Arknights: Stainless in-depth gameplay analysis

Hello again! It’s been a long while since my last actual guide which is about Pozy around the beginning of this year, due to the amazing schedule. I did consider one for Greyy2 but like, nah. Anyway, it’s also rare that I would do a guide for a non-sniper (if you know me), but here we are, and let’s get going.

Stainless is the first 6* Artificier, and actually fix the few glaring issues the previous 2 have: Devices are actually worth using without needing some extreme niche case. His 6* stats also allows him to be worth the “tax” of using these devices as well. (Not really, but it’s close enough).

Artificiers has the highest ATK stats of all Supporters surprisingly.

And, they also has the fastest attack interval of all Supporters as well at 1.5 seconds, not counting Bards.

Since they are the only melee branch in the entire Supporters class, of course their Defensive stats are the highest of all Supporters.

Comparing to other melee branches, their HP is around Merchant/Fighter/Centurion, while their DEF is around Merchant (again?)/Lord/Instructor. Note that Lord and Instructor have the 2nd and 3rd highest DEF of all Guards.

Basically, that means they are fairly tanky and can be used as a regular blocker just fine.

Artificers’ cost is the highest of all Supporters. Particularly because they get +2 DP per promotion for some reasons. For Stainless, that will be 15, 17, 19 DP at E0, E1, E2.

He has a standard melee range: 1 tile ahead of self.

Block 2 enemies. Can use [Support Device] in battles.

The block 2 aspects is pretty standard. But the devices are what make Artificers. Wait no I mean, they are the one who make these devices and then the effectiveness of these devices mak… you know what I mean shut up.

The details of the devices are operator-specific, so we’ll have to get to the Talent section… usually. For Stainless, we have to go straight to his skill section.

One important thing to note is that, Artificers deal physical damage (default for any operator until stated otherwise), unless one of their skills can convert it to arts, which no Artificers have yet. I noted this because the rest of the Supporter class do Arts damage or are Bard.

Always available: Carries 2 Support Devices (can only deploy 1). Support Devices’s effect changes base on selected skill.

At E1, he can deploy 2 devices.

At E2, he can carry 3 devices.

This is essentially the standard talent for Artificers. Each Artificer has this talent, just with different effects. The previous 2 Artificers have their device’s effects set entirely inside the talent, while Stainless has them with his skills.

Available at E2: When a Support Device in the 8 surrounding tiles of Stainless is destroyed, there is 70% chance to recycle it and gives Stainless 1 more device

Potential 5 increases the chance to 80%

Why is RNG.

In reality this talent is rarely used due to 2 reasons. First is the tile requirement, but then even if you managed the tile position, there is still some RNG involved, even if it’s a really high chance. The second is the fact that his skills don’t need this talent either (for the most parts); They are self-sufficient enough.

However, manually retreating the devices does work for this talent, so there's that consolation.

Always available – Heart to Heart: When in the workshop to produce Elite materials, for every 10 operators in the Dorms with 12 or less morales, recipe that consumes 4 morales will cost 1 less.

Available at E2 – Mind to Mind: When in the workshop to produce Elite materials, for every 1 operators with 12 or less morales in the Dorms, increases by-product rate by 5%.

Essentially, at maximum potential – all 20 operators in dorms with less than 12 morales – Stainless can craft elite materials with 20% by-product rate, which is the highest so far (ties with Nian and Arene) aside from occasional 100% guaranteed from NCD, and he can craft 4 morales recipes with 2 morales instead.

Passive: When equipping this skill, Device grants 12% ATK to its target.

Active: Immediately gain 1 Device. Attacks deal 170% physical damage and Device’s passive effects increases to 3x.

When the skill ends, destroy all Stainless’ Devices on field.

45 SP cost, 20 initial SP, 17 seconds duration.

Auto Recovery, manual activation.

M3 Active deals 200% physical damage and Device’s passive effect increases to 4x.

20 seconds duration

This is now the highest %ATK buffing skills in the game. (Unless you count Bard’s Inspire on a low base ATK operators or something). With 2 devices targeting the same ops, you can have a +96% ATK buff on them, which is higher than the previous record of Warfarin’s 90%.

Unlike the previous 2 Artificers, these Devices last forever… until the end of the first skill duration.

Devices can be placed on both melee and ranged tiles.

