Sabers are considered to be the best Class in lore. In fact, Rank 3 used to be the lowest rank for a Saber until they added in a single Rank 1. Although it used to be much harder to get your hands on a high-ranked Lancer. Go figure.
And these are the Top 10! Of the North American server, as of April 2024. Sorry Charlie and Roland, you’re too new to be considered.
10. Katsushika Hokusai (Saber)
As it turns out, being a painter is the same as being a swordsman.
- Critical Hit Machine
- High ST Damage
- Can refund Noble Phantasm
Events Servants come in two flavors: either forgettable or super-busted. This girl is of the latter. And yes, that is the famous Hokusai of the Great Wave Off Kanagawa. No, it’s not the girl, that’s his actual daughter Oei.
Hokusai is the squid.
Oei basically serves as a better version than that of Lancelot in his Saber form. Both are Arts-focused Crit Dealers, but she does far greater damage. Her first skill gives her a good amount of NP to her along with some good amount of Critical Stars. Her second skill works well with that by attracting Critical Stars to her cards, while giving her some Guts to keep her alive.
And then there’s the third skill. Not only does it give Oei an Arts card buff, it also boosts her Critical Damage whenever she lands a Critical Hit. Meaning that she can do more progressively higher damage with each Critical Hit she lands. And that Arts boost not only improves her incredibly high damaging Noble Phantasm, it also allows her to build and rebuild her Noble Phantasm!
Oei does need some help; preferably someone who can fuel her Critical Hits and keep her alive. But with a little bit of help, she can murder bosses insanely quickly. And she’s free! If you did the event. Wait for a store to open to get her.
9. Okita Souji
A cough away from death. Her and/or enemies.
- High burst damage
- High ST Damage
- Multi-Hits Fuel More NP
The Quick Meta never really existed until Skadi came out. Arts had Tamamo and Buster had Merlin. Quick had no one, save for someone that didn’t even come close. But there were a few of the Quick Servants that were able to realistically compete with the meta, and Okita was one of them.
The downside to her stuff is that almost all of her kit only lasts for a single turn. So you need to go and use her stuff when you can best use her cards. Her first skill gives her a boost to her Quick cards, while also boosting the damage of her normal attacks while doing so. Her second skill draws Critical Stars to her cards, boosting her Critical Damage and giving her some NP to work with. Her third skill, which didn’t get upgraded, grants her Evade and a Critical Strength buff that lasts longer than one turn! Wow!
Her Noble Phantasm is notoriously strong. It ignores Defense while lowering the target’s Defense. While she doesn’t get much refund on her Noble Phantasm, her damage output and multi-hits are really high. Plus, having an Evade gives her a leg over Hokusai. Pair her up with Quick support and she goes even further!
8. Altria Pendragon
The one who started it all.
- Insane Damage
- Unique Buster gimmick
- Powerful farmer
The face of the Fate franchise, save for this game. It’s a bit of a recurring gag in Grand Order that she doesn’t get to do much save for flashbacks. And…she started out as the widely considered worst Rank 5 in the game. Thankfully, a brevity of upgrades shot her straight up! Even if the other versions of her get to do more in Grand Order’s story and events.
Her skills started off as being really generic and bad. She had Intuition, an infamous skill that only provided a pitiful amount of Critical Stars. It got upgraded to include a good amount of NP to Atria. She had a Buster Card buff that was just…that. It got buffed in a very interesting way; it did add a Noble Phantasm Damage buff and then..
IT TURNS ALL OF HER CARDS INTO BUSTER CARDS. This is unique. Some Servants can transform their Noble Phantasm into different cards, but this makes all of her normal attack cards into Buster cards. This shoots her damage into insane levels. She even has a good Attack buff for the entire party.
Her Noble Phantasm does good Buster AOE damage while also granting her NP back. Coupled with her ability to get Stars and NP Gain, she can get her Noble Phantasm up a lot more often! She does lack some defenses and you have to get her upgraded a few more times to get her up to good working order. I wish I had her. Only one of the original Servants from Fate Stay/Night I lack.
