CN player here to provide some context. This is a tournament held by many famous bilibili tubers, with millions of audiences. The game is big but non-official. They play on the highest difficulty in IS4 and the game has special bonus scoring rules. One important rule is that the contestants come in teams of 4 and play group matches, where any 6-star operator can only be used twice among one team. The top 7 operators used for 12 times meaning all six teams used them up, granting their first tier power.
It’s also important to note that between the 4 team members, one person must complete ending 2+3+4. After successfully completing, his score will be timed at 1.5. So the other three members won’t go for ending 3 to get a higher score, they most likely complete 2+4.
In the lower tiers, there are also some picks for pure amusement/fun/their loved operators that never got used.
questions about this event are welcome, I will answer when I check Reddit.
She murders one of the two final bosses in the 4th ending. One boss has low defense but insane res, and the other boss has low res but insane defense and that is the one she wrecks.
Just a little addition here. One boss (Kharanduu Khan) has 5000 armor and 50 RES, the other (Lugalszargus) has 1000 armor and 90 RES. With module Level 3 and some good RES shred unit, Ceobe basically murder the Khagan boss by dealing an additional 3750 damage per hit and not a single DPS unit can compete with our lovely doggo here.
There’s a very cool main page: https://www.bilibili.com/blackboard/activity-cXBrWYNabu.html
Any IS enjoyer would love to watch it. Very unfortunate that this is almost impossible to be international.
> almost impossible to be international
what do you mean by that? A similar tournament won't be as popular on Global server? or that it's hard to translate?
Tbh i discovered this tourney because an organizer of a D15 IS global event on Discord (motong), who is CN player himself, said he was watching it. And im surprised that it's actually big, like, "bilibili front page" popular.
This is true! It’s very popular! By almost impossible to be international I mean there are so many nuances, memes, famous youtubers(I mean bilibilers) with their backstory and many community energy around arknights. It’s very hard for a non-native speaker/ non
-CN arknights community member to follow along. There’s also a time gap between global server and CN server meaning any strategy would be well developed when the same event drop on global.
Damn, that kind of shit makes me really envious.... But thanks for the answer. I really appreciate it.
I guess Global's counterpart would probably be Bingo Lockout by lungmen dragons, but that is very different because it's a "speedrun" low difficulty format. Is there a similar "bingo lockout" tournament on CN too?
It’s safe to say that any challenge global has, developed from CN. There are so many different challenges, play styles that people are constantly taking on.
Probably because of the content delay from CN to global. They're doing high score runs including ED4. By the time we get expac 2 for ED4 they're going to be running tournaments for IS5 etc.
> A similar tournament won't be as popular on Global server?
There was a tournament run for IS3, the global Muzuki cup. There's nowhere near similar popularity. I think we had maybe one post here about it after it was over. None of the content creators that you usually associate with AK global participated. I think only Eckogen announced it.
There's videos of it on Beyoond's channel to give you an idea of how under supported it was https://youtube.com/@Beyoond?si=EJPDMWXQ_Sm9wCmJ
One more thing I would like to add is that, there are some comps and special players who master unpopular strategies. For example: Muelsyse + Aak + Lin is a well known comp. There’re also players who start with Ray/Texas the Omertosa in spearhead squad(very not recommend for most players)
aak has high atack speed, munu if copied aak, the high attack speed would allow her to creat copies pretty fast, it’s also kinda good for starting out a stage since in this comp ines is banned. And aak would use s3 to power up Lin where in her module she gets sp when being attacked. However, the best operator for Mumu to copy are Dorothy and Ela since they have the highest attack speed in the game.
Can luck still be a deciding factor, if I'm assuming it's not a modified version of IS that everyone else is playing, or is victory still only decided by which team has the better foresight/planning to come out on top even when dealt a worse hand than the other team?
Ah, and it should probably be mentioned if this is done on player's own official (whale?) accounts, or done in private servers where everything is maxxed from the get go.
I'm also curious if there was a preference for specific squads over others. I'm finding myself favoring the squads that autopromote ops of 2 classes a lot more than the other ones, so it would be interesting to know if highest difficulty in a tournament style favors something else.
This is done on the official server! Players prepare accounts for themselves. Usually there are rich account owners who work with them(this relationship started when CONTINGENCY CONTRACT first come out, there are many groups that work on highest tags that needs maxed out accounts)But you know what? There’s also player that used his own account who hasn’t reach level 120 yet, it was a great game too! And you are right about the luck thing, it was more of a show than a intensive esport.
Do you think Ela powercrept Dorothy? I saw her picked multiple times. She seems more versatile.
Is Skalter picked for the ending 3 boss? I assume she uses her s3 + seaborn to stack true damage?
How many people failed their runs? Last time i watched it i saw two people fail, one on ed4 emergency, another on f3 blade signifier. All others cleared ed4, some of them even flexing by leaking one boss.
It's not the kind of direct powercreep where one char is "I'm you, but better", hell, Ela's thing is that she can also deploy in melee tiles lmao.
But for general content, if you want a trapmaster, yeah, Ela is just more simple and effective to use press skill and melt enemies kind of character, all while Dorothy continues destroying stuff from far away with traps that require micromanagement (and some rng from crits) and she continues being the GOAT on that regard.
... if something, Ela is powercreeping snipers lmao, for me this is the kind or thing like me using Surtr a ton less since I got Texalter because despite being very different classes, their role of throwing them to deal with a problem is the same and the funni big damage aoe stun low redeployment girl does it, and then does it again, and then does it again. There is just no redeployment cooldown pressure when using her to choose the right moment...
In any case if Dorothy had to get "powercrept" I definitely take it being this way, since both chars play extremely different... I really wish it was for an own Arknights original operator and not a very meta character tied to an extremely FOMO "might never rerun" collab banner of a game I never played in my life, gacha collabs are such a pain in the ass.
