80s USA by chen HG

Julia (joking): What are you, twelve?

River (without thinking, fully serious): I’m technically six actually.

Julia:

Anathema:

River: (oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck-)

Julia: Wha-

Anathema: You’re a leap year baby?

River: YES (thank you thank you thank you)

ricardo ortega if u do not absolutely destroy captain blaze in the polls I’ll never forgive u

besties who take down criminal mob bosses together stay together 💖

😭 thinking about how chen didnt get the chance to ask vanya for help, and now he cant ask since hes actually not a telepath anymore....

ortega's relationship with tatsuya is 90% which is very high, so chen obviously felt threatened and his relationship stat is 91%

Playing densil now and making even worse decisions than with antoine if that's possible..

So Degenbrecher is like

Swordmaster Mlynar huh?

Balans

Wouldn't I love for Carnelian to get true dmg with her delta module. Ngl, I feel like that's the only thing that can at least salvage her in the age of Lin.

I theorycrafted a delta module to Carn for fun last December where I thought up how to implement true damage into her kit, but after 6 more months of playing around with her and Lin, I don't think simply adding true damage is the way.

This might be a hot take but I don't think true damage would save Carnelian. Unless she were to get Mlynar levels of DPS which is unlikely, even a massive increase to her damage output will not help her be any more relevant vs Lin than she is now.

I believe there are two main reasons for this. Big post about Carnelian's flawed design and delta module theorycrafting below.

1.) DPS is the most replaceable role - In a tower defense game, everyone and their mother does damage. You can be at the very top by providing an absurd amount of damage, but as time goes on the competition only gets more and more fierce, until even monsters (like Ch'en the Holungday) meet even greater abominations (Wisadel) in the end.

You stand out in this game by dealing damage + doing something else. Even the three DPS gods of Mlynar, Surtr, and Chen the Holungday (whose dynamic is bound to change because of Wisadel) offer gimmicks besides raw damage: Mlynar his always active taunt, Chen her AOE slow and DEF down, and Surtr her immortality. There's a reason why Silverash's module buffed his respawn cd reduction apart from just his damage: your unique utility is your strongest selling point.

Anyone who only has damage/stats to offer needs it to be the highest in the game, or else falls on the wayside. For example, I love Siege, mine is E2L90 and M6, but she is undoubtedly the worst of the three 6 star pioneers, when her (very high) damage potential is compared to Saga's survivability talent + SP support, or Flametail's ridiculously high evasion and fast skill cycling. Sure if you're doing Vanguards only, Siege gets the niche of being the tankbuster with her high DPH, but if you don't restrict yourself like that, why not just bring a Guard?

In that same manner, Carnelian's niche is being the damage-focused Phalanx. She's got the highest arts burst among them, but without Beeswax's regen, Mint's shift, or Lin's shield, damage is ALL she offers, and given that being an Arts DPS in Arknights sucks ass when you don't have RES reduction and have to deal with Eyjafjalla/Logos/Goldenglow existing, things look really bad for Carnelian's use cases even if she did have the damage to justify her terrible weaknesses, which she doesn't.

2.) Carnelian's kit is inherently flawed - Carnelian's kit was HG playing around with the Charged mechanic, where you could double charge your skills to get extra effects. Unfortunately, the base charge time for Carnelian's skills are as long as regular skills, but aren't particularly strong without their overcharged effects. This means you always want to overcharge her talents.

This means her talents are trying to compensate for her weaknesses instead of allow her to do something new. Her first talent heals her on skill activation since she's a Phalanx and will be taking damage, but without the constant regen that Beeswax has, this makes Carnelian reliant on her skills cycling fast (which conflicts with Charged doubling her SP costs) or having a medic (making the first talent useless), while her second talent speeds up her SP gain (which is diluted since it only works once the skill is already charged).

This is why boosting her damage isn't going to save her from Lin. She's a DPS unit in a tank class making her meh at both jobs, and actually increasing the damage she deals isn't going to help how she struggles to deal it in the first place due to her Charged mechanic and lack of self-sustain.

_____

So what does Carnelian need in a delta module?

I believe Carn needs a delta module that gives her new features that let her play like a Phalanx. It should increase her damage of course, but needs a feature that lets her be placed as aggressively as Beeswax or Lin. She shouldn't be exactly like Lin, but she should at least have a different take on Lin's playstyle of taking enemy aggro while in the highground tile.

I want to propose a new mechanic. If your units can now place elemental debuffs on enemies just like enemies could place debuffs on them, I propose elemental buffs, where filling the elemental bar will apply powerful buffs on your units, powerful because it's harder to apply than a normal buff.

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Theorycrafting

Carnelian Delta Module - When this unit takes damage, gain 100 points of Sandstorm. If an enemy dies inside its attack range, gain 200 points of Sandstorm.

Sandstorm - Triggers when 1000 points are accumulated. This unit regenerates 5% max HP/s and +1 SP/s, and deal 400 elemental damage per second. Sandstorm loses 100 points per second and ends once all points are gone, but points can still be gained from enemies dying while Sandstorm is active.

