How to build an Arts team

So you read the Quick guide and critting isn’t your thing. You’re all about the flashy NP spam life. Maybe you enjoy stacking buffs or playing around with overcharges. Well look no further, you’ve come to the right place.

Arts cards feature a 100% damage multiplier compared to Quick’s 80% and Buster’s 150% damage. Arts cards specialty lie in their ability to generate more NP gauge and bestowing that ability to other cards as well. When you use 3 arts cards in a row forms an arts chain, filling 20% of the NP gauge of any servant who appears in the chain. Arts teams center around Arts card chaining, filling up the the team’s NP gauge, allowing them to NP more often and destroy enemies. A large number of arts focused servants offer support to the entire team as well, helping sustain survivability or stall while also putting out damage to enemies.

A common theme among most strategies, teams function on the idea of having 3 core roles that are fulfilled by multiple servants.

This spot is dedicated to the core of your team, the servant whose main focus lies in getting the NP gauge filled up consistently, allowing the servant to NP spam often, making quick work of the opponent. These servants usually have a large number of Arts cards in their deck allowing them to Arts chain often, so they receive the 20% boost to the NP gauge often. This can lead to overcharge effects on your servants, making your NPs much more potent than normal, possibly putting out more damage or having much more powerful effects. Servants like Vlad, BB and Lancelot (Saber) are good examples of this role, pushing out high damage on their NPs and having a high amount of Arts cards in their deck.

The support assists the team in achieving its goals, be it by helping the team generate more NP gauge, keeping the team alive, giving arts boosts and so on. Once again, it is extremely important to have a high number of arts card in their deck to increase the chance of Arts chains. The support serves as the anchor to the team, holding down the fort and helping the fellow team members shine more in their roles. Servants that can fulfill this role are Hans, Waver, Tamamo and so on.

Now this is where the line blurs a bit. The staller can serve the same purpose as the support, however, its role is much more distinct as compared to the other members of the team. While the NPer focuses on putting out damage against enemies and the support assists fellow teammates, the staller’s main purpose is to keep the team alive so they can keep pushing out damage. The staller role can be filled by servants like Saint George, Mash, Jeanne and so on.

Now that you have the fundamentals of what makes up a basic Arts team, which servants synergize well and make a good team?

Now a small disclaimer that this squad is not the end all be all to Arts teams. There will always be variation depending on what you need and prefer to use. The samples being used are purely for example and are based on the servants owned.

Altria serves as the NPer, being the most potent single target archer in the entire game. Her NP gen is at a ridiculous level as well as having a deck built specifically for this purpose. Her deck allows her to Arts chain by herself while all her cards feature a high hitcount. This allows her to NP often, doing huge damage to enemies. Her skillset also works around this, boosting her damage and NP gen by boosting Arts performance. Her NP also has a chance to drain an opponent’s NP gauge on top of refilling her NP gauge on overcharge.

Mash serves as the staller, providing extremely potent defense buffs and taunt skills, allowing her to protect the team while also soaking up hits. Her deck also allows Arts chain with her NP, making it far easier to Arts chain with fellow teammates. Her 3rd skill also features a built in NP gen buff which is borderline insane. With lucky crits and a CE like Divine Banquet, landing an Arts card can fill the NP gauge to full. Her being a free servant also gives the potential for a 200% charge for her NP, making her overcharge skill more potent as compared to other servants. Her NP also buffs fellow allies attack power, allowing them to push out far more damage. Her shielder class also allows her to take neutral damage from all enemies while dealing the same. This is incredibly useful for a defensive servant like her.

Tamamo no Mae is the premium Arts support, appearing in any self respecting Arts team. She features an extremely powerful Arts buff on her 3rd skill, healing her teammate while also increasing the potency of her teammate’s Arts cards. This allows them to hit harder while also filling up their NP gauge faster. The rest of her skillset is defensive, allowing her to stay alive and stall opponents, ensuring the team stays alive longer to stay in the fight. Her NP is extremely strong, fielding a team heal, cooldown reduction and a NP refill on overcharge. This is extremely powerful in an Arts team, topping up the team members health while also getting them ready to NP once again. The cooldown reduction is much appreciated, allowing the team’s defensive or offensive skills ready up while the NP refill prepares the team for another round. Her deck also features an Arts chainable set, which makes her role as support even more prominent.

