History RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap / FateGrandOrder

* Like Altria, the most derided Lancer, Fionn mac Cumhaill also received a NP charge in his skillset alongside cooldown reduction in New Years 2019 campaign. With 30% NP charge, an Arts buff and newly upgraded Arts supports such as Tamamo or Paracelsus, Fionn became a reliable farming Lancer. It proves that for many Servants, their biggest problem is how to reliably fill their NP gauge.

[[folder:Bad on launch, but later buffed]]

[[folder:Fell behind due to Power Creep, and later buffed]]
* Palingenesis in general allows you to increase the level cap of Servants, effectively removing the main power limiter between low and high rarity Servants. Low-rarity Servants will ''generally'' end up with slightly lower stats than high-rarity Servants of the same level, but not to a point where they can't compete in high-level content. The most popular low-level candidates for Palingenesis include Arash (for his uniquely outstanding [=AoE=] Noble Phantasm), Lancer Cú Chulainn (one of the best "last Servant standing" Servants in the game), and Robin Hood (for his absurdly powerful single-target burst, which scales tremendously with stats/levels).
* Berserker Vlad's Transformation skill was turned into Legend of Dracula - Succession of Fresh Blood, increasing the value of his defense buff and adding a new attack buff on top of that. If he was usable when teamed up with Tamamo-no-Mae, his utility when teamed up with her increased exponentially. Later on during the "Inheritance of Glory" Rerun his Battle Continuation A would get a strengthening quest into Fearsome Immortal A+, granting him a second layer to his guts, and an extra 20-30% NP generation that lasts for three turns, making him even better at spamming his Noble Phantasm and surviving fights.
* Ruler Jeanne's NP upgrade in 2017 removed her self stun and adds a party debuff removal, making her one of the best supports in the game (especially in an Arts team), being able to actually complete Brave Chains without the stun getting in the way.
* Medb's Charisma was buffed tremendously. It was changed to Queen's Admonition, giving a bonus ATK buff to male Servants on the field and also healing herself. Later, her Siren Song was upgraded to My Red Mead: My Dear Honey Alcohol, which lowers the enemy's defense. She's considered a solid support Rider, especially in male-focused teams, and when fighting male bosses.
* Osakabehime got both a 30% Buster buff and doubled the Max Health bonus from her NP during the 2017 Halloween rerun, which while not exactly fixing her problems, has made her into a niche Quick medic, especially considering that Scathach-Skadi doesn't have any Healing skills or any defensive options. Her Shapeshift was letter buffed to provide a party-wide crit star damage buff as well, meaning that while she still isn't really a good unit, she's considered a fairly decent Assassin support now because of these factors.
* With the second anniversary, Instinct skills began slowly being upgraded, as Mysterious Heroine X Alter had a Quick buff on top of the skill's regular effects and Mysterious Heroine X had one-turn invincibility added to her Instinct. Their names were also changed. By the time of the third anniversary, the original Saber Altria had her Instinct upgraded to Road to Victory, which generates up to 30% NP charge alongside its previous effect on a 5 turn cooldown. While it's not an insanely huge buff, it's still an incredible improvement. Arthur Pendragon received a buff that doubles the number of Crit Stars produced and increases his critical damage. Saber Alter also received a buff that increased the number of Crit Stars produced to maximum of 20 and also charges her NP Guage by a flat 20%. When the "Inheritance of Glory" Rerun happened Mordred also got a buff that increased the number of Crit Stars produced to maximum of 15, increases the critical star absorption of her Buster Cards for 1 turn, and increases her critical damage.
* Like Altria, the most derided Lancer, Fionn mac Cumhaill also received a NP charge in his skillset alongside cooldown reduction in New Years 2019 campaign. With 30% NP charge, an Arts buff and newly upgraded Arts supports such as Tamamo or Paracelsus, Fionn became a reliable farming Lancer. It proves that for many Servants, their biggest problem is how to reliably fill their NP gauge.
[[/folder]]

** Berserker Vlad's Transformation skill was turned into Legend of Dracula - Succession of Fresh Blood, increasing the value of his defense buff and adding a new attack buff on top of that. If he was usable when teamed up with Tamamo-no-Mae, his utility when teamed up with her increased exponentially. Later on during the "Inheritance of Glory" Rerun his Battle Continuation A would get a strengthening quest into Fearsome Immortal A+, granting him a second layer to his guts, and an extra 20-30% NP generation that lasts for three turns, making him even better at spamming his Noble Phantasm and surviving fights.
** Jeanne's NP upgrade in 2017 removed her self stun and adds a party debuff removal, making her one of the best supports in the game (especially in an Arts team), being able to actually complete Brave Chains without the stun getting in the way.
** Medb's Charisma was buffed tremendously. It was changed to Queen's Admonition, giving a bonus ATK buff to male Servants on the field and also healing herself. Later, her Siren Song was upgraded to My Red Mead: My Dear Honey Alcohol, which lowers the enemy's defense. She's considered a solid support Rider, especially in male-focused teams, and when fighting male bosses.
** Osakabehime got both a 30% Buster buff and doubled the Max Health bonus from her NP during the 2017 Halloween rerun, which while not exactly fixing her problems, has made her into a niche Quick medic, especially considering that Scathach-Skadi doesn't have any Healing skills or any defensive options. Her Shapeshift was letter buffed to provide a party-wide crit star damage buff as well, meaning that while she still isn't really a good unit, she's considered a fairly decent Assassin support now because of these factors.

