SR Tier List Explanations (January 2019)

MrSmokestack SR Tier List Explanations
This is pretty long, use CTRL + F

assumptions
-All R and below servants + welfare servants are NP5
-all servants are available
-no sorting within tiers

roles
DPS- servant whose endgame is doing damage, and lots of it. easily the least valuable of all niches.

Support- includes a servant whose role is specifically something other than damage; they can provide targetable or AOE buffs. of all the different types of support these servants can provide, NP charges, damage amps, debuff clear, hard damage mitigation are the most useful. healing, star generation, and taunt are strong supplementary forms of support but do not work well alone.

Semi-Support- catch-all category that includes servants with multiple roles; they can DPS, and they can provide forms of *useful* support (NP charge, targetable buffs, targetable or AOE debuff clear). they may even have a niche that is found on almost no other servant (Formless Moon, Scapegoat, Twin Arm Big Crunch)

EX- the very best servants. don't go into a CQ without at least one of them.
S- strong servants in general, doing one thing extremely well or capable of taking on multiple roles well.
A- S but on a lower scale. generally strong all-rounder servants. having a niche helps but is not important.
B- servants with a strong niche AND that work well with investment. not useful in as many situations as A, but are by no means bad.
C- servants with an underused niche that can still work with investment.
D- servants with a niche that rarely comes into play AND who do not scale well with investment.
E- useless in the vast majority of situations. take significant investment to function, and even then often struggle to work as well as servants above them. there are like 3 servants that fit this category in the entire game so don't worry.
Unrated- Not included in the list because they are either new servants, or not enough information is available to make a tier placement.

Explanations:
EX
Mash Kyrielight- Mash is the only servant ranked EX because of two key differences from the rest of the 4* pool: she is 0 cost and the only servant you are guaranteed to obtain. More importantly, she has an assortment of defensive skills that allow you to negate enemy cards and ST NPs with ease. She not only works well in every team, but she is the only servant that greatly expands your teambuilding options due to her nonexistent cost. For these reasons, Mash is the best 4* in the game, bar none.

S
BB- Arguably the best non-Mash welfare in the game. She offers a wide range of support skills, with her best by far being the team battery on C.C.C. Despite her abysmal attack stat (Mash hits harder by a sizeable margin), she easily compensates thanks to being a free NP5 with Self-Modification EX. Overall, BB is the top class-agnostic DPS servant Arts has to offer.

Chloe von Einzbern- Kuro is a strong offensive Arts DPS; it has nothing to do with her cards (her Quicks are awful) or NP and everything to do with having a 50% battery. Kiss Demon also enables her NPAA chain to supply her with an exorbiant amount of stars. Her refill is so absurd that even one Arts card can easily refund her entire NP gauge. For that reason, she's one of the best Black Grail holders in the game, and having a guaranteed NP5 further compounds this.

Emiya (Alter)- Following his NP upgrade, Demiya makes a case for being the best Arts DPS of all the SRs. He has excellent base stats, massive steroids on short cooldowns, and plenty of survivability. Not only that, but he also NP drains more reliably than either Ryouma or Archuria--he loses only to Orion in sheer consistency. It is highly doubtful you will want another Arts Archer if you get Demiya.

Heracles- Rocking the second highest Attack stat of all SRs in the game, Heracles remains one of the most reliable anchors for hard content. This is due to his Bond CE and skills giving him a guaranteed 5 turns of survival--5 turns with which he can do copious amounts of damage from BBB chains. Unfortunately, he has aged somewhat since release time, and for raw DPS there are usually better options. Note that his placement assumes you have his Bond CE; without it he falls off greatly.

Hessian Lobo- Coming in third place for the highest SR Attack stat, Lobo is no slouch in the damage department. Like many EXTRA-class servants, Lobo's kit is overloaded, making him a strong generalist at the cost of not being the best DPS for most challenge quests. A Skadi support fixes his damage issues however, and he can plow through CQ gimmicks easily thanks to his buff removal and Attack Down. It's a shame his NP is among the worst in the game effectwise, but the rest of his kit compensates enough that he's still among Quick's best DPS servants.

