Starting in Fate: Grand Order can be a daunting task. The first real chapter of Orleans became infamous when the game debuted in Japan for the high difficulty. We got wyverns all over the place and they’ll murder you unless you’re packing some serious heat.
So I’m going to go over the best Servants you can get for free! These are the Top Ten Servants for Beginners, at least in the USA server as of July 2024. These all can be summoned from the Friend Point pool from the very beginning, meaning that any Story-Locked or Limited Servants will not be included. Somethings will change in the future when there are new Servants or opportunities to get higher ranked Servants, but let’s start with:
10. Euryale
- Male Slayer
- Can stall with Charm
- Can spam NP
The Servant that every single player will tell you to get. Without fail. Orleans might have been a rough start, but it’s Camelot that will stop any player that lacks Euryale. Or a late-game Servant, those tend to mop up Part 1’s content with ease.
A lot of Servants released early on did lack a third skill, but nowadays you can pick it up after getting Euryale up to her Final Ascension. And it’s a really great skill! An Arts card buff means she’ll do more damage with her Noble Phantasm and get more NP to use that Noble Phantasm more often! And helping her get NP up is her first skill; taking away the enemy’s Charge while gaining some NP in the process.
Her second skill only charms males, but that’s her motif. Her Noble Phantasm, when upgraded, deals a lot more damage towards Male units, while also debuffing their attack and charming them? This makes Euryale a go-to choice when dealing with Male Sabers and Berserkers!
Being commonly available also means that you can get as many copies as you need be, allowing one to upgrade her Noble Phantasm to the max level. Euryale is a fantastic unit early on and can bypass one of the more infamous fights in the game. She does the anti-male thing better than two units that are of a higher rarity than her too!
9. Spartacus
- Low cost
- Farming god
- Tons of HP recovery
He says war is tyranny, but really, he’s really good at fighting wars. Berserkers are generally more useful in the early-game, before the higher damage and HP starts to kick in and screw over the glass cannons known as the Berserkers. But one Berserker stands head and shoulders above the rest for one good reason.
Good luck in trying to kill him!
All but one of his skills restore HP back to him. His first skill restores HP each and every turn, and his third skill grants an immediate heal on top of a Buster buff. His third skill doesn’t do those, instead it allows him to negate death while gaining a great amount of NP. The Guts effect only restores 1 HP but with his other options, he should be fine.
And one of those options is his Noble Phantasm. Hitting all enemies is one thing. Ignoring defense buffs is another. And restoring his HP makes it a real powerful Noble Phantasm that’s worth spamming.
Of course, trying to get him to use his Noble Phantasm can be a bit tricky, what with him only having one Arts card. But he can last long enough to build naturally. Upgrade his skills as soon as possible and you got a guy that clear waves out like it’s nothing, saving time on farming!
8. Gaius Julius Caesar
- Damage Support
- Powerful Noble Phantasm that gets stronger
- Quick Boss Slayer
Sabers are meant to be the strongest class; so much so that for the first few years, Rank 3 was the lowest rank a Saber could be. But you only had two options in the beginning for a low-rank Saber: this guy or Giles de Rais. And Giles de Rais is the worst Servant in the game, in both forms.
So that left this guy until a later character did replace him, but that’s a story-locked character. Caesar only does damage. His first skill buffs the Party’s NP Damage and the second skill buffs their Attack. His third skill is a bit on the weaker side of things, but hey, they did buff it. It will lower the defense of the targeted character, but in exchange they get buffed Critical Damage and they generate more Critical Stars.
His Noble Phantasm, after his strengthening, did get a bit weird. Before it begins, it gives him an increased chance of triggering buffs, and that’s because the second effect can grant him an Attack buff, one for each stage of his NP level. So he can get a five-staged Attack buff provided that each buff goes off, and if one of the stages fail, the rest won’t trigger.
As for the Noble Phantasm itself, it does just deal damage to one enemy and gain some Critical Stars in the process. It gains some real raw damage output and it comes with a decent refund. It’s decent for what it does.
