Arknights: Should You Pull? Standard Banner: Weedy and Ifrit

The new Standard Banner features the following Operators:

Probably not.

Weedy and Ifrit both have a lot of power, but they are very picky about when and where they can be useful. Positioning is vital for both of these Operators, and a lot of maps simply lack the positions they need to show off their full power.

Furthermore, we’ve just come off the Never Vowed banner and we have the limited Chop the Thorns banner coming up soon. Weedy and Ifrit can be good even without their ideal positioning, but most Doctors are really going to want to save for Chop the Thorns instead—especially if pulling for Mlynar drained all your resources already.

As with all banners, a 5★ or higher Operator is guaranteed in the first 10 rolls. Should you pull for that? Probably not. Lappland is very good, but Leonhardt and Hung are outshone by too many other options.

Push/ Push Stroker Specialist

+ Excellent Push Specialist with a lot more potential than existing Push Specialists

+ Can push from two locations by deploying her Water Cannon

+ S1 Stuns targets who get Pushed

+ S2 is a permanent buff that allows her to push multiple targets from a distance

+ S3 does True damage based on how far enemies move; with the proper setup (lots of space, Water Cannon next to Weedy, Angelina S3 active) the amount of damage dealt is brain-melting

- Still loses some viability when there are no holes or hazards on the map, despite her DPS

- S3 needs space to deploy her Water Cannon next to her and long straightaways to Push enemies away for maximum damage

- The Water Cannon is not permanent; it disappears after a short time and must be redeployed, creating downtime and costing DP

Blast Caster

+ Usual archetype strengths: High ATK, a very long-range “straight line” attack range

+ Does so much damage that she can contribute even if she can only target one square on the field

+ Debuffs the defensive stats of enemies, helping your entire team burn them down even faster

+ Her S2’s DEF debuff and her S3’s RES debuff are flat stat reductions, which are VERY powerful

+ Good uptime on her Skills

= “Straight line” attack range can allow her to contribute from faraway positions that other Casters could not function from, but can also greatly reduce her effectiveness on maps that don’t have a good position for her

- Usual archetype limitations: high DP cost, slow attack speed

- S3 cannot damage flying enemies

Ranged/ Lord Guard

+ Talent seals enemy special abilities, which is clutch against some midgame enemies like Defense Crushers or Infused Originium Slugs

+ Ground unit with ranged attacks; S2 turns her attacks into multi-target Arts damage

+ Becomes unexpectedly tanky if using S1

= Has to choose between maximizing survivability (S1) and DPS (S2)

- Many late-game enemies are immune to her Silence

- S2 triggers automatically and thus can’t be saved up for specific enemy waves

AoE Caster

+ High potential AoE burst damage because his S2 can store multiple charges

+ Has exceptionally wide AoE because his S2 increases his attack range for one hit and targets all enemies within that range (it’s a true AoE, not splash damage)

+ Talent increases his ATK when multiple enemies are within his range; this is ideal, since AoE Casters are usually used to counter swarms

+ S2 debuffs enemy RES, enhancing his own damage and that of other Arts-DPS Operators

- Usual AoE Caster weaknesses: slow ASPD and high DP cost

Healing Defender

+ Can be a better damage soak than some other Healing Defenders because his S2 actually mitigates damage (it gives him a DEF buff)

+ S2 provides a lot of team healing and also generates SP for healed allies

= Skills charge when [Getting Hit]; they can charge very quickly during a wave, but they don’t charge at all in between waves

- Can output a lot of healing, but needs to be constantly taking damage to do so (because of the [Getting Hit] SP charge type), so his healing is, on average, less reliable than other members of his archetype

- Not as durable as a Normal Defender, so can’t tank really nasty enemies, even with his S2

Weedy is a Push Specialist, and she Pushes harder than any other Specialist to date. For one thing, she knows better than to go it alone. Weedy’s Water Cannon also Pushes enemies, albeit with lesser force. Weedy and the Water Cannon can Push in two different places at once, but they work best as a team: when placed next to each other, they can activate the legendary Liquid Nitrogen Cannon in tandem, sending enemies flying to the other side of the map and melting them with tremendous True damage as they go.

