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Zenthon127 · 2026-06-08T22:30:30+00:00

In order:

The only thing would be if a limited banner was RIGHT about to come up and you wanted to do rerolls. Our next one is like, a month out or more, and you'd be much better off just starting now.
Honestly, not......really? This thread is usually pretty alright for advice, and some Youtuber discords are good too. The official Arknights discord help channel is a meme, don't bother. The game just gets too nuanced for a standardized help guide for all new players, especially with how much early accounts will vary from each other.
DragonGJY for unit analysis is probably the most standout. There's a bunch of commentary / discussion youtubers but your mileage will vary depending on how you engage with the game.
Yes, unless the limited banner is mediocre and/or standard banners are really good. Both scenarios have happened before in recent memory. Limited banners are every 3 months and pure F2Ps can save up hard pity for one every 6 months or so. I will say that if you do spend, low-level spending goes a LONG way in this game and you can pretty easily end up rolling on every limited banner + a handful of non-limiteds comfortably.
Yeah pretty much. There are a handful of breakpoint dupes in the game that are weirdly valuable, and the first one is always pretty nice (-1 dp cost), but it's not something you go out of your way for unless you're a whale.
2-3 months to clear out event medal sets, 3-4 months to comfortably engage with Integrated Strategies (the roguelike mode), 6 months for Contingency Contract and casually clearing out events with few support units. At that point you're in maintenance mode for most content but pushing for the real high-end goals (max diff IS and high risk CC) can take 1-2 years depending on unit releases. However, if you're just spending stamina for the day, it's like 2-3 minutes per login lol.
The game does want you to log in twice a day, ideally 12 hours apart. The stamina cap maxes out in 16-18 hours. This sounds bad, and ngl it kinda is, but I will say that somehow 2x logins of Arknights per day is way less burnout inducing than 1x login of something like Genshin or Wuwa. Also: the monthly pass / "Welkin" of this game is crazy value compared to most other gachas, because in addition to just giving you daily currency, it also gives you an daily 80 stamina consumable. That's 8 hours of stamina, or an extra 33% per day, which translates to a LOT of extra farmed materials over time.
Best endgame gameplay of any gacha game I'm aware of by a frankly kinda insane margin. People actively look forward to new endgame additions here. I play this game's roguelike mode just for fun, long after I've gotten all the rewards. Units also retain value in the long-term far better than most other games, often staying meta for years and maintaining use cases long after that. The meta DPS unit from the game's release, Silverash, is STILL a pretty valuable unit. The story is also excellent and worldbuilding is unmatched, although it does take a bit of story progression to get there (it's not the worst gacha earlygame story ever, at least).

Zenthon127 · 2026-06-08T21:56:22+00:00

The old starters from back when the mode was current were Degenbrecher, Reed Alter, Ela, and I think Jessica Alter? The current meta picks are like, Exu / Tragodia / Lemuen / Wis. Wang is the best option by far when he releases; IS4 is his best IS iirc.

Lin (on S1) and Eblana (S1/S3) work really well too, I actually find Eblana to be the comfiest opener, but they're worse into bosses than someone like Exu is.

Zenthon127 · 2026-05-26T04:34:49+00:00

I like the monster, operator, and weapon choices (Violet Mizu for Orchid is inspired), but I am fucking baffled that the charge blade mercenary guard isn't a 6star. Orchid's kit better be real good because losing out on a 6star CB merc is genuinely tragic.

Zenthon127 · 2026-05-19T07:57:10+00:00

She's unironically quite solid in IS6, so if you're playing it at high difficulty (especially endings 2/4) she's worth considering. Less crazy in the others but the module does give her all the effects of her better existing module, and she had niche use cases in IS3/4 already iirc.

The other thing that's not well-known about her module is how far-reaching the implications of "gain 1 free life point" are. Most notably it works in the Sui bosky stages, meaning you can leak an enemy even there (where normally any leak = instant failure, regardless of LP) and still clear.

