History RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap / FateGrandOrder

* [[spoiler:Beast of Sodom/Draco]] was initially disliked for the FanDisservice within her design in addition to her flat characterization. The ''Arcade'' collab, however, end up turning around many previous detractors of hers due to her being the main focus of the collab, [[spoiler:becoming the first ever Beast-class servant]], and a very cool-looking Third Ascension design.

* 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.

** The same can be said of his fellow assassin, [[LightNovel/FateZero Hassan of the Hundred Personas]], who previously existed as merely CannonFodder to show off the awesomeness of Iskandar and making sure their Master, Kirei Kotomine, could begin his StartOfDarkness by contacting with Gilgamesh a lot more. After Camelot gave her prominence, Hundred Personas started receiving a lot of following on her own (and it also helps that her 'main face' is the ponytailed muscular woman).

** [[LightNovel/FateApocrypha Avicebron]], who was the least popular Servant to come out of ''Apocrypha'', became a far more fun and interesting character in the First Lostbelt. This was due to him being nothing but helpful towards the protagonist, from repairing the damaged Shadow Border, [[spoiler:to playing DoubleAgent to get information on Ivan and Kadoc, to sacrificing himself by using himself as the core to Adam so that the protagonist can engage in a Kaiju fight with Ivan's Divine Beast Mount as atonement for betraying Roche and using him as Adam's core.]]
** [[LightNovel/FateApocrypha Sieg]] is much more universally liked due to being OlderAndWiser after having been through ''Apocrypha'', while retaining some of his more {{Adorkable}} traits even as a gigantic dragon. While his light novel self is still a BaseBreakingCharacter, most players can agree that he's improved in ''Grand Order''.
** [[LightNovel/FateZero Tokiomi Tohsaka]] was largely viewed as being UnintentionallyUnsympathetic thanks to the [[AdaptedOut anime adaptation leaving out]] the real reason behind Tokiomi giving up Sakura to the Matou family, and the fact that he's fine with the idea of his daughters [[CainAndAbel fighting against each other]] in the Grail War. However, comes to "Saber Wars II", he's much more well-liked due to his AlternateSelf being a good parent to Space Ishtar, and [[spoiler:purposely taking steps to raise the literal evil half of Astoreth Origin, and successfully making her less evil]].

* The Foreign God ([[spoiler:U-Olga Marie]]) was a very controversial antagonist when they properly debuted at the end of Olympus, being seen as an antagonist that looks to ridiculous to take seriously despite their power and buildup with there being very little reason to care about them on a personal level outside of [[spoiler:seemingly being the long dead Olga Marie]]. But when they finally got focus in Lostbelt 7, the fanbase's opinion turned for the better as [[spoiler:due to a bout of amnesia on her end, she actually ends up being an ally for most of the chapter where her previously over the top personality becomes a lot more endearing, and it becomes clear that she was just a pawn for the true antagonist CHALDEAS.]]

* The Foreign God ([[spoiler:U-Olga Marie]]) was a very controversial antagonist when they properly debuted at the end of Olympus, being seen as an antagonist that looks to ridicules to take seriously despite their power and buildup with there being very little reason to care about them on a personal level outside of [[spoiler:seemingly being the long dead Olga Marie]]. But when they finally got focus in Lostbelt 7 the fanbase's opinion turned for the better as [[spoiler:due to a bout of amnesia on her end she actually ends up being an ally for most of the chapter where her previously to over the top personality becomes a lot more endearing, and it becomes clear that she was just a pawn for the true antagonist CHALDEAS.]]

