In Fate’s lore, all Servants have ties to Human History, be them historical or mythological figures. But what if, they didn’t? These are the Foreigners, those that exist outside the specific scope of humanity. Usually have ties to the Elder Gods of Lovecraftian Lore, or hail from outer space.
And these are the Top Seven in Fate: Grand Order! Like with the Avenger list, there aren't that many Foreigners, so a top Ten list would just ignore one person. This covers the USA version as of May 2024, so any future releases in June or the coming months won’t be included.
7. Abigail Williams
A good girl despite the Elder God using her.
- Decent team support
- Powerful Noble Phantasm
- Noble Phantasm strips buffs
And what will become the motif for this list, this is indeed the same Abigail Williams that was responsible for the Salem witch trials. This is a rare positive characterization for her. AND THIS IS THE ONLY FORM SHE HAS, PLEASE IGNORE ALL OTHERS.
Ahem.
Her skillset is a bit weird to say the least. She has three Arts cards, but has low NP Gain on her cards and she has a Buster Noble Phantasm. Thankfully, she has an amazing first skill, one that got better after a Strengthening. It gives the party NP Regeneration and a buff to NP Damage, and then gives Abigail a good amount of NP!
Her other skills do help her, but she is burdened by not having the best damage around and having no real hard defense options. Her second skill can inflict a Stun that can randomly kick in over the next three turns while decreasing their Defense, and her third drains the Charge and lowers the Attack off one enemy. Abby does need a bit more help to survive longer battles.
Her Noble Phantasm however provides a powerful effect in the form of stripping any and all buffs off the enemy upon activation. Then it hits hard, really hard. Oh, and it decreases Critical Rate for the enemy hit. That helps.
She’s not the best around, but I think she’s better than the other Foreigners due to her having the ability to strip buffs, and provide for the party. She’s also cuter too. That tends to be in the plus column.
6. Voyager
All the cool kids come from outer space.
- Noble Phantasm Looping
- Can help the party charge up NP
- Critical Support
Yes. That is the Voyager 1 space-probe turned into a little boy that resembles Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Little Prince. FGO is just like that. He’s adorable and amazing. If you can get him…get him!
First and foremost, his damage is on the low side of things, but that’s okay. His real role is supporting the party. And his first skill gives Voyager a huge amount of NP, immunity to Debuffs, and ten Critical Stars to get the ball rolling.
His second skill is mostly about him, but at least it keeps him alive. An Evade for one turn, Quick Card buff, and lowers a targeted enemy’s resistance to Quick. This is all meant to work with his Noble Phantasm, but hey. With a Quick orientated party, it turns his mediocre damage into something more potent.
His third skill really ups the Critical game. It makes one ally draw more Critical Stars to their cards while also buffing the entire party’s Critical Damage and a rare resistance to Critical damage. Build up the stars and then turn one character into a damage dealing machine!
Voyager’s Noble Phantasm is amazing! It doesn’t just do damage to all enemies with a NP Damage buff at the start, it also gives 20% NP to the entire party! (With 10% given to Pseudo Servants AKA returning characters that weren’t Servants originally) It also does more damage to those of the Sky/Heaven attribute, but eh?
Like I mentioned, his damage is low, but it can go incredibly high when supported. I have a Foreigner team consisting of him, the next person on the list and the top Servant. He’s a major support of Critical damage and the next person on this list can take that even higher!
5. Jacques de Molay
Do you have a moment to hear about my savior, Baphomet?
- Decent team support
- Amazing skills
- Decent wave-clearing
Fate: Grand Order has an Arcade version…only released in Japan. That one is a different version of the game, with wildly different story beats and some exclusive Servants. That latter part does tick off a few members of the fandom. People will never forgive the arcade!
One of them was Jacques de Molay, the last head of the Knights Templar…as a guy. The mobile version got this version of him, one who actually formed a contract with the demon they were accused of being with that got them executed (Because the King of France didn’t want to pay the Templars) and then the demon turned her into a girl.
Yup, FGO.
Oh, the character! Okay, all three skills are amazing. First skill gives an Attack and Critical Damage buff to the entire party, while also providing a good amount of NP and applying the Evil trait to the party as well. Second skill grants Molay a great amount of NP and Invincibility, while granting the latter to all Evil teammates. And her third skill grants Critical Stars regeneration, a Quick Card buff and makes Molay do more damage against enemies with Curse.
And she can inflict Curse thanks to her Noble Phantasm. It hits all enemies, Curses them, makes them take more damage from Curse, and before all of that, you get a buff to Noble Phantasm Damage depending on how much Overcharge you have. Being a Quick-orientated Servant, Molay can use her Noble Phantasm a lot more often than others!
Originally, I put her lower than Voyager, but looking at a practical viewpoint, she is better. Better damage and Invincibility. But that being said, she and Voyager do get along really well; he can help build more NP for her to spam her Noble Phantasm more often. And then there’s the number on the list, and that’s one of my best characters.
4. Yang Guifei
She exists!
- High ST Damage
- Tank
- Arts-focused
What I mean by that is that she came out during one New Years event, and she didn’t really get to do anything until several months later. Kinda one of those Servants that popped in and exists. Maybe get a line here or there?