Lanling Wang- Support servants in non-Caster classes are extremely rare, but the Prince of Lanling makes a fantastic showing for the concept. He is the best Arts-flavored damage amp, and makes a good agnostic support thanks to how generic his kit is. He's fairly survivable, and his kit synergizes with other generic supports like Waver, Mash, and Merlin perfectly. An excellent support overall.

Minamoto-no-Raikou (Lancer)- Raikou is amazing as a Berserker, and she's no different as a Lancer. She differentiates herself from fellow Lancer upstart Ibaraki in having a less selfish kit and better card damage on non-NP turns. In other words, Ibaraki relies heavily on her NP to crit frequently but Raikou can use both her NP and cards to push out high amounts of damage. More importantly, her 2nd skill is an excellent team support; in this comparison that's the difference between A and S. Arguably the best Lancer in the entire game.

Muenori Yagyu- Yagyu's endgame is stacking Attack Downs on the enemy to virtually negate card damage. With favorable base stats and NP gain off of his cards, he can reliably shut down enemy offense every few turns. However, he isn't completely foolproof due to lacking Crit Down, and his offense is very burst-oriented for his role. Even so, the amount of safety he brings to a team against card damage is very, very difficult to replicate, making him one of the top Arts DPS.

Parvati- Before Skadi, Parvati's overloaded kit flew under the radar due to her Quick-leaning and middling stats. After Skadi, she's getting the recognition she deserves. As another poster put it, with her skills active she has "roughly the card[s] of Okita and the NP refill of Dantes". She's strong not just as a farmer but as a CQ pointman, more so than Lancelot. Unlike him, she packs hard survivability through her own kit but also through her NP, whose low Charm chance is completely offset by how often she can spam it. Currently one of the best Quick servants in the game.

Sakata Kintoki (Rider)- The Mistake (tm) lands in S for exactly the same reasons Kuro does: strong Black Grail user that supplies their own stars and NPs back to back. He's a bit more reliable in the NP and stargen department than Kuro due to his Quick lean, but he loses the hard survivability in exchange. It's not a horrible trade, and as a selfish DPS he's excellent.


A
Altera the San(ta)- Altera is a reliable Quick DPS thanks to her targetable buffs and short cooldowns. In addition, her NP can ignore invulnerability and drops a starburst that she can draw to herself. She even packs some soft defense, giving her a well-rounded DPS kit.

Anne Bonny & Mary Read (Archer)- Archer Anne, like Rider Mary, is best known for the same gimmick; a single turn of high-powered NP damage when at the brink of death. Unlike her Rider partner, Anne can reliably bring herself down to critical HP thanks to having Guts on an unlimited duration and a low CD. She can even enable her own crits with ease, letting her focus her burst all in one turn or spread it out across a few. She's a very high-risk servant, but the payoff is equally high-reward too.

Asagami Fujino- Fujino is a largely self-sufficient Archer DPS. She doesn’t offer much to her team outside of stackable Attack Down and Nullify Buff, but she packs unmitigated damage, starburst, and a unique form of durability all on short CDs. Even if she doesn’t scale as well with support as other Buster DPS servants, she requires no babying and can slot into a variety of teams.

Atalante (Alter)- As a Berserker, Atalante is another strong Quick DPS. Supported by Skadi, she can refill her NP with ease, and on top of that she crits both hard and often. She doesn't have Lobo's utility, but she provides some defense of her own via NP Seal. More importantly, despite her class she isn't too frail on her lonesome thanks to Mind's Eye. Fun fact: Her kit is basically Okita's but better.

Atalante- Atalante has greatly improved with the addition of Skadi. Despite her awful cards, her NP refill is excellent due to having an interlude and two NP-amping steroids. She's workable as a DPS in CQs, but her primary use is for farming--something she's excellent at.

Carmilla- Carmilla is odd. With a 2% Arts and an absurd 4% Quick on a QQQAB deck on top of an NP battery, "NP Spam" doesn't even begin to describe her. While only Ushi beats her in Attack among the SR Assassins, Carmilla is easily the better point servant thanks to her STNP and reliable star generation. In addition, she's comparable to Jack in dealing with female enemies after her NP upgrade, which are extremely common. Her survivability is dubious at times, but once she begins NP'ing it's very hard for her to stop.