** [[VisualNovel/FateStayNight Gilgamesh]] was not thoroughly hated, but his antagonism, gigantic ego and straying very far from his more known legend where he changed for better after meeting Enkidu, made him some sort of a creepy pseudo-HateSink thanks to his rape innuendos with Altria and being an utter asshole, with his sole saving grace being ridiculously overpowered and embodying EvilIsCool. While further ''Fate'' media did help in rounding up his personality (''Zero'', ''Extra CCC'', ''Carnival Phantasm'', ''strange fake''), this game is what completes it with the presence of Caster Gilgamesh, who proves himself as a wise king while still retaining his old arrogance, but toned down with none of his ultimately questionable acts. In the Babylonia Singularity, he temporarily appeared as his old Archer form... ''but with the knowledge and experience of his Caster self''. It was considered awesome and the pinnacle of Gilgamesh's evolution throughout the series, washing away old memories when Gilgamesh was nothing more than an entitled overpowered asshole.

* Ibuki-Doji was not well received for the longest time thanks to writing issues like her debut chapter [[spoiler:quickly dropping her before she can do anything interesting]], a very drastic and unexplained personality shift between what we could see of her in the story and her as a summonable servant, and an out of nowhere and poorly implemented amnesia plotline in Tsunguska Sanctuary leading to it feeling like the writers had no idea what to do with her as well as her design being seen as [[FetishRetardant a lot less appealing then what her artist intended]]. Her summer form that debuted in Summer 7 was warmly received with some slight changes to color scheme and better clothing choices helping her designs be more appealing as well as the writing actually helping to bridge the gap with her playable and main story writing with [[spoiler: her being the mastermind behind the event and working with her former partner Douman to make it happen.]]

** Arash later received a Rank Up Quest which gave him a 20% NP gauge charge at Lv.1 (30% at Lv.10): this increased his universality and self-sufficiency in farming comps even further, as he could now use his Noble Phantasm on Turn 1 (by equipping Kaleidoscope) without requiring a Mystic Code skill or another Servant to give him the final 20% gauge needed.

* EMIYA is a very undertuned and confused Servant on release: he has an Arts-focused skillset and Command Card deck, but his Noble Phantasm uses a ''Buster'' card. This made him a poor wave farmer despite his multi-hit AOE NP, because Buster cards have very low NP refund, he didn't have enough Buster cards in his deck to form Buster Chains by himself, and he lacked any skills to increase the damage of his NP. EMIYA later received a number of buffs that increased the base damage of his Noble Phantasm, patched the holes in his kit (such as adding a Critical Strength buff to his Critical Star Drop Rate buff), and eventually buffed his final skill to let him change the type of his Noble Phantasm card to Arts or Buster, in addition to giving him the ability to buff all three of his cards instead of just his Arts. If you change his NP to Arts, he can even regain enough NP gauge that he can immediately use it the next turn! These buffs enabled him to fulfill his intended design as a jack-of-all-trades, and he's now considered one of the best Servants to start the game with.

* Yu Miaoyi was beloved by the fanbase for her role in the story, which is why it pained many that she was held back by her NP removing her buffs, almost requiring her to be with a servant that would protect her from removing her own buffs, which made using her effectively very awkward. Come her strengthening quest, which extends her buff removal resistance from one turn to three turns while also giving her a respectable attack buff, and she's now considered to be a very formidable [=AoE=] Assassin whose strengths outweigh her weaknesses.

* 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).

* Ruler Jeanne unfortunately fell behind the power curve after the release of Merlin, whose on-demand party Invincibility skill (along with peerless Buster support) blew Jeanne's Noble Phantasm (party-wide invincibility, but tied to her NP gauge and with a two-turn self-stun) out of the water. She received a NP upgrade in 2017 that removed the self-stun and added a party-wide debuff cleanse, once again making her NP so uniquely outstanding that she became the best Ruler in the game. She has fallen behind as a generalist support with the release of more varied and powerful Rulers, and more enemies having ways to pierce Invincibility, but she is still a mainstay in Challenge Quest stall comps: in particular, a combination of Ruler Jeanne and either Merlin or Altria Caster is practically ''immortal''.

