Prince of Lan Ling General Discussion

Fate/Grand Order FGO Discussion
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#1

GP Servant Review

I got done work just in time for them to post it, yay. Also that means I need to finish up my thoughts on Qin Liangyu, huh? I pretend I do not see it.

Lanling was placed in the “A” tier, meaning very good or something, and I absolutely agree with that. Basically his weakness is he doesn’t hit for very hard, but he’s not supposed to be doing the hitting.

So for my review of him, even though it’s almost exactly the same:

Lanling Wang (Saber) Review:

Skills:

Spoiler, they’re good.

S1 provides a 2 hit/3 turn Invincibility for himself, then a standard Charisma that caps at 20%. It’s on a 6 turn CD at max, which is a bit longer than most Charismas (5 turns) but it helps keep him alive a little longer. I’d like the Invincibility to be targetable, but that’s just me being greedy. Charisma is a nice skill to have and it’s good here.

S2 is an ever-useful 20% gauge charge for an ally, along with a buff success rate increase. You CAN use this with say, Hans or Cleo or Ozy, but there are real benefits to using it selfishly. And since most DPS’ don’t have Imperial Privilege, in practice you probably will just end up using it more often on Lanling himself.

S3 - they saved his best for last. The Arts boost is great for Arts teams. It has a chance at party star gen and crit damage for 3 turns as well (why I said you’d like to use S2 on Lanling himself). It’s best on Arts crit team (say, Lancer Li; Kuro; Shiki; Sheba) but the crit boost and star gen are something that any team can enjoy.

Skill (and Ascension) Mats:

His mats aren’t the worst in my opinion, but maybe I’ve just become jaded by what some of the other Servants have been needing lately :fgo_deadinside: Feathers, Proofs, Stingers, and some Scarabs. I know for myself Scarabs are a dime a dozen and nothing that I worry about. We had Proofs in the last lottery, plus 30 in the Christmas shop and 10 Scarabs. Feathers will drop in the final lottery node. There will be 30 more Scarabs in Jan/Feb; 43 Feathers; 40 Stingers; 53 Proofs.

Mat Farming Locations and (Approximate) AP Cost:

Proofs: Pirate Ship (Okeanos): 2,203 AP

Stingers: Field of Reeds (Babylonia): 4,838 AP

Feathers: Town Hall (Salem): 1,964 AP

Scarabs: 4,387 AP

Total: 13,392 AP///47 Days (Natural AP regen)///96 Gold Apple refills

Verdict: It seems worse than it is because I’d assume that you have Scarabs handy, but even if you don’t right now you need 24 total and between now and March 1st we’ll get 40, so really farming isn’t that necessary for a lot of those mats. You will want to max out all of his skills though, truly - they’re great and work well together.

Competition: Lanling does have some good competition in his role - the closest is probably Caster Gil (Arts, Charisma, Star Gen), but we could include Summer Medb (passive star gen, Arts, Crit Damage, Attack); Nero Bride (Attack, NP Gen; Star Gen; Defense (which is a part of Wang’s NP). Lanling has less damage potential than the others (and considering Medb has bad damage, that’s saying something) but the support he provides is phenomenal.

Verdict: Lanling is just really, really good. He is. His kit makes sense and has good values, in addition to covering a wide area. Card type, crit buffs, attack, and star gen. And his NP? Whew it’s a good one. The charge drain and Attack are basically what Waver offers, but then he has a team damage cut (similar to Waver’s 2nd skill). Pair him with Mash or Tamamo and any Arts damage dealer (Saberlot; Archuria; Vlad; Robin; Hundred Face Hassan) and go to town.

Outlook: His own kit won’t change over the next two years, and we will be getting Castoria who is just crazy, but in between now and then? We’ll get Kuro (if you missed the original run); Saber Hokusai; Kagetora; Salome and Charlotte as free options, as well as gacha-optional choices like da Vinci Rider, William Tell, Dioscuri, Astrea, Reines (who won’t be there for damage, but also provides defense buffs that ‘Zerks will appreciate that can pair with Lanling, so now Musashi or Summer Bryn can now work with him somewhat). Really just a wonderful Servant to get now.

Also he looks really good now and his NP looks even better in the future with his summer skin, so yeah. :fgo_insane: go gacha

14 Likes
#2

Have all the mats to max skills 2 and 3 the instant I get him, and will use the upcoming lotto event to get the hero proofs the max his first skill. Will be 10/10/10 and likely grailed to 90 very soon.

#3

He’s a little bit niche for me, but it’s an interesting niche. Definitely worth adding.

3 Likes
#4

I have frequently been putting teams together and finding myself wishing he was available to push arts servants just over the edge they need to hit certain benchmarks. So yes I have all of his mats waiting and am unreasonably excited to roll for him

4 Likes
#5

I might not even wait to roll since I won’t be too sad if I get a copy of Chun Li for collection purposes. I also haven’t rolled since Oniland and am ready to do a little gacha.

