Arknights: Should You Pull? Standard Banner: Mizuki and Mostima

The new Standard Banner features the following Operators:

Featured Operators:

Rarity	Operator
6★	Mizuki - Specialist [Ambusher] Mostima - Caster [AoE / Splash]
5★	FEater - Specialist [Pusher / Push Stroker] Ayerscarpe - Guard [Ranged / Lord] Pramanix - Supporter [Debuffer / Hexer]

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

Mizuki and Mostima are two 6★ units who sound better on paper than they are in practice. Mizuki deals decent AoE damage and Mostima has useful crowd control, but there are much better 6★s than either. Save your pulls.

As with all banners, a 5★ or higher Operator is guaranteed in the first 10 rolls. Should you pull for that? No. All three of these 5★s are decent choices for their role, but they aren’t strong or meta enough to be worth pulling for—especially in the middle of a limited banner.

Controller/ Ambusher Specialist

+ Usual archetype strengths: true AoE attacks, reduced enemy aggro, and 50% Physical/ Arts Dodge

+ When he attacks, his E1 Talent does bonus Arts damage to the enemy in his range with the lowest HP

+ E2 Talent increases his ATK when there is an enemy within range with less than half HP

+ S1 greatly increases the damage of his next attack (including his E1 Talent’s damage) and can hold multiple charges

+ S2 speeds up his attacks and causes his E1 Talent to affect an extra target + inflict Bind (and has pretty good uptime to boot)

+ S3 increases his ATK and attack range, while also causing his E1 Talent to affect two extra targets + inflict Stun

= Block-0 means he cannot take melee damage, but also means he can’t Block enemies

- Usual archetype weaknesses: Very slow ASPD, reducing DPS and frequency of crowd-control application

- Hybrid damage in Arknights is typically not very useful, as it is reduced by both DEF and RES

- While S2 has good uptime and Bind consistency, the Bind is limited to a maximum of 2 targets per attack, so other Stalkers may be better for crowd-controlling larger groups

- While S3 is active, if Mizuki hits fewer than 3 enemies with an attack, he loses HP (yes, this can kill him)

- S3’s uptime and Stun duration are not great, and the Stun is limited to a maximum of 3 targets per attack

AoE/ Splash Caster

+ E1 Talent increases rate of SP gain for allied Casters

+ E2 Talent passively Slows enemies within her attack range

+ S2 Stuns all enemies within her attack range for several seconds and deals damage over time

+ S3 massively increases her damage, range, and crowd-control for the duration

- Usual archetype weaknesses: High DP cost, slow ASPD

- Long Skill cooldowns and short durations, leading to terrible Skill cycling and uptime (her SP-gain Talent helps this a little, at least)

- Even for an AoE Caster and even for an AoE Caster focused on utility, her DPS is pretty bad

Pusher/ Push Stroker Specialist

+ Usual archetype strengths: Block-2, attacks a number of enemies equal to her Block count, can be deployed on ground or ranged grids

+ Pushes enemies away; causes instant death if pushed into a hazard, changes enemy movement patterns, etc.

+ Slows enemies with her Skills, so it takes them longer to walk back into her range after they get Pushed away

+ Has passive Physical Dodge, making her an effective Physical damage sponge (melee enemies have an especially hard time with her because she Pushes them away)

- More expensive to level than lower-rarity Push Specialists, who can perform the primary role of Pushing just as well as she can in most cases

- Usefulness falls dramatically when there are no pits/ deathtraps on the map

- Is vastly outclassed by 6★ Push Specialist Weedy

Ranged/ Lord Guard

+ Talent increases the ASPD of nearby allies, which is a rare and useful buff

+ A melee Physical attacker who can do Arts damage to multiple targets with his Skills, which can be useful in some situations

+ S1 is a relatively rare melee Slow option and is multi-target

- S2 does very low damage unless the target is being Blocked, but Block-focused strategies are not common in the current meta, especially for high-level content (and the damage isn’t even that great when you do pull it off successfully)

- Faces stiff competition from other members of his archetype, i.e., Lappland and Arene

Debuffer/ Hexer Supporter

+ Usual archetype strengths: wide attack range, high base RES, cheap DP cost

+ Deals Arts damage (and targets two enemies at a time after E2 promotion)

+ Talent inflicts Fragile, increasing the damage taken by nearby enemies when they are low on HP

+ S1 lowers enemy ASPD (a relatively rare debuff)

+ S2 lowers enemy DEF/ RES (a great offensive tool)

- Usual archetype weaknesses: her direct DPS is so low that she is sometimes less effective than fielding another DPS unit (especially in the early game)

- Has to choose between reducing enemy offense or enemy survivability with her Skills

Mizuki is just a sweet, innocent civilian boy (yes, boy) who was rescued from the riots in Dossoles while Ch’en was on vacation there. Yes, of course “sweet” and “innocent” are the right words to describe him. No, his background files weren’t made up to hide some kind of horrifying secret. No, there’s no reason why he’s not permitted to interact with other Aegir Operators. No, there aren’t any phantom tentacles lurking beneath him, ready to skewer you through the torso until you stop moving. Why do you ask?

