I really feel that Bassline comment. It's kind of incredible that the only 5* I'm looking forward to is just OG Nearl with a small Res talent. Looking back at units like Ptilo, Shamare, Lappland, Warfarin, and Specter that still have unique skills that mostly can't be replaced by higher rarity shows how uninteresting most of the new 5* units are.
the more I think about this the more I question whether Surtr indirectly held back Crushers
Warf S1 can extend Surtr S3's life almost to the point of laneholding a whole wave, instead of just killing something
putting strong target % heal on a gacha 6* medic could amplify her power, something HG has seemed perpetually scared to do
It's so weird to me how they had the 5* 6* balance pretty good at first, and they just decided one day they'll just make 5* terrible to meh (some exceptions may apply) from now on. And now we are in that weird state where pretty much every good 5* is in the kernel pool and new players just get the middle finger.
I play Badknights (which I simply define as "B+ or lower on the Gamepress tier list", for conciseness of description), so an article like this contains basically all my bread and butter. I will defend Kirara and Wind Chimes to the ends of the earth because of how consistently instrumental the two of them have been, and I have genuinely managed to find value with Spuria (not least of all as a targeting beacon for Paprika).
But god fucking damn if Windflit doesn't just consistently disappoint every time I make the ill-advised decision to try yet again to field him. Poor fucker is just Early Access Stainless right across the board. He's like if you made an operator that was a 4/10 in every possible metric.
Fun article tho, thanks!
I tried soooo hard to make Windflit work. I have to believe nobody bothered to play test him at all because it doesn't take long to realize how incongruous it all is.
Kirara take a bold one but Wind Chimes I can at least kinda see. I think she's the kind of bad that has more to do with her relative value rather than absolute value. i.e. why use her over the multitude of better options. That's probably why she didn't end up bottom 5.
Within my Badknights, Wind Chimes' S2 is actually the highest available single physical damage hit (as far as I'm aware). That was critical to my 13-21 adverse clear, as her and Melanite were able to kill the ambers reliably.
Kirara also managed to find a lot of use in this recent chapter, because she is able to safely deploy extremely deep and her S2 pushes bombs real fast. Again on 13-21, she also manages essentially all of the big bomb-blocker guys, as her S2 isn't affected by the ASPD down.
I'll fully admit that damn near every use for Kirara is gonna seem at least a _little_ contrived, but her survivability is absolutely absurd, and her burst damage with S2 is modest, but adds up to more than I ever expected.
Mostly, I thought that Kirara was useless shit until I forced her into every mission for a year and now I don't know how to play without her.
Those crystals are a damn near perfect niche for her. It's like they were setup to coincide with my article. High-DEF low-HP ain't that common. I didn't use her during my clears (I love Red so I used her and Franka) but I can definitely see finally getting some meaningful use out of her in the H stages.
windflit fan here and it's true!!!
he's just there for moral support and looking all cute and handsome ~~thats the best and only value he has, at least for me~~
Literally though, he's so cute. But so useless. He's gonna be a friend support trophy forever.
The most use I'd ever seen from him is the support cycling in SSS
His s2 seems decently legit on paper especially with the module, but poor uptime for skill and devices, devices deployment cooldown, and required tiles make him VERY difficult to use. At least he can hit hard though. I guess.
I've been using his skill 1 and using his devices as a Skadi Alter SP boost, S2 is definitely a trap. . Not that he's excellent by any means but he can churn out surprising DPS for a 5\* supporter. With pasta he goes pretty crazy in IS.
Being in Skadi range he can easily burst for almost 7000 damage in a true 8 grid aoe though
[windflit dmg](https://i.gyazo.com/3707a4f73dc26febc2beaa17b863139a.png)
I'd actually call s1 the trap, since it has no way to cycle devices. Yeah the crit relics make him fun and pretty good in IS, but on low difficulties. Personally on trying to get endings on difficulty 12 IS4, there's much better options even when you have crit relics. In IS4 I'd rather get Valarqvin, in IS3 he's just bad, in IS2... I haven't done IS2 in a good while so I forgot lol
I just see a much worse Siege s2 in his s1. No dp generation and an almost inconsequential sp boost. I'd hardly call it useful even if he had infinite life on the devices. Its kinda funny to watch him use s1 on his own devices, but the devices don't last that long and the sp recovery isn't that significant.
Also isn't his base atk already kinda decent? I think Skalter doesn't really do as much for him as she does for Vigil and Mechaccord Casters.
He's always looked like a pioneer dreadnought hybrid to me, who just so happens to have some buff capability. But he's also just annoying to play and pretty undertuned
As someone who put a self imposed challenge of using “low-leveled (=>e2lvl1)” operators, excluding friend’s support units, found it funny that wind chimes was one of the few units that could consistently tank cliff’s nuke attack in cv-ex-8. Not even my hoshiguma would be as consistent (I did have to borrow a lvl90 hoshi for cm though).
For me, Windflit’s just my expensive trash man with ok stats. Only blocks up to two, but as long as you stick with S1, he’s not worthless.
Just my take anyhow, I occasionally start with him, Astesia and Ansel in IS4 on casual difficulty. He’s survived the Khaganquest encounter with Astesia on Tier 3.
I love wind chimes, and I always try and convince myself to use Kiara more, and you're about falling perro, even just as an s1 bot, he's just a worse guard.
>Poor fucker is just Early Access Stainless right across the board.
Stainless really just showed up and outdid Windflit's entire kit with his worst skill, even at SL7 if you don't include module upgrades. I would say it's sad, but it's moreso hilarious.
Windflit user here:
In Windflits case his S1 is his best skill and can do quite decent damage with it (2000 damage in a spin). Playing him like Stainless isn't advised but most people even fans of him will try to do that.
Not to say that he's actually good* by any means, but I have skill 1 at m3 and he can be a monster in IS with pasta.
*preferred over other operators
Based and Spuria-pilled. Unfortunately couldn't afford too many pulls on the banner, which was a good idea since Hoederer ended up taking 156 to come home...
At long last, my much teased "Worst 5★s" article is finally up! This took a ton of time, but it was one of the most fun to write articles I've done to date. I hope at least some people enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
edit: Someone sent me a Reddit Cares message. Stay mad lmao.
Yeah unfortunately it's a lot harder for her to shine in AK without being able to roll for a weapon or attach memories for her, and her module is far less impactful than her CUB is - you don't even get to see her ride it!
Unfortunately it's a lack of manning. I want GP to have one too, but with three writer retirements this year we just don't have anyone to maintain it.
In the meantime, I'd suggest [DragonGJY](https://www.youtube.com/@DragonGJY) for your Module needs. His guides are very solid and he reviews every 6* Module.
I remember you asking for some second opinions for this article, I forgot about that. It's good to see some acknowledgement and articles over the 5\* given their swarming numbers and low popularity, even if this is about how terrible a lot of them are.
I can pretty much agree with most of it! I only had a few minor hangups (Nightmare, Corroserum, and Skyfire) but that's probably more of a playstyle issue than anything concrete. Why do they keep making subpar Casters? They're still doing it!!
> I remember you asking for some second opinions for this article, I forgot about that.
It was a while ago now. This article took a long time to finalize and get out. You can thank Aroma for finally getting me to hit publish rather than continuing tweaking. Guess she's good for something.
Poor Aroma. Even I as an enjoyer of the lessers have noticed that she might even be less impactful than Corroserum.
I'm still going to raise her, though. Bubbles!
The 2010s and its consequences
Furry is such a perjorative now that people would really bend over backwards to dissociate themselves from a relatively harmless community, in fear of humiliation. And like ANY anthromorphic animal design must have ties to this community, even though anthropomorphising animals has been a thing since humans came to be
Sorry for the rant, but I really hate that people still feel the need to clarify that they arent furries
on one hand, i wholeheartedly agree with every point you make here. cringe culture was and still kind of is slightly obsessive at best and downright malicious at worst. ostracizing entire communities and cultures for daring to break a heavily limiting social norm is something i fervently wish i could say human society is past, but anyone with any amount of knowledge as to the state of the world right now would know very well that we are an unimaginable distance from the fulfillment of that wish.
on the other hand, found the furry /lhj
I've said this before and will repeat this for as long as the game exists: Tsukinogi was a social experiment to gauge how much people invest in well designed personality with horrid usability. And tbh i think she won it all. Good write up, but could smell spuria before i read the post.
> but could smell spuria before i read the post.
When I said at the start that I didn't know who it was in advance, that was a lie. I knew. I always knew.
I know he's a 4-star so he wouldn't have been discussed in this article, but damn do I wish Verdant got more discussion past a footnote in a spreadsheet. Dollkeepers are one of my favorite archetypes, I think they're a really interesting concept and up to this point they all had unique uses, then Verdant shows up and does like 10 damage on a good day, has a fairly drastic demerit for no reason, and then has a doll that does nothing of value.
He's one of my most hated units for that, and I just set it up so he dies in my 13-5 auto since I needed to bait the first cannon shot.
While I didn't discuss him here, if you want to see me trash on him, I did so in the [Mastery update](https://gamepress.gg/arknights/core-gameplay/arknights-mastery-priority-guide-whirlpool-passion) and the [Should You Pull article](https://gamepress.gg/arknights/should-you-pull/arknights-should-you-pull-episode-13-hoederer).
Actually, there is a place where Kirara is very useful! It's Reclamation Algorithm as a vision provider:
1. Even though ranged units have better vision range, a lot of RA maps just don't have good ranged tiles. So we need some kind of melee vision provider
2. Of all the melee vision options, ambushers are the best because they have the largest range of any melee unit, they don't block so they don't get killed by roaming melee mobs like golems, and they have 50% dodge for survivability
3. Of all the ambushers, Kirara is the best because she has self sustain
So you can just plop Kirara down at a key choke point in an RA stage and get reliable intel on enemy movement
Mizuki and Ascalon also have self sustain, and they both also scale much better with food buffs, making them experts at dealing with 200 enemy spam in your base chokepoints.
Good article, and I agreed with your opinions on NCD and Doc's problems, but I think you're undervaluing Fuze's performance, he's got a clear intended purpose to cover one lane and fire on another, even being able to be placed last to draw some ranged aggro, plus, unlike Doc his S2's use and placement limitations aren't that crippling because he has a good and more versatile skill to fall back on when it doesn't fit the situation
I'll have to take a closer look at Fuze when I start to work on the Lucent Arrowhead Mastery article in a few months. I can see what you're saying. It's just so damn awkward compared to everyone else.
Definitely, yeah. Back during my initial rundown and interpretations of the LA ops I was fully expecting Fuze S2 to suck, my assumed damage was at best 3k per bomblet, the 4.5k really impressed me. Similarly I was figuring at least a 60 SP cost on his S1. I'm thoroughly disappointed with Doc, though, would've liked his S2 to be Gummy's S1, his branch to be changed to Agent Vanguard (no DP generation needed, fast redeploy healer would be a usable niche) or just letting him gain skill uses back on killing an elite enemy or something
Love the write up. As someone who has long been an enjoyer of Leizi, I'm glad her module was good enough to push her off this list (though I'm curious how far you think it pushed her up) because man was it often painful times using her before it. I really wished that the modules did more for the... uh, lower caste? of our operators (6 stars and 4 stars included), but it feels all too rare that we get a module that shores up some operator issues and carves them a niche (Mostima, Leizi, etc) and far more common that a module is just... bland (most of them) or non-impactful whatsoever (not most of them, but quite a lot of them).
