I'd rather have a paid pick your own 5* so I can finally get either Nightmare (heterochromia) or Sora (Idol). :(

I'd rather have a paid pick your own 5* so I can finally get either Nightmare (heterochromia) or Sora (Idol). :(

You can get Nightmare from Recruit tho, she's the only one under Caster/Slow + Healing IIRC. Kind of "collection only" as her kit is rather self-contradicting :/

Finished Mastering S2 and S3 of Rosmontis, half way through with S1.

random posted:

I do try to 200% Trust them all so I try to get them to an usable level (which I define as SL6-7 and E1L50-60), so much of the time I'm actually bending over backwards to fit whoever I'm trust-farming ATM into clear strats. :P

...though this has the caveat that Ops already at 200% then get benched unless they're just too essential (Silverdaddy, Eyja and Gravel fall here a LOT), too fun (eg. Ifrit whenever an IFRIT LANE :exists:) or too convenient (eg. flagbearer Vanguards + Bagpipe, Ptilopsis) to leave out. Like I don't even remember when I last actually took Liskarm to a new stage - she was one of my starter pulls and did a lot of work early on...

I never bothered and just keep using the same operators to beat stages and whoever I'm trust farming at the moment usually is benching, unless they're decently leveled and/or I need them to beat stage. Maybe that's not good idea either, because I ended up mostly using a handful of operators because of that. And yea, I also have some operators that I used to use all the time, but as I got better at game/got operators that could cover the need/are straight better, I didn't use them in ages. Still I'm still not breezing through everything, so I don't feel bored enough to put limitation on myself to feel challenged yet.

In terms of sheer general utility I'd say Schwing Schwing ManSilverdaddy or Suzu

As myrrhmidon already mentioned, you missed that I just got Suzuran from this banner. Also honestly, while I realize that I have clear bias towards some broken operators that either are universally considered broken or feel boring to use, so I don't want to use them, while also using other equally broken or easy to use operators (probably cos they're not used as often/not constantly called op and brain-dead) simply because I like them or like to use them, at this point I manage to beat all the content only using my operators and never having to resort to using SilverAsh, Surtr or Thorns, so I kinda want to keep it that way. Of course I'll probably lvl them up and use them if I'd actually happen to drop them (though not sure), but I really don't feel like going out of my way to do so. Especially considering that I had chance to get SilverAsh thrice already and I skipped him every time. When I got my first ever Top tag and could go for either guarantee him or Ifrit and went for Ifrit, with previous pick 6 star operator and recently in shop. Picking him now would just feel like giving in.

her second talent muscles in on Pramanix and Shamare's action

cries in no Shamare

Also honorary mention to Mostima.

Actually from what I briefly used her in Rouge-like (like 1, maybe 2 times max) I did like her and that's why she was one of operators I was considering picking, because I can see myself actually using her and not leaving her forever forgotten and unleveled.

Personally kinda tempted to buy the pack and grab either iizi moodo ketBlaze or Suzu. It's kinda more money than I'm usually willing to throw at an online game in one go - I could literally buy several full games with that sum after all - but I do legit like AK enough to seriously consider making an exception to my usual principles in these matters.

Yea, that's exactly how it's for me. Spending money on gacha games just feels like a waste, but AK is just so good and so generous I actually evolved from mostly free to play to small dolphin, just because of all the good will game gained from me.

塞雷娅 posted:

R8-8 was just annoying as fuck since you had to be extra careful about deployment order and you can't mess up at all.

I actually really liked it, because it was break from the usual format and it felt like solving puzzle. I didn't find it that hard and just needed to modify my strat slightly to unlock secret ending, because I let Talulah tank some hits from 1 of drones, which brought her bellow 50%.

Also used Ch'en and Guardmiya for the lore, though not the correct skill cause those do not work very well at skill level 7....

I used them too, but mostly cos they turned out to be vital to my strat. Kinda happy condition was using Guard Amiya, cos it made me realize that her S1 is really good at tanking fireballs with 60% arts dodge chance.

myrrhmidon posted:

when Talulah becomes playable.

Honestly if her or FrostNova will ever become playable, I'll probably save for them.