Devices cost 3 DP to deploy, and has 10 seconds redeployment time.

This skill is the most reliant on his second talent, given that to maximize its use you need both devices and you lose both on skill end and you only gain 1 on skill use. However, without it, you still have 3 uses with max buff. It sounds like you only have 2 usages because you only have 1 device left at the end of the second skill. But, by the start of the 3rd skill usage, you get the second one.

He’s actually more consistent than Warfarin at buffing since you have an easier time to guarantee the buff on your target.

However, as sad as this sound, it’s still not as great as bringing a more useful units. Not “bring more DPS” but rather “bring more useful unit”

Stainless by himself doesn’t do much. Yeah sure he can deal damage with twice his ATK stats and block a bit with his high defensive stats. But like, Suzuran has “only” 40% Fragile, but a lengthy 35 second duration 80% sluggish, massive range, some fairly decent regen, and giving Supporter’s extra SP recovery. Warfarin has 6% less buff, but has SP battery talent, and great healing.

And soon you’ll realise, with smart usage of his S3, it’s pretty much the same as this skill anyway (unless you just want someone dead really fast, or want to make someone kill Patriot, which I guess is why we’re doing buff strat to begin with, gotta get those Youtube clicks amirite)

Passive: When equipping this skill, Devices grant 1 SP to the target every 3.5 seconds, but lose HP over time.

Active: ATK +40%, DEF +40%, attacks multiple enemies equal to block count. Devices gives 1 SP every 2 seconds instead, but HP loss is doubled.

When the skill ends, gain 1 Device.

55 SP cost, 20 initial SP, 30 seconds duration.

Auto Recovery, manual activation.

M3 Active gives ATK +60%, DEF +60%.

50 SP cost, 25 initial SP

Yeah that’s it.

The device loses 0.4% HP per second. Which makes it 0.8% HP per second when skill is active.

It’s a fairly low loss rate, so the device amount is actually sustainable with the skill’s rotation.

The device is affected by relic, specifically Actor’s Perfume and Intoxicated Hymnoi, which gives 1% or 2% HP regen per second respectively, ensuring that the device is never gone by itself, even with skill active.

Devices can be placed on both melee and ranged tiles.

Devices cost 3 DP to deploy, and has 10 seconds redeployment time.

Playable SP battery.

The fact that Stainless became a discount Centurion is fascinating but the skill has a kinda long rotation for that.

2 Devices on the same target can work, giving 2 SP every 3.5s or 2s accordingly. Great for units that wants SP but is often not charging fast enough and for units with low SP costs skill to spam even more. Or just put it on Młynar and let him kill everything, negating his “downside”. Same with Chen H2O.

Of course you can still put 2 devices on 2 different operators instead.

Passive: When equipping this skill, Device can be attacked by allies but will not take damage. It can deal physical AoE damage via its skill, but will lose HP doing so.

Active: Immediately gain 1 Device. ATK +40% and ASPD +40

40 SP cost, 20 initial SP, 30 seconds duration

Auto Recovery, manual activation

M3 Active gives ATK +55%, ASPD +55. 35 SP cost

And more damage, I’ll get into it now.

There’s a whole lot that the description doesn’t tell you about these Devices. And this time it’s not Yostar’s fault. Not even HG’s to be honest, there is only so much space you can put details in. And they do tell you some of these details, it’s just not in the Skill Description tab. It’s in the Device information tab that you have to go in to a map and click on the Device to see it.

Anyway…

• Device attacks through its skill, with skill level equal to Stainless’ skill level. At skill level 7, when triggered it deals 260% of Stainless’ ATK as physical damage to the primary target, and 120% to all enemies around the target. At M3, it deals 300% ATK to the primary target and 150% to surrounding enemies.

• The AoE radius is 1.1 tiles. The primary target does not take the AoE damage.

• Device loses 2.5% max HP on skill cast. The skill has a roughly half a second SP lockout when using the skill, preventing SP gain.

• Devices have 10 DP cost and has 20 seconds redeployment time. Devices can only be placed on melee tiles/low grounds.

• It has 5 Defensive Recovery SP cost at all skill level and auto activation.

• Device’s skill has this range. (Asbestos S2M1 range)

• Devices can hit aerial ememies. Device can attack each other.

