MMM - Arcade Adonis of Adolescence Auspiciously Appended, Animalistic Anti-Hero Annuls Advantage As We Knew It, Also Apprehensive Alchemist Applies Alarming Antidotes that Aren't Antivenom (FGO Arcade Collab)

Table of Contents

Sodom's Beast / Draco
Locusta
Setanta

The Modern Magus Magazine

Yeah baby, Setanta is here! Of all the Arcade-locked Servants out there, he was the one I was hoping for the most, if only because it’s bizarre that with all the “Lily” Servants out there, one of the few high-profile Fate Servants who did get up to a bunch of shit when they were a kid isn’t included.

But not only that, we have our first Beast-class Servant included in the game, despite the fact for all lore reasons it’s not a class container, and really we shouldn’t be pissing off the Counter-Force like this (and the Event story goes to show it’s an awful idea.)

I should probably just get on with the writing part of this thing, shouldn’t I?

Sodom's Beast / Draco

Introduction

Aka, “Nero what happened to your boobs?” or, “Given the history of Sodom, should I be watching my rear?”

I’ll be honest, at the point Arcade started talking about certain Beasts being real or not real Beasts, I kind of just blanked out and threw the whole timeline into my own Quantum Time Lock of “Not dealing with that”. So I don’t have much to say lore wise. But sheesh, put on some clothes.

Servant Data

Beast

QABBB (Berserker)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

5

4

3

5

8

Attribute	Beast
Alignment	Chaotic Evil

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

Max HP 13,160

HP Rank

Max ATK 12,712

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,964	Base HP	1,930
Max Atk	12,712	Max HP	13,160
Grail Atk	13,915	Grail HP	14,417

Authority of the Beast C

Increase your Critical Strength by 10%.

Independent Manifestation E

Increase your Critical Strength by 2%
Increase your Mental Debuff Resist by 2%.
Increase your Death Resist by 2%.

Nega-Messiah EX

Increase own Debuff Success Rate by 500% (Ignores Debuff Resist).

Overview

As Draco is the only one of her class, and pretty likely to stay that way for a while, I’m going to have to instead talk about the Beast class in general here.

Beast is unsurprisingly a pretty powerful class out the gates. Its baseline stats like Star Generation, Attack modifier and so on are pretty typical (1.0x Attack modifier, 10% Star generation as baseline) with a couple exceptions. The class has an obscenely low Death Rate, like Mooncancer class, meaning Draco is pretty much immune to Instant Death effects unless the devs hate you or you get extremely unlucky. She also has 150 star weight at base, the same as Archers, so she’s fairly adept at soaking up critical stars, if not as much as a Rider.

The class advantage of Beast is the main perk to the class, no doubt. With Alter Ego / Pretender style 1.5x Class Advantage, Draco goes one further than such classes by essentially doubling their strengths and weaknesses. Beasts have class advantage versus every single Knight and Horseman class (Saber, Archer, Lancer, Rider, Caster, Assassin, Berserker, for the record), and are weak to every Extra class (Ruler, Avenger, Mooncancer, Alter Ego, Foreigner, Pretender). This is pretty insane, since it’s essentially the perks of being a Berserker versus by far the most common classes in the game, without the drawbacks of being a glass cannon 100% of the time.

In terms of her statline itself, Draco is very strong offensively, with the tied 7th base Attack stat in the game, and she does so without sacrificing her defenses too much. While her HP sits a little on the lower side among the class roster, it’s still high enough to avoid crippling her defensively.
Oh boy, there’s also passives to discuss. Thankfully Draco only has 3, and they’re fairly simple. Authority of the Beast, identical to Tiamat’s, provides a notable boost to her critical damage, and with Independent Manifestation that’s boosted a little further, on top of minute boosts to Death Resistance and Mental Debuff resistance.

The last of her passives, Nega-Messiah, is one we have seen before, albeit this time with a different effect, providing Draco with maxed-out Debuff Success Rate at +500%. This essentially means all debuffs applied by Draco cannot be resisted, except with Debuff Immunity or similarly insanely high Debuff Resistance. This is still limited in effectiveness by the debuffs Draco actually has at her disposal, but it’s a strong passive regardless.

NP Generation

Card Hits	5	4	3	5	8
Per Hit	0.57%	0.57%	0.57%	0.57%	0.57%

	NP per Hit (%)	0.57%
NP when Attacked (%)	3%

	Star Absorption	147
Star Generation per Hit	10.2%

Servant Skills

Start Np

Number of the Beast C

Apply to self: Increase own NP Gauge each turn (6 turns).
Increase own Critical Strength (6 times).
Apply Damage Cut to self (6 times).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
NP Gauge per turn +	5%	5.5%	6%	6.5%	7%	7.5%	8%	8.5%	9%	10%
Crit Dmg +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
Damage Cut -	500	550	600	650	700	750	800	850	900	1000
CD	9	9	9	9	9	8	8	8	8	7

First in Draco’s skill lineup is, almost unsurprisingly, Number of the Beast. This is a skill with a triad of buffs, each with a duration of 6 turns…yeah, I don’t think I have to explain that any further.