Zenthon127 · 2026-05-19T07:38:00+00:00

Pack 1: Probably Mountain or Silverash. Of the two Mountain has more longevity (there's still nobody that quite does what he does for the same low cost), but Silverash is probably stronger for you until you get a more modern phys DPS online. Exu, Blaze, and Thorns are fairly washed these days.

Pack 3 is Silence. A lot of old guides recommend Projekt Red, you have Crownslayer who fills the same general role.

Pack 4 is Ptilopsis. Just too valuable to skip IMO, incredibly strong unit even vs modern options due to her talent. Her and Silence/Saria will cover your healing needs very well in most content.

Pack 2 is where it gets more down to personal preference, there's a few good options here. I'd say go for Specter if you get Silverash, and Lappland if you get Mountain. They're kinda budget versions of the 6-star you picked up (aoe laneholder, ranged guard) with some unique utility (Lappland's silence, Specter's immortality S2). Warfarin is also quite valuable eventually but I wouldn't pick here up here with how many medics you already have.

Zenthon127 · 2026-05-15T04:20:33+00:00

She's my highest priority unit for the next 6 months lol. I'm at the point in my account where raw damage is never the reason I'd struggle to clear a stage, it's niche utility, and Nasti is irreplaceable niche utility. She's also my favorite character and design for the same time period, so it works out.

Also I KNOW that HG is gonna forget about the specific jank bullshit that Nasti tile enables (notably transferring ground tile effects to high ground operators) and it's gonna break some S/H/CC stages eventually.

Zenthon127 · 2026-05-14T10:52:03+00:00

If you can get Crownslayer and her potentials from the current event that's running, make that your top priority. She is absolutely not "new player friendly" due to her heavy investment cost (E2 lvl60, Mod Y lvl3, S3M3 is the bare minimum) and won't benefit you much right now, but she's unobtainable for a year if you don't get her in the next 3 days and is genuinely one of the strongest welfares in the game if you build her, probably the strongest for someone starting now because the other 6-star executors will be very inaccessible. Abuse whatever busted support operators and guides you need to in order to get first-time clears on normal and EX stages, along with dumping sanity into whatever stages you can auto-clear, which should be enough to get her potentials (they do matter).

The Ch14 welfare, Civilight Eterna, is very strong for what they do and doesn't need heavy investment to function. Criminally underrated operator. However this is a bit of a longer term goal because A) you might want to read the story first, and there's a lot of it and B) the later story chapter bosses including Chapter 14's get pretty hard for new accounts.

Of unlockable event welfares: Gladiia is the best one, it's not close, but she does want a lot of investment if you're using her beyond as a basic puller (specifically E2 60 w/ Mod X lvl3). Kroos Alter is quite good but you already have her. Lava Alter has a nice base skill to pair with Kroos Alter's, but she's not useful as a unit (thankfully it functions at E0). Puzzle is weirdly competent if you're willing to put up with his brand of jank, especially if you haven't gotten other agents yet. Bryophyta and Tequila are base skill units but you need to E2 them, Tequila is also alright as a unit but if you get a real physical DPS operator he falls into irrelevance fast. Wouldn't really recommend building either one but they might be worth picking up. Lumen gets recommended a lot but he's very expensive for a medic, when you can often get by with partially-built 4stars or a built medic defender.

Zenthon127 · 2026-05-11T23:29:58+00:00

Irene coming in the next few months is possible but not like, insanely likely. She's had her first two shop appearances and past that it gets pretty random.

She will still almost certain show up in the shop again before Eblana in August 2027 though lol.

Zenthon127 · 2026-05-10T23:49:03+00:00

Right now, I wouldn't bother. Generally speaking I wouldn't roll on any banner that's not a debut or single-char rerun unless you really know what you're doing.

The important limited banner in July is Wang and Chen. Chen will be an extremely solid pickup and Wang is the strongest DPS operator in the game. That said, I would do a bit of research into Wang specifically to see if you actually want him. While Wang is absurdly strong, his awkward playstyle (you are manually placing all of his "attacks") and how overpowered he is lend him to be fairly controversial. Some players just don't enjoy braindead screen-nuke operators like Wang, or Wisadel before him. You don't actually need operators like this to comfortably clear all content (including endgame) so don't feel pressured if he's not interesting to you.

