GamePress

Part 3: Becoming a Wall - Defense

Submit Feedback or Error
Part 3: Becoming a Wall: Defense

Part 3: Becoming a Wall: Defense

The amount of damage you can receive in challenge quests is no joke. While class advantage may mitigate a lot of the damage taken, it is often not a good idea to form teams solely based on the mechanic. The strongest enemies can bring an unprotected silver Servant to 0 HP in a single turn if the AI is particularly vicious. Besides, Berserker enemies refuse to be shackled by such foolish notions as class disadvantage (at least until the Foreigner class comes into the picture).

Part 3.1: Rotating Defenses

The strongest team compositions tend to be teams where defensive options are always available. There are a variety of tools that can help, whether that is simply healing, buffing the team, debuffing the opponent or deploying Noble Phantasms. Ideally, there is always something going on at every moment in the fight. However, since almost all skills have a cooldown period longer than the effect’s duration - even at max level -  coming up with a strategy to bridge the gap between defensive skills is crucial. In other words, there needs to be a rotation of defensive measures.

If the team is undefended even for a moment, the boss may enact a nightmare scenario where a critical hit takes out an essential frontline Servant. Of course, such an event may be slightly exaggerated, but it is typically these tense turns which make or break a run. It is these situations that explain why leveling core defensive skills like David’s Harp of Healing, Mash’s Transient Wall of Snowflakes and Waver’s Tactician’s Advice have higher priority. Not only do higher ranks provide more protection, but skills receive a cooldown reduction at rank 6 and then again at 10. The fewer turns in which a frontline Servant is undefended, the better. Essentially, surviving in a challenge quest is about minimizing moments of vulnerability. Improving the speed of the rotation is simply one of best ways to do so.

Support-type Noble Phantasms can be utilized to bridge the gap between skill cooldowns, as they technically have no cooldown limitations. For example, Hans’s Marches Meines Lebens is very spammable and even Mash can charge her Noble Phantasm quickly with her taunt skill. Another way to bridge the gap between the team’s defensive skills is to save taunts and damage prevention skills for these moments of vulnerability. Mystic Codes can come into play here as well, as a well-timed stun can prevent a full party wipe. Sadly, these Mystic Codes often come with very large cooldowns, but more often than not, the fight ends before this becomes a problem.

Ibaraki is stunned right as she wants to launch her Noble Phantasm.
A well-placed Gandr can buy some valuable time.

Part 3.2: Survival Skills

In order to understand which Servants and skills work best at keeping a team alive, it is time to have a look at the specific strengths and weaknesses of each effect that prevents, reduces or recuperates damage taken. Which defensive measure works best and where is extremely dependent on what boss is in the challenge quest.

