u/OceanusDracul

Hello, I decided to go through every Bad End in Fate/stay night and determine who I think the victor will be in each timeline.

Here we go:

1: Forest of No Return: Unfortunately, this is entirely indeterminate. With Shirou gone, and Saber untethered (and possibly able to find a new Master, like Sakura), there's a whole Holy Grail War to occur. This could legitimately be a route in and of itself (following Rin or Saber's new master.) Gilgamesh and Kotomine are still favored, of course, but there's a lot!

2: Girl Rhapsody: Kotomine. With Saber and Archer eliminated, Berserker's greatest threats are gone. Even though Shinji will be able to go through with his plan without any interference, if Rider and Caster don't team up, they have no chance against Berserker. And Berserker has no chance against Gilgamesh, so Kotomine is going to win.

3: Texture: Rin or Kotomine. Rin has taken control of Saber, a Servant she has strong compatibility with, and has become a dominating force in this Holy Grail War. However, Gilgamesh still lurks, and he is still a massive problem, especially without Avalon as a known factor.

4: Missing Ariadne: Caster. With the opportunity to steal Saber from Shirou, even though she hasn't gained the interest she does in Unlimited Blade Works, she will eventually break Saber's will and achieve victory - especially this early in the War, when her emotional loyalty to Shirou and Rin is not built yet.

5: Melty Blood: Shinji or Kotomine. This one is Shinji's best chance, as with Shirou gone and Saber faded away, nothing stops him from completely dissolving the school to feed Rider, rendering her extremely powerful even with his weak self tethering her. Berserker and Gilgamesh are big problems, but Shinji legitimately becomes a formidable presence here!

6: Rafflesia Umbrella: Shinji or Kotomine. It's effectively the same ending as the above.

7: Nutcracker Doll: Kotomine. With Shirou trapped in a doll, he cannot stop Saber from vanishing entirely. If Rin and Archer come to try to rescue him, they will be killed by Berserker - and that's if they even know it's Illya who kidnapped him. As before, Berserker cannot defeat Gilgamesh, and Rin's injured Archer is simply not going to be able to stand up to Berserker or even Caster and Assassin.

8: Dress of Heaven: Kotomine. With Saber more awake and aware, they will still attempt to rescue Shirou - though they're too late. Archer will die covering their escape, and Rin will contract with Saber. They might even end up defeating Berserker! Without Avalon, however, they don't stand a chance against Gilgamesh unaided.

9: Night Without Dawn: Kotomine. Saber and Rin are dead. The only factors left in the war are Berserker, Caster, and Gilgamesh - and we know how well Berserker and Caster do against Gilgamesh.

10: Walpurgis Night: Kotomine or Caster. With Caster in control of Saber, she might actually stand a chance of fighting off Gilgamesh - though of course, she's very much going to need to contend with that golden guy at this stage, as he's ready to appear.

11: Witch's Mark: Kotomine or Caster. See above.

12: One End: Kotomine. With Shirou dead of his wounds and no other Servants remaining besides Saber, Gilgamesh, and Lancer, the war is over.

13: Time Limit: Kotomine. Kotomine kills Shirou while Lancer fights Saber, and with the last Servant defeated, All the World's Evil is made manifest.

14: That Which Cannot Be Changed: Saber. Kotomine grants the Grail to Saber, and gives her dominion of all the world's evil. This is explained in the ending.

15: Holy Grail Completed: Kotomine. Without Avalon, Saber is forced into Gilgamesh’s servitude.  Kotomine manifests the Grail successfully.

---Unlimited Blade Works---

16: Third Death: Rin. Without Shirou to pull her away, Saber is killed in Archer’s indiscriminate attack.  Lancer then finds and kills him, finishing the job.  With Saber and Shirou eliminated from the war, Archer has a very good shot of saving things for Rin.  Victor: Rin.

17: Spider's Captive: Gilgamesh. Saber fades away with Rider killing Shirou, Caster still eliminates Rider, and without being able to take control of Saber, Caster will fall to Gilgamesh.

18: Hypnos: Caster. Caster knows where Saber resides, and with Shirou eliminated by her contingency, will take control of Saber at the soonest opportunity, granting her victory.

19: Killer: Caster. Kuzuki eliminates Rin and Shirou, leaving Saber undefended and ripe for Caster to take control. With this, no obstacle remains for Caster's victory.

20: Haze: Caster. It's outright stated that Caster wins the Holy Grail War in this ending.

21: Artificial Noble Phantasm: Caster. The same as the last two, but not only does she have Saber, she also has converted Shirou into a wand for the projection magic he is starting to master!

22: Sword and Magic: Gilgamesh. With Caster forced to use her Command Spell to eliminate Shirou and Rin, her control of Saber will never be complete. As such, Gilgamesh will win.

