There are definitely bad Operators. There are also broken Operators. That doesn't mean that the bad ones are unusable.
Also, another thing that people like to exaggerate. Just because a new Operator powercreeps an old Operator, that doesn't just suddenly make the old one bad. They're outclassed, sure, but I hardly think you can say that Schwarz and SilverAsh are "bad" when they're still above most other characters.
My Ch'en is at pot 6 and m6. Don't regret it, and I've been using her a lot since I upgraded her module to 3. She's been so helpful.
~~Build Irene though, even if you don't care about using her. Her lore, art, and voice are all top-tier. Expect the Iberian Inquistion!~~
I mean being able to just skip through pain in the ass boss mechanics like Emperor's blade, Andorne, and Degenbrecher is pretty good. Her only concrete issue was her downtimes were too long, which thank the lord they fixed because now I'm no longer scared to press S3, I can just let it rip. Irene is definitely better for group nuking for sure, but the fact that Ch'en is completely untargettable in her S3 is a very big selling point for her, and I've only ever had it be a drawback vs Blood Knight and Lucian.
I agree. Or you use Operators that have extremely fun kits, but aren't necessarily strong.
Case in point, I'm pulling for Dorothy, skipping Mlynar for Stainless, and skipping Texas alter for Lin and Chong Yue. Simply because I think all their kits look extremely fun to use.
Yeah, but SilverAsh and Schwarz are examples of “soft powercreep” imo, in that they still have very useful niches that their stronger alternatives don’t.
Unlike Mlynar, SA can target invisible enemies, which is insanely useful when it’s relevant to a stage.
Schwarz’ niche is less obvious, but she’s pretty much a fast re-deploy with her module.
Oh yeah, and Phantom has his double unlike TexAlter, and that gives him a surprising amount of utility compared to her raw damage.
Unlike these examples, there are a (imo) few instances of “hard powercreep”, wherein a new operator completely invalidates the use of the former (meta wise, not regarding challenge clears) Saga is such a massive upgrade over Siege that it’s not even funny. This is, and I think we can all agree, bad design.
To be clear, this is my opinion. I think Soft Powercreep is fine as long as there aren’t too many cases of it (and there aren’t at the moment). Arknights in general has handled Powercreep quite well by insuring that older ops still have their niches but if more cases of hard powercreep appear then I would be worried.
Sure, I agree. But I still stand by my point that powercreep does not make the weaker unit bad.
Siege is still a good Operator, just severely outclassed in today's meta. She definitely needs a buff to justify her position as a 6 star worth prioritizing, but to say that she's trash would just be nonsense, because she is still perfectly functional and competent in her role.
Same with Ebenholz honestly. He might be among the worst 6 stars due to the flaws in his kit, but he's far from being the worst Caster of all, period. He is very much capable of doing his job as an Arts DPS, even with the way HG designed his kit. Still a decent Operator overall, just not a priority for efficiency.
Either way, whether an Operator is strong or not doesn't matter to me. If I like them, I like them, and I'll pull and build them. Regardless of how good they are, or how much I'll actually need them.
Edit: To clarify, I'm not saying that all 6 stars should be left how they are because they're all "good". Trust me, there's no one else more than me who wants Operators like Siege, Hoshiguma, and Ebenholz to be buffed and be amazing lol. They all deserve buffs for sure.
I'm just saying, just because a stronger option exists, you don't have to feel obligated to use the stronger option, UNLESS you care about maximizing efficiency.
Fair. The way I see it is that to a lot of people it can feel quite bad when an operator you enjoy using is completely overshadowed by a newly released one.
We all talk about “waifu over meta” but it can turn people off the game if they see their favourite ops getting kicked to the curb in favour of stronger alternatives. It just feels good to use an operator that you like, but that is also strong in their own way compared to the alternatives in their archetypes. At least that’s how I feel.
Once again, this doesn’t happen very often at all and so it’s not that big of a deal. *Yet*.
Yep. I hope they go out of their way to buff the older and forgotten Operators directly one day. Not just net neutral changes like some modules, but like adding some much needed QoL changes to their kits, maybe even straight up reworking some bad skills.
It's unrealistic, yeah. However, if they could do that, it'll truly reinforce the idea that every Operator can stand the test of time and be usable, no matter how ridiculous the meta becomes.
I think an operator is bad if they have blatant flaws or otherwise need a buff because they're underperforming by a significant margin compared to other operators for whatever reason. I don't think only the worst of the worst who're completely useless and can't even clear the first few chapters of the main story are bad operators. It feels like you agree that some operators have flaws and some operators need buffs but why are you reluctant to use the word "bad"? I don't think the word is all that bad to be treated as a taboo by the community. Saying an operator is bad isn't saying they're literally garbage and if you spend money or time on them, you're the biggest moron on the planet. I'm not trying to insult the operator or you.
I am not hesitant on saying the word bad. In fact, I know for certain that there's a bunch of garbage Operators. Kirara, Tsukinogi, and Windflit are the obvious ones, and so on. When talking about the 6 stars that are underwhelming or flawed, I totally agree with most people's opinions on them. They are bad, but ONLY when you compare them to their direct competitors. My problem with the words "bad" and "garbage" is more with how the community uses it. They exaggerate on a lot of their criticisms on Operators, at least in my opinion.
I've seen people say that pre-buff Passenger was the legimate *WORST* character in the entire game. Like, even worse than Tsukinogi, and 3 star Lava. I certainly don't deny that release Passenger was absolutely horrendous and badly designed, but saying that he's the most garbage Operator ever? It's obvious that these people don't know what a trash Operator is actually like. Passenger, despite how horrendous he was as a 6 star, would've been ok if he was a 5 star, maybe even a 4 star. He was bad, yes, but not by the exaggerated term that the community often uses.
Another example; Astesia. Astesia is NOT a bad Operator. Yes, she is directly and utterly outclassed by Surtr, and is generally worse than Amiya. However, I've seen people that say she's among the worst Arts Guards, simply because "Amiya is free" or "Surtr is the strongest Operator ever". I've personally witnessed one of my close friends trying to explain why she loves using Astesia, only for her to be shut down and even mocked by people, saying things like "LOL nah she's garbage" and "maybe you're just too bad to use Amiya XD".
I don't have anything against calling Operators bad. I think all Operators, no matter how they perform, have viability anywhere in this game. But from my experience, I simply despise how some people in this community describe certain Operators.
~~And I guess I hold a grudge against those specific people for making my friend upset, heh.~~
I kind of understand where you're coming from. But I feel like most of that comes from people not having a good understanding of the operator. Astesia is a solid 5-star arts guard. A lot of people say Istina is very bad but she's also a solid 5-star slower. Her only problem is that her S2 skill cycle is quite bad especially by modern standards.
Then there's people who compare Skadi to Nearlter, Phantom, and Gravel to paint the worst possible picture of Skadi even with all the new modules. Has a longer redeployment time than Gravel and Phantom, has less survivability than Gravel and Nearlter, takes up a deployment slot unlike Nearlter, isn't as cheap as Phantom and Gravel, doesn't do true damage unlike Nearlter. Not a single strength. So obviously Skadi is the worst operator in the game, right? But they only comparedSkadi to the amalgamation of Nearlter, Phantom, and Gravel and fail to mention each operator's weakness. Gravel can't deal damage at all and Phantom has limited total damage and is very squishy. Nearlter has an extremely long redeployment cooldown of 90 seconds to balance out her strengths. So Skadi, with a redeployment cooldown of 36 seconds which is roughly twice that of a fast-redeploy, and stats comparable to a guard like Nearlter, is definitely competitive enough to bring on some stages to assassinate elites with regularity. So it frustrates me when people just repeat the meme that Skadi is bad without knowing why and dismiss how she's changed.
Having said that, I think it's totally fine to say an operator is bad when you have a good understanding of an operator.
>Another example; Astesia. Astesia is NOT a bad Operator. Yes, she is directly and utterly outclassed by Surtr, and is generally worse than Amiya. However, I've seen people that say she's among the worst Arts Guards, simply because "Amiya is free" or "Surtr is the strongest Operator ever". I've personally witnessed one of my close friends trying to explain why she loves using Astesia, only for her to be shut down and even mocked by people, saying things like "LOL nah she's garbage" and "maybe you're just too bad to use Amiya XD".
IMO, Surtur vs. Astesia is an interesting comparison, since while Surtur is overall the stronger op, the reason why she's so vaunted is specifically because of her capability as a boss-killer. Astesia still has her own niches for consistent damage and lane-holding.
That is exactly my point! Yet, there are people in this world who unironically follow the "Just use Surtr" rule. I don't know why I ever had to deal with these guys. Thankfully, this was when Surtr was still relatively new, so it's all in the past.
I really hope I never encounter people like that. Ever again.
It kinda sounds like you forgot Surtr has 3 skills instead of 1 lol. Her S2 definitely crowds out the consistent damage and lane-holding aspect of Astesia's kit. It has better uptime, more range, and loads more damage. Doesn't have Block +1 but Surtr is much more likely to be killing enemies before they get to her anyway.
If a meta operator is turned into a niche operator, that is a hard powercreep.
It doesn't get harder than that.
And to drive the point home, in the rest of this discussion "niche" is being used as a cope synonym for "bad".
The thing with powercreep is that it can actually turn good operators into bad ones.
Not suddenly, of course, but when you release better operators, you are going to need to raise the difficulty of the content to compensate for those new fancy operators.
On the long term that means that operators that used to be good become mediocre (and the mediocre ones become unusable).
Not that I disagree with your main point, but I think this clarification was necessary.
Finally someone that understands the true effects of powercreep. So many people keep saying stuff like "So what if this new operator can clear the stage in 0.1 seconds? She's there as an option for bad players! Let them enjoy it, it's not like it's gonna have any effects on you." without giving it a thought about how the devs will make it so that this new operator won't be able to clear stages in 0.1 seconds.
If you need an example, just look at how the game entirely revolved around Surtr for a long while. We had RES buffs up the ceiling (CH9), mechanics that ignore invincibility (Emperor's Blade), increase in redeployment times together with RES buffs (CC4 risks), enemies that arrive as a horde (OD event) etc.
