Ascending them is one thing and then I still need to level their skills up. The first three in particular are pretty useful in general.
Bunyan event or something. I find her rather annoying so far.
I haven’t looked too much into it but the event looks like some kind of box gacha? The prize is pretty nice.
Also friend points summon. Exp CE drop! Yay. I rolled a lot and will roll a bit more until I have no FP left.
For luls I did one roll on Da Vinci Rider banner and got that random CE above.
NA
Event done. Yay. That was a lot of nodes. Challenge quest wasn’t much problem as long high damage servant is involved. With some luck it’s probably possible to have Okita clear it in fewer turns. At least I didn’t stuck with Euryale like last time.
Fate/Requiem coming up next. That will be fun. Fun as in mildly annoying.
Event is done. Kind of. Still need to check the alternative choices. I think I do have enough materials to clear them at once at least.
As for the challenge quest, I did it with Morgan-Castoria-Merlin for initial attempt… and then that’s it. There’s still a few more days and I may or may not attempt with lower rarity servant.
I have quite a few other things on higher priority at the moment so that’ll probably not happen.
NA
There’s that Gudaguda event. And I’m done with the story. All that’s left is clearing the store and epilogue (and related quests).
I did some more roll on the 17M banner but nothing useful came out. And three rolls on Okita Alter but nothing there either I ended up doing 99 rolls on Okita Alter banner and got one (now NP3). I also got Nagayoshi (NP4) and Nobbu Summer (NP2). That’s quite a lot more rolls than I initially planned. I sure hope I still have enough for upcoming banners. I also forgot Okita still isn’t NP5 here either. Whoops.
This event will be for another week. I hope it’ll be enough to clear everything without using too many apples. Or at all. I’ve got some event CE from those rolls at least.
It’ll be Erice’s event once this one is done. Voyager would be pretty useful but I have no such luxury anymore. I don’t think I’ll be able to roll for summer Illya either.
There’s Morgan banner as not quite kind of expected. Her previous banner was only few months ago and she’s already getting another banner.
That said, I used up all my resources of 138 rolls and got nothing 🥲
I did get Sanzou (now NP2) and some SR servants but that’s about it.
The event story has been completed and unfortunately there’s no extra maps or anything. There’s the expected rebuilding quest but that’s it. And I’m still farming for those event currencies and stuff.
NA
Did a few rolls on Gilgamesh, Kintoki, Scathach, and Jeanne Alter and got Gilgamesh and Jeanne Alter. Total tickets spent was 6 which was unbelievably lucky o_O That’s probably why I got jack shit on JP.
I attempted to get one more Sitonai but got Valkyrie instead 🥲 Oh well they’re NP5 now at least.
And then the current event – Sea Monster Crisis – it seems to be going to be pretty long. Heck, the welfare servant haven’t even been revealed. There will be probably another map.
Also did 20 rolls on the banner… and got jack shit.
As usual, I’m still slowly going through the story.
NA
More dead week yay…
Download Campaign coming up next week with the free SSR ticket. I’ll probably get Enkidu there. An NP2 Saber would be nice as well. Or Jack. Or Vlad. But in the end Enkidu fulfills a rather unique function whereas there are alternatives for others (kind of).
That said, it means it’ll be even more dead weeks coming up unless they move up rerun of Gudaguda Final Honnouji by almost a whole month.
More challenge quests! I’m going full power because I don’t want to think too much (and then I still ended up taking too long clearing them all).
New York 2019 3 (Gorgon Sisters)
Plain brute force unfortunately doesn’t work here so it took me a few attempts to actually remember all the cautions I need to take care of. First turn is clearing first break bar for both Euryale and Stheno. Second and third turn is getting rid of Medusa (closed off with NP after first two hit got rid of her), and fourth turn clearing up whatever left.
Card luck is quite important here because otherwise the buff runs out…
New York 2019 4 (Mephisto)
Last few times I did this was using Qin Shi Huang solo. And then I looked around and apparently the team above can clear the thing in 6 turns with enough luck (and it did).
That ended up pretty annoying though with a lot of dependence on card luck.
I did another run with usual Morgan Castoria Merlin and cleared it in 24 turns. Anniversary mystic code with its guts buff was required to get past Mephisto’s instant death. The following 10k max HP reduction was annoying but it’s enough to take one hit for those times the team going without invulnerability.
New York 2019 5 (Brave Eli)
As if it’s not painfully clear already, Castoria and Merlin combination is pretty stupid. It can’t be clearer here with them staying alive until the end of this long quest with the last wave being a giant dragon of class Rider and area attack.
No particular strategy apart of letting Eli kill all the monsters and have the two support keep the whole team alive. This also cleared up the problem with wave 5 with the piercing buff.
New York 2019 6 (Achilles)
On usual run, this starts with card luck and then followed by… having enough buff to clear it in one duel session.
But with those two support, it’s actually possible taking all those NP spam while slowly chipping away enemy HP. Initially attempted with Himiko instead of Morgan but it ended up taking a bit too long.
