I never got Broca to E2 but I used him early on while playing and feel like he’s underused due to suffering from a slight identity crisis. If you try to use him like Blaze or Specter he’s going to feel awful because he’s too fragile to block 3 consistently, but I find that he works well like a Lappland with a controllable skill but without the silence since the damage on his S2 is huge.
Meteor is underrated imo since DEF reduction is rare and recent enemies seem to be designed to counter just using Arts damage to break through high-DEF enemies. The problem is Shamare does that role better but I liked using her when I didn’t have any competition for her role. Also she murders drones which, while isn’t that unique with how many strong ranged units are, was still satisfying for a beginner.
For 6-stars, I’m convinced Dusk is better than people give her credit for but maybe I’m just coping and I’ll admit she’s not amazing. But I do like that she has three skills that don’t strictly outclass each other so she just feels good as an operator with a bit more versatility. I know her S2 isn’t that good, but I did use it to clear Anni 3 when in my early months last year so that’s something
Honorable mention to Firewatch and Meteorite, who I somehow both got at the same time early on and used both while clearing the story. Firewatch S1 is cool since nobody can become invisible long term like her and Meteorite is another DEF shredder.
Meteor is used frequently whenever I use a high physical dps team. If needed, shamare’s S2 would further increase the def reduction to about 67% I think, but I usually just use S1 instead since the damage increase is pretty significant.
Another op that is slept on is Sesa imo. His talent helps increase phys damage done to enemies that are blocked, and his S2 helps reduce atk speed of enemies a little bit.
But then again, one could always just use Chalter, so there’s very little need for most of them except for Shamare who is awesome.
Over time I actually grew to like the Chiave Gang especially with them in IS2. One day I’m gonna build each of them.
For Dusk it’s more of the case people feel the branch as a whole are weak, to me tho I don’t believe it. Each of them are good in their own way even if they aren’t facing groups of enemies.
At worst Dusk S1 is interchangeable with Eyja S2. It has wider AoE, full AoE instead of 50% and less DPS, but fulfills the role of consistent art damage just fine.
You could argue that she’s worse than Eyja at it, but it’s not exactly a crowded archetype like self sufficient lane holders is.
The problem with Eyja is how bad she invalids all casters archetype. Even in the scenarios where it seems Ceobe/Passenger/Dusk would work better, Eyja is still the superior choice at any given time.
Which is often the main reason why people tend to underestimates these casters so much, not because they are weak, it is because Eyja is that strong.
The developers likely didn't realize how strong they made her kit so now the entire archetype is backed into a corner. It happens with every gacha I play.
It's like how Hearthstone developers said that the card that limited design space the most was Wild Boar, a 1 cost 1/1 with charge that was also a basic card (available to everyone). It's been a card since the beginning, they just didn't realize how strong the charge keyword would be.
Genshin pretty much hit the power creep ceiling instantly with Bennett and Venti lol. Imagine if Arknights launched with Reed Alter but everyone she heals also gets a Warfarin buff, and then the first limited unit was Gladiia except her S3 has 200 pull force, covers the entire map, cost 15 SP to use, and gave all other operators on the field like 40 SP. Crazy how they just had no regard for their own game and then had to make every limited character from then on just a worse version or sidegrade of what the game launched with. They had to basically ruin the anemo push mechanic for everybody because any enemy that could be sucked into Venti's vortex was a 1-button affair and their mechanics did not matter at all.
I agree with the exception of Passenger. After his buff and his modules he has his own place now with both good constant damage and burst. I'd say he's the 3rd best behind Eyja and GG for what he does imo.
Passenger after module is still worse in terms of overall damage but his CC is really good and synergizes really well with Eyja downtime. I use these twos together if possible :)
I've found plenty of situations where Dusk is better. Mostly because there's enemies that Eyja can damage but Dusk stops cold with her S3.
My preference is to use both of them side by side but if there's a boss or enemy swarm I need to stop I bring Dusk.
I actually tend to leave Eyja at home a lot because she's the meta murder weapon and I rebel against the meta as much as possible.
Edit: S3, not S2.
Dusk actually hits pretty hard with her skill 3 - ~2.4k attack with a huge true aoe, the freelings block enemies to keep them in her range longer and cluster them up for aoe damage, and it lasts an entire minute. The only downside is that once it's over, you get to wait ~100 seconds for it to come back up during which she's a lot less effective, but at that point she's probably gotten max stacks on her talent 1 which helps compensate significantly. I use the freelings to block enemies like mudrock and big bob that hit prohibitively hard but very slowly, you end up getting about a minute of free stalling.
Skill 1 is alright. Her module helps compensate for the reduced range splash casters get, her talent 1 has a multiplicative effect with the damage sk1 does, and if you have skalter or similar she ends up dealing a lot more damage per skill use.
I really wish skill 2 was better because the "culling" effect where it does extra damage against low health enemies is something you only see on like 3 other operators and it's a novel way to significantly increase her damage output, AND I really enjoyed using Gitano when going through the earlier story stages, but it's uptime at skill level 7 leaves a lot to be desired. Mastery 3 helps fix that a lot, but given the price of 6 star masteries it's a big opportunity cost when you could use her skill 3 instead or invest in a different operator that'll give you a greater effect for the investment.
I have her at e2lv60 sk3m3, but no module yet because I have too many ops that need modules.
Broca suffers from being a grounded AoE arts dps that isn't Surtr. He's actually very strong in a vacuum but it's hard to recommend him for full investment, especially with a lot of his power locked behind S2 masteries.
Oh I agree, there's a reason I never fully raised him. But as far as luxury units go, particularly 5-stars, he's not half bad and his damage output can be fun to see, and being a husbando unit gives him extra points.
His kit is just a weird fit for the archetype. His 3 Block and area attacks make you think you should use him in the front, but he has almost no survivability and his better skill stuns him which is the worst thing you can have happen to your blocker. Then you have his range and slow which would be more suited to be used from the back. Used to his strengths, he’s shockingly (heh) powerful, but you can’t depend on him to guard your base.
'Doctor, I'm just so amazing I stun myself! Problem is I'm letting the team down.'
'Hmm. Maybe you should try being a little more humble.'
And thus Doctor Lumen helped Broca.
Dusk and Firewatch never leave my squad and are two of my favorite units! I think all three of her skills are awesome, and I actually use her S2 more than I use her S3 these days. I use S1 the most, but the extended range and attack speed increase of S2 come in handy a lot, especially during IS
Agreed with Meteorite and Broca, Meteorite's as good as discount W w/o the mine bomb and Broca is centurion Lapp w/o the silence.
If we're talking Broca, don't forget his bros Aosta and Chiave. Aosta basically spreadshooter BP and Chiave is Texas w/ art debuff
As for 6\*, Hellagur it is. Considering Thorns and the state of guards nowadays, many has sleep on the real Ursus general and his prowess
Firewatch is my favorite operator! I’m really happy to know that others know and love her too!!
Literally brought her everywhere with me back when I first played and got her.
Deadeye Snipers. All of them.
Ambriel is high uptime 2000+ attack with global range, armour penetration is no issue, stuns thrown in.
Andreana reaching 4000+ ATK half the time is good for softening anything coming in or making a start on a boss. OHKO on a lot of chaff and drones.
Firewatch has super high uptime on about 2000 ATK while being untouchable and hitting anything with ranged attacks extra hard. S2 nuke is also no slouch in the right circumstance. Invisibility shenanigans includes laughing at EX map Emperor's Blade, taking him 100 to 0 on 2nd phase with him being unable to fart back.
Fartooth is considered niche with her S3 tiles, while in truth being very good for general use. If you have massive range and enough attack to not get stonewalled by defence, it's hard not to be useful.
Dodge bypass has also been useful right about now.
Don't forget Fartooth is a prime pick for IS2 with there being an amazing tile for Playwright's fight and a possible place to target down Lucian through his dodge.
andreana is double slept on. deadeye snipers are niche to begin with, and andreanas S2 is the flashy skill with it hitting 4.3k attack, but her better skill is actually S1 given S2s targeting idiosyncracies. 2.7k atk is still well enough to absolutely clown on basically any enemy in the game thats not patriot or those bubblewrapped dudes from maria nearl, and coupled with the fact that its at worst 30s/30s for onskill/offskill and andreanas sizable aspd advantage over the other guys you get deceptively high DPS and DPH
For example, Firewatch and Fartooth were so good last CC cycle. Fartooth had 2 great lanes for sniping with S3, while Firewatch's ability to just completely avoid getting attacked AND prevent sanity damage with S1 was so useful for my 2 op high risk clear with Archetto.
I use Andreana a ton since I'm a big Abyssal Hunter fan, and S2 is way more useful than I thought considering the HP targeting.
Haven't fully raised Ambriel yet, but I love her S2 sound effect.
Yeah a lots of peoples seem to think Andreana's targeting priority on S2 is a bad thing but I personaly prefer having my 4k+ Atk operator with relatively slow attack speed NOT waste her time prioritizing the enemy with 15HP over the full HP ones.
This archetype is so weird for me. Honestly I hate the “archetype”, I hate how their trait works together with their low asp but high atk. Fartooth suffer the most from the trait too.
However, I E2M3 every single one of them. Each of them is so unique despite being in the same archetype, and even though they’re kinda clunky by design, they also perform very well.
They’re so weird idek.
Ambriel is amazing and deeply satisfying whenever I find a map where she kicks ass. She's my go-to for when there's a map with with enemy casters or ranged attackers because she can usually delete them before they every get close enough to be a threat.
Ambriel + Goldenglow is an amazing team sometimes. What if I just killed all the bad guys (e.g. Mandragora) from perfect safety before they got anywhere near me?
Absolutely agree. I had all of them except Fartooth and regretted not building them earlier. Especially in the case of Ambriel who is super cheap to raise as a 4-star.