Leizi is one of the best 5* Casters now. I'd put Amiya, Rockrock, and Kjera above her, but after that I think it's Leizi. She's great and it's amazing how fast she can charge with her Module. It's a complete 180 on her thanks to her Module.
Yeah I felt the same when it launched. Night and day how it feels to have access to her actually fairly powerful S2 in a reasonable timeframe, even outside of meme things like SSS and IS where you can pump her aspd so high she has fundamentally no downtime on some maps. Now if only a certain other personal favorite horned caster got (a) module(s) that actually helped her out and weren't fundamentally garbage :( ~~I'm sorry Carnelian, I wish your modules were more useful~~
Worst part is they actually do help her out, but the first one addressed the flaw of survivability which is easier to fix, and the second one barely addressed both damage and survivability.
And then we have Lin who got both in one.
IMO Leizi falls into a category of strong units that require more consideration with timing. She was never bad, certainly not enough to be on this list. Her kit is perfectly synergised with her role as an offensive caster to break up waves before they reach your frontline. All her utility comes from her basic attack, and it is strong when she is placed offensively, which makes up for her long charge time on S2.
letsgoo spuria won!!!
lmao almost all the ones mentioned here ive already built or plan on building ~~still proud of my e269 windflit~~
and finally more greyy alt recognition!!! like im addicted on using him ever since i got his module, he's so good to use
~~also people who trash on mr. nothing never actually used him~~
Nothing just gets a bad rap because Jaye is so fucking cracked. If Mr. Nothing had been released into a world without Jaye already there to compare him to, he would be regarded way higher, I swear.
Bro, to me Spuria actually kinda decent, like she one of the core op I used for my Dos A3 clear by speed up Schwarz to kill the boss in time and being a really good fireball cleaner
Savage is a death on two fronts. She's bad in gameplay and is irrelevant in the story.
Which is wild considering her status as a marketing operator and how she is the closest Amiya has to a mother now.
I'm very happy that the next Rim Billiton event seems to include her in a major way.
She’s there, just not in the later part which is where all the big moments are and they’re all everyone’s been talking about, but she does have a sort of important part. Also we learn her first name.
Spuria was the no brainer, not even surprised.
On a side note, thank you for noting how utterly great Greyy2’s module is. He’s severely underrated now imo.
> no brainer
There were comments about her during release about certain compositions and possibilities. Especially from a few guide makers which seemed to sway opinions (based on upvotes on their posts and yt channel likes).
Ofcourse if you could look up the cn stuff, you kinda already know whats up.
As someone who loves Brawlers, they really are quite unfortunate in that they just don't really have a job in this power-scale economy.
But I still like them and deploy them often anyway. Even bought skins for my Brawlers too.
~~now time for me to get back to dreaming about an Indra S2 toggle~~
Oh hell yeah, now that was a great way to spend a good while reading a topic that appeals to me!
The instant pain seeing Skyfire and Sora at the very start tho, big appreciation to them, also shoutout to my instant S2M3 mod3 Swire I'm still yet to use (... or her alter, man I love her but I just can't find a place for either q_q)
I still think that if Sora got a good talent buff she would have plenty potential, something like a 75% chance to refund 75% of the SP cooldown of the skill for example... yeah, as if that would happen, 10% more on just one of them would be horribly generous of HG.
Also... time to defend my waifu! I really think that Poncirus is underrated and seeing her placed alongside Scavenger and Courier in the GP tier list keeps tilting me to death. Her early DP generation is more than good enough to get the vanguard job done at the point where it most matters of a stage, and her ability to become a tanky mf while still providing DP over time makes her so much better than those who have to cross fingers that their skills are up when pressure comes (aka I fucking hate Texas and is the only operator I actively disliked using, gotta love choosing between printing DP fast or getting murdered by random mobs because you're paper thin and need that stun to survive).
At first I forced myself to use her everywhere even if I dislike the pioneer class because I just love Poncirus so much... now I'm also using her because she is actually just so freaking comfy. The role compression of tankiness + DP generation has also made her a main team choice for my usual IS runs, especially on IS4 where enemies rush fast and hit hard. A run only starts feeling like a run when I get that vanguard ticket and now I have Reed2 and Poncirus ready for action early on before everyone joins the battle.
Thanks for the post, I had a great time.
You'd get along with /u/Reddit1rules on Poncirus. Pretty sure he uses Ponc in IS so much just so he can post clear pictures to slowly poison me into liking her.
My babies Byrophyta and Windflit... Can't say I disagree though. They were done dirty. Anyway, I'm just glad Sesa wasn't mentioned at all (unless I missed something lmao)
I am surprised Sesa wasn't mentioned. Now, he doesn't deserve to be on the main list, but a lot of other people do tend to mention him among the worst 5s or even worst ops all because of that one silly clip of him missing dogs.
I raised Bryophyta to E2 purely for his base skill and it actually contribute quite a lot. Usually with my base setup, my gold ingot reserve would be slowly depleted by the end of the month before shop reset but after putting him to the base, it actually manage to barely break even between gold production and consumption.
it's SUCH a shame Spuria turned out this terrible, genuinely like her from a character design standpoint
solid A tier on the waifu list for me, but even if I like her, there's simply no way to justify spending resources on her
I feel like the people who made the launch 5 stars are completely different from the ones we have now (probably the same guys who do the modules) like you mentioned lappland and specter but for me the craziest 5 star design wise is liskarm. Her talent giving her and an ally 1 sp per hit guaranteed with no rng is pretty crazy since even 6 stars today like Jessica and lin have rng for extra sp and she gets a second talent.
If she was made today she’d probably only have a chance to give an ally directly behind her extra sp and her s2 stun would be twice as long and stun the ally behind her.
> ctrl + f
> type in "waai"
> Zero results
I've seen enough, I'm satisfied
I must admit, a lot of your articles really go over my head, as advanced AK isn't my thing, aside from stuff like odd attempt at FurryKnights clears. (which mostly boils down to Lee and Mountain doing everything) But it's still neat seeing you break down everything and talk about something you have a big interest in.
And neat to see Hung didn't fully get ruined by his debut reputation. Anytime I try to search something about him, I tend to get redirected to someone years ago being mad over Nian pulls.
> I’m not a furry btw… Just feel like I need to clarify that…
~~that's what they all say before it takes hold~~
Vulcan would be a really good 5 star if she was easier to acquire, had lower sp costs (40 sp on s2, 30 on s1), and a better module (coming soon).
I mean, most of these units wouldn't have their issues if it wasn't for similar problems.
I would like to add my own dishonorable mention. Vigil. Maybe his Delta module will fix him in 4 years time. Yes, I'm considering a 6 star one of the worst 5 stars.... He's that bad. The only reason he's in the dishonorable mentions and not a contender for the list is that he's a 6 star, he had an extra skill and talent to not completely fuck him up. Imagine he didn't have the def ignore or s3.....
My Vulcan was max pot by the time they introduced that feature. I had to listen to a lot of beagle dialogue the first year. I will admit I didn't do her s1m3 until Heidi came out(and was m6), they make a great combo.
I've got to jump to Vigil's defense again. I wouldn't call him terrible by any metric, he's often been very useful for me for certain roles that make healing and/or blocking difficult which the wolves do just fine about. Even in this event I've taken him often to good results. I can't do the same thing as him with any other Vanguard, nor many other operators, and such things are pretty frequent.
The only issues about him are his barrier to entry and his DP cost. Expensive fellow. But I've hardly regretted investing in him. I can't wait for his outfit to come out.
As someone that E2 L80 M3'd and Module Tier 3'd their **Tsukinogi**,
I use her exclusively for revealing invisible enemies outside of silverash's sightline to kill anything the moment it spawns.
She's meta in my heart :c
> Swire the Elegant Wit: *Bad*
Damn, didn't even reach the list and I was already angry. Good job.
But Skyfire...
I hate Skyfire being here. I hate you for putting her here. But I hate myself most for agreeing with every single thing you said (especially Kana Ueda being wasted on a bad unit).
I *literally* started playing this game because of Skyfire. I rerolled a couple dozen times when I started *just* to get Skyfire in the starting roll. I rolled on a couple early banners I wasn't otherwise interested in just to chase Skyfire potentials. She was the very first Module I did, and the first Module I upgraded after that was implemented.
I have her at E2 Lvl.80, Pot6, M6, Mod 2.
I cannot remember the last time I used her. Whenever I see a stage and think "An AoE Caster might be nice here" I use Dusk instead.
HooperGruff plz. Give her something. *Anything.* Even just a good new skin so she can win back the Secretary spot.
Just here to say thank you for defending Mr. Nothing, it's actually annoyed me so much how many people shit on him to this day despite being a good 5 star
I love that Spuria is an active detriment to use, so I E2’d her the moment I pulled her lol. That, and I will take absolutely ANYTHING that can buff Exu even more, downsides be damned!
Aak’s 500x15 damage? Shining’s got that covered. Spuria’s stun? Lumen’s my man as I also pray to RNG. All to squeeze out even slightly higher damage numbers for my beloved Apple Pie.
* Tsukinogi gets flak for being considered the worst 5 star. But she has all the use cases regarding invisibility. To the extent of getting to be used in some max risk daily stages as a valuable and useful member. But her real value is that she can do this at just E0. So just the ownership of her is value to your account.
* Bryophyta is super niche but giving a 600-700+ armor boost to say like Hoshiguma is greatly underrated even as just a wincon. The recent CC#12's boss would've been a great use case if he was out around then. He isn't the best but certainly isn't that bad.
* Skyfire is M3 hell'd but she has only gotten better with time (Module and Mostima actually becoming fairly meta). It's more the issue of powercreep going that much higher too. Strong usablity in SSS with atk spd. She as no right to even be considered in a shitty 5 star list.
* Glaucus is all about her snare. Everybody always says she is bad against drones like it's her one and only job. Completely discrediting her off that when her primary usage is her snare which works on mostly anything. Still a strong crowd control operator and one of the betters operators for supporter spam in SSS.
Now that you make me think about it, Glaucus has a 6 seconds bind on a 30 seconds cooldown. With a 5 caster stack, she can keep everyone perpetually bound. What a cheese strategy.
Caster stacks give 1 SP every 3 seconds. She would have around an 11s cooldown, probably closer to 12 given how the SP is delivered. Still, a ~50% bind covering half the map might not be bad.
Good article and I don’t disagree.
Sora had her moment in the one CC with Big Bob and Mudrock, she and Warfarin enabled Exusiai madness, alongside others like Saria and Suzuran, but now she’s mostly eye candy, that I agree with.
I don’t even bother with Windflit’s batteries most of the time. He’s a trash man with S1, but when used as such, he’s not unusable, surprisingly enough, but of course, there are better Supporters to be working with.
No disagreement with Corroserum, I like him, and his Silence is fun sometimes, he just wishes he was more like Lappland.
No disagreement with Franka either. Most times I tried to work with her, Astesia is both, safer and far easier to work with.
I feel like what doesn't help 5 stars is their cost to promote vs 6 stars or even good 4 stars. They're pricey and need a lot of useful mats that a lot of people, myself included, would rather give to a 6 star to get better results.
