Arknights: Should You Pull? Standard Banner: Ifrit and Phantom

The new Standard Banner features the following Operators:

Maybe. Both 6★s are pretty good.

Ifrit and Phantom both have terrific potential and are very close to being “broken”-tier Operators. They have awesome utility—Ifrit has her murderous debuffs and great range, Phantom has his Fast-Redeploy status, his clone, and his on-deploy abilities. On the other hand, they each have little ways in which they can be finicky to use: Ifrit with her range and DP cost, while Phantom has to juggle two deployment slots and disparate redeploy timers with rising DP costs.

Pulling may be worthwhile it if you don’t have either 6★, since both are good Operators. The 5★ roster is not as appealing, but we’ve had worse lineups too. However, with the Unstrained Liquor, Pellucid Heart limited banner likely around the corner, players will want to make sure they know their pulling priorities and spend or save accordingly.

As with all banners, a 5★ or higher Operator is guaranteed in the first 10 rolls. Should you pull for that? No, but again, it’s not because the units are bad. (Except Swire. Swire is pretty bad.) Firewatch is an interesting tech option and Mulberry is very effective, albeit usually unnecessary in comparison to store-bought Operator Honeyberry.

Burninator/ Blast Caster

+ Usual archetype strengths: High ATK, a very long-range “straight line” attack range

+ Does so much damage that she can contribute even if she can only target one square on the field

+ Debuffs the defensive stats of enemies, helping your entire team burn them down even faster

+ Her S2’s DEF debuff and her S3’s RES debuff are flat stat reductions, which are VERY powerful

+ Good uptime on her Skills

= “Straight line” attack range can allow her to contribute from faraway positions that other Casters could not function from, but can also greatly reduce her effectiveness on maps that don’t have a good position for her

- Usual archetype limitations: high DP cost, slow attack speed

- S3 cannot damage flying enemies

Fast-Redeploy/ Executor Specialist

+ He gives you two Fast-Redeploy units for the cost of one Squad spot (him and his clone)

+ Versatile Skills allow him to provide damage avoidance/ soaking, burst DPS, or AoE crowd-control

+ Has the highest DPS of existing Fast-Redeploy Specialists, making him the best Fast-Redeploy assassin (especially if you can drop his clone on the same target)

- Typical archetype weaknesses: stats are unimpressive compared to other 6★ Operators

- He and his clone both cost DP, so he can burn through your DP quickly if used repeatedly

- His clone has a longer redeployment timer than he does, so the clone isn’t always available when you want it

Long-Range/ Deadeye Sniper

+ Usual archetype strengths: Wider attack range than most Sniper archetypes, high base ATK, prioritizes low-DEF enemies

+ Her Talent deals bonus damage to ranged enemies

+ S1 is a rare defensive Sniper Skill that makes her Invisible (not targetable and doesn't take damage) with great uptime; it's perfect for safely taking out ranged threats from otherwise-vulnerable positions

+ Massive AoE and ST burst damage potential with her S2

- Usual archetype weaknesses: Slow attack speed hampers her DPS despite her high ATK

- S2 is slow to charge, and getting maximum damage out of it takes skill, luck, planning, and Mastery

- Strong for specific use cases, but they are not common, and she's not as great for general use

Support Guard

+ Longer attack range than most Guards, allowing her to attack from behind other Operators (but she can’t hit aerial enemies, so watch out for that)

+ Buffs ATK of all nearby melee Operators; soups up her buffs using her Skills

+ Can Block-2, attacks quickly, and has a low DP cost compared to other Guards

= High DEF but low HP

- Without heavy investment, her Skills have very short durations

- S2 has the [Attacking Enemy] SP charge type and a ridiculously high SP cost to go with it, so it takes a VERY long time to charge

- Her Talent only buffs melee units, but placing several melee units within her range can be difficult on some maps

Wandering Medic

+ Usual archetype strengths: Not only heals HP but also removes Elemental Damage that allies have suffered; larger healing range than most Medic archetypes

+ Talent increases ATK of all Medic Operators when Mulberry and at least one other Medic are on the field

+ S1 charges very quickly, holds multiple charges, and greatly increases the amount of HP and Elemental Damage restored by her next heal, resulting in surprisingly high HPS

+ S2 greatly increases Mulberry’s rate of healing, changes her targeting priority to “ally with the highest Elemental Damage,” and causes all allies in Mulberry’s range to take less Elemental Damage for the duration

- Usual archetype weaknesses: Very low ATK (comparable to AoE Medics), so her HP healing is very limited

- The fairly comparable Wandering Medic Honeyberry is currently available in the Red Certificate store

- All of her utility is related to Elemental Damage, so she loses a lot of value on maps without this mechanic

Ifrit has a unique attack range, heavy AoE Arts damage (potentially with damage-over-time after her initial hit), and very strong DEF and RES debuffs. All of this makes her a remarkably potent addition to a team. However, her straight-line attack range makes her tricky to deploy well on some stages; furthermore, she suffers from a high DP cost and a slow attack speed.