Speaking of, Hell Stages got announced to be out this Friday. Goodluck with those.

Lol? I thought they're unlocked as soon you beat story. Had no idea they're actually date-locked.

random posted:

Kind of "collection only" as her kit is rather self-contradicting :/

I didn't really invest in her yet, so I didn't use her much, but if you look at her S2 more just as a pretty strong slow, that sometimes can deal bonus true dmg, I don't think she's that bad. Dreamy used her to beat H6-4.

Ok, so I finally beat JT8-3. To be clear, I beat JT8-2 fairly easy last week and then had a week break before returning to JT8-3 now. Didn't use Daddy, Surtr or Nightingale to beat either as well. Honestly, I kinda overreacted, but after reading Snake's skills again I realized what was killing me was not the burn explosion per se, but the fact I was deploying 2 operators next to one another, which was why they were getting one-shotted. Honestly it was frustrating, but I also really enjoyed the challenge. I really wish there was a way to see how long buff/debuff lasts on operators (maybe when clicking on them seeing a list?) as well as some sort of cooldown for Talulah's skills. It was very frustrating, cos you had to kept track of 2 abilities (3 if you count her sword slash) without a easy way to do it as well which of your operators are currently burnt and when their burnt ends. I tried to keep my deployment order and timing roughly the same and yet I lost so many times without really understanding what went wrong. The timing of heals/Whisperain's S1 and slight rng in general didn't help either. I tried to minimalize it as much as possible, but sometimes I still wasn't sure why something worked this time and not another.

Max pot E1 lvl 70 SR7 of Whisperain really came in hand for those fights. My strat was probably weird af, cos my main dmg dealers were Eyja, Rosmontis and Hellagur to tank Talulah, while Exusiai was taking care of bears, Amiya and Ch'en dealt with Raiders and Perfumer with Whisperain kept everyone alive. Used Gummy and Saria to help tanking fireballs, as well as Gravel that also help stalling Talulah few times (so I can kill Raiders, before fireballs kill Ch'en) and later helped taking some focus away from others. I liked using her few times to take one of Burning Breaths. I actually could kill Talulah's phase 1 and take like half of health from phase 2 relatively reliable, finishing her off was the biggest issue. I actually let her go once, just to see what happens after her, so I can prepare and cleared stage like that first time. Was kinda disappointed you can just do it if you don't care about getting 3 stars/unlocking challenge mode and was even considering ignoring stage for now, but decided to properly beat it. Took me entire day. I actually managed to kill her phase 2 in one of my pretty early attempts, but then couldn't deal with fireballs and so I lost to bears. Couldn't really replicate that later. I guess my final strategy was somewhat similar to what I did back then?

Also cleared 400 kills in new Anni with second attempt, though my auto is definitely not stable, so will need to work on that.

So about story. I really enjoyed it. I liked the format it was done in. That was kinda my issue with previous episodes. I was used to Magia Record and definitely FGO, which have a lot of story in new chapters, but it felt like AK in comparison didn't have it as much. I remember especially with Episode 7, I beat half the stages and then like next half had no story until you got to Patriot. So I was really happy that we got so much this time, even if it was a bit of pain and effort to read. I liked how story was split between creation of Reunion and present day. Damn story really made me care about Talulah and Reunion, well more than I already did and seeing how it all started and what they had to go through was really sad. Also damn, Rosmontis x Amiya is canon and you can't convince me otherwise. We're in middle of operation, everything is falling apart and they're flirting like adorable degenerates they are <3

