Being one rank behind the highest rank doesn’t always mean that you get overshadowed. Some of the more popular characters are of the Rank 4, even more so when you factor in the welfare servants. Those guys and gals are seen as being better than some of the higher ranks.
So let us count down the top 10 Rank Servants! This article was written prior to the 7th Anniversary, but it will not be including any of the new Servants introduced with the Traum chapter. I haven’t had time nor energy to really look into them myself. This list is a combination of professional and casual opinions.
Let us begin with the obvious answer:
10. Mash Kyrielight
- First Servant you recruit
- Costs 0 to put into party
- Great tanking/support
Technically, she’s a Rank 3, but she actually becomes a Rank 4 after enough progression in the story, so it counts! And really, any excuse to hype up Mash is always a good excuse. You have been upgrading her, right?
A defense-powerhouse, all of her skills help the party stay alive. With a party-wide defense buff, a deployable invincibility that adds in some NP, and drawing fire to herself while gaining more NP, she can hold out a lot longer than most Servants can on their own. And that’s not even going into her Noble Phantasm.
At the start of the game, it will only bolster the party’s defenses by a great amount, but after completing a section of the chapter Camelot, it will also bolster all but her’s Attack. And seeing as how it’s an Arts Noble Phantasm, she gets a bit of a refund for it, potentially allowing for more uses of it. Plus, Buffs in FGO stack, so she can really make the party all that more harder to kill.
A lot of Mash’s kit requires progression through the Part 1 Story, but it’s worth it. She’s the only Servant that takes up no points to put into the party. Meaning that she fits into any party, although most people just use her to equip Event Craft Essences to promote better drop rates of the event currency. Still, either as a defensive backup or as a slot filler, Mash has got you covered.
9. Ryougi Shiki (Assassin)
- Amazing Single-Target Noble Phantasm
- Good Critical Star Generation
- Good Arts Critical Damage
One of the main heroines of the company Type-Moon ended up being a very solid Assassin when she came out. What helps is that a lot of early Assassins weren’t that great to begin with. She might suffer a bit in the late game, but she’s solid all the way through and can go even further with the right support.
She brings in a well balanced skillset. First skill grants ignore invincibility while also boosting her Arts cards and her chance of insta-killing with her Noble Phantasm. That Noble Phantasm ignores defense buffs and lowers their Defense along with a good chance of insta-death to one unfortunate soul.
Helping her get that Noble Phantasm up is her third skill, which exchanges a bit of her HP in favor of granting her some NP. Risky without someone to heal her, but at least she has an on-demand Evade with an additional Critical Damage buff to help her build up NP or offset her low damage output. It will be getting a buff next year to throw in some Critical Stars to get that ball rolling.
She’s the first character on this list to be an Event Servant, meaning you could only get her during the Event she debuted in. But thankfully there will be a shop being added in the future to allow people who joined up later or didn’t play the event to pick her up. If you need a good Assassin, get Shiki!
8. Nightingale (Santa)
- Amazing support
- Ideal for challenges
- Good reliable damage
As a reminder, Servants are based around historical and mythological figures, with the added element of magic being apart of this world. And the occasional nonsense by having Servants becoming Santa each year. And Florence Nightingale became Santa, and a really good one at that.
Well, in combat. She would rather give out shots and medicine than actual presents.
A support-based character, her first skill heals the party and removes their recent debuff, while also stripping one of the buffs off the enemies. Then her second skill grants Guts, NP Strength, and buff one character to not lose a buff if the enemy tries to strip them. And her final skill goes back to being a party-wide effect; buffing their Critical Damage and Attack.
Despite being Support based, her Noble Phantasm hits all enemies but it does come with a useful effect. It removes all of their Offensive-based buffs! It also cures them of all aliments as well, but it’s a small price to pay for being able to knock off the enemy’s ability to deal damage to your party.
This makes this Santa incredibly useful for challenges in which the enemy is a little too gung-ho in spamming buffs and debuffs. Again, like with Shiki, she’s Event only. But once she’s available, pick her up! Trust me, this is the best Christmas gift.