Talent Upgrade at level 3: Meal of Life - Restores 40% Max HP when skill is activated; Effect is doubled when Charged. When Sandstorm is active, slow enemy movement speed within ATK range by 30% and deal 30% of damage dealt as bonus Elemental Damage.

With this buff, even if Carnelian doesn't nullify damage the way Lin does, if she can survive taking 10 hits (a lot!), she gets a 5% Max HP regen buff and a 1 SP/s buff for 10 seconds, which helps her charge her skills faster and survive. She cannot take on powerful attacks the way Lin can, but surviving lots of minor hits helps her sustain without a medic while dealing small amounts of AOE elemental damage.

When activating her skills while Sandstorm is active, the HP regen from Sandstorm should help her survive despite removing her Phalanx buffs, while killing enemies extends the length of Sandstorm by 2 seconds each, allowing her to prey on large crowds like Lin does without cramping Lin's style. The movement speed slow and elemental damage on her talent upgrade should help Carnelian get kills on enemies while keeping them within her attack range to keep Sandstorm going.

This way, Carnelian actually wants enemies to attack her, can survive mild-aggro when she finally activates her skill, and provides utility beyond just damage in the form of her AOE slows (which would make for killer crowd control with her Bind on S2) and her self-sufficiency allowing her to finally be placed very far forward the way Lin does.

have you seen qiubai's new skin on CN?

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

✅HAT ✅LEAF ✅CAPE

the dress could have been longer (see bottom of post) but thats just very personal preference the clothing tags??? near/on the sword is so funny

skin trivia under cut with more unsolicited thoughts

Her skin name 霜林醉 or in HG-lish 'Wine-flushed is Woods of Rime', (i hope they shorten this if global gets it lol) is from Romance of the Western Chamber

碧云天，黄花地，西风紧，北雁南飞。晓来谁染霜林醉？总是离人泪。

found 2 english translations, one from 1935 and the other from 2000

i do very much prefer this long skirt but the skin is still good 👍👍👍👍👍

now that chunfen is out on global... she really is like your average swordsman protagonist huh. which is making me even more glad that qiubai is not a man even though (i believe) she would have been incredibly popular as a long haired bishounen because it would have just made all her actions just part of the status quo of guys doing whatever the fuck they want (see water margin) to exact their own sense of justice without the fear of any repercussion. im not sure what point im trying to make here lol let girls just be some guy??? <how is this such a rarity in current year etc

anyway i enjoyed chunfen way way more than i did with vernal and the latter had chen AND lin in it

I found a different Sidestep profile with more details in the depths of my files and trough the magic of googling also traced back the source!

I've updated it to River's current stats and spruced it up a lil to share.

smth smth fawn being a dog on a leash

by chen HG

Do you think that there is a possibility of Hypergryph splitting from Yostar for global publishing of Arknights and moving it to Gryphline instead? The traditional Chinese server got moved from Long Chen to Gryphline recently, and the new ambience synesthesia concert merch is on the Gryphline store rather than yostar’s. It may just be wishful thinking as yostar and hypergryph both own large shares of each other, but if there is a planned split from yostar would it potentially be a reason why Hypergryph hasn’t made a statement condemning Yostar Korea’s actions? Is there any precedent for publisher changes for a sort of legal clause preventing them from hurting each others’ image prior to the split being announced?

Gryphline is situated in Singapore, having what I guess you could call a “proxy” company for global business in Singapore is something a lot of companies in China have done for a while, increasingly within the past couple of years, for a multitude of reasons. Last time I checked Mihoyo had “Cognosphere” in Singapore, and when you buy gachabux in that game on servers outside China I believe your bill is from Cognosphere. The slave labor fast fashion site Shein has been operating under the Singapore-registered “Roadget Business” which some have speculated makes it easier to list in the USA. Yostar has HQ in Hong Kong which used to be the proxy location but according to this FT article-“Traditionally, Hong Kong was the choice for many such companies, said Kia Meng Loh, a senior partner at Dentons Rodyk. But with Beijing “flexing its muscles” in the semi-autonomous rival finance hub, Singapore is the obvious next choice, he said.” Hypergryph has multiple games coming out in the near future, I believe a regular (non-gacha) 3D anime mobile game and a 3D Arknights spinoff that will have a weapon gacha, and I think another game that’s TBD? They could be rearranging their internal structure due to this expansion if they’ve switched around their Chinese server already, but I’m unsure if this means they will completely split with Yostar who I believe publishes the US, Japanese and Korean servers.