[[folder:Gameplay]]
* Altria Pendragon was long considered the worst SSR Saber despite being the poster girl of the franchise. She was the ''first'' SSR character, and for a while (on JP) her main distinguishing feature was being the only character with three skills (instead of two). USA launched with more SSR characters, established three skills as the norm for SSR characters, ''and'' Altria was outclassed as a SSR Buster [=AoE=] Saber in stats and skills by Altera; and even by her SR counterpart Altria Alter, who exchanged insignificantly worse stats for a significantly better Noble Phantasm. As time went on and FGO found its footing, Altria's kit aged terribly - she was one of the dishonorable few with Intuition, one of the most milquetoast skills in the game - and bizarrely did not receive any buffing Rank Up Quests even as her other peers were being updated. Then finally, with the Third Anniversary Altria received her first Rank Up Quest (binning Instinct and gaining a 30% charge skill, vastly improving her viability as a farming unit); then with the Fifth Anniversary she received her second Rank Up Quest (upgrading her Mana Burst skill to ''change all of her cards into Buster Cards for one turn''). The combination of these two Rank Up Quests transformed Altria into an ''incredibly'' powerful, consistent, and self-sufficient [=AoE=] damage dealer, as she could now use a Buster-Brave Chain with her NP ''on demand''.

* Palingenesis allows you to increase the level cap of Servants, effectively removing the main power limiter between low and high rarity Servants. Low-rarity Servants will ''generally'' end up with slightly lower stats than high-rarity Servants of the same level, but not to a point where they can't compete in high-level content. The most popular low-level candidates for Palingenesis include Arash (for his uniquely outstanding [=AoE=] Noble Phantasm), Lancer Cú Chulainn (one of the best "last Servant standing" Servants in the game), and Robin Hood (for his absurdly powerful single-target burst, which scales tremendously with stats/levels).
* Several upgrades are released via interludes to help boost Servants who were suffering from PowerCreep:
** Berserker Vlad's Transformation skill was turned into Legend of Dracula - Succession of Fresh Blood, increasing the value of his defense buff and adding a new attack buff on top of that. If he was usable when teamed up with Tamamo-no-Mae, his utility when teamed up with her increased exponentially. Later on during the "Inheritance of Glory" Rerun his Battle Continuation A would get a strengthening quest into Fearsome Immortal A+, granting him a second layer to his guts, and an extra 20-30% NP generation that lasts for three turns, making him even better at spamming his Noble Phantasm and surviving fights.
** Jeanne's NP upgrade in 2017 removed her self stun and adds a party debuff removal, making her one of the best supports in the game (especially in an Arts team), being able to actually complete Brave Chains without the stun getting in the way.
** Medb's Charisma was buffed tremendously. It was changed to Queen's Admonition, giving a bonus ATK buff to male Servants on the field and also healing herself. Later, her Siren Song was upgraded to My Red Mead: My Dear Honey Alcohol, which lowers the enemy's defense. She's considered a solid support Rider, especially in male-focused teams, and when fighting male bosses.
** Siegfried actually gets a Rank Up Quest that buffs his third skill, giving a hefty increase to his buster card effectiveness. At level one it gives a nice 30% up to his buster effectiveness, that scales up to 50% buster card effectiveness at max skill level, effectively a built in Mana Burst. And against any Dragon trait opponents he still has the additional 50-80% damage boost. This means that it strengthens his Noble Phantasm, giving him a much higher tier ranking. Speaking of his Noble Phantasm, it also got a buff that further increases his Noble Phantasm generation rate for three turns.
** Osakabehime got both a 30% Buster buff and doubled the Max Health bonus from her NP during the 2017 Halloween rerun, which while not exactly fixing her problems, has made her into a niche Quick medic, especially considering that Scathach-Skadi doesn't have any Healing skills or any defensive options. Her Shapeshift was letter buffed to provide a party-wide crit star damage buff as well, meaning that while she still isn't really a good unit, she's considered a fairly decent Assassin support now because of these factors.
* With the second anniversary, Instinct skills began slowly being upgraded, as Mysterious Heroine X Alter had a Quick buff on top of the skill's regular effects and Mysterious Heroine X had one-turn invincibility added to her Instinct. Their names were also changed. By the time of the third anniversary, the original Saber Altria had her Instinct upgraded to Road to Victory, which generates up to 30% NP charge alongside its previous effect on a 5 turn cooldown. While it's not an insanely huge buff, it's still an incredible improvement. Arthur Pendragon received a buff that doubles the number of Crit Stars produced and increases his critical damage. Saber Alter also received a buff that increased the number of Crit Stars produced to maximum of 20 and also charges her NP Guage by a flat 20%. When the "Inheritance of Glory" Rerun happened Mordred also got a buff that increased the number of Crit Stars produced to maximum of 15, increases the critical star absorption of her Buster Cards for 1 turn, and increases her critical damage.
