Questions about Breaker Bars

Break Bar means you no longer can one shotted enemy in 1st turn. Which means you need to plan your next move instead of giving all buff to one servants in one turn.

Survivality and constant damage become more important than burst damage.

It doesn't just affect Buster play styles. Rather, it affects play styles where players rely on doing 300k or 500k points of damage in one turn to one-shot the boss. It can still work, but only for the final HP Bar since the damage would be wasted on the first two Break Bars.

This time, the play style relies on the ability to endure and survive for as long as possible. As such, defensive play styles will be more favorable rather than pure, heavy offense. There's also a bit of planning involved since most bosses will charge their NP (usually by 1 but some charge their NPs completely) right after one HP bar is broken.

Asides from Mash (definitely one of the best for defensive play), Servants who can survive an enemy NP (Evade or Invincibility, better if it helps the party like Tristan), can Taunt, tank and/or otherwise just survive getting hit (Martha Ruler, D'eon, EMIYA Assassin), and anyone who can heal, preferably the party (Medea Lily, Irisviel) are good choices but will still need the right team for the most synergy.

Stall teams are favored for many challenge quests for the simple reason that they're made to survive long-term. It's not the only way to win, but when done right it's very effective.

Depends on the enemy. If there's only one enemy, ST NPs are still superior for the most part since they deal more damage. But if you end up fighting two or three bosses, all with Break Bars, then AoE NPs might be better since it's not likely you can afford to focus on killing them one at a time. If I remember right, Shinjuku has a boss stage where we fight more than one enemy with a Break Bar.

They just posted a guide about this on this website - https://grandorder.gamepress.gg/break-bar-guide-impacted-servants

Buster is totally viable...but you need an NP charge (Arts) or crit-gen (passive or quick) engine.

For example, Enkidu has a single Arts card, a single Buster card, 3 quicks, and a buster NP. They’re definitely not an arts unit but their NP is so good that you want to build a team to help them spam it.

They’re also a tanky unit—great HP regen + debuff clear, crit chance down, and an evade on a 5-turn CD come August. Paired with servants who help them NP spam—Merlin, Tamamo, Helena, Waver—or crit on their Arts card—Hans, CasGil, any caster with passive stargen really—Enkidu can NP pretty much every other turn. They’re super bulky so they don’t mind taking a few hits.

Mash and d’Eon are good examples too. They have arts-leaning decks so your arts chain have a better chance of showing up when you need them. Mash is built around sustain and can pull out her NP at a moment’s notice if she draws her Arts card. D’Eon can tank and restore HP, with some def support from Mash they’re able to protect your DPS every 3/5 turns. But they both have buster cards to buster chain with your DPS’s NP.

Buster crit is still good...if you can do it consistently.

But buff stack one-and-done strategies on glass cannons like Kintoki and Lu Bu are much much less useful.

Crit teams need to be super consistent and have some way of tanking an NP. CasGil + Saberlot + Merlin, for example, is a totally viable arts crit team. Tamamo + Hans + David/Tristan is another.

For 4* servants...I think the tier list does a great job of this. But it really depends on your team and the quest.

Servants with utility are worth getting—Martha’s debuff clear is a godsend. But so are servants who can consistently output tons of damage (Saberlot, Kuro) or who can survive a few hits and support the team or deal damage (Herc w/ bond CE, d’Eon, CasGil).