Xiang Yu

“What must perish must perish!”

Once a warlord, always a warlord. Xiang Yu was once a fierce rebel who ordered the mass murder of civilians in cities which surrendered peacefully, and in FGO he remains a brutal Berserker who destroys everything in sight with his Quick AoE Noble Phantasm and strong Critical hits.

Xiang Yu’s strength without a doubt is his ability to dish out the damage with Critical hits. With two skills to boost his Critical damage via Foresight A++ and Tactical Body B, and a third to generate Critical stars with Arts of a Conqueror A, he winds up getting a whopping 100% Critical damage to add on top to his three Buster cards. Another huge strength is his multi-hit Quick AoE Noble Phantasm, which does make him a candidate for looping with a double Skadi setup. This is further enhanced by his Ignore Invincibility on Arts of a Conqueror.

However, all of this madness comes with a price. Xiang Yu’s criticals are great for a single turn, but are then stuck on a long cooldown. Even if a Master was looking for one-turn criticals, Xiang Yu has no way to gather stars to himself before his interlude, and Berserkers have the worst natural star gather rates in the game. He’s also difficult to support, as his Noble Phantasm favors Quick supports, and his cards/criticals favor Buster supports. Like always, as a Berserker he also suffers from squishiness.

Should a Master want a heavy critical damage dealer, they can’t go wrong with Xiang Yu. Just be careful that he doesn’t make you part of the massacre too!

Critical Hits

Prior to his interlude, Xiang Yu can either have one turn of 100% critical damage boost, or two turns of 50% depending on how he uses his skills. After his interlude, this boosts to a massive 150% potential. With three Buster cards, this means the potential for six-to-seven digit numbers in Critical damage with the right supports.

Looping

Although rarely used, Xiang Yu can be used in a double Skadi / Waver setup using a MLB Kaleidoscope against Casters. This could allow for some quick farming setup for Masters missing 50% charging Riders, Marie, or Lancelot. 

Ignore Invincibility 

With Xiang’s third skill, he is able to ignore both invincibility and evasion, meaning his large critical damage turn cannot be avoided in any way aside from damage resist modifiers. This could come in handy against a big boss who needs a burst of damage at once.

Poor Uptime

Xiang is capable of dishing out critical hits, but it is only a single turn of burst with a five/six turn cooldown at max level. Tactical Body does make up for this a bit with a Quick and Buster up for three turns, but his base non-critical damage is not what makes him good. Even worse, he has no Star gather, meaning unless he has a copious amount of stars available or the right luck, he won’t be able to use a Critical when needed.

Hard to Support

Due to the nature of Xiang being meant for both Buster criticals and Quick Noble Phantasms, it is hard to get a perfect support for him. This makes him rather one-dimensional as a primary damage dealer, with either his Noble Phantasm or his Critical damage being ignored in favor of the other.

Low Durability

Like all Berserkers, Xiang takes double damage from every class in the game except other Berserkers. He does have a large health pool, but it still is miniscule compared to the damage he’d take in use. Although Xiang does have a 1-turn evasion, this skill often is tied to his Critical damage so it is often not used for survival.

While Xiang Yu can be used for looping, it is in such a rare situation that his looping capabilities are mostly ignored in prioritizing his skills. As such, Masters should prioritize his Critical damage, which is equivalent in magnitude on his first and second skill, maxing it for greatest effectiveness. Afterwards, they can concentrate on Star generation.

• Foresight A is the first of two Critical boosts, also providing a one turn evasion. Masters most likely will use this in tandem with Tactical Body B for a one turn burst, and ignore the evasion effect. In the future this will also have a Critical gather rate skill and double the Critical Damage buff, making it first priority to boost to max, but for now it can be left to second. 
• Tactical Body B gives both a Critical boost and a boost to Xiang’s Quick and Buster. This skill is crucial for any Master wanting to loop, as Quick boosts natural NP gain. Until his interlude, this skill is the first to prioritize. 
• Arts of a Conqueror A is a simple Critical star generation skill which can hopefully provide stars each turn for Xiang to land a Critical hit with. It is more used for its Ignore Invisible, which lasts a whopping three turns, allowing him a chance to guarantee his criticals actually do damage. There is very little benefit to leveling this skill except for cooldown reduction so it can be left to last.

The problem with Xiang Yu is that his natural Critical Gather is so low that not even a Critical Star gather CE could help him. Because of this, Masters wanting to use him for Criticals should try to swarm the field with stars using Critical Star Generation CEs. If a Master could find enough stars, Buster CEs could boost his damage even further. In the rare case a Master wants to use him to loop, a Starting Gauge CE is required.

• A Fragment of 2030: To get enough Critical stars to guarantee criticals, only a Fragment combined with support Critical Star generation would provide enough stars per turn to use Xiang effectively.
• Limited/Zero Over / Verdant Sound of Destruction / Victor of the Moon: With a lot of innate Critical damage, Xiang primarily needs Card damage to get the most bang for his buck in Criticals. This makes Victor of the Moon much less preferable than pure Buster damage CEs.
• MLB Kaleidoscope: At maximum, Xiang Yu generates 30% gauge with his Noble Phantasm (requiring multiple overkill hits against three Caster enemies), requiring two Skadis and a Waver to loop. He has no room to spare for lesser starting gauge CEs. Should a Master be interested in less than three Noble Phantasms, other CEs like Kaleidoscope, Imaginary Element, Dragon’s Meridian, or 50% Mixed CEs could substitute.