* The Quick meta as a whole was revived from the grave in the wake of the Merlin and Buster-oriented meta, with the release of Scathach-Skadi during the third anniversary. The reason: Scathach-Skadi's skills (a +50% NP gauge charge, and a +50% Quick card effectiveness boost) enabled looping for certain Quick Servants, wherein they regained so much NP gauge from using their Noble Phantasms and Scathach-Skadi's charge that they could use their Noble Phantasm ''every round''. This was a ''massive'' buff to Servants who had Quick [=AoE=] Noble Phantasms with high hit counts (such as Edmond Dantes, Atalante, and Valkyrie), and a team of one Quick Servant and two Scathach-Skadis (one owned, one recruited from Friend lists) allowed for ''consistent'' three-turn clears of three-wave battles, which is most of the grind/farming content in the game.
** In particular, these buffs greatly benefited Dantes. Dantes as a servant has always been sub-par, with a focus on Quick cards making consistent performance with him difficult. Compared to the other Avengers ([[JokeCharacter except Angra]]) Edmond's kit was all over the place. While this made him a great servant for solo'ing since his kit covers a wide variety of areas and his crit stars will feed back into himself, allowing him to charge his NP startlingly fast, it ultimately caused him to fall behind the more specialized Avengers like Jeanne Alter and Gorgon. Now, Dantes is a terrifyingly strong servant, able to more consistently deal damage and provide stars for his team as well as dish out a ''very'' strong AOE NP quite quickly (especially with his Rank Up Quest for his Noble Phantasm, which makes him even viable in challenge quests that involve a BossRush setup).
** Similarly, Berserker Lancelot was considered very average for a Quick based [=AoE=] Berserker since his kit is considered subpar or average for an [=AoE=] Berserker. Not to mention, he was completely outclassed by Raikou, who does the same job as an [=AoE=] Berserker, but with more consistent NP charging due to her having 2 Arts cards and having a more consistent CriticalHitClass kit. With the introduction to Skadi, Berserker Lancelot becomes one of the most fearsome [=AoE=] Berserkers in the game, and if the player manages to get a team of two Skadis to support him, his kit becomes incredibly overloaded, allowing him to be just as good as, if not ''even better'', than Raikou, thanks to the increased NP refund he gets from the Quick boosts, potentially allowing him to use his NP again the next 2 turns, making farming all kind of nodes a breeze.
** Mysterious Heroine X (Alter) was considered to be a rather mediocre SSR Berserker on release as she had relatively low attack, a Quick-centered card set without the star generation for it, and very weak skills that did little for herself or others. During the Second Anniversary, however, the infamously terrible Instinct was replaced with a Quick buff that also happens to generate more stars than her old skill did. And with the advent of Scathach-Skadi, she became an incredibly powerful alternative to the more Buster-oriented Berserkers, with her fairly good NP gain potentially giving her enough gauge to reuse her NP again the next turn.
* Like Altria, the most derided Lancer, Fionn mac Cumhaill also received a NP charge in his skillset alongside cooldown reduction in New Years 2019 campaign. With 30% NP charge, an Arts buff and newly upgraded Arts supports such as Tamamo or Paracelsus, Fionn became a reliable farming Lancer. It proves that for many Servants, their biggest problem is how to reliably fill their NP gauge...

* Gawain was generally considered one of the weakest 4* Sabers in his class, with a number of weak skills, one of the best of which needed a specific field type, Day, to work at full effectiveness or scale at all. Then, a Rank Up saw his weak Charisma E skill changed to Nightless Charisma B, not only dramatically increasing the attack buff he grants the party but granting the field the Sun property for a turn to let him gain the scaling benefits of his Numeral of the Saint skill. In one fell swoop, this skill fixed much of what was wrong with Gawain, allowing him to brawl with the best of his competition.
* Boudica is a weird case of not being rescued with buffs to her kit, but with the release of a Servant who ''massively'' synergizes with her, namely Romulus-Quirinus, who can impart the Roman trait onto all enemies, letting Boudica's 60% party wide damage buff against Romans actually work (''in addition'' to a 50% Critical Damage buff), and takes her from a "worse Mash" into a very potent party damage support in her own right. And then she finally has her Guts Skill buffed to not only have a shorter Cooldown, but allows it to be targettable, making her a very good budget Defense Servant that's arguably on par with Pre-Ortenaus Mash, and definitely better than Post-Ortenaus Mash.
* For a long time after his release Amakusa's damage wasn't as good as other Servants with AOE Buster Noble Phantasms. His first buff gives his God's Resolution skill a buff to his Buster cards which helps his damage. He received his second buff when the "Inheritance of Glory" Rerun happened, which changes Revelation skill so that it increases one of his ally's NP generation rate for three turns, as well as increasing the number of Crit Stars produced to a maximum of 10. And his third buff that came with the White Day 2021 event gave him a 20% NP Charge (making it more easier to spam his NP), and decreases the enemy's buster resistance (in other words, increase the party's buster damage for those specific enemies).

