Nice video, I've noticed it in games before, start simple then go complex, but didn't really think about it applying to operators. Also, Happy Birthday!
The "Johnny says: My operators are tools" quote from the last video, made me think of the discussion like this... -"The Timmy": My operators are my toys. Why would I wanna spend so much time talking/thinking about everything they're good for besides the thing I want them to do? -"The Johnny": My operators are my tools. Some are more or less useful, but the only "bad *tool*" is one that's not sufficient even in their ideal use. I want to maintain my tools to find their sufficient uses and creative interactions. -"The Spike": My operators are my employees. They will undergo performance evaluations, and out of this particular principle I can't "hire" someone directly worse. Their overall payoff for their cost - including the deficits they fill and the heights they break - is the first factor in their promotion. Perhaps this is also a "hierarchy of needs"...
In essence, that is what the whole mantra of 'waifu over meta' is about. In a good game (like Arknights), you can overcome everything with skill and knowledge, but in a lot of bad gacha games you NEED the Spike mentality to clear everything and that is what poisons the well, even for good games that don't need that mentality. I would argue that a lot of Spikes were created by the necessity in bad gacha games to play like a Spike or simply lose. An example of that is the decision in a lot of games to push the player in the direction of the latest released character. Like when Genshin releases a new Spiral Abyss that has buffs that are tailored for the last released hyped character, like more damage while having a shield while the banner of shield god XY is open for gambling, or how Reverse 1999 ran into it even worse with the newly released raids that were impossible to fully clear without the EXACT banner character that was released alongside it. (The boss was designed to only take pure damage at some point making every other way to dps basically worthless, and somehow it was vulnerable to the star element, and the only character that dealt pure damage that wasn't plant element was said released character, which meant you either rolled, got and build said character or you had nearly no chance of clearing that raid fully. They backpaddled after some backlash, so now you are still rewarded using the newly released character, but at least it isn't impossible with other characters.)
100 billion% correct This is something I have tried stressing in my previous video, but I think you put it in a very nice way. The nature of a lot of gacha games being very predatory in nature will lead towards really poorly designed games that force a Spike mindset onto players. This mindset is then transferred into games like Arknights, where it is entirely optional to play like that. But of course, when you have these kinds of players from other games coming into Arknights, some apply that logic to Arknights, when it doesn't apply in the slightest.
@@BloopsArknights When watching someone new stream Arknights for the first time the most dreaded question I don't want to hear is 'Is this operator good?'
Pleaseee.. The power creeping in Reverse are so so bad with how each character kept getting stronger and stronger making more stronger enemies which you need the new character to counter that enemy..
Personally I just assumed bad operators exist to push people to roll banners more often if you get a bad operator then you’re more likely to keep rolling or spending to get a good operator and this goes doubly so for limited banners.
honestly i dont think any operators are bad it's just their kit may not be as optomized as other charcters and is why we get power creap but i dont think it's that big of a deal since we can still clear all content with only 3 stars
@@pathalenvivaldi7811 cheers to that. Gachas are bad by nature because of their predatory practices, and arknights is no exception. Its just a matter of deciding which gachas you can tolerate the most.
the main problem I have with this rhetoric is that a lot of what you says kind of conflates being bad with being interesting when it really, really isnt. will these operators be worse than the strongest? yes, but they could be mediocre instead of bad. I do agree that overpowered operators are less interesting but my argument remains the same, if you're really talking about interesting, mediocre is generally better than bad For leto for example, you say that she's designed for a niche, supporting the ursus students, and it's therfore fine that she's weak because she's not designed for those who chase meta, but the thing is, there's no reason for her to be as weak as she is. Leto could have very easily been an actually niche operator if her s2 force activates skills off cooldown, but it doesnt, so she's instead just a somewhat mediocre buffer within a niche. A lot of bad operators are like this, they are not only bad from a meta perspective, but also not as interesting as they could be, they're kneecapped for no good reason. I'm a person who will defend operators like fucking Spuria for many of the reasons you outline, as while they're not great they do shine in what they try to do (with spuria being the best buffer in the game for the likes of schwarz), but it's also stupid to pretend that these operators being bad is what makes them appeal when they could be mediocre and probably appeal more to more people while still retaining 99% of the the appeal they currently have. I agree on many of your other points, some operators are worse than others to be simple for new players, some operators are just worse because that's inevitable, all that, i agree with, but I cant agree with you that the bad operators are bad to be appealing to nicher players, they could very well be mediocre instead of bad.
I will point to point 1 and 7: - There has to be bad operators: some operators are bad simply because they are baseline to rate other ops. I would say Frostleaf and any bad early operators belong to that. OP already explained it. If you rate all the operators from SS to F and delete all operators below S, there is still the worst operator in S tier. Viviana is also another example of a bad operator because they are the baseline (in Viviana case the baseline is a SS tier operator so she is bad lol) - Point 7: Some bad is simply R&D goofing up. I think this is a very imporatant point that OP didn't talk about. Many of the worst new release are simply HG trying new idea. Crushers are the example. They tried new archetype with Quartz and Wind Chimes. Didn't work. Eventually they reached it with Hoerder and Ulpianus. Pretty sure Spuria is the victim of experiment too.
@@anhkhoanguyen8562 i honestly dont know what you're trying to say, may you expand on what you're trying to say? are you defending me? because your points dont do anything as far as countering my points go.
I disagree. Haha got you! What i disagree with is the video in question, not your comment. The points made in this video are a bit of a trainwreck. I have problems with the logic in all of his video segments and alongside the points that you (the Original Commenter) has made themselves, i want to add some of my own, from a pure gameplay perspective: - 1:39 You never need to make a perfect game nor have every operator be balanced within them. What they should be aimed at, is to cater to atleast 1 type of playstyle a player can act upon. Whether that be meticulous gambling and set-up for a massive payoff later on, or a simple design philosophy in order to get a player acquainted with the mechanics. it's alright if they falter during this methodology, but the attempt should be made. Arknights does this pretty well with the 2 and 3star rarities, but starts to fumble with the 4star and higher. An underwhelming kit should not be designed to be... underwhelming, but rather to serve a specific playstyle. For example, there is no reason why the introduction of the Crusher archetype with Quartz had to be so wishy-washy, nor they needed to nerf her numbers and make her a 4star, when 5star had always really been the 'experimental' rarity (ever since they stopped introducing 4stars every 2 patches like 4 years ago). This sort of artificial capping only makes players not engage with a specific playstyle because they get the wrong impression of it having 'high effort, low payoff', which certainly isn't the case (looking at Wind Chimes and then.. the 6star versions, Hoe and Anusman) - 5:17 Jesus, what a frankly shortsighted way to gauge Degenbrecher's kit "It's just damage". Also the irony is impeccable. He clearly has no clue that the 'hardcore' Arknights community actually rioted in response to Degenbrecher's kit back during CN event, even the Guardknights players were pissed off (moreso at her S3 completely ruining the Offensive-gen SP nature of Swordmasters, in-turn ruining both the Archetype as well as the synergy with the usual SP battery slave, Ch'en). It flared up a bit on Global's side too, but most of these actual tryhard players weren't going to waste time repeating the same shit that they talked about 6 months ago, so the outrage was only minor on this side. This is why people like Bloop think that Degen was well received... which frankly, i am dumbfounded to hear. She was *not* well received and not has been even now. it's the Eyja-alter situation all over again. Beloved character, Horrendous powercreeping kit, people angry because it renders an entire archetype useless or just unable to catch up. Just it was slightly less vocal since it wasn't an Alter + Limited + Insane Powercreep combo in one pack (Atleast until Wisadel released....) - 7:21 What is bro on about... Windflit, Kirara and Spuria was designed for 'the combo player'? (i'm just going to assume he means 'Niche player'). Okay, Kirara... you can get away on a slim boundary. She has uses on Specialist-only setups and Higashiknights (the latter being a very rare niche, just because the operators are so hard to clear with). Still, even the devout Kirara enjoyers from my experience would rather bench her, unless it's Integrated Strategies or doing a niche clear of course. Spuria is a little less tolerable. It's the first Geek op they have put out in over 3 years since the last one (Aak), and they clearly should have done more with the kit, but regardless she is still a good enough unit and certainly far from a niche-only thing. It's really just people mis-reading/mis-understanding her skill and assuming she is bad, so it's moreso the way the kit is written, the cause (the confusing text is present in CN too, it's not a translator team whoopsie this time). But windflit? lmaooooooo Windflit is like universally hated, even amongst the insane niches that are Clutterknights, Radishknights and NoDPS categories. (Clutter is niche where you try to spam every stage tile with deployables as much as possible. Radish is "Supporterknights but without the Summoners" and the last one should be self-evident.) Windflit is actually dogsmack and there is no defending this. - 10:08 The Verdant vs Bena argument is extremely silly. Dollkeepers are *not* designed to be Tanky what the hell is he talking about? Why do you think they always have HP loss mechanics on their skills? (unless your name is Iana) Their job is to trade blood for blood. High dps/DPH in exchange for their own HP Pool and their Substitute is a means for them to cheat death basically. They are designed in a way so that you are encouraged to have them dps until they pass out, deploy doll, and return after some time has passed (the doll having most sustainable health is completely irrelevant, because the doll doesn't have much stats anyway and is not made for tanking either... Except on verdant) It's for this exact reason they also have really long redeployment time. you are NOT meant to tank with them. Sure you can giga-brain and use them to stall certain mobs/bosses, but to pull that off you need to get over that new-player-training-hat in the first place and start experimenting. The reason why Verdant sticks out like sore thumb is because he gives the wrong impression of how to play Dollkeepers. To the point that if one were to upgrade to a higher rarity dollkeeper, his playstyle would just get you wrecked. Verdant retroactively instigates bad habits in new a player. Yet it's not like he can't be effective at his job, but he certainly is not the standard testing grounds for dollkeepers and definitely should not be used to train somebody on the Archetype. This is very badly judged information! - 11:47 Well no shit, why do you think that it is a 'meme' that gamepress' Operator reviews are bad? Because of course they are not nuanced. It's not really a 'meme', it is reality and you have gotten the order wrong. it's not a meme because people like repeating the saying or it's that funny, but because they had to repeat that advice to new players so many times, that it has become a copypasta of sorts. And this is exactly *why* you do not base your judgement nor your video script on what 3 people with an extremely number-crunching mindset on a website with tierlists, say about an operator's kit. Some minor gripes i have: - 2:09 Did he say that Lappland was designed around a specific niche? Her talent literally had no interaction with her kit at all.... It feels like her talent was randomly slapped on top of her kit at the last minute, to make her stand out. The only reason her corpse is still paraded around in metasquads, is the unrelated talent being one of the few consistent sources of non-manual silence applications (otherwise good luck spamming like manual skills or fast redeploys, which is going to get very tedious very soon). Lappland herself is a good 5* lord but a niche designed character she is not! - 3:02 "Individual AH ops arent strong on their own" (Looks over to Spalter, Ulpianus and Gladiia) Spoken like a true Newbie -No i'm not taking any moral high ground with my 'veteranship', i'm not even a true veteran but i have experienced the game long enough to be able to say- There used to be a time when Specter not-alter was one of the best units to have in your account and this is before the Abyssal Hunter faction became a fulltime thing. Plus Gladiia is just too good regardless. He really need to actually do research. And doesn't he play 4stars? He should know firsthand how good Deepcolour is and she doesn't even have synergy with AH (and technically not true AH but still part of the faction). - 4:00 This is extremely bad faith showcase. Everybody should know the reason why jessica is dogged on for being 'bad', and that isn't because she has lower dps potential than a 5 and 6star units.. because she can't compete with her 4star counterparts even if Meteor is niche, Vermeil is semi-niche and May is just busted, but she fails even to 3star Kroos. Jessica IS worse than her peers due to the lack of damage delivery and that's what matters, it has nothing to do with being bad or skillissue. (And believe me... i've been a felineknights player, and my maxed 4star Jessica has been used more times than i expected, just because of that S2, so honestly, she is not 'Terrible', she is 'Situational Niche'. This however, still does not fix the issue of her really underwhelming performance, so this is just not misrepresentation of the problem with jessica) - 8:13 does he not know any other AK statistic resource other Gamepress? Don't tell me this is what shaped the majority of his opinions about 'what the community thinks'....
I rolled Mlyner on banner TWICE [had an alt,] and while I built him I rarely use him, /because/, he's the flat "win"button, like cool but I have 12 slots and I would like to use them..... Stuff like Degen, Texalt, Sutr, Mlynr, Thorns, Blaze, are nice but their key-stone utility can mean often use them instead of actually trying to play which is the mixed blessing of high difficult content as you can use your "WIN" ops to their full potential. Though also like in the current snow event or DOS etc. it can just turn into, I don't have the op, I'm tired, please just let me get my rubber stamp and move on.
@@IrvineTheHunter This is so true, like I only dust off my Surtr and Mlynar when I'm EXTREMELY sick of failing a particular stage over and over again and when I then inevitably win with them I feel... nothing, really. I'd much rather have 12 'mediocre/bad' Ops each doing their own little thing at different points instead of just two taking care of the entire stage
Something that I realized about a different game it's in the subject. I remember when I got into genshin and a lot of people said that Amber is a bad character because of this or that, but a lot of people don't realized that she is supose to be a character that helps the player get used to the game, since she is the first character that a player get, use a new play style with her bow, has a pyro vision that does the most usesul combos and has a bunny that aggros the enemies giving helping the player learn the combat at the start. Great video by the way, always happy to see people talking about the different kinds of character and ways to play the game
Yup, Amber is the character they gave you so you have almost guaranteed access to most of the exploration shenanigans in the rest of the game. That was her entire point. I think most people realized to some degree, but decided damage was more important and straight up ignored her where they could Thing with Amber is... it seemed like she had some potential when you actually get her constellations. Took far too many constellations though. Needed some specific things as well, but she'd give a team buff with Ultimate. It's one of the unfortunate parts with the freebie units they gave, with a large part of their kit locked behind higher constellations when most other units are reasonably usable straight out the box or at much lower constellations. If they gave Amber all of her constellation buffs straight from the get-go, I think people's opinions on her would be a bit different
I think OP is attributing way too much credit and forethought to HG for making bad operators. Bad operators are just a consequence of imperfect developers and game design. If bad operators were always intentional, then HG would not have had to buff Passenger not just once, but twice. HG has many designers, both on the character and map side, and they won't always come into perfect congruence each time. Sometimes, the stars align, sometimes, they don't. As long as HG can keep making interesting characters and keep the game and story engaging, that's good enough for me.