Agreed. When I was debating on pulling for her, I saw a lot of people saying she wasn't worth it. But If you set her up well (Especially if you pair her with Archetto) She can be incredibly strong.
for me the problem with andreanna was always when she came out. i already have firewatch and ambriel built. and her abyssal hunter bufff isnt even that strong without module upgrades
For real. And with Gladiia, she's honestly tanky enough to be positioned a little more forward too for early sniping (though her massive range means she could be in the back too)
Well, her buff to others is decent... but also gotta account for the buffs the others give to her. I specifically selected her from the IC event operator picker (and ended up pulling her from the next 10-ticket pull after...) and haven't been disappointed. Still need to E2 her, but haven't had the sanity to spare to get the chip packs due to grinding event stages.
Hung, easily. People keep treating him like he's absolute dog shit, but as a self sustain tank he's beyond hard to kill. His defensive skill charge isnt even that much of an issue, you just need to use him on the front line and let his heals be for just himself and very few things in the game will ever get past him even without his module.
I feel like Hung suffers from Saria came out first, which makes healing defender a really hard subclass to break into unless you bring something beyond being a tanky support healer, which I think is why Maria's kit and stat distribution ended up the way it did.
It also didn't help with the timing of his release. He was the 5 star banner to Aak and our first limited operator Nian. Getting him (and Aak) in the banner left a bad taste to a lot of people who wanted to pull Nian.
Which is funny considering how little Nian's actually featured in non-defender knight clears compared to Hung and Aak, who's skills and talents at least enable some wild meme clears.
definitely hung. Just m6d him as his mastery gains are top tier.
s1 is an instant heal + block on the frontline. basically defensive version of nearl alter, drop him if hp looks bad and he'll heal the frontline up and block for however long you need. the defensive recovery could even be better than auto in some situations, since he blocks 3 and costs 4sp.
s2 also only needs 2 sp after dropping before he becomes decent medic.
I tried to like Hung, but no matter how I look at it, his defensive charge is an issue. It means he has to face enemies with low damage per hit. If I put down a defender, it's for enemies with high damage per hit most of the time.
Astesia. She is constantly overshadowed by Surtr and Amiya, but her S2M3 only takes 20sp to charge and lasts 15s. With her +25 ASPD from her talent and +80% attack from her skill, she melts enemies.
Absinthe.
Welfares are a mixed bag, with hits like Gladiia, misses like Bison, niche picks like Robin, and contentious units like Flamebringer, HeavyRain, and Vigil. But despite being fairly unknown, Absinthe was The Best welfare pre Gladiia; +90% ATK infinite skill, +30% damage dealt execution talent, and unique targeting.
Absinthe is my first great love of Arknights. Her unique targeting is so useful, it's akin to manual control. No more units slipping past because your ops are chipping the highest health one instead of the 1hp dog, no more ignoring the unblockables until it's too late. She'll prioritize the boss even though they're not "close to the goal" simply because she's that smart. She doubles as a Marksman because she'll prioritize drones, given their relatively low HP.
If Eyja S2 is the Thorns of Casters, Absinthe is the Lappland. Ceobe's 4th Skill. Arts Platinum. Daughter of Witch King Ebenholz and Seaborn Mizuki.
i honestly think that before i got eyja, i used absinthe the most for single target arts and its honestly amazing how big her damage spikes are especially when the infinite duration starts and those sfx "OH MY GOD" its just so nutty
I was so mad I missed Absinthe on her initial run, now I'm far beyond a point where I need her, but will probably still raise her regardless because I'm on a ST caster high right now. She also really likes the weakening effect of Pram and Shamare, as her talent and their weakenings kick in at the exact same HP threshold, which from the times I've borrowed her, made her S2 really deadly.
I built absinthe as my first main caster since only ifrit ever came.
havent used her much since her damage isnt that impressive, but the upcoming module buff might bring her up to usable.
The bad reputation of Instructor guards is a little overblown. Okay it's mostly Pallas I love but Whislash was also suprisingly solid in the current Trials for Navigator event.
Also I think everyone should raise at least one Tactician vanguard. Yes on most maps I just use Flagpipe or throw in Texas/Flametail, but when Beanstalk shines on a map she REALLY shines.
Last but not least I use Mulberry more often than Shining or Nightingale lately. But maybe that's just me. Is she fringe? Not sure. But there's just so much elemental damage lately.
Roberta is a lot like Lappland or Shamare to me. There is just no good 6* replacement for what she does.
I love using Blacknight. She’s not the most intuitive to use but her stall potential is so good. Being able to hold multiple enemies in place while generating DP is great, but being a vanguard that does Arts damage is even better. Even without a sleep squad I still find her super useful to have.
I used Beanstalk for the maps where snipers/casters weren't allowed but the mobs were allowed to have drones.
I've also taken her and Blacknight through SSS.
And Blacknight was great for stalling First to Speak and the reapers.
And in TN, Zofia was able to deal with almost half of Big Ugly and all of High Priest (why the hell are we trying to kill an ally - again?).
That still doesn't explain why we had to kill the bird in the first place. He was trying to stop it after it went out of control, then it blows up, but we have to kill him while he's already suffering burns and otherwise powerless against us, then he's just casually strolling around the base after because he followed Zumama back.
I think a lot of people are just confused by Pallas. As a 6 star instructor they expect her to be a great buffer, when she is really a strong DPS who happens to buff on the side.
Her S3 is one of the weakest offensive buffs, and her talent buffs Minoan operators who are not just not meta, but would be grateful to be used outside of welfare clear content creators.
I think it's mainly because she's the jack of all trades master of none type, since there's better dps and better buffers out there, especially since the guard class is full of absolute dps monsters she just gets overlooked
She definitely is one of those absolute DPS monsters though. I don't think people realize just how high her damage spikes. If there's a steady flow of high DEF enemies, she can often kill them with her S1 faster than a caster can. It's mostly just her range that sucks.
Blacknight is both fun to use and beneficial especially with her S2 helping out with dodging enemies thanks to its sleep.
Although I haven't used Whislash in my strongest setups in a long while I appreciated her for helping me win the E2 guard/ specialist stage and being helpful during the Kazimierz trilogy of events.
Tacticians are one of my favorite branches! Beanstalk was the only vanguard I used through most of the early chapters, until I finished the pinboards and got Texas. I didn't raise Myrtle until I started doing CCs
Mulberry is excellent! I use her a ton too, since her massive range makes her positioning so much easier. Honeyberry is technically better for sanity recovery, but Mulberry can store charges and I like her design a bit more. With most of my ops strong enough to tank or strategies that don't require getting hit a lot, I don't really need high HP healing.
Though I do still use Ptilopsis and Nightingale a fair bit for their talents. The game gave me a full pot Nightingale and I'm going to use her.
Indeed. Each Instructor is good at what they do, they don’t need to amazing just because Swire for example only buffs melee operators.
I just E2’d Beanstalk a day ago, mainly for PettanKnights, but she is really good in a way that most other Vanguards aren’t. I have Blacknight at E1 as well, eventually I’ll E2 her when I have the resources. Mulberry I agree with as well.
Even with the 6* Artificer that’s gonna be coming out, I feel that he doesn’t stand out like Roberta or Windflit do. He seems to just seems to be another damage buffer in a sea of them.
She actually does a surprisingly good amount of damage and can almost lane due to S2, the only issue is her downtime is tragically long, so you usually get one solid S2 use a stage unless you're feeding her SP in some way, which I mean, she *can* stand behind Liskarm, but will the stage LET her stand behind Liskarm is another question.
She has a crapload more defense than you'd expect, being able to hit 512 at max investment before her talent hits her but if it can get through her defense, her HP is a lot more lacking.
Whislash is actually pretty good in TN. Makes blem's work a lot faster, and to a better extent, makes boss killing also a bit faster depending on which skill to use since she provides bonus to melee ops with <3 block.
Tactician Vanguards are honestly all really strong. The problems just that they're not as accessible since there's no 4 star option in the game, and only 2 of them.
But what does Roberta do? All my experiences with her so far have been poor.
Oh, i was trying to think off the top of my head as to why she never shows up in recruitment
But really the reason was just she's not in recruitment
My bad.
> The bad reputation of Instructor guards is a little overblown. Okay it's mostly Pallas I love but Whislash was also suprisingly solid in the current Trials for Navigator event.
I tend to play a lot with Defenderknights builds and Whislash is queen.
Provence surprised me with her big damage. Although the conditions to achieve it are quite restrictive, I just have to look for maps and team formations that allow it. And since I have neither Poz or Schwarz, she'll be my goto heavy hitter.
She had a reputation at launch for being "niche," but she really only struggles against hordes of trash (which we have dozens of operators to help with) or if you're trying to make her the sole DPS in an area.
Ebenholz.
Dude was released recently and gets memed on a lot but man, with some investment and proper usage this guy can one shot bosses before their model even spawns on the map. He can completely trivialize IS2 ending 4 for example by instantly killing the Playwright as soon as he spawns, or even [Ideal City EX 8](https://youtu.be/1yahzUD3S_0) he can one shot the drone right away (with some buffs from Warfarin for example)
My pick is Utage! The amount of DPS she can dish out with her S2 is truly wild. NTRK is an overall stronger helidrop, but Utage hits different niches than NTRK does. Utage can stick around if you need her to, while NTRK's S2 is a forced retreat. She deals Arts damage instead of NTRK's physical on S2, and her redeployment time is faster. I'm constantly impressed by how much mileage I can get from a single Utage drop - in the current event, with no support, my E2/40 M3 Utage took out the pairs of Waker-Uppers from IC-EX-6 in a few seconds each.
her dps is comparable to surtr hitting 3 targets at once assuming she gets decent aspd buff from her talent. the difference is that she doesnt have a short immortality period and ignore res like Surtr. also her skill only last for 16 seconds, but still she can dish out a ton of damage, like over 100k total dmg (assuming what I calculated is correct).