In terms of gameplay, though, this is a decent skill. It provides a 10% NP gauge charge per turn, a 30% Critical Damage buff, and a 1000 damage cut for its 6-turn duration, which all provide a lot of value simply due to their longevity. 60% gauge charge in total is frankly a good sum of NP gauge to get in difficult content, even if it isn’t instantaneous, and likewise 1000 damage cut means a lot less HP lost from regular attacks over time. With class advantage, it’s likely Draco will take near-zero damage from attacks, which is certainly impressive.

The only real flaw, if any, to this skill, is the cooldown. A base cooldown of 9 turns looks bad, but when the skill itself lasts 6 turns, this essentially means Draco only has 1 turn of downtime on this skill when it’s at max skill level, and the cooldown is 7 turns.

Supression

Golden Chalice C

Inflict Skill Seal on all enemies (1 turn).
Inflict Burn on all enemies (3 turns).
Increase NP Gauge for all enemies by 1 [Demerit].
Increase own ATK (3 turns).
Apply [Holy Grail Possession] trait to self (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Burn	3000	3200	3400	3600	3800	4000	4200	4400	4600	5000
ATK +	20%	22%	24%	26%	28%	30%	32%	34%	36%	40%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Next up is Golden Chalice. How generous of Draco to provide us with some drink from her cup, but for some reason this grape juice really burns…

This skill more or less has 2 components to it, a series of debuffs to all enemies, and a couple of buffs to Draco herself. All enemies get inflicted with a 1-turn Skill Seal and 3-turn, 5k damage burn, but in exchange have their NP gauges charged by 1 step. The burn is surprisingly high value, but still ultimately not a significant debuffs, especially as Draco doesn’t have any form of burn amplification built into her kit. Similarly, Skill Seal is useful in niche situations, but often does nothing to aid in a fight. Getting those at the cost of charging enemy NP gauge is, frankly, a really awful deal, so the buffs to Draco better be good.

The first of which is a 40% attack buff for 3 turns. Draco was in need of a solid offensive steroid thus far, and this is certainly one, providing a significant boost to all of her damage output, albeit at the mostly-negative cost of the enemy gauge charge. The second buff is applying Holy Grail Possession to Draco, a buff that does nothing on its own, but changes the function of her third skill, to a very dramatic degree.

With a base cooldown of 8 turns, this skill is sitting on something of a harsh cooldown considering the relatively low power. Here’s hoping that third skill is crazy…

Grail Crown

Seven Crowns of the Beast C

Increase own Buff Removal Resist by 100% (1 time, 3 turns).
If [Holy Grail Possession] trait is active on self, apply the following:
- Apply Special ATK [Dragon] to self (3 turns).
- Apply Special ATK [Roman] to self (3 turns).
- Apply to self: Gain Critical Stars each turn (3 turns).
- Apply Debuff Immune to self (1 time).
- Apply Ignore DEF to self (3 turns).
- Increase own Healing Received (3 turns).
- Apply to self: Increase own NP Gauge each turn (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Special ATK (Dragon) +	20%	22%	24%	26%	28%	30%	32%	34%	36%	40%
Special ATK (Roman) +	20%	22%	24%	26%	28%	30%	32%	34%	36%	40%
Stars per turn +	5	6	6	7	7	8	8	9	9	10
Heal Received +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
NP per turn +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
CD	9	9	9	9	9	8	8	8	8	7

Hoo boy, that’s a lot of text. Seven Crowns of the Beast, the payoff for that weird reference to Draco built into Swimsuit Nero’s kit long ago, is something of a ride to talk about, so strap in:

No matter what, this skill will always apply one effect to Draco, which is a 1-time, 3-turn 100% Buff Removal Resistance buff. While this functionally doesn’t provide much without powerful buffs supplementing it, it’s there to be insurance for the other buffs provided by this skill, as well as the long-lasting buffs that Number of the Beast provides to her.

With that said, if Draco has Holy Grail Possession active, this skill also provides:

A 40% anti-Dragon effective damage buff for 3 turns.
A 40% anti-Roman effective damage buff for 3 turns.
A 10 stars-per-turn buff for 3 turns.
A 1-time Debuff Immunity buff (no turn limit).
An Ignore Defense buff for 3 turns.
A 20% Healing Amplification buff for 3 turns.
A 20% NP gauge charge/turn buff for 3 turns.

