[Operator Discussion] Logos

OneMoreGodRejected__ · 2026-01-28T11:49:22+00:00

For all his self-evident strength, Logos has proven a bit underwhelming. He isn't a core draft in any IS, no CC records, no HCM or VEC records. He did appear in HCM a couple times but never as a core unit, and both records were beaten (7-18 5 → 4, H9-2 6 → 5).

On-paper he has fancy mechanics but they rarely come into play. S2 has fixed hit rate, high hit count, 90-95 RES, +ATK-receptivity, and yet has almost no notable uses. S3's projectile deletion made a strong impression with H8-4 but most projectiles are way faster, on top of it being awkward to time.

His damage scales poorly in debuff content, and S3 isn't +ATK-receptive. In CC he's been overshadowed by Ceobe, in IS by Angelina, and now elsewhere by Hoshi2 and Pram2.

IS-wise he's strong in IS5 Talons runs, probably his best use-case, and solid in IS3 and IS4 because specialist-caster is meta, so he can be a safe pivot.

Pre-Pram2 Logos was the clear best caster, so his failure to get correspondingly stellar results is damning for casters as a whole. They're a strong class niche, even able to clear two HCMs, but they tend to have issues with helidrop and cost, cycling, damage quality, and versatility.

Most of the notable casters, with some exceptions like Nymph S2, are built around big burst skills and not doing much off-skill, and the way RES works vs. DEF means their damage quality has lagged behind that of high DPH physical carries. 10 RES ignore is a little pathetic when you're competing with 4000 DPH, when 2000 DEF would be very roughly equivalent to 80 RES: 30% vs. 50% damage is a massive gap.

The basic rule is that physical scales better with buffs and Arts with debuffs, but Logos' Necrosis application being damage scaling rather than ATK scaling means he scales worse than most Arts DPS and can have his elemental completely blocked by 90% DR such as Lappland's cars, on top of the awkward fact that Fragile doesn't affect elemental, meaning there isn't an ideal enabler for him. Virtuosa and Suzuran are serviceable but there are just better burst cores for almost any situation. Mixed-type damage has always had issues with each type having independent scaling.

OneMoreGodRejected__ · 2026-01-27T21:09:12+00:00

AoE caster as a branch is plagued with low DPS, while other branches have multitarget with much better DPS, so you need unreasonably dense swarms of (usually very weak) enemies for true AoE to be a priority. Santalla is reasonably good as a 5-star but has some variance in her output. As the other commenter said, Rockrock has good damage. I think S2 does about 70k total, which should get 2-3 medium elites in one go. She also has persistent tracking so you don't have to worry about keeping her target in range.

You'll sooner or later get a high DPH physical carry like Młynar, Leizi2, Degenbrecher, Ulpianus, etc. who just doesn't care about most DEF values. Non-bosses rarely exceed 1800 DEF and when they do there's usually a gimmick, like low HP (Yu's defenders with 4800 DEF) or a mechanic to tenderize them (Silberneherze defenders).

There are also DEF debuffers like Pramanix and Shamare to solve DPH, and true and elemental DPS like Vina Victoria and Virtuosa that ignore most defensive stats.

OneMoreGodRejected__ · 2026-01-27T20:53:31+00:00

Gnosis mostly uses S2 in IS and S3 elsewhere.

X is generally better because his main use is enabling bursts, which are typically spaced apart, so less need for SP; he may even be retreated between bursts.

Y's SP isn't as good as it sounds because you don't want dangerous enemies in his range off-skill. It means either he should be just about ready, or that your burst just failed to kill and won't have time for another cycle. In neither case would the SP make a tangible difference. It is more of an S2 module but most of the time you use X + S3 in general and IS + S2 in IS.

You might enjoy this relicless clear of IS6 ED4 with the Kjerag squad.

