Rabbit’s Reviews #443: Francois Prelati (5* Caster)

Prelati has an offense-leaning stat spread, with pretty high attack and relatively low health for a Caster. Casters are defense-oriented in general, though, so this leaves them with basically average stats for an SSR. Their offensive slant makes Francesca more viable as a DPS than she would otherwise be, and it doesn’t really hurt Francois, so this is probably about ideal, given their class. Prelati’s Arts card NP gain is utterly standard for a triple-Arts Servant, and both their Quick card NP gain and their overall active star gen is very bad, mostly thanks to their deck.

Prelati only has standard passives: Territory Creation, Item Construction, and Divinity. Divinity is mostly there for the trait, but the other two passives are deceptively useful—since Prelati is an Arts Servant, having a persistent Arts buff is nice, while Item Construction helps Prelati’s many debuffs land more reliably.

Mana Loading is Prelati’s most important append, helping both Francois and Francesca access their NPs more reliably. None of the other appends really matter—Skill Reload might occasionally help for CQs, but it’s a marginal benefit, and the other three appends are nearly useless.

Prelati needs 72 Remnants of Madness per skill, plus more for ascension. When you pair that with the need for Caster gems—which are often in short supply due to the plethora of good Casters out there—Prelati will be pretty annoying to raise.

Aside from the form-changing gimmick, Prelati’s skillset is actually pretty straightforward, with generically strong tools that play well into both support and damage-oriented strategies. Recommended skill order is 2>3>1.

Francois’s NP has a host of mostly-useful debuffs. No individual effect is phenomenal, but together they add up to a pretty solid support NP. Its most notable effects are the damage-boosting ones: 30-50% NP damage resistance down (scaling with NP level) and 20-40% arts resistance down (scaling with overcharge). NP damage resistance down is a very rare debuffs, but this is mostly trivia—it’s pretty much strictly worse than the buff version due to not persisting across waves and not doubling with Oberon. With his NP in play, Francois’s total buff value is quite good. Without NP levels or overcharge, he hits an additive 80% in total buffs (a little below Castoria’s 100%), and with either power mod effect he jumps to 110% (slightly above Castoria against non-Threat enemies). Of course, the fact that Francois’s NP’s damage boosts take the form of debuffs makes him a weak fit for farming unless you have a specific need for his unique tools, even setting aside the time cost of using his NP and his lack of a 50% targeted battery. In CQs, at least, Francois’s buff value is pretty solid.

Aside from that, Francois’s NP brings a mix of utility debuffs. It starts with a 30% debuff resistance debuff. This debuff can itself be resisted, but assuming it goes through, it helps to ensure the rest of Francois’s debuffs land, which is particularly important for dealing with Servants with Core of the Goddess or other stacking sources of debuff resistance. It inflicts Confusion, which is a worse version of terror but which is notable for being able to trigger Francesca’s supereffective damage. It also inflicts curse, which is mostly here for flavor, and it imposes a 20% buff success rate debuff.

That last effect is a bit of an odd one. There are a few NPs that inflict buff block, usually applying for one time or for one turn. Buff success rate down is a much rarer and arguably more interesting effect, and in theory this can prevent several buffs. Because this effect is only 20%, though, it’s extremely unreliable, likely to only prevent a single buff over the three turns it’s active, if you’re lucky. Even if it’s mathematically comparable to a one-time buff block effect, I would call this significantly worse, just because it’s unreliable. It can stack, if you’re looping Francois’s NP somehow, but given that he’s a support it’ll be pretty rare for Francois to NP more than once in a three-turn window.

It’s not like the buff success rate debuff is the core of Francois’s NP or anything, so this doesn’t really matter, but it does feel a little weird, especially since it wouldn’t take anything more than a higher effectiveness rate for this to be a cool extra bit of utility.

Francesca, meanwhile, has a pretty cool offensive NP. It’s an AoE Arts NP with high base refund, and it deals supereffective damage against enemies with mental debuffs. Francesca can mostly guarantee this damage on at least one turn with the use of her first skill, and if you pair Francesca with Francois (or another source of mental debuffs), you can get it multiple turns in a row. Controllable supereffective damage is always very good, even when it’s slightly awkward, as it is here.

Francesca also applies an NP damage resistance debuff to all enemies. This is unfortunately post-damage, which means it might as well not exist for farming, but any ramp is better than no ramp, and this is a meaningfully useful form of ramp for CQs. It’s also situationally helpful for multicore farming as well, for waves where you need Francesca to clear some low-HP enemies while an ST Servant hits a higher-health target.