* Intuition was a Skill shared by many Saberfaces and Saberface-adjacent Servants, and gained a reputation as being one of the most milquetoast skills in the game. On the surface, "gain Critical Stars on demand" might not seem bad, but the amount gained was far too few to justify an entire skill (5-15 in most cases), and was often added to Servants that didn't have any other tools to support a Critical-based playstyle. Following the Second Anniversary, Rank Up Quests started rolling out that upgraded or entirely binned Intuition, replacing it with more interesting or tailored skills:

** 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.

** Mysterious Heroine X had a one-turn invincibility added. Their names were also changed. By ** 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.

* EMIYA is a very undertuned and confused Servant on release: he has an Arts-focused skillset and Command Card deck, but his Noble Phantasm uses a ''Buster'' card. This made him a poor wave farmer despite his multi-hit AOE NP, because Buster cards have very low NP refund, he didn't have enough Buster cards in his deck to form Buster Chains by himself, and he lacked any skills to increase the damage of his NP. EMIYA later received a number of buffs that increased the base damage of his Noble Phantasm, patched the holes in his kit (such as adding a Critical Strength buff to his Critical Star Drop Rate buff), and eventually buffed his final skill to let him change the type of his Noble Phantasm card to Arts, Buster, or Quick. If you change his NP to Arts, he can even regain enough NP gauge that he can immediately use it the next turn! These buffs enabled him to fulfill his intended design as a jack-of-all-trades, and he's now considered one of the best Servants to start the game with.

* 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 Instinct, 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''.

* 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.

* EMIYA is a very undertuned and confused Servant on release: he has an Arts-focused kit, but his Noble Phantasm is a ''Buster'' card. With only one other Buster card in his deck, this made it impossible for him to create Buster Brave Chains by himself and maximise the output of his Noble Phantasm for farming. EMIYA later received a number of buffs that increased the base damage of his Noble Phantasm, patched the holes in his kit (such as adding a Critical Strength buff to his Critical Star Drop Rate buff), and eventually buffed his final skill to let him change the type of his Noble Phantasm card to Arts, Buster, or Quick. If you change his NP to Arts, he can even regain enough NP gauge that he can immediately use it the next turn! These buffs enabled him to fulfil his intended design as a jack-of-all-trades, and he's now considered one of the best Servants to start the game with.

* The "Sparrow's Inn Daily Report - Records of the Enma-tei's Prosperity" event did wonders in redeeming TierInducedScrappy, Fionn Mac Cumaill. In addition to the aforementioned BalanceBuff above, the event tones down his usual role as comical relief while showing a more wise and cunning side to him, and even delves somewhat into how he acquired the Salmon of Wisdom. He becomes the de facto leader of the group, and is instrumental in the plan to save the Enma-Tei from closing. He even lampshades how his reputation with everyone has improved at the end of the event.

Several Servants who were considered bad (whether from a [[TierInducedScrappy gameplay]] standpoint or a character standpoint) were eventually redeemed in the fans' eyes.

* EMIYA has an Arts-focused skillset but a Buster NP that deals very low damage. With his unique Bond CE that gives him a flat chance of dropping critical stars per hit (which makes his NP good for next-turn critical attacks) and a Rank Up Quest which changes his third skill's effect to giving all attack types a buff, he was finally seen as useful. Furthermore, he received another Rank Up Quest in October 2016, turning his Clairvoyance skill into Hawkeye, which increases his star generation and critical damage. Now he's considered a top-tier 4* Servant. And the ''Fate/EXTELLA'' event finally gave him an upgrade to his animations, including firing actual arrows for his attacks, and using Crane Wing Three Realms (with Overedge) for his Extra attack, making him visually interesting and replacing his bland, generic attack animations that were considered unfitting for him. And to cap it all off, he got the first known example of a ''double'' buff to Projection, that let him change the type of his Noble Phantasm, turning him into a character with a ten-hit AOE Arts NP (meaning that on top of all his existing good points, he can now effectively gain enough NP to recharge himself instantly).