And that’s Caesar in a nutshell; decent for what he does. Once you get your hands on a good Saber, he’s gone, but for beginners, you can do no wrong.
7. Medea
- Can strip enemy of their buffs
- Immediate access to Noble Phantasm
- Noble Phantasm Looping
Most Casters fall into the category of support. This Caster doesn’t. And while most Casters prefer to shoot their enemies with magic bolts, Medea prefers to stab them again and again.
Having access to her Noble Phantasm thanks to her first skill is already amazing. And Medea can survive a bit more than others thanks to her second skill healing her, and on short cooldown too! And her third skill allows her or another ally to build more NP while cleansing them of those pesky debuffs.
And that knife she likes to use comes into play with her Noble Phantasm. Stab one enemy to remove ALL of their buffs, and then regain a lot of NP. More overcharge, the more NP that comes back. Seeing how Medea is commonly available and her first skill gives her 150% NP at max level, it allows her to potentially loop!
If you have a problem with a pesky assassin, then Medea is your witch. She’s pretty simplistic, but highly effective. Pair her with other Support units to make her even better, like the next guy on the list!
6. Hans Christian Anderson
- Low cost expense
- Amazing, if finicky, support
- Critical Support Expert
FGO isn’t really a game in which playing defensively is ideal. Enemies build up their NP each turn without fail, and you can only build NP if you get Arts or Quick cards. Still, lasting longer is always a good thing, and hey! Hans is good at that!
Like Medea, he has a skill that gives him a lot of NP, but it’s half as powerful as Medea’s. But that’s okay, it’s a really good Noble Phantasm! It will provide HP each turn to the entire party, while giving a chance to get an Attack, Defense and/or Critical Star Drop Rate. It’s hard to work with, but if you can spam it enough, you’ll eventually get them to stick.
His other skills are pretty amazing. His first skill buffs the party’s Critical Damage, while adding in specific buffs depending on the alignment of each party member. And his third skill grants one teammate regeneration of Critical Stars and NP.
Hans is weak, but he’s referred to as the budget Merlin within good reason.Easy to get, easy to use, and he makes things easier for you. Why not use him?
5.Robin Hood
- High ST Damage
- Well-balanced skillset
- Arts-based attacker
A lot of early game Archers are actually really good. While Euryale is really great, her damage is outpaced by the famous Robin Hood…who probably should be of a higher rank than he is. Oh well.
Robin is a fantastic single-target nuke, all due to the combination of his first skill and his Noble Phantasm. His first skill debuffs all enemies Attack and Poisons them, while his Noble Phantasm does extra damage to targets that are poisoned. The Poison effect actually lasts as long as the shortest cooldown of the skill, so you can keep a target Poisoned forever!
And to get his Noble Phantasm up quicker is his second skill, boosting his NP Gain. Seeing how Robin has two Arts and two Quick cards, he can build up pretty quickly. And helping him is his third granting him some Critical Stars to get that ball rolling, while also gaining Evade and the ability to void the enemy’s own Evade!
Robin is good for the early game when it comes down to fighting against Sabers and Berserkers that aren’t male, or heck, anything that’s not a Lancer! He does do better than Euryale due to him having an Evade, but having both is great. Heck, double the Arts!
4.Cu Chulainn
- Insane survivability
- Low Cost
- Easily capable of soloing or making a last stand
Ah, good old Cockroach Cu! This guy’s entire strategy is to stay alive no matter what the enemy throws at him. He’s got one of the most effective skill sets for the early-game, and it can work in the later game…provided that you aren’t fighting against someone that can pierce Evade or remove his buffs.
His Evade comes with a defense buff, so even if you do hit him, he’s taking less damage. He also comes with a skill that both heals and cleanses his debuffs. So if you hurt him, he can heal it back. And with a Guts skill that also grants him an Attack buff, so even if you do manage to kill him, he comes right back…
…and look, he just got a cooldown on his skills, so we get to do it all over again!