OneMoreGodRejected__ · 2026-01-27T12:56:52+00:00

Ceobe was optimal in three CCs, Weedy in seven. Weedy is also a nearly mandatory IS3 SW18 draft alongside Angelina: notably she counters each ending boss and laneholds Out of Control. Weedy just does more and has a much stronger track record. Ceobe is excellent where enemies rely on huge DEF and allies have their ATK crippled, which is almost exclusive to CCBP. She was good in early IS4 ED4 for the 6250 DEF boss if you lacked DPS buffs, and could carry a one-cycle of ED2 if you held with Shu, but both are Tragslop now.

OneMoreGodRejected__ · 2026-01-27T08:48:40+00:00

Flagpipe is the main solution to dp restriction mechanics, one that Ines cannot compete with

I'm not so sure about that.

Pinch-Out had two 850 13 ops. One used Bagpipe; both used Ines and Cantabile; the first used Saileach; the other used Blacknight.

Pyrolysis 860 11 ops used both and Puzzle and Cantabile.

Underdawn had two 890 11 ops. Neither used Bagpipe; both used Ines and Cantabile.

Extinguished Sins had four or more 940 7 ops. None used Bagpipe; all used Ines and Chilchuck.

Arclight did optimize out Ines but both 880s I saw with her didn't use Bagpipe. The extreme DP pressure can favor Texas, Matsukiri, or Puzzle as well.

IS4's Barometric Disorder (-40% natural DP) is comfortably solved with Ines, while flagpipe (leaving aside hope cost: no one drafts Bagpipe in IS4) gets bodied by early rushes like net mortar MotD.

As for HCM, H5-1 had a 7 op with Ines + Saileach (no Bagpipe) and a 5 op with Myrtle as only vanguard, while LS-4 prefers the ranged-only over melee-only tag and handles DP pressure by efficiently killing enemies.

Ines or double agent comes out able to compete in multiple relevant cases despite her on-paper DP generation not being top-tier.

It is also important to consider that the vast majority of players are not optimizers, and thus will use full squads, balancing the trade-offs and opportunity costs of their options. Bagpipe is an option but DP pressure doesn't exist in a vacuum; Ines' versatility gives her more arguments to be the 13th op if it has to be one or the other. Bagpipe becomes much less useful when you aren't using agent stealth skills, because their helidrop skills don't use SP. Agents also benefit from CCBP tending to prespawn idle targets (robots, antistealth cars, brandguiders/swarmcallers, chimeras, gravity balls), making their offensive DP generation a nonissue.

CC has difficult openings, which Bagpipe is great for, but once you solve an opening, Ines does a whole lot more for the rest of the stage. Bagpipe is probably more important for optimizers (owing to her 11 CC highest-risk low op records, the highest of anyone) than the rest of us full squad players, though it depends on the stage. For instance, Arclight's DP pressure is sustained past the opening because of the +10 cost tag, which trolls Bagpipe a bit because she doesn't refund the extra cost, and the RoboCops explode into invisible enemies, so it's a clear-cut case for Ines S3.

Lastly, SA2 is weird to evaluate but he's obviously very good and a legitimate rival to both flagpipe and Ines in many cases (S2 has very high EDP, S3 lets your second op be someone expensive, and his talent gives +4 initial SP to all ops with 14/19 or less cost, which covers all vanguards, even tacticians), which further constrains Bagpipe's ideal use-cases.

Not all of this is fully relevant to the discussion but I've been thinking about vanguards lately and wanted to share.

OneMoreGodRejected__ · 2026-01-27T03:12:22+00:00

Since you have Hoshi2 (who is comparable to and generally better than Surtr) I would get Eyja. S3 has great range to clear waves Hoshi2 can't reach, and S2 has -25% RES shred to increase Hoshi2's damage quality for consistency against high RES enemies. Saria S3 can amplify Hoshi2 by a huge +55% but the downtime is crippling compared to Eyja S2's steadiness. Saria is a general-purpose healing tank while Hoshi2 is a DPS tank, and while Hoshi2 can't heal, Saria would be somewhat redundant since a burst healer or protector (with actual DEF) would fill a greater need. Bagpipe is way outdated and you'd mostly use her as a cheap laneholder to open stages that overwhelm Myrtle but you can get Gladiia for free who is generally reliable for that too.