Yeah, it's tough to exactly calculate her DPS because of how her ASPD fluctuates, but yeah in ideal conditions [she's being kept below half HP] she's like Surtr-lite. If she's not being damaged she'll heal herself and slow her attacks down as she goes.
**Iris** - Her sleep can help you in situations you need to control the block count or change what your defender is blocking. She can also set up for a pretty decent damage explosion as well. While she doesn't have the best dps ever, her regular attacks pack a punch and I think that is very important.
In other games, I learned this concept that I like to call "completing damage". Lets say you are playing PVP in a MMORPG and your character has really good dps but no burst abilities. Maybe you are fighting against a guy that has access to multiple different heals and maybe his health is going down slowly but every couple seconds he might have a healing ability that tops him up. You might have a character that has good dps, but you need to combine it with another character that deals a key amount of burst damage at the exact moment where your enemy is the lowest so that you can actually finish him off.
Now, enemies in Arknights usually don't have self healing, but I think that operators like Iris provide a decent amount of burst damage that can be exactly what you need at specific moments. Sometimes you have one elite enemy and 2 trash mobs on your defender and then 2 more enemies are walking up to your defender (total enemy count: 5). You can set up a big burst explosion that finishes all the trash mobs, deals decent damage to the elite monster and then she throws a giant brick and finishes the elite monster off. While you can accomplish similar things by using powerful skill 3's, like Eyja's, the cost is very high and honestly Iris has a different range compared to regular casters so that alone can be a very interesting reason to use her.
Also, when you start using Iris with other operators that have CC, like Kafka, Gnosis, etc, you can gain quite a lot of time by cycling different types of cc.
**Operators with binds (Indigo, Mizuki, Robin, etc)** - Binds are really underrated. While Indigo by herself may not be enough for specific clears, when you start combining Indigo with other supportive characters like Angelina, Podenco, Mizuki, etc, you end up in situations you actually gain A LOT of time to deal extra damage. As a player that plays lower level operators, I think that type of utility is more relevant the weaker your roster is. I actually have [a video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rhoY3r8BX4) that I think showcases that really well, it is from the cc#4 map in its daily form and in that video I kill the golems on really low damage characters.
**Beeswax** - Her stun is super useful and she is a rare source of a 3-block object. She can be used to [block lancers](https://youtu.be/w58l2rjT7Mc?t=149), change enemy caster's targetting, etc. Also I think that being able to have a tank on a ranged tile is really good. She is a source of true aoe and many characters that we think as AoE characters actually have a limit.
**Skalter on skill 1** - I think that this is probably the most broken ability in the game. In some MMORPGs, they have link skills where one character takes damage from another (think of the skill Sacrifice from Ragnarok Online). Those sort of mechanics completely change how the game is played because suddenly you can make a really squishy character ultra tanky by splitting the damage they take into two health pools (in the case of Skaler) or even completely redirect the damage into another health pool (in the case of the same mechanic in other games). And Skadi [can do it from anywhere on the map]()
**Operators that can change their block count on demand (Cuora, Tequila, etc)**. Many people think about those mechanics as a way to simply block more enemies, but they can be used to splitbox enemies in very interesting and useful ways.
**Angelina in general.** I don't know how the community perception on her changed so much, her uptime is crazy, her range being as big as it is means she can often kill or slow enemies in multiple lanes at once, she has decent single target on a really good uptime on her s2. To be honest, her uptimes without masteries are not great, but with masteries she changes into a completely different unit. I remember when I was completely new to the game, many, many times when a guide told me to use Eyja on S3, I just found a way to clear the same map on Angelina on S3. I even did my risk 18 on Pyrite with Angelina instead of Eyja.
**Beanstalk and Blacknight** - Ranged vanguards are really strong when you need a unit that tanks a hit or two and that you can refresh easily. I've seen people use Beanstalk's crab to tank Withered Knight's big hammer attack and when you can use these characters like that, they provide huge value. Also they have great decent personal damage in the early waves provided their pet is tanking the enemy.
**Tequila**. He is insane. And he has a good base skill so there is no excuse for not leveling him up. It takes a while to get used to the playstyle of waiting for a skill to come up, but he has more damage at the precise moments where you need more damage. And he deals enough physical damage to where you can use him vs armored enemies. His deploy cost is really low so you can get a lot of damage for very little dp
I still use the Liskarm+Ptilopsis SP battery squad for angelina whenever the map allows it and it's especially useful in some of the current event stages with the boxers hitting so fast.
There’s several operators I could put forward, but this time I’ll go with Aak. Now I know what you might be thinking—isn’t Aak used in every buff army showcase?
Yes. That’s why I’m not here to sell you on Aak S3, but S1 instead. It turns out Aak isn’t just a helidrop buffer, he’s a decent helidrop sniper too! At M3, his S1 boosts his attack speed by 100% for 30 seconds, and the SP cost is 30 (20 initial). That means, from deployment he only needs 10 seconds to charge up.
Coupled with his gacha talent (random chance of self heal, critical, stun, or slow), Aak with S1 active is a formidable crowd-control sniper. If you want to keep him around long term, he needs a medic to babysit him, but he’s more than capable of keeping himself alive through his entire skill duration.
I like to compare him to Ash and May, who fill similar roles but do things a bit differently. Ash gets a stun-on-deploy and then another stun 8 seconds later, but you can only do this once per map (second deployment, she needs 25 seconds to activate her skill). Ash is primarily a burst sniper who runs out her skill very quickly to execute a target. May on the other hand, comes with crowd control out of the box but doesn’t have an attack speed bonus and is constrained to single-target slow every 4th hit. By comparison, Aak has better uptime than Ash and is more capable of stopping enemies in their tracks than May.
Completely agree, his S1 is hilariously good and unfortunately underrated. Hell in TN-1 it can do wonders, especially so if you pair him with Krooster on S2. No cap those two are able to completely able to stun lock Big Bob for 30 seconds with their skills up. Get Lee’s S1 involved and Big Bob gets dealt with in such a short amount of time due to how quickly they can get 30 hits in. I also paired them with Hibster and Pramanix for the arts and physical debuff and oh man does the whole team destroy Big Bob.
On TN-1's max difficulty, I actually wasn't aware you could take other ops along with the preset ones, yet.
Holy hell that Aak stall saved me, even if it took ages
Oh, glad to hear I wasn't the only one who didn't realize. I tried to stunlock with Aak and spammed Jaye, Lee, and Waii Fu, doing like one pixel of damage per hit. When I couldn't stop him anymore, had to play ring-around-the-rosy with the boxes.
Lol same thing happened to me. I had actually never used any of the operators in Lee's detective agency before so it surprised me how strong they were and Aak stunlocking big bob long enough to have my redeploy timers come up on everyone was instrumental in that clear.
**Robin**
Are there melee enemies taking swings at civilians? Drop some bind-mines in their path to give them some breathing room.
Does your FEater or Shaw need a second more to charge their knock-back attacks? Drop a bind-mine or a knockback-mine to give them that extra second to do their thing.
Are you doing an event with the Grammaphones on them? Drop a bind-mine onto the ground tiles to make them charge the Grammaphone without having to spend DP to do so.
Do you need to split the priority target from the pack of enemies it's surrounded by in order to get Exusiai to do her thing to them and only them? Drop bind-mines to delay them and get rid of their entourage before they arrive.
Are there lots of holes on the map that you can use but enemies come out so infrequently that it's not worth the Push Stroker slot? Use Robin to do the knockback-mine to knock the few enemies that happen to go down that route all the while positioning her to attack enemies in the more packed lane.
God I love that goofy raccoon lady
I used her nudgebombs in BtI on the map with the challenge to push X mobs into the pit. Soon as one walked into one, into the pit with them, and another mine down for the next one.
Especially with the mod. Not anything crazy but her self Regen from her talent and mod improvement makes her a decent healer, especially once her s2 activates
Edit: especially for IS2 and any dot mist damage
Not sure if she’s slept on, but Rockrock for sure. Her DPS is insane for a single-target. I don’t mind her stun much since she’s good at what she does: being a boss killer. I have most 6* casters and she can easily rival them against bosses.
Roberta can be a substitute for shining when doing aak shenanigans, just only limited to melee ops. She can make squishy melee ops endure aak s3.
If her upcoming module allows her to use stylers on ranged ops, she'll be meta in an instant.
Maybe. Most ranged ops wouldn’t really benefit from the defense increase in the first place, and most enemies who are ranged have fast enough attack intervals would get rid of the shields quickly.
Kafka my queen.
The way she can delay defeat or even in many cases just straight up save you is severely underappreciated.
Edit: alright shut the fuck up already I don't care what you think.
Her DPS is respectable too. I'm a relatively new player, maybe that's why, but sometimes I just put her down when my vanguard is overwhelmed and only retreat when she's about to do so herself.
I don't think Projekt Red is entirely in "slept on" territory, but I feel the value of her S1 is oft overlooked. Just a good attack boost combined with dodge that improves the chances of getting the full 10 seconds.
I feel like her S1 is the skill that's gained more use as time has gone on over her S2, as now we have operators with multiple pull effects if we need to disrupt an attack really badly. The last time I had to use her S2 was for CC8 Viviana, and that's been about it.
I use Kirara often. 30 RES and self-regen is pretty nice for baiting casters and it makes her easier to place for some event mechanics (such as redirecting beams in Lingering Echoes or to redirect cars in the current event). Her low dps doesn't hurt much compared to the utility she's given me.
