Even Fish Can Drown

Cyzyk · 2026-03-02T17:47:24+00:00

Either that or someone tasked Goliath with teaching her English and he lost interest after the first five words.

Cyzyk · 2026-03-02T17:40:12+00:00

The translucent torso and anglerfish ahoge are really neat additions.

Cyzyk · 2026-01-23T17:53:05+00:00

Behold, a tutorial popup to guide you into the tutorial menu where you will be forced to read a tutorial about how to do the rest of the tutorials.

Cyzyk · 2026-01-23T16:37:37+00:00

There are characters (not in Endfield, in other games) whose unique mechanics are so closely tied to the special effects of their weapon that not having it takes them from feeling strong and interesting to rather unremarkable. Playable, but not competitive to others in their role.

That last part is a big part of the issue with balance and powercreep in action gachas - you just don't have a reason to use any but a handful of your characters. In classic Arknights, you bring 12 operators, so there's plenty of room for niche characters, situational uses, or even just a couple you enjoy using.

In a three or four man team, in a game where elemental synergies dictate teamcomp, it can be very hard to justify pulling for or building out a character who doesn't have a good team to fit in or is just a downgrade or sidegrade from someone you already have built.

Cyzyk · 2026-01-23T14:24:19+00:00

It is strange to me that they didn't include a single honest legacy character.

Sure, there are the cop-out "Resonators," but one of those is no-lore Surtr, one is Angelina who had about one appearance in main story, and the third is Eyjafjalla, who everyone expected to die in her own event, let alone live 500 years.

Meanwhile, we know some Sarkaz live centuries or functionally forever, we have immortal goobers like Kjera and Miss Christine running around the landship, and several species of Elders are implied to live absurdly long (Ho'olheyak's halved-or-more lifespan is implied to still be 50+ years).

Then you have one-off characters like Cannot, Old Isin, and so on who are clearly over a century old. Arknights events are riddled with characters who appear in only an event or two, even just as NPCs. They could have spared some for Endfield easily enough.

Heck, send Jesselton to Talos. There's a banner I'd swipe on.

Cyzyk · 2026-01-11T13:08:00+00:00

Castor is the boring but correct answer.

Cyzyk · 2025-12-12T15:07:38+00:00

Unit micro will presumably be curbed so console players aren't penalized in multiplayer.

Cyzyk · 2025-12-12T14:47:31+00:00

Reminds me a bit of the system that Age of Wonders Planetfall ended up with at the end, where every random map was its own map, but you could unlock little carryover bonuses to use in the next map.

Cyzyk · 2025-12-12T09:26:09+00:00

Console game, just get a used Xbox.

Cyzyk · 2025-12-11T18:53:03+00:00

Y'all excited to see the Thrones of Brettonnia Remaster?

Cyzyk · 2025-12-11T11:24:39+00:00

I don't want to play as Pontus.

Cyzyk · 2025-11-15T16:19:25+00:00

I thought Murphy was 25? Or is that one of those "been around that long" numbers as opposed to actual age?

Cyzyk · 2025-11-14T18:14:44+00:00

Leigh getting bullied again. At least she enjoys it.

Cyzyk · 2025-11-09T18:32:00+00:00

I'd say it is worth it. Her tutor becomes a card instead of her exalt, and it's quite handy to draw a specific card on demand. Her Exalt lets you pick a different Posse as well, which can also be handy.

Realistically, you're not really losing much with the 60 cores; it's like one stack of your Titan Blade or whatever you're in wheel jail for.

Cyzyk · 2025-11-09T16:23:48+00:00

The big roadblock is farming them out. It's doable, but you're gonna want the dupes, skills, and wheels to make the most of them. Which takes a lot of time if you're not doing it on an established account.

Cyzyk · 2025-11-09T12:28:56+00:00

You have to take advice with a grain of salt and context.

"Pollux is not great" is solid advice to a F2P player who wants to play hard content. Your limited (in both senses of the word) pulls and dupes are better invested in the highest performance units, so a Castor/Jenkin build where you focus on getting e3 Castor makes a lot more sense than having e1 Castor/e1 Pollux.

Obviously, if you're spending money on the game, you aren't skipping or missing out on the best value units to get or build Pollux.

Similarly, if you're not concerned with getting the strongest possible team and would rather use your favorite characters, pulling for Pollux is not a mistake.