That being said I also had some issues with the story. First of all it felt like some dialogues were way too dragged out. Like it often felt less like dialogues and more like monologues. Character would state something that got the idea across and then they'd keep rambling and reiterating the same thing dozen of times, which was really grating to read through. Not to mention it often felt forced. Like I couldn't help and imagine there are 2 people talking and 1 starts to go on tangent and other is just standing there and letting them talk...? Secondly, it already annoyed me with Episode 7, how W was teased and all that, she got that great first encounter with Talulah and then pretty much disappeared for the rest of story and never amounted to much. Here it was even worse. It was teased constantly that Ch'en is on the way and then we never see her meeting and interaction with Talulah and only get a bit of interaction once we finally beat her. And W felt even more superficial. Like her talking with Rosmontis didn't really felt that great or amounted to much and her appearing at the end really wasn't that great either. In the end it just felt like a lot of tease for very lackluster pay-off. Thirdly, those secret endings really amounted to nothing. Outside of Rosmontis and Shieldbro it really didn't add anything, we didn't learn anything new and in general it just didn't feel worth the hassle. Even the last one with Lowlife was just rambling that just made no sense to me. Why is he talking about choices in game that has no and you can't really change the direction of the story? W/e it was actual 12F or him, it really didn't mean much. Fourthly, and probably more importantly, I really couldn't get behind the whole Deathless Black Snake thing. Like I understand the concept and it might be my bias, cos I'm not fan of the whole, possessing someone's body (I guess it also just feels uncomfortable/bad in general? but not like AK is friendly setting to begin with), but either way my main issue is, in the end I'm just not sure what really happened? Like so it was Kashchey or some other entity entirely? Do they possess Talulah or just influenced her. Is there anyone else he's possession outside of Talulah? And the most importantly, so how much of it was him manipulating Talulah and how much it was her actual will? Call me dumb, but I really wanted some sort of simple explanation at the end I can apply instead of this vague, it doesn't really matter, it might have been him, but also Talulah was ok with it. So was Talulah in control all the time until the very end? It's just so confusing. Personally I think that you could easily remove entire possession thing from story with very little changes and imo it'd actually work even better.

My fanfiction head-canon:
So idk if Dracos are amazing or what, I don't know most of the lore, but we can keep Kashchey kidnapping Talulah, because he wants revenge/mess with Wei and/or cos Dracos are special. He's just some old Ursus dude that still gets boner from glory of Ursus and have his fucked up believes about equality and whatnot as well as loves to scheme. He can have the title/nickname of Deathless Black Snake, because of his nature and because he's that ageless and really good at avoiding dying? His arts is just memory manipulation. So he uses it on Talulah making her believe she's really his daughter and brainwashes her into his heir/helper/pawn/whatever. Everything goes according to keikaku until one day on her mission Talulah gets infected by accident. Infection interferes with Kaschey's arts and unbrainwashes her. Talulah is understandable pissed off. She goes back to mansion and assassinates Kaschey. Because he didn't predict that, he's taken by surprise and Talulah actually manages to kill him and runs away, so nobody really knows the truth. Then story goes as normal and Talulah is still haunted by Kaschey ideology and wants to prove him wrong. We arrive at the scene where villagers kill the infected and in her rage she destroys entire village. At this point Talulah realizes ideals are truly unreachable and in order to change anything she needs to become more radical. She finally convinces others to leave the Tundra (something I really wanted to see and we never go to it). The main difference is that Talulah is still compassionate towards infected and doesn't use her own solders as sacrifices, but still understands that in order to change anything she needs to do something more drastic. She realized that only way for people to treat infected as equals is making them realize that infected no longer will stay silent and let be mistreated. She declares war on non-infected as she comes to believe only infected will ever truly understand other infected. She starts attacking smaller villages and cities, gathering infected and spreading word about Reunion until we get to Charnoborg. First, big nomadic city she decided to use as a stepping stone to show world that infected are no longer afraid to bear their fangs and fight back. After that most things goes normal, with exception that for the most part, Reunion trust Talulah and nobody question her. FrostNova or Patriot might not like how ruthless she's becoming, but just like in original, she's still uniting infected and works as their symbol, so it's better than just staying silently in tundra. And of course, because so far, it's working. They're recruiting new infected and people start taking them seriously. But still not everyone is onboard with fighting entire world, so there is a element of divide between reunion solders. So we finally get to final encounter. Basically Ch'en gets there, they talk briefly, realize they grow too apart and don't see eye to eye and just start going at each other. That's why Talulah is busy and can't go help Patriot and others fighting. So when Amiya finally goes there, she joins Ch'en and they fight her together, while Amiya is trying to read her heart and connect with her. So we get first fight where Talulah is calm, calculated and deadly precise, but still manageable. So after that Amiya reading her memories and seeing her kind and good side, tries to talk her to stopping this, but that's what makes Talulah snaps. She's fully aware of all the sacrifices she made. She knows about all people that died following her orders. On 1 hand she understands that it's necessary to change the world, but on the other hands she is having harder and harder time copying with all the burden and guilt. What if her choice is wrong? What if she made wrong decision and all she's doing is for nothing? But in order to keep movement going and order from falling apart, she had to stay strong and pretend it's not getting to her. She was devastated when FrostNova died, but people couldn't see her crying (the line about Kaschey setting up so FN will died absolutely broke my heart). At this point she was so deep into it, her only choice was to move forward, or all the sacrifices she made would be in vain. So that's when she loses control over herself and goes at them with all her power unleashed. So despite being absolutely outclassed by her, Amiya and Ch'en manage to win the battle of endurance and letting her power loose finally gets to Talulah and takes toll on her body. They manage to win because of that and after Talulah is defeat, she drops powerless and ask to be killed, because now that she lost, she can't go on living anymore. That's where Ch'en criticize her for foolishly challenging the world into fight she had no chance of winning and was destined to lose, but then says that she can't be killed, because she needs to be bring to justice to be properly judged. But because there currently doesn't exist a country that can do it, she has to live on and wait for it. And she ends it saying she'll watch over her and in the mean time she can work on making amends. And it'd lead to them reconnecting again as in actual story. I feel like making Talulah actually becoming more radicalize over the course of her life instead of just randomly possessed, would make for much stronger story. I imagine her to be kinda like Magneto to Amiya's Xavier. Where 1 is more about fighting back and only carrying about infected, while other still believes in peace and proper coexistence and never abandons her ideals of better world. Idk, that actually felt better to me and thinking/writing about it made me cry, so take it as you will.