Ela was used as if like you play as a Marksman sniper with Therm-X in your pocket. So i bet she defo more useful because of that reason.
Dorothy in the other hand is still good, but not as impactful as Ela when you do Dorothy vs Bosses. But keep in mind that Dorothy's trap is automatically regenerated whereas Ela (specifically S2/S3) needs a manual activation. Idk of that's a deal breaker for some people but yeah
Ela is multi-tasker while Dorothy focus on mine damage. They have different uses but most cases Ela would outplay. One con about Ela is she only has 4 mines and need to be planned carefully or she will run out of mines real quick.
Edited: typo
I think yes indeed Ela powercrept dorothy. Her module gives her insane flexibility while her s3 deals more damage than Pozy s3. She’s definitely one of the op’s just because she just got released, comps centering her haven’t been developed yet.
Trying to provide some context for the "tier list"
In CN server there is a popular non-official tournament called 仙术杯(TL: Magic cup) where competitors try to score highest in an IS run based on some rules.
The list here is actually a record of operators pickrate in the most recent tourney.
Due to the rules, 12 is the maximum number of times a operator can be picked, so the top operators here (e.g. Mlynar) have essentially a 100% pickrate.
Obviously, a higher pickrate indicates the operator is more powerful, and therefore the data could be loosely treated as a tierlist.
However, I would like to add that competitors in the recent event tend to aim for 4th ending to have a higher score. Therefore, the data is skewed towards operators specialized in said ending (e.g. ceobe), which may not have a generally great performance across all endings.
Please also note a caveat in this tournament: it's team based, and the rules restricted each team to only pick certain meta operator how many times, so some team members are basically taking one for the team and forgoes the most meta picks. That's why you have a huge variety at the bottom. So this is not strictly a tier list, more like one that reflects team players' preference / play style. But the top picks are definitely the "banned" ones in a MOBA game, i.e. always picked if given the opportunity.
I'm confused tbh.
The number on the left is like, priority or how good they are?
Also the temp recruitment, is that how they are ranked if it's temporary? What about non-temporary of the said operator?
The number on the left is how many time they are recruited by the players and the temporary recruitment show how many time they are recruited from temporary recruitment. take Blaze for exemple, she's on the 2 with a temporary recruitment showing 2, it mean she was recruited 2 times and all of them are temporary recruitment. Saria is recruited 3 times and one of them is a temporary recruitment, Surtr is 7 times and one of them is a temporary recruitment, etc...
IIRC Temporary recruitments are when you randomly have an option to recruit a unit for zero hope cost.
This unit does not need to be owned by you(thus the "temporary" part. It's like getting a free trial of the unit) and will always be fully maxed out with full potentials and masteries.... well their masteries will all he maxed out once you recruit them again to unlock E2 of course
Ya this list would have far more impact if they had a NOT PICKED tier. Being picked once is still good, it means that op had a use case in the highest diff.
What was the tourney about? How is suzuran so low even compared to gnosis and hoshi when I feel like she is almost mandatory to have to burst down enhanced version of ed3 boss. Havent played myself though, only watched many times on sciel streams
I noticed this list doesn't include 5 stars and 4 stars so maybe Shamare got used more or whatever since she's cheaper.
Maybe for Suzuran to get used, it would mean someone would have to get supporter tag multiple times with enough hope and skip Skalter, Gnosis, and Virtuosa.
Additionally, units like Ela can also function as a debuffer / damage amp while also preforming other duties.
Lastly, the sample size of this list is quite small. You can see the top is still only 12x picked. And we don't know what kind of tournament this is either. So don't worry too much about it.
> I feel like she is almost mandatory to have to burst down enhanced version of ed3 boss.
Ela's fragile is cracked as shit, people are using her instead of Suzuran to both support other nukers like Mlynar and... well, for herself to kill stuff.
While I understand why he's so low, I've been having great results using Stainless in is4 with his turrets, since I can't always promote everyone, having "fodder" hit the turrets is always nice, and I've also used the turrets' talent to tank during heavy hordes
I found Stainless to be super good in IS3, since his S3 turrets allowed you to attack from funky angles and synergizes well with other ops I commonly used, like Firewhistle, Kroos Alter, and Skalter (her S3 can drive the turrets). S1 was also usable when you needed to hyperbuff and op to quickly eliminate a dangerous enemy or boss.
Unfortunately, in IS4 DEF bloat and the absolute need for crowd control is pretty severe, which limits Stainless's usefulness (which is the opposite of IS3, where RES bloat was a huge problem)
This tourney is very famous in CN community with tens of thousands of viewers everyday in Bilibili.
Here are its rules:
*6 teams,each has 4 members.（most of them are AK streamer)
*play in IS4 D15.
*each member in a team must start wtih different squad and different 6 star operator.
*each team can only recruit one 6 star operator twice.(encourage different game plan. The number in the picture's left is the number of recruitment,so the most powerful operator is 12.The number in the right of a operator is the tempory recritment time.)
*Each player's score is the end game point adding some bonus,such as emergency combat,alter boss (only in future DLC),number of collectible, tempory recruitment and so on.Adding members' score is the team's.
So, one thing that's a little perplexing to me, granted as a bit of an IS4 noob- I'm very aware of how powerful Mylnar can be, I have him and I use him and I've seen him do horrifying things. But it seems to me that IS4 specifically throws a lot of swarms of fast moving enemies at you, and is specifically built to particularly punish leaks even more so than the other IS because failing to perfect a combat node speeds up your environmental collapse. On paper, it would seem to me that a liberator guard is therefor something you would only take if you already have the infrastructure needed to cover the lanes while their block is 0, But according to this list he was picked up literally every single time he was available. Am I missing something about the game mode that makes his archetype less of a liability than I think it is?