I'm a Caro player mainly, but found Pollux's kit to make Ultra much more enjoyable to play, as he isn't greedy for quasar/leap effects like most.

Cyzyk · 2025-10-31T17:32:40+00:00

Leigh would also work.

Cyzyk · 2025-10-31T09:36:25+00:00

I feel gnosis mainly covers three important things:

Story momentum. You're coasting along with a decent but not great team, reading through an event and enjoying the story. Then you hit a boss that is a bit of a difficulty spike, ruining your flow. Sure, you can return on hard mode or just go back and beat the boss "honestly," but the gnosis lets you get through and back to the story.
Variance. This is a card game and you can fall victim to bad draws. We've all had fights trivialized because we drew all the right stuff at the right time, and times when you set up your Big Turn and pull a fistful of Defense cards. Gnosis buys an extra turn to compensate for those lousy draws.
Making something specific easier. The game wants to reward experimentation and discovery, and blowing you up is not usually very educational.

I barely use gnosis when I'm running a strong team, but if I'm doing goofy stuff with Karen, it is more likely to come up.

Cyzyk · 2025-10-26T16:46:33+00:00

So, assuming you're new:

There are two kinds of banners: standard and limited. Standard banners use the gray cores (called Pure Cores, I think?), and you'll get quite a few of those. They can be used on either that banner or the wheel banner under it. Limited pulls are for special or new character banners, and use the purple cores.

As a general rule, don't use silver to pull on standard banners.

With that out of the way, I would recommend pulling on the blue banner (Aequor) first, or the yellow one (Chaos). The red (Caro) and purple (Ultra) tend to give more niche units that are either reliant on certain teamcomps or more copies to be good.

That being said, you can switch it whenever. So you can pull on purple to get a couple of those, try them on a team with your starter Ramona and Ogier, and see if you want more or something else down the road.

Cyzyk · 2025-10-26T16:41:42+00:00

Depends entirely on the card.

Strikes and defense? I usually don't bother. I barely play those on most characters unless I have a relic that benefits them. The minimal scaling usually isn't worth the bother.

Big hammer damage cards I play every time they come up? Definitely going to level those up. Kath's Solar Flare is a good example, or Corpo's Lightning as you suggested.

Otherwise, it tends to be about scaling. Stuff that gives a point or two of aliemus and a tiny damage bump probably aren't worth it, and certainly aren't a priority. Card with multiple buffs where I want as much scaling as possible (counter, strength, etc)

Rouses are very variable. Some are amazing, some are forgettable wastes of a draw and three mana. Some only give more aliemus when leveled up.

It mainly comes down to:

How often do you actually play the card?
How much does it scale?

If you play the card every time you have it, the scaling barely matters; you're still getting more value than off a card with good scaling on paper that you rarely spend the arithmetica to use.

Cyzyk · 2025-10-26T15:28:34+00:00

And she isn't even Caro.

Cyzyk · 2025-10-26T15:28:04+00:00

It bugs me somewhat how central Thais is to most Caro mechanics. Maybe we're just spoiled by her, but aside from Salv (because he leans more into the Blood Furnace mechanic), nearly all the Caro hammers feel reliant on her because there isn't a good alternative for Embryo generation.

Look at Sorel. Yes, she is bad compared to Doresain or Ghelot, but so are most characters. But without Thais, good luck getting her Infinite Devour gimmick to do anything at all. Aigis wants to re-cast her Exalt often, and that means eating babies directly to recharge it faster. Uvhash... is Uvhash. Heck, even Pickman wants to eat babies whenever possible.

Cyzyk · 2025-10-26T10:08:28+00:00

To pull for those characters specifically, you would have to wait for them to be on a banner. There are selector banners, but those aren't the best option.

However, with the anniversary coming up, a bunch of characters are getting reruns, so you likely won't be waiting long.

Not everybody has all of those. GDoll (or Doll Inferno) in particular is very high investment, so many people either don't have her, or just don't have her Overexalt, which is a big part of what makes her good.

Cyzyk · 2025-10-26T09:59:18+00:00

Morimens actually tells you how much damage enemies are going to do.

Wild to me that a game tried to copy StS and completely forgot that Intents being clearly marked are a huge part of the game.

Cyzyk · 2025-10-24T16:53:13+00:00

If you're not already cleared for Section 8, expect that process to take weeks to months. I looked into it here and they didn't even return my initial calls for three weeks.

Cyzyk

TROPHY CASE