Phew, that’s a lot to get through. In terms of what’s useful/important, the main take-aways should be the anti-Dragon/Roman buffs, the Ignore Defense buff, and the 20% NP gauge per turn buff. Together they improve Draco’s offensive profile greatly, if only versus certain enemy types. There are a surprisingly large number of Dragon Servants in the game, numbering about 40, and most of them Saberfaces, but when combined with Romans, which includes Draco herself (who is also a Dragon, so she’s very adept at killing herself), a neat collection of about 50 Servants are hit by those effective damage buffs.

The gauge charge is naturally great, providing 60% NP gauge in total over a short timeframe, though it means Draco is completely lacking in on-demand gauge charge. The remainder of the buffs are mostly utility and convenience. The debuff immunity buff in particular is pretty nice due to its lack of an expiry, meaning Draco can get insurance against 1 case of debuffing for as long as she needs it. And equally, Defense Pierce is a useful buff that can frequently bypass mechanics in difficult fights, as it works even versus defense buffs that can’t be hit with buff removal.

This skill is unsurprisingly very powerful, though it somehow manages to not provide any straight damage buffs to Draco. With an unsurprising 9-turn base cooldown, it takes a while to come off cooldown, but considering the best parts of the skill are locked behind using her 2nd skill, a lower cooldown wouldn’t do that much for it, anyway.

Noble Phantasm

Babalon Domus Aurea A

Deal damage against a single enemy.

<Overcharge>

Deal supereffective damage against any [Seven Main Class Servant].
* Main Classes: Saber, Archer, Lancer, Rider, Caster, Assassin, and Berserker.

Show Info/Video

Babalon Domus Aurea

Ingurgitating Golden Theatre

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	A	Anti-Army	8

Effect	Deal damage against a single enemy.

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Damage +	900%	1200%	1350%	1425%	1500%

Overcharge Effect	Deal supereffective damage against any [Seven Main Class Servant]. * Main Classes: Saber, Archer, Lancer, Rider, Caster, Assassin, and Berserker.

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
Supereffective ATK +	150%	162.5%	175%	187.5%	200%

Rounding off Draco’s kit is Babalon Domus Aurea, her Noble Phantasm. You might think I’m misspelling Babylon or something, but it’s actually the name of a Goddess written in the Book of Law, by Aleister Crowley. You might recognize some of those names, and not because I’m about to link summon my Artemis into Secure Gardna then activate Invocation to summon Mechaba.

Point being, Babalon is the proper name for the Whore of Babylon, the figure whom Draco is based around.

This NP is a ST Arts NP, and surprisingly so. You’d think letting those dragon heads rip someone apart in a huge theater would be an AOE, but nope. So no farming for Draco, unless it’s some ST node shenanigans.

The effects of this NP are shockingly simple. Draco dishes out the ST damage, with a very potent super-effective modifier versus all of the Knight and Horsemen classes. Yep, the same ones she already has Class Advantage against. And that’s it. That’s all it does.

I’d say I’m disappointed, but fundamentally the aim of this NP is just to rip out insane damage, and I’m all for it. So let’s examine that - with just Draco’s own buffs in play, versus a typical Knight/Horseman class Servant, she dishes out 82k damage. Unlike most of my calculations, this is after class advantage is factored in, because realistically you’re never using Draco in a situation where she has class disadvantage, and everything she doesn’t have class disadvantage on, she has class advantage (well, except herself). To put that in perspective, it’s notably higher than Jeanne Alter’s NP on a neutral target, and Vlad Zerker after his own class advantage is in play. It would take NP5 welfares to really compete with Draco for damage output versus a broad class range in the way she can.

And of course, NP refund is still a factor. With her own skills in play, Draco has a NP refund of 13.68%, which isn’t particularly much, but when thrown into a proper setup with a CE and double Castoria, that jumps to a much more respectable 51%, which is then further bolstered by the 30% NP gauge each turn that Draco gains from her own skills. Needless to say, this means it’s very easy for Draco to consistently NP loop herself in difficult content, especially if you can get additional Draco cards in the chain.

But that’s a bunch of numbers in thin air. I’ll put this to context versus a Saber-class target with a fair comparison to a Berserker with a full setup, being Vlad Zerker:

With double Castoria and a Black Grail, Vlad Zerker does 360k damage with 57% refund.

With the same setup, Draco does 421k damage with 43% refund, effectively 73% due to her gauge chargers.

Now obviously there’s some more nuance than depicted, since Vlad has his own gauge charger, and ramping damage / refund due to the Arts Resistance Down on his NP, but hopefully that gives a clear idea of how absurdly hard Draco can hit most of the enemies in this game, and with easy potential to loop.