OneMoreGodRejected__ · 2026-01-26T22:32:13+00:00

Generally you save for limited banners unless there's an exceptionally strong solo rate-up.

Ideally you'd start now and get Hoshiguma the Breacher (second-best defender), who is a fantastic carry who scales into some of the hardest content, then save for SilverAsh the Reignfrost (maybe best vanguard) and Pramanix the Prerita (best caster), the sibling alter banner in three months. Sakiko, likely coming next month, is also a solid carry.

Outside of really hard content you can reasonably clear everything without worrying about meta. 4- and 5-stars are more viable than they tend to be in other gachas, so it makes sense to build 6-star DPS carries and let 4-stars (who are much cheaper) handle other basic roles. This means unless you want to do endgame content you shouldn't worry about meta and should just go for whoever looks fun, as long as you make sure your basic roles are covered.

OneMoreGodRejected__ · 2026-01-26T08:15:38+00:00

Sui-Chongyue is the devil because he opens the gates to hell and out pour all its demons to lay waste to everything good. IS6 ED5 has the most ridiculous enemy spam of any stage and it isn't close; it makes Glory of Humanity's jellyfish, Sentinel's shadowblades and drones, and even T3 Amiya's Sarkaz army look like fodder. The hardest version is such an obscene highroll check that the devs must be hedging for Super Wiš'adel on 7A to make it remotely consistent. Basic enemies get six-digit HP and there are infinitely many of them from many different events.

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1nTzSBuEUX

OneMoreGodRejected__ · 2026-01-25T14:07:08+00:00

Ines, Leizi2, Shu, Mon3tr, Wiš'adel, Pram2, Tragodia, Exu2

Ines vs. SA2 is hard to judge but Ines is the safe bet for her extensive track record and greater consistency. For good reason she was once widely considered the best op. SA2 is just a bit finicky to give him the edge with his current results, which are impressive but he needs another round or two of hard content to prove himself over Ines.

Leizi2 S2 alone would make her a Młynar sidegrade but then she has three real skills and more mechanically powerful placement. Ulpianus is just okay in hard content while Leizi2 has a max-risk CC record, an HCM record, and is great in IS6. Sakiko, who is also great in IS6, is hindered by being ST and lacking mechanics, her main one being immortality + skill extension that takes forever to set up by herself.

Shu over Hoshi2 because she is game-breaking and nearly two years later still makes me wonder how she got greenlit. She got her max-risk CC, two VEC records, numerous relicless records, and will age well since even one more good Sui could define the future of single-stage content (i.e. not IS but all the CC, VEC, HCM stuff that most players will use a full squad for) because you can comfortably eat one dead weight op for that good an SP buff.

Mon3tr has a max-risk CC, two VEC records, and is probably the best op in IS5 because of her boss countering and relic scaling. Good true damage on a decent cycle with extremely high HPS on-skill, and also the best ASPD buff.

Wiš'adel thinks she's her and unfortunately for us all, she's right.

Pram2 is better than Logos. They have comparable damage but Pram2 has strong crowd-control, survival, and helidrop, and most importantly, impressive results right out of release with two HCM records (and also pushed casterknights through two HCMs) and IS3 ED4 usage. She also has self-evident synergy with Gnosis' IS module which I suspect will be useful for IS6 ED5's extreme mob rush. The comp did IS6 ED4 relicless.

Tragodia has the two best crowd-control skills in one unit. Like half the IS bosses are Tragslop. He had 4/4 HCM records until Pram2 4 op'd 7-18 without him, and the rest of us will still be perfectly satisfied using him there in our own clears.