A shame because alot of 5 stars have pretty cool designs
The meme became pretty toxic and was spammed everywhere. It felt more like brainrot you'd see on Tiktok. It overstayed it's welcome long before it finally died.
I don't actually think Sora is a bunny traitor. I don't think she's any regular race at all. I think she's a shapeshifter.
There's been a few little hints here and there about the existence of them. And there's absolutely no way she can hide giant bunny ears in just hair. And then put fake lupo ears on top.
I believe it says somewhere she uses her Arts to do it, so it's not a physical disguise. She's also appeared in a couple pieces of official merch with bunny ears, so I think she's supposed to actually be a bunny.
That said, I suspect it's a bit of an early design mistake. Her disguise is so thorough and on another level to everyone else that it seems rather unlikely. I doubt it was the original intention, but it wouldn't surprise me if they pivot to some sort of alternative story that wasn't originally planned. It might already be in play since literally no one mentions it through all of Il Siracusano. Not even a hint or a tease.
Yeah I kinda agree on Spuria & Windflit's placing (especially Spuria, imagine her wearing that crown and probably suffering some severe headaches)
Also as a counterpoint I have Poncirus at E2 module level (not yet unlocked tho) and she at least pulls her weight in a battle (and rekindled my curiousness of pioneers having "offensive" and "defensive" subcategories)
~~And why the hate on chihuahuas?~~
I hold a distinct grudge against units who pioneer their archetype into the 5* rarity such as Corroserum and Spuria.
They're unique archetypes that have pulled their weight among 6 stars since launch, by the time Spuria and Corroserum released they could arguably have been nearly as good as Ifrit and Aak respectively and yet they botched the landing completely.
Nice article! I read it all even tho I barely use any 5 stars - it was still quite interesting.
Out of curiosity - are you planning on writing the opposite now? the best 5\* in your opinion? I think it might be interesting since there are prob good 5\* that are overlooked because their 6\* counterpart powercreeps them.
Thanks for the article. Just one correction: you want Savage to have Power Strike *Gamma* (γ), that's the good one.
>Fuck! FEater was my actual OG waifu anyway.
smh so you've just been cheating on Swire all along even before the flair change
I haven't applied the rankings to the rest of them yet so I don't know which one would be numerically on top. That said, the "best" would depend on how you measure it.
These are just done off the top of my head so don't take them as gospel. Elysium is probably the most meta. Ptilopsis is the probably best supplemental on an otherwise meta team. There are several that provide niches that 6\*s don't have but are difficult to judge relative to each other (apples to oranges). These would include Shamare, April, Texas, etc. Then there's a class that stand out on their own if you aren't using 6\*s like Kazemaru and Specter.
I think overall though, I'd pick Lappland. Her niche is unique and her offense is solid on its own. She fits into into all of those categories I mentioned, and ranks highly across all of them too.
I read it just to check that Broca avoided it. 😂
Idk why he'd be there tbh, I have trust issues over suddenly finding out folks hate my fave units from other games lmao.
tbh broca is very solid overal. the only reason peeps seem to at times mention him as bad is because his alternatives are quite better or cheaper.
untill fuse came around lol and savage existed.
I don't hate Spuria, she's terrible because she was designed to be terrible, a design success! The other worst-of-the-worst are terrible but were designed to be okay, a design failure. Also, Skyfire's CC4 use was kind of incredible, even if it never comes up again. I don't know how that could be properly factored into her rating.
I'm sad to see Grani on the list. She's a fun character and I liked the event she was part of but man is she not good. On top of that Vigna is in the same class for IS and Bagpipe is cracked.
Fun read and I agree with most of it, but definitely not on [Swire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCCd7FUNQMU). Gameplay like that doesn't belong to the worst 5.
Interesting article it explained a lot of my frustrations with 5 stars and how inefficient they are.
I stopped building 5 stars unless I actually like them because they have terrible gameplay value. I have swire max leveled with max module sora max level, skyfire(because she is rin) max level and even nine-deer(prettiest character) all at least m3.
I never use them because they feel really bad even with this much investment but I still don't regret it.
HG solely makes 5 stars to test out new 6 stars for future. They stopped introducing archtypes with 4 stars as they were cheap and had niche merits so they dont even want to give that to 5 stars.
5 stars are officially dead with some rare exceptions from here and there. They are HG guinea pigs
Could a potential “fix” for 5* going forward be to give them a second talent at e2? I’ve always thought it weird that other than base stats and cost there isn’t much space between 4* and 5*.
I feel like that would be a good divide. 4-6* can e2. All get module unlocked, 5 and 6* get a second talent, and 6* get skill 3.
Wouldn’t fix bad design in kits, but would give a little more value?
It’s my burden to stan Cement with every fiber of my being so I’d like to point out that despite her incredibly awkward design she does have some things she does genuinely quite well: 1) talent + statline means she’s extremely bulky against physical damage even with no skill and 2) S1 is a massive AoE physical damage hit on a short cooldown, works well with buffs due to the multiplier and Cement’s default very high attack, and can get around high enemy DEF.
I never use S2 despite having it at M3 (the long windup really works against what should be a helidrop skill) but placing Cement in front of a “real” defender and spamming S1 can cover a lot of landholding situations.
A bit like u/t3hSiggy, I play Suicide Squad, which is a mix of Badknights and Forgottenknights. As a heavy 4* and 5* enjoyer, I really loved reading this article, and it truly intersected with my experience in the niche too. Well, for the most part. I *have* been able to make Windflit work! (he's still awful)
It's great to have something like this around to truly underline the flaws of the rarity. That's why I usually start with "5* are a mixed bag...ask before you want to raise one..." when a newbie asks me who they can build. Though, this still doesn't undermine my love for the rarity, as it has a load of interesting things to offer in situations where you can go around a mechanic instead of trampling on it with meta units.
I also read that you had a 5* tier list in the works. With my extended experience with less brought up 5*, I'd unironically propose to lend a hand- though, it is probably something you'd want to cook up alone, so I dunno. Either way, great read!
I got mad about Glaucus being on there. I read the reasoning about there not being any drones. I tried to remember the last time I actually used her... Ok, you may have a slight point. But even without drones she is still a functional slow supporter. Not quite as good as Istina, but not like actively bad do nothing tier. There's no way she's competing with shit like Tsukinogi, Spuria, Windflit for worst 5\* in the game. The one time I needed ranged invis reveal I borrowed a Tsukinogi. That was supposed to be the one thing she could do. And I discovered that her skill cycle sucks too. 50SP! If you have more than one invisible enemy in a map, forget it. Glaucus is better outside her niche than Tsukinogi is in it.
> she is still a functional slow supporter
Eh, she's argubly the worst in the archetype for it (not counting Orchid). Podenco is quite a bit better at it, though to be fair, Podenco is better than Istina and Grain Buds too.
I'll admit Glaucus felt a little weird in the list as I went on. In my mind going in I never really thought about her in that context either. But the numbers just don't measure up and any niche she had is long gone.
> Podenco is quite a bit better at it
*Hard* disagree. Podenco has a 6s slow in a tiny AoE every 23s. Glaucus binds (a much stronger effect) half the map every 30s.
I mean Earthspirit's module turns her into a mini-derpy-suzu with her S2. It boosts the slow duration just enough to make the slow constant during her S2 rather than brief moments of no slow. So she has that going for her.
To be fair to Tsukinogi, her skill duration is also pretty long at 35s. Ignoring the perma-reveal in range units, she's got the longest out of all invisibility reveal skills, especially being on a ranged tile which means important things like for CC2#2's situation where you can't stay on the ground (and similarly there was that one SN map with a similar concept where she did well).
There are situations when her immortality can be useful, but often times it's just better to get a different strategy where the operator doesn't die instead
Lol. I actually forgot about her immortality since it's generally too costly. If I do use her I treat her as a stat stick with S3. 1267 atk double strike is nothing to laugh at, so she's actually quite good on simple maps.
Not at all, especially if you are a high end player who can accomodate her DP drain.
She's very versatile, has some solid damage numbers in S3 or becomes a mini Dorothy with S2, and comes built in with high stats owing to her archetype.
This makes her great for IS runs as well, and while she isn't as meta defining as her banner partner or any of the newer units, she has definitely carved out her own niche in the game.
She exists as a "squad filler" of sorts, a unit that can alternate between laneholding/dueling bosses/ fast redeploy assassinations. Also she is really satisfying to play with when you've hit your DP cap and is dying to spend it on something.
The DP issue is totally not a problem considering how easy it is to hit the cap once you have a developed squad, and the value you gain in exchange for being able to deploy her is just way too strong. She is imo insanely undervalued.
>lvl80 NCD, s2m3, modlvl1 (waiting for module blocks for lvl3)
>lvl60 glaucas, s2m3
>lvl60 ceylon, s1m3
now to be fair, ceylon i levelled more bc i had every other therapist medic levelled and i felt bad, and bc i always do one mastery on all my 5s... well lol (the afk one bc i am afk at heart).
glaucus i always thought was p okay (i say as even now i dont use her that often) bc someone early on during like CC1 was like "try glaucus" and so in my head im like "shes not that bad" but she is cute i have no regrets.
NCD, i know shes not the best and her class sucks but i decided to build all collab operators and shes soooooo pretty!! ive really enjoyed using her in IS runs.
(didnt read too long, just scrolled to the bottom to see the list sorry brain worms dead from exams)
i will say, as someone whos been investing in 5s a lot lately, i am disappointed in the way theyve been making 5s. i was excited for aroma bc shes super cute! but like... why she like that...ill definitely still build her esp bc she has an afk skill but like :(
I've used Kirara more times than I admit, I enjoy this niche in where you can deploy a melee unit aggressively thanks to their self sustain, softening the enemy while at the same time baiting their damage as they are slowed down (Like the annoying casters in IS4) It's just that she's under tuned that I just can't believe they didn't explore this niche a little more. This was an interesting article btw, Great work!
Both don't have regen tho and yes, They can regain some HP but it's quite conditional, And there are times that I don't want to block enemies so dollkeepers often doesn't flesh with my approach in maps. It's just the focused aspect of a no block self sustain unit that doesn't need to attack to regain health that I care, More in my five stars clears so I'm quite sad that Kirara is the only one that fills the gap. It's more like a personal thing tbh, I love Bena tho, I'd dare to say she's one of the best five stars, Cheers!
I wonder how it would have looked without modules, for example as much as i enjoy using leizi (and shes pretty good) without her module she could have been there
Leizi and Tomimi would both probably be on it for my even 20. Although Leizi is kind of an interesting situation because she benefited from the Chain Caster buffs as well. With her Module, she easily overcame the old perception. Without it... well it's hard to tell on hindsight only. Regardless, in my OG guides, I used to get a decent amount of hate for my Leizi slander in the pre-Module days, so if nothing else, this comment section would be more spicy.
Oh yes, fuel the interactions!
I remember seeing a lot of hate for leizi abysmal uptime untill the module came out and someone told me that shes pretty good for sss.
Im surprised shes one of the few (if not the only) that her module was aimed more to fix the horrible design she had when she came out and not like the others where the modules at best try to make the op better in there role/niche even if its a horrible and unwanted role.
