Standard Banner: Carnelian & Saria
The new Standard Banner features the following Operators:
Featured Operators:
Carnelian
Saria
Croissant
Blue Poison
Akafuyu- Based on previous patterns, it is likely but not 100% certain that the Operators for purchase in the Distinction store will be Saria and Blue Poison
- 6★ Rate-Ups have a 50% chance of appearing when pulling a 6★
- 5★ Rate-Ups have a 50% chance of appearing when pulling a 5★
Should You Pull?
Maybe, if you don’t have Saria and don’t have enough Gold Certificates to buy her in the shop.
As far as Standard Banners go, this one isn’t too bad. Carnelian can be an excellent crowd-control unit or a source of high AoE Arts damage, and she is also a ranged unit who can soak up a surprising amount of damage, which is sometimes useful. Meanwhile, Saria is one of the most useful utility units in Arknights, boasting Block-3, reliable healing from a melee position, SP recovery, and a potent debilitating S3 that magnifies the Arts damage enemies take. The 5★s aren’t bad either: Croissant is a little RNG-reliant but very durable, Blue Poison is very fragile but outputs high consistent DPS, and Akafuyu is a decent if not exceptional duelist.
It may be worth keeping in mind that CC#6—Operation Wild Scales—should be coming out soon, and Saria is one of the most-used units in CC events.
As with all banners, a 5★ or higher Operator is guaranteed in the first 10 rolls. Should you pull for that? Maybe, if you are a new player looking to round out your roster. Croissant and Blue Poison are strong examples of useful archetypes—most players will want more than one Protector Defender and Marksman Sniper—so they can be good investments. Akafuyu is the most replaceable unit on the banner, but even she can be useful if lacking other options.
Quick Overview
+ Usual archetype strengths: Has DEF +200% and RES +20 while her Skills are NOT active, putting her on par with multiple Defenders
+ Attacks all enemies within her attack range while her Skills are active (“true” AoE)
+ Talent heals her every time she uses a Skill
+ S1 gives her a DEF bonus while active, and Charged S1 retains her Trait buff for the duration; this means that Charged S1 gives her pretty phenomenal defenses (plus a huge heal from her Talent), making this a great skill to support the Archetype’s role of “ranged tank”
+ S2 inflicts Slow and Charged S2 inflicts Bind, giving Carnelian good AoE crowd control. With ASPD buffs (i.e., Aak), Charged S2 becomes unrivaled in its Bind uptime.
+ S3 has expanded attack range and ramps up damage throughout the duration; Charged S3 has even higher damage potential, absolutely destroying groups of enemies. It has a faster cycle time than most comparable Skills, so it can be available more often.
+ Has pretty reasonable SP costs for her Skills
- Usual archetype weaknesses: Activating her Skills (except Charged S1) causes her to lose her massive survivability, forcing the player to balance “when to use her Skills” versus “when to use her as a ranged damage soak”
- For Skills to compete against the best available, they must be Charged, meaning they must gain twice the normal amount of SP. This leads to a slower first-time Skill activation than much of the competition and overall Skill charge times that are longer than they might appear to be at first glance.
- S3’s damage takes a long time to ramp up to maximum effect
+ Extremely efficient and effective ground-deployed healer
+ Can Block-3 and can also take a hit (especially after her E1 Talent has increased her DEF)
+ E2 Talent grants SP to allies that Saria heals (they must actually recover HP, though; it doesn’t work if they’re already at full HP when she heals them)
+ S1 offers reliable, consistent healing to adjacent allies
+ S2 provides consistent healing over a wide AoE—perfect for countering poison mist
+ If you have any Arts damage at all, S3 is terrifyingly effective for increasing your team’s damage output (and it Slows enemies in the bargain)
- Has no damage mitigation on her Skills, so she can have trouble surviving enemy damage spikes
+ Talent makes her and adjacent allies more durable
+ S1 is a good tanking Skill that also helps adjacent allies
+ S2 deals good damage, Stuns, and knocks enemies away from her
- Can’t tank with S1 and push enemies with S2 on the same map; you have to pick one
- Talent is random and S1 activates automatically, so her survivability can be erratic
+ Usual archetype strengths: low DP cost, fast ASPD, and prioritizes aerial enemies
+ Both of her Skills deal high damage to multiple targets; she’s good at killing single targets as well as small groups
+ S1 charges extremely quickly at M3, dealing high damage to multiple targets at a machine-gun pace
+ S2 causes her attacks to strike multiple targets multiple times, absolutely destroying groups of enemies
= The Arts damage from her Talent gives her a little extra oomph against high-DEF enemies, but their DEF still blunts her direct damage so heavily that it doesn’t count for much
- Extremely squishy, so placing her can be difficult on some maps, especially ones with ranged enemies or automatic crossbows
- Really needs to be E2 with an M3’d Skill to show her true value, which is a lot of investment
+ Usual archetype strengths: Extremely high HP and ATK, recovers HP when attacking an enemy, ASPD increases as HP falls
+ S1 gives her Block-0, an ATK buff, and the ability to hit twice per attack for the duration
+ Giving herself Block-0 can allow her to avoid tough melee enemies that she doesn’t want to duel
+ At low HP (activating her Trait’s increased ASPD), S1’s double hits can output a lot of damage
+ S2 reduces her current HP (triggering her Talent), buffs her ATK/ DEF, and gives her one Shield charge to negate the next incoming attack
= Has Block-1 (typical of Enmity Guards)
= Generally has more survivability but less DPS than other Enmity Guards
= Skills are quick to charge, but also do not have very long durations
- Usual archetype weaknesses: Can't be healed directly (although regen does work) and has a high DP cost
- Defensive units have a harder time finding a niche in the current Arknights meta
- S1 can do a lot of damage, but because the damage is split over two hits, it’s not very good for killing high-DEF enemies
- Needs help from allies to keep enemies in her attack range during S1’s Block-0
Carnelian
Carnelian is Beeswax’s big sister, and the family resemblance is obvious. They look very similar, they share the same archetype, and they both use the magic of the desert to flay the skin from the bones of their enemies! As the big sister, however, Carnelian pushes herself to be stronger than Beeswax in order to protect her. With her ramping damage potential, high-speed crowd control, and special SP Charge mechanic to add bonuses to her Skills, there’s no question that Carnelian is putting her all into this endeavor.