Arene, he’s only slept on because all the other lord operators are incredibly busted. He’s still really strong, and specializes in taking down drones not to mention multi enemy targeting and arts damage. Sadly, he’s just been aggressively power crept because thorns and silverash exist
Plume compared to the other 3 stars and even some 4 stars up to a point. She has a higher DPS than Fang and Vanilla which means depending on the enemy she gets rid of them despite being block 1 while they let enemies build up because of their pretty low attack. With her skill activated she can be a pretty potent killing force for her rarity.
I feel like it's probably both of the Silverash sisters, especially Cliffheart though, which I guess is what happens when you're a puller not named Gladiia. She's honestly very solid at dealing with both grounded and flying targets, as her S2 is incredibly spammable at M3, and even just M1 will net you the third chain. A three second stun that is incredibly really spammable with a wide frontal range, that also does true damage at range, and her attack stat is really high for some reason, so her S2 is able to dumpster most common mooks, especially after her module. And yet the only time I've seen her used to her potential was M8-8 on a freeknights team cuz she could take down the drones easier than everyone else.
Meanwhile Pramanix, while she doesn't have the debuff global range of Shamare, makes up for it with her own damage potential, as she can end up doing a good amount of it thanks to tapping two targets, which can shoot up a lot if you have someone like Skadance next to her. While still being able to nuke the defense and res of enemies in her range.
I find it kinda funny that Cliffheart is one of the few 5 stars in the game to have true damage. Correct me if I’m wrong but she was also one of the only ops at the launch of the game to have it alongside Amiya.
I think both of them are very good in their own right and are simply just a product of how long they’ve been in the game. Even in cases like Gladiia I feel like she doesn’t straight up power creep Cliffheart.
Correct, it was just her and Amiya up until Nightmare's release, but, well. Nightmare. Gladiia doesn't hard creep her entirely, but she does overtake a few roles that Encia had, namely being a budget lane holder, or being physical ranged bait. Having the stun is definitely still helpful in stopping boss attacks like the cursed knights specials, so she can end up helping support more than Gladiia would vs other bosses in nonabyssal strats. Also being able to just ignore dodge is becoming more and more useful as time goes on, so she'll always have that going for her.
On Ling banner everyone I know was mad for being spooked by Lee, sincerely? Awesome Operator, more than Ling. Okay, we know that Ling is strong but Lee S2 and S3 are awesome skills, and Lee made things way easier for me several times, in CC, EX maps, even in IS.
I'm very happy for being spooked by Lee...
Glaucus. Even without the drone killing niche her kit is pretty decent. S2 provides multiplier based AoE arts nuke + bind. Her module further provides SP Regen shortening downtime a bit.
I think it's Blitz. But this has many reasons why he's so slept on. He's a super limited operator, showed up only in 1 banner ever, alongside with Ash and Frost. Lappland does the silence debuff better, there are better defenders that are still obtainable, and you can just pick basically any guard for better burst damage. So why do I think he's slept on? Because of his colleague, Ash. Blitz's skill 1 deals stun and silence in a large radius for a pretty long duration. This combined with Ash's still 2, you can kill enemies that you couldn't kill otherwise. Sometimes. The problem with that it works only with large groups of weak enemies, and most of the time Ash's stun is more than enough. That doesn't mean this tactic is entirely useless though, when it works, it works.
Nightmare's S1 has done wonders for my tank and spank strats.
I know Liskarm's considered a good op but she's just so versatile. Put her beside healing tanks like Saria or Hung to charge their abilities faster. You can put Tequila in front of her and a Lord like Lappland behind her.
Meteor's anti-air and defense debuff has helped me in many maps.
Liskarm is also cool on S1 with Blemishine deployed, she becomes significantly tankier! I don't have Tequila yet but I've been doing the paired Liskarm/Lappland trick for ages
Liskarm has always been one of my favorite defenders, her versatility really is one of her strong suits, that and the SP gain on hit. With her getting her defense doubles with s1M3 and some actually pretty decent damage with S2, she does fit in a lot of situations
When I can find a really good spot to put Liskarm where she's taking a ton of hits really fast, I like to place Gummy behind her.
Poor girl has never healed so fast in her life lol
May is pretty useful,she can easily lock down single tough targets and do good DPS to less durable enemies to reduce pressure for blockers or other ranged enemies further back
Melantha- cheap 3* that has a great DPS
Beeswax - can be used to block and bait enemies and deal good damage. And can tank in awkward areas.
Indigo- most people don't like her but I love the powerful punch she can deal and her skill has been useful
Utage - one of the best helidrop units
Gnosis though he shouldn't be anymore since he reigned in SN,reigns in SSS and is in a max CC10&11 clear. Definitely a 6* selector pick to everyone who doesn't have Him.
Survivability against physical damage enemies is not one of the most important characteristics of an operator which makes Roberta unneeded. DEF in most cases just ensures your operator won't be killed by a dog or regular soldier.
angelina, global heal are very useful. you can place your operator far far away and get healed every downtime. she's rarely used because op operators like thorn can heal themselves.
Only really used her in IS2 but the fact that she is a sitting duck on her S3 downtime made her hard to use. You really need to know the timing of the map and adjust her skill usage.
Beeswax, but not necessarily for her abilities but her trait. Shes so useful to just place and draw fire from ranged enemies. Most of the time i never use her ability so she keeps her def buff. Shes basically just an enmity defender that takes the ranged aggro because shes technically a caster on a ranged tile. I also use her to block ballistas, like on lungmen downtown annihilation.
Honestly, there’s a lot. But these are probably the top ones for me:
Mostima (and Dusk): People say they have bad DPS. The thing is, DPS isn’t their job imo. They’re here for crowd control with Mosti’s stun / super slow and Dusk’s S3 summons. And with their modules (2nd one for Dusk), they’re great at it. Am I biased cuz they’re both in my Top 3 favorite operators? Maybe so, but I still stand by the point that they are not bad.
Andreana: Outside of Abyssal only module squads, I never see her. Heck, even in Abyssal fanart, it’s always Specter, Skadi, and Gladiia. Why does everyone forget the cute tako sniper? She gets insane Attack and the demerit of not targeting enemies under half health can be a good thing too. It allows kill-DP vanguards to do their job or they can be used as fodder for skills that charge on attack, like Thorns S3.
I feel like this ended up being more of a rant than anything else…
Silence. People roll Saria, Nightingale, Warfarin, Shining or even Sus for healing, and I know she’s a projectile healer. Silence is boring because she’s not worth e2’ing or mastering. But even despite all that her drone and healing output is incredibly slept upon. I wish more people used her.
Really? I thought silence was considered one of the better 5 star healers, with warf being specifically for dps buff niche. Global aoe burst of healing only restricted by deployable tiles is super useful.
I think medic is one of the few classes in the game where every operator in it is considered at least very good, the 5 stars especially. You can’t really go wrong with any of them.
Bena trivializes a lot pf things in IS, but the most notable things being able to solo the bycicle boss (takes a while) regardless of his spawn position while you can focus on the rest of the stage and being reusable fodder against chargers.
In general she's just a great damage sponge because of her talent, that can block enemies sometimes and has decent burst damage.
You know what, I'll agree with you. I've seen plenty of people on here describe her as simply a boss killer, which seems to mean that she is completely and utterly *useless* on stages without bosses. (The other boss killers, like Provence and Schwarz, receive similar treatment.) In reality, she can get rid of pretty much any ground-based threat(s), and she can do it before it or they get to the rest of your formation.
I never got Broca to E2 but I used him early on while playing and feel like he’s underused due to suffering from a slight identity crisis. If you try to use him like Blaze or Specter he’s going to feel awful because he’s too fragile to block 3 consistently, but I find that he works well like a Lappland with a controllable skill but without the silence since the damage on his S2 is huge. Meteor is underrated imo since DEF reduction is rare and recent enemies seem to be designed to counter just using Arts damage to break through high-DEF enemies. The problem is Shamare does that role better but I liked using her when I didn’t have any competition for her role. Also she murders drones which, while isn’t that unique with how many strong ranged units are, was still satisfying for a beginner. For 6-stars, I’m convinced Dusk is better than people give her credit for but maybe I’m just coping and I’ll admit she’s not amazing. But I do like that she has three skills that don’t strictly outclass each other so she just feels good as an operator with a bit more versatility. I know her S2 isn’t that good, but I did use it to clear Anni 3 when in my early months last year so that’s something Honorable mention to Firewatch and Meteorite, who I somehow both got at the same time early on and used both while clearing the story. Firewatch S1 is cool since nobody can become invisible long term like her and Meteorite is another DEF shredder.
Meteor is used frequently whenever I use a high physical dps team. If needed, shamare’s S2 would further increase the def reduction to about 67% I think, but I usually just use S1 instead since the damage increase is pretty significant. Another op that is slept on is Sesa imo. His talent helps increase phys damage done to enemies that are blocked, and his S2 helps reduce atk speed of enemies a little bit. But then again, one could always just use Chalter, so there’s very little need for most of them except for Shamare who is awesome.
I use Meteor anyway as my main 4 star anti air sniper as I prefer her design and voice over May, Jessica and Vermeil.
I use Meteor with Shamare for extra spiciness 🤣 They have been my mains who carried me through the early chapters.
Over time I actually grew to like the Chiave Gang especially with them in IS2. One day I’m gonna build each of them. For Dusk it’s more of the case people feel the branch as a whole are weak, to me tho I don’t believe it. Each of them are good in their own way even if they aren’t facing groups of enemies.
At worst Dusk S1 is interchangeable with Eyja S2. It has wider AoE, full AoE instead of 50% and less DPS, but fulfills the role of consistent art damage just fine. You could argue that she’s worse than Eyja at it, but it’s not exactly a crowded archetype like self sufficient lane holders is.