last edited at May 8, 2021 9:34PM

^ That's a lot to take in. I can't reply to all of it right now. Also, I haven't finished the story myself but just knowing spoilers from last year. I'll just try to reply to what I can for now.

Also damn, Rosmontis x Amiya is canon and you can't convince me otherwise. We're in middle of operation, everything is falling apart and they're flirting like adorable degenerates they are <3

Not my ship but when Rosmontis said "Amiya is cuter", I can't help but think they're both the cutest "weapons"

Honestly if her or FrostNova will ever become playable, I'll probably save for them.

Personally not a fan of bringing back dead characters but if they're gonna do it, I do hope they include Ace

Ok, so I finally beat JT8-3.

Congrats! I'm actually gonna mastery Guard Amiya's skill 2 before I work on the stage but really good work on your end since no Nightingale is quite the challenge.

That being said I also had some issues with the story. First of all it felt like some dialogues were way too dragged out. Like it often felt less like dialogues and more like monologues.

Kal'tsit the philosopher has entered the chat but lol yes, that's just how it is and I've accepted it already. It really seems like the writers for Arknights wants to go on a philosophical/moral tirade. Honestly, if ever Arknights gets an anime, I do hope they cut down on the dialogue and take advantage of the animated medium to show more and not tell

It was teased constantly that Ch'en is on the way and then we never see her meeting and interaction with Talulah and only get a bit of interaction once we finally beat her. And W felt even more superficial. Like her talking with Rosmontis didn't really felt that great or amounted to much and her appearing at the end really wasn't that great either. In the end it just felt like a lot of tease for very lackluster pay-off.

That's disappointing to know. Maybe I'll have a different opinion. Personally, W's screentime in ch 7 didn't really bother me since that wasn't her time yet. I think that if ever W will get more focus, it will be during the Victoria arc or rather specifically when we'll confront Theresis.

Thirdly, those secret endings really amounted to nothing.

Haven't read it yet. But from what I know, Mephisto's secret ending possibly hints at him being playable in the future so there's that.

Lowlife was just rambling that just made no sense to me. Why is he talking about choices in game that has no and you can't really change the direction of the story? W/e it was actual 12F or him, it really didn't mean much.

