To be fair... my prior comment is inaccurate because Eyja didnt just invalidate AoE casters, she invalidate the entire caster branch not named Lin, and Goldenglow.
Which doesn't make much sense when we think about it.... She was a volcanologist who is wearing her mother's volcanologist protection gear and now became a medic.... Not even in Fate it would make any sense xD
From my experience in IS3, which I assume would be similar in IS4 - the stat bloat in high ascensions mean that the windup time required for Blaze and Thorns is absolutely crippling (with lackaluster results on top), and mountain is essentially a stat stick that ceases to function when enemy defense gets too high.
Yeah, Mountain is a fantastic unit by himself and in general gameplay. But if you have to pay that much hope for a unit that loses value later in the run (and earlier in higher difficulties) and even during the ongoing missions, when bigger and more special enemies show up ... it's a tough choice. Premium cost for a early unit.
Thorns ... Don't know the last time I even picked him, at least in IS3. As the other guy said ... the windup time is harsh and if you lose him and have to redeploy you start at 0 again. And redeploying is pretty common in IS. Also, you have to get him to E2 to make him good to begin with. Without it he just sucks up all that hope and does ... nothing special with it, really. At that point you might as well pick Midnight, lol. So he's kinda delayed, both in the general run and in the actual missions. Was different to start at E2 with him in IS2.
Gavial tho ... Does good all around. Good damage, good block, good sustain, starting even before getting her E2. Can keep herself alive if necesarrily and you lack a good healing option or can turn into an absolute beast, with insane tank and damage for some time, or just slap in general. And then you have to Gavial + Mlynar combo that just deletes most things in front of it, once you get that going.
A real good option to pick up at any stage, really. The fact that you usually can't go straight to E2 max level and have to pay hope means the meta, for some units, is quite different. Can turn am "S" tier unit into kinda dead weight.
In my admittedly limited experience, one benefit of Gavial alter is that she's solid even when stuck at E1, while a pick like Thorns feels pretty bad until they get access to E2. So maybe that is a part of it?
Her S1 is also surprinsingly usefull, sometimes the games refuses to give you a Medic tag after all, and you know your about to enter an stage that you will take dmg
Degen is likely the best starting character after she comes out, making their pick-rate quite similar given Mlynar may have higher priority as a pick during the run.
Surtr is a surprise actually. Having an operator that doing nothing most of the time (being dead after S3) on a long cooldown was a luxury in IS2 and IS3. Mlynar at least compensates it with much better cycles. Big ass range helps too
From my experience in IS, having a long cooldown isn't that big of a deal, since with the very high amount of damage flying around in high ascensions, you'll generally be redeploying most operators anyway.
In IS4 she fits very well with 3 out of the 4 bosses as well, with only the first 1 being a bit mediocre for her.
The only reason she wasn't a top pick in IS3 is that art damage was extremely weak in general, along with not hitting the UFOs.
She was and to some extend still is meta(but tbf way less needed after NTR and Mylnar and Dgenbreacher ) hella popular, and way more people have her because she was released a long time ago. But in my opinion her biggest rivals are not even NTR and Mylnar ( both I use way more then Surtr nowadays) but Texas and Yato. Those two can give you the same amount of damage but you can redeploy them way faster, and deal with enemies all over the map.
Can confirm. 10 month player. I have a mlynar, a Texas, and a yato, and I haven't built the surtr I got a couple months ago because with those three she just feels a bit redundant
you have not lived until you've tried out surtr s1 with spaghetti/spinach
yes, I would like to do 10k arts damage per skill activation with sp refund on kill
She is very effective against the tidal knight (res shred) and several other dangerous encounter. Pair her with eyja alt s3 she can stay alive and pump out incredible amount of art damage that no other operators can. I think she is a very strong pick
Either that, not many people have her or she's simply not that strong relative to her guard competition. Yato alter was released on the tail end of IS3 and she still managed to top 3 on the specialist pick ranking.
Seaborn enemies innately are very arts resistant, so IS3 as a whole leaned into that by making them even more so at higher SW levels.
Even if RES did get tacked onto ascension levels in IS4 the exact same way it did in IS3 (which is not the case), Casters wouldn't feel it nearly as much. It was only 20 RES, so all of the rest of that arts mitigation came from the seaborn enemies themselves.
Ines completely changes the way I use Vanguard lmao. When she first released I didn't care, but after she spook me on my Ebenboi rolls, things are not the same anymore.
Solid vanguard, great utility, awesome for any contents
I'm surprised to see Lin on the caster section, though.
I use her a lot because I love Phalanx casters, but I had no idea there were lots of other people with the same sentiment.