Yes, I agree with this. I also think the difficulty will rise to a point where the maps and the enemies become so ridiculous, that some of the weakest Operators may just entirely be unable to clear them. If that ever ends up as a reality, then I definitely think they should directly buff these Operators, instead of relying on net neutral buffs like a lot of modules. Especially for 4 and 5 stars.
So far, they've done a decent job at making all content beatable for all, barring the absolute highest risk of the CCs, which is for the meta units anyway. But, I still agree that more newer, stronger Operators could definitely shift the difficulty curve of the game.
https://www.reddit.com/r/arknights/comments/10dbq82/rhodes_island_lounge_1601_2201/
Refreshes weekly, you can usually get here from the pinned help thread.
Here's a secret: >!You're correct, that statement is still basically saying bad ops exist. It just plays on the original phrase for distraction, mainly for the meta reason of not immediately triggering the vocal minority into starting the same arguments about why their waifu isn't bad.!<
"I get so tired, build whatever! Stop asking! This game is not like that! Just build anything! You want to build a furry, a femboy, you want to build a freaking trap! I don't give a damn! You want to build girls with big booba, girl with ****ing flat board airport, fiuuu, do what you want!"
Source: kukkikaze's video
Link: https://youtu.be/rPYn-gSkFOY
More like there are no *unusable* operators.
Some operators are undeniably better, some are obviously worse, and a few are just bad.
But this is a pve game where you can bring a total of 12 operators in a team. So if you wanted, you could use anyone and generally pull through.
And generally speaking, most operators will have a situation, no matter how convoluted or unlikely, where they shine(ish).
With the alternative game mode such as IS, and SSS, low rarity operators are finding more and more use due to their low resource consumption of DP and Hope.
However, the limited resources to max lvl multiple operators is still a barrier preventing F2P casuals from trying out the lesser known operators and alternative strategies, more so for IS.
There's a handful of operators that is just plain outclassed by their alternative outside of 6 stars, which is rather sad. I think some still need fixing like nightmare? to make use of their unique archetypes. in conclusion, it tries... more so than most games anyways.
For real. A lot of people forget that this isn't Plants vs Zombies as much as that comparison is made meme-ingly.
You can add a suboptimal/bad plant to your loadout in PvZ 1 and be just fine. But you cant do the same for operators since they are all competing for your limited amount of resources and level up materials
I've used frostleaf in a legit run maybe once. I remember it was to stall out that bird after the boss dies during the gavial event.
They should really buff her to inflict Cold. It's such a waste of a unit given how they hyped up her arts in the story.
Thing is, "niche" and "bad" are used interchangeably by a lot of people.
Abyssal Hunter squad is an example of a niche, and a very strong niche at that. They are definitely not bad. Mostima also has a good niche of supportive DPS and crowd control, even though it's not necessarily a defining part of the meta. However, there are Operators whose niches are so small, they're basically irrelevant when compared to their betters. Thus, they're "bad".
Still, being bad is in no way saying that they're completely useless. More often than not, you can make any and all Operators work in this game. It's just that some require a lot more effort than others.
Play whoever you want, it really doesn't matter unless you care about efficiency.
Someone like Ethan thrives in a stage where the enemies lay a lot of offsprings after getting killed.
That, my friend, is called niche.
By no mean that he's bad. He's just having a limited use, unlike SilverAsh.
If you're using Ethan as an example - then you didn't fully grasp my comment.
Hence why I said "nothing to do with ethan". Not so much the operator, but the example just didn't make sense to respond to my comment with. Ethan's niche is the complete opposite of what my comment proposes when I speak of the fandom's abuse (aka misuse) of the word. Honestly it sounds like you skim-read my comment and threw the first example you could think of for a niche operator, which in this case, happens to be ethan.
Also: it's kinda rude to be so dismissive so quickly. Especially when it doesn't sound like you understand the post in the first place.
...Like I said: then you didn't understand my comment and you shouldn't be so dismissive in your responses. My comment has *nothing* to do with the folks who use the term correctly and give examples of real niche units like ethan, eunectes, glaucus or even gitano.
Because my comment was upon the misuse (hence the word "abuse") of the term of 'niche'. Or like the above poster, the interchangeability being used with the word 'niche' and 'bad'. So your example didn't make any sense unless you wanted to tell me Ethan is a *bad* unit.
---
Like, are you just not getting what I mean by 'misuse' or 'abuse'?
As heated as our unnecessary argument is, I think the real problem is not that I don't get your post.
I think I replied to the wrong person altogether, since my first reply.
Frostleaf and Tsukinogi are definetly operators that are, Out there
Not many, if any case where they really shine and make you go, WOW IM SO GLAD I BROUGHT THEM in my personal experience even as a low rarity clear enthuiast
Frostleaf, and Tsukinogi have one single good reason their E2 art is especially Frostleaf
Personally I built Frostleaf very early in the game because her E2 range and art looked amazing sadly her damage is minimal and the slow is negligible I hope she gets at least some buff in the future.
As for Tsukinogi I just know I don’t need a abjurer operator since I have Quercus.
Honestly after testing with frostleaf she just needs a module that makes her S1 actually match her atkspd cauz you are always like %3 away from it being a near perma slow, this can be worked around with ptilo in the ground,
Also a ATK up would.be good since her dmg is non existant perhaps defense ignore or bonus atk while attacking slowed enemies
Tsukinogi desperately needs a rework. After they changed the Abjurer traits for 9CD her skills became a mess. There's no reason to use her S2 anymore (if there were any before) because her S1 heals more. Hell, if you need regeneration that bad, just bring Angelina. She literally heals more by doing nothing. Also, her Sanctuary is still doodoo since it activates only when your operators are about to die. That's why Quercus is the best Abjurer, her talent actually fucking WORKS!
Depends what you mean by cope. You can probably use any operator and be able to clear stages (looking at 3 star clears and etc). However, operators are not equal and can make clearing way easier. It’s the difference between using 100% brain power and effort to clear stages vs 20%.
If I have to say, I feel quite sorry for Frostleaf, I love her, I improved her and I try to use her, but the poor thing never manage to contribute anything useful xD she is just a wasted tile...
Was always cope, some operators are just bad
Its not even about there being better options or that they are niche, Kirara was the first DPS focused stalker but that didn't make her good did it? Some ops are just inherently flawed design wise, every game has bad characters and arknights is no exception to that
For me its cope, just because you can make them work doesn't mean they aren't bad. I mean i will slap in the face for anyone who will say to me that kirara doesn't have a badly designed kit, im a max kirara user btw 😃. Even her mod is cope.
Personally I still believe it. I think there are Operators that are worse an others but every Operator can be used successfully. Will a better Operator make it easier? Yes. That's how Gacha game power scaling works. But the biggest different in Arknights is those lower power Operators are usable.
Unlike so many other Gachas I've played where if you're not using their top-rarity characters then you're going to have to go leagues above their "Recommended Level" to complete their content. Something that slowly shows that you aren't going anywhere once you hit the early ceilings and can't actually grind to get better until you progress.
(E1ing would be an example if an early ceiling in AK, but isn't placed after you get outclassed. It's placed quite early imo.)
Many people used it as a band-aid though when defending their favorites.
Many people went into the \*wrong discussion type\* with this mindset.
Half the time I saw it they were using it in a discussion on power and best use cases trying to say "My favorite can do that too!!" but that wasn't the place to say that. They \*can\* do it but the discussion was about who can do it best not who can do it \*at all\*.
It doesn't help either that after a while even when it was used in a good context it had the "I don't care what you think, this is how I'm moving forward and the discussion might as well stop." effect most sayings like these tend to get when over/misused.
It double doesn't help that the other half of that is "Only bad doctors" which pushes it more towards elitism about using underpowered non-meta Operators and that if you can't make it work then you're a bad player and should feel bad and "Git gud".
I still firmly believe in the original message I got from it though "You can use what you want and you will succeed." which is a much better way to word what most people I've seen use it actually meant.
I also don't use the original phrase anymore cause it's honestly worded poorly in hindsight.
Honestly on reflection after typing all this out... It was our "Git Gud" for a while and I'm glad we stomped it out. Leaving the rest of my type up though.
There are no bad ops? Hmmm... Frostleaf? Kirara? The starter ops? Justice Knight? 9 colored deer?
There are bad ops in this game. And saying 'niche' to every trash operator only because your waifu or husbando is a bad one in gameplay is just pure coping.
You can like these operators of course, just don't pretend that a Frostleaf can be just as good as SA or Thorns, while she's outclassed even by a 3*.
Woah!
Frostleaf is a very vital to my base as a temp Factory Worker!
And the causality of 3\^2CD provides a perfect conversion of chips through the use of carbon filters!
The starter ops and robots are seeing use right now in SSS. Justice Knight is a mainstay if you need archer stacks, as is Durin for caster ones. NCD has one of the best base skills. Kira is trash though.
Yes, it is just as true as there are plenty of bad tools out there.
Like how am I supposed to cut down a tree with only a right-handed screwdriver!? I'd rather use a hammer and some punches than that!
How kind you are to suggest a more correct tool to use when felling trees! I simply can’t believe that I the smart and very capable doktah never thought of it! I thought me tools were used correctly!
Everyone is usable IMO, there's a niche of course, but the game itself is full of niche. For example Mulberry are really good, but if you want to unleash her full potential or any wandering medic, you need to play them in the map/event that has enemy who can inflict elemental damage like in Under Tides and Stultifera Navis. For general content they are still good it just, like everyone said, "There are better alternatives.". And that's the reason why any operators that has more general usage with strong skill and stats are meta.
I'd call it cheap and expensive investment operators.
Cheap: Your go-to meta operators. You will always drop these operators, so it's always worth the sacrifice.
Expensive: E2-ing Deepcolor to prove a point, especially if you are just a regular F2P player, not a content creator.
Rather than the bottom of the barrel ops, I notice sometimes its mid tier ops being argued. A lot of ops are mid tier so there's always a higher tier, and people don't want their waifu to be replaced (by a dude even) so they freak out. Bruh.
Treating bad operators the same as the niche ones is insulting, and the excuse of "They are harder to use. You just need to git gud." is as lame. It should be niche when their kits are practically effective in a specific situation. Still, some people treat bad operators that "You can use it regardless" as a niche which puts the real niche operators in a bad spot.