7. Altera
Are you a good civilization, or a bad civilization?
- All about damage
- Plenty of useful damage skills
- Good burst damage
Now, if you want some real raw damage from the get-go, then you get to get Altera. As in Atilla the Hun. Yup. She’s an alien in-universe.
Like the last character, she does need a lot of Strengthening, but she didn’t start out as being bad as Altria. Her first skill buffs the party’s Noble Phantasm Strength while stripping all of Defensive buffs off the enemy. No way the enemies can avoid her Noble Phantasm, or her Critical Hits when she uses a third skill to boost her Attack and grant her Critical Stars to use. And that third skill
Her second skill got improved twice over. Now it restores Altera’s HP, builds her NP, boost her Critical Damage, draws Critical Stars to her cards, and resists Attack Debuffs. She’s all about doing damage and making sure that the enemy cannot stop her. With her Noble Phantasm, she will hit all enemies and lower their Defense, further boosting the damage she does.
She does suffer a bit in terms of overall use, but that doesn’t mean she’s that far behind. Give her some support and Altera will start doing even more damage. And someone that can help her with that damage-dealing…
6. Nero Claudius (Bride)
Ugh.
- Excellent Team Support
- Good Noble Phantasm
- Capable of Spamming Noble Phantasm
…I don’t want to talk about Nero, I don’t like her…
…fine.
The Red Saber from Fate/Extra as she appears as a bride. The first version was also a Saber, a decent one built more for clearing waves. This one is a support unit, a good one at that. So…let’s…talk…about…her.
All three skills can be applied to any ally in the party. First skill improves NP Gain and increases the NP. Second skill improves Attack and Critical Star Drop Rate. And the third one recovers HP, improves Defense, and makes them do more damage towards those of the Heaven attribute. The Noble Phantasm does damage, inflicts Burn, and decreases Defense and Critical Hit Rate for the enemy hit. It’s also Arts, so she can use it more often.
…look, I do like this game, but I really do not like Nero. She is great, I just don’t care. But I’m not going to keep you from getting her. Go nuts.
5. Miyamoto Musashi
Suddenly I feel like eating udon.
- Unique skill that doubles her hits
- High damage
- Good challenge utility
A lot of Servants are defined by certain archetypes. Critical Hits, Buffing, Debuffing, Tanking, so on and so forth. Some of them are mostly the same, just in different classes. Some even have unique mechanics about them.
And Musashi has a special mechanic about her. She has the ability to double up her hits for one turn thanks to her first skill. While it does lower the damage on the second hits, it actually boosts damage of normal attacks first! And later this year, it’s going to get upgraded to last longer than one turn and add some resistance to attacks.
Doubling the hits helps her big time, in terms of either building NP, generating some Critical Stars, and/or doing damage. And her skills help her with sticking around or landing her hits. Musashi’s second skill allows her to Ignore Invincibility while boosting her Buster cards, and her third grants her Invincibility while removing her debuffs and allowing her to farm more Critical Stars.
And to make her do some real high damage, her Noble Phantasm is a Buster Single-Target that strips the enemies of their buffs and activates a NP Damage buff before it begins. It also does more damage towards the Moon Cancer and Alter-Egos. Which is…rare and not really ideal. But guess it helps?
Musashi was a New Years Servant, released around the same time as Merlin. He can take her high damage even higher. Musashi is one of my favorite Sabers in the game, and I would put her higher…if not for the fact that the next few are a bit better…
4. Dioscuri
No, not the DISCOcuri.
- Can farm NP/Critical Stars
- High damage
- Shines in Challenge quests
I did kinda want Dioscuri around the time when they got revealed on the Japanese servers, but they fell out of favor with me after I wanted some different Servants. Kinda a shame, seeing how powerful they are. Still want the Traung Sisters.
Castor the brother and Pollux the sister bring to the field a lot of passives, something I haven’t really brought up because they usually don’t mean all that much. These guys have seven, the most in the series and only shared by one other Servant.
