Operators and you

Operators help the team from the sidelines with both a passive and an active skill. You could say they're the captain of the ship that supports the team.

There are two ways to get Operators:

One is to pull them from Operator banners, which is not advised for F2P (Free to play) players or even dolphins (spenders). Why? Because you have to pull on the banner using the same currency as you use on employee banners. However, for some competitive players you will have to take the gamble anyway.

N-SR rarity Operators can be pulled only from banners.

The best way to get Operators is to buy them from the Planet Mall Shop. The currency used there, Task Planet Points, is very valuable - you get 10 TPP for doing 1 pull on any banner. Yes, 3000 TPP sound like a lot, but it's still better to buy them there instead of wasting your Summon Tickets.

If you're a new player, don't be tempted by the SSR Tickets and just save your TPP. Trust me, you will thank me later.

Each operator gets assigned a random passive skill the moment you buy or pull him. The skill starts at level 1 and you can level it up to level 11 by feeding operators with the same skill to your operator. The chance to succeed is pretty low and depends on the rarity of the operator you're using as fodder:

• N rarity Operator - 8%
• R rarity Operator - 15%
• SR rarity Operator - 75%
• SSR rarity Operator - 100%

Here's the list of all random passive skills:

Well, that's quite a lot of skills. But which one is the best?

• AOE DMG Res - for PVP and harder PVE Content (like Dive 50). Nearly all special and ultimate skills in the game are counted as AOE skills, so this passive basically decreases their damage by 20%.
• Ground DMG Res - argued to be equal or better than AOE Res for PVP.
• Increase CRIT DMG - best for damage dealing, which is important for PVE, especially Raids and Danger Close.
• Increase ASPD - second best for PVE, but far below CDMG. Also, it's not usable until you level it because 2% is tiny.

You can also change the passive skill the operators was assigned, but the chance for that is pretty low and it requires sacrificing other operators - similar to leveling the passive. Here are the odds:

• N rarity Operator - 8%
• R rarity Operator - 15%
• SR rarity Operator - 38%
• SSR rarity Operator - 50%

To make things worse, you need use operator of the same rarity or higher to make the switch. Still, even if you use an SSR operator, the chance for it to succeed is only 50%.

Compared to the passive skills, active ones are thankfully fixed and each operator has a different one.

Here's an example active skill belonging to Lena:

The most important part of the skill is the so called Release Trigger Order. You can see it at the bottom of the image and it shows what employees you need to deploy for the operator to use his skill.

In case of Lena, you need to deploy a Ranger, then a Sniper and a Striker. But what's important is that you don't need to deploy them one by one - after deploying the first employee a small bar will appear in the bottom of the screen that shows you how much time is left for you to deploy the next employee in the sequence.

Active skills can also be leveled up, but this time you need to feed dupes of the same operator to level his skill. To max a skill you need exactly 8 copies (original + 7 dupes). It's important to know, that some operators work great out of the box - meaning at their level 1 skill is already great and you don't need to level it up.

Similar to employees, Operators can be leveled, but the levels don't affect their active and passive skills. The only thing that changes is the bonus they provide to the Ship - HP, ATK and DEF. The Skill Haste bonus to the ship is already maxed at level 1 of Operator.

Because of this, you don't really need to level up your Operators.

There isn't one best Operator that will work equally good in each area of the game. But here are a few Operators that excel at something and why you should consider buying them.

Kim Hana

Kim Hana is a universal operator that can work in all PVE and PVP thanks to her easy-to-use skill trigger order. While she works fine at level 1 - giving the DP refund, going from 6% to 20% Skill haste at maxed level can give you a significant boost in Danger Close and PVP. She's also the best operator for many PVE stages, including endgame PVE stages such as Relics and Danger Close. This makes her a must have for all players, and is the first operator a new player should get.

Lena Mackenzie

Lena is a strong PVE operator - her skill buffs all employees ATK and ASPD. She suffers from one issue - her skill trigger order isn't too natural, especially for PVP. Also, it should be noted that the Crit DMG side skill is so strong that if you don't have a Crit DMG or ASPD Lena, you could choose any other operator with a Crit DMG side skill and they would likely out-damage your Lena.

Serina Crew

Serina is widely considered the best PVP operator because of her ability to block buffs for a good duration. While this doesn't sound extremely good because buffers aren't commonplace in PVP, many characters' gimmicks are linked to a self-buff - Replacer King's wind punches, Veronica and Esterosa's immortality, and Awakened Horizon's invulnerability are all counted as buffs, effectively removing the entire mechanic from their kits for her duration. To top it all off, she has an easy to use skill trigger.

Sigma

The non-cancelable shield Sigma provides are is great for every team in PVP - soldiers, counters and mechs. The shield can't be removed by Serina nor Awakened Na Yubin because it's uncancellable. This makes Sigma a great pick for PVP as well, but be warned that her skill is quite useless at low levels.

Mark Finley

Mark Finley is budget Lena - while his bonus isn't as strong as hers, he has a different skill trigger that some teams may prefer, but more importantly, if you pull on operators, it's more likely for you to have a Crit DMG Finley rather than a Crit DMG Lena. Quite a big "if" though, because as mentioned earlier, pulling on operator banners is not advised. And no, you can't buy him from Planet Mall because he is SR rarity.

TL;DR

Pick Hana and Lena for PVE, and Serina or Sigma for PVP.