Arknights: Lunacub in-depth gameplay analysis

Finally, the fifth deadeye of the game is here. I’ve been waiting for her for 7 months now. Except she has a few slight issues with her kit (yes I’m saying it straight from the start).

Lunacub is a 5* Deadeye Sniper focusing on Camouflage. With the ability to stay camouflaged nigh-permanently, she is capable of staying deep in the enemy lines to deal some damage before everyone else, making it the next best thing to global range.

Deadeye Snipers have one of the best ATK stats in the entire game, losing only to Mystic Casters and Crusher Guards.

Similar to all those top ATK branch, they have a pretty slow attack interval to “compensate” at 2.7 seconds, one of the slowest of the game.

I have already spoiled that she has extremely long duration camouflage, which boosts her “defensive” stats by a lot. But even outside of that, her HP is strangely high and is one of the highest of all Snipers, losing only to Spreadshooters, Flingers, and Fiammetta.

Why is her HP that high? Because for some reason they decided to give her +300 HP as trust bonus, on a unit designed to have nigh-permanent Camouflage. It’s the same trust bonus as Andreana – another Deadeye – at +300 HP +40 ATK, so it’s not unprecedented, but why not going for the full ATK like Firewatch.

For a number example, at max level and max module, she gets 1996 HP. That’s extremely high for a ranged unit.

Anyway aside from that her DEF is pretty average for a sniper.

Deadeye Snipers have a fairly high cost for a ST sniper. For Luna, that will be 19 at base and 21 at E1 onward.

Deadeye have one of the best range in the game.

They have the ability to reach a bit further forward than Marksman and 2 tiles further to their side which really enhance their positioning aspect because they’ll usually be able to reach the enemies even with awkward placement. Especially for Lunacub, she has even less of a positioning issue thanks to her Camo.

Prioritise attacking the enemy with the lowest DEF in range first

The Deadeye’s trait is a weird one. It’s unpredictable unless you have a solid grasp of the enemy’s stats or you are in your second attempt of the map already. It can be helpful because Casters and most ranged enemies tend to have lower DEF than their melee kin so you can take them out earlier. It’s not always true, but it’s a good starting point.

But it’s not all bad. It also prevents them from ever being distracted. There’s a typical strat that they would spawn ranged enemies following behind a defender or an elite which would usually lead to most ST units to aim at the defender instead of the ranged one, even when both are blocked. These snipers however, can snipe out those ranged enemies in advance. The same goes for enemies with Taunt (“more likely to be targeted” or “draws enemy fire” in the game’s description), the Deadeyes ignore that and only care about the DEF stats.

They also count DEF debuff/buff as well. If you have Shamare or something to reduce DEF, those guys are definitely more likely to be targeted by a Deadeye. The reverse case is someone like a Guerilla Herald, who buffs DEF for everyone but themselves and have low DEF. The Deadeyes usually target these Heralds first.

Anyway, the targeting will be annoying to get used to.

Available at E1: Gains [Camouflage] while this unit’s skill is not active

At E2: Gains [Camouflage] while this unit’s skill is not active; Attack interval reduced slightly after skill activation

[Camouflage]: Prevents being targeted by enemy attacks if the unit is not blocking (but will still take Splash damage)

This is the main identity for Luna, being a unit with a nigh-permanent Camouflage buff.

As stated, camouflage prevents enemies from targeting the user, but they will still take Splash damage. This Splash damage refer to most attacks that deals damage in an area.

But what’s not expected is that some attacks that looks like it should be doing damage in an AoE still wouldn’t hit camouflaged unit. For examples, Sui’s thunderbolt, Degenbrecher’s area disarm, Dorothy’s… boss thingy that deals AoE damage that split evenly between all allies, etc. My guess is that due to how these skill works, they would still have to find the unit first… or something.

Altars – the cold one from chapter 6 and the true damage one from chapter 7 – for some reason doesn’t affect Camo despite being completely an AoE effect. This is made worse with the fact that the true damage altar actually hit invisible units, the status that is in essence “better Camo”. But this is the only exception so far, since the cold altar doesn’t hit either of those.

