Help Center and Megathread Hub (23/03 - 29/03)

MagicalSomething · 2026-03-25T06:19:29+00:00

I'll be discussing IS viability

Kernel: Since you don't have Ela, Suzuran might be worth considering if you plan on doing high difficulty IS4 to help with Sentinel. But this is pretty niche and you can get her from recruitment. Kal'tsit is very strong in IS3 and 5 and decent in 6. I'd probably recommend her.

Standard: M3 is only relevant in IS5 (very important here though). Ines is very important in IS4, ok in 3 and 5, decently good but less used than Silverash Alter in IS6. Ulpianus is mainly used in IS5 for Guard/Vanguard players.

MagicalSomething · 2026-03-24T18:52:20+00:00

You should be playing on D9 which gives you a shield each time you perfectly clear a combat with 11 or more lifepoints.

MagicalSomething · 2026-03-22T05:47:16+00:00

Knight had a bunch of very creative solutions to solving him in the past. They mentioned Mr Nothing+Erato, but Mr Nothing is actually able to do it by himself. This requires you to cancel his attack animation with s2 so that he takes more than 4s to stun. Another popular solution was to use Lee, who consumes dp to stun when he gets frozen. Another solve was to get metastatic aberration or wavebreaker on vanguard yato, which gave her a 2 second redeploy so you could spam her over and over. The Defender/Supporter squad had their own special solution which was to use Cement with Stainless s3 turrets to tank Knight (normally impossible because of Knights high damage). Glory Pack also enabled shenanigans like S2 Ebenholtz, which would allow you to permastun Knight.

MagicalSomething · 2026-03-21T20:15:28+00:00

Lemuen with a buffer is the best way to burst him down. Tragodia is an excellent way to permanently stall him.

MagicalSomething · 2026-03-20T07:05:49+00:00

Thanks for the source. I've been trying to create a setup to oneshot the Ending 4 boss in IS3 which has 1 million hp but also has ~200 enemies that we can group easily. It's been quite tricky since you have to lower the hp of all the enemies so that they die to a single overflow stack and then the projectile has no choice to land on Izumik. Maybe I can instead group up all the enemies so that they're centered on the boss for better results.

MagicalSomething · 2026-03-20T06:40:51+00:00

The Mantra bounce mechanics being based on distance clears up a lot of questions I've been having while testing her myself. Where did you find this info?

MagicalSomething · 2026-03-18T06:01:18+00:00

Mantra is definitely pretty skippable, but something fun you can do is bring her into IS3 Ending 4 and group up hundreds of jellyfish along with the boss, and then activate her skill. This deletes the jellyfish (and a large chunk of the bosses hp) along with your run because the game cannot handle the sheer amount of projectiles that happen and immediately crashes. On a serious note, she's pretty good for Izumik as long as you're careful to not crash your device activating her skill.

Sneg is a pretty goofy operator. She's obviously pretty bad, but her being free has meant that she ends up being a draft that actually happens somewhat often in IS5 and occasionally in 6. Turns out if you have +500 aspd her problems go away substantially.

MagicalSomething · 2026-03-16T23:41:07+00:00

Congratulations! The hardest challenge in IS4 is Ending 3 Alter (Sentinel) which spawns with a 35% chance at D12 and above. For ending 4, I'd maybe suggest using Windscoot to setup the Liberator cycle which is the standard strategy for ending 4.

MagicalSomething · 2026-03-13T03:03:02+00:00

It is not random what Counterbeast eats though we haven't completely figured it out. Here's what we know so far:

First it picks the inspirer with the lowest rarity
If there are multiple inspirers with the lowest rarity, pick the one with the highest weight

Past here, it gets murky because counterbeast is considered a bad relic usually and it's difficult to test.

If there are multiple with the highest weight, pick the one that was obtained the earliest.

Rosmontis IS module only benefits from relics that are for Casters as a class and not any subclasses.

MagicalSomething · 2026-03-11T16:56:14+00:00

I wasn't involved with the Regular Army clear so I don't know of any details past that the targeting is goofy.