Not helping is that she didn’t get off to a good start. Her first skill Draws Fire to her while providing Invincibility, regenerates some NP each turn and some Critical Stars. Sounds good, right? Well, the Draw Fire used to only work on Male characters.
It did get buffed to attract all attention within the year. It’s also meant to work with Yang’s third skill. It buffs her Defense, but adds a special effect to her that triggers whenever she gets hit. It lowers the attacker Defense and inflicts them with Burn for each attack! And that’s really important when it comes to her Noble Phantasm…
…Her second skill before that! It decreases all enemies’ defense and drains their Charge to put it into her NP gauge. This allows her to get her Noble Phantasm up a lot faster; a single-target Arts that does a great amount of damage and Burns them. If the enemy already has burn, they take even more damage!
This does mean that she has another problem as well, one not so easily fixed by a patch. In order for her to reach her highest damage potential, Yang either needs to work with other Servants that can inflict Burn, or you need to outfit her with Command Codes that can do the same. But with the right setup, and she’s killing bosses!
3. Katsushika Hokusai
Pain is a part of the word ‘painter’ after all.
- Arts AOE Noble Phantasm
- Good, reliable damage
- Great defense-debuffer
Remember her from the Top Saber list? Yeah, her original version is also powerful. As a small reminder, the girl you see is the artist’s daughter Oei and the little squid floating around is the legendary artist himself. He got turned into this after meeting an Elder God, said: “cool, bro” and left.
FGO.
As an Arts-focused Servant, she’s built for using her Noble Phantasm more often. Her first skill gives her a layer of Evade to work with and a great amount of NP to help fill any gap she might have. And her second skill grants her an Arts buff, while also making her immune to Debuffs and preventing her buffs from being removed.
Oei’s third skill is her best one, and it got better thanks to a recent buff. It makes her Arts cards lower the enemy’s defense with each attack. Seeing how she has three Arts cards and her Noble Phantasm is also Arts, she can really melt enemies. The buff also provides some Critical Stars and draws them to her Art Cards to build more NP and really do even more damage with the defense debuffs!
Now her Noble Phantasm isn’t that special. It just does damage, a lot more if they have the Human attribute. But with her ability to refill her NP and because the Noble Phantasm can hit all enemies, she can clear out waves quickly. And with her third skill, it can lower their defense to really burn up all of her foes!
2. Koyanskaya of Darkness
Yeah, trust her totally
- Buster support
- High damage
- AOE Buster Noble Phantasm
Remember Koyanskaya of Light from my previous lists? Well, this is her other version! It’s a long story involving the Tunguska Incident, and I already used up all of my ‘FGO is weird’ jokes. Anyway, this version is familiar but different to her Assassin. Both are Buster support, but Darkness is more focused on doing damage on her own.
Her first skill provides a party-wide Buster buff, a great amount of NP, but then it comes with a debuff. For all Homindade Servants in the party (Which is most of them), it prevents them from getting Critical Stars to their cards. This means that Koyanskaya will be the only one capable of getting Crits, unless you pair her with Animal Servants.
Which is intended as Koyanskaya’s second skill provides an additional Attack and Defense to all of them in the party. This is a skill whose primary use is to provide just one Servant a NP Overcharge and allow them to gain Critical Stars with their Buster cards. Seeing how Buster cards usually provide no Critical Stars, that’s a step-up!
Her third skill is the one that really pushes her into damage-dealer territory. It grants Darkness the ability to ignore Invincibility and improve her Critical Damage. It also makes into a status effect monster by making all enemies take more damage from Burn, Curse and Poison. And hey! It also makes her inflict those three with her normal attacks!
Koyanskaya of Darkness’ Noble Phantasm wipes out enemy teams with some high damage. It first buffs her Attack before it deals damage. Then it removes their Offensive buffs and makes them take more damage from Buster cards. It also does more damage towards those of the Earth attribute, but yeah…
As you can see, Koyanskaya is designed to work with specific teams and fight against certain enemies. But she’s got some great damage output and works well with some top tiers like Melusine, and heck, with her Light counterpart! And there’s one more better than her:
1. Van Gogh
She is as beautiful as she is deranged.
- Critical Star Generator
- Rather high single-target damage
- Incredible support, more so for Foreigner teams
Hey, Clutchie! Good to see you again. Yup, I put her on the Top 15 Servants list, so obviously she’s the one for the top spot on her class list. I love playing with her, and usually pair her up with Molay and Voyager. A Quick-focused Foreigner team that absolutely murders Berserkers!
Her skillset is one of the most unique in the entire game. She’s all about Cursing herself, using it to build up her NP and transform them into Attack buffs. But she also provides for the party with an Attack, Critical Star Gather buff, and Evade and HP Regen! Combined with having access to a personal Guts, Van Gogh can take a surprising amount of abuse while helping out the party.
Being a Quick-orientated Servant with a lot of support means she pairs up incredibly well with Voyager and Molay. She can help their damage shoot up high and with their ability to generate oodles of Critical Stars, they can wipe out anything other than the Foreigner’s weakness of Alter Egos. And even if she was low-tier…
…I would still use her. Look at her. She’s perfect! (A perfect mess, but still!