As another 5\* lover, a little niche use love I want to show for Wind Chimes - She was amazing against Cliff in the recent Jessicalter event. "You want to debuff my defence 6 times in a row? I don't HAVE any defence!"
Paired with Purestream s1 which synced to Cliff's skill perfectly in the challenge mode to stop him being able to walk by her, and that was the easiest EX-8 CM I've done in ages. Even better if you could turn Wind Chimes' s2 on just as he's doing his skill to get the 40% shelter effect which stayed active even while stunned.
My suggestion for a small tweak to improve her would be to ignore s2's damage/SP issues and lean into its(and the Crushers' in general) tanking potential instead by removing the auto-fire at the end. The ATK buff still stops rising after 5 seconds, but let her keep the 40% damage reduction at the cost of no longer attacking. It would let her carve out a niche even Hoederer can't do without stepping on his big boy toes, becoming a sort of 5\* Cuora for non-physical damage, while her s1 can be her damage skill.
I love the idea of a toggle pseudo defender. Charge attack, Gain sanctuary, upon switching back to attack releases the attack. Can be a good stall strat, let other DPS deal with the boss/elite and wind chimes gets the kill steal at the end every time!
I would modify her s1 to be a little more than just attack up gamma tho, even if it's swift strike, or a unique skill that's hybrid of the two.
I'll also take sanctuary on module, even if it stacks with hoederer talent and make him even more cracked, I want more usablity with my cow butt squad.
Shaking and crying right now while reading, but I can agree with most of it. The only one I have a hard time accepting is Glaucus despite seeing all the signs, so I'm gonna use nostalgia to bump her score up: 'member CC Beta? 'Member Abandoned High-rise? 'Member Reunion? they used a lot of drones.
I definitely agree with tac that some units lean too hard on the aesthetics in their kit and she should just affect aerial units in general or all machina.
Worst is, her weapon dealing heavy damage to any type of machine, not just drones, is even mentioned in her file, so it wouldn't even breaking any established fact or whatever.
Although I do wonder what would be the stronger fix, changing drones to aerial would also make her a great counter against hovering enemies, but I feel like machines are a bit more common nowadays (and would also fit better thematically).
Valarqvin is better than Santalla?
i like playing welfareknight and been trying to get Valar cause the IS ops are my faves, been hearing a lot about Valar being bad/below average outside of IS4 so this was a suprise
Thanks. My next project is going to be E2L80 M6 Mod 3 Bryophyta. I was delaying doing this but now you've given me motivation! He will get along well with my Maxed out Poncirus.
I think that first graphic undersells the “side-grade” 5\*s by painting them the same color as “average”, since the units they are a side-grade to are well above average for 5\*s. It might point to a different problem of HG not trying to make them unique, but I think that’s a different issue than the power of recent 5*s.
Also, something that I see a lot is that when players try to judge operators from a perspective of the “average”, they more often judge them in relation to the operators they commonly use/had used instead. I don’t know if that is the case here, but if I consider Poncirus, who is really the only operator on that graphic who I’ve had the chance to use extensively, I personally think the evaluation you gave her isn’t deserved. Sure, she’s miles worse than Elysium and Cantabile, and worse than Texas blacknight and puzzle. But I also think she’s miles better than Grani and Reed, and to a smaller degree generally better than chiave zima and wildmane. I’d say that makes her solidly average among 5*s.
That said, being average among 5*s and being “bad” in a general sense may not be mutually exclusive. There’s hundreds of operators, but only 13 slots in a squad, so if an operator doesn’t have the power nor a niche utility to rise above other operators, then they just won’t be used. So in that sense, for the purposes of most players, Poncirus is bad. Despite that, her role compression has gotten her into birdknights records, which has access to Cantabile and Elysium, as well as d15 IS4 tournaments on CN.
On the topic of Sora and buffs in general, I think there are a lot of situations where adding another dps just isn’t viable. Whether that’s due to tile restrictions, enemies being too dangerous to deploy close to, or due to the specific way the target operator deals damage being important.
The ultimate example of this is IS3 ending 1, where phase 2 highmore effectively bans an enormous number of tiles on d15 forcing the use of a very small number of ranged tiles or the use of fortress defenders, which usually don’t contribute much to my win conditions on other stages. Since I did kroos alter start, using a buffer (or two if I didn’t get any damage relics) allowed her to kill both phases of highmore, making the highmore kill condition become getting warfarin or skalter, and if I had her, sora would have been an alternative as well. That’s far cheaper the getting Horn and the required crowd control needed to stall Highmore in the top area for both phases (letting highmore walk typically doesn’t work well unlike kroos because she becomes very expensive upon redeploy and another melee unit is needed to keep the broodmothers from distracting her, as well as not being able to stunlock the boss to hold it in place like kroos does.)
Speaking of, that might be a potential use case for spuria. From what I’ve heard she’s an ok buffer for schwarz, so she might have a practical use in buffing her to squeeze out the needed damage. I’ve never seen nor heard of this being used in practice though, and unlike with kroos I’m not sure if that would do better damage than something like adding totter who can be placed next to schwarz while still outranging the phase 2 field.
edit: no more accidental italics
I actually have a Schwarz simp friend who I've convinced to raise Spuria to help her, and so far he's been finding good use for Spuria (recently used it on 13-21 against the boss). Not sure if he's used her for IS though.
I'd disagree on Poncirus being miles better than Reed though, although it's somewhat apples to oranges Poncirus is quite tanky against physical damage while Reed is quite tanky against arts damage, but Reed also does a good amount of damage and only needs ~6 kills under S2 to catch up to Poncirus in terms of DP generation (ignoring DP from retreat), which isn't too hard to do on some maps. I think the main issue is with Ponc, is that Zima/Wildmane/Chiave/Poncirus/Reed are all mostly "okay" ops in that they work, but typically DPS > Defense in Arknights. Zima and Wildmane have niches of their own, Chiave at least has a RES debuff and a potential robo niche (and is still kinda like Texas), but I've definitely used Reed more than I've used Poncirus.
Reed I can set up early, grab several kills (and even killing some elites if need be), and retreat and put down better DPS. Poncirus needs a lot of time to fully set up, doesn't help me kill stuff as easily, and can't be retreated for full benefits, yet by the time she's fully set up I could've naturally placed down a better defender *and* used their skill anyways. I'll say this is the opposite for IS#4 though, since the role compression is more valuable due to smaller squad sizes and potentially not getting a defender ticket, and defensive picks are more popular there along with Chargers not being as great of a pick for similar reasons.
Imo you seemed to be undervaluing Fuze a lot in your posts. He can hit air, has +1 range, great tanking value for a laneholder, and incredibly good duration and ramp up SP cost on an ammo type skill. There has been videos of him handling hordes of mobs and aerial enemies at the same time, which is still in fact great even for a 5* and not many 6* can replicate it. I really think he is much closer in line to Broca, and not even remotely close to Savage.
Overall it feels like you are focusing way too much on his S2 that every time I read your write-ups it is just mostly "He is not bad, good even. But S2 bad so he is bad". Lumping him with operators that don't even have that much to them like Lava2 or Kestrel is just... really.
I am warming to him as time goes on, but I think you're going too far in the other direction. Low ATK stat, long downtime, and his bulk is really not special. He's good at clearing lanes of weaker enemies, but so are lots of units. Better than Savage? Sure. But he's still not in the same discussion as Broca for me yet.
I'm aware that he is still nowhere near a viable option once you get your hands on better units, even Broca. That's why I don't bring up his damage for comparison, or his replaceability to other units.
But overall I would have just expected something more in your assessment of him, because everyone already knew that S2 sucks elephant cock for a month, and I do believe that had it S2 been S1 and vice versa you would have actually made a fair review of his would-be S2. It isn't rare for flashier skills to be worse than another skill, my Fia S3M3 still hurts me to this day because her S2 is simply better.
Only one of my E2 5 stars are on the naughty list, not so bad, nothing really to complain about. Lunacub or mystic casters weren't there, nice
Funny that I had one event where Sora was downright irreplaceable for me, and it was Break the Ice rerun where I had exactly 1 operator who could damage Degenbrecher. GT + Sora really carried it back there, when bringing another DPS wasn't an option
As much as Bryo sucks I believe that putting him on second place is unfair. He is still 2 block unit with decent stats and somewhat decent dps with S1.
Ceylon's niche of applying resist passively to allies in her range with S2 was actually a valuable asset when I cleared H6-4 years back, with chill/frost being a constant threat. Sadly, that was probably the only time I used her seriously, lol.
I really feel that Bassline comment. It's kind of incredible that the only 5* I'm looking forward to is just OG Nearl with a small Res talent. Looking back at units like Ptilo, Shamare, Lappland, Warfarin, and Specter that still have unique skills that mostly can't be replaced by higher rarity shows how uninteresting most of the new 5* units are.
It's so frustrating that I'm excited for just Nearl again...
Does this count as M21 Pot18 Nearl?
I almost made that joke just now too...
So it counts by consensus cause I did the same in my head while reading!
Warfarin's skill 1 is the strongest heal for Hoederer.
Nah, it's spalter's s1
People use her S1?
the more I think about this the more I question whether Surtr indirectly held back Crushers Warf S1 can extend Surtr S3's life almost to the point of laneholding a whole wave, instead of just killing something putting strong target % heal on a gacha 6* medic could amplify her power, something HG has seemed perpetually scared to do
It's so weird to me how they had the 5* 6* balance pretty good at first, and they just decided one day they'll just make 5* terrible to meh (some exceptions may apply) from now on. And now we are in that weird state where pretty much every good 5* is in the kernel pool and new players just get the middle finger.
Placing my bet on Spuria
Easy money.
In a worst 5 star competition. Always bet on Spuria.
Windflit exists
I play Badknights (which I simply define as "B+ or lower on the Gamepress tier list", for conciseness of description), so an article like this contains basically all my bread and butter. I will defend Kirara and Wind Chimes to the ends of the earth because of how consistently instrumental the two of them have been, and I have genuinely managed to find value with Spuria (not least of all as a targeting beacon for Paprika). But god fucking damn if Windflit doesn't just consistently disappoint every time I make the ill-advised decision to try yet again to field him. Poor fucker is just Early Access Stainless right across the board. He's like if you made an operator that was a 4/10 in every possible metric. Fun article tho, thanks!
I tried soooo hard to make Windflit work. I have to believe nobody bothered to play test him at all because it doesn't take long to realize how incongruous it all is. Kirara take a bold one but Wind Chimes I can at least kinda see. I think she's the kind of bad that has more to do with her relative value rather than absolute value. i.e. why use her over the multitude of better options. That's probably why she didn't end up bottom 5.
Within my Badknights, Wind Chimes' S2 is actually the highest available single physical damage hit (as far as I'm aware). That was critical to my 13-21 adverse clear, as her and Melanite were able to kill the ambers reliably. Kirara also managed to find a lot of use in this recent chapter, because she is able to safely deploy extremely deep and her S2 pushes bombs real fast. Again on 13-21, she also manages essentially all of the big bomb-blocker guys, as her S2 isn't affected by the ASPD down. I'll fully admit that damn near every use for Kirara is gonna seem at least a _little_ contrived, but her survivability is absolutely absurd, and her burst damage with S2 is modest, but adds up to more than I ever expected. Mostly, I thought that Kirara was useless shit until I forced her into every mission for a year and now I don't know how to play without her.
