MMM - Godly Great Gallivates to Grift Gamer Girl Goop, Gibing Goodliness (Trinity Metaltronus Gacha 1)

With a base NP gain of 0.53% and a BBAAQ card deck, MetaJeanne’s 4-hit Arts cards shape up with a base Arts gain of 2.12, fairly above average for a Servant with multiple Arts cards, though nothing spectacular. As is often the case, however, MetaJeanne’s other cards suffer for the high hitcount Arts card, her Buster and Quick cards being more or less average in spite of their high hitcounts, while her Extra card’s NP gain is similarly mediocre as a result.

Conversely, her high hitcounts across the board means she’s pretty good at star generation, in spite of only packing one Quick card. She won’t be drowning the team in stars, but with any sort of bonus to her star generation she can certainly produce a lot, which can in turn compensate for her overall-middling NP gain profile with critical 2x NP gain multipliers.

Skill 1

First on MetaJeanne’s skill lineup is True Name 72. Despite the ominous number for those paying attention in FGO’s first half, 72 is also associated with Big G’s lineup of Angelic Servants, so it’s not a major red flag…that’s elsewhere in her lore sheet.

This is your traditional SSR-Mandated 50% gauge charger skill, but it also comes packaged with some pretty absurd other effects, providing both Debuff Immunity and Evasion for 3 times, and 3 turns, on top of 100% Buff Removal Resistance for a similar 3-turn duration. And here I thought having near-permanent Buff Removal Resistance would be a special niche, but here I’m proven wrong.

Naturally all these benefits are superb, providing a pair of powerful defensive buffs for a long duration, as well as insulation against buff removal, all on top of the mandatory gauge charger to ensure she can fire off her NP quickly and frequently. The only real drawback is the 9-turn base cooldown on this skill, giving it a long offline period and locking it out of Koyanskaya 3-turn loops…or so you would think?

Skill 2

The next skill fulfils the set-up I wrote for myself in the form of Contract Angel. This skill is notably the first skill in the game to provide consistent skill cooldown to the team, as Super Aoko’s third skill doesn’t really count with its restrictions. And more importantly, it drives MetaJeanne’s first skill cooldown to 8 turns in reality, meaning she still works with Koyanskaya team setups.

Speaking of which, this skill alone opens up a dangerous avenue in game design, as it’s possible for the right group of Servants to open up a “Skill Cooldown Singularity” where a combo of Skills and NP’s which produce Skill Cooldown Reduction create a nigh-infinite loop of skill usage. While this skill’s hefty 10 turn base cool, becoming 8 turns at max level, probably keeps that out of the realm of possibility, this is the first Servant that could potentially spam cooldown reduction on Koyanskayas, who in turn spam cooldown reduction on her, though that’s more or less hypothetical.

But let’s keep on course with the rest of the skill. MetaJeanne also provides an instant 15 Critical Stars on use, with the same sum for a successive 3 turns. Naturally the cooldown reduction is great, but frankly the skill on its own doesn’t do much to warrant the long cooldown, so it’s a shame there aren't more benefits packaged with it. Just a minor damage boost or something, I’m not greedy. Regardless, the supportive benefits are pretty great, even if it’s just accelerating a support Servant’s skills to arrive a turn earlier. Those turns make all the difference in extended fights.

Skill 3

Last for the skill lineup is a much more conventional skill, Absolute’s Substitute, providing MetaJeanne with a trinity of 30% Attack Up, 50% Critical Damage Up, and Ignore Invincible for 3 turns apiece.

That’s all there is to it, though the damage buffs were sorely needed in an otherwise-bare kit that would be lacking offensive power. You can have the craziest Attack stat in the world, but offensive buffs are what keep the world turning and you out of the lowest tiers on the tier list.

The long-lasting Invincible piercing is especially nice to have in combo with her Buff Removal Resistance, since un-removable Evasion and Invincible buffs aren’t that rare in more difficult fights of late. But that’s frankly all I have to say. The base 8-turn cooldown (realistically 7) is good, and more or less in line with the power of the provided buffs, too.