There are also some AoE skills that only activate if the enemy sees someone to attack. This usually means Camouflaged unit can avoid those skills, with the only exception so far is IS#2 Phantom’s AoE attack which can target an ally through Camouflage.

-if you don't see a GIF that means I was too lazy to run IS#2 again to get a recording but you can take my words for this-

Her Camouflage is tied to her non-skill state though, so does this mean that if her skill is up, she will be vulnerable again? Nope because she has that extra HP hah. That and her skill is also designed accordingly with this talent, though we will have to wait until the Skill section for that.

Anyway, the second clause of the talent is that her attack interval is reduced when skill is active. This is a 15% reduction to her base amount of 2.7 seconds and is calculated before any Attack Speed (ASPD) buff. Her new attack interval with skill up, without any other ASPD, is 2.3 seconds (in 30 FPS context, that’s 69 frames, which is nice).

Spoiler I guess, but her module level 3 increases this reduction to 25%, which makes her attack interval 2.03 seconds instead.

Always available – Lazy Cub: When stationed at a Dorm, self morale recovery per hour +0.7

This is not much useful, considering that her other base skill isn’t used constantly either. But this essentially means that Luna will recover morale fast after working in the base.

Available at E2 – Wilderness Survival: When this Operator is assigned to the Workshop to process Skill Summaries, the production rate of byproduct increases by 80%.

Admittedly, this is the highest % chance to get byproduct for Skill Summaries (aside from Nine-Colored Deer). But, like I said, you won’t use this skill and craft skill books that much. As in, eventually, your Skill Summaries acquisition rate will be slow enough that you will only be able to craft once every long while, unless you're actively farming CA-5 (like refresh-with-OP level of actively). Side note, if you have Hellagur, he has access to this skill straight from the get-go.

ATK +60%

18 seconds duration, 24 SP cost, 8 initial SP

Auto Recovery, manual activation

M3 gives ATK +100%, 20 SP cost, 10 initial SP

Uhhhh…

This is exactly like ATK Up γ, except with a much shorter duration and cooldown. Presumably, the rotation was reduced with her talent in mind, to minimize the time when she’s vulnerable to attacks.

Despite that, I don’t think the shortened cycle is enough to put Lunacub deep in the enemy lines. 18 seconds is a decently long time to get killed, even with her amazing 300 extra HP (no I will not let this go).

Technically, if she’s still vulnerable to attacks when this skill is up, we can fix that by properly timed the skill when there are no more ranged enemies around. But doing that negates the upside of short cooldown.

This skill doesn’t look too promising, not because it’s inherently bad. Rather, it pretty much removes Luna’s main identity unless you’re extremely good with skill timing and all that.

And furthermore, Andreana also has an S1 with the same +100% ATK, with similar attack rate (2.2 seconds vs Luna’s 2.033 assuming both have mod3), and Andreana’s ASPD is always active and not just during skill, and, Andreana has DEA–Ⲭ which gives her potentially even more damage.

You can definitely use it because it is Luna’s only method of gaining even more ATK, so that she can actually kill stronger enemies (or at least almost kill because now the short duration can actually hurt).

ASPD +110; Gain Camouflage for 5 seconds; Within the skill duration, defeating an enemy grants Camouflage for 7 seconds.

25 seconds duration, 54 SP cost, 25 initial SP

Auto Recovery, manual activation

M3 gives ASPD +140; Camouflage for 8 seconds; Defeating an enemy grants Camouflage for 8 seconds.

50 SP cost, 30 initial SP

With 110 ASPD and her E2 talent effect, her new attack interval with this skill is 1.1 seconds, or 33 frames in a 30 FPS scale. At M3 with 140 ASPD, that interval is 0.967 second, or 29 frames. And with mod3 M3, that interval is 0.833 second (25 frames).

Luna gains 5 (8) seconds of Camouflage upon using this skill and 7 (8) seconds upon getting a kill during the skill duration. These duration don’t stacks.

That is to say, Luna will only remains in Camouflage for the next 7/8 seconds after getting a kill, regardless of when it happened.

Luna herself has to be the one delivering the killing blow to receive the Camouflage.