Conclusion

So how is Draco overall? Well, on the one hand, she’s so good it’s almost sinful. No, wait, it actually is:

Draco is frankly a menace for ST damage. With incredibly high damage output and even the potential for more should she hit one of her effective damage bonus buffs, on top of consistently high refund, it’s no surprise that she’s one of the best ST damage machines on the market, and a wide-reaching heavy hitter for high-difficulty content. She’ll likely also be a top option for level 90+ node farming, as they often feature multiple waves of singular enemies, and usually not Extra classes.

Even throwing her damage output aside, Draco has a lot of utility tools, both to her own advantage and the enemy’s demerit. Buff Removal Resist, Debuff Immunity, Defense Pierce, Skill Seal. You name it, she has it, and all those tools in combination makes her a very resilient and consistent offensive menace, even if she is somewhat lacking in anything that could be considered team support. What a self-indulgent despot she is!

However, she’s also a force of evil, and one that packs a dastardly trick within:

Draco’s class may ultimately form her downfall. While the class advantage of the Beast class is ultimately great, and essentially Berserker with fewer drawbacks, it does mean that Draco is unusable for bosses with abnormal classes, which until now has been somewhat common in story content. Add in that usually she is outclassed by Servants with a 2x class advantage on her targets, and she may run into the same issues that Pretenders and Alter Egos do with being too much of a Jack-of-all-Trades.

I honestly would be surprised if they managed to implement what may be the only official Beast Servant in the game, and not make them good.

Thankfully, Draco has a lot of perks that make her a strong Servant. Her damage output is high enough to usually break through the boundaries of her 1.5x class advantage, and with consistently high NP refund, forming 3-turn NP loops with her versus bosses is easy, even when running Black Grail as her CE.

While Draco’s value does decrease as a player’s own roster is more diverse, considering she will usually be outclassed by a good 2x class advantage Servant hitting the same target, she occupies a similar space to Arts Berserkers like Vlad or Galatea, with minor advantages/disadvantages in comparison. Sometimes you need class advantage over multiple different classes in the same node, or simply want the utility of taking a hammer to every problem, making everything look like a nail.

Bottom line is, she’s very good, especially so for people starting out or with more limited Servant rosters, and will be a premier option for high-difficulty content in the challenges to come. Rath™ Seal of Approval, with a recommendation.

Locusta

Introduction

If I had a dollar for every poison-focused Assassin in this game that is basically dressed in a bikini, I’d have 4 dollars, and frankly at that point you have to ask whether this is one of the writer’s fetishes or something. Seriously.

Servant Data

Assassin

QAAAB (Caster)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

4

3

5

4

Attribute	Human
Alignment	Chaotic Balanced

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

Max HP 10,971

HP Rank

Max ATK 8,890

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,481	Base HP	1,755
Max Atk	8,890	Max HP	10,971
Grail Atk	10,764	Grail HP	13,302

Traits

Servant Humanoid Roman Hominidae Weak to Enuma Elish Female

Card Hits	4	3	3	5	4
Per Hit	0.47%	0.47%	0.47%	0.47%	0.47%

	NP per Hit (%)	0.47%
NP when Attacked (%)	4%

	Star Absorption	104
Star Generation per Hit	24.2%

Poison Up

Poison Mixing A+

Inflict Poison on all enemies (5 turns).
Increase own Arts Card effectiveness (3 turns).
Increase own NP Gain (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Poison Dmg	500	550	600	650	700	750	800	850	900	1000
Arts +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
NP Gain +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

First on the skill lineup is Poison Mixing. To no-one’s surprise, this is a Poison debuff skill, applying a 1000 damage Poison to all enemies for 5 turns. However, this also doubles up as a NP steroid for Locusta, providing an essential 30% damage boost and 56% refund boost, both essential for an Arts ST Servant who definitely aims to NP spam if she can.

The Poison application is also useful, for reasons you’ll see later, and not just to stack up Poison Amplification on her targets, though she does do that.

With an 8-turn base cooldown this skill is on a longer cooldown than it reasonably should, so imagine me frowning at this design choice.

Because I am frowning at it.

Guts

Robust Health (Poison) A

Apply Guts to self (1 time, 3 turns).
Apply Damage Cut to self (3 turns).
Apply [Convert Poison damage to HP Recovery] to self (5 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Revives with HP	1000	1100	1200	1300	1400	1500	1600	1700	1800	2000
Damage Cut -	300	320	340	360	380	400	420	440	460	500
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Next up is Robust Health (Poison). A variant on the skill which, up until now, has only existed on Arash, this is a wholly defensive skill, providing Locusta with a 2k HP, 1-time, 3-turn Guts buff, as well as a 500 damage cut for 3 turns.

While both of those are nice for keeping oneself alive, especially in combination in dire situations, the interesting twist to this skill is its 3rd buff, one that converts all Poison damage Locusta takes into Healing for 5 turns.

