Arknights: New Operator Spotlight - Catapult

With the recent set of banners, a new Operator has joined the ranks of Rhodes Island: 3★ AoE Sniper Catapult!  Though she is a bit of a rebellious troublemaker, Catapult has never neglected her duties.  She came to Rhodes Island as a patient to be treated as an Infected, and her aptitude got her noticed and added to Reserve Team A6.  She has a tendency to blow things up when upset…

• Typical AoE Sniper strengths: high Attack and Area of Effect Damage.

• Increased Area of Effect with Skill 1, and the only physical damage Sniper with a sustained AoE increase skill.

• Lowest Deployment Cost of any AoE Sniper.

• Lowest base stats of AoE Snipers.

• Not yet available through Recruitment, so can only be acquired through the gacha for players who missed the Amiya Newsgirl Event.

Currently makes her difficult to get to full potential, where her 4★ counterpart ShiraYuki is recruitable.

Catapult is in the general gacha pool.  3★ Operators do not typically have rate-ups on banners.  She is not yet Recruitable, but will likely be added to the Recruit Pool at a later date.

Catapult is an AoE Physical Damage Sniper.  Other AoE Snipers include:

• 4★ ShiraYuki

  • Extended range with S1

  • Does not increase her own AoE

  • Slow and Arts Damage with S2 (useful for tank killing)

  • Better stats and has access to Elite 2

• 5★ Meteorite

  • Increased Area of Effect and damage every few shots with S1

  • Reduces enemy Defense with S2 (useful for Tank killing)

  • Increases her own shot damage, unlike Catapult

  • Better stats and has access to Elite 2 

To date in CN, no new AoE Snipers have been added to the game.  This means Catapult is the only 3★ Operator with this specialization for a long time to come.

AoE Snipers have extended attack Range, high Attack, slow Attack Speed, and high Deployment costs.  Catapult's range at Non-Elite is:

At Elite1 it increases to:

Catapult's Talent, Lightweight, reduces her cost by 1.  Since AoE Snipers have very expensive Deployment Point costs, any reduction is welcome.

Here are Catapult’s stats at non-Elite and Elite1:

Being a 3★, Catapult has lower stats across the board than her higher rarity counterparts.  She does, however, have the lowest Deployment costs, lowered further by her talent and being much easier to max potential.  She may be worth considering over higher rarity options for maps with tight DP restrictions, or maps where her sustained increased AoE can make a huge difference in damage output.

Catapult’s one and only Skill, Blast Range Up 𝛂, increases the Area of Effect of her attacks, with further AoE increases available at Skill Level 4 and 7.  It charges per second, is triggered manually, and has a 20-30 second duration.  This skill can make her useful on maps that can benefit from her increased splash range.

Overall, as the first and only 3★ AoE Sniper, Catapult is a welcome addition to the Rhodes Island Roster, providing a cheaper, and eventually (when she gets added to the recruitment  pool) easier to procure option to fill this valuable role.  She suffers from the typical drawbacks of an AoE Sniper: high Deployment Cost and Slow Attack Speed, to trade off the typical advantages: high Attack and AoE damage.  Although her raw stats are lower than her higher rarity counterparts, her lower Deployment Cost and the increased area of effect of her S1 could make her worth considering over them in some cases.