New York 2019 7, 8 (Romulus)
I did both quests while watching something else so I didn’t quite remember exactly how but this was the usual Morgan Castoria Merlin except Merlin went dead at some point while I was looking away but thankfully Reines is good enough to keep the team running.
The main change for this quest is Morgan NP comes after Castoria’s. I think having her hitting someone other than Romulus the turn before could also work but straight out debuff clear is just easier.
Tesla Cup Gigacoil 1 (Fuuma)
I didn’t do the quests here in order so it may look weird but anyway, for this one, it’s my usual Merlin solo. Looking again I should probably do something else because not being able to use him somewhere else hurt a lot.
Tesla Cup Gigacoil 2 (Akiba Tower)
It’s my previous clear team but with Tamamo instead of Merlin. Slightly easier thanks to event CE bonus damage (but more difficult because of team composition).
Tesla Cup Gigacoil 3 (MHXX)
This one would’ve been easier if I have access to usual support team but I’m limited to Skadi here so it took quite a lot of card luck and taunts.
Front row was Skadi Hans Okita with the back being Mephisto and Leonidas. Mephisto got taunt CE and deals buff block while Leonidas provided final taunt service (?) with three turns invulnerable CE.
Tesla Cup Gigacoil 4 (Orion)
With no usual support available I had to be slightly… creative. Percival with his NP regen and all cleared as many front rows as possible and then Cu finished whatever remained.
Tesla Cup Gigacoil 5 (Erice)
After a lot of painful trial and errors, I figured it’s just easier to have Morgan clear all the ghosts with her NP and then deal the final blow with buster chain. Way less card luck dependent with solo.
Tesla Cup Gigacoil 6 (Kakarei)
Support? What support? Oh yeah, Miyu is a support, kind of.
With no real support left at hand it’s taunt wall time and somehow I managed to clear it with this team.
…I don’t want to do this again. I should’ve saved Okita for this.
Tesla Cup Gigacoil 7 (Male Idols)
Hey look I managed to save Waver and Asclep for this. I don’t remember how but I cleared this somehow. Yay.
Oberon didn’t end up doing anything either.
Main Challenge Quest
After many hours with Gigacoil I didn’t want to think at all anymore and without servant restriction I went and copied off the template from Appmedia (the version on the page has been further tweaked but the original one I used worked first time).
And so I’ve finished all the challenge quests.
All that’s left is more box farming. I only have 51 silver apples left though so it won’t take too long. I hope I can at least get Okita to bond 12 for her final grail to level 120.
On other note, I got my master level up to 160. Total cost allowance 114 means I can put three SSR, two Commons, and five SSR CEs.
Arash first wave, Okita second wave, and closed off with Morgan. If I use mystic code with 10% NP charge I can have Morgan deal first and last wave but all of my other mystic codes are already level 10 so Arash it is. It’s also nice there’s only one targeted skill needed here (Oberon’s last skill). The rest are party/self skills (Morgan 1, Okita 2, Arash 3, Oberon 1).
Upcoming events are already announced. Kind of. Nothing concrete yet so there isn’t much to be excited about although the welfare servant is welcome.
NA
Lostbelt 5.2 is here!
Well, I’m not doing it just yet. I will go through it slowly as usual. Now I think about it, I can definitely wait until I get the free Enkidu on upcoming SSR ticket so I can use him to clear that one annoying fight.
Looking at event history, I noticed there’s nothing on April…
Up next would be Gudaguda Final Honnoji Rerun. I’m still not rolling for anyone though.
Space Odyssey thing! Challenge quests! I’ve been feeling lazy lately so full power team it is =]
A good chunk of it was referencing Hakugin no Hato‘s videos.
Tesla Cup Megacoil 1
Thick enemies and only DoT can sanely break through it. Jeanne Summer, Tomoe, and Kiyohime all inflict burn damage. I attached as many DoT command codes as I can (I only attached burn command codes but it’s better to just attach everything possible).
Once the team is set up, just burn everyone to death. Tomoe with her event CE and class advantage can do a bit of damage as well.
Tesla Cup Megacoil 2
Two Penths. As many NP as possible. Just that. Oh and some crit stars are useful. Also, attaching def buff removal command codes to her helps.
Tesla Cup Megacoil 3
All that’s needed here is getting rid of Moriarty. Melusine isn’t the best lancer but it worked, I guess. The two supports are Mozart (for his star gen and arts buff and arts def debuff) and Helena (for her NP charge and star gen and color buff). There are better support but I want the usual supports for other nodes. Nothing much else here.
Tesla Cup Megacoil 4
Reindeers and santa. Kill reindeers first and then solo with Morgan. I suppose you can also clear santa’s card color def buff with some skills or NP or whatever but by making Morgan solo, she can just use the no-def extra attack to clear up those 150k-ish HP bars quickly.
As with other quests, saving up supports for more difficult quests.
Tesla Cup Megacoil 5
Shikibu and her books. Odysseus unexpectedly being useful here. No particular strategy here apart of removing the books and then hit Shikibu with everything available. The two supports are Bunyan and Asterios. With Odysseus skill 1 they both go down pretty quickly although it’s more helpful to have one of them stay alive for one turn so it’s less reliant on card draw.