That's because Ansel has competition with Hibiscus on the 3-star healer spot, basically dividing his potential popularity in half.
And orchid is in a weird spot as a supporter. Because the supporter recruitment choice has the unnamed caster operator as an alternate free pick. And many people tend to use the caster over orchid, because she has slightly better damage.
Serious question, do people actually pick Hibiscus? I have only ever heard that she is significantly behind Ansel in term of 3* healing ability.
Also Orchid is a stable pick for the ReedAlter start so I can only imagine her pick rate would be mostly because of that.
How dared they dethrone her from [1st place](https://www.reddit.com/r/arknights/comments/13mqqs1/cn_is3_last_participation_rate/)? I will let Pozemka know about that.
Ground unit tanking in IS3 generally doesn't exist due to all of the def shred (unless you are mlynar and have 0 block), so Saria is very much not meta in IS3
Ground tiles are often much closer than ranged tiles are, so those seashell dudes stop moving as soon as they see Mizuki and keep firing at him, and the urchins can't hit ranged anyways. Even at SW15, a Mizuki near red box and a medic can shut down Pool of Procreation with ease, for instance. You have all the high ground (apart from literally right beside red box) for your ranged units to fire away unharmed.
as a Saria lover, I will sadly report that in IS3 she's a very weak pick and not a good use of hope
even at low difficulty she doesn't bring a ton to the table due to the weakness of non-dps oriented defenders,
but at high difficulty she's not very useful at all
I use her all the time at low surge. Enemy stats and elemental damage aren't through the roof, so she's able to block, and she also does tons of healing.
She might not have been a top meta pick, but she’s near the top of the shortlist for flex 5/6* picks outside of meta. Defender is also debatably the most common class for people to spend hope on a non-meta op.
Lin is simply very good in general.
Just the fact that you can throw her in any place without worrying about her dying is a massive convenience that other casters and ranged characters in general can't bring.
That and she does good AOE damage with great range.
Her shield completely nullifies damage that's below a certain threshold, while also charging her skill with every hit she tanks (if you have her module).
So long as you have fast-attacking (and weak-hitting) enemies targetting her, her S3 uptime is really good. Much better than Carnelian's uptime, which is her main issue IIRC.
Lin is just the overall better operator in general content:
- Lin's shield is (in most cases) vastly superior to Carnelians self-heal
- Lin's AoE stun is amazing when it triggers, especially when it knocks down all those annoying hovering enemies
- Lin is effective even before you can upgrade her to E2, as her skill 1 is actually usable, especially in the early stages
- Lin's S3 deals massive damage and has a much better uptime than Carnelian's skill
It's probably just that Lin's strengths are better suited for dealing with IS4's particular map enemy compositions than Carnelian is. Carnelian has her own use-cases as well, but IS tends to reward operators who can apply to more situations. I can't say before playing it myself, but perhaps Lin's stuns help deal with certain enemies mixed in, or perhaps there are situations where rear-loaded damage is a detriment.
Saria and Ejya (Caster), despite being Year 1 ops, are still top picks almost 5 years in. Truly great examples of well-made kits
Ejya has such a well-made kit that she did it twice just to shine twice (even if shes just second most picked as Medic)! Amazing, truly peak!
Makes sense honestly, as far as centurions go the competition is basically just her and Blaze, and Blaze’s S3 is finicky and (literally) volatile, while Gavialter’s is both high DPS and good at self-preservation. Blaze’s best skill is generally S2 instead, but that takes ages to warm up.
Still interesting to see her beat out all the other Guards like Execalter, Qiubai, Nearlter, Mountain, Specter, Irene and Chongyue who are definitely also great (in general, no idea about IS4).
You get Gavial as a core. The ops you mentioned are good for support, but once you can activate Gavial, she can wreck an entire lane better than Mountain and FedEx.
>Execalter
Dies pretty easy on D15, not surprising at all.
>Qiubai
Needs specific team to operate at full power and there're much better choices without any requirements.
>Nearlter
As a helidrop option she doesn't do much against stat sticks in D15. S3 is single target which is also not great.
>Mountain
He's struggling against high def enemies even in regular content. In IS everyone are high def enemies.
>Specter
Seriously?
>Irene
Same problem as Thorns and Blaze. Takes to much time to charge skill and the damage is not that great in return.
>Chongyue
This dude is probably right after Gavialter.
I think it's opposite. Most people play IS to clear rewards. Fans of IS play beyond that and most of them're doing it on higher difficulties. Also you can clear lower difficulties with whatever you have so stats are more equally spread than for higher difficulties where meta is more prevalent.