Self-insert gotta self-insert XD

I really couldn't get behind the whole Deathless Black Snake thing. Like I understand the concept and it might be my bias, cos I'm not fan of the whole, possessing someone's body (I guess it also just feels uncomfortable/bad in general? but not like AK is friendly setting to begin with), but either way my main issue is, in the end I'm just not sure what really happened? Like so it was Kashchey or some other entity entirely? Do they possess Talulah or just influenced her. Is there anyone else he's possession outside of Talulah? And the most importantly, so how much of it was him manipulating Talulah and how much it was her actual will? Call me dumb, but I really wanted some sort of simple explanation at the end I can apply instead of this vague, it doesn't really matter, it might have been him, but also Talulah was ok with it. So was Talulah in control all the time until the very end? It's just so confusing. Personally I think that you could easily remove entire possession thing from story with very little changes and imo it'd actually work even better.

Have to disagree with this one but I suppose YMMV on possession. But I'll try to clarify what I know: Kashchey is just another body. The Deathless Black Snake is an immortal being that transfers itself to a host and it's supposed to be implied he's been doing this for thousands of years. Also, the one monologue of the heretical priest in M8-1 is implied to his previous host before Kashchey since they both espoused the same Social Darwinist idea. His control over Talulah was also not total control in that sense since Talulah could resist if she wanted too. The implication I believe in is that Talulah is so broken and distraught over Alina that she couldn't really resist the Black Snake which is probably why it saw that as the opportunity to take control. Another interpretation is that she wanted to be possessed by the Black Snake in order to justify her actions. For me, this entire possession thing is a big part of Arknights. For the main story, the possession of Talulah serves as a contrast to what maybe a "possession" of Amiya tho it remains to be seen how that will go since interpretations can go from all of Theresa is in Amiya to Amiya just has her powers and bit of her memories but she's her own person. I'd also like to add the recent CN Event Under Tides: the big revelation about the Abyss hunters and what's happening to both Skadi and Gladia.

My fanfiction head-canon:

Before I even finished reading it, I immediately thought "Magneto right?" and lo and behold you did mention him as your analogy. That was a fun read. Could be an actual fanfic with full on story perhaps even showing more of Talulah's character like how badly she was affected by the deaths of Faust, FrostNova, and Patriot and perhaps even expand on that and show how deep inside every death of a Reunion member is eating her inside.

Last thing, Darknights hinted at this and we got some more hints in chapter 7 and I think we should have gotten some in chapter 8 too (I'll find out when I finally finish chapter 8) that Reunion was just another tool for Theresis to sow chaos. He likely wanted them to cause an incident that will justify him getting into power. It's implied in Skyfire's archive that something did happen in Victoria because of Reunion. Kashchey and Theresis may have also both viewed each other as tools for their own respective ends. Kashchey wants Ursus while Theresis seems to want Kazdel and Victoria. Had Reunion succeeded, it would have been a win-win for both of them.

I got Spectre today.

Finally finished the story. First off, the stages. Not a fan of the artillery drones and definitely the overall difficulty felt higher than before. But nothing as gimmicky as chapter 6. Maybe it's cause having Nightingale really does trivialize the fire BS in the last stages. Tho I could also see just having high res defenders tank the fireballs since they only come from one direction. The exploding crystals tho. Not quite sure how to deal with those other than having snipers on hand. Anyway, since I waited this long to M3 Guard Amiya's skill 2, of course I had to do the lore accurate finisher. My thanks to 25thNight's video for the guide. I did have to compensate for having lower leveled ops than what he used. Still worked out in the end.

Story: "All of us met... so we could part one day." R8-8 is fucking sad. I knew it was gonna happen but god it hurt to see Alina go out like that. It even seems she lost her right arm and left leg. Implied cannibalism from the exiled Infected? I was actually expecting this to be the trigger for Kashchey but Alina was strong. She didn't let Talulah fall then. Unfortunately, she was gone for when it did happen. And of course it was quite the trauma. Letting infected just starve like that. Why not just quickly kill them... To go out of their way to do that just feels sadistic. Not surprising Talulah gave in to hate.