Aside from that, Francesca’s NP brings a surprising suite of consistency tools: partywide debuff cleanse, partywide debuff immunity, and partywide buff removal resistance. Both the debuff immunity and buff removal resistance are one-time-only, but in most cases (assuming Francesca is looping, or at least using her NP as often as possible) this should make the party mostly immune to debuffs and to buff removal, which can make her a helpful tool for fights that might otherwise be rather annoying.

Due to the structure of their kit, Prelati is an exceedingly complex Servant to break down. In order to fully analyze Prelati, we have to consider both Francois and Francesca individually, as well as how, when, and whether to switch between them. Unlike most other multi-form Servants, Prelati’s two forms don’t exist in a vacuum—even when using Prelati primarily as a support, you might occasionally use Francesca’s skills or NP, and the same thing is true in reverse. This makes Prelati a lot more interesting as a multiform Servant than Servants like BB Dubai or Olga, since effective use of them requires knowing how the two forms interact and how to use them both strategically no matter Prelati’s role in a fight.

We’ll start by digging into Francois, who, despite being a support, is actually the simpler of the two forms, mostly due to his limited farming utility. With the specific exception of using Francois to support Francesca, there’s almost no reason to bring Francois in farming contexts, assuming you have the other meta support options. Francois does theoretically bring more damage than Castoria against Lawful or Chaotic enemies (or against anything, with a plug Oberon and End of the Dream factored in), but a lot of his damage is locked to the debuffs on his NP, which means you’ll probably only get the full damage push on wave 3. There’s also the fact that Francois caps out at 30% charge partywide, so any Arts Servant with the loop specs to work with Francois is probably also compatible with Tiamat—and while a double Tiamat team loses to Francois in raw steroids, Tiamat teams have significantly more turn 3 damage via crits and so will generally be better overall, even setting aside the fact that Tiamat brings more party charge and is generally more flexible.

All this to say, if you have neither Castoria nor Tiamat and you have an Arts DPS with exceptional loop specs, Francois is an okay farming support. He does bring quite a bit of damage, provided you can get his NP off. With Mana Loading, Francois’s party battery, and a 30% party charge from Castoria or Tiamat, Francois hits 80% charge, so as long as you can supply him with 20% charge from somewhere else—like a plug Oberon or a party battery on your DPS—you can for-sure get him to NP on turn 3. Your turn 1 and turn 2 damage will be lower than in a conventional Castoria team, and you’re working with much less charge, but so long as your DPS has the loop specs, Francois is workable.

“Theoretically workable in place of a meta Arts support” means Francois is objectively pretty strong, but the case where you’d bring him for farming over the alternatives—you specifically need more damage than Castoria has to offer, you’re flush with NP charge, and you can’t use double Tiamat without plugging one of them out—is vanishingly rare, which means most established players won’t have much need for him for this purpose. He does, technically, have a context in which he’s the best option available, but in practical terms he’s just worse than Castoria and Tiamat unless you’re leveraging his unique ability to switch forms (probably for multicore reasons).

For CQs, though, Francois’s strengths become more relevant, and his weaknesses are less impactful. In a CQ context, Francois can usually use his NP right away and have his full buff value online for three whole turns. His limited party charge is also not as much of an issue in a world where you have cards—it’s trivially easy to loop in most CQs, since you can just click a blue card to have your DPS make up for any missing batteries.

CQ Francois doesn’t really have much synergy with Castoria—he’s the rare alternative Arts support who isn’t meant to slot into an invulnerable Castoria shell. Instead, Francois leans towards one of two teams: all-out fastburn, or terror-centric mid-range stall. In either case, the best option available is to just run double Francois.

For a fastburn Francois team, the idea is to lean on Francois’s very high buff value to maximize your short-term damage output. There are two main variants here, depending on whether you need to maximize turn 3 damage or sustained damage.

The turn 3 damage variant is most effective if the enemy isn’t Lawful and your DPS has in-kit NP damage buffs. For that one, you start with both Francoises in the front line in Francesca form, alongside your DPS, with Oberon ready in the backline. You have the Francescas use their third skills for the partywide NP damage boost, then use their first skills to swap to Francois. You use the Francoises’ second skills if necessary—if the Francoises start with 50% charge CEs and the DPS has Mana Loading and a 50% battery, you can get away with just one, and if the DPS is Tez or Noah and has 30% partywide charge, neither Francois needs to burn their battery—and have both Francoises NP, followed by your DPS. On turn 2, you use whatever batteries are available to facilitate your DPS’s next NP, plugging an expended Francois out for Oberon if necessary. On turn 3, Oberon uses End of the Dream to amp your damage, and hopefully you finish out the fight then and there.