• Device provides a 20% Physical damage reduction to the operator behind it and it is stackable multiplicatively (i.e. 36% physical damage reduction).

• When an Artificer attacks the Device, it restores 1% max HP.

• Device is immune to pretty much all CC effects like Stun, Sleep, Freeze, Cold.

• The Device has extremely low aggro level at -2. This is even lower than all of the other enemies that already are “less likely to be attacked” such as the drones summoned by WD enemies, Gelato Stops, Tiacauh Brave when dueling, and Infiltrators when using their illusions (at -1 aggro). Meaning aside from special priorities, almost all operators will target the device last.

• If there are 2 Devices in range, operators prioritise the last deployed Device.

• Device is considered an enemy. But the enemies cannot attack the Device. The Device cannot attack invisible enemies. Gelato Stops doesn’t give it SP regardless of color. Any effect that affects enemies will also apply to it, like CM stats boost and debuffers, but…

• None of the stats actually matters on the Device, most of the times. The Device has 6000 HP, 100 ATK, 2000 DEF, and 0 RES. But it loses max HP through its skills (and it’s the only way it loses HP); It uses Stainless’ ATK. What can matter is our operators that target an enemy based on their stats, like Ceobe S2 targeting highest DEF enemy or W S3 prioritising highest HP enemy, or say, if we have someone that can steal the enemies’ stats.

• The Devices is considered its own source of damage. Meaning reflects and the likes won’t work on it because it doesn’t take damage.

• The Devices don’t take damage from our operators, therefore operators that do things based on damage dealt don’t work with the Devices, e.g. Incantation Medic, DEA-γ mod, Hand of Diffusion,…

• The Devices is also affected by Actor's Perfume and Intoxicated Hymnoi, despite being coded as an enemy. However, for some reason if you have Focus (IS#2) or Sui's Wrath (IS#3), deploying a device will damage your allies instead. This might be fixed later.

Hoooo boy

Since Stainless gains ATK when using the skill, you can actually increase the Device’s damage during the skill duration, fitting along with other’s burst DPS window.

The most obvious way to use the Device is to let operators with Offensive Recovery to continue charging their skill even when there’s no enemy around while still adding more damage, because otherwise, you can just use Stainless S2. Just be careful of the auto activation type like Power Strike cuz then they would also use the skill on the device.

Another is to combo with AoE, multi-target, and chain operators. They can attack both the Device and the enemies at the same time, so they can kinda double up the damage. AoE and chain operators can also use the Device to extend their attack range.

A less obvious combo however, is to turn (low damage) fast hit rate operators into a higher damage (slightly) slower hit rate unit, e.g. Exusiai. Especially if that unit has DoT of some kind.

Even the damage reduction aspect has its uses for just letting the laneholder do more things. They can charge the device in downtime (except for 0 range units) which then has range to reach further enemies before they approach, and they take less physical damage when they do fight the enemies.

It can also be used to bypass some enemies’ mechanic, as it cannot be affected. For example, Degenbrecher’s Disarm, Emperor’s Blade’s Dominion,…

This is meant to combo with other allies, and some operators benefits greatly from Stainless. So why don’t I list them all and pad the heck out of this post?

For the sake of brevity (lmao), I’m going to only the interactions that’s extremely notable, like I did back in my Skadi the Corrupting Heart interaction post (speaking of which I should update that with new released ops since then but I’ll think about that later). Anyway, let’s go in alphabetical order!

• A

Arising at A and arranged alphabetically are Akafuyu, Amiya, Angelina, Aosta, Archetto, Astgenne, and Ayerscarpe. All awesome articles adapted around almost-AoE/AoE attacks, and attack-acquisition abilities. Arguments and analyses are apparent as all adore an adversary (in) attack area. After all, attacking Appliance and adversary at (once is) amazing and unfortunately alliteration is arduous so I’m going to drop this bit now.

Yeah so anyway the real winner of A is Archetto, Astgenne, and Ayerscarpe.

Archetto has only Offensive Recovery skills, her S1 has splash-like attribute, her S2 has chain-like attribute, and her S3 has high cost and multi-target.

Astgenne is a Chain caster so she can use the Device to extend her range, but she also has multi-target so she can double up her damage with her 2 chains even against a single enemy.