As anyone would guess, this skill is designed to make Lunacub completely covered with Camouflage while still be able to use skill. As long as she kills something, she will get Camouflage for the next 8 seconds.

But that’s exactly where the issue is. She has to kill things constantly during her skill to achieve this permanent Camouflage. (In a perfect scenario, she would need to kill only 3 enemies if it’s perfectly spaced out every 7.9 seconds.)

She doesn’t get any +ATK with this skill, it’s pure ASPD. Meaning despite her high base ATK, that’s all she wrote. In general, her ATK is similar to a Marksman with +100% ATK, while her skill attack interval is similar to a Marksman (or shorter with mod3). Wait a minute, a Marksman with +100% ATK and Camouflage??? Oh my god RIP Ap…

Jokes aside, this idea forces Luna to only use this skill when there are kill-able mobs around. Which sounds fine, skill issue and all, but because of the lack of +ATK it severely reduces the type of mobs that she can kill within 8 seconds, relegating it to mostly trash mobs.

And this is why I have always use “nigh-permanent” when talking about her Camouflage. In theory, she can roll over trash mobs and feed her Camo constantly. In practice, that uhhh… depends on a lot of things: skill issues, wave flow, amount and flow of trash mobs. Basically, even the most skillful player can still find scenarios where there are enemies but they can’t use the skill regardless.

Maybe the 50 SP cost is because you’re not going to be able to use this skill constantly anyway.

DEA–У: 'A Hidey–Hole That Moves'

• Stage 1:

HP +120

ATK +55

Trait upgraded: Prioritise attacking the enemy with the lowest DEF in range first; If the attacked enemy remains alive, gain 1 additional SP

Analysis: As with Firewatch’s module, this module seeks to improve her skill rotation. Sadly, HG knew they are going to give her this DEA–У module, so they masterfully “balanced” her primary skill by increasing its SP cost to 50.

Anyway, Lunacub was released during a time when HG had already realised that SP cost should just stay low. With her DEA–У module, her S2 50 SP cost can be brought down to a minimum of about 36? But then, why not give her 40 SP cost and then give her DEA–Ⲭ instead? I know I have discovered that DEA–Ⲭ doesn’t give that much boost at mid-range but something is better than nothing.

Well, that’s enough rant for this section.

You can technically use S1 and have an extremely low downtime though, similar to Firewatch S1 (same SP cost and all), though with a much shorter skill duration. Admittedly, her S2 is her identity skill and this mod helps “fix” the SP cost. So yes, it’s a very important mod for Luna.

Important note: the attacked enemy has to lose HP in order for DEA-У to give SP. That is to say, if the target dodged or negated the damage with Barrier (Big Sad Lock, SSS Sloma tower boss…), these Deadeyes will not get SP.

• Stage 2: (stat boosts do not stack, only replace)

HP +145

ATK +63

Talent upgraded: Gains [Camouflage] while this unit’s skill is not active; Attack interval reduced slightly after skill activation (-20%). {Upgraded from -15%}

• Stage 3:

HP +160

ATK +68

Talent upgraded: Gains [Camouflage] while this unit’s skill is not active; Attack interval reduced after skill activation (-25%). {Upgraded from -20%}

Analysis: This is a pretty sizeable boost to her attack interval. As mentioned before, it decreases her S1 attack interval from 2.3 seconds to 2.033 seconds, and her S2M3 attack interval from 0.97 seconds to 0.83.

Module upgrades materials are pretty limited, so in the grand scheme, this module is not worth it because Luna herself is not worth it. But for Lunacub specifically, this module is very good if you want to stick with her. It covers her S2 SP cost, gives her even more attack rate for both skills, and provides her with more ATK which she will definitely need if you use S2.

Lunacub is designed to stay in Camouflage and snipe enemies from really dangerous position. Unless if there are AoE environmental hazards (altars excluded) or enemies that deal AoE damage without needing to target anything (like the mushroom from SN). If she can feed off of mobs, she can stay in Camouflage permanently

• S1 is her only +ATK source. This makes it worth a consideration when Luna is not in danger but you need more damage to kill anything other than trash mobs. That in turns make her unique talent irrelevant, or at least half-irrelevant, and is essentially a side-grade Andreana S1. That sounds sad doesn’t it. You can use it while abusing the camo off-skill (and that +300HP) to dodge the low traffic ranged attacks (why I said half-irrelevant), but if you are at that strategical prowess already, you don’t need this guide.

