agoddamn:

This guide is intended to introduce people who are familiar with FEH to FGO. It’ll probably work for you if you don’t know either, but there’ll be some extraneous comparisons made.

Possibly most importantly, you don’t need to know anything about the Fate/Stay Night universe to play this. The first chapter will throw a lot of weird terms at you that might be hard to keep straight, but for the most part FGO is a self-contained story.

I’m assuming that you’ll be playing on the NA server. It’s three years behind the JP server, which has its ups and downs. Being so far behind on story and units kind of sucks, but it also means we have a complete roadmap of upcoming banners and events. Some QoL updates have come out faster in NA than they did in JP, but for the most part we don’t get a lot of curve balls.

Summoning

Unlike FEH, FGO has two basic summoning pools that are always available. One is the story summon, which you access with quartz (30 quartz for a full 10-roll, which guarantees a 4* Craft Essence or unit). The other is the friend gacha, in which you can get almost any 3* and under units and Craft Essences (equippables similar to sacred seals). You roll it with friend points, which you receive as a regular login bonus and often through events.

In addition to that, there’s typically a specific “event” banner going on. It’s not always tied to a specific event, though. These are what people typically roll on; the story summon pool has so many units in it that the chances of getting what you want are astronomical. Most event banners feature 1-2 5* units and 2 4* units with boosted drop rates. It’s still a slim chance to get what you want, but they are absolutely worth waiting for when it comes to specific units you want.

The event banner up right this second isn’t great, but I recommend rerolling as many times as you can tolerate for a 5*, since…you’re unlikely to see another for a long time, haha. This is a game about investment, so it’s important to pick up units you like, anyway. I started FGO hunting for Gilgamesh, ended up with Altera, and liked her design enough to stick with her. She’s a cool character. 4* units to keep your eyes out for when rerolling are Herakles and Emiya, but I won’t go into that because there are plenty of guides about rerolling out there.

Leveling

Unlike most RPGs, you level units with XP cards that you get from doing daily quests or rolling the friend gacha. Level cap depends on unit rarity: 5* to level 90, 4* to level 80, 3* to level 70, 2* to level 65, and 1* to level 60.

The only way to let a unit level higher is by using a Holy Grail, which gives every unit below 90 another 5 levels, and any unit above 90 another 2 levels. 100 is the hard level cap.

To make one thing clear: grailing is something you do for love. As you can see, it gives diminishing returns for 5* units; you use a Grail to let your favorite low-rarity servant gain some extra stats to play in the big leagues. Grails are very limited–as of now the JP server has collected a potential 28 Grails. I think NA has had 7 available?

Some people have compared grailing to promotion in FEH, but I don’t think it’s really the same because promoting is the endgame goal for every unit in FEH (except 4*+10s, but even those want to be promoted up to 4*) while it’s something very special and limited in FGO. You’re not expected to Grail, but you ARE expected to promote.

Similarly, skills. This is a lot of where FGO’s infamous grind comes in. You do need a lot of materials to upgrade skills, but here’s the other thing: you’re also not expected to fully upgrade skills. It’s literally not possible, in fact. You need a special item to take a skill to level 10, and that’s limited in the same way Grails are. As far as gameplay goes, most people only level a good skill up to 6 (the level at which you get an increased cooldown) and ignore whatever skills aren’t useful. The rank 10 items (Crystallized Lore) are saved for units you love.

Units

Almost every unit is good for something. 1-3* units typically don’t excel at DPS because of their lower stats, but you’d be surprised how far you can get on them.

Robin Hood: His attack looks low, but he really shines with his NP. Robin deals 1500% damage to one enemy and double that for a poisoned one with Yew Bow, easily outdamaging even 5* units. A boss nuker.

Euryale: Robin, but versus male targets instead of poisoned ones.

David: Interesting niche of a support-type Archer. He can buff attack and grant evade to the whole party.

Medea: The most accessible (only, at this point?) Caster with a single-target NP. Very easy to spam her NP every other round because of its extra charge effect and her self-charge ability.

Cu Chulainn: Possibly the best silver unit, period and even considered better than several 4* Lancers. Commonly known as the cockroach because his specialty is in refusing to die–his kit is perfectly designed to keep him alive.

Georgios: Great tank. Even with 2* stats, he can soak damage from an enemy with class advantage and just not die.

Leonidas: Another great tank. His NP further ups his defenses, so if you can fire it off on a regular basis he can become practically unkillable.

Hans Christian Andersen: Incredibly good support unit whose NP heals, buffs attack and defense, AND ups your crit chance.

Arash: He’s kind of a meme because his NP is a suicide bomb, but he has some good tactical applications. You normally can’t swap units between the front and back line during battle but with Arash you can use his NP to drop massive damage on the enemy and then welcome in a fresh unit.

Cursed Arm Hassan: Great partner for units that want to crit. He also has some deceptive durability with his final skill being a dodge similar to Cu Chulainn’s.

Asterios: Berserkers in particular suffer from the low stats of being a low rarity, but Asterios distinguishes himself with a particular niche: debuffing. That seems ridiculous, I know, but a popular way of dealing with powerful enemies is to debuff them into uselessness and outlast with your own team’s healing. It’s not a strat you’ll be able to employ right out of the gates, but the viability in the long term is solid.

Caesar: I don’t personally use this guy because I don’t like his personality, but he’s a rare Saber with a single-target NP and his skills are good besides.

Hektor: Full disclosure–Hektor is a pretty average unit. It’s just that I’m morally obligated to mention him, haha. That said, he packs one of the best stun skills in the game and you can access his NP upgrade very early, making it hit like a truck.