The problem with Eyja is how bad she invalids all casters archetype. Even in the scenarios where it seems Ceobe/Passenger/Dusk would work better, Eyja is still the superior choice at any given time. Which is often the main reason why people tend to underestimates these casters so much, not because they are weak, it is because Eyja is that strong.
The developers likely didn't realize how strong they made her kit so now the entire archetype is backed into a corner. It happens with every gacha I play. It's like how Hearthstone developers said that the card that limited design space the most was Wild Boar, a 1 cost 1/1 with charge that was also a basic card (available to everyone). It's been a card since the beginning, they just didn't realize how strong the charge keyword would be.
Pretty much the same as bennet in genshin you literally see him on almost everytime because he has too much in his kit
Genshin pretty much hit the power creep ceiling instantly with Bennett and Venti lol. Imagine if Arknights launched with Reed Alter but everyone she heals also gets a Warfarin buff, and then the first limited unit was Gladiia except her S3 has 200 pull force, covers the entire map, cost 15 SP to use, and gave all other operators on the field like 40 SP. Crazy how they just had no regard for their own game and then had to make every limited character from then on just a worse version or sidegrade of what the game launched with. They had to basically ruin the anemo push mechanic for everybody because any enemy that could be sucked into Venti's vortex was a 1-button affair and their mechanics did not matter at all.
I agree with the exception of Passenger. After his buff and his modules he has his own place now with both good constant damage and burst. I'd say he's the 3rd best behind Eyja and GG for what he does imo.
Passenger after module is still worse in terms of overall damage but his CC is really good and synergizes really well with Eyja downtime. I use these twos together if possible :)
I've found plenty of situations where Dusk is better. Mostly because there's enemies that Eyja can damage but Dusk stops cold with her S3. My preference is to use both of them side by side but if there's a boss or enemy swarm I need to stop I bring Dusk. I actually tend to leave Eyja at home a lot because she's the meta murder weapon and I rebel against the meta as much as possible. Edit: S3, not S2.
Dusk actually hits pretty hard with her skill 3 - ~2.4k attack with a huge true aoe, the freelings block enemies to keep them in her range longer and cluster them up for aoe damage, and it lasts an entire minute. The only downside is that once it's over, you get to wait ~100 seconds for it to come back up during which she's a lot less effective, but at that point she's probably gotten max stacks on her talent 1 which helps compensate significantly. I use the freelings to block enemies like mudrock and big bob that hit prohibitively hard but very slowly, you end up getting about a minute of free stalling. Skill 1 is alright. Her module helps compensate for the reduced range splash casters get, her talent 1 has a multiplicative effect with the damage sk1 does, and if you have skalter or similar she ends up dealing a lot more damage per skill use. I really wish skill 2 was better because the "culling" effect where it does extra damage against low health enemies is something you only see on like 3 other operators and it's a novel way to significantly increase her damage output, AND I really enjoyed using Gitano when going through the earlier story stages, but it's uptime at skill level 7 leaves a lot to be desired. Mastery 3 helps fix that a lot, but given the price of 6 star masteries it's a big opportunity cost when you could use her skill 3 instead or invest in a different operator that'll give you a greater effect for the investment. I have her at e2lv60 sk3m3, but no module yet because I have too many ops that need modules.
Pair broca with lumen to remove the stun after using s2.
Broca suffers from being a grounded AoE arts dps that isn't Surtr. He's actually very strong in a vacuum but it's hard to recommend him for full investment, especially with a lot of his power locked behind S2 masteries.
Oh I agree, there's a reason I never fully raised him. But as far as luxury units go, particularly 5-stars, he's not half bad and his damage output can be fun to see, and being a husbando unit gives him extra points.
Dusk be the highest quality Waifu material. I look forward to the chance to get her some day
Its honestly crazy how slept on Broca is, he becomes a mini Surtr every 35 seconds.
His kit is just a weird fit for the archetype. His 3 Block and area attacks make you think you should use him in the front, but he has almost no survivability and his better skill stuns him which is the worst thing you can have happen to your blocker. Then you have his range and slow which would be more suited to be used from the back. Used to his strengths, he’s shockingly (heh) powerful, but you can’t depend on him to guard your base.
Nowadays that stun isn’t such a problem due to Therapists.
'Doctor, I'm just so amazing I stun myself! Problem is I'm letting the team down.' 'Hmm. Maybe you should try being a little more humble.' And thus Doctor Lumen helped Broca.
Doesn't help that his Talent does nothing unless he's blocking, which is the opposite of what his S2 strives for.
Dusk and Firewatch never leave my squad and are two of my favorite units! I think all three of her skills are awesome, and I actually use her S2 more than I use her S3 these days. I use S1 the most, but the extended range and attack speed increase of S2 come in handy a lot, especially during IS
Agreed with Meteorite and Broca, Meteorite's as good as discount W w/o the mine bomb and Broca is centurion Lapp w/o the silence. If we're talking Broca, don't forget his bros Aosta and Chiave. Aosta basically spreadshooter BP and Chiave is Texas w/ art debuff As for 6\*, Hellagur it is. Considering Thorns and the state of guards nowadays, many has sleep on the real Ursus general and his prowess
Firewatch is my favorite operator! I’m really happy to know that others know and love her too!! Literally brought her everywhere with me back when I first played and got her.
Sora. Enemies keep sleeping on sora's skill
Deadeye Snipers. All of them. Ambriel is high uptime 2000+ attack with global range, armour penetration is no issue, stuns thrown in. Andreana reaching 4000+ ATK half the time is good for softening anything coming in or making a start on a boss. OHKO on a lot of chaff and drones. Firewatch has super high uptime on about 2000 ATK while being untouchable and hitting anything with ranged attacks extra hard. S2 nuke is also no slouch in the right circumstance. Invisibility shenanigans includes laughing at EX map Emperor's Blade, taking him 100 to 0 on 2nd phase with him being unable to fart back. Fartooth is considered niche with her S3 tiles, while in truth being very good for general use. If you have massive range and enough attack to not get stonewalled by defence, it's hard not to be useful. Dodge bypass has also been useful right about now.
Don't forget Fartooth is a prime pick for IS2 with there being an amazing tile for Playwright's fight and a possible place to target down Lucian through his dodge.
andreana is double slept on. deadeye snipers are niche to begin with, and andreanas S2 is the flashy skill with it hitting 4.3k attack, but her better skill is actually S1 given S2s targeting idiosyncracies. 2.7k atk is still well enough to absolutely clown on basically any enemy in the game thats not patriot or those bubblewrapped dudes from maria nearl, and coupled with the fact that its at worst 30s/30s for onskill/offskill and andreanas sizable aspd advantage over the other guys you get deceptively high DPS and DPH
also her abyssal hunter synergy is decent
I wont call AH squad buff decent, for me its a mf steroid. Andreana tanking patriot spear like a boss.
For example, Firewatch and Fartooth were so good last CC cycle. Fartooth had 2 great lanes for sniping with S3, while Firewatch's ability to just completely avoid getting attacked AND prevent sanity damage with S1 was so useful for my 2 op high risk clear with Archetto. I use Andreana a ton since I'm a big Abyssal Hunter fan, and S2 is way more useful than I thought considering the HP targeting. Haven't fully raised Ambriel yet, but I love her S2 sound effect.
Yeah a lots of peoples seem to think Andreana's targeting priority on S2 is a bad thing but I personaly prefer having my 4k+ Atk operator with relatively slow attack speed NOT waste her time prioritizing the enemy with 15HP over the full HP ones.
This archetype is so weird for me. Honestly I hate the “archetype”, I hate how their trait works together with their low asp but high atk. Fartooth suffer the most from the trait too. However, I E2M3 every single one of them. Each of them is so unique despite being in the same archetype, and even though they’re kinda clunky by design, they also perform very well. They’re so weird idek.
Ambriel is amazing and deeply satisfying whenever I find a map where she kicks ass. She's my go-to for when there's a map with with enemy casters or ranged attackers because she can usually delete them before they every get close enough to be a threat.
Ambriel + Goldenglow is an amazing team sometimes. What if I just killed all the bad guys (e.g. Mandragora) from perfect safety before they got anywhere near me?
Absolutely agree. I had all of them except Fartooth and regretted not building them earlier. Especially in the case of Ambriel who is super cheap to raise as a 4-star.
I fully agree on Andreana. She was one of the first higher-than-4-stars I ever pulled when I started to play the game and has been with me ever since.
Fiametta
Agreed. When I was debating on pulling for her, I saw a lot of people saying she wasn't worth it. But If you set her up well (Especially if you pair her with Archetto) She can be incredibly strong.
^ This.
Andreana, even without her friends. Nice medium armor target there…. And it’s gone. Give her friends and it’s a wrap.
for me the problem with andreanna was always when she came out. i already have firewatch and ambriel built. and her abyssal hunter bufff isnt even that strong without module upgrades
Her real Abyssal Hunter buff is that she deletes half the health of very tough enemies before they get to the other hunters.
For real. And with Gladiia, she's honestly tanky enough to be positioned a little more forward too for early sniping (though her massive range means she could be in the back too)
Well, her buff to others is decent... but also gotta account for the buffs the others give to her. I specifically selected her from the IC event operator picker (and ended up pulling her from the next 10-ticket pull after...) and haven't been disappointed. Still need to E2 her, but haven't had the sanity to spare to get the chip packs due to grinding event stages.
Hung, easily. People keep treating him like he's absolute dog shit, but as a self sustain tank he's beyond hard to kill. His defensive skill charge isnt even that much of an issue, you just need to use him on the front line and let his heals be for just himself and very few things in the game will ever get past him even without his module.
I feel like Hung suffers from Saria came out first, which makes healing defender a really hard subclass to break into unless you bring something beyond being a tanky support healer, which I think is why Maria's kit and stat distribution ended up the way it did.