Chiron- Achilles' mentor is a solid all-rounder. He pack a powerful teamwide crit amp that enables itself, as well as a solid damage amp for any card type. His cards are great, and his NP even has a nice piece of utility via defense buff removal. He's a bit weak as a point servant due to lacking an interlude, but as far as generalists go he's top dog for the SRs.

Circe- While her base gain is quite poor, Circe offsets it due to her Arts deck and enormous NP battery, guaranteeing an NP every few turns. It's unimpressive in terms of raw damage, but it provides a unique stun that turns the enemy into a pig. There a few situations (mostly related to story) that prevent her NP from pigging enemies, but for most CQs it becomes a free turn of avoiding damage. In addition to having a team debuff clear on reasonable CD, Circe is overall a reliable pointman for slower teams, especially when run with Merlin.

Diarmuid Ua Duibhne (Saber)- As a Saber, Diarmuid is a fairly stable if bland (and obnoxiously expensive to raise) Quick DPS. His damage and survivability are both decent, and he has reliable crit access with his second skill. More important is his defense buff removal on NP--without it he'd be too generic for A.

EMIYA- Widely mocked alongside Gilgamesh as one of the worst Archers in the game, EMIYA too received a series of buffs that made him a respectable generalist DPS--just not as overpowered as Gil. Unsurprisingly, very few servants can keep up with a 3 turn 100% crit amp that is up half of the time. He even provides some team support through reliable star generation and UBW's Attack Down, which he can reasonably stack. He's a strong pointman in Merlin teams due to his deck, but doesn't offer enough outside of them to hit S. That being said, time has served our nameless hero very well.

Fionn Mac Cumhaill- Once feared as one of the worst spooks in the game, Fionn wins the award for “Most Improved” out of the entire rarity. His NP gain is strong between the battery on his taunt, his NP refill, and Clairvoyance (Beauty), making him a solid pointman for AOE spam. Oh, and he can reliably block ST NPs now. It helps that he faces no competition in his niche, either. Fionn takes some work to get off the ground, but the payoff is absolutely worth the investment now.

Frankenstein (Saber)- SR Okita? More like Super Okita. Summer Galvanism is one of the dumbest NP amps in the game, and in conjunction with her Arts card she can NP back to back. She even provides buff removal plus Attack Down and stun on a spammable NP to help keep the team safe. Overall, Fran trades Okita's Quicks and raw damage for being better in...pretty much every other way.

Gilgamesh (Caster)- Gil is a strong if gimmicky offensive Arts support. He provides a strong damage amp, and his NP in conjunction with King's Return makes a metric ton of stars. He's best used with Poster Girl to superbuff a DPS like Hokusai who has high hitcounts on their Arts cards. On a regular team, however, he can make someone like Tamamo a reliable star generator and allow other CEs to be used in place of 2030.

Ibaraki-Douji (Lancer)- As mentioned in Raikou's evaluation, Ibaraki is comparable to her as a Buster Crit Lancer DPS. Unfortunately, her kit is more selfish than Raikou's and relies more on her NP to do damage. She's an excellent Lancer, mind, but just not on Raikou's level.

Ibaraki-Douji- As a Berserker, Ibaraki sports decent survivability on short cooldowns. Her NP is supported by a decent damage amp and even clears enemy buffs. Ibaraki isn't outstanding, but she's another strong generalist DPS.

Ishtar (Rider)- Ishtar is another strong all-rounder Quick DPS. While her Quick cards are poor, she has strong NP refill due to NP5 and a massive net NP gain buff. She'll make a decent waveclearer for farming if nothing else.

Lancelot (Saber)- Saberlot is one of the most self-sufficient crit DPS servants in the game. He's able to reliably generate his own stars, pull them in, and hit hard with them. His average cards are offset by the fact that he's practically guaranteed to crit with them. Unfortunately, his absurd DPS is hampered by the fact that he has absolutely no survivability. Lancelot is offensively a one-man army.

Lancelot- Lancelot's Berserker form is the poster child of raw Quick DPS among the SRs, packing high class-agnostic damage and refill at the cost of survivability. His cards without Mana Inversion are garbage though; he won't refill period if he doesn't refill enough off of NP.

Li Shuwen- Li is about explosive, one-turn damage. To accomplish this, he has an NP that can ignore all defensive buffs, as well as a massive quadruple crit damage amp. He packs the bare minimum in terms of survivability, but his damage is strong enough for A.