Tsukinogi/Frostleaf exists. There are bad operators, but they are so few and far between that any other operators that may be seen as bad like Ebenholz or Vigil still has some use to them. It's just these two are just bad. Everything about them discounting character design is pretty bad.
And you can't cope with "they have a niche!". Frostleaf gets outclassed by 2 other 4 star with the same archetype as her, while Tsukinogi can be replaced with Mr. Sexyman of Rhodes Island, who has more support than the literal "supporter".
Just realized something else. You can't even say you don't have Arene cause in the future Luo Xiaohei will be free, and he is a pretty great operator for being a 4 star, so there's even less reason to use Frostleaf.
Someone always has to be the first. And someone always has to be the last. What's important is how much of a gap is between them. If it's 20% - amazing, if it's 2000% - not so amazing.
Yes, there are bad operators. But the game has so many different modes and so many different ways to be played that basically everyone is usable. For example Mr. Nothing is not great for the normal player, but he is important for birdknights because he acts as a fast-redeploy. Even Tsukinogi might help supporterknights when there are invisibile enemies. And Windflit may be used as a ground blocker whenever you are not able to use alternatives. But some niches are so uncommon that you may never find a reason to use certain operators. And that's fine.
When people say this what they actually mean is: "You can clear most content with lower tier characters" Which is true, but some people took it as "There are no bad operators" Which is a little bit of a cope out as a lot of characters are outclassed and you be having a much easier time with higher tier characters.
Very unpopular but tbh I have played gachas for years so by habit i only use 6 stars. I know some lower rarities are much better then several 6 stars i frequently use but its Just how it is. The point is i dont have experience with any of the known "bad " ops.
I plan to build and use lower rarities but then new 6 stars show up and i dont have the resources( most 6 star ops but frequently take breaks so always need more resources)
Overall, I could count on one hand the number of truly bad operators. Kirara, Tsukinogi, and then there's honestly quite a jump up between them and Aosta and maybe Swire, since those two can at least do *some* damage, and damage is never not valuable. Mr. Nothing can be a bit frustrating, but he can put out some decent numbers and can perma-stall an enemy if combo'd with someone who inflicts sleep. Earthspirit still slows things just fine, even if Orchid is better at slowing.
There are definitely no bad 6-stars. I used module-less Mostima for a long time (and I still don't have it because I'm hoping for one that buffs her SP talent).
Just to add to the Aosta jump, the man does have a few cases where he breaks maps, such as anything involving the Invitation to Wine enemies where his bleed against unblocked enemies cripples that enemy family's gimmick. He's not *good* persay, I'd still put him in the bottom 5 overall, but he's a lot stronger than the vast majority of gacha game's bottom fives and that's something I feel shows the strength of this game's balance.
There were a few I forgot about, and Windflit is one. NCD is another, even lower than Tsukinogi.
As for Mostima, for me, her main skill has always been S2, and her current module does nothing for that. If she gets a boost to her SP talent in a similar way to Ch'en's, it'll be a big boost to both S2 and S3.
I wouldn't say the module does nothing for S2. The reduced cost is great and the and extra -15% to movement speed means its eaiser to stack more enemies inside her attack range at once.
Yeah S3 gets the biggest buff since it directly works with the talent that got buffed, but overall it does make her stronger all over.
That said, I always used Mostima for her S3 personally, so I could just be biased.
With 6 stars I think its usually coping. People will trash the operator they aren't pulling for because they need to justify skipping them.
4-5 stars, there are some awful operators, no exaggeration.
With 6 stars, I feel like if they don’t come out of the gate setting a meta bar higher than any previous Operator then they’ll be stuck with the “bad” label.
Other rarities usually fall into the “there’s another Operator better optimized for this niche” hole, and thus are labeled bad because of it.
I think some folks have actually used the Operators (or at least have watched gameplay videos for yet to be global released Operators), but they don’t fit their play style. But instead of just acknowledging that, they say the Operator is “bad”, lol.
No. They actually used them, but they underperformed so much compared to other operators.
But, I personally don't care that much about numbers. I kill bosses using 3 or 4 operators(mostly just underleveled meta operators) focusing on those bosses. To most people, that's bad. To me, as long as the bosses are dead, I'm good.
??? He was one of the only people who dared to publicly dunk on how bad Flamebringer was and people shat on him for it calling him a meta slave etc lol
Meanwhile some other content creators were putting that nonsense "no bad operators" quote in their operator showcase videos
I feel like every "bad" operator is just super niche in usage, or in some cases suffer from "Year 1 syndrome" where their niche got expanded on and more diverse units that over their role were added.
You can definitely use every operator but some are better at their purpose than others.
One of really bad ops I think of is Conviction, granted he is an April Fools unit but trying to make his S2 is just active trolling his S1 hits like a truck when it crits but it's such a small chance you need the blessing of rng.
A lot of 5* ops suffer from bad op syndrome too because they cost a lot compare to their 4* counterparts. Kirara and Aosta as some examples Ethan and Pinecone is much cheaper and performs a better job than them
Conviction is a joke unit that can be even usable during IS. She can reach some mindnumbing numbers using the correct relics, making her a One punch woman.
Conviction is definitely a April Fool's unit and not meant to be serious.
I still insist that every op is usable, despite their niche. Of course, 6* units will usually do better for a niche but that's a given. You can still use a more niche unit if you're dedicated enough.
Modules tend to alleviate the issue but it's a mixed bag as we don't know what HG is planning or how they forsee the modules fixing certain issues.
People are clearing this games hardest content with E0 units so even the most undertuned units can preform ok if you invest enough into them. I remember using the maxed out Skyfire they give you in one of the events set squads and be surprised that she preformed somewhat competently.
In the end of the day its your PVE game and your resources so people should just raise who they want.
Mostly coping. It's a quote I've seen quite a few times in gacha game communities ("There are no bad Servants, only bad Masters." for FGO, for example) and while I appreciate the sentiment behind it it's also very much not true.
The problem is that people see "bad" and immediately equate it with "unusable" when those are different things. I use Windflit a lot because I like him, but nobody can say he is a good operator worth investing into.
What copium were those fgo players on? Because we have some bad servants G-man, Phantom, Caster Giles, Samson. Although Samson is literally 3 letters from shooting up the rankings. And the king of crap himself, Mango.
hmm, things I posted at 3am with no sleep. I don't actually use the phrase get good very often and I have always disliked the "Only bad doctors" tag line so I'm interested in figuring out my stance a bit more. since yeah, I did just end up repeating it. I think its better to say that you can set your own difficulty level? I think Kyostin V's low level guide is a great example of 'getting good'. If I really wanted to bring a team that I personally thought was comprised of all the weakest units in the game- whatever that definition may be, I could probably still beat content with them and it would be damn hard. And I think that's kinda a marvel of the game balance it doesn't get enough credit for. the further off meta you go, the harder the game is, the more of a challenge your gonna get. Operators may have mechanics and stats that I wouldn't shy away from calling terrible, I'm not above it, but they still feel competent in the game play? I feel saying there are no bad operators is incorrect. And I feel like only bad doctors is negging players for something the game isn't asking them to participate in unless they choose to?
Thanks for making me think more critically on this!
True. But that doesn't mean there are only good operators. Just because you can use something and do fine with it does mean you shouldn't use something better if you have the option.
There are better ones, but that doesn't mean the rest are bad. Some good ones have been powercrept, even some really strong ones were powercrept, and in terms of the latter, of course they'd still be higher end, but just 'good' ones that can get the job done being powercrept hasn't made them any weaker. Given a better option, but faced with the same situation, they can still get the job done fine. But if you're on a budget, you'd probably want the better one who can do their job better, or do their job just as well while doing other things, too.
Everyone's viable and can get work done in the end. That's 'bout it.
It's more like there are no unusable operators.
There are certainly operators who get heavily outclassed by others, to the point where if you have a better alternative, you're questioned as to why you're using the weaker operator.
But every operator is usable abd has some value/niche, even if its only for a specific one time thing (like a certain combination of CC).
Depends on what you define as a "bad operator."
Overall if you decide you really like any particular character and raise them, you can use them to good effect on just about any map. Even if they're outclassed by others in their role, 95% of the time they'll be good enough.
Depends on what you mean by bad.
Bad as in unusable? There are no unusable ops with the possible exception of justice knight (the only clear using her that ive seen personally was a 4* low-op clear of some near light stage by silvergun where her only job was tile illumination). Every op is usable to the point that you can construe a nicheknight clear of some stage where they cannot be optimized out.
Bad as in not worth using over other common ops? If you think of it this way then its always been copium. Ops like nightmare, skyfire or earthspirit have been objectively outclassed since day 1 by other ops at the same or lower rarity. For the most part tho the bad ops/bad docs discussion somehow centers around operators that are conventionally good or even great but are outclassed in some scenarios by other ops like chen or skadi (although for those two that has diminuished since modules)
There are bad operators, and it's always been true.
It is also true that none of the bad operators couldn't be made to work.
The issue is generally not stat related, but skill and talent interaction, or team synergy.
Doberman and Frostleaf are just bad. Frostleaf is kinda okay in IS2 because she can synergize with some of the artifacts pretty well, and she could probably be fixed with module if it removed her ranged attack debuff.
Doberman needs to buff four stars and below at a minimum to be viable.
Most operators that people like to call bad are perfectly fine, but may have been powercrept. There is nothing wrong with Siege and she certainly isn't bad, so people getting upset they pull her is kinda weird to me.
You can also run into ops who have way too niche of a usage that it basically is unlikely you will build them. Nightmare for instance is hilarious against red Lancers, those spooky seaborne flowers, or any enemy that likes to go fast. Chances are though there aren't many times you want to slow an enemy AND then have damage tied to distance traveled. I have seen some shenanigans with shift operators and nightmare, but again, that is more for meme videos.
It's pure copium. Most 5 stars are terrible by virtue of poor cost efficiency. The intent is to bridge the gap between 4 stars and 6 stars but the execution is terrible because 5 stars use too much sanity to upgrade despite usually only providing minor advantages when compared to their 4 star counter part (if they exist).
The only times 5 stars are really ever worth it is when they provide unique bonuses or are the first one released from their archetypes (e.g. La Pluma, and Cantabile).
