So... I bought a JP Quartz account right after the 3rd Anniversary stream because all the goodies being given away were just too good to ignore. Rolling with over 800 quartz and 50 tickets for just $9 is satisfying as fuck. Decent luck with servants and I managed to get 1 of each Summer Servant so far and 400 quartz left for Part 2. I'm treating the JP account as more casual, but I have obviously fooled myself because mass grinding 1/2 AP Dailies and then Summer #3 is anything but casual.
But I'm happy to report that I beat the Grand Battle with no CS used. Battle spoilers:
Party Composition, First break bar down, Second break bar down, Victory
[nsfw]https://imgur.com/a/r4Z4j6g[/nsfw]
Random thoughts:
David is so amazing for his Harp. The best newbie skill in the game on a 3* deserves so much praise.
Saber Lancelot is so baller. With a 50% NP CE and 30% NP Charge as his first skill, he's so close to NP on Turn 1 and can still do good card damage in general. I hope to get him on NA soon.
King Hassan and Musashi are as amazing to use as their repuation precedes them. And I'm not even utilitizng them with Merlin, guess that's the power of Buster Gorillas. I was not as impressed with Hijikata as I would have hoped, but it's hard to say I'm using him well without proper support. MHXA has the best animations and Hokusai has the cutest voices and expressions. Jeanne Archer is so ridiculous gameplay wise, but her costumes and expressions are top tier.
Raikou Lancer is so busted. Holy shit.
Finally, the JP friends I've got have far fewer maxed skills than I expected. I don't really have any super whale friends and it's possible that most of them are not Day 1 players. But the thought occured to me that when NA gets to this content in 2 years, by comparison, NA players will be far stronger on average. Being able to see the future and properly allocate their resources along with getting certain QoL features quicker will do that to a playerbase.