Mecha Eli-chan- Among the Alter Egos, Mecha Eli has an outstanding offense, packing a rare buff type and supplying her own high-powered crits. She won't do much besides hit things with red cards, but she is nonetheless a reliable damage-dealer.

Mordred (Rider)- Mordred has the most reliable NP refill of the AOE Arts servants, being advantaged against a class that gives increased NP refill and packing AOE charge drain. Her consistency is passable thanks to her battery and durability. She admittedly does not have an awful lot of competition in her niche, however.

Mysterious Heroine XX- MHXX is a solid class-agnostic damage-dealer. She can pierce invulnerability and has a damage bonus against Saber-class enemies with her NP. In addition, her refill on cards is excellent, especially since she can generate stars and crit with them easily. Unlike Lobo or BB however, she doesn't do much else besides damage to hit S despite being a great generic pointman.

Oda Nobunaga (Berserker)- Berserker Nobu is a popular pointman for Merlin teams as her kit offers some useful redundancy with him. Like Garden of Avalon, Atsumori Beat has a long duration and helps set up her NP with ease. She also works well as a generic damage dealer in other teams. However, it's important to note that her kit is supplementary to the team, not complementary. In other words, she is heavily dependent on having a team built around her to do well. Without that support, her damage (especially on crits) is weak and inconsistent.

Oda Nobunaga- Archer Nobu tends to be underrated. Putting aside her situational 2nd skill, she just needs a star generator to wreak havoc. Demon King is Self-Modification in everything but name, and her NP, guaranteed to be NP5, targets a fairly common trait in Riding. If you want a Buster-flavored wave clearer, you'd do yourself a disservice by overlooking the Demon King himself.

Passionlip- Passionlip is another overlooked yet excellent SR. Her taunt is one CD lower than usual, and she has a defense boost on every skill. Even with just Breast Valley and Masochistic Constitution up, she is easily taking no damage from most enemies. While the Alter Ego class is rather mediocre offensively, defensively it is quite strong; it has no weakness other than Berserkers. Overall, Lip is a reliable card damage tank specializing in mixed cavalry nodes--a niche that the current meta is beginning to favor more frequently.

Queen of Sheba- Sheba is a high-powered offensive caster. Possessing above-average NP gain and quadrupled crit damage every few turns, almost no caster can compare to Sheba offensively. However, she has a few issues: she has nothing in the way of survivability nor can she guarantee her own crits. In addition, Sheba formerly enjoyed dominance in her niche partially due to a lack of competition. Now, Caster Shuten is a competitor she has to shape up against in terms of nuking and consistency.

Quetzalcoatl (Samba / Santa)- The second SR Ruler in the game after Martha, Samba Quetz is another high powered crit DPS. Unlike some other crit servants, Quetz can both provide her own stars and crit hard with them. She can even help other teammates crit, giving her niche use as a damage amp a la Chiron. Unfortunately, she cannot take full advantage of her class due to lacking any defensive utility. Even so, she can slot into a variety of teams, whether they need a class-agnostic AOE DPS or a damage-booster.

Ryougi Shiki (Assassin)- Shiki is one of the better Arts assassins. Every few turns she will ignore all defensive buffs with her NP5 Noble Phantasm, which she has reliable access to thanks to her hitcount spread and NP battery. Much like Lancelot, Shiki is a consistent crit damage dealer and won't do much outside of that role.

Sakamoto Ryouma- Ryouma is a very stable Arts DPS. All of his cooldowns are short, and his team battery is helpful for stabilizing NP gain across the board. In addition, he is passable offensively due to NP5 and being able to set up his own crits every few turns. Defensively, however, 60% charge drain chance is unimpressive. He’s great offensive glue for Arts teams, but he doesn’t offer enough compared to Muenori and Demiya to be truly amazing.

Siegfried- Very respectable damage dealer after his buffs. He suffers from low Attack, but his NP upgrade and Buster buff go a long way towards making his damage comparable to other AOE Sabers. Instead of just being barely better when hitting dragons, he outright nukes anything that is one. He can reliably set up his NP every few turns thanks to his NP gain boosts, and nuke without fear of debuffs. Siegfried is still a bit gimmicky, but he's far from the joke of a DPS that he used to be.