* 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.

* Ruler Jeanne unfortunately fell behind the power curve after the release of Merlin, whose on-demand party Invincibility skill (along with peerless Buster support) blew Jeanne's Noble Phantasm (party-wide invincibility, but tied to her NP gauge and with a two-turn self-stun) out of the water. She received a NP upgrade in 2017 that removed the self-stun and added a party-wide debuff cleanse, once again making her NP so uniquely outstanding that she became the best Ruler in the game. She has fallen behind as a generalist support with the release of more varied and powerful Rulers, but is still a mainstay in Challenge Quest stall comps: in particular, a combination of Ruler Jeanne and either Merlin or Altria Caster is practically ''immortal''.

* Siegfried is a strange Saber who is introduced in Orleans and clearly intended as an anti-Dragon specialist (to be used against the tremendous number of Dragon enemies in Orleans). The problem is that all Dragon enemies are ''Riders''. The offensive/defensive boosts against Dragons gained from Siegfried's skills and Noble Phantasm were less reliable and accessible than simply fielding an Assassin and relying on the Class Triangle. In addition, his [=AoE=] Noble Phantasm was a poor match against Giant Dragons, which tended to be solo waves. Siegfried later received ''three'' Rank Up Quests to massively buff his kit, boosting the strength of his attack buffs, Noble Phantasm damage, and NP gain. This helped to fulfill his intended design as a consistent all-rounder who excelled in particular against Dragons.

* 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.

* 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). The developers tried to avoid adding fuel to the Quick meta, and 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; thus 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.

* 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 Instinct, 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''.

* Siegfried is a strange Saber who is introduced in Orleans and clearly intended as an anti-Dragon specialist (to be used against the tremendous number of Dragon enemies in Orleans). The problem is that all Dragon enemies are ''Riders''. The offensive/defensive boosts against Dragons gained from Siegfried's skills and Noble Phantasm were less reliable and accessible than simply fielding an Assassin and relying on the Class Triangle. In addition, his [=AoE=] Noble Phantasm was a poor match against Giant Dragons, which tended to be solo waves. Siegfried later received ''three'' Rank Up Quests to massively buff his kit, boosting the strength of his attack buffs, Noble Phantasm damage, and NP gain. This turned him into more of a consistent all-rounder while also retaining his specific anti-Dragon niche.

* 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 Arts looping enablers such as Nero Bride and Altria (Caster), Paracelsus remains a solid choice.

* Fionn mac Cumhaill was ''terrible'' on release, with average stats, awful skills, and a confused kit: he's a farming [=AoE=] Lancer with only one attack buff, a Crit Rate Drop boost (but no Crit Damage or Star Gather skills to take advantage of it), and a "Target Focus + Evasion" skill but the Evasion ''only triggers 60% of the time'' (a demerit which ''no other Evasion skill in the game has''). His only distinction was being one of the only Lancers (at the time) with an Arts Noble Phantasm. He later received a number of buffs that removed the main weaknesses in his skills and granted him a 30% NP charge. Combined with the rise of the Arts Looping meta and premier looping supports such as Tamamo, Paracelsus, and Altria (Caster), Fionn became a solid choice for a Lancer looper.

* Fionn mac Cumhaill was ''terrible'' on release, with average stats, awful skills, and a confused kit: he's a farming [=AoE=] Lancer with only one attack buff, a Crit Rate Drop boost but no Crit Damage or Crit Star Gather skills, and a "Target Focus + Evasion" skill but the Evasion ''only triggers 60% of the time''. This held him back from his unique niche as being one of the only Lancers (at the time) with an Arts Noble Phantasm. He later received a number of buffs that removed the main weaknesses in his skills and granted him a 30% NP charge. Combined with the rise of the Arts Looping meta and premier looping supports such as Tamamo, Paracelsus, or Altria (Caster), Fionn became a solid choice for a Lancer looper.