If you need a relatively even spread of damage, or if you can’t count on winning in three turns, you instead start with one Francois, your DPS, and another Arts support (probably Castoria, though Tamamo and Lady Avalon are both fine, as is someone like Xu Fu—the important thing is that they don’t need to NP to get access to their most important buffs), with your second Francois in the back line. On turn 1, you use the secondary Arts support’s buffs on your DPS, and then you plug them out for the second Francois. Francois should start in either Francois form or Francesca form depending on the alignment of the enemy, switching immediately to Francois form after using skill 3 if starting as Francesca. You have both Francoises NP, followed by your DPS. On subsequent turns, you use batteries as needed and prioritize Arts cards to let your DPS loop. If cards and defensive NP gain cooperate, or if your DPS splashes a bunch of charge to teammates when they NP, you might be able to work in additional Francois NPs for more damage push. At the point your buffs run out, you transition to a double Francois stall strategy, as outlined below. Note that if you think you’ll need to stall, it can be worth having one Francois start in Francois form (rather than Francesca form) even if the enemy is Chaotic, so you can save one of the Francoises’ Illusion skills for defensive purposes.

A mid-range Francois team, meanwhile, is similar in concept to a double Van Gogh team, in that you mix partywide protection with terror procs to avoid damage while your significant damage buffs enable relatively fast play. The idea here is to run two Francoises alongside a high-damage DPS and alternate the Francoises’ first skills—probably every three turns—to keep your team mostly protected. This doesn’t give you perfect survival, but on one out of three turns you’re protected by the invuln, and on one of the three turns you should be safe due to the enemy being stunned, which means you only need to survive incidental damage on every third turn or so. Especially if your DPS has defensive tools, this is very doable. Because Francois’s NP provides damage but isn’t critical to survival, you can slot it in whenever it’s ready without needing to actively prioritize it, which makes this team a little simpler to play than many other mid-range-to-stall-oriented setups. The other nice thing about this is it’s easy to transition from a fastplay strategy into sustain in a pinch, especially if you make sure not to use one of your Francoises’ Illusions right away.

It’s also worth remembering that even a supportive Francois can be used for damage if need be. In a longer fight, once Francois’s skills come off cooldown, you can use his first skill to swap him over to Francesca. This can be helpful in cases where your DPS has gone down unexpectedly, or when the fight is nearly done and an extra damaging NP can finish it out. Francesca’s massive self-battery means a Francois who’s switching forms late in the fight can probably guarantee himself a damaging NP—which might make the difference between winning and losing, in the right circumstance.

On the flip-side, you also have the option of having Francesca NP before switching to Francois for long-term support. This can be valuable for fights where you have to clear a certain number of weak enemies before the main target becomes vulnerable, or for situations where debuff immunity or buff removal resistance is worth more than the additional damage buffs Francois’s NP brings. Francois is ostensibly the support-oriented Prelati form, but there are cases where Francesca’s specific utility is important even for a support-leaning Prelati.

For new players, or for anyone else with a limited box, Francois is a decent support at the lower end as well. If you start in Francesca mode, you can use Francesca’s huge battery to get Francois an immediate NP no matter who he’s partnered with. While his overall support value is lower than (say) Castoria’s, it’s significantly better than your typical free or SR-level option, which makes him a meaningful boost to an account that doesn’t already have Castoria and the like. A truly brand-new account (that can somehow max out Francois) can grab a powerful Arts DPS off support and run a Francois/DPS/Xu Fu team and see reasonable success. Similarly, because Francois provides comparable buff value to Castoria, he can be helpful to have handy for cases where doubled Servants aren’t allowed—double Castoria may be better in general, but Castoria/Francois is a solid alternative for when that isn’t possible.