3 Likes
#6

Oh I’m not waiting either, though I have imposed a limit for how much I’m willing to go in on before I stop and wait for his solo day in case things don’t go well

3 Likes
#7

That right there is a key reason for me to get him aboard Zaynab’s crew on his sole rate-up in a couple days, since the only other source of that in the form of a random Ozy-spook hasn’t been forthcoming, yet. I could wait on Lakshmi in June next year who I planned to get anyway, but the good prince provides better overall buff-utility than she does.

It’d actually give me a reason to up all those IP-skills on the likes of Kleo and Wu further than 6. That he’d be a perfect companion for saber Medb and can slot into that one Scheherazade-setup for Quetzmas’s gate 2-node are neat boni on top.

5 Likes
#8

Not gonna talk about his NP?

5 Likes
#9

Yeah I actually don’t care much about using it on Lanling himself. The real value for me is providing supplementary NP for someone else while ensuring that the likes of Sitonai get to use their full kits.

I have Ozy, of course, but he’s a much worse option for this sort of thing and is better off being supported by someone else while he serves as point Servant.

1 Like
#10

He’s not really niche. He’s generalist. I use him and Skadi as my two big supports on JP.

Being a Saber means you can bring him with Assassins against Rider nodes and you don’t have to worry about stray crits ruining your day. And he boosts the stuff Assassins like—stargen and crit damage, atk, and even arts cards for servants like Carmilla who has a good one.

1 Like
#11

He’d be good support for Nero, and that’s all the reason I need. Arts supp, check. IP success rate up would be great, since nero gets that nice 44% atk/def with her IP

3 Likes
#12

For me he’s niche. I don’t need more generalists.

Still rolling him for the aforementioned reasons, though.

#13

Even his internals are good

1.95% arts cards is well above average. 5 hits on his extra and 3 on his quick is decidedly the minimum for what’s considered good—and his Quick clocks in just above 2%, which is also that minimum for good.

4* party cost, awesome defensive utility on his NP…Lanling is just a good pull and I’m really happy we’re getting him

10 Likes
#14

I can’t tell you how many times his NP has been a boss saver. Bless this precious, beautiful boi

5 Likes
#15

I would totally roll for him if I didn’t just throw a bunch of quartz at the Thanksgiving banner. He looks like a fun servant, and I like his design a lot!

#16

I am looking forward to getting him… either through spooks or an imaginary SR ticket :fgo_insane:

#17

I’ve waited a while to get him. Skipped a lot of banners.

Probably rolling on solo day.

Arts is probably my favourite card type, though I do enjoy Buster’s Unga Bunga. But I lack Tammy, and I think my Arts servants are tired of me bringing Merlin to help them. CasGil has definitely improved life for Arts Servants in my roster, but Lanling has something I desperately want in my Arts teams, charge (no Waver gang :fgo_fujigloom:). His others effects and utility NP (especially this Waver like NP) fits into my semi-defensive playstyle. Also his Saber class and a defensive skill though hit based are a plus in my books, cause CasGil lacks survivability, and dies in 3 hits from a beefy Riders unless I actively try to keep him alive. Also getting him may provide an excuse to me not using my bond grail on Merlin, since he does have 20% charge and 20% atk up, enough for a few of my Xmas comps.

Major factor though is ofc the husbando factor here tbh. I planned on rolling for Lanling as soon as I laid eyes upon a fanart of him, way back a month after his release on JP. I knew nothing about his kit till March, cause I didn’t care beyond “oh my god, he’s hot”. Feels good that his gameplay is strong and especially valuable to me.

5 Likes
#18

Lanling is pretty good Arts support servant! Picked him up for my 4* ticket in JP and has been very useful with all of his buffs! Though I do wish that his party atk buff didn’t come with an invul because it makes min turn strats using him a bit tricky. You either lead with him and swap out or have him be your final buffer/charger since you can’t easily place a PG/outrage on him to rotate out servants barring shenanigans. Other than that little complaint he’s a pretty good servant for anyone to pick up! Really nifty Frontline support too for he doesn’t die easily due to his invul being hit based.

#19

I want him, but I think I’d rather roll on QSH’s banner for the double Merlin + QSH memes and use the next SR ticket for Lanling (of course we don’t know when that’d be, but I’m not really in an urgent need for an arts support right now).

#20

Lan Ling might get me to do more Sherlock teams. I’m glad I made an exception to my plan to roll for him this year. The stall folks are gonna love stacking his NP in Arts chain teams.

I’m not going to whale his NP level, but 1500 Damage Cut per cast at NP5 isn’t bad considering that it isn’t hit-based.

4 Likes