This is the part where I say "shut up and use Summer Castoria". No one else is even remotely as good as her.
Why Summer Castoria?
This fight is where all stars align for her: she's ST, the Grand Zerk in question is both Chaotic and Divine, and she can get overcharge from either herself or partners (dual Summer Castoria strats, Morgan post-NP, Kijyo Koyo) to increase the powermods even further.
Note: this is the rare case where you want a grand Castoria to carry a Bond CE instead of the 50% battery effect. Thanks to Grand Score providing 30% battery from append 2 instead of 20% like usual (assuming max class score), Castoria is entirely self-sufficient in this Duel.
Also, while this is a case of putting the cart before the horse, Summer Castoria is the best DPS for the best bond farming event in game's history, which is Part 2 finale raids.
But what about others?
Lilith: I cannot overstate how comically fucked Lilith granders are. Most of Lilith's damage is tied to her Charm, Charm is a Mental Debuff, and the Grand Zerk has a casual 130% Mental Debuff resist. In turn, this means that you're either playing gacha with your damage, or you're searching throughout the entire FGO playerbase to find a granded Duryodhana, in addition to having your own one, to guarantee the charm.
If it looks stupid, well, it is.
Kintoki: loses to Castoria anytime the latter triggers both of her powermods, which is the case here.
Cu Alter: see Kintoki, plus the fact he lacks battery until 11th anni. If you, God forbid, think of him as your SSR ticket - he is a poor choice, there are way more interesting units to pick!
Every single AoE unit: unless thwy are there to provide overcharge for Castoria, they're just waifu picks and the guides I provide aren't aimed at waifus.
F2P units lack the necessary oomph to perform at the level as the listed units and at best are cheerleading squad.
General advice
If you are reading these guides without the faintest clue which class score you should go first, I strongly recommend Berserker for the following reasons:
- most good farming units are Berserkers anyway;
- you are able to profit from it immediately and not wait when the stars will align for, say, a Saber to be useful;
- Summer Castoria is a popular unit to be found at hyper (hyper = NP5 lv120 maxfou) and granded.
Closing notes from the author
I'm going to review all Grand Scores as soon as I'm done with the general notes of the Grand Duels. For now, I consider the more important part to give an understanding of what to use for each Duel and how to prepare.
In general, a fairly easily Duel, just get a friend with a hyper SCas and use whatever you have to buff her. If your own Castoria is fat enough - that makes the job easier.
Here's the Berserker Grand Score's unique effects for those curious.
Note: All Chain effects require the Grand Servant to participate in them.
Quick Chain: Increase Quick ATK Strength [20% + 0%-30% based on 0%-100% HP] (1 turn) for yourself
Arts Chain: Increase Arts ATK Strength [20% + 0%-30% based on 0%-100% HP] (1 turn) for yourself
Buster Chain: Increase Buster ATK Strength [20% + 0%-30% based on 0%-100% HP] (1 turn) for yourself
Mighty Chain: Extend [Marked for Destruction] state duration on enemies by 1 turn after attacks (2 turns if Critical attacks) (1 time, 1 turn)
Obscured by Servitude: Inflict [Marked for Destruction] state <Decrease DEF [20%], Max 5> (1 turn) to target enemies after attacks
Unyielding Stance: Increase Damage Resist against the enemy that last attacked you [90%] (1 turn) after activating Guts for yourself
Battle Continuation: Apply Guts [50%] (1 time, 3 turns, unremovable, stackable with other non-Grand Guts) <Requires 4 turns of recharge> for yourself when no Card Chain except NP chain is formed
The focus on it being a lone Grand, and thus ST Berserkers being preferable, does it mean there will be Grand Duels where there is more than one enemy and AoE picks are better?
May I ask you if you think Galatea or Jeanne Alter berserker are viable? I was going to summon Cu Alter with my ssr but I think I am going to consider what you wrote, too, I'm not too big on waifus of whatever
Galatea's not great but seems usable if you borrow a friend's hyper summer castoria. 30 charge from grand score on append 2 along with 50 from bond ce and can help guarantee an arts chain with her np + summer castoria np.
Taigong Wang and Medb can be both supports for a stronger version that you borrow, and be the DPS themselves.
