Arknights: New Operator SPOTlight – Spot. Is He a Good Boy?

This Operator Spotlight is brought to you as a collaboration with the amazing and talented Youtube creator Dreamy.  You can find their Spot SPOTlight video here, and their Youtube page here.  The video will also be embedded at the end of the article.

Of course Spot is a good boy! He ran away from home because his military family was cold and inflexible, and now he has become an integral member of Rhodes Island’s infamous Reserve Action Group A6. Though he may look sullen and aggressive, he is actually a great listener and generously loans his favorite comic books out to the rest of Rhodes Island. He and Orchid are close friends, and she regularly gives him fashionable haircuts inspired by Sargon, his homeland. How could he be anything but a good boy?

What? That wasn’t the question readers wanted answered? They wanted to know if he’s good to use in Arknights?

…Whoops.

Because Spot is about to be awarded to players for free as part of an upcoming event’s sign-in rewards, many Doctors may be wondering if they should be making room for him in their squads. To figure out whether or not Spot is a good investment for you, let’s take a closer look at what he can do and how he compares to other Operators in his role.

Spot is a 3★ Defender who falls into the Healing Tank role. While he normally functions as a regular Defender, blocking enemies and tanking their hits, his Skill -- Secondary Healing Mode -- allows him to heal adjacent allies as well.

To learn more about his stats, Skills, Talents, and other details, check his Operator page.

In many ways, Spot is a textbook example of a healing tank in Arknights. They typically have lower defensive stats than other equivalent-rarity Defenders, but compensate by having slightly higher ATK, lower DP Cost, and innate Arts Resistance. They can only block 2 units at a time at base level (unlike regular Defenders, who can block 3), but they become able to block 3 units once promoted to E1. Finally, as the name suggests, healing tanks have at least one Skill or Talent that allows them to heal their allies.

Spot fits all of these characteristics perfectly. Because of this, Spot is a good choice when:

• You need more healing for a particular stage, but not a lot more. Spot can be a more efficient unit than an extra Medic in this situation, since he can both heal and tank.

• You need both blocking and some healing early on a map, but don’t have enough DP to place two units in time.

• You need more healing in an area of the map where Medics have a hard time reaching. As a ground unit, Spot can be placed in different locations than a Medic.

• You need an Operator to tank an enemy Caster.

Other healing tanks currently in Arknights include:

• Gummy (4*)

• Nearl (5*)

• Saria (6*)

In comparison to the other healing tanks, Spot’s most notable difference is his rarity. As a 3* Operator, Spot has a higher chance of being pulled from the Headhunting gacha, making it more likely that players will be able to increase his Potential. Getting a free copy of him as a log-in reward makes this even easier. (Keep in mind that Spot cannot be pulled from Recruitment at this point in time, however.)

Another thing that differentiates Spot from other healing tanks is his Talent, Smoke Installation. When Spot heals an ally using his Skill, Smoke Installation grants that ally a Physical Evasion buff. Physical Evasion has a chance to completely negate physical damage, and it can be stacked from multiple Operators. Though this buff is chance-based and therefore risky to rely upon, it does give Spot a specific niche: He is the only healing Defender in Arknights currently who combines damage mitigation with his healing.

Finally, promoting Spot can be worthwhile just for the building ability he gains at E1: Skillful Craftsman, which gives Spot a 30% bonus to creating byproducts when working on random materials in the Workshop. If you lack good Operators to run the Workshop in your base, Spot might be a good fit for the job.

Let’s start by comparing Spot to the other 3* Defenders available at the time of his release: Beagle and Cardigan.

Beagle

In comparison to Beagle, Spot has lower HP and DEF, but slightly higher ATK and RES. Spot also costs 1 DP less than Beagle, which is a small but occasionally important advantage.

Due to her stats and Skill, Beagle will usually be a better frontline damage soak than Spot. Most enemies in Arknights deal physical damage, so having higher DEF and a Skill that offers protection from burst damage is more reliable for surviving than Physical Evasion. Even Spot’s ability to heal himself won’t usually close the gap. The exception is when there are enemy Casters. Beagle is defenseless against Casters, while Spot has some base RES and can heal away their damage.

