I've used up 40 rolls. Not enough left to get past 50 currently, but I do have a lot of uncompleted challenge quests. No 6*, so the rate-up counter is still going. Please show up, Nian. I'm going to be pissed if I get Aak even though he is a fun unit. I did get three Hungs and enough certs to buy my first Silverash!

Also damn checked Nian's skills again and especially S2 is insane. S3 is also amazing. And honestly, just her RIIC skill alone looks like worth rolling for.

Nian's cool, but she's not the type of meta-defining unit that every map needs. She is a good psuedo-Arts defender + blocker though. I'm assuming her S3 will be really good for some chapter 6 levels. On the topic of Nian, what enemies could her S2 be effectively used on? Because she has to receive an attack to silence them, she wouldn't be able to silence some enemies like exploding slugs right? But would she be able to silence ranged casters like the Sarkaz casters that paralyze you?

So I assume I'm just supposed to play game normally and will farm ladder while doing it?

Really straightforward event, it's essentially spend 1600 sanity on stages with drops (almost all of them) to clear the ladder. Event currency is 1:1 ratio to sanity spent, assuming you three star it.

last edited at Jul 29, 2020 7:21PM

So after mulling it over I decided to try getting Nian (she's also voiced by Shuten, so that's another reason). I spend all my orundum and tickets on single rolls. Got a bunch of 4 stars (seriously, I was dropping them almost every roll) and actually dropped Franka, who was the last one to complete the gang and Hung, who looks pretty decent. No Nian so far.

riverFlower posted:

Nian's cool, but she's not the type of meta-defining unit that every map needs. She is a good psuedo-Arts defender + blocker though.

Tbf, I don't really care and don't want her to be completely broken. She simply fits with the play-style I already most often go for. Aka 2 defenders blocking everything in the front and DPSs in the back filling everything in front with bullets. Most of content I cleared so far, I beat using Curoa as my main tank, so I'm very used to the kind of tactics Nian is supporting. Even her passive increases Defenders max health, which is just perfect for me.

On the topic of Nian, what enemies could her S2 be effectively used on? Because she has to receive an attack to silence them, she wouldn't be able to silence some enemies like exploding slugs right? But would she be able to silence ranged casters like the Sarkaz casters that paralyze you?

Oh, good point. I forgot spiders exploding slugs don't actually attack you. That was actually the first unit I was thinking about. About Sarkaz Casters, I guess it depends if their bind counts as attack, but I feel like it doesn't.

Really straightforward event, it's essentially spend 1600 sanity on stages with drops (almost all of them) to clear the ladder. Event currency is 1:1 ratio to sanity spent, assuming you three star it.

That's actually great way for event currency to work. You can easily clear it even without using pots, just on natural sanity.

Also beat first 2 stages, third one took me off-guard with the sudden difficulty spike xD Guess my normal strategy won't work for it. Perfect time to try out my new Reed.

last edited at Jul 29, 2020 8:05PM

While I understand the reason for Doctor's amnesia, it kinda feels like a waste that they apparently were some amazing tactician and chemist, which we know will never become a focus since player character can't have actual character and backstory. In fact them getting the amnesia actually hurts a bit, because they were supposed to find a cure to Oripathy and were one of few people even capable of doing it, but now that thread is completely lost. I mean sure, even if we weren't Doctor, I bet there would be a lot of talk about trying to find cure and failed attempts, but no cure would ever be actually found, but still there would be some kind of sliver of hope running through entire story. Doctor having amnesia removes all of that. And man, Doctor is really boring and their presence completely irrelevant. I feel like I might as well pick only "..." dialogue options since Doctor has no personality or charm whatsoever. Even Gudako, that technically is self-insert character as well, has more personality and even have some great lines.

Yeah, I think Arknights is specifically going for the "blank slate self insert" character for Doctor and the actual main character of the game is Amiya.

I read that from what we do know about Doctor past, they were apparently very ruthless and coldhearted, deploying operators without caring about their safety. Why the hell then Amiya is so attached to them? Knowing that also made parts when Kal talks to Doctor and tells them to watch over Amiya and support her really weird, because from my impression they wouldn't be the person to do that? I know they technically have amnesia, so they're not exactly themselves, but what guarantee Kal has that those traits are not inherent to Doctor and they won't still act similar to their past self despite the amnesia?

The reason Amiya is so attached is because the Doctor wasn't always ruthless and coldhearted which was revealed in Operational Intelligence along with the cold and ruthless thing. Doctor was a simple neurologist before having had to take on a battle strategist position at Rhodes Island. More of the Doctor's and Rhodes Island's backstory is revealed in an upcoming event called Darknights Memoirs so you'll just have to wait for that to come to the global server.