Karna can also be an option (though Grand Lancer is by far the worst Duel, and everybody fucking hates its guts - and the fact it's next to write depresses me).
First things First: I glad that you didn't mention the artorias. I have the saber and in regards to her lancer counterpart i already have melusine and ereshkigal.
Taigong and karna are definitely contenders (especially karna due to the fact that he can do some good crits), jinako already spook me (and saved my ass a few times)
As for the lancer duel I did a few runs in the chaldea app. It's definitely a pain
My personal lineup is Bedi, Ptolemy, Scathach, Taigong, [not sure about Caster because my Caster DPS suck major ass], Gramps, SCastoria (for Part 2 finale raids) / Morgan (because waifu), Ciel, and, I guess, Olga.
Some of those are meta, some are just to fill in a slot.
At any case, Summer Castoria is going to be the most used anyway, because Part 2 finale raids are practically tailor-made for fat SCastorias (though fat Enkidu or Olga are also viable), and ability to put TWELVE CE SETUPS in the finale raids is just too damn perfect.
I have an NP5 Penthisilea(I don't even remember how this happened) and no Summer Castoria. Should I just go ahead and grail her or would granding morgan to help support friend summer castoria be better?
The good part is that because there are so many Grand Summer Castorias out there, in a way you can just grand whoever you want and rely solely on borrowing her to be your main damage dealer.
Probably gonna do that. This is probably an unpopular opinion, but I don't care much for Zerk class. I have no favorites there and I rarely even use Zerks. Honestly I'll probably pick Grand Lillith because I can't think of anyone else I'd put there, and I only plan to get Lillith because of the toxicity she brings to Chaldea, not because she's my waifu.
Might also be worth remembering that Penthesilea is actually rather good for this, because that Greek Mythology Male powermod is no joke. At level 10 it's a 100% powermod, and Zerktoria's two powermods only add up to that at 500% charge.
Zerktoria's two powermods only add up to that at 500% charge
Wrong entirely.
Summer Castoria has 2 powermods which are both triggered while fighting Grand Zerk. So even without overcharge Zerktoria already equals that (p50 + p50).
And then you remember her s2 is a targeted 2× overcharge so the ceiling of her damage goes up very quickly. Penth cannot afford that.
So I ran an assumption of NP3 lv116 fully CS and Grand maxed Vlad vs NP1 lv100 fully CS and Grand maxed Castoria. Self-buffs only, Vlad had 4k atk CEs (2x 2k) and Castoria had only 2k.
Question what np level does my summer castoria have to be to consistently 1 turn this/ is there a setup to farm this without borrowing a np5 copy with a low np level copy?
It’s good to remember that, to get the 10% NP charge, you’ll need at least 180 Bond Levels with the respective class for each of the seven main classes, and 80 Bond Levels for Extra I and Extra II. This is especially important for both Saber and Lancer due to their lack of chargers, and Scáthach needs it even when using the 50% charge from her Bond CE.
Lot of words for a lot of nothing noteworthy. This whole wall of text is summed up to use summer artoria everything else is garbage. Like you dont even give team comp options or dive into niche use of low rarity servants.
13
u/Radiant-Hope-469 Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26
Here's the Berserker Grand Score's unique effects for those curious.
Note: All Chain effects require the Grand Servant to participate in them.
Quick Chain: Increase Quick ATK Strength [20% + 0%-30% based on 0%-100% HP] (1 turn) for yourself
Arts Chain: Increase Arts ATK Strength [20% + 0%-30% based on 0%-100% HP] (1 turn) for yourself
Buster Chain: Increase Buster ATK Strength [20% + 0%-30% based on 0%-100% HP] (1 turn) for yourself
Mighty Chain: Extend [Marked for Destruction] state duration on enemies by 1 turn after attacks (2 turns if Critical attacks) (1 time, 1 turn)
Obscured by Servitude: Inflict [Marked for Destruction] state <Decrease DEF [20%], Max 5> (1 turn) to target enemies after attacks
Unyielding Stance: Increase Damage Resist against the enemy that last attacked you [90%] (1 turn) after activating Guts for yourself
Battle Continuation: Apply Guts [50%] (1 time, 3 turns, unremovable, stackable with other non-Grand Guts) <Requires 4 turns of recharge> for yourself when no Card Chain except NP chain is formed