Rabbit’s Reviews #331: Minamoto no Tametomo (5* Archer)

Introduction

It’s been a while since our last gen-pool SSR. Tametomo may not be a great unit mechanically, but he’s pretty interesting, at least, and he’s conceptually very cool. Unfortunately for Tametomo, there are a lot of AoE Buster Archers, and Tametomo’s kit is not exactly well-suited to the current Buster meta. That said, he has some neat tricks and is probably better than Napoleon, so… there’s that.

In a world with lots of great AoE Buster units, Tametomo struggles to stand out. He’s technically Koyan-compatible and has good steroids in theory, but there are a lot of asterisks scattered throughout his kit. He’s firmly in usable territory, at least, but there’s not a lot of reason to bring him if you have one of the many, many stronger options.

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%.

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%

Overview

Material Requirements

Stage	Cost	Materials
2	100,000	x5 Archer Piece
3	300,000	x12 Archer Piece x8 Octuplet Crystals
4	1,000,000	x5 Archer Monument x10 Eternal Gear x3 Black Beast Grease
Max	3,000,000	x12 Archer Monument x6 Black Beast Grease x12 Arrowhead of Malice

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200,000	x5 Gem of Archer
2 → 3	400,000	x12 Gem of Archer
3 → 4	1,200,000	x5 Magic Gem of Archer
4 → 5	1,600,000	x12 Magic Gem of Archer x5 Eternal Gear
5 → 6	4,000,000	x5 Secret Gem of Archer x10 Eternal Gear
6 → 7	5,000,000	x12 Secret Gem of Archer x5 Octuplet Crystals
7 → 8	10,000,000	x10 Octuplet Crystals x4 Reactor Core of Dawn
8 → 9	12,000,000	x11 Reactor Core of Dawn x24 Arrowhead of Malice
9 → 10	20,000,000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Level	Cost	Materials
1 → 2	200000	x5 Gem of Archer
2 → 3	400000	x12 Gem of Archer
3 → 4	1200000	x5 Magic Gem of Archer
4 → 5	1600000	x12 Magic Gem of Archer x3 Claw of Chaos
5 → 6	4000000	x5 Secret Gem of Archer x6 Claw of Chaos
6 → 7	5000000	x12 Secret Gem of Archer x3 Black Beast Grease
7 → 8	10000000	x6 Black Beast Grease x18 Mystic Gunpowder
8 → 9	12000000	x54 Mystic Gunpowder x72 Ashes of Forgetfulness
9 → 10	20000000	x1 Crystallized Lore

Servant Skills

Tametomo’s skillset is mostly straightforward, and it would be powerful were it not for so many effects being limited by hits. Recommended skill order is 2>1>3.

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

Chinzei Hachirou is a pretty straightforward damage buff. It’s a slightly better Mana Burst, essentially, giving a nice 50% Buster buff for 3 hits. 3 hits is better than a single turn, as you can spread the buff across multiple turns if you don’t draw all your Busters at once or want to save cards to maximize NP damage. For farming, this is pretty great—assuming Tametomo’s NP kills reliably, he gets 50% Buster up on turn 1, and 100% on turns 2/3. For CQs, it’s a little weaker—Buster Servants generally want to be able to crit to maximize their damage, and using Tametomo’s Buster cards early reduces his NP damage on later turns, which isn’t a great feeling. Still, though, unless you’re reshuffling your deck somehow, Koyan stacking guarantees you’ll have at least 50% Buster up on all three NPs, with the possibility for up to 100% on turns 2 and 3 depending on when your cards fall. Not bad. This skill also gives 30% crit up, which is less impressive, but still, solid skill.

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

Indomitable Shot is Tametomo’s battery. Unfortunately, it’s on a 6-turn cooldown at max level, but it still works with Koyan for guaranteed looping provided you have Oberon. Aside from that, it’s a decent guts, and when the guts triggers, Tametomo removes his debuffs and gets a small one-time NP damage buff. Generally speaking, this damage buff will be restricted to CQ contexts, and even then it’s not a lot of damage. Personally I’d rather have a shorter CD and no extra on-guts buff, but it’s still fine as-is.