Admittedly I can’t say I’m super well versed with this type of business and therefore it’s harder to really predict what they will do in the future, but I’ve been watching the situation since AK KR posted that notice to see what happens. I don’t have anything against the game itself, if it comes out that somehow their hands are completely tied in the situation or something I’ll post about that as well but I’m not holding my breath. In terms of my read on the situation, I think a huge message has ready been sent to the fans as to whom the company deems most profitable to listen to, regardless of any future handwringing over the situation. I would think between a woman posting extremely basic feminist thoughts on her personal twitter (equal pay etc) and enjoying the woman’s day google doodle years ago, and the Arknights KR/Yostar employee liking extremely violent fanart on the official twitter account and hanging out on extremist, misogynistic chat boards, that the employee would be seen as more of a problem and should have been the one disciplined. In reality, not only was the woman punished by having her work deleted but the official KR account posted that diatribe calling basic feminism a “dividing force” or whatever. This action and the following statement are absolutely not neutral, especially during a time a which violent misogyny has been increasingly ripping through South Korea as a whole but also gacha games specifically. In terms of PR I do think this is something Hypergryph could address, if HG doesn’t want to rock the boat with Yostar so to speak because of some upcoming split, it seems Yostar has already rocked the boat quite a bit with this action to begin with…

in terms of a main developer punishing the publisher, one example I can think of is Fate/Grand Order’s DelightWorks (after the sakura wars fuckup FGO is developed by “Lasengle” now, but when this happened it was DW) changing an in-game reward that FGO’s Korean publisher Netmarble gave out. In terms of them splitting as well, I’m still looking into it 👍 If anyone knows anything else feel free to reply or send me stuff and I’ll post it, sometimes I feel if I wait too long to reply to messages it comes across as rude lol so I’m not getting lost in like thesis tier research

IM FINALLY GETTING AROUND TO THAT CAINE POST WITH HIS RELATIONSHIPS TO THE RANGERS LETS GO

long post so as per usual im throwing this under the cut

Caine & Ortega:

Ortega is caines best friend of years, even after the farm. In fact, caines had a crush on him since their sidestep days, but only realized it in retri lol. He finds his static soothing, its a reprieve from the constant chatter around them, even if it comes with the cost of not being able to read his mind. The problem is that caine is really good at following orders, and during his sidestep days, when they first got all their freedom, he kind of subconciously latched on to ortega as the nearest authority figure because they likened his static to the numbers used at the farm. Even post second escape, they still regard him as an authority(though hes starting to chafe against ortegas influence a little bit more). Part of the reason caine is a no-kill saving step is because, even if they dont realize it, theyre doing what ortega told them to do. if ortega had asked him to kill somebody, hed do it 100%. and if that somebody just so happened to be a near-mythical kingpin ruling over los diablos, well... let's just say theres more than one reason caine agreed to HGs deal unthreaded

Caine & Chen:

Oh, caine has a thing for the marshal and they are throwing a fit about it. This was NOT supposed to happen. Chen was supposed to be the vaguely-tolerable side effect to getting spoon. But then he found out that chens well-shielded mind is actually really nice for the same reasons ortegas mind is, and that he could relate to the feeling of being forced into a role he doesnt want to play. Back in the day, caine was always frustrated that chen didnt trust what he brought to the team, but now that theyre "retired", it doesnt matter and they can relax together as individuals. It was a surprisingly nice development. The two are more similar than they think– nowadays, the main conflict between the two is caine being lycan, because chen is absolutely aware of that fact and caine is just about clear-headed enough to note that thats probably a bad thing. Caine and chen are both very (for lack of better term) career focused, and even if caine doesnt like being villainous, theyre willing to do whatevers needed for the job(over 80% drive babyyy). So yeah, those two are going to butt heads when That conversation finally comes up

Caine & Herald:

Caine is WORKING that 66% strength of mind whenever herald is around. They find him intense, overly curious, and far too forgetful of boundaries, all of which they Do Not appreciate. But he still cant help liking the kid. Hes legitimately proud of how far heralds come along, and hes interested in his potential as a threat since hes shown how perceptive he can be. Currently, theyre trying to round out heralds skills as part of the team, as well as pushing him to analyze and use what he notices against an opponent. Plus, training herald has been more of a lifeline than theyd like to admit(i wrote something about it, but idk if ill post it rip). Its a schedule, hes a good coach, and he just likes fighting for fun lmfao. The whole thing would be great if herald could get some shields for the love of god

Caine & Argent:

Fun fact, caine used to have a small crush on argent between rebirth and retribution. It was a mix of admiration for her skills, the constant attention and the fact that argent is just pretty lol. It faded quick (quickly enough that he panicked in the bridge fight when he realized she was flirting with him lmfao), but they continued to hold a healthy amount of respect for her afterwards, even if they didnt approve of her teamwork. And then the casino happened! Caine had gone through the whole casino infiltration entirely untouched, but when they noticed the fight between argent and shroud, they couldnt help but give into curiosity and see what was happening. That was. a bad decision. He watched shroud attempt and fail to devour argent, and they ended up getting a panic attack and fleeing. He is now scared as shit of her :D! He avoids her like the plague, and whenever hes given an opportunity to escape a room with her in it, hes taking it. They dont know what she is, and they have a bad feeling about finding out