MMM - Many 'Motto' Minamotos Marshal Militarily, Manning Mystifying Mech-suit(?), Minded to Murder Malamutes (Minamoto no Tametomo Gacha)

The Modern Magus Magazine

I have to say, it’s pretty abnormal to have a Servant’s gacha drop just when they appear in the story of an event, and not the typical, courteous schedule of Wednesdays.

As a result, I was pretty much left with my pants down writing this thing, on a very busy week after having grinded out the prior MMM.

But hey, I’m here now, set to discuss and judge Ushi’s…uncle, and Raiko’s…you know what, I’m not gonna sit down and figure out how many great’s of a grand-nephew twice removed he is, or whatever.

Now I can see why one may hold a grudge against the Genji. They make family gatherings a nuisance.

Introduction

I swear, we’ve ripped through the silhouettes at record pace this year. Barely over halfway through and the vast majority of them are revealed, with pretty good speculation on remaining candidates.

Among many other interesting accolades in Japanese history, including having one arm bizarrely 4-inches longer than the other, Tametomo was also notably the first (alleged) Seppuku in history. I swear, when a historical figure in Fate was renowned in some way for their suicide, Nasu never misses a beat to include them.

Servant Data

Archer

QAABB (Saber)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

3

4

5

4

Attribute	Human
Alignment	Neutral Balanced

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

Max HP 13,362

HP Rank

Max ATK 12,465

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,926	Base HP	1,959
Max Atk	12,465	Max HP	13,362
Grail Atk	13,645	Grail HP	14,639

Magic Resistance C

Increase your Debuff Resist by 15%.

Independent Action B

Increase your Critical Strength by 8%.

Overview

For his base statline, Tametomo gets a pretty goddamn raw deal. The SSR Archer lineup is frankly filled with a lot of highly-statted monsters like Arjuna and Superhuman Orion, but somehow he manages to waltz in (as a Japanese Servant, no less, known for having sub-pair parameters in Fate lore) and have the 2nd best Attack stat paired with the 5th worst HP stat, placing him as the second-best statted SSR Archer after Superhuman Orion.

So he’s packing highly deadly offense, in exchange for essentially average HP. Very good to work with.

On the passives front he’s far more mild. With the typical class passives of Magic Resistance and Independent Action, Tametomo has moderate boosts to his Debuff Resistance and Critical Damage. Standard Archer faire, but some out there don’t pack one or the other, so they’re neat to have.

NP Generation

Card Hits	3	3	4	5	4
Per Hit	0.56%	0.56%	0.56%	0.56%	0.56%

	NP per Hit (%)	0.56%
NP when Attacked (%)	3%

	Star Absorption	156
Star Generation per Hit	8.0%

Servant Skills

Buster Up

Chinzei Hachirou A

Increase own Buster Card effectiveness (3 times, 3 turns).
Increase own Critical Strength (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Buster +	30%	32%	34%	36%	38%	40%	42%	44%	46%	50%
Crit Dmg +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
CD	7	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6	5

First on the skill lineup is Chinzei Hachirou, a skill that’s literally just one of Tametomo’s epithets.

Similarly simple, this skill provides him with a 3-time 50% Buster Up buff for 3 turns, as well as a 30% Critical Damage Up buff for the same duration. While this thing is light on the details, the power is certainly not, granting a huge damage boost to Tametomo’s primary card type, over potentially multiple turns, until you manage to use 3 total within the window.

Paired with a moderate Critical Damage buff, this skill lets Tametomo already use the perks of the Archer class to his advantage, inflicting vicious Buster crits with just a single skill. Not to mention it’s a big damage boost to his NP that potentially works for 3 in a row, should you avoid his regular Buster cards.

When you take this skill’s relatively short 7-turn base cooldown into consideration, it’s frankly just solid. An impactful offensive steroid with few frills to speak of.

Guts

Indomitable Shot B

Apply Guts to self (1 time, 3 turns).
Apply buff to self (3 turns): When Guts triggers for self, remove all debuffs from self, and increase own NP Strength (1 time, 3 turns).
Increase own NP Gauge.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Revives with HP	1000	1100	1200	1300	1400	1500	1600	1700	1800	2000
NP Damage (Guts trigger) +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
NP +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Next on the list is Indomitable Shot. This skill is many things, but primarily it’s a gauge charger, providing Tametomo with an essential 30% gauge charge upon use. For any Buster AOE Servant, it’s especially key to have a gauge charger in some capacity, as it’s (usually) what enables farming in double Koyanskaya + Oberon setups.

But let’s examine the other parts of this skill. It also provides a pair of buffs, a 1-time, 3 turn Guts buff, as well as a secondary buff which triggers when the Guts does, removing all debuffs from Tametomo and providing him a neat one-off 20% NP Power Up buff for 3 turns.