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

Mechanical Archery is Tametomo’s gimmick skill. It starts off with five turns of Sure Hit, which is kinda cool, although a looping Tametomo gets Pierce Invuln every turn anyway, making this a bit redundant. Aside from that, it gives Tametomo 10% NP charge and 20% ramping NP damage up each turn. The passive NP charge is nice, though sadly it’s not significant enough to actually enable anything unique in farming contexts. The NP damage ramp is cool in concept, but unfortunately each NP damage buff is one-time only, meaning Tametomo expends all his stacks each time he NPs. If FGO were still in a place where Buster Servants only NP’d every few turns for periodic bursts of damage, this would be fine—and Tametomo is still a really natural fit for, say, Himiko/Castoria or double Merlin teams—but in a world where Tametomo can NP every turn with ease, this is basically just a flat 20% NP damage buff. That’s not terrible in itself—70% total steroids is good in a vacuum—but since Tametomo is competing against mostly-interluded Servants, he needs more buffs in order to really stand out. This skill is a neat idea, and it makes Tametomo a fun pick for Buster stall, but it just doesn’t work well for the current Buster meta. It’s also sadly on too long of a cooldown to stack nicely with Koyan.

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%

Tametomo’s NP is neat in that it gives both Pierce Invuln and Pierce Defense, making Tametomo extremely hard to stop and highly reliable in CQs. This draws immediate comparisons to Napoleon, who does the same thing (albeit partially through skills), but having ways to get around CQ gimmicks is always nice. The NP also gives a small pre-cast Buster buff on Waterside fields, which is not reliable enough to count on (and the damage increase is too small for Zhang Jiao to be worth bringing over a more conventional support). In addition to those benefits, Tametomo gets supereffective damage against Lawful enemies, a not-small niche. I wish the SE and the field niche were flipped—that is to say, if Tametomo got a small power mod against Lawful and SE while on Waterside fields—since that would make Zhang Jiao a much more worthwhile support. As-is, this is a decent NP, though being an AoE Buster Servant and not having an Interlude in this day and age is rough.

Usage Tips

Buster farmers are pretty formulaic both for actual farming and for CQs. For Tametomo, you run Mana Loading and a 50% charge CE, or Imaginary Element/Kaleid, along with two Koyanskayas and an Oberon. You use Tametomo’s battery on turns 1 and 3, and the support batteries as needed to secure the loop. CQs work the same way, with the caveat that you don’t actually need starting charge if you’re willing to deal with card RNG.

On a less-optimal level, Tametomo’s stacking buffs make him a natural fit for Buster stall teams. Himiko/Tametomo/Castoria is a very solid team that gets to NP with big buffs every three turns, and Tametomo very much appreciates the crit buffs and stars Himiko brings. Reines/Tametomo/Castoria is another option, which gets somewhat better NP gain in exchange for a bit less damage. These teams are especially good against Lawful enemies, as Tametomo’s Lawful damage scales with overcharge.

Looking at extremely retro teams, Tamamo/Tametomo/Merlin is actually an interesting stall comp for Tametomo. Tametomo’s cooldowns—particularly on his third skill—are a bit of an issue, so getting Tamamo NPs for the CD reduction while also benefitting from Merlin’s offensive push is nice.

On the lower end, Tametomo works with friend Merlin and whatever supports you do have. Mash/Tametomo/Merlin should be a decent team, and you can also bring any other free supports, like Nobukatsu or Shakespeare, to push damage a little further and speed things up a little.

For farming, or for clearing CQs without relying on card RNG, 50% charge CEs are Tametomo’s best friend. Tametomo has no in-kit attack buffs, and neither Koyanskaya nor Oberon provides them, so Golden Sumo is the best pick for this. Generally good CEs like Aerial Drive and Tenkihime also work, and if you’re willing to deal with card RNG, the Black Grail maximizes Tametomo’s burst damage.

For CCs, crit damage CCs are nice on Tametomo’s Busters, even if they’re likely to be washed out by Koyan’s buffs. NP gain CCs are really nice on his other cards, though, in case you’re running Black Grail and want to generate NP more reliably without using Tametomo’s Busters and eating stacks of his first skill’s buff prematurely.

Grail Potential

Conclusion

Much like Bakin, Tametomo is just “fine.” He’s competing against a crowded pool, and he doesn’t really stand out much. Unlike Bakin, though, Tametomo is not directly competing with a superior free unit, and he does have some unique value to his name in the form of his pierce-everything NP and his rolling buffs for stall contexts. If pressed I’d say he’s better than Napoleon, even without an interlude, so there’s that. Nobody needs Tametomo, but he’s not a bad spook if you don’t have one of the better AoE Buster Archers. Plus he’s cool, so there’s that.

Tametomo is within reasonable buff range of being very good, and he does some neat stuff as-is. He definitely comes with a set of drawbacks—he has to avoid his Buster cards to maximize his NP damage, and his rolling NP damage buff skill doesn’t really work properly when he’s looping—but still, could be worse. Decent Servant.

Rabbit's Arbitrary Ratings

Overall: 7/10
Single-Target DPS: 6/10
AoE DPS: 7/10
Survivability: 4/10
Offensive Utility: N/A
Defensive Utility: N/A
Farming Usefulness: 7/10
Ships Remaining: 0/1