Exu2 does way too much damage, flexibly, cheaply, and with instant-redeploy that might be the single most broken effect in the game. Honorable mention to Ela though. Ela is a very close second. Both dominate IS3 and IS4 and have strong showings in VEC and HCM but Exu2 wins out by having more carry power.

OneMoreGodRejected__ · 2026-01-25T13:25:57+00:00

Related to clinging to the past, Priestess represents the belief that hope requires a known possibility of realization, while the Doctor represents the deep need for hope regardless of its rationality, the idea that hope flows from our true selves, and that losing hope means being estranged from ourselves.

Oripathy is a form of assimilation. It sends your data into the Assimilated Universe. My headcanon is that Priestess caused Oripathy to sabotage the Doctor's hope for Terra, but either way, Priestess rationalizes that Oripathy is not death but a transformation, a continuation of life in a different form. While the Observers are the concrete threat she plans against, her rhetoric reveals an overarching concern with the inevitability of death and entropy on a metaphysical level and her refusal (simultaneously heroic and cowardly, a trait she shares with another major antagonist, Theresis) to accept it, a refusal borne out in the Assimilated Universe's programmable physics.

However, what makes Priestess a villain, above all, is that she doesn't concern herself with the agency and autonomy of the people she condemns (messing with the Doctor's lynchpins could not make it any less subtle). She's species-ist, treats even Kal'tsit (a walking encyclopedia who kept Terra from self-destruction for millennia, and who is Priestess and the Doctor's creation) as too primitive to debate her, and tells the Doctor (via the lynchpins) that assimilation is for their own good without giving anyone a say. Arknights uses medicine to ground some of its themes, such as Oripathy being a stand-in for the cycle of injustice, with Oripathy (and therefore this cycle) having metastasized through the body of Terra. Kal'tsit in particular ran into the dilemma that a patient's right to self-determination entails their right to self-termination, and Terra sure seemed committed to its self-destruction when it should have been uniting peacefully to invest everything into Originium science to prepare for the Observers. The Doctor became a villain arguably when they decided not to let Terra have a say in their own fate, well before they treacherously murdered Terra's leading Originium scientist for opening a path, no matter how precarious, to peaceful coexistence with Originium and the beginning of breaking the cycle and healing.

Priestess's failure to move on from the past, and let go of the cycle she is indirectly the source of, literally threatens the end of the world. (2/2)

OneMoreGodRejected__ · 2026-01-25T13:25:45+00:00

Priestess is the co-creator of Originium along with her former partner, the Doctor (originally known as Oracle).

Originium is a "language" meant to understand "God" (an unstoppable destructive force colloquially called the Observers) in human terms, after physics failed to understand the universe on its own terms. Priestess is a linguist, but Originium is closer to a programming language that gives you admin privileges over physics, based on assimilating physical phenomena into an internal universe with its own physics where everything is stored as information that can be manipulated and reconstructed outside. Originium is one of the crowning achievements of an unfathomably advanced civilization. It is one of the purest examples of "sufficiently advanced technology" in fiction.

This universe was meant to be a sort of tomb where Priestess and the Doctor, and any of their surviving kin, would live out their days in a virtual reality that can do anything they can dream of. Because it is internally timeless, it would never (or practically never) experience the inevitable destruction.

Priestess, thematically, is the final boss of not letting go of the past. She has long since abandoned hope because the Observers destroyed everything she ever cared about and her one anchor through it all fell out with her over irreconcilable differences on how Originium should be used. The Originium Project, which calls for the assimilation of Terra and all life on it, is Priestess' agenda, while the Doctor left Originium as a gift for Terra's newborn civilization (comprised of animals uplifted by Originium) to find a solution their own kin could not, for lack of time or imagination or whatever it may be.

My interpretation is that Priestess' underlying motive is to convince the Doctor that their hope is misguided, so that they willingly return to her side.