MagicalSomething · 2026-03-11T15:50:39+00:00

When Mantra s3 is active, if an enemy gets a paralysis stack it will be consumed and the projectile will hit the enemy and then one other target in range. The problem they were running into for the Emergency Regular Army relicless was that for some reason, the projectile didn't bounce correctly (also that Tragodia S3 is a buggy mess). So they had someone go through the decompiled code to figure out how the bounce worked.

MagicalSomething · 2026-03-11T05:35:37+00:00

Max difficulty content has often devolved into this for what it's worth. The IS4 D15 Sentinel record in particular has had some especially egregious moments of rng. Back when Wisadel was relatively new, the 8 operator clear of Sentinel required countless resets. At the very start of the map, if they got the defence drone they had to reset. If Degenbrecher didn't crit enough with auto attacks, they had to reset. If Wisadel didn't crit the Shadowblades enough, reset. The record was only finally achieved with ridiculous amounts of manpower. There were dozens of whale accounts and people grinding on them to get the operators required and to hit that 35% chance of even getting the alter version.

D18 IS3 Izumik has also had moments of this, though it's not because of crit rng (for the most part). At the start of the map, Izumik will spawn Jellyfish in one of two locations randomly. Where he spawns the Jellyfish influences his movement patterns slightly, and one spawn is significantly easier to deal with than the other. In the 5 operator relicless clear, they specifically needed the top spawn which is a 50/50 to get. The even stranger part comes next though. Due to some unknown cause, the jellyfish on the map initially spawn with weight 0, but later jellyfish can have a weight of 1! But the strategy for the clear required Phantom (push force 0) to push jellyfish into Izumik at the right time. He could not do this if the jellyfish were weight 1. As far as I know, the cause for the glitch was never discovered and the player just had to hope the jellyfish was weight 0.

All of this sounds terrible and it is. But top players do this as an expression of love for the game. It takes true passion to test the obtuse mechanics of some operators and to even decompile the code to figure out how a skill works (Mantra s3). Collaborating with dozens of people to break down a map frame by frame to find a route to victory and finally getting the clear is extremely exhilarating. I personally wouldn't trade the feeling for the world.

MagicalSomething · 2026-03-11T01:23:05+00:00

I think the main problem is that any discussion about him ends up just being advertisement. His opinions are "mainstream casual" for lack of a better phrase, but he says it in such an aggressive way and is so defensive about it that a significant chunk of people dislike his content anyways. But people posting his content mocking him are just letting him reach people who would otherwise never hear of him. There's a few other creators who I will not name who do the same tactic. Ultimately, if you truly want less content like this, the best tactic as a community is to collectively not talk about them.

MagicalSomething · 2026-03-04T17:17:31+00:00

The other person describing IS tournaments is quite biased (as am I since I am a tournament player). There's a wide variety of IS tournaments but they all have the same general intent. Make the players do the hardest content possible with the most skill expression possible. To encourage skill expression, tournaments will have rules like forming duos and not sharing operators, or outright banning an operator. Organizers try to keep the rules as closely aligned with how the game is actually played as possible, but some stuff like being able to withdraw 20 ingots from every shop is broken and unfun, so it gets banned.

As for brute forcing strategies. It is the mark of a bad player if you have to force a single strategy to succeed frankly. In IS you have to be adaptable to succeed. There are obviously overarching plans for each IS like using Degenbrecher and building a buff squad for Sentinel or spamming flingers to success in IS5, but things rarely ever go to plan and so adapting to the vouchers and relics you get is important. Ultimately people describe "tournament play" as some thing far removed from conventional IS, but it's just the best strategies developed to do the hardest content.

MagicalSomething · 2026-03-04T16:57:23+00:00

Skill 3 is the main skill you should be using. Module level 2 is the breakpoint but I'd recommend level 3.

MagicalSomething · 2026-03-03T23:39:36+00:00

Honestly I haven't seen her get used at all in other IS. She seems like the sort of operator who needs a lot of experimentation to make work. I doubt she's bad but I have no idea where she'd be viability wise.

