Hit the ground running with these tips and tricks for mastering Fate/Grand Order's combat.

Fate/Grand Order is the mobile game entry in the highly popular Fate series. It was released in 2015 in Japan and North America, with app stores in the UK and various regions in Europe following later. It's an exciting action RPG with plenty of progression, strategy, and action, while boasting an interesting turn-based combat system that is easy to learn but tricky to master.

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There are plenty of mechanics in Fate/Grand Order’s core gameplay, and the game doesn’t take the time to explain a lot of them thoroughly. So, if you’ve recently picked up this game in the hope of understanding what it’s all about, here are some of the most essential tips for mastering duels against the heroic Servants of Chaldea.

One of the most essential things to understand about Fate/Grand Order is the somewhat complicated nature of classes and the class advantage-and-weakness system. This system is known in the game as class affinity.

For a lot of the early game, this won’t matter, but once you’ve started to get some Servants and leveled up your team, it’ll be important to learn which classes to use to gain the edge in difficult encounters.

As you can see from the chart above (which can be displayed in the Support Selection menu before embarking on quests), there is an elaborate game of rock-paper-scissors at the core of the combat system, which is essential to understand.

If you want to come out of battles on top, you’ll need to ensure you have a team that is well-balanced in terms of class, and eventually, you’ll need to obtain enough Servants of different class types to ensure your team can be customized to suit any situation.

To begin with, however, you’ll just need to get to grips with how type advantages and disadvantages may affect your experiences in combat. You can use the chart below to know which type of Servant you should use against any particular enemy.

A Servant that is strong against a particular class will do double the damage and receive only half of the damage from the class type in question. Berserkers are an exception to this system, dealing an extra 50 percent damage against all classes whilst simultaneously taking double damage — ultimately acting as a kind of 'glass cannon'.

Before entering any kind of quest, you’ll be presented with the Party Formation screen. This screen shows your two primary Servants that you’ll be taking into battle. From here, you can swap your active Servants with any that you currently have available in your collection.

Most quests will come with a recommended level. It would be wise to ensure that at least one, if not all of your Servants are of this level before embarking on the quest.

This screen also gives you an option to select a third Support Servant from a range of other players' Servants. Most of the Servants available will be high-level, five-star Servants.

Servants each have a ranking between three and five stars. Five stars are the rarest Servants in the game, and are often the characters with the best stats and abilities.

However, you can certainly manage to get through a lot of the story with just three-star characters, some of which can eventually become five-star Servants by leveling them up and then ‘ascending’ them.

Depending on who you already have in your team, you can also use your Support to ensure you have at least one Servant who offers an advantage against the enemy you are facing.

On the Support selection screen, a graphic above the character slots will indicate ‘Enemy Class Tendency’ — this will show you what class the enemy is likely to be. From this information, you can sort through the different available Support Servants and choose one of the appropriate classes to give you an advantage.

Servants have a selection of base stats that are improved by leveling up, but also improved by equipping Craft Essences. Outside of Servants, Craft Essences are the other type of cards you can acquire through summoning and progressing through the story.

The formation menu is where you can equip Craft Essences to your Servants. Effectively, you can improve one of these stats by a small amount by using a Craft Essence, but each Craft Essence you equip will count towards the overall ‘cost’ of your team, which can’t exceed 58 points in value.

Each Servant and Craft Essence will have a value in this equation, with more powerful Servants and Craft Essences costing more. Taking three five-star Servants with you, for example, will often fulfill most of the cost allowance, meaning you may have to prioritise which Servant receives the benefit of a Craft Essence.

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Combat progresses in Fate/Grand Order using a turn-based system. Each Servant and enemy on the field will get the chance to use three cards from a deck of attacks. There are three basic types of attack: Quick, Buster and Arts.

As you can see from the differences in these attacks, optimising your results in combat will be based on choosing the right combination of attacks for either dealing a lot of damage at once, or building to higher-damage attacks in the form of critical hits and Noble Phantasms.

In addition to the specific function of each type of attack, the way in which you chain attacks together is equally important. The first attack you choose will have a bonus effect on the rest of your attacks that turn, and combining three attacks of the same type or all three different attacks will have a range of effects.

In addition to your attack cards, you also have access to a range of skills that can be activated per Servant. These are predominantly simple buffs to your attack or defense, or basic HP recovery options. These can be used during your turn before attack card selection, and are especially worth using for under-leveled Servants or those Servants who have a weakness against the enemy class.

Noble Phantasms are the special moves of each Servant. These are powerful moves that usually do a large amount of damage or provide party-wide heals and buffs. Every Servant has an NP gauge, which is shown underneath the HP bar in the form of a percentage. As explained above, various attacks will help add to your NP gauge.

Noble Phantasms can also be overcharged (going above the 100 percent limit of the meter), which will multiply the secondary effects (such as debuffs to the enemy or buffs to the party) of any Noble Phantasm attack.

In Fatal Battles against other Servants, it's a good idea to build Noble Phantasm attacks as a priority with at least one of your Servants. However, it's important to keep in mind that Noble Phantasms can also be chained together, which has the benefit of adding additional overcharge to each Noble Phantasm that comes after the first. Chaining Noble Phantasms will therefore increase the benefits of all Noble Phantasms included in the chain.

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Adam is a Guides Writer for TheGamer. They are also a marketing professional and freelance writer in the UK. They are a huge fan of JRPGs, cooking and cute dogs.