* While they were not really a scrappy, Caenis wasn't really popular due to their brash attitude, them threatening to kill characters being a common interaction, and their humiliating defeat in Atlantis had people think of them as a mere [[TheBrute brute]] for Wodime, and nothing more. Olympus completely changed that perspective by showing them being more of a TokenEvilTeammate to the heroes, showing their depths as a character, and their release gave insight into their past and why they ended up the way they did. In basically one chapter, Caenis went from a pretty disliked/memed on character, to a compelling character whose flaws made them extremely sympathetic, to the point that when they got a summer alt the following year, the community was pretty happy.

* Altria Pendragon was long considered the worst SSR Saber despite being the poster girl of the franchise. She was the ''first'' SSR character, and for a while (on JP) her main distinguishing feature was being the only character with three skills (instead of two). USA launched with more SSR characters, established three skills as the norm for SSR characters, ''and'' Altria was outclassed as a SSR Buster [=AoE=] Saber in stats and skills by Altera; and even by her SR counterpart Saber Alter, who exchanged insignificantly worse stats for a significantly better Noble Phantasm. As time went on and FGO found its footing, Altria's kit aged terribly - she was one of the dishonorable few with Intuition, one of the most milquetoast skills in the game - and bizarrely did not receive any buffing Rank Up Quests even as her other peers were being updated. Then finally, with the Third Anniversary Altria received her first Rank Up Quest (binning Instinct and gaining a 30% charge skill, vastly improving her viability as a farming unit); then with the Fifth Anniversary she received her second Rank Up Quest (upgrading her Mana Burst skill to ''change all of her cards into Buster Cards for one turn''). The combination of these two Rank Up Quests transformed Altria into an ''incredibly'' powerful, consistent, and self-sufficient [=AoE=] damage dealer, as she could now use a Buster-Brave Chain with her NP ''on demand''.

* Altria Pendragon was long considered the worst SSR Saber despite being the poster girl of the franchise. She was the ''first'' SSR character, and for a while (on JP) her main distinguishing feature was being the only character with three skills (instead of two). USA launched with more SSR characters, established three skills as the norm for SSR characters, ''and'' Altria was outclassed as a 5-star Buster [=AoE=] Saber in stats and skills by Altera. As time went on and FGO found its footing, Altria's kit aged terribly - she was one of the dishonorable few with Intuition, one of the most milquetoast skills in the game - and bizarrely did not receive any buffing Rank Up Quests even as her other peers were being updated. Then finally, with the Third Anniversary Altria received her first Rank Up Quest (binning Instinct and gaining a 30% charge skill, vastly improving her viability as a farming unit); then with the Fifth Anniversary she received her second Rank Up Quest (upgrading her Mana Burst skill to ''change all of her cards into Buster Cards for one turn''). The combination of these two Rank Up Quests transformed Altria into an ''incredibly'' powerful, consistent, and self-sufficient [=AoE=] damage dealer, as she could now use a Buster-Brave Chain with her NP ''on demand''.

* Altria Pendragon was long considered the worst SSR Saber despite being the poster girl of the franchise. She was the ''first'' SSR character, and for a while (on JP) her main distinguishing feature was being the only character with three skills (instead of two). USA launched with more SSR characters, established three skills as the norm for SSR characters, ''and'' Altria was outclassed as a Buster [=AoE=] Saber in stats and skills by Altera. As time went on and FGO found its footing, Altria's kit aged terribly - she was one of the dishonorable few with Intuition, one of the most milquetoast skills in the game - and bizarrely did not receive any buffing Rank Up Quests even as her other peers were being updated. Then finally, with the Third Anniversary Altria received her first Rank Up Quest (binning Instinct and gaining a 30% charge skill, vastly improving her viability as a farming unit); then with the Fifth Anniversary she received her second Rank Up Quest (upgrading her Mana Burst skill to ''change all of her cards into Buster Cards for one turn''). The combination of these two Rank Up Quests transformed Altria into an ''incredibly'' powerful, consistent, and self-sufficient [=AoE=] damage dealer, as she could now use a Buster-Brave Chain with her NP ''on demand''.