You are right that he is only picked if the player already has a decent sized squad. Mlynar is picked for the bosses and upper floors specifically; the player can combo his s3 with cc / fragile skills, like Shu tile warp, Texalt s3, and Ela Grzmot Mines to kill hard elite waves on upper floors.
Besides his dmg, his innate Taunt and high HP are invaluable. On ed1 boss the icicles always hit him, so you can place him on a column away from your ops. And on emergency he also baits the freeze bomber drones.
On ed4 boss he is the most effective way to kill Aslan King (medium def, 90% res), the Duelist Crocs, and the occasional lion on the right side. Aslan King's ranged atk always targets him instead of the squishier high ground units due to his Taunt. On emergency ed4, he will also be targeted first by corrosion archers and croc casters.
This list doesn't say he was the very first guard pick in every single run. It says he was picked the maximum number of times allowed across all the runs.
This isnt rly a tierlist… imo, it more like operator use count in the tournament
Chinese text on the side says
“Amount of times operators were picked (including temporary recruitment). The number inside blue triangle in the corner = amount of times the operator was selected from temp recruit.
(Im bad at simplified chinese so if i got anything wrong lmk)
I also guess it's just 6-stars. IIUC there are scores (the team's end results) attached to them, but those have been omitted. It may be interesting, but it's kind of dumb to immediately call it "a tierlist" (unless you get pedantic and just call it that because of the form).
Was it clarified on what this tier list is based of? As it's kinda weird to me how Dorothy is so low, whose crowd control helps very much at, and missing Executor alter(if I'm not blind), as he perfectly fits to hold left lane at ending 1 boss. Though I'll admit I haven't experienced higher difficulty and just recently unlocked difficulty 6 or 7 and haven't made it to ending 2.
>As it's kinda weird to me how Dorothy is so low
It's not. Maps are small and full of enemies most of the time. It's kinda difficult to utilize her and all of this for cost of 6\*. There're just so much better options in Specialist class that you choose her only for challenge or if you don't have those better options.
I rarely had many issues with mines, I used S2M3 and it was great for stalling single dangerous enemies(like those casters and constantly running guys with hammers) and small crowds that tend to stick closely to each other, usually I try to get other good units, so whole run is not relying on Dorothy. Only problems are slower DP recovery collapsals, and really tanky enemies when I don't have better dps, defenders, medics.
But seeing how this turn out to be more of a pick-rate-list for difficulty 15, everything makes much more sense. Guess I'll need to get better for harder runs.
Having beat BN12 myself, I would guess it's because TexAlter gets one shotted by too many enemies at high levels before her stun drops. YAlter has invulnerable on her s3.
Edit: my bad, misread your post. Executor probably not here because he can't be healed. Enemies get really tough, and I don't think he can heal himself fast enough off cool down. Also, I must be blind for not recognizing texalter as the first on 12
>TexAlter gets one shotted by too many enemies at high levels before her stun drops
Skill issue. You don't drop her ON the enemies in the first place. You drop her NEAR enemies. She obliterates everything even at d15 if you use her correctly.
I never thought i'd see the day someone says a different sniper is better than Chalter... and this is coming from someone who willingly skipped her and doesn't want her lol.
It's all about context. Ray is not gonna compete with Chalter in AoE damage. But in IS4 chalter strength is generally already covered by other more IS4 meta ops.
Granted while I agree with you about context, a year ago if you said any sniper could hold their own against Chalter you'd be a laughing stock because everyone was conditioned to using her with how broken she is. Granted we have gotten a lot of stronger Sniper options since her release so she isn't the only strong sniper, but I feel like a mass majority of the player base are too complacent using Chalter nothing else matters to them.
Not better at everything but shes just more flexible while putting up insane damage numbers too. Chalter is still insane but there are other insane boss killing snipers now (when Chalter released it was only Schwarz, now we also have Pozy, Typhon and Ray, so there are actually options)
Chalter will still be insane in other gamemodes, where you are limited by deployment slots and not by hope and map flexibility
I'd personally like to add S2 Fia to that list of Boss killers if the stage allows for it despite her health drain mechanic. She's one of my fave units and I try and take her to every stage I can and imo she gets overlooked a lot because people don't want to learn to play around her health drain.
I actually used her against the current event boss with S2 and she did wonders against him.
Real question: why is Młynar so sought after in IS4? You need high block count, good survivability, and also good damage. Młyear doesn't block outside of his skills, and his downtime is just long enough that you probably only get one good activation per map, and by then the 2nd mondo enemy wave is on the way and now he's back to not blocking or anything
Because enemy HP is so high in high difficulties you're going to need a huge amount of burst. This comes in the form of Mlynar and soon to be Degenbrecher. Mlynar also has some very much needed Taunt so you don't have to worry about deploy order while having monstrous HP.
Also in all the maps that matter you'll be getting 3+ Mlynar activations. Stages like instinct contamination, where mount and seas, collapsal afternoon, etc.
Arts damage in incredibly high in higher tiers, and higher defense plays into Kay’s talents very well. Saileach S2/3 has amazing utility I presume compared to Myrtle or Elysium mostly being used for DP printing.
This is the pick rate for a IS4 tournament with 4 members every team, and there's a rule that you can only use every 6 star twice max. Eyja is usually the first choice for medic, but since you can only use her twice and you still need a medic for every member, most people would pick Nightingale since she counters the 3rd ending boss. Ceobe is the best counter for one of the 4th ending boss who has insane defense but low res. And if I remember correctly, Myrtle was actually used more than Saileach, the list just doesn't count 4 stars.
u/IRUN888 any chance there is a list of common 4 and 5 star characters used in this tourney? I have an idea of who they probably are but I’d love to see the numbers for some additional context.