23: One Conclusion: Rin. Without Lancer's help, Archer will kill Shirou - however, he still will likely betray Caster to give Rin the best chance of victory she can.

24: Heaven's Fall: Rin. As Shirou sacrifices himself to kill Gilgamesh, Rin is the only Master left.

---Heaven's Feel---

25: Ocean Depths: Zouken. Sakura has already given up on Shirou, and will succumb to darkness.

26: Battle of the Holy Grail: Illya. She takes control of Shirou and Saber, and likely will be able to stop Sakura.

27: Die Together: Sakura. Zouken killing Shirou will break her and cause her to succumb to darkness, but in a state she might be willing to kill him.

28: Miserable Lone Force: Rin. With Saber gone, Shinji's attempt to reassert control of the war will still eventually be stopped by Archer. With Rider eliminated, Sakura now has nothing protecting her.

29: Geas: Rin. Shirou can't stop Rin from killing Sakura, here.

30: Stone Coffin: Sakura. With Rider alive and at full power, she will not allow Rin and Archer to kill Sakura, and with Shirou dead, she will succumb to darkness.

31: Superhero/Mind of Steel: Shirou. I don't really need to explain this.

32: Cursed Boundary Layer - Womb Realm Mandala: Sakura. Rin alone can't stop Heracles.

33: World Purge, Meltdown: Sakura. There is literally nothing and nobody left to stop her.

34: Horror Show: Sakura. Without critical information from Zouken, Rin can't do much, here.

35: Happy End: Sakura. Either as herself, or as darkness, Rider will protect Sakura until her last breath - and now nothing is left to stop her.

36: Dead Fin: Zouken. Shirou wusses out and gives up on all this. Sakura truly breaks and removes her resistance upon learning what a coward Shirou is.

37: Death Penalty: Zouken. Kotomine never uses the baptism to weaken Zouken, thereby allowing Sakura to destroy him.

38: Sparks Liner High: Sakura. Rin won't succeed at stopping Sakura on her own.

39: Compassion: Sakura. See above, albeit this time Rider might have a chance to help, it won't be enough without Shirou at this point.

40: Femme Fatale: Sakura. Her ultimate despair, and ultimate victory as the world is consumed by darkness.

Please let me know any quibbles. This was fun to put together.

Was just looking at the game again and was curious about this. Shinji's scheme to drain the school and empower Rider gets further in the Fate route than the Unlimited Blade Works one, empowering Rider to the extent that she can be a threat to Saber even in her weakened state under Shinji (compare their 'fight' in Heaven's Feel to their fights in Fate.). In Unlimited Blade Works, however, Caster and Kuzuki know about Shinji's scheme ahead of time, and Caster's protection stops Kuzuki from being knocked out with the students, allowing him to kill Rider. What do you think happened to tip off Caster and/or Kuzuki to the scheme, that didn't happen in Fate?

https://preview.redd.it/4neai54k1cmh1.png?width=1051&format=png&auto=webp&s=24c2fd067f8c48a3c7176dc4554005962aee750b

so, i put this together. main sub didn't like it because apparently reasoned and put together tier lists are 'low-effort', so i'm posting it here. an explanation of all the rankings:

A-rank is sort of the 'baseline' - Cursed-Arm Hassan is the standard by which all Assassins trying to do the traditional assassin thing of silently going after the Master has to be compared to, and each of these Servants rivals him in that sense for one reason or another.

B-rank is Servants that are solid, but not as good as the rank-A servants at what they're doing. They're not exceptional the way the ones above them are, but nor are they intrinsically flawed.

C-rank servants are, well, intrinsically flawed. There's some fundamental flaw with their construction that limits their effectiveness in a Holy Grail War outside of specific circumstances to their advantage.

D-rank servants are awful. These four are simply incapable in a Holy Grail War of being a serious chance to win the war outside of truly exceptional circumstances - they lack enough exceptional combat aptitude to be able to be placed in the consolation tier, and their skills at killing and escaping are simply not up to snuff.

A+-rank servants are for the best of the best. Each of them is playing Cursed Arm's game better than he is. Each of these is an extremely formidable threat and has nearly unparalleled abilities at silent killing, coupled with trump cards that exceed expectations.

EX-rank servants are three bastards that aren't playing the same game as anyone else. Unless hard countered, a Master actually trying to win the war with these Servants should almost never lose. Old Man Li is supremely impossible to detect and because Nasu loves chinese martial arts, this is an absurdly good assassin that ignores every downside of the Assassin class including the flaws with Presence Concealment and still can do combat. Mata Hari is impossible to read as a threat and has the ability to enthrall near anyone, even Servants, making her lack of any combat skill irrelevant - Espionage, pheromones, and her Noble Phantasm are that insane. The Master can just be some guy with a gun and Mata Hari can lead almost anyone astray into their grasp. Hundred-Faced Hassan is One Hundred Guys, each an expert infiltrator with a unique skill often related to killing and stronger than a human. Kirei did not care about winning and did not strategize - this Servant's usefulness should be on par with Gilgamesh, if not moreso by the simple fact that the bodies are expendable. A Servant detects and kills five Assassins when the sixth slides the knife between the Master's ribs.