From my own experience, i find that using operators that you enjoy and then adapting your playstyle to suit your tastes feels way better than just going after the most optimal solution. I felt that especially after i spent a considerable amount of time tailoring my WD-8 clear in a way that would allow for Viviana to finish the boss, and it felt awesome(although i was quite exhausted by the end of it lmao). I don't think there are "universally bad" operators because all of them have been used to great effect by someone at some point, and that someone probably had lots of fun with said operator. At the end of the day, as long as you're enjoying the operators you're playing with, that operator is fulfilling its purpose, and that's what matters the most.
I did something similar in this event and and found myself feeling really proud of myself when I did It: I really wanted Viviana to tank Harold in the Ex-8 CM and It turns out she can, but she needs Quercus (or any kind of sanctuary, It can be hoederer backing her up) and a little HP buff (I used eyjaberry, but could be any HP buff, like virtuosa and so on). Harold was hitting 2.9k ish of damage with Quercus, and vivi has 2920 HP at Max lvl. So I was just shy of a few points of HP. But I digress, the main point here is the proudness I felt when I did It. And It was amazing.
They exist so we have something to actually complain about the game Also love what you're doing, there should be some pushback against 'Just Surtr it' notions and have people be more open about experimenting with the game
No complaints? Hmm...let's see...some 5* being virtually useless and bloating the gacha pool while powercreep manifests in its most severe form yet with Wisadel, not having a sweep function and only recently improving the auto deploy after 4+ years of existence, having 300 spark limited banners and the spark doesn't carry over, modules sometimes making strong units even stronger while weak units barely improve, an overly verbose story that sometimes feels like they're trying to hit a word count target...pretty sure there's more but I think I've made my point. Experimenting with the game would be great if, y'know, it wasn't a gacha with time-gated resources thus forcing players to choose between focusing on only the most meta units or, well, experiment at the expense of faster progression. I don't blame anyone who chooses the former.
@@WadeWontson some of those are legitimate but some are just nitpicks. The game is built in a way that the meta essentially does not matter since you've got dozens of ways to clear stages. Yes you can just plop in Surtr (or whatever OP flavor of the month) and get it over with, or work with whatever you have Comparatively the game is probably one of the more generous gachas and the fat lines of texts comes down to preference (skip button is a thing) I kinda suspect that the various gimmicky 5* are their attempts at experimenting with new mechanics, only to release 6* with a more polished version of said mechanic. Overcharge still sucks tho
Great analysis that addresses multiple facets of the topic and really shows that no operator is truly "bad" by design. Though it seems like your volume's a bit lower than your usual videos haha
I spent several hours trying to get Viviana tanking Harold to work on EX-8 CM, and she kept whiffing her shield. Even had Shamare doll dropped between her CDs to keep her alive. I think she’s the perfect example of a functional operator who only looks bad because she gets compared to something better (Surtr).
@@blackhammer5035even in this example, surtr can't do what she does best against Harold. Her time on field would expire before she could defeat him. Btw, vivi can tank Harold If you give her sanctuary (Quercus is enough) and a bit more HP (I used eyjaberry). Even on her downtime in the skill.
@@blackhammer5035 thats just the thing Vivi has potentially more staying power than Surtr but surtr is guaranteed to live for a bit but unlike Surtr Vivi has a few other options put her with S1 behind Liskarm for example safe range Arts burst spam
I love Spuria. I haven't quite built her up to the level I want yet, obviously my main priority is building a strong and well-rounded squad to take on the toughest of lategame content, but as that "lategame" approaches closer and closer, along with my 1 year anniversary of playing the game, I've been thinking about what's next, how to keep things fun and challenging, and Spuria is talking to me like the Green Goblin mask. I don't even particularly like the Laterano stories, they're some of my least favorites, but something about her design, voice, and the whole mythos around her awfulness makes me want to see her work. It's the same feeling I got when I saw Passenger in the cert shop; understanding that he's a questionable investment, and that he only has a small window of viability, but loving his character so much that I want to find that window. I for one am excited to use Spuria alongside Typhon, and the upcoming Wis'adel, put her to work with Warfarin and Skalter and see if I can create something truly horrifying out of the uncontested worst operator in the game.
Something is labeled "bad" when it doesn't suit your personal choice or preference or in this game, gameplay or playstyle. And because of personal bias, one will disregard the actual usability of certain operator and shines on certain encounter.
Can we give Hypergryph flak for how they implement modules? They had an opportunity to fix units and buff older ones to become more usable. Instead they focus its implementation on subclasses with a one patch fix all + making the units traits a bit stronger. I also feel like they sort of create modules with a new operator in mind, so you sort of need to get their module. Yes I saw SUPAH's video recently. Also don't get me started with the modules scarcity.
Yeah this. This 100%. Modules should have been a way to help weaker kits shine. It's not like other gachas can't do this, Neural Cloud (NC) with its Arma Inscriptas have these buffs tailor made for each unit. Sure, Modules didn't have to appeal to everyone using that unit, even in NC one such buff improved a character's damage when survivability/bulk would have been better according to many players, but at least HG could have ensured that modules would "fix" what made a character seem weaker. They did this with Mostima, they did this with units like Shirayuki with the improved SP charge and Def Ignore to help during downtime (unless you're using S1 and you therefore benefit from the mod at all times) What we got was generic base module effects applied to all units of that job class, even the likes of Totter or Heavyrain who work very different from units of the same subclass. What we got was some modules that seem completely pointless. It's tragic
What you mean, fix units?! Didn't you see the video explaining that there is no bad operators, just bad spike players? Why fix the vanguard with 2 dp production, this operator is just for another type of player... Why fix the Defender with 1 block that can't receive sp? Just for anyone not you... Why fix the 1 block duelist that receives less damage from units he's actively not blocking!! This is to combo with something else and you just don't understand the game... In summary, game is just fiiiinnnne... /s
Modules were NEVER made in mind of fixing any units (thats what buffs are made for and yes they can happen. I mean it happened once before...). Modules are made to specialize further your unique aspects of operator, thats why they boost passives with each module buffing one passive. Sure, some give meager boosts while some get substantial boosts (glaadia comes to mind...), but they always boost existing passives. Saga is simplest example - her passives makes her regen for some time, module.makes regen stronger and last longer. The basic subclass buff is there but it's secondary, thats why its same buff for both modules that one 6 star gets - its just subclass buff to make it more....subclassy
I feel like people keep parroting these defenses of bad operators, but I feel it's a bit more context sensitive than that: Viviana is a "bad" operator, but at least she does her job well enough, even if her job is a bit niche and slightly strays from the normal archetype's role. Frostleaf can have her ASPD reduction removed and her S@ SP cost reduced by 20% and she'd still be the worst lord, but she'd be a lot more playable for her niche.
Right, I can't even keep track of how many people have jumped in to defend Viviana with the same arguments, but when you actually apply these arguments to practice they feel so useless, as if they are made up advantages.
>and slightly strays from the normal archetype's role. debatable. Bladeweavers seem more defensive then offensive despite their talent, and likely Astesia is a more common template than Surtr. For a more indept comparion * Mousse has a damage mitigation skill * Astesia has the increase DEF and blockcount * Surtr has...well her nuke skill, but also her immorality talent * Candle Knight here has a barrier, an upgrade to Astestia's S2 and a also an upgrade to Surtr's not commonly used S2 Surtr was the outlier here, not Viviana is what I'm saying.
@@rezafahlevi9659 Agreed, I feel like there are 2 big groups that just bash eachother for different reasons. Other groups of players must be exhausted from seeing all that bashing constantly.
@@Khroniclas I dunno much about community but Viviana is currently my only main dps/boss killer and I sure as hell am not complaining. Hell I genuinely don't even like Surtr or want her, similar story with Degenbrecher, they just got a one time burst and that's it. Viviana will kill anything trying to get past AND kill the main threat/boss of the stage. I guess my only complaint is the 1 block but my Flametail is always sitting back, slaving for dp with her 2-3 block.
It just sucks when an operator I want to like is bad in gameplay. Like I enjoy their character, their design, their story, but they're so bad in gameplay and I'm not skilled enough to make them work (or at the very least the process of trying to make them work is so miserable to me that I would just give up)
At least the like to dislike ratio seems superb. Let's gooooooo Thanks for this vid. It really is crucial to appreciate how different units in games appeal to different players. Expecting all units to be 100% efficient and optimized is a silly expectation, but I get that other players love it when everything is fully optimized and how easy and streamlined that makes things for them
I'm perfectly fine if you play like Spike, but damn you don't have to be so annoying about it. Some of them will literally not allow you to enjoy the game because you don't build meta units or roll for broken units and it's been a disease in the community it just makes every operator discussions feels shallow, short-sighted, and ultimately, boring. I'm sure if you've been watching a bunch of Arknights videos on TH-cam, you've seen one of those guys. The other day I read somebody called Gladiia useless.
To me Spike can be very annoying, but I also see an equal amount of Johnnies if not more Johnnies than Spikes that behave with incredible toxicity as well. People that don't allow you to enjoy the meta, YOU MUST USE MY WAIFU LOSER OR YOU ARE JUST TOO BAD AT ARKNIGHTS. ALSO META ENJOYERS ARE LITERALLY RETARDED LOOK HOW EASY THE GAME BECAME WITH DEGENBRECHER IT IS A JOKE WTF ARE YOU EVEN PLAYING THE GAME FOR NOOB At this point there are too many people calling operators trash, and too many people calling other players trash for not liking suboptimal operators.
@@kiszkjmt8564while Skadi is better in every way, Lessing isn't that bad. His s3 does have some legit uses I wait for a fast redeploy module to make his s2 better 🤔
Don't worry, in my experience you're going to use Lessing maybe once or twice for IS4's second ending and then for about 1 in every 100 stages. (I'm completely out of resources because of him and other "mid" Ops but I regret nothing. My boy deserves some recognition.)
@@theoture732 my comment got removed?? I can't see it at least so imma say it again; he's nowhere near as good as Skadi but he has his uses, especially with s3. I've found decent use with his s3 vs d12 ending 2 IS4
I can't explain how nice it is to find someone sane talking about gacha games. I've somewhat burned out on interacting with Arknights' community (and most gacha communities) because of a lot of reasons, but these sorts of videos always manage to bring back some hope that there are still nuanced takes around in gacha spaces.
I know everyone can freely to choose the ops they want. But i cant forgive dumb people who called them "bad operators" and asking "why they're exist?" without knowing anything. As we know Arknights is Strategy Games which is mean there's always exist some people who want to challenge their self with hard gameplay. Playing stages with ops limitation, using ops with unique Mechanism, or playing stage with niche squad. Arknights is not only about clearing the stages, but you can combi every operator that you have, clearing stages with ops that people can think "how can these ops can clear this stages?"
Imo bad operators are a dev mistake they don't want to fix. You can see how when many operators get released with experimental stuff, the dev thinks it's good and it fails.
I'm more pissed that hg clearly plays favorites on some characters and factions. Some 5 stars and even 6 stars operators get doo doo for modules. While abyssal hunters get the most broken ass modules and caracters and the in-faction boosts they give is so powerful no other in faction boosts come close to them. Let's also not talk about a year one limited six star getting the most broken LIMITED ALTER. They're not even hiding the favoritism
you mean wišadel? I dont see problem, if you dont like it why you play it then? Shes not broken shes strong, you can win the game with 4* but if you dont have a brain just use wišadel or full 6* squad. Shes boring, and strong but you dont need it, you dont play against players thats really dumb question, if you are willing to whale for character to win against AI in "fashion" thats totaly up to you.
@@rezafahlevi9659 oh man, Hypergryph is so poor so they need to keep up the favouritism and powercreep to earn money. Poor, poor Hypergryph. Please, they're one of the top earning gachas and regardless of revenue, there's nothing stopping them from doing justice for weaker operators except their own complacence. If a game earning a fraction of what AK earns like Neural Cloud can more or less competently implement post-release buffs (Arma Inscripta) then what's stopping Hypergryph from doing the same? Don't make excuses for game developers unless you don't want them to give their best and don't mind a subpar product.
@rezafahlevi9659 by that, do you mean you don't understand or don't agree? As for the 2nd part of your comment, I'm not saying AK is a bad product, just that it can and should be better. Keeping quiet about the game's issues isn't going to fix anything.
I'm only in part 1 and will edit comment later, but for now I'm curious about Viviana being in the thumbnail. She's literally the only reason I beat Ice-Cold image in Braving Nature 15 lol. Her defensive nature is insanely useful when a stage gas way too much pressure coming from literally every single side in the stage to the point it's impossible to beat tje stage without stacking foldartals and just not using them at all for the first 4 floors. I used to be a Spike, but I'm now more of a Johnny. Started a no-six-star account yesterday and it's been so much fun actually building 3-stars and Dobermann, while still being able to use my beloved Leizi lol P.S. gamepress being down is GOLDEN lmaooooo
11:34 I thought Gamepress' reviews were garbage because they didn't come from the POV of Spike. I remember seeing a S+++ category which sounded like a way of avoiding putting Siege or Ash into F tier by moving the power difference up instead of down
@@BloopsArknights not a hot take when it's true. I believe she forced the devs to reevaluate the silence mechanic and making it a bit less clear on what can be silenced. I also think as a 5* she belongs in the tier that is still considered really strong. Feels like Hypergryph kind of stopped making strong 5* for the most part. Seems like most are now designed with some sort of flaw for the subclass to then be removed for the 6* equivalent, look at Mountain with brawlers. They just put a +1 block, make it so that his attacks hit all that are blocked, and give him a regen. He essentially is a -1 block centurion with sustain. Lappland would probably be used more if Thorns didn't exist, because her damage isn't bad at all. You just have to sort of play around with her skill activation.