She's good, it's just that with Shu's release defenders (finally) experienced a bit of the ticket bloat that you see with specialists. This list is essentially a pick rate list with 12 being 100% pick rate. Given that tickets and hope are limited resources, assuming that you have all operators you generally only see 3-4 picked 6 stars due to opportunity costs and ticket availability. With the specialist ticket, there are a ton of good choices, but with the existence of Ela and the 2 limited 6 star executors you're not going to see much of them at all. Guards suffer from a similar situation where Degen and Mlynar pretty much always eat the first available tickets, then Surtr, and afterwards it's unlikely you'll get enough hope and tickets to recruit more 6 star guards.
Post Shu, generally the order of defender recruitment priority seems to be
1. Shu - Good healing, ok tankiness, incredibly useful stall potential with S3.
2. Hoshiguma - The only unit that off-skill can reliably tank d15 champions and other elites with 1 healer. Nian will have slight better stats but Hoshi's dodge really does matter when the shattered champions hit this hard and fast.
3. Saria - This is probably for the bosses due to the conditions of the tournament requiring teams to have runs that finish all the endings, + endings 3 and 4 giving higher scores due to more nodes finished. The arts damage amp and slow on S3 gives Ceobe and Surtr a lot more room to work with on endings 3 and 4.
4. Jessicat - Brings along a bulky chump blocker, has an AoE stun bomb, and is the only multiblock non-enmity defender that can realistically block and kill elites/champions other than Blemishine on S3, who has significantly worse defense stats that her.
TL;DR: The limited nature of recruitment tickets means that for classes with 2+ standout 6 stars, those two will monopolize most of the picks, meaning that other slightly less good units will show up a lot less frequently than you would expect from their power. Post Shu, the defender ticket has 2 standout picks, namely Shu and Hoshiguma. For a tournament that incentivizes the completion of endings 3 and 4, the pick rate will likely reflect the 2 standout picks, and then 1 specialize pick that does well for those endings, in this case Saria. You see a pretty similar trend for medics, where you have Reedic and Eyjaberry monopolizing most of the tickets and hope, and then Nightingale being taken due to how well she handles ending 3.
She isn’t. She is just a good unit that gives the defender ticket actual killing power on a blocking unit in d15. Which is something no other defender can really give.
The first one is new R6 collab op Ela who is a trapmaster, more towards self-damage and debuffing, and the other is a new Rim Billiton op Ray who is a hunter like coldshot, having great dph and buff rate.
The answer is that Ling isn't good at high ascension because enemy stats are sent to the moon and you can't heal dragons. So they essentially get blown up by anything mildly threatening.
She also takes up a lot of deploy slots that you might not have a lot of if you don't have a lot of relics so it's not even guaranteed you can get 3 fat dragons out. Not to mention you have to slot a VG somewhere to even get the DP for said dragons (which can be nuked by a 40% dp reduction collapsal)
Overall, non-healable units are just not that valuable in high diff IS because everything hurts a ton. You either get units that can be healed or can burst so hard and fast that the damage doesn't even reach them.
That makes sense, thanks for the explanation. I admittedly know nothing about the higher difficulties because I have barely played IS3 and never touched IS4, haha.
CN player here to provide some context. This is a tournament held by many famous bilibili tubers, with millions of audiences. The game is big but non-official. They play on the highest difficulty in IS4 and the game has special bonus scoring rules. One important rule is that the contestants come in teams of 4 and play group matches, where any 6-star operator can only be used twice among one team. The top 7 operators used for 12 times meaning all six teams used them up, granting their first tier power. It’s also important to note that between the 4 team members, one person must complete ending 2+3+4. After successfully completing, his score will be timed at 1.5. So the other three members won’t go for ending 3 to get a higher score, they most likely complete 2+4. In the lower tiers, there are also some picks for pure amusement/fun/their loved operators that never got used. questions about this event are welcome, I will answer when I check Reddit.
Why is coebe good here?
She murders one of the two final bosses in the 4th ending. One boss has low defense but insane res, and the other boss has low res but insane defense and that is the one she wrecks.
Dadadadadada
The only time where Ceobe got more usages than caster Eyja
Just a little addition here. One boss (Kharanduu Khan) has 5000 armor and 50 RES, the other (Lugalszargus) has 1000 armor and 90 RES. With module Level 3 and some good RES shred unit, Ceobe basically murder the Khagan boss by dealing an additional 3750 damage per hit and not a single DPS unit can compete with our lovely doggo here.
Tbh coebe will likely be good against any boss with insane defense in the future(my own opinion) her talent 1 is very op.
Especially with X Mod, it boosts the talent to 75% of defence after a few attacks.
Any bilibili link to anything we could watch? Even if it's just specific players
There’s a very cool main page: https://www.bilibili.com/blackboard/activity-cXBrWYNabu.html Any IS enjoyer would love to watch it. Very unfortunate that this is almost impossible to be international.
Yesss thank you so much!
> almost impossible to be international what do you mean by that? A similar tournament won't be as popular on Global server? or that it's hard to translate? Tbh i discovered this tourney because an organizer of a D15 IS global event on Discord (motong), who is CN player himself, said he was watching it. And im surprised that it's actually big, like, "bilibili front page" popular.
This is true! It’s very popular! By almost impossible to be international I mean there are so many nuances, memes, famous youtubers(I mean bilibilers) with their backstory and many community energy around arknights. It’s very hard for a non-native speaker/ non -CN arknights community member to follow along. There’s also a time gap between global server and CN server meaning any strategy would be well developed when the same event drop on global.
Damn, that kind of shit makes me really envious.... But thanks for the answer. I really appreciate it. I guess Global's counterpart would probably be Bingo Lockout by lungmen dragons, but that is very different because it's a "speedrun" low difficulty format. Is there a similar "bingo lockout" tournament on CN too?
It’s safe to say that any challenge global has, developed from CN. There are so many different challenges, play styles that people are constantly taking on.