Hassan of Serenity's summoning will almost always result in her summoner's death, making any evaluation of her capabilities as a Servant pointless.

Tezcalipoa is ridiculously powerful, on par with the First Hassan and more generalist, but he's so far removed from the context of a Holy Grail War that I don't think it makes any sense to really evaluate him.

Kama's profile is genuinely illegible. It has so many abilities with weird chuuni descriptions that don't actually say what they do, or even why she's an Assassin and not an Archer, like Euryale. I refuse, on principle, to rank someone whose profile is this much bloviating nonsense that leaves me unable to understand what she -does-.

Also, worth mentioning - Summer Nitocris and Summer Ushiwakamaru have serious enough profiles that I feel comfortable ranking them as regular Servants - they seem to qualify for this class normally. The other summer servants (and Mysterious Heroine X) are joke characters and so are not actually going to be ranked, which is what the goof tier is for.

Anything you feel I got wrong here?

One thing I'm vaguely curious about is, well, at the time when Caster is found by Kuzuki, it could have just as easily been someone else - maybe even someone involved in the HGW. I'm curious what might happen if someone else had come across him - keep in mind, of course, that the only Servants summoned at this time are herself, Berserker, and Lancer (if the UBW anime is to be believed).

So I'm curious how it'd go if she was found by...

Shirou, Rin, Sakura, Shinji, Illya, Kotomine, or Zouken, basically. Would she still summon Assassin in these situations, would she still try to win, et cetera. Secondarily, if it's Shirou, Rin, or Sakura who meets her (and if they DO choose to contract with her), would that preclude them from summoning Saber/Archer/Rider?

One thing I'm vaguely curious about is, well, at the time when Caster is found by Kuzuki, it could have just as easily been someone else - maybe even someone involved in the HGW. I'm curious what might happen if someone else had come across him - keep in mind, of course, that the only Servants summoned at this time are herself, Berserker, and Lancer (if the UBW anime is to be believed).

So I'm curious how it'd go if she was found by...

Shirou, Rin, Sakura, Shinji, Illya, Kotomine, or Zouken, basically. Would she still summon Assassin in these situations, would she still try to win, et cetera. Secondarily, if it's Shirou, Rin, or Sakura who meets her (and if they DO choose to contract with her), would that preclude them from summoning Saber/Archer/Rider?

Writing this specific servant swap for a fanfic, and wanted to get other people's takes on the chances each team has:

Unchanged: Emiya Kiritsugu and Saber Artoria, Tohsaka Tokiomi and Archer Gilgamesh. Those circumstances are similar.

New teams:

Waver Velvet and Cu Chulainn Lancer. Kayneth went for a catalyst for a different powerhouse Servant using his connections, this time, and Waver stole it, as usual.

Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi, Caster Medea, and Assassin Sasaki Kojiro. Kayneth's backup catalyst was a splinter from the Argo, and he thought rolling the dice on a powerful Argonaut would work - he got the servant most similar to himself in another arrogant and powerful mage. Assassin is bound to Sola-Ui, rather than the temple gate, allowing him significantly greater freedom of movement than in canon.

Matou Kariya and Avenger Gorgon. Zouken was curious why on earth the Einzberns summoned an unusual class Servant that was such a weakling for the Third Holy Grail War, and chose to use his knowledge of the Command Spell ritual to see what was going on here. Kariya, therefore, summons an Avenger Servant, this one Gorgon because of his intense desire to save Sakura, who we already know is able to summon Medusa without a catalyst.

Kotomine Kirei and Berserker Edward Hyde. Rather than using the Assassin class as a keyword to summon Hassan and support Tokomi, Kotomine decides to summon a Servant similar to himself, as he is trying to learn about that. He gets, you know, the guy who tried to suppress everything evil about himself and so created a persona that is everything wicked and cruel taken to its highest extremes.

Writing this specific servant swap for a fanfic, and wanted to get other people's takes on the chances each team has:

Unchanged: Emiya Kiritsugu and Saber Artoria, Tohsaka Tokiomi and Archer Gilgamesh. Those circumstances are similar.

New teams:

Waver Velvet and Cu Chulainn Lancer. Kayneth went for a catalyst for a different powerhouse Servant using his connections, this time, and Waver stole it, as usual.

Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi, Caster Medea, and Assassin Sasaki Kojiro. Kayneth's backup catalyst was a splinter from the Argo, and he thought rolling the dice on a powerful Argonaut would work - he got the servant most similar to himself in another arrogant and powerful mage. Assassin is bound to Sola-Ui, rather than the temple gate, allowing him significantly greater freedom of movement than in canon.

Matou Kariya and Avenger Gorgon. Zouken was curious why on earth the Einzberns summoned an unusual class Servant that was such a weakling for the Third Holy Grail War, and chose to use his knowledge of the Command Spell ritual to see what was going on here. Kariya, therefore, summons an Avenger Servant, this one Gorgon because of his intense desire to save Sakura, who we already know is able to summon Medusa without a catalyst.

Kotomine Kirei and Berserker Edward Hyde. Rather than using the Assassin class as a keyword to summon Hassan and support Tokomi, Kotomine decides to summon a Servant similar to himself, as he is trying to learn about that. He gets, you know, the guy who tried to suppress everything evil about himself and so created a persona that is everything wicked and cruel taken to its highest extremes.

Would Kayneth have done the information gathering that Tokiomi and Kiritsugu did on his opponents and be aware of the Magus Killer's involvement before the fighting began, or no?

Or would Kayneth basically only be aware of Irisviel, Tokiomi, and Zouken (as the mages from the three families) coming into it, characteristically arrogant that only those three families are significant threats to him?

it turns out the red mage artifact weapons are really good

this was a lot of fun to do. I will not be doing this for other classes weapons. please let me know any weapons you think I placed significantly too low or too high!

I've got one rattling around in my head - and given how we know from DSR that dungeon bosses getting included are fair game, and from UMAD that stuff that's outside the former regular cadence is also fair game...if you were to design an Ultimate, what would you want it to be?

I've got one that I think could be fun. The Empire's Dirge (Ultimate).

Start with a fight with the Empire's Finest - Regula, Gaius, Nael, and Zenos all at once. Have some Ark Angels type mechanics with these four. I'm aware that human-sized enemies in 8 person content is generally not a thing they do anymore, but I feel like if it's four of them, it's fine.

For phase 2, Emperor Varis takes the field personally, possibly using the legati under his command for trio-type mechanics. This leads into Zenos killing him and Anima being summoned from the loyalty to the Empire. Zenos then departs the fight. This, I think, would be the mid-fight cutscene, as we never actually SAW Anima get summoned from Varis's body, so getting to see it would be a nice dramatic thing.

Phases 3, 4, and 5 are Sapphire, Ruby, and Emerald Weapon, in that order. The scaled up versions of the three legati from phase 1, and at the end, each calls out to the Emperor for salvation - and is consumed by Anima, the manifest symbol of the Empire. A ravenous, mindless beast that in the end, consumes even its own children. Do a fun thing here with the fundamental nature of the Empire, in the end.

The final phase, of course, is Anima, gorged on the simulacrum-soul Weapons and the primal power they had absorbed and given a new model befitting its place as the final boss of the Ultimate. I think this thing deserved to be a trial boss and am legitimately sad it wasn't - so this is, in part, a way to give Anima a proper 8-person boss fight.

Have I cooked, as the kids say?

Hello! I'm Shkval Levasch on Siren and Aether, and am looking for two Gunbreakers to join an extant static in which we challenge as much savage and extreme content as we can, with eight gunbreakers specifically! We had two drops, one due to work, one due to UMAD, and are recruiting new people to join up! Our meeting time is Wednesdays at 7PM CST/CDT, and we usually run for about two hours a week.

Please message me here if you're at all interested in this static!

I've been going through and trying to clear every EX trial up through Endwalker, and Golbez is the first one that wasn't flat impossible that required some significant strategizing for Double Meteor and the Enumerations. Tank privilege only carries you so far, and I was genuinely pretty proud of what we came up with to get the job done! The first time we did the second Void Stardust cleanly, we made it to the end, though.

Hello! Just got non-renewed at my latest attempt at a teaching job and am coming to think I can't really teach math effectively - at least not to the populations I'm having to work with. So, I'm coming here for advice - what's a good alternative path to math education for someone with a bachelor's in math and a master's of education that hopefully won't require TOO much coursework before being able to land a new job, and how does one go about landing an entry level corporate job?

What it says there. I have been non-renewed at my current position (an intervention-based support that I THOUGHT would be more math based and less 'teaching kids executive functioning' based) and after five years attempting and failing to be a math teacher (admittedly only managed to land one proper full time math teaching job in that time period, jfc it's so hard to find a job that is just Teaching Math in a district that isn't godawful), I am ready to switch gears. I've started going to minimum payments for my student loans to save up money, and might try to get some entry level corporate jobs as I prepare to switch tracks to the actuarial career track, as I felt it might be something I could do better at than at teaching math. For people who made such a switch, how hard was it to do, what helped you get there, et cetera.