Defensive Skills
Invulnerability
  • Prevents all damage taken from attacks but often has a long cooldown.
  • Boss may decide to ignore an Invulnerable Servant by attacking other Servants.
  • Often only lasts 1 turn.
  • Players have a tendency to save these for Noble Phantasms, limiting their use.
  • Vulnerable to invulnerability pierce.
Evasion
  • Prevents all damage taken from attacks and often has a shorter cooldown.
  • Boss may decide to ignore evasion by attacking other Servants.
  • Often only lasts 1 turn.
  • Players have a tendency to save these for Noble Phantasms, limiting their use.
  • Can be bypassed with Invulnerability Pierce and Sure Hit buffs.
Defense up
  • Usually reduces the damage taken by a % amount but can be a flat amount as well.
  • Very good for reducing the possible damage taken in a turn but Noble Phantasms will often be lethal anyway.
  • Proactive and can prevent freak critical hit deaths.
  • Defense buffs can be stacked, but need more than 60% reduction to reliably avoid a party death on AoE Noble Phantasms. At 100%, total damage mitigation is possible.
  • Attack downs can be resisted.
  • Some Noble Phantasms ignore defense buffs.
  • Countered by attack buffs, which are relatively common.
Healing
  • A reactive way to recuperate from enemy damage.
  • Healing works great in combination with other defensive measures but by itself is vulnerable to enemy focus fire and/or criticals.
  • Healing is often not enough to get through a hard challenge node as enemies usually do more damage than is possible to heal.
  • Cannot heal something that one-shots.
Taunt
  • Very useful for redirecting single target Noble Phantasms and debuffs.
  • If the Servant with taunt reaches 0 HP the enemy’s turn will end.
  • Great synergy with damage prevention and guts.
  • However, team-wide attacks ignore taunts.
  • Does not prevent damage, it merely redirects.
Guts
  • One of the ways to survive enemy Noble Phantasms.
  • Can be triggered early and prevent freak deaths.
  • If last Servant standing, triggering guts will end the enemy’s turn.
  • However, most guts leave the Servant with little HP after resurrection which is hard to recover from.
  • Team-wide basic attacks continue uninterrupted after resurrection whereas single target ones do not.
  • Have long cooldowns and can generally only be used once per fight.
Stun/Charm
  • Amazing for reducing damage taken and works great with healing over time.
  • Great for delaying once the enemy has charged their Noble Phantasm
  • Perfect measure for plugging holes in a defense rotation.
  • However, it can be resisted and most disables have a lower success rate than normal debuffs.
  • Tend to have long cooldowns.
Vampirism/ Noble Phantasm Seal
  • Very useful when the Noble Phantasm is the true danger of the encounter.
  • Often used to stall for time to get other defensive measures in place.
  • Can be resisted and it does not help much if basic attacks are the main threat.
  • Can aid in syncing up enemy charge bars.
Noble Phantasm Damage Down
  • Very niche, but can work if combined with stacking defense buffs too.
  • Amakusa’s largest weakness as debuffs on himself are not removed when he uses his Noble Phantasm.
  • Aside from removing it, the only way to directly counter high stacks of Noble Phantasm damage down is through Noble Phantasm damage up, which is less common than normal attack buffs.
Critical Damage Down
  • Very useful against enemies that favor dealing critical damage like Assassin bosses.
  • Can be resisted and preventing critical hits alone will not be enough as basic attacks tend to do a lot of damage either way.

Part 3.3: Proper Defense

Ibaraki's basic attacks have been reduced to minor damage via defense buffs.
Stack enough defense and even the strongest attacks will only tickle.

What types of defensive measures are best is very reliant on what boss a node contains. Bosses that spam their Noble Phantasm are better countered by stalling them with stuns, draining their charge gauge or preventing their damage with an immunity. Meanwhile bosses that rely on their normal attacks to wipe out a team will need to be countered with a mix of defense up and healing. By answering the questions raised in part 1, it becomes possible to assess what poses the biggest threat in the challenge quest.

Start building a team by keeping in mind which particular mechanic you want to counter most of all. For example, if faced with a boss that on each Noble Phantasm applies Invulnerability Pierce and stalling is not an option, start building a team based on Defense Up. Select someone like Mash that can provide these defense up buffs and then complement this Servant by either adding even more defense up or some ways of recuperating from damage. Alternatively, invest in a Servant that can provide the offense that Mash can’t, like Hans or a hybrid like Nero Bride.

For challenge quests that concern Berserkers or a class disadvantage in particular, defense buffs will often have the most impact. Berserkers do so much damage that the percentage of damage reduction from defense buffs will keep Servants alive for longer than simply healing them would. The damage reduction gained from defense buffs lasting for three turns far outweighs any but the strongest of healing.

Furthermore, a massive benefit of defense up is that it works as a way to reduce the chance of getting one-shotted as it narrows the possible damage range of the enemy. A healing skill or Noble Phantasm can only be triggered after the damage has been dealt. However, if a Berserker crits or focuses fire on a specific Servant, there may be no time to react as the Servant would have already perished. Defense up, on the other hand, is proactive. The damage taken is reduced no matter what the enemy does and even if a Berserker crits or focuses damage unto one Servant, there is a good chance of survival until the next turn. At that point, there is at least the opportunity to respond to the new situation.

Part 3.4: In Conclusion

In order to keep the team alive, consider the following:

  • The high amount of damage taken during challenge quests necessitates some defensive skills.
  • Ensure the team is always protected by setting up a rotation of defensive measures.
  • Moments in which the defenses are down is when the frontline is vulnerable to freak deaths.
  • Through levelling defensive skills, moments of vulnerability can be shortened.
  • Personal skills that prevent damage taken or skills that disable enemy actions help bridge moments of vulnerability.
  • Noble Phantasms that protect the team can similarly bridge the gap between skill cooldowns.
  • After assessing the boss (see part I), pick a defensive measure that best counters the enemy and choose a support that provides it.