Arknights: In-depth Review - Rockrock

Rockrock is the future 5★ Mech-Accord Caster featured in the Roaring Cliffhanger banner, which will run alongside the release of Episode 10: Shatterpoint. Just like Horn in the same banner, Rockrock attempts to put a spin on her archetype with the introduction of the Overdrive mechanic, giving her powerful boost with heavy downsides. Let’s find out if she can overcome those disadvantages!

Unlike all other Mech-Accord Casters, Rockrock lacks any sort of support tool or combat gimmick to help her team out. Instead, her kit is exclusively devoted to increasing her damage output through boosts to her Attack Speed, Attack and archetypal Trait ramp-up damage. As a reminder, these Casters’ Drones deal 20% of the Operator’s damage every time they attack, ramping up to 110% after six consecutive attacks on the same enemy.

Rockrock is also one of the two Operators in the game to use the Overdrive mechanic, together with the 6★ she shares a banner with, Horn. Skills that utilize the Overdrive system will trigger additional effects halfway through their duration, but will also come with downsides to make players think tactically about whether or not these boosts are worth it. In Rockrock’s case, as we will see during her Skill review, it’s a very questionable design choice.

Rockrock’s stats are pretty par for the course for her archetype, characterized mainly by very low Attack values that quickly ramp up and overtake Core Casters through their Drones. She does, however, have more Attack than Kjera and Click thanks to her Attack Potentials.

Other than this, Rockrock’s stats are very similar to regular Core Casters of her same rarity, excluding the slightly higher DP cost of her archetype.

Every 15 seconds after Rockrock is deployed she receives a 4% (+1% at P5) Attack buff, stacking up to 4 times.

This Talent is simple, but it helps her catch up to Kjera with her own Talent after a while, reaching Attack values higher than her fellow 5★ Mech-Accord Caster. The biggest issue with this Talent is how long it takes to ramp up to respectable levels. Assuming you activate her Skill 2 as soon as it's available, you'll have one charge at the beginning of that first cycle and three when the Skill ends, and full charges for the second cycle. Overall it’s not a terrible Talent, but it doesn’t help with Rockrock’s issues all that much either.

When activated, Rockrock’s Attack Speed will increase by 90 for 30 seconds, reducing her Attack Interval to a little under 0.7 seconds. This skill has a 30 second SP cost.

While this Skill is as generic as they come, it may actually be an option worth considering for Rockrock in case you don’t want to put up with the Overdrive mechanics present on her second Skill. If you don’t allow her to go into Overdrive, this Skill will provide better Average and Burst DPS. Still, the lack of any additional features makes it pale in comparison to many other Casters, even within her archetype. Kjera’s Unrestrained Heart, for example, has both better Burst and support abilities through her Freeze.

When activated, Rockrock’s Attack Speed will increase by 80 and her Drone will lock onto enemies for 40 seconds, which is a longer skill duration than all other Mech-Accord Casters bar Goldenglow’s Surging Current . During Overdrive, Rockrock’s Attack will be increased to 50% and her Trait’s upper limit for her Drone’s damage will increase to 200%. When the Skill ends, Rockrock will be Stunned for as much time as she remained in Overdrive. This Skill has an SP cost of 40 and can be deactivated manually.

Unlike Horn, who can still output solid damage before entering Overdrive and can still heavily benefit from the side effects of that mechanic, Rockrock suffers significantly more from this strange design decision that heavily backloads her DPS on a 40SP cost Skill, and with a Stun that, while not that impactful given Rockrock’s low off-skill DPS, may still matter at times. Before activating Overdrive, this Skill deals similar damage compared to other Mech-Accord Casters, and the actually significant DPS is crippled by the Overdrive effect into a strange cycling of 40 down / 20 “up” / 20 actually up.

While the Overdrive effects of the Skill do give Rockrock a significant DPS increase, she ends up suffering the same fate as most other Operators with ramp-up effects such as Carnelian. Unfortunately, Rockrock’s most desirable Skill effects are locked behind a poor uptime and a nasty stun once her Skill is down.

So, should I pull for Rockrock? Are we getting another great 5★ Mech-Accord Caster this quickly after Kjera? Is she a good option to replace Click as a low rarity Arts source? The answer is PROBABLY NOT. Rockrock can potentially output large amounts of Arts damage given the right circumstances, but the strange implementation of the Overdrive mechanic means her main Skill gets punished thrice: once with the debuffs, once with its average power pre-Overdrive, and once with the mediocre uptime for the better effects. All in all, Rockrock can be a powerful DPS option for bursting down tougher enemies, but falls short of general usage due to the new, poorly implemented mechanics introduced in her kit.