It goes without saying that you can’t really plan for his Guts triggering and gaining those benefits in most situations, but it’s certainly nice when it does. It may have some bizarre applications for soloing difficult content where you need to eat a big NP but also remove the debuffs applied in the same turn? There are some cases where you get hit with a bajillion debuffs, including Stun/Charm, in challenge quests which are removable, but can’t really be handled except using a Mystic Code skill. It’s definitely niche, but I can see it being useful.

And in general, having some form of defensive tool is good for any Servant. Guts is some of the worst available, but it’s still something.

With an 8-turn base cooldown, this skill isn’t exactly coming back quickly, but thankfully that cooldown is the bare minimum to be double-dipped with Koyanskaya’s gauge charge / skill CD reduction skill, so it’s solid.

Target

Mechanical Archery EX

Apply Sure Hit to self (5 turns).
Apply buff to self (5 turns): Every turn, increase own NP Damage (1 time, 5 turns).
Increase own NP Gauge each turn (5 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
NP Damage (each turn) +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
NP Gauge per turn +	5%	5.5%	6%	6.5%	7%	7.5%	8%	8.5%	9%	10%
CD	9	9	9	9	9	8	8	8	8	7

Lastly, we have Mechanical Archery.

And…well damn, this is a really nice skill. Providing the icon buff of Sure Hit for 5 turns is hilariously the worst effect of the skill, as it also provides a 1-time, 5-turn 20% NP Power Up buff every turn for 5 turns, as well as 10% NP gauge each turn for the same duration. To put it in other terms, this skill provides a total of +100% NP Damage in a bottle, and you can either spread it evenly over multiple NP’s, or get it in one huge blast at the end of the duration.

Regardless, especially since the gauge charge gets Tametomo halfway to a NP, it’s hard to waste the benefits for this skill, and the offensive boon it provides, whether bypassing Evasion in CQ scenarios or having an additional 10% gauge charge each turn in order to NP spam, is undeniable.

The only shame to this skill is the long base cooldown, at 9 turns. While it’s not unreasonable considering the 5 turns duration on all its buffs, it would be pretty crazy to get this thing on a nigh-permanent basis with a shorter cooldown. Regardless, it’s great.

Noble Phantasm

Gouchin Yumiharizuki B+

Apply Ignore Invincible to self (1 turn) [Activates first].
Apply Ignore DEF to self (1 turn) [Activates first].
Increase own Buster Card effectiveness by 20% if battle field is [Near Water] (1 turn) [Activates first].
Deal damage to all enemies.

<Overcharge>

Deal supereffective bonus damage against [Lawful] alignment enemies.

Show Info/Video

Gouchin Yumiharizuki

Ship-Felling Bowstring Moon

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	B+	Anti-Ship	4

Effect	Apply Ignore Invincible to self (1 turn) [Activates first]. Apply Ignore DEF to self (1 turn) [Activates first]. Increase own Buster Card effectiveness by 20% if battle field is [Near Water] (1 turn) [Activates first]. Deal damage to all enemies.

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Ignore Invincible
Ignore Defense
Buster +	20%	20%	20%	20%	20%
Damage +	300%	400%	450%	475%	500%

Overcharge Effect	Deal supereffective bonus damage against [Lawful] alignment enemies.

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
Supereffective ATK +	150%	162.5%	175%	187.5%	200%

For Tametomo’s NP we have Gouchin Yumiharizuki. Re-enacting one of his famed feats of sinking a ship with a single arrow, incarnated into Fate we get…another one of Nasu’s mecha fanboy NP’s.

I’d probably be really happy about it were I a mecha fan, but instead I just have to sigh in resignation. It’s just to be expected by now. Not that the armor probably was sufficient warning.

In any case, this is a Buster AOE NP, which means little to discuss in terms of refund (besides the fact it produces an okay sum of stars on use). Instead, we’ll get into the effects.

Before anything else, this NP layers a potential total of 3 buffs on Tametomo before dealing damage - Invincible Pierce, Defense Pierce, and (if the terrain is Near Water) a 20% Buster buff, all for 1 turn. The combination of the first two means Tametomo holds the vaunted position of being a pierce-everything-screw-your-defenses Servant, while the last is more or less just a bonus lore boost with few means of actually applying outside of coincidence.

The recent addition of Zhang Jiao means it isn’t actually that hard to get his terrain, especially as water terrain setters like Meltryllis Summer have existed for a while now, but it’s not that big a boost to really build around in contrast to throwing someone like Merlin on the roster instead.

With the prior buffs out the way, Tametomo then does his damage, with an effective damage bonus against Lawful-trait enemies. While practically non-existent for generic enemies, the Lawful trait is fairly common in the Servant roster, with a little over ⅓ of Servants in the game possessing it. It’s also worth noting that 21 of those Servants are Sabers, a disproportionate sum of the class, and Tametomo’s class advantage, possessing the trait. He has a rough coinflip of any Saber in the game he faces taking the bonus damage from this NP, which is pretty good.