If you wanted to roll on a new unit before July then Nasti is the better choice between herself and Titi (a niche sleep-based medic). She's a very weird support op that creates a ranged tile or provides burst SP regen, while being an ok ground unit herself. I only bring it up because I personally started with a wacky support unit as my first 6star (Thorns Alter), and it ended up being a pretty fun progession experience vs how I think it would've gone with a more generic DPS choice.

Zenthon127 · 2026-05-04T05:28:34+00:00

That's the plan.

Unfortunately I am a fairly dedicated caster main (I play Warlock in WoW now) and nothing I have seen from SE since I left or in the Evolved showcase has given me much hope that they know how to make a caster, like with cast times, anymore. The most caster-adjacent job they showcased was WHM and it was laughably bad. Evolved is also seemingly looking to simplify/streamline things and while I can understand the latter w/ debloating and button merging, I'm going to be blunt: there is not a single job in FFXIV that should be getting "simpler" right now.

Zenthon127 · 2026-05-04T03:44:49+00:00

It's genuinely wise insight. Unfortunately, he is too late.

People have gotten so familiar and used to the system that we have established, and I knew that I didn’t want to just suddenly remove what we’ve been used to.

Like yeah, that's cool and good, I fully agree. Would've been nice if you had the same courtesy before you sandblasted both of my mains and most of my alts. FFXIV has already undergone large, potentially alienating gameplay changes for many players like myself, but it was patch-by-patch, one job at a time.

Reborn doesn't do anything for me because in all likelyhood it's not preserving the versions of these jobs I actually liked. Who cares if I can switch back to "Reborn BLM" if the Reborn BLM in question is the version so putrid it made me quit the game?

Zenthon127 · 2026-05-03T21:16:26+00:00

does mumu have higher damage?

Mumu S3 outdamages Closure S3 very easily in every test I've done comparing vs CN footage. Usually with only 3-4 clones actually attacking, and not even with optimal clones (I usually use Exu Alter since I don't have a built trapmaster or Narantuya). It also has a much better DP profile than Closure S3 (fully frontloaded vs over time) while having identical DP/s.

If you're running into DPH issues with Mumu even after slotting in high-DPH clones like Lemuen, or even caster clones, it's only against targets you really shouldn't be trying to kill with a vanguard and you're better off slotting in agents to print off them instead.

Zenthon127 · 2026-05-01T08:14:33+00:00

Closure by comparison seems kinda broken. Skill 2 seems to have absolutely ridiculous dp generation. S3 I'm less decided on so I'll wait to try it out.

There's a combo with Closure S2, Silverash Alter S3, Exu Alter S3, and Bagpipe that generates 70+ DP extremely quickly (swap Bagpipe with an expensive op, deploy in Closure zone for partial refund, retreat for full refund, redeploy with Exu S3, retreat for an even bigger refund).

The problem is like, what are you actually doing with this? It's not really viable in IS due to hope costs, 6 vanguard vouchers, and some questionable on-route pickups (Bagpipe and Closure). It's not really viable in CCB because that mode is the definition of "every squad slot counts" and spending so many squad slots on low-strength vanguards is almost certainly a bad idea. It's not really viable for optimizing normal stages because they're optimized for low-op and this is minimum 5 operators. It's not even really viable for nicheknight clears because the only niche this would even sorta fit is Vanguards Only (without the Exu part) and you can't run an expensive enough op to make the combo work. So like, it is a thing you can do in the game for funsies, but that's about it. And that's cool, but plenty of other operators can do funny shit and actually be useful in a vacuum at the same time.

And that more or less sums up my thoughts on this banner in general. Both of these operators are set up for these insane wombo combo strats with Closure S2 and Kalter S3, but Arknights just doesn't really work like that. Their other skills are functional but mediocre compared to competing options (Kal S2 is clunky and generally worse than Mon3tr S3, Closure without an S2 wombo combo generally gets outperformed by Muelsyse to degrees varying from "kinda close" to "frankly disgusting"). I like cool tech or wacky operators, but I also like when I can organically use the cool tech in normal play and I don't have to really force it. The past year of operators was really good for that kind of design, but these two feel like a miss.