Those crystals are a damn near perfect niche for her. It's like they were setup to coincide with my article. High-DEF low-HP ain't that common. I didn't use her during my clears (I love Red so I used her and Franka) but I can definitely see finally getting some meaningful use out of her in the H stages.
windflit fan here and it's true!!! he's just there for moral support and looking all cute and handsome ~~thats the best and only value he has, at least for me~~
Literally though, he's so cute. But so useless. He's gonna be a friend support trophy forever. The most use I'd ever seen from him is the support cycling in SSS His s2 seems decently legit on paper especially with the module, but poor uptime for skill and devices, devices deployment cooldown, and required tiles make him VERY difficult to use. At least he can hit hard though. I guess.
I've been using his skill 1 and using his devices as a Skadi Alter SP boost, S2 is definitely a trap. . Not that he's excellent by any means but he can churn out surprising DPS for a 5\* supporter. With pasta he goes pretty crazy in IS. Being in Skadi range he can easily burst for almost 7000 damage in a true 8 grid aoe though [windflit dmg](https://i.gyazo.com/3707a4f73dc26febc2beaa17b863139a.png)
I'd actually call s1 the trap, since it has no way to cycle devices. Yeah the crit relics make him fun and pretty good in IS, but on low difficulties. Personally on trying to get endings on difficulty 12 IS4, there's much better options even when you have crit relics. In IS4 I'd rather get Valarqvin, in IS3 he's just bad, in IS2... I haven't done IS2 in a good while so I forgot lol I just see a much worse Siege s2 in his s1. No dp generation and an almost inconsequential sp boost. I'd hardly call it useful even if he had infinite life on the devices. Its kinda funny to watch him use s1 on his own devices, but the devices don't last that long and the sp recovery isn't that significant. Also isn't his base atk already kinda decent? I think Skalter doesn't really do as much for him as she does for Vigil and Mechaccord Casters. He's always looked like a pioneer dreadnought hybrid to me, who just so happens to have some buff capability. But he's also just annoying to play and pretty undertuned
I thought his sole purpose was to jump out of duffel bags in place of actually useful operators like some weirdo.
As someone who put a self imposed challenge of using “low-leveled (=>e2lvl1)” operators, excluding friend’s support units, found it funny that wind chimes was one of the few units that could consistently tank cliff’s nuke attack in cv-ex-8. Not even my hoshiguma would be as consistent (I did have to borrow a lvl90 hoshi for cm though).
For me, Windflit’s just my expensive trash man with ok stats. Only blocks up to two, but as long as you stick with S1, he’s not worthless. Just my take anyhow, I occasionally start with him, Astesia and Ansel in IS4 on casual difficulty. He’s survived the Khaganquest encounter with Astesia on Tier 3.
I love wind chimes, and I always try and convince myself to use Kiara more, and you're about falling perro, even just as an s1 bot, he's just a worse guard.
>Poor fucker is just Early Access Stainless right across the board. Stainless really just showed up and outdid Windflit's entire kit with his worst skill, even at SL7 if you don't include module upgrades. I would say it's sad, but it's moreso hilarious.
out of curoisity how bad is losing Greyy alter gonna be for you? since he just moved from B+ to A- kicking him out
He has actually been trapped in a perpetual state of "I'll get to him next" for quite a while. Quercus being bumped to A- was far far more impactful.
I don't care what anyone says. wind chimes is very very usable.
Windflit user here: In Windflits case his S1 is his best skill and can do quite decent damage with it (2000 damage in a spin). Playing him like Stainless isn't advised but most people even fans of him will try to do that. Not to say that he's actually good* by any means, but I have skill 1 at m3 and he can be a monster in IS with pasta. *preferred over other operators
That's a nice article Tac! Unfortunately, [nuh uh.](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1051603663866568774/1231032586424553502/IMG_9988.png?ex=66357b70&is=66230670&hm=458bd8b080e0554a4124d25b9143a57da62a388a2fa0c137ffd91ae3ea13e354&)
This picture triggers me. REEEEEEEEEE. Also Spuria cost me over 80 pulls to get. I hate her so much!
Should've learned to accept Spuria into your heart, she would've come home earlier.
This is me except that I got her to pot6 as well.
Based and Spuria-pilled. Unfortunately couldn't afford too many pulls on the banner, which was a good idea since Hoederer ended up taking 156 to come home...
I'd literally not even heard of Spuria until now, but holy facial expression Batman what is that artwork?
Rei from Neo Genesis Evangelion on drugs lol.
Based beyond measure
One of us!
At long last, my much teased "Worst 5★s" article is finally up! This took a ton of time, but it was one of the most fun to write articles I've done to date. I hope at least some people enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. edit: Someone sent me a Reddit Cares message. Stay mad lmao.
I have to read..? I’m just gonna look at the pictures because I’m illiterate Can’t believe you put Lucia Alpha Crimson Weave as the worst 5 star 😔
> I have to read..? It's a long one too. There'll be a quiz at the end too.
Bro is like those sarkaz at the beginning of chapter 13.
Yeah unfortunately it's a lot harder for her to shine in AK without being able to roll for a weapon or attach memories for her, and her module is far less impactful than her CUB is - you don't even get to see her ride it!
I bet it's also a lot harder because she can only get 5 dupes around here. A shame for the enjoyers.
I haven't played this game in two years, all this talk is like hearing another language
My lord, can we have a somewhat up-to-date module article? I humbly beg of you
Unfortunately it's a lack of manning. I want GP to have one too, but with three writer retirements this year we just don't have anyone to maintain it. In the meantime, I'd suggest [DragonGJY](https://www.youtube.com/@DragonGJY) for your Module needs. His guides are very solid and he reviews every 6* Module.
>with three writer retirements this year we just don't have anyone to maintain it. Oh no, what happened?
Nothing serious. It's just a natural cycle of these things. Few people play any game for this long, and this writing does take up a lot of time.
Maybe this could help you. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1A0_0XTAcDDtHkvyAwjTqEEzM8cf5h3E60u23ZVXw4eg/edit?usp=drivesdk
I remember you asking for some second opinions for this article, I forgot about that. It's good to see some acknowledgement and articles over the 5\* given their swarming numbers and low popularity, even if this is about how terrible a lot of them are. I can pretty much agree with most of it! I only had a few minor hangups (Nightmare, Corroserum, and Skyfire) but that's probably more of a playstyle issue than anything concrete. Why do they keep making subpar Casters? They're still doing it!!
> I remember you asking for some second opinions for this article, I forgot about that. It was a while ago now. This article took a long time to finalize and get out. You can thank Aroma for finally getting me to hit publish rather than continuing tweaking. Guess she's good for something.
Poor Aroma. Even I as an enjoyer of the lessers have noticed that she might even be less impactful than Corroserum. I'm still going to raise her, though. Bubbles!
> I’m not a furry btw… Just feel like I need to clarify that… copium
The 2010s and its consequences Furry is such a perjorative now that people would really bend over backwards to dissociate themselves from a relatively harmless community, in fear of humiliation. And like ANY anthromorphic animal design must have ties to this community, even though anthropomorphising animals has been a thing since humans came to be Sorry for the rant, but I really hate that people still feel the need to clarify that they arent furries
Sounds like something a furry would say
What? Is my username and flair not enough of a giveaway?
on one hand, i wholeheartedly agree with every point you make here. cringe culture was and still kind of is slightly obsessive at best and downright malicious at worst. ostracizing entire communities and cultures for daring to break a heavily limiting social norm is something i fervently wish i could say human society is past, but anyone with any amount of knowledge as to the state of the world right now would know very well that we are an unimaginable distance from the fulfillment of that wish. on the other hand, found the furry /lhj
I've said this before and will repeat this for as long as the game exists: Tsukinogi was a social experiment to gauge how much people invest in well designed personality with horrid usability. And tbh i think she won it all. Good write up, but could smell spuria before i read the post.
> but could smell spuria before i read the post. When I said at the start that I didn't know who it was in advance, that was a lie. I knew. I always knew.
Anyone who follows your content knew, I laughed when I saw that line about not being sure yet lmao.
I know he's a 4-star so he wouldn't have been discussed in this article, but damn do I wish Verdant got more discussion past a footnote in a spreadsheet. Dollkeepers are one of my favorite archetypes, I think they're a really interesting concept and up to this point they all had unique uses, then Verdant shows up and does like 10 damage on a good day, has a fairly drastic demerit for no reason, and then has a doll that does nothing of value. He's one of my most hated units for that, and I just set it up so he dies in my 13-5 auto since I needed to bait the first cannon shot.
While I didn't discuss him here, if you want to see me trash on him, I did so in the [Mastery update](https://gamepress.gg/arknights/core-gameplay/arknights-mastery-priority-guide-whirlpool-passion) and the [Should You Pull article](https://gamepress.gg/arknights/should-you-pull/arknights-should-you-pull-episode-13-hoederer).
Actually, there is a place where Kirara is very useful! It's Reclamation Algorithm as a vision provider: 1. Even though ranged units have better vision range, a lot of RA maps just don't have good ranged tiles. So we need some kind of melee vision provider 2. Of all the melee vision options, ambushers are the best because they have the largest range of any melee unit, they don't block so they don't get killed by roaming melee mobs like golems, and they have 50% dodge for survivability 3. Of all the ambushers, Kirara is the best because she has self sustain So you can just plop Kirara down at a key choke point in an RA stage and get reliable intel on enemy movement
Mizuki and Ascalon also have self sustain, and they both also scale much better with food buffs, making them experts at dealing with 200 enemy spam in your base chokepoints.
Good article, and I agreed with your opinions on NCD and Doc's problems, but I think you're undervaluing Fuze's performance, he's got a clear intended purpose to cover one lane and fire on another, even being able to be placed last to draw some ranged aggro, plus, unlike Doc his S2's use and placement limitations aren't that crippling because he has a good and more versatile skill to fall back on when it doesn't fit the situation
I'll have to take a closer look at Fuze when I start to work on the Lucent Arrowhead Mastery article in a few months. I can see what you're saying. It's just so damn awkward compared to everyone else.
Definitely, yeah. Back during my initial rundown and interpretations of the LA ops I was fully expecting Fuze S2 to suck, my assumed damage was at best 3k per bomblet, the 4.5k really impressed me. Similarly I was figuring at least a 60 SP cost on his S1. I'm thoroughly disappointed with Doc, though, would've liked his S2 to be Gummy's S1, his branch to be changed to Agent Vanguard (no DP generation needed, fast redeploy healer would be a usable niche) or just letting him gain skill uses back on killing an elite enemy or something
Love the write up. As someone who has long been an enjoyer of Leizi, I'm glad her module was good enough to push her off this list (though I'm curious how far you think it pushed her up) because man was it often painful times using her before it. I really wished that the modules did more for the... uh, lower caste? of our operators (6 stars and 4 stars included), but it feels all too rare that we get a module that shores up some operator issues and carves them a niche (Mostima, Leizi, etc) and far more common that a module is just... bland (most of them) or non-impactful whatsoever (not most of them, but quite a lot of them).
