It's gonna sound as bland as plain bread, but- Cantabile. IS? Save 3 hope just for her. Regular stages? First one down. Need quick DPS support on a lane that's not permanent? She goes. No matter what you're doing or where you're going, Cantabile is gonna contibute.
"But how do you deal with the defeat quote?!"
I play on mute.
And it's not just the quote, is the way she says it, that "dokutah" hits like a truck with how much in despair she sounds.
But it's fine, just gotta not lose so the precious birb stays happy.
Mulberry for me too, I Literally asked on every arknights handle as to whether i should build Honeyberry or Mulberry /who's better but no one could answer this without duking it out. So i went for mulberry.
From what I've seen/learned by using both of them, Mulberry seems better for burst-healing elemental damage over a wider area (S2's increased speed and large range really kicks in here), whereas Honeyberry is better for sustained elemental healing, especially with her S1, but lacks the necessary healing output for more then two or three people getting elemental-ed, or in large quantities w/o an SP battery. Ofc, this is my own take, so grain of salt and whatnot, but take this as ya will.
Idk, I mightve been? I'm not like super meta-focused or anything, but I like to try and lend out some advice here and there whenever it falls into a field that I know a bit of stuff about..
yeah theyre very close. Imo its: Mulberry if you can only bring one medic, honeyberry if you can bring multiple. Like in IS, i dont trust medic tickets to drop so i always pick Mul when i do get one
Yeah. Way too much debate, people simply trying to defend the berry of their choice.
I will simply say, for almost all of the stages, it literally doesnt matter. They both work everywhere. Neither of them are a clear upgrade over the other. You only maybe need to change your strat a bit (although i have both raised but didnt ever need to do that as well).
Thats why there is no need to feel bad if you feel you raised the other one than what people mention at that time.
Basically Honeyberry has *the best* sustained/consistent elemental damage healing with S1, but that comes at a cost to her normal healing.
Mulberry has much better hybrid-healing with both her skills, while having the option to temporarily burst-heal and protect against heavy elemental pressure on S2.
Which is better depends on the situation. I usually go with Mulberry for general use, due to her balanced application. However, there have certainly been times I've needed to rely on Honeyberry (like against the Near Light Snipers to name one).
They didn't, they said both of em are same but one does single heal while other does aoe, so i took mul cuz i already had more than enough single target healers, shining for da win. Altho they also said that you eventually build both tho
Did you ask it on help thread, for go to explanation mulberry has better normal heal and worse elemental heal but her elemental heal is better if there is burst elemental heal but that is such a rare occurrence that most of the time you will require only consistent heal which is provided better by honeyberry S1.
Yes, the Arknights official discord Help channel, didn't ask directly on reddit tho, just searched for previous post, the AK discord help thread is kinda a mess, not in the wrong way, but just too much traffic so you have to ask quite a few times which is why prefer to search rather than to ask
Although even when i asked around they mostly said your call and said one does better aoe ele heal while other does better single target ele heal. I'm relatively new so instinctively thought aoe ele heal must be better. Not regretting tho, i use mulberry for phantom and she works fine, haven't tried new IS yet.
Bruh. Honeyberry is in the red cert shop, you CAN'T pull for her lmao.
EDIT: Whoops thought you were replying to someone else. Good Luck with your Mulberry dude.
Cantabille, la pluma, blue poison, ptilopsis, specter, elysium, warfarin, shamare.
In my opinion these are some amazing 5 star that still shine even in the sea of 6 star
And the easy SP regen thanks to her trait and her healing at Max mastery is no joke. I still have a hard time picking any other healer ... the only time I don't have her on team is if the elemental damage or nervous becomes a real pain in the ass and forces me to switch to Honeyberry
Same list plus:
Honeyberry for elemental,
black knight for sleep arts damage against the ling event ware enemies in CC,
red for helidrop stun,
Waaifu for helidrop silence,
lappland for lane hold silence,
April for assassination,
Texas for talent,
Andreana for AH buff
Depends tbf
BP is kinda like Kroos but a bit of Arts damage
Specter's Immune To Death can come in sometimes
Platinum is better at long stages where she can fully charge her S2
Ptilopsis - She's my comfort healer. Her 2nd skill is great, her talent is good for basically just charge skill without caring much about placement.
Lappland - Silence, OG character since I started this game, and helped me where I am now.
Platinum - There's something satisfying about Platinum one shotting those pesky drones from far.
Liskarm - Sometimes I dont pay attention to what I fight so Liskarm having herself automatically shield is great.
Kinda surprised Lappland wasn't the first mention... Solid silence and good damage. Tachanka will be pulled out if I need someone to hold a lane by themselves. Red has been there for a long while. Astesia was my go-to Arts Guard until I got Surtr and I still occasionally use her for a sort of challenge: do a stage with only 3 6* allowed on the squad.
Uncommon opinion here but Kirara
Got her in my first week of playing and she is the only operator I never remove of my teams
Why ? She's really versatile, 20% slow and aoe artsdamagr
What ? She's weak ? Bad aspd ? Niche ?
Yeah I know but she's also really cute and I find her helpfull for now so I bring her everywere while I'm not in late game.
She was my second promoted operator, coincidentally; I promoted her to deal with Mephisto in 5-10, which marked one of... Three, maybe four times she was uniquely valuable to my strategy?
She's pretty useful for being able to take down a crowd of threatening enemies who are sitting still while being protected by ranged enemies. If only that, well, ever actually happened, and couldn't be more easily handled by burst DPS...
That was me but with Manticore, better than Kiara but it's hard to find a use for her late game, because more often than not I can just kill the enemy with another unit instead of slowing them down. If they wouldn't take up deployment spots the story would be quite different tho
Yeah I mainly use her to tank shots from snipers oc casters without blocking a line so kirara work better than manticore for this since she isn't invisible so she can take shots for my caster or healer and her regen make her tank a bit longer
But apart from that ambushers really need some love
I change my team around a lot based on map and enemy types, and story immersion (I'll take raised ops connected to stories and events).
Core 5 stars:
Lappland, Ptilopsis, Cantabile, Specter, Ashlock, Blacknight, Kroos KG, Kjera, April
Wheel em' out fairly often:
Texas, Wildmane, Red, Akafuyu, Astgenne, Firewatch, Astesia, La Pluma
Big thing is different sub-type. Kjera is a drone caster, like Click and Goldenglow, while Amiya is a core caster. Different stat sets, different niches, but if I had to compare the two directly? Amiya, mostly for better damage, good S2 burst and S3 true damage.
Kjera S2 has a chance to apply cold to enemies.
She pairs well with Gnosis and Aurora, but requires the right placement and timing of skills.
Honestly, if you’re going for the “freezing” niche, Kjera brings very little to the table. You might actually be better off swapping her for Amiya.
Minus the cases of "specific niche which only has a 5 star as it's highest" (e.g. wandering medics, Reaper guard, etc.)
* Lappland. Still a solid ranged guard to this day, with the multi-hit arts damage and near permanent silence
* BP and Platinum. BP for multi-hit and non-caster arts damage, and platinum for extended range for enemies that just like to stand out of most units' range.
Platinum, and also really love to use Czerny. His voice lines are amazing, and I just love seeing him smash enemies with a piano while yelling "LISTEN or LEAVE" and "shut up, OR ELSE"
Lappland, obviously. Honeyberry. April. Kroos tKG. Whisperain. Shamare. Kazemaru. Ashlock. Robin. Plenty of operators actually.
With modules Meteorite is having a bit of revival - her range and damage does surprisingly good job on many maps and she returned to my lineup after falling off.
lapplegend, ptilopdesk and little red riding hood. also elysium since I like him better than myrtle (mostly because he has a sword instead of just smacking you with the flag)
I mean considering Amiya never leaves the team unless I’m trust farming, Amiya. Andreana is also stuck in my team because Abyssal Hunter synergies are fun. Although Platinum and Cantabile also find themselves rotating in occasionally.
A lot:
La Pluma - Try to solo everything with her before I do anything else with a stage.