Jeanne is one of the best tanks in the meta, having the ruler class as an extremely powerful asset in her kit. She takes half damage from all classes besides Berserkers and Avengers, meaning that she can take hits without a care from most enemies. Her insane HP pool also further accentuates this fact, hitting a total of 16500 at level 90. Her skillset is great for stalling, being able to drop an enemy’s NP damage while also being able to stun enemy servants. Her other skill also generates stars passively for the team, helping them crit and generate even more NP. Her NP when upgraded through an interlude gives the team Invincibility, clears their debuffs, increases their defence and also provides a heal per turn on overcharge. This skill is extremely important in terms of stalling or keeping the team alive. She has a total of 4 Arts cards including her NP, so in spite of her low hitcount and not too amazing NP gen, she is able to fill her gauge relatively easy due to Arts chains.

While Merlin is mostly used for Buster teams, in general he is one of the most powerful support servants within the game. His second skill gives the team invincibility and bonus stargen for a turn. On top of this he sports a flat attack boost to the entire team which also has the added bonus of boosting the team’s NP gauge by 20%. The Hero Creation skill is used for its crit and health buff in this situation, allowing the damage dealer to stay alive longer while also critting harder on attacks. His NP gives the team NP and health regen as well as critical stars each turn. Merlin’s deck contains 3 arts card and his NP as well is an Arts card, allowing Arts chains to go off without much care.

Lancelot is one of the most powerful Crit-Arts attackers in the entire game. His entire deck has an amazing level of NP, allowing him to NP non-stop while the rest of his kit focuses on generating stars to allow him to crit hard with his Arts cards. This repeats over and over again, allowing him to push out a large amount of damage while filling up his NP gauge. His NP has an overcharge effect which debuffs the enemy, increasing the amount of damage that they take. When this NP is used consecutively, the damage can rack up on opponents, making each hit harder than the last. This is further strengthened by the Arts buff on his NP, making the damage even higher if he uses an Arts chain.

Of course there are many more CEs which you can utilize, and some more weird combinations, but those are left to your own discretion to use. There’s no right or wrong answer.

So you’re raring to go field your team like a boss and wreck enemies. Not so fast champ. You need to be careful of which cards you use, what chains you make, what skills to use, when to use them and so on. We’ll use the sample team from beforehand to show you some examples.

Here is a very standard showcase of how an attack phase would go in an Arts squad. The team selects 3 Arts cards, chains them and voila, in no time your team will be ready to fire off their NPs. Getting your entire front row is a good way to start, ensuring that everyone on your field gets the NP gauge boost.

Here the team makes use of Tamamo no Mae’s NP to Arts chain. This fills their gauge up while also allowing Mash to overcharge her NP gauge. Mash also benefits from the cooldown reduction on her skill, allowing her to get it back up again to protect the team.

When you’re ready to unleash on a boss, Archuria starts off by boosting the entire team’s attack stat on top of buffing her arts performance. Tamamo buffs Archuria’s Arts performance a second time, increasing her damage while also healing her. In this situation there are two ways to proceed. You can Arts chain the entire team’s NP, allowing the entire team to fire off 3 NPs in one turn and benefit massively from the overcharge effects. You can put Tamamo last if you want more NP refund, Mash if you want more defence and Archuria if you want to use her NP again soon. The other way of proceeding would be to simply use Archuria’s brave chain to end it quick.

That’s pretty much it. Mix and match servants as you wish, and if you follow the general advice given on this guide, things shouldn’t go too wrong. With Arts teams you have to be more careful in terms of your choice of actions. You need to be able to card count properly to make best use of the Arts cards that appear. Making sure that the team synergizes well is also important. With that said, there will be many various other methods of boosting your team’s performance. Maybe you don’t have Merlin and want to use Hans, maybe you think Waver is cooler and want to field him on your team. In the end, it’s all up to personal preference.

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