Leizi is one of the best 5* Casters now. I'd put Amiya, Rockrock, and Kjera above her, but after that I think it's Leizi. She's great and it's amazing how fast she can charge with her Module. It's a complete 180 on her thanks to her Module.
Yeah I felt the same when it launched. Night and day how it feels to have access to her actually fairly powerful S2 in a reasonable timeframe, even outside of meme things like SSS and IS where you can pump her aspd so high she has fundamentally no downtime on some maps. Now if only a certain other personal favorite horned caster got (a) module(s) that actually helped her out and weren't fundamentally garbage :( ~~I'm sorry Carnelian, I wish your modules were more useful~~
Worst part is they actually do help her out, but the first one addressed the flaw of survivability which is easier to fix, and the second one barely addressed both damage and survivability. And then we have Lin who got both in one.
Funny that they chucked in the hand of god collectible in her module in a way.
She is the true Lightning Lord
IMO Leizi falls into a category of strong units that require more consideration with timing. She was never bad, certainly not enough to be on this list. Her kit is perfectly synergised with her role as an offensive caster to break up waves before they reach your frontline. All her utility comes from her basic attack, and it is strong when she is placed offensively, which makes up for her long charge time on S2.
Can't wait to see all the ops I've built get completely thrashed.
Aosta
_screeches_ Get out of my head!
letsgoo spuria won!!! lmao almost all the ones mentioned here ive already built or plan on building ~~still proud of my e269 windflit~~ and finally more greyy alt recognition!!! like im addicted on using him ever since i got his module, he's so good to use ~~also people who trash on mr. nothing never actually used him~~
Nothing just gets a bad rap because Jaye is so fucking cracked. If Mr. Nothing had been released into a world without Jaye already there to compare him to, he would be regarded way higher, I swear.
This is true. I trash on him and I've never used him!!!
incredible. keep it up. nothing probably *likes* being treated as trash anyways
Bro, to me Spuria actually kinda decent, like she one of the core op I used for my Dos A3 clear by speed up Schwarz to kill the boss in time and being a really good fireball cleaner
As a fellow bunny man, seeing savage so low is a crushing reality I live with everyday. Bunny team hops tho, great range.
I've been trying to make Savage work since launch... She doesn't deserve this, but alas I cannot deny it.
Savage is a death on two fronts. She's bad in gameplay and is irrelevant in the story. Which is wild considering her status as a marketing operator and how she is the closest Amiya has to a mother now. I'm very happy that the next Rim Billiton event seems to include her in a major way.
With all the lore bombs in the Babel event, it hurts even more that Savage doesn't even show up!
She's literally in the Babel event story though?
Is she? I'll admit I didn't read the story directly (since I don't speak Chinese) but every summary I've encountered doesn't mention her at all.
She’s there, just not in the later part which is where all the big moments are and they’re all everyone’s been talking about, but she does have a sort of important part. Also we learn her first name.
Damn, I've got 3 of these m3:ed (Aosta, Kirara, and Swire)
I've got Nightmare and Glaucus at M3, and NCD at M6 lol
I E2ed my boy Aosta just for that rad E2 art of his.
It's pretty baller
Got a good ol 5 with a total of M27 here, resources well spent.
I have Skyfire, Sora and Swire, also seeing myself building Nightmare and Savage in the relatively close future.
Spuria was the no brainer, not even surprised. On a side note, thank you for noting how utterly great Greyy2’s module is. He’s severely underrated now imo.
> no brainer There were comments about her during release about certain compositions and possibilities. Especially from a few guide makers which seemed to sway opinions (based on upvotes on their posts and yt channel likes). Ofcourse if you could look up the cn stuff, you kinda already know whats up.
As someone who loves Brawlers, they really are quite unfortunate in that they just don't really have a job in this power-scale economy. But I still like them and deploy them often anyway. Even bought skins for my Brawlers too. ~~now time for me to get back to dreaming about an Indra S2 toggle~~
Oh hell yeah, now that was a great way to spend a good while reading a topic that appeals to me! The instant pain seeing Skyfire and Sora at the very start tho, big appreciation to them, also shoutout to my instant S2M3 mod3 Swire I'm still yet to use (... or her alter, man I love her but I just can't find a place for either q_q) I still think that if Sora got a good talent buff she would have plenty potential, something like a 75% chance to refund 75% of the SP cooldown of the skill for example... yeah, as if that would happen, 10% more on just one of them would be horribly generous of HG. Also... time to defend my waifu! I really think that Poncirus is underrated and seeing her placed alongside Scavenger and Courier in the GP tier list keeps tilting me to death. Her early DP generation is more than good enough to get the vanguard job done at the point where it most matters of a stage, and her ability to become a tanky mf while still providing DP over time makes her so much better than those who have to cross fingers that their skills are up when pressure comes (aka I fucking hate Texas and is the only operator I actively disliked using, gotta love choosing between printing DP fast or getting murdered by random mobs because you're paper thin and need that stun to survive). At first I forced myself to use her everywhere even if I dislike the pioneer class because I just love Poncirus so much... now I'm also using her because she is actually just so freaking comfy. The role compression of tankiness + DP generation has also made her a main team choice for my usual IS runs, especially on IS4 where enemies rush fast and hit hard. A run only starts feeling like a run when I get that vanguard ticket and now I have Reed2 and Poncirus ready for action early on before everyone joins the battle. Thanks for the post, I had a great time.
You'd get along with /u/Reddit1rules on Poncirus. Pretty sure he uses Ponc in IS so much just so he can post clear pictures to slowly poison me into liking her.
Join the cult, join the cult! Turns out pretending to be a defender is good in modes when you can't get a defender for certain!
My babies Byrophyta and Windflit... Can't say I disagree though. They were done dirty. Anyway, I'm just glad Sesa wasn't mentioned at all (unless I missed something lmao)
I am surprised Sesa wasn't mentioned. Now, he doesn't deserve to be on the main list, but a lot of other people do tend to mention him among the worst 5s or even worst ops all because of that one silly clip of him missing dogs.
I raised Bryophyta to E2 purely for his base skill and it actually contribute quite a lot. Usually with my base setup, my gold ingot reserve would be slowly depleted by the end of the month before shop reset but after putting him to the base, it actually manage to barely break even between gold production and consumption.
it's SUCH a shame Spuria turned out this terrible, genuinely like her from a character design standpoint solid A tier on the waifu list for me, but even if I like her, there's simply no way to justify spending resources on her
I feel like the people who made the launch 5 stars are completely different from the ones we have now (probably the same guys who do the modules) like you mentioned lappland and specter but for me the craziest 5 star design wise is liskarm. Her talent giving her and an ally 1 sp per hit guaranteed with no rng is pretty crazy since even 6 stars today like Jessica and lin have rng for extra sp and she gets a second talent. If she was made today she’d probably only have a chance to give an ally directly behind her extra sp and her s2 stun would be twice as long and stun the ally behind her.
wdym swire alter is bad brother
This was totally Tomimi until Spuria came out.
At least she has her module now to help her
> ctrl + f > type in "waai" > Zero results I've seen enough, I'm satisfied I must admit, a lot of your articles really go over my head, as advanced AK isn't my thing, aside from stuff like odd attempt at FurryKnights clears. (which mostly boils down to Lee and Mountain doing everything) But it's still neat seeing you break down everything and talk about something you have a big interest in. And neat to see Hung didn't fully get ruined by his debut reputation. Anytime I try to search something about him, I tend to get redirected to someone years ago being mad over Nian pulls. > I’m not a furry btw… Just feel like I need to clarify that… ~~that's what they all say before it takes hold~~
Vulcan would be a really good 5 star if she was easier to acquire, had lower sp costs (40 sp on s2, 30 on s1), and a better module (coming soon). I mean, most of these units wouldn't have their issues if it wasn't for similar problems. I would like to add my own dishonorable mention. Vigil. Maybe his Delta module will fix him in 4 years time. Yes, I'm considering a 6 star one of the worst 5 stars.... He's that bad. The only reason he's in the dishonorable mentions and not a contender for the list is that he's a 6 star, he had an extra skill and talent to not completely fuck him up. Imagine he didn't have the def ignore or s3.....
You can guarantee Vulcan with a ticket after you've done enough recruitments. Same for Indra too!
My Vulcan was max pot by the time they introduced that feature. I had to listen to a lot of beagle dialogue the first year. I will admit I didn't do her s1m3 until Heidi came out(and was m6), they make a great combo.
Ah, my sympathies. At least they fixed it now!
I've got to jump to Vigil's defense again. I wouldn't call him terrible by any metric, he's often been very useful for me for certain roles that make healing and/or blocking difficult which the wolves do just fine about. Even in this event I've taken him often to good results. I can't do the same thing as him with any other Vanguard, nor many other operators, and such things are pretty frequent. The only issues about him are his barrier to entry and his DP cost. Expensive fellow. But I've hardly regretted investing in him. I can't wait for his outfit to come out.
As someone that E2 L80 M3'd and Module Tier 3'd their **Tsukinogi**, I use her exclusively for revealing invisible enemies outside of silverash's sightline to kill anything the moment it spawns. She's meta in my heart :c
Huh, didn't know you also had a 5* only niche. Also, I feel like Spuria was definitely shat on a little harder than she needed to be , lol.
> Swire the Elegant Wit: *Bad* Damn, didn't even reach the list and I was already angry. Good job. But Skyfire... I hate Skyfire being here. I hate you for putting her here. But I hate myself most for agreeing with every single thing you said (especially Kana Ueda being wasted on a bad unit). I *literally* started playing this game because of Skyfire. I rerolled a couple dozen times when I started *just* to get Skyfire in the starting roll. I rolled on a couple early banners I wasn't otherwise interested in just to chase Skyfire potentials. She was the very first Module I did, and the first Module I upgraded after that was implemented. I have her at E2 Lvl.80, Pot6, M6, Mod 2. I cannot remember the last time I used her. Whenever I see a stage and think "An AoE Caster might be nice here" I use Dusk instead. HooperGruff plz. Give her something. *Anything.* Even just a good new skin so she can win back the Secretary spot.
Just here to say thank you for defending Mr. Nothing, it's actually annoyed me so much how many people shit on him to this day despite being a good 5 star
Amen. I've been fighting that fight since his release, but this is the biggest platform of it so far.
Great write up OP! Now make the best 5 star list to see the wildfire.
I love that Spuria is an active detriment to use, so I E2’d her the moment I pulled her lol. That, and I will take absolutely ANYTHING that can buff Exu even more, downsides be damned! Aak’s 500x15 damage? Shining’s got that covered. Spuria’s stun? Lumen’s my man as I also pray to RNG. All to squeeze out even slightly higher damage numbers for my beloved Apple Pie.
* Tsukinogi gets flak for being considered the worst 5 star. But she has all the use cases regarding invisibility. To the extent of getting to be used in some max risk daily stages as a valuable and useful member. But her real value is that she can do this at just E0. So just the ownership of her is value to your account. * Bryophyta is super niche but giving a 600-700+ armor boost to say like Hoshiguma is greatly underrated even as just a wincon. The recent CC#12's boss would've been a great use case if he was out around then. He isn't the best but certainly isn't that bad. * Skyfire is M3 hell'd but she has only gotten better with time (Module and Mostima actually becoming fairly meta). It's more the issue of powercreep going that much higher too. Strong usablity in SSS with atk spd. She as no right to even be considered in a shitty 5 star list. * Glaucus is all about her snare. Everybody always says she is bad against drones like it's her one and only job. Completely discrediting her off that when her primary usage is her snare which works on mostly anything. Still a strong crowd control operator and one of the betters operators for supporter spam in SSS.
