Gilgamesh Best Build Guide

[Overview]

Gilgamesh, a Lightning Destruction character, arrives in wave 2 of the Fate collab, bringing with him fantastic general support and sub-DPS for high Energy teams, while also being the targeted way to elevate Saber and acting as a dual DPS when paired with her. Along with Rin, Gilgamesh brings a new mechanic to the game in the form of a Joint Skill attack between two separate units, where both he and Saber attack the enemy simultaneously. Gilgamesh gains Energy for himself based on the Energy that allies expend, and also passively provides large amounts of ATK% and CRIT DMG, especially for high Energy teammates. With vertical investment, Gilgamesh is capable of becoming a main DPS himself.

[Intro]

Welp, to the people who have been wanting morally ambiguous playable characters: be careful what you wish for, I guess. Would be interesting to see how Mydei responds to Gilgamesh. I'm now also realising I actually made the joke initially in Mydei's review about his visual design bearing similarities, but now it's actually real, huh.

Gilgamesh (and Rin) is a character that is explicitly designed to support one character specifically, and is for the most part meant to be glued to them at the hip, the character in question being Saber, of course. I'd recommend reading Saber's review to make sure you're familiar with how she works, since I won't be going too in-depth here, and everything I said there still holds true.

We've had other characters (cough Dahlia) that are very clearly meant to help out other characters (looking at you Ms. Flyshine), so that part isn't exactly new. What definitely is new is that another character is mentioned by name in the new character's kit. Okay, sure, Cyrene was the first but she's a very special case so just play along for now.

Along with the brand new Joint Skill attack, this is actually very exciting stuff, and gives us a lot of potential interactions to look forward to in the future, so it's a very welcome addition.

For Gilgamesh himself, he's an excellent addition to the Saber team and helps out tremendously. He doesn't exactly fix every issue that team has, and he's not exactly flawless himself either, bringing his own headaches to try and play around, but the final output of the team is extremely impressive, definitely able to hold its own against the many top tier teams we have these days.

He's even got niche uses as a support for other high Max Energy allies, and his unique mechanics could mean that he has an unexpected role in teams like that moving forward.

Plus, he's free to claim as of the writing of this review, in the same way that Archer was, and his Light Cone can also be gotten as a bonus after 200 combined pulls, so everyone can get access to him very easily and his LC quite easily.

[Abilities]

Lots of words, as usual.

Gilgamesh is bored. He requires amusement to function. Initially when the battle starts he will always automatically use his Basic ATK on his turn. When an ally character takes action, Gilgamesh gains 1 point of Interest (as in 'intrigue', not what Aventurine kneecaps you for). When Interest reaches 10 points for the first time, Gilgamesh enters the 'Interest Piqued!' state and locks his Basic ATK while unlocking the use of his Skill, and will no longer act independently.

Since this is for actions taken, rather than anything specifically, fast acting teammates can ramp up the Interest gained quite quickly, especially noticeable for teams with action advances or Follow-up teams. In addition to this, whenever an ally uses their Ultimate, Gilgamesh gains King's Burden which increases his own Ultimate DMG dealt by 40% for 3 turns, and each point of Interest will increase Gilgamesh's SPD by 10%. Yeah, he's a human Lightning-Lord, god help us all.

His Skill, once becoming accessible from his Talent stacking 10 Interest for the first time, has two effects. The first is that upon using it, Gilgamesh will gain King's Acknowledgement which gives him 30% DEF Ignore for 3 turns. The second is the damage portion, a Blast AoE dealing 280% ATK to a designated enemy, and 140% ATK to adjacent foes.

This Skill does not consume Skill Points under any circumstances, which is probably for the best given that Gilgamesh loses the ability to use his Basic ATK pretty much instantly. Being SP neutral gives him a lot of flexibility in any team he's put in, especially when paired with Saber or a SP-hungry support or sustain. Using Skill will consume any Interest Gilgamesh has on his turn.

Gilgamesh's Ultimate deals 400% ATK to all enemies, followed by 10 Bounces each dealing 100% ATK, for a total maximum of 1400% ATK if used against a single enemy. This Ultimate has a few noteworthy things. The first thing is that this Ultimate costs a huge 360 Energy.

The second noteworthy thing is that this Ultimate deals abnormally high amounts of Toughness DMG, especially for the fully AoE portion; 40 Toughness is extremely high, and an extra 20 comes from the combined total of the Bounces. It's not about to be Break-ready, but it's extremely appreciated, since every team benefits from having enemies be Broken.

Gilgamesh's Talent has a second part to it, exclusively active when Saber is in the team. When Gilgamesh or Saber attack, they increment an attack tally by 1. When the tally reaches 8, both Saber and Gilgamesh launch a Joint Follow-up ATK together, dealing Lightning DMG equal to 400% of Gilgamesh's ATK and Wind DMG equal to 600% of Saber's ATK, to all enemies on the field. After this, Gilgamesh gets 3 points of Interest, and Saber restores a fixed 120 Energy and gets a 200% multiplicative damage increase on her next Ultimate. After the Joint ATK, the tally is reset.