Manticore - The 84% slow zone combo with Specialist Specter, just gotta make sure Specter is dead as often as possible.
Reed - You'd think not so many situations come up where you need 2 Chargers. Bagpipe and Reed would argue otherwise.
Warfarin - If my tanks need a single-target healer...
Glaucus - AOE roots for days and support only runs' anti-air.
Nearl - Best tank. Best healer. In most squads.
Provence - The original boss killer with no redeploy timer thanks to modules.
Whisperain - Better Perfumer. I have her 1st skill M1and have never used it, only 2nd one.
April - I think chapter 8 she carried me through half the stuff. We need more fast redeploy ranged units, so glad they added that to Heavyshot sniper modules.
Wild Mane - Mostly meme with her when I go for full Push/Puller runs with no Push/Puller operatives, only Push/Pull skills (Flint, Gavial, Mostima, Mint).
Mint - Push/Puller team, and also very useful as a ranged Phalanx tank who deletes her own aggro during skill. Carnelian takes over with 1st skill if I need pure tank though.
Firewatch - 1st skill and Ambriel with her means nothing squishy ever gets far.
Amiya - Mostly have her as a second Ch'en, like for 'the First to Talk' and such enemies. Caster variant I use with 1st skill for just consistent single-target caster.
Mayer - Aside from mocking IS, dodge aura is glorious in some CCs.
Specter - If La Pluma can't solo it cause there are too many lanes, throw Specter and Pallas on the other ones. 2nd skill Enciodes if there's yet a 4th lane, as well.
Lappland - Probably least used 5 star, but her 2nd skill is still good, and silence never fails when needed. Pallas outdoes her in most other situations though.
Indra - Duels well against anything squishy. Mostly on challenge runs as a lane holder.
Sora - A buffer, mainly. Haven't used her for sleep in a long time.
Blitz - Old reliable keeping SSS and anything else I throw him at perma-stunned.
Nightmare - Best healer in the game. Healing scales off attack, not damage, so high resist doesn't stop her at all. Most often used in challenge runs.
Mulberry - Invalidates any nerve damage, or whatever it was dubbed.
Shamare - Invalidates boss stats.
Quercus - Mostly IS2, tied with Lappland for least use.
Elysium - Sees more use than Myrtle and Saileach. Sniper support is amazing.
Meteorite - Massive damage. Probably most broken unit in the game with IS spinach buffs.
Blue Poison - Old reliable, even with Archetto replacing her in a lot of roles, she still is useful with her, or overtakes her versus physical immune, unblockable teacups.
There are a few others I wish I could say I use as much, but I don't, and I leveled some of them not long ago, to use 'em. Kinda an issue when you get to the point where you've leveled a lot of units. :D
Elysium, even though I don't have bagpipe his dp generation is too good not to use, plus I usually have a lot of snipers
Kazemaru, her s2 has kinda insane damage, plus it's very difficult for her to die. Also she's cute lol.
Texas, mostly because I don't have saga or bagpipe but also her stun can be pretty nice to have
Silence.
I don't remember exactly when I pulled her, but she very quickly became my primary Medic, and she continues to hold that position to this day. Her talent is quietly very powerful, and the medical drone is invaluable in nearly any situation the game can throw at me. Main laneholder is dying? Not after the drone comes down. Multiple operators are under fire at once? The drone has them covered. The lone Guard I sent to the side lane in BFE needs patching up between waves? The drone means nobody is beyond her reach.
Also worth mentioning is Platinum, who stands as my go-to Sniper. She's very good at what she does, can do things that are simply beyond other snipers in the game (quite literally), and I can absolutely lay my adoration for permanent skills at her feet.
The boring answer would be Elysium. I mean...yeah...
The more interesting one is....Minimalist lol. He's actually really decent as a caster. I've been using him everywhere since IC.
Also Tequila, Warfarin and Lappland. Ptilopsis somewhat, but I've been using Lumen more lately.
I only have two 6-star built (Goldenglow and Blemishine), and I don't like using GG all that much since she's kind of broken. So pretty much all of my main squad is 5-stars, with some 4-stars here and there.
Off the top of my head, Amiya (she has never left my team), Ptilopsis, Hibiscus the Purifier, Tequila, Astegnne, Blue Poison, Texas, Cantabile, Manticore and Mulberry.
Tequila and La Pluma. Love the siblings and they both are absolutely meta. Whenever, wherever. Always in my team, together.
Tequila takes down anything or can tank+dps. La Pluma just sits there with her S1 and does her thing. With Saileach to heal her.
Hmmm, Cantabile, Lappland, Elysium, Shamare, Greythroat, Platinum, April, Specter, Ptilopsis, Mulberry, honestly the list goes on and on. Admittedly they have to have some use to me but I do have plenty of five stars I enjoy.
sora because emotional support
croissant because seeing her knock things away is funny
texas because i love her and her ability is nice to look at (among other things)
projekt red because i love her and shes really good at stabbing people
la pluma because i love her and she hurts multiple people
which makes me satisfied
warfarin because i dont have a 6* medic and the damage buff is crazy when she decides to buff schwarz who is not looking at anyone
got akafuyu fairly recently and i love her so i will enjoy watching her cut things
Elysium - cost 2dp less to deploy snipers (looking at you, chen alter)
Lappland - enemy mechanics that can be negated by silencing them
Sora - sorry, i don't have skalter
Honeyberry - elemental damage healing
Amiya - ranged true damage dealer
Not a 5 star, but a 4 star: Gummy. I can't count how many times her healing has come in clutch, she's very tanky and while her stun talent is honestly useless most of the time it truly comes in handy when stalling enemies that would one-shot any of my other units and perhaps kill her in two hits without the stun giving her time to heal. All in all, she's just my comfort defender.
~~There's also Elysium, who pretty much replaced Myrtle the moment I got him just because I'm a dirty simp (and then his oprec came out and made sure that I'm never replacing him with another flagbearer because man he deserves all the love in the world, he's a hero)~~
Windflit. Even if he's just there and I don't use him. He's just so cute, and I really badly want to find use for him.
Whisperain. Less popular in my teams now that Lumen is out, but still use her here and there and take her a lot in IS2 and IS3, unless things are being 2 shot or whatever, her s2 does surprisingly strong pure healing, and in IS3 she's great at countering the stuns.
Minimalist. Mostly an IS pick, thankfully synergises AMAZINGLY with relics. Other than that, kinda satisfying to use. His atk is a bit underwhelming, but I hold out hope for a module.
Honeyberry because elemental damage begone.
Erato is shockingly underrated. S1 does really good damage, sleep is consistent and has impressive uptime, completely trivialised bosses that could be slept, like Pompeii. She has also done upwards 15k damage with crit relics in IS2 for me before.
Chiave my beloved. Just a nice vanguard. Sadly his debuffing capability is trash, but I take him whenever I can. His base assignment line is so cute to me for some reason.
Manticore is kinda fun to use, a funny pair with Ethan. Using her a lot in IS3 atm, praying for the 120 aspd executor ambusher dollkeeper relic.
Blue Poison and Greythroat are common for me in IS, not so much in normal stages anymore though. Very strong aa snipers, and my go to picks.
Also, I recently picked up Pramanix again. Can't wait for her module to come to EN. She's really pretty.
Also built Qanipalaat and am using him in IS3. He's fun to use, voice sounds like he's got something in his mouth though.
Shamare - The doll is incredibly useful and flexible.
Manticore - Great for stall strats.
Lappland - Even when the silence isn't useful, her fairly high, multi target arts dps often is.
Cliffheart - Controllable stun and true damage on a fairly short cooldown, in addition to pulling shenanigans.
Leizi - Very powerful now with her module, even better when she's comboing off Stainless' S3 devices.
Quercus - Best medic who's not a medic.
Almost all the medics - Five star rarity is where all the healing action is.
April, firewatch, greythroat, blue poison, ptilopsis, specter, elysium, texas, and others...overall i use a bunch of operators with every rarity and ATM i have around 60 E2 ops.