Tesla Cup Megacoil 6
Holmes and his… nonexistent buff. Jeanne with her buff blocking NP made good work on dealing with Holmes NP. No particular strategy here but I had Benkei doing the taunting for first turn.
Tesla Cup Megacoil 7
And last one the summer 2017 challenge quest. A lot of various servants and I didn’t want to think too much on this one. Except it ended up quite a lot longer than I expected but Castoria and Merlin easily kept Musashi alive while she dishes out all the damages. Morgan would’ve been easier here but I used here for other quest already.
New York 2018 1 (Touta)
I can’t quite remember it but I think I used Melusine here this time. No particular reason really (apart of copypasting this) but it wasn’t quite as mindless as Cu or Enkidu since she doesn’t have evasion or guts at all. And her third skill is pretty much dead baggage. But hey it worked in the end anyway.
New York 2018 2 (Leonidas)
I copypasted this team here and it worked just like that. Nitocris cleaning up mobs together with Castoria and Merlin and then Muramasa swapped in to finish Leonidas off.
New York 2018 3 (Izo)
Another copypasta from this. Good thing I maxed up Morgan, I guess.
New York 2018 4 (Jaguarman)
Kind of copying from this but with Morgan instead of Godjuna. Usual pattern of Merlin and Castoria endurance party with Morgan shooting her NP as frequent as possible. There are some card color def buff thing and all but Morgan’s (buffed) firepower is powerful enough and there’s nothing much to worry about.
New York 2018 5 (Sheba)
Not sure why I went full endurance party instead of just using a more useful rider. But it’s overall not too difficult with the usual support. It just took way too long.
One of the easier (or precisely more luck based) challenge quest.
New York 2018 6 (MHXA)
I usually use Cu Alter here and close thing up with all the Cus but seeing this I figured this can work as well and quite a bit faster. Now I think about it this ended up with MHXA vs MHXX. Castoria is also as usual very useful. It took 24 turns in total.
If last time it was Godjuna/Cu Alter everything, it’s now Caster and Merlin everything. Castoria NP is just too useful.
New York 2018 7 (Caster Gilgamesh)
Georgios and Leonidas protects Morgan first few turns at least until Bunyan is removed and then the back supports did their usual job. I did Nero second to last (I think?) since enemy HPs are only around 100k.
New York 2018 8 (Caster Gilgamesh but more HP)
Just like above but I got rid of Nero Bride second here. It’s still possible to use same strategy as above with getting rid of Nero Bride later but I find using Morgan NP more… comforting. Especially with her NP overcharge boost buff.
New York 2019 1 (Nero Bride)
I never liked this quest and still don’t. I probably should’ve used Castoria and Merlin as usual but I didn’t think too much at the time and copied this instead which turned out to be quite difficult to pull off correctly.
So I tried this again with simpler Castoria support setup and it ended up way easier with more leeway on overall strategy. There’s Merlin support in the back but he ended up not coming up with Georgios somehow stayed alive all these turns.
New York 2019 2 (Eric)
Copied off from my previous attempt except with Oberon instead of Nero Bride and Okita instead of Kintoki Rider. Ended in three turns with last turn Okita dealing 1.7M damage thanks to Oberon.
And that’s it for challenge quests up to today.
NA
Apocrypha raids ended! Except I barely cleared up the shop. So now I’m painfully farming up for event currency with some apples involved.
As for challenge quest, I copied off my previous attempt but with Godjuna and Merlin instead of Spartacus and one more Waver. With some card luck it ended up pretty quickly.
I didn’t want to think too much for the challenge quest and I still needed to think quite a bit (talk about fail). So there’s this support Godjuna with NP5. But his first and third skill are still at level 9. That ended up being a weird handicap. I don’t know why I put 50% NP CE for Koyanskaya either. There isn’t much strategy here beyond letting the main attacker (Godjuna and later Morgan) do a crit normal attack before launching their NP. Koyanskaya and Oberon provide the much needed crit stars. Also buster/NP buffs. It ended up taking 15 turns with solo Okita finishing up whoever the last one remained.
And then there’s the surprise challenge quests. First one is Salieri with 1M+ HP. And a bunch of semi permanent buffs. There’s no need to bother saving Castoria/Merlin buffs and I buffed Sieg straight away for the first two waves and third wave until Salieri absorbed all the ghosts. And then Medea swapped in to clear those buffs.
With Gudaguda CE equipped, she went down pretty quickly afterwards, bringing BB in. As there’s no other gimmicks, it’s pretty much just endurance fight.
As for Asterios fight, it’s another endurance fight but simpler because the enemy is berserker. Himiko, Castoria, and Merlin did the trick very well. A bit too well actually. Thank god I have them all. I was also reminded again that my Himiko is for some reason NP2.
I should’ve equipped Himiko something else. Prisma Cosmos or Limited/Zero Over would’ve been more useful. Or Child of Atlas. Well, it still worked out fine anyway.