Sieg- Sieg is thankfully not as bad as a playable servant as he is a character. His trick is Arts NP looping. He’s not as good as say, Mordred at it, but he does the job well enough and he even has a powermod for easier refilling off of dragon enemies (not just assassins!).

Suzuka Gozen- Suzuka is a Buster crit Saber that supplies her stars through her NP. In addition, her NP gain is very stable thanks to her third skill's long duration and short cooldown. In other words, she's Saber EMIYA--and is almost as good as that sounds.

Shuten-Douji (Caster)- Shuten is a serious competitor to Sheba as the best Caster DPS. Sporting the highest Attack of all SR Casters and a NP5 Noble Phantasm, Shuten is the largest anti-Assassin nuke in the game. Yes--she pulls past NP1 post-Interlude Illya for damage. More importantly, Shuten has comparable NP gain to Sheba due to her 1.84 Arts card on AAA deck, and her crits are more consistent due to having a star absorption. Overall, Sheba will still scale better with support, but Shuten's nuking power comes at almost no significant investment and is likely preferable in the majority of situations.

Tomoe Gozen- Similar to Fujino, Tomoe is a self-sufficient Buster DPS. However, she leans more towards offense than being survivable. She packs an awesome damage amp in Demonic Magic and is able to set up her own crits with ease. Her Guts is even an upgrade over the standard, and with defense buffs in the picture she can be obnoxiously hard to kill. She’s a bit one note, but she has one job and she does it well.

Tristan- Before Skadi's introduction, Tristan was borderline necessary as a support for Quick teams. Post-Skadi he hasn't changed much; he still provides the hard survivability and consistency that Quick teams need. However, as a DPS he's just "alright" similar to Chiron. Still very useful Poster Girl fodder in general at least.

Vlad (EXTRA)- Vlad's Lancer self tends to get glossed over, but he's an awesome pointman for Buster teams. Thanks to his deck and taunt he won't have issues building NP, and he pierces invulnerability with it. On the downside, his steroids aren't impressive and he really wants a team that can work around his kit.


B
Anne Bonny & Mary Read- Having the largest Critical Damage boost in the game, an upgraded NP, and a respectable Attack stat, Mary Rider is a strong if dated Quick DPS. She lacks the safety of her Archer variant in order to have a much higher damage ceiling.

Altria Pendragon (Alter)- Saber Alter is unique among AOE servants in that her NP’s scaling starts at a much higher level than usual; all other things equal she hits harder at NP1 than any NP1 post-Interlude AOE. This makes her an attractive option for farming beefy nodes, but the rest of her kit won’t make her serviceable in any other context. A strong statstick for farming and not much else.

Altria Pendragon (Lancer Alter)- Lancer Alter is an offensive monster thanks to her second skill, which gives her a single turn of high-powered burst damage. Much like Saber Alter, however, she’s a bursty AOE with no team utility. However, Lancer fares much worse due to her garbage NP gain, making battery supports mandatory to let her function.

Altria Pendragon (Santa Alter)- Santa Alter has the same scaling on her NP as her original Alter self. This on top of being a guaranteed NP5 gives her a similar role as an AOE beatstick. She’ll hit things hard but that’s about it.

Astolfo- There’s a lot of awful things to say about Astolfo, but being a bad farmer isn’t one of them. He’s fast and efficient due to having an interlude and a massive NP battery that makes him event CE friendly. His bases are so horribly gimped (1% Defensive NP gain why?) that he won’t be useful for much outside of that though.

Chevalier d'Eon- d’Eon is a niche tank whose saving grace is the coveted 3 turn duration on their taunt. Unlike George, unfortunately, d’Eon doesn’t have much else to offer besides better base stats and a less selfish star weight.

Elizabeth Bathory (Brave)- As a Saber, Liz is somewhat well off. She’s primarily carried by being a NP5 statstick, and she’s a decent option when other ST Sabers aren’t available.

Elizabeth Bathory (Halloween)- Caster Liz for the longest time had one of the best Innocent Monster variants in the game, giving her a niche as a support crit Caster. As an offensive servant, her damage is mediocre at best and in the utility department there are better budget options. Fun fact: Her Mana Burst’s burn tick lasts 10 turns.

