Rabbit's Reviews #326: Roland (4* Saber)

Introduction

It’s easy to look at Roland and think he’s unimpressive. And it’s true, for that matter, that he probably doesn’t have much of a place outside of counterclassing. It’s also true that he’s cleanly the weakest Servant on his debut banner. Once you get past that, though, Roland does actually start to make a place for himself. He’s an ST Buster Servant with all the standard things—survival, ramping steroids, utility, Koyan-compatible batteries—and, more importantly, he’s the only ST Buster Saber to bring all of those things at the same time. It’s true that Tsuna hits harder in-niche, and that Musashi and Sigurd deal more damage in general, but none of them have batteries. Bedivere has a battery, but he has limited utility and no damage ramp. And Rama’s… generally undertuned. Roland may not be the best ST Buster Saber, but he’s the only one without notable asterisks, which makes him a nice addition to the spookable Servant pool, if nothing else.

Servant Data

Saber

QAABB (Saber)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

3

2

3

5

4

Attribute	Earth
Alignment	Lawful Good

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

Max HP 12,293

HP Rank

Max ATK 9,687

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,614	Base HP	1,966
Max Atk	9,687	Max HP	12,293
Grail Atk	11,729	Grail HP	14,905

Traits

Card Hits	3	2	3	5	4
Per Hit	0.83%	0.83%	0.83%	0.83%	0.83%

	NP per Hit (%)	0.83%
NP when Attacked (%)	3%

	Star Absorption	100
Star Generation per Hit	10.0%

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	50,000	x4 Saber Piece
3	150,000	x10 Saber Piece x18 Proof of Hero
4	500,000	x4 Saber Monument x10 Seed of Yggdrasil x8 Great Knight Medal
Max	1,500,000	x10 Saber Monument x16 Great Knight Medal x6 Primordial Lanugo

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100,000	x4 Gem of Saber
2 → 3	200,000	x10 Gem of Saber
3 → 4	600,000	x4 Magic Gem of Saber
4 → 5	800,000	x10 Magic Gem of Saber x5 Seed of Yggdrasil
5 → 6	2,000,000	x4 Secret Gem of Saber x10 Seed of Yggdrasil
6 → 7	2,500,000	x10 Secret Gem of Saber x12 Proof of Hero
7 → 8	5,000,000	x24 Proof of Hero x15 Twilit Ritual Sword
8 → 9	6,000,000	x45 Twilit Ritual Sword x20 Giant's Ring
9 → 10	10,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	100000	x4 Gem of Saber
2 → 3	200000	x10 Gem of Saber
3 → 4	600000	x4 Magic Gem of Saber
4 → 5	800000	x10 Magic Gem of Saber x8 Great Knight Medal
5 → 6	2000000	x4 Secret Gem of Saber x16 Great Knight Medal
6 → 7	2500000	x10 Secret Gem of Saber x3 Warhorse's Young Horn
7 → 8	5000000	x5 Warhorse's Young Horn x2 Spirit Root
8 → 9	6000000	x6 Spirit Root x12 Fruit of Eternity
9 → 10	10000000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Invi Shield

Diamond Body A

Apply Invincible to self (1 turn).
Increase own DEF (1 turn).
Increase own NP Gauge.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
DEF +	50%	55%	60%	65%	70%	75%	80%	85%	90%	100%
NP +	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Diamond Body is a nifty defensive tool. At first blush, the combination of invuln and 100% defense might seem redundant—and in a lot of cases, it is—but what makes this neat is that an enemy has to be able to get past both in order to damage Roland. Pierce invuln is fairly common, and attack buffs or defense-piercing effects are also fairly common, but getting both together is less so. It’s a marginal bit of extra safety, but it’s fairly unique, and it’s there. The skill also gives 20% NP gauge at max level, which is nice. With the 10% charge on skill 3, Roland has 30% total charge on skills, which is enough for reliable Koyanskaya loops.

Buster Up

Love of Love Yields Bitter Tears C

Increase own Buster Card effectiveness (3 turns).
Clear own debuffs.
Decrease own Debuff Resist against Charm by 50% (3 turns) [Demerit].
Remove buffs from all enemies.

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Buster +	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

Love of Love is Roland’s primary damage buff, giving a standard 30% Buster buff for 3 turns. Unfortunately, it’s on a slightly longer cooldown than is standard for buffs of this type, which matters more for Buster units than for most—with a 6-turn cooldown at max level, Roland doesn’t get to stack this until turn 3. In exchange, the skill gets both a selfish debuff removal and an AoE buff removal effect. You’ll probably use this on turns 1 and 3 in order to maximize the buff stacking effect, so this isn’t quite as flexible as you might want, but it does give Roland some nice utility you can make use of in fights that need it. This skill does make Roland particularly vulnerable to Charm effects, though, so you might not want to bring him to fights where Charm gimmicks are particularly prevalent.

Critical Star Gain

Much-Delayed Horn EX

Gain Critical Stars.
Increase own Critical Star Gather Rate (1 turn).
Increase own NP Gauge by 10%.
Deal 500 damage to self (HP cannot fall below 1) [Demerit].