Same team, same strategy for the last one. I really should’ve used Origin Bullet here. At 55 turns it was… long. Ozymandias would’ve been better option here but I don’t have him.
I would retry with different team but I don’t quite have time nowadays so those will have to make do for now. Or ever.
On unrelated note, box gacha event is coming up this Wednesday. I don’t have my apples yet though. And honestly I’d rather have half AP training ground with my current mats situation. I need a lot more skill stones. I hope the other mats are something I need. Proof of Heroes would especially be nice. I still need loads of them.
NA
Apocrypha! Raid! Except I’m not doing much of it. Just like in JP, I’m short of skill stones here as well. I’m also hoping for skill animation speed up to arrive before the next box gacha event. It gets irritating fast after getting used to the JP speed.
So there’s this anime movie premiered last week. I saw the trailer a few months ago and added it to my reminder. (Sail)planes! Sky! Sports anime! Drama! It seemed just like my thing.
The thing is, it tried to compress 5 whole volumes of manga into two hours. The result is a lot of things got cut off and quite confusing especially as I haven’t read the manga at the time. Not to mention the ending cut even more things short and jumped to what originally took a few years in the manga. Not enough explanation was given and stuff.
I do quite like the rest of it even though I didn’t quite get it the first time and a lot of jargon were thrown around without sufficient explanation (or maybe I just didn’t catch it). The MC’s past was just mentioned in short flashes and needed a lot of extrapolation.
After watching the movie I went of reading the whole manga set (5 volumes and 1 prequel volume and one extra one-shot). It filled up a good chunk of details missing in the movie but unfortunately it looked like the manga serialization was cut short and differently jumped off to the ending (which in the anime it looked like didn’t take actual years). And even worse the ending was kind of different! What the fuck have I gotten myself into (屮゜Д゜)å±®
So, yeah, it was overall fun series but the ending left a lot to be desired. I would watch the movie again but maybe I’ll just get the blu-ray later.
I did look into it before even buying the ticket and saw it’s ended 5 years ago. I assumed it got proper ending and deemed good enough to warrant a movie. The ending part clearly isn’t the case and I have no idea why this got a movie long after the serialization ended (which was almost clearly cut short). Maybe there’s still hope for actual sequel?
Oh yeah I quite like the songs as well so I bought the CD above.
White day event! That’s one interesting Grail War they have there. Seems pretty easy so far and I’ve been just grinding the event currencies as usual along with the daily unlocked story.
Not rolling for this one. Not even Arjuna Alter. I’ve got my Morgan and others. I also just want to save for possible upcoming servants. If anything, this year may be the return of quick.
NA
White day event! As well! Or more like it’s almost ending and I haven’t quite there in term of clearing up the shop. I’ll probably have to use some apples here as I doubt it’ll be enough with just natural AP regen.
Oh and the challenge quest, it was mildly amusing clearing it with Kama. She has no problem clearing first two bars with double Skadi but the last one as expected is pretty tough. With def buff removal NP by Odysseus, I had to use guts to keep Kama alive through his NP and pray she’s not killed afterwards after the guts trigger. Atlas Mystic Code allowed her to use the guts twice although it ended up not needed. The first attempt was failed because her guts didn’t cool down in time. The second attempt worked better thanks to Emiya NP reducing Odysseus’ NP charge. Half damage def buff sucks.
As for the rolls, well, nope. Still saving for upcoming Castoria. And everyone else that come afterwards.
Valentine ended! Or not! I still need to open all those choco events. I’ll get around doing it after writing this post…
Unexpectedly there’s this Best Valentine Buddy thing. I didn’t really plan for it but thankfully Okita is mine due to me always putter on sub while I used two different farming teams so neither team members got the most point despite Okita being on the fourth slot.
Meanwhile White Day event is starting this Wednesday. From the look of it Arjuna Alter will most likely be available on banner pick up. I don’t know I’ll pull that. He’s pretty useful but Morgan will do in a pinch I think. And I want to save some sq as well.
NA
Dead week is dead. There’s hunting quest but as I mentioned last week I don’t want to use any apples so I only did the bare minimum. That said, even with bare minimum the ice cube node drop was really shit I ended up using bronze apples just to get two ice cubes.
And thus I’m done leveling up this Napoleon guy.
Aeaean event is coming up. The banner’s Enkidu and Cu Alter are pretty useful but I’m also saving my sq here. Castoria is coming up after all. Not to mention 2023 will be full of useful farming servants.
Event done! …kind of. I cleared challenge quest using the team above and practically no strategy. I probably should at least attempt something like this or this but I have no apple and raising buddy rank requires a lot of farming.
That said, with no debuff from enemy party and the NP being single target, everyone is having their field day trying various ways to clear this. If only the event is slightly longer (or the CQ is unlocked earlier).
As for farming, I still need 800k points and 600 bronze event currency. I tried not using apple but I ended up using some and will probably need a bit more.
I managed to not roll more and only did some paid rolls. Still no Bazett though. I don’t think I’ll do any more paid roll until at least next year (assuming I still play this by then).
