Rabbit’s Reviews #355: Larva / Tiamat (5* Alter Ego)

In anticipation of the Arcade collab, we get a Servant slightly early! It’s been ages since Tiamat originally debuted as an enemy in FGO’s story, so it’s a little wild to finally have her as a playable Servant. She doesn’t disappoint, either—Tiamat’s one of the best Buster units in the game, falling into the rare category of AoE Buster Servants who can loop anything CE-less and packing enough damage to work reasonably well for 90++ nodes. She also has a bunch of cool CQ utility. Tiamat’s only real drawback is her class—she doesn’t work for half the standard classes—but aside from that, she’s an excellent unit, and she’s a great pull for anyone without a go-to AoE Buster unit.

Tiamat has a fairly defense-leaning stat spread, which isn’t ideal for a DPS, although she has very high steroids to make up for it. Her deck isn’t optimized for star gen or NP gain—her Arts cards have pretty average NP gain, and her single Quick is quite bad. In exchange, Tiamat has a nice mix of passives. Authority of the Beast and Independent Manifestation collectively boost her crit damage a bit, along with giving some protection from instant-kill and mental debuffs. Core of the Goddess provides a hefty generic debuff resistance buff, which is also nice. Her other two passives really shine, though: Self-Modification gives a permanent 500 HP damage cut, which makes Tiamat pretty tanky, and Infantile Regression gives a respectable 5% passive charge each turn.

For appends, Mana Loading is the most important, as always, and Tiamat needs it maxed in order to loop CE-less. The other two don’t do much for her: Tiamat’s Extra card isn’t going to be doing much, especially relative to a Buster crit, and her other append is an attack boost against Beast-class enemies, which is currently limited to a handful of specific story fights. It’s possible that’ll change at some point, but even if we get a few playable Beast Servants, this’ll still be very very situational.

Ascension Materials

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	100,000	x5 Lancer Piece x5 Rider Piece
3	300,000	x12 Lancer Piece x12 Rider Piece
4	1,000,000	x5 Lancer Monument x5 Rider Monument
Max	3,000,000	x12 Lancer Monument x12 Rider Monument

Skill Enhancement Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200,000	x5 Gem of Lancer x5 Gem of Rider
2 → 3	400,000	x12 Gem of Lancer x12 Gem of Rider
3 → 4	1,200,000	x5 Magic Gem of Lancer x5 Magic Gem of Rider
4 → 5	1,600,000	x12 Magic Gem of Lancer x12 Magic Gem of Rider
5 → 6	4,000,000	x5 Secret Gem of Lancer x5 Secret Gem of Rider
6 → 7	5,000,000	x12 Secret Gem of Lancer x12 Secret Gem of Rider
7 → 8	10,000,000	x5 Primordial Lanugo x5 Black Beast Grease
8 → 9	12,000,000	x9 Dragon's Reverse Scale x9 Fragment of a Twinkling Star
9 → 10	20,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Append Skill Materials

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200000	x5 Gem of Lancer x5 Gem of Rider
2 → 3	400000	x12 Gem of Lancer x12 Gem of Rider
3 → 4	1200000	x5 Magic Gem of Lancer x5 Magic Gem of Rider
4 → 5	1600000	x12 Magic Gem of Lancer x12 Magic Gem of Rider
5 → 6	4000000	x5 Secret Gem of Lancer x5 Secret Gem of Rider
6 → 7	5000000	x12 Secret Gem of Lancer x12 Secret Gem of Rider
7 → 8	10000000	x8 Scale of Fantasy x8 Sun Leather
8 → 9	12000000	x12 Fruit of Eternity x9 Egg of Truth
9 → 10	20000000	x1 Crystallized Lore

As an Alter Ego, Tiamat needs fewer standard mats than most Servants, taking two full sets of gems instead. If you’re set for Rider and Lancer gems, this is a positive, and Tiamat’s higher-level mats are mostly from part 1, which means they’re not in short supply at this point.

Tiamat skillset is great, blending the usual staples of battery and steroids with some nice utility. Recommended skill order is 1>3>2.

Tiamat is most notable for being one of a handful of AoE Buster units who can loop CE-less. In a Koyan/Tiamat/Oberon/Koyan team, 10% charge from Tiamat’s third skill, 20% from Mana Loading, 20% from Oberon, and 50% from Tiamat’s first skill gives the initial NP. On turn 2, Oberon’s battery and Koyan’s battery let Tiamat NP, and on turn 3, the other Koyan lets Tiamat use her own battery again to secure the loop. Tiamat can also use her third skill twice on turn 3—once before the Koyan battery and once after—for a bit of extra damage. Altogether this lets Tiamat hit really hard, and with an MLB Black Grail, an NP2+ Tiamat hits 90++-tier damage against cavalry of all stripes.

For CQs, Tiamat can attempt to burst things down like any Buster unit can. She’s also a great point Servant for Castoria-centric teams, due to her short-cooldown healing and party charge. The caveat here is that Tiamat doesn’t work against knights, so she’s limited to fights without them, but provided she’s up against her favored enemies she’s a great CQ unit.

Since Tiamat has a lot of self-healing and enough battery to loop, there’s little reason not to use the Black Grail unless you’re farming and have enough damage to run an event CE instead. Tiamat really appreciates the extra damage BG brings.

Despite being a Buster unit, Tiamat doesn’t have a lot of innate crit damage buffs, which makes crit damage CCs a natural choice for her. A bit of extra card stretch might make the difference between min-turning a CQ and not.

Tiamat is one of the best Buster units in the game provided she’s facing Cavalry, and her NP2 damage with MLB BG is right at the lower end of what’s viable for 90++. Grails are a great idea for pushing that damage higher, either to catch more difficult nodes or to make up for a non-MLB BG.

Tiamat is probably the best of the CE-less Buster loopers now, at least as a pure damage-dealer. Arc struggles to hit 90++ damage thresholds by virtue of her lack of class advantage, Oberon is mostly a support, and CasCu and Melusine only get to counter one of the non-Berserker standard classes, rather than three like Tiamat does. The starting charge loopers—AA, Nobu, Morgan, and Kukulkan, especially—are generally better when starting charge is allowed by virtue of working versus wider pools of Servants, but Tiamat isn’t that far behind, and cavalry is an easier “niche” to keep track of than things like Earth or Sky.

All-in-all, Tiamat is a really really good unit held back only by being an Alter Ego. If you already have a favored Buster AoE, you don’t need her, but if you don’t, she’s a stellar pull.

Overall: 10/10
Single-Target DPS: 7/10
AoE DPS: 10/10
Survivability: 5/10
Offensive Utility: 3/10
Defensive Utility: 6/10
Farming Usefulness: 10/10
LAAAAAA: 10/10