I still remember how i got yelled by a certain TH-camr when he's using Lappy for CC. "You don't know how count damage". For context, she dubbed a secret 6* for her DPS back in the early days. She's only competing against Silver Ash, Blaze, and Hellagur. And being the sole arts guard back in the day, other than Mousse, and Astesia much later.
Eunectes is one of my favorite Operators. I rarely ever get to use her. But the few times I've realized she was a good answer to a problem I was having, I was absolutely giddy at the chance to utilize her. Beating the EX boss stage for both Il Siracusano and Wakes of Vultures by deliberately taking advantage of her single block, and freeing up my Hoshiguma for blocking elite mobs felt really damn good.
It becomes a problem when you have to have multiple operators to do the job a single operator is able to do. There are operators that clearly were intentionally made to be bad. Spuria is a prime example and even Frostleaf. Frostleaf's module doesn't really do anything other than poor rng freeze and adding a little bit of arts damage. She's still a bad operator no matter how much you sugarcoat it. There's nothing wrong with making the game harder for yourself but that doesn't mean the operator in question is usable.
This lol I find it pretty funny seeing people trying to defend bad operator because their ‘niche’ is usable in like two specific stages with that mindset of “There no bad operator,only bad doctor” really grind my gear. I do enjoy raising and playing with operator with questionable kit bake into them and finding some usage but that won’t stray them away from being absolutely garbage lol.
Interesting video, very high quality but I do disagree. There is definitely bad operators, or at least one bad operator: Spuria. Her whole kit relies on buffing snipers, and yet when given this buff, snipers are given a perctsge chance to stun themselves each time they attack. Already the main sniper archetype, marksman, are ruled out as they have the fastest attack rate in the game, and with that chance to stun, these marksmen snipers are barely even able to get a chance to attack. The stun lasts for 1.8 seconds and has a 20 percent chance to activate, even at m3. And even on the off chance you had her, why would you build? She is not given out in the free five star selectors each new player has, and if a new player needed or wanted a buffer Warfarin is much better and much more easily attainable. Even in the lore she has a generic personality, basically Aak but watered down. Spuria even needs a healer to even stay in the battlefield, meaning she is actively diverting resources that could be used for more capable operators. Who exactly does Spuria appeal to? Maybe masochists, but even then. Fundamentally Spuria doesn’t do anything uniques or not already done better by other operators, she was dead in arrival, and I think she by herself proves that there is at least one bad operator.
Yeah Spuria is definitely the only operator that is truly "bad". Her kit is just a mess, her buffing is terrible, using her is awkward. Her kit just works against everything else, it's pretty funny how she escaped development with how bad she is
I love Spuria's design, but I have to agree that she is fundamentally flawed. She doesn't even have the excuse of being underpowered or niche like other "bad" operators. Just using her can actually sabotage your run.
I tested Spuria somewhat extensively with multiple 6* operators and learned her best synergy isn't even with high attack interval ops that can 'ignore' the stun. It's Platinum. Her talent boosts her strike power when not attacking for up to 2.5 seconds, which Spuria automatically gives via the 1.8 second delay. This allows her to go from chipping moderate to high def enemies to being able to deal more than 2k damage per hit and become a true knight assassin. The game meta has moved onto consistent and strong buffers but none of them actually reduce attack interval, so Hypergryph may have unintentionally created synergy with a day 1 operator. The problem is that it wasn't advertised with Spuria's kit and more importantly Platinum is so dated as a release op that most of these unique interactions have to be directly tested.
This entire video is exactly answer to your opinion There are people that find simple insane OP buffs or built in kits are boring For these people whats the point of playing the game where you could push one button that bulldoze everything The buff that come with a debuff price is exactly what appealing to them, challenging them to work around or minimize the effect of said debuff in a stage
Someone read the gamepress spuria article made by the biggest Spike there is. But no, she’s not all bad. Her buff is actually better than Warf’s for ops like Schwarz for example. You just have to account for lower aspd high dph ops. Also her s1 is a thing. She’s no April, but for a player like me who’s all in on RA and is preparing heavily for RA2 when that comes, I’m building as many ops that have an on deploy skill, and she’s one of the few that has them. In the end she falls into what the video talks about, just a niche ops for a specific player.
The thing with lower rarity being entrance point, it doesn't always work like that... I've had Robin built for a very long time - my first and only trapmaster - and found her borderline bad, the only great usage opportunities for her were the levels with those energy tiles charging the blue shooting towers - i could charge or regain those towers using her traps instead of sacrificing a deployment slot for an actual operator. Other than that, she was extremely underwhelming. So when Dorothy was realeased it was like easiest skip ever for me. Until one of the IS graced me with a fully built Dorothy to toy around with ( I don't remember whether it was a deep investigation or she was the 0 hope lucky chance, though). Boy, did that make me re-evaluate the trapmaster class 😮.
11:16 see, this is where you lose credibility and validity of your points. Mistakes happen and they should be called our for. Underbaked goods aren't undervalued, they are just bad and sometimes poisonous. No need to defend incompetent cooks while you could pressure them to finish their cooking process.
I agree with almost everything said in this video, BUT, as a 4* only player i must say, that the problem with Verdant is not that his kit is sponge-oriented and lack DPS, is that he does not bring ANYTHING new to the 4* team. As SG once said, he is literally Beanstalk's crab but worse. We already have arts sponges like MH, Beanstalk, Gummy and most of the time its not efficient or fun to use Verdant cos he doesnt do anything besides being a sponge (and he is at most mid in his role), Gummy can heal, MH cant hold 4, Beanstalk can print DP and she is overall uniqe and universal (her module is the best of 4* period). What i love in 4* is that they are not OP, but their kit is much more interesting than 3*, every one of them can do at least 2 things good (Jaye - dps + heal, Meteor - anti-air + debuff, Mousse - debuff + dps, etc), but Verdant is just a sponge, his playstyle is way to passive
A fellow "Johnny" here~ This community really needed this video. It is honestly ridiculous that this is what's considered "controversial", really says a lot. The hate some players so commonly spew out loud is so discouraging to others who want to do something different other than following a trend. It's always "these are bad" and "those are good", never "just play the game the way you feel is most comfortable". Whether you play with Meta operators or not, there is no need to shame others for their playstyle. This is Arknights, where you can beat practically most things, by just playing how you want to. You don't need to be Spike. We are all on the same boat and playing the same game. Might as well enjoy each others company. ✨
Great video, but you missing one point. Arknights is not the game where it's cheap or fast to build units making it basically resource management game. Throw this mind-numbing aspect or make it easier and bam even "bad" operators now have chance to shine. I personally want to build and play with niche characters, but if I invest in them most certainly I'll rob myself of rewards and resources, making the grind of building characters even more painful. In other words the whole point "the niche is alright, there are no bad ops" are coming from relatively long time players that already have squad that can beat stages if ease allowing them to dive into niches, becatthey are not losing anything. If they can't beat with picked niche, they always can grab old reliable and "cheat" or "skip" stage to get rewards and move on.
I'd wholly disagree. You dont need to minmax your resources at all to progress in Arknights. I've only been playing for 11 months and all I do is upgrade operators I find fun. Yeah these upgrades dont push you towards the end game, but I and some other players, dont want to rush to the end game. I'm fine with grinding cuz I dont feel pressured to reach the end asap.
honestly, i really cant take the term 'bad operator' seriously because people clear max risk CC with E0 operators of all 'quality'. there is no bad operator, just people who don't want to learn how to use them- saying this as someone who personally tries to clear arknights stages the easiest way possible because I'm more interested in character lore than anything else, and i don't have the braincells to use hard units lol
@@xZeke97 I feel like you're just proving my point here. I wouldn't say "bad" but moreso "challenging" or hard to use. I don't think any operator is legitimately without use except for maybe Spuria, and even then some people have figured out some strange niches with her. But sure, if you'd like to call every operator that makes the game BabyEasyMode for you good, go ahead !
I think the reason overall bad characters in game exist is because of their niches not being viable, bluently to high of a cost or there are just to many better options that they fall short of where they place, its naturaly normal for powercreep to one day make a character not as viable as they were but sometimes its also because the designers arent carefully designing said Operator for me the best example is Nightmare, her Niche is either healing which is dumb because nowhere would you use her in terms of healing and damage over Reed Alter or any Medic at all, heck imo Ansel or Hibiscus before that role because its their core niches, mixing niches doesnt always work but on rare occasion they do but then its not about the niche but more about what rlse they offer, for that my best example is Kal'sit, no one brings her for her healing, rather they use her for her insane Damage due to Monster, the Core factor for her is damage and not her core nich in box which is being a medic and heal, Operators nowadays just offer many things more that make them viable like for long times because they can do many things at once ans they are good at it, Saria even to this day I would argue is Top 15 best Ops even because of how versitaile she is and how good she is, tank? Can do, heal? Can do, Block? Can do, support? Can do, SP Battery, definitely. Thats why operators these days are considerad bad, its because they fell out of their niche, have a contradictory Skill set, more better or cheaper options or they arent very versityle.
On the one hand, I really do not think I agree with the idea of "good" being subjective in cases like Quartz, I think she is genuinely awful in terms of her capabilities, and while I dont think efficiency = fun, I DO think its unreasonable to say "operator is good because I have fun with them". HOWEVER, uninformed hating is not helpful for anyone, so I'm gonna check your Crusher video to see what you have to say about them before I make a judgment.
Yeah sorry man. The first 4 minutes threw me away because I didn't agree at all. The one thing I've always loved about arknights is how different operators have their own niches meaning that most of them aren't bad, it just depends on use case and what overall strategy you want to use. Even within the same classes like thorns, qiubai, silverash, arene, midnight.. they all are fairly balanced between each other. Arknights isn't super competitive so the meta balance that normally exists is a bit looser (we don't keep track of win percentages for certain ops). Also, meta doesn't define what ops can be good but rather design of stage gimmicks which can make any operator good. However, there are still some ops that are severely outclassed and need to be fixed. Angelina being one of them. This video mainly targets issues of ch'en, irene, and degen, but they all have niches especially during ss when sp gen is eliminated but you want a nuker. For arknights it isn't a big deal for other games it matters more. Thus, I disagree and think the game can be rebalanced but with modules only affect talents and not character redesigns,... Edit: just want to note, lessing and Viviana are fine. Vigil, Angelina, spuria, etc. Just need some help to make them fit better in specific roles
Kino background gameplay, showcasing exactly your arguments in real time. Also your point of Verdant not designed to carry lategame makes me thankful that HG still designs baby kiddo stages in every event before ramping it up to the EX stages for the proper status of the game. Still would not make me shy away from calling Verdant bad or at least underwhelming but i know now Arknights is partly a chill game and other part sweaty challenging. Also also a point you did not touch upon is Bad characters being those that does not work as advertised, due to HG's RNG fetish or undertuned numbers. Notable nominees being Spuria, Frostleaf, Kjera, Franka, might be more but that's what sticks to my mind. Spuria is already extensively discussed in other comments here and there. Frostleaf is advertised as this ranged guard that can slow. Neat. Except the slow is tied to her offense skill that requires several hit before the slow that means the intended target will already be closing in and the slow is irrelevant, and the slow is instead for another target, or the abysmal skill 2 but sure you can have plan around it for consistency. Oh the module? You mean 25% chance to slow at lvl 3 module? Like her kit does not show up in the game most of the time due to bad skill cycle or bad RNG reliance, that if you peel her kit away which is easy, she literally is just Midnight. That is my bar for bad ops, ops that is too are to have their kits matter that they just become a standing stat stick comparable to their weaker less star counterpart. Franka? She is just Melantha when her RNG skill does not proc. Kjera? Trust me i love and use her in IS3 a lot cause stun and frozen is needed for the flying guys, but her frozen is just another RNG proc chance, she is just Click when the freeze does not hit. GOD HG LAY OFF WITH THE RNG BULLBULL AND JUST MAKE IT ONCE EVERY 3 OR 4 ATTACKS.
there are always going to be a bad operator but its all came from each player perspective and those are not the same with each person. earthspirit S2 have synergy with gitano S2, their skill duration and downtime almost similar. savage S1 work great with relic on IS that increase damage to X% for 1 second like spinach, the other centurion that have this skill is only blaze with S1 but i doubt people even raise that skill over S2 or S3.
nice video!!! I started playing AK at the R6 collab, with all the E0 and E1 starters operators were my 1st fully leveled operators. When I was not dependent to a friends' 6-star, I have to maximize everything with what little I have on most stages. Heck, Tachanka was my 1st E2 operator along with Frost and Blitz with underpowered medics... It was HARD to crowd-control and maintain lines with heavy enemies. Learning about buffers and debuffers, using Myrtle S2 was my ground support medic on early annihilation stages, and other mechanics is still enjoyable for a TD game or a Gacha game even. It is hard, but it still enjoyable. that maybe the reason that I never touched my Ling even after Pot-3 here, but I have to build here for harder late game someday.
Reminding myself Verdant is a subpar 4* even in 4* niche eventually surprised me to great length when I found a nigh perfect niche for him in RS-EX-8. Since Harold moves so slowly, with a bit of CC, Verdant can stall Harold for quite a long time. To make it better, Verdant's substitute has a 3x3 attack range and really tanky defensive stats, making it quite good at helping to reignite the emergency heaters.
There are no "bad" operators. And yes, that is followed by "there are only bad 'Docutahs,'" but it's even more than that. There's a diverse range of operators, with all manner of abilities and uses. Not all of them will be useful to all Docutahs, but some Docutahs will find certain operators more useful than you find them, and can build strategies around them. There are some great operators that I, personally, have no use for. They simply don't fit my strategies. I keep hearing in the community that Vigil is a "bad" operator, and i just find that funny. He's one of my favorite vanguards, aside from a few personality quirks. He Fits My Strategies. I freaking _love_ the Tactician archetype. Conversely, I almost never use guards. I have Degenbracher, but I haven't even E1'd her yet. The only guards I'm using right now are Lapland and Cutter, and Degen will eventually replace Cutter (someday, I guess).