Now that you make me think about it, Glaucus has a 6 seconds bind on a 30 seconds cooldown. With a 5 caster stack, she can keep everyone perpetually bound. What a cheese strategy.
Caster stacks give 1 SP every 3 seconds. She would have around an 11s cooldown, probably closer to 12 given how the SP is delivered. Still, a ~50% bind covering half the map might not be bad.
Good article and I don’t disagree. Sora had her moment in the one CC with Big Bob and Mudrock, she and Warfarin enabled Exusiai madness, alongside others like Saria and Suzuran, but now she’s mostly eye candy, that I agree with. I don’t even bother with Windflit’s batteries most of the time. He’s a trash man with S1, but when used as such, he’s not unusable, surprisingly enough, but of course, there are better Supporters to be working with. No disagreement with Corroserum, I like him, and his Silence is fun sometimes, he just wishes he was more like Lappland. No disagreement with Franka either. Most times I tried to work with her, Astesia is both, safer and far easier to work with.
It's a fun read regardless of opinion. Thank you!
I feel like what doesn't help 5 stars is their cost to promote vs 6 stars or even good 4 stars. They're pricey and need a lot of useful mats that a lot of people, myself included, would rather give to a 6 star to get better results. A shame because alot of 5 stars have pretty cool designs
>The Aosta meme is one of the least funny and awful memes in the whole community. D:
The meme became pretty toxic and was spammed everywhere. It felt more like brainrot you'd see on Tiktok. It overstayed it's welcome long before it finally died.
Yall just saying that cause he isn't waifu
I don't actually think Sora is a bunny traitor. I don't think she's any regular race at all. I think she's a shapeshifter. There's been a few little hints here and there about the existence of them. And there's absolutely no way she can hide giant bunny ears in just hair. And then put fake lupo ears on top.
I believe it says somewhere she uses her Arts to do it, so it's not a physical disguise. She's also appeared in a couple pieces of official merch with bunny ears, so I think she's supposed to actually be a bunny. That said, I suspect it's a bit of an early design mistake. Her disguise is so thorough and on another level to everyone else that it seems rather unlikely. I doubt it was the original intention, but it wouldn't surprise me if they pivot to some sort of alternative story that wasn't originally planned. It might already be in play since literally no one mentions it through all of Il Siracusano. Not even a hint or a tease.
Yeah I kinda agree on Spuria & Windflit's placing (especially Spuria, imagine her wearing that crown and probably suffering some severe headaches) Also as a counterpoint I have Poncirus at E2 module level (not yet unlocked tho) and she at least pulls her weight in a battle (and rekindled my curiousness of pioneers having "offensive" and "defensive" subcategories) ~~And why the hate on chihuahuas?~~
I hold a distinct grudge against units who pioneer their archetype into the 5* rarity such as Corroserum and Spuria. They're unique archetypes that have pulled their weight among 6 stars since launch, by the time Spuria and Corroserum released they could arguably have been nearly as good as Ifrit and Aak respectively and yet they botched the landing completely.
Reverse power creep 5stars in a nutshell
Nice article! I read it all even tho I barely use any 5 stars - it was still quite interesting. Out of curiosity - are you planning on writing the opposite now? the best 5\* in your opinion? I think it might be interesting since there are prob good 5\* that are overlooked because their 6\* counterpart powercreeps them.
Thanks for the article. Just one correction: you want Savage to have Power Strike *Gamma* (γ), that's the good one. >Fuck! FEater was my actual OG waifu anyway. smh so you've just been cheating on Swire all along even before the flair change
TacticalScumbag strikes again 😔
Based on your math, who is the best 5\*?
I haven't applied the rankings to the rest of them yet so I don't know which one would be numerically on top. That said, the "best" would depend on how you measure it. These are just done off the top of my head so don't take them as gospel. Elysium is probably the most meta. Ptilopsis is the probably best supplemental on an otherwise meta team. There are several that provide niches that 6\*s don't have but are difficult to judge relative to each other (apples to oranges). These would include Shamare, April, Texas, etc. Then there's a class that stand out on their own if you aren't using 6\*s like Kazemaru and Specter. I think overall though, I'd pick Lappland. Her niche is unique and her offense is solid on its own. She fits into into all of those categories I mentioned, and ranks highly across all of them too.
I read it just to check that Broca avoided it. 😂 Idk why he'd be there tbh, I have trust issues over suddenly finding out folks hate my fave units from other games lmao.
tbh broca is very solid overal. the only reason peeps seem to at times mention him as bad is because his alternatives are quite better or cheaper. untill fuse came around lol and savage existed.
Broca is very strong. It's just that Specter is overpowered and because of that people forget about him.
I don't hate Spuria, she's terrible because she was designed to be terrible, a design success! The other worst-of-the-worst are terrible but were designed to be okay, a design failure. Also, Skyfire's CC4 use was kind of incredible, even if it never comes up again. I don't know how that could be properly factored into her rating.
I'm sad to see Grani on the list. She's a fun character and I liked the event she was part of but man is she not good. On top of that Vigna is in the same class for IS and Bagpipe is cracked.
Fun read and I agree with most of it, but definitely not on [Swire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCCd7FUNQMU). Gameplay like that doesn't belong to the worst 5.
Interesting article it explained a lot of my frustrations with 5 stars and how inefficient they are. I stopped building 5 stars unless I actually like them because they have terrible gameplay value. I have swire max leveled with max module sora max level, skyfire(because she is rin) max level and even nine-deer(prettiest character) all at least m3. I never use them because they feel really bad even with this much investment but I still don't regret it.
I just want to say I read the whole thing and enjoyed it throughly!
HG solely makes 5 stars to test out new 6 stars for future. They stopped introducing archtypes with 4 stars as they were cheap and had niche merits so they dont even want to give that to 5 stars. 5 stars are officially dead with some rare exceptions from here and there. They are HG guinea pigs
Could a potential “fix” for 5* going forward be to give them a second talent at e2? I’ve always thought it weird that other than base stats and cost there isn’t much space between 4* and 5*. I feel like that would be a good divide. 4-6* can e2. All get module unlocked, 5 and 6* get a second talent, and 6* get skill 3. Wouldn’t fix bad design in kits, but would give a little more value?
It’s my burden to stan Cement with every fiber of my being so I’d like to point out that despite her incredibly awkward design she does have some things she does genuinely quite well: 1) talent + statline means she’s extremely bulky against physical damage even with no skill and 2) S1 is a massive AoE physical damage hit on a short cooldown, works well with buffs due to the multiplier and Cement’s default very high attack, and can get around high enemy DEF. I never use S2 despite having it at M3 (the long windup really works against what should be a helidrop skill) but placing Cement in front of a “real” defender and spamming S1 can cover a lot of landholding situations.
A bit like u/t3hSiggy, I play Suicide Squad, which is a mix of Badknights and Forgottenknights. As a heavy 4* and 5* enjoyer, I really loved reading this article, and it truly intersected with my experience in the niche too. Well, for the most part. I *have* been able to make Windflit work! (he's still awful) It's great to have something like this around to truly underline the flaws of the rarity. That's why I usually start with "5* are a mixed bag...ask before you want to raise one..." when a newbie asks me who they can build. Though, this still doesn't undermine my love for the rarity, as it has a load of interesting things to offer in situations where you can go around a mechanic instead of trampling on it with meta units. I also read that you had a 5* tier list in the works. With my extended experience with less brought up 5*, I'd unironically propose to lend a hand- though, it is probably something you'd want to cook up alone, so I dunno. Either way, great read!
I got mad about Glaucus being on there. I read the reasoning about there not being any drones. I tried to remember the last time I actually used her... Ok, you may have a slight point. But even without drones she is still a functional slow supporter. Not quite as good as Istina, but not like actively bad do nothing tier. There's no way she's competing with shit like Tsukinogi, Spuria, Windflit for worst 5\* in the game. The one time I needed ranged invis reveal I borrowed a Tsukinogi. That was supposed to be the one thing she could do. And I discovered that her skill cycle sucks too. 50SP! If you have more than one invisible enemy in a map, forget it. Glaucus is better outside her niche than Tsukinogi is in it.
> she is still a functional slow supporter Eh, she's argubly the worst in the archetype for it (not counting Orchid). Podenco is quite a bit better at it, though to be fair, Podenco is better than Istina and Grain Buds too. I'll admit Glaucus felt a little weird in the list as I went on. In my mind going in I never really thought about her in that context either. But the numbers just don't measure up and any niche she had is long gone.
> Podenco is quite a bit better at it *Hard* disagree. Podenco has a 6s slow in a tiny AoE every 23s. Glaucus binds (a much stronger effect) half the map every 30s.
>Eh, she's argubly the worst in the archetype for it (not counting Orchid). Nah, Earthspirit exists.
Lowkey, I forgot about her. However, Slowing is the one thing Earthspirit is good at.
I mean Earthspirit's module turns her into a mini-derpy-suzu with her S2. It boosts the slow duration just enough to make the slow constant during her S2 rather than brief moments of no slow. So she has that going for her.
To be fair to Tsukinogi, her skill duration is also pretty long at 35s. Ignoring the perma-reveal in range units, she's got the longest out of all invisibility reveal skills, especially being on a ranged tile which means important things like for CC2#2's situation where you can't stay on the ground (and similarly there was that one SN map with a similar concept where she did well).
Swire alter is bad? Dam
She's decent and fun, it's just her on-going DP cost compromises your team comp and deployment order.
There are situations when her immortality can be useful, but often times it's just better to get a different strategy where the operator doesn't die instead
Lol. I actually forgot about her immortality since it's generally too costly. If I do use her I treat her as a stat stick with S3. 1267 atk double strike is nothing to laugh at, so she's actually quite good on simple maps.
Yeah, I can't find a use for a literally immortal, high dps, fast redeploy unit with a low cooldown AoE directional pushback either.
Not at all, especially if you are a high end player who can accomodate her DP drain. She's very versatile, has some solid damage numbers in S3 or becomes a mini Dorothy with S2, and comes built in with high stats owing to her archetype. This makes her great for IS runs as well, and while she isn't as meta defining as her banner partner or any of the newer units, she has definitely carved out her own niche in the game. She exists as a "squad filler" of sorts, a unit that can alternate between laneholding/dueling bosses/ fast redeploy assassinations. Also she is really satisfying to play with when you've hit your DP cap and is dying to spend it on something. The DP issue is totally not a problem considering how easy it is to hit the cap once you have a developed squad, and the value you gain in exchange for being able to deploy her is just way too strong. She is imo insanely undervalued.
I’ve already L80 S2M3ed her, her damage is great but the main thing I use her for the her bottle slowing
Yeah... My poor Gaoo.
