Operators

Agnes Abigail is a unique damage-boost operator with a low cooldown Command Skill that requires only a single sniper to proc and can be stacked. While her stacking mechanic is unique, the actual buffs she offers are low value to compensate for potentially permanent uptime. Agnes requires massive allocation of resources (in both DP and team slots dedicated to Snipers) to activate and maintain her stacking buffs. Small incremental damage gains do not justify the investment, particularly when compared to established Sniper-focused operators like Vivian Rashford and Yuppie, who offer stronger, immediate benefits.

Anastasia is one of many damage-boost operators focused on increasing overall team DPS. 

Contrasting other generic Command skill damage buffs, Anastasia’s damage boost comes in the form of a debuff. Unfortunately, her numbers leave much to be desired. Anastasia is outperformed and overshadowed by other operators that fulfill the same niche.

In PVE, while damage taken is a good thing to have, it is not as good as what other ops do. Coupled with the requirement for a Defender in the trigger order, Anastasia will basically never be used over other operators.

Anastasia serves no purpose in PVP.

Asha is one of many damage-boost operators focused on increasing overall team DPS. Of all the operators who buff damage, Asha is among the strongest. Asha’s combination of potent offensive buffs, stun utility, buff accessibility, and simple trigger order make her well-suited to supporting burst damage setups across PVE and PVP.

In PVE, Asha’s value is hinged on the fact ASSR damage dealers contribute the bulk of most teams’ damage; Asha’s operator buff applies to 4+ DP characters, which covers the vast majority of dedicated damage dealers in the game.

As of writing, no use cases for Asha in PVE have been identified. In the current PVE environment, Asha has been sidelined in favor of more specialized competitive damage-boost operators (i.e. Sasha, Vivian Rashford). This may change in the future.

In PVP, Asha can easily find value paired alongside ASSR backline carries; there is no shortage of damage dealers in want of more damage. Asha provides a thoughtful combination of offensive buffs that can be used to enable elaborate burst damage setups. Asha’s on-demand stun locks down the enemy team, opening a 4s DPS window to output damage uninhibited.

Importantly, Asha’s offensive buffs include an absurd +80% Anti-Ground DMG% buff (decaying), an otherwise inaccessible damage stat found only on gear. DMG% is highly coveted for how it offsets DMG RES%, and Anti-Ground DMG% is especially valued for how the overwhelming majority of PVP units are ground units.

Batty Mitchie is a PVP operator who temporarily grants allied strikers a damage reflection buff. Damage reflect returns HP loss as damage to the damage dealer. On paper, an operator with uncapped damage potential sounds promising. In practice, she is difficult to use due to the way damage reflection works. 

For a more detailed explanation of damage reflection properties, refer to: https://www.counterside.com/notice/item/ct/kr/tbl/notice/idx/1486/P11 

Because damage reflection only reflects HP loss as damage, there are several limitations that severely hinder its utility:

• No reflected damage occurs unless the reflector's health decreases. This rules out many striker comps (i.e. Veronica, AChifuyu).

• Rangers deal abysmal damage to strikers due to role damage disadvantage. This limits the efficacy of damage reflection against backline rangers.

• To maximize the value of Mitchie’s damage reflect, you have to intentionally expose your frontline strikers to risk. This runs counter to how comps are traditionally played; getting your frontline killed generally loses you the game.

• Damage reflect does not consistently kill backline damage dealers.

Biblide Luce is one of the many damage-boost operators focused on increasing overall team DPS. She is an improvement over SR operator Mark Finley, providing higher Ranged DMG buff value and a short duration bind to enemy defenders/ strikers with the same command skill proc order.

It is almost impossible to justify using Biblide over either Asha, Sasha or Vivian in any content.

In PVP, she has an extremely narrow use case against Great Silence Ecclesia, as 1s bind can be used to cancel Ecclesia’s Special Skill invincibility. This doesn’t make her a good pick, but if for some reason you have this operator invested might as well give this interaction a try.

Chloe once had a niche in early PVP seasons as an operator that could create exploitable opportunities by shutting down backlines and canceling skills. However, PVP meta shifts have been unkind to Chloe. In the current state of the PVP meta, she is not used.