This is absurd. Aside from the extraordinary screenwide nuke this attack poses, 120 Energy instantly restored to Saber is such a huge influx of Energy, and it accelerates the game plan much much faster, and the staggering 2x final damage multiplier you get on her next Ultimate speaks for itself. You'll be hard pressed to get anything that gets close to this level of buffing for Saber that's not Gilgamesh. What's more is that this Joint ATK is explicitly a Follow-up ATK as well, meaning any buffs specific to that attack type are going to be magnified even more, especially due to the very high combined multiplier of this attack.

Aside from the Saber-specific interaction, there's not much to suggest he's a support for anyone else, nor is there a visible way to broach the insane Energy cost of his Ultimate, but his Bonus Traces provide the rest of the information.

[Bonus Traces]

A2 gives a very important bonus to Gilgamesh. When Gilgamesh uses his Ultimate, he gains 2 Interest, and when other ally characters use their Ultimate, Gilgamesh gains 2 points of Interest, and restores Energy equal to 30% of the Energy that the ally consumed; for example, if the ally Ultimate cost them 200 Energy to use, Gilgamesh would restore 60 Energy.

This not only accelerates his general gameplan of getting more turns from reaching higher SPD due to Interest, it also gives him large injections of Energy for his own Ultimate to be used. Without this Trace, you won't be seeing too many Ultimates from this man, but once it's activated (and provided you're paired with allies with moderately high Energy costs), Gilgamesh is going to be getting his Ultimate really quite quickly.

A4 will let Gilgamesh stack up some personal buffs from Interest. Every point of Interest will grant him 25% CRIT DMG, up to a maximum of 125% after 6 points have been gained in the battle.

Lastly, A6 will provide a passive bonus to all allies, including Gilgamesh. While Gilgamesh is on the field, all allies get 20% ATK and 20% CRIT DMG. If an ally's Max Energy exceeds 140, every 1 excess point of Max Energy grants an additional 1% ATK and CRIT DMG, up to a maximum of 100%. This is a total of 120% ATK and CRIT DMG, reached for allies with at least 240 Max Energy.

This is a pretty colossal passive buff to be giving out, and is what gives him some great usability in teams with characters that fulfil these requirements. Naturally, Saber fulfils this fully by default.

[Eidolons]

Usual disclaimer as always: unnecessary, but nice to have. Gilgamesh is quite fortunate in that he's already very potent at E0, and so outside of his E1 which buffs his supportive capabilities, most of his Eidolons actually work to allow him to fulfil a Main DPS role as well.

E1 will allow Gilgamesh to share the effects of King's Acknowledgement to allies, giving them the 30% DEF ignore as well. It also makes King's Acknowledgement give Gilgamesh an extra 60% ATK buff.

In addition to these effects, whenever Gilgamesh consumes Interest to action advance himself, he restores an extra fixed 40 Energy when he next uses his Skill.

This is a very good value E1, to add to the growing pile of good value E1s we've been getting recently. Wracking them up like blueberries. This makes Gilgamesh better for those high Energy non Saber teams, and giving a passive 30% DEF ignore is a really big deal, especially when you factor in the crazy high offensive stat buffs he gives passively too.

E2 will grant 5 points of Interest to Gilgamesh upon entering combat, and will grant 5 points immediately when he uses his Ultimate. The DMG multiplier of his Skill will increase by 100% against the main target, and 50% against adjacent foes.

Multiplier increases are rare and always powerful, and the vastly increased rate of acquiring Interest means you'll be able to use this newly buffed Skill more and more frequently. You could start seeing great success with main DPS Gilgamesh at E1, and E2 plays into it even more. I mean, you can do it at E0 but it's unlikely to be super competitive, especially compared to the toppest tier characters.

E4 gives Gilgamesh 20% Energy Regeneration Rate. Wao.

Lastly, the E6 will increase the Bounce DMG multiplier of his Ultimate by 80%. While Gilgamesh is on the field, all allies get 20% All-Type RES PEN, and whenever an ally character uses their Ultimate, Gilgamesh gains a point of Golden Rule, up to 3 points. He will consume all Golden Rule to activate his Ultimate, and each point consumed increases the CRIT DMG and Ultimate DMG of his Ultimate by 100% each.

It's an E6, it sounds about right.

[The Rest]

There's really not that much to go over, surprisingly. Despite his flair for the dramatic and his incessant maniacal laughter, Gilgamesh is pretty simple.

When it comes to Saber teams specifically, he is pretty much an unconditional slot-in. He's quite literally designed to work with her and they complement each other very nicely naturally.

But what's better than one headache? That's right, two headaches!

Yeah, Gilgamesh actually brings plenty of his own quirks to the team that can result in needing to be even better at actually playing the game to work around it. Keep in mind as well that even though Gilgamesh lets Saber deal even more damage — significantly so — as well as granting 120 Energy, this doesn't actually change how finnicky the Mana Burst mechanic of Saber actually is.

If you want to know more about it, I suggest you read the Saber review where I go into it more in-depth, but the short of it here is that the self action advance Saber has from reaching a stored Energy amount at least equal to her Max Energy is, well, already quite challenging to play around, especially when you have other sources of Energy such as Sunday, or Huohuo, or Tingyun.