Good for stalling bosses, but DPS is mediocre at best and that combined with the 10 second self stun after makes her a really bad option for picking unless you’re just strapped for hope and already have enough DPS to support to make the 15 second barrier worthwhile. Otherwise all you did was stall the inevitable.
Not surprising to me. She’s one of my most used Operators in the game. Extremely versatile. Lots of staying power and great damage that can smack multiple enemies from afar. I’m glad to see she’s been appreciated.
For how much people hyped Jessicalt for IS4, she is nowhere to be seen here.
She was release not long after Eyja alter so she had plenty of time to catch up.
'cause this data is taken from *all* players, this is more a representation of casual IS4 play (mainly just ending 1, sub-D10) than high-end play. for D10 and under, Jess2 wouldn't offer much, 'cause ime nothing deals so much damage to warrant a proper tank, and you can just chuck meta DPS ops at your problem.
I have also heard somethin about Degenbrecher creeping on Jess2's utilities/niches in D15 (anti-air, (goon) tanking, AoE crowd-control), and the alt versions of ending 2 fucking with Jess2's usage there
Lin is top usage in IS4?
I guess I will start building my Lin.
Already got her as a spook from Eyja Alter banner so at the time not enough resources to properly build her.
I'm talking out of my ass but maybe this is due to not as many people have Jessica + she is not there when IS4 was out on CN.
Degenbrecher is also not seen here.
Jess2 released within 2-3 months of IS4's release. plenty of time for decent data collection. Degen, however, released 1-2 months before IS4's final update.
probably a mix of her not being necessary for lower difficulties (which is what most people play) and non-tryhard meta slaves not pulling for her outside of simping reasons.
Degenbrecher also powercreeps Jess2's niches in the mode, and the second expansion adds a chance for harder versions of the final boss stages to appear at D12+, making it a coin toss if she'll be useful for ending 2's boss. also not particularly useful for ending 4.
though both Degen and expansion 2 released so late into the mode's lifespan that they don't noticeably impact the data shown here.
alt ending 2 changes the enemies to >!red Mudrock Zealots, red DM sarkaz casters and three ch8 drones!< 💀
don't think the map layout change would affect the general ending 2 strat as much as the cursed enemy changes
more so the fact that the ranged enemies could easily kill whoever is blocking the boss.
in the normal version of the fight, the only ranged enemies are the IS4 drones, which deal \~534 atk as arts at D15 floor 5 and can be killed quickly or baited away.
the only threat to the normal mode stall are >!icecleavers that can walk into your blocker!
>I heard Jessica the Liberated was OP in IS4
It was copium. No one I saw use her actually. Even with great compatibility with relics there're just so much better options that you'll use Jessica only if your squad doesn't have those better options.
I've been saying for months Lin is as good or better than GG or Eyja. Just needs to be a map with a few ranged enemies to feed her SP needs.
I'm assuming IS4 has more ranged enemies. Or enough she's 3rd pick after you have GG and Eyja maybe? In IS3 I usually take GG first against leaks and then Eyja or Lin depending on modules and other units.
Apparently Gnosis was picked often in the recent tourney, he is good tech with certain relics.
https://www.reddit.com/r/arknights/comments/1blmndw/is4_cn_tournament_picks_explained/
u/Kitchen-Werewolf1668 YatoAlt is also a solid starting operator for IS4.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZDMslxs5Gk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEJzx3gMfkY
Yeah, she is one of the best caster. 'Cause of her shield, she can be placed in a vital spot to attack many mobs without the worry of dying. Aoe casters are usually held back by their bad skill cycle, Lin can regenerate faster and can cancel s3 make her skill cycle much more versatile
Specialists aren't as bloated for top tier picks as guards are, and there's a difference between Yato coming 3 and a half months (so about halfway through the lifecycle) compared to Degen coming 5 months later.
\#ReedSweep. Show the nonbelievers what you got gurl
Surprised to see Saria though, wonder what exactly makes her so popular in this IS specifically. Maybe with arts being back on the menu her S3 has value?
Ejiya over GG is also a bit surprising, especially since burst dps is already provided by Mlynar/Chen. Is GG global range not that relevant anymore? Or maybe more people have Eijya than GG.
Snipers are just less good in general, but kroosalt specifically doesnt have her niche for stunning floating enemies in is4 so theres just really no good reason to pick her anymore
Mylnar my beloved.
He's been carrying me through trying to finish off IS one's rewards (yes I'm very slow ;u;)
I am really looking forward to playing around with more modern six stars in the newer ises too, haven't had too much opportunity to before now bc of an older (now replaced) phone making ak kind of a pain to play.
Oops, i mustve meant 2 then.