Gauging whether an operator can be considered "good" or "bad" has always been a contentious point to me because every individual has their own standards to befit this definition. It's almost a matter of semantics in a game where nobody has to abide to ridiculous standards to get to experience almost every piece of content in the game without too much effort. As long as creative displays of strategy exist to defeat what is considered "difficult" over a very long period of time, I think it's a fairly safe assumption to say that nobody is truly "bad" to an irredeemable degree, this already forms a divergence in what I think it means. There is some nuance to apply since my own definition of good boils down to "In how many scenarios is this operator the best answer to x or y problem, and how much effort do you need for it to work ?" If the answers are "Not many" and "A lot", there is a chance that a part of this answer contains a scenario where the "worse" operator may shine brighter than the one who brings the solution in one of them. This is all extremely hypothetical and I absolutely suck at expressing myself, but I hope the idea can be conveyed somehow. At the end of the day, I myself do not appreciate how some people push forward the Spike way of playing over everything else - it encourages not to explore what could be a good door of entry to fun ventures and instead incentivizes to do something that's been "recommended" over another opinion that may not belong to both parties involved.
well if all operators are "good" operators then that would take away the fun factor of the game... having bad operators doesn't mean it's all "bad", it just adds more diversity for the players to pick their own strats and playstyle... also, it's a single player game...
I think they gotta chill out on making so many ops because most are gonna be OP. They should update how the actual game works, looks and plays, finishing the base would be a good start. Maybe making the Main menu look better with more customization and just making the game look so much smoother and clean.
The longer I play the game the more I realize just how low my bar of "Bad" is. I hear someone say "This Operator is bad" and I instantly build it and go "This dude's fine. Why do they think they're bad?" Personally if the enemies die and allies live that's all that matters to me. (Especially if it's fox-shaped allies.)
To be fair "bad" is subjective. A character can have a personality or design that doesn't suit your tastes. When it comes to gameplay a "bad" character can be too versatile and/or not do 1 thing as well as other characters. I'm going to use Elden Ring as an example since I played it recently. A bad build for me is one that does less than 500 damage per hit. I can beat the entire game using an un-optimal dagger build which is one of the objectively lowest dps setups in the game and it nets me 300-500 damage. Using every other setup allows me to beat the game significantly easier. In my friend's opinion a setup that deals 800 damage is considered bad so he optimized his build to the point where he deals over 2,500 damage in an instance. Sometimes the powercreep is too high and some games have bosses that take like 20 minutes to beat but certain setups can do it in a few. 0 to 3 star ops I think makes sense to be weak but 4 stars and higher can have MASSIVE differences even within the same tier so niches and team comps have to make up weaknesses.
Wait why do you pronounce Skadi’s name like that?! That sounds vile 😭 And I resent having Viviana in the thumbnail. I know why you did it but I feel like I have to present a whole slideshow to defend why she isn’t bad when people say that LOL
A nice, fun, and casual oriented analisis. Not every Doctor HAS TO PLAY TO THE MAXIMUN EFFICIENCY, nor every operator has to be THE NEXT BEST BROKEN THINGY. Also, in my opinion, there are "bad" operators, but in the sense that maybe they're expensive to use, do to little for what they are, etc. Does that mean that "since the operator is bad, you are bad for using/enjoying it"? Hell no, and I know what I'm talking about, I use Minimalist
Also in all honesty There is just no bad operators if you have brain and have other ops that can work with each other then the sentence "why BAD operators?" Will not exist for you But if your like me no Brainer and no other good ops build the concept of "BAD operators" will exist for you and me
Personally I like lying to myself and saying they’re just sadistic monsters and like creating horrible characters to test ideas while creating good characters that people will like but hate playing also great video!!!
Not quite correct with the 4* s. -3* s and lower are definitely along the lines of 'simple and align closely with the core basics of the class,'- but when you get to 4* s... this starts getting muddy. Chestnut is one of those that is awkward because his kit is a little *too* unique. Indigo also diverges a little with Mystic Caster. Humus as well is also awkward and hyper niche, with him almost being designed purely in consideration of a certain 6* existing. Totter with invis ignore with damage bonus but lack of any type of targeting priority. There's definitely a few 4* s with fairly unique kits that diverge a bit from their "basic core class design," though I wouldn't exactly say the point is entirely wrong either Then you get the random Yato in 2* that is seemingly the wrong class... and the 3* free recruit vanguard from IS that is purely an exception that should not be counted [Edit: Actually, scratch that -- completely wrong even in regards to the 2* s - we have 12F and Durin. Those where the OG ranged RNG dodge units for mechanics. So... the entire 'lower rarity is closer to the core mechanics of an archetype' is just... wrong.]* Then you get the 4* s that outclass their respective 5* counterparts due to kit designs and use considerations. But that's a whole 'nother thing that isn't relevant to the whole 4* s diverging from core basic class archetype Personally? I go with the "it is what it is" mentality. Some units were designed very well and strong, while others appear to be prototype experiments to see how things can potentially fit. Crusher archetype with Quartz is an example of the first unit of a new archetype maybe not being quite there design-wise. Iris is another. Leizi was the first Chain Caster and was also not quite there yet as a unit. Then you get a lot of niches afterwards. There also also examples of niches being presented first as well, such as Rosa with heavy unit target priority with defense ignore for heavy units Niches and synergies are pretty important in my opinion. Stuff like Stainless get rated not as highly due to that, but he is *pretty strong* with a number of units that are deemed underwhelming (namely Aosta, but Ethan S1 also fits) and fills a number of roles and ignores specific annoying mechanics Then there are the specific stage and enemy mechanics that certain operators trivialize. Ceylon is one of those units that is considered "garbage" because she doesn't constantly give Resist to heal targets, but she is one two units currently that gives resist to all units in range of skill - which proved to be a lot more useful than people would think with the constant full-map chill status for units outside of heaters during that one event. Nian S3 was the other skill that gave Resist for all units in range and was also not rated all that highly, as far as I am aware. I probably don't need to explain why Ebenholz S3 is good, right...? And despite its specific use case, there are people that don't rate it highly because "other operators do more" with wide area DPS that will also kill the boss quickly (but won't skip mechanics because it doesn't one-shot or skip some HP thresholds mechanics). There are few niches that bypass stuff, then many others that do a slightly better job in certain scenarios than other units (Eg. Broca is considered not very good because Blaze and Specter exist, but he does much better than them when it comes to enemies with high defense and low Res due to his ability to switch to Arts damage - but that's why you get a ranged Arts DPS unit to cover, so... meh.) For Arknights, a lot of the mentality is that... if you can't find a specific use case for a unit where it might excel over other similar units, you probably aren't looking hard enough. There are some cases where there really isn't anything going for the unit at all, but those are *extremely* rare cases. Meta is meta for a reason, being that they will cover most of the scenarios very well and better than most operators. But they aren't necessarily the very best for the specific job/role 100% of the time in every stage. They just do it well enough to pass so you never notice nor realize there was a better option for that particular scenario -- but you never needed that "better" option for that particular situation, because a pass is a pass. And it is always the hardest stages that you will have a much harder time replacing those Meta operators. That's why they are meta and why you'll find them as core parts of most teams. And it is usually the same units over and over again because they do their jobs that well
Different views, different opinions. The point is to just agree to disagree. I love weak characters just the same because I love their story or it makes me think more, and I love strong characters when it gets too hard and I need someone to decimate enemies. Viviana is still the best 😅
I do think there is an issue with bad operators who can’t do what they are intended for. Vigil and Spuria are in an entirely different category of Bad due to this.
I have been trying to explain people the utility that Kirara offers. She may not kill, but in this video you can see she does as much damage or even more than the rest of the ops. On top of that, at 8:59 you can see how enemies with single special attacks or ammo will just waste it on her, instead of rest of your team. The usual argument is “but negative taunt”, just place her away from the team. Best punching bag ❤.
Every useability gets beaten, if I don't like looking at an operator. I just don't think Degenbrecher is pretty. And the moment they give me an equal replacement for Mountain, I would ditch him.
There's no BAD operators, Vigil, for example, would be good member of vanguardnights strategy because he can deal range arts damage, Lessing is good has nice damage and can be tanking range damage or be unstoppable force. I don't protect operators, I just want to say one thing: We DO need operators like that because it's a new strategy or way of playing
Personally, I keep an eye out for "bad" or "weak" operators so I don't lose out on resources. I've been playing for a while but I'm very frugal with my mats, I will not build someone / get masteries / get a module unless I will definitely use it. Operators like Surtr and Texalt are so generally good that masteries were an easy choice, someone like Firewhistle though, her masteries kinda suck. As for why they exist, it's probably because the desiginers just need to make some kind of kit for them without powercreeping old ones I assume, but honestly we need more good 5 stars, too many are mediocre.
If HG want to play smart? Beside reclamation alg.... Why not make gamemode where you can only bring operator teams yes teams not just one let say 3 teams different set up... Now play it like IS yes rogue but you can't pick the operator you already choose on the other teams and opposite too and if one teams lost then you were ban to pick that operators to other team roster Therefore bad operator can be alternative, funny is azurlane did this and it was kinda fun😅😅 what if it was for grinding mats to craft module blocks? I heard many players has issue in this so why not make a gamemode like this and only to get that mats piece like originium shard that you can craft to make module blocks (and of course, limit how many mats you can get let's say??? 50 mats and need 4 mats to craft one module blocks) but hey that's just a theory
The main thing this video ignores is first the investment cost factor but do tackle it in a future video. The 2nd thing is even among operators spike (gamepress) consider good there is already stupid amount of depth. Tell me you can go to gamepress and what they consider A tiers and above and have explored all of them, you cant! they are so many operators in only what they consider A tier and above that it will take years and years to explore their uses and the things that makes them tick. Even if I am a spike it doesnt mean im only using chalter and mlynar, but last week i used typhoon, this one im using ray, the one before im using exu the one before im using blue poison the one before im using etc etc etc. the list goes on and goes on, the depth pool of operators in arknights is infinitely deep. I am doing more of IS lately so im building a lot more 4 star operators and even then the depth of the good 4 star operators is super long, it will take me FOREVER to build them all, so yea i could explore into seeing what makes verdant good or i could explore "why is may considered good", or lets see what pinecone can do, I had great results doing this and im having a lot of fun using new operators whenever i can build them.
Hmm, i was thinking those operators must be bad by design because it helps people to scale. And people who scales, are the one with limited resources, or at least always thinking that way. I'll be honest, I will raise all of them if i have unlimited resources. There's no reason not to enrich myself with multitude variation of tools. No matter how niche it is. Even duplicates in utility could be useful.
Nice video, I've noticed it in games before, start simple then go complex, but didn't really think about it applying to operators.
Also, Happy Birthday!
The "Johnny says: My operators are tools" quote from the last video, made me think of the discussion like this...
-"The Timmy": My operators are my toys. Why would I wanna spend so much time talking/thinking about everything they're good for besides the thing I want them to do?
-"The Johnny": My operators are my tools. Some are more or less useful, but the only "bad *tool*" is one that's not sufficient even in their ideal use. I want to maintain my tools to find their sufficient uses and creative interactions.
-"The Spike": My operators are my employees. They will undergo performance evaluations, and out of this particular principle I can't "hire" someone directly worse. Their overall payoff for their cost - including the deficits they fill and the heights they break - is the first factor in their promotion.
Perhaps this is also a "hierarchy of needs"...
In essence, that is what the whole mantra of 'waifu over meta' is about. In a good game (like Arknights), you can overcome everything with skill and knowledge, but in a lot of bad gacha games you NEED the Spike mentality to clear everything and that is what poisons the well, even for good games that don't need that mentality.
I would argue that a lot of Spikes were created by the necessity in bad gacha games to play like a Spike or simply lose.
An example of that is the decision in a lot of games to push the player in the direction of the latest released character. Like when Genshin releases a new Spiral Abyss that has buffs that are tailored for the last released hyped character, like more damage while having a shield while the banner of shield god XY is open for gambling, or how Reverse 1999 ran into it even worse with the newly released raids that were impossible to fully clear without the EXACT banner character that was released alongside it.
(The boss was designed to only take pure damage at some point making every other way to dps basically worthless, and somehow it was vulnerable to the star element, and the only character that dealt pure damage that wasn't plant element was said released character, which meant you either rolled, got and build said character or you had nearly no chance of clearing that raid fully. They backpaddled after some backlash, so now you are still rewarded using the newly released character, but at least it isn't impossible with other characters.)
100 billion% correct
This is something I have tried stressing in my previous video, but I think you put it in a very nice way. The nature of a lot of gacha games being very predatory in nature will lead towards really poorly designed games that force a Spike mindset onto players. This mindset is then transferred into games like Arknights, where it is entirely optional to play like that. But of course, when you have these kinds of players from other games coming into Arknights, some apply that logic to Arknights, when it doesn't apply in the slightest.
@@BloopsArknights When watching someone new stream Arknights for the first time the most dreaded question I don't want to hear is 'Is this operator good?'
Pleaseee.. The power creeping in Reverse are so so bad with how each character kept getting stronger and stronger making more stronger enemies which you need the new character to counter that enemy..
Limbus company youtubers using the god awful base identies to do Refraction railway :
I feel this in my spine @@zomfgroflmao1337
Personally I just assumed bad operators exist to push people to roll banners more often if you get a bad operator then you’re more likely to keep rolling or spending to get a good operator and this goes doubly so for limited banners.
in most gacha games, yes
in good gacha games, not really
honestly i dont think any operators are bad it's just their kit may not be as optomized as other charcters and is why we get power creap but i dont think it's that big of a deal since we can still clear all content with only 3 stars
@@BloopsArknights Counter argument, good Sir, there is no good gacha, even Arknights is just the least bad gacha. :D
@@pathalenvivaldi7811 this no gacha is good only the least worst
@@pathalenvivaldi7811 cheers to that. Gachas are bad by nature because of their predatory practices, and arknights is no exception. Its just a matter of deciding which gachas you can tolerate the most.
the main problem I have with this rhetoric is that a lot of what you says kind of conflates being bad with being interesting when it really, really isnt. will these operators be worse than the strongest? yes, but they could be mediocre instead of bad. I do agree that overpowered operators are less interesting but my argument remains the same, if you're really talking about interesting, mediocre is generally better than bad
For leto for example, you say that she's designed for a niche, supporting the ursus students, and it's therfore fine that she's weak because she's not designed for those who chase meta, but the thing is, there's no reason for her to be as weak as she is.