Ayerscarpe on the other hand is part of the “prefer to have enemies in range to do things”. He can attack any enemy blocked by his allies in his 8 surrounding tiles. But he needs to make an attack in order to do so. Often times, this means he has to be able to attack said blocked enemies. Not anymore with Devices.

• B

Bibeak is an Offensive Recovery user, so nothing special there. But having a target in her range also allows her to get either of her skills up and also use its range to reach other enemies.

Blemishine is, uooogh, so great with Stainless. Her biggest downside is that she needs to attack to heal. Two of her skills are also Offensive Recovery due to how her talent works. She also loves the damage reduction so she can do her laneholding thing better.

Blue Poison has DoT and multi-target.

Beehunter gets a dishonorable mention. Despite her attacks hit twice and is counted as 2 hits for hit-based enemies like IW fragments, she only charge 1 SP per attack to the device. Her S2 can hit pretty fast though.

• C

Carrying C’s calling is clearly Cardigan… jk I said I won’t do it anymore

Cantabile, Ch’en, Chongyue, Cliffheart

Cantabile is an Agent, a class designed with the ability to generate DP by attacking enemies. She actually just has regular interactions with Stainless, but the other 5* Agent though, now we’ll get there soon.

Ch’en has both the good and the bad. The ability to charge during downtime is clearly useful, but her S3 targets enemy closest to her, which is usually the Device. I guess this is when Stainless S2 is better.

Chongyue is a future operator as of this writing date, but he is one of the fastest consistent Device chargers, with 2 attacks per 0.78 second. His main skill is also Offensive Recovery, and it requires charging up 5 times to become automatic. He also enjoys the damage reduction.

Cliffheart gets a negative mention. All Hookmaster’s skill interact very poorly with Structure–type enemies. Their pulling animation just get stuck for a very long time when pulling a Structure.

• D

Not much worthy of mention other than Dusk. She has AoE with S1 and S3 to extend her range. But that alone wouldn’t be mentioned as I skipped a bunch of units that do that already. What’s worth a mention is that Dusk S3 cannot spawn a Freeling under the Device as the tile is occupied by the… Device. The Device is always considered unblocked so the skill can bypass its low taunt as well.

• E

Ethan S1 has true AoE and DoT. That’s about it. His S2 is still better anyway.

Exusiai, as mentioned in the general examples, turns from a fast hit low damage unit to a stronger hit slower rate with AoE damage unit. Exu hits 5 times per interval, the exact amount to trigger a Device attack. Meaning Exu has the ability to trigger Device with each attack interval, which is about 0.77 second. That’s a lot of damage!

And a special mention to Enforcer…

There was once this interaction with Enforcer and Stainless that abuse how his S2 works. Enforcer’s S2 works by pushing affected enemies in the direction and stun them. But each enemy pushed by S2 can hit another enemy and then stun that new enemy. Stainless’ Device is an enemy, but it cannot be pushed for obvious reason. Yet it’s still affected by that clause of hitting another enemy to stun them. So after Enforcer used S2 on Device, any new enemy touches the Device will get stunned repeatedly. Watch this: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1f8411W7WK

Sadly it is patched out and global server don’t get to experience this at all. Can we get an F?

• F

The F is to pay respect. To who? To…

Firewatch, regrettably, doesn’t interact well with Devices. Not only that the Device doesn’t trigger her DEA–γ module, the Device, or any Structure–type enemies, isn’t a priority for her S2. So you can’t use it to guaranteed bombs placement. Good thing the Devices have 2000 DEF so she’d barely shoot it first.

But the F squad still has a decent unit with Device: Firewhistle S2 can create a burning field in the 4 adjacent tile of where it landed. You can use the Device and use the burning field to reach further enemies (by 1 tile). It is also a DoT with a fast hit rate.

There's also Fiammetta. But her skills are just Offensive Recovery and S2 has some AoE multihit. That's about it.

• G

There’s Gladiia, a Hookmaster, so the Cliffheart section holds, but at least her S3 can still works and you can use it to aim her S3 to gather surrounding enemies. And with how her S3 works, the animation doesn’t get stuck. Remember that S3 targets the enemies furthest in her range though.

Gavial2 S3 with 2 Devices get 68% physical damage reduction because they all stack multiplicatively.