For some Servants, you can really tell their power is directed into their NP, and MetaJeanne is one of those for sure. Univers Immortelle Metatron is a Buster AOE NP packed with useful effects, so let’s go over them in turn.

Before dealing damage, MetaJeanne gets a 20% NP Strength Up Buff, scaling with Overcharge, for 1 turn, as well as a duo of 50% Effective Damage for 1 turn against both Good and Evil alignment foes. Compared to Dante, she literally has the best of both worlds.

As you might expect, covering both those alignments hits a colossal spectrum of the Servant roster, with less than 25% of the whole Servant lineup being Neutral alignment, and (nearly, due to the weird Summer alignments) every other alignment is one of those two. Point being, if MetaJeanne is fighting any Servant or otherwise morality-aligned foe, odds are she’s hitting absurdly hard.

But that’s not all - after dealing damage MetaJeanne heals the party for 2k HP, and charges everyone’s gauge by 10%. The hitcount of this NP, while not producing any sort of NP refund due to it, is also notably good, so MetaJeanne will produce a solid amount of critical stars using it, too.

So as you can see, all the effects on this thing are really good, providing strong damage output in common scenarios, on top of providing sustain to the whole team and setting up her next NP with gauge charge. But how does the damage shape up for farming scenarios?

With just her own buffs active, MetaJeanne is dishing out 22.6k damage neutral, leaping up to 31.5k against her Effective damage targets. That’s pretty low versus regular enemies, but she doesn’t have any Buster Up buffs in her own kit, so it’ll balance out in a practical farming setup - with a 50% gauge CE and the standard double Koyanskaya into Oberon setup, she’s doing 61k damage neutral on wave 1, 73k damage on wave 2, then 203k damage on wave 3, or 243k if she’s hitting her effective damage.

Like many Buster farmers, she falls to the pitfall of having poor wave 1 and 2 damage, then Oberon waltzes in and makes her a nuke. Unfortunately she doesn’t have the privilege of using Black Grail for consistent farming setups, so that’s more or less what she’s saddled with for damage output. While she can certainly handle a majority of wave 3 bosses, MetaJeanne will struggle to meet damage benchmarks for higher-level farming nodes without class advantage, which in turn is very rare for her.

With a BBAAQ card deck and 0.4% base NP gain, Ashoka’s base Arts gain pans out to a very disappointing 1.6, barely under average for a Servant with 2 Arts cards, and paired with all the flaws I like to harp on about with high hitcount Arts cards.

Naturally that means his other cards are dreadful for NP gain, leaving him almost wholly reliant on his Arts cards for NP gauge, in spite of their high hitcounts. While that does mean he can at least get some star generation in his corner, it doesn’t really compensate for the flaws in his baseline in NP gain.

All Ashoka can really hope for is that his skills and NP compensate for the weakness in his baseline stats. It’s not the end of the world, but it does make him more annoying to use.

Skill 1

First of Ashoka’s skills is Hell’s Tactics, a straightforward team buff skill, providing +20% to Arts cards, Buster cards, and NP Strength for the team for 3 turns.

Naturally this is a great offensive steroid for Ashoka himself, elevating the damage and other elements of his primary card types, as well as boosting his NP damage. The numbers on this skill aren’t anything spectacular, but the duration and fact it applies to the whole team mean you get a fair bit of mileage out of these buffs regardless of the situation.

The 8-turn base cooldown on this skill is a little long, but not abnormal given it’s a solid team offensive buff. Even if it’ll primarily be used to Ashoka’s own benefit, it remains a good offensive steroid.

Skill 2

Next for Ashoka’s skill lineup is Wheel-Turning Pagoda, the first half of the skill being a phrase you’ll see repeated a lot regarding the man. It’s interesting how Hindu culture essentially developed in a way that “turning a chariot wheel” represents progress, hence you have things like the Wheel of Dharma and Ashoka himself, being such a great king that his Epithet became “The King who kept wheels turning”, to paraphrase.