Leto could have very easily been an actually niche operator if her s2 force activates skills off cooldown, but it doesnt, so she's instead just a somewhat mediocre buffer within a niche.
A lot of bad operators are like this, they are not only bad from a meta perspective, but also not as interesting as they could be, they're kneecapped for no good reason.
I'm a person who will defend operators like fucking Spuria for many of the reasons you outline, as while they're not great they do shine in what they try to do (with spuria being the best buffer in the game for the likes of schwarz), but it's also stupid to pretend that these operators being bad is what makes them appeal when they could be mediocre and probably appeal more to more people while still retaining 99% of the the appeal they currently have.
I agree on many of your other points, some operators are worse than others to be simple for new players, some operators are just worse because that's inevitable, all that, i agree with, but I cant agree with you that the bad operators are bad to be appealing to nicher players, they could very well be mediocre instead of bad.
so true man
I haven't heard something like this in ak community for a long time
I will point to point 1 and 7:
- There has to be bad operators: some operators are bad simply because they are baseline to rate other ops. I would say Frostleaf and any bad early operators belong to that. OP already explained it. If you rate all the operators from SS to F and delete all operators below S, there is still the worst operator in S tier. Viviana is also another example of a bad operator because they are the baseline (in Viviana case the baseline is a SS tier operator so she is bad lol)
- Point 7: Some bad is simply R&D goofing up. I think this is a very imporatant point that OP didn't talk about. Many of the worst new release are simply HG trying new idea. Crushers are the example. They tried new archetype with Quartz and Wind Chimes. Didn't work. Eventually they reached it with Hoerder and Ulpianus. Pretty sure Spuria is the victim of experiment too.
@@anhkhoanguyen8562 i honestly dont know what you're trying to say, may you expand on what you're trying to say? are you defending me? because your points dont do anything as far as countering my points go.
I disagree.
Haha got you! What i disagree with is the video in question, not your comment. The points made in this video are a bit of a trainwreck. I have problems with the logic in all of his video segments and alongside the points that you (the Original Commenter) has made themselves, i want to add some of my own, from a pure gameplay perspective:
- 1:39 You never need to make a perfect game nor have every operator be balanced within them. What they should be aimed at, is to cater to atleast 1 type of playstyle a player can act upon. Whether that be meticulous gambling and set-up for a massive payoff later on, or a simple design philosophy in order to get a player acquainted with the mechanics. it's alright if they falter during this methodology, but the attempt should be made. Arknights does this pretty well with the 2 and 3star rarities, but starts to fumble with the 4star and higher. An underwhelming kit should not be designed to be... underwhelming, but rather to serve a specific playstyle. For example, there is no reason why the introduction of the Crusher archetype with Quartz had to be so wishy-washy, nor they needed to nerf her numbers and make her a 4star, when 5star had always really been the 'experimental' rarity (ever since they stopped introducing 4stars every 2 patches like 4 years ago). This sort of artificial capping only makes players not engage with a specific playstyle because they get the wrong impression of it having 'high effort, low payoff', which certainly isn't the case (looking at Wind Chimes and then.. the 6star versions, Hoe and Anusman)
- 5:17 Jesus, what a frankly shortsighted way to gauge Degenbrecher's kit "It's just damage". Also the irony is impeccable. He clearly has no clue that the 'hardcore' Arknights community actually rioted in response to Degenbrecher's kit back during CN event, even the Guardknights players were pissed off (moreso at her S3 completely ruining the Offensive-gen SP nature of Swordmasters, in-turn ruining both the Archetype as well as the synergy with the usual SP battery slave, Ch'en). It flared up a bit on Global's side too, but most of these actual tryhard players weren't going to waste time repeating the same shit that they talked about 6 months ago, so the outrage was only minor on this side. This is why people like Bloop think that Degen was well received... which frankly, i am dumbfounded to hear. She was *not* well received and not has been even now. it's the Eyja-alter situation all over again. Beloved character, Horrendous powercreeping kit, people angry because it renders an entire archetype useless or just unable to catch up. Just it was slightly less vocal since it wasn't an Alter + Limited + Insane Powercreep combo in one pack (Atleast until Wisadel released....)
- 7:21 What is bro on about... Windflit, Kirara and Spuria was designed for 'the combo player'? (i'm just going to assume he means 'Niche player'). Okay, Kirara... you can get away on a slim boundary. She has uses on Specialist-only setups and Higashiknights (the latter being a very rare niche, just because the operators are so hard to clear with). Still, even the devout Kirara enjoyers from my experience would rather bench her, unless it's Integrated Strategies or doing a niche clear of course. Spuria is a little less tolerable. It's the first Geek op they have put out in over 3 years since the last one (Aak), and they clearly should have done more with the kit, but regardless she is still a good enough unit and certainly far from a niche-only thing. It's really just people mis-reading/mis-understanding her skill and assuming she is bad, so it's moreso the way the kit is written, the cause (the confusing text is present in CN too, it's not a translator team whoopsie this time). But windflit? lmaooooooo Windflit is like universally hated, even amongst the insane niches that are Clutterknights, Radishknights and NoDPS categories. (Clutter is niche where you try to spam every stage tile with deployables as much as possible. Radish is "Supporterknights but without the Summoners" and the last one should be self-evident.) Windflit is actually dogsmack and there is no defending this.
- 10:08 The Verdant vs Bena argument is extremely silly. Dollkeepers are *not* designed to be Tanky what the hell is he talking about? Why do you think they always have HP loss mechanics on their skills? (unless your name is Iana) Their job is to trade blood for blood. High dps/DPH in exchange for their own HP Pool and their Substitute is a means for them to cheat death basically. They are designed in a way so that you are encouraged to have them dps until they pass out, deploy doll, and return after some time has passed (the doll having most sustainable health is completely irrelevant, because the doll doesn't have much stats anyway and is not made for tanking either... Except on verdant) It's for this exact reason they also have really long redeployment time. you are NOT meant to tank with them. Sure you can giga-brain and use them to stall certain mobs/bosses, but to pull that off you need to get over that new-player-training-hat in the first place and start experimenting. The reason why Verdant sticks out like sore thumb is because he gives the wrong impression of how to play Dollkeepers. To the point that if one were to upgrade to a higher rarity dollkeeper, his playstyle would just get you wrecked. Verdant retroactively instigates bad habits in new a player. Yet it's not like he can't be effective at his job, but he certainly is not the standard testing grounds for dollkeepers and definitely should not be used to train somebody on the Archetype. This is very badly judged information!
- 11:47 Well no shit, why do you think that it is a 'meme' that gamepress' Operator reviews are bad? Because of course they are not nuanced. It's not really a 'meme', it is reality and you have gotten the order wrong. it's not a meme because people like repeating the saying or it's that funny, but because they had to repeat that advice to new players so many times, that it has become a copypasta of sorts. And this is exactly *why* you do not base your judgement nor your video script on what 3 people with an extremely number-crunching mindset on a website with tierlists, say about an operator's kit.
Some minor gripes i have:
- 2:09 Did he say that Lappland was designed around a specific niche? Her talent literally had no interaction with her kit at all.... It feels like her talent was randomly slapped on top of her kit at the last minute, to make her stand out. The only reason her corpse is still paraded around in metasquads, is the unrelated talent being one of the few consistent sources of non-manual silence applications (otherwise good luck spamming like manual skills or fast redeploys, which is going to get very tedious very soon). Lappland herself is a good 5* lord but a niche designed character she is not!
- 3:02 "Individual AH ops arent strong on their own" (Looks over to Spalter, Ulpianus and Gladiia) Spoken like a true Newbie -No i'm not taking any moral high ground with my 'veteranship', i'm not even a true veteran but i have experienced the game long enough to be able to say- There used to be a time when Specter not-alter was one of the best units to have in your account and this is before the Abyssal Hunter faction became a fulltime thing. Plus Gladiia is just too good regardless. He really need to actually do research. And doesn't he play 4stars? He should know firsthand how good Deepcolour is and she doesn't even have synergy with AH (and technically not true AH but still part of the faction).
- 4:00 This is extremely bad faith showcase. Everybody should know the reason why jessica is dogged on for being 'bad', and that isn't because she has lower dps potential than a 5 and 6star units.. because she can't compete with her 4star counterparts even if Meteor is niche, Vermeil is semi-niche and May is just busted, but she fails even to 3star Kroos. Jessica IS worse than her peers due to the lack of damage delivery and that's what matters, it has nothing to do with being bad or skillissue. (And believe me... i've been a felineknights player, and my maxed 4star Jessica has been used more times than i expected, just because of that S2, so honestly, she is not 'Terrible', she is 'Situational Niche'. This however, still does not fix the issue of her really underwhelming performance, so this is just not misrepresentation of the problem with jessica)
- 8:13 does he not know any other AK statistic resource other Gamepress? Don't tell me this is what shaped the majority of his opinions about 'what the community thinks'....
I like mystic casters and trapmasters and operators with funky targeting. degenbrecher good but she's kinda flat to me
I rolled Mlyner on banner TWICE [had an alt,] and while I built him I rarely use him, /because/, he's the flat "win"button, like cool but I have 12 slots and I would like to use them.....
Stuff like Degen, Texalt, Sutr, Mlynr, Thorns, Blaze, are nice but their key-stone utility can mean often use them instead of actually trying to play which is the mixed blessing of high difficult content as you can use your "WIN" ops to their full potential.
Though also like in the current snow event or DOS etc. it can just turn into, I don't have the op, I'm tired, please just let me get my rubber stamp and move on.
@@IrvineTheHunter This is so true, like I only dust off my Surtr and Mlynar when I'm EXTREMELY sick of failing a particular stage over and over again and when I then inevitably win with them I feel... nothing, really. I'd much rather have 12 'mediocre/bad' Ops each doing their own little thing at different points instead of just two taking care of the entire stage
@@theoture732I wish i can give you 10 more thumbs ups
Something that I realized about a different game it's in the subject. I remember when I got into genshin and a lot of people said that Amber is a bad character because of this or that, but a lot of people don't realized that she is supose to be a character that helps the player get used to the game, since she is the first character that a player get, use a new play style with her bow, has a pyro vision that does the most usesul combos and has a bunny that aggros the enemies giving helping the player learn the combat at the start.
Great video by the way, always happy to see people talking about the different kinds of character and ways to play the game
Yup, Amber is the character they gave you so you have almost guaranteed access to most of the exploration shenanigans in the rest of the game. That was her entire point. I think most people realized to some degree, but decided damage was more important and straight up ignored her where they could
Thing with Amber is... it seemed like she had some potential when you actually get her constellations. Took far too many constellations though. Needed some specific things as well, but she'd give a team buff with Ultimate. It's one of the unfortunate parts with the freebie units they gave, with a large part of their kit locked behind higher constellations when most other units are reasonably usable straight out the box or at much lower constellations. If they gave Amber all of her constellation buffs straight from the get-go, I think people's opinions on her would be a bit different
I think OP is attributing way too much credit and forethought to HG for making bad operators. Bad operators are just a consequence of imperfect developers and game design. If bad operators were always intentional, then HG would not have had to buff Passenger not just once, but twice.
HG has many designers, both on the character and map side, and they won't always come into perfect congruence each time. Sometimes, the stars align, sometimes, they don't.
As long as HG can keep making interesting characters and keep the game and story engaging, that's good enough for me.
From my own experience, i find that using operators that you enjoy and then adapting your playstyle to suit your tastes feels way better than just going after the most optimal solution. I felt that especially after i spent a considerable amount of time tailoring my WD-8 clear in a way that would allow for Viviana to finish the boss, and it felt awesome(although i was quite exhausted by the end of it lmao). I don't think there are "universally bad" operators because all of them have been used to great effect by someone at some point, and that someone probably had lots of fun with said operator. At the end of the day, as long as you're enjoying the operators you're playing with, that operator is fulfilling its purpose, and that's what matters the most.
I did something similar in this event and and found myself feeling really proud of myself when I did It: I really wanted Viviana to tank Harold in the Ex-8 CM and It turns out she can, but she needs Quercus (or any kind of sanctuary, It can be hoederer backing her up) and a little HP buff (I used eyjaberry, but could be any HP buff, like virtuosa and so on). Harold was hitting 2.9k ish of damage with Quercus, and vivi has 2920 HP at Max lvl. So I was just shy of a few points of HP.
But I digress, the main point here is the proudness I felt when I did It. And It was amazing.
in my head bad operator exist as a prototype for future 5/6 star of the same class as said bad operator
They exist so we have something to actually complain about the game
Also love what you're doing, there should be some pushback against 'Just Surtr it' notions and have people be more open about experimenting with the game
But we already have the base to complain about 🤔
@@marielcarey4288 the only complaint so far being it's still in beta lol
@@sagram0re814 in beta for 5 years sure
People have come to the conclusion already that beta is just a name
No complaints? Hmm...let's see...some 5* being virtually useless and bloating the gacha pool while powercreep manifests in its most severe form yet with Wisadel, not having a sweep function and only recently improving the auto deploy after 4+ years of existence, having 300 spark limited banners and the spark doesn't carry over, modules sometimes making strong units even stronger while weak units barely improve, an overly verbose story that sometimes feels like they're trying to hit a word count target...pretty sure there's more but I think I've made my point.
Experimenting with the game would be great if, y'know, it wasn't a gacha with time-gated resources thus forcing players to choose between focusing on only the most meta units or, well, experiment at the expense of faster progression. I don't blame anyone who chooses the former.