* While they were not really a scrappy, Caenis wasn't really popular due to their brash attitude, them threatening to kill characters being a common interaction, and their humiliating defeat in Atlantis had people think of them as a mere [[TheBrute brute]] for Wodime, and nothing more. Olympus completely changed that perspective by showing them being more of a TokenEvilTeammate to the heroes, showing their depths as a character, and their release gave insight into their past and why they ended up the way they did. In basically one chapter, Caenis went from a pretty disliked/memed on character, to a compelling character whose flaws made them extremely sympathetic.

* Palingenesis allows you to increase the level cap of Servants, effectively removing the main power limiter between low and high rarity Servants. Low-rarity Servants will ''generally'' end up with slightly lower stats than high-rarity Servants of the same level, but not to a point where they can't compete in high-level content. The most popular low-level candidates for Palingenesis include Arash (for his uniquely outstanding AoE Noble Phantasm), Lancer Cú Chulainn (one of the best "last Servant standing" Servants in the game), and Robin Hood (for his absurdly powerful single-target burst, which scales tremendously with stats/levels).

* Paracelsus was once considered to be a MasterOfNone Caster who was rarely used due to his long cooldowns and having no unique niche aside from being able to apply Guts to a target party member with his third skill. He then received a Rank Up Quest which buffed his third skill so that it also granted the target party member up to +50% NP generation at max rank. Combined with his second skill (which improved Arts performance for the whole party) and his ease of availability compared to higher-rarity characters, this turned Paracelsus into one of ''the'' most popular supports to enable NP looping for Arts characters: a farming strategy where a character (in this case, with an Arts NP) regains so much NP gauge from using their Noble Phantasm that they can ''immediately'' use their NP next turn. His effectiveness does diminish over time due to PowerCreep and more Servants having more ways to enable looping, but for those lacking premier looping enablers such as Nero Bride and Altria (Caster), Paracelsus remains a solid choice.
* With Palingenesis, now lower rarity Servants can even outperform higher rarity Servants. It also can pseudo-increase the Servants' rarity, increasing them to the "rarity they deserve".

* While they were not really a scrappy, Caenis wasn't really popular due to their brash attitude, them threatening to kill characters being a common interaction, and their humiliating defeat in Atlantis had people think of them as a mere [[TheBrute brute]] for Wodime, and nothing more. Olympus completely changed that perspective by showing them being more of a TokenEvilTeammate to the heroes, showing their depths as a character, and their release gave insight into their past and why they ended up the way they did. In basically one chapter, Caenis went from a pretty disliked/memed on character, to a compelling character whose flaws made them extremely sympathetic. Notably, when they got a summer alt the following year, there was a lot of positive feedback for it.

* Altria Pendragon was long considered the worst SSR Saber despite being the poster girl of the franchise. She was the ''first'' SSR character, and for a while (on JP) her main distinguishing feature was being the only character with ''three'' skills (instead of two). USA launched with more SSR characters, established three skills as the norm for SSR characters, ''and'' Altria was outclassed as a Saber in stats and skills by Altera. As time went on and FGO found its footing, Altria's kit aged terribly - she was one of the dishonorable few with Intuition, one of the most milquetoast skills in the game - and bizarrely did not receive any buffing Rank Up Quests even as her other peers were being updated. Then finally, with the Third Anniversary Altria received her first Rank Up Quest (binning Instinct and gaining a 30% charge skill, vastly improving her viability as a farming unit); then with the Fifth Anniversary she received her second Rank Up Quest (upgrading her Mana Burst skill to ''change all of her cards into Buster Cards for one turn''). The combination of these two Rank Up Quests transformed Altria into an ''incredibly'' powerful, consistent, and self-sufficient [=AoE=] damage dealer, as she could now use a Buster-Brave Chain with her NP ''on demand''.

* Altria Pendragon was long considered the worst SSR Saber despite being the poster girl of the franchise. She was the ''first'' SSR character, and for a while (on JP) her main distinguishing feature was being the only character with ''three'' skills (instead of two). USA launched with more SSR characters, established three skills as the norm for SSR characters, ''and'' Altria was outclassed as a Saber in stats and skills by Altera. As time went on and FGO found its footing, Altria's kit aged terribly - she was one of the dishonorable few with Intuition, one of the most milquetoast skills in the game - and bizarrely did not receive any buffing Rank Up Quests even as her other peers were being updated. Then finally, with the Third Anniversary Altria received her first Rank Up Quest (binning Instinct and gaining a 30% charge skill, vastly improving her viability as a farming unit); then with the Fifth Anniversary she received her second Rank Up Quest (upgrading her Mana Burst skill to ''change all of her cards into Buster Cards for one turn''). The combination of these two Rank Up Quests transformed Altria into an ''incredibly'' powerful, consistent, and self-sufficient [=AoE]= damage dealer, as she could now use a Buster-Brave Chain with her NP ''on demand''.

