Rabbit’s Reviews #436: Solomon (5* Pretender)

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Right as FGO’s story is about to end, we get our first, and probably only, SSR welfare (not counting Mash, who’s a special case). And what a fitting addition this is, too—the final boss of part 1, as the last Servant before the end of part 2. Solomon is, fittingly, extremely powerful. As a Pretender, he’s mostly locked to fighting Knights and isn’t effective against Cavalry, but he’s a Buster farmer who can loop with Black Grail, and his damage is 90++ worthy. He’s more or less sufficient for any farming node featuring his favored classes.
...But he arrives at a time when the future of the game is uncertain. Will there even be more 90++ farming nodes? In interviews, the game’s developers have said that they intend to keep FGO playable for at least a while after the story ends, but that whether there will be new content, and what form that new content will take, is somewhat up in the air. In so many ways, the game seems to be building to a proper conclusion: banners for every servant, tons of cheap and free leveling resources, all interludes made available, et cetera, et cetera. To me at least, it seems like FGO is ending—not in the sense that the game will imminently shut down, but in the sense that Valentine’s may in fact be a proper epilogue, and the last piece of meaningful new content the game receives.
Honestly, I think this would be a good thing. FGO’s had a very good ten years, and it’s better, in my view, for the game to end on a high note than to gradually peter out until it’s unceremoniously shut down without warning. I do hope Type Moon and Lasengle do something similar to Octopath Traveler 0 and make the game’s story (at the very least) available in a more permanent format—but it’s time for FGO to conclude, and all signs point towards exactly that happening.
So where does this leave Solomon? He’s a great gift to the player base, the strongest damage-dealing welfare we’ve received, and a cool character on top of that… but there may not be anything to use him for beyond the story’s finale. This doesn’t negate the fact that he’s strong, but we’ve reached the point in FGO where Servant strength may no longer matter.
Solomon feels to me like yet another indication that FGO is properly ending. The story is nearly over, the game is nearly done—so there’s no problem with gifting players a top-tier damage-dealer. Solomon’s arrival means many other AoE Servants are now mostly pointless… but that’s fine. They’ve had a good run, and FGO is almost done. Solomon could not have been added to the game any sooner. A Servant like this could only appear now.
Solomon
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Solomon has low attack and high health relative to Pretenders as a whole—but Pretenders tend to be offense-slanted in general, so Solomon’s overall stats are more or less average for an SSR. He only has one Quick card, but the hit-count on that card is reasonably high, so while Solomon’s active star gen isn’t great, he can make a passable number off a Brave chain involving a Quick. Solomon’s NP gain, meanwhile, is quite good—his Arts card NP gain is meaningfully higher than a typical QAABB Servant, and his Quick card is fine.
Solomon has five passives, but two of them (Item Construction and Nega Summon) do nothing. Territory Creation is a tiny bonus to Solomon’s Arts cards—kinda nice for NP gain but not particularly impactful. Clairvoyance amounts to one or two stars on average in a Brave chain, and Independent Manifestation has such low values it might as well not do anything at all.
Skill Reload is Solomon’s most important append, and it’s necessary for optimal CE-less looping. The crit damage buff is marginally useful, the Extra attack buff is fine, and the other two appends are mostly useless.
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Solomon asks for a mix of mats from all throughout FGO. To unlock Solomon you necessarily must have completed all story chapters up to that point, so he shouldn’t be too hard to raise.
Solomon has just about the best possible Buster DPS skillset. Recommended skill order is 1>2>3.
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Bag of Imaginary Numbers is a 100% battery. Even if it did nothing else, that would still make it great, as it lets Solomon loop CE-less (provided he has the skill reload append to make the cooldowns work). The skill does have a few other benefits, though: it gives some per-turn healing to the whole party, lets each party member generate 10 stars per turn (for a total of 30 if nobody swaps out), and a small partywide crit buff. These are all decent, and the star gen means your whole party is likely to be critting while it’s active, but mostly this skill is here for the battery.