Cardigan

As with Beagle, Cardigan has higher HP and DEF, while Spot has higher ATK and RES and less DP cost. However, in this case, there’s also Skills to consider. Cardigan’s heal is quite strong – up to 40% of her max HP at max Skill Level – but she can only heal herself and only once per Skill use. Spot can heal multiple times over his Skill’s duration (15 to 25 seconds, depending on Skill Level) and he can heal adjacent allies.

If you need a Defender to survive burst damage on the frontline, Cardigan is more reliable than Spot, again due to her stats. However, in addition to surviving enemy Casters, Spot can outperform Cardigan when it comes to surviving sustained damage. He can heal himself over a longer duration than Cardigan, he can sustain nearby allies, and Physical Evasion has more chances to activate if he’s taking multiple attacks.

Conclusion

As with most things in Arknights, the best Operator to use depends on the exact situation. There are some situations where Spot will be better than Beagle or Cardigan, especially if you are able to use him with other Operators who have or grant Physical Evasion. However, there are other cases where he won’t perform quite as well. Overall, Spot can be worth raising even if you have already invested in Beagle or Cardigan, as he offers some unique strengths (and his E1 RIIC Skill is nice to have).

How does Spot compare to his fellow Healing Defenders? Let’s examine his most direct competition: 4* Healing Defender and breakfast expert Gummy.

Unfortunately, it’s not a very fair comparison. As a 4* unit, Gummy can promote to E2, while Spot (as a 3*) caps out at E1. This means Gummy’s stats, Talent, and Skills can be upgraded to be far superior to Spot’s. Even if both Operators are considered at E1, Gummy will have more ATK and DEF, as well as stronger healing. And since both are healing tanks, one of Spot’s advantages over Beagle and Cardigan – his 10 RES – is matched by Gummy as well, putting him even further behind.

The one advantage Spot has over Gummy is the fact that his Physical Evasion buff gives the allies he heals an extra layer of survivability, while both of Gummy’s Skills can only heal. Spot’s Physical Evasion can also be stacked with other sources of Physical Evasion (i.e., Grani’s Mounted Police Talent) to become quite powerful. With luck, Spot may even mitigate more damage than Gummy can heal. However, it must be noted that this is a risky strategy. Each Doctor will have to weigh for themselves how much they value Spot’s Physical Evasion over Gummy’s stronger raw healing.

It’s also worth noting that Gummy can be purchased in the Store as part of the $0.99 Starter Pack. This is obviously not useful to pure F2P players, but it does give players a guaranteed way to obtain her if desired, which further hurts Spot’s viability.

In short: If you have Gummy, you should probably invest in her over Spot unless you are specifically crafting a strategy that involves stacking Physical Evasion.

Short answer: Sometimes.

Long answer: Spot is not a replacement for a dedicated primary Medic. His healing is too little and too infrequent to keep multiple Operators healthy throughout an entire fight. If you expect Spot to output healing on par with a Medic like Hibiscus, you’re going to be disappointed.

On the other hand, Spot can be excellent as a supplemental healer. If your Medics are keeping your party alive just fine for most of a fight, but Operators keep dying during one particular wave, Spot’s extra healing (and a lucky Physical Evasion proc) might be just enough to help you survive.

Sometimes having Spot as an extra healer can also help you cover gaps in your Medics’ healing range. Because Spot is placed on ground tiles instead of ranged tiles, his healing can reach Operators who might otherwise be difficult or impossible to heal with a traditional Medic.

Spot is an accessible, flexible Operator who has some unique capabilities for his archetype and can help shore up weak points in your lineup. However, he lacks long-term viability due to being capped at an E1 promotion, and most of what he does can be done by other Operators instead. Beginners and new players can definitely put Spot to good use, but more experienced players are unlikely to be replacing already-built units with him unless it is for the purposes of a Physical Evasion strategy (which is not common).

…He’s still a good boy, though. Let’s make sure we’re clear on that, all right?