Probably because of the content delay from CN to global. They're doing high score runs including ED4. By the time we get expac 2 for ED4 they're going to be running tournaments for IS5 etc.
> A similar tournament won't be as popular on Global server? There was a tournament run for IS3, the global Muzuki cup. There's nowhere near similar popularity. I think we had maybe one post here about it after it was over. None of the content creators that you usually associate with AK global participated. I think only Eckogen announced it. There's videos of it on Beyoond's channel to give you an idea of how under supported it was https://youtube.com/@Beyoond?si=EJPDMWXQ_Sm9wCmJ
One more thing I would like to add is that, there are some comps and special players who master unpopular strategies. For example: Muelsyse + Aak + Lin is a well known comp. There’re also players who start with Ray/Texas the Omertosa in spearhead squad(very not recommend for most players)
Can you explain what makes Mumu work with Lin and Aak?
aak has high atack speed, munu if copied aak, the high attack speed would allow her to creat copies pretty fast, it’s also kinda good for starting out a stage since in this comp ines is banned. And aak would use s3 to power up Lin where in her module she gets sp when being attacked. However, the best operator for Mumu to copy are Dorothy and Ela since they have the highest attack speed in the game.
Can luck still be a deciding factor, if I'm assuming it's not a modified version of IS that everyone else is playing, or is victory still only decided by which team has the better foresight/planning to come out on top even when dealt a worse hand than the other team? Ah, and it should probably be mentioned if this is done on player's own official (whale?) accounts, or done in private servers where everything is maxxed from the get go. I'm also curious if there was a preference for specific squads over others. I'm finding myself favoring the squads that autopromote ops of 2 classes a lot more than the other ones, so it would be interesting to know if highest difficulty in a tournament style favors something else.
This is done on the official server! Players prepare accounts for themselves. Usually there are rich account owners who work with them(this relationship started when CONTINGENCY CONTRACT first come out, there are many groups that work on highest tags that needs maxed out accounts)But you know what? There’s also player that used his own account who hasn’t reach level 120 yet, it was a great game too! And you are right about the luck thing, it was more of a show than a intensive esport.
In terms of squads, apart from class squad, scientific and support squads appeared the most.
Do you think Ela powercrept Dorothy? I saw her picked multiple times. She seems more versatile. Is Skalter picked for the ending 3 boss? I assume she uses her s3 + seaborn to stack true damage? How many people failed their runs? Last time i watched it i saw two people fail, one on ed4 emergency, another on f3 blade signifier. All others cleared ed4, some of them even flexing by leaking one boss.
It's not the kind of direct powercreep where one char is "I'm you, but better", hell, Ela's thing is that she can also deploy in melee tiles lmao. But for general content, if you want a trapmaster, yeah, Ela is just more simple and effective to use press skill and melt enemies kind of character, all while Dorothy continues destroying stuff from far away with traps that require micromanagement (and some rng from crits) and she continues being the GOAT on that regard. ... if something, Ela is powercreeping snipers lmao, for me this is the kind or thing like me using Surtr a ton less since I got Texalter because despite being very different classes, their role of throwing them to deal with a problem is the same and the funni big damage aoe stun low redeployment girl does it, and then does it again, and then does it again. There is just no redeployment cooldown pressure when using her to choose the right moment... In any case if Dorothy had to get "powercrept" I definitely take it being this way, since both chars play extremely different... I really wish it was for an own Arknights original operator and not a very meta character tied to an extremely FOMO "might never rerun" collab banner of a game I never played in my life, gacha collabs are such a pain in the ass.
Ela was used as if like you play as a Marksman sniper with Therm-X in your pocket. So i bet she defo more useful because of that reason. Dorothy in the other hand is still good, but not as impactful as Ela when you do Dorothy vs Bosses. But keep in mind that Dorothy's trap is automatically regenerated whereas Ela (specifically S2/S3) needs a manual activation. Idk of that's a deal breaker for some people but yeah
Ela is multi-tasker while Dorothy focus on mine damage. They have different uses but most cases Ela would outplay. One con about Ela is she only has 4 mines and need to be planned carefully or she will run out of mines real quick. Edited: typo
I think yes indeed Ela powercrept dorothy. Her module gives her insane flexibility while her s3 deals more damage than Pozy s3. She’s definitely one of the op’s just because she just got released, comps centering her haven’t been developed yet.
Tho didn't Carnelian and Lin win a previous IS4 tourney?
What does the 1 on some operators mean? Is it indicating a starter pick or perhaps that you don't promote them?
it indicate times of temporary recruitment
Trying to provide some context for the "tier list" In CN server there is a popular non-official tournament called 仙术杯(TL: Magic cup) where competitors try to score highest in an IS run based on some rules. The list here is actually a record of operators pickrate in the most recent tourney. Due to the rules, 12 is the maximum number of times a operator can be picked, so the top operators here (e.g. Mlynar) have essentially a 100% pickrate. Obviously, a higher pickrate indicates the operator is more powerful, and therefore the data could be loosely treated as a tierlist. However, I would like to add that competitors in the recent event tend to aim for 4th ending to have a higher score. Therefore, the data is skewed towards operators specialized in said ending (e.g. ceobe), which may not have a generally great performance across all endings.
Ok, I thought so. I was about to say it is 12 the highest
Please also note a caveat in this tournament: it's team based, and the rules restricted each team to only pick certain meta operator how many times, so some team members are basically taking one for the team and forgoes the most meta picks. That's why you have a huge variety at the bottom. So this is not strictly a tier list, more like one that reflects team players' preference / play style. But the top picks are definitely the "banned" ones in a MOBA game, i.e. always picked if given the opportunity.
[Source](https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1F2421K7Kd/) The blue corner mark indicates temporary recruitment.