7. Astraea
- Critical Damage machine
- Can loop Noble Phantasm
- Can generate Critical Stars
Rulers tend to be more defensive than offensive. The first one to try and be a damage Ruler didn’t really work out, so they waited a bit and decided to come swinging back with Astraea. And she does a pretty good job at killing targets.
Being an Arts-focused Critical Damage dealer puts you at a big advantage. Her first skill ups her damage and ability to generate NP while also taking less damage. Rulers take half damage from a majority of classes as it is, so as long as you don’t send Astraea against Avengers, she’s going to be shrugging off a lot!
It’s her two other skills that take her far. An Arts-card buff with a load of Critical Stars for the second, and third one consumes a little bit of Critical Star while giving her a good amount of NP, drawing in Critical Stars, and buffing her Critical Damage output. Sadly, these two skills only last one turn, but you can make that one turn really mean something.
One thing that you can do in that one turn is to build her NP so she can use her Noble Phantasm. It may only hit one enemy, but it deals great damage (More so if the target is Evil-aligned) and grants some Critical Stars to use on the next turn! Following an upgrade, it will deal more damage AND ignore invincibility!
With other Arts-based Servants and some Critical Star generators, Astraea can start dealing some real raw damage. The only downside to her is that Rulers are meant to be fighting Moon Cancers, which is a rare unit. But hey, if the problem in the fight isn’t dealing damage but being able to last long, get Astraea!
6. Katsushika Hokusai (Saber)
- Critical Hit Machine
- High ST Damage
- Can refund Noble Phantasm
Hokusai is great in all forms. Even though her summer form is actually a rank lower than her usual form, Hokusai is still a powerhouse. She just swapped from AOE to single-target.
Familiar to Astraea, she’s an Art-based Critical Damage dealer, but she has buffs that last three turns as opposed to Astraea’s one. Her third skill grants her an Arts buff and whenever she Crits, she gets a buff that buffs her Critical Damage! With her second skill drawing Critical Stars to her cards and giving her Guts to help her survive and her first providing some Critical Stars and some NP, she can go on stupid-high damage rampages.
And adding onto her damage is that of her Noble Phantasm. As mentioned, single-target, but it also increases her Noble Phantasm strength first. This version of Hokusai was an Event Servant like Shiki, so doing her event will grant you copies that can be used to make the Noble Phantasm a lot better.
Again, if you didn’t play during the event, you won’t be able to get her unless you use the Evocation Shop. But like with Shiki, if you need a good Saber, Hokusai is a really great option. But if you need something a bit more…universal…
5. Heracles
- Wickedly high durability
- One of the best Bond CEs in the game
- Great overall damage
Remember, Berserker is the strongest! And Heracles is hella strong. One of the Servants from the original visual novel that started the Fate franchise, Heracles hasn’t slowed down ever since launched. He’s one of the possible Servants that you can get during the tutorial, and back then? People said you should get him above all else.
Berserkers don’t last long in fights; either they win them or they lose them. But Heracles? He’s built different. He doesn’t just have an on-demand Evade, but he has a ton of ways of stacking Guts. From his third skill that can grant him a Buster buff whenever one triggers, or to his max bond Craft Essence granting him several more Guts, Heracles can survive a lot more than most Servants!
He can deal great damage though. With his first skill granting him an Attack Buff along with immunity to being inflicted with mental debuffs, Heracles then can use his Noble Phantasm to greater effect. It only dishes out high damage to one target, but it also lowers their defenses too.
With the proper support, Heracles becomes a monster capable of dealing stupid-high damage while surviving everything thrown at him. Even without support, he’s capable of going further than most of the other Berserkers.
4. Taisui Xingjun
- Arts Looping
- Unique debuffing roles
- Useful support role
Another Event Servant? Yeah, well, that’s because a lot of them are usually powerful. And coming in is the Alter-Ego Taisui Xingjun. Helldyste is his catch phrase, being a combination of Hello, Howdy, and Namaste. I would use it myself, but it’s really hard to include in a normal conservation without having to explain it away.
Taisui possesses a good amount of team support in his skill set: with his first providing the always amazing Arts and NP Generation buff along with a Critical Star Generation, and his second granting one teammate Guts, Debuff Immunity, and a resistance to having a buff removed. Already great stuff! His third skill is more personal use; granting him and only him some NP and NP Damage, but hey. It also seals off the enemies from using their own skills too, so guess that does count.