This is BEFORE the things that Gilgamesh does for Saber, and giving her 120 Energy immediately can often bring her into the Mana Burst threshold, giving her a 100% action advance immediately. This isn't bad on its own, but since it's not an extra turn but a full actual turn, this can really screw with your buff timings if you're not ready for it, much like the normal Mana Burst can before Gilgamesh.

You will need to account for this during your play, or you'll be full-sending Saber Ults without any buffs whatsoever, and then wondering where all your damage went. I'll put it like this: it's not an accident that Gilgamesh's team buffs are not duration based. Saber was already very difficult to play effectively, and Gilgamesh buffs Saber very significantly. Saber is still very difficult to play with Gilgamesh, sometimes now even more so.

Harder, and better. Both of these things are true. Gilgamesh himself is also quirky like that, and oh boy, do we have very mixed feelings about constantly fluctuating SPD values! Since a noteworthy portion of his Energy comes from allies using their Ultimates, it's in your best interest to make sure that allies are using their Ultimates optimally while simultaneously not heavily overcapping on Energy on Gilgamesh himself. This can be a rather excruciating task if you're not locked in.

There is a lot you have to consider when playing them. It's both in a broad scope of the fight as a whole, as well as the more moment-to-moment decision making; you have to factor in how much Energy you're at currently on Saber, how much Energy you expect to get, control your damage to prevent an early Mana Burst or to accelerate to your next Mana Burst, keep track of your stored Energy, keep track of your buff durations to make sure you're not throwing out damage without buffs, ideally using Ultimate with the Joint ATK's 200% increase, and keeping an eye on the attack count of Gilgamesh so you don't end up wasting the damage and Energy from the Joint ATK, AND keeping track of Gilgamesh's Interest so you can predict where he's going to move to on the Turn Order with his endless SPD shenanigans.

It's a lot, and all of this is in constant flux based on what's happening in the fight at that moment. It's maybe not quite as broadly difficult to pilot as Optimal Seele™, but it's pretty close, and the conditions for success can become nebulous. Even for other more recent examples like Silver Wolf lv. 999, there is a very specific goal in mind to optimise for which is to extend the Ult duration to extend buffs (and more importantly Certified Banger). But with all the micro-management that's inherent to Saber's team — now even more so with the addition of Gilgamesh — you'll find out very quickly that the difference in performance between playing really well and even playing just 'above average' is nothing short of staggering.

Combining these things together results in a team that is extremely rewarding when played well, but extraordinarily hard to learn and pilot, and is most assuredly NOT Auto-friendly. What it is, is STRONG. Really strong, actually, especially in the current environment of Elation DPS, Flagship DPS, and whatever Ashveil is. 

More importantly, I think, is that it's another whole team archetype that's performing on the level that is expected these days, so it gives much more account flexibility when tackling the endgame.

Again, we're now firmly in 3-team endgame, so having more options is never bad, and Gilgamesh is actually completely free as of the writing of this, much like how Archer was back when the Fate collab had just released.

Archer is actually also free again this time, so you do have choices, and Archer is... Well he's Archer. E0 or E1, or whatever you may already be at, he's extremely strong. Spoilers for the Rin review, but Archer got WAY stronger with her, even though Archer already didn't need the help.

Who you choose to go for depends entirely on you, I'm not going to tell you which to get.

For the Saber team, Huohuo is pretty much inarguable, as both Saber and Gilgamesh have such absurdly high Max Energy that percentage restores are going to have the most impact. This can be somewhat problematic since there are other teams that also really like having Huohuo, so you may need to come up with something else. Sustainless teams can also be quite good, especially since the characters frequently associated with that playstyle provide buffs that aren't likely to run out on Saber's turn.

There's not much else. He's really fond of fast attackers or frequent actions, so if experimenting with teams, try and remember that. He's pretty good, but he is a pain in the rear to play maximally. Highly, highly rewarding, but painful nonetheless.

The duo is very complete on their own, so if future supports come out who can benefit the both of them, you shouldn't be surprised to see this team stay at the top for quite a bit.

[Wrap up]

Calling these characters 'limited' might stop being accurate quite quickly if they keep releasing more Fate characters. Out of the ascribed duo, Archer and Rin are definitely the stronger of the two, but that is not at all to discredit what Gilgamesh brings to Saber's team. As I mentioned, it's a very satisfying and rewarding team to get good at, especially since it is so competitive.

You can flex on others by showcasing that you can actually play this game, and you are not merely carried by the strength of the divine. The performance of these two bodies is even, but to bring out the full performance of Saber and Gilgamesh... That depends on the skill of the runner.

Even if you choose not to get Gilgamesh right now, with how the Fate banner seems to work, you'll have plenty of time to change your mind, whether that's on your own, or due to something coming up in later patches, maybe future units or what have you. It's one of the really understated benefits of this banner type.

My lawyer has advised me not to make a character related joke. Fate series be crazy. Really good, but damn, they be crazy. Despite the visual similarities between them, Mydei and Gilgamesh would absolutely NOT get along.