NA
As I guessed yesterday, they shuffled events around with hunting quest starting tomorrow. I’ll just farm with natural AP as I’m still saving apples and don’t exactly need any of them at the moment. Except for ice crystals but I only need two of them so it should be easy.
Valentine! Bazett! Well, I tried 10 rolls for her and got nothing. I’ll do paid rolls for a bit more or maybe till the end but I don’t think I’ll do normal roll for her anymore.
As for the event itself, as usual I’m slowly going through it. This account is very low on apple anyway so I don’t have that much choices in the first place.
The battles are relatively easy which is not surprising considering the requirement is just Fuyuki as usual with Valentine (I think?). And unlike last year, there’s no choco shadow quest this time around.
I’m planning to actually check the chocolate giving/getting events this time around although I don’t know if I’ll have enough time to actually do it.
NA
So I saw Sitonai/Shounagon banner a few days ago and tried rolling on that and still got nothing.
The challenge quest was pretty… interesting. Nothing too difficult with two Merlins lol. And especially Ereshkigal’s third skill came in handy as Merlin doesn’t have defensive skill beyond HP regen and one turn invulnerability. As usual I didn’t actually plan anything much after defeating Shounagon so it took a while to finish the quest.
Apple situation is better here but I’m still trying to save as well. I think I need about 10-15 more run on highest difficulty node to clear everything. With a bit over done day still remain, I can finish it without using apples. Or maybe use one just to be safe.
No news on next event yet. It should be White Day on JP but March 14th is still one month away so I don’t know what they’ll do in the mean time. They do have to speed things up a bit due to anniversary being two months earlier so maybe they’ll shuffle events around? Which means Apocrypha Collab rerun? Although strictly speaking the Odysseus event isn’t really a white day event so maybe they can just do that ahead separately from Chaldea Boys Collection thing.
Nothing much this week. There was Nero Bride pick-up few days ago and I did 47 rolls and got nothing.
Valentine is starting this Wednesday. New servant will be Bazett which is… interesting? Not sure if I’ll roll for her though. Not that I have SQ left at the moment anyway (see above).
On unrelated note, I’m running low on servant coins for creating grails. 2000 coins is a lot of coins.
NA
Valentine has started here. I’ll be going through it slowly and maybe rush around the end accordingly. I need to save apples.
I ended up doing three rolls and got nothing. Just par for the course, I guess.
Finished the second CQ (again) now with Castoria (friend support) being only higher rarity servant.
I initially tried with Caster Shuten Douji but Reines NP is quite very annoying so Medea is in her place. The strategy is of course get rid of Gray first and then Reines. Medea ended up still being pretty useful for Reines to remove the NP effect. Raising that Hundred Faces was expensive though :’)
I also noticed that while not quite Merlin useful, Andersen works quite well with Castoria in term of providing healing. And with his def buff (when it comes through), it’s slightly more useful than Merlin even (albeit without per turn NP charge).
I haven’t tried the other CQ with lower rarity servants. I don’t know if I’ll be able to spare time for that. I also don’t remember how I did it first time although considering the enemy side attacker is Alexander it’s probably just Gray with assistance from Koyanskaya.
Meanwhile on gacha news, there’s still no Faker but instead:
…yeah. I don’t know how but I ended up rolling five of her in 155 rolls total. Yay?
Also I guess I’ll just need to wait until Faker spooks me on some random rolls later.
With this event coming to a close, up next will be Valentine. There will be a stream next weekend although I’m not sure if it’ll be right after the stream or yet another Wednesday start. I hope it’s right after the stream just so I can start the event early.
NA
Cleared tower event challenge quest with that team above. It was two berserkers so I figured this should work just fine (and it did). As usual it’s just Hokusai spamming her NP with a lot of taunts.
As for the tower itself, I’m currently at floor 82. Only 18 floors left with two remaining days. Should be just enough.
Right after this tower event will be valentine. I don’t think I’ll roll there either…
Finished main story and the new challenge quest (in easy mode).
The idea is just as usual – let Morgan spam her NP every turn, backed by all the latest buster supports. Oh and taunt CEs because otherwise Morgan will die pretty quickly especially with that NP on bar break. Although now I think about it again, I could’ve used that opportunity to put Waver instead of Mash so there’s even less worry on getting enough NP and damage for Morgan.
The buff from both Morgan NP and Koyanskaya helped getting her damage break 1M. Her being NP3 probably also helped a bit.
All that’s left is finishing the missions and the event shop items and the original challenge quest.
And maybe retry the new CQ with lower rarity servants. There’s quite a lot of time this time around.
I’ve been slowly rolling daily paid SQ for Reines although nothing useful so far.
NA
Tower event has started. I’m currently at floor 84 which is just about right considering there’s still a week left.
Nothing particularly interesting so far apart of the fact I’m filling up the team with 5 servants instead of 3 for that sweet bond points.
No roll plan here and probably none until Castoria.
So I did 21 roll and got one Reines. That was nice I thought so I rolled more hoping for Faker. Her 100% NP charge skill with single target arts NP with class advantage against knight classes and caster should come in handy. Except I ended up spending all my SQ with 132 rolls total and didn’t get her at all. But instead I got 4 Reines. That was weird. And annoying. And RIP my SQ stock.
