Croissant

“My name's Croissant, and by golly yer in luck, Baws! Ya won't find many as good at their trade as I am! I'm strong, last forever, 'n if ya hire me right now, ya get a 20% discount!”

Casual, carefree, and coin-obsessed, Croissant brings her complacent attitude and her considerable strength to Rhodes Island as a 5* Defender Operator. In addition to her crazy durability, Croissant dabbles in a few part-time odd jobs, including Pushing enemies and even a little team support.

Croissant supplements her top-tier HP and DEF with her Miracle Field Talent, which gives her and any adjacent allies a chance to resist incoming damage, be it Physical or Arts. Her Skill 1, Auto Defense, increases her DEF and the activation chance of her Talent. The Skill’s automatic activation means it cannot be timed, but the long duration and short cooldown help to make up for this. Skill 2, Magnetic Hammer, is her big-payout Skill, pushing enemies away from her in all directions and Stunning them for a few seconds. Using Magnetic Hammer, Croissant can serve the same Pushing role as a Specialist like Shaw while also being an immovable tank.  Be careful when using this Skill, however, as enemies can easily be launched in unintended directions!

Unfortunately, Croissant does have some shortcomings compared to a pure tank or a pure Pusher. Magnetic Hammer doesn’t help Croissant to mitigate damage and Auto Defense is not guaranteed to be used when you need it, so she can sometimes struggle as a tank. Meanwhile, she costs more DP to deploy than most Push Specialists and can only be deployed on ground tiles, which sometimes limits her pushing options. Magnetic Hammer also has a long cooldown, so she may not be able to push enemies as often as you’d like. That being said, all Doctors need good Defenders, and raising Croissant gives you both a good Defender and a Push Operator – a two-for-one deal! How can you say no?

Skill	Mastery	Story	Advanced	Roguelike
	S1M3	B-	B	B
	S2M3	None

Croissant is a somewhat unusual unit when it comes to priorities. The gulf in power between the rarities is much lower across the Protectors than it is among other archetypes. It’s for the same reason that Protector priority has historically been somewhat low. Tanking is often a matter of diminishing returns. An E1 Cuora is good enough in a majority of the game, so why invest into the more expensive options? That leaves Croissant in a somewhat awkward gap where the cheaper options are usually just as good, while also not justifying the costs of the best available option like the higher rarities.

All that said, Croissant is still an amazing bulk blocker. With her Module and S1 Masteries she has a very high DEF and a very high Dodge chance on a very good uptime. With just minor amounts of luck, she can even be bulkier than Nian or Hoshiguma in spots! While she is neither the optimal Protector, nor the most cost effective, she is a very reasonable consideration still.

Although ungraded, consider her S2 as well if you plan to invest into Croissant. It is quite a bit more situational. It doesn’t help her bulk and the high Defensive Recovery cost can make it unreliably available. However, it is also quite fun, and if the Defensive Recovery can be abused, makes for an interesting alternative. It gets a Shift force increase at M3, which is always at least worth a look.

Note that the Roguelike grade is specific to IS#4, where blocking is particularly valuable. In the older Roguelike iterations, Protectors are much less valuable.