@@WadeWontson some of those are legitimate but some are just nitpicks. The game is built in a way that the meta essentially does not matter since you've got dozens of ways to clear stages. Yes you can just plop in Surtr (or whatever OP flavor of the month) and get it over with, or work with whatever you have
Comparatively the game is probably one of the more generous gachas and the fat lines of texts comes down to preference (skip button is a thing)
I kinda suspect that the various gimmicky 5* are their attempts at experimenting with new mechanics, only to release 6* with a more polished version of said mechanic. Overcharge still sucks tho
Great analysis that addresses multiple facets of the topic and really shows that no operator is truly "bad" by design. Though it seems like your volume's a bit lower than your usual videos haha
the fact that Viviana, who soloed Harold in EX-8 for me, is in the thumbnail
triggered me xD
I spent several hours trying to get Viviana tanking Harold to work on EX-8 CM, and she kept whiffing her shield. Even had Shamare doll dropped between her CDs to keep her alive. I think she’s the perfect example of a functional operator who only looks bad because she gets compared to something better (Surtr).
@@blackhammer5035even in this example, surtr can't do what she does best against Harold. Her time on field would expire before she could defeat him.
Btw, vivi can tank Harold If you give her sanctuary (Quercus is enough) and a bit more HP (I used eyjaberry). Even on her downtime in the skill.
@@blackhammer5035 thats just the thing
Vivi has potentially more staying power than Surtr
but surtr is guaranteed to live for a bit
but unlike Surtr Vivi has a few other options
put her with S1 behind Liskarm for example safe range Arts burst spam
>my Skadi soloing Harold like a G
Abyssal Hunters Master Race
@@eijitoh6252 fishes for life!
I love Spuria. I haven't quite built her up to the level I want yet, obviously my main priority is building a strong and well-rounded squad to take on the toughest of lategame content, but as that "lategame" approaches closer and closer, along with my 1 year anniversary of playing the game, I've been thinking about what's next, how to keep things fun and challenging, and Spuria is talking to me like the Green Goblin mask. I don't even particularly like the Laterano stories, they're some of my least favorites, but something about her design, voice, and the whole mythos around her awfulness makes me want to see her work. It's the same feeling I got when I saw Passenger in the cert shop; understanding that he's a questionable investment, and that he only has a small window of viability, but loving his character so much that I want to find that window. I for one am excited to use Spuria alongside Typhon, and the upcoming Wis'adel, put her to work with Warfarin and Skalter and see if I can create something truly horrifying out of the uncontested worst operator in the game.
Something is labeled "bad" when it doesn't suit your personal choice or preference or in this game, gameplay or playstyle.
And because of personal bias, one will disregard the actual usability of certain operator and shines on certain encounter.
Can we give Hypergryph flak for how they implement modules? They had an opportunity to fix units and buff older ones to become more usable. Instead they focus its implementation on subclasses with a one patch fix all + making the units traits a bit stronger. I also feel like they sort of create modules with a new operator in mind, so you sort of need to get their module.
Yes I saw SUPAH's video recently. Also don't get me started with the modules scarcity.
Yeah this. This 100%. Modules should have been a way to help weaker kits shine. It's not like other gachas can't do this, Neural Cloud (NC) with its Arma Inscriptas have these buffs tailor made for each unit.
Sure, Modules didn't have to appeal to everyone using that unit, even in NC one such buff improved a character's damage when survivability/bulk would have been better according to many players, but at least HG could have ensured that modules would "fix" what made a character seem weaker. They did this with Mostima, they did this with units like Shirayuki with the improved SP charge and Def Ignore to help during downtime (unless you're using S1 and you therefore benefit from the mod at all times)
What we got was generic base module effects applied to all units of that job class, even the likes of Totter or Heavyrain who work very different from units of the same subclass. What we got was some modules that seem completely pointless. It's tragic
What you mean, fix units?! Didn't you see the video explaining that there is no bad operators, just bad spike players? Why fix the vanguard with 2 dp production, this operator is just for another type of player... Why fix the Defender with 1 block that can't receive sp? Just for anyone not you... Why fix the 1 block duelist that receives less damage from units he's actively not blocking!! This is to combo with something else and you just don't understand the game... In summary, game is just fiiiinnnne... /s
Your biggest mistake is to look at SUPAH video, never ever doing that again
Modules were NEVER made in mind of fixing any units (thats what buffs are made for and yes they can happen. I mean it happened once before...).
Modules are made to specialize further your unique aspects of operator, thats why they boost passives with each module buffing one passive.
Sure, some give meager boosts while some get substantial boosts (glaadia comes to mind...), but they always boost existing passives. Saga is simplest example - her passives makes her regen for some time, module.makes regen stronger and last longer.
The basic subclass buff is there but it's secondary, thats why its same buff for both modules that one 6 star gets - its just subclass buff to make it more....subclassy
I feel like people keep parroting these defenses of bad operators, but I feel it's a bit more context sensitive than that: Viviana is a "bad" operator, but at least she does her job well enough, even if her job is a bit niche and slightly strays from the normal archetype's role. Frostleaf can have her ASPD reduction removed and her S@ SP cost reduced by 20% and she'd still be the worst lord, but she'd be a lot more playable for her niche.
Right, I can't even keep track of how many people have jumped in to defend Viviana with the same arguments, but when you actually apply these arguments to practice they feel so useless, as if they are made up advantages.
>and slightly strays from the normal archetype's role.
debatable. Bladeweavers seem more defensive then offensive despite their talent, and likely Astesia is a more common template than Surtr.
For a more indept comparion
* Mousse has a damage mitigation skill
* Astesia has the increase DEF and blockcount
* Surtr has...well her nuke skill, but also her immorality talent
* Candle Knight here has a barrier, an upgrade to Astestia's S2 and a also an upgrade to Surtr's not commonly used S2
Surtr was the outlier here, not Viviana is what I'm saying.
@@Khroniclas This is why sometimes, the gameplay discussion about the operators can be cancerous, it's all matter of trashing or white knighting
@@rezafahlevi9659 Agreed, I feel like there are 2 big groups that just bash eachother for different reasons. Other groups of players must be exhausted from seeing all that bashing constantly.
@@Khroniclas I dunno much about community but Viviana is currently my only main dps/boss killer and I sure as hell am not complaining. Hell I genuinely don't even like Surtr or want her, similar story with Degenbrecher, they just got a one time burst and that's it. Viviana will kill anything trying to get past AND kill the main threat/boss of the stage. I guess my only complaint is the 1 block but my Flametail is always sitting back, slaving for dp with her 2-3 block.
It just sucks when an operator I want to like is bad in gameplay. Like I enjoy their character, their design, their story, but they're so bad in gameplay and I'm not skilled enough to make them work (or at the very least the process of trying to make them work is so miserable to me that I would just give up)
I can predict this video is gonna be quite controversial among people who aren't already a part of my audience.
At least the like to dislike ratio seems superb. Let's gooooooo
Thanks for this vid. It really is crucial to appreciate how different units in games appeal to different players. Expecting all units to be 100% efficient and optimized is a silly expectation, but I get that other players love it when everything is fully optimized and how easy and streamlined that makes things for them
I think you are bretty much on point, I agree with you in 90% of the things you've said, And am sure it well be 100% after the second watch.
The only controversial thing here is the way you pronounce Degenbrecher's name. I enjoyed the video a lot, keep up the good work!
@@_MonochromeMoth Degenbrecher and Skadi lmao
@@_MonochromeMothWell, as a German speaker, her name is pronounced "Dee-gen (the g like again) brie-schair"
I'm perfectly fine if you play like Spike, but damn you don't have to be so annoying about it. Some of them will literally not allow you to enjoy the game because you don't build meta units or roll for broken units and it's been a disease in the community it just makes every operator discussions feels shallow, short-sighted, and ultimately, boring.
I'm sure if you've been watching a bunch of Arknights videos on TH-cam, you've seen one of those guys. The other day I read somebody called Gladiia useless.
To me Spike can be very annoying, but I also see an equal amount of Johnnies if not more Johnnies than Spikes that behave with incredible toxicity as well. People that don't allow you to enjoy the meta, YOU MUST USE MY WAIFU LOSER OR YOU ARE JUST TOO BAD AT ARKNIGHTS. ALSO META ENJOYERS ARE LITERALLY RETARDED LOOK HOW EASY THE GAME BECAME WITH DEGENBRECHER IT IS A JOKE WTF ARE YOU EVEN PLAYING THE GAME FOR NOOB
At this point there are too many people calling operators trash, and too many people calling other players trash for not liking suboptimal operators.
They exists to be bad, meanwhile meta ops exists to be used on every stage and let people complain how easy game is
you got me with the lessing front and center in the thumbnail i clicked so fast to defend my boy. then i saw who made the video lmao
my friend made the thumbnail, sorry for the accidental hatebait???
Please, tell me I won't regret it, when I spend on him my scarce resources.
@@kiszkjmt8564while Skadi is better in every way, Lessing isn't that bad. His s3 does have some legit uses
I wait for a fast redeploy module to make his s2 better 🤔
Don't worry, in my experience you're going to use Lessing maybe once or twice for IS4's second ending and then for about 1 in every 100 stages. (I'm completely out of resources because of him and other "mid" Ops but I regret nothing. My boy deserves some recognition.)
@@theoture732 my comment got removed?? I can't see it at least so imma say it again; he's nowhere near as good as Skadi but he has his uses, especially with s3. I've found decent use with his s3 vs d12 ending 2 IS4
I can't explain how nice it is to find someone sane talking about gacha games. I've somewhat burned out on interacting with Arknights' community (and most gacha communities) because of a lot of reasons, but these sorts of videos always manage to bring back some hope that there are still nuanced takes around in gacha spaces.
I was alive back then 😞
Besides that you make good points with everything
As for my usage for them the challenge man do I love skyfire
Old
I was young like baby back then 😞
i was already 10 years old....
old people, assemble !
I know everyone can freely to choose the ops they want. But i cant forgive dumb people who called them "bad operators" and asking "why they're exist?" without knowing anything.
As we know Arknights is Strategy Games which is mean there's always exist some people who want to challenge their self with hard gameplay. Playing stages with ops limitation, using ops with unique Mechanism, or playing stage with niche squad. Arknights is not only about clearing the stages, but you can combi every operator that you have, clearing stages with ops that people can think "how can these ops can clear this stages?"
Imo bad operators are a dev mistake they don't want to fix. You can see how when many operators get released with experimental stuff, the dev thinks it's good and it fails.
I'm more pissed that hg clearly plays favorites on some characters and factions. Some 5 stars and even 6 stars operators get doo doo for modules. While abyssal hunters get the most broken ass modules and caracters and the in-faction boosts they give is so powerful no other in faction boosts come close to them. Let's also not talk about a year one limited six star getting the most broken LIMITED ALTER. They're not even hiding the favoritism
But if they don't do that then no moneys, so it's a lose-lose situation
you mean wišadel? I dont see problem, if you dont like it why you play it then? Shes not broken shes strong, you can win the game with 4* but if you dont have a brain just use wišadel or full 6* squad. Shes boring, and strong but you dont need it, you dont play against players thats really dumb question, if you are willing to whale for character to win against AI in "fashion" thats totaly up to you.
@@rezafahlevi9659 oh man, Hypergryph is so poor so they need to keep up the favouritism and powercreep to earn money. Poor, poor Hypergryph. Please, they're one of the top earning gachas and regardless of revenue, there's nothing stopping them from doing justice for weaker operators except their own complacence. If a game earning a fraction of what AK earns like Neural Cloud can more or less competently implement post-release buffs (Arma Inscripta) then what's stopping Hypergryph from doing the same? Don't make excuses for game developers unless you don't want them to give their best and don't mind a subpar product.
@@WadeWontson You lost me on the first sentences and that last part about bad products so I wouldn't care at all
@rezafahlevi9659 by that, do you mean you don't understand or don't agree? As for the 2nd part of your comment, I'm not saying AK is a bad product, just that it can and should be better. Keeping quiet about the game's issues isn't going to fix anything.
I'm only in part 1 and will edit comment later, but for now I'm curious about Viviana being in the thumbnail. She's literally the only reason I beat Ice-Cold image in Braving Nature 15 lol. Her defensive nature is insanely useful when a stage gas way too much pressure coming from literally every single side in the stage to the point it's impossible to beat tje stage without stacking foldartals and just not using them at all for the first 4 floors.
I used to be a Spike, but I'm now more of a Johnny. Started a no-six-star account yesterday and it's been so much fun actually building 3-stars and Dobermann, while still being able to use my beloved Leizi lol
P.S. gamepress being down is GOLDEN lmaooooo
Mylnar just stands there and let enemy pass 🥺
11:34 I thought Gamepress' reviews were garbage because they didn't come from the POV of Spike. I remember seeing a S+++ category which sounded like a way of avoiding putting Siege or Ash into F tier by moving the power difference up instead of down
A looooot of people missed the point
I feel attacked when you said “older than me. To the point before I was born” 😭
AYO MY MAN DID NOT JUST SAY LAPPLAND IS USELESS
you're right, i didn't say that. I said she has a niche of which's value is based on the context of the stage.
@@BloopsArknights dw ik i was mostly sarcastic. Also best waifu hands down i will throw hands if you dare say she's bad 😔
@@master_swish hot take: i think she's actually too good for her niche
@@BloopsArknights not a hot take when it's true. I believe she forced the devs to reevaluate the silence mechanic and making it a bit less clear on what can be silenced. I also think as a 5* she belongs in the tier that is still considered really strong. Feels like Hypergryph kind of stopped making strong 5* for the most part. Seems like most are now designed with some sort of flaw for the subclass to then be removed for the 6* equivalent, look at Mountain with brawlers. They just put a +1 block, make it so that his attacks hit all that are blocked, and give him a regen. He essentially is a -1 block centurion with sustain. Lappland would probably be used more if Thorns didn't exist, because her damage isn't bad at all. You just have to sort of play around with her skill activation.