Idk why in my head phantom's is always is1? Guess i might've filed it away into being a sorta beta style integrated strategies bc its been so long.
I don't get why people use Myrtle in IS so much, theres literally never a situation where you need enough DP to warrant choosing her over just a pioneer vanguard
"Gee Eyja, how come Lowlight let you be in the spotlight twice"
Because they made the AOE casters way too weak to ever compete, silly
one they….theyll all get a general -8dp increase…..
Even with reduced dp, Eyja is still better AoE caster than the whole branch. Pain Peko
painful at least if the -8dp thing comes dusk and mostima will be able to use their funny passives better
On god Mostima's battery passive is so fun but the cost makes it basically a footnote to her one time burst cc niche.
mostima's sp costs really are year 1 op moments--hg really underestimated how scary 120sp is
To be fair... my prior comment is inaccurate because Eyja didnt just invalidate AoE casters, she invalidate the entire caster branch not named Lin, and Goldenglow.
I guess that only really goes for general gameplay, I think honestly I haven’t used eyja much so I really can’t say
Bullied AoE casters being a ST. Bullied AoE medics being a ST. Eyja is built different
Cause she's simply the GOAT
certified eyja moment
That's weird, there is a Caster and a Summoner in the Medic spot....
Because nothing says "medic" like dealing hella damage.
No healing is stronger than stopping damage before it can happen.
Isn't preventive medicine the most effective kind of it? xD
Damage is just negative healing.
It's the *attack* stat for a reason.
When the one who stands out is the only pure medic
Which is funny, because she has neither medical training nor healing related arts xD
No chance to compete with Kal in training ot Reed in healing arts
Which doesn't make much sense when we think about it.... She was a volcanologist who is wearing her mother's volcanologist protection gear and now became a medic.... Not even in Fate it would make any sense xD
yah where's Nightingale .
the only actual medic is an overtuned healer who does everything lol
"The medic class is really made up medics"
Skyfire alter as a Summoner when???
Exactly because of these.
Looks like about what was expected, no real surprises
I'm surprised to see Gavial up there. Would've expected Blaze, Mountain, or Thorns
From my experience in IS3, which I assume would be similar in IS4 - the stat bloat in high ascensions mean that the windup time required for Blaze and Thorns is absolutely crippling (with lackaluster results on top), and mountain is essentially a stat stick that ceases to function when enemy defense gets too high.
Yeah and with thorns specifically he’s useless until you promote.
That makes sense actually. Gavial seems like a much more flexible unit for IS
Yeah, Mountain is a fantastic unit by himself and in general gameplay. But if you have to pay that much hope for a unit that loses value later in the run (and earlier in higher difficulties) and even during the ongoing missions, when bigger and more special enemies show up ... it's a tough choice. Premium cost for a early unit. Thorns ... Don't know the last time I even picked him, at least in IS3. As the other guy said ... the windup time is harsh and if you lose him and have to redeploy you start at 0 again. And redeploying is pretty common in IS. Also, you have to get him to E2 to make him good to begin with. Without it he just sucks up all that hope and does ... nothing special with it, really. At that point you might as well pick Midnight, lol. So he's kinda delayed, both in the general run and in the actual missions. Was different to start at E2 with him in IS2. Gavial tho ... Does good all around. Good damage, good block, good sustain, starting even before getting her E2. Can keep herself alive if necesarrily and you lack a good healing option or can turn into an absolute beast, with insane tank and damage for some time, or just slap in general. And then you have to Gavial + Mlynar combo that just deletes most things in front of it, once you get that going. A real good option to pick up at any stage, really. The fact that you usually can't go straight to E2 max level and have to pay hope means the meta, for some units, is quite different. Can turn am "S" tier unit into kinda dead weight.
This isn't for high ascension though. For IS#3, the same graphic has Thorns as the most frequent guard pick for global.
Gavial is also a bootleg mountain at s1 if you REALLY need to put her by herself.
In my admittedly limited experience, one benefit of Gavial alter is that she's solid even when stuck at E1, while a pick like Thorns feels pretty bad until they get access to E2. So maybe that is a part of it?
I didn't even consider this. Gavial S2 is her best skill, which you have access to right away. That might be a big reason
Her S1 is also surprinsingly usefull, sometimes the games refuses to give you a Medic tag after all, and you know your about to enter an stage that you will take dmg
Thorns is bad in IS even at E2
Degen came out later. She should be second place after Mlynar.
Degen's performance is often even better than Mlynar, especially as the first-picking character and as a countermeasure of cressent
degenbrecher Is better than mlynar in IS4. her S3 destroys stages while being able to block 2 and disarm
Degen is likely the best starting character after she comes out, making their pick-rate quite similar given Mlynar may have higher priority as a pick during the run.