And damn Kashchey. He is such an Asshole. Like obviously he's the villain here but there's just the level of pettiness and ego that makes him so disgusting. For me, it was when Kashchey brought up Ch'en during the argument with Talulah that I found so deplorable. How fucking dare he bring up Talulah's family. He kidnapped her. Add the creepiness of being obsessed with Talulah and becoming Talulah. It actually reminds me of the villain from the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. Both "fatherly figures" trying to control their "child" for some world/galaxy dominating plan. I want to interpret the ending as Talulah overcoming him. It started with the zoom out of the room and you can still the two shadows while Kashchey does his usual spiel but then it zooms in. Now we can't see the second shadow and it's just Talulah talking. That said, the post-ending scenes does reveal there are probably more like Kashchey or rather specifically the Black Snake. They are apparently called the Ageless (when I first read about him in tvtropes, the term was Eternals). It seems the Ursus Emperor and his minister are both against such beings. Speculation: Tho, I think Theresa or the Lord of Fiends that is being passed around is an Ageless too which makes Amiya one.

I do have to agree with Nevri on the EG extra story stuff. Only the Rosmontis and Feline Shieldbro one was significant. I do want to consider the Mephisto one as significant but I was expecting more. It does imply he might be back in some form but I didn't need an entire speech from Kal'tsit and most of that speech being redundant. It didn't end up being a good read. The rest were even more boring and useless. The 12F one lol. Lowlight might as well appear on the screen, look at the player and go "You. You're the Doctor."

Some other stuff: Yelena and Patriot! Such good daughter and daddy bonding. Yelena saying "Dad" and "Daddy"... so cute and so sad. Lol Patriot such a doting dad that even the Emperor's Blade called him out for it. If characters will be brought back, it has to be both of them together. I will accept nothing less. Speaking of the Emperor's Blade, it was quite the moment when they begged Patriot to return to them. It just shows how badass Patriot was. The Blades themselves were no slouch. Only five of them and it takes the entire Yeti squad just to hold back one. And then the reveal that Wei's Shadow Guards are former Emperor's Blades. This makes that one comment from the Yeti squad a bit hilarious in hindsight when they fought one of the Shadow Guards.

As for W, it really did feel like her scenes weren't significant. Did it really have to be her to stop Chernobog? It feels like anyone could have done it. I think Talulah should have done it. Would have showed more character growth. But I do think it was important for her to bring up Misha. Her tragic end continues to have significance even now. Doesn't have much impact tho when W barely shows any emotion about it and her being partly responsible for the whole thing. But the shipper in me just can't help appreciate Amiya reminding W about Theresa. Personally, I was satisfied with the post-battle Ch'en and Talulah interaction. Yeah shame we didn't see the initial talk but tbh, that would have mostly been Koshchey anyway and would just be him calling Ch'en his "sister" and that was creepy enough with the number of times he kept doing it. The sisterly banter was so good too. Ch'en is into isekai lol. Talulah was more than willing to spill all of her sister's dark secrets like a good sister ought to do XD. Surprised to know that Talulah was bullied a lot when she was younger. And the result of what I assumed was a friendly duel implied that she is physically weaker than Ch'en. That was fun to imagine. This being the last scene was a good end. Thank you HG for supporting my ship.

Datamine of JP reveals that Purestream and WWF collab will be next week. Here's hoping for KFC collab as well at some point.

On another note, just cleared H8-4. THICC snek > Black Snake. Really proud of my Eunectes for tanking the boss and getting two uses of her skill (one for each health bar). If it wasn't for her weird way of charging skills, she'd be OP. Skill 3 is so good. On the other hand, the fireball gimmick is another thing altogether. Really had to rely on the arts dodge from Nightingale. Seems it's best to M3 her skill 3 for best results. In my case, one civilian had to tank a fireball. Surprised it wasn't a oneshot. On oneshots, Ptilopsis has to be at least E2 lvl 60 to tank one fireball. It wasn't a big deal in the end but I'm starting to notice the significance of having fully leveled ops.

Art stuff of my favorite ships tho untranslated: Thank you Void for keeping the dragon incest ship afloat, W and Amiya getting close

Right now I can either promote Silence or Mousse to E2 since both of them need rocks and I only have enough for one. Any suggestions?