I still remember how i got yelled by a certain TH-camr when he's using Lappy for CC. "You don't know how count damage". For context, she dubbed a secret 6* for her DPS back in the early days. She's only competing against Silver Ash, Blaze, and Hellagur. And being the sole arts guard back in the day, other than Mousse, and Astesia much later.
Eunectes is one of my favorite Operators. I rarely ever get to use her. But the few times I've realized she was a good answer to a problem I was having, I was absolutely giddy at the chance to utilize her. Beating the EX boss stage for both Il Siracusano and Wakes of Vultures by deliberately taking advantage of her single block, and freeing up my Hoshiguma for blocking elite mobs felt really damn good.
It becomes a problem when you have to have multiple operators to do the job a single operator is able to do.
There are operators that clearly were intentionally made to be bad. Spuria is a prime example and even Frostleaf. Frostleaf's module doesn't really do anything other than poor rng freeze and adding a little bit of arts damage. She's still a bad operator no matter how much you sugarcoat it.
There's nothing wrong with making the game harder for yourself but that doesn't mean the operator in question is usable.
This lol
I find it pretty funny seeing people trying to defend bad operator because their ‘niche’ is usable in like two specific stages with that mindset of “There no bad operator,only bad doctor” really grind my gear.
I do enjoy raising and playing with operator with questionable kit bake into them and finding some usage but that won’t stray them away from being absolutely garbage lol.
Interesting video, very high quality but I do disagree. There is definitely bad operators, or at least one bad operator: Spuria. Her whole kit relies on buffing snipers, and yet when given this buff, snipers are given a perctsge chance to stun themselves each time they attack.
Already the main sniper archetype, marksman, are ruled out as they have the fastest attack rate in the game, and with that chance to stun, these marksmen snipers are barely even able to get a chance to attack. The stun lasts for 1.8 seconds and has a 20 percent chance to activate, even at m3.
And even on the off chance you had her, why would you build? She is not given out in the free five star selectors each new player has, and if a new player needed or wanted a buffer Warfarin is much better and much more easily attainable. Even in the lore she has a generic personality, basically Aak but watered down. Spuria even needs a healer to even stay in the battlefield, meaning she is actively diverting resources that could be used for more capable operators. Who exactly does Spuria appeal to? Maybe masochists, but even then. Fundamentally Spuria doesn’t do anything uniques or not already done better by other operators, she was dead in arrival, and I think she by herself proves that there is at least one bad operator.
Yeah Spuria is definitely the only operator that is truly "bad". Her kit is just a mess, her buffing is terrible, using her is awkward. Her kit just works against everything else, it's pretty funny how she escaped development with how bad she is
I love Spuria's design, but I have to agree that she is fundamentally flawed. She doesn't even have the excuse of being underpowered or niche like other "bad" operators. Just using her can actually sabotage your run.
I tested Spuria somewhat extensively with multiple 6* operators and learned her best synergy isn't even with high attack interval ops that can 'ignore' the stun.
It's Platinum. Her talent boosts her strike power when not attacking for up to 2.5 seconds, which Spuria automatically gives via the 1.8 second delay. This allows her to go from chipping moderate to high def enemies to being able to deal more than 2k damage per hit and become a true knight assassin.
The game meta has moved onto consistent and strong buffers but none of them actually reduce attack interval, so Hypergryph may have unintentionally created synergy with a day 1 operator. The problem is that it wasn't advertised with Spuria's kit and more importantly Platinum is so dated as a release op that most of these unique interactions have to be directly tested.
This entire video is exactly answer to your opinion
There are people that find simple insane OP buffs or built in kits are boring
For these people whats the point of playing the game where you could push one button that bulldoze everything
The buff that come with a debuff price is exactly what appealing to them, challenging them to work around or minimize the effect of said debuff in a stage
Someone read the gamepress spuria article made by the biggest Spike there is.
But no, she’s not all bad. Her buff is actually better than Warf’s for ops like Schwarz for example. You just have to account for lower aspd high dph ops.
Also her s1 is a thing. She’s no April, but for a player like me who’s all in on RA and is preparing heavily for RA2 when that comes, I’m building as many ops that have an on deploy skill, and she’s one of the few that has them.
In the end she falls into what the video talks about, just a niche ops for a specific player.
The thing with lower rarity being entrance point, it doesn't always work like that... I've had Robin built for a very long time - my first and only trapmaster - and found her borderline bad, the only great usage opportunities for her were the levels with those energy tiles charging the blue shooting towers - i could charge or regain those towers using her traps instead of sacrificing a deployment slot for an actual operator. Other than that, she was extremely underwhelming. So when Dorothy was realeased it was like easiest skip ever for me. Until one of the IS graced me with a fully built Dorothy to toy around with ( I don't remember whether it was a deep investigation or she was the 0 hope lucky chance, though). Boy, did that make me re-evaluate the trapmaster class 😮.
I have exusai, but I built Jessica anyway because she's the best character
Alter as well
I've tried some of the bad operators other players told me to, and when I did some of them got me thinking "man they lied to me".
11:16 see, this is where you lose credibility and validity of your points. Mistakes happen and they should be called our for. Underbaked goods aren't undervalued, they are just bad and sometimes poisonous. No need to defend incompetent cooks while you could pressure them to finish their cooking process.
Niche =/= useless. That argument defeats itself and has no place in this discussion.
Never imagine someone talking about the psychological aspect of the game, me like.
Or as someone once said: *When everyone's a super...*
If bad operators dont exist, good ones don't exist
RIP Siege who is just the "Here's what a pioneer is supposed to be" and a 6 star.
Fantastic analysis. Hope this moves mountains in the community.
6:03 He said it, he actually pronounced it correctly: “Exusiai”, not the commonly used“Exia”
I agree with almost everything said in this video, BUT, as a 4* only player i must say, that the problem with Verdant is not that his kit is sponge-oriented and lack DPS, is that he does not bring ANYTHING new to the 4* team. As SG once said, he is literally Beanstalk's crab but worse. We already have arts sponges like MH, Beanstalk, Gummy and most of the time its not efficient or fun to use Verdant cos he doesnt do anything besides being a sponge (and he is at most mid in his role), Gummy can heal, MH cant hold 4, Beanstalk can print DP and she is overall uniqe and universal (her module is the best of 4* period). What i love in 4* is that they are not OP, but their kit is much more interesting than 3*, every one of them can do at least 2 things good (Jaye - dps + heal, Meteor - anti-air + debuff, Mousse - debuff + dps, etc), but Verdant is just a sponge, his playstyle is way to passive
A fellow "Johnny" here~
This community really needed this video. It is honestly ridiculous that this is what's considered "controversial", really says a lot.
The hate some players so commonly spew out loud is so discouraging to others who want to do something different other than following a trend. It's always "these are bad" and "those are good", never "just play the game the way you feel is most comfortable". Whether you play with Meta operators or not, there is no need to shame others for their playstyle. This is Arknights, where you can beat practically most things, by just playing how you want to. You don't need to be Spike.
We are all on the same boat and playing the same game. Might as well enjoy each others company. ✨
Great video, but you missing one point.
Arknights is not the game where it's cheap or fast to build units making it basically resource management game. Throw this mind-numbing aspect or make it easier and bam even "bad" operators now have chance to shine.
I personally want to build and play with niche characters, but if I invest in them most certainly I'll rob myself of rewards and resources, making the grind of building characters even more painful.
In other words the whole point "the niche is alright, there are no bad ops" are coming from relatively long time players that already have squad that can beat stages if ease allowing them to dive into niches, becatthey are not losing anything. If they can't beat with picked niche, they always can grab old reliable and "cheat" or "skip" stage to get rewards and move on.
I'd wholly disagree. You dont need to minmax your resources at all to progress in Arknights. I've only been playing for 11 months and all I do is upgrade operators I find fun. Yeah these upgrades dont push you towards the end game, but I and some other players, dont want to rush to the end game. I'm fine with grinding cuz I dont feel pressured to reach the end asap.
honestly, i really cant take the term 'bad operator' seriously because people clear max risk CC with E0 operators of all 'quality'. there is no bad operator, just people who don't want to learn how to use them- saying this as someone who personally tries to clear arknights stages the easiest way possible because I'm more interested in character lore than anything else, and i don't have the braincells to use hard units lol
Alright then, we shoud change the term "bad operator" to "underwhelming"
@@wickeddave5148 fine by me! underwhelming does indeed have a different meaning than bad.
They r bad, just because people can use them it doesn't mean they r not bad, u can beat a souls game naked with fists using bongos as a controller lol
@@xZeke97 I feel like you're just proving my point here. I wouldn't say "bad" but moreso "challenging" or hard to use. I don't think any operator is legitimately without use except for maybe Spuria, and even then some people have figured out some strange niches with her. But sure, if you'd like to call every operator that makes the game BabyEasyMode for you good, go ahead !
@@wickeddave5148 suboptimal is a better term
I think the reason overall bad characters in game exist is because of their niches not being viable, bluently to high of a cost or there are just to many better options that they fall short of where they place, its naturaly normal for powercreep to one day make a character not as viable as they were but sometimes its also because the designers arent carefully designing said Operator for me the best example is Nightmare, her Niche is either healing which is dumb because nowhere would you use her in terms of healing and damage over Reed Alter or any Medic at all, heck imo Ansel or Hibiscus before that role because its their core niches, mixing niches doesnt always work but on rare occasion they do but then its not about the niche but more about what rlse they offer, for that my best example is Kal'sit, no one brings her for her healing, rather they use her for her insane Damage due to Monster, the Core factor for her is damage and not her core nich in box which is being a medic and heal, Operators nowadays just offer many things more that make them viable like for long times because they can do many things at once ans they are good at it, Saria even to this day I would argue is Top 15 best Ops even because of how versitaile she is and how good she is, tank? Can do, heal? Can do, Block? Can do, support? Can do, SP Battery, definitely. Thats why operators these days are considerad bad, its because they fell out of their niche, have a contradictory Skill set, more better or cheaper options or they arent very versityle.
On the one hand, I really do not think I agree with the idea of "good" being subjective in cases like Quartz, I think she is genuinely awful in terms of her capabilities, and while I dont think efficiency = fun, I DO think its unreasonable to say "operator is good because I have fun with them". HOWEVER, uninformed hating is not helpful for anyone, so I'm gonna check your Crusher video to see what you have to say about them before I make a judgment.
Yeah sorry man. The first 4 minutes threw me away because I didn't agree at all. The one thing I've always loved about arknights is how different operators have their own niches meaning that most of them aren't bad, it just depends on use case and what overall strategy you want to use.
Even within the same classes like thorns, qiubai, silverash, arene, midnight.. they all are fairly balanced between each other. Arknights isn't super competitive so the meta balance that normally exists is a bit looser (we don't keep track of win percentages for certain ops). Also, meta doesn't define what ops can be good but rather design of stage gimmicks which can make any operator good. However, there are still some ops that are severely outclassed and need to be fixed. Angelina being one of them. This video mainly targets issues of ch'en, irene, and degen, but they all have niches especially during ss when sp gen is eliminated but you want a nuker.
For arknights it isn't a big deal for other games it matters more. Thus, I disagree and think the game can be rebalanced but with modules only affect talents and not character redesigns,...
Edit: just want to note, lessing and Viviana are fine. Vigil, Angelina, spuria, etc. Just need some help to make them fit better in specific roles
Kino background gameplay, showcasing exactly your arguments in real time. Also your point of Verdant not designed to carry lategame makes me thankful that HG still designs baby kiddo stages in every event before ramping it up to the EX stages for the proper status of the game. Still would not make me shy away from calling Verdant bad or at least underwhelming but i know now Arknights is partly a chill game and other part sweaty challenging.
Also also a point you did not touch upon is Bad characters being those that does not work as advertised, due to HG's RNG fetish or undertuned numbers. Notable nominees being Spuria, Frostleaf, Kjera, Franka, might be more but that's what sticks to my mind. Spuria is already extensively discussed in other comments here and there.
Frostleaf is advertised as this ranged guard that can slow. Neat. Except the slow is tied to her offense skill that requires several hit before the slow that means the intended target will already be closing in and the slow is irrelevant, and the slow is instead for another target, or the abysmal skill 2 but sure you can have plan around it for consistency. Oh the module? You mean 25% chance to slow at lvl 3 module? Like her kit does not show up in the game most of the time due to bad skill cycle or bad RNG reliance, that if you peel her kit away which is easy, she literally is just Midnight. That is my bar for bad ops, ops that is too are to have their kits matter that they just become a standing stat stick comparable to their weaker less star counterpart.
Franka? She is just Melantha when her RNG skill does not proc. Kjera? Trust me i love and use her in IS3 a lot cause stun and frozen is needed for the flying guys, but her frozen is just another RNG proc chance, she is just Click when the freeze does not hit. GOD HG LAY OFF WITH THE RNG BULLBULL AND JUST MAKE IT ONCE EVERY 3 OR 4 ATTACKS.
And then there's Warmy who's S2 literally can't work in the current roaster
there are always going to be a bad operator but its all came from each player perspective and those are not the same with each person.
earthspirit S2 have synergy with gitano S2, their skill duration and downtime almost similar.
savage S1 work great with relic on IS that increase damage to X% for 1 second like spinach, the other centurion that have this skill is only blaze with S1 but i doubt people even raise that skill over S2 or S3.
nice video!!!
I started playing AK at the R6 collab, with all the E0 and E1 starters operators were my 1st fully leveled operators. When I was not dependent to a friends' 6-star, I have to maximize everything with what little I have on most stages. Heck, Tachanka was my 1st E2 operator along with Frost and Blitz with underpowered medics... It was HARD to crowd-control and maintain lines with heavy enemies. Learning about buffers and debuffers, using Myrtle S2 was my ground support medic on early annihilation stages, and other mechanics is still enjoyable for a TD game or a Gacha game even. It is hard, but it still enjoyable.
that maybe the reason that I never touched my Ling even after Pot-3 here, but I have to build here for harder late game someday.
