Ozymandias

"I suppose I shall show you the prowess of a divine pharaoh... I shall permit your death by despair!"

The King of Kings graces F/GO as a Single Target Buster Rider with strong self-buffs and support. Aside from Charisma and useful debuffs on his NP Ramesseum Tentyris, Ozymandias’s unique Protection of the Sun God is a highly versatile teamwide NP charge and buff success rate up.

Ozymandias boasts some impressive base parameters. Although he has identical HP to Drake, the Pharaoh rocks 600 more attack and far stronger staying power and offense: with Imperial Privilege and Charisma at max rank, he has access to up to 58% Attack Up and 40% Defense Up plus a 3000 HP heal on a 5 turn cooldown, making him able to give and take one hell of a beating. 

In addition, his generation performance is impressive, with his Extra attack and Riding A+ boosted Quick featuring an impressive five hits each. Combined with his slightly above-average NP gain, frequent critical hits, balanced QAABB deck and NP battery, Ozy will have no problem frequently throwing pyramids at people. His NP is also suitably powerful, featuring both an ever-useful NP Seal as well as more boosts to his offense in a 20% Defense Down for 3 turns.

It is difficult to find a fault in such a kit, yet there are a few points in which Ozymandias is less than ideal. His support role is hampered by his spotlight-stealing tendencies: his high Rider star weight often leads him to gather all the critical stars. Furthermore, his Imperial Privilege and Protection of the Sun God generally have to be used together or one of his buffs may not trigger. Finally, he is reliant on supports to access a more diverse set of offensive buffs other than Attack Up, or for a hard survivability effect.

In the end, Ozymandias is simply a fantastic Rider Servant capable of both providing unique team support and functioning as the central damage-dealer of a Buster-based team. Look upon him, ye Masters, and rejoice!

Gameplay Tip

Ozymandias' Buff Success Rate Up is a rare and potent buff that adds a flat success rate up % to any chance-based skill or NP. This grants the King of Kings some unique synergy with a number of Servants that have powerful, but random buffs. Hans is perhaps the most happy beneficiary, as the success rate increase will guarantee his NP Märchen Meines Lebens triggers all its possible effects.

Notable other happy Servants include other Imperial Privilege users, Nicola Tesla, Scathach, Ishtar, and more. Note that not all Servants with chance-based activations are affected; both Fionn and Astolfo sadly do not benefit (as their chance-based skills work slightly differently). 

Non Caster NP Charge Skill

Ozymandias is one of the few non-Caster servants who can charge the team's NP gauge. As a result, he provides greater flexibility in team composition for farming, noticeably bringing Kaleidoscope users to 100% NP gauge with Protection of the Sun God. Indirectly, it also serves as another offensive buff depending on the teammates in question.

Strong Self-Buffs

With a guaranteed Imperial Privilege, at max rank skills Ozymandias can buff himself for up to 58% attack and 40% defense, not to mention a 3000 HP heal on a 5 turn cooldown.  Unlike Mana Burst, this buff also lasts for three turns and allows him to shrug off damage in addition to dealing it. His damage potential only gets even stronger with buffs that stack multiplicatively (Card Performance, NP Damage or Critical Damage) from teammates as well. With Ozymandias' naturally high star weight making it easy to critically hit, even his basic attacks can bring the pain.

Strong and Unique Offensive Utility

At max rank, Protection of the Sun God not only guarantees Imperial Privilege’s effects, but it makes other chance-based buffs more reliable as well, like Da Vinci’s Inherent Wisdom. This negates the unreliability of otherwise overpowered buffs.  Additionally, Ozymandias’ NP seal is great for delaying the enemy NP, buying time for another turn, while his defense down can provide allies with an additional 20% or more attack increase on an enemy.

No Hard Survival

Despite his fantastic personal 40% defense buff, Ozymandias lacks any hard survival skills and probably will not survive an enemy NP without external help. In addition, timing his Defense up is often made difficult by the cooldown and opportunity cost of using Protection of the Sun God for a different purpose.

Lacks Buff Diversity

Unlike his peer The King of Heroes, Ozymandias does not have any other offensive buffs outside of Attack Up. Thus, he requires a support with different buffs to truly reach his high damage potential.

Reliant on Protection of the Sun God for Imperial Privilege

Imperial Privilege has strong values, but Ozymandias is reliant on Protection of the Sun God in order to consistently receive the buffs. The 1-turn Cooldown difference between Imperial Privilege and Protection of the Sun God often results in waiting an extra turn to use a guaranteed Imperial Privilege again.

Ozymandias is quite flexible in skill leveling depending on whether one uses him as a support or primary damage dealer.  As he is typically the primary damage dealer, leveling skills that directly increase his offense first would be the best option. However, all of his skills are worth investing in due to the increase in consistency, offense, staying presence and support they bring to Ozymandias.

• Charisma is a solid teamwide Attack buff, and Ozymandias has it at a pretty high rank. If 80% chance for each effect of Imperial Privilege with a base Protection of the Sun God active doesn't sound good enough, then prioritizing Charisma first for the consistency or teamwide support is not a bad idea.  Otherwise, level it last as it effectively contributes the least to his damage output.
• Imperial Privilege receives the most benefit from leveling: it doubles to 40% Attack and Defense buffs plus a sizable 3000 HP heal on a 5 turn cooldown.  Although the 60% base activation rate might be worrisome, each buff has an independent 80% activation rate at base with Protection from Ra at level one, and only gets more consistent from there. Thus, in most cases it is worth leveling first.
• Protection of the Sun God not only makes chance-based servant skills more consistent, the cooldown on the NP charge is also invaluable for longer quests. Although the value on the NP charge doesn't increase, at max level the guarantee on Imperial Privilege makes it invaluable to Ozymandias' performance. Thus, it is worth maxing second to maximize Ozymandias' uptime on both Imperial Privilege buffs, and aiding in refilling allies' NP gauges.

Although Ozymandias has supportive qualities, he typically serves as the primary damage dealer.  Thus, he will benefit from Craft Essences that will allow him to deal damage better or faster. To achieve this, both Buster Performance Up and Critical Damage Up are very effective and stack multiplicatively, while Starting NP Gauge is also great for finishing fights faster. NP Damage Up is effective as well, but as a Rider Ozymandias is very effective at unloading impressive damage with his command cards.

• Victor of the Moon / Joint Recital: Adding Critical Damage takes advantage of Ozymandias’ Rider star weight, while the Buster portion boosts both his Buster Command Cards and his NP. These options scale amazingly with Ozy's native nearly 60% in Attack buffs.

• Black Grail / Hero Elly's Adventure / True Samadhi Fire: For an all-powerful NP, Ozymandias can handle Black Grail's HP demerit very well through Imperial Privilege, while Hero Elly is a decent, more versatile alternative. His enemies will look upon his NPs, and despair!

• Aerial Drive / Holy Night Supper / Partake with the King / First Sunrise: Aerial Drive and Holy Night Supper not only allow Ozymandias to prepare his NP for the boss more quickly, but also provide powerful multiplicative boosts to his performance. The pure Buster-based hybrid CEs are decent alternatives.

• Kaleidoscope: Kaleidoscope allows Ozymandias to NP from turn 1, which can be useful for farming purposes.

• Origin Bullet: The 35% bonus damage to Casters and the Invincibility Pierce allow Ozymandias to take advantage of his strong buffs and handily burst down Caster bosses with his NP and potential crits.