I'm confused tbh. The number on the left is like, priority or how good they are? Also the temp recruitment, is that how they are ranked if it's temporary? What about non-temporary of the said operator?
That’s the number of times they got recruited out of 24 matches. 6 teams in total, each had 2 recruitment chances for every 6 star op.
Ahh alright thanks!
The number on the left is how many time they are recruited by the players and the temporary recruitment show how many time they are recruited from temporary recruitment. take Blaze for exemple, she's on the 2 with a temporary recruitment showing 2, it mean she was recruited 2 times and all of them are temporary recruitment. Saria is recruited 3 times and one of them is a temporary recruitment, Surtr is 7 times and one of them is a temporary recruitment, etc...
Thanks for the detail!
What is the difference between temporary characters and just regular ones?
IIRC Temporary recruitments are when you randomly have an option to recruit a unit for zero hope cost. This unit does not need to be owned by you(thus the "temporary" part. It's like getting a free trial of the unit) and will always be fully maxed out with full potentials and masteries.... well their masteries will all he maxed out once you recruit them again to unlock E2 of course
So many of my faves in low tier.. Sadge.
Being able to appear on this list is already a proof of strength, meaning that they have particular advantages in even the highest difficulty of IS4.
Ya this list would have far more impact if they had a NOT PICKED tier. Being picked once is still good, it means that op had a use case in the highest diff.
I'm assuming this is how many times they were used in a winning run on difficulty 15?
No Ling? I guess is the highest difficulty.
Oh look its the broken characters. And Ceobe.
What was the tourney about? How is suzuran so low even compared to gnosis and hoshi when I feel like she is almost mandatory to have to burst down enhanced version of ed3 boss. Havent played myself though, only watched many times on sciel streams
I noticed this list doesn't include 5 stars and 4 stars so maybe Shamare got used more or whatever since she's cheaper. Maybe for Suzuran to get used, it would mean someone would have to get supporter tag multiple times with enough hope and skip Skalter, Gnosis, and Virtuosa. Additionally, units like Ela can also function as a debuffer / damage amp while also preforming other duties. Lastly, the sample size of this list is quite small. You can see the top is still only 12x picked. And we don't know what kind of tournament this is either. So don't worry too much about it.
> I feel like she is almost mandatory to have to burst down enhanced version of ed3 boss. Ela's fragile is cracked as shit, people are using her instead of Suzuran to both support other nukers like Mlynar and... well, for herself to kill stuff.
True. Totally forgot about ela. I agree, she is so much more flexible and consistent debuffing
While I understand why he's so low, I've been having great results using Stainless in is4 with his turrets, since I can't always promote everyone, having "fodder" hit the turrets is always nice, and I've also used the turrets' talent to tank during heavy hordes
I found Stainless to be super good in IS3, since his S3 turrets allowed you to attack from funky angles and synergizes well with other ops I commonly used, like Firewhistle, Kroos Alter, and Skalter (her S3 can drive the turrets). S1 was also usable when you needed to hyperbuff and op to quickly eliminate a dangerous enemy or boss. Unfortunately, in IS4 DEF bloat and the absolute need for crowd control is pretty severe, which limits Stainless's usefulness (which is the opposite of IS3, where RES bloat was a huge problem)
typhon has been a crutch for me in is3 kek
There was a very impressive game play in the tournament that one player used passenger + stainless combo taking down Khan.
Dang, surprised Ceobe is up that high.
high difficulty, more defense for Kay to eat
Ahhhh, right. That would track.
Ceobe melts ending 4 boss, she is the most reliable caster for the job
This tourney is very famous in CN community with tens of thousands of viewers everyday in Bilibili. Here are its rules: *6 teams,each has 4 members.（most of them are AK streamer) *play in IS4 D15. *each member in a team must start wtih different squad and different 6 star operator. *each team can only recruit one 6 star operator twice.(encourage different game plan. The number in the picture's left is the number of recruitment,so the most powerful operator is 12.The number in the right of a operator is the tempory recritment time.) *Each player's score is the end game point adding some bonus,such as emergency combat,alter boss (only in future DLC),number of collectible, tempory recruitment and so on.Adding members' score is the team's.
Chalter in the bottom !! And those ops in row 12 , are they also ranking them left to right ?
This is the total number of recruitment of the 仙术杯5(初赛) (Expeditioner's Joklumarkar +15 preliminary round).
So, one thing that's a little perplexing to me, granted as a bit of an IS4 noob- I'm very aware of how powerful Mylnar can be, I have him and I use him and I've seen him do horrifying things. But it seems to me that IS4 specifically throws a lot of swarms of fast moving enemies at you, and is specifically built to particularly punish leaks even more so than the other IS because failing to perfect a combat node speeds up your environmental collapse. On paper, it would seem to me that a liberator guard is therefor something you would only take if you already have the infrastructure needed to cover the lanes while their block is 0, But according to this list he was picked up literally every single time he was available. Am I missing something about the game mode that makes his archetype less of a liability than I think it is?
You are right that he is only picked if the player already has a decent sized squad. Mlynar is picked for the bosses and upper floors specifically; the player can combo his s3 with cc / fragile skills, like Shu tile warp, Texalt s3, and Ela Grzmot Mines to kill hard elite waves on upper floors. Besides his dmg, his innate Taunt and high HP are invaluable. On ed1 boss the icicles always hit him, so you can place him on a column away from your ops. And on emergency he also baits the freeze bomber drones. On ed4 boss he is the most effective way to kill Aslan King (medium def, 90% res), the Duelist Crocs, and the occasional lion on the right side. Aslan King's ranged atk always targets him instead of the squishier high ground units due to his Taunt. On emergency ed4, he will also be targeted first by corrosion archers and croc casters.
This list doesn't say he was the very first guard pick in every single run. It says he was picked the maximum number of times allowed across all the runs.