• H

Hibiscus is an Incantation Medic. As said in the general interaction, Incantation doesn’t work with Device as they heal based on damage dealt, and all damage dealt to Device is 0.

Highmore and Humus are Reapers. Like Musha, giving them the ability to heal in downtime when needed is great. Same goes for La Pluma later, so imma not mention it in L section again. If you see any comment asking about Pluma, shame on them for not reading my post haha… wait no one does anyway. Humus especially really enjoys Device, with how his Barrier talent works as well as the damage reduction provided. Highmore also gets to restore elemental damage constantly.

Horn has a pretty simple yet solid interaction with Device. Her S1 has a downside that she can’t target invisible enemies despite the skill can reveal it so she usually needs additional target first. The Device covers that right up. It can also be used to extend her long range as well. A special note to IS#3 Hand of Diffusion, where if Horn, or any Fortress, attack a device at the farthest tile of their range, they can skip the SP lock that their skill usually have (Horn S1 and S2, Firewhistle S1).

• I

Ines is an Agent, but it’s also a pretty normal interaction. What’s worth mentioning is that her S1’s DoT does not trigger Defensive Recovery skill, which is clearly targeting this interaction. But like, why directly nerf that, why HG.

Irene gets to charge during downtime, but her skill also has AoE so it can double up to attack both the enemies and Device, increasing damage further. She also really enjoys that damage reduction.

Iris can't target Device with her S2 and it could also be a target to attack so she can’t get her charge up during S2 or downtime. Same for Indigo but she’s also a strictly single-target operator as well.

• J

Nothing notable. Jaye gets no heal because his healing is based on damage dealt, like Incantation.

• K

0K

• L

Lappland gets to charge during downtime, but be careful because she’d also just activate it when there’s no one around when she’s full. So maybe a negative combo actually. You definitely can’t just retreat and redeploy these Devices willy-nilly.

Lava the Purgatory can attack 2 targets with S1, with each attack still deal the normal splash. Meaning with Device and an enemy nearby, you can deal double damage to it. Device is still an enemy so it sadly doesn’t get the S2 lava field, but 2 lava fields can trigger the Device quite fast.

Leizi is essentially an Offensive Recovery unit, but she scale with both Devices on the field rather than just 1, giving her 2 SP per hit. She’s also a Chain Caster so she can extend her range as well.

Ling is amazing with Stainless. Not only her big pp dragon are AoE, they benefits from the Physical damage reduction, but her S3 active also hits once every half a second for each dragon. It’s a very strong combo to add to all the low ops Ling clear… which she needs?

Leonhardt gets 2 free stacks for his talent. Also AoE.

• M

Not much merit of mention in M actually.

Meteorite with Offensive skill and big AoE splash to extend range but that’s not notable.

Mizuki can use 2 Devices in his range and stop dying from his S3. Except nobody uses or should use that skill.

Młynar with big pp AoE damage that hit twice per attack and Physical damage reduction. You can also place 2 Devices next to him and just wait for 1 more enemy nearby to get the enhanced effects of his talent 1 (for refresher, Młynar talent 1 makes his attacks deal 110% damage, but increases to 115% when there are 3 enemies nearby, and this “nearby” is his 8 surrounding tiles). Hey, more damage is more damage. If you want more damage you’re probably better off using Aak S3 though and Stainless S1 doesn’t work because Młynar has low base ATK.

• N

There's Nightmare. Bet you didn’t expect Nightmare being good didya? Unlike Incantation, her S1 heals based on her ATK. Too bad that skill still has 80 SP downtime. So uh, nothing change.

• O

Wait I didn’t know Orchid is the only O operator

• P

Passenger is a great partner with Device. Not only he’s a Chain caster, he can also target his S3 on the Device, extending his range even further than any other Chain caster. Just be careful that his S3 targets highest current HP enemy, and Device has 6000 HP (or less), AND S3 hit randomly in range, Device included, so using it for the 2 extra tiles range has some flaws too. His S2 is also great with the Device, as it increases his range. The Device will disable his second talent if placed next to him.

A bit less than that for Pudding. She’s a chain caster, but she can also use the Device to trigger her S2 rebounce mechanic on a single enemy.

Pozëmka can now use S2 at any time, because there’s always an enemy in her range to cast it. It’s a pretty cool skill that doesn’t get enough highlights so this is a pretty great mention.