Along the way I didn’t get any useful CE but at least got Percival (NP2), Heracles (NP4), and Chiron (NP2). More Percival is useful.
Raid is coming up in a few days and it would be useful. If only I have more apples.
NA
Done with the event including challenge quests.
I forgot to take screenshot for the first one but it’s the above except replace Eli with Godjuna and relocate him at 1, Orion at 4, and Merlin at 5. Godjuna first defeats all the monkeys in single turn and then after he’s defeated Orion comes in and finish Beni Enma.
As for the second challenge quest, it’s just Orion hitting Youkihi.
Tower event is coming up next week. That would be fun… if it’s longer than two weeks. I’ll need to be careful to not end up rushing on last minute.
I rolled for Scathach! She’s not exactly useful though!
That took 15 rolls which wasn’t too bad. Rolling for Dark Koyanskaya on the other hand, I spent 58 rolls and didn’t get her. I did get the 5 copies of SSR CE which is mildly useful at least.
Now I’m saving for the upcoming Reines. Another upgrade for her would be nice but she got one a while back so I doubt there will be one.
NA
I spent too much for NA. 11 for Youhiki, 33 for Scathach, and 66 for Tamamo. At least I did get Tamamo but that costed me 110 rolls. Not to mention I will have chance of choosing her for the upcoming SSR ticket.
I’ll either take Saber (for NP2) or Osakabehime or Jack. Bradamante may be fun as well but she’s area and Ereshkigal should be enough for now (and upcoming Gubijin summer).
…I’ll probably just go with Saber. She’s plenty useful and more damage is more useful.
At currently 140 SQ, I sure hope I can collect enough for upcoming Castoria this summer. And Himiko and Okita in October.
Voyager and NP2 Kama would be nice but I think they can come later.
As for the new year event itself, I’m almost done with it. Just need a bit more farming to clear out the store and then challenge quest which is still locked.
Looking at event list, the next one will be tower event. That will be fun. And tiring.
More RAM more better. Main system currently at 48GiB and office at 32GiB. Could use more (especially home) but should be sufficient for now.
More SSD
Mainly for server VM use, with end configuration for home server at 4x1TB at raidz2 and office at 6x500GB also at raidz2. Should be enough for now. There’s also one extra spare 500GB drive so I guess the 500GB will stay for a longer while.
SAS Cards
Some existing SAS cards were broken and thus replacements were bought. One Fujitsu D2607-A11 which I’ve bought twice now and NEC OEM of LSI 9240-8i. The latter has ports on different place which ends up allows cleaner cable routing. It’s not as common as the former though.
Asus BD-RW
The first brand new BD drive I bought after 2013. This one supports UHD disc and MakeMKV custom firmware which allows better ripping.
Xbox Controller And Related Accessories
This is actually the first time I bought proper controller for PC ever. I also got the wireless adapter so it’s usable on Windows 8. Although now I write it I can probably connect it using bluetooth as my main system now runs Windows 10. Latency seems fine so, yay?
Also bought loads of rechargeable batteries (and the charger) while at it.
Monitor
My main display started showing ghosting so it’s time to be replaced. The replacement is an LG ultrawide 144Hz. I’ve had it in my Amazon shopping cart for a very long time and having to replace the 27″ display I figured I should just go all out. And all out I did. It replaced my whole display setup so it’s now just single display. No more annoyances of slightly different color from different displays.
Mousepad
My mousepad has gotten quite gross and broken with the main layer peeled off from its base. So I replaced it with deskpad making it easier to switch between left and right handed mouse and of course the edges are stitched. It’s also kind of water resistant. I probably should buy another one so I can swap and wash them as needed. There weren’t much choices when I shopped for it last year but there seems to be a lot of options nowadays.
Keycap Replacements
Probably my favorite upgrade for 2021 is keycap replacement. The previous one has gotten quite gross so it’s time for replacement. It’s no PBT but it’s double shot and matches perfectly with the base keyboard (Filco black).
That said I should wash the previous one so I can use it as temporary keycaps whenever I’m cleaning the main one.
The smaller one I’ve been using wasn’t quite good and has been annoying with its config sometimes reset whenever it started on network without running DHCP server. I also have another one which looks like this but the firmware is almost equally annoying. Not to mention it’s rather big and requires large adapter. Replaced them with this one. That said, I may end up needing another switch but it’ll be a 10Gbit one.
Ethernet Cards
I’ve been buying cheap Realteks new but then I realized I should’ve gotten a cheap second hand one with Intel chip which is usually more reliable. Then I got one for 750 yen and it’s been working fine, now serving as ethernet port for my internet connection.
Speakers
I’m not sure if it’s an upgrade but I got a pair of JBL 305P MkII. It’s got hiss. It’s missing accessible volume control, not to mention each unit got its own control (fixed by buying a volume knob from Fostex). Heck, it’s missing easy power switch (also the toggle is on each unit; fixed by using power board with switch). It’s also lacking subwoofer so bass isn’t as pronounced at the moment.