* Altria Pendragon was long considered the worst SSR Saber despite being the poster girl of the franchise. She was the ''first'' SSR character, and for a while (on JP) her main distinguishing feature was being the only character with ''three'' skills (instead of two). USA launched with more SSR characters, established three skills as the norm for SSR characters, ''and'' Altria was outclassed as a Saber in stats and skills by Altera. As time went on and FGO found its footing, Altria's kit aged terribly - she was one of the dishonorable few with Intuition, one of the most milquetoast skills in the game - and bizarrely did not receive any buffing Rank Up Quests even as her other peers were being updated. Then finally, with the Third Anniversary Altria received her first Rank Up Quest (binning Instinct and gaining a 30% charge skill, vastly improving her viability as a farming unit); then with the Fifth Anniversary she received her second Rank Up Quest (upgrading her Mana Burst skill to ''change all of her cards into Buster Cards for one turn''). The combination of these two Rank Up Quests transformed Altria into an ''incredibly'' powerful, consistent, and self-sufficient AoE damage dealer, as she could now use a Buster-Brave Chain with her NP ''on demand''.

* Altria Pendragon was long considered the worst SSR Saber despite being the poster girl of the franchise. She was the ''first'' SSR character, and for a while (on JP) her main distinguishing feature was being the only character with ''three'' skills (instead of two). USA launched with more SSR characters, established three skills as the norm for SSR characters, ''and'' Altria was outclassed as a Saber in stats and skills by Altera. As time went on and FGO found its footing, Altria's kit aged terribly - she was one of the dishonorable few with Intuition, one of the most milquetoast skills in the game - and bizarrely she did not receive any Interlude or Rank Up Quests even as her other peers were being updated. Then finally, with the Third Anniversary Altria received her first Rank Up Quest (binning Instinct and gaining a 30% charge skill, vastly improving her viability as a farming unit); then with the Fifth Anniversary she received her second Rank Up Quest (upgrading her Mana Burst skill to ''change all of her cards into Buster Cards for one turn''). The combination of these two Rank Up Quests transformed Altria into an ''incredibly'' powerful, consistent, and self-sufficient AoE damage dealer, as she could now use a Buster-Brave Chain with her NP ''on demand''.

* Altria Pendragon was long considered the worst SSR Saber despite being the poster girl of the franchise. She was the ''first'' SSR character, and for a while (on JP) her main distinguishing feature was being the only character with ''three'' skills (instead of two). USA launched with more SSR characters, established three skills as the norm for SSRs, ''and'' Altria was outclassed as a Saber in stats and skills by Altera. As time went on and FGO found its footing, Altria's kit aged terribly - she was one of the dishonorable few with Intuition, one of the most milquetoast skills in the game - and bizarrely she did not receive any Interlude or Rank Up Quests even as her other peers were being updated. Then finally, with the Third Anniversary Altria received her first Rank Up Quest (binning Instinct and gaining a 30% charge skill, vastly improving her viability as a farming unit); then with the Fifth Anniversary she received her second Rank Up Quest (upgrading her Mana Burst skill to ''change all of her cards into Buster Cards for one turn''). The combination of these two Rank Up Quests transformed Altria into an ''incredibly'' powerful, consistent, and self-sufficient AoE damage dealer, as she could now use a Buster-Brave Chain with her NP ''on demand''.

* The poster girl of Fate series, Altria Pendragon was long considered the worst SSR Saber, as her skillset had remained the same since Day 1, having the completely and utterly ''awful'' Instinct. Her damage output wasn't really anything to shake a stick at, and her sole form of utility was a Charisma buff, so most players let her stay in storage. She later received an Interlude that boosted her NP's damage, making her hit harder, but her other flaws still remained. And then the 3rd Anniversary came, upgrading Altria's Instinct into Radiant Road EX, which added a 30% NP charge to go with the stars. This ''instantly'' rocketed her utility as a farming unit. With innate 30% NP charge, you can use a starting 50% NP gauge CE (Golden Sumo is recommended) and borrow a Merlin, enabling Altria to burst a wave of enemies easily as her AOE damage combined with her NP Interlude, Mana Burst, and Charisma, allow her to even outdamage her ''male counterpart'' (who has much higher Attack and has an NP damage buff built into his NP!). And then the 5th Anniversary came, upgrading Altria's Mana Burst to not only provide an NP damage buff, but also ''transforming all of her cards to Buster for one turn'', ensuring that she can reliably Buster-Brave Chain with her NP on demand. Nowadays, she's considered one of, if not ''the'', most reliable [=AoE=] Sabers in the game.