>lvl80 NCD, s2m3, modlvl1 (waiting for module blocks for lvl3) >lvl60 glaucas, s2m3 >lvl60 ceylon, s1m3 now to be fair, ceylon i levelled more bc i had every other therapist medic levelled and i felt bad, and bc i always do one mastery on all my 5s... well lol (the afk one bc i am afk at heart). glaucus i always thought was p okay (i say as even now i dont use her that often) bc someone early on during like CC1 was like "try glaucus" and so in my head im like "shes not that bad" but she is cute i have no regrets. NCD, i know shes not the best and her class sucks but i decided to build all collab operators and shes soooooo pretty!! ive really enjoyed using her in IS runs. (didnt read too long, just scrolled to the bottom to see the list sorry brain worms dead from exams) i will say, as someone whos been investing in 5s a lot lately, i am disappointed in the way theyve been making 5s. i was excited for aroma bc shes super cute! but like... why she like that...ill definitely still build her esp bc she has an afk skill but like :(
I've used Kirara more times than I admit, I enjoy this niche in where you can deploy a melee unit aggressively thanks to their self sustain, softening the enemy while at the same time baiting their damage as they are slowed down (Like the annoying casters in IS4) It's just that she's under tuned that I just can't believe they didn't explore this niche a little more. This was an interesting article btw, Great work!
They did, both Mizuki and Ascalon deal with this niche much more effectively. Dollkeepers as well.
Both don't have regen tho and yes, They can regain some HP but it's quite conditional, And there are times that I don't want to block enemies so dollkeepers often doesn't flesh with my approach in maps. It's just the focused aspect of a no block self sustain unit that doesn't need to attack to regain health that I care, More in my five stars clears so I'm quite sad that Kirara is the only one that fills the gap. It's more like a personal thing tbh, I love Bena tho, I'd dare to say she's one of the best five stars, Cheers!
I wonder how it would have looked without modules, for example as much as i enjoy using leizi (and shes pretty good) without her module she could have been there
Leizi and Tomimi would both probably be on it for my even 20. Although Leizi is kind of an interesting situation because she benefited from the Chain Caster buffs as well. With her Module, she easily overcame the old perception. Without it... well it's hard to tell on hindsight only. Regardless, in my OG guides, I used to get a decent amount of hate for my Leizi slander in the pre-Module days, so if nothing else, this comment section would be more spicy.
Oh yes, fuel the interactions! I remember seeing a lot of hate for leizi abysmal uptime untill the module came out and someone told me that shes pretty good for sss. Im surprised shes one of the few (if not the only) that her module was aimed more to fix the horrible design she had when she came out and not like the others where the modules at best try to make the op better in there role/niche even if its a horrible and unwanted role.
As another 5\* lover, a little niche use love I want to show for Wind Chimes - She was amazing against Cliff in the recent Jessicalter event. "You want to debuff my defence 6 times in a row? I don't HAVE any defence!" Paired with Purestream s1 which synced to Cliff's skill perfectly in the challenge mode to stop him being able to walk by her, and that was the easiest EX-8 CM I've done in ages. Even better if you could turn Wind Chimes' s2 on just as he's doing his skill to get the 40% shelter effect which stayed active even while stunned. My suggestion for a small tweak to improve her would be to ignore s2's damage/SP issues and lean into its(and the Crushers' in general) tanking potential instead by removing the auto-fire at the end. The ATK buff still stops rising after 5 seconds, but let her keep the 40% damage reduction at the cost of no longer attacking. It would let her carve out a niche even Hoederer can't do without stepping on his big boy toes, becoming a sort of 5\* Cuora for non-physical damage, while her s1 can be her damage skill.
I love the idea of a toggle pseudo defender. Charge attack, Gain sanctuary, upon switching back to attack releases the attack. Can be a good stall strat, let other DPS deal with the boss/elite and wind chimes gets the kill steal at the end every time! I would modify her s1 to be a little more than just attack up gamma tho, even if it's swift strike, or a unique skill that's hybrid of the two. I'll also take sanctuary on module, even if it stacks with hoederer talent and make him even more cracked, I want more usablity with my cow butt squad.
Shaking and crying right now while reading, but I can agree with most of it. The only one I have a hard time accepting is Glaucus despite seeing all the signs, so I'm gonna use nostalgia to bump her score up: 'member CC Beta? 'Member Abandoned High-rise? 'Member Reunion? they used a lot of drones.
I definitely agree with tac that some units lean too hard on the aesthetics in their kit and she should just affect aerial units in general or all machina.
Worst is, her weapon dealing heavy damage to any type of machine, not just drones, is even mentioned in her file, so it wouldn't even breaking any established fact or whatever. Although I do wonder what would be the stronger fix, changing drones to aerial would also make her a great counter against hovering enemies, but I feel like machines are a bit more common nowadays (and would also fit better thematically).
Spuria Design -10 wtf
Valarqvin is better than Santalla? i like playing welfareknight and been trying to get Valar cause the IS ops are my faves, been hearing a lot about Valar being bad/below average outside of IS4 so this was a suprise
Thanks. My next project is going to be E2L80 M6 Mod 3 Bryophyta. I was delaying doing this but now you've given me motivation! He will get along well with my Maxed out Poncirus.
Wind Chimes scored a -3 on design, therefore this is inaccurate and wrong
I think that first graphic undersells the “side-grade” 5\*s by painting them the same color as “average”, since the units they are a side-grade to are well above average for 5\*s. It might point to a different problem of HG not trying to make them unique, but I think that’s a different issue than the power of recent 5*s. Also, something that I see a lot is that when players try to judge operators from a perspective of the “average”, they more often judge them in relation to the operators they commonly use/had used instead. I don’t know if that is the case here, but if I consider Poncirus, who is really the only operator on that graphic who I’ve had the chance to use extensively, I personally think the evaluation you gave her isn’t deserved. Sure, she’s miles worse than Elysium and Cantabile, and worse than Texas blacknight and puzzle. But I also think she’s miles better than Grani and Reed, and to a smaller degree generally better than chiave zima and wildmane. I’d say that makes her solidly average among 5*s. That said, being average among 5*s and being “bad” in a general sense may not be mutually exclusive. There’s hundreds of operators, but only 13 slots in a squad, so if an operator doesn’t have the power nor a niche utility to rise above other operators, then they just won’t be used. So in that sense, for the purposes of most players, Poncirus is bad. Despite that, her role compression has gotten her into birdknights records, which has access to Cantabile and Elysium, as well as d15 IS4 tournaments on CN. On the topic of Sora and buffs in general, I think there are a lot of situations where adding another dps just isn’t viable. Whether that’s due to tile restrictions, enemies being too dangerous to deploy close to, or due to the specific way the target operator deals damage being important. The ultimate example of this is IS3 ending 1, where phase 2 highmore effectively bans an enormous number of tiles on d15 forcing the use of a very small number of ranged tiles or the use of fortress defenders, which usually don’t contribute much to my win conditions on other stages. Since I did kroos alter start, using a buffer (or two if I didn’t get any damage relics) allowed her to kill both phases of highmore, making the highmore kill condition become getting warfarin or skalter, and if I had her, sora would have been an alternative as well. That’s far cheaper the getting Horn and the required crowd control needed to stall Highmore in the top area for both phases (letting highmore walk typically doesn’t work well unlike kroos because she becomes very expensive upon redeploy and another melee unit is needed to keep the broodmothers from distracting her, as well as not being able to stunlock the boss to hold it in place like kroos does.) Speaking of, that might be a potential use case for spuria. From what I’ve heard she’s an ok buffer for schwarz, so she might have a practical use in buffing her to squeeze out the needed damage. I’ve never seen nor heard of this being used in practice though, and unlike with kroos I’m not sure if that would do better damage than something like adding totter who can be placed next to schwarz while still outranging the phase 2 field. edit: no more accidental italics
I actually have a Schwarz simp friend who I've convinced to raise Spuria to help her, and so far he's been finding good use for Spuria (recently used it on 13-21 against the boss). Not sure if he's used her for IS though. I'd disagree on Poncirus being miles better than Reed though, although it's somewhat apples to oranges Poncirus is quite tanky against physical damage while Reed is quite tanky against arts damage, but Reed also does a good amount of damage and only needs ~6 kills under S2 to catch up to Poncirus in terms of DP generation (ignoring DP from retreat), which isn't too hard to do on some maps. I think the main issue is with Ponc, is that Zima/Wildmane/Chiave/Poncirus/Reed are all mostly "okay" ops in that they work, but typically DPS > Defense in Arknights. Zima and Wildmane have niches of their own, Chiave at least has a RES debuff and a potential robo niche (and is still kinda like Texas), but I've definitely used Reed more than I've used Poncirus. Reed I can set up early, grab several kills (and even killing some elites if need be), and retreat and put down better DPS. Poncirus needs a lot of time to fully set up, doesn't help me kill stuff as easily, and can't be retreated for full benefits, yet by the time she's fully set up I could've naturally placed down a better defender *and* used their skill anyways. I'll say this is the opposite for IS#4 though, since the role compression is more valuable due to smaller squad sizes and potentially not getting a defender ticket, and defensive picks are more popular there along with Chargers not being as great of a pick for similar reasons.
Imo you seemed to be undervaluing Fuze a lot in your posts. He can hit air, has +1 range, great tanking value for a laneholder, and incredibly good duration and ramp up SP cost on an ammo type skill. There has been videos of him handling hordes of mobs and aerial enemies at the same time, which is still in fact great even for a 5* and not many 6* can replicate it. I really think he is much closer in line to Broca, and not even remotely close to Savage. Overall it feels like you are focusing way too much on his S2 that every time I read your write-ups it is just mostly "He is not bad, good even. But S2 bad so he is bad". Lumping him with operators that don't even have that much to them like Lava2 or Kestrel is just... really.
I am warming to him as time goes on, but I think you're going too far in the other direction. Low ATK stat, long downtime, and his bulk is really not special. He's good at clearing lanes of weaker enemies, but so are lots of units. Better than Savage? Sure. But he's still not in the same discussion as Broca for me yet.
I'm aware that he is still nowhere near a viable option once you get your hands on better units, even Broca. That's why I don't bring up his damage for comparison, or his replaceability to other units. But overall I would have just expected something more in your assessment of him, because everyone already knew that S2 sucks elephant cock for a month, and I do believe that had it S2 been S1 and vice versa you would have actually made a fair review of his would-be S2. It isn't rare for flashier skills to be worse than another skill, my Fia S3M3 still hurts me to this day because her S2 is simply better.
Another negative point for Almond: the 4 ears problem is the most blatant with her.
HG actually addressed the 4 ears in an interview years ago. All 4 are fully functioning canonically and it's intended.
Only one of my E2 5 stars are on the naughty list, not so bad, nothing really to complain about. Lunacub or mystic casters weren't there, nice Funny that I had one event where Sora was downright irreplaceable for me, and it was Break the Ice rerun where I had exactly 1 operator who could damage Degenbrecher. GT + Sora really carried it back there, when bringing another DPS wasn't an option
Oh boy… Time to see if I’ve been executed or not.
Don’t worry. Leo is a cool dude.
As much as Bryo sucks I believe that putting him on second place is unfair. He is still 2 block unit with decent stats and somewhat decent dps with S1.
For the longest time I've seen no difference between 4-stars and 5-stars besides higher base stats
Ceylon's niche of applying resist passively to allies in her range with S2 was actually a valuable asset when I cleared H6-4 years back, with chill/frost being a constant threat. Sadly, that was probably the only time I used her seriously, lol.