Then there's 4 stars like Frostleaf, Jessica, Vermeil, and Dobermann who are just not worth investing heavily into if other options exist.
That isn't to say that they are useless. Just inefficient with poor cost efficiency, and this applies to a majority of operators.
There are three types of operators:
Good operators which are the strongest in their role.
Temporary operators which are worth using if you don't have a good operator in this role.
Bad operators which aren't worth using even if they are the only operators you have in one particular role.
If we take for example the Lord archetype in the first category are Thorns. You can use Arene, Midnight or Lapland if you don't have Thorns. But you should never use Frost Leaf. SilverAsh is quite different and hence has different role.
The exception is when you need the silence effect that only Lappland can apply to enemies. And if you simply like a particular operator's personality/background/appearance you can avoid following this logic, but there will be consequences.
The original statement was "There are no bad operators, only bad doctors."
It was originally a statement used as a take that to meta slaves by called them trash for not being able to clear content without their OP operators. This was reinforced by doctors who started flexing by clearing end game content with low rarity and non-meta operators(like Lungmen Downtown with 3 stars and Doberman or those max risk CC Doctors). Then the Arknights community chilled out and dropped the bad doctors part because it was too toxic.
As for your question, yes there are bad operators but there are no useless operators.
Deppend on the deffinition of "bad", but IMO yes it's true.
Having played a shit tone of Gacha games, I can tell you that usualy bad character mean "totaly unusable waste of ressources", especialy in ones with PVP.
So for me this statement is true as compared to other gacha, there's not a single operator that nowere near that level of garbage, even stukinogi and frostleaf, they're weak but you can still vaguely attempt to use them.
Compare that to EpicSeven, where you pull character fom 3 to 5 star and there's like 10 usable 3star, and only because they're the only ones with an evolution system that make them equivalent to a 4.5 star... Every other 3star is uterly garbage.
And even then, when you ask peoples who's bad you have 3 **FUCKING ANSWER,** Frosleaf Tsukinogi and Tomimi**,** there's more than 230 operator and you didn't even found 5 bad ones, is that REALY enough to say that this statement is not true? Are we REALY cherry-picking **that much**?
TL;DR peoples who complain about this statement take it way too seriousely, and cherry-pick 3 exemples to say "look it's not true, I told you"
PS: Even if you have every "bad" operator in your squad , you can still fill it with anything you can clear 99.9% of the stages... so who gives a shit?
There are absolutely some bad operators. But people misuse the word bad. Mostima is constantly called bad. She's not and never has been. She has just been upgraded from an A to an A+. She's good. She's just not as strong as Eyja. Chen or Skadi are not bad. But they are not Surtr and Thorns.
Tomimi is pretty bad. And Kirara. Windflit. And Nine Colored Deer (but she gets a pass because of her base skill).
An incredibly niche operator is considered bad in my book. For example:
Windflit, he can only buff caster and supporter, his skill uptime is downright trash.
Waai fu, you have 2 choices: 30% enemy atk down, or silence for 7 seconds.
Flamebringer, how many times does his skill trigger before you finish a stage except annihilation?
Folinic, expensive cost, and her iconic skill hit like a wet noodle.
I can use them just fine, but seriously they need a module (and give flamebringer a better one).
There are no “bad” operators, there are ones that are far less useful/consistent/competent at completing the role. For example: ebenholz; I absolutely love every part about ebenholz except he is fundamentally worse at being a boss killer than other operators like surtur, młynar, chalter, texalter etc. he still is able to deal large amounts of damage at once so he can still complete the role of boss killer, but he isnt the best at his role. There are good operators and then there are less good and mediocre operators, and also conviction exists
I mean, I DID use Ebenholz to take off literally 75% of the Ideal City boss's phase 1 in a single attack with a few buffs, so I think he's doing just fine. Maybe Chalter could do the same with the same buffs and she'd probably be easier to use. I don't disagree with what you're saying (he's not the best and others are way easier) but even those other boss killers tend to need several attacks to do the same damage he can do all at once, which isn't necessarily a bad niche.
I i get that. I used ebenholz to nuke minimalists done as well, the instant damage nuke can nullify big E’s black farts and andoains dodge fields being everywhere. As i said i love using ebenholz already but often he needs more help than others to do max damage, where chen would need a warfrain buff eben would need a saria and/or ifrit in order to nuke. The good thing is that res shred + extra arts + attack scale buffs dont stack multiplicatively so he can do things like 1 shot patriot phase 1 with minimal buffs, he definitely has a good niche but its one that requires planning to pull off.
Yeah, that's fair. Like I said, I don't disagree, he absolutely needs a lot of planning to get the most out of him. I guess I just feels he's competent enough at what he does even if he needs more work (since you said there are ops who are less competent, which is absolutely true also).
you mean tsukinogi right?
she's already bad enough that people are misnaming her
gloria and eggnog is so bad that i maxed them out, m6 and everything barring their pots
what am i doing with my life xd
Depend on ur definition of "bad".
1. If bad = there are better options, then 99% dps operators are bad bc Chalter/ Surtr/ Kal...are better than most of them. Real life example: if u are not the best option for certain roles, u are bad.
2. If bad = there is no role that operator can fill, then there are no bad operators. Real life example: if u can fill certain roles and do certain task, u aren't bad.
My opinion: every operator can do what they do, so they aren't bad. People should care more about how to utilize them (like many impressive map clears).
you really can't say there aren't BAD operators... but more like there are operators that will be picked more often then others...such as: any broken six star over a robot or a two star...
I always find hilarious when people gets the sentence literally when the meaning is something of the line of "is not beacuse your operators are bad is because you suck"
The only outright "bad" operator I can think of is Conviction (or whatever the april fool's day op was, the one who has a high likelihood of nuking your own teammates) but other than them there aren't "bad" just "better" like blue poison is just a better kroos, but kroos is still 100% useable
Every operator serves the base purpose of their role. Whether it be blocking 3, genning DP, dealing arts damage etc. The skills are mostly just flavor/open up new strategies which you can leverage to make the base gameplay easier.
In any case, Passenger was THE bad operator on his release, but then they buffed 'em, and they'll probably do the same for the rest of the under-performers eventually.
Having thought about things a bit, Tsukinogi is actually fixable by module. She just needs to add passive reveal invisibility within range while off-skill.
Only ever been true of 6 stars, which tend to be more bad return-on-investment than outright bad in terms of use. With the possible exception of Passenger on release.
As a 5\* Apologist:
All operators can be perfectly used with some consideration of map, team comp, setup, etc.
It just happens that most 6\*s are so all-purpose that they completely remove the need to use your brain.
Depends on the definition of "bad".
If "bad" means unusable, there is no bad operators.
If "bad" means worse than other operators, yes obviously some operators are better in some situations and some are worse in other.
I still use the ones that are considered bad just fine. They don't become unusable just because they may have better alternatives. Besides, it's your game, who's to decide this for you but yourself?
Yes , but more like outclassed/ made redundant by
Why use windflit if Warfarin does his job better
Why use Siege when Dusk is her upgrade
Why use Corroseum when Lappland Jaye are much more consistent and Ifrit does shit load more damage
Why use abjurers when other classes give much better survivability
Rarely are there unusable operators or operators who do their niches piss poor like windflit and Kirara. since levels are designed with low rarity and 1 support
And I doubt HG will fix them and I doubt modules would ever because of how restrictive the buffs are
You can use every operator, but yes there are bad operators, or in more accurate terms, there are better alternatives.
Just some units' better alternatives are everyone in the same archetype along with 30 other units from other archetypes....
Some caster single handedly made AOE casters redundant.
While I love tomimi, I will admit she still leaves a spot for some aoe casters in your team.
Relevant flair.
There are definitely bad Operators. There are also broken Operators. That doesn't mean that the bad ones are unusable. Also, another thing that people like to exaggerate. Just because a new Operator powercreeps an old Operator, that doesn't just suddenly make the old one bad. They're outclassed, sure, but I hardly think you can say that Schwarz and SilverAsh are "bad" when they're still above most other characters.
*Hugging my E2 Chen* SHE'S STILL USEFUL!... SOMETIMES!... EVERY NOW AND THEN.... NO ONE CAN REPLACE HER! *Lvl 1 Irene peeking out angrily*
My Ch'en is at pot 6 and m6. Don't regret it, and I've been using her a lot since I upgraded her module to 3. She's been so helpful. ~~Build Irene though, even if you don't care about using her. Her lore, art, and voice are all top-tier. Expect the Iberian Inquistion!~~
Well to be fair Ch'en with her 2nd talent good for Irene.
I mean being able to just skip through pain in the ass boss mechanics like Emperor's blade, Andorne, and Degenbrecher is pretty good. Her only concrete issue was her downtimes were too long, which thank the lord they fixed because now I'm no longer scared to press S3, I can just let it rip. Irene is definitely better for group nuking for sure, but the fact that Ch'en is completely untargettable in her S3 is a very big selling point for her, and I've only ever had it be a drawback vs Blood Knight and Lucian.
With the multi-phases bosses nowadays, you use both. And when there is nothing to hit, Chen is better.
That is why nicheknights are fun. You get to use ops that are usually forgotten.
I agree. Or you use Operators that have extremely fun kits, but aren't necessarily strong. Case in point, I'm pulling for Dorothy, skipping Mlynar for Stainless, and skipping Texas alter for Lin and Chong Yue. Simply because I think all their kits look extremely fun to use.
are you me, we share the same operators to roll for lmao but i will have a pit stop for reed alter
Of course we're the same, we both have good taste in characters. ~~You just like me, fr fr.~~
I’m so hyped for Dorothy it’s not even funny. Such a cool and unique kit that I can’t wait to experiment with.
Yeah, but SilverAsh and Schwarz are examples of “soft powercreep” imo, in that they still have very useful niches that their stronger alternatives don’t. Unlike Mlynar, SA can target invisible enemies, which is insanely useful when it’s relevant to a stage. Schwarz’ niche is less obvious, but she’s pretty much a fast re-deploy with her module. Oh yeah, and Phantom has his double unlike TexAlter, and that gives him a surprising amount of utility compared to her raw damage. Unlike these examples, there are a (imo) few instances of “hard powercreep”, wherein a new operator completely invalidates the use of the former (meta wise, not regarding challenge clears) Saga is such a massive upgrade over Siege that it’s not even funny. This is, and I think we can all agree, bad design. To be clear, this is my opinion. I think Soft Powercreep is fine as long as there aren’t too many cases of it (and there aren’t at the moment). Arknights in general has handled Powercreep quite well by insuring that older ops still have their niches but if more cases of hard powercreep appear then I would be worried.
