Arknights: In-depth Review - Fartooth

Fartooth is the future 6★ Deadeye Sniper featured in the A Wanderer in the Wind banner, which will run alongside the Pinus Sylvestris event. Fartooth is the first 6★ representative of her archetype, which has only included more niche-oriented Operators so far with little cohesion between their kits apart from their massive range. Fartooth follows more closely the framework of the 4★ Deadeye Sniper, Ambriel, with most of her skills being attack range-focused. She also takes a page out of other archetypes’ books, very closely resembling a certain other Sniper of her same rarity at points, but that will be discussed later. For now, let’s find out if she’s worth pulling for and investing in!

Fartooth is the first Operator to release with a module, so this article will take this into account when discussing her. If you haven’t unlocked any of this archetype’s Modules yet or want a more in-depth explanation on how they work, I suggest reading the following article before you continue with the review.

Much like Mizuki did before her, Fartooth attempts to be similar enough to the rest of her archetype to maintain some sense of cohesion, but also distinct enough that her case usages are different. As a result, Fartooth’s kit is quite varied and very unique, but can at times lack a sense of identity, as none of her skills go “all in” as replacements for other Operators. As a result, Fartooth often feels like a strange sidegrade to other Snipers, which we will see later when analyzing her skills.

For now, let’s continue by taking a look at her stats.

To no one’s surprise, Fartooth’s stats are generally higher than her lower rarity counterparts, boasting an increase in Attack of over 100 points compared to the next best Deadeye Sniper. Defensively, she has a slightly higher Defense stat compared to all others, but pales in survivability due to her average HP values (slightly lower than Ambriel’s). While this is to be expected due to her Talents (which we’ll take a look at afterwards), it also puts her on the squishier end as she lacks the HP that Andreana has or the incredible Invisibility uptime of Firewatch. She does have some ways to reduce her own taunt, though.

When Fartooth hasn’t taken damage for 10 seconds, her Attack will increase by 15% (+3% at P5). This is signified by a slight white shine coming from her weapon whenever the boost is active.

This boost grants Fartooth a decent increase in DPS at the cost of having to think more carefully about her positioning and placement order. While ideally you want to maintain this for as long as possible (and her second talent will aid on this), don’t actively gimp her or other Operators in order to achieve a better uptime.

For as long as any of Fartooth’s skills are active, her Taunt level will be reduced by one and she will be able to accurately strike enemies regardless of their Physical evasion percentage.

The first part of this Talent serves as Fartooth’s replacement for Firewatch’s high-uptime Invisibility. While definitely not as good of an effect, it can help Fartooth maintain her first Talent’s effect if used at precise times. However, keep in mind that she’s simply less likely to be targeted by enemies (much like what Stalker Supporters inherently have in their Trait), so she can still be attacked if there are no other Operators within range.

The second part of her Talent is much more interesting, as it’s a completely unique effect we’ve only seen here so far, but sadly it’s also not incredibly potent. From the release of the Pinus Sylvestris up until the latest event in the Chinese server there’s only two enemies that have Physical Dodge mechanics: Andorne, the boss enemy from Guiding Ahead, can summon a terrain effect that grants 50% Physical and Arts dodge to any enemies standing in it; and one of the IS2 bosses, which has 40% Physical and Arts dodge while not blocked.

In the first case, this terrain effect also grants enemies a massive damage mitigation effect, so piercing this dodge isn’t necessarily a huge advantage, and True damage works better either way. As for the second, Fartooth is simply not a great pick for the IS event, as not only is her niche not extremely useful, but she has to compete with powerhouses like Exusiai or Ash, who are worthier of the cost to recruit them.

While this Skill is as generic as they come, there’s actually some fringe usage cases in which it’d actually be preferable to her S2, as it has higher average DPS against anything that doesn’t have extremely low Defense. Compared to that one though, Fartooth’s first Skill really struggles to make use of her Module’s effect, so it ends up being a worse option than other Skills in nearly all cases, and a poor replacement for a regular Sniper in all of them.

This skill is where the aforementioned problems with the cohesion of Fartooth’s kit really come into view. When activated, this Skill massively increases Fartooth’s Attack Speed by 110 at M3, changing her Attack Interval to 1.27 seconds. Additionally, Fartooth will now be able to target any blocked enemy, regardless of their location.

That’s it? Really? No Attack increase? No damage multiplier? Yes, that’s it. This Skill is fully oriented towards providing some DPS support outside of Fartooth’s natural range, trying to capitalize on both her first Talent and the effects of her Module, which she won’t even have access to when first unlocking this skill.

The lack of any Attack boosts really limits this skill’s effectiveness at dealing with any enemies over ~1300 Defense, as Fartooth will be delegated to doing nothing but chip damage. Even as damage support, the “blocked enemies” condition on her global range also greatly hinders her in this regard, as she’ll often be overshadowed by simply deploying a DPS Operator.

Even at times where this kind of global range would be useful (say, at taking care of Mortar Gunner Leaders in stages like H6-4), you will still need to use another Operator to trigger the condition, and hope her Trait doesn’t retarget to an enemy within her natural range.

This is the skill that Fartooth is most well-known for, and the one that causes the most misconceptions. When activated, Fartooth’s range changes to a straight line in front of her with infinite range, and at M3 her Attack is increased by 140%. Additionally, any enemy outside of the 4 tiles right in front of her will receive an extra 40% damage from her attacks. An important thing to note is that this skill has both a 20 second duration and a 20 SP cost, making for a great 50% uptime.

Wait, a Sniper with an extended straight-line range? With greatly increased Attack and conditional effects? With a great uptime for such a burst-oriented skill? My, this is just Schwarz’s skill!

Indeed, the skills are really similar. At a glance the infinitely longer range of Fartooth may look like a very clear powercreep, but even when achieving all possible conditionals that boost Fartooth’s damage, she can’t beat Schwarz in almost any scenario.

Even at zero enemy Defense, Schwarz’s raw Attack and increased damage through her first Talent already give her a better burst DPS. Paired with how she deals much better with increasing Defense stats, the gap between Schwarz and Fartooth grows larger and larger as enemies become tankier.

The only aspect in which Fartooth is better than Schwarz is in the range they can hit, but as interesting as the infinite range seems, how useful is it actually? In how many maps has Schwarz’s or Ifrit’s range length been a problem, rather than their width? For Fartooth specifically this range becomes more of a hindrance than an actual aid, as due to her archetypal Trait she will refuse to target any boss enemies (which will inevitably have high Defense) in favor of squishier enemies if there are any in her infinitely long range. This results in a need to plan much more carefully: not only where you’re placing Fartooth, but also when you’re activating her Skill. This is because her really long Attack Interval will result in a big loss of DPS against the main target if she misses even a single shot due to her targeting priority.

So, should I pull for Fartooth? Is she a suitable bossing replacement to Schwarz? Is her infinite range as powerful as it seems? The answer to these questions is PROBABLY NOT. Due to trying to fulfill multiple roles at once, Fartooth sadly fails to both be a good DPS support with global range and an adequate boss killer replacement/upgrade to Schwarz, resulting in a mediocre usefulness to most rosters.