Summoning Servants can be a very costly and frustrating task. This article will provide a guide on how to make the most of the player’s limited resources when it comes to summoning in Fate Grand Order/FGO.
There are three main ways to obtain Servants: with the use of Saint Quartz, Friend Points, and by finishing Quests. Each method differs in the chances for summoning, as well as the available Servant pool.
Saint Quartz summoning will allow the players to get either 3-5 star Servants or Craft Essences, at the cost of 3 Saint Quartz or 1 Summoning Ticket. The current rates are as follow:
| Type | Chance |
|---|---|
| 5-star Servant | 1% |
| 5-star Craft Essence | 4% |
| 4-star Servant | 3% |
| 4-star Craft Essence | 12% |
| 3-star Servant | 30% |
| 3-star Craft Essence | 30% |
Using 30 Saint Quartz, you can do a 10x summon, which guarantees that you will get at least one 3-5 star Servant and one 4-5 star Servant or Craft Essence. Because of this, it’s best to save up 30 Saint Quartz and do a 10x summon in order to maximize the chances of getting both a Servant and a good Craft Essence.
Some Servants are also only available after you have finished certain chapters in the main story. If you are trying to get these Servants, remember to finish their chapters first before trying to obtain them. The following are the Servants and the chapters you need to finish to be able to summon them:
| Chapter | Unlocked Servants |
|---|---|
| Fuyuki | Arturia Pendragon (Alter), Cu Chulainn (Caster) |
| Orléans | Gilles de Rais |
| Septem | Nero Claudius |
| Okeanos | Medea (Lily) |
| London | Arturia Pendragon (Lancer Alter), Nikola Tesla |
| E Pluribus Unum | Cu Chulainn (Alter), Li Shuwen (Lancer), Medb, Thomas Edison |
| Camelot | Arturia Pendragon (Lancer), Bedivere, Gawain, Tristan |
| Babylonia | Jaguar Man, Gorgon, Quetzalcoatl |
| Shinjuku | EMIYA (Alter) |
Some Servants are also only available in limited-time events. It depends on the developers when they decide to release them, so watch out for these rare events in the future. The limited-time Servants are as follow:
| Servant Class | Limited-time Servants |
|---|---|
| Saber | Arthur Pendragon (Prototype), Miyamoto Musashi, Nero Claudius (Bride), Okita Souji, Ryougi Shiki (Saber) |
| Lancer | Brynhildr, Kiyohime (Lancer), Scathach, Tamamo no Mae (Lancer) |
| Archer | Anne Bonny & Mary Read (Archer), Arturia Pendragon (Archer), Gilgamesh, Ishtar, James Moriarty |
| Rider | Iskandar, Mordred (Rider) |
| Berserker | Hijikata Toshizou, Minamoto no Yorimitsu, Mysterious Heroine X (Alter), Sakata Kintoki |
| Assassin | Cleopatra, King Hassan, Mysterious Heroine X, Shuten Douji |
| Caster | Ilyasviel von Einzbern, Leonardo da Vinci, Marie Antoinette (Caster), Merlin |
| Shielder | (none) |
| Ruler | Amakusa Shirou, Saint Martha (Ruler) |
| Avenger | Edmond Dantes, Jeanne d’Arc (Alter) |
| Alter Ego | Meltilith, Passionlip, Sessyoin Kiara |
| Moon Cancer | (none) |
Since Saint Quartz are quite rare, use them wisely. Besides summoning, there are a few others uses for Saint Quartz: increasing the inventory space, recovering AP, and continuing a failed quest.
The inventory space is initially set at 300, so it’s very hard to reach the cap. Therefore, it is not recommended to spend Saint Quartz for increasing inventory space.
AP naturally regenerates 1 point per 5 minutes, so the player can opt to wait, or use some Fruits that are given as maintenance apologies sometimes. It’s normally not necessary to use Saint Quartz to restore AP.
Finally, Saint Quartz can also be used to restore all party members’ HP and charge the NP gauge to 100%, but this also is not normally necessary, because you can simply re-do the quest. If the Master also has three Command Spells, they can use up all three to perform the same party-wide healing and NP charging. However, if you’re doing a difficult, limited-time quest with a Servant reward and you don’t have enough Command Spells left, it might be worth spending.
Overall, though, it is best to save Saint Quartz for summoning purposes only.
Earning Saint Quartz happens in a variety of ways. The two simplest ways are through the daily log-in rewards and by finishing the various quests available. Certain limited-events can also give Saint Quartz for rewards, and some missions give Saint Quartz Fragments as a reward. When exchanging 7 Saint Quartz Fragments in Da Vinci’s Shop, one earns one Saint Quartz. However, these Fragments are only available via Master Mission.
Increasing the Bond Points of your Servants can also reward you with some Saint Quartz. Finally, the developers sometimes give some Saint Quartz for free after maintenance delays, or as celebration for reaching certain numbers of players.
In other to use Friend Points Summoning, you need at least 200 FP to do one summon, and 2,000 FP for a 10x summon. Friend Points also distribute through log-in bonuses. This happens when the player uses his/her friend’s servant as Support and vice versa.
Click here for more information on Friend Points.
The Servants that can be obtained from Friend Points Summoning are usually 3-star Servants or lower. These are not as strong as the higher-tier Servants, but Friend Points are much easier to obtain than Saint Quartz, so you can just keep using Friend Points Summoning as much as you want.
There are also some 3-star Servants that are very useful, so they’re still worth getting and keeping. Some of them are: Cu Chulainn, Robin Hood, Medea, Gaius Julius Caesar, and Cursed Arm Hassan.
Finishing certain quests will also reward players with Servants. The following table lists the unlockable servants based on their chapters:
| Quest | Servant Obtained |
|---|---|
| Automatic | Mashu Kyrielight |
| Fuyuki Chapter 11 | Cu Chulainn (Caster) |
| Orleans Chapter 15 | Kiyohime |
| Septem Chapter 15 | Boudica |
| Okeanos Chapter 14 | David |
| London Chapter 13 | Henry Jekyll & Hyde |
| E Pluribus Unum Chapter 22 | Geronimo |
| Camelot Chapter 17 | Bedivere |
| Babylonia Chapter 22 | Jaguar Man |
Additionally, for new players, the tutorial for summoning gives you a guaranteed 4-star Servant. If you have the patience, you can try running a Reset Marathon until you get a Servant that you like. After finishing the tutorial summon, the player will receive one of these guaranteed servants:
| Servant Class | Servants Available |
|---|---|
| Saber | Le Chevalier d’Eon, Siegfried |
| Lancer | Elizabeth Bathory |
| Archer | EMIYA |
| Rider | Marie Antoinette, Saint Martha |
| Berserker | Heracles, Tamamo Cat |
| Assassin | Carmilla, Stheno |
Given the very low chances for a 5-star and a 4-star Servant to appear, this is the most reliable chance to get a strong Servant in the early game. So make the most of this opportunity. If you want to know what servant is good, check out our tier list and our recommended servants list.
UPDATE: As of July 7, 2017, there’s a Servant giveaway featuring these 10 characters, where players can choose which one they would like to receive.