In PVP, the shift towards cooldown-oriented stall-heavy comps has heavily affected Chloe’s value by taking away the situations where she would be useful. As cooldowns are unaffected by sleep, many sleeping backline units won’t lose much value by being asleep. Moreover, the 8 second window (optimistically) is not enough time to grind through stall comps.

Chloe’s sleep debuff is made worse by the fact it can be cleansed by Kim Hana, one of the more commonly used operators in PVP.

In PVE, Chloe was once used as part of an Inhibitor raid auto-clear strategy. Inhibitor’s raid mechanics were reworked November 2022, removing Chloe’s one PVE niche. Currently, she serves no purpose in PVE.

Estelle Priest Jung Dain (Jung) is one of many damage-boost operators focused on increasing overall team DPS. She provides allied rangers and snipers with Sure Fire buff, allowing them to completely bypass HIT/EVA check during damage calculation. In PVE, Jung's buff is not even remotely comparable to specialized operators (e.g. Sasha, Vivian Rashford). Depressingly, she struggles to outperform Mark Finley, a release day SR rarity operator. There is little reason to use her over existing alternatives in any content. In PVP, Sure Fire has potential to be used creatively with certain units (e.g. Lyudmila). Unfortunately, basing these "creative" strategies around enabling otherwise middling units (e.g. Lyudmila), while novel, may not make for the strongest foundation to build a team around. Generally speaking, comps in want of an offensive operator will find no reason to run Jung over existing alternatives (e.g. Sasha).

Hestia is a PVP-oriented operator that provides a potent combination of defensive utility comparable to Olivie Park.

Hestia is held back by the awkward proc order. The combination of a lack of good lead supporters and being required to run 3-4 strikers for consistency leads to Hestia struggling to find a team in which she functions.

Jung Da-In is one of many damage-boosting operators, providing a massive 50% ASPD boost to all allies for 12 seconds.

In PVE, her massive ASPD boost can be situationally helpful. However, the trigger order needs a team to be tailored to it (especially because it needs a defender). This makes her completely unsuitable for a lot of content, where the optimal comps do not use a Defender at all. Thus, she’s only really used in situations where the extra ASPD is really, really needed, and when a Defender has to be used, like in certain Danger Close bosses.

Bear in mind, Jung Da-In’s damage buff has to compete with Kim Hana’s value.

In PVP, Jung Da-In represents the “best” generic damage operator for when you aren’t playing a Counter comp, you don’t need the utility from Serina Crew’s buff removal, and you don’t need the 1 DP/ sleep immunity from Kim Hana. In short, she is never going to be the best operator for a given comp.

Jung Da-In’s issue holding her back is her awful trigger order. Ending on a striker imposes severe team building constraints:

• Bringing a frontline striker means spending DP on a unit who won’t contribute damage. This creates a situation where the Jung Da-In proc ends up being used to “catch up” on damage that you would otherwise have gotten from an equivalent amount of DP spent on a proper DPS unit.

• Bringing Ifrit means running a mediocre DPS unit that struggles to keep up with other damage dealers.

• Bringing an awakened striker makes the comp incredibly inflexible and clunky to play.

It should also be noted that Jung Da-In’s buff is not as strong as it looks. Between the ASPD buff being diluted by other sources of ASPD, ASPD not affecting skill damage, and your units getting disrupted from various sources, Jung Da-In’s overall damage increase is far less than what 50% ASPD would suggest.

It is easy to imagine yourself triggering Jung Da-In with a full team deployed ready to take the buff, but in practice she is incredibly awkward to use.

Kim Hana is a flexible operator that performs well in all content. Her simple trigger order and universally appreciated DP refund and Skill Haste buff makes her easy to slot into any team. She excels in just about any type of content in the game, be it Danger Close, Raids, Dimension Trimming, etc.

Kim Hana is a must-have operator for all players. Kim Hana works great straight off the banner; additional investment (Command/ side skill levels) isn’t needed until players seriously get into competitive content. She is the default operator for general content. New players are heavily encouraged to save their planet points and prioritize their first copy of Kim Hana.