Reminding myself Verdant is a subpar 4* even in 4* niche eventually surprised me to great length when I found a nigh perfect niche for him in RS-EX-8. Since Harold moves so slowly, with a bit of CC, Verdant can stall Harold for quite a long time. To make it better, Verdant's substitute has a 3x3 attack range and really tanky defensive stats, making it quite good at helping to reignite the emergency heaters.
Imo most bad operators are good, But there are still operators who are better than them.
As someone once said, “whatever operators you have is your best operators.”
If everyone is super, no one will be.
:V
There are no "bad" operators. And yes, that is followed by "there are only bad 'Docutahs,'" but it's even more than that.
There's a diverse range of operators, with all manner of abilities and uses. Not all of them will be useful to all Docutahs, but some Docutahs will find certain operators more useful than you find them, and can build strategies around them. There are some great operators that I, personally, have no use for. They simply don't fit my strategies.
I keep hearing in the community that Vigil is a "bad" operator, and i just find that funny. He's one of my favorite vanguards, aside from a few personality quirks. He Fits My Strategies. I freaking _love_ the Tactician archetype.
Conversely, I almost never use guards. I have Degenbracher, but I haven't even E1'd her yet. The only guards I'm using right now are Lapland and Cutter, and Degen will eventually replace Cutter (someday, I guess).
There are no bad operators just bad doctors
" Quote from supah, i think "
Nah, Supah hates people who said that sentence, he literally made a video to dunk on people who said that
how can you say bad operators don’t exist when myrtle single-handedly ruined 90% of vanguards on release?
Gauging whether an operator can be considered "good" or "bad" has always been a contentious point to me because every individual has their own standards to befit this definition. It's almost a matter of semantics in a game where nobody has to abide to ridiculous standards to get to experience almost every piece of content in the game without too much effort. As long as creative displays of strategy exist to defeat what is considered "difficult" over a very long period of time, I think it's a fairly safe assumption to say that nobody is truly "bad" to an irredeemable degree, this already forms a divergence in what I think it means.
There is some nuance to apply since my own definition of good boils down to "In how many scenarios is this operator the best answer to x or y problem, and how much effort do you need for it to work ?"
If the answers are "Not many" and "A lot", there is a chance that a part of this answer contains a scenario where the "worse" operator may shine brighter than the one who brings the solution in one of them. This is all extremely hypothetical and I absolutely suck at expressing myself, but I hope the idea can be conveyed somehow.
At the end of the day, I myself do not appreciate how some people push forward the Spike way of playing over everything else - it encourages not to explore what could be a good door of entry to fun ventures and instead incentivizes to do something that's been "recommended" over another opinion that may not belong to both parties involved.
well if all operators are "good" operators then that would take away the fun factor of the game...
having bad operators doesn't mean it's all "bad", it just adds more diversity for the players to pick their own strats and playstyle... also, it's a single player game...
I think they gotta chill out on making so many ops because most are gonna be OP. They should update how the actual game works, looks and plays, finishing the base would be a good start. Maybe making the Main menu look better with more customization and just making the game look so much smoother and clean.
The longer I play the game the more I realize just how low my bar of "Bad" is.
I hear someone say "This Operator is bad" and I instantly build it and go "This dude's fine. Why do they think they're bad?"
Personally if the enemies die and allies live that's all that matters to me.
(Especially if it's fox-shaped allies.)
To be fair "bad" is subjective. A character can have a personality or design that doesn't suit your tastes.
When it comes to gameplay a "bad" character can be too versatile and/or not do 1 thing as well as other characters.
I'm going to use Elden Ring as an example since I played it recently. A bad build for me is one that does less than 500 damage per hit. I can beat the entire game using an un-optimal dagger build which is one of the objectively lowest dps setups in the game and it nets me 300-500 damage. Using every other setup allows me to beat the game significantly easier.
In my friend's opinion a setup that deals 800 damage is considered bad so he optimized his build to the point where he deals over 2,500 damage in an instance.
Sometimes the powercreep is too high and some games have bosses that take like 20 minutes to beat but certain setups can do it in a few. 0 to 3 star ops I think makes sense to be weak but 4 stars and higher can have MASSIVE differences even within the same tier so niches and team comps have to make up weaknesses.
If they can't solo Patriot they are bad/s
if there are no "bad" operators, then you should probably use a different word then "bad".
I'd like to call them "underwhelming"
Wait why do you pronounce Skadi’s name like that?! That sounds vile 😭
And I resent having Viviana in the thumbnail. I know why you did it but I feel like I have to present a whole slideshow to defend why she isn’t bad when people say that LOL
that is just how i say her name. I am aware it is unpopular, but its comfortable for me.
A nice, fun, and casual oriented analisis. Not every Doctor HAS TO PLAY TO THE MAXIMUN EFFICIENCY, nor every operator has to be THE NEXT BEST BROKEN THINGY.
Also, in my opinion, there are "bad" operators, but in the sense that maybe they're expensive to use, do to little for what they are, etc.
Does that mean that "since the operator is bad, you are bad for using/enjoying it"? Hell no, and I know what I'm talking about, I use Minimalist
Im pretty sure that with enough brain you can clear the game with 4 stars and 3 stars only but since im bad af I ofc feel 4 stars arent that great
As in all games, strong and weak characters coexist to make you appreciate the strong ones
in my personal clumsy regards, id use them to challenge myself
"Its not about BAD operators, its about BAD doctors who cant use operators properly" - Probably SUPAH
Also in all honesty
There is just no bad operators if you have brain and have other ops that can work with each other then the sentence "why BAD operators?" Will not exist for you
But if your like me no Brainer and no other good ops build the concept of "BAD operators" will exist for you and me
i main shining people call me crazy i just find it fun man
Personally I like lying to myself and saying they’re just sadistic monsters and like creating horrible characters to test ideas while creating good characters that people will like but hate playing also great video!!!
At times those bad Operators are the one that will carry you until you get your own meta Operators
my bigger quesstion is:
why does Lessing, a 6*, have a generic Power Strike as S1...
Blaze and Silverash do too. And Lessing one is unironically pretty strong
Having self imposed restraint and playing with bad ops is pretty fun once in a while
I love these videos
Not quite correct with the 4* s. -3* s and lower are definitely along the lines of 'simple and align closely with the core basics of the class,'- but when you get to 4* s... this starts getting muddy. Chestnut is one of those that is awkward because his kit is a little *too* unique. Indigo also diverges a little with Mystic Caster. Humus as well is also awkward and hyper niche, with him almost being designed purely in consideration of a certain 6* existing. Totter with invis ignore with damage bonus but lack of any type of targeting priority. There's definitely a few 4* s with fairly unique kits that diverge a bit from their "basic core class design," though I wouldn't exactly say the point is entirely wrong either
Then you get the random Yato in 2* that is seemingly the wrong class... and the 3* free recruit vanguard from IS that is purely an exception that should not be counted
[Edit: Actually, scratch that -- completely wrong even in regards to the 2* s - we have 12F and Durin. Those where the OG ranged RNG dodge units for mechanics. So... the entire 'lower rarity is closer to the core mechanics of an archetype' is just... wrong.]*
Then you get the 4* s that outclass their respective 5* counterparts due to kit designs and use considerations. But that's a whole 'nother thing that isn't relevant to the whole 4* s diverging from core basic class archetype
Personally? I go with the "it is what it is" mentality. Some units were designed very well and strong, while others appear to be prototype experiments to see how things can potentially fit. Crusher archetype with Quartz is an example of the first unit of a new archetype maybe not being quite there design-wise. Iris is another. Leizi was the first Chain Caster and was also not quite there yet as a unit. Then you get a lot of niches afterwards. There also also examples of niches being presented first as well, such as Rosa with heavy unit target priority with defense ignore for heavy units
Niches and synergies are pretty important in my opinion. Stuff like Stainless get rated not as highly due to that, but he is *pretty strong* with a number of units that are deemed underwhelming (namely Aosta, but Ethan S1 also fits) and fills a number of roles and ignores specific annoying mechanics
Then there are the specific stage and enemy mechanics that certain operators trivialize. Ceylon is one of those units that is considered "garbage" because she doesn't constantly give Resist to heal targets, but she is one two units currently that gives resist to all units in range of skill - which proved to be a lot more useful than people would think with the constant full-map chill status for units outside of heaters during that one event. Nian S3 was the other skill that gave Resist for all units in range and was also not rated all that highly, as far as I am aware. I probably don't need to explain why Ebenholz S3 is good, right...? And despite its specific use case, there are people that don't rate it highly because "other operators do more" with wide area DPS that will also kill the boss quickly (but won't skip mechanics because it doesn't one-shot or skip some HP thresholds mechanics). There are few niches that bypass stuff, then many others that do a slightly better job in certain scenarios than other units (Eg. Broca is considered not very good because Blaze and Specter exist, but he does much better than them when it comes to enemies with high defense and low Res due to his ability to switch to Arts damage - but that's why you get a ranged Arts DPS unit to cover, so... meh.)
For Arknights, a lot of the mentality is that... if you can't find a specific use case for a unit where it might excel over other similar units, you probably aren't looking hard enough. There are some cases where there really isn't anything going for the unit at all, but those are *extremely* rare cases. Meta is meta for a reason, being that they will cover most of the scenarios very well and better than most operators. But they aren't necessarily the very best for the specific job/role 100% of the time in every stage. They just do it well enough to pass so you never notice nor realize there was a better option for that particular scenario -- but you never needed that "better" option for that particular situation, because a pass is a pass. And it is always the hardest stages that you will have a much harder time replacing those Meta operators. That's why they are meta and why you'll find them as core parts of most teams. And it is usually the same units over and over again because they do their jobs that well
Different views, different opinions. The point is to just agree to disagree.
I love weak characters just the same because I love their story or it makes me think more, and I love strong characters when it gets too hard and I need someone to decimate enemies.
Viviana is still the best 😅
5:38 sometimes I just want to min-max my brain usage. Specifically, minimizing it lmao
9:10
Bruh
The only thing this fish has is +% to her stats. What's overwhelming here?
Yeah, she's the shrimpleist 6 star there is. it'd be better to compare her 'information load' to 5 stars heh
Her Fast-redeploy nature, probably?
I do think there is an issue with bad operators who can’t do what they are intended for. Vigil and Spuria are in an entirely different category of Bad due to this.
Regarding the the RS event gacha characters. That's exactly why I use Degen in SSS or late game IS and keep Leto permanently in my default squad
Also, lol. Skaydee
I see your point, but what is my boy Vigil doing here 🧐. He's isn't bad, he's a good boi!
I have been trying to explain people the utility that Kirara offers. She may not kill, but in this video you can see she does as much damage or even more than the rest of the ops. On top of that, at 8:59 you can see how enemies with single special attacks or ammo will just waste it on her, instead of rest of your team.
The usual argument is “but negative taunt”, just place her away from the team.
Best punching bag ❤.
Seeing Kirara tanking like a champ all those arts drones by herself makes me smile ❤
Every useability gets beaten, if I don't like looking at an operator. I just don't think Degenbrecher is pretty. And the moment they give me an equal replacement for Mountain, I would ditch him.
Not related but that Annihalation stage is soooooooo nostalgic
There's no BAD operators, Vigil, for example, would be good member of vanguardnights strategy because he can deal range arts damage, Lessing is good has nice damage and can be tanking range damage or be unstoppable force. I don't protect operators, I just want to say one thing: We DO need operators like that because it's a new strategy or way of playing
Personally, I keep an eye out for "bad" or "weak" operators so I don't lose out on resources. I've been playing for a while but I'm very frugal with my mats, I will not build someone / get masteries / get a module unless I will definitely use it. Operators like Surtr and Texalt are so generally good that masteries were an easy choice, someone like Firewhistle though, her masteries kinda suck.
As for why they exist, it's probably because the desiginers just need to make some kind of kit for them without powercreeping old ones I assume, but honestly we need more good 5 stars, too many are mediocre.
If HG want to play smart? Beside reclamation alg....
Why not make gamemode where you can only bring operator teams yes teams not just one let say 3 teams different set up... Now play it like IS yes rogue but you can't pick the operator you already choose on the other teams and opposite too and if one teams lost then you were ban to pick that operators to other team roster
Therefore bad operator can be alternative, funny is azurlane did this and it was kinda fun😅😅 what if it was for grinding mats to craft module blocks? I heard many players has issue in this so why not make a gamemode like this and only to get that mats piece like originium shard that you can craft to make module blocks (and of course, limit how many mats you can get let's say??? 50 mats and need 4 mats to craft one module blocks) but hey that's just a theory
if everyone is good operator, no one is good operator
MTG PARALLEL VIDEO AGAIN LETS GOOOO
The main thing this video ignores is first the investment cost factor but do tackle it in a future video.
The 2nd thing is even among operators spike (gamepress) consider good there is already stupid amount of depth. Tell me you can go to gamepress and what they consider A tiers and above and have explored all of them, you cant! they are so many operators in only what they consider A tier and above that it will take years and years to explore their uses and the things that makes them tick.
Even if I am a spike it doesnt mean im only using chalter and mlynar, but last week i used typhoon, this one im using ray, the one before im using exu the one before im using blue poison the one before im using etc etc etc. the list goes on and goes on, the depth pool of operators in arknights is infinitely deep.
I am doing more of IS lately so im building a lot more 4 star operators and even then the depth of the good 4 star operators is super long, it will take me FOREVER to build them all, so yea i could explore into seeing what makes verdant good or i could explore "why is may considered good", or lets see what pinecone can do, I had great results doing this and im having a lot of fun using new operators whenever i can build them.
Hmm, i was thinking those operators must be bad by design because it helps people to scale.
And people who scales, are the one with limited resources, or at least always thinking that way.
I'll be honest, I will raise all of them if i have unlimited resources.
There's no reason not to enrich myself with multitude variation of tools. No matter how niche it is. Even duplicates in utility could be useful.
There are no bad operators, just operators who can't solo a stage in a team-based game.. and bad team composition which came from bad doctors
I use verdant for tanking the sarkaz magician that shoot fireball in IS, no fireball pass near my operator lol