[F/GO] Team Damage Comparisons: Buster vs Arts vs Quick

With the ever-growing new generation of multi-hit 5-star servants and massive buffing to crit star generation, many people have been wondering about exactly how “good” are they really. And as the internet tends to do, there will be many heated back-forth discussions/arguments about what team is better and who does the most damage. Are Berserker Buster teams the best, or are NP spam Arts teams #1? Or have the new Crit star Quick teams become the new OP meta that triumphs over both? Of course, most of of these arguments will often start with the words, “In my opinion…” or “Based on my experience…”, which effectively renders their arguments moot. If you’ve read some of my previous posts, you’ll probably know that I prefer to base my arguments off numbers and facts, and this post is no different.

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# The Process

To mathematically compare the different generalized team composition types, I made an Excel spreadsheet that would calculate the average damage output each team type could potentially have. The process was as follows:

1. Determine your team’s average attack power since we are doing generalized comparisons (i.e. net average damage, not “lol-Kscope-kthxbai” damage). Default in the spreadsheet is 10,000 for calculation simplicity.
2. List how many of each card type your 3 Servants have. In total, this should add up to 15 cards. Because we are looking at average net damage and need a stable baseline to make comparisons possible, our calculations will treat all 3 Servants as equal and class-less (i.e. no class multipliers or class triangles factored in).
3. List all possible combinations of 5-card draws that you can get. I’ve already done this for you in the spreadsheet: There are a total of 21 possible combinations of 5 cards that you can pick from your pool of 15.
4. For each possible combination, calculate the percent chance of it appearing. Yes, this is combinations and probability from highschool math (nCr). The chance of getting a BBAAQ hand for example if you have a BBAQQ team (6 Busters, 6 Arts, and 3 Quick cards is C(6,2) x C(6,2) x C(3,1) / C(15,5), which ends up being around 22.5% chance.
5. For each possible combination, determine which of those 3 cards you would choose. Now obviously this will differ from person to person and team to team based on individual Servant choices, but because we are trying to make generalized comparisons here, I’ve made 3 different sets of choices: one for maximizing damage, one for maximizing NP gain, and one for maximizing crit star generation. In the spreadsheet I’ve chosen some pretty reasonable default choices for each, but of course you are free to make your own copy and modify it to see how it’d work for your team (some Servants, for example, generate more stars with their Art cards than Quick, so you may opt for QAA instead of QAQ).
6. Using the known damage formula and multipliers (see /u/KyteM ‘s [blog post](http://blogs.nrvnqsr.com/entry.php/3309-How-is-damage-calculated)) amd your team’s average attack power, calculate the expected damage value for each of the combinations.
7. Take the calculated damage value and multiply it with the percent chance of that combination appearing. This will give you a weighted damage value.
8. Add up all your weighted damage value and the number you get is your calculated average damage output per 3-card turn. Of course in reality you can be smarter and do things like buff up or whatnot to maximize damage on certain turns/cards, but keep in mind that we are comparing overall team damage potentials here, not your turn-to-turn decisions.
9. Apply any post multipliers benefits here that your team composition gives. For Berserker teams, I multiplied all values by 1.65x due to the 1.1x Berserker class bonus and 1.5x weakness bonus against all other classes. For NP spam teams, I factored in damage from NPs by setting the baseline of an 600% AoE NP every 3 turns (e.g. Nero’s lvl 1 NP). Adjust accordingly. For Crit star teams, I (very generously) multiplied all values by 2.0x, meaning we make the assumption that every turn, all 5 of your cards are at 100% crit chance. We’re comparing potentials after all.
10. Repeat the process for all team card possibilities (e.g. BBBAQ vs BAAAQ vs BAQQQ) and each team type (Buster, Arts, Quick), then compare the final results.

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# The Spreadsheet

Here’s the final spreadsheet that came out of this process. Double-check my calculations if you wish and also feel free to make a copy and modify it with your own team’s parameters to see what things would look like for you.

* Excel spreadsheet: http://1drv.ms/1TFqAbz
* Screenshot version: http://i.imgur.com/YRDszhM.jpg

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# The Conclusion

I’m going to be straight-up honest and say that I’ve always been biased towards Team Basaka’s. With only a limited amount of free time every day and still have lots and lots of F/GO ascension mat farming to do, I prefer to finish things fast, be it through [packet sniffing](http://keripo.com/2015/09/fast-ascension-item-farming-guide-with-packet-sniffing) or through choosing more aggressive teams. I’ve always believed that Berserker Buster teams are the fastest team comps for farming due to their high average damage, but now I have the numbers to prove it.

Without adding in the team composition bonus multipliers, the base Buster damage is significantly higher than the other two (BBBAQ yields 71k vs BAAAQ’s 35k and BAQQQ’s 30k). Now that’s to be expected of course, since Arts and Quick teams rely on NPs and crits to make up for that damage difference. But does it actually? For Arts teams, damage increases by a pretty noticeable amount when NPs are factored in, but even the highest “Arts” team damage value of 54k is lower than the lowest “Buster” team damage value of 63k. This is acceptable, however as most Arts teams are focused around survivability, so while they do less damage, they will live longer, are much less riskier, and will usually always win the fight (eventually). Slow and steady wins the race (but I’m personally too impatient for that :P).

Crit teams, on the other hand, turn out to be far less than deserving of all the hype its been getting. For the sake of comparison, I generously multiplied the base damage by 2.0x, implying that 50+ crit stars will always get generated every single turn without fail. I’ve also biased my card choices towards maximizing damage where crit star generation would likely be low. The result is that, with 2.0x damage all around, you will be able to more or less match the regular damage output of normal Buster teams. In practice however, you won’t be able to consistently generate that many crit stars every turn while also maximizing damage without detracting from your crit star generation.

But no matter how hard and consistently you crit, your damage won’t be able to match up with a Berserker Buster team. With the 1.65x multiplier, Berserker teams drastically outdamage both the most aggressive NP spam and Crit star teams (117k vs 53k vs 75k). Now of course the whole downside of this is that you also die much faster, but when you are dealing double the damage of other teams and always have combat initiative (i.e. you always attack first), it usually doesn’t matter as [your target is already dead](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kPII561-GY) (unless you’re up against another event finale boss rush, in which case you’ll want to bring your Arts survivability team).

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# Final Rankings

* Berserker Buster Team
* Buster Team
* NP Spam Team
* 100% Crit Team
* Arts Team
* Quick Team

So in the end, [TEAM BASAKA WA SAIKYOUDESU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb8vMZl1btI)!

[](#trouble)

^^^[Cirno-would-be-proud](http://40.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lri0d1wlzm1r39kvqo1_500.jpg)