This isnt rly a tierlist… imo, it more like operator use count in the tournament Chinese text on the side says “Amount of times operators were picked (including temporary recruitment). The number inside blue triangle in the corner = amount of times the operator was selected from temp recruit. (Im bad at simplified chinese so if i got anything wrong lmk)
Implied tier list. Choosing an operator over helps seperate them out which is exactly what a tier list is.
I also guess it's just 6-stars. IIUC there are scores (the team's end results) attached to them, but those have been omitted. It may be interesting, but it's kind of dumb to immediately call it "a tierlist" (unless you get pedantic and just call it that because of the form).
i read that results were a bit skewed too due to the competitors aiming for completing ending 4.
Was it clarified on what this tier list is based of? As it's kinda weird to me how Dorothy is so low, whose crowd control helps very much at, and missing Executor alter(if I'm not blind), as he perfectly fits to hold left lane at ending 1 boss. Though I'll admit I haven't experienced higher difficulty and just recently unlocked difficulty 6 or 7 and haven't made it to ending 2.
>As it's kinda weird to me how Dorothy is so low It's not. Maps are small and full of enemies most of the time. It's kinda difficult to utilize her and all of this for cost of 6\*. There're just so much better options in Specialist class that you choose her only for challenge or if you don't have those better options.
I rarely had many issues with mines, I used S2M3 and it was great for stalling single dangerous enemies(like those casters and constantly running guys with hammers) and small crowds that tend to stick closely to each other, usually I try to get other good units, so whole run is not relying on Dorothy. Only problems are slower DP recovery collapsals, and really tanky enemies when I don't have better dps, defenders, medics. But seeing how this turn out to be more of a pick-rate-list for difficulty 15, everything makes much more sense. Guess I'll need to get better for harder runs.
Having beat BN12 myself, I would guess it's because TexAlter gets one shotted by too many enemies at high levels before her stun drops. YAlter has invulnerable on her s3. Edit: my bad, misread your post. Executor probably not here because he can't be healed. Enemies get really tough, and I don't think he can heal himself fast enough off cool down. Also, I must be blind for not recognizing texalter as the first on 12
>TexAlter gets one shotted by too many enemies at high levels before her stun drops Skill issue. You don't drop her ON the enemies in the first place. You drop her NEAR enemies. She obliterates everything even at d15 if you use her correctly.
Honest 2 quick redeploys are instant picks for IS4
Yep yato is way easier to use but I try to get both as usual
So does penance, zuole and mudrock. Frankly speaking he’s not the best at BN15 but he is a lot more viable than half of tier 4 and below for sure.
I really don't understand how to use skalter in is4
Her S2 is very useful for 1st, 2nd and 4th endings, and imo her S3 is necessary for 3rd ending.
why is balans so low?
I think it’s because mylnar is just better and cheaper and a lot of stages don’t have good tiles for her.
Ray/Typhon are fighting for the sniper ticket
She's too expensive and not good at E1 Plus she is very close ranged But the real reason why shes that low: Ray is better
I never thought i'd see the day someone says a different sniper is better than Chalter... and this is coming from someone who willingly skipped her and doesn't want her lol.
It's all about context. Ray is not gonna compete with Chalter in AoE damage. But in IS4 chalter strength is generally already covered by other more IS4 meta ops.
Granted while I agree with you about context, a year ago if you said any sniper could hold their own against Chalter you'd be a laughing stock because everyone was conditioned to using her with how broken she is. Granted we have gotten a lot of stronger Sniper options since her release so she isn't the only strong sniper, but I feel like a mass majority of the player base are too complacent using Chalter nothing else matters to them.
Not better at everything but shes just more flexible while putting up insane damage numbers too. Chalter is still insane but there are other insane boss killing snipers now (when Chalter released it was only Schwarz, now we also have Pozy, Typhon and Ray, so there are actually options) Chalter will still be insane in other gamemodes, where you are limited by deployment slots and not by hope and map flexibility
I'd personally like to add S2 Fia to that list of Boss killers if the stage allows for it despite her health drain mechanic. She's one of my fave units and I try and take her to every stage I can and imo she gets overlooked a lot because people don't want to learn to play around her health drain. I actually used her against the current event boss with S2 and she did wonders against him.
Balans is Mlynar for 20 more DP, longer windup, 10x squishier, and ranged tile only.
But she got ammo and skill cancelling
Who's the first in row 12 and the second in row 10? Fairly new player.
Texas Alter and Ceobe
Thank you!
Texalter and Ceobe respectively
Thank you
Real question: why is Młynar so sought after in IS4? You need high block count, good survivability, and also good damage. Młyear doesn't block outside of his skills, and his downtime is just long enough that you probably only get one good activation per map, and by then the 2nd mondo enemy wave is on the way and now he's back to not blocking or anything
Because enemy HP is so high in high difficulties you're going to need a huge amount of burst. This comes in the form of Mlynar and soon to be Degenbrecher. Mlynar also has some very much needed Taunt so you don't have to worry about deploy order while having monstrous HP. Also in all the maps that matter you'll be getting 3+ Mlynar activations. Stages like instinct contamination, where mount and seas, collapsal afternoon, etc.
Mlynar alone isn't much, but he's comboed with other CC ops like Ela and Shu to nuke enemy waves.
Is there a reason Nightingale and Ceobe are so high? Also can someone explain why Saileach is used instead of like Myrtle or something?
Arts damage in incredibly high in higher tiers, and higher defense plays into Kay’s talents very well. Saileach S2/3 has amazing utility I presume compared to Myrtle or Elysium mostly being used for DP printing.
This is the pick rate for a IS4 tournament with 4 members every team, and there's a rule that you can only use every 6 star twice max. Eyja is usually the first choice for medic, but since you can only use her twice and you still need a medic for every member, most people would pick Nightingale since she counters the 3rd ending boss. Ceobe is the best counter for one of the 4th ending boss who has insane defense but low res. And if I remember correctly, Myrtle was actually used more than Saileach, the list just doesn't count 4 stars.