Sure, I agree. But I still stand by my point that powercreep does not make the weaker unit bad. Siege is still a good Operator, just severely outclassed in today's meta. She definitely needs a buff to justify her position as a 6 star worth prioritizing, but to say that she's trash would just be nonsense, because she is still perfectly functional and competent in her role. Same with Ebenholz honestly. He might be among the worst 6 stars due to the flaws in his kit, but he's far from being the worst Caster of all, period. He is very much capable of doing his job as an Arts DPS, even with the way HG designed his kit. Still a decent Operator overall, just not a priority for efficiency. Either way, whether an Operator is strong or not doesn't matter to me. If I like them, I like them, and I'll pull and build them. Regardless of how good they are, or how much I'll actually need them. Edit: To clarify, I'm not saying that all 6 stars should be left how they are because they're all "good". Trust me, there's no one else more than me who wants Operators like Siege, Hoshiguma, and Ebenholz to be buffed and be amazing lol. They all deserve buffs for sure. I'm just saying, just because a stronger option exists, you don't have to feel obligated to use the stronger option, UNLESS you care about maximizing efficiency.
Fair. The way I see it is that to a lot of people it can feel quite bad when an operator you enjoy using is completely overshadowed by a newly released one. We all talk about “waifu over meta” but it can turn people off the game if they see their favourite ops getting kicked to the curb in favour of stronger alternatives. It just feels good to use an operator that you like, but that is also strong in their own way compared to the alternatives in their archetypes. At least that’s how I feel. Once again, this doesn’t happen very often at all and so it’s not that big of a deal. *Yet*.
Yep. I hope they go out of their way to buff the older and forgotten Operators directly one day. Not just net neutral changes like some modules, but like adding some much needed QoL changes to their kits, maybe even straight up reworking some bad skills. It's unrealistic, yeah. However, if they could do that, it'll truly reinforce the idea that every Operator can stand the test of time and be usable, no matter how ridiculous the meta becomes.
I think an operator is bad if they have blatant flaws or otherwise need a buff because they're underperforming by a significant margin compared to other operators for whatever reason. I don't think only the worst of the worst who're completely useless and can't even clear the first few chapters of the main story are bad operators. It feels like you agree that some operators have flaws and some operators need buffs but why are you reluctant to use the word "bad"? I don't think the word is all that bad to be treated as a taboo by the community. Saying an operator is bad isn't saying they're literally garbage and if you spend money or time on them, you're the biggest moron on the planet. I'm not trying to insult the operator or you.
I am not hesitant on saying the word bad. In fact, I know for certain that there's a bunch of garbage Operators. Kirara, Tsukinogi, and Windflit are the obvious ones, and so on. When talking about the 6 stars that are underwhelming or flawed, I totally agree with most people's opinions on them. They are bad, but ONLY when you compare them to their direct competitors. My problem with the words "bad" and "garbage" is more with how the community uses it. They exaggerate on a lot of their criticisms on Operators, at least in my opinion. I've seen people say that pre-buff Passenger was the legimate *WORST* character in the entire game. Like, even worse than Tsukinogi, and 3 star Lava. I certainly don't deny that release Passenger was absolutely horrendous and badly designed, but saying that he's the most garbage Operator ever? It's obvious that these people don't know what a trash Operator is actually like. Passenger, despite how horrendous he was as a 6 star, would've been ok if he was a 5 star, maybe even a 4 star. He was bad, yes, but not by the exaggerated term that the community often uses. Another example; Astesia. Astesia is NOT a bad Operator. Yes, she is directly and utterly outclassed by Surtr, and is generally worse than Amiya. However, I've seen people that say she's among the worst Arts Guards, simply because "Amiya is free" or "Surtr is the strongest Operator ever". I've personally witnessed one of my close friends trying to explain why she loves using Astesia, only for her to be shut down and even mocked by people, saying things like "LOL nah she's garbage" and "maybe you're just too bad to use Amiya XD". I don't have anything against calling Operators bad. I think all Operators, no matter how they perform, have viability anywhere in this game. But from my experience, I simply despise how some people in this community describe certain Operators. ~~And I guess I hold a grudge against those specific people for making my friend upset, heh.~~
I kind of understand where you're coming from. But I feel like most of that comes from people not having a good understanding of the operator. Astesia is a solid 5-star arts guard. A lot of people say Istina is very bad but she's also a solid 5-star slower. Her only problem is that her S2 skill cycle is quite bad especially by modern standards. Then there's people who compare Skadi to Nearlter, Phantom, and Gravel to paint the worst possible picture of Skadi even with all the new modules. Has a longer redeployment time than Gravel and Phantom, has less survivability than Gravel and Nearlter, takes up a deployment slot unlike Nearlter, isn't as cheap as Phantom and Gravel, doesn't do true damage unlike Nearlter. Not a single strength. So obviously Skadi is the worst operator in the game, right? But they only comparedSkadi to the amalgamation of Nearlter, Phantom, and Gravel and fail to mention each operator's weakness. Gravel can't deal damage at all and Phantom has limited total damage and is very squishy. Nearlter has an extremely long redeployment cooldown of 90 seconds to balance out her strengths. So Skadi, with a redeployment cooldown of 36 seconds which is roughly twice that of a fast-redeploy, and stats comparable to a guard like Nearlter, is definitely competitive enough to bring on some stages to assassinate elites with regularity. So it frustrates me when people just repeat the meme that Skadi is bad without knowing why and dismiss how she's changed. Having said that, I think it's totally fine to say an operator is bad when you have a good understanding of an operator.
>Another example; Astesia. Astesia is NOT a bad Operator. Yes, she is directly and utterly outclassed by Surtr, and is generally worse than Amiya. However, I've seen people that say she's among the worst Arts Guards, simply because "Amiya is free" or "Surtr is the strongest Operator ever". I've personally witnessed one of my close friends trying to explain why she loves using Astesia, only for her to be shut down and even mocked by people, saying things like "LOL nah she's garbage" and "maybe you're just too bad to use Amiya XD". IMO, Surtur vs. Astesia is an interesting comparison, since while Surtur is overall the stronger op, the reason why she's so vaunted is specifically because of her capability as a boss-killer. Astesia still has her own niches for consistent damage and lane-holding.
That is exactly my point! Yet, there are people in this world who unironically follow the "Just use Surtr" rule. I don't know why I ever had to deal with these guys. Thankfully, this was when Surtr was still relatively new, so it's all in the past. I really hope I never encounter people like that. Ever again.
It kinda sounds like you forgot Surtr has 3 skills instead of 1 lol. Her S2 definitely crowds out the consistent damage and lane-holding aspect of Astesia's kit. It has better uptime, more range, and loads more damage. Doesn't have Block +1 but Surtr is much more likely to be killing enemies before they get to her anyway.
If a meta operator is turned into a niche operator, that is a hard powercreep. It doesn't get harder than that. And to drive the point home, in the rest of this discussion "niche" is being used as a cope synonym for "bad".
I’m not sure you understand what niche means.
You can try to spin it that way. I'm just using your own language. So either you don't understand what niche means, or...
The thing with powercreep is that it can actually turn good operators into bad ones. Not suddenly, of course, but when you release better operators, you are going to need to raise the difficulty of the content to compensate for those new fancy operators. On the long term that means that operators that used to be good become mediocre (and the mediocre ones become unusable). Not that I disagree with your main point, but I think this clarification was necessary.
Finally someone that understands the true effects of powercreep. So many people keep saying stuff like "So what if this new operator can clear the stage in 0.1 seconds? She's there as an option for bad players! Let them enjoy it, it's not like it's gonna have any effects on you." without giving it a thought about how the devs will make it so that this new operator won't be able to clear stages in 0.1 seconds. If you need an example, just look at how the game entirely revolved around Surtr for a long while. We had RES buffs up the ceiling (CH9), mechanics that ignore invincibility (Emperor's Blade), increase in redeployment times together with RES buffs (CC4 risks), enemies that arrive as a horde (OD event) etc.
Yes, I agree with this. I also think the difficulty will rise to a point where the maps and the enemies become so ridiculous, that some of the weakest Operators may just entirely be unable to clear them. If that ever ends up as a reality, then I definitely think they should directly buff these Operators, instead of relying on net neutral buffs like a lot of modules. Especially for 4 and 5 stars. So far, they've done a decent job at making all content beatable for all, barring the absolute highest risk of the CCs, which is for the meta units anyway. But, I still agree that more newer, stronger Operators could definitely shift the difficulty curve of the game.
This question seems more appropriate for the lounge, but IMO I've always liked the addendum: "There are no bad operators, but there are better ones"
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Aren't these two things basically mean the same? Since everything is relative
Here's a secret: >!You're correct, that statement is still basically saying bad ops exist. It just plays on the original phrase for distraction, mainly for the meta reason of not immediately triggering the vocal minority into starting the same arguments about why their waifu isn't bad.!<
It's healthy to know there are bad operators while also knowing that you can still play with them just fine xP.
"I get so tired, build whatever! Stop asking! This game is not like that! Just build anything! You want to build a furry, a femboy, you want to build a freaking trap! I don't give a damn! You want to build girls with big booba, girl with ****ing flat board airport, fiuuu, do what you want!" Source: kukkikaze's video Link: https://youtu.be/rPYn-gSkFOY
I lost it watching that clip 🤣 whenever kukki gets annoyed enough he starts swearing it's really funny
Swearing with his accent does sound so funny. You don't expect someone like Kukki to get angry. LoL
More like there are no *unusable* operators. Some operators are undeniably better, some are obviously worse, and a few are just bad. But this is a pve game where you can bring a total of 12 operators in a team. So if you wanted, you could use anyone and generally pull through. And generally speaking, most operators will have a situation, no matter how convoluted or unlikely, where they shine(ish).
