Talk:Rashomon Event Rerun/@comment-27123410-20170607105549/@comment-28048698-20170607212250

Well, I was one of those guys who used used his own Merlin to beat the challenge. I have a lot of Buster Servants (Hijikata, Ishtar, Xuanzang, Mordred, etc) so I like to couple him with them. However, this time I did it because I didn't wanted to waste time, I still have to use 3 golden riceballs and 24 normal ones.

However, from my experience fighting against against her with my team (Merlin, Shielder, Ishtar in the front, Leonidas, Irisviel, and another Merlin in the back for security) I must say that Ibaraki isn't really mandatory here. Not at all, you can do a lot of different strategies.

Let me explain.

In this fight I only had a bad time twice, and both times were thanks to the RNG. A whole round of "Let's hit hard to Merlin", and the second one was with the Rider hands. Ignoring those two times, Shielder was able able to reduce a lot of damage thanks to her combo of taunt + invulnerability, her first skill and Lord of Camelot. Ishtar with enough buffs was able to clean the hands, but you can do this with any other self-buff AoE character like Artoria, Gilgamesh, Francis Drake, Mordred, maybe Iskandar, etc. Merlin's HP regen wasn't that helpful for me, to be honest. My team never reached 50% HP thanks to Shielder. Probably with Waver this would be even easier thanks to Waver's DEF buff.

Basically my strategy, completly possible without one Merlin, is to have DEF and ATK buff at hand, and a strong AoE Servant with self-buff. Why self-buff? Because you want to nuke the enemy, and usually aren't going to achieve that quick with only a couple of buffs (like Shielder + Waver, Shielder + Merlin, Shielder + Tamamo). Servants like Drake, Ishtar, Gilgamesh, Artoria, Mordred or Iskandar have enough self-buff to boost the NP damage and clean the enemies.

Instead or Merlin, I would say Shielder is the mandatory one here. She is the true broken Servant. High DEF buff, decent ATK buff, targeted invulnerability + 20% NP charge, taunt with +200% NP gain, and the best things: her cost is 0. Zero!!!

Another safe option can be Tamamo, Shielder and a good Arts NP Servant like Da Vinci. Shielder will keep the team's HP high, Tamamo will heal every damage received, Tamamo's NP will reduce Shielder's cooldowns to keep spamming them, an also will charge Shielder and Da Vinci's NP.

Using only 4 Servants maybe you can use Irisviel or Medea Lily to take Tamamo's role, Shielder still on the team, and we have a lot of good AoE Servants like Artoria Santa, Chacha (but risky because she is Berserker), Summer Mordred (and she is arts), Nero (many Arts cards, guts, ATK/DEF buff, self healing), EMIYA (evade & self buff), Nursery Rhyme, Helena (Charge the team's NP, boost the team's damage), and... well, many, many others.

If I had enough time I would gladly try once again that challenge with a "weaker" team.