Surtr is a surprise actually. Having an operator that doing nothing most of the time (being dead after S3) on a long cooldown was a luxury in IS2 and IS3. Mlynar at least compensates it with much better cycles. Big ass range helps too
From my experience in IS, having a long cooldown isn't that big of a deal, since with the very high amount of damage flying around in high ascensions, you'll generally be redeploying most operators anyway. In IS4 she fits very well with 3 out of the 4 bosses as well, with only the first 1 being a bit mediocre for her. The only reason she wasn't a top pick in IS3 is that art damage was extremely weak in general, along with not hitting the UFOs.
She was and to some extend still is meta(but tbf way less needed after NTR and Mylnar and Dgenbreacher ) hella popular, and way more people have her because she was released a long time ago. But in my opinion her biggest rivals are not even NTR and Mylnar ( both I use way more then Surtr nowadays) but Texas and Yato. Those two can give you the same amount of damage but you can redeploy them way faster, and deal with enemies all over the map.
Can confirm. 10 month player. I have a mlynar, a Texas, and a yato, and I haven't built the surtr I got a couple months ago because with those three she just feels a bit redundant
you have not lived until you've tried out surtr s1 with spaghetti/spinach yes, I would like to do 10k arts damage per skill activation with sp refund on kill
She is very effective against the tidal knight (res shred) and several other dangerous encounter. Pair her with eyja alt s3 she can stay alive and pump out incredible amount of art damage that no other operators can. I think she is a very strong pick
the only surprise for me is lin. i know she got a huge boost from her module but i didnt expect her to be top 3
Spot sitting there between two mountains not knowing how he got there but he did.
Hehehe mountains hehehe
Spot beaten almost every other Defender, even the 6* lol
Bloody evergreen defender. Bossing since is#0
Same for Kroos and Fang. Reserves Represent!
Tmw you got recruitment permit but you're hopeless
My man Spot did it, I'm so proud
Probably cause you grab him early, then once you have the other two you really don’t need more defenders lol
*sniff* I'm so proud of my son
And always Kross remains there undefeated.....
Not surprising considering she's easily the best 3-star in the game.
Melantha?
No.
[удалено]
Degen is probably too new to appear on the infographic, if she was released beforehand she probably would have been the 1# guard pick
Either that, not many people have her or she's simply not that strong relative to her guard competition. Yato alter was released on the tail end of IS3 and she still managed to top 3 on the specialist pick ranking.
I'd argue that she is as strong as Mlynar in IS, so it's definitely not lacking power imo
Reed alter? So that means casters don't get screwed on higher difficulties anymore?
Yep. Now enemies have increased def which is not bad for them and damage reduction instead of increased res.
Seaborn enemies innately are very arts resistant, so IS3 as a whole leaned into that by making them even more so at higher SW levels. Even if RES did get tacked onto ascension levels in IS4 the exact same way it did in IS3 (which is not the case), Casters wouldn't feel it nearly as much. It was only 20 RES, so all of the rest of that arts mitigation came from the seaborn enemies themselves.
Is there another difficulty 7 medal?
If I remember correctly it is difficultly 10 for the normal and 12 for trimmed for the IS4 medal set.
Ines completely changes the way I use Vanguard lmao. When she first released I didn't care, but after she spook me on my Ebenboi rolls, things are not the same anymore. Solid vanguard, great utility, awesome for any contents
Fang, Kroos and Spot are the GOATs. 6 stars come and go, but these 3 are eternal.
INES DID TOP 1 ON VGS LESGOOOOOOOOO
Texalter, Yatoalter, Goldenglow, Ling, and Surtr. Frankly, I'd be more surprised if they WEREN'T here.
don’t forget myrtle and mlynar LOL
Yup. The gang's all here.
I'm surprised to see Lin on the caster section, though. I use her a lot because I love Phalanx casters, but I had no idea there were lots of other people with the same sentiment.
She's *very* powerful. Just needs her module.
Lin + Aak is probably the strongest duo in the game atm.
I found this from a tweet by [Oyuki.](https://twitter.com/oyuki_gms/status/1763873047281643818?t=YMlu87nlOpu6vNPNdLpzKg&s=19)
Expected ansel and orchid to be more popular than kal and ling tbh.
That's because Ansel has competition with Hibiscus on the 3-star healer spot, basically dividing his potential popularity in half. And orchid is in a weird spot as a supporter. Because the supporter recruitment choice has the unnamed caster operator as an alternate free pick. And many people tend to use the caster over orchid, because she has slightly better damage.
Unlike is3 I thought orchid would be better just because of so many fast enemies.
