Arknights: In-depth Review - Chestnut

Chestnut is the future 4★ Wandering Medic featured in the Roaring Cliffhanger banner, which will run alongside the release of Episode 10: Shatterpoint. Unlike all other Operators in his banner, Chestnut does not have the Overdrive mechanic in any of his Skills, leaving him as a pure (and, in many aspects, poor) Elemental damage healer.

Chestnut’s inclusion in the Episode 10 release banner is not coincidental. One of the many gimmicks of this new story chapter is a new type of Elemental damage, Withering, with a plethora of effects. When Operators are inflicted with this debuff they will be unable to activate Skills or gain SP for 15 seconds, and they will lose 1 SP and take 100 Arts damage per second. If an Operator is inflicted with Withering in the middle of their Skill duration, they will go on as usual until it ends.

This effect can be pretty devastating if it lands on an Operator whose Skills you want to be triggering constantly (such as Powerstrike-like Skills or Mudrock’s Crag Splitter), which is why Chestnut is almost entirely focused on removing Elemental damage, as we will see later.

As always, keep in mind Chestnut will not be able to recover the Elemental damage of Operators that cannot be healed directly, such as Summons, Musha Guards or Juggernaut Defenders, but he can target Operators at full HP.

Much like all other Wandering Medics, Chestnut’s stats are extremely low, even comparable to Ansel, and likely because all Operators have the same amount of “Elemental HP”. This archetype makes up for their shortcomings with a very low DP cost and a wider healing range, but have to rely on their Skills for actual HP healing.

Chestnut will heal 20% (+3% at P5) more Elemental damage to ground Operators.

Very simple talent, but decently effective at what it’s supposed to do. Combined with his Skills, this Talent helps Chestnut overcome his archetypal Trait and deliver beefy Elemental heals on command. Operators in low tiles are also much more susceptible to most kinds of Elemental damage, so the restriction is not too worrisome.

When manually activated, Chestnut will immediately heal an ally, recovering 300% as much Elemental damage. This Skill has an SP cost of 10 and can hold up to 2 charges.

This is Chestnut’s main Skill, as it allows him to deliver huge Elemental healing to single targets on demand. When fully maxed out and if healing a ground Operator, Chestnut will be able to heal for a little over 800 Elemental damage, which is 80% of the basic Elemental HP of all Operators.

The main issue with this Skill is that, beefy as the Elemental healing is, it doesn’t have any component that buffs Chestnut’s actual HP recovery, which leads to really poor healing capabilities and relegates his job into just an Elemental recovery bot more than an actual healer. Another issue with this Skill is that, unlike Honeyberry and Mulberry’s, it does not prioritize Operators with high Elemental damage taken.

Compared to the aforementioned Medics’ Elemental healing capabilities with their first Skills, Chestnut loses in Average HPS but wins in Burst.

When activated, Chestnut’s range is reduced to exclusively the tiles in front of himself within his normal range, his Attack Speed will increase by 130 (to an Attack Interval of 1.24 seconds) and, if constantly healing the same Operator, his Elemental and HP healing effectiveness will go up to 150%. This Skill costs 70SP to activate and has an uptime of 33%.

This Skill attempts to fix Chestnut’s main problem of being a poor overall healer, but it ends up being quite mediocre even when compared to his first Skill. The heavy range limitation forces him into specific positions that affect his wide archetypal range, and it practically focuses him into healing a single Operator over and over. The uptime is also quite atrocious, especially considering how Elemental damage tends to be a constant through maps that use it, and not something really worth bursting for.

In terms of actual healing it is significantly worse than Mulberry, or Sussurro if the Elemental damage is not an issue, making him a poor overall choice for a Medic even without taking into account the terrible range limitation.

So, should I pull for Chestnut? Is he a good low-rarity alternative to Mulberry? Can I use him as a replacement for a regular Medic in most content? The answer is DEFINITELY NOT. Chestnut has commendable bursts of Elemental healing through his first Skill that may let Operators hold their own against tougher enemies in certain events for longer, but he struggles to distinguish himself from Honeyberry or Mulberry enough to actually stand a chance. On top of all this, his healing is remarkably poor even for a Wandering Medic, turning him into a questionable choice for general content. Compounded with the fact that Honeyberry can be acquired for free, Chestnut ends up a very mediocre choice for players of all skill and progress levels in the game.