Elizabeth Bathory- Liz’s claim to fame is having one of the most universal damage amps in the game: female Charisma. Paired with her NP upgrade, she has a strong farming niche. Compared to the other Lancers, however, her kit is heavily dated. She’s best used as Poster Girl fodder as her Battle Continuation gives her a few turns of survival, and it fits into her niche as a damage amp.

Emiya (Assassin)- Kerry is a bit of a mess mechanically. He has a favorable hitcount spread (his Extra is a whopping 8 hits!), but it doesn’t do very much to offset his garbage base gain. He’s solid as a Arts pointman after his NP upgrade, at least, as he can ignore all forms of defense more often than not and drain NP. His list of teammates is very narrow however, with battery supports and servants that can use his Scapegoat being a necessity.

Gorgon- I'll be honest with you: without her NP's team battery effect Gorgon would be straight trash. But as she is right now, Gorgon is fortunately a very strong Merlin pointman for mixed class nodes, allowing the team to NP almost endlessly due to their passives.

Helena Blavatsky- Helena has a 20% team battery! …and that’s it. As a pure support servant she is a mess; her NP isn’t support oriented, her cooldowns are lengthy, and all of her abilities have worse scaling compared to other options. She’s definitely usable for farming, but unreliable for longer quests.

Jeanne d'Arc (Alter Santa Lily)- The trend of bursty, high-powered Saberface Alters continues. Jeanne Lily gets a battery on a short CD, making her more friendly for events. However, the same weaknesses as the other Alters apply to her as well.

Jeanne d'Arc (Berserker Alter)- It’s Beowulf! In a swimsuit! Despite what the poor scaling on her skills may suggest, Jeanne Berserker is a high-powered, class agnostic ST nuker. She’s a bit flimsy on the defensive side, but if you need to delete an enemy’s bar she’s your girl.

Kato Danzou- Danzou offers a unique form of utility through targetable Evade and Invuln in the same kit. This lets her protect the team from AOE and ST NPs alike with Poster Girl. Outside that, there isn’t much to talk about; she isn’t very good at farming due to her NP.

Kiyohime (Lancer)- Kiyo Lancer is another statstick. Her cooldowns are short, and as a Lancer she retains EX Madness Enhancement, giving her high facecard damage. On top of that, her NP gain is quite good in a ABB chain due to her 6 hit Busters. She’s pretty much only going to be used for hitting things, but in that role she’s quite good.

Martha (Ruler)- The only SR Ruler before Samba Quetz, Martha works as a unique anchor servant due to her class, durability, and ability to Buster brave chain. She’s quite deadly against a small portion of enemies, particularly Divine servants. However, her lack of upfront hard survivability or damage relegates her to niche scenarios only.

Martha- Martha packs two valuable forms of defensive utility: debuff clear and buff removal. Riders generally make poor support classes, however, and Martha is no exception. Either Plugsuit or Poster Girl her once you’re done.

Marie Antoinette (Caster)- As a support Caster, Marie suffers from the same issues as Helena: lack of damage amping, non-support oriented NP, and obnoxious cooldowns. Marie’s base stats and kit give her some use as a pointman against Assassin enemies, but she is outclassed hard as a general DPS.

Mochizuki Chiyome- Chiyome is an Arts Assassin with an emphasis on DoT damage. This would make her an “SR Serenity”, and unfortunately she fits that description to a T. Her Attack is the second-lowest of all Assassins, only beating Consort Yu in Attack by a wide margin. As far as damage amping and utility goes, she’s also lacking. Even so, she can still NP reliably and play into Arts’ slower style of play well.

Nero Claudius- Nero tends to be vastly overrated as an anchor. She has a guaranteed three turns of survival with Thrice Setting Sun, and is obnoxious to kill in general when Imperial Privilege’s Defense buff procs. However, she neither contributes much to the team nor is her damage good enough to be a reliable anchor. Hinging on IP to have any effectiveness hurts her greatly.

Nezha- Nezha is generally better than most of the farming Lancers below her due to packing an NP battery. She is a bit one-dimensional as a damage-dealer, but she crits ok and gets the job done.