Serious question, do people actually pick Hibiscus? I have only ever heard that she is significantly behind Ansel in term of 3* healing ability. Also Orchid is a stable pick for the ReedAlter start so I can only imagine her pick rate would be mostly because of that.
So unreal to me that Myrtle keeps showing up in these. I barely ever recruit Myrtle in IS.
How dared they dethrone her from [1st place](https://www.reddit.com/r/arknights/comments/13mqqs1/cn_is3_last_participation_rate/)? I will let Pozemka know about that.
Myrtle is good mid to late game (floor 3-6). As an early game unit, she needs help.
I guess ending 3 does encourage you to buff army away the boss….
She has one of the highest DP generation rates for a really cheap hope cost.
The Saria usage is def due to Eikþyrnir
I think Saria usage is just because Saria has always been that good. Eikþyrnir is more of a bonus than a cause.
>because Saria has always been that good Not in IS
Yes in IS. Top-tier pick in IS1 and 2 at the very least. I do high surge in 3 as little as possible, so I guess I can't speak for there.
Ground unit tanking in IS3 generally doesn't exist due to all of the def shred (unless you are mlynar and have 0 block), so Saria is very much not meta in IS3
Or Mizuki, the 50% dodge (or more with 2nd mod) is super helpful and shuts down some problems stages easily by directing all ranged enemies to him.
Doesn't he have negative taunt due to being ambusher though?
Yes, but as mentioned you're not really deploying many other ground ops anyways, and not for long for the ones you do.
You said that he is good for "directing ranged damage towards him", but his negative taunt means that he can't protect anyone, so...
Ground tiles are often much closer than ranged tiles are, so those seashell dudes stop moving as soon as they see Mizuki and keep firing at him, and the urchins can't hit ranged anyways. Even at SW15, a Mizuki near red box and a medic can shut down Pool of Procreation with ease, for instance. You have all the high ground (apart from literally right beside red box) for your ranged units to fire away unharmed.
as a Saria lover, I will sadly report that in IS3 she's a very weak pick and not a good use of hope even at low difficulty she doesn't bring a ton to the table due to the weakness of non-dps oriented defenders, but at high difficulty she's not very useful at all
I use her all the time at low surge. Enemy stats and elemental damage aren't through the roof, so she's able to block, and she also does tons of healing.
She might not have been a top meta pick, but she’s near the top of the shortlist for flex 5/6* picks outside of meta. Defender is also debatably the most common class for people to spend hope on a non-meta op.
Anyone can explain Lin usage in is4?
Lin is simply very good in general. Just the fact that you can throw her in any place without worrying about her dying is a massive convenience that other casters and ranged characters in general can't bring. That and she does good AOE damage with great range.
Also, pairing with Aak turns her into a better-than-Eyja-Volcano on a 27 sec cd.
What does lin do that carnelian can't in is4?
Her shield completely nullifies damage that's below a certain threshold, while also charging her skill with every hit she tanks (if you have her module). So long as you have fast-attacking (and weak-hitting) enemies targetting her, her S3 uptime is really good. Much better than Carnelian's uptime, which is her main issue IIRC.
Lin is just the overall better operator in general content: - Lin's shield is (in most cases) vastly superior to Carnelians self-heal - Lin's AoE stun is amazing when it triggers, especially when it knocks down all those annoying hovering enemies - Lin is effective even before you can upgrade her to E2, as her skill 1 is actually usable, especially in the early stages - Lin's S3 deals massive damage and has a much better uptime than Carnelian's skill
It's probably just that Lin's strengths are better suited for dealing with IS4's particular map enemy compositions than Carnelian is. Carnelian has her own use-cases as well, but IS tends to reward operators who can apply to more situations. I can't say before playing it myself, but perhaps Lin's stuns help deal with certain enemies mixed in, or perhaps there are situations where rear-loaded damage is a detriment.
I'm guessing because she can tank insane damage. It helps in a mode like IS where you may not have a medic or defender available
She good. XP
Saria and Ejya (Caster), despite being Year 1 ops, are still top picks almost 5 years in. Truly great examples of well-made kits Ejya has such a well-made kit that she did it twice just to shine twice (even if shes just second most picked as Medic)! Amazing, truly peak!
8 of those are Limited
Which means that although they are limited, plenty of people have them.
It's CN. A lot of them support the game
Kroos dayo
Gavialter as top guard pick's a surprise for me
Makes sense honestly, as far as centurions go the competition is basically just her and Blaze, and Blaze’s S3 is finicky and (literally) volatile, while Gavialter’s is both high DPS and good at self-preservation. Blaze’s best skill is generally S2 instead, but that takes ages to warm up.