In PVP, Kim Hana is a solid operator for fast-paced comps. Kim Hana particularly excels in terror comps and soldier comps where she can fully realize the value of her DP refund and sleep immunity, but she can perform admirably in a wide assortment of teams.

It should be noted that Kim Hana is not a top-priority PVP operator. The general nature of her Command skill is a double-edged sword because it means teams built around their operators (i.e. Olivie) will outperform the same comps running Kim Hana. That said, there are plenty situations where Kim Hana can find value.

Lee Sooyeon is an operator designed around buffing strikers. However, none of her buffs are particularly valuable. She does not provide nearly enough value for how expensive it is to raise an SSR operator.

In PVE, Lee Sooyeon used to have a niche in Danger Close as a Moderator B. However, she has since been directly powercrept by Kim Hana or other Damage-Boosting operators like Vivian Rashford. Lee Sooyeon now only sees occasional usage when the seasonal buffs and debuffs in Danger Close make it better to use her over other operators.

In PVP, she is unfortunately useless.

Everyone gets a free copy of Lee Yoonjung. Lee Yoonjung’s life purpose is to occupy the operator slot until new players acquire their first copy of Kim Hana, at which point Lee Yoonjung never again sees the light of day.

If it was not already obvious, Yoonjung serves no purpose in both PVE and PVP.

Lena is one of many damage-boost operators focused on increasing overall team DPS.

In PVE, Lena is quite rarely used nowadays. The ATK and ASPD buffs were once a great addition to raids and other PVE content where her trigger order wasn’t too much of a bother. Now, Kim Hana has proven better on almost every team, and even if a buff is needed, other operators like Jung Da-in and Vivian Rashford are stronger.

In PVP, she serves no purpose.

Malena Skinner is one of many damage-boost operators focused on increasing overall team DPS.

Contrasting other generic Command skill damage buffs, Skinner’s damage boost comes in the form of a massive DEF penetration buff.

In PVE, percent-for-percent, a percent of DEF shredded is typically going to represent a greater damage increase than a percent of any other offensive stat. As a quick mechanics refresher:

• DEF PEN functions identically to DEF shred, but whereas DEF shred is applied to targets, DEF PEN is applied to damage dealers. 

• DEF PEN is multiplicative with DEF shred, meaning players want to stack one or the other, and never mix the two.

DEF PEN is relevant in situations where you may not necessarily be able to field DEF shred debuffers (e.g. CCB).

On paper, Skinner provides a valuable Command skill buff. In practice, the buff decay leads to a massive damage drop after the first 3 seconds and makes her impossible to work with. Skinner’s value becomes increasingly dubious when considering her alternatives:

• 100% DEF PEN/ shred are already the norm in PVE content and can easily be achieved with the current tools available to players (e.g. Ciel)

• For damage purposes she is outperformed and overshadowed by other operators that fulfill the same niche (i.e. Vivian).

• For the situations where players would be setting up burst damage, Ciel achieves the same effect and is also incidentally a striker for Vivian’s operator proc. For burst damage purposes, Vivian + Ciel is going to do more than Skinner + whoever replaces Ciel.

Unfortunately, teams can be arranged in such a way that the value Skinner provides is not needed, and this means that even in her best case Skinner is mediocre at best.

Skinner serves no purpose in PVP.

Mansion Master provides nothing. None of her buffs are particularly valuable. She does not provide nearly enough value for how expensive it is to raise an SSR operator.

In PVE, Mansion Master used to have one very niche use against Tyrant Sword. Her hitstun immunity could be used to stop the boss from pulling your units. Over time, better methods of dealing with the boss' pull have been developed, paving the way for new strategies with better operators (e.g. Kim Hana).

In PVP, she serves no purpose.

Mark Finley is one of many damage-boost operators focused on increasing overall team DPS.

Mark Finley’s damage buff is decent. As an SR operator, you’re bound to get dozens of copies of him as you grind out operator fodder. While you wouldn’t go out of your way to build Mark Finley, he’ll always be there when you want a bit more damage.