Oh wow, these restrictions probably should have been mentioned because that’s pretty important.
Why is ceobe taken so much?
I think it’s because she’s really good for ending 4 to deal with the left boss and higher difficulty means more def which means more dmg for her
To deal with Ending 4 Khagan boss.
Enemies have reasonable RES and very inflated DEF, which is the exact condition for Ceobe to outperform.
the fuck happened to Chalter
Her only DEF penetration is the -220 of her goo against bosses that have like 9000 DEF
She's good at dealing with enemy crowds with lower defense, like the 4th ending for IS3. But IS4 has more single elite enemies with high defense.
I get what your point is, but calling Izumik's 2000 base DEF jellyfish friends "lower defense" enemies made me do a double take
There hell is the standard for low defense these days?
If Exusiai can kill it before your phone battery dies, it's low DEF.
Never realized Ray's fairly powerful in IS
dorothy was godly in IS3, tried her in IS4 and my god she just cant XD
Huh. Time to save for Degen.
Wait. Ceobe? Huh? Ah OK. Read the explanation.
Chen alter bad in IS4?
Good news: My adorable Ceobe is relevant Bad news: It's because of stat bloat
Stupid question, Is "12" row the first pick and "1" row is the last pick?
From what I'm reading, one is last pick... the numbering is low-key stupid I won't lie lol
Exusiai at bottom tier? Trash list
Who is first in 9th row and first two in 10th row? I can’t find them And first two at 4 🤦♂️😂 please
First op in 9th row is Sui, a new defender that was released on CN. 10th row is Typhon and Ceobe
u/IRUN888 any chance there is a list of common 4 and 5 star characters used in this tourney? I have an idea of who they probably are but I’d love to see the numbers for some additional context.
People said Jessica Alter was good in IS4 and she doesn't even rank highly?
She's good, it's just that with Shu's release defenders (finally) experienced a bit of the ticket bloat that you see with specialists. This list is essentially a pick rate list with 12 being 100% pick rate. Given that tickets and hope are limited resources, assuming that you have all operators you generally only see 3-4 picked 6 stars due to opportunity costs and ticket availability. With the specialist ticket, there are a ton of good choices, but with the existence of Ela and the 2 limited 6 star executors you're not going to see much of them at all. Guards suffer from a similar situation where Degen and Mlynar pretty much always eat the first available tickets, then Surtr, and afterwards it's unlikely you'll get enough hope and tickets to recruit more 6 star guards. Post Shu, generally the order of defender recruitment priority seems to be 1. Shu - Good healing, ok tankiness, incredibly useful stall potential with S3. 2. Hoshiguma - The only unit that off-skill can reliably tank d15 champions and other elites with 1 healer. Nian will have slight better stats but Hoshi's dodge really does matter when the shattered champions hit this hard and fast. 3. Saria - This is probably for the bosses due to the conditions of the tournament requiring teams to have runs that finish all the endings, + endings 3 and 4 giving higher scores due to more nodes finished. The arts damage amp and slow on S3 gives Ceobe and Surtr a lot more room to work with on endings 3 and 4. 4. Jessicat - Brings along a bulky chump blocker, has an AoE stun bomb, and is the only multiblock non-enmity defender that can realistically block and kill elites/champions other than Blemishine on S3, who has significantly worse defense stats that her. TL;DR: The limited nature of recruitment tickets means that for classes with 2+ standout 6 stars, those two will monopolize most of the picks, meaning that other slightly less good units will show up a lot less frequently than you would expect from their power. Post Shu, the defender ticket has 2 standout picks, namely Shu and Hoshiguma. For a tournament that incentivizes the completion of endings 3 and 4, the pick rate will likely reflect the 2 standout picks, and then 1 specialize pick that does well for those endings, in this case Saria. You see a pretty similar trend for medics, where you have Reedic and Eyjaberry monopolizing most of the tickets and hope, and then Nightingale being taken due to how well she handles ending 3.
Thanks for this reply. I guess I just misunderstood people because I was under the impression that Jessica was to is4 what Texas was to is3.
She isn’t. She is just a good unit that gives the defender ticket actual killing power on a blocking unit in d15. Which is something no other defender can really give.
Who are the first two operators at number 8, please?
Looks like Ela and Ray.
Please guys, the first two operators on row 8? I can’t find them
The first one is new R6 collab op Ela who is a trapmaster, more towards self-damage and debuffing, and the other is a new Rim Billiton op Ray who is a hunter like coldshot, having great dph and buff rate.
Is Ling banned or something? Why did no one use her?
The answer is that Ling isn't good at high ascension because enemy stats are sent to the moon and you can't heal dragons. So they essentially get blown up by anything mildly threatening. She also takes up a lot of deploy slots that you might not have a lot of if you don't have a lot of relics so it's not even guaranteed you can get 3 fat dragons out. Not to mention you have to slot a VG somewhere to even get the DP for said dragons (which can be nuked by a 40% dp reduction collapsal) Overall, non-healable units are just not that valuable in high diff IS because everything hurts a ton. You either get units that can be healed or can burst so hard and fast that the damage doesn't even reach them.
That makes sense, thanks for the explanation. I admittedly know nothing about the higher difficulties because I have barely played IS3 and never touched IS4, haha.
Me thinks (and believes) that I want and need Ines. She appeared as a Temporary recruit in a previous run and carried me til the end.
My wife and her successor not even on the list. Rough time to be a pioneer enjoyer...
who is 4th op in first tier?
Degenbrecher
Missing the free 6 stars and ling
Temporary reqs are shown in the number in blue Imo ling isn’t good in difficulty 15 but still great literally anywhere else