Arknights: Should You Pull? Standard Banner: Ifrit and Nightingale

The new Standard Banner features the following Operators:

Featured Operators:

Rarity	Operator
6★	Ifrit Nightingale
5★	Silence Cliffheart Waai Fu

• Based on previous patterns, it is likely but not 100% certain that the Operators for purchase in the Distinction store will be Nightingale and Cliffheart
• 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★

No. This is a very underwhelming collection of units. None of them are bad—Silence is actually very good and the other four all have their place on a team—but they can all generally be  replaced by other (sometimes lower-rarity) Operators. It’s not worth spending resources to pull any of these specific Operators unless one of them is your absolute favorite character.

At best, you may want to do Headhunt x1 until you pull a 5★ or higher Operator, since one is guaranteed in the first 10 rolls.

Burninator (unique AoE Caster)

+ Huge AoE Arts DPS with a very unique attack range

+ Debuffs enemy defensive stats so they die even faster

- Usual AoE Caster limitations (high DP cost, slow attack speed)

- Unique attack range can also make it hard to use her effectively

AoE Medic

+ Serviceable AoE healer

+ Hard-counters enemy Arts damage

+ Distracts ranged damage away from allies with her Phantoms (E2 Talent)

- Loses value on maps compared to her alternatives when no enemy Arts damage is present

ST Medic

+ Strong ST Medic with decent stats for her role

+ Buffs the ASPD of other Medics with her Talent, allowing them to heal more quickly

+ Incredibly versatile S2; her healing drone can be deployed on any empty space, allowing Silence to heal anywhere, heal an AoE, and/or increase her own healing output if she deploys it within her default attack range

- Lacks forms of non-healing utility (i.e., Shining’s shields or Warfarin’s attack buff)

Pull Specialist

+ Pulls enemies, resulting in instant death, movement pattern changes, etc.

+ Skills can do ranged Arts/ True damage, so she hits harder than you might expect

+ Can be deployed on ground or ranged grids

- More expensive to level than lower-rarity Pull Specialists, but not significantly better in most situations to compensate

- Given to new players for free and not a high priority for needing Potential boosts

Fast-Redeploy Specialist

+ Can knockback enemies with her Talent

+ S1 is decent for assassinating squishy enemies

+ S2 deals instant AoE damage and seals enemy special abilities upon deployment

- Usual Fast-Redeploy limitations (mediocre stats, Skills are “On Deployment” only)

- Her main Fast-Redeploy competitor, Projekt Red, has an AoE Stun that can be more widely useful than Waai Fu’s equivalent Silence

Ifrit has a unique attack range, heavy AoE Arts damage, and very strong DEF and RES debuffs, making her a potent addition to a team. However, her straight-line attack range makes her tricky to deploy well on some stages; furthermore, being an AoE Caster means she suffers from a high DP cost and a slow attack speed.

The slow attack speed in particular is a big issue because it sharply decreases her DPS. She works around this better than most AoE Casters due to her strong Skills, but she needs to have a good deployment spot to make this worthwhile, making her somewhat situational for a 6* unit.

I don’t recommend pulling for Ifrit, but she’s worth investing in if you pull her.

Nightingale is the ultimate counter to enemies with Arts damage. Used well, her Talents and Skills can make allies within her range virtually immune to Arts damage, and she brings AoE healing on top of that. Her Fleeting Phantom Talent is particularly useful, giving her two birdcages she can deploy as decoys to soak up ranged damage anywhere on the map.

When enemy Casters or similar units hit the field, Nightingale is the MVP for the map. However, on any stage where enemy Arts damage is nonexistent (or just easily survivable without Nightingale’s help), she loses her luster. She has no utility other than mitigating Arts damage; when that utility isn’t bringing value, Nightingale has very little to offer.

I don’t recommend pulling for Nightingale, but she’s worth investing in if you pull her. Enemies with Arts damage are often a tremendous pain when they show up, making Nightingale a good ace to have up your sleeve.

Silence is one of the more popular Medics in Arknights due to the versatility of her healing. On her own, she’s a strong ST Medic, but she also buffs other Medics with her Talent and brings her amazing Medical Drone to the table. The Medical Drone can be deployed on any empty deployment grid on the map, at which point it heals all nearby allies simultaneously for several seconds. Need burst healing? Drop the Drone within Silence’s healing range and get double healing coverage for a short time. Need AoE healing? The Drone’s got you covered. Need to heal one ally who is deployed far away from everything else? The Drone’s got their back.

I recommend pulling for Silence if you need another strong ST Medic. If you already have two or more high-rarity Medics raised, though, you probably don’t need her.

Cliffheart is a Pull Specialist, able to grab her enemies and yank them into deadly pits or other obstacles for one-hit-K.O.s. On any stage where such deadly pits exist, Cliffheart can be a powerful ally. Unfortunately, on stages without these pits, Cliffheart becomes much less useful, and in most cases the lower-rarity Rope can perform Pulling duties just as well as Cliffheart can.

I don’t recommend pulling for Cliffheart.

Waai Fu is a Fast-Redeploy Specialist, which can be a strange archetype to understand. Fast-Redeploy Specialists are characterized by fairly low stats, Skills that activate immediately when they are deployed, and a fast redeployment time. Taken as a whole, these units are meant to be dropped down multiple times during a fight to activate their Skills, then quickly retreated when their Skills have done their job.

As such, Waai Fu’s claim to fame is her Seven-Styles Kick Skill, which instantly does AoE damage and inflicts Silence (sealing enemy special abilities) when Waai Fu is deployed. This Skill singlehandedly makes Waai Fu an excellent counter to enemies like the exploding spiders or the Stun-inflicting Defense Crushers, since she seals their major gimmick with her Silence. In many cases, Waai Fu will only be deployed for a few seconds in any given battle; however, the effect she can have in those few seconds is surprisingly massive.

I don’t recommend pulling for Waai Fu, but she can be worth investing in if you pull her. Instant AoE Silence can be useful to have around, especially if you don’t have Lappland.