Mizuki is pretty close to being really good. He has all the advantages of Stalker Specialists—hard to kill, true-AoE attacks, deployed on ground tiles—with a particular focus on damage. His S1 greatly boosts his overall DPS, his S2 is a great source of quick multi-target Bind, and his S3 gains a stellar attack range plus the ability to Stun.

Unfortunately, in practice, Mizuki can be left floundering. The slow ASPD of Stalker Specialists limits his DPS, but the multipliers on S1 and S3 aren’t quite high enough to give him good burst damage either, and dealing hybrid damage tends to hurt more than it helps. His CC capabilities are limited to 2 targets (S2) or 3 targets (S3) at a time, the duration on the effects is short, and he takes a lot of damage from his S3 if you’re not careful, which makes him less self-reliant than his high Dodge would suggest. He can still pull his weight, but in most cases there are better choices for his position.

I don’t recommend pulling for Mizuki.

Mostima uses her Originium Arts to control time itself: speeding up the SP gain of allied Casters, slowing down the movement speed of enemies, stopping enemies dead in their tracks, or even rewinding their movements back across the field. However, in addition to being her greatest weapon, time is also her greatest enemy, as she’s held back by low ASPD and long Skill charge times.

When it comes to crowd control, Mostima brings a lot to the table: Slows, Stuns, and Knockback all help impede enemies as they try to move forward. However, high SP costs and short durations on her Skills means that her CC won’t be available as much as you’d like, and having to pick between a Stun (S2) or everything else (S3) further limits her usefulness. It doesn’t help that Mostima’s damage is absolutely terrible, between low ASPD and low Skill uptime.

To add insult to injury, there are lots of other Operators who can provide comparable crowd control (and often better damage) at cheaper DP costs. If you’re not utilizing all of Mostima’s kit to its utmost, she may not be the most efficient pick for your team.

I don’t recommend pulling for Mostima.

FEater is a Shift Specialist. Specifically, she’s a Pusher, meaning that she’s primarily used for pushing enemies into pits or other lethal traps. However, FEater has some nifty abilities beyond that: she has natural Physical Dodge from her Talent, and she Slows enemies that she Pushes. Combined with her archetype’s Block-2, FEater is a surprisingly good substitute Defender—she dodges her enemy’s attacks, shoves them away from her, and leaves them Slowed, making it harder for them to reach her before she charges up her next Push. Her Physical Dodge also makes her a good damage soak against ranged physical enemies.

Don’t misunderstand: FEater is still a Push Specialist first and foremost. She’s most effective on maps with lethal pits, and she loses a lot of her usefulness on maps that don’t have any. However, her additional perks can come in pretty useful on some challenge maps, giving her an additional dimension that not all Shift Specialists can boast.

I don’t recommend pulling for FEater. She might be worth investing in if you don’t have Weedy, but even then, Shaw should be able to satisfy most of your Pushing needs instead.

Ayerscarpe has a gun and a bunch of swords. An ordinary person would probably use the gun for ranged attacks and the sword for melee attacks. Not Ayerscarpe: he uses the gun to fire the swords and the swords to fire electricity. His fellow Operators are confused.

Ayerscarpe can be a useful asset, between his multi-target Arts damage and the ASPD buff he brings to the table. However, this usually isn’t enough to stand out in comparison to other units in his archetype. There are a lot of extremely strong Ranged Guards, and Ayerscarpe’s narrow utility and awkward S2 have trouble standing out from the crowd. The S2 is his real issue: successfully Blocking enemies in high-level content can be very difficult, and its effects aren’t really worth the effort to make it work. In a vacuum, Ayerscarpe can perform admirably, but in practice, there are usually better Operators to bring to the field.

I don’t recommend pulling for Ayerscarpe, although he can be used as a tech option thanks to his ASPD buff.

Pramanix (and the Hexer Supporter archetype in general) occupies an interesting spot in the Arknights roster. A lot of the time, it’s hard to feel the effect of Pramanix’s powers, especially against trash enemies, whose DEF and RES are usually too low for Pramanix’s percentage-based debuffs to take meaningful effect. In these cases, you’re probably better off fielding a DPS unit instead.

Where Pramanix shines is in edge cases, where your units are almost strong enough to survive a particular enemy or kill a particular target, but not quite. Pramanix pushes the scale in your favor, using her Skills to reduce enemy ASPD (effective against enemies that already attack slowly, like Demolitionists) or DEF and RES (making Elite and Boss enemies much easier to kill).

I don’t recommend pulling for Pramanix, but she can be worth raising for high-end content if you pull her.