Talk:New Year 2017 Summoning Campaign/@comment-85.118.8.150-20170104140018/@comment-29893250-20170105060349

Vlad isn't good. He's basically the sumanai of 5 stars. He is one of the few 5 stars that I'd basically leave there while he waits to be turned into rare prisms so I can get something that I particularly want. His bloodsucker and QAABB package allow him to fire off his NP without as much help as other non Kintoki berserkers typically need but his ability to charge is still relatively dismal. It isn't like he excels as a NP spammer. Shapeshift isn't exactly that strong a defensive skill. He's still a berserker and extremely squishy. And his battle continuation is fine but nothing great. His NP isn't anti army either, making him not good for farming.

And before anyway one says "There are only bad masters, not bad servants", the fact is that of the 5 stars as far as effectiveness goes, Vlad is not preferable as he excels in no particular area, being comparatively subpar in all of them. Let's compare him with all the other 5 star berserkers. Cu, Nightingale, Kintoki, Raikou. And let's add Heracles into the mix because he's good too. So out of 6 zerkers.

NP spamming: 1st. Just barely above Raikou.

Survivability: 5th. Just above Kintoki.

NP potency: I'm going to put this in last place because in an arts team where he could sort of spam, it really isn't that potent compared to others that could slot in instead and the others are generally near the top of the pack at what their NPs do. Usually super heavy damage.

Support capacity: Tied for last. He has none.

Normal damage dealing capacity: Dead last again.

So let's look at team viability. In a buster oriented team, Vlad clearly falls short of all the others, though somewhat expected. As a solo servant (some servants can just jam into anything because they are fully self sufficient), he's got none of that. In an arts team, he's at his best... but why Vlad? Why not some other servant that actually has 3 arts cards and still hits like a truck? So before anyone says something like "He's great! Waver Tamamo Vlad!" or "Waver, anything," for that matter, let's be realistic. That statement isn't about Vlad or whatever other servant. It is about Waver being good and enabling whatever the heck you want him to enable. Vlad is fine there but only because you gave him his bottle and changed his daiper and you could likely slot in any number of servants instead in whatever other team you come up with for Vlad. This isn't true of literally every other 5 star berserker and most 5 stars in general. Cu is a high survivability berserker. This is unique except in the case of Heracles who is also very high survivability but this is so good that no one thinks less of them for it. Kintoki is a berseker that's super easy to NP turn 1 with which stuns and that's huge. Uniquely high burst damage. Nightingale is a support berserker and is good at that. This too is quite unique. Raikou is a self sufficient crit berserker and probably the most potent crit receiver, adept at taking it, hammering, and still keeping the train going. This is also unique. So they each fill roles in ways that no others really can but Vlad has nothing of the sort. Could we use him? Yes. Is he ideal? No. Not even close. Normally you can't choose what servant you get but in this case, you can exert much more control. And given the range of 5 stars, unless you like Vlad for flavor, getting him as your gauranteed 5 star is most certainly a "failure" or "the worst possible outcome".