• S2 is Luna’s identity. She can go extremely aggressive because of her Camo. With some fodder, Luna can stay almost permanently in Camouflage. The lack of any ATK boost limits the kind of mobs that she can kill, so she’s relegated to mostly weak fodders. She also prefers to be placed away from other DPS or it’ll be a struggle of kill to get Camo. The only major issue is AoE damage (and reveal but we haven’t seen those enemies for a long time until the recent floor 3 boss map in IS#3: Requiem Aeternam and Eternal Wrath, 2 same maps but different boss).

For most people, their first comparison to Luna is Firewatch. Both are Deadeyes that revolves around staying undetected. But Firewatch is far more powerful. Invisible is a definite step above Camouflage. Her Invisible has 50 seconds duration with a downtime of around 15-20. She deals bonus damage to ranged enemies, removing the need for Invi/Camo, though she may or may not target them first. Luna can have permanent camo, though that will be without skill or pray that she kill enemies properly with S2. It is much easier for Luna to be placed aggressively compared to Firewatch, but Firewatch gives a much better reward if you can make it.

Another comparison is someone I made a joke about way earlier: April. Both are Camo Sniper that revolves around being capable of going deep in the enemy’s line and kill something (maybe). With both of their S2 up, they have similar stats: 1200 ATK and about 1 second attack interval. The advantage here isn’t any skill rotation or DPS or whatever, but that April has guaranteed 26 seconds Camo duration whereas Luna needs to get kills. This guaranteed duration allows her to spend time killing (or at least wounding) the stronger enemies unlike Luna who only have a third of that time. Also, April only needs that deployment slot when she’s ready, while Luna has to hog it the entire time. April has an easier time moving around the map. Luna’s only advantages are range, which are rarely seen and/or are not hard to work around, and more importantly her off-skill state for long duration fighting (like I said, something is better than nothing), for example against global range mechanics like Faust or Talulah.

But those are comparisons made while focusing on their innate mechanics of Invi/Camo. What about their designed role? Who else is designed to be stationed deep in the enemies line, having specific talent that will allow them to stay alive in the thick of things, to deal damage before anyone else? That’s right, it is time to talk about Kira…

Throughout this whole thing you might have noticed that I have been constantly saying that Luna is incapable of killing anything but trash mobs. That’s technically not true of course. But given the design of Luna’s kit, her most unique role is to stay undetected behind the enemy’s line to deal damage, and in order to do that she needs to kill an enemy every 7.9 seconds (btw I hope you understand why I keep saying 7.9 instead of 8).

Given this time restriction and the fact that she gets no extra ATK boost, the only thing she can kill within that time are basic mobs. Basic here actually covers a wide array of weak fodders: slugs, doggos, literal basic mobs, their archer version, and their caster version, with some occasional drones. So as much as I keep saying “limited” to trash mobs, it’s a bigger list than it seems. The downside here is that it’s trash mobs, there are plenty of ways of killing trash mobs that don’t involve even 6*.

If you are not using her unique talent, you are essentially using the worst Deadeye Sniper, if not just one of the worst 5* Snipers, with either of her skills (except for maybe Firewatch S1 against pure melee but she has an easy fix for that). No I’m not kidding. I’m not saying you are wrong to prefer using her. I’m just saying to expect accordingly.

So plop her deep in the enemy lines, time her skill correctly, and you can have a unit that filters out trash mobs before they reach your frontline. That’s her best and only value. 

So uhh, how’s your 10 dupe Lunacub doing? Anyway, I really love the Deadeye branch in general, so I was kinda thrilled to see a new one announced 7 months ago on CN server. Too bad what we ended up getting is a ST Kirara but thankfully can actually survive and kill things. She's still a great addition to my team though. Anyway thanks for reading I guess?