Depends on your other medics and other arts guards. Notably, Mousse doesn't need to be E2 to perform well. But I think an E2 Silence will help more since the boosted stats will increase her healing. But again, if you have other medics, then Mousse and if you have other arts guards then Silence.

Still amazed by the speed some of you e2'd Murdock. I'm like halfway there with bad rng and chip pre farmed.

Think I'll do a 10roll for Mostima when I finish farming Orundum. Blaze in shop when.

Datamine of JP reveals that Purestream and WWF collab will be next week. Here's hoping for KFC collab as well at some point.

Nice, looks like I need to E2 Eunectes next then. So far I've been trying to promote people for their base combos and I've E2'ed Ceobe, Vulcan, and Snowsant so far along with E1ing Conviction and Bubble. It's really a battle of patience to E2 people cause I still need to do Rosmontis and Whisperain for their combo.

I'm looking at 3 "teams" each for gold, exp, and trading post positions and most of them require me to E2 people. I also still need Waai Fuu but she's been alluding me for a year now. Hoping she comes to shop soon.

Gold teams:
E1 Bubble + E2 Vulcan + E2 Mayer
E1 Purestream + E2 Eunectes + E2 Weedy
E2 Waai Fuu + E1 Gravel + Haze

EXP teams:
E2 Rosmontis + E2 FEater + E1 Conviction (E2 Whisperain in Office)
E1 Vermeil + E2 Ceobe + E2 Scene
Any 3 of the +30% EXP cards people

Trading post teams:
E1 Jaye + E2 Silverash + E2 Cliffheart
E2 Snowsant + Catapult + Midnight
E2 Texas + E2 Lappland + E2 Exusiai

last edited at May 15, 2021 1:12PM

Somebody fucking talk me out of doing Mastery 9 Saria. It already punched me in the gut doing M6, but her 3rd skill looks so damn useful for certain challenge maps. Also thinking about M3ing Ifrit's 3rd skill despite already having 2nd M3, but at least that one looks a bit less niche.

Seriously, She the only op where I mastery'd more than 1 skill (besides m1 eyja's s2), and I'm now thinking about going full house. And this is coming from someone who mastery'd Silence's s2 purely for SariaxSilence shippy reasons because all those mats for like 3 less seconds cooldown on a healing skill is NOT worth it gameplaywise

^ My Saria is M8, I'm missing the second skill. She's definitely worth the M9.

Then again, I'm that dude that E2'D Conviction immediately, maybe don't take my advice.

I also still need Waai Fuu but she's been alluding me for a year now. Hoping she comes to shop soon.

Hope so too. She was fun to use in the rogue like.

Saria is definitely worth the M9 but since you prioritized skill 2 first, I'd like to share my 2 cents on Saria M3 skill 3: Don't if you have Suzuran and/or Pramanix. Or even if you don't have them but you have the BBQ trio of Surtr, Eyja, and Ifrit. Just to be clear, I do think M3 skill 3 significantly helps in burst DPS but I also think that the role can replaced by either another debuff operator or another DPS. I, myself, am only going for M3 skills 1 and 2 (with so far only skill 2 at M3 but I'm working on skill 1 now). Apparently, the best idea is to M3 skill 1 and then skill 3. For skill 2, either leave it as is or M3 it when you have nothing else to level. The idea is that skills 1 and 3 are more high end content while skill 2 is general use which makes it not as important. However, for us who M3'd skill 2 already, I think skill 3 should be left as is until maybe we have nothing else to level. Personally prefer a brain-dead style (Thorns + Blaze + Saria).

Gold teams:
E1 Bubble + E2 Vulcan + E2 Mayer
E1 Purestream + E2 Eunectes + E2 Weedy
E2 Waai Fuu + E1 Gravel + Haze

EXP teams:
E2 Rosmontis + E2 FEater + E1 Conviction (E2 Whisperain in Office)
E1 Vermeil + E2 Ceobe + E2 Scene
Any 3 of the +30% EXP cards people

Trading post teams:
E1 Jaye + E2 Silverash + E2 Cliffheart
E2 Snowsant + Catapult + Midnight
E2 Texas + E2 Lappland + E2 Exusiai

Gonna have to keep this in mind and might have to rearrange my base teams. I already have E2 snek and E2 sea dragon so I'm ready for river dolphin.

