src/pages/blog/instant-death.md

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+---
+layout: ../../layouts/blogPost.astro
+title: 'FGO Mechanics: Instant Death'
+pubDate: 2023-08-19
+description: 'Blog post talking about instant death in FGO, how you can take advantage of it and what its limits are.'
+author: 'Firq'
+tags: ['fgo', 'games']
+---
+
+> **Disclaimer**<br>
+> While writing this, Requiem and I faced a bit of a challenge concerning death rate calculations. Case in point is the passive "Item Construction"
+and its interaction with Instant Kill, as we could not reach a final verdict if it affects Instant Kill Hit rate or not. In case of this article, I will assume
+it doesn't interact with the hitrate, but if you have proof that this is different, I will gladly incorporate this in the article.
+
+## Introduction
+
+Instant Kill & Instant Death: One of the most rejected systems to exist in FGO. Most players know of it, but discard it because of its unreliability and uselessness against stronger enemies. In this article, I want to dive a bit into the workings of Instant Kill and help you understand how you can, in specific scenarios, use it to your advantage.
+
+There are a multitude of servants that have access to instant-kill, but I will only highlight a few here (You can view the full list on <a href="https://gamepress.gg/grandorder/instant-death" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="font-style: unset">Gamepress</a>)
+
+- **Nitocris (Caster)**: The most prominent figure, as she has easy access to her instant-killing NP and a skill that increases her death hit rate
+- **Void Shiki (Saber)**: Another Example of an AOE Instant-Kill servant who also has access to Death Resist debuffs. One quest in her release event even specifically used the Instant Kill mechanic (<a href="https://apps.atlasacademy.io/db/NA/quest/94021308/1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="font-style: unset">Quest Link here</a>)
+- **King Hassan (Assassin)**: The only servant that can afflict enemies with instant death on normal attacks (Note: David can do this as well, but only if he has his Bond CE equipped)
+
+But since Instant Kill is based on probability, most players are relucatant to use it in their farming compositions. This thems from the different death rates enemies have:
+
+- Bronze: 80%
+- Silver: 50%
+- Gold: 20%
+
+This list here is just for rarities. However, there are a lot more factors to consider, as some enemies have higher death rate, some lower. Be sure to check each case individually, as rates may vary.
+
+Also, servant enemies usually have a death rate of 0.1%, sometimes a bit more like 0.3% or 0.4%. So going for Instant Kill on servants will, in the majority of cases, not work.
+
+## Calculating Instant Death Rate
+
+The formular for getting the probability of an enemy dying to Instant Kill is as follows:
+
+```
+death = hitRate * deathRate * (1 + instantDeathRateUp - instantDeathRateDown - instantDeathResistUp + instantDeathResistDown)
+```
+
+The parameters here are the following:
+
+- `hitRate`: The Death Hit rate of the effect or NP used
+- `deathRate`: The Enemy Death rate
+- `instantDeathRateUp`: Buffs that increases instant kill success rate (Nitocris S1)
+- `instantDeathRateDown`: Debuffs that decreases instant kill success rate
+- `instantDeathResistUp`: Buffs that increases instant kill resistance (Taira S2)
+- `instantDeathResistDown`: Debuffs that decreases instant kill resistance (Void Shiki S1)
+
+## Example
+
+The main reason this came up was because of a farming comp used in <a href="https://apps.atlasacademy.io/db/NA/quest/94061820/1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="font-style: unset">Hunting Quest XI - Day 5 - Pride+</a>. The node is structured
+into a 2 - 1 - 1 Layout, meaning using a dual-DPS setup would be the way to go.
+
+Looking at the stats for the first wave, it made sense to use Nitocris: Both Ghouls have a 100% Death Rate <a href="https://apps.atlasacademy.io/db/NA/enemy/9940700" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="font-style: unset">according to Atlas Academy</a>.
+
+I went with using Nitocris, since she has a 100% NP charge and a skill that increases her Instant Death rate by 100%. Not needing any additional charge meant that no other buffs or AOE charges needed to be used on turn 1.
+
+Her kit brings the following stats:
+
+* Her NP has an Insta-Kill Hit Rate of 50% when used at Overcharge 1 (meaning 100% charge)
+* Her S1 increases Insta-Kill success rate by 100%
+
+### Actual calculation
+
+When using the formular from above, we have the following values
+
+```
+hitRate: 50%
+deathRate: 100%
+instantDeathRateUp: 100%
+instantDeathRateDown: 0%
+instantDeathResistUp: 0%
+instantDeathResistDown: 0%
+```
+
+This means we can fill in the formular like this
+
+```
+death = 0.5 * 1 * (1 + 1 - 0 - 0 + 0)
+```
+
+We now break everything down step by step
+
+```
+death = 0.5 * (1 + 1)
+      = 0.5 * 2
+      = 1
+      = 100%
+```
+
+So her death succeeds 100% of the time on these ghouls, which makes her perfect to use in this scenario.
+
+For other skill levels, this looks like this (_Her S1 scales from 50% to 100%_)
+
+```
+ Skill Level |  1  |   2   |  3  |   4   |  5  |   6   |  7  |   8   |  9  |  10  
+-------------|-----|-------|-----|-------|-----|-------|-----|-------|-----|------
+ Death %     | 75% | 77.5% | 80% | 82.5% | 85% | 87.5% | 90% | 92.5% | 95% | 100% 
+```
+
+In the end, this resulted in the following comp that worked like a charm.
+
+<div style="width: 100%; display: flex; justify-content: center; padding-top: 0.75rem">
+<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/UwbNp_dB_VU" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>
+</div>
+
+## Conclusion
+
+This small article should have given you an insight into using Instant Death as an advantage in the future. But remember: Stacking Gacha in a Gacha game can backfire.
+
+That's all for now, thanks for reading
+~ Firq