Golden_Sorcerer

What do you get when you take Alucard's Bearded Form from Hellsing Ultimate, switch his personality with that of Alexander Anderson's, turn his hair gray, replace his sword with a lance, and replace his boss Integra with a cannibalistic juggalo? You get this particular stage of the game, which is tied with the Rani Route's Stage 4 for the single most annoying part of this entire game, at least in my opinion. Part of it comes from enemy Master/Servant pairings that are equally obnoxious, part of it comes from Kotomine and his stupid gimmick for the second Arena, and a very special part of it comes from the introduction of the God Damned Nephilim.

My advice for you, if you haven't played this stage yet, is as follows: remember both the enemy positions and the enemy Masters' pathways, focus on the upper levels of the Arena if you're worried about your speed in the first day of the challenge, stun any monsters along the way with any of the Strike equips, take the Masters down on the second day to free up the hunting for yourself, and -- this can't be emphasized enough -- do NOT screw around with the Nephilim. Any rules and constraints that I put go out the window when dealing with them; use whatever you need, and kill them as quickly as possible. Because Fuck those guys. I would advise you to just avoid them, but they give out good experience, don't respawn, only appear on certain days in the Arena, and you definitely need to kill them if you're playing with Casko.

Moving on, for those who are wondering exactly why I went for the Rin Route this time around, I explained it in full with a comment back in the last part, but putting it succinctly, I wanted to test whether I could get one of my Main Stat Focuses (AGI and Luck) to A-rank before the Stage 6 boss fight, and I also wanted to test how well Saber would do against Lu Bu. Anyway, there wasn't really anything I could think of in terms of constraints for this particular battle, but I only had 4 points to spend and was over halfway to a level-up, so I figured I could just do as I did for the Robin fight and hold off on an Alteration until after the fight.

Naturally, things were pretty slow going, but I'm used to it now; Saber runs, with canon stats, seem to fundamentally be composed of battles of attrition. The keys to success are to use your resources wisely, and time their usage equally wisely.

One of Vlad's biggest threats, I found, was his Rebellious Intent buff, which seems to nearly double the amount of damage he does when counterattacking. It works perfectly with Lil'Ronnie's Break-sealing code cast, which, as the name implies, temporarily seals your ability to use the Break command (Sorry Break, I don't think she likes you). Needless to say, do not be afraid to turtle your way through, in a bind like that. In addition to sealing, Lil'Ronnie can also poison your Servant, but the damage wasn't really anything much to me, so you don't necessarily need to focus on curing.

His Ceremonial Purge ability does a fair bit of damage against Saber, even when blocked, so watch for that, and heal, if you can spot it coming. He also uses a Cursed Lance ability later on in the battle, that did noticeably less damage to my Saber, but I think it can also curse you, so be careful about that, too. Of course, the biggest threat to your Servant comes from Vlad's

Fortress of Impalement

Kazikli Bey

, which isn't to be confused with that other Vlad's

Lord of Execution

Kazikli Bey

. In addition to dealing a very literal buttload of damage, it also does a fair bit of damage in between rounds, at least until you've taken enough. Also, if I wasn't just imagining things, the power of the Ceremonial Purges also goes up afterwards, so be especially careful.

Crazy or not, I will praise Vlad for three things: being enough of a BAMF to have forced my Nero to auto-res twice, being surprisingly cool and insightful when you get past the nuts, and being Metal as All Hell. You know that Ceremonial Purge technique that I keep talking about? It involves stabbing himself directly in the chest with his own spear, before literally exploding in holy fuckfire! Not to mention he doesn't take a single bit of damage from any of this somehow. His post-battle stuff is great, too, what with the tear drop of blood, and the floating up to stand, only to get on his knees directly after...

Vlad, you may not have been as suave as your Apocryphal counterpart, and you aren't a neat Tsukihime cameo like the Rani route opponent I would've faced otherwise, but you were alright, and I salute you.