Francesca, on the other hand, is an AoE Arts DPS, and in some respects she’s pretty standard—big battery, nice refund, you can use your steroids and your supports and go from there. She has perfect loopage in a Castoria/Castoria/Oberon team, provided she has Mana Loading. For this setup, you start in Francesca form, so that you can use Francesca’s first skill on turn 3 to trigger her supereffective damage. On turn 1, you use the Castorias’ Arts buffs, plus Francesca’s third skill for damage and her second skill for the battery. The 80% battery plus 20% from Mana Loading lets Francesca NP. She refunds about 15% against a single enemy, so you use both Castorias’ 20% batteries and one Castoria’s 30% battery, then swap that Castoria out for Oberon, who uses his 20% battery to bring Francesca to 100%. Francesca then refunds about 23% (thanks to the Castorias’ NP gain buffs), which lets the remaining Castoria’s 30% battery and Oberon’s 50% battery secure the loop. Your remaining Castoria should NP before Francesca does—it’s a massive damage spike, as it both provides a big attack buff in what is otherwise a pretty empty bracket and amps Francesca’s supereffective damage. An NP2, level 90 Prelati without Chaotic niche but with an NP1 Castoria NP, MLB BG, and class score deals about 616k damage, which is more than enough to counterclass 90++. This is pretty impressive return for a relatively modest level of investment. A totally maxed-out Francesca can even reach a million damage in this setup, making her a theoretical omnifarmer. She won’t do this CE-less, of course, but this puts Francesca just about on the level of the best AoE SSRs in the game not named Olga.

That said, Francesca can also run in a Castoria/Francesca/Francois/Oberon team and be similarly effective. Francois enables Francesca to trigger her supereffective damage multiplier on all three waves, which has the end result of giving her higher damage on waves 1 and 2 in exchange for lower damage on wave 3. Because Francesca only barely reaches omnifarmer territory in the Castoria team when fully maxed out, the Francois setup is only really viable for counterclassing, but it might be more reliable for those purposes due to its higher early-turn damage.

There are a few variants on how to execute this depending on the specifics of the node and how much loopage you need. One thing to note, however, is that this is a rare case where the Normal Chaldea Uniform—the new plugsuit that only boosts Attack rather than both Attack and NP Damage—actually yields more overall damage. This is because of how absurdly lopsided Prelati’s buff brackets are. Even with Oberon doubling NP damage buffs, 20% attack up is worth quite a bit more to Francesca than 20% NP damage up.

For the (almost) perfect-loopage version of this setup, you start both Prelatis in Francois form, with Castoria in the frontline and Oberon in the backline. On turn 1, both Francoises use skill 3 (for the AoE Arts buff), and then your DPS Prelati uses skill 1 to switch to Francesca form and apply terror to the enemies. You use all three Castoria skills (using the targeted skills on Francesca), plus Francois’s party battery. With Mana Loading, this lets Francesca NP. Francesca refunds about 17% against a single enemy before overkill, but with a two hits of overkill or a second enemy to swing against, she clears the 20% mark, which is all she needs. On turn 2, Francesca uses her self-battery to reach 100%, and Francois uses his first skill to apply terror (staying in Francois form). This time, Francesca refunds 19% against a single enemy before overkill (so she’ll clear 20% with even the one hit of overkill that’s guaranteed for killing an enemy). Oberon swaps in for Castoria and uses his skills, focusing on Francesca, and you use the new plugsuit’s attack buff as well, both for its damage and for its 10% charge. This both brings Francesca back to 100% and also ensures Francois reaches 100% as well. You can then uses Francois’s NP, followed by Francesca’s, to get the full benefit of Francois’s buffs and again apply terror on the enemy on turn 3.

Out of niche, this setup deals about 493k on turn 3 (assuming an NP2 Francesca, NP1 Francois, MLB BG, class score, etc), which is just shy of reliable counterclassing territory—and close enough that it’s probably sufficient in most practical cases. Grails or NP3 puts Francesca comfortably over 500k. You can also use Francesca’s version of skill 3 instead of Francois’s for a bit more damage in exchange for weaker loopage—Francesca gives NP damage up instead of Arts up, which can be doubled via Oberon—which has the end result of bumping Francesca’s damage to 504k. This might be a surprisingly small damage difference, but that’s yet another product of how relatively full Francesca’s NP damage bracket is. Even so, it’s enough to let Francesca comfortably clear a million damage against Assassins, which might occasionally be meaningful. Using Francesca’s version of S3 limits Francesca to 2/2/x nodes, since with fewer Arts buffs she needs to be swinging against two enemies to refund 20% each round. Technically she can also loop 2/1/x if she gets a ton of overkill on wave 2, but this is extremely likely against a single high-HP enemy. Also technically, she can loop 1/2/x, but this requires using the new plugsuit’s buff on turn 2, which tanks your turn 3 damage and therefore is a net loss relative to just starting in Francois form.