They do have some unique skills. Their first skill improves their Arts and Quick cards by giving them the opposite effects; Arts generate more Critical Stars and Quick generate more NP. Given that their third skill improves those card types along with giving them an Evade, they can start to generate a good amount of Critical Stars and NP.
And because of this, their NP becomes pretty great. Their second sill improves grants the party NP Damage, Attack and a single-use Debuff Immunity. Their NP only hits one enemy, but it Ignores Invincibility and defense, while also decreases resistance to Quick and Arts. They can really tear down bosses, even more so the challenging ones!
3. Beni-enma
This list is making me hungry.
- Great team support
- High overall utility
- Capable of survival
I wanted her ever since I first saw her. I do love the art of the Disgaea series, but I didn’t like the first Servant the artist did. Beni-enma, known as the Gordon Ramsey of Fate, ended up as one of the best Sabers in the game, and a good support unit to boot.
Her first skill is just an appetizer. It provides Beni-enma an Evade and a boost to Critical Damage. That’s nice to have, but nothing compared to the first course of her second skill. Decreases Defense and Critical Hit Rate to all enemies, but it does heal the enemies by 1,000 HP.
The same effect is also present on her third skill, the main course. But 1,000 HP is nothing. It’s really nothing; even a Rank 1 Servant can do that much. The third skill heals the party for the same amount, while also building their NP, and boosting Attack and Buff Removal Resist.
Her Noble Phantasm does a lot of damage, even more so towards those considered Chaotic and/or Evil. Those two usually go hand-in-hand, so this gives her some great damage against certain Servants. She’s amazing, ain’t she?
While she does have generally low damage and low NP gain, she’s really fantastic in a lot of Saber-orientated parties, or for boosting stats. I love her! You should love her too!
2. Ibuki Douji
If you feel drunk looking at her, that’s what she wants.
- Insane Damage
- Powerful wave clearer
- Great use for challenges
I wish I got her. I do like Shuten-Douji, and Ibuki Douji is explicitly meant to be Shuten-Douji in a divine form. Ibuki can effectively be seen as a better version of Musashi, minus the multi-hits. She makes up for it with some high damage.
All of her skills improve her damage in some way. First skill gives an Attack buff with some high amount of NP, second skill grants a Buster buff with the additional benefits of increased Defense and Critical Stars, and the third boosts her damage against Undead and Critical Damage, while also sealing a targeted enemy’s NP. There’s no Servants considered Undead, only regular enemies.
If you want her to do even more damage, get her Noble Phantasm going. It Ignores Invincibility and defenses, while also decreasing their resistance to Buster attacks. Given her high damage and her already impressive Buster attacks…
She is amazing, and actually outdamages the top tier Saber. The reason she’s lower is because of the good old-fashioned reason of her not being an Arts characters. Blue is best in FGO, and that’s true for:
1. Senji Muramasa
Has a harem…of swords.
- Strong Arts AOE NP
- Capable of looping his NP on his own
- Pierces through defenses of enemies
The number one Saber is a guy that any fan of Fate should recognize. He’s the main hero of the original visual novel, and of course he’s strong. Stronger than his own Servant too!
Being an Arts focused character, he can use his Noble Phantasm way more often, and even build it fast thanks to his third skill giving him a huge amount of NP and the ability to gain NP off any card he plays. He can rebuild his NP so insanely quickly.
Another big thing is Murasama’s ability to destroy the enemies’ buffs. Be it having the ability to pierce through defenses or strip them off their offensive buffs, he can work insanely well in challenge quests or boss fights. The only thing he lacks is defenses!
There is a good reason as to why he’s the best Saber in the game. Murasama farms quickly and makes quick work of his enemies, working in a lot of different fields. And he’s got amazing synergy with the best Caster in the game too! You get him, and you’re set for life!
All images taken from Fate: Grand Order Wiki (https://fategrandorder.fandom.com/wiki/Fate/Grand_Order_Wikia)