Weedy is subject to the same basic limitations as other Push Specialists: Pushing is strongest on maps with instant-death pits and loses a lot of its luster otherwise. However, Weedy’s kit is still very strong even without instant-death pits involved. She’s pretty durable, she hits multiple targets, she can be deployed on ground or ranged grids, and her damage potential is quite high, making her one heck of a complete package.

I don’t exactly recommend pulling for Weedy, but she’s extremely worth raising if you pull her. She’s noticeably better than Shaw or FEater.

Ifrit has a unique attack range, heavy AoE Arts damage (potentially with damage-over-time after her initial hit), and very strong DEF and RES debuffs. All of this makes her a remarkably potent addition to a team. However, her straight-line attack range makes her tricky to deploy well on some stages; furthermore, she suffers from a high DP cost and a slow attack speed.

On the plus side, Ifrit works around these limitations better than the similar AoE Caster archetype due to her strong Skills. As long as Ifrit can hit at least one grid on the map, her high damage per hit and lasting debuffs can be enough to make her worthwhile. And with the sheer length of her attack range, she can usually get that one grid of coverage without too much trouble. She’s definitely better suited for maps with long straightaways that she can take advantage of, but that’s not all she can do—not by a long shot.

I don’t exactly recommend pulling for Ifrit, but she’s extremely worth raising if you pull her. You may want to buy her if you have spare gold certs, but she's by no means a must-buy.

Lappland was one of the juggernauts of the meta on release, able to mix up her damage type and seal away a lot of annoying enemy gimmicks. The developers clearly decided this was too strong, because there was a long period of time where almost every enemy that would have been worth Silencing was immune to the ailment. This left Lappland with little to recommend her other than Arts damage on her S2, and since her S2 triggers automatically, she couldn’t even be relied upon for that.

Things are looking up for Lappland again, however. The “Stultifera Navis” event had a lot of gimmicks to juggle, and Silence was actually viable for locking out some of the most annoying ones. When Lappland can take advantage of her Silence, her usefulness jumps dramatically; with her main strength finally coming back in play, there might be similar situations where she’ll be useful again in the future.

I recommend pulling for Lappland, but only if you keep in mind that lots of enemies will be immune to her Silence and still want her anyway.

Leonhardt uses his Originium Arts for two purposes: exploding anything in his way to smithereens, and keeping those smithereens away from his designer wardrobe. If he’s got enough talent to keep dirt, mud, and monster parts off his expensive sneakers, you’d expect his Arts to be pretty strong… and you’d be right! Leonhardt is an AoE Caster who becomes stronger the more targets he has in his attack range. He uses his S2 to blast all enemies in that range at once, while also reducing their RES in preparation for his next assault.

AoE Casters are a famously undertuned archetype—strong in the early game, usually unable to keep up later on—but Leonhardt is one of the better examples, especially if you missed limited unit Dusk. He’s perfect for blowing up hordes of weak units, and he also brings some support to other Arts Operators by reducing enemy RES. He still suffers from the usual AoE Caster issues of slow ASPD and outsized DP cost, though.

I don’t recommend pulling for or buying Leonhardt.

Hung is one of the rare Healing Defenders with a Skill that increases his DEF, so on paper he’s a more effective damage soak than some members of his archetype (looking at you, Nearl!) His S2 increases his ATK and his DEF, heals adjacent allies, and grants SP to every ally healed.

The downside? The SP charge type for his Skills is [Getting Hit], so if Hung isn’t taking damage, he’s not able to charge his Skills.

If Hung can sit around and tank multiple weak enemies for a while, he builds SP very quickly and outputs a lot of healing to nearby allies. However, Hung isn’t sturdy enough to face nastier enemies. As such, he’s usually either unnecessary (because the enemies are weak and you don’t need his healing) or unable to function (because the enemies are too strong for him to take their hits and charge his SP).

I don’t recommend pulling for Hung.