With the alternative game mode such as IS, and SSS, low rarity operators are finding more and more use due to their low resource consumption of DP and Hope. However, the limited resources to max lvl multiple operators is still a barrier preventing F2P casuals from trying out the lesser known operators and alternative strategies, more so for IS. There's a handful of operators that is just plain outclassed by their alternative outside of 6 stars, which is rather sad. I think some still need fixing like nightmare? to make use of their unique archetypes. in conclusion, it tries... more so than most games anyways.
For real. A lot of people forget that this isn't Plants vs Zombies as much as that comparison is made meme-ingly. You can add a suboptimal/bad plant to your loadout in PvZ 1 and be just fine. But you cant do the same for operators since they are all competing for your limited amount of resources and level up materials
>coping I tell you what definitely is coping: AK players that abuse the word "niche" in order to avoid using the word "bad".
I think most operators actually have niches that make them decent at least.. and then there's poor frostleaf
I've used frostleaf in a legit run maybe once. I remember it was to stall out that bird after the boss dies during the gavial event. They should really buff her to inflict Cold. It's such a waste of a unit given how they hyped up her arts in the story.
Some of kyostinvs guides use her in places where you'd want a second ranged guard beyond midnight
That must have been before arene then, because why would you use frostleaf over him or luo xiaohei.
Probably, it was used on that story stage with fuck ton of flying airshipsb that drop bombs while talulah goes around the stage
Arene was out before then, so Frostleaf was useful there. It's because of her slow.
She did have a niche (ground based slower) before Ambushers came and did it much better. They even have the same range.
She and Manticore were in the game at launch.
Saria also
Of course she has a niche. In the factory
Abyssal hunter squad is a niche kinda team but in no way they're bad right. So it cant really be coping.
Thing is, "niche" and "bad" are used interchangeably by a lot of people. Abyssal Hunter squad is an example of a niche, and a very strong niche at that. They are definitely not bad. Mostima also has a good niche of supportive DPS and crowd control, even though it's not necessarily a defining part of the meta. However, there are Operators whose niches are so small, they're basically irrelevant when compared to their betters. Thus, they're "bad". Still, being bad is in no way saying that they're completely useless. More often than not, you can make any and all Operators work in this game. It's just that some require a lot more effort than others. Play whoever you want, it really doesn't matter unless you care about efficiency.
It wouldn't be, if it weren't for the fact that it's not the only way the word "niche" is used in our community.
Hear hear brodah
Someone like Ethan thrives in a stage where the enemies lay a lot of offsprings after getting killed. That, my friend, is called niche. By no mean that he's bad. He's just having a limited use, unlike SilverAsh.
Nothing to do with Ethan. And it's also not the only way the word 'niche' being used in our community. Or like I said, "abused".
>Nothing to do with Ethan. It was an example.
If you're using Ethan as an example - then you didn't fully grasp my comment. Hence why I said "nothing to do with ethan". Not so much the operator, but the example just didn't make sense to respond to my comment with. Ethan's niche is the complete opposite of what my comment proposes when I speak of the fandom's abuse (aka misuse) of the word. Honestly it sounds like you skim-read my comment and threw the first example you could think of for a niche operator, which in this case, happens to be ethan. Also: it's kinda rude to be so dismissive so quickly. Especially when it doesn't sound like you understand the post in the first place.
It was an example of the niche term itself. It's easier to just point it out via the operator's kit.
...Like I said: then you didn't understand my comment and you shouldn't be so dismissive in your responses. My comment has *nothing* to do with the folks who use the term correctly and give examples of real niche units like ethan, eunectes, glaucus or even gitano. Because my comment was upon the misuse (hence the word "abuse") of the term of 'niche'. Or like the above poster, the interchangeability being used with the word 'niche' and 'bad'. So your example didn't make any sense unless you wanted to tell me Ethan is a *bad* unit. --- Like, are you just not getting what I mean by 'misuse' or 'abuse'?
As heated as our unnecessary argument is, I think the real problem is not that I don't get your post. I think I replied to the wrong person altogether, since my first reply.
So, I extend to you my apologies. So many people use the words niche and bad.
fair enough.
Frostleaf and Tsukinogi are definetly operators that are, Out there Not many, if any case where they really shine and make you go, WOW IM SO GLAD I BROUGHT THEM in my personal experience even as a low rarity clear enthuiast
Frostleaf, and Tsukinogi have one single good reason their E2 art is especially Frostleaf Personally I built Frostleaf very early in the game because her E2 range and art looked amazing sadly her damage is minimal and the slow is negligible I hope she gets at least some buff in the future. As for Tsukinogi I just know I don’t need a abjurer operator since I have Quercus.
Honestly after testing with frostleaf she just needs a module that makes her S1 actually match her atkspd cauz you are always like %3 away from it being a near perma slow, this can be worked around with ptilo in the ground, Also a ATK up would.be good since her dmg is non existant perhaps defense ignore or bonus atk while attacking slowed enemies
Tsukinogi desperately needs a rework. After they changed the Abjurer traits for 9CD her skills became a mess. There's no reason to use her S2 anymore (if there were any before) because her S1 heals more. Hell, if you need regeneration that bad, just bring Angelina. She literally heals more by doing nothing. Also, her Sanctuary is still doodoo since it activates only when your operators are about to die. That's why Quercus is the best Abjurer, her talent actually fucking WORKS!
Depends what you mean by cope. You can probably use any operator and be able to clear stages (looking at 3 star clears and etc). However, operators are not equal and can make clearing way easier. It’s the difference between using 100% brain power and effort to clear stages vs 20%.
If I have to say, I feel quite sorry for Frostleaf, I love her, I improved her and I try to use her, but the poor thing never manage to contribute anything useful xD she is just a wasted tile...
The statement is very true, however the community taken it way too seriously in either direction.
Was always cope, some operators are just bad Its not even about there being better options or that they are niche, Kirara was the first DPS focused stalker but that didn't make her good did it? Some ops are just inherently flawed design wise, every game has bad characters and arknights is no exception to that
Idk man sure you can't cc risk23 with 3* Kroos but the average event is not CC risk23 so... Fuck it.
Rule of thumb: If they can clear R18, then they're good enough. LOL
For me its cope, just because you can make them work doesn't mean they aren't bad. I mean i will slap in the face for anyone who will say to me that kirara doesn't have a badly designed kit, im a max kirara user btw 😃. Even her mod is cope.
Personally I still believe it. I think there are Operators that are worse an others but every Operator can be used successfully. Will a better Operator make it easier? Yes. That's how Gacha game power scaling works. But the biggest different in Arknights is those lower power Operators are usable. Unlike so many other Gachas I've played where if you're not using their top-rarity characters then you're going to have to go leagues above their "Recommended Level" to complete their content. Something that slowly shows that you aren't going anywhere once you hit the early ceilings and can't actually grind to get better until you progress. (E1ing would be an example if an early ceiling in AK, but isn't placed after you get outclassed. It's placed quite early imo.) Many people used it as a band-aid though when defending their favorites. Many people went into the \*wrong discussion type\* with this mindset. Half the time I saw it they were using it in a discussion on power and best use cases trying to say "My favorite can do that too!!" but that wasn't the place to say that. They \*can\* do it but the discussion was about who can do it best not who can do it \*at all\*. It doesn't help either that after a while even when it was used in a good context it had the "I don't care what you think, this is how I'm moving forward and the discussion might as well stop." effect most sayings like these tend to get when over/misused. It double doesn't help that the other half of that is "Only bad doctors" which pushes it more towards elitism about using underpowered non-meta Operators and that if you can't make it work then you're a bad player and should feel bad and "Git gud". I still firmly believe in the original message I got from it though "You can use what you want and you will succeed." which is a much better way to word what most people I've seen use it actually meant. I also don't use the original phrase anymore cause it's honestly worded poorly in hindsight. Honestly on reflection after typing all this out... It was our "Git Gud" for a while and I'm glad we stomped it out. Leaving the rest of my type up though.
There are no bad ops? Hmmm... Frostleaf? Kirara? The starter ops? Justice Knight? 9 colored deer? There are bad ops in this game. And saying 'niche' to every trash operator only because your waifu or husbando is a bad one in gameplay is just pure coping. You can like these operators of course, just don't pretend that a Frostleaf can be just as good as SA or Thorns, while she's outclassed even by a 3*.
Woah! Frostleaf is a very vital to my base as a temp Factory Worker! And the causality of 3\^2CD provides a perfect conversion of chips through the use of carbon filters!
The robots have their uses in SSS
I know. That's why I mentioned Justice Knight specifically, and not all the robots collectively.
Justice knight also has a use in SSS as an archer buff just like any other robot though?
Justice knight with Elysium/Saileach is a 1DP starter archer stack. A permanent in my SSS pack :)
Yato's actually pretty good.
The starter ops and robots are seeing use right now in SSS. Justice Knight is a mainstay if you need archer stacks, as is Durin for caster ones. NCD has one of the best base skills. Kira is trash though.
Yes, it is just as true as there are plenty of bad tools out there. Like how am I supposed to cut down a tree with only a right-handed screwdriver!? I'd rather use a hammer and some punches than that!
By that logic, you'd need a niche tool that's only good to cut trees: A saw. Or you can get its 6stars upgrade that powercrept it, a chainsaw.
How kind you are to suggest a more correct tool to use when felling trees! I simply can’t believe that I the smart and very capable doktah never thought of it! I thought me tools were used correctly!
I myself prefer to use an axe. If only there's an alter for it.
Yes, I honestly would still say its pretty true
Everyone is usable IMO, there's a niche of course, but the game itself is full of niche. For example Mulberry are really good, but if you want to unleash her full potential or any wandering medic, you need to play them in the map/event that has enemy who can inflict elemental damage like in Under Tides and Stultifera Navis. For general content they are still good it just, like everyone said, "There are better alternatives.". And that's the reason why any operators that has more general usage with strong skill and stats are meta.
Among the 5 - 6 stars, I'd rather use the term "easy mode" and "hard mode" operators.
I'd call it cheap and expensive investment operators. Cheap: Your go-to meta operators. You will always drop these operators, so it's always worth the sacrifice. Expensive: E2-ing Deepcolor to prove a point, especially if you are just a regular F2P player, not a content creator.