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Stars +	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	20
Star Gather +	300%	320%	340%	360%	380%	400%	420%	440%	460%	500%
CD	5	5	5	5	5	4	4	4	4	3

Much-Delayed Horn is Roland’s most interesting skill. On a 3-turn cooldown at max level, Roland can use this three turns running if you stagger Koyan’s batteries, or twice in one turn if you don’t. The skill itself is quite nice, giving 20 stars and a star weight buff for easy crits, plus 10% NP charge. Even without levels, Roland can use this on turns 1 and 3 to good effect. Sure there’s an HP demerit here, but it’s not a huge cost, and the skill’s usefulness makes up for it.

Noble Phantasm

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
A+	Anti-Personnel	4

Effect	Apply Ignore Invincible to self (1 turn) [Activates first]. Deal damage to a single enemy.

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Ignore Invincible
Damage +	600%	800%	900%	950%	1000%

Overcharge Effect	Increase own ATK (3 turns) [Activates first]. Increase own Critical Strength (3 turns) [Activates first].

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
Atk +	20%	25%	30%	35%	40%
Crit Damage +	20%	25%	30%	35%	40%

Usage Tips

Roland’s biggest claim to fame is being a conventional Koyan-enabled Servant. You can run him with two Koyanskayas and an Oberon and have a solid setup for killing Lancers, no questions asked.

Since Roland’s batteries are mostly what set him apart from the other ST Buster Sabers (at least, in terms of use techniques), we can push this a little farther. If you have Crane and Nobukatsu as well, you can guarantee Roland a loop even if he doesn’t draw any cards until turn 3. The team is Koyanskaya/Roland/Nobukatsu/Koyanskaya/Oberon/Crane:

On turn 1, Roland and Koyanskaya use all of their skills. Koyanskaya then plugs out for Crane, and Crane and Nobukatsu use all of theirs. You use a Nobukatsu->Roland->Crane NP chain, which gives Roland Nobukatsu’s Buster buffs and a level of overcharge for some more damage before his NP goes off, and then gives further buffs and 40% NP charge from Crane’s NP afterwards. On turn 2, Roland uses Much-Delayed Horn again, and Koyanskaya 2 uses all of her skills. If Roland drew enough cards for a brave chain (or drew either of his Busters), Oberon uses his NP damage buff as well. Roland uses his NP and any cards available to him. On turn 3, Roland uses all of his skills, and Oberon uses all of his as well, bringing Roland back to his third NP.

Roland’s first turn in this setup is pretty weak, but he scales rapidly and significantly, so for CQs with weak first bars and much higher second and third bars, Roland can be a good pick.

Outside of this, Roland is a conventional Buster Servant who will work well in conventional Buster slowplay teams. Double Merlin is no longer state-of-the-art, but Roland has enough nice tools to work well with that team. Alternatively, Castoria-centric stall teams are a natural fit due to Roland’s strong overcharge effect. Himiko/Roland/Castoria or Reines/Roland/Castoria teams will be extremely stable and will output solid damage.

Roland is extremely self-sufficient, so he can do well at even lower levels of investment, too. Conventional budget supports like Hans and Mash are natural fits here, helping to keep Roland alive while he does his thing. Hans in particular is a strong pick, providing healing to offset Roland’s demerits and giving stars and a crit buff to help fuel Roland’s crits.

For burst setups, The Black Grail is, as always, the best choice. Especially considering Roland’s relatively flexible loop conditions, there’s no real reason to turn down the extra damage, and Oberon turns this into even more of an advantage on turn 3. For stall or budget setups, though, Black Grail’s demerit can be a problem, so Roland may want to run something else. Limited/Zero Over is always safe, as is Golden Sumo. Victor of the Moon is also a good pick here, as Roland has relatively low in-kit crit damage buffs, so he benefits nicely from the combination of Buster and Crit up.

If you think you might use Roland in slowplay teams, I’d suggest putting some healing CCs on him. Castoria stall teams have no innate healing, and even in a perfect stall team Roland will periodically lose health to his own demerits, so having a way to recoup some of that can be nice. Otherwise, crit damage CCs are great here, as Roland has extremely easy crit access but low-ish in-kit crit modifiers until he’s able to loop his NP a few times.

Grail Potential

Conclusion

Roland is solid. He has some neat utility, and the short CD on his third skill sets him apart a little. He has all the normal things you want in a Buster DPS, and he works well with a range of supports. As I said at the top of the review, it’s easy to look at his kit and write it off as boring, but he’s actually the first ST Buster Saber to… well, be boring in this way. There’s really nothing wrong with the guy, and when all of his direct competition has to deal with one flaw or another, that makes him stand out. He’s not so good that you’d pull for him as a neutral damage-dealer, and there are plenty of other options for Lancer-killing—whether that’s a Buster Berserker or an Arts Saber or what-have-you—but still, no complaints here. Nice kit. No objections.

Rabbit's Arbitrary Ratings

Overall: 8/10
Single-Target DPS: 8/10
AoE DPS: N/A
Survivability: 6/10
Offensive Utility: 3/10
Defensive Utility: 3/10
Farming Usefulness: 5/10
Clothing: 0/10