On the plus side, Ifrit works around these limitations better than the similar AoE Caster archetype due to her strong Skills. As long as Ifrit can hit at least one grid on the map, her high damage per hit and lasting debuffs can be enough to make her worthwhile. And with the sheer length of her attack range, she can usually get that one grid of coverage without too much trouble. She’s definitely better suited for maps with long straightaways that she can take advantage of, but that’s not all she can do—not by a long shot.

I don’t exactly recommend pulling for Ifrit specifically, but she’s extremely worth raising if you pull her.

Phantom is an inversion of the Phantom from The Phantom of the Opera. While Erik the Phantom was terrible to look upon but had the voice of an angel, Rhodes Island’s Phantom is a debonair bishounen whose Originium-warped voice inspires madness in those who hear it. After being deployed, Phantom can craft a clone of himself that deploys with the same Skill that Phantom is currently using. Enemies don’t just have one stalling, Stunning, assassinating Phantom spiriting across the field: they have to deal with two.

Phantom occupies an odd niche in Arknights. In terms of Fast-Redeploy units, Gravel is better at stalling, and Projekt-Red’s Stun debuff has no element of randomness attached (unlike Phantom’s S3). Phantom’s strength is his burst damage, but there are many other units (i.e., DP-on-Kill Vanguards) that can fill the same role.

The key advantage these other options lack is Phantom’s Fast-Redeploy time, especially with the duality of his clone. Not only can Phantom drop on the field more times per capita than a DP-on-Kill Vanguard, but his clone can do the same. When you need to assassinate enemies on different parts of the battlefield (i.e., any map that has predeployed enemy Casters), Phantom and his clone can do the job like nobody else.

I recommend pulling for or buying Phantom. You don’t need him to win maps, but he can be extremely convenient to have around.

Firewatch is great fun to use because of her S2, which drops multiple warheads onto the field for big explosions and even bigger damage. If luck drops the bombs close enough to each other, the multiple blasts can rack up mindboggling damage on their targets! And while her S1 is often overshadowed by her tactical air strikes, it’s a rare defensive-oriented Sniper skill that makes her Invisible (meaning she can't be targeted by enemies nor take damage from them, even splash damage). With this Skill, Firewatch can be deployed in vulnerable places to take down high-threat ranged enemies safely, which can be a very valuable service in the heat of battle.

In specific situations where her eclectic abilities shine, Firewatch can be a great Operator. For more general use, however, Firewatch isn’t as effective. Her regular attack hits hard, especially on ranged enemies (her Talent increases her damage against ranged enemies), but her ASPD is so slow that it neuters her DPS into the ground.

I don’t recommend pulling for Firewatch, but she can be a useful tactical option if you pull her.

Swire is both fierce and fabulous, but unfortunately, she’s also a little flawed. Her Talent offers an ATK buff to nearby melee allies and her Skills increase the power of this Talent quite nicely, but the buff isn’t usually enough to compensate for Swire’s own low DPS. In cases where you really need to maximize the melee damage in a particular area, Swire can be useful, and her long attack range allows her to contribute from behind the units she wants to buff. However, in most cases, you’d probably be better off fielding another DPS unit instead of relying on Swire’s buffs.

I don’t recommend pulling for or buying Swire.

Mulberry became a Catastrophe Messenger against her family’s wishes, but it was all worth it for the day she overheard her father bragging about how proud he was of her accomplishments to the neighbors. This timid wallflower may not seem like somebody who would keep her head in a crisis, but you may change your mind once you see how stabilizing her healing influence can be during an onslaught of Elemental Damage.

Mulberry is an extremely good healer, but she’s also very comparable to fellow Wandering Medic Honeyberry, who is currently available in the Red Certificate store. Honeyberry tends to be worse at healing HP than Mulberry, but she is very comparable for recovering Elemental Damage, especially when multiple Operators are being simultaneously affected. Mulberry is probably still better overall, but the margin is not large enough to be worth the resource investment compared to Honeyberry’s Red Certificate cost.

I don’t recommend pulling for Mulberry. She’s very good, but Honeyberry can usually do the same job.