Nitocris (Assassin)- Assassin Nito is an Arts-flavored Rider tank. Her damage amps are quite good, but her NP’s IK chance isn’t. This leaves her a bit wanting as a pointman.

Nitocris- As a Caster, Nitocris is the best farmer in the game, with a provision—everything she faces is either a bronze or silver enemy. She relies heavily on IK procs to clear beefy waves of enemies. On top of that, her NP battery is massive and makes her a viable event CE holder. She even has some use in hard content since she requires no babying, just damage amps…and lots of them. Her damage is so awful when not IK’ing mobs that she’s rarely used outside of farming.

Nursery Rhyme- Much like Nitocris, Nursery Rhyme suffers greatly from not having a damage amp. Her actual kit is quite strong; she can AOE drain, crit, and keep herself alive easily. Unfortunately, even an interlude does little to fix her damage problems when her bases are so low already. Make no mistake—she can be an excellent pointman. She just takes a lot of investment to get there.

Penthesilea- Penth is a glass cannon—maybe more “glass” than “cannon” unfortunately. With the second-highest Attack of all Berserkers, her trick is hitting as hard as possible with facecards and using her NP to set up an overkill Arts, and NP again to stack Attack Downs. Unlike the majority of Berserkers, Penth has no survivability whatsoever. She can stave off debuffs, but anything tougher than a stiff breeze will off her almost instantly. As a pointman, she needs a lot of babying but she hits like a truck in exchange.

Qin Liangyu- Qin is a niche anchor servant. She wants to stack her NP repeatedly like Hozoin or Qin Shi Huang in order to hit hard and punish enemy crits. She has some hard survivability in a two-time Guts, but she’s an odd fit for most teams to run as a pointman.

Queen Medb (Saber)- Gimmicky Arts semi-support. Her Attack stat is atrocious, having the lowest of all gold Sabers after Saber Lily, but she can make up the difference by stacking the Nice Shot! debuff from her NP. It’s a Defense Down that can proc up to five times, and she has easy access to it thanks to her battery. She’s very hard to get off the ground as a pointman, but her gimmick is quite strong and she has decent damage amps in her kit overall.

Rama- Rama only does one thing, and he does it well. Every four turns something explodes…provided you can feed him stars. He’s barebones as Buster DPS servants go, but if your primary concern is hitting like a truck then he fits the bill perfectly.

Thomas Edison- Currently the only servant that can give other servants access to their 500% overcharge; the alternative is using CEs. While his primary support, boosting OC, seems gimmicky, he can also work as a potent defensive support with investment. He has reliable access to his NP, which forces enemies to facecard with little chance of critting. He can even supply stars to give him synergy with servants like Emiya Alter or Muenori. His list of partners is narrow, but in the right teams he can bring a great deal of survivability.

Ushiwakamaru (Assassin)- Ushi beats out Carmilla in Attack among all SR Assassins. As Quick DPS’s go she’s good if a bit gimmicky. Her NP purges Attack buffs from enemies (?) and she can randomly remove buffs with her facecards. Her damage is flimsy and her utility is unreliable, but for farming she’s at least serviceable.

Valkyrie- As unfair as the comparison sounds, Valkyrie is really just a worse Parvati. Her base NP refill is quite good, but in practice it’s a worse than the traditional refill farmers. This is due to her lower Attack and steroids leaving her far less likely to overkill enemies. Paired with her weaker skills and longer cooldowns across the board, and you get a servant who is too different from Parvati to be rated even slightly below her.

Wu Zetian- The Empress has respectable base stats and steroids to go alongside her ST NP, making her a workable pointman for Quick teams. Her primary use, however, is for damage amping; toss a Poster Girl on her and she’ll put in work.


C
Altria Pendragon (Lily)- While Lily does have a well-deserved reputation for being a poorly-designed welfare, she’s still a strong farming servant. She has the highest scaling of any AOE NP in the game, making her a nuke despite her atrocious Attack stat. If you’re lacking in AOE Sabers that are at least NP2+, or you just need another bond sink, Saber Lily is absolutely worth using.

Chacha- Chacha is a mess. Her Defense Down is powerful in that its duration is the same as its cooldown, and she can provide her own stars. She can even leverage her Berserker NP gain using her first skill. However, she still lacks a damage amp and survivability, which hampers her usage in anything but farming.

