Fate/Grand Order: the class chart, and the Berserker exception

Fate/Grand Order's class chart comes down to three numbers — 200% with advantage, 50% against it, 100% otherwise — and one class that plays by a fourth. It is usually drawn as a wheel, which is a good picture and a bad reference. Underneath it is a plain matrix of attack multipliers, attacker down the side and defender across the top, and reading it as a matrix makes two things obvious that the wheel hides.

The table

The first thing the matrix shows: there are two triangles, not one

The top-left block is the knight triangle — Saber beats Lancer, Lancer beats Archer, Archer beats Saber. The middle block is the cavalry triangle — Rider beats Caster, Caster beats Assassin, Assassin beats Rider.

And the two blocks are entirely neutral to one another. Every knight-versus-cavalry cell reads 100%. A Saber against a Rider is a plain fight, with no advantage in either direction.

Half of the chart is empty. The class you bring only matters against the three classes in its own triangle — and against Berserkers.

This changes what "wrong class" costs. Bringing a Caster to a Saber node is not a mistake; it is neutral. Bringing a Lancer to a Saber node is a real mistake, because you are attacking into a 50% wall.

The second thing: Berserker is not on the chart, it is a trade

Against the seven core classes Berserker deals 150% to everything — itself included — and takes 200% from each of the other six. It has no advantage and no disadvantage in the ordinary sense; it has a fixed exchange rate. A Berserker attacking a Saber does 150%, and that Saber attacking back does 200%.

That asymmetry — you hit for 1.5×, you get hit for 2× — is the whole design of the class. It is a damage class that loses the exchange on paper and wins anyway, because in most of the game you kill the enemy before the exchange completes. That is also why Berserkers stop being safe in fights that last.

The exceptions all sit in the Extra classes. Berserker deals only 50% to Foreigner and to Beast (Sodom’s Beast/Draco), and 100% to Shielder and Beast (Ereshkigal) — and those last two hit it back for only 100%.

The practical corollary

Against a Berserker enemy, 13 of the 16 classes hit for 200%; only Shielder, Beast (Ereshkigal) and another Berserker do not. So for almost any team the class question disappears and the choice collapses to raw damage and survivability. This is the one node type where you should ignore the chart and bring your strongest Servant, not your best-typed one.

How the Global roster distributes across the classes

The seven core classes are supplied evenly — 43 to 53 Servants each, a spread of 10 across the whole chart. No corner of either triangle is structurally harder to fill than another.

The interesting number is the Extra row. 86 Servants — about 21% of the Global roster — sit outside the seven classes the chart above draws, led by Avenger with 18. The Extra classes run their own relations, and the seven-class triangle does not describe them. The full matrix is 16 classes wide, adding Shielder, Ruler, Alter Ego, Avenger, Moon Cancer, Foreigner, Pretender, Beast (Sodom's Beast/Draco) and Beast (Ereshkigal). If you are looking at an Avenger or a Foreigner, the class affinity page has your row; this guide explains the seven-class core the rest is built around.

What the chart does not decide

Class advantage is a flat multiplier on damage. It sits alongside — not above — attribute affinity, Noble Phantasm cards, buff stacking and the traits an enemy carries. A 200% class advantage is large, but a Servant with the right trait bonuses and a well-built damage stack will routinely out-damage a class-advantaged one that has neither.

The right way to use the table is as an elimination tool: it tells you which Servants are attacking into a 50% wall, and those come out of the lineup before you compare anything else.