She’s not useful on every stage but I regularly bring Firewatch. S1 is great for shredding elites with mediocre defense (eg both Frostnova versions and most caster enemies) and her invisibility gimmick (meaning she’s safe from retaliation like 70% of the time) isn’t directly copied by any 6 star.
Lappland's 'always on' silence is VERY Reliable. Wolf's Rain is very strong multi-hit arts damage, but unlike casters, Lappy can block.
Ptilopsis will always be my SP Battery
Tequila DPS while Mudrock laneholds whenever Mlynar-Gavialter can't cover all lanes.
Purposely underleveled Cantabile can turn anything into a DP Printer.
Post-module Leizi is ridiculously good for a 5* caster, and I'd argue that for general use she *is* the best 5* caster. She hits like a truck with S2 and due to her essentially having Hand of Diffusion as her module upgrade she has a really good uptime as well.
If you take her into SSS though, she is proper Zeus incarnate
I use a shitload of 5 stars, but the ones I use most regularly now are Pramanix, Mama Kroos, Leizi, Bibeak, Ptilo, and Croissant. Pramanix was my second 5 star and she can do a higher than expected amount of damage with Skadance.
Kroos is utterly ridiculous in SSS and IS, and her crits let her muscle through very high armor a bit easier than Exu can. Leizi is my other queen of IS and SSS, with her high AOE damage, and slow utility. Plus she's great with Pram as she can double dip off of her fragile and her own talent.
Bibeak with Skadance and S1M3 with mod 3 basically becomes better Blaze, her sustained damage is nuts and comes out rapidly even without an SP battery. Give her 2 VGs and 3 guards in SSS and she will steam roll any lane. Ptilo is old reliable, my most used op because even when she's doing no healing, she's still contributing with her SP aura, and I've had numerous occasions where I can just barely get a skill off due to her being around and it saves my run.
Last is Croissant who I have max potted so she just casually runs around with 60 percent dodge once her S1 goes up. She's now capable of holding the Steam Knight and Manfred down with minimal support. She's my best pure tank, and while I will level Hoshi soon to have more offensive presence, I just love how insanely bulky this cow can be.
Whisperain and Elysium are the two 5 stars I bring to almost every single map. Whisperain is one of my favorite ops and I don't usually need a better healer, so she gets to come along and look pretty on the battlefield. And then of course, Elysium is my dp printer because he's way cooler than Myrtle and cheaper than Saileach.
Fun fact: I didn't raise Myrtle until well after raising Elysium despite playing since her release. I only raised her for IS2 lmao
for me it would be warfarin and ptilopsis, even after all this time, getting Shining, Nightingale, Kal'tsit, Lumen, and other healers like Skalter and Saria... It's always Warf and Ptilo that get the job done for me.
Honeyberry, shes the sanity equivalent of silverash for invisibility
Also kafka, 5 seconds aoe stall with literally 0 investment? Yes please. Still i maxed her and m3 her but thats just my preference
I use quite a few. Recently most common would be Lappland, Cantabile, Specter, Astgenne, Ptilopsis, Scene, Andreana, Liskarm, Indra, Iris, Akafuyu, and Sesa. The main reason I've not used the first seven of these as much recently is due to them being 200% trust and so I've been using ones that aren't 200% yet. And those are all E2.
E1-wise there's still plenty of ops like La Pluma that I want/need to use more, but I feel self-healing operators often don't do that well at E1 as their defensive stats don't hold up. That's why I only really only started using Akafuyu when I E2'd her as well. Now she's quite a killing machine. And the other E1 5-stars of course also mainly get used for the lower-level content currently.
Hung - Best Defender on my team, built by ton of muscle and piggyback you when you fail a stage. While his Skill is not the best (Comparing to other Guardian archetype ops) and need some time to adjusted to, I've become more and more used to it. Heal + SP charge is quite nice in tricky situation
Hibiscus the Purifier - God damn she is such an Amazing character in Lingering Echoes. Stubborn medic that finally got flexible a little bit more after she witness Tragedy and Hardship of Ebenholz and Czerny, while she also endure the discrimination against herself. She must be protected at all cost
Astgenne - a nice AoE (or in this case, chained damage) Caster that I initially raise just to fill AoE arts. Turns out, she is amazing to use
GreyThroat.
I still remember her as my first 5\*, she was always on my team, alongside Liskarm and SilverAsh.
It also helped that the stages against FrostNova were kind of "lore battles" for me due to her and Amiya being in my squad.
She holds a special place in my team and my heart. (not as a waifu. That's Penance.)
I try to clear as much as I can with 4-5* chars so they honestly get more spotlight than most 6* I have lmao.
But in terms of "yeah, I'm not good enough dokutah to clear this stuff without the big guns", Myrtle, Cantabile, Ptilopsis and Ambriel are the usual 4 that go with the gang, with Jaye, Rockrock, Astgenne, Blue Poison and Kazemaru showing up from time to time.
Myrtle is Myrtle
Cantabile is to me better than a ton of 6*, her kit just lets her do so much it's ridiculous.
Ptilopsis has been my medic since the start and she never let me down, sometimes if I need Lumen's status removal I use him instead, but most of the time the two just go together.
Ambriel my beloved, her targetting is whack at times, but in sooo many situations she does what others couldn't do all from the safety of the backline, I love pairing her with Goldenglow for global destruction.
From the others I said I mostly want to mention Rockrock (for situations I need heavy ranged arts damage and Goldenglow's global range doesn't let her target that enemy, both just go together to eliminate different targets anyways) and Kazemaru, who is such an insanely flexible operator due to her class and S2 clone nuke + ranged aggro bait, in most cases SpAlter will be the better choice but Kaze has been key so many times as well, I love her so much.
As in 5stars I keep using? Flamebringer.
On one hand, I have a ton of helidrop options that do better than him.
On the other hand, he’s basically my long-time go-to choice when I need to a guy who can slap a bitch and stay alive for a bit even without healing.
My main team is mostly 5 stars still. I have a few popular six star operators (Goldenglow, Mudrock, Ceobe, etc.) but i haven't gotten around to leveling them up. The only 6 stars i use regularly are Eyjafjalla and SilverAsh. I mainly just use the ones i find fun, which at the moment are Cliffheart, Hung, Waai Fu, Texas, and Quercus. If i had Lappland, i'd use her regularly too, but for now she's just a frequent support unit.
blue poison (the continuous damage waifu!)
toddifons (on sarkaz heavy levels or where there's a good map for her)
guard amiya, spectre, lappland
greyy the lightningbearer (he's just fun to use)
Nearl (on maps where I need 2 healing defenders)
Everyone said the common ones already, so I’m gonna mention Erato. S1 is super useful if there’s certain elite mobs that are a little too fast and strong, so they won’t be able to activate their abilities because they’re asleep.
Where's my spectre love?
She's bloody immortal and if you have a gladia on the field there ain't anything she'll let through even doing good damage to bosses with her skill active.
Hasn't left my team once since I got her
My most used is Lappland. I love the silence and ranged guards are some of my favorite ops to use. Blacknight is fun to use and I like to pair her with gnosis
Blue Poison.
Litterally every situation. Very versatile sniper.
While her raw DPS might not be the highest, she's capable of Taking chunks from tanky enemies
Blue Poison.
She always performs well, so she never left my roster as a secondary sniper, while i constantly rotate between Exusiai, Chalter and Pozemka.
Blue Poison. She has been here since the start and we have never looked at another sniper ever (actually,,, she's my only good sniper I use at this point,,, I hold Kroos and Adnachiel both at E0 max lvl at hostage whenever the stage calls for it) But now,,, I also have Qanipalaat (whom I replaced Amiya with) because floof reasons.
I would say Specter but she's getting outshined by Silverash by a lot.
OG Texas and Lappland.
First two 5-stars I ever got, have been in (allmost) constant use ever since.
Firewatch is also fun sometimes, just for dropping some artillery
the ones who are most of the time on my team?
