The Clock Tower: Fate/Grand Order's Saber Wars 2018

Hello everyone, and welcome to Fate/Grand Order NA's most punishing, most masochistic event yet. Or is it sadistic? Either way, we're getting punished.

Saber Wars will run from January 4th, until January 18th, ending at 03:59 UTC, and is very similar to the GUDAGUDA Honnoji event, for those veterans that remember that. For the newcomers to Fate/Grand Order, we'll go over the event Craft Essences, Event Currencies, Battles and the inner workings of the event.

The Gacha & Currencies

Our featured servants are Mysterious Heroine X, Nero Claudius, and Altria Pendragon (Saber) (Alter) - better known as Salter in the community. However, like previous events, there are special craft essences in the Saint Quartz gacha that can improve the currencies we get in the event.

  • The Crimson Land of Shadows, 5★ - increases Vacuum Tube drop amount by 1 (2 when Max Limit Broken)
  • Mikotto! Bride Training, 4★ - increases All-Purpose Lens' drop by 1 (2 when Max Limit Broken)
  • Trueshot, 3★, available in the Friend Point Gacha - increases Transistor drop amount by 1 (2 when MLB'ed)

Did you think you were safe from the Point Grind we faced back during the GUDAGUDA event? Sadly, Altrium Points are points that will be giving us our copies of Altria Pendragon (Lily). This time, 2,000,000 of them will be necessary to clear out the Altrium rewards, and certain servants will get both attack buffs during the course of the event, and boosts to how much Altrium Points you get from quests

  • "S Tier" Boosts
    • 100% Extra Attack, 50% Bonus Altrium
      • Mysterious Heroine X, 5★ Assassin
      • Saber Lily, 4★ Saber
  • "A Tier" Boosts
    • 80% Extra Attack, 30% Bonus Altrium
      • Salter, 4★ Saber
      • Nero Claudius, 4★ Saber
  • "B Tier" Boosts
    • 60% Extra Attack, 20% Bonus Altrium
      • Altria Pendragon, 5★ Saber
      • Altera, 5★ Saber
      • Mordred, 5★ Saber
      • Okita Souji, 5★ Saber
      • Siegfried, 4★ Saber
      • Chevalier d'Eon, 4★ Saber
  • "C Tier" Boosts
    • 40% Extra Attack, 10% Bonus Altrium
      • Gaius Julius Caesar, 3★ Saber
      • Gilles de Rais, 3★ Saber
      • Fergus Mac Roich, 3★ Saber

If it isn't clear by now, this event favors those who actively rolled the Saint Quartz Gacha, and got lucky with Sabers. However, and this is important, players who were unlucky with the Gacha have an alternate route to farming.

The Battles, Purely Blooms, and Million Health Enemies

There are two gimmick Craft Essences, Purely Bloom, and Star of Altria.

  • Purely Bloom, 5★ CE, Increases ATK by 100%
  • Star of Altria, 5★ CE, Increases ATK of all allies by 50%

These two craft essences also have a Noble Phantasm Strength boost, and a Guts effect on them respectively, but those are irrelevant compared to the attack buffs they grant during Saber Wars.

These are important because the enemies players will be facing during the event will regularly have over 1,000,000 Health. The hardest battle will feature a Lancer-class enemy with 3,333,333 HP. Such HP values are incredibly difficult to take down without Purely Bloom and Star of Altria. Another fight will feature two enemies, one with 400,000 HP, the other with 1,068,025 HP. Prior to Saber Wars, these kinds of HP values were not seen in the game until now.

Easy Mode Quests and Hard Mode Quests

Players can get four Purely Bloom CEs from the shop. They cost 150 of any currency type each, and to clear them out, players will need to farm up 150 Transistors, 150 All-Purpose Lens, and 300 Vacuum Tubes. Unlike prior events, there are multiple places to get them.

  • Transistors
    • 20 AP "Novice" Difficulty Quest
    • 40 AP "Planet" Difficulty Quest
  • All-Purpose Lens
    • 25 AP "Intermediate" Difficulty Quest
    • 40 AP "Star Cluster" Difficulty Quest
  • Vacuum Tubes
    • 40 AP "Expert" Difficulty Quest
    • 40 AP "Galaxy" Difficulty Quest

Most players will find themselves being able to complete the Planet quest without too much issue, as they can expect only 28k HP Automatons, two 48k HP enemies of either Automatons or Wyverns, and a 202k HP Ruler-class Jeanne as the final boss.

The priority here is to rush the Purely Bloom Craft Essences as fast as possible, using Golden Apples if need be. Star of Altria will come from the Altrium Points, which can be acquired from any of the quests - though as the event goes on, players will find more and more "Challenge" quests, that grant an exponentially more amount of Altrium Points.

The Shops

There are 100 4★ (ALL) EXP cards available from Transistors, and 20 HP and 20 ATK 3★ (ALL) Fou cards available. Players who neglected their servants should rush the "Planet" quest, with 3★ Trueshot Craft Essences equipped, to get their servants up to speed. Past that, players will want to clear out the shop as according to what they need. If players need Dragon Fangs more than Dragon's Reverse Scales, then prioritize accordingly. In total, there are -

  • 10 Dragon's Reverse Scales
  • 20 Phoenix Plumes
  • 20 Dragon Fangs
  • 20 Void Dust
  • 10 Claws of Chaos
  • 10 Hearts of the Foreign God
  • 10 Saint Quartz

- available to the players to get from this event, as well as multitudes of Golden Apples, Mana Prisms, Crystallized Lore, and QP to get.

This is not a guide on how to clear the fights, as there are millions of potential Servant compositions between levels, classes, and craft essences. This is a guide to help hammer the knowledge into player's heads that Purely Blooms are OP, and without them, you end up getting a situation like this.

Don't rush the hardest content off the bat, and even though Sabers get bonus stats, make sure your team composition is not going at a disadvantage (cough cough Tesla is an Archer). Take your time farming up Purely Blooms and EXP cards if necessary - otherwise you'll be stuck fighting the same enemy for over twenty minutes.

Hey there! I'm Barclay-Kallistra, player of video games and piano. I first started playing MMOs with Vindictus, but now play FFXIV, and obsess over Fate/Grand Order.