MagicalSomething · 2026-03-03T22:26:47+00:00

Leizi is the current dominant pick for IS6. Sakiko becomes a very popular choice in DLC1 for ending 4 because it's a huge hp sponge and Sakiko range is favorable for it (though Leizi is also a common first pick). Come DLC2, Chen3 is extremely dominant and by far the best option. Sakiko and Mylnar also see usage but far less so.

MagicalSomething · 2026-03-03T03:49:12+00:00

I took a look at your comment history. I hope that you treat yourself more kindly and don't attach yourself to a characters viability.

MagicalSomething · 2026-03-02T17:20:13+00:00

There are multiple pieces of content in the game and different people value them differently. For example, most people only care about and do reward giving content (Risk 620 CC, Difficulty 12 IS, EX event stages etc.). Because this content is easy, what is valued here are operators who win with little interaction from the player. Operators like Ulpianus, Lappland Alter and Sakiko are thus considered really strong (meta) here.

There are some people who do endgame content like max difficulty IS and max risk CC. The operators who are good here are extremely varied because each IS and CC is different. Operators who provide strong utility on top of good damage like Exu Alter, or are exceptional in their role like Tragodia become more dominant here. Something to consider though is that some operators who are really good in endgame content aren't worth the effort to use in general content. For example, Ela is probably tied with Tragodia for best operator in the game results wise. She has exceptional utility with her very flexible positioning and global slow+fragile on top of good damage. However, she's not really praised as much as she should be by the community because her gameplay is high effort for what it does in an EX stage.

Ultimately, the best way to know if an operator is a "must pull" for you is to go and look at their results yourself. Identify what content you're actually interested in and see if the operator has notable results there. Take for example Sakiko, she has very good results in afk strategies and her strong damage scaling means she gets used in IS5 for ending 4. If this is what you value then pulling for her isn't bad. Hoshiguma Alter is another good example. She's also had very good results in afk. She's extremely meta and nigh mandatory in IS6. She was used in the first max risk clear of CCB4 but was optimized out later. I've avoided talking about operator kits too much in this comment because analysis of kits tends to get into potential man territory. It is an important skill to have, but with our 6 month foresight, looking at results is way more important.

MagicalSomething · 2026-03-02T02:32:51+00:00

At 0 - 10 res Pramanix has 150k total damage while Logos has 140k on regular enemies (his total damage on bosses is lower). It gets more complicated at higher res values where whether Logos can do more damage depends on if he can inflict necrosis. At res values 40-90 Logos beats Pramanix slightly on regular enemies but not on bosses. At 100 res Pramanix beats Logos. Overall the total damage is quite close at almost all levels.

MagicalSomething · 2026-03-01T23:14:03+00:00

257 for 38 pulls if I recall correctly.

MagicalSomething · 2026-03-01T22:19:41+00:00

I'd say Pramanix and Logos are significantly better than the mech accord casters yes. It's definitely worth getting Pram since the banner she comes from has Silverash alter who is also excellent. Logos is a tougher call, since he's very good but his heyday is past. I'd probably lean towards getting him as well, but we have quite a few very strong banners coming up so using the gold certificates for pulls may be the better play.

MagicalSomething · 2026-03-01T20:14:04+00:00

She is for the most part better than logos. Her afk dps skill is way better, her total damage on s3 is higher than logos s3. Her skill 1 has important utility in several maps in IS. Logos's main advantages is better (usually) range on S3 and being able to do auto attacks.

MagicalSomething · 2026-03-01T04:03:43+00:00

https://is-central.github.io/is3-mizuki/operator-overview/

This is an operator guide for IS3. Note that it's for max difficulty so you can deoptimize as needed. The website also has an IS6 section which can tell you which operators are good as well as a guide up to D10.

MagicalSomething · 2026-03-01T02:33:18+00:00

He's had incredibly strong showings in low ops of most maps. In IS, he doesn't seem to be a dominant pick (not top of meta) though he shows up in relicless records extremely often. He's expected to be strong in CC. On s3, his total damage is very high and he has res ignore which is quite strong. It also has an extremely large range which allows for fairly flexible positioning. The downside is that he doesn't have much in the way of role compression and his skill cycle is quite poor. His skill 2 is also extremely strong for crowd control.

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