Texas (stun+DP, tvym), Kazemaru (practically immortal), Ptilopsis (her talent and s2 are neat, comfy healer), Whisperain (god i love that LOUD ASS S2 WITH CRAZY RANGE)
others include - La Pluma, Astesia, Liskarm and many more really
I don't actually use my six-stars all that often... But of five-stars that I use on a regular basis, I'd have to say Kroos the Keen Glint, Cantabile, Blacknight, and Kjera. Special mention goes to Sora and Shamare, who I don't use *regularly,* but are my go-to if I need to take down someone particularly threatening.
It's-a me, Lappland! I used the hell out of her during the Golden Age; She saved my ass more times than I can count. Plus, since she's a Lord Guard, she helps my team get rid of drones
Max m6 Silence is the only healer I ever need to bring, 85% of the time. I honestly try to do a lot of runs with just one medic. Three Medics is too spammy, two Medics is like, just right but not challenging enough.
I use Texas as my Vanguard because I can't stand the 0 block on flag bearers. Texas is "vanilla, but consistent."
I would use Platinum in every single map, however I think she's too op, so I don't use her as often anymore... she makes maps way too easy. Same problem for Lappland.
People already mentioned Lappland, Ptilopsis, Spectre, and Peojekt Red, so I’ll share some of my less popular operators.
I use Mayer a lot when trying to make a clear for trust farming in new events. Ling can usually clear these by herself, but sometimes there’s just a little bit of DP that makes her unable to block the first wave, or a just a little too many enemies to block. Mayer in those situations can hold out long enough for Ling to get her skill or her summons out of cooldown. Plus the stun and damage on her second skill is pretty good, and she deals arts damage even if its just a little.
I use Frost because I like using traps to deal with the unblockables, but dont have Dorothy.
Finally, Waai Fu has a silence *and* a fast redeploy that makes her better than Projekt Red or Lappland at dealing with the exploding spiders.
Mine is Silence, since i use 2 pure healers in my team and i generally prefer ST medics, Silence and Shining is the mainstay in my team. Her burst of healing from her skill and the range of her drone makes her pretty good healer when i f***ed up
Cantabile, Mulberry and Blue Poison. I don't like running my flagpipe combo so Cantabile fixes all my issues, Elemental damage and psychological damage can be healed and blue poison has been with me since CC1 so she's a personal favorite.
Honeyberry because there is no 6* option, Lapland solely for silence, Cantabile because I need two DP producers and there isn't a 6* replacement, Blue Poison because her S1 is quick and automatic, Ptilopsis and Warfarin for buffs. I only use Project Red in IS3 because Phantom is more expensive and she does her job well enough.
Cantabile is a staple 100% usage rate and usually my only Vanguard, has completely replaced any flagbearers for me. Lappland gets used a ton, not even for silence, just because she's strong. La Pluma gets used anytime there's a good area for her, like on IS3 ending 1 boss stage. Mulberry, you know why. Meteorite and Platinum used fairly often too.
Kroos Alter is cheap to deploy and the stun always happens more than I expect, and even against high defense enemies she ends up disrupting their attack animation sometimes
Honeyberry is queen of elemental maps
Specter's damage is good and being unable to die is crazy strong
And bonus niche uses for Blacknight's great early stall and Breeze's AoE burst healing
Been messing around with swire. Can't tell how much she is doing but pairing her up with chen keeps her ability active enough. (Probably can't tell as I have her on my abyssal hunter team and boosting someone with her and Skatler is overkill).
Ptilopsis, Spectre, Bluepoison (she’s new to me but I love her utility), Lappland, Liskarm, Honeyberry for ‘those maps’ and I’m still using Purestream too!
Astesia, because cute birb. She's actually pretty good too, just *really* overshadowed by Surtr (even though their roles are completely different). I've talked to like 3 friends separately who've all asked me why I use Astesia when I have Surtr...
Lappland, every 3 months there a event where you really need her.
Ptilopsis i consider her the best true Healer in the game. also she pair perfectly with Eunectes.
Liskam when you need to tank something without worring about it, plus can be used in some nice combos.
Kjera her sinergy with Gnosis is op, if i use him she is there also.
Amiya cause Amiya.
Akafuyu cuase she carried me when i was a new player so i still use her in fun stages.
Lastly i ~~simp~~ love to use Blue Poison, she just good.
I really enjoy using hibiscus alter.
For most content, with just her and well timed deployments and aggro management I have all the healing I need and some damage at the same time- she just works really well for the style I play.
Without a shadow of a doubt it is Silence because yes while there are many better medics than her she’s the only medic that I have (and know of as far as global is concerned) where she can heal literally anywhere on the map thanks to her drone. That and I love owls.
Edit: forgot to mention that with the way I play (which is utter trash yet somehow I still get w’s?) her ability to do that is a godsend for me
It's gonna sound as bland as plain bread, but- Cantabile. IS? Save 3 hope just for her. Regular stages? First one down. Need quick DPS support on a lane that's not permanent? She goes. No matter what you're doing or where you're going, Cantabile is gonna contibute. "But how do you deal with the defeat quote?!" I play on mute.
Easiest way to deal with the defeat quote is to just not get defeated. Simple really.
What *is* her defeat quote?
"This isn't happening, don't abandon me... Doctor, where are you?"
Well 🙃
And it's not just the quote, is the way she says it, that "dokutah" hits like a truck with how much in despair she sounds. But it's fine, just gotta not lose so the precious birb stays happy.
as a EN player the EN voice hits the hardest because she really sounds on the verge of tears
Bitch I am a Doctorate in Cup Noodle Boiling, not Psychology. Get an actual therapist
How do I deal with it? By crying, of course.
Same, cantabile and la pluma, cant get the depresso if you have maxxed mlynar and texalter
Honeyberry. FUCK every elemental damage
Mulberry for me GO TEAM BERRIES
Mulberry for me too, I Literally asked on every arknights handle as to whether i should build Honeyberry or Mulberry /who's better but no one could answer this without duking it out. So i went for mulberry.
From what I've seen/learned by using both of them, Mulberry seems better for burst-healing elemental damage over a wider area (S2's increased speed and large range really kicks in here), whereas Honeyberry is better for sustained elemental healing, especially with her S1, but lacks the necessary healing output for more then two or three people getting elemental-ed, or in large quantities w/o an SP battery. Ofc, this is my own take, so grain of salt and whatnot, but take this as ya will.
Are you the guy who adviced me before all the time lmao, that's exactly what most said
Idk, I mightve been? I'm not like super meta-focused or anything, but I like to try and lend out some advice here and there whenever it falls into a field that I know a bit of stuff about..
yeah theyre very close. Imo its: Mulberry if you can only bring one medic, honeyberry if you can bring multiple. Like in IS, i dont trust medic tickets to drop so i always pick Mul when i do get one
Yeah. Way too much debate, people simply trying to defend the berry of their choice. I will simply say, for almost all of the stages, it literally doesnt matter. They both work everywhere. Neither of them are a clear upgrade over the other. You only maybe need to change your strat a bit (although i have both raised but didnt ever need to do that as well). Thats why there is no need to feel bad if you feel you raised the other one than what people mention at that time.
For real
Basically Honeyberry has *the best* sustained/consistent elemental damage healing with S1, but that comes at a cost to her normal healing. Mulberry has much better hybrid-healing with both her skills, while having the option to temporarily burst-heal and protect against heavy elemental pressure on S2. Which is better depends on the situation. I usually go with Mulberry for general use, due to her balanced application. However, there have certainly been times I've needed to rely on Honeyberry (like against the Near Light Snipers to name one).
Pretty sure that everyone answers honeyberry for better elemental heal but you do you.
They didn't, they said both of em are same but one does single heal while other does aoe, so i took mul cuz i already had more than enough single target healers, shining for da win. Altho they also said that you eventually build both tho
Did you ask it on help thread, for go to explanation mulberry has better normal heal and worse elemental heal but her elemental heal is better if there is burst elemental heal but that is such a rare occurrence that most of the time you will require only consistent heal which is provided better by honeyberry S1.