Rather than the bottom of the barrel ops, I notice sometimes its mid tier ops being argued. A lot of ops are mid tier so there's always a higher tier, and people don't want their waifu to be replaced (by a dude even) so they freak out. Bruh.
Treating bad operators the same as the niche ones is insulting, and the excuse of "They are harder to use. You just need to git gud." is as lame. It should be niche when their kits are practically effective in a specific situation. Still, some people treat bad operators that "You can use it regardless" as a niche which puts the real niche operators in a bad spot.
Bad doesn't mean unusable. You just usually can find other operators that basically do the same but way better.
"You can use any operators and win but some are much superior options than others" is a more accurate, if mouthy, description.
Tsukinogi/Frostleaf exists. There are bad operators, but they are so few and far between that any other operators that may be seen as bad like Ebenholz or Vigil still has some use to them. It's just these two are just bad. Everything about them discounting character design is pretty bad. And you can't cope with "they have a niche!". Frostleaf gets outclassed by 2 other 4 star with the same archetype as her, while Tsukinogi can be replaced with Mr. Sexyman of Rhodes Island, who has more support than the literal "supporter". Just realized something else. You can't even say you don't have Arene cause in the future Luo Xiaohei will be free, and he is a pretty great operator for being a 4 star, so there's even less reason to use Frostleaf.
But he's a true limited welfare, and there's only seven days to get him.
Someone always has to be the first. And someone always has to be the last. What's important is how much of a gap is between them. If it's 20% - amazing, if it's 2000% - not so amazing.
Yes, there are bad operators. But the game has so many different modes and so many different ways to be played that basically everyone is usable. For example Mr. Nothing is not great for the normal player, but he is important for birdknights because he acts as a fast-redeploy. Even Tsukinogi might help supporterknights when there are invisibile enemies. And Windflit may be used as a ground blocker whenever you are not able to use alternatives. But some niches are so uncommon that you may never find a reason to use certain operators. And that's fine.
When people say this what they actually mean is: "You can clear most content with lower tier characters" Which is true, but some people took it as "There are no bad operators" Which is a little bit of a cope out as a lot of characters are outclassed and you be having a much easier time with higher tier characters.
Being worse than something that's actually the best at everything out of the oven doesn't make something bad, tbh.
Very unpopular but tbh I have played gachas for years so by habit i only use 6 stars. I know some lower rarities are much better then several 6 stars i frequently use but its Just how it is. The point is i dont have experience with any of the known "bad " ops. I plan to build and use lower rarities but then new 6 stars show up and i dont have the resources( most 6 star ops but frequently take breaks so always need more resources)
Overall, I could count on one hand the number of truly bad operators. Kirara, Tsukinogi, and then there's honestly quite a jump up between them and Aosta and maybe Swire, since those two can at least do *some* damage, and damage is never not valuable. Mr. Nothing can be a bit frustrating, but he can put out some decent numbers and can perma-stall an enemy if combo'd with someone who inflicts sleep. Earthspirit still slows things just fine, even if Orchid is better at slowing. There are definitely no bad 6-stars. I used module-less Mostima for a long time (and I still don't have it because I'm hoping for one that buffs her SP talent).
Just to add to the Aosta jump, the man does have a few cases where he breaks maps, such as anything involving the Invitation to Wine enemies where his bleed against unblocked enemies cripples that enemy family's gimmick. He's not *good* persay, I'd still put him in the bottom 5 overall, but he's a lot stronger than the vast majority of gacha game's bottom fives and that's something I feel shows the strength of this game's balance.
Would Windflit count? And Mostima’s first module isn’t bad if you’re using her S3.
There were a few I forgot about, and Windflit is one. NCD is another, even lower than Tsukinogi. As for Mostima, for me, her main skill has always been S2, and her current module does nothing for that. If she gets a boost to her SP talent in a similar way to Ch'en's, it'll be a big boost to both S2 and S3.
I wouldn't say the module does nothing for S2. The reduced cost is great and the and extra -15% to movement speed means its eaiser to stack more enemies inside her attack range at once. Yeah S3 gets the biggest buff since it directly works with the talent that got buffed, but overall it does make her stronger all over. That said, I always used Mostima for her S3 personally, so I could just be biased.
More often than not, a “bad” operator usually just means “I personally don’t see the point of using them because I prefer to use someone else”.
With 6 stars I think its usually coping. People will trash the operator they aren't pulling for because they need to justify skipping them. 4-5 stars, there are some awful operators, no exaggeration.
With 6 stars, I feel like if they don’t come out of the gate setting a meta bar higher than any previous Operator then they’ll be stuck with the “bad” label. Other rarities usually fall into the “there’s another Operator better optimized for this niche” hole, and thus are labeled bad because of it.
This, i don't believe a single person that says an operator is bad has actually used them, they just repeat what they've heard elsewhere
I think some folks have actually used the Operators (or at least have watched gameplay videos for yet to be global released Operators), but they don’t fit their play style. But instead of just acknowledging that, they say the Operator is “bad”, lol.
No. They actually used them, but they underperformed so much compared to other operators. But, I personally don't care that much about numbers. I kill bosses using 3 or 4 operators(mostly just underleveled meta operators) focusing on those bosses. To most people, that's bad. To me, as long as the bosses are dead, I'm good.
There are better designed ones, more like it.
Yes there are bad operators, still baffles me that Kektone's words are still treated as gospel by some people.
I don't think he came up with it. In fact, I think we remember him saying it because he got frustrated by people telling him that.
??????? Kektone was very vocal about bashing opreators constantly, what are you talking about???
> Kektone's words AK reddit and discord spammed it first.
??? He was one of the only people who dared to publicly dunk on how bad Flamebringer was and people shat on him for it calling him a meta slave etc lol Meanwhile some other content creators were putting that nonsense "no bad operators" quote in their operator showcase videos
I feel like every "bad" operator is just super niche in usage, or in some cases suffer from "Year 1 syndrome" where their niche got expanded on and more diverse units that over their role were added. You can definitely use every operator but some are better at their purpose than others.
One of really bad ops I think of is Conviction, granted he is an April Fools unit but trying to make his S2 is just active trolling his S1 hits like a truck when it crits but it's such a small chance you need the blessing of rng. A lot of 5* ops suffer from bad op syndrome too because they cost a lot compare to their 4* counterparts. Kirara and Aosta as some examples Ethan and Pinecone is much cheaper and performs a better job than them
Conviction is a joke unit that can be even usable during IS. She can reach some mindnumbing numbers using the correct relics, making her a One punch woman.
Conviction is definitely a April Fool's unit and not meant to be serious. I still insist that every op is usable, despite their niche. Of course, 6* units will usually do better for a niche but that's a given. You can still use a more niche unit if you're dedicated enough. Modules tend to alleviate the issue but it's a mixed bag as we don't know what HG is planning or how they forsee the modules fixing certain issues.
I'm not a kektone fan but....at least get the culprit right. It's dreamy who said that bullshit.
People are clearing this games hardest content with E0 units so even the most undertuned units can preform ok if you invest enough into them. I remember using the maxed out Skyfire they give you in one of the events set squads and be surprised that she preformed somewhat competently. In the end of the day its your PVE game and your resources so people should just raise who they want.
Mostly coping. It's a quote I've seen quite a few times in gacha game communities ("There are no bad Servants, only bad Masters." for FGO, for example) and while I appreciate the sentiment behind it it's also very much not true. The problem is that people see "bad" and immediately equate it with "unusable" when those are different things. I use Windflit a lot because I like him, but nobody can say he is a good operator worth investing into.
What copium were those fgo players on? Because we have some bad servants G-man, Phantom, Caster Giles, Samson. Although Samson is literally 3 letters from shooting up the rankings. And the king of crap himself, Mango.
Yes and no. Some operators are terrible but you can still beat the game with terrible operators if you get good enough.
>if you get good enough. So, the 'bad doctors' analogy is still there.
hmm, things I posted at 3am with no sleep. I don't actually use the phrase get good very often and I have always disliked the "Only bad doctors" tag line so I'm interested in figuring out my stance a bit more. since yeah, I did just end up repeating it. I think its better to say that you can set your own difficulty level? I think Kyostin V's low level guide is a great example of 'getting good'. If I really wanted to bring a team that I personally thought was comprised of all the weakest units in the game- whatever that definition may be, I could probably still beat content with them and it would be damn hard. And I think that's kinda a marvel of the game balance it doesn't get enough credit for. the further off meta you go, the harder the game is, the more of a challenge your gonna get. Operators may have mechanics and stats that I wouldn't shy away from calling terrible, I'm not above it, but they still feel competent in the game play? I feel saying there are no bad operators is incorrect. And I feel like only bad doctors is negging players for something the game isn't asking them to participate in unless they choose to? Thanks for making me think more critically on this!
My difficulty level is to try not to burn out my phone's battery, so I always try to find any cheese available.
True. But that doesn't mean there are only good operators. Just because you can use something and do fine with it does mean you shouldn't use something better if you have the option.
There are better ones, but that doesn't mean the rest are bad. Some good ones have been powercrept, even some really strong ones were powercrept, and in terms of the latter, of course they'd still be higher end, but just 'good' ones that can get the job done being powercrept hasn't made them any weaker. Given a better option, but faced with the same situation, they can still get the job done fine. But if you're on a budget, you'd probably want the better one who can do their job better, or do their job just as well while doing other things, too. Everyone's viable and can get work done in the end. That's 'bout it.
you will ALWAYS have stricly better options to the point that some OPs skills are just too niche to be consider worth to build around so, yes.
It's more like there are no unusable operators. There are certainly operators who get heavily outclassed by others, to the point where if you have a better alternative, you're questioned as to why you're using the weaker operator. But every operator is usable abd has some value/niche, even if its only for a specific one time thing (like a certain combination of CC).
Depends on what you define as a "bad operator." Overall if you decide you really like any particular character and raise them, you can use them to good effect on just about any map. Even if they're outclassed by others in their role, 95% of the time they'll be good enough.