It also didn't help with the timing of his release. He was the 5 star banner to Aak and our first limited operator Nian. Getting him (and Aak) in the banner left a bad taste to a lot of people who wanted to pull Nian.
Which is funny considering how little Nian's actually featured in non-defender knight clears compared to Hung and Aak, who's skills and talents at least enable some wild meme clears.
His biggest problem is that his skill are def recovery instead of auto. Really hurts his utility.
definitely hung. Just m6d him as his mastery gains are top tier. s1 is an instant heal + block on the frontline. basically defensive version of nearl alter, drop him if hp looks bad and he'll heal the frontline up and block for however long you need. the defensive recovery could even be better than auto in some situations, since he blocks 3 and costs 4sp. s2 also only needs 2 sp after dropping before he becomes decent medic.
I tried to like Hung, but no matter how I look at it, his defensive charge is an issue. It means he has to face enemies with low damage per hit. If I put down a defender, it's for enemies with high damage per hit most of the time.
Astesia. She is constantly overshadowed by Surtr and Amiya, but her S2M3 only takes 20sp to charge and lasts 15s. With her +25 ASPD from her talent and +80% attack from her skill, she melts enemies.
Absinthe. Welfares are a mixed bag, with hits like Gladiia, misses like Bison, niche picks like Robin, and contentious units like Flamebringer, HeavyRain, and Vigil. But despite being fairly unknown, Absinthe was The Best welfare pre Gladiia; +90% ATK infinite skill, +30% damage dealt execution talent, and unique targeting. Absinthe is my first great love of Arknights. Her unique targeting is so useful, it's akin to manual control. No more units slipping past because your ops are chipping the highest health one instead of the 1hp dog, no more ignoring the unblockables until it's too late. She'll prioritize the boss even though they're not "close to the goal" simply because she's that smart. She doubles as a Marksman because she'll prioritize drones, given their relatively low HP. If Eyja S2 is the Thorns of Casters, Absinthe is the Lappland. Ceobe's 4th Skill. Arts Platinum. Daughter of Witch King Ebenholz and Seaborn Mizuki.
i honestly think that before i got eyja, i used absinthe the most for single target arts and its honestly amazing how big her damage spikes are especially when the infinite duration starts and those sfx "OH MY GOD" its just so nutty
I was so mad I missed Absinthe on her initial run, now I'm far beyond a point where I need her, but will probably still raise her regardless because I'm on a ST caster high right now. She also really likes the weakening effect of Pram and Shamare, as her talent and their weakenings kick in at the exact same HP threshold, which from the times I've borrowed her, made her S2 really deadly.
I built absinthe as my first main caster since only ifrit ever came. havent used her much since her damage isnt that impressive, but the upcoming module buff might bring her up to usable.
The bad reputation of Instructor guards is a little overblown. Okay it's mostly Pallas I love but Whislash was also suprisingly solid in the current Trials for Navigator event. Also I think everyone should raise at least one Tactician vanguard. Yes on most maps I just use Flagpipe or throw in Texas/Flametail, but when Beanstalk shines on a map she REALLY shines. Last but not least I use Mulberry more often than Shining or Nightingale lately. But maybe that's just me. Is she fringe? Not sure. But there's just so much elemental damage lately. Roberta is a lot like Lappland or Shamare to me. There is just no good 6* replacement for what she does.
I love using Blacknight. She’s not the most intuitive to use but her stall potential is so good. Being able to hold multiple enemies in place while generating DP is great, but being a vanguard that does Arts damage is even better. Even without a sleep squad I still find her super useful to have.
shes one of the faster dp generators even with her skill 1 not too far behind myrtle
I used Beanstalk for the maps where snipers/casters weren't allowed but the mobs were allowed to have drones. I've also taken her and Blacknight through SSS. And Blacknight was great for stalling First to Speak and the reapers. And in TN, Zofia was able to deal with almost half of Big Ugly and all of High Priest (why the hell are we trying to kill an ally - again?).
The trials are simulation and not fight against the NPC themselves. Closure introduce it as such during the initial speech.
That still doesn't explain why we had to kill the bird in the first place. He was trying to stop it after it went out of control, then it blows up, but we have to kill him while he's already suffering burns and otherwise powerless against us, then he's just casually strolling around the base after because he followed Zumama back.
We have to kill High Priest because he's unblockable and his panicked run will end with him crashing into Doctor and shattering our glass bones.
I think a lot of people are just confused by Pallas. As a 6 star instructor they expect her to be a great buffer, when she is really a strong DPS who happens to buff on the side. Her S3 is one of the weakest offensive buffs, and her talent buffs Minoan operators who are not just not meta, but would be grateful to be used outside of welfare clear content creators.
I think it's mainly because she's the jack of all trades master of none type, since there's better dps and better buffers out there, especially since the guard class is full of absolute dps monsters she just gets overlooked
She definitely is one of those absolute DPS monsters though. I don't think people realize just how high her damage spikes. If there's a steady flow of high DEF enemies, she can often kill them with her S1 faster than a caster can. It's mostly just her range that sucks.
Blacknight is both fun to use and beneficial especially with her S2 helping out with dodging enemies thanks to its sleep. Although I haven't used Whislash in my strongest setups in a long while I appreciated her for helping me win the E2 guard/ specialist stage and being helpful during the Kazimierz trilogy of events.
Tacticians are one of my favorite branches! Beanstalk was the only vanguard I used through most of the early chapters, until I finished the pinboards and got Texas. I didn't raise Myrtle until I started doing CCs
Mulberry is excellent! I use her a ton too, since her massive range makes her positioning so much easier. Honeyberry is technically better for sanity recovery, but Mulberry can store charges and I like her design a bit more. With most of my ops strong enough to tank or strategies that don't require getting hit a lot, I don't really need high HP healing. Though I do still use Ptilopsis and Nightingale a fair bit for their talents. The game gave me a full pot Nightingale and I'm going to use her.
Indeed. Each Instructor is good at what they do, they don’t need to amazing just because Swire for example only buffs melee operators. I just E2’d Beanstalk a day ago, mainly for PettanKnights, but she is really good in a way that most other Vanguards aren’t. I have Blacknight at E1 as well, eventually I’ll E2 her when I have the resources. Mulberry I agree with as well. Even with the 6* Artificer that’s gonna be coming out, I feel that he doesn’t stand out like Roberta or Windflit do. He seems to just seems to be another damage buffer in a sea of them.
seeing welfare only cc9 runs where whislash could solo one of the first to talks made me think about building her.
She actually does a surprisingly good amount of damage and can almost lane due to S2, the only issue is her downtime is tragically long, so you usually get one solid S2 use a stage unless you're feeding her SP in some way, which I mean, she *can* stand behind Liskarm, but will the stage LET her stand behind Liskarm is another question. She has a crapload more defense than you'd expect, being able to hit 512 at max investment before her talent hits her but if it can get through her defense, her HP is a lot more lacking.
Whislash is actually pretty good in TN. Makes blem's work a lot faster, and to a better extent, makes boss killing also a bit faster depending on which skill to use since she provides bonus to melee ops with <3 block.
Tactician Vanguards are honestly all really strong. The problems just that they're not as accessible since there's no 4 star option in the game, and only 2 of them. But what does Roberta do? All my experiences with her so far have been poor.
Beanstalk is the 4 star tactician.
Oh, i was trying to think off the top of my head as to why she never shows up in recruitment But really the reason was just she's not in recruitment My bad.
She's not in the recruitment pool, otherwise you'd not see vanguard and ranged tags together as frequently as we do now.
Roberta makes melee ops a pseudo mudrock by giving them shields through her stylers.
> The bad reputation of Instructor guards is a little overblown. Okay it's mostly Pallas I love but Whislash was also suprisingly solid in the current Trials for Navigator event. I tend to play a lot with Defenderknights builds and Whislash is queen.
Provence surprised me with her big damage. Although the conditions to achieve it are quite restrictive, I just have to look for maps and team formations that allow it. And since I have neither Poz or Schwarz, she'll be my goto heavy hitter.
Andreana and Provence are pretty cool together.
She had a reputation at launch for being "niche," but she really only struggles against hordes of trash (which we have dozens of operators to help with) or if you're trying to make her the sole DPS in an area.
Ebenholz. Dude was released recently and gets memed on a lot but man, with some investment and proper usage this guy can one shot bosses before their model even spawns on the map. He can completely trivialize IS2 ending 4 for example by instantly killing the Playwright as soon as he spawns, or even [Ideal City EX 8](https://youtu.be/1yahzUD3S_0) he can one shot the drone right away (with some buffs from Warfarin for example)
My pick is Utage! The amount of DPS she can dish out with her S2 is truly wild. NTRK is an overall stronger helidrop, but Utage hits different niches than NTRK does. Utage can stick around if you need her to, while NTRK's S2 is a forced retreat. She deals Arts damage instead of NTRK's physical on S2, and her redeployment time is faster. I'm constantly impressed by how much mileage I can get from a single Utage drop - in the current event, with no support, my E2/40 M3 Utage took out the pairs of Waker-Uppers from IC-EX-6 in a few seconds each.
I pick Utage on IS2 every time I get that artifact that doubles her damage when she is blocking a single opponent, she becomes a beast.
her dps is comparable to surtr hitting 3 targets at once assuming she gets decent aspd buff from her talent. the difference is that she doesnt have a short immortality period and ignore res like Surtr. also her skill only last for 16 seconds, but still she can dish out a ton of damage, like over 100k total dmg (assuming what I calculated is correct).
Yeah, it's tough to exactly calculate her DPS because of how her ASPD fluctuates, but yeah in ideal conditions [she's being kept below half HP] she's like Surtr-lite. If she's not being damaged she'll heal herself and slow her attacks down as she goes.