Naturally, a buff like that screams “gimmick”, and for the most part, it is. There’s not an easy way to poison your own team in FGO (and if it were Curse, that’d be a different story), and even then the payoff of essentially giving Locusta a regeneration buff by proxy is hardly worthwhile. But it is a notable way of cheesing a boss that focuses heavily on building up poison damage…if and when that ever happens.

Kind of sad that we’ve had a number of bosses that focus on building Burn or Curse damage, but I can’t recall any of notable difficulty that stack up Poison. Shame, but it is a cool skill, regardless.

The 8-turn base cooldown on this skill is pretty fair given it’s a Guts buff, so I won’t get angry this time. Promise.

Start Np

Cooking (Mushroom) B

Increase NP Gauge for all allies.
Apply effect to self (3 times, 3 turns): Inflict Poison when normal attacking (3 turns, 500 dmg/turn).
Inflict Poison on self (5 turns, 1000 dmg/turn) [Demerit].

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
NP +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Ayo…hol up, let her cook.

As much as I really don’t want to sample Locusta’s extensive mushroom cooking knowledge, you have to in order to reap the benefits of this skill. Cooking (Mushroom) is an all-important gauge charge skill, providing 20% gauge to the whole team, as well as providing some additional poison-based benefits.

Obviously the team gauge charge is by far the best part, but the other components of this skill are at least interesting. Locusta applies a 1000 damage Poison debuff to herself for 5 turns, and the game calls this a downside, but it’s an outright lie - all I can see is a 1000 HP Heal every turn. Locusta also gets a 3-time, 3-turn buff to inflict a 3-turn 500 damage Poison debuff to targets hit by her attacks, or in other words, it’s 1500 Poison damage per turn dispersed out by her attacks.

The fact this skill applies the Poison in individual stacks is actually important for her NP, so it’s worth trying to land this skill’s Poison damage when possible. That aside, it’s a team support skill that’s also a heal in disguise, what’s not to like?

The 8-turn base cooldown on this skill is justified given the power of even weak team gauge chargers, so no complaints here.

Noble Phantasm

Finis Fungus C+

Inflict Poison on a single enemy (1 turn, 500 dmg/turn) [Activates first]
Deal damage to a single enemy.
Deal supereffective damage of 15% per [Poison] stack on the enemy (Max 10 stacks, up to 150%).
Inflict Poison Damage Up by 100% on a single enemy (5 turns).

<Overcharge>

Increase own Arts Card effectiveness (1 turn) [Activates first].

Show Info/Video

Finis Fungus

Mushrooms, My Sacred Offering to the Gods

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	C+	Anti-Personnel/Anti-Army	4

Effect	Inflict Poison on a single enemy (1 turn, 500 dmg/turn) [Activates first] Deal damage to a single enemy. Deal supereffective damage of 15% per [Poison] stack on the enemy (Max 10 stacks, up to 150%). Inflict Poison Damage Up by 100% on a single enemy (5 turns).

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Poison	500	500	500	500	500
Damage +	900%	1200%	1350%	1425%	1500%
Supereffective ATK +	15%	15%	15%	15%	15%
Poison Damage +	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%

Overcharge Effect	Increase own Arts Card effectiveness (1 turn) [Activates first].

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
Arts +	10%	15%	20%	25%	30%

Rounding things off for Locusta is her NP, Finis Fungus. Literally naming her ultimate attack “Final Mushroom” like she’s Vegeta or something, this NP really is the ultimate finisher to her kit.

Before dealing damage, this ST NP does 2 things, it applies a 10% Arts Booster to herself for 1 turn, scaling on Overcharge, then applies a 500 damage, 1-turn Poison debuff to the target. Both are useful for her damage output, as this NP has an effective damage multiplier based on how many Poison stacks the target has, dealing +15% damage for each, to a maximum of +150% at 10 stacks. Considering Locusta can easily apply 2 stacks of Poison to any target before this NP comes through, it’s essentially getting +30% damage as a baseline, even more in extended fights.

So after this NP does likely a good amount of damage, she then applies the union-mandated +100% Poison damage debuff to the target for 5 turns. That’s a pretty good Poison amp, but I suppose it’s balanced by Locusta’s own Poison DoT’s being relatively weak, at least compared to her competing Poison-focused Assassins.

I guess with me talking about the damage output so much, let’s look at the numbers. With her own buffs active, and in a baseline scenario with 2 Poison stacks, Locusta is doing 30k damage neutral with her NP. This is pretty low, but misleading given her lack of Attack/NP Damage Up buffs in her kit. In a situation with double Castoria and a 50% gauge CE backing her, she instead dishes out 91k damage neutral - still not incredible, but pretty good considering she’s a 4* with a weak statline and no NP interlude.