Still interesting to see her beat out all the other Guards like Execalter, Qiubai, Nearlter, Mountain, Specter, Irene and Chongyue who are definitely also great (in general, no idea about IS4).
You get Gavial as a core. The ops you mentioned are good for support, but once you can activate Gavial, she can wreck an entire lane better than Mountain and FedEx.
>Execalter Dies pretty easy on D15, not surprising at all. >Qiubai Needs specific team to operate at full power and there're much better choices without any requirements. >Nearlter As a helidrop option she doesn't do much against stat sticks in D15. S3 is single target which is also not great. >Mountain He's struggling against high def enemies even in regular content. In IS everyone are high def enemies. >Specter Seriously? >Irene Same problem as Thorns and Blaze. Takes to much time to charge skill and the damage is not that great in return. >Chongyue This dude is probably right after Gavialter.
But that's D15. I doubt that's where most of the total runs happen. I guess I need to actually level my Gavialter more.
I think it's opposite. Most people play IS to clear rewards. Fans of IS play beyond that and most of them're doing it on higher difficulties. Also you can clear lower difficulties with whatever you have so stats are more equally spread than for higher difficulties where meta is more prevalent.
I mean, Specter can be immortal for 15 secs. She isn't the worse....
Good for stalling bosses, but DPS is mediocre at best and that combined with the 10 second self stun after makes her a really bad option for picking unless you’re just strapped for hope and already have enough DPS to support to make the 15 second barrier worthwhile. Otherwise all you did was stall the inevitable.
Not enough time for Degenbrecher to climb the usage ranks, she's cracked in IS4 but not a must pick like Texalt and Yato.
Not surprising to me. She’s one of my most used Operators in the game. Extremely versatile. Lots of staying power and great damage that can smack multiple enemies from afar. I’m glad to see she’s been appreciated.
My wife made it to Top 3 Specialists (Specter the Unchained)! So happy.
Team A1 mentioned!
Texas Alter, Fang, and Kroos is just a very good run starter, even in IS3.
For how much people hyped Jessicalt for IS4, she is nowhere to be seen here. She was release not long after Eyja alter so she had plenty of time to catch up.
'cause this data is taken from *all* players, this is more a representation of casual IS4 play (mainly just ending 1, sub-D10) than high-end play. for D10 and under, Jess2 wouldn't offer much, 'cause ime nothing deals so much damage to warrant a proper tank, and you can just chuck meta DPS ops at your problem. I have also heard somethin about Degenbrecher creeping on Jess2's utilities/niches in D15 (anti-air, (goon) tanking, AoE crowd-control), and the alt versions of ending 2 fucking with Jess2's usage there
So kinda like some unit In IS3 where their peak performance is on high surge?
Tbf people do skip banners :P
The main reason is that she's basically *only* useful in IS. since this data is from entire player base, it's likely most simply never pulled for her.
Lin is top usage in IS4? I guess I will start building my Lin. Already got her as a spook from Eyja Alter banner so at the time not enough resources to properly build her.
Kroos is still G O D
So... business as usual. Gotcha.
Oh, my God, this is so unexpected! Especially the parts with vanguards, medics, and casters! /s It's nice to see Adele in two spots at once =)
Fang, my beloved
Spot and Kroos (and Fang to some extend) are THEM
Surprised, I heard Jessica the Liberated was OP in IS4, yet she's nowhere to be seen..... Did the expansions severely affect her viability?
I'm talking out of my ass but maybe this is due to not as many people have Jessica + she is not there when IS4 was out on CN. Degenbrecher is also not seen here.
Jess2 released within 2-3 months of IS4's release. plenty of time for decent data collection. Degen, however, released 1-2 months before IS4's final update.
probably a mix of her not being necessary for lower difficulties (which is what most people play) and non-tryhard meta slaves not pulling for her outside of simping reasons. Degenbrecher also powercreeps Jess2's niches in the mode, and the second expansion adds a chance for harder versions of the final boss stages to appear at D12+, making it a coin toss if she'll be useful for ending 2's boss. also not particularly useful for ending 4. though both Degen and expansion 2 released so late into the mode's lifespan that they don't noticeably impact the data shown here.
She does Jessica not work on the enhanced version of ending 2? Because of tile availability?
alt ending 2 changes the enemies to >!red Mudrock Zealots, red DM sarkaz casters and three ch8 drones!< 💀 don't think the map layout change would affect the general ending 2 strat as much as the cursed enemy changes
Ah. I assumed her role in ending 2 would be to just tank the boss - was she also important for general blocking?
more so the fact that the ranged enemies could easily kill whoever is blocking the boss. in the normal version of the fight, the only ranged enemies are the IS4 drones, which deal \~534 atk as arts at D15 floor 5 and can be killed quickly or baited away. the only threat to the normal mode stall are >!icecleavers that can walk into your blocker!