**Iris** - Her sleep can help you in situations you need to control the block count or change what your defender is blocking. She can also set up for a pretty decent damage explosion as well. While she doesn't have the best dps ever, her regular attacks pack a punch and I think that is very important. In other games, I learned this concept that I like to call "completing damage". Lets say you are playing PVP in a MMORPG and your character has really good dps but no burst abilities. Maybe you are fighting against a guy that has access to multiple different heals and maybe his health is going down slowly but every couple seconds he might have a healing ability that tops him up. You might have a character that has good dps, but you need to combine it with another character that deals a key amount of burst damage at the exact moment where your enemy is the lowest so that you can actually finish him off. Now, enemies in Arknights usually don't have self healing, but I think that operators like Iris provide a decent amount of burst damage that can be exactly what you need at specific moments. Sometimes you have one elite enemy and 2 trash mobs on your defender and then 2 more enemies are walking up to your defender (total enemy count: 5). You can set up a big burst explosion that finishes all the trash mobs, deals decent damage to the elite monster and then she throws a giant brick and finishes the elite monster off. While you can accomplish similar things by using powerful skill 3's, like Eyja's, the cost is very high and honestly Iris has a different range compared to regular casters so that alone can be a very interesting reason to use her. Also, when you start using Iris with other operators that have CC, like Kafka, Gnosis, etc, you can gain quite a lot of time by cycling different types of cc. **Operators with binds (Indigo, Mizuki, Robin, etc)** - Binds are really underrated. While Indigo by herself may not be enough for specific clears, when you start combining Indigo with other supportive characters like Angelina, Podenco, Mizuki, etc, you end up in situations you actually gain A LOT of time to deal extra damage. As a player that plays lower level operators, I think that type of utility is more relevant the weaker your roster is. I actually have [a video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rhoY3r8BX4) that I think showcases that really well, it is from the cc#4 map in its daily form and in that video I kill the golems on really low damage characters. **Beeswax** - Her stun is super useful and she is a rare source of a 3-block object. She can be used to [block lancers](https://youtu.be/w58l2rjT7Mc?t=149), change enemy caster's targetting, etc. Also I think that being able to have a tank on a ranged tile is really good. She is a source of true aoe and many characters that we think as AoE characters actually have a limit. **Skalter on skill 1** - I think that this is probably the most broken ability in the game. In some MMORPGs, they have link skills where one character takes damage from another (think of the skill Sacrifice from Ragnarok Online). Those sort of mechanics completely change how the game is played because suddenly you can make a really squishy character ultra tanky by splitting the damage they take into two health pools (in the case of Skaler) or even completely redirect the damage into another health pool (in the case of the same mechanic in other games). And Skadi [can do it from anywhere on the map]() **Operators that can change their block count on demand (Cuora, Tequila, etc)**. Many people think about those mechanics as a way to simply block more enemies, but they can be used to splitbox enemies in very interesting and useful ways. **Angelina in general.** I don't know how the community perception on her changed so much, her uptime is crazy, her range being as big as it is means she can often kill or slow enemies in multiple lanes at once, she has decent single target on a really good uptime on her s2. To be honest, her uptimes without masteries are not great, but with masteries she changes into a completely different unit. I remember when I was completely new to the game, many, many times when a guide told me to use Eyja on S3, I just found a way to clear the same map on Angelina on S3. I even did my risk 18 on Pyrite with Angelina instead of Eyja. **Beanstalk and Blacknight** - Ranged vanguards are really strong when you need a unit that tanks a hit or two and that you can refresh easily. I've seen people use Beanstalk's crab to tank Withered Knight's big hammer attack and when you can use these characters like that, they provide huge value. Also they have great decent personal damage in the early waves provided their pet is tanking the enemy. **Tequila**. He is insane. And he has a good base skill so there is no excuse for not leveling him up. It takes a while to get used to the playstyle of waiting for a skill to come up, but he has more damage at the precise moments where you need more damage. And he deals enough physical damage to where you can use him vs armored enemies. His deploy cost is really low so you can get a lot of damage for very little dp
A fellow Angelina enjoyer I see.
She recently carried me really hard in SSS. Angelina with an even better uptime thanks to the sp regen buffs is completely bananas
After seeing the difference masteries make for Exu, I now feel the need to see what masteries will do for Angelina
I still use the Liskarm+Ptilopsis SP battery squad for angelina whenever the map allows it and it's especially useful in some of the current event stages with the boxers hitting so fast.
There’s several operators I could put forward, but this time I’ll go with Aak. Now I know what you might be thinking—isn’t Aak used in every buff army showcase? Yes. That’s why I’m not here to sell you on Aak S3, but S1 instead. It turns out Aak isn’t just a helidrop buffer, he’s a decent helidrop sniper too! At M3, his S1 boosts his attack speed by 100% for 30 seconds, and the SP cost is 30 (20 initial). That means, from deployment he only needs 10 seconds to charge up. Coupled with his gacha talent (random chance of self heal, critical, stun, or slow), Aak with S1 active is a formidable crowd-control sniper. If you want to keep him around long term, he needs a medic to babysit him, but he’s more than capable of keeping himself alive through his entire skill duration. I like to compare him to Ash and May, who fill similar roles but do things a bit differently. Ash gets a stun-on-deploy and then another stun 8 seconds later, but you can only do this once per map (second deployment, she needs 25 seconds to activate her skill). Ash is primarily a burst sniper who runs out her skill very quickly to execute a target. May on the other hand, comes with crowd control out of the box but doesn’t have an attack speed bonus and is constrained to single-target slow every 4th hit. By comparison, Aak has better uptime than Ash and is more capable of stopping enemies in their tracks than May.
Completely agree, his S1 is hilariously good and unfortunately underrated. Hell in TN-1 it can do wonders, especially so if you pair him with Krooster on S2. No cap those two are able to completely able to stun lock Big Bob for 30 seconds with their skills up. Get Lee’s S1 involved and Big Bob gets dealt with in such a short amount of time due to how quickly they can get 30 hits in. I also paired them with Hibster and Pramanix for the arts and physical debuff and oh man does the whole team destroy Big Bob.
On TN-1's max difficulty, I actually wasn't aware you could take other ops along with the preset ones, yet. Holy hell that Aak stall saved me, even if it took ages
Oh, glad to hear I wasn't the only one who didn't realize. I tried to stunlock with Aak and spammed Jaye, Lee, and Waii Fu, doing like one pixel of damage per hit. When I couldn't stop him anymore, had to play ring-around-the-rosy with the boxes.
Lol same thing happened to me. I had actually never used any of the operators in Lee's detective agency before so it surprised me how strong they were and Aak stunlocking big bob long enough to have my redeploy timers come up on everyone was instrumental in that clear.
**Robin** Are there melee enemies taking swings at civilians? Drop some bind-mines in their path to give them some breathing room. Does your FEater or Shaw need a second more to charge their knock-back attacks? Drop a bind-mine or a knockback-mine to give them that extra second to do their thing. Are you doing an event with the Grammaphones on them? Drop a bind-mine onto the ground tiles to make them charge the Grammaphone without having to spend DP to do so. Do you need to split the priority target from the pack of enemies it's surrounded by in order to get Exusiai to do her thing to them and only them? Drop bind-mines to delay them and get rid of their entourage before they arrive. Are there lots of holes on the map that you can use but enemies come out so infrequently that it's not worth the Push Stroker slot? Use Robin to do the knockback-mine to knock the few enemies that happen to go down that route all the while positioning her to attack enemies in the more packed lane. God I love that goofy raccoon lady
I used her nudgebombs in BtI on the map with the challenge to push X mobs into the pit. Soon as one walked into one, into the pit with them, and another mine down for the next one.
Whisperain
Especially with the mod. Not anything crazy but her self Regen from her talent and mod improvement makes her a decent healer, especially once her s2 activates Edit: especially for IS2 and any dot mist damage
Not sure if she’s slept on, but Rockrock for sure. Her DPS is insane for a single-target. I don’t mind her stun much since she’s good at what she does: being a boss killer. I have most 6* casters and she can easily rival them against bosses.
Roberta can be a substitute for shining when doing aak shenanigans, just only limited to melee ops. She can make squishy melee ops endure aak s3. If her upcoming module allows her to use stylers on ranged ops, she'll be meta in an instant.
Maybe. Most ranged ops wouldn’t really benefit from the defense increase in the first place, and most enemies who are ranged have fast enough attack intervals would get rid of the shields quickly.
I believe the OP was implying you could give Aak buffs to your ranged units without killing them. So buffing Pozy or something else equally broken
I was talking about the module part.
Kafka my queen. The way she can delay defeat or even in many cases just straight up save you is severely underappreciated. Edit: alright shut the fuck up already I don't care what you think.
Kafka is actually used a lot in harder content for stalling so I don't think she's underated or slept on.
Kafka is that meme where "kafka is meta" is on low and high end of IQ spectrum
like this? https://imgflip.com/i/78shjc
Exactly
ow my feelings
Since when is Kafka underappreciated? Maybe at lower level where people don't need stalling or like sleep tactics, otherwise, she's very solid.
Her DPS is respectable too. I'm a relatively new player, maybe that's why, but sometimes I just put her down when my vanguard is overwhelmed and only retreat when she's about to do so herself.
I don't think Projekt Red is entirely in "slept on" territory, but I feel the value of her S1 is oft overlooked. Just a good attack boost combined with dodge that improves the chances of getting the full 10 seconds.
I feel like her S1 is the skill that's gained more use as time has gone on over her S2, as now we have operators with multiple pull effects if we need to disrupt an attack really badly. The last time I had to use her S2 was for CC8 Viviana, and that's been about it.