The fact so many famous warriors in Hindu myth died because of their chariot or charioteer being eliminated makes a lot more sense with that in context. It’s the equivalent of the Fates cutting your life’s thread in Greek myth.

But focusing on the gameplay, this is a dual-buffing offensive skill that provides Ashoka with 30% Attack Up and Critical Damage Up for 3 turns, as well as a fairly unique buff that lets him apply 1-hit, 1-time Nullify Buff on his attacks for 3 turns.

That might sound daunting at first glance, but bear in mind an enemy can only have one “Nullify Buff” type debuff active at a time, so Ashoka won’t be able to negate 4 skill activations in advance if he lands an Extra chain. It also means the mercurial 1-turn duration on this debuff is rather limiting, even if Ashoka gets plenty of chances to apply it.

Putting that aside, the offensive buffs on this skill are great, completing the buff trinity on Ashoka through his own kit, meaning his NP offense will be rather strong independent of his team support. Paired with the minor boost to his critical damage, the man will hit pretty hard for an SR Servant.

The base 7-turn cooldown on this skill is thankfully rather short, so Ashoka will be able to keep it live frequently, and keep the buff denial wheel-a-turning.

Skill 3

Last on the skill lineup is Chakravartin, the respected title of Ashoka in all his glory. This skill is naturally his strongest, providing the ever-so-desirable NP gauge charge at 30% on use, as well as a trio of utility buffs - providing 15 Critical Stars per turn, 30% Debuff Resistance, and 30% Critical Resistance to the team for 3 turns.

The gauge charge is naturally the best part, especially since having even a 30% gauge charger is no guarantee for any SR, but the party buffs aren’t to be slept on. A consistent star supply allows Ashoka to capitalise on his critical damage output and patch up his poor NP gain, while the Debuff and Critical Resistance boosts ensure the whole team is less vulnerable to a poorly timed dangerous debuff (NP/Skill Seal, or worse Stun/Charm), or just a very deadly crit. They might not be direct defensive buffs, but sometimes the most dangerous aspect of a fight is the uncertain elements. Just ask my ass that got steamrolled by the Hakuno duo fight’s constant Stun chance on NP.

So yes, it’s a great skill and that’s furthered by the reasonable 8-turn base cooldown, keeping Ashoka’s entire skill kit on relatively short cooldowns.

Wrapping up Ashoka’s entire kit is NP, Dharma-Ashoka Chakra Vartin. Besides the long-winded name, this is an Arts AOE NP, so I’ll have the pleasure of looking into the looping potential of this thing.

Running through the effects, this NP provides Ashoka with a potent trio of buffs before dealing damage - 30% Anti-Evil and Anti-Demonic Effective Damage as well as a hefty 50% NP Strength Up for 1 turn, if he’s targeting a single enemy. The NP Strength boost is incredible, if coming at a somewhat counterproductive limitation, while both of the provided Effective damage buffs are also pretty good, targeting a large portion of the Servant roster, as well as the Demonic trait that is frequently found on miniboss-type enemies you’ll often find on wave 2 of farming nodes.

With that huge damage boost, Ashoka then does his damage to all enemies, then follows it up with a 20% Defense Down debuff to all targets for 3 turns, scaling with Overcharge.

You might’ve noticed that Ashoka gets a frankly scary amount of damage boosts on his NP, and it shows in the numbers. For the sake of clarity I’ll be calculating his damage numbers including the single-target damage bonus, but even without it his power is pretty high. Especially since you usually need the most damage when you’re facing down a single enemy.

With just his own skills active, his NP dishes out 27k damage neutral, far above what’s standard for SR Servants. He also nets a good baseline refund of 17% gauge in such a scenario, which only shows how much better it’ll get in a formal farming setup.