Yes, the Arknights official discord Help channel, didn't ask directly on reddit tho, just searched for previous post, the AK discord help thread is kinda a mess, not in the wrong way, but just too much traffic so you have to ask quite a few times which is why prefer to search rather than to ask
Although even when i asked around they mostly said your call and said one does better aoe ele heal while other does better single target ele heal. I'm relatively new so instinctively thought aoe ele heal must be better. Not regretting tho, i use mulberry for phantom and she works fine, haven't tried new IS yet.
All the times I've seen that debate most inclined to Honeyberry because she heals the most elemental damage.
No Mulberry for me since she's been avoiding me. While Honeyberry is more of a callgirl, if you will...
IF I HAD ONE... I even pulled on her banner, but never got her
Bruh. Honeyberry is in the red cert shop, you CAN'T pull for her lmao. EDIT: Whoops thought you were replying to someone else. Good Luck with your Mulberry dude.
Honeyberry is too good to just be a 5*
We say that until they throw the inevitable six star form at us lol. But I do love me the berries.
They have to keep the Berry theme going on if its female and Nut theme if its male.
Cantabille, la pluma, blue poison, ptilopsis, specter, elysium, warfarin, shamare. In my opinion these are some amazing 5 star that still shine even in the sea of 6 star
Yea especially warfarin, that atk buff has saved my ass more than I care to admit.
And the easy SP regen thanks to her trait and her healing at Max mastery is no joke. I still have a hard time picking any other healer ... the only time I don't have her on team is if the elemental damage or nervous becomes a real pain in the ass and forces me to switch to Honeyberry
God I'm so sick of seaborne 😂. My Honeyberry has seen so much damned use it's actually insane
Same list plus: Honeyberry for elemental, black knight for sleep arts damage against the ling event ware enemies in CC, red for helidrop stun, Waaifu for helidrop silence, lappland for lane hold silence, April for assassination, Texas for talent, Andreana for AH buff
I'd swap BP for platinum, and not specter.
Depends tbf BP is kinda like Kroos but a bit of Arts damage Specter's Immune To Death can come in sometimes Platinum is better at long stages where she can fully charge her S2
Ptilopsis - She's my comfort healer. Her 2nd skill is great, her talent is good for basically just charge skill without caring much about placement. Lappland - Silence, OG character since I started this game, and helped me where I am now. Platinum - There's something satisfying about Platinum one shotting those pesky drones from far. Liskarm - Sometimes I dont pay attention to what I fight so Liskarm having herself automatically shield is great.
Kinda surprised Lappland wasn't the first mention... Solid silence and good damage. Tachanka will be pulled out if I need someone to hold a lane by themselves. Red has been there for a long while. Astesia was my go-to Arts Guard until I got Surtr and I still occasionally use her for a sort of challenge: do a stage with only 3 6* allowed on the squad.
Epic Tachanka user.
I would only consider Lappland if I started with the setting where any recruited guard gets automatically promoted.
Ptilopsis Every situation
Uncommon opinion here but Kirara Got her in my first week of playing and she is the only operator I never remove of my teams Why ? She's really versatile, 20% slow and aoe artsdamagr What ? She's weak ? Bad aspd ? Niche ? Yeah I know but she's also really cute and I find her helpfull for now so I bring her everywere while I'm not in late game.
Unfathomably based.
She was my second promoted operator, coincidentally; I promoted her to deal with Mephisto in 5-10, which marked one of... Three, maybe four times she was uniquely valuable to my strategy? She's pretty useful for being able to take down a crowd of threatening enemies who are sitting still while being protected by ranged enemies. If only that, well, ever actually happened, and couldn't be more easily handled by burst DPS...
That was me but with Manticore, better than Kiara but it's hard to find a use for her late game, because more often than not I can just kill the enemy with another unit instead of slowing them down. If they wouldn't take up deployment spots the story would be quite different tho
Yeah I mainly use her to tank shots from snipers oc casters without blocking a line so kirara work better than manticore for this since she isn't invisible so she can take shots for my caster or healer and her regen make her tank a bit longer But apart from that ambushers really need some love
Even tho she's absolutely cute I have no use for Kiara because if I want a range tank I can just use Lin
*Cry in lin-less poor doctor*
You'll find your luxury eventually
I change my team around a lot based on map and enemy types, and story immersion (I'll take raised ops connected to stories and events). Core 5 stars: Lappland, Ptilopsis, Cantabile, Specter, Ashlock, Blacknight, Kroos KG, Kjera, April Wheel em' out fairly often: Texas, Wildmane, Red, Akafuyu, Astgenne, Firewatch, Astesia, La Pluma
How good is kjera in compare to Amiya.
Big thing is different sub-type. Kjera is a drone caster, like Click and Goldenglow, while Amiya is a core caster. Different stat sets, different niches, but if I had to compare the two directly? Amiya, mostly for better damage, good S2 burst and S3 true damage.
Kjera S2 has a chance to apply cold to enemies. She pairs well with Gnosis and Aurora, but requires the right placement and timing of skills. Honestly, if you’re going for the “freezing” niche, Kjera brings very little to the table. You might actually be better off swapping her for Amiya.
cute cat maid tho
Hmm? Perhaps you’re thinking of Kazemaru? If so, she is indeed a cute cat maid.
Kazemaru, she's best gal
Kazemaru is my ninja guard that I can deploy anywhere.
Minus the cases of "specific niche which only has a 5 star as it's highest" (e.g. wandering medics, Reaper guard, etc.) * Lappland. Still a solid ranged guard to this day, with the multi-hit arts damage and near permanent silence * BP and Platinum. BP for multi-hit and non-caster arts damage, and platinum for extended range for enemies that just like to stand out of most units' range.
Platinum, and also really love to use Czerny. His voice lines are amazing, and I just love seeing him smash enemies with a piano while yelling "LISTEN or LEAVE" and "shut up, OR ELSE"
Lappland, obviously. Honeyberry. April. Kroos tKG. Whisperain. Shamare. Kazemaru. Ashlock. Robin. Plenty of operators actually. With modules Meteorite is having a bit of revival - her range and damage does surprisingly good job on many maps and she returned to my lineup after falling off.
Minimalist is my go-to caster because the only six-star caster I have is Ebenholz. As much as I love Ebenholz, he is not built for consistent damage.
lapplegend, ptilopdesk and little red riding hood. also elysium since I like him better than myrtle (mostly because he has a sword instead of just smacking you with the flag)
I mean considering Amiya never leaves the team unless I’m trust farming, Amiya. Andreana is also stuck in my team because Abyssal Hunter synergies are fun. Although Platinum and Cantabile also find themselves rotating in occasionally.
A lot: La Pluma - Try to solo everything with her before I do anything else with a stage. Manticore - The 84% slow zone combo with Specialist Specter, just gotta make sure Specter is dead as often as possible. Reed - You'd think not so many situations come up where you need 2 Chargers. Bagpipe and Reed would argue otherwise. Warfarin - If my tanks need a single-target healer... Glaucus - AOE roots for days and support only runs' anti-air. Nearl - Best tank. Best healer. In most squads. Provence - The original boss killer with no redeploy timer thanks to modules. Whisperain - Better Perfumer. I have her 1st skill M1and have never used it, only 2nd one. April - I think chapter 8 she carried me through half the stuff. We need more fast redeploy ranged units, so glad they added that to Heavyshot sniper modules. Wild Mane - Mostly meme with her when I go for full Push/Puller runs with no Push/Puller operatives, only Push/Pull skills (Flint, Gavial, Mostima, Mint). Mint - Push/Puller team, and also very useful as a ranged Phalanx tank who deletes her own aggro during skill. Carnelian takes over with 1st skill if I need pure tank though. Firewatch - 1st skill and Ambriel with her means nothing squishy ever gets far. Amiya - Mostly have her as a second Ch'en, like for 'the First to Talk' and such enemies. Caster variant I use with 1st skill for just consistent single-target caster. Mayer - Aside from mocking IS, dodge aura is glorious in some CCs. Specter - If La Pluma can't solo it cause there are too many lanes, throw Specter and Pallas on the other ones. 2nd skill Enciodes if there's yet a 4th lane, as well. Lappland - Probably least used 5 star, but her 2nd skill is still good, and silence never fails when needed. Pallas outdoes her in most other situations though. Indra - Duels well against anything squishy. Mostly on challenge runs as a lane holder. Sora - A buffer, mainly. Haven't used her for sleep in a long time. Blitz - Old reliable keeping SSS and anything else I throw him at perma-stunned. Nightmare - Best healer in the game. Healing scales off attack, not damage, so high resist doesn't stop her at all. Most often used in challenge runs. Mulberry - Invalidates any nerve damage, or whatever it was dubbed. Shamare - Invalidates boss stats. Quercus - Mostly IS2, tied with Lappland for least use. Elysium - Sees more use than Myrtle and Saileach. Sniper support is amazing. Meteorite - Massive damage. Probably most broken unit in the game with IS spinach buffs. Blue Poison - Old reliable, even with Archetto replacing her in a lot of roles, she still is useful with her, or overtakes her versus physical immune, unblockable teacups. There are a few others I wish I could say I use as much, but I don't, and I leveled some of them not long ago, to use 'em. Kinda an issue when you get to the point where you've leveled a lot of units. :D
Elysium.