That said, if the enemies are Lawful or Chaotic, using the strategy that allows you to use the skills that apply the relevant power mod is always better damage-wise (unless it prevents you from looping or forces you to use the plug buff early). This takes priority over the other buff bracket considerations and should inform your farming strategy accordingly. At the end of the day, though, the Castoria setup is simpler to use and results in higher turn 3 damage, so you only need to worry about any of this if you need more damage on waves 1 or 2.

...And then we come to what may actually be Francesca’s most effective farming setup. Despite not having tools that obviously synergize with Tiamat—no party crit buffs, no party charge (in Francesca form), no party attack buffs—Francesca is usually capable of farming with Tiamat and benefits substantially from the specific things Tiamat has to offer. Francesca can farm 2/1/x or better with Tiamat—and technically she can also do 1/1/x if your wave 3 damage needs are low enough that you can afford to use the new plug on turn 1. I’ll be assuming for this, though, that you need to maximize wave 3 damage and are using the second plugsuit, which is damage-optimal here.

For the Tiamat strategy, you run Tiamat/Francesca/Tiamat/Oberon. On turn 1, you use both Tiamats’ third skills, as well as Francesca’s second and third skills. Notably, you do not use Tiamat’s other skills yet—we need them later. Francesca refunds about 10% per enemy, so against two enemies she refunds 20%. Francesca doesn’t do a lot of damage, so this does rely on the wave-1 enemies being relatively low health, which is often but not always true. In addition to her refund, Francesca gets 20% charge from the Tiamats’ passive batteries. Both Tiamats then use their second skills (still not using their first skills), which brings your whole party up to 100% charge. You then use both Tiamat NPs, followed by Francesca’s. Francesca refunds at least 10% against a single enemy, and gains another 20% from the Tiamats’ passive charge. On turn 3, you finally use the Tiamats’ first skills, plus Francesca’s first skill. You plug out one of the Tiamats for Oberon—taking care to swap out a Tiamat whose cards you don’t intend to play—and use Oberon’s skills on Francesca. Saving the Tiamats’ first skills for this wave means Francesca NPs with her overcharge maxed, fully doubling her damage output against terrified foes. Under the same conditions as above, this results in about 553k damage outside of niche—somewhat less than the Castoria setup—but you also get a bunch of guaranteed crit damage. It’s hard to calculate exactly how much damage stretch Tiamat teams get, since you’re essentially looking for the damage output you’d get from the worst possible card draws, but it’s solidly more than 100k in this setup, which means Francesca’s overall turn 3 damage is the highest of any of these three teams. Tiamat NP levels can also scale this further, and with the right combination of grails and NP levels across the members of this team, it’s again possible to reach omnifarmer territory.

In sum, Francesca has three main farming strategies: double Castoria, Castoria/Francois, and double Tiamat. Double Tiamat has the highest theoretical turn 3 damage, but the lowest turn 1 damage, and thus is best for cases where wave 1 has low-health enemies and wave 3 has high-health enemies. Castoria/Francois has the weakest loopage and the lowest turn 3 damage, but in exchange it has the highest damage on waves 1 and 2, making it ideal for cases where you need your damage spread relatively evenly across multiple waves. Double Castoria is the most balanced setup, providing perfect loopage along with total damage values that are in the middle of the two other setups across all three waves. If you’re trying to farm with Francesca, you’ll need to look at the specific node and build around her so as to counter whatever you’re up against.

Prelati also has multicore potential by virtue of being a damage-dealer with lots of party charge and various party buffs. In some cases, you may even be able to use a Francesca NP to clear an early wave and a Francois NP to facilitate damage on a later wave. The exact approach to using Francesca and Francois in multicore teams will depend on the node and on the Servants you’re running them with, so rather than running through a bunch of hypotheticals, I’ll just say this is a Servant to consider whenever you’re trying to put together an unconventional farming team. Prelati is highly unique and pretty flexible—there’s a good chance you can come up with something clever if you look carefully at the problem you’re trying to solve.

For CQ use, Francesca is actually relatively straightforward: you use her like you would use any other AoE Arts DPS, more or less. The only real consideration is whether to start in Francois or Francesca form—and the answer likely depends on whether or not you’re aiming for a fast clear. If you’re running any form of multicore or stall-based setup, you’re probably better off starting as Francois. His AoE Arts buff is more useful to non-damaging Servants than Francesca’s AoE NP damage buff, and his party charge can help your whole team get rolling faster. Otherwise, Francesca largely prefers her NP damage buff, and her selfish 80% battery can let her NP immediately without any outside help, which is nice.