** Paracelsus was once considered to be a MasterOfNone Caster who was rarely used due to his long cooldowns and having no unique niche aside from being able to apply Guts to a target party member with his third skill. He then received a Rank Up Quest which buffed his third skill so that it also granted the target party member up to +50% NP generation at max rank. Combined with his second skill (which improved Arts performance for the whole party) and his ease of availability compared to higher-rarity characters, this turned Paracelsus into one of ''the'' most popular supports to enable NP looping for Arts characters: a farming strategy where a character (in this case, with an Arts NP) regains so much NP gauge from using their Noble Phantasm that they can ''immediately'' use their NP next turn. His effectiveness does diminish over time due to PowerCreep and more Servants having more ways to enable looping, but for those lacking premier looping enablers such as Nero Bride and Altria (Caster), Paracelsus remains a solid choice.

** Paracelsus was once considered to be a MasterOfNone Caster who was rarely used due to his long cooldowns and having no unique niche aside from being able to apply Guts to a target party member with his third skill. He then received a Rank Up Quest which buffed his third skill so that it also granted the target party member up to +50% NP generation at max rank. Combined with his second skill (which improved Arts performance for the whole party) and his ease of availability compared to higher-rarity characters, this turned Paracelsus into one of ''the'' most popular supports to enable NP looping for Arts characters: a farming strategy where a character (in this case, with an Arts NP) regains so much NP gauge from using their Noble Phantasm that they can ''immediately'' use their NP next turn. His effectiveness does diminish over time due to PowerCreep and more Servants having more ways to enable looping, but for those lacking premier looping units such as Nero Bride and Altria (Caster), Paracelsus remains a solid choice.

* Arash used to be derided as one of the worst Servants in the game due to his bad skills, low stats, and self-destruct NP. However, his Interlude increased the damage of his Noble Phantasm enough (1200% damage even with low stats is no joke) that he actually became one of the most popular farming Servants in the game. There were six reasons for his massive popularity: he is easy to acquire and max out (he's available on the Friend Point banner and his max level is low due to his rarity); he is easy to use (he has exactly one trick: press the Noble Phantasm button); his NP deals enough damage to reliably clear every single Daily Quest (except against Lancer enemies); his self-destruct NP is a perfect setup to introduce the first member of your backline into the frontline without needing Order Change; the inherent memeability of his NP ("STELLA!!!"); and finally, Arash's Noble Phantasm ''has the second-shortest NP animation in the game'', which saves valuable seconds when you're farming the same content over and over.

* Astolfo (Rider) was ''severely'' undertuned on release, as he had the unfortunate timing of being released when Quick Servants were in meta (due to premier Quick Servants such as Jack The Ripper being able to generate so many Critical Stars they could ''reliably'' out-perform all of their peers in damage and generating NP gauge). As a result, Astolfo's NP Generation Rate and Star Generation Rate stats were incredibly low for his rarity and not sufficiently compensated by his skills, making him a Quick Servant who struggled to generate Stars ''or'' use his Noble Phantasm. He later received a Rank Up Quest that gave him an extremely rare +50% NP Gauge boost, turning him into a consistent and powerful wave farmer.

* Astolfo (Rider) was ''severely'' undertuned on release, as he had the unfortunate timing of being released when Quick Servants were in meta (due to premier Quick Servants such as Jack The Ripper being able to generate so many Critical Stars they could ''reliably'' out-perform all of his peers in damage and generating NP gauge). As a result, Astolfo's NP Generation Rate and Star Generation Rate stats were incredibly low for his rarity and not sufficiently compensated by his skills, making him a Quick Servant who struggled to generate Stars ''or'' use his Noble Phantasm. He later received a Rank Up Quest that gave him an extremely rare +50% NP Gauge boost, turning him into a consistent and powerful wave farmer.

* Astolfo (Rider) was ''severely'' undertuned on release, as they had the unfortunate timing of being released when Quick Servants were in meta (due to premier Quick Servants such as Jack The Ripper being able to generate so many Critical Stars they could ''reliably'' out-perform all of their peers in damage and generating NP gauge). As a result, Astolfo's NP Generation Rate and Star Generation Rate stats were incredibly low for their rarity and not sufficiently compensated by their skills, making them a Quick Servant who struggled to generate Stars ''or'' use their Noble Phantasm. They later received a Rank Up Quest that gave them an extremely rare +50% NP Gauge boost, turning them into a consistent and powerful wave farmer.

** Astolfo received a skill upgrade on July 2017, which gave his third skill a 50% NP gauge fill to compensate for his low NP generation.

