Arknights: Should You Pull? Cloudtop Lucid Dreams: Eyjafjalla the Hvit Aska

If you really like healers/ support units, then YES.

Eyjafjalla the Hvit Aska is the strongest healer in Arknights so far. She will likely be the strongest healer for a good long while, and she’s a Wandering Medic in the bargain, so she not only handles HP healing but also Elemental Damage healing. At present, her healing is usually overkill, but it’s possible that she may increase in value over time as the difficulty of Arknights challenges continues to increase.

If you are pulling on this banner, it should be for Eyjalter rather than Swire the Elegant Wit. Swalter is not terrible, but she has nowhere near the value of Eyjalter, especially considering how strong other members of the Merchant archetype are in comparison.

As with all banners, a 5★ or higher Operator is guaranteed in the first 10 rolls. Should you pull just for that? Definitely not. Poncirus is sadly not worth it.

Wandering Medic

+ Usual archetype strengths: Not only heals HP but also removes Elemental Damage that allies have suffered; larger healing range than most Medic archetypes

+ E1 Talent causes her healing to leave behind a healing-over-time effect

+ E2 Talent increases max HP and reduces elemental damage taken for all allies within Eyjalter’s healing range (remember this for S3)

+ S1 is an infinite-duration Skill that increases her ATK, allows her to heal additional targets, and causes all allies within her range to recover Elemental Damage over time without direct healing (thereby allowing Eyjalter to recover Elemental Damage for units who cannot be directly healed, such as Musha Guards or Juggernaut Defenders)

+ When activated, S2 immediately heals all allies within range and creates a massive Elemental Damage shield over a small area

+ For the duration, S3 turns Eyjalter’s heals into five smaller heals that can target different allies as needed and gives her GLOBAL healing range; S3 also multiplies the effect of her E2 Talent, which will now affect all allies due to the global healing range

- Usual archetype weaknesses: Very low ATK (comparable to AoE Medics), although her powerful Skills and Talents more than make up for this

- High SP costs

DP-Drain/ Merchant Specialist

+ Usual archetype strengths: Good stats, very low DP cost, quick redeploy timer

+ E0 Talent gives her Coins and a stacking ATK buff while her Skills are active

+ When Swalter would receive lethal damage, her E2 Talent consumes DP to avoid the lethal damage and restore her HP

+ S1 is a permanent Skill that spends Coins to heal a nearby ally when Swalter attacks

+ S2 is a permanent Skill that spends Coins to deploy Champagne Bombs that damage and Slow enemies (the damage increases if the Bomb is able to sit for a few seconds before being detonated)

+ Note that S2 Bombs can be deployed on tiles that are already occupied by enemies; these Bombs will not deal maximum damage (since the Bomb needs to sit for a few seconds before it charges up) but can be spammed indefinitely

+ S3 causes Swalter’s attacks to hit twice and gains Coins when she defeats an enemy; when the Skill is deactivated, all Coins are spent at once to randomly attack enemies in front of her and Push them away

= Usual archetype dilemma: Can only Block-1

= E2 Talent’s revival can be useful, but the DP cost increases every time it triggers; in addition to the DP that Swalter already consumes, she may quickly run you out of DP this way

- Usual archetype weaknesses: Constantly consumes DP, essentially negating passive DP gain (although her Module reduces the amount consumed, which is very helpful)

- S1 is basically a weaker version of Jaye S2 that consumes an additional resource for less effect

- S3 takes a long time to amass the maximum amount of Coins unless Swalter is killing enemies

- S3 Shift strength is quite low, so it is often unable to Push strong/ heavy enemies

Pioneer Vanguard

+ Talent increases her max HP after being deployed for a set amount of time

+ S2 immediately generates DP and increases Poncirus’s ATK and DEF for the duration

+ The second time S2 is used, the duration is infinite and it generates DP every few seconds

+ With her Talent activated and the infinite-duration S2 triggered, Poncirus actually has very high stats, especially for a 5★ unit

- Although S2 generates DP forever, the overall DP generation is quite low, especially in comparison to popular Vanguard choices like Flagbearers

- S2 takes a VERY long time to hit infinite duration (has to charge once, run through its first duration, then charge again)

Eyjafjalla the Hvit Aska is the same old Eyjafjalla we’ve all come to know and love… isn’t she? Well, she’s still doing volcano research, and she’s become so adept at reading lips that she barely even uses her hearing aids anymore. And instead of being a Caster, she’s become a Wandering Medic, extending phenomenal amounts of support and protection no matter where her allies are on the battlefield. But on the other hand, she seems driven by some sort of goal she isn’t explaining to anyone, and sometimes people have seen her having angry conversations, even though there’s nobody else with her. Eyjafjalla, angry? Now that can’t be good for anybody’s health….

Swire the Elegant Wit is on vacation, dammit. So why is she still being dragged into Rhodes Island’s business?! Maybe if she throws enough money at the problem, it will go away. Or if she throws enough iron fans. Or enough money. Or enough Molotov cocktails. Or enough money.

Poncirus has been sponsored in her arrival at Rhodes Island by Aak and Warfarin, both of whom find her interesting. For one thing, she was infected with Oripathy when a rogue explosive blew Originium shrapnel through a window and straight into her body… which she somehow survived. (One can only assume that her infinite-duration ATK/DEF-boosting S2 was active at the time.) For another thing, she likes the taste of Aak’s experimental medicines, which definitely indicates there’s something wrong with her body chemistry.