I'm not sure I understand how Penguin Logistics is supposed to work. Or what they even are I guess. At first they were presented as some sort of company that helps you get from place to place. Simple enough. They supposedly are the only ones who know some super extra secret routes, but can't anyone simply hire them as well? But ignoring that, what kinda lost me was when they actually actively engaged into combat with Reunion. What happens if opposite site hire them as well? Are they going to fight each other? Unless it was more of them self-defending against Reunion that attacked them and I guess in this world being able to defend yourself isn't anything weird or surprising and makes sense.a lot of character and backstory was shown there.

If you missed the Code of Brawl event then you should look up the event story on Youtube or something cause a lot of their character and backstory was portrayed there. But going further, Reunion can't hire them because PL is based in Lungmen and Reunion are considered terrorists.

So Reunion... I have nothing against the world and setting so far. Even the whole Infected are oppressed works fine for me. But as was mentioned before, even if Reunion's goal is understandable to a degree and I can even get behind them deciding to fight back and not hold back after all the discrimination they experienced, what makes it really hard to sell them to me is the fact that all of their leaders seems to be complete psychos, in there for the lulz or not giving a damn in general. I mean, if they at least were presented as somewhat better alternative to their current live, but they made a point to show and tell you multiple time that Reunion's leaders don't care about their solders at all, leaving them to die or sending them on suicidal missions. How I'm supposed to take them seriously as a group with a point, when even they seems to not give a fuck about Infected? That scene where Amiya was talking with Misha on phone and we were hearing Reunion solders was totally supposed to humanize them to us and show that we're killing normal people just like us, but it didn't work for me, because so far all Reunion's leaders ever did was acting like stereotypical evil villains.

A lot of their backstory is presented in chapter 6 so you'll just have to get to that point. The attitude of people from Reunion is also explored in Operational Intelligence with one of their leaders, Patriot, and in the first event, Grani and the Knight's Treasures with Big Bob. Also Darknights Memoirs will reveal even more secrets (supposedly, I haven't read the story) that makes everything different in retrospect.

On topic of Misha, that entire little arc was cringe af to me. While reasons for Misha to join Reunion was somewhat understandable, I couldn't take it seriously, because the main reason she turned against Rhodos Island was because Skullshatterer fed her bullcrap. He talks how RI is just as evil as everyone else and are killing Reunion members. He seems to forgot that it was them that attacked us first when we were minding our own business rescuing Doctor and in fact didn't even know Reunion existed at this point. And not only they attacked us, they did it deliberately and tried to do everything in their power to kill us. So yea, sorry, but your argument is invalid. And of course we kill Skullshatterer in front of Misha's eyes and she joins them to avenge him. I saw it coming from miles away and only thing I didn't predict was us actually killing Misha soon after.

I think all the main story up until chapter 5 was weak, but I do think Skullshatterer's reasoning is sound considering how loyalty works.Him blaming it all on Rhodes Island is expected considering he's loyal to Reunion and wouldn't see them as being in the wrong. That's how fanatics act when faced with criticism of whatever they're loyal to.

I saw some of your other responses too and just letting you know that you might hate Ch'en now, but chapter 5 really changed my perception of her and I also hated her before reading through it. It's a chapter entirely based on Ch'en's perspective and it reveals a lot about her backstory and why she acts like that. You should also read her archive files and it gives hints at what chapter 5 reveals.

Also I personally think that the event stories are much much better than the main story so you should read those if you don't like the main story.

One last thing, you should really read the operator's files and voice lines if you want to see why people like the characters. There's threads connecting a lot of people to each other and plot hooks for potential events to focus on. You should also read furniture descriptions cause it gives a little more insight into characters and/or factions. Here's a site you can use to look through operator files: Aceship.

But going further, Reunion can't hire them because PL is based in Lungmen and Reunion are considered terrorists.

Plus PL's bossman, Emperor the Immortal Rapper Penguin, is kind of a big shot in Lungmen and has zero reason to tolerate some punks torching his hood. In practice the Penguins are his bodyguard cum general-purpose goon squad whose services are for rent when he doesn't specifically need them for something.

Plus PL's bossman, Emperor the Immortal Rapper Penguin, is kind of a big shot in Lungmen and has zero reason to tolerate some punks torching his hood. In practice the Penguins are his bodyguard cum general-purpose goon squad whose services are for rent when he doesn't specifically need them for something.

Basically go search up the previous event stories cause it gives a looooooot of background on a lot of operators. Emperor shows up in the summer event, Heart of Surging Flame and Code of Brawl. They all have different themes they're going for too, like how Operational Intelligence was more serious and gave snippets of different operators' lives with the very first event story being centered on a conversation about war and ideology between Hellagur and Patriot while Code of Brawl was a wacky hijinks event that was essentially a game of chess between the main bosses of Lungmen. Personally, Code of Brawl has been my favorite event so far but all of them have been enjoyable and I've played all of them except the very first event, Grani and the Knight's Treasures.

Also I want to gush about what I like about the game a bit so I'll just make a list.

1. The tower defense style gameplay isn't too complex, but with the different talents and skills each operator have, it makes the gameplay feel diverse and there's a lot of different ways to complete a map. Arknights also likes to add new mechanics to their event maps that make the game especially fun during events. An example being the AF-7 stage in the current event.

2. There's an auto-deploy option thank god.

3. Even though it's a gacha game, it doesn't force you to have to have high rarity operators to clear the game. Plenty of people have cleared all of the maps thus far (including event maps) with 4 and 3 star operators with the stray 6 star operator for especially hard maps, but those you can borrow from support.

4. The gacha rates are very forgiving and easy on F2P players, and there's a recruit system that gives a chance of getting higher rarity operators through special tags. Personally I've gotten 4 top operator tags so far and two of them were new operators I didn't have (Saria + Nightingale). It's also a good way to farm yellow and green certificates to get stuff in the shop.

5. The farming is a lot less tedious than other gacha games, and once you finish building the base, you straight up don't have to farm LMD or exp cards anymore. The auto deploy option comes in handy here cause you can just run the game in the background while doing other stuff, so the farming doesn't feel like it's impacting you much.

Moving onto the actual story, characters, lore, etc.

1. Literally everything has lore attached to it. The materials you farm, the furniture items for your dorm, the map descriptions and map names, even the duplicate tokens have lore attached to them. It really feels like the devs care about their game world and are meticulous with leaving nothing to waste.

2. Event stories are really good. They all have different themes and moods they're trying to convey and they do it really well. They really endeared me to the characters who were the stars of the event and gives you a look into what these operators are like as active participants in a story.

3. The interconnected webs of people in each faction are done well through reading operator files and collecting pieces of lore scattered throughout the game. An example being Rhine Lab's trio of Silence, Ifrit, and Saria. They mention each other a lot in their voice lines and the lore behind what caused the friction between Saria and Silence are explained through all three of their files. Ptilopsis, also from Rhine Lab, mentions them too and details the events that caused the schism between Saria and Silence as "the Flame Demon Incident." That's a story hook if I've ever seen one, and I'm eagerly looking forward to the day there's a Rhine Lab event.

4. Operator files in general and how they're handled is really interesting. They're written by other operators in the game, specifically the medic operators. They're LITERALLY files that the Doctor is given to read, and so some of them might be blatantly lying to you. An example being Deepcolor who's whole file just screams "SPY! SPY! THIS IS A SPY!" It adds an extra level of immersion and character into the game world that I really appreciate.

5. After reading through an operator's files and voice lines, it gives a pretty good impression of what a character is like. The voice lines have a lot of character to them so thank you Arknights for hiring talented voice actors to give another dimension to the characters. (P.S. My fave voice acting is from whoever voices Lappland cause she's REALLY good at bringing Lappland's slightly unhinged personality to life).

6. I like how full the world feels with all of the individual factions and how they've touched on politics in the game. There's a lot of stuff happening outside of anything the Doctor or Rhodes Island is involved with, and it makes the world feel like it's not centered around one person, which is a great thing for fantasy worlds. There's the drama with Silverash and his company along with whatever is happening in his country that involves political intrigue that likely caused his sister, Cliffheart, to get infected and his other sister, Pramanix, to get sainted. There's all the hijinks Penguin Logistics is involved in and the tensions between the members, i.e. Exusiai and Mostima's past involving whatever reason caused Mostima to become a fallen angel, Sora's crush on Texas that made an idol singer become involved in armed escort, and whatever the fuck is going on with Texas and Lappland's past that likely involves the mafia? There's also whatever the fuck is going on with the Abyssal Hunter faction and all of the AEgirians that might be inspired by a mix of Cthulhu and Atlantis stories, and that's just some of the other stuff going around in the Arknights world besides the main story's focus on Rhodes Island vs Reunion.

Now onto miscellaneous reasons I like Arknights:

1. I really enjoy the art and how non-fanservicey it is. There's some that do stray into that area, but it's minimal and never too outrageous. The art itself is also really nice, and the art for skins are even better.

2. I like that the operators are displayed as chibis cause I think it's cute. The special animations they get with skins are also really nice.

3. The OSTs are great, and my favorite one is the Code of Brawl one: Speed of Light

4. The PVs and animation PVs are well animated and nice to watch.

5. There's so many yuri ships???? Like there's legit so many ships and they all have really interesting dynamics and actual in-game text that supports them. My fave ones are the super angsty ships like Texas x Lappland, Saria x Silence, and Specter x Skadi.

Yeah... I think that's all of the reasons I can think of for right now. I just really enjoy my experience with this game so far, and from all the stuff I've seen in future events in the CN server, I think I'll continue to enjoy it.

Wow there's been so much activity since last I checked here. Nice to have more people joining this game.
Now on the topic of the event I totally forgot it was today. But I got Nian after 3 awful 10 pulls and some single pulls, plus a Nearl. So all in all pretty good start for me.
The red envelopes giving you some orundum is really nice too.

Just looked it up and thank god there's no PVP in this game (not that it will make me install it) since I really hate PVP in gacha games since that usually means paying players win (almost) all the time and you have to pay to remain competitive.

Used the 10 roll, didn't get Nian. I did get Darc in magireco on a single draw so I guess this is the universe's way of balancing out. Friend got her in a single 10 roll though. She also got Blaze so the gacha gods love her.
Back to stockpiling orums. Granblue fantasy trained me to stockpile em hahaha (sitting at around 20K atm). Saving up for the next limited Operator because I really liked the design of that one.

I usually like figuring out stages for myself but for Annihilation 2 I used gamepress guide. I need those free orums...

Working on levelling all the guys I regularly use. Then I'll focus on E2 (Silver Ash because he's good and Blue Poison for waifu reason).

last edited at Jul 30, 2020 1:42AM

the actual main character of the game is Amiya.

Actual main character is definitely Amiya. She's the only person I care for in this game currently.

One last thing, you should really read the operator's files and voice lines if you want to see why people like the characters. There's threads connecting a lot of people to each other and plot hooks for potential events to focus on.

I've been holding back from reading some of the operator files until I get full trust and E2 (this is only for characters I use the most) so I haven't seen most of it, but I don't know, even when I do know the basic backstories for some of the characters, it still doesn't do much for me. It feels like they contribute more to the worldbuilding than their own stories. Since I joined relatively recently I also haven't experienced most of the event stories, so that might be a blind spot. And I do like Silence, Saria, and Ifrit just cause they have the broken family splashed with possibly inhumane human experimentation vibe going on, which is only available through their files.

The PVs and animation PVs are well animated and nice to watch.

When I saw the amount of PVs they'd made for this game and the great music, I was astounded.

it makes the gameplay feel diverse and there's a lot of different ways to complete a map

This is the only and best reason I continue to play this game. I mean the story is there too, and I enjoy playing through that, but I'm really not as invested in it as I am with other titles. I joined for the yuri and I stopped caring about that a week in. It's the gameplay, the creativity allowed, and the restrictions and strengths given to each character, plus the meticulously crafted maps that make this a joy to play.

SilverAsh posting aka the Arknights' version of Chrisposting from Resident Evil.

Only posting I know is Baneposting. So SilverAsh has very quotable lines and perfect for any context?

For context, the original meme is Chris Redfield from Resident Evil wanting Leon Kennedy, another RE character, to impregnate Claire Redfield, Chris' sister. The reason being to continue the "Redfield bloodline" based on the superior genes of Leon and Claire. In Arknights, it is SilverAsh wanting the Doctor to impregnate his sisters in the belief that the Doctor's superior genes would mix well with the also superior SilverAsh genes and thus continue the "bloodline". It's dumb and that's why I like it :D

A bit of trivia, the CN version of the meme is the opposite. In CN, SilverAsh is an overprotective big brother that will not let anyone dare touch his sisters.

There is also the "under the table" meme.

What the hell is that about x3?

Originated from CN, someone posted fanart of Blue Poison giving Doctor a slice of cake she made herself while the Doctor is sleeping on his desk. Meanwhile, Ptilopsis is "under the table" giving the Doctor fellatio unknown to Blue Poison. The fanart did not get removed for being NSFW and thus in CN it was memed as a SFW scene. The meme then spread in EN where it became fanon that Blue Poison likes the Doctor but Ptilopsis is already having sex with him in secret or as the meme goes "under the table".

I think what is being referred to there is that X amount of kills in Anni can refund you sanity if you retreat or fail. I think?

Yea, but I didn't know you can retreat and still keep rewards?

You can actually check this in the sanity refund tab in Annihilation. There are fixed intervals of kills wherein once achieving the X amount of kills, you get X amount of orundum and sanity if you failed/retreated. The more kills, you get the less sanity is refunded but the number of sanity is always fixed. One way of taking advantage of this is going for only 99 kills then retreating.... this costs 0 sanity and arguably a cheap way to finish the kill X amount of enemies daily or that one time during an event where there was a mission to kill X amount of enemies in Annihilation.

Oh no, I totally get that. It was mostly Skullshatterer talking shit about RI when in fact it was Reunion themselves that antagonized RI against them. And well I can't say I'm a fan of how radical RI is presented, making them to look like the clear bad guys instead of someone with the point and giving morality more gray area. And in the end I guess I am pretty naive and hope for happy endings, so I was kinda hoping the whole Misha thing will be resolved relatively peacefully and she might even join RI cos she seemed pretty cute. But I can mostly totally understand the way it went down though. It's just that it really left no emotional impact on me, which is annoying because I clearly knew I was supposed to make me feel things about it. The way game was presenting it was pretty clear on that.

Let's just say, there will be more story (chapter 6 is considered very special) and I am actually surprised they went that direction since it is indeed much easier to just paint the enemies as pure evil must kill them all in contrast to the pure good heroic player characters. I do think they are trying to make it more morally gray than it seems. Take your time tho.

Holy fuck. I complained about tags and after I refreshed just now I not only got crowd control and debuff, but also top operator on top of that! I need to complain more often xD. I can guarantee SilverDaddy or Ifrit, but I'm leaning more towards Ifrit, since I'm the most lacking with Casters and I don't really want BrokenAsh.

Maybe I should also start complaining that all I've gotten from Top Op tag are dupes

Been wanting Exusia for a while now. I thought she'd come home since I have Mostima waiting for her. The other way around in contrast to how it actually goes in the story.

There was so much to read here lol.

I think everything was answered again so no need to repeat anything. I'll drop a fun fact instead:
Did you know? You can tell the rarity of your bag by sound. 6* bags are pretty loud, disable music when you open bags and you'll notice the difference. It's absolutely useless because you're gonna open it anyway but still.
And you CAN get 6*s from a "5* bag" they are just rare...speaking of which...

No Nian. Did get Aak and a couple Hung. Spooked by Ch'en again.
I feel so defeated, I don't even want to read the story because she's in there...this is pretty much a repeat of my fgo CCC experience.

this is not my week oof

Just looked it up and thank god there's no PVP in this game (not that it will make me install it) since I really hate PVP in gacha games since that usually means paying players win (almost) all the time and you have to pay to remain competitive.

It's so bad in Honkai, that shit is a whale ocean lmao.
PvP in Azur lane is pretty decent just really boring. Just farm gold gear and use a cancer meta team.
AK is a tower defense game, how would a pvp mode even work? Like just a ladder stage? Like a competitive CC? That doesn't sound too bad.

Yea, from what I got from your conversation about CC, seems like that's the place to challenge yourself and really get mileage from all the operators you E2. Obvious downside is that it isn't available all the time. And well there's still issue of E2 potentially trivializing all the content outside of it.

Actually, this one wasn't fully addressed.
Some OPs roles do overlap to an extend so you can always just NOT use your stronger units.
I think I mentioned I have different teams for different content. I'm intentionally keeping a bunch of cheaper units at E1 lvl ~30 for that reason. Except Kroos and Melantha, I maxed out those 2. You can't E2 3*s anyway.
Most 4* E2s are just small stats increase. Shirayuki is a great example, she needs a bit more survivability to clear ann 3 without dying and getting her E2 does just that.
The only annoying 4* E2s are the defenders because they get a +2 dp cost slapped on top for no reason.

last edited at Jul 30, 2020 9:37AM

I already cleared all the maps for Ancient Forge AND the challenge modes for them. Just a warning, AF-7 challenge mode is the hardest out of the maps so far. You really need to have good arts damage on the right side of the map to take care of the defense crusher leaders or you're fucked. Take a support Eyjafjalla or Angelina and bring Amiya. AF-5 is also unnecessarily hard but you just need to have good anti-air snipers and bring a lot of medics. If they're not E2, you're probably screwed.

I also cleared out the event rewards and having unlocked all the event stories, the gimmick for this event is that it's a movie/play. The event story being shown through tickets is a nice touch too. Haven't actually read them yet, but I'll be doing that later today.

P.S. I did not get Nian but I'm not giving up till the event ends... Also fuck you Hung, you're not even a good healing defender.

Oh looks like Nian is out for everyone's wallet. whale cat FBKs roll were pretty awful. 153 pulls for one copy? Holy shit.

I forgot to mention: @Nev, get used to those rolls like in that image. AK doesn't throw 50+ useless rolls per session like FGO does lol.

Yay got a 6* with today's freebie 10-pull ticket!

...and it was Aak. .-.
sigh
Better than nothing I guess, though on even brief parse that loon is going to be real damn tricky to use effectively.

Yay got a 6* with today's freebie 10-pull ticket!

...and it was Aak. .-.
sigh
Better than nothing I guess, though on even brief parse that loon is going to be real damn tricky to use effectively.

At least you got a 6 star, I've so far only gotten 5 stars and an unlucky purple bag within 50 pulls. The 5 star I got from the freebie 10 pull today? Dupe Liskarm.... I literally don't even use her.

What, Taser LizardLisk good to a memetic degree with that SP battery passive. Probably the single most versatile Defender too.

What, Taser LizardLisk good to a memetic degree with that SP battery passive. Probably the single most versatile Defender too.

I have Hoshiguma and Saria so I really don't need to level any more defenders :'(

So talking about Nian here made me realize, I really damn want her and since it's just 1 time, I decided to buy starter headhunting pack. I actually got 6 star with my first 10 roll, but it wasn't Nian >.> In fact it wasn't even rate up on. In general I think most 5-6 stars I rolled so far weren't rate up ones. Still it was amazing roll and while second one wasn't as good, it was still good so I'm overall happy. I'm really happy I dropped Sora, because she looks cute and seems interesting gameplay wise.

Also holy fuck, they gave us 1 ticket and 1 10 roll ticket for free today! That was a surprise gift indeed x3 It meant more rolls for me x3. It was actually amazing. No 6 star, but I got 2 5 stars. I already had Astesia, but second copy for -1 DP was still nice, but then literally next after her was Nearl <3 that I wanted since I started playing! I really liked her design and she was cool in the story so far. Sadly on first glance Gummy's skills look better than hers? Also finally got Gitano. I'll keep spamming single rolls whenever I can until event ends, hoping for Nian spook, but I kinda already accepted I won't drop her. After that I'll go back to my tactic of only rolling each banner once and in fact, since I got so many operators now, especially 5 stars, I kinda feel like skipping some banners once in a while if there is nothing interesting on rate up (not that it matters stares).

Oh also after recruiting Ifrit-sama, I actually got my first robot tag! I could go for guarantee Lancet, but I run it solo in hopes of getting first copy of Castel and I did! He'll definitely come in handy and I actually like his talent gimmick. I'm actually on roll with tags for a change since after that I got debuff twice in a row.

As for event, I cleared AF-3. I ended up doing it my usual way of 1 Defender and shitload of Snipers. And yes, it's recommended E1 lvl 70 and my highest was lvl 51 Jessice and 40 Executor. Few around 30, rest 20 and honorable mention of Courier being lvl 10. Beat AF-4 as well, but this one was less of a clear win. I mean my strategy still more or less worked and I didn't leak anyone, but ending was not exactly stellar and I felt like I could still improve my strategy, but as I won't ever auto-deploy it, I figured I don't really need to perfect it. Now in order to do AF-5 I need to progress with story, since I didn't unlock chapter 5 yet. It's time to go snow bunny hunting.

Another random thing I forgot to mention. As much as I like the drill plan and refund on sanity, when you fail the mission, I wish there was some way to rewatch your last attempt, because many times there's so much shit going on, I can't really pay attention to everything and figured out which part of my plan exactly is failing. Or sometimes I'm sure I'm playing the exact same as before, but this time some enemy leaks/my operator dies, when before they didn't and I'm puzzled what exactly went wrong. Also I know it's asking too much, but sometimes all I really want to know is the exact pattern of enemies, so I can plan accordingly, but often I can't even get through first part, so after many attempts when I finally progress I get caught off guard with something completely unexpected, I didn't plan for and I'm back to drawing board, especially when it requires me to rethink my entire strategy until that point. Not to mention, it's kinda hard to memorize how stage goes, when you're entirely focused on staying alive. It'd honestly save me a lot of time. Then again, I guess I always try to beat stage with potential auto deploy in mind, so I want my strategy to be reliably repeatable and don't like just go ham spamming operators and hoping to hold up, but recently, especially for stages I know I won't be repeating anyway, I'm trying to just go for beating it with any means necessary and not care how clean the win is.

塞雷娅 posted:

The reason Amiya is so attached is because the Doctor wasn't always ruthless and coldhearted

Oh, that explains it.

If you missed the Code of Brawl event then you should look up the event story on Youtube or something

I'm playing since around 3-4 of July, so it's my first event in AK. I did start playing when previous event was still on-going, but I don't think I could participate in it, because I'd definitely notice a event section in missions, like we got right now. I guess it's because at first I didn't really progress with story too far and from this event I see the event progression is also locked to story progression (which I don't necessary like). I guess I'll have to watch those event stories online then. I didn't really want to go back, to avoid thinking about what I missed, but I guess if I want the world and story to make sense to me.

I saw some of your other responses too and just letting you know that you might hate Ch'en now, but chapter 5 really changed my perception of her and I also hated her before reading through it.

I kinda thought (hoped?) she had some kind of backstory or reason to act the way she acts, which will make me see her in better light, but so far I didn't see it. There was a brief moment after Misha part, where they kinda were hinting Ch'en has more going on with her than we know and I thought we're about to learn something about her past, but nothing like that happened, so I kinda lost hope for that. Good to know, we will get something more later. For now I need to defeat the snow bunny though.

One last thing, you should really read the operator's files and voice lines if you want to see why people like the characters.

Yea, I know... It's just it take times and I got so much into gameplay (and wasted spend so much time trying to beat maps), I was putting it off for later and never really got around to read them. Days are waaaaay too short.

Here's a site you can use to look through operator files: Aceship.

Oh yea, I know this site already and it's in OP, but thanks anyway ;3

myrrhmidon posted:

For context, the original meme is Chris Redfield from Resident Evil wanting Leon Kennedy, another RE character, to impregnate Claire Redfield, Chris' sister.

Now that you said it, I vaguely feel like I did hear about that once. It sounds somewhat familiar, but maybe I'm imagining things. Still, it sounds hilarious x3

A bit of trivia, the CN version of the meme is the opposite. In CN, SilverAsh is an overprotective big brother that will not let anyone dare touch his sisters.

Wait, why is that? Are there some differences between EN and CN versions?

The meme then spread in EN where it became fanon that Blue Poison likes the Doctor but Ptilopsis is already having sex with him in secret or as the meme goes "under the table".

Rotfl XD

You can actually check this in the sanity refund tab in Annihilation.

Oh I know about sanity refund mechanic and that you drop orundum proportional to how many enemies you kill. And when I was figuring out Anni 2, I did often retreat before 100 kills, if I messed something up.

One way of taking advantage of this is going for only 99 kills then retreating.... this costs 0 sanity and arguably a cheap way to finish the kill X amount of enemies daily or that one time during an event where there was a mission to kill X amount of enemies in Annihilation.

Oh so it wasn't about finishing weekly orundum, but some event quest. That's what kept me confused x3. Cos I'm pretty sure you're not rewarded orundum if you retreat.

Rye posted:

Did you know? You can tell the rarity of your bag by sound. 6* bags are pretty loud, disable music when you open bags and you'll notice the difference.

Yea, I knew about it. It's pretty hard to miss. Youtuber I watched at first said you need to disable music to hear it, but idk what he was talking about. I had no problem telling it apart from normal 5 star with music on.

this is not my week oof

pat pat shares the salt

Some OPs roles do overlap to an extend so you can always just NOT use your stronger units.

That is true and I already can think of at least few ways to limit myself and still have fun with the game, once I max everyone out. That being said, what's point of maxing them and dropping all different units, if I'm not going to use them/not use half of them? The fact some operators are straight better than others and there's no reason to use 1 over the other, outside of them being your waifu, really is a bit annoying. Still I feel like I'm a long way from that point though and that's why instead of rushing to lvl them up, I'm just progressing with story and lvl them up as needed, so this way I won't just breeze through it without any challenge. And from what I'm seeing events still have those high lvl missions, so they should still give me enough challenge between downtime of lvling up OPs.

I think I mentioned I have different teams for different content. I'm intentionally keeping a bunch of cheaper units at E1 lvl ~30 for that reason.

That sounds like good idea, but it's hard to decided who to pick for that + it kinda feels bad to intentionally not invest in your operators.

Except Kroos and Melantha, I maxed out those 2.

Yea, Kross was my first operator I fully maxed as well (and only operator so far).

Most 4* E2s are just small stats increase. Shirayuki is a great example, she needs a bit more survivability to clear ann 3 without dying and getting her E2 does just that.

Yea, in fact it kinda makes me feel like most of their E2 is kinda a waste, but looking at it like that is probably actually better idea.

The only annoying 4* E2s are the defenders because they get a +2 dp cost slapped on top for no reason.

Oh, that really sucks ;/ Yea. And normal DP increase is annoying already as it is.

Rye posted:

I forgot to mention: @Nev, get used to those rolls like in that image. AK doesn't throw 50+ useless rolls per session like FGO does lol.

Lol yes, I could see it already xD I'm dropping so many operators every 10 roll and game spoils me so much, it just makes me want to keep on rolling x3. I never expected to have so many so fast. The sole fact that first 10 roll guarantees at least 5 star already makes you feel much better about rolling, because you'll always drop something.

I'm sorry guys. Walls of text is kinda my thing x3"
I'm not actually sorry xP

last edited at Jul 30, 2020 5:22PM

Wait, why is that? Are there some differences between EN and CN versions?

Nah just playerbases and their memes. ┐(ツ)┌

Most 4* E2s are just small stats increase. Shirayuki is a great example,

Uh. Uh. Just sayin' but 'Yuki is an exceptionally bad example because she only gets her talent (trading ASPD for moar damage) and final range upgrade at E2... Most OTHER 4*s just get the usual(ly) minor talent upgrade and universal statcap raise tho.

last edited at Jul 30, 2020 4:58PM

random posted:

Uh. Uh. Just sayin' but 'Yuki is an exceptionally bad example because she only gets her talent (trading ASPD for moar damage) and final range upgrade at E2... Most OTHER 4*s just get the usual(ly) minor talent upgrade and universal statcap raise tho.

Wait. Yuki gets no stats increase at all on E2? Did I understand that right?

random posted:

Uh. Uh. Just sayin' but 'Yuki is an exceptionally bad example because she only gets her talent (trading ASPD for moar damage) and final range upgrade at E2... Most OTHER 4*s just get the usual(ly) minor talent upgrade and universal statcap raise tho.

Wait. Yuki gets no stats increase at all on E2? Did I understand that right?

No, she does. I think random meant that Shirayuki (and all AOE snipers) get the stat increase + talent + range upgrade at E2, whereas the majority of 4-star operators just get stat increase + talent. So if anything, Shirayuki's one of the better 4-star operators to E2.

I already had Astesia, but second copy for -1 DP was still nice, but then literally next after her was Nearl <3 that I wanted since I started playing! I really liked her design and she was cool in the story so far. Sadly on first glance Gummy's skills look better than hers?

Nawww, Nearl is literally an upgraded version of Gummy. If you're referring to the second skill, the difference is that Nearl automatically starts healing allies while Gummy takes time to rev it up.

I guess I'll have to watch those event stories online then. I didn't really want to go back, to avoid thinking about what I missed, but I guess if I want the world and story to make sense to me.

You should watch them now but if you want to wait you can also wait till the EN server gets the feature that CN currently has where it lets you replay previous event stories.

Based on the stuff CN has gotten, there's a lot to look forward to like the "Path of Glory" update that has achievement medals you get for certain stuff. The big thing there is that there's a recruit medal that lets you choose between getting Indra or Vulcan at 300 recruits and 1000 recruits. The update that lets you replay event stories is called the "Information Processing System" and there's ways to unlock previous event stories you didn't get to play. That'll be a while though.

That being said, what's point of maxing them and dropping all different units, if I'm not going to use them/not use half of them?

You do stuff like this.

Wait. Yuki gets no stats increase at all on E2? Did I understand that right?

See the word "just", as in "only". Elite promotions increase the functional level cap and stats come from levels, so...

Nawww, Nearl is literally an upgraded version of Gummy.

Not really, there's small but meaningful differences in their S1s. Plus lil' bearcub is de facto better at killing stuff due to her frying-pan talent (lol) so there's that.

Ofc if you can get Nearl in the first place (Gummy is dime a dozen from Recruitement) you'll want both, plus any other heal-Defenders you can find, for those Medic-ban Contingency Contracts anyway...

塞雷娅 posted:

Nawww, Nearl is literally an upgraded version of Gummy. If you're referring to the second skill, the difference is that Nearl automatically starts healing allies while Gummy takes time to rev it up.

Actually Nearl's S1 only targets allies with less than 50% which can be meaningful (but maybe it isn't). Also S2 doesn't increase DEF as opposite to Gummy's and I still do use her mostly for tanking and even with it Gummy struggles in some missions, so I'm afraid Nearl will be dying way too quickly.

The update that lets you replay event stories is called the "Information Processing System" and there's ways to unlock previous event stories you didn't get to play.

Oh, that actually sounds really good. It's a bit annoying in other gacha's that once you miss a story, you can't see it unless you find it uploaded online, which obviously isn't ideal. Especially since often those stories are relevant to main story and even progress it directly (looking at you MR).

That being said, what's point of maxing them and dropping all different units, if I'm not going to use them/not use half of them?

You do stuff like this.

Point taken x3 And yes that's the kind of stuff I was thinking, when I said I have some ideas to still make content challenging and fresh for me xP

random posted:

See the word "just", as in "only". Elite promotions increase the functional level cap and stats come from levels, so...

Oh. It was actually the word only that confused me, because it was implying that compare to other 4* who get mostly stats, Shirayuki only gets her talent and range upgrade.

last edited at Jul 30, 2020 6:19PM