Frankenstein- Fran not only gets higher scaling on her NP than usual, she also gets an interlude to further boost it. Much like Chacha, Fran is a farming Berserker…and that’s it. She’s arguably worse off because her NP stuns her, but she hits hard enough to not be a dud for farming.

Gawain- The strongest of King Arthur’s knights got done dirty. His entire kit is focused on damage amping an interlude-less NP at the expense of any utility. While he does have a battery to make him easier to use for farming, he simply doesn’t hit hard enough to compensate for lacking in other areas. He’s unique for his Buster deck among the gold Sabers, but you would unironically get more from using Fergus as an anchor.

Helena Blavatsky (Archer)- Helena is one of a rare breed of AOE Arts Archers, but she suffers from exactly the same problems as the original: long cooldowns, weak scaling, and bad cards. Really, 3-hit Quicks with 0.38 base gain on QQAAB? She can be a niche pick against enemies with extremely high defense values due to her Damage Plus, but the rest of the time she will be mediocre for anything other than farming.

Medea (Lily)- Medea Lily was DW’s first attempt at making a “white mage” type character. Their second attempt was far less successful, but Medea Lily is at least a novel showing of the concept. She’s amazing at just healing, and every few turns she can cleanse the party’s debuffs. On the downside, she neither has any offensive presence nor does she have any hard survivability to pair with her healing. Basically, she overspecializes in her role. She can still work as Poster Girl fodder, but as a pure support she’s greatly outclassed by servants who heal less but actively keep the team alive.

Scathach (Assassin)- AOE Assassin with decent offensive presence thanks to piercing invuln and having two strong damage amps. Like most of the other servants here, she’s weak at anything besides farming, and her deck doesn’t help matters.

Stheno- Stheno being the worst SR is a meme that’s long been dead. She’s still very niche, but with investment she can work well as a support. Her base stats are good, her cards are good, and her skills are even great; her NP was always the weak link. Fortunately, buff removal now gives her utility against non-Male enemies. Her overall usefulness is still dependent on your team however.

Tamamo Cat- The cat that looks like a fox and goes woof can be crudely described as a weaker Fran that is no longer punished for using her NP. Not much else to say.

Yan Qing- Widely regarded as one of the worst Assassins until recently; his buff has done wonders for his damage output. He’s still conceptually flawed as a star generator, but there’s reason enough to use him outside of that role and not be terrible at it now.


D
Beowulf- Beowulf has always lived in obscurity among the SRs, even if he was never outright bad. However, Jeanne Berserker has completely replaced him in his role as a bursty ST DPS, so he sits in D until he gets rebalanced.

Marie Antoinette- Say hello to the worst anchor in the game. Marie has absolutely nothing to her name other than a situational Charm and a PfA-based invuln. Maybe you can use her for farming since her NP got upgraded? Lack of damage amping suggests otherwise. Viva la D tier!

Medusa (Lancer)- Ana is a mess. Underpowered skills with long cooldowns paired with bad cards and stats are a damning combination. At the very least she has an upgraded NP, so if heavily babied she can work as a pointman with Skadi. Fun fact: Her NP refill when buffed by two Skadis is 6%. 6%.


E
Irisviel (Dress of Heaven)- Iri is my pick for worst SR in the game. She's not only significantly outclassed in her niche by another servant--who isn't very good on their own merit no less--but utilizing her gimmick requires that she be an active detriment to the team's survivability. Guts with weaker healing and no other utility does not a good support make. Further harming her usefulness is her atrocious NP gain; this comes despite her Caster deck and in-kit NP gain buff. Finally, she has been a niche pick for all of two CQs--and on both occasions she was far outshone by servants that don't want to get themselves killed. There's no sugarcoating it--Iri is just trash.

Yu Miaoyi- It is to the disappointment of cultured men everywhere that Consort Yu gets dropped into the E bin. She has commonly been described as "an NP spammer that is punished for using her NP", which perfectly encapsulates everything wrong with her. This probably would not be as much of an issue if her Attack stat was at least usable, or if she was just a gimmicky welfare servant. But neither is the case; her effective Attack stat is lower than Saber Lily and she's story-locked. On the bright side, there are a few ways to fix her. Until we get new strengthenings however she's one of the worst SRs in the game.