ExThaNemesis posted...
For the battle system, I just figured out how to use Skills. Can I use those every turn on top of the attacks? Or do they replace attacks?
Also a lot of early beginner advice says to level up Mash, which I have no problem doing coz I like her a lot so far. How much should I level her is the question. And using OP support servants seems cool, but I'd almost rather just use three of my own servants and level them up/learn how to use their skills early on.
Skills can be used freely, they don't cost you an attack or anything. Every skill has a cooldown however - so you have to wait a certain number of turns before that skill can be used again. Leveling up the skill reduces that cooldown (by up to 2 turns at max) along with making the skill better at what it does (so a defense buff gives more defense, attack buff more attack, etc.)
The battle system is done entirely through cards. Each Servant has a "deck" of 5 cards, which you can see on the battle prep screen (I think.) There are 3 card types:
Buster (Red) - Do more damage than the other card types, but does not generate NP Gauge, generates some Crit Stars.
Arts (Blue) - Does okay damage, generates the most NP Gauge. Does not generate Crit Stars.
Quick (Green) - Does weakest damage, generates the most crit stars, generates some NP Gauge.
Since you have 3 Servants on the field usually you have 15 cards (5 per Servant) in the deck. You randomly draw 5 cards on Turn 1 and then the next turn you'll draw 5 from the remaining 10, and on Turn 3 you get the last 5. There are some things that "reset" this like a Servant dying but generally this is how it works so you can have a decent guess at what cards you might get on the following turns based on what's "left." (i.e. Say you draw 4 Mash cards and 1 Herc card on Turn 1. Since that's 4/5 of Mash's cards, you "know" that over the next two turns she can only get that last card so one turn will have 0 Mash cards and the other will have the 1.)
You attack by picking 3 of the cards in your hand (the other 2 go unused.) If all 3 cards belong to the same Servant they get a bonus 4th attack that is usually stronger than their regular cards. If all 3 cards are the same color (even if different Servants) then you get a bonus related to that card type (Buster cards do even more damage, for arts everyone involved in the chain gets 20% NP Gauge, for quick you get 10 crit stars for the next turn.) It's also possible for some Servants to do both of those at the same time (like if you get a hand that has 3 Buster Herc cards) where you will get both perks at the same time.
Crit Stars generate from attacks go into a big pile and are distributed at the start of a turn to random cards (there's some more mechanics behind this but don't worry - basically you'll see some class types tend to get the stars more often than others) and each star represents a 10% chance for that card to be a critical hit. But you'll most often see this as a % chance on each card when you're selecting them - that represents the critical chance.
Finally there are Noble Phantasms. You can only use them when the NP Gauge is at 100% or higher. They are special cards that you get in addition to the regular 5 you draw a turn. You still have to select it as one of your 3 cards if you want to use it however. Once used the NP Gauge resets to 0 (but the NP itself might generate, or "refund" some of the NP Gauge based on the card type. Remember how Arts cards generate NP Gauge? Well if an NP Card is Arts/Blue, then any damage it deals will also generate NP Gauge itself so instead of being at 0 gauge again after the NP you might be at like... 20, for example.)
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Mash is a good unit, yeah. She has a bunch of solid defense skills to help keep your party alive. But for her, a lot of her progression is locked behind advancing the story to unlock her later skills and level cap to be used to her full potential - but she's definitely worth leveling if you have the chance.