Use that third skill to get Noble Phantasm ready to go, and watch as the enemy suffers. It inflicts the damage-each-turn aliment of Curse onto each enemy before doing damage. It also marks them with a special debuff that triggers upon their death: it lowers all surviving enemies Defense and hits them with not just a layer of Curse, but also increases how much damage they take from Curse!
Taisui’s status as an Alter-Ego makes him ideal for fighting against Casters, Riders, and Assassins. His Arts buff makes Arts-focused teams all the more powerful. There’s very little reason to not use him. The only real one is that you have someone better than him!
3. Helena Blavatsky
- Universal team support
- Arts AOE Noble Phantasm
- Team NP Building
Need a Swiss Army Knife? Well, get the Russian version of it with Helena. Fitting into a majority of parties with her well-versed skillset, Helena serves as a good support unit.
Her third skill buffs all three of the card types for the entire party. And her first one gives the party a decent amount of NP to work with too! Already off to a great start. Her third skill is a bit more on the personal side by giving her some Critical Star generation, a sizable chance of granting her a buff to her Noble Phantasm damage, and a latter upgrade adds in some NP generation for her as well.
Her Noble Phantasm is straight-forward. Arts-based AOE damage that ignores Defensive buffs while debuffing their Defense, chance to Critical Attack, and their resistance to being debuffed. Given her class as a Caster, that means that she can rebuild her Noble Phantasm quickly.
Helena doesn’t do that much damage, but with her primary role being that of support, it doesn’t hinder her all that much. While more specialized roles for each of the card types would work better, Helena is great for those who lack those characters or are playing with more than one card type at a time. Now, if you need a Caster that’s great at dealing damage…
2. Nitocris
- Instant NP Charge
- Arts AOE Noble Phantasm
- Good Survivability
A real cutie, ain’t she? Well, as a little reminder, her story involves her drowning a lot of people, including herself. This version of her relies more on magecraft, and despite her insecurities, she’s a real powerhouse.
She has access to one of the best skills in the entire game; a skill that grants her immediate access to her Noble Phantasm! An Arts-based AOE attack with a sizable chance to insta-kill all enemies and lowers their chance to land Critical Hits if they do survive; it’s a wave-cleaning monster. She can one-turn most encounters.
And she’s quite hardy to boot too! Her first skill grants a boost to insta-death, meaning her Noble Phantasm can instantly murder anything that’s not a boss. After completing a sidequest to enhance it, it will also heal the party and buff Nitocris’ Arts cards, so she can deal more damage and build up NP faster. Her third skill rids her of pesky debuffs and grants her Guts to survive death.
While not possessing the highest damage output, Nitocris is still available all of the time in the draw pool. This means that basically anyone can snag her up and even get copies to allow her to boost her NP over 100%. You can never go wrong with her!
1. Sakata Kintoki (Rider)
Burns more than rubber.
- High NP Gain
- Stupid high damage on his Noble Phantasm
- Critical Machine
Yup, our Golden Boy is really golden. Remove one star and that pesky Berserker problem of taking more damage and suddenly he’s mopping up a lot of enemies. It really cannot be understated that he is a hella powerful unit.
Being a Quick-orientated Servant would normally be a problem, given that they are in-between the high damage of Buster and the powerful utility of Arts, but Kintoki makes some magic happen. Having a Quick buff on one of his skills along with Critical Star Generation buff allows him to deal damage, build NP, and generate all of the Critical Stars he’ll ever need, and then some more! Pair him with Skadi and watch that insane damage rack up!
And he’s got a huge NP boost for his second skill, along with his final skill that restores HP back to him and removes any offense-based buffs. All to take his Noble Phantasm to the next level. It might only hit only one guy at a time but it does so much damage. You get a Quick buff at the start before it rips an enemy apart.
Now, he does suffer from being both an Event Servant and being apart of the less desired Quick meta. But that doesn’t slow him down! Everyone hypes him up as being one of the best, and within good reason! Ride on!
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