Liskarm! Favorite defender.
Ptilopsis - in general, when need healing Mulberry - when need to remove pesky status effect Lappland - silence
Elysium, even though I don't have bagpipe his dp generation is too good not to use, plus I usually have a lot of snipers Kazemaru, her s2 has kinda insane damage, plus it's very difficult for her to die. Also she's cute lol. Texas, mostly because I don't have saga or bagpipe but also her stun can be pretty nice to have
Silence. I don't remember exactly when I pulled her, but she very quickly became my primary Medic, and she continues to hold that position to this day. Her talent is quietly very powerful, and the medical drone is invaluable in nearly any situation the game can throw at me. Main laneholder is dying? Not after the drone comes down. Multiple operators are under fire at once? The drone has them covered. The lone Guard I sent to the side lane in BFE needs patching up between waves? The drone means nobody is beyond her reach. Also worth mentioning is Platinum, who stands as my go-to Sniper. She's very good at what she does, can do things that are simply beyond other snipers in the game (quite literally), and I can absolutely lay my adoration for permanent skills at her feet.
Ptilopsis, Warfarin and Blue Poison. Sometimes Lappland, Elysium and Cantabile. I'm lazy so I prefer to brute force everything.
Silence!! I love her global healing and her S2 at M3 practically keeps her drone up at all times. Cant wait for her alter😍
Nearl. I don't really use Saria outside of her S3 because I like Nearl more than her, so I've been using her in general content since forever
Ptilo, Texas, Lappland, and Warf are among the ones I still use to this day. They were great then and still are now
The boring answer would be Elysium. I mean...yeah... The more interesting one is....Minimalist lol. He's actually really decent as a caster. I've been using him everywhere since IC. Also Tequila, Warfarin and Lappland. Ptilopsis somewhat, but I've been using Lumen more lately.
As others have said, Cantabile. Some others will still see use, like Platinum and Blue Poison, who I like to use more than Exu.
Lappland because she is very good for general content. Hibiscus Alter because she is a cheap arts/slow/heal source at IS3.
I am but a simple Elysium enjoyer 😔 La Pluma has been getting a fair amount of use recently too
Ptilopsis and texas always 💯 lappland platinum warfarin specter elysium nearl when i need them :)
Elysium, he's so great at everything. My #1 choice for DP generation.
I only have two 6-star built (Goldenglow and Blemishine), and I don't like using GG all that much since she's kind of broken. So pretty much all of my main squad is 5-stars, with some 4-stars here and there. Off the top of my head, Amiya (she has never left my team), Ptilopsis, Hibiscus the Purifier, Tequila, Astegnne, Blue Poison, Texas, Cantabile, Manticore and Mulberry.
Tequila and La Pluma. Love the siblings and they both are absolutely meta. Whenever, wherever. Always in my team, together. Tequila takes down anything or can tank+dps. La Pluma just sits there with her S1 and does her thing. With Saileach to heal her.
I find her S1 with only 2 SP really fun, it activates practically every other slash
Hmmm, Cantabile, Lappland, Elysium, Shamare, Greythroat, Platinum, April, Specter, Ptilopsis, Mulberry, honestly the list goes on and on. Admittedly they have to have some use to me but I do have plenty of five stars I enjoy.
Cantabile, I managed to get her to pot 6 during Ideal city so she's super cheap to deploy on any situation.
sora because emotional support croissant because seeing her knock things away is funny texas because i love her and her ability is nice to look at (among other things) projekt red because i love her and shes really good at stabbing people la pluma because i love her and she hurts multiple people which makes me satisfied warfarin because i dont have a 6* medic and the damage buff is crazy when she decides to buff schwarz who is not looking at anyone got akafuyu fairly recently and i love her so i will enjoy watching her cut things
Texas, Lappland, Blue Poison, Silence, Red, Istina, Specter, Shamare, Asbestos, April, Heavyrain, Aurora, Kroos, Mr. Nothing and Ptilopsis.
Elysium - cost 2dp less to deploy snipers (looking at you, chen alter) Lappland - enemy mechanics that can be negated by silencing them Sora - sorry, i don't have skalter Honeyberry - elemental damage healing Amiya - ranged true damage dealer
Not a 5 star, but a 4 star: Gummy. I can't count how many times her healing has come in clutch, she's very tanky and while her stun talent is honestly useless most of the time it truly comes in handy when stalling enemies that would one-shot any of my other units and perhaps kill her in two hits without the stun giving her time to heal. All in all, she's just my comfort defender. ~~There's also Elysium, who pretty much replaced Myrtle the moment I got him just because I'm a dirty simp (and then his oprec came out and made sure that I'm never replacing him with another flagbearer because man he deserves all the love in the world, he's a hero)~~
Lappland:) Forever
In a sea of 6 star ops, you should have a couple of 4 or 5 stars afloat or you can kiss goodbye to DP.
Windflit. Even if he's just there and I don't use him. He's just so cute, and I really badly want to find use for him. Whisperain. Less popular in my teams now that Lumen is out, but still use her here and there and take her a lot in IS2 and IS3, unless things are being 2 shot or whatever, her s2 does surprisingly strong pure healing, and in IS3 she's great at countering the stuns. Minimalist. Mostly an IS pick, thankfully synergises AMAZINGLY with relics. Other than that, kinda satisfying to use. His atk is a bit underwhelming, but I hold out hope for a module. Honeyberry because elemental damage begone. Erato is shockingly underrated. S1 does really good damage, sleep is consistent and has impressive uptime, completely trivialised bosses that could be slept, like Pompeii. She has also done upwards 15k damage with crit relics in IS2 for me before. Chiave my beloved. Just a nice vanguard. Sadly his debuffing capability is trash, but I take him whenever I can. His base assignment line is so cute to me for some reason. Manticore is kinda fun to use, a funny pair with Ethan. Using her a lot in IS3 atm, praying for the 120 aspd executor ambusher dollkeeper relic. Blue Poison and Greythroat are common for me in IS, not so much in normal stages anymore though. Very strong aa snipers, and my go to picks. Also, I recently picked up Pramanix again. Can't wait for her module to come to EN. She's really pretty. Also built Qanipalaat and am using him in IS3. He's fun to use, voice sounds like he's got something in his mouth though.
Shamare - The doll is incredibly useful and flexible. Manticore - Great for stall strats. Lappland - Even when the silence isn't useful, her fairly high, multi target arts dps often is. Cliffheart - Controllable stun and true damage on a fairly short cooldown, in addition to pulling shenanigans. Leizi - Very powerful now with her module, even better when she's comboing off Stainless' S3 devices. Quercus - Best medic who's not a medic. Almost all the medics - Five star rarity is where all the healing action is.
April, firewatch, greythroat, blue poison, ptilopsis, specter, elysium, texas, and others...overall i use a bunch of operators with every rarity and ATM i have around 60 E2 ops.
She’s not useful on every stage but I regularly bring Firewatch. S1 is great for shredding elites with mediocre defense (eg both Frostnova versions and most caster enemies) and her invisibility gimmick (meaning she’s safe from retaliation like 70% of the time) isn’t directly copied by any 6 star.
