Larva / Tiamat

“I'm Mommy… Wait, that's wrong, that is my position.”

Fate/Grand Order fans have been asking for years for the promised arrival of the Mother of Life - the beautiful Primordial Goddess Tiamat, and their prayers are finally answered. Packing a different class from her Beast version, playable Larvae / Tiamat is an AoE Buster-centric Alter-Ego with monstrous firepower, capable of mowing down waves of enemies in farming and challenge quests, provided they are not of the 3 Knight Classes.

Tiamat is, at her core, a highly modernized and effective Buster Looper with a stacked skillset to supplement this playstyle. Being a goddess, she has a slew of passives granting her various effects, from increased Critical Damage, Mental Debuff Resist, Instant Death Resist, Damage Cut, and most importantly a whopping 30% Debuff Resistance and 5% NP Gauge regeneration every turn.

Her first skill, Eye of the Blue Star B, increases her NP Gauge by 50%, decreases all enemies’ Critical Rate by 100% for 1 turn and also inflicts Heal Block on them for 1 turn. Eye of the Red Star A is her main self-buff, increasing both her Attack and Buster cards’ effectiveness for 3 turns. This skill also has a 60% base chance to inflict a 1-turn Stun debuff on all enemies, and also Inflict a 3-turn Curse status on them. Sea of the Azure Star A is one of the most unique skills in the game in that it only has a base 4 turn cooldown (down to 2 at max skill level). This skill restores all allies’ HP for a moderate sum, increasing all of their NP Gauge by 10% and their NP Damage by 20%. Finally, her Noble Phantasm - Nammu Dur-an-ki is an AoE Buster attack that has two trigger effects before dealing damage. Upon activation, it will clear all debuffs on Tiamat, increase her Buster cards’ effectiveness for 3 turns then deal damage and inflict Skill Seal on all enemies.

All of Tiamat’s effects are highly straightforward, but devastating when used in tandem. With her unique NP Gauge configuration, Tiamat is one of the very few Buster Servants in the game that can 3 turn farm with Black Grail. This means that as long as she is not hitting any enemies of a disadvantageous class (namely Saber, Archer, Lancer and Pretender), she will deal devastating damage even without anti-trait bonus, with an extra 1.5x bonus against Rider, Caster, Assassin and 2.0x bonus against Berserker and Foreigner. Her high amount of NP Gauge battery also means she is highly flexible with her looping setup and Supports.

Outside of farming, Tiamat is no slouch when it comes to utility either. She has several strong effects that can help the party and herself out in a pinch. This makes her quite effective as a damage dealer in Challenge Quests, being able to dish out good damage while providing fantastic value over several turns.

Overall, Tiamat is an excellent Servant that would prove valuable for many Masters. Her flaw is really just that her class is not applicable to every situation like a Berserker or an Avenger would as a damage dealer, limiting her application. Furthermore, Tiamat has a lot of strong competitors for the Buster AoE Loopers role such as Kukulkan, Morgan, Melusine or Arjuna Alter, meaning she does lose some appeal if these Servants are already in an account.

Tiamat has a unique Black Grail farming setup. This requires her to have her 2nd Append Skill maxed so she starts with 20% NP Gauge, Koyanskaya of Light & Oberon on the front row & Order Change ability with another Koyanskaya of Light in the backrow. The order of this setup skills usage with NP Gauge charging capacity (buff skills are used appropriately) will be:

• Wave 1: Uses all of her 3 skills & Oberon

• Wave 2: Use Koyanskaya of Light Skill 1 on Tiamat before using Order Change to swap to the other Koyanskaya of Light in the back row for another Koyanskaya of Light Skill 1 on Tiamat.

• Wave 3: Simply uses all of Tiamat and Oberon Skill again.

Exceptional NP Looping Capacity

Tiamat has a lot of NP Gauge charging effects in her kit, with the ability to instantly get 60% NP Gauge from her skills on wave 1 from her first and third skill. This lets her loop with ease with many different configurations and is capable of looping with Black Grail which massively boosts her damage output compared to many other Buster loopers. Furthermore, Tiamat also has fantastic self-buff capacity from her second and third skill, and rare but powerful ramping 3 turn buffs from her Noble Phantasm, ensuring that every Noble Phantasm after the first will hit harder than the last for any farming scenario.

Fantastic Utility

For a damage dealer, Tiamat has a surprisingly large amount of good non damage-related effects in her kits. These include enemies’ Critical Rate debuff, Heal Block, Stun, extremely short cooldown teamwide Heal, NP Gauge and NP Damage buff, Debuff Clearance, and Skill Seal. All these effects can easily help save the party or raise its performance over time in any Challenge Quest, further improving her flexibility.

Alter-Ego Class Restriction

Being an Alter Ego, Tiamat unfortunately cannot deal with Saber, Archer, Lancer and Pretender enemies, and the three Knight Classes in particular make up quite a sizable amount of enemies in the game. This drastically hinders Tiamat from being ubiquitous like other Buster Loopers with less restrictions.

Tiamat mainly functions as a Buster Looper which means she requires both NP Gauge and offensive buffs. Thus, it is highly recommended to raise all three of her skills, with a big emphasis on her first skill as it massively improves her NP Gauge charging. Tiamat also benefits extremely well from Append Skill 2, so Master should highly prioritize unlocking that so she can do Black Grail farming. The best skill leveling order would be Skill 1 > Append Skill 2 > Skill 2 and Skill 3.

• Eye of the Blue Star B - While the two debuff effects from this skill does not help Tiamat much in farming, this skill is the bulk of her NP Battery and this effect scales with level, making it the most important skill of her to raise.

• Eye of the Red Star A – This is Tiamat’s main offensive self-buff and is a quite powerful skill as well, granting her both cards boost and NP Damage boost that scale with level. This skill should definitely be raised to improve Tiamat’s consistency in farming, but not as urgent as her 1st and Append Skill 2.

• Sea of the Azure Star A – The NP Gauge charging effect does not scale with level, but leveling this skill has good merit in reducing its cooldown, allowing Tiamat to use it several times over the battle.

Similar to most Buster loopers, Tiamat will want any Craft Essences that features multiple offensive stats such as Attack, NP Damage, Cards Effectiveness, and Super Effective Modifier. Attack and Super Effective Modifier are especially potent on her as a normal Koyanskaya / Oberon setup will not have these buff types. Starting NP Gauge is also fantastic on her if lacking all the required pieces for the top-end Black Grail farming setup.

• The Black Grail / Inverted Rain of Mud / Heaven’s Feel: In raw damage output with Oberon in the team, nothing will beat the high amount of boost that these Craft Essences provide. With Append Skill 2 maxed, Tiamat can 3-turn loop with a Koyanskaya - Oberon - Koyanskaya setup, a feat not many Buster Servants can boast.

• First Day of Filming / Aerial Drive / Golden Sumo: Boulder Tournament: These Craft Essences are top-tier Event Craft Essences that any Master can grab for easy farming setup. Beyond these two, any 50% NP Gauge Charging Craft Essences with offensive stats are acceptable placeholder options for her.