I also still need Waai Fuu but she's been alluding me for a year now. Hoping she comes to shop soon.

Hope so too. She was fun to use in the rogue like.

I hope you all get her aka the waifu and join me in furry supremacy XD. Worth it imo even after silencing enemies is no longer a thing.

Somebody fucking talk me out of doing Mastery 9 Saria. It already punched me in the gut doing M6, but her 3rd skill looks so damn useful for certain challenge maps. Also thinking about M3ing Ifrit's 3rd skill despite already having 2nd M3, but at least that one looks a bit less niche.

Seriously, She the only op where I mastery'd more than 1 skill (besides m1 eyja's s2), and I'm now thinking about going full house. And this is coming from someone who mastery'd Silence's s2 purely for SariaxSilence shippy reasons because all those mats for like 3 less seconds cooldown on a healing skill is NOT worth it gameplaywise

Saria is just useful everywhere like that. She's my only M9 operator since pretty much every skill is useful in certain situations. Basically S2 is universally useful, S1 is useful in any situation where you're relying on her to solo heal, and S3 is for needing to fuck something up real bad using arts damage. S1 and S3 are mainly for "hard" content like CC and she's been a mainstay in said event for a reason.

I genuinely don't think there's another 6 star where all 3 of their skills are useful enough to M9? Even someone like Bagpipe you only want to M6 her at most. I think pretty much every other 6 star, the most you want from them is M6 if you look at it from purely meta reasons. If we're talking non-meta, then just M9 whoever you like the most lol.(Thankfully Saria is my fave character anyways so her being the sole M9 on my roster both fits meta reasons and my own personal joy)

I genuinely don't think there's another 6 star where all 3 of their skills are useful enough to M9?

Well S1s tend to be some fairly underwhelming basic bitch attack buffs or similar, ie. hard pass in the majority of cases...

Well S1s tend to be some fairly underwhelming basic bitch attack buffs or similar, ie. hard pass in the majority of cases...

Another reason why Saria is just superior like that

Frostleaf x Frostnova

From CN new Specialist Bena. She is a new specialist archetype. Her trait:

When receiving lethal damage, does not retreat. Instead, swaps to a [Substitute] to continue fighting ([Substitute] has 0 Block Count). After a certain period, the [Substitute] will be replaced by the original.

This sounds like's functionally immortal? Tho I suppose if the substitute dies, she doesn't automatically respawn. Her trait in combat. People are already talking about combo'ing her with Aak lol.

People are already talking about combo'ing her with Aak lol.

Kinky.

Between Genshin and FGO I had no time to even finish the base story. Any good places where I can view it?

Between Genshin and FGO I had no time to even finish the base story. Any good places where I can view it?

This channel has them all compiled in long videos while this one has them separated per story stage. I personally prefer the latter. It also includes dialogue from the stages like FrostNova and Talulah's banter in R8-5.

Obligatory W x Amiya art: compilation with Amiya cosplaying as W, Three compilations from the same artist: untranslated comic that ends with them kissing, this one has NSFW, this is mostly cute until the last one with dead Theresa watching over them

EDIT: Found the artist's pixiv so you can also see their W x Amiya art there.

last edited at May 24, 2021 2:50AM

Weedy and Exusiai banner I got: Shaw, Podenco, Fang, Vermeil, Vanilla, Gitano, Kroos, Vigna, Gitano, Leizi. I was hoping for Weedy. :(
Joint Operation: Blue Poison...

Since I don't have the patience to figure it out, I used god Kyostinv for risk 18 clear. Too me the entire morning.
At least I'm gonna figure out the risk 8 dailies and the challenges by myself.

Also I rolled into Bagpipe when I was trying to roll for Thorns last time (didn't get him) so now I can enjoy seeing her on my home screen .

I just E2'd another operator. Now it's:

6*: Blaze, W, Rosmontis, Ifrit, Skadi, and Exusiai
5*: Texas, Lappland*, Liskarm, and Silence
4*: Cuora*, Vigna, Jessica, Perfumer, Frostleaf, Shaw, and Gavial

Starred are max level too.