Koyanskaya vs Oberon - Who to roll for?

With the arrival of the 6th Anniversary of Fate/Grand Order as well as Lostbelt 6 many players are unsure whether to prioritise Koyanskaya or Oberon. Should you roll for the enabler of the Buster Reloading meta Koyanskaya of Light or the NP Damage support Oberon?

While this post is mainly aimed towards the Free-to-Play playerbase, who may or may not have been saving up in anticipation for Lostbelt 6, a look at the two Servants should be of use for everyone. If you just want the short answer now: In general it is highly advised to roll for Oberon first, as Koyanskaya of Light returns early January next year, while it took the japanese version a total of 18 months to provide another chance to get Oberon.

Koyanskaya of Light

Koyanskaya of Light, also known as Tamamo Vitch, arrived on the japanese version of FGO with the 6th Anniversary. A lot at her skills quickly showcases one of her unique features: Her first Skill Innovator Bunny A is not only a 50% targetable battery, already putting her up there with the likes of previous Meta support servants in terms of charge, but also reduces the skill cooldowns of the targeted Servant by 2 turns. Players quickly discovered that this can be combined with the Atlas Institute Uniform to get a total of 6 turns of cooldown reduction for a servant.

Vitch's gameplay is as follows: Abuse the cooldown reduction on her skills to let a Buster AoE NP Servant reuse their battery skill. A quick look at some of the common candidates with 50% starting charge like Altria Pendragon (Lancer) and Space Ishtar reveals that they tend to have a cooldown of 6 turns on their battery skills. This means that a full reload with two Vitch and Atlas Institute Uniform, letting you charge for a total of 200% with just battery skills, combined with a Kaleidoscope CE this allows these Servants to use their NP three times in a row - buffed up thanks to the Foxes other skills providing buffs to Buster cardmod and Special Damage against Man Attribute targets.

Oberon

Oberon, introduced with the third batch of Lostbelt 6 chapters on the japanese version, is immediately more confusing with this kit, specifically his third skill, which starts to rival some Yu-Gi-Oh! cards for amount of text for a single effect, but is also where his main advantage is hidden: He increases the effectiveness of NP Damage buffs by 100%. This applies to everything from his own 30% NP Damage buff on his first skill (which also happens to give 20% party charge) to the 80% buff on The Black Grail, for a total of 220% NP Damage buff without any mystic code or buffs from the damage Servant themself. Compared to even strong choices such as Fragment of 2004 Oberon will usually nearly double your damage output on the last turn.

In an attempt to balance this insane skill there is a potentially fatal demerit: At the end of the turn the buffed Servant will lose all of their buffs, be put into Eternal Sleep (Unremovable and will not wake up when damaged), target-focussed for 3 turns and be banned from being swapped out. This essentially means you need to make the turn count to clear the fight. Furthermore his second skill, a 50% targetable charge, also has a demerit that will drain 20% charge at the end of the turn, which could become a problem when used in Quick or Arts comp.

Oberon's gameplay is simple, on the last wave of a battle swap in, charge the damage Servant for 70% and apply a massive amount of buffs for insane damage. While he has a 50% Buster buff, he also works just as well with Quick and Arts, since his massive amount of charge and unprecedented amount of NP buff potential is card type agnostic.

What can they do together?

Players on the japanese Version very quickly discovered that these two units work together insanely well. Basically any buster damage servant with a 30% or 50% battery and a cooldown of at most 6 turns was suddenly viable for a new 3 Turn system with a damage potential way beyond what the 90+ difficulty introduced to deal with Castoria's dominance in farming. Together with the Append Skill Load Magical Energy providing 20% additional starting charge even 30% batteries could now be used.

A skill cooldown of 6 turns on the 30% Battery skill is reduced as follows: Going from Turn 1 to Turn 2 will of course reduce it by 1 to 5. Using the skills of both Koyanskayas reduces it by 2 twice, down to a single turn, which can now pass since we already charged for 100% on the second turn. This of course works just as well for 50% Battery skills, as long as they do not have a longer cooldown.

The only limitations of this system are the requirement for the Chaldea Combat Uniform mystic code to swap out one of the Tamamo Vitch for Oberon. Decisive-Battle Chaldea Uniform was later introduced as a new option, also providing the ability to perform Order Change. The upside? Compatibility with 50% starting charge CEs, working in 90+ nodes where Quick and Arts may have problems with refund due to less than 3 enemies per wave and high HP counts as well as damage so massive that the developers had to later introduce a 90++ difficulty just to deal with Oberon, who is especially perfect for this system.

So who do I roll for?

Since our release schedule differs from the japanese version due to our earlier Anniversary Date it may also happen that the two banners overlap. Should that be the case you would definitely want to roll for Oberon first and then use your remaining funds on Koyanskaya of Light. Otherwise as mentioned above the short answer is: Oberon. Unless you want to wait for potentially 18 months and possibly struggle to deal with the new 90++ difficulty. If you're a whale or have somehow saved up around 1600sq or more you could just have 900sq for each banner to guarantee both anyways as Anniversary events tend to give plenty of Saint Quartz and other rewards including Summon Tickets.

The long answer is more complex. Since Oberon is mainly an auxiliary support for further damage increases, his usefulness depends on you already having working farming systems. If you already have working setups using previous metas you likely can get away with Oberon's additional charge skills to alleviate refund issues by swapping him in to provide additional charge.

If you're missing the units for these comps, Buster may be your entry point to 3 turn farming. While being able to clear 90++ content is of course the most AP-efficient use of your time, being able to clear any difficulty starting with 90 is still what makes the endgame of Fate/Grand Order. In the end you have to ask yourself what playstyle you are working towards and pick your choice based on your account and your own goals.

Also remember that our Clairvoyance from the japanese version only goes so far. Oberon may return earlier than planned while Grand Nerofest Rerun is coming soon.