Speaking of which, let’s get into the farming loops. With a 50% NP gauge CE and double Castoria, Ashoka dishes out 87.6k damage neutral on waves 1 and 2, then 106k damage on wave 3. Those numbers aren’t factoring in his effective damage at all, and are generally pretty impressive for a non-welfare SR on neutral targets. With all the Castoria buffs on him, Ashoka should consistently net over 50% refund on each NP, so he’s more than capable of maintaining a 3-turn loops without battlesuit swaps.

With such a solid refund, it’s not shocking Ashoka can also manage Black Grail setups. He does require Oberon to manage it consistently, but in such setups he’s dishing a hefty 118k damage on wave 1, 133k on wave 2, and a colossal 264k damage on wave 3 with those Oberon buffs live. That kind of damage output is naturally fantastic and more than capable of universal farming, which is doubly impressive considering Ashoka manages it with just NP1. I don’t even want to run the numbers when he gets effective damage - he’s already doing more than enough.

Mashu’s first skill, Shield of Esteemed Snowflakes, is a best-of-both-worlds between her original form and Ortinax’s sudden shift to Critical offense. She still provides a defense buff to the team, and a pretty good 30% Attack and Critical Up buff to herself for 3 turns, but she also charges the whole team’s NP gauge by 20%, an effect that’s naturally spectacular. Team gauge charge is at a premium, so any Servant that can provide it while supporting both herself and the team with the sword and shield of buffs is incredibly valuable.

Her second skill, Just-Smoldering Wall of Chalk, has the text of every support Servant’s dreams attached. Targeting an ally, it provides the target with Anti-Enforcement Defense for 1 turn and 30% gauge charge, as well as the rest of the team normal Invincibility for 1 turn. This on its own makes Mashu both a 50% gauge charge support AND capable of shielding the whole team from a NP assuredly on demand, something that few other Servants in the game can boast. The only real flaw to this skill is its long 10-turn base cooldown, but that is partially dealt with by another factor of Mashu’s kit.

Mashu’s 3rd skill, however, could probably be considered the first downgrade as part of this form. Shield of Resolve to Break Through retains the Taunt aspect that Mashu’s 3rd skill always had, drawing attacks for 1 turn, but loses perks that its prior form had, like Ignore Invincible and Mashu herself getting 1-turn Invincible. In exchange, Mashu gets back the colossal +400% NP gain buff from her original form for 1 turn, and a 3-turn buff that provides a 10-star bomb whenever she takes an attack. That NP gain buff in particular is extremely useful, and the star bomb when taking damage basically supplies the team with all the critical stars they could need for its duration, especially if the boss attacks with AOE’s.

The real interesting part of this upgrade is Mashu’s NP changes. She goes full circle back to Lord Chaldeas, but the once-middling defensive buff filler was pushed into overdrive - The Damage Cut buff is doubled from 1000 to 2000, she gives the team a 50% NP Strength Up buff against Threat to Humanity foes as well as 1-time Debuff Immunity for 3 turns, she reduces the cooldown of her second skill by a whopping 5 turns, and transforms both her second skill and her NP with the Holy Sword Loading buff.

Mashu’s second skill instead provides an absolutely monumental +100% NP Strength Up buff to herself for 3 turns, which is only further exasperated by the immediate gauge charger she gets, scaling with critical stars up to 200! That huge NP damage buff is for THREE turns! Don’t show it to Oberon or he might actually give a genuine smile. That also comes with a drawback of Mashu losing HP, but c’mon, look at that damage!

And it all pays off for her alternative NP form that she gets for 3 turns after using Lord Chaldeas - Rayproof Kyrielight. Mashu loads up with both Ignore Defense and Ignore Invincible for 1 turn, as well as a 20% Buster Up buff that scales with Overcharge, then fires off a post-Interlude strength Buster AOE NP with +100% Effective Damage against Threat to Humanity targets. Then she removes all buffs from all enemies, if that wasn’t enough.