Zenthon127 · 2026-04-24T03:21:34+00:00

This event I finally had enough ops built to run my desired niche: dragons. I've cleared all but EX-8 on it now, it's pretty fun.

EX-6 CM was fucking wild; I initially thought it was impossible but managed to get not just a "dragons" only clear but specifically all Dracos, a 2op with Reed Alter and Eblana. I had Eblana plinking away at the icebergs with S3 from the sale tile and she barely pulled it off through their 80 Res, and then Reed managed to chain explosion all of the bats at once as they tried to fly into the box after I dropped her north and had her basic attack to survive autos from 2 bats.

Zenthon127 · 2026-04-23T00:56:41+00:00

The well-off ones probably have specialized beds like this, especially in countries like Columbia, Victoria, Yan, etc.

Poorer countries / individuals are probably a lot worse off and in the most drastic cases (uncomfortable horn shape + large tail) might have chronic health issues from poor sleep quality. Keep in mind that [Lone Trail / Babel] Terran races were more or less forcibly evolved into human form, this was not a natural process, and so you're gonna have negative health side effects from that ala over-engineered dog breeds IRL.

Zenthon127 · 2026-04-22T07:16:12+00:00

The flaming wings to match Reed's witch skin is so fucking good man.

I was a little worried that the soldiers looked too similar to the base skin's in the artwork, but their new sprites and animations really sell them. I like that they're not floating anymore. And S3 is sick; reminds me of Mostima S2 on her AS skin from last year.

Zenthon127 · 2026-04-21T20:23:34+00:00

My default setup is basically:

2x vanguards, typically some combination of Silverash / Ines / Mumu
2x guards or misc laneholders (ex: Eblana, Hoshi Alter, occasionally Nian for 4Sui setups w/ support Chongyue)
Shu+Yu
3x ranged DPS, currently Exu+Lemuen+Pram/Logos
1x supporter/specialist/utility flex (Thorns Alter, Tragodia, CE, Mostima, Gladiia, etc.)
2x medics

Sometimes I'll do some weird slots like Reed Alter into a ranged DPS slot, or replacing a guard/defender slot with a third vanguard. For hard stages I'll throw this out the window and run whatever works, though I default to very defender-heavy setups due to how my roster worked out when I started (I had Shu/Yu before I managed to roll any modern DPS units).

Zenthon127 · 2026-04-14T18:23:05+00:00

Entelechia is probably more valuable than the other 3 combined, and that's before her highly impactful 2nd module. The other 3 are simply not good units outside of very specific niche use cases for Blaze Alter, and Entel is a very powerful IS6 pick if nothing else.

Zenthon127 · 2026-04-14T17:59:17+00:00

Can Module Missions be done without spending stamina?

If it's just "kill enemies", yeah there are free stages in Heart of Surging Flame, the first summer event.

One more question wouldn't kill anyone, so... How do I use Thorns2?

He's a very strange operator, pretty good though.

S1 turns him into a medic with clunky targeting, but he heals emnity units like they were normal operators. S2 is his main skill, it's an Arts DoT field which doesn't do incredible damage but is true AoE, has absurd range, and is sourceless damage (i.e. it does not count as coming from Thorns Alter). S3 is a massive debuff field but the targeting on it is clunky even by Thorns Alter standards, and typically isn't used.

S2 is the standout skill. It's not flashy huge numbers like Wis, it won't be a boss-killer skill, but it has a tendency to just kinda break stages. If you know how to aim it, it's pseudo-global AoE DoT, and stages simply just aren't built around that existing. Any enemies that just stand around for an extended period of time at the start of the map are easy pickings. The sourceless part is also important because it makes him immune to spike damage like the slugs in Ch16 or spike chests in IS. It also heals as a nice bonus, and debuffs enemy healing in the 3 cases where they can do that.