It’s worth noting that Francesca also has a ton of consistency tools. Her first skill offers a lot of survival, of course, but her NP also counters many CQ gimmicks, removing annoying debuffs, protecting you from further debuffs, and letting you get around buff removal. Since all of these effects are partywide, Francesca teams mostly just don’t have to worry about common annoyances of this nature, and unlike most other consistency-related Servants, Francesca doesn’t suffer much of a damage penalty for this. Francesca can’t get you out of guaranteed effects—boxed debuffs and the like—but especially if a fight involves spammable stuns or other things of that nature, Francesca is a great Servant to have handy.

As another note, Francois is a fantastic partner for Francesca for CQ usage, even more so than in farmer. Unlike in farming contexts, Francois’s debuffs can stay in effect for multiple turns in CQs, which means Francesca can benefit from the full value of his damage buffs while also taking advantage of his ability to facilitate her own supereffective damage multiplier turn after turn. If running a Francesca/Francois CQ team, you likely want to start them both in their “intended” forms, so that you can use Francois’s NP right away and save both Servants’ first skills for turns where you need them to trigger Francesca’s damage multiplier.

And of course, Francesca is a fairly self-sufficient Servant, what with her 80% battery and her cocktail of utility, which means players with less-established boxes can slot her in with whatever incidental Arts supports are handy and have good success. A relatively generic team consisting of Francesca, Xu Fu, and a friend support Castoria will be pretty effective in most cases.

As a support, Francois has a number of potentially valuable CE options. Demonic Bodhisattva has some nice synergy here, as it provides enough starting charge to let Francois immediately NP with his party battery and Mana Loading, and it also functionally boosts the buff values on his NP the first time you use it. Alternatively, passive NP gain CEs like Prisma Cosmos can help Francois keep his NP active without needing to actively manage his cards as much, and starting charge CEs like Kaleid can let Francois NP immediately and still be able to then switch to Francesca form to NP again for extra damage.

Francesca, by contrast, strongly prefers Black Grail. Since she has essentially perfect loop specs, what you want out of a CE is just maximal NP damage, which is what the Black Grail provides.

Prelati is a bit hard to pick CCs for, as there’s nothing they really want that CCs can provide. They have no in-kit crit tools, so star gen CCs (for Francois’s supportive use) or crit damage CCs (for Francesca’s damaging use) can be marginally useful, but neither will do much unless you’re running Prelati with someone who brings a lot of crit support. Buff removal is another option, as it’s a form of utility Prelati doesn’t otherwise have. You could also opt for healing CCs, which are modestly but consistently useful, and which can be good for mid-range Prelati setups in which you’ll likely be taking chip damage here and there.

Prelati is very good overall. Casters are typically weak grail targets due to their inherent multipliers, and an NP2 Prelati is sufficient for Assassin farming even at level 90—but if you want Prelati to be more consistent, of if you have an NP5 Prelati and are angling for omnifarming setups, grails aren’t a terrible investment. Overall, I’d say there are Servants who make better use of the extra stats than Prelati does, but if you have a specific reason you need them to be stronger, they aren’t a bad pick.

When I started writing this review (which has turned out to be a multi-day endeavor), I didn’t expect to come down as positively on Prelati as I have. Most form-switching Servants we’ve had have either had one decidedly stronger form or have functionally just been two separate Servants without much interplay. Prelati is neat in part because they’re more than the sum of their parts—Francesca is strong, and Francois is strong, but both are better for the fact that you can mix and match their functionality.

Neither Francesca nor Francois is best-in-class. Francesca can’t compare at all to Olga, and her damage is somewhat lower than the absolute top-end “conventional” AoE units. Francois, similarly, is decidedly weaker than Castoria and Tiamat overall. Still, they’re both only about a single step below their competition in overall value, and the ability to switch between the two at will means there will be cases where having both options in one place lets them shine in ways more conventional Servants never can. It’s really tight balancing, and I think Prelati would be a welcome addition to anyone’s box, especially considering they viable for farming and bring a ton of useful utility for CQ contexts.

Prelati takes a lot of creativity to use effectively, and they don’t usually have a place in your straightforward dead-center-of-the-meta teams, but they are very good, and they do things no one else can. That’s worth a lot, in my mind.