Arknights: In-depth Review - Sesa

Sesa is a returning 5★ Splash/AoE Sniper featured in the Ero Passenger banner, which will run alongside the A Walk In The Dust event. He specializes in AoE Debuffs with his attacks, as well as high DPS. Does he hold up to this day? Let’s find out!

Sesa was first introduced with the The Piper on the Knoll banner, which featured Bagpipe. He was the fourth Splash/AoE Sniper released at the time, and took on yet another debuffing role while he was at it. While Meteorite debuffed Defence, Shirayuki debuffed Movement Speed and Catapult did nothing, Sesa came with a very rare debuff: an Attack Speed debuff. Whether it’s actually good or not, we’ll discuss later.

Stat-wise, Sesa is completely average within his role. His HP is slightly higher than those of fellow Splash/AoE Snipers Meteorite and W, but nothing else is of note apart from his somewhat lower attack value (around 40 points under Meteorite).

His first debuff aspect comes straight from his talent, buffing the physical damage taken by enemies from ALL allied operators by 14% whenever they are being blocked. This is an interesting addition to Sesa’s kit, working as an interesting damage multiplier to attacks. It is, however, still relatively small and only acts upon physical damage.

Generic as they come, Sesa’s first skill is simply an attack boost of 60% at SL7 with an uptime of around 46%. Not worth using or investing into once he’s E1, as his second skill beats this one both in average and skill DPS.

Now, this skill is what makes Sesa interesting. At SL7(M3) this skill turns Sesa’s regular attacks into time-delayed grenades which explode a couple seconds after they are planted, dealing 210(240)% physical damage and, most interestingly, debuffing the targets’ ASPD by 10(20) for 3 seconds. The skill has an uptime of 38(43)%. This makes Sesa one of the four units in the game capable of debuffing the enemies’ attack speed, with the other three being Pramanix S1 with -50(60), Mr. Nothing S1 with the blue aura at -30(35) and Mayer at -25, but only when enemies are attacking her Meebos.

Comparing these numbers it’s clear to see that Sesa’s role is not simply meant to debuff, as it’s much lower than any other source in the game, but this brings up another issue: is his damage really that good?

In comparison to Meteorite S1, the skill most often used for her in regards to DPS, the answer is… no, not really. At the same investment level, both skills have almost exactly the same average and skill DPS, not even reaching a 100 point difference (this is, of course, assuming Sesa always activates his talent and without taking into account support units like Ch’en or Archetto, which cannot buff Sesa). While this skill is in no way bad, it also showcases one of Sesa’s worst aspects: due to the delay between the targeting and the explosion, enemies can often walk away from the blast radius entirely if they are not being blocked by someone else, which admittedly is something Sesa wants in order to take advantage of his talent.

So, should I roll for Sesa? Should I raise him if I already have him? What about in comparison to other operators like Meteorite or Shirayuki? Do I invest in him if he’s not my husbando? The answer is PROBABLY NOT. As rare of a debuff as ASPD is, it’s neither extremely important in the current meta nor is Sesa any good at applying it in comparison to Mr. Nothing and Pramanix, and in regards to damage, it’s quite difficult to make Sesa shine at his full potential by himself. Discarding the fact that he’s one of the few operators that can miss their targeted attacks (Looking at you, Skyfire), his DPS simply isn’t better than similar operators without constantly blocking every single enemy that comes his way.