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Ring of Solomon is an excellent skill, most notable for providing a whopping 50% NP damage up to the entire party. This is mostly useful for Solomon himself—and it would be great even if it were selfish—but it can also let Solomon function as an effective semi-support in a pinch. The skill also gives a partywide overcharge buffs (which makes this skill functionally another very small NP damage buff for Solomon himself on the turn you use it), and it gives the party a small amount of debuff resistance—not enough to count on, but decent for allies who already have high levels of magic resistance. The most interesting piece of this skill is the last element, which causes Solomon to regain a percentage of the NP gauge spent by allied Casters when they NP. This is… extremely situational, especially since most of Buster’s preferred supports aren’t Casters, but it does mean Merlin, Shakespeare, and so on can functionally provide a ton of bonus charge to Solomon in CQ contexts.
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King of Humanity’s Ashes is a standard 30% Arts and Buster buff—a nice bonus for Solomon’s NP damage and for his functional NP gain. This also gives Solomon a small defense buff and power mod against Main Class enemies, which is great for fighting Knights.
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Solomon’s NP is quite good. It doesn’t have niche, and its ramp is post-damage and debuff-based… but aside from that, it brings a lot of value: pre-cast NP damage up, post-cast Buster resistance down, selfish NP charge, and pre-cast buff removal. Most of this doesn’t matter for farming, but Solomon’s farming damage is sufficient regardless, and for CQs this NP is fantastic.
Farming with Solomon is quite simple: you use two Koyanskayas, and whatever third support gives you the most damage (which should basically always be Oberon unless you don’t have him, as Solomon has a huge pool of NP damage buffs for Oberon to double). This also requires Solomon to have Skill Reload maxed out. On turn 1, Solomon uses all three of his skills, and the Koyans use their offensive buffs. On turn 2, both Koyans use their batteries, and Solomon uses his third skill again. You can also plug your third support in for any persistent damage buffs they have at this point. On turn 3, Solomon uses his first two skills again, your third support uses any remaining skills, and you hopefully kill everything.
A level 90 NP5 Solomon with Class Score and MLB Black Grail deals just shy of a million damage against Knight-class enemies. At level 100 or with gold Fous he clears that bar easily. This means Solomon theoretically solves all 90++ farming for Knight nodes… if, that is, there are any more such nodes in the future. This is fantastic, although it does mean any other AoE Servant who counters those classes is more or less pointless now (at least, unless you can find a team to rig a 6CE 90++ clear). Again, this probably doesn’t matter, as the game is nearly over.
Solomon’s CQ usage is somewhat more interesting. He can use the same strategy as for farming to burst down short fights, but he also has a lot of potential in a sustain-oriented setup. Because of his synergy with Casters, Solomon is a natural pick for double Merlin teams—a Garden of Avalon after Solomon’s NP not only gives Garden of Avalon’s usual benefits but also provides a ton of charge for Solomon himself, potentially letting Solomon spam his Noble Phantasm even while relying on Merlin’s survival tools. Castoria also has good synergy with Solomon, providing the same functional NP gain benefits while also getting a free Overcharge level from Solomon’s first skill. Solomon’s long cooldowns mean he isn’t great for super longform fights, but for mid-range fights, he’s a good pick.
Solomon is also a great AoE Servant for multicore setups, whether farming or CQs. He has a bunch of buffs innately, needs no help getting access to his NP, and gives a whopping 50% NP damage up to your other DPS. Especially if you’re looking at a mostly-ST node where you need one powerful AoE NP, Solomon is an excellent choice to cover your AoE needs.
Unless you’re using a farming CE, there’s essentially no reason not to give Solomon The Black Grail. He has a 100% battery, a way of getting even more charge if Casters are around, and good card-based NP gain to boot. The Black Grail gives a ton of extra damage, which Solomon appreciates.
Solomon has fairly easy crit access and two Buster cards, but he has limited in-game crit buffs, so crit damage CCs are a natural pick.
Solomon is a great Servant, and he’s automatically NP5, so he’s a good candidate for grails in general. If we do end up getting new events going forward—or if there are frequent reruns and you’re in need of a good anti-Knights farmer—taking Solomon to level 100 will make him that much more reliable.
Solomon is a fantastic AoE Servant. He’d be pretty good and pretty cool even if he were a limited SSR, but as a free unit he’s kind of ridiculous. As I said at the top of the review, I don’t think we’d be given a Servant like this were we not at essentially the end of the game—I think Solomon is here to be a strong and effective tool for FGO’s finale, and that there won’t be much if any new content to use him for after that—but that doesn’t make Solomon not excellent. If you were at all hurting for a Knight-killer, Solomon fixes that. And he’s a free SSR! That’s inherently quite cool.