Rabbit's Reviews #288: Galatea (5* Berserker)

Usually with FGO Servants, the expectation is that new non-limited Servants will have simple and unremarkable kits that are generally a step below the best stuff in the game, while new limited Servants will be experimental, extremely powerful, or both. There are design misses here and there, usually on the weaker end of the spectrum (poor Nemo), but by and large if you want the really good stuff, you look to either new limited Servants (like Muramasa) or a handful of very old non-limited weirdos (like Waver or Vlad).

Galatea bucks this trend. Her kit is fairly straightforward, sure, but it also happens to be pretty ludicrously powerful. With good persistent steroids, excellent NP refund, and some of the most useful utility an Arts Servant can have, Galatea cleanly asserts herself as the best ST damage-dealer in the game. It’s a little surprising to get a new Servant—especially a new non-limited Servant—with this level of power, but given how powerful Arts tools were already, Galatea raising the power ceiling doesn’t have a whole lot of practical impact beyond making high-powered Arts tools a little more accessible. In other words, she’s an absolutely excellent Servant who nonetheless doesn’t change the game much.

Galatea has fairly low attack and fairly high HP as SSR Berserkers go, which is somewhat disappointing on a DPS (although Galatea makes up for it in other ways). She’s going to struggle to crit as well due to her star weight and deck, and her Arts card NP gain is low for a single-Arts Servant. Her Quick card is pretty nice, but overall Galatea’s odd-for-Arts deck coupled with her less-than-stellar innate NP gain is a disadvantage. In exchange, however, she has ridiculously high NP refund, outpacing even Vlad, so once she has access to her first NP, she’ll be pretty hard to stop. For passives, she has Madness Enhancement EX to help her Buster cards a little, along with Magic Resistance to help stave off debuffs.

Ascension Materials

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	100,000	x5 Berserker Piece
3	300,000	x12 Berserker Piece x22 Mystic Spinal Fluid
4	1,000,000	x5 Berserker Monument x10 Aurora Steel x5 Giant's Ring
Max	3,000,000	x12 Berserker Monument x10 Giant's Ring x8 Fruit of Eternity

Skill Enhancement Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200,000	x5 Gem of Berserker
2 → 3	400,000	x12 Gem of Berserker
3 → 4	1,200,000	x5 Magic Gem of Berserker
4 → 5	1,600,000	x12 Magic Gem of Berserker x5 Aurora Steel
5 → 6	4,000,000	x5 Secret Gem of Berserker x10 Aurora Steel
6 → 7	5,000,000	x12 Secret Gem of Berserker x15 Mystic Spinal Fluid
7 → 8	10,000,000	x29 Mystic Spinal Fluid x6 Shining Silver Crown
8 → 9	12,000,000	x18 Shining Silver Crown x15 Fruit of Eternity
9 → 10	20,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Galatea’s mats are of middling difficulty. Her ascension requirements are unusually mean, asking for a fair number of bronze mats on top of a smattering of Lostbelt mats. Her skill mats are more of the same, which altogether means newer players will struggle to get Galatea up to speed. For longtime players, though, it’s not a huge ask.

Galatea’s skillset it unusually distinctive as non-limited Servants go, and all three of her skills have unique and interesting traits. Recommended skill order is 1>2>3.

Galatea deals a lot of damage and has very good refund. She wants double Castoria with Black Grail to maximize damage. 2004 is a good Mystic Code for supporting loopage if you want to go plugless, but assuming you plan to use plugsuit, Tamamo is the best secondary support for damage, while Waver or (ideally) Reines can help stabilize Galatea’s loops (while also providing some extra damage through their own buffs). Sherlock is also an option against defensive enemies, as Galatea has no in-kit pierce abilities. Chen Gong setups (where you have Chen kill a Castoria and use his taunt to get himself killed) are even more optimal, letting you run a fourth support for extra batteries and/or damage.

If you don’t have the supports and/or don’t want to deal with what little RNG Black Grail looping requires, Galatea’s damage is so high she’ll probably do fine with Kaleid, or even with a 50% charge CE like Painting Summer. With a generic Kaleid, Galatea has a 100% consistent loop with just double Castoria, provided you save the Castoria batteries for later turns, and with basically any starting charge CE you should be able to mix and match battery supports to swing a reliable loop comp.

While Galatea is very much oriented towards fastplay, she also has a fair number of defensive tools and pairs well with a defensive Castoria-centric team. Himiko/Galatea/Castoria, in particular, will work well, with Himiko and Castoria collaborating to protect the party and Galatea patching up incidental damage. Galatea even benefits from Himiko’s Buster buffs, for added synergy.

Again, Galatea wants Black Grail for damage or Kaleid/Painting Summer/etc for loop consistency. The goal in picking a CE for Galatea should be to take the CE that will push your damage as high as possible without keeping you from looping, so which you opt to use should depend on which supports you have available.

Galatea doesn’t especially need anything she doesn’t already have within her kit. You could stick a Command Code that boosts NP damage (like Da Vinci-chan) on one of her Buster cards in order to maximize damage off a BNPB chain in a pinch, or you could give her CCs that boost her Buster Crit damage for cases where you happen to get lucky with a crit. You could also put Magus of Flowers on one of her Busters to help cover a turn of bad RNG. None of this is super necessary, though, and other Servants may be more valuable picks for these specific CCs.

Berserkers are great grail targets and Galatea is the best ST Servant in the game. If you pull Galatea and you plan to use her often, she’s a fantastic pick for grails—although she doesn’t really need the extra help, so you may prefer to save the grails for someone whose damage isn’t already sky-high. Galatea is a Servant to grail if you want to raise your power ceiling, essentially, rather than one who actively needs higher stats.

Galatea is really absurdly strong. If you want the strongest ST Servant in the game, you should pull for her. …That said, there are plenty of extremely powerful ST Arts Servants out there and longtime players probably have tools they favor already. Vlad, for example, is also crazy strong, even if Galatea’s better, and remains more than enough for most contexts. This all means Galatea is in a weird position where she’s both absolutely excellent and kind of unexciting. If you don’t have strong ST Arts tools already—if you’re a new player or some such—she’s an easy rec, but for more established players she’s pretty easy to skip, especially since she can spook. In short, Galatea is extraordinarily powerful, but also not terribly necessary.

Overall: 10/10
Single-Target DPS: 10/10
AoE DPS: N/A
Survivability: 8/10
Offensive Utility: 1/10
Defensive Utility: 5/10
Farming Usefulness: 6/10
Pants: 10/10