While all that’s well and good, I’ve mentioned Tametomo should be capable of 3-turn looping, so let’s examine that. Like most Servants, the setup is pretty strict - double Koyanskaya of the Light, Oberon, Battlesuit, and the best build damage-wise requires him to use a 50% gauge CE with maxed out Load Magical Energy append skill.

But with said setup, he puts out results - while his 1st wave damage output comes to a pretty weak 40.9k damage neutral, he quickly picks up on Wave 2, dishing out 58.8k damage neutral, then finishing on wave 3 with 130k damage with Oberon’s buffs aiding him immensely.

Admittedly, that probably isn’t enough damage to work as a universal farmer, with many nodes having minibosses on the 2nd wave that don’t fall to 60k-ish damage, but he puts out more than enough to farm class advantage.

And in CQ scenarios, his looping is even more potent, as he can take advantage of the gauge charge/turn from Mechanical Archery and the stacking of his Critical Damage buff to output some serious hurt in brave chains.

It’s a shame the Buster AOE Archer niche is seriously bloated, and there are quite literally 4 other Servants in his rarity and card type he has to compete with.

Conclusion

So how is Tametomo in the grand scheme of things? On one hand, he’s the long arm of the law, quite literally:

Tametomo has some pretty impressive offense. “True” piercing on his NP alone is a very desirable niche, but paired with his pretty decent damage output and easy means to build up NP gauge, he makes for a strong AOE damage dealer, especially when he can hit his anti-Lawful effective damage. Hilariously, he’s one of the few Servants to have both Sure Hit and Invincible Pierce in the same kit, being slightly redundant but very funny in how he consistently pierces defenses.

While nothing outstanding, Tametomo does competently farm, whether in a Koyanskaya + Oberon looping setup or just one that straight-up produces 300% gauge charge with a combination of Kaleidoscope and some number of 50%+ gauge charge supports. The dependable nature of this farming and his effective damage modifier may make him a favorable option in the right circumstances.

However, he’s also not quite a cut above the rest, lacking the stomach to honor his ancestors, this is a Seppuku joke:

Tametomo finds himself infiltrating an incredibly high-power corner of FGO’s farming meta, and unfortunately it makes it hard for him to shape up to the likes of Napoleon or Gilgamesh, then again the generally-superior Tesla and Ishtar. All 4 Servants in question have received NP strengthenings, essentially throwing their NP damage past Tametomo’s reach, even if the warrior of the Minamoto clan technically has superior damage output to many of them on paper. Add in that the 50% gauge chargers that half of them have make their setups slightly more flexible, and he can struggle to find a place to excel.

I get a very distinct sense of Deja Vu doing this evaluation specifically, since Tametomo has a lot in common with Napoleon on release - very solid kit on paper, good niches that have CQ applications, and the “True” piercing combo for his NP. And much like Napoleon, he crumples simply because his NP damage modifier is sitting behind his competitors.

While it is easy for me to say Tametomo will simply get the same NP strengthening that Napoleon did and become competitive with the others, I’m not a Lasengle developer, nor a prophet. That rings doubly true when Servants like Lancer Artoria have not had their NP touched since their release several years ago, at this point, despite theoretically being able to compete as a farmer for their class.

But with that in mind, Tametomo’s primary competition, unlike his fellow SSR released this event, is of a similar price / accessibility barrier to him, so it’s not as much of a blowout as it is to try and compete with Habetrot in the field of Arts farming. If you lack an Archer farming option and have the setup to make him work, Tametomo is more than a worthy addition to your roster, especially since his CQ performance is frankly pretty fun. But with any of his competitors around, you may find it difficult to justify using him over any of them. Rath™ Seal of Approval.

Outro

Another event, another gacha, and another month closer to the Summer event.

Somehow I drive my Quartz stash into stasis around this time of year unfailingly, despite the whale I have the potential to be in this game. If anything, I was surprised they managed to fit in a new event around this time of year, when the typical expectation is a Summer rerun + filler in the run-up to Anniversary.

As for what’s awaiting us in the Anniversary this year…we’ll really have to just kick back and watch. More work for me as a humble publishing Magus, that’s for sure. Till next time!

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MMM - Many 'Motto' Minamotos Marshal Militarily, Manning Mystifying Mech-suit(?), Minded to Murder Malamutes (Minamoto no Tametomo Gacha)

The Modern Magus Magazine

QAABB (Saber)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

Buster Card

Traits

Tags

Buster Up

Guts

Target

Gouchin Yumiharizuki

Outro

Links

About the Author(s)

Comments

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