Is it better to use materials to ascend servants or to level up their skills in general? Right now I'm moving towards having multiple max level servants with their skills at 1/1/1.
Ascencion first, then skills. Ascension will raise their max level and, thus, base stats and will also unlock the other skills for use. A non-ascended servant with level 10 skill 1 won't really match up against a max level servant with 1/1/1 skills.
By comparison, leveling skills are less important because ascension grants access to skills and increases a servant's stats. Besides, skills are far more expensive in QP by the time they reach high levels, and max-leveled servants can still perform well regardless of their skill cooldown or effectiveness depending on the servant.
there are a few servant who can be used as "suicide pawn" where you can incrase one skill and not the level.
for exemple, for long time i used Shakespeare with his first skill at level 9 and him at level 1, as a "swap buff and let him die".
only recently i have actually leveled him (his third skill in nice)
but meaby your question is more about " is better to have more servant at max level, or fewer with highter level skill?"
if this is the case, i would say max enought servant to make yourself confortable.
For exemple, 1 or even 2 servant per class, one aoe and one st., then you can start warry about skill.
and dont be like me, dont worry about low scaling skill!!!
for exemple, if you have Santa lily, the only skill to improve (and frankly, you dont need to do so) is the mana burst.
another tips is, unless you are sure you are going to bring thet servant skill to 10, stop at level 6!
qp hell is the worst thing in the game!
Technically better ascend servant first before raise their skill. But if you already have a lot of max level servant you might want to raise skill of important servant 1st before ascending new servant. 6/6/6 is good enough except for unique skill like Tamamo Fox Wedding and Merlin Hero Creation that should be raise to 10 asap.
ascension cuz cheap, skill mats will drag you to the bottom layer of qp hell
At least 4/4/4 should be doable for your most important servants. The gems required for the first four skill levels are not used in ascension.
Ascension, a 10/10/10 gold servant locked on lv 50 is usually not as useful as a lv 90 4/4/4.
Also, skill cost a lot of QP, stay safe, QP hell is depressive, only try to enter that after maxing all your mains of each class =D
That said, some servants (Shakespeare, Mozart) work well at lv 1 with one skill at 10, but the vast majority should be max leveled and skill stopped leveling after 6/6/6 (or even 4/4/4, if the mats are so rare).
Merlin, Helena, Waver, Tamamo, Hans and Gilgamesh (Caster and Archer) do deserve a 10/10/10, if you have the mats and QP needed.