* Arash used to be derided as one of the worst Servants in the game due to his bad skills, low stats, and self-destruct NP. However, his Interlude increased the damage of his Noble Phantasm enough (1200% damage even with low stats is no joke) that he actually became one of the most popular farming Servants in the game. There were six reasons for his massive popularity: he is easy to acquire and easy to max out (he's available on the Friend Gacha and his max level is low due to his rarity); he is easy to use (he has exactly one trick: press the Noble Phantasm button); his NP deals enough damage to reliably clear every single Daily Quest (except against Lancer enemies); his self-destruct NP is a perfect setup to introduce the first member of your backline into the frontline without needing Order Change; the inherent memeability of his NP ("STELLA!!!"); and finally, Arash's Noble Phantasm ''has the second-shortest NP animation in the game'', which saves valuable seconds when you're farming the same content over and over.

* Arash used to be derided as one of the worst Servants in the game due to his self-destruct NP that didn't do much due to his low stats. However, his Interlude increases the damage of his Noble Phantasm ''just'' enough that he actually became one of the most popular farming Servants in the entire game. There were four reasons for his massive popularity: he is easy to acquire and easy to max out (he's available on the Friend Gacha and his max level is low due to his rarity); he is easy to use (he has exactly one trick: press the Noble Phantasm button); his self-destruct NP is a perfect setup to introduce the first member of your backline into the frontline without having to use Order Change; and Arash's Noble Phantasm ''has the second-shortest NP animation in the game'', which saves valuable seconds when you're farming the same content over and over.

* Arash used to be derided as one of the worst Servants in the game for his self-destructing NP which didn't do much because of his bronze Servant status. This looped back into being hilarious for some and was quickly used for shits and giggles. Then he received a new skill which regenerates his HP and NP bar and his interlude buffed his NP greatly, giving him the potential to be a GameBreaker with the right setup. And with Palingenesis he's become even stronger. Helping this was his role in the Camelot chapter, which gave him a lot of characterization, helped introduce his myth to a lot of players, and gave him a number of fan favorite moments [[spoiler:including his HeroicSacrifice which involved ''deflecting a Rhogomyniad blast a thousand times more powerful than Excalibur with his Stella arrow'']]. He ''rapidly'' became a favorite of the fanbase after this, his popularity [[{{Pun}} exploded]] even more due to his voice actor doing the full Stella chant in the Agartha livestream, and thus more people endeavored to use him seriously out of respect.

* The Quick meta as a whole was revived from the grave in the wake of the Merlin and Buster-oriented meta, with the release of Scathach-Skadi during the third anniversary. The reason: Scathach-Skadi's skills (a +50% NP gauge charge, and a +50% Quick card effectiveness boost) enabled looping for certain Quick Servants, wherein they regained so much NP gauge from using their Noble Phantasms and Scathach-Skadi's charge that they could use their Noble Phantasm ''every round''. This was a ''massive'' buff to Servants who had Quick AoE Noble Phantasms with high hit counts (such as Edmond Dantes, Atalante, and Valkyrie), and a team of one Quick Servant and two Scathach-Skadis (one owned, one recruited from Friend lists) allowed for ''consistent'' three-turn clears of three-wave battles, which is most of the grind/farming content in the game.

* The Quick meta as a whole was revived from the grave in the wake of the Merlin and Buster-oriented meta, with the release of Scathach-Skadi during the third anniversary, whose first skill is a huge Quick card boost and boosts its critical damage immensely. In addition, many popular Quick servants such as Meltryllis, Medusa, Cú Chulainn, Cursed Arm Hassan, Edmond Dantes, and Sasaki Kojirō, were given Rank Up Quests that put them in the same level with Arts and Buster servants. As a result, Quick teams have gained more popularity and have given powerful Quick based servants their time to shine. In fact, Scathach-Skadi easily rivals Merlin, if not outright ''beats'' him when it comes to appearing on the Caster support tab, thanks to her kit massively benefitting farming, which usually covers more than half of the gameplay.

** Paracelsus is mostly considered to be a MasterOfNone Caster that is rarely used in many team compositions (not to mention, he isn't even that popular among fans due to his NeverLiveItDown moment) and his noticeable quirk is his third skill that grants an ally member Guts. While his skillset is relatively decent, he is completely held back by the long cooldowns of his skills (most of them being 7-8 turns when they are max ranked). Not to mention, many of what he does is OvershadowedByAwesome by Irisivel (who can apply Guts more consistently than him, and can apply it to the ''entire team'') and Helena (another Caster with a well-rounded supportive kit with a more powerful [=AoE=] Noble Phantasm). He was later given a Rank Up Quest that buffs his third skill that not only grants the party member Guts, but also bestows them NP generation with a total of 50% NP generation at max rank. Combined with his 2nd skill that improves Arts performance for the entire team, this allows Paracelsus to fill a niche for NP spamming for various Arts servants (i.e. Fionn, Nitocris, Sieg, Nursery Rhyme, Rider Mordred, etc.) and serve as a viable budget alternative to Tamamo. With the right setup, he can even allow an Arts servant to fully regain their NP bar ''after using their Noble Phantasm'', this allowing the said Arts servant to use their NP again in the next wave.