In more drawn out fights where she can stack up her 3rd skill’s Poison, perhaps with aid from the right Poison command codes, she can hit for anything from 123k to 175k damage neutral, which I’m sure sounds far more impressive.

There’s also refund to consider. As a baseline, Locusta nets a refund of 9.4% from her NP. Frankly it’s not a lot, but it does improve a fair bit in the aforementioned double Castoria setup, bumping up to 25%.

So yeah, she’s not going to be a reliable ST farmer or anything, but she does have potential to stack up her NP’s effects with the right Brave Chain, and has a head start to her next NP regardless of how the refund pans out.

Conclusion

So how does Locusta stack up overall? Well, on the one hand, she makes my own mushroom stand u- Okay, that’s a bit too vulgar, but this is the positive section, got it?

Locusta has a pretty decent offensive profile in drawn-out fights. Poison damage, especially when it’s being amplified by her NP and amplifying her NP in return, can really stack up over time, and Locusta’s defensive skills mean she’s pretty well-suited to drawn out fights. She can even reasonably run Black Grail if you really want to bring the pain, though her NP refund may not be great enough to support that consistently. Regardless, she hits harder than most release 4*’s, and she’s capable of getting multiple NP’s off in a short timeframe.

With a 20% team gauge charger, Locusta can have supportive applications, though it is pretty much her only supportive tool. Those kinds of team gauge charges aren’t exactly uncommon any more, but for anybody who lacks such an option on Battlesuit Swap, she makes for a fine choice. It also supports her own supports if you deploy her as a damage dealer, which can be convenient in niche situations.

However, ultimately I think we have a bit of a toxic relationship:

While Locusta’s damage peaks might be fairly impressive, they take a while to build up to, and her low NP refund means she can’t really inflict repeated NP’s to build up that damage in the same way Servants like Assassin of Paraiso can. Not to mention, in many situations, a Servant who hits hard on the first or second turn is better than one who hits hard on the fourth or fifth one.

This issue is amplified, of all things, by Locusta’s skill cooldowns. All her skills are on relatively long 8-turn cooldowns, meaning she has a significant gap, around the point that her Poison debuffs start to really stack up, where her main offensive buffs simply aren’t active. This means the payoff you imagine her reaching actually doesn’t exist, unless you spend multiple turns just building up Poison instead of dealing maximum damage, which just sounds impractical. DoT-based Servants, as always, suffer.

As much as I’m surprised they’ve managed to make yet another Poison Assassin that feels unique in her kit compared to the others, Locusta still falls to the same downfalls as many of the others do - too little damage, and too long to inflict it.

I think my dive into her kit more or less surmised my feelings on how, despite the potential highs of her offense, she can’t really reach it, so I’ll just get to the surprise twist of my conclusion here - she’s still pretty decent.

…and yeah, it’s because of the team gauge charge. I just, on principle, can’t rate a Servant too lowly when they have such a fantastic supportive tool at their disposal, especially when Servants like Watanabe no Tsuna have released relatively recently (oh god, was LB5.5 2 years ago now?) and really have little functionally going for them. If you lack another Servant to fill the same niche, Locusta is a vital supportive option for you, and at the same time she makes for a fun offensive Servant to use, if not an optimal one.

Rath™ Seal of Approval

Setanta

Introduction

You know, I gotta say, at first I didn’t get how Chulainn could get so pissed as to literally make some kid become his guard-dog for killing his dog. I mean sure, it’s a bad thing to do, but that’s essentially slavery right?

But seeing how cute that little cinnamon roll is, call me Danny DeVito, because I get it. I understand.

Servant Data

Saber

QQAAB (Archer)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

4

2

3

5

Attribute	Earth
Alignment	Lawful Balanced

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

Max HP 11,248

HP Rank

Max ATK 9,999

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,666	Base HP	1,799
Max Atk	9,999	Max HP	11,248
Grail Atk	12,107	Grail HP	13,638

Magic Resistance B

Increase your Debuff Resist by 17.5%.

Divinity B

Apply Damage Plus for yourself (Total Card Damage +175).

Overview

As a 4* Saber, Setanta has a lot of powerful competition so far as base stats go, so unfortunately it’s no surprise, despite objectively having a high Attack stat, he only snags tied 5th best Attack for his class/rarity, right beside the king of sitting, Yagyu. As a result his HP is pretty low, tied 4th worst for his class. While he ultimately still has stats in the place that matters, looking so understated compared to some of the behemoths in his class does feel a little humbling.

Setanta’s passives are certainly modest, if anything. His Divinity, a natural inclusion due to his divine heritage, provides a minor boost to card damage, while his annoyingly-low Magic Resistance considering he’s a Saber from the Age of the Gods in a place that definitely had a bunch of mages flying around provides a good amount of Debuff Resistance at all times.