His Noble Phantasm pierces Evade before dealing damage, really great for the early-game as Evade is incredibly common. Even if the instant-kill effect doesn’t kick in, the defense debuff still does. His damage output might not be the best, but his ability to keep on truckin’ through everything is why you should keep him.
3. Arash
- One of the best AOE NPs in the game
- Low cost, ideal for challenges and farming
- Guts-based build allows for multiple use of his NP
The last Archer on this list, and a frequent guest of my lists as well. It cannot be understated how useful Arash is. Even early on, you want a nuke. And this guy is a damn nuke.
Arash’s Noble Phantasm kills him upon use, but it does so much damage. In fact, the Overcharge effect ups the damage even more! While it does take out Arash, it’s not perma-death. He can survive death if you can apply Guts to him. And you get to use his Noble Phantasm again and again!
His skills are mostly dedicated to getting his Noble Phantasm ready to go, or at least survive long enough to use it. His second skill boosts the Critical Stars he drops, so he can build his NP up quickly with Critical Hits. His third skill just grants him a good amount of NP to work with as well as recovering some HP, while his first one grants him a Defense buff and the niche resistance to being Poisoned.
Arash is brought along to challenges to kill off waves of enemies while keeping the heavy hitters nice and healthy. He’s well beloved for that reason, and he’s also ideal for farming any node that doesn’t have Lancers in it. A good amount of FGO is about farming and anyone good at it is an immediate shoo-in for lists like this.
2. Sasaki Kojiro
- Cheap and easy to work with
- High Critical Damage
- On-demand Evade and Debuff Cleanser
Remember when I said that Orleans was a notoriously difficult chapter when it first came out in Japan? Well, the difficulty could be reduced with this guy. The original Assassin of the franchise and the Savior of France! Sasaki Kojiro!
AKA the guy who got his ass handed to him by a boat oar.
This guy was already great, but they decided to buff him up thrice! His first skill (The only thing that wasn’t upgraded) grants him Evasion and higher Critical Hit Damage. And helping him with his Critical Rampages is his third skill giving him increased generation of Critical Stars while drawing stars to his cards AND making him pierce Evasion.
His third skill cleanses debuffs, grants him Critical Stars, and then makes his Quick cards debuff the enemy’s resistance to Quick Cards. Nutty, and then his Noble Phantasm buffs his Quick card performance before tearing up an enemy and granting some Critical Stars to work with. Being someone commonly available, you can get his Noble Phantasm maxed out pretty quickly!
Sasaki is amazing. Unless you get a higher-ranked Assassin that’s capable of doing everything Sasaki can do, he’s well worth your time and investment. And who’s better than him? Someone also commonly available:
1. Ushiwakamaru
- Low cost and very affordable
- Excellent team support
- Good damage for her rank
Yup, the best girl is back! If you want someone to main in the early game that’s easy to get, you get Ushiwakamaru. She’s insanely reliable, which makes her perfect for a beginner’s party.
Her first two skills buff the party in some useful ways. The first one grants the party increased NP generation while giving Ushi a Quick card buff, and the second buffs the party’s Attack, with Ushi gaining a Critical Damage buff and some Critical Stars to go with that buff. This skill set wouldn’t be out of a place for a Rank 5 character. You just have to go through some hoops to get all of the effects on the skills.
Her third skill only lasts for one turn, but at least having an Evade and being able to drop more Critical Stars helps with her Quick-focused loadout. And the Critical Stars keep on flowing with her Noble Phantasm, where you’ll get another Critical Star generation buff along with a high damage single-targeted attack. Ushiwakamaru remains on top as the best options for early-game Masters.
Now, with all of that being said, these ‘beginner’ characters can still be insanely useful even in the late game if you want to grail them. Grailing, also known by the official name of Paligensis, allows you to break the level cap of any Servant up to Level 120. These commonly available Servants can be grailed quite easily to help keep them relevant, but there’s an old saying regarding Grail Ascension.
Grail who you love.
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