Arknights: In-depth Review - Tuye

Tuye is the future 5★ Single Target Medic welfare unit from the Contingency Contract Season #4 - Operation Lead Seal event. Can our third Contingency Contract welfare keep up with the useful Scene and the amazing Bibeak? Only one way to find out!

Like all other CC welfares thus far, players can obtain Tuye for free by purchasing her for 300 Contract Bounties, and all five of her Potential tokens for a total of 720 Contract Bounties (100/120/140/160/200). Additionally, together with Castle-2’s summer skin and the Lead Seal Penant furniture piece, she will join the permanent part of the shop as soon as the season is over, meaning Tuye and all her tokens can be bought at any time.

Following the steps of her fellow CC welfares, Tuye is a different take on an already existing role. Much like Bibeak gave Dualstrikes a whole new identity, and how Scene established herself as the prime Summoner for many players, Tuye is trying to infiltrate the likes of Warfarin and Silence with a whole new kit of her own. Let’s find out whether or not she can stand up to that monumental challenge!

Stats-wise there’s not much differentiating Tuye from her fellow 5★ Single Target Medics. Her stats are almost a carbon copy of Warfarin, with a slightly higher HP, Defense and Deploy Time and a slightly lower Attack. She costs 21DP to deploy and has a redeploy timer of 80 seconds, much like Folinic, and has a long attack interval of 2.85 seconds, exactly the same as all other medics in the game. For Tuye, however, this interval is an integral part of her kit, as evidenced by her first and only Talent.

Tying into her racial traits, Tuye’s talent is all about storing heals and releasing them later with a stronger force. At its maximum potential, Tuye’s heals will get a 55% attack boost if she hasn’t attacked in 4 seconds. This is, more or less, what cements her set as unique.

In regards to what this talent means, apart from when she’s not healing at all, Tuye will receive a significant attack boost in certain stages, particularly those of Contingency Contract levels, where her attack speed is debuffed by -30 or more (the Cold status effect will work just as well).

Tuye’s first skill lets her immediately heal an ally, granting them a shield that blocks all damage equal to 200% of her own attack at maximum investment for 5 seconds. On paper, this skill’s low SP cost of 12 may make it look nice and workable. In reality, though, the very short duration of the shield (as long as it takes Surtr to change her S3) leaves it mostly useless for the majority of the time. In the end, this skill is just best used as an Aak S3 support (if you can get it to land on the correct target, that is).

Tuye’s second skill works on a similar principle to Warfarin’s S1, but goes about it in a completely different way. First of all, this is a completely unique skill in that it’s infinite duration (with a charge timer of 50SP), but it often ends and has to load back up. 

While it’s active, Tuye’s attack is increased by 60%, but she will only heal allies that fall under 50% HP. Additionally, when an ally falls under 20% HP, she will immediately release a healing burst (ignoring attack interval timers) that will heal them for 300% of Tuye’s current attack stat. This is the trigger for the skill to end: once this 300% burst happens thrice, it’s over (this is well indicated by the amount of water bubbles floating around her). She has to recharge it back up.

It’s not very difficult to see how this skill meshes perfectly with her talent, replacing her regular attack interval with the 50% condition, allowing her to get the extra benefit much more often. In general, this is Tuye’s main skill, though it must be noted that the big 300% burst will very rarely get further boosted by the talent, unless an operator suddenly gets bursted from over 50% to under 20% in a single attack while Tuye has had enough time to load up her water tank.

So, should I purchase Tuye? Should I invest in her? How much? Will she replace or compliment my go-to Single Target Medic? To make a long story short, the answer is probably NO to the last few questions. As interesting as her kit is, the limiting factors she has don’t really allow her to get past other healers of similar rarity in the race to become the “standard” for ST Medics. Despite her strong healing burst, which is most useful during hard events like CC due to her talent, the lack of additional support is very noticeable. If you have Shining, Warfarin or even Sussurro, it’s very likely that you won’t get much use out of Tuye.