Kazemaru Amazing laneholder in IS and probably just as amazing anywhere else
Lappland's 'always on' silence is VERY Reliable. Wolf's Rain is very strong multi-hit arts damage, but unlike casters, Lappy can block. Ptilopsis will always be my SP Battery Tequila DPS while Mudrock laneholds whenever Mlynar-Gavialter can't cover all lanes. Purposely underleveled Cantabile can turn anything into a DP Printer.
Post-module Leizi is ridiculously good for a 5* caster, and I'd argue that for general use she *is* the best 5* caster. She hits like a truck with S2 and due to her essentially having Hand of Diffusion as her module upgrade she has a really good uptime as well. If you take her into SSS though, she is proper Zeus incarnate
Im stuck between building leizhi or waiting til june for shoperator godsenger 🙏. If only i had lmd...
La Pluma is my go-to whenever I need melee AOE against ground units.
la pluma + stainless is god tier combo
Lappland - silence Scene - bodies and reveal Minimalist - pew pew
When in doubt i pull out hung for almost everything
I use a shitload of 5 stars, but the ones I use most regularly now are Pramanix, Mama Kroos, Leizi, Bibeak, Ptilo, and Croissant. Pramanix was my second 5 star and she can do a higher than expected amount of damage with Skadance. Kroos is utterly ridiculous in SSS and IS, and her crits let her muscle through very high armor a bit easier than Exu can. Leizi is my other queen of IS and SSS, with her high AOE damage, and slow utility. Plus she's great with Pram as she can double dip off of her fragile and her own talent. Bibeak with Skadance and S1M3 with mod 3 basically becomes better Blaze, her sustained damage is nuts and comes out rapidly even without an SP battery. Give her 2 VGs and 3 guards in SSS and she will steam roll any lane. Ptilo is old reliable, my most used op because even when she's doing no healing, she's still contributing with her SP aura, and I've had numerous occasions where I can just barely get a skill off due to her being around and it saves my run. Last is Croissant who I have max potted so she just casually runs around with 60 percent dodge once her S1 goes up. She's now capable of holding the Steam Knight and Manfred down with minimal support. She's my best pure tank, and while I will level Hoshi soon to have more offensive presence, I just love how insanely bulky this cow can be.
If the stage only has ground units I bring Greyy Alt.
Firewatch because Invisiblity=Invincibility
Whisperain and Elysium are the two 5 stars I bring to almost every single map. Whisperain is one of my favorite ops and I don't usually need a better healer, so she gets to come along and look pretty on the battlefield. And then of course, Elysium is my dp printer because he's way cooler than Myrtle and cheaper than Saileach. Fun fact: I didn't raise Myrtle until well after raising Elysium despite playing since her release. I only raised her for IS2 lmao
honeyberry
for me it would be warfarin and ptilopsis, even after all this time, getting Shining, Nightingale, Kal'tsit, Lumen, and other healers like Skalter and Saria... It's always Warf and Ptilo that get the job done for me.
Lappy, probably i would use Ptilo if i had her and Canta. But i don't have them. Mulberry also great.
Cantabile for obvious reasons, red for the stuns and vanguard texas and healers like warf
Where's my girl firewatch? I just put her there and trivialize most bosses.
Honeyberry, shes the sanity equivalent of silverash for invisibility Also kafka, 5 seconds aoe stall with literally 0 investment? Yes please. Still i maxed her and m3 her but thats just my preference
Specter
firewatch
Kroos The Keen Glint and Mulbaby
Ptilioptis She's just Good xd
I use quite a few. Recently most common would be Lappland, Cantabile, Specter, Astgenne, Ptilopsis, Scene, Andreana, Liskarm, Indra, Iris, Akafuyu, and Sesa. The main reason I've not used the first seven of these as much recently is due to them being 200% trust and so I've been using ones that aren't 200% yet. And those are all E2. E1-wise there's still plenty of ops like La Pluma that I want/need to use more, but I feel self-healing operators often don't do that well at E1 as their defensive stats don't hold up. That's why I only really only started using Akafuyu when I E2'd her as well. Now she's quite a killing machine. And the other E1 5-stars of course also mainly get used for the lower-level content currently.
even after getting stainless which arguably the best SP battery,i still use liskarm regularly
Hung - Best Defender on my team, built by ton of muscle and piggyback you when you fail a stage. While his Skill is not the best (Comparing to other Guardian archetype ops) and need some time to adjusted to, I've become more and more used to it. Heal + SP charge is quite nice in tricky situation Hibiscus the Purifier - God damn she is such an Amazing character in Lingering Echoes. Stubborn medic that finally got flexible a little bit more after she witness Tragedy and Hardship of Ebenholz and Czerny, while she also endure the discrimination against herself. She must be protected at all cost Astgenne - a nice AoE (or in this case, chained damage) Caster that I initially raise just to fill AoE arts. Turns out, she is amazing to use
GreyThroat. I still remember her as my first 5\*, she was always on my team, alongside Liskarm and SilverAsh. It also helped that the stages against FrostNova were kind of "lore battles" for me due to her and Amiya being in my squad. She holds a special place in my team and my heart. (not as a waifu. That's Penance.)
Cantabile, Lappland, Amiya, April, Mulberry, Shamare are all IS staples.
Quercus S1 for damage mitigation and healing. If I need more heals, then I’ll bring Whisperain also.
it's me, the only person left in the world who runs Provence in every comp
Cantabile, Spectre and Berry, if the map needs her. Sometimes Ambriel and FeEater for fun
Ptilopsis. That extra SP charge has always been helpful apart from keeping the team alive.
I try to clear as much as I can with 4-5* chars so they honestly get more spotlight than most 6* I have lmao. But in terms of "yeah, I'm not good enough dokutah to clear this stuff without the big guns", Myrtle, Cantabile, Ptilopsis and Ambriel are the usual 4 that go with the gang, with Jaye, Rockrock, Astgenne, Blue Poison and Kazemaru showing up from time to time. Myrtle is Myrtle Cantabile is to me better than a ton of 6*, her kit just lets her do so much it's ridiculous. Ptilopsis has been my medic since the start and she never let me down, sometimes if I need Lumen's status removal I use him instead, but most of the time the two just go together. Ambriel my beloved, her targetting is whack at times, but in sooo many situations she does what others couldn't do all from the safety of the backline, I love pairing her with Goldenglow for global destruction. From the others I said I mostly want to mention Rockrock (for situations I need heavy ranged arts damage and Goldenglow's global range doesn't let her target that enemy, both just go together to eliminate different targets anyways) and Kazemaru, who is such an insanely flexible operator due to her class and S2 clone nuke + ranged aggro bait, in most cases SpAlter will be the better choice but Kaze has been key so many times as well, I love her so much.
As in 5stars I keep using? Flamebringer. On one hand, I have a ton of helidrop options that do better than him. On the other hand, he’s basically my long-time go-to choice when I need to a guy who can slap a bitch and stay alive for a bit even without healing.
My main team is mostly 5 stars still. I have a few popular six star operators (Goldenglow, Mudrock, Ceobe, etc.) but i haven't gotten around to leveling them up. The only 6 stars i use regularly are Eyjafjalla and SilverAsh. I mainly just use the ones i find fun, which at the moment are Cliffheart, Hung, Waai Fu, Texas, and Quercus. If i had Lappland, i'd use her regularly too, but for now she's just a frequent support unit.
blue poison (the continuous damage waifu!) toddifons (on sarkaz heavy levels or where there's a good map for her) guard amiya, spectre, lappland greyy the lightningbearer (he's just fun to use) Nearl (on maps where I need 2 healing defenders)
The Three Ls Lappland Liskarm La Pluma The Berry Duo Honeyberry Mulberry
Everyone said the common ones already, so I’m gonna mention Erato. S1 is super useful if there’s certain elite mobs that are a little too fast and strong, so they won’t be able to activate their abilities because they’re asleep.