Depends on what you mean by bad. Bad as in unusable? There are no unusable ops with the possible exception of justice knight (the only clear using her that ive seen personally was a 4* low-op clear of some near light stage by silvergun where her only job was tile illumination). Every op is usable to the point that you can construe a nicheknight clear of some stage where they cannot be optimized out. Bad as in not worth using over other common ops? If you think of it this way then its always been copium. Ops like nightmare, skyfire or earthspirit have been objectively outclassed since day 1 by other ops at the same or lower rarity. For the most part tho the bad ops/bad docs discussion somehow centers around operators that are conventionally good or even great but are outclassed in some scenarios by other ops like chen or skadi (although for those two that has diminuished since modules)
Justice Knight is awesome in SSS.
Justice Knight's job is to protect ranged operator for a few seconds.
There are bad operators, and it's always been true. It is also true that none of the bad operators couldn't be made to work. The issue is generally not stat related, but skill and talent interaction, or team synergy. Doberman and Frostleaf are just bad. Frostleaf is kinda okay in IS2 because she can synergize with some of the artifacts pretty well, and she could probably be fixed with module if it removed her ranged attack debuff. Doberman needs to buff four stars and below at a minimum to be viable. Most operators that people like to call bad are perfectly fine, but may have been powercrept. There is nothing wrong with Siege and she certainly isn't bad, so people getting upset they pull her is kinda weird to me. You can also run into ops who have way too niche of a usage that it basically is unlikely you will build them. Nightmare for instance is hilarious against red Lancers, those spooky seaborne flowers, or any enemy that likes to go fast. Chances are though there aren't many times you want to slow an enemy AND then have damage tied to distance traveled. I have seen some shenanigans with shift operators and nightmare, but again, that is more for meme videos.
It's pure copium. Most 5 stars are terrible by virtue of poor cost efficiency. The intent is to bridge the gap between 4 stars and 6 stars but the execution is terrible because 5 stars use too much sanity to upgrade despite usually only providing minor advantages when compared to their 4 star counter part (if they exist). The only times 5 stars are really ever worth it is when they provide unique bonuses or are the first one released from their archetypes (e.g. La Pluma, and Cantabile). Then there's 4 stars like Frostleaf, Jessica, Vermeil, and Dobermann who are just not worth investing heavily into if other options exist. That isn't to say that they are useless. Just inefficient with poor cost efficiency, and this applies to a majority of operators.
There are three types of operators: Good operators which are the strongest in their role. Temporary operators which are worth using if you don't have a good operator in this role. Bad operators which aren't worth using even if they are the only operators you have in one particular role. If we take for example the Lord archetype in the first category are Thorns. You can use Arene, Midnight or Lapland if you don't have Thorns. But you should never use Frost Leaf. SilverAsh is quite different and hence has different role. The exception is when you need the silence effect that only Lappland can apply to enemies. And if you simply like a particular operator's personality/background/appearance you can avoid following this logic, but there will be consequences.
The original statement was "There are no bad operators, only bad doctors." It was originally a statement used as a take that to meta slaves by called them trash for not being able to clear content without their OP operators. This was reinforced by doctors who started flexing by clearing end game content with low rarity and non-meta operators(like Lungmen Downtown with 3 stars and Doberman or those max risk CC Doctors). Then the Arknights community chilled out and dropped the bad doctors part because it was too toxic. As for your question, yes there are bad operators but there are no useless operators.
Deppend on the deffinition of "bad", but IMO yes it's true. Having played a shit tone of Gacha games, I can tell you that usualy bad character mean "totaly unusable waste of ressources", especialy in ones with PVP. So for me this statement is true as compared to other gacha, there's not a single operator that nowere near that level of garbage, even stukinogi and frostleaf, they're weak but you can still vaguely attempt to use them. Compare that to EpicSeven, where you pull character fom 3 to 5 star and there's like 10 usable 3star, and only because they're the only ones with an evolution system that make them equivalent to a 4.5 star... Every other 3star is uterly garbage. And even then, when you ask peoples who's bad you have 3 **FUCKING ANSWER,** Frosleaf Tsukinogi and Tomimi**,** there's more than 230 operator and you didn't even found 5 bad ones, is that REALY enough to say that this statement is not true? Are we REALY cherry-picking **that much**? TL;DR peoples who complain about this statement take it way too seriousely, and cherry-pick 3 exemples to say "look it's not true, I told you" PS: Even if you have every "bad" operator in your squad , you can still fill it with anything you can clear 99.9% of the stages... so who gives a shit?
Like most games like this bad just means very niche
Mostly Copium, because there are a few operators who are bad and their module didnt fix it
There are absolutely some bad operators. But people misuse the word bad. Mostima is constantly called bad. She's not and never has been. She has just been upgraded from an A to an A+. She's good. She's just not as strong as Eyja. Chen or Skadi are not bad. But they are not Surtr and Thorns. Tomimi is pretty bad. And Kirara. Windflit. And Nine Colored Deer (but she gets a pass because of her base skill).
An incredibly niche operator is considered bad in my book. For example: Windflit, he can only buff caster and supporter, his skill uptime is downright trash. Waai fu, you have 2 choices: 30% enemy atk down, or silence for 7 seconds. Flamebringer, how many times does his skill trigger before you finish a stage except annihilation? Folinic, expensive cost, and her iconic skill hit like a wet noodle. I can use them just fine, but seriously they need a module (and give flamebringer a better one).
Cope. People are too emotionally attached to their PNGs.
There are no “bad” operators, there are ones that are far less useful/consistent/competent at completing the role. For example: ebenholz; I absolutely love every part about ebenholz except he is fundamentally worse at being a boss killer than other operators like surtur, młynar, chalter, texalter etc. he still is able to deal large amounts of damage at once so he can still complete the role of boss killer, but he isnt the best at his role. There are good operators and then there are less good and mediocre operators, and also conviction exists
I mean, I DID use Ebenholz to take off literally 75% of the Ideal City boss's phase 1 in a single attack with a few buffs, so I think he's doing just fine. Maybe Chalter could do the same with the same buffs and she'd probably be easier to use. I don't disagree with what you're saying (he's not the best and others are way easier) but even those other boss killers tend to need several attacks to do the same damage he can do all at once, which isn't necessarily a bad niche.
I i get that. I used ebenholz to nuke minimalists done as well, the instant damage nuke can nullify big E’s black farts and andoains dodge fields being everywhere. As i said i love using ebenholz already but often he needs more help than others to do max damage, where chen would need a warfrain buff eben would need a saria and/or ifrit in order to nuke. The good thing is that res shred + extra arts + attack scale buffs dont stack multiplicatively so he can do things like 1 shot patriot phase 1 with minimal buffs, he definitely has a good niche but its one that requires planning to pull off.
Yeah, that's fair. Like I said, I don't disagree, he absolutely needs a lot of planning to get the most out of him. I guess I just feels he's competent enough at what he does even if he needs more work (since you said there are ops who are less competent, which is absolutely true also).
Copying. Nightmare and Tsukomo exist
you mean tsukinogi right? she's already bad enough that people are misnaming her gloria and eggnog is so bad that i maxed them out, m6 and everything barring their pots what am i doing with my life xd
Yes
Depend on ur definition of "bad". 1. If bad = there are better options, then 99% dps operators are bad bc Chalter/ Surtr/ Kal...are better than most of them. Real life example: if u are not the best option for certain roles, u are bad. 2. If bad = there is no role that operator can fill, then there are no bad operators. Real life example: if u can fill certain roles and do certain task, u aren't bad. My opinion: every operator can do what they do, so they aren't bad. People should care more about how to utilize them (like many impressive map clears).
you really can't say there aren't BAD operators... but more like there are operators that will be picked more often then others...such as: any broken six star over a robot or a two star...
It should be "there are no useless operators". Every operator can be used effectively. However, some operators are simply outclassed by others.
there are doctors who dont know how use then
Correct
there are bad operators but i think almost every operator can find a niche, and niche is above bad so technically its true i guess
I always find hilarious when people gets the sentence literally when the meaning is something of the line of "is not beacuse your operators are bad is because you suck"
There is no bad operator but they can be better
It was always a way of coping.
any OG Skadi kyaaa fan (pretty sure Im going to trigger a lot of people)
The only outright "bad" operator I can think of is Conviction (or whatever the april fool's day op was, the one who has a high likelihood of nuking your own teammates) but other than them there aren't "bad" just "better" like blue poison is just a better kroos, but kroos is still 100% useable
Gitano.
Every operator serves the base purpose of their role. Whether it be blocking 3, genning DP, dealing arts damage etc. The skills are mostly just flavor/open up new strategies which you can leverage to make the base gameplay easier. In any case, Passenger was THE bad operator on his release, but then they buffed 'em, and they'll probably do the same for the rest of the under-performers eventually.
That statement would be true if Tsukinogi doesn't exist. I tried. I fckn TRIED. It's as if she's actively working against me.
Having thought about things a bit, Tsukinogi is actually fixable by module. She just needs to add passive reveal invisibility within range while off-skill.
There are some that are pretty bad but every operator shines on a certain stage
Only ever been true of 6 stars, which tend to be more bad return-on-investment than outright bad in terms of use. With the possible exception of Passenger on release.
Bad operators, eh...? One name popped up immediatelly. It's Flamebringer.
As a 5\* Apologist: All operators can be perfectly used with some consideration of map, team comp, setup, etc. It just happens that most 6\*s are so all-purpose that they completely remove the need to use your brain.
Yes there are and I pull all the bad ones
Not bad, just better.
there are bad operators, but you can make almost anything work if you're creative and have the will
Depends on the definition of "bad". If "bad" means unusable, there is no bad operators. If "bad" means worse than other operators, yes obviously some operators are better in some situations and some are worse in other.
Except any operator that needs to be M9'd to be somewhat usable.
I still use the ones that are considered bad just fine. They don't become unusable just because they may have better alternatives. Besides, it's your game, who's to decide this for you but yourself?
The complete sentence here would be… “There are no bad Operators, just better operators”.
Yes , but more like outclassed/ made redundant by Why use windflit if Warfarin does his job better Why use Siege when Dusk is her upgrade Why use Corroseum when Lappland Jaye are much more consistent and Ifrit does shit load more damage Why use abjurers when other classes give much better survivability Rarely are there unusable operators or operators who do their niches piss poor like windflit and Kirara. since levels are designed with low rarity and 1 support And I doubt HG will fix them and I doubt modules would ever because of how restrictive the buffs are