Puzzle is an Agent I was talking about way earlier. His talent is that if he attacks an enemy with full HP, he gains 2 SP. With his S1 and the fact that Device don’t lose HP if it doesn’t use skill, he has the highest average DP gain at 1 DP/s. The previous highest is Elysium/Saileach S1 at like 0.54 DP/s. Obviously Puzzle can’t generate DP as fast Ely/Sai during their skill up. Puzzle also has Offensive Recovery for both of his skills. His S2 also attacks very fast and applies a DoT that also hits very fast. The only problem is that you need Stainless plus the Device deployed so that’s roughly another 30 DP so it’s not good for rushing out DP.

• Q

Not much in Q either aside from Qiubai with her S3 with multi-target and the ability to ramp up without enemies. In fact, Qiubai, Stainless, and Suzu is the highest total damage skill combo in the game as all 3 have 30s duration skill (Suzu's is 35s but shush). Her S2 is also an Offensive Recovery skill and hits all enemies in front of her.

• R

Reed2 is an Incantation, except where she can’t heal, she can still trigger the Device really fast with her DoT S3 or her fast-hit rate S2. And you don’t have to worry about the -ATK debuff because it doesn’t matter.

Rosmontis has all the bad mention. Her S2 only hits 4 times, which is 1 short of triggering the Device skill, but unlike GT or Kroos2 where I didn’t mention it, Rosmontis has an attack interval of 3.1 seconds, more than 3 times longer than the aforemention Marksmen. Her S3 also doesn’t work as the Device already occupied the tile it’s in and can’t be blocked regardless.

With the introduction of Ros' module, however, her S2 can trigger the device in 1 attack, though it's still not great with 3.1 seconds interval. Her S3 on the other hand get some solid theoretical boost. If Ros can attack 2 targets and trigger devices, it's the highest total damage in the game when comboing with Suzuran. The only problem is, that's pure theoretical and very impractical. But hey now you know Ros + Stainless + Suzu combo has the highest theoretical damage output in the game, at least the Qiubai + Stainless + Suzu combo is behind in damage but very easy to do. 

• S

Saileach has the ability to throw flag at a desire point without regular enemies in range instead of just throwing it on herself.

Siege can only generate DP with S2 if there’s an enemy in range. Siege also benefits from the damage reduction to do her early fighting which she will definitely need because enemies statcreep is real lmao.

Skadi2 S3 hits once every second, both her and the seaborn. This is a standard “hit-fast” combo but Skadi can also buff Stainless’ ATK up making the Device’s damage output stronger. The only issue is now you need a way to keep Skadi alive or live without her for the next 70 seconds.

Specter the Unchained's (Spec2) doll form does not activate the Devices. Spec2 S3 has Centurion-like trait that also deals 1 additional hit if her %HP is below the Device's so it somewhat works here, but her slower attack rate hampers this. A pretty negative combo overall.

Stainless also has good combo with the Device because he is needed to deploy Devices lol. Yeah sorry moving on.

• T

Thorns’ S3 is Offensive Recovery, but he also has DoT talent along with his innate fast ASPD which can trigger the Device fast… Except he’s still single-target so the only time he can attack the Device is when there’s no enemies, which is usually the time he needs to stop attacking to restore any lost HP. So yea it’s not a great interaction. Bet you thought it was a positive combo haha! Okay I’m just kidding the guaranteed charge for S3 is still good.

• U, V

Lmao

• W

W has 2 guaranteed targets for her S3 bombs, though the Devices would just constantly attract and trigger her S2 mines. Which means you can use it to kinda aim her S2 as well.

Windflit needs an enemy in his base range to trigger his AoE S1 AND he can heal the device with each of his attack. Wait no, he still sucks.

• Y

Yato2 can now have a guaranteed target to extend her S3 range. It’s also great with S2 as S2 hits all enemies in range anyway so you might as well add more damage. S2 can also trigger Device twice in 1 cast. The Device can provide her some Physical damage reduction, still doesn’t protect her from fire damage though.