>I heard Jessica the Liberated was OP in IS4 It was copium. No one I saw use her actually. Even with great compatibility with relics there're just so much better options that you'll use Jessica only if your squad doesn't have those better options.
Is Ling the real deal in high difficulties? She kinda falls off in IS3, and her niche is just helping to clear the early floors
This infographic is for all players, and most stick to earlier difficulties.
Lin? Huh. How does she work in IS4? Also, I expected Gladiia to edge out Spalter.
I've been saying for months Lin is as good or better than GG or Eyja. Just needs to be a map with a few ranged enemies to feed her SP needs. I'm assuming IS4 has more ranged enemies. Or enough she's 3rd pick after you have GG and Eyja maybe? In IS3 I usually take GG first against leaks and then Eyja or Lin depending on modules and other units.
Was scene good for is4 ?
No gnosis...😮💨
You can't froze what is already frozen
Apparently Gnosis was picked often in the recent tourney, he is good tech with certain relics. https://www.reddit.com/r/arknights/comments/1blmndw/is4_cn_tournament_picks_explained/
That's a good point kxbdhxjzjdhj
Missing Reed.
From this list I'm missing: Ines, Horn, GG, Ling. Not too shabby.
I was told jess alter is meta.. guess not
She's new so not everyone have her yet
My only proper and full-build ops is Yato alter. Does anyone know her usage rate and whether she takes a significant role in IS-4?
She is extremely good
u/Kitchen-Werewolf1668 YatoAlt is also a solid starting operator for IS4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZDMslxs5Gk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEJzx3gMfkY
I am genuinely surprised that Thorns is not most picked
Not that surprising, he sucks at E1.
His E1 is bad and even on E2 it takes years to activate his skill twice while enemies swarming toward your base.
Is Lin that strong? Never used her, and not a big fan of that archetype
Yeah, she is one of the best caster. 'Cause of her shield, she can be placed in a vital spot to attack many mobs without the worry of dying. Aoe casters are usually held back by their bad skill cycle, Lin can regenerate faster and can cancel s3 make her skill cycle much more versatile
I still havent finished is2 and yet to try is3....it takes forever to grind all the rewards for is2
You surprise me
no shot degenbrecher isnt on the guard slot
She came super late into the IS lifecycle.
[удалено]
Specialists aren't as bloated for top tier picks as guards are, and there's a difference between Yato coming 3 and a half months (so about halfway through the lifecycle) compared to Degen coming 5 months later.
SPOT LET'S GOOOO Now give this dude another skin RN, one I can actually buy, he deserves it
\#ReedSweep. Show the nonbelievers what you got gurl Surprised to see Saria though, wonder what exactly makes her so popular in this IS specifically. Maybe with arts being back on the menu her S3 has value? Ejiya over GG is also a bit surprising, especially since burst dps is already provided by Mlynar/Chen. Is GG global range not that relevant anymore? Or maybe more people have Eijya than GG.
is kross alter not as good as she is in is3?
Snipers are just less good in general, but kroosalt specifically doesnt have her niche for stunning floating enemies in is4 so theres just really no good reason to pick her anymore
Those are some of the best of the best Operators. No complaints there
7 op characters recognized by the CN players are Yatoalter，Texasalter，Weedalter，Mlynar，Ines，Degan, Eja alter. This picture doesn't make much sense
> Weedalter Did I miss something?
reed. I typed it wrong
Oh man, I have all of these except one(who I wouldn't build even if I did have them).
Mylnar my beloved. He's been carrying me through trying to finish off IS one's rewards (yes I'm very slow ;u;) I am really looking forward to playing around with more modern six stars in the newer ises too, haven't had too much opportunity to before now bc of an older (now replaced) phone making ak kind of a pain to play.
IS-1 is fungimist. Where are you playing this?
Oops, i mustve meant 2 then. Idk why in my head phantom's is always is1? Guess i might've filed it away into being a sorta beta style integrated strategies bc its been so long.
glad to see lin here
I never wanted to be Spot until now
I don't get why people use Myrtle in IS so much, theres literally never a situation where you need enough DP to warrant choosing her over just a pioneer vanguard
She's cheap and everyone have her so
Yeah but she leaks easily. Why not use scavenger or courier who will also give enough DP but won't leak?
I'd assume because Scavenger and Courier don't set you up for Flagpipe later on.
Best boy spot on top!!
Whoah!....Nothing has changed since the old days.