In PVE, Finley is a pretty decent damage boost for teams that can use the ranged damage bonus and sometimes even sure hit thresholds. Since he is also easy to max out, some players can use him to greater success than other damage boosting operators. The only real hurdle to him is the existence of Kim Hana’s utility.

In PVP, he serves no purpose.

Merlin is one of many damage-boost operators focused on increasing overall team DPS. Merlin specializes in melee damage dealers, applying massive offensive buffs to defenders and strikers. 

Unfortunately, her awkward triple frontline proc order and “Counter only” constraint kneecaps her potential viability, as the Counter faction lacks units that can truly benefit from Merlin’s buff.

Moena is a strange blend of Olivie and Serina, providing bits of utility from both operators. Moena takes Olivie’s heal and combines it with Serina’s buff nullification. Unique to Moena is a DP-cost condition to the buffs she applies to your units.

In PVE, she is completely useless because her buffs do not provide any value.

In PVP, there previously was some merit to using Moena for when you were willing to trade away Serina’s full buff nullification for Moena’s one-time buff removal (technically it’s buff nullification for one second) plus some defensive utility. However, Moena is no longer relevant following the ASSR stat readjustment patch. 

Moena’s cost-restrictions kill her viability in the new ASSR-centric meta. ASSRs cost too much to be eligible for Moena’s defensive buffs. Traditional non-ASSR comps have been pushed out of the meta, and with them, Moena.

Momo is one of two ways to access the healing reflux debuff, the other being Awakened Seo Yoon. To note, healing reflux on an operator is far more accessible than healing reflux locked behind 6 DP and a team slot.

In PVE, Momo can one-shot “The Wall” C.O. enemy found on certain stages (i.e. Anastasia’s Supply Maintenance, Inhibitor Raid) because it buffs itself with a massive amount of health regeneration during its walling phase, which Momo just flips around with her Command skill trigger. This is more of a novel interaction than an enabler for new strategies. The alternative would be to engage with the game mechanics the way the developers intended. For reference, a Kim Hana raid comp will still one-shot an Inhibitor raid faster than one with Momo.

In PVP, Momo is a reactive operator meant to counter healing. Depending on the weekly meta, Momo can swing between good and totally useless. 

In theory, Momo can take advantage of any source of healing to inflict a massive HP% swing. In practice, it is incredibly difficult to justify bringing Momo over some other operator. Historically, Momo only sees widespread use on Rearm Chinatsu weeks.

It is important to keep in mind that sustain comes in the form of healing and shielding. Most comps will use a combination of the two to keep their units healthy. Momo does not “hard counter” sustain in the way her Command skill might suggest.

Moneka is a PVP operator used to enable incredibly specific setups with her 5 second Sure Fire buff.

She is used as an alternative to Kim Hana for Terror comps. Being able to surehit the enemy ship significantly increases the amount of damage Terror units can inflict. This is especially relevant given the way ships’ base stats have been arranged such that certain ship classes are heavily dependent on EVA to mitigate damage.

In PVE, her 5 second duration is too short, and her trigger order requires a Defender in the middle. You’re better off using another damage boosting operator or Kim Hana.

Just because Na Heerin provides mech-exclusive buffs does not make Na Heerin a strong mech operator.

Although Na Heerin’s debuff immunity sounds appealing, it realistically never sees any practical use in PVP. At best, it can be used to deny Awakened Yuna’s buff block (relevant because mech teams live or die by Coffin-6 buffs) and Gleipnir Pod Type S1 ASPD debuff. Otherwise, Na Heerin serves no purpose in PVP.

In PVE, she is completely useless.

Olivie is a PVP operator who provides a perfect combination of defensive utility. It is joked that Olivie comps are “incredibly interactive” to play against because the Olivie proc effectively makes the team immortal for the duration of her Command skill.

Olivie's Command skill can be played both “proactively” to squeeze value out of your units for a greedy play, or “reactively” to protect the team from certain debuffs (e.g. sleep) or incoming damage (e.g. ultimate skill damage). While Olivie fits naturally into stall-oriented comps, she can realistically be used anywhere provided you have the means of triggering her Command skill.