Thankfully the hiss isn’t usually noticeable and I can just turn it off when not needed. Subwoofer situation is a bit more annoying though I think it’s fine for now. Not like it’s completely missing and I’m not that much of basshead anyway.
As for overall quality, uh, I can’t really tell. I think it’s better. Maybe. There seems to be more details as well (which is the main reason I replaced with this).
More HDDs
I didn’t plan this one but a combination of stupid SATA cables and dying old WD Reds causing to buy three IronWolf 8TB. It wasn’t enough to replace the 4x6TB but I remade my main array from 10x8TB to 8x8TB so then I have enough for 4x8TB. The leftover drives are used for direct attach Windows backup drives.
Ryzen 5900X
After waiting a year and the price just not wanting to go down I finally got one second hand for 64k. Not the best deal but still one of the better ones.
Antec NE650
This one ended up probably not quite enough if I ever upgrade my GPU beyond mid range… which I probably won’t do. The most annoying part is I could’ve gotten 750W for just a little bit more but I cheaped out in the end ;_;
Questionable and Useless “Upgrade”s
ATX Case (and PSU)
To be fair, the case itself is perfectly fine. The problem is I ended up not needing it after combining server and desktop into one system (with server function running on multiple VMs).
Extra Ryzen System
Similar to above, I’ve got one extra set of Ryzen 3500 CPU and B450 motherboard. I’ve got no spare RAM so I’ll just sell them separately eventually (same with the case, I’ll probably sell just the case and PSU by itself). At least for PSU I’ll be selling a rather old one.
Too Many 10Gbit
Or more like I don’t need any of them now. I can still use a pair for between main and lab system but they’re not exactly needed. I need to get around selling them eventually. At least I think I should be able to recoup the cost here because I bought them mostly untested so they’re relatively cheap.
Sound Card (lol)
I had server board for desktop and the USB Audio I’ve been using was quite crap in term of loudness for earphones so I got a PCIe one. It works fine but the system has since been replaced by a Ryzen system so it just isn’t needed anymore. At least it was only 1800 yen.
Conclusion
Merging server and desktop makes a lot of setup I had redundant. I tried this kind of setup for office around 2015 but FreeBSD’s Hyper-V support wasn’t quite good at the time and I didn’t have enough HDD to store Windows backup (as I can’t use the VM to store it since those would be inaccessible in recovery mode). I also had the idea using Linux and passthrough devices to a Windows VM.
It took me so long to realize I just need to try my original Windows Host and FreeBSD VM setup again and see if it works. It sure seems to work fine now and I ended up with a bunch of redundant systems now.
Future Upgrades
With “Everything Server” now turned into “Everything System”, upgrade will be much cheaper although I need to make sure the motherboard have enough PCI-e and SATA slots.
On CPU, if I ever go Alder Lake, it’ll probably be ASRock H670 Steel Legend motherboard (open PCI-e notches yay!) and i7-12700. Or maybe I’ll just wait whatever AMD has in store for Zen 4. Intel limiting to 8 performance cores for consumer kinda sucks.
I almost forgot but this Ryzen 5900X is probably not adequately cooled. It’s currently cooled by Kotetsu Mark II which can barely cool the cpu at maximum load. Lack of airflow certainly isn’t helping either. Thankfully such load is rare and adding two 14cm fan (which I have spare of) at the top should help. I need to buy fan filter first though since I don’t fancy cleaning its inside.
RAM situation is pretty questionable at the moment. DDR4 is dying but DDR5 is still pretty expensive and there’s no telling when the price will normalize. I’ll try keeping current one as long as needed.
GPU is, well, WELL. I should’ve pulled trigger on RTX 2060 many years ago when it was still like 20-30k yen. At least I’ve got a GTX 1060 6GB which is quite a bit better than my previous GTX 950.
SSD situation is rather unknown. One NVMe drive I have shows remaining life of 19%. It was used for server and hit with some heavy write load but with now used for Windows system drive with no heavy load it should last longer? The number is a bit worrying and in worst case I’ll just replace it with a SATA SSD. Not like I need the performance anyway.
I also may need extra storage for my gaming drive.
NAS storage actually got a downgrade as I wrote above from 10x8TB to 8x8TB. I’ve done quite a lot of clean ups so it’s now at 9TB free which should last me for at least a year. I hope. Otherwise it’ll be… 8x12TB upgrade? I should start saving for them…
I’m running switch-less at the moment but it also means I’ve got no spare gigabit port which I can use to connect my laptop to. Alternative includes using 10Gbit port with Gigabit SFP (which means I need to disconnect the 10Gbit connection), using my ancient gigabit switch (more cables), getting a gigabit/2.5Gbit USB adapter (maybe no), or getting a 10Gbit switch (quite expensive though). Switch or SFP should make do for now at least.
Subwoofer may or may not coming. I need to free up space in my room before seriously thinking about it. The one I’m considering is pretty big though.