Phalanx Casters are an interesting archetype to begin with, and Carnelian is an especially interesting member of the archetype. On top of the “passive and defensive when not using Skills/ fragile but unleashes AoE hell when using Skills” qualities of the archetype, Carnelian was the first unit to introduce the “Charging” mechanic, where her Skills continue to gain SP in excess of their cost and gain bonus effects once they reach double the SP cost. (Think Tequila for another example of this mechanic.)
When her Skills are fully charged, Carnelian is able to attack while retaining her defensive bonuses (S1), repeatedly crowd-control all enemies in her range (S2), or output steadily ramping AoE Arts damage on par with Eyjafjalla (S3). Her powers are pretty awesome, but they’re not easy to use: Carnelian’s Skills are fairly lackluster if not fully Charged, which makes her Skill cycling awkward, and S3 takes a long time to ramp up to its full effectiveness, at which point enemies may have simply moved out of Carnelian’s range.
I don’t recommend pulling for Carnelian, but she can be worth raising if you pull her, especially if you don't have Eyjafjalla.
Saria
Saria doesn’t kill enemies in droves the way most broken Operators do. Instead, she’s probably one of the most powerful utility units in the game. She’s tanky enough to block all but the most powerful enemies, she grants SP to her allies when she heals them, and her S3 is an incredibly potent debuff that Slows incoming enemies and dramatically increases the Arts damage they take. Saria is the linchpin for all kinds of different strategies on all kinds of different stages, proving conclusively that direct DPS isn’t the only thing that matters in Arknights.
I definitely recommend pulling for or buying Saria.
Croissant
Croissant is a Defender who can pretend she’s a Pusher. She can Block-3 and has a defensive Talent and S1, but her S2 is a strong hammer slam that inflicts damage, Stun, and knockback, Pushing her enemies away from her.
Croissant has a lot of power, but she’s not the most reliable Operator around. Her Talent runs on RNG, her S1 triggers automatically (so it can’t be saved for exactly when you want it), and her S2’s Push can backfire on you if enemies end up in unexpected positions. It’s also worth noting that her S1 is purely defensive (no Pushing utility) and her S2 is pure utility (no damage mitigation whatsoever), so you have to choose what role you want her to fill before you start a fight. She’s a strong Defender, especially when her Talent decides to activate several times in a row and save a few lives, but the lack of control can be a stumbling block.
I don’t recommend pulling for Croissant, but she may be worth raising if you pull her.
Blue Poison
Blue Poison sprays arrows and corrosive venom everywhere she goes, striking multiple targets with multiple arrows that deal multiple ticks of Arts damage long after the initial arrow damage has been dealt. With her quick ASPD and fast-charging S1, Blue Poison is a constant fountain of toxins, rapidly wearing down her opponents from the inside out.
The main thing holding Blue Poison back is her shockingly bad durability. Even for a Sniper, Blue Poison is alarmingly delicate, with one of the lowest HP totals in Arknights and very unimpressive DEF to back it up. This can make it hard to deploy her on some stages, especially where there are ranged enemies or environmental hazards putting her at risk. (Curse you, Annihilation 3 crossbows!)
Another, less obvious problem is the amount of investment she demands. Blue Poison needs to be E2’d and have at least one of her Skills pushed to M3 before she really shines as a Sniper. That’s an enormous investment, and even afterwards, she can still be outshone by the more popular 6★ Snipers like Exusiai and Ash. In many cases, it is more practical to invest in lower-rarity Snipers like Kroos, May, and Vermeil rather than raising Blue Poison.
I don’t recommend pulling for Blue Poison unless you A) need a second Marksman Sniper and B) are able to invest in her thoroughly.
Akafuyu
Akafuyu is blind as a bat and probably drunk to boot… so clearly she’s perfectly suited for the battlefield, right?! How she even figures out where the enemy is, we’re not too sure, but that doesn’t stop her from slicing and dicing all comers with her defensive Shinkage-ryu fighting style.
The key word there, unfortunately, is “defensive.” Akafuyu’s archetype isn’t really meant to be on the defensive, and it shows. Even with her focus on defense—namely her S2—she isn’t durable enough to stand toe-to-toe with targets that other Operators can’t, especially since her Trait prevents her from being directly healed by allies.
Even worse, her focus on defense means that she doesn’t do enough damage to shine as a DPS unit, either. S1 looks strong on paper, but the damage is split across two hits, so it’s not very good against high-DEF opponents. Furthermore, because she acquires Block-0 while using S1, she needs other Operators to keep targets in her range so she can keep attacking.
In the end, Akafuyu is a defensive, team-reliant member of an archetype that is supposed to be offensive and self-sufficient, and it doesn’t work out very well for her.
I don’t recommend pulling for Akafuyu.
