Arknights: In-depth Review - Fiammetta

Fiammetta is the future 6★ Artilleryman Sniper featured in the Flame of Immaculacy banner, which will run alongside the Guiding Ahead event. As the first non-limited 6★ of her archetype, Fiammetta has to pick up the slack of a seldom used class of Operators, while competing for a spot in the squad with W’s powerful AoE damage bursts and occasional stuns. Let’s figure out whether she’s viable enough to propel the archetype further!

Unlike all other Operators in her archetype (except Catapult), Fiammetta’s skillset contains no support abilities to speak of, rather requiring some support for herself to provide nothing but pure DPS. Much like most other Operators with natural AoE capabilities, however, her single-target damage can often be quite lackluster if certain conditions aren’t met. This makes her somewhat less viable for a variety of content when compared to other, more generalistic Sniper archetypes for pure single-target DPS.

Still, Fiammetta’s kit contains quite a few unique abilities that open up new niches in which she excels at, often making her an option to consider (if not one of the best) against certain events or enemies. This comes with a significant drawback though, as we will see how getting the most damage out of Fiammetta requires careful positioning and planning.

Compared to other Operators of her archetype, Fiammetta’s Attack sits right in the middle of the group, resembling that of 5★ Meteorite moreso than W’s. Where she does excel, however, is in her significantly higher HP pool of around 1900, rivaling that of Rosmontis’ and only falling behind Spreadshooter Snipers.

This difference in HP ties to her first Talent, which we will discuss now.

Fiammetta will constantly lose approximately 5% of her Max HP per second, but she will never have her HP reduced to 0 through this effect. When her HP is over 50% her Attack will be increased by 25%, doubling to 50% when her HP is over 80%.

This effect is great for Fiammetta, as her very long range allows her to remain safe from most enemies’ attacks while still being able to provide strong DPS if she has a healer nearby. Since this buff is a Vigor buff, it stacks well with other Attack sources as well. Generally, this Talent will significantly boost Fiammetta’s DPS, but will almost always require you employ a healer to keep her boosts up.

Due to the nature of her skills, Fiammetta does not benefit too much from getting paired with Quercus, but it can still work decently well. Another great pair is Skadi the Corrupting Heart, who can constantly keep her topped off to activate the greater Attack boost with additional buffs.

Fiammetta will have 27 (+3 at P5) extra Attack Speed while her Skills are not activated.

Since all of Fiammetta’s Skills have Offensive SP recovery, this talent can greatly boost her uptime by reducing her Attack Interval significantly (from 2.8 seconds to just above 2.2). However, the actual boost this Talent provides depends entirely on which skill Fiammetta has equipped, as of the two she will normally see use with one benefitting significantly while the other one won’t see much of this effect at all.

Fiammetta’s Attacks now ignore 100 Defense.

Fiammetta’s Attacks now ignore 100 Defense.

Talent 2: Now grants 5 Attack Speed while Skills are active.

Fiammetta’s Attacks now ignore 100 Defense.

Talent 2: Now grants 10 Attack Speed while Skills are active and 30 (+3 at P5) when inactive.

This basic branch of Artilleryman Sniper Modules is quite disappointing, especially considering their already high Attack values. I would not recommend purchasing the Module if you do not plan on upgrading to Stages 2 and 3.

The advanced stages of this Module seek to boost the damage output of Fiammetta’s third Skill by giving her a small Attack Speed boost permanently. The boost is, however, quite small, resulting only in an Average DPS increase of ~50 from each stage to the next. It also does not impact Fiammetta’s second Skill until the Module is at level 3, and even then it is a very insignificant buff. Considering the outrageous price of Module Upgrades, I would not recommend upgrading Fiammetta’s Module.

When activated, Fiammetta obtains one extra tile of Range and her Attack increases by 100% for 30 seconds. This Skill has an Offensive SP recovery type, and requires 10 SP.

This Skill is as close to a generic as Fiammetta gets, and it’s certainly almost never worth using. It loses to her second Skill in terms of Burst DPS, and to her third in Average DPS, making it a viable choice exclusively when you can use neither of those two skills. Avoid using this Skill if at all possible.

When activated, Fiammetta immediately fires a special shot that traverses in a straight line ahead of her leaving scorch marks on the ground, and then explodes at the end of her range dealing 400% of her Attack as physical damage. A moment later, the marks explode dealing 200% of her Attack as physical damage. This Skill has an Offensive SP recovery type, and requires 7 SP.

This Skill acts as Fiammetta’s best burst damage option, letting her deliver powerful spikes of AoE damage ahead of her, clearing mooks and significantly chipping away at Elite enemies. Compared to W’s third Skill, this one doesn’t rely on overlapping enemies for large bursts of damage, and instead can focus on single-target bursts to eliminate more dangerous threats, albeit with a little caveat that makes it harder to utilize to its fullest extent.

The biggest drawback of this skill is its heavy positional dependence, with its damage flatlining or spiking drastically depending on where the enemies are located as the mark’s hitboxes overlap each other. The following image shows how these hitboxes overlap and the resulting total DPS for each zone inside the explosion’s range, with the final, larger bubble corresponding to the initial 400% damage hit.

Enemies in the green zones will take 200% damage, followed by cyan with 400%, dark blue with 600%, yellow with 800% and red with a staggering 1000% of Fiammetta’s Attack as physical damage.

Due to her first Talent constantly draining her HP, Fiammetta can make use of certain SP battleries like Quercus or Saria’s Calcification to significantly boost the amount of times this Skill can be cast, resulting in huge spikes of DPS that can completely decimate bosses with little preparation, as seen in this video.

A final great aspect of this Skill is that, since every explosion is separate, it actually works wonders against large, stationary bosses such as Bishop Quintus and Big Sad Lock, as they will take almost every single explosion with every cast of this Skill.

Once activated, Fiammetta’s Attacks will exclusively hit the furthest tile ahead of her with a splash area of 3 by 3 tiles. All Attacks will deal 125% damage, but targets in the center tile will take 220% damage instead. This Skill has an Offensive SP recovery type, and requires 15 SP. This Skill has infinite duration and can be disabled manually.

This Skill changes Fiammetta’s overall range into one very closely resembling a Fortress Defender’s, adding a great sweetspot in the middle of the blast for higher damage. This ability serves as Fiammetta’s prime consistent damage skill, and has a fairly high uptime despite its Offensive SP recovery time thanks to its infinite duration.

As with her second Skill, it is somewhat demanding with Fiammetta’s position, but the larger sweetspot and the focus on Average DPS make it significantly easier to find a spot to get the most DPS out of Fiammetta. Due to her naturally very high Attack, this large splash of damage will make her one of the better mook-clearers for a long while.

So, should I pull for Fiammetta? Is she a better Operator than W? Will I finally see this archetype getting used in high end content? The answer is MAYBE. Fiammetta has an interesting mix of Skills that let her be quite versatile and take on different forms of DPS in the battlefield to suit your needs. Her unique skillset makes her a good option on a large variety of stages, and even though she’s not going to break the meta in half, she will still be quite useful for most rosters. If you are looking for constant AoE Physical damage, there are very few options that compare to Fiammetta, and she might be worth some consideration even if this niche is not massively important in the long run.