In any case, those passives aren’t particularly impactful and just supplement Setanta’s solid baseline stats.

NP Generation

Card Hits	4	2	3	5	5
Per Hit	0.83%	0.83%	0.83%	0.83%	0.83%

	NP per Hit (%)	0.83%
NP when Attacked (%)	3%

	Star Absorption	102
Star Generation per Hit	10.0%

Servant Skills

Dmg Up

Knight of the Red Branch B

Increase own ATK (3 turns).
Clear own debuffs.
Gain Critical Stars.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
ATK +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
Stars +	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	20
CD	7	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6	5

First on Setanta’s skill lineup is Knight of the Red Branch. This skill is fairly straightforward, being a 20% Attack Up buff to the boy himself for 3 turns, as well as a couple of supplementary benefits - a freebie Debuff removal on himself, and a 20-star bomb.

And that’s it. I don’t think it’s possible to complain about offensive steroids, but this skill is fundamentally pretty boring. The star bomb gives a head-start to any of Setanta’s attempts to set up a crit chain, while the Debuff Removal is generally useful to have around, but probably won’t see much use for that reason, given you’re going to be popping this skill every single time it comes off cooldown, instead of saving it for that purpose.
At the very least, this skill has a sane 7-turn base cooldown, meaning it’ll be coming off cooldown fairly quickly for Setanta in drawn-out fights.

Special ATK

Savage Dog-Killer A

Apply Special ATK [Wild Beast] to self (3 turns).
Increase own Quick Card effectiveness (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Special ATK +	50%	55%	60%	65%	70%	75%	80%	85%	90%	100%
Quick +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
CD	7	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6	5

Next is Savage Dog-Killer. I won’t elaborate if that means he kills savage dogs, or he’s a savage who murders the cute little puppy of Chulainn how could h-

Phew, I needed to vent a little there. In any case, this skill unsurprisingly provides a huge Effective Damage buff versus the Wild Beast trait, a trait that exists on roughly a dozen Servants, and pretty much every single animalistic-looking generic enemy in the game. The +100% damage boost is colossal, but given the niche nature of this trait, it’s unlikely to crop up often, so you can’t really factor it into his offensive performance.

The most important buff on this skill is the 20% Quick Booster he gets for 3 turns, improving the damage, NP gain, and stargen on Setanta’s primary card type, and combining together with the prior Attack buff to make a decent steroid for his NP. But, yet again, this skill is rather plain, so there’s little else to discuss.

Once again, the 7-turn base cooldown on this skill is reasonable, so Setanta’s offensive buffs have some solid uptime.

Evade

Shadowlands Arms Training B+

Chance to increase own Critical Strength (3 turns).
Chance to increase own Critical Star Gather Rate (3 turns).
Apply Evade to self (2 times, 3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Crit Dmg +	30%	31%	32%	33%	34%	35%	36%	37%	38%	40%
Crit Dmg + (Chance)	60%	64%	68%	72%	76%	80%	84%	88%	92%	100%
Star Gather +	300%	310%	320%	330%	340%	350%	360%	370%	380%	400%
Star Gather + (Chance)	60%	64%	68%	72%	76%	80%	84%	88%	92%	100%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Last on the skill lineup is Shadowlands Arms Training. What’s kind of interesting is how this skill is one that has a fundamental connection to Gae Bolg, to the point where, since possessing Gae Bolg means that Setanta has passed Scathach’s training, he can only have this skill if he doesn’t have Gae Bolg.

..which is weird, since it’s not like your skills you’ve learned just disappear once you graduate, but it’s Servants, you don’t gotta explain shit.

This skill might look slightly complicated at first glance, but that’s basically a smokescreen - the buffs on this skill have a % chance to apply, which increases as you level the skill, but it hits 100% at max skill level, so that factor of the skill essentially doesn’t matter, since who ever struggles to max the skills on welfares? (Please ignore that I had my Ryougi Shiki at 6/6/6 for about 3 years because I forgot I was no longer low on Assassin gems.)

Getting back on topic, this skill provides Setanta with a 40% Critical Damage buff, +400% Star Gather Rate, and a 2-time Evasion, all on a 3-turn duration. At this point I’d call this trio of buffs the Shadowlands classic, but it’s fundamentally just a great skill, improving Setanta’s offensive profile, making his crits more consistent, and that all-important defensive option to ensure he doesn’t die to a stiff breeze. Considering his focus on Quick cards, it’s doubly useful, since it’s unlikely we won’t be working with a solid star supply each turn.
The only real flaw to this skill is its cooldown, sitting on an 8-turn base cooldown. Need I remind us that Protection from Arrows is a 7-turn cooldown? We’d have flying cars if Lasengle stopped being scared of giving defensive tools reasonably low cooldowns.