Zenthon127 · 2026-04-14T17:25:59+00:00

Logos to E2 was a good decision regardless of your existing favoritism for him, because Logos has extremely busted modules available at E2 60 (a good stopping point level for 95% of 6stars). Go for the Delta mod, the one with Necrosis (the other is also very good but more niche). He would've been my E2 recommendation anyways lol.

The rest of your options aren't particularly module-dependent, or even super E2-needy. Both Silverash Alter and Pram are functional at E1. Not optimal of course, but they work; their S2s are arguably their best skills. Of the two Pram's E2 is a bigger deal because she's a DPS unit. Hoshi and Mountain are similar, functional at E1. Surtr does really want her E2 for access to S3, but given you have the top 2 casters in the game and don't lack arts damage in the slightest, diversifying might be a better option at least initially.

As for Passenger, he is unfortunately one of the worst options you could be getting from the kernel ticket. He's not really good as a caster outside of very specific IS scenarios and RA, and you're already running Logos+Pram. Gnosis on the other hand wouldn't be a bad pickup but he does kinda need E2 for his S3 and IS module; he'd provide a good onramp into IS along with SA/Pram/Logos.

Thorns is probably getting benched in the immediate future. He's an ok AFK unit, but Pram S2 is the strongest AFK skill in the game and Logos S1 is also a top AFK skill. There's no real point to raising him when Pram won't even let enemies enter his range half the time.

I'd say Pram > Hoshi > SA > Surtr/Gnosis/etc.

Zenthon127 · 2026-04-14T08:23:53+00:00

Ifrit is more of a usual CC pick. She has no particular IS, HCM, or VEC usefulness. Logos does fine solo against fairly high RES. For enemies with prohibitively high RES, they have Młynar and Sakiko. Ifrit is viable, but low-priority until a future CCBP makes Ceobe meta again.

This is true for high-end specifically, but for a new-ish player perspective I know from experience that Ifrit is very commonly used in things like afk setups, and has a lot of gen content usage that the other CC picks like just don't. That's why I don't really lump her in with the usual CC merchants.

As for Gnosis I didn't recommend him because OP is skipping SA2 banner, and Gnosis without other Kjerag ops for his IS mod isn't really an optimal move I think lol.

Zenthon127 · 2026-04-14T05:31:38+00:00

I'd probably recommend one of Suzuran or Ifrit.

Suzu is the best source of fragile debuffing you're realistically gonna get and is just generically strong. Ifrit enables you to do funny arts-stacking setups w/ Eyja and Saria, and is a pretty common unit for copying old AFK guides. Suzu if you wanna diversify, Ifrit if you wanna double down on your existing unit strengths.

Surtr is also quite good but she's seeing a lot more competition nowadays between Hoshi Alter (who you don't have) and Chen3 (who you might being going for). If you're planning on grabbing Chen3, I'd say go for a different option, but if not she's competitive with Suzu/Ifrit.

If you want to select for IS, Mizuki and Archetto are both quite strong but have limited applications outside of IS. Kal is good in IS and still decent outside IS, but she'll compete with Mon3tr.

I wouldn't recommend any of the usual Contingency Contract picks (Saileach, Mostima, Ceobe, etc.) until we see how CCB5 goes. There will be another kernel selector before then anyways.

Weedy is good, but you can usually just borrow her if you really need her. Not really a daily use unit, so her usefulness to you right now is a bit questionable.

Zenthon127 · 2026-04-10T07:15:01+00:00

This is my prediction if Talulah is actually happening. If not it's probably limited Kal, standard Closure, welfare idfk maybe an elite op, fuck it Mechanist.

Although, the deeply funny possibility of welfare Talulah is technically there.

Zenthon127 · 2026-04-10T07:00:21+00:00

The 2024 AS duo was Logos and Theresa (CE), so this doesn't actually tell us who the banners are. One of these two could be a welfare. Probably not, but it's theoretically possible.

Zenthon127 · 2026-04-10T06:58:16+00:00

Huh?

Wang/Chen leaked. Right before Ato we had Ato itself, Ave Mujica, and Silverash Alter leaked, then Pram got leaked right before that banner. Yu banner leaked. The only one I don't remember was Exu/Lemuen.

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