She also defines the Counter faction playstyle and holds significant influence over team building considerations. Players who use Olivie need to warp their team around the trigger order to ensure a consistent proc. Most operators demand some consideration towards the trigger order but Olivie’s Command skill starts with a sniper, which in practice means bringing multiple snipers or leading a sniper.

PVE is a different story, however, where she is completely outclassed by other operators with better utility or damage boosting abilities. She really only had a use in Dive 50, when certain players were having issues with survivability, but these survivability issues can be fixed by simply having better gear and units, making Olivie not important as a whole for PVE.

Rachel Dodds doesn’t provide anything of value with her Command skill.

In PVE, there are very few DPS units that actually favor, or even can reach, the melee distance. The DMG Res shouldn’t even be an issue for most units that are actually in melee distance because it's either too small to really matter or the character already has capped res stats via gear.

In PVP, Rachel “supports” a frontline archetype fundamentally incompatible with PVP. The frontline is composed of proper tanks (HPHP) and utility tanks (CDR). There are no such melee-range damage dealer units that would benefit from Rachel’s Command skill buffs.

Rachel's proc order also sucks. Units that would actually benefit from melee damage don’t want to play defenders first. They also have other means of getting survivability - Immortality passives, paratrooper spam or even Albion.

Replacer King is basically useless, in both PVE and PVP. On paper, his ASPD Reduction Immunity, ASPD and Ultimate Damage buffs sound good, but realistically, there are way better operators that can be used for basically any scenario.

Replacer Rook has a decent trigger effect that works together to make allies receive significantly less damage. Her buff can be removed by Serina, but even after the operator patch, the duration is just way too short to be any useful.

Sasha combines the burst damage of damage-boost operators with the coveted DP refund that defined Sysop, bringing the best of both worlds.

In PVE

Sasha sees regular use both as a general PVE operator and as a damage-boost operator in more competitive content. Sasha’s DP refund makes her well suited to just about any content. 

Sasha particularly excels in PVE stages with Defender bosses, as Sasha’s buffs apply exclusively to Rangers and Rangers are comparatively better against Defenders relative to other roles thanks to their Role DMG ADV bonus.

In PVP

In PVP, Sasha acts a more offense-oriented Sysop-equivalent, becoming the operator of choice for more damage-focused rush comps. Sasha’s combination of damage buffs and DP refund generate a massive amount of tempo for rush comps that give them the extra push they’ve sorely needed. 

Sasha easily claims her spot among the meta PVP operators.

Serina Crew is a PVP operator who applies the buff nullification debuff for up to 14 seconds. Serina sees widespread use every week, and can be a soft-requirement for playing into certain metas.

As a reactive PVP operator, Serina is reliant on your opponent’s actions to create value. Serina is at her strongest when she is being used to hard-counter specific meta comps. Historically, Serina has been the direct response to Replacer King and Awakened Horizon among other comps.

Even when Serina isn’t used to hard-counter specific units, her buff nullification is strong enough that there is usually some value that can be gained from triggering it. Among other things, Serina can:

• Improve your matchup into soldier/ mech comps; these teams are heavily reliant on external buffs (Revenant, Coffin-6 respectively) for damage.

• Remove problematic buffs like immortality (e.g. Awakened Mina, Rearm Esterosa, Veronica), assorted backline buffs (e.g. barriers), and other novel buffs (e.g. Awakened Regina’s knockback RES)

Her performance in PVE is the complete opposite of her PVP performance. In other words, she is useless.

Sigma is a “vanilla” operator that provides a non-cancellable 20% barrier. Where she was once a dominant PVP operator, she has now been sidelined in favor of more impactful operators.

In PVP, she is a defensive PVP operator for when you are unable to take advantage of Olivie. Sigma provides zero utility beyond that which is inherent to barriers (damage that exceeds a barrier's max health will not bleed over into your unit's actual health). In practice, only Evolved-1 comps can take full advantage of Sigma. Every other comp would sooner use someone else. Sigma’s operator trigger order can also be awkward. Strikers are not always easy to fit into comps, and because the week’s meta may be sniper dominated (e.g. Awakened Rosaria, Curian), there may be better non-striker frontline options, hence making it awkard to find an appropriate time to deploy a striker frontline without stacking frontline tanks. