{"id":46438,"date":"2022-08-15T23:51:08","date_gmt":"2022-08-15T23:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/arknights-mastery-priority-guide-a-light-spark-in-darkness-update-arknights-wiki\/"},"modified":"2022-08-15T23:51:08","modified_gmt":"2022-08-15T23:51:08","slug":"arknights-mastery-priority-guide-a-light-spark-in-darkness-update-arknights-wiki","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/arknights-mastery-priority-guide-a-light-spark-in-darkness-update-arknights-wiki\/","title":{"rendered":"Arknights: Mastery Priority Guide – A Light Spark in Darkness Update | Arknights Wiki"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Q:<\/strong> Should I pull?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>An emphatic yes if you don’t have Eyja, but still a strong yes even if you do. Goldenglow is a rare operator who is a complete package that will carry you in a wide variety of roles and one that will do so at an otherwise very weak spot on the roster. She does that largely independent of what Eyja does, so Goldenglow will still have a ton of value even if you think your Caster core is strong. In my humble opinion, Goldenglow is the best operator ahead of us as far as value goes (with Horn a close second). While a few others have potential to be stronger in given niches, Goldenglow will bring that potential across a much wider area. She will help you in pretty much every game mode, while absolutely obliterating some of them, and being weak in none of them.<\/p>\n

Q: <\/strong> <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Why have you said Goldenglow competes with Eyja for the top Caster spot? Why was GG one of your top suggestions as an alternative target to Ling?<\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Skip to the last two paragraphs if you want the short answer because I’m about to go on a patented TacticalBreakfast tangent \/ rant \/ history lesson.<\/p>\n

If you really like any of the Casters other than Eyja or Ifrit, brace yourself, because I’m about to be mean. To be blunt, aside from those two, Casters in this game have always sucked. Now it is true plenty of them have had very valid niches, and a majority of them are at least usable. But frankly, even the Ceobes and Passengers of the game have left a *lot* to be desired. Hypergryph has, as a design philosophy, always overvalued Arts damage. That is, they tend to undertune Arts damage, believing that the mere fact it is Arts gives it value over Physical damage.<\/p>\n

That was probably more true on launch. After all, there were very few units then with a legitimately high attack stat that could reliably overcome armor. RES was also not that common either so there was actual value in dealing Arts damage. But that has also meant that most Casters become a ‘take if you need them’, and not a ‘take by default’. Add onto that a proliferation of powerful high-attack units like Thorns and Bagpipe as well as better melee based Arts like Surtr, and higher RES enemies than before, and you get a situation where Casters just rarely ever stand out.<\/p>\n

Eyja, and to a lesser extent Ifrit, have always been the exception to this. Why exactly is a good question but it likely has to do with launch day balance mistakes. Frankly again, launch day balance is all over the place. If year-three-Hypergryph could redo launch without any repercussions, we probably wouldn’t have Nightingale, Lappland, Mousse, Warfarin, or Specter in their current forms. That’s rather an aside though. The point is that every Caster since* has been woefully undertuned and they have, at best, a strong niche and little else. Every caster since has had weak damage or a small niche (or worse, both).<\/p>\n

( * I’ll give a side shoutout to Click who is the exception here, though her 4\u2605<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span> stats have always held her back in the context of this discussion.)<\/p>\n

Goldenglow then, is the first Caster in 2.5 years that has both strong DPS and isn’t pigeon-holed into a relatively narrow niche. She has strong core damage and a kit that allows her flexibility to apply it in a variety of situations and modes. The only other Caster that can be said about is Eyja. Goldenglow fits on nearly all teams without being a hindrance, but even better (and the edge she has over Eyja) is that her kit fits in extremely well with the “ASPD meta” that has now come out in not one, but two different recent game modes.<\/p>\n

Essentially, Goldenglow is a unit that can fit into nearly any team while still excelling in a variety of more niche situations. There’s very few units in the lifetime of the game that can be said about.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>What is the history of Goldenglow and why was she known so long?<\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Way back when in the very first anniversary stream on CN, which is now more than two years ago, we got a big preview image. This image showed six banners with the E1 art of six upcoming operators. It was meant as a tease of the upcoming content. Goldenglow was first seen here, but unfortunately for her, it took another year and three-quarters for her to actually be released. She was the slowest of the previews which led to quite a bit of infamy given how long it took (especially compared to the others). Thus we’ve known about her for quite a long time now!<\/p>\n

Hypergryph has never commented on why her release took so long, but the common speculation is that it has to do with the Thorns backlash. It’s likely Hypergrph’s original intention was to introduce new operators along with re-runs but for you newer players, this was not well received at the time. It seems likely that some of the other previewed operators were originally intended to be run much sooner along with other re-runs but had to be delayed to other events given the backlash. This is given weight by the fact Archetto and Surtr were among the previews but who were released during similar mini-story events like Goldenglow is. However Carnelian, who wasn’t previewed, was also released in a similar event before Goldenglow was, so that’s likely not the entire story either. So whatever the full story behind her long delay is remains a mystery open to speculation.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Why is Goldenglow often called the “pink doggo”? Isn’t she a cat?<\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>For a long time the only information we had on her was a relatively low-res image of her that was angled, cropped, and off center. Given that most Feline characters in Arknights have peaked ears, basically everyone assumed she was a dog because of her floppy ears that could barely be seen in the first place. The idea she was a Scottish Fold cat wasn’t one that had ever come up (and to be fair I still don’t think the ears are that accurate to Scottish Folds).<\/p>\n

The whole thing got some notoriety, when Namie, her artist (and a delightful Twitter follow), made a very amusing Tweet <\/a>on the topic after her eventual full reveal.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Is Quercus worth raising?<\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>If you have to ask, probably not, though unlike many ‘optional raise’ 5\u2605<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span> she has a very valid niche. She’s an interesting unit and her SP battery niche is one that is potentially very powerful. But the way she fills that niche can be pretty tough to use. She certainly is n’t newbie friendly, though she also does n’t require extreme investment to be useful should you want to try her out.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span> Is it worth leaving Quercus at E1 Level 1?<\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>It’s complicated. There is a ton of nuance into the slight differences it would make. To make a long post short, those subtle differences mean it’s basically impossible to give a definitive answer. It’s just as easy to craft a SP battery situation where totally maximum is best versus where totally minimum is best. Plus she can hypothetically give 3 more SP at M3 than at SL7 on top of dealing them out faster, so it isn’t even a 1 to 1 comparison in the first place!<\/p>\n

The thing with Quercus is that she is more like a Warfarin-style SP battery than a Liskarm-style SP battery. That is, she works best spreading the SP out to more broadly help the team rather than trying to maximize a single operator. She can be used towards the latter, but it can be a very difficult thing to do properly given that you need just the right amount of pressure to have something to heal without killing the target.<\/p>\n

Ultimately what I’m getting at is that she is a very niche unit, so would probably work just fine at a low level SL7 if you only wanted occasional use out of her. But if you’re making regular use out of her you’ll definitely want to raise her up more. You’ll get much more use out of her if she can actually be an effective sub-healer. And if you don’t plan to make regular use out of her, the investment advice has more to do with value as opposed to which is better.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>(Warning CN spoilers) Any thoughts on the just revealed summer limited since you were such a big opponent of Summer Ch’en?<\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>The units are too new to put into the look-ahead down below, but I’ll give some first impressions here.<\/p>\n

In general I think I’m pretty happy with the patch compared to last summer. The balance is a little whacky (or a lot as I’ll get into in a minute) but I think the design choices are quite a bit more palatable here. We do have to remember though that a large part of the issue with Ch’en was not that she was meta, but rather that she was an unannounced limited creep. A year later the limited creep is still true, we just expected it. Make no mistake, limited units are predatory and we shouldn’t forget that. However, accepting that fact, it’s hard to find too much issue with Gavial’s design and both 5\u2605<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>s look to be quite good and interesting as well.<\/p>\n

However Pozy presents a curious wrinkle. She is really the first unit of her kind who directly powercreeps an already top-tier unit and does so to a significant degree. Previous powercreeps have been slow and muted, or indirect (such as GG with Ceobe), or had some other factor that made it not as big of deal (Irene with Ch’en because of Ch’alter). I don’t really care if Pozy is meta (so long as it doesn’t begin to affect design decisions), however I think it’s a bad precedent to see her completely blow away an already good unit like Schwarz. I’m not exactly doom and gloom on it, but it does make me worry for the direction the game is heading.<\/p>\n

It’s nowhere near the level of controversy that Ch’en was, nor do I think it’s too big of a deal myself. I probably won’t write about the topic again, but it is something I’ll be keeping my eye on…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n