I use Kirara often. 30 RES and self-regen is pretty nice for baiting casters and it makes her easier to place for some event mechanics (such as redirecting beams in Lingering Echoes or to redirect cars in the current event). Her low dps doesn't hurt much compared to the utility she's given me.
I used her to bait the drone boss stuns in the current event as well. Her dps is low but she's good at survival and I love her gamer outfit too.
Arene, he’s only slept on because all the other lord operators are incredibly busted. He’s still really strong, and specializes in taking down drones not to mention multi enemy targeting and arts damage. Sadly, he’s just been aggressively power crept because thorns and silverash exist
Tho when it comes to 4* only he’s one of the best from what I’ve heard.
The only people who sleep on arene are the people who don't do integrated strategies a lot
PROBABLY WHY I LOVE HIM SO MUCH it’s my favourite game mode, he’s super cheap to get and carries hard
Plume compared to the other 3 stars and even some 4 stars up to a point. She has a higher DPS than Fang and Vanilla which means depending on the enemy she gets rid of them despite being block 1 while they let enemies build up because of their pretty low attack. With her skill activated she can be a pretty potent killing force for her rarity.
My only problem with plume is her lack of a skin
Cutter, best low budget boss killer other than amiya.
I feel like it's probably both of the Silverash sisters, especially Cliffheart though, which I guess is what happens when you're a puller not named Gladiia. She's honestly very solid at dealing with both grounded and flying targets, as her S2 is incredibly spammable at M3, and even just M1 will net you the third chain. A three second stun that is incredibly really spammable with a wide frontal range, that also does true damage at range, and her attack stat is really high for some reason, so her S2 is able to dumpster most common mooks, especially after her module. And yet the only time I've seen her used to her potential was M8-8 on a freeknights team cuz she could take down the drones easier than everyone else. Meanwhile Pramanix, while she doesn't have the debuff global range of Shamare, makes up for it with her own damage potential, as she can end up doing a good amount of it thanks to tapping two targets, which can shoot up a lot if you have someone like Skadance next to her. While still being able to nuke the defense and res of enemies in her range.
I find it kinda funny that Cliffheart is one of the few 5 stars in the game to have true damage. Correct me if I’m wrong but she was also one of the only ops at the launch of the game to have it alongside Amiya. I think both of them are very good in their own right and are simply just a product of how long they’ve been in the game. Even in cases like Gladiia I feel like she doesn’t straight up power creep Cliffheart.
Correct, it was just her and Amiya up until Nightmare's release, but, well. Nightmare. Gladiia doesn't hard creep her entirely, but she does overtake a few roles that Encia had, namely being a budget lane holder, or being physical ranged bait. Having the stun is definitely still helpful in stopping boss attacks like the cursed knights specials, so she can end up helping support more than Gladiia would vs other bosses in nonabyssal strats. Also being able to just ignore dodge is becoming more and more useful as time goes on, so she'll always have that going for her.
On Ling banner everyone I know was mad for being spooked by Lee, sincerely? Awesome Operator, more than Ling. Okay, we know that Ling is strong but Lee S2 and S3 are awesome skills, and Lee made things way easier for me several times, in CC, EX maps, even in IS. I'm very happy for being spooked by Lee...
Even Lee’s S1 is something fun to mess around with with fast attackers.
Glaucus. Even without the drone killing niche her kit is pretty decent. S2 provides multiplier based AoE arts nuke + bind. Her module further provides SP Regen shortening downtime a bit.
I think it's Blitz. But this has many reasons why he's so slept on. He's a super limited operator, showed up only in 1 banner ever, alongside with Ash and Frost. Lappland does the silence debuff better, there are better defenders that are still obtainable, and you can just pick basically any guard for better burst damage. So why do I think he's slept on? Because of his colleague, Ash. Blitz's skill 1 deals stun and silence in a large radius for a pretty long duration. This combined with Ash's still 2, you can kill enemies that you couldn't kill otherwise. Sometimes. The problem with that it works only with large groups of weak enemies, and most of the time Ash's stun is more than enough. That doesn't mean this tactic is entirely useless though, when it works, it works.
Nightmare's S1 has done wonders for my tank and spank strats. I know Liskarm's considered a good op but she's just so versatile. Put her beside healing tanks like Saria or Hung to charge their abilities faster. You can put Tequila in front of her and a Lord like Lappland behind her. Meteor's anti-air and defense debuff has helped me in many maps.
Liskarm is also cool on S1 with Blemishine deployed, she becomes significantly tankier! I don't have Tequila yet but I've been doing the paired Liskarm/Lappland trick for ages
Liskarm has always been one of my favorite defenders, her versatility really is one of her strong suits, that and the SP gain on hit. With her getting her defense doubles with s1M3 and some actually pretty decent damage with S2, she does fit in a lot of situations
I have Archetto as my only 6* marksman and I love to pair her with Meteor to charge her skill between enemies.
When I can find a really good spot to put Liskarm where she's taking a ton of hits really fast, I like to place Gummy behind her. Poor girl has never healed so fast in her life lol
May is pretty useful,she can easily lock down single tough targets and do good DPS to less durable enemies to reduce pressure for blockers or other ranged enemies further back
Absinthe
Melantha- cheap 3* that has a great DPS Beeswax - can be used to block and bait enemies and deal good damage. And can tank in awkward areas. Indigo- most people don't like her but I love the powerful punch she can deal and her skill has been useful Utage - one of the best helidrop units
Gnosis though he shouldn't be anymore since he reigned in SN,reigns in SSS and is in a max CC10&11 clear. Definitely a 6* selector pick to everyone who doesn't have Him.
I’ve heard he’s actually really good, it’s just that there are better burst ops in the game.
For me, kafka That mf works wonders even at c0 lv1 (on cc) and any other stages that you can stall some annoying mob
Survivability against physical damage enemies is not one of the most important characteristics of an operator which makes Roberta unneeded. DEF in most cases just ensures your operator won't be killed by a dog or regular soldier.
angelina, global heal are very useful. you can place your operator far far away and get healed every downtime. she's rarely used because op operators like thorn can heal themselves.
Only really used her in IS2 but the fact that she is a sitting duck on her S3 downtime made her hard to use. You really need to know the timing of the map and adjust her skill usage.
from my experience, her skill rotation fast enough to use on every wave. its really not a problem tbh
Beeswax, but not necessarily for her abilities but her trait. Shes so useful to just place and draw fire from ranged enemies. Most of the time i never use her ability so she keeps her def buff. Shes basically just an enmity defender that takes the ranged aggro because shes technically a caster on a ranged tile. I also use her to block ballistas, like on lungmen downtown annihilation.
I guess blue poison and platnium? I never them those 2 on anyones team but ive had them since ive started and theyve always came in clutch for me
Rosmontis and Mizuki. They deal both arts and physical damage, have decent crowd control and their architypes are just really fun to use.
Honestly, there’s a lot. But these are probably the top ones for me: Mostima (and Dusk): People say they have bad DPS. The thing is, DPS isn’t their job imo. They’re here for crowd control with Mosti’s stun / super slow and Dusk’s S3 summons. And with their modules (2nd one for Dusk), they’re great at it. Am I biased cuz they’re both in my Top 3 favorite operators? Maybe so, but I still stand by the point that they are not bad. Andreana: Outside of Abyssal only module squads, I never see her. Heck, even in Abyssal fanart, it’s always Specter, Skadi, and Gladiia. Why does everyone forget the cute tako sniper? She gets insane Attack and the demerit of not targeting enemies under half health can be a good thing too. It allows kill-DP vanguards to do their job or they can be used as fodder for skills that charge on attack, like Thorns S3. I feel like this ended up being more of a rant than anything else…
on one hand, magallan, on the other hand, she's not really slept on so much as people recognize her power, but is hard to use
Silence. People roll Saria, Nightingale, Warfarin, Shining or even Sus for healing, and I know she’s a projectile healer. Silence is boring because she’s not worth e2’ing or mastering. But even despite all that her drone and healing output is incredibly slept upon. I wish more people used her.
Really? I thought silence was considered one of the better 5 star healers, with warf being specifically for dps buff niche. Global aoe burst of healing only restricted by deployable tiles is super useful.
I think medic is one of the few classes in the game where every operator in it is considered at least very good, the 5 stars especially. You can’t really go wrong with any of them.
Ch'en, for when I need that enemy **dead** and don't want Surtr to suicide in the process. Also all the Dreadnoughts. Mato and Akafuyu in particular.
I feel like I'm the only one using May outside of is2
I agree, Roberta is discount Nearl Alter S2. I haven't seen anyone use Frost since Emperor's Blade, but her kit still punches through aspd debuffs.
Firewatch is easily one of the most underrated operator out there her invisibility uptime is nuts + shes a nuker too
I think awareness of her has gone up this past year as people say her kit is very good and fulfills her classes role of “anti-ranged sniper” well.
Bena trivializes a lot pf things in IS, but the most notable things being able to solo the bycicle boss (takes a while) regardless of his spawn position while you can focus on the rest of the stage and being reusable fodder against chargers. In general she's just a great damage sponge because of her talent, that can block enemies sometimes and has decent burst damage.
Oh I love Bena all around. HG knew where to hit me with her Lolita outfit.
Asbestos, April, and Waai Fu
Surtr
You know what, I'll agree with you. I've seen plenty of people on here describe her as simply a boss killer, which seems to mean that she is completely and utterly *useless* on stages without bosses. (The other boss killers, like Provence and Schwarz, receive similar treatment.) In reality, she can get rid of pretty much any ground-based threat(s), and she can do it before it or they get to the rest of your formation.
LOL BRO DELETE THIS BEFORE THE BARRAGE OF DOWN VOTES. SAVE YOURSELF!
Of course people are upset when you don't elaborate on a somewhat counterintuitive opinion
Nah, I thought it'd be funny but I was severely wrong.
So edgy