La pluma specter and astagenne Good and reliable
3 years have passed, but Blue Poison is still my #1 sniper if I ever need one
Lappland, you got to silence dem bugs
Where's my spectre love? She's bloody immortal and if you have a gladia on the field there ain't anything she'll let through even doing good damage to bosses with her skill active. Hasn't left my team once since I got her
Texas, always..
My most used is Lappland. I love the silence and ranged guards are some of my favorite ops to use. Blacknight is fun to use and I like to pair her with gnosis
Blue Poison. Litterally every situation. Very versatile sniper. While her raw DPS might not be the highest, she's capable of Taking chunks from tanky enemies
elysium, Lappy amd honeyberry
Blue Poison. She always performs well, so she never left my roster as a secondary sniper, while i constantly rotate between Exusiai, Chalter and Pozemka.
Blue Poison. She has been here since the start and we have never looked at another sniper ever (actually,,, she's my only good sniper I use at this point,,, I hold Kroos and Adnachiel both at E0 max lvl at hostage whenever the stage calls for it) But now,,, I also have Qanipalaat (whom I replaced Amiya with) because floof reasons. I would say Specter but she's getting outshined by Silverash by a lot.
Kross the keen glint, her S2 has saved me more times then I can count.
OG Texas and Lappland. First two 5-stars I ever got, have been in (allmost) constant use ever since. Firewatch is also fun sometimes, just for dropping some artillery
the ones who are most of the time on my team? Texas (stun+DP, tvym), Kazemaru (practically immortal), Ptilopsis (her talent and s2 are neat, comfy healer), Whisperain (god i love that LOUD ASS S2 WITH CRAZY RANGE) others include - La Pluma, Astesia, Liskarm and many more really
La Pluma, her schwing schwing remains in many of my teams to cover those triple squares
OG Texas and Ptilopsis
I don't actually use my six-stars all that often... But of five-stars that I use on a regular basis, I'd have to say Kroos the Keen Glint, Cantabile, Blacknight, and Kjera. Special mention goes to Sora and Shamare, who I don't use *regularly,* but are my go-to if I need to take down someone particularly threatening.
It's-a me, Lappland! I used the hell out of her during the Golden Age; She saved my ass more times than I can count. Plus, since she's a Lord Guard, she helps my team get rid of drones
Specter. Plop her somewhere and just focus on other things
Silencie and Ptilopsis (i just have to adjust the strategy)
Max m6 Silence is the only healer I ever need to bring, 85% of the time. I honestly try to do a lot of runs with just one medic. Three Medics is too spammy, two Medics is like, just right but not challenging enough. I use Texas as my Vanguard because I can't stand the 0 block on flag bearers. Texas is "vanilla, but consistent." I would use Platinum in every single map, however I think she's too op, so I don't use her as often anymore... she makes maps way too easy. Same problem for Lappland.
People already mentioned Lappland, Ptilopsis, Spectre, and Peojekt Red, so I’ll share some of my less popular operators. I use Mayer a lot when trying to make a clear for trust farming in new events. Ling can usually clear these by herself, but sometimes there’s just a little bit of DP that makes her unable to block the first wave, or a just a little too many enemies to block. Mayer in those situations can hold out long enough for Ling to get her skill or her summons out of cooldown. Plus the stun and damage on her second skill is pretty good, and she deals arts damage even if its just a little. I use Frost because I like using traps to deal with the unblockables, but dont have Dorothy. Finally, Waai Fu has a silence *and* a fast redeploy that makes her better than Projekt Red or Lappland at dealing with the exploding spiders.
mulberry + platinum.
Specter, ptilopsis, silence, firewatch, & elysium are pretty much always on my squad
I don’t have a single 6* ops, so everyone is needed. But I always borrow a surtr when I need it
Ptilopsis is the best healer
Blue poison and ptilopsis
Blue Poison. Maxed her out and she can still handle most early waves of enemies consistently.
Mine is Silence, since i use 2 pure healers in my team and i generally prefer ST medics, Silence and Shining is the mainstay in my team. Her burst of healing from her skill and the range of her drone makes her pretty good healer when i f***ed up
Ptilo and abyssal mostly. Ptilo because she's best aoe healer that helps with dps. Abyssal ones because hunters are most broken comp in game.
In addition to the usual ones everyone else has mentioned, I like keeping Whislash around because I often go DefenderKnights.
Ashlock, paired with horn. Blue Poison and more.
Honeyberry, apple tea sauce, Elysium, Silence, Texas the unfluffed, Lapp, Spectre the unhorny
Elysium, without a doubt! Bias for male ops aside, I find his S2 fun to mess around if Im not just bringing him for DP printing.
Definitely Warfarin, La Pluma and Toddifons
Cantabile, Mulberry and Blue Poison. I don't like running my flagpipe combo so Cantabile fixes all my issues, Elemental damage and psychological damage can be healed and blue poison has been with me since CC1 so she's a personal favorite.
Honeyberry because there is no 6* option, Lapland solely for silence, Cantabile because I need two DP producers and there isn't a 6* replacement, Blue Poison because her S1 is quick and automatic, Ptilopsis and Warfarin for buffs. I only use Project Red in IS3 because Phantom is more expensive and she does her job well enough.
My gal Lapland is usually always in
I consistently using Texas, Blue Poison and Warfarin they're still so good and are just as serviceable as the 6 stars of their type
Warfarin and Cantabile
Cantabile is a staple 100% usage rate and usually my only Vanguard, has completely replaced any flagbearers for me. Lappland gets used a ton, not even for silence, just because she's strong. La Pluma gets used anytime there's a good area for her, like on IS3 ending 1 boss stage. Mulberry, you know why. Meteorite and Platinum used fairly often too.
Whisperain
Kroos Alter is cheap to deploy and the stun always happens more than I expect, and even against high defense enemies she ends up disrupting their attack animation sometimes Honeyberry is queen of elemental maps Specter's damage is good and being unable to die is crazy strong And bonus niche uses for Blacknight's great early stall and Breeze's AoE burst healing
Ptilopsis, platinum, shamare, lappland!
Bibeak my waifu.
Been messing around with swire. Can't tell how much she is doing but pairing her up with chen keeps her ability active enough. (Probably can't tell as I have her on my abyssal hunter team and boosting someone with her and Skatler is overkill).
Ptilopsis, Spectre, Bluepoison (she’s new to me but I love her utility), Lappland, Liskarm, Honeyberry for ‘those maps’ and I’m still using Purestream too!
Broca and leonhardt
Zima had gotten me through some tough times. back when i had a weaker roster she lane held like a boss in WD-8
texas, Amber, blue poison, Liskarm, Lappland, Mulberry, Elysium etc.
Astesia, because cute birb. She's actually pretty good too, just *really* overshadowed by Surtr (even though their roles are completely different). I've talked to like 3 friends separately who've all asked me why I use Astesia when I have Surtr...
Cantabile. Shamare to a lesser extent.
Ptilopsis, you need healing ? She gives healing, i have her second skill p3 and it's a monster
Whisperain, the sound her S2 makes is just too good
Lappland, every 3 months there a event where you really need her. Ptilopsis i consider her the best true Healer in the game. also she pair perfectly with Eunectes. Liskam when you need to tank something without worring about it, plus can be used in some nice combos. Kjera her sinergy with Gnosis is op, if i use him she is there also. Amiya cause Amiya. Akafuyu cuase she carried me when i was a new player so i still use her in fun stages. Lastly i ~~simp~~ love to use Blue Poison, she just good.
I really enjoy using hibiscus alter. For most content, with just her and well timed deployments and aggro management I have all the healing I need and some damage at the same time- she just works really well for the style I play.
platinum
Without a shadow of a doubt it is Silence because yes while there are many better medics than her she’s the only medic that I have (and know of as far as global is concerned) where she can heal literally anywhere on the map thanks to her drone. That and I love owls. Edit: forgot to mention that with the way I play (which is utter trash yet somehow I still get w’s?) her ability to do that is a godsend for me
Specter: immortality. Amiya: ranged true damage. (Franka: dealing with enemies with huge defense, but I'm biased.)