Anyway back to the regular Stainless guide

ON CN ONLY FOR NOW (Hortus Escapismo event)

CRA–Ⲭ:

• Stage 1:

ATK +25

DEF +25

ASPD +5

Trait upgraded: Block 2 enemies. Can use [Support Device] in battles. Can hold +1 additional device and device deployment costs are reduced. {new effect}

Preliminary analysis: Now Stainless is deployed with 4 Devices instead of 3. His S1 and S2 devices get -1 cost down to 2, and his S3 devices get -4 cost down to 6. Solid upgrade for those that use Stainless a lot.

• Stage 2:

ATK +35

DEF +35

ASPD +5

Talent upgraded: If Stainless has a device within his 8 surrounding tiles, increases self SP regen by 0.1SP/s and has an 80% chance to recycle it if it's destroyed or retreated. {new effect and increased chance from 70%}

• Stage 3:

ATK +45

DEF +45

ASPD +5

Talent upgraded: If Stainless has a device within his 8 surrounding tiles, increases self SP regen by 0.2SP/s and has a 90% chance to recycle it if it's destroyed or retreated. {increased SP regen from 0.1SP/s and chance from 80%}

Preliminary analysis: Barely an upgrade. I have argued that Stainless rarely stays near his devices to begin with, so any extra effects also rarely get activated. The increased SP regen is also not that great, as usually he would like to time his own skill along with other operators, but I guess it widen the error margin. The recycle chance has quite a big boost, and even becomes 100% with potential 5, but again, position issues.

Stainless is a fascinating character. Unfortunately for him, he’s a bit complex to achieve essentially the same thing as regular units. I didn’t say “broken DPS units”, I said “regular units”. Basically, he’s fancy. He’s what all those pretentious players go “uh yea he’s really underrated people just don’t know how to use him right I clearly knows better than you all at this game” and then loses to some EX-8 CM and go reeeee in discord or reddit about how bullshit the boss or the mechanics were or something like that.

• S1 is the best raw ATK buffing skill right now. Aak is better for DPS if the units can survive and do regular attacks as part of their DPS. Other great buffers/debuffers also perform well aside from buffing, like healing, slowing, etc. so he's not a great buffer overall.

• S2 is a solid SP battery to 1 or 2 allies. Not as great for big burst DPS skills as you’d prefer to save those skills for the right time (help increasing the error margin for timing but that’s about it), it’s better with consistent DPS units that do their skill once every couple seconds.

• S3 is where its at. It’s the only legitimate reason to bring Stainless – the sheer utilities of the Devices. Works with many operators, sometimes even negating one or all of their major downsides.

The most hilarious part of Stainless’ first two skills is that it’s the exact thing Windflit’s two skills can do, except way better, way more consistent, and way less restriction.

Here’s the recap on what Stainless’ Devices work best with, to also future-proof any new operators add to the game later on.

• Units with big radius AoE or multi-target, potentially benefit from having more than 1 enemy in range. E.g. Chain Casters, W S3, Dusk S1

• Units with skills that needs a target to set a zone. E.g. Horn S1, Passenger S3, Firewhistle S2

• Units that needs enemies to do one of their major functions. E.g. Offensive Recovery skill, Reapers, Agents, Blemishine

• Units that attacks fast, potentially in an AoE (low damage not required). E.g. Exusiai S3, Ling S3, Chongyue S3

• Units with DoT that triggers Defensive Recovery skill, possibly to multiple enemies. E.g. Blue Poison, Ethan S1, Firewhistle S2, Ifrit S2, Puzzle S2

• Units that scales with more enemies in range. E.g. Yato2 S3, Leonhardt, Młynar, Mizuki S3 technically

Essentially, he’s a really great operator to enhance the performance of your other favorite operators, using any of his three skills: Every operator in the game can work with any of his three skills (except for the 1 and 2*).

Does that mean he’s just as great as Skadi2 who enhance the performance of everyone as well? … No. But he’s the more active option, rather than just buffing up stats permanently.

Some showcases I guess:

Stainless + Ling BI-EX-8 CM

Stainless + Chongyue 7-18 CM

Stainless + Ling NL-S-4

Stainless + Exu combo 11-20

Stainless is one of the units that stayed true to his class name of Supporter. He is a tactically interesting unit and is fantastic for that supporting role. What are your thoughts on him? Is he all show or is he underrated? Are the Devices too freakin good? Did you skip him for Texas2? Wait no of course you did. Anyway Stainless is decent but nothing outstanding. See you next time.