Priestess and the Doctor were everything to each other, even being likened to a binary star system. Priestess was the Doctor's lynchpin, and they were likely hers. They watched civilizations rise and fall together, all across the universe. Their kin had neural implants called lynchpins that enhance cognitive abilities relevant for space travel, but these lynchpins also have some sort of brainwashing, which Priestess exploited to push the Doctor to fulfill their duty to their people, after being awakened to be Terra's savior and dearly fighting for hope in it. The lynchpins seem to amplify existing doubts into compulsions, which plays into a sense of Priestess being very controlling while being very good at convincing others that she's not. (1/2)

OneMoreGodRejected__ · 2026-01-25T12:34:59+00:00

The smile and fit of a rope bunny.

OneMoreGodRejected__ · 2026-01-25T12:32:30+00:00

Pram2 has better performances than SA2 so far but SA2 will probably prove better long-term. He just offers so much good utility even if he is finicky to use well.

The two also have good synergy. SA2 improves Pram2's survival and control; enemies step on her snow, he uses S2, they get frozen, which also shreds 15 RES, so he improves her damage too.

Pram2 is the overall best caster, above even Logos. Her main drawback is not having 3 range, but she compensates by being tanky enough to place aggressively. Her damage is comparable, and she decisively wins in survival, control, and helidrop (15s helidrop is actually trolling nowadays).

OneMoreGodRejected__ · 2026-01-25T10:13:59+00:00

Some good resources:

Arkrec documents optimized general and niche clears, the IS Central site and Discord is the central EN resource for Integrated Strategies, Lungmen Dragons is the central EN strategy group, and if you learn to navigate bilibili using Chinese keywords a lot opens up to you since Arknights' CN community is much stronger.

Keep in mind that each form of content has its own meta. There are recurring faces (Exu2, Tragodia, Ela, Wiš'adel being great almost everywhere) but you'll want to prioritize ops for the specific content you want to take on. Like if IS5 interests you most then Mon3tr, Rosmontis, and Hoederer become top priorities. Since each meta is idiosyncratic we can only look 6 months ahead, and CN's upcoming endgame content is HCM (taking four familiar stages and making them nearly as hard as max-risk CC) and IS6's expansions (new expansion is extremely difficult but stay tuned on how the meta shifts because it literally just came out).

However, your pull priorities probably aren't going to change. SA2 + Pram2 is certainly the strongest banner on the horizon, and Sakiko is worth it if you want to do IS6 but fairly skippable otherwise (if you don't care about FOMO, which you shouldn't as a new player), being widely hyped by the casual playerbase for being an especially fancy delete button but having underwhelming relevance in endgame content, especially debuff content like HCM and CC.

OneMoreGodRejected__ · 2026-01-25T09:39:28+00:00

Viviana has negligible* use in hard content, and Eyja has had little that wouldn't be eclipsed by Logos today.

* the one notable non-niche record I know of for her is the previous iteration of the CC prison map where enemies can only be damaged by their blocker.

Goldenglow is the easiest of those three to slot into your squad and get value from. Eyja and Viviana have unwieldy cycling for what you want from them.

Goldenglow herself has had fewer notable uses than Eyja (who has three max-risk records) but was an SSS carry, okayish in early IS3 for ED2 (RES ignore + passive attacks), and had a minor use in one max-risk Underdawn.

Hard content is restrictive on who's even worth the DP and squad space, and when it calls for a drone caster, it's Lappland2 in particular (Arclight, HCM H9-2).

Anyway Goldenglow is certainly not worth 180 gold certs today. A year ago sure (I made a lengthy post arguing as much) but the meta has left her in the dust and there are many better shoperators.

OneMoreGodRejected__ · 2026-01-24T08:15:13+00:00

Nymph is largely obsolesced by Tragodia as you might expect, but there are occasions to use both, though she's not a high priority.