Noble Phantasm

Cruaidín Sétanta B+

Apply Sure Hit to self [Activates first].
Deal damage that Ignores DEF to a single enemy.

<Overcharge>

Decrease DEF for a single enemy (3 turns).

Show Info/Video

Cruaidín Sétanta

Shining Blade of Cleaving Death

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	B+	Anti-Personnel	5

Effect	Apply Sure Hit to self [Activates first]. Deal damage that Ignores DEF to a single enemy.

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Sure Hit
Ignore Defense
Damage +	1200%	1600%	1800%	1900%	2000%

Overcharge Effect	Decrease DEF for a single enemy (3 turns).

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
Def -	20%	25%	30%	35%	40%

Rounding off Setanta’s kit is his Noble Phantasm, Cruaidín Sétanta. You know, sometimes I don’t get it when Fate names a NP weirdly when there’s no need to. The sword in question that is this NP is Cruaidín Catutchenn, Setanta’s sword, a blade said to shine like a candle, and believed to be an analogue to the Sword of Light, Claíomh Solais, an Irish Mythological weapon with ties to Lugh.

So why butcher that sword’s name and throw Setanta’s name in there instead? I have no clue. The original name of the sword actually means something, this is just nonsense. Apparently it’s because chronologically Setanta shouldn’t have this sword, so it’s normal Servant NP fuckery, but they didn’t have to butcher the NP’s name for it.

My rant aside, this NP is pretty straightforward, a Quick ST NP that applies Sure Hit to Setanta for 1 turn before the damage, then the damage itself ignores Defense, before finally applying a 20% Defense Down to the target for 3 turns, scaling on overcharge.

There isn’t much more to explore for this NP beyond that. The damage is naturally very good, with the free welfare NP5 and Setanta’s decent personal offensive steroids amplifying his damage to pretty impressive levels. But that isn’t exactly unique, even for his class and card type - Santa Karna has similar offensive power on a welfare Quick ST NP, and with old welfares becoming slowly accessible to every player, Setanta has some competition to work with.

There’s also NP refund to consider, but I won’t go through the numbers and just tell you that, at most, Setanta might get 10% gauge back from a NP when supported by double Skadi. That’s about it. Definitely not enough to enable some form of self-sufficient NP looping, though it is nice to have.

Conclusion

So how is Setanta on the whole? Well on the one hand, he got that dog in him:

Setanta has some impressive offense behind him. The welfare NP5 privilege as well as his solid attack stat and offensive steroids combine for a very hard-hitting NP, and combined with his ability to easily generate critical stars then use them in his own chains, he can be something of a powerhouse when properly supported. Doubly so if he can take advantage of his anti-Wild Beast effective damage buff.

However, he’s also kind of dogshit:

Setanta unfortunately simply doesn’t have enough to distinguish him, especially with fellow Quick ST Welfare in Santa Karna being competitive with him, if not better. Servants like Summer Hokusai are also flat-out better within the same class, so Setanta has little ground to stand on, outside of maybe his defense-piercing NP.

Compound the former issue with no real team support, lack of a gauge charger, and a general incapability to NP spam like many of his competitors can, and Setanta is just fundamentally flawed, even versus similarly budget Servant options.

It’s a real shame. I was really looking forward to Setanta’s addition to FGO, but it just seems like he’s built for an over-inflated niche that is also unfortunately covered by multiple welfare Servants who kind of invalidate him. Simply being able to punch very hard isn’t enough any more for welfares, and Setanta is a prime show of why.

…the dog is very cute, though.

Outro

Hah, the collab is always a taxing MMM to write, but for once I got this out in…reasonable time, I’d say?

The actual story/nodes for the collab are pretty fun, and I like how they’ve done their best to include Arcade mechanics and the Servants they didn’t implement within the event’s format.

It’s a shame, but I’ll just have to be content with Santa Suzuka occasionally buffing one of my cards…I’m not coping, you’re coping!

With that all said, the future for this year is pretty murky, so let’s hope there’s something big lined up for summer besides the obvious summer event, since with Tiamat included I haven’t got many Servants left on my wishlist to be put in the game…until next time!

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Rathilal's MMMs - Archive

MMM - Arcade Adonis of Adolescence Auspiciously Appended, Animalistic Anti-Hero Annuls Advantage As We Knew It, Also Apprehensive Alchemist Applies Alarming Antidotes that Aren't Antivenom (FGO Arcade Collab)

The Modern Magus Magazine

Sodom's Beast / Draco

Traits

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Babalon Domus Aurea

Locusta

Traits

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Finis Fungus

Setanta

Traits

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Cruaidín Sétanta

Outro

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