On August 11th, 2023, Fate/Grand Order began its eighth annual summer event, ServaFES 2023″, and like all Fate/Grand Order events this story was christened with a gacha banner featuring a new 5-Star unit as well as two new 4-Star units. The new 5-star unit was a summer alt for the fan favorite servant Castoria while the two 4-star units were summer alts for Chloe Von Einzbern and Suzuka Gozen.
While most fans anxiously waited through an extended five hour maintenance so they could pull for Castoria or Suzuka, Chloe seemed to fly under the radar as far as fan expectations went. However, when she arrived alongside the other two, people immediately began to take notice of Chloe’s unique skills and what she could bring to the game’s meta.
Despite being an Avenger-class unit, Chloe’s strengths come not from her offensive nor defensive capabilities, but rather her use as a support unit. Chloe’s skill kit is built around increasing the Noble Phantasm gauges of other servants on the field before quickly vanishing to the player’s backrow in order to allow another support servant to come in.
How does this support work? In order to take advantage of it the player must use Chloe’s first skill “How Much Progress Have You Made B” during the first wave of any fight. This skill grants all allies increased attack, but more importantly applies a buff to them where for every attack they land they’ll gain an extra “Manuscript Finished” buff. This buff is unique to Chloe’s skillset and will be important come wave 2.
During the second wave (provided that the first wave had three enemies) players will then be able to use Chloe’s third skill “I Have Received The Manuscript!” To increase ally’s Noble Phantasm gauges by 10% for every “Manuscript Finished” buff they currently have applied to them. Because the player attacked three enemies during the first wave, this equals a 30% gauge increase. Players will then want to use Chloe’s third skill “The Replacement Will Make It In Time D++%” which will grant 1 ally the Guts buff, but more importantly will have her retreat to the back row at the end of the current turn.
With that breakdown of her skills, you’ve probably deduced exactly Chloe will be useful for one specific niche of Fate/Grand Order’s meta, that niche being Buster card looping. For the past two years, Fate/Grand Order fans have been able to three turn the game’s nodes using Buster card-type servants through use of what has been nicknamed the double Koyanska + Oberon system. As these two servants have several skills based around buffing Buster units and increasing their Noble Phantasm gauges similar to Chloe. Through use of these two servants, any Buster unit who could naturally recharge 50% of their Noble Phantasm gauge could feasibly 3-turn one of the game’s many nodes.
With the addition of Summer Chloe to the game’s meta though, everything about this system changes. Now any Buster servant who can recharge a measly 30% of their Noble Phantasm gauge is viable for three turning nodes if they have a Black Grail Craft Essence equipped. Because Chloe can both charge Noble Phantasm gauges and put herself in the back row, this allows players to effectively use up to four support units at once through use of their own Plugsuit as opposed to the typical three.
The one weakness of the current Chloe looping system is that it may not be viable for lvl 90+ nodes which often don’t have three enemies in the first wave as she won’t be able to give her allies the expected 30% charge. However that may not even matter for some units such as the original Saber Artoria, who was previously unworkable with the double Koyanska + Oberon system because she needed an extra 10% charge, which Chloe can conveniently apply under this new meta.
It has also been discovered that Chloe’s support abilities may not be limited to just the Buster looping niche as well, as Youtuber xNaya has discovered that she can also support Quick card-type servants who needed some extra charge to loop such as the summer version of Illyasviel Von Einzbern.
Over the past few years I have learned that Fate/Grand Order’s meta is subject to change at a moment’s notice as the game has had a near constant power creep issue since 2021, however I hope that the current Chloe centric Buster meta sticks around long enough for me to see this underrated character get her time in the spotlight.