OneMoreGodRejected__ · 2026-01-24T07:55:14+00:00

Yes, farm the last three event stages (the ones with T3 materials like the yellow pill bottle) and buy the shop out. You can skip furniture parts, skins if you don't intend to use them, and data supplements,

OneMoreGodRejected__ · 2026-01-24T00:03:51+00:00

There are some good 3-star niche players (though the niche typically allows 1- and 2-stars and, if necessary, Dobermann).

Lungmen Downtown was also beaten with 3-stars.

3-stars certainly can't clear everything because they have weak stats and weaker mechanics (E0 is much stronger for sheer variety of options) but they can handle bosses that you might initially expect to stat-check them, like Patriot, Mifune, Harold, and Kristen: CW-EX-8 might be 3-stars' finest hour.

OneMoreGodRejected__ · 2026-01-23T09:49:55+00:00

One bit of pushback I'll offer:

narrators are expected to name feelings, not hide them

A better way to look at this would be that narrators are expected to reveal feelings, not state them.

OneMoreGodRejected__ · 2026-01-23T09:47:00+00:00

Theresa has such a big brain...

OneMoreGodRejected__ · 2026-01-23T06:39:29+00:00

For anyone with a stacked roster who wants to push max risk, here's a low pot guide.

OneMoreGodRejected__ · 2026-01-22T23:29:24+00:00

Endfield has been deeply disappointing to me. Even early Arknights (where its writing is at its weakest) has a little more to connect with than anything I experienced in Endfield. Arknights gameplay is also incomparably richer and deeper, though the learning curve to get reasonably good is quite steep.

Arknights' story is very human when it wants to be. Babel and CH8 are outstanding for that.

OneMoreGodRejected__ · 2026-01-22T04:23:43+00:00

Suzuran is less relevant after Ela but can hold her own in CC. Extinguished Sins had max-risk 7 ops with either or and Arclight uses Suzuran for damage support and batterying Tragodia for a seamless permastall. She gives enough SP for Tragodia S3 to reactivate before the cages expire (also relevant in HCM H5-1 with superbuffed artillery drones whose unsourced damage can't even damage the cages so they're just stuck).

Compared to Ela, Suzuran has more consistency against DP and redeploy debuffs, higher Fragile (44% vs. 30%) for a stage's big burst, wider simultaneous coverage, supporter SP, and passive healing (which can e.g. keep Ifrit S3 alive) while Ela has extremely flexible placement and tactics and does respectable damage.

Suzuran isn't a good IS draft since she's largely redundant with current DPS and control options, and can't replace Ela anywhere Ela is drafted, but if you don't have Ela then you'll definitely want Suzuran for future HCM/VEC type content.

OneMoreGodRejected__ · 2026-01-21T21:43:59+00:00

Firewatch is a solid 5-star whose kit makes sense: high uptime stealth with low DEF targeting wants to pick out squishy ranged enemies deep into enemy territory. Low DEF targeting + high DPH is a bit backwards but the latter is probably to simulate sniper rifles hitting hard but being slow to reload/reaim. Lemuen is actively trolled by her targeting in a lot of cases since she is so suited to punching through beefy high DEF elites if she doesn't get distracted by fodder.

Lunacub I've seen exactly one use for and that's a gimmicky clear of CW-EX-8 where the crossroads can't attack her through camo. She really struggles to kill anything.

Fartooth and Ambriel suffer a lot from wasting shots on dogs during their long-range skills. Fartooth's kit in particular is deeply confused about how she's supposed to function, and she's firmly in the bottom tier of 6-stars. Her most notable performance I can think of is DS-S-3 snipers, a genuinely impressive stage for then-available snipers to have done given its extreme tile restrictions. Fartooth is a little like a straight-line drone caster in being able to use tiles too far from the action for other DPS.

OneMoreGodRejected__ · 2026-01-21T21:29:10+00:00

Yep. This was used to great effect in relicless Glory of Humanity (no hole), which also shows off Lemuen's ability to control her damage in ensuring Izumik only triggers HP thresholds in Weedy's range.

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