My mouse has started wearing out but I’ve got no good replacement for it. It needs to be symmetrical 9 buttons mouse with internal memory for profiles. Nothing much matches the requirement apart of the G300s I’m currently using but it’ll out of production eventually. Also a wireless one would be nice. Preferably with AA or AAA batteries. Closest one would be G903 but it’s got proprietary battery and quite expensive.
Monitor arm would be nice, I think. With only single monitor its usefulness is more questionable but I can use extra desk space.
There’s also laptop situation. Or maybe not. This X220 should hold up for a while. At worst I just need to replace its battery. And maybe its slowly crumbling frame (!).
Freed from Skadi curse, I can finally choose whatever I want this time around. After plenty considerations, it was down to either Arts Knights or Support 1.
Arts Knights contains plenty of both useful servants (Nero Bride, Beni Enma, Muramasa, Summer Saber, Summer Jeanne, Fairy Lancelot) and eyecandy servants (Ryohgi Shiki, Summer Saber, Summer Jeanne). Whereas the only miss would be Lancer Ryoma.
Support 1 has pretty much all relatively useful sevants and two eyecandies (Reines and Castoria). I already have Castoria more is always better (until 5).
As per screenshot above I went with Arts Knights in the end and thankfully got Summer Jeanne. At NP1 her usefulness is slightly limited but still useful nonetheless. Also I think I completed my Jeanne collection with this one. Except Jailter of course because there’s no way to get her at the moment.
Meanwhile for other updates, Dark Koyanskaya doesn’t seem all that useful so I did 11 rolls and got jack shit as usual. I don’t think I’ll be rolling for other dailies either.
Pity system is, well, finally? At 330 rolls it’s pretty much business as usual though. I’ve always consider that number to be the normal worst case scenario so there isn’t much difference apart of that it’s now guaranteed instead of still having possibility of worst worst case.
Holy Grail creation is pretty interesting…? I don’t think I will get that many coins at the moment but for now I’ve exchanged all extra coins I have. I doubt I have enough for next month. That said, combined with other extra grails recently distributed, my problem of lack of grails has been solved in one go.
And lastly, the new training ground difficulty is definitely welcome. I don’t know the exact rate but the drops are pretty good from what I can tell. As usual it’s useless if wanting one specific item (apart of skill gems) but it works great for simply stockpiling mats.
Oh right, there’s Reines rerun sometime this month. Barbatos raid should also come along which would be very useful for all those bones and dusts and QP.
NA
As for NA GSSR, it’s Archers banner as it’s got the least number of misses (Moriarty). Summer Saber would be best but as per screenshot above, Orion is still quite useful in some scenarios.
Nothing else particularly interesting here so, yeah.
Beni Enma event will also start next week. I need a lot more mana prism…
The final fight for third raid battle (one with 6 raid targets) is especially annoying if not using Castoria which I didn’t. The key is to not kill everyone at once for the first five. The fourth enemy which brings full charge is very dangerous when combined with the fifth one which brings invulnerability piercing. All the enemies hit hard and with the last one’s area attack, it’s very dangerous to be left alone so for the last three I try getting rid of them all at once instead.
Nikitich NP charge on last hit is pretty important as well. And as I mentioned above, it’s bad to kill first three at once so I actually skip buff for first few NP and only do it once fourth and fifth enemy appear.
As for the raid itself, well, that was a lot of Oberon. And also surprisingly Skadi.
The Koyanska raid one is quite hard and involve some luck to prevent stun (or extra skill slots). I tried a few combinations and then went to one hit kill Koyanska instead of trying to clear the whole mobs. Lobo with two Skadi and one oberon work well in this case.
NA
Finally cleared the shop so I can focus on the lottery item. The team is as per screenshot above.
The lack of fast skill animation annoyed me a lot now so I don’t really farm here and probably won’t until they bring in that update. Currently at almost 25 boxes. With some luck maybe I can have 30 boxes.
Box event has ended and raid event is coming up soon. I ended up with 51 boxes total. Not too bad but I certainly can use more. I still need a lot more skill gems.
As for challenge quest, the easy one is, well, easy. Spartacus having damage bonus for this event also helped. It’s the usual taunt and NP (and face cards). Mech Eli at the back for cleaning up second wave and lastly Castoria and Robin Hood for finishing Beni Enma.
Getting buster buff from the first wave was pretty difficult but at least it’s not essential.
The hard challenge quest on the other hand, is hard. I saw the comp above on Appmedia message board and thankfully it worked wonder. A few places suggested defeating Oni first but I think Habetrot is way more dangerous because of her NP charges. It also helps she’s only got single HP bar. No I look at Appmedia page again, they do suggest Habetrot as well so I guess either I read it wrong few days ago or they updated their recommendation.
Anyway, with lack of time to experiments I didn’t try with lower rarity servants this time.
Oh and I cleared the story and challenge quest as well.
Taking hint from myself last time, it’s time for another double Merlin. I just didn’t want to think too much. Still not easy though. I should’ve used Atlas Academy Uniform instead.
Only 8 boxes so far so I definitely need to pick up pace. After a while with JP skill speedup update, the lack of it in NA is quite annoying.
