So, assuming I wish to suffer endlessly and stick my neck into the US release of this game, what servants should I be on the lookout for for starters?
Well, the easiest thing to answer is "which of the free 4* Servants do I want".
These are the potential Servants that you are
guaranteed to get on your first 10 roll. I haven't used all of them particularly much, so take my suggestions with some salt. I'll note which ones I actually do have.
Siegfried is very bleh. His main issue comes from the fact that his kit centers around fighting dragons, which doesn't come up that often (except in the second Singularity, but a lot of people have found that the 1* Assassin Sasaki Koujiro is more useful for dealing with the dragons, hence the memes). His other skills include a NP generation skill for himself, which is okay considering that he at least has two Arts cards, and a self heal/cleanse skill which is always useful.
D'Eon's main utility is as a tank, and they're very good at it, with an Evasion/defense buff skill, a cleanse/debuff resistance skill, and an aggro/self heal skill, along with their fairly good debuff/charm NP. Their damage output is okay, but really, that's not what they're there for.
*I own EMIYA* EMIYA is a fairly okay, at best, AOE Archer at the beginning, but the designers of the game recognized that he kind of sucked, so he gets quite a few power ups in the form of Interludes and Strengthening Quests throughout the game (though it will take some time to get those in the English release). When he's fully powered up he's quite good, with evasion skills, Star Generation+Crit damage skills, and a one turn All Card Performance up skill. His NP also hits pretty hard after its upgrade, does a decent attack debuff, and has enough hits to generate a fair number of crit stars, and he's pretty good at generating NPs with his 3 Arts cards.
*I own Liz* Elizabeth is /quite/ good in a Female team: her first skill is an attack buff that can be upgraded to double the buff for female characters other than herself, and she has a good defense down skill. She's also more survivable than most, what with her good HP and her Guts skill. Her damage isn't /quite/ up to par, but it's not bad, and her 3 Buster cards means that she still packs a punch.
Her NP is delightfully idoltrash.Marie Antoinette is... all right? Very tanky, with her second skill giving her Invincibility for three hits and a small HP regen, and her third skill gives a debuff resistance to mental effects and a larger one time heal, and her first skill is a bleh Charm effect on male characters. Her NP is useful, though, because it deals damage, removes debuffs from the entire party, gives a small heal,
and has a unicorn.
*I own Saint Martha, but haven't really used her* Another tank with self heal/debuff resistance, party heal/cleanse, and enemy buff removal+defense down. Her NP isn't anything special, just being AOE damage+defense down. Also, she's one of the Servants whose third skill is locked behind a quest because DW sucked at balance way back when.
Stheno kind of blows. I don't really care to go into details with her, but I would say that if there was one Servant you should absolutely reroll, it would be Stheno.
*I own Carmilla* Carmilla's pretty decent as a debuffer. She gets a NP drain skill from the get go, the same defense debuff skill as Liz, and, later, a crit chance debuff+NP stars per turn skill. Her NP is fairly good, dealing a decent amount of damage, healing herself, and giving herself an attack buff, but it's especially useful against female enemies. Her big flaw is that, for an Assassin character, her crit star generation kind of blows. That, and (for me personally) her attack animations are really boring.
If you roll Heracles, you are good. You are good if you roll Heracles, Rolling Heracles means that you are good.
Seriously, Heracles is a 5* Servant pretending to be a 4* Servant. Does massive amounts of damage and survives a lot of shit. That's pretty much all you want from a Berserker. If you max his bond with him, it takes /forever/ to kill him. He is good. He is very good.
Tamamo Cat is surprisingly good for a character whose character art is literally fanservice. Pretty strong, has a NP debuff skill, and can increase her survivability some with her third skill. Her NP, aside from being funny as hell, is a pretty good AOE Quick NP that gives her crazy regeneration for three turns, with the downside of stunning her for two of those turns. Her big downside is that she has the standard Berserker flaw of being fragile, and her defense skill and HP regen doesn't
quite offset her fragility, but otherwise I'd give her a thumbs up.
So, in short, for your first 4*s, I would say that you should keep d'Eon, Liz, Tamamo Cat, and EMIYA (with the caveat that it will take some time for EMIYA to truly get good), you should probably keep Marie, Martha, and Carmilla, you should only keep Siegfried if you want a bit of oomph against the enemies in France, you should absolutely re-roll if you get Stheno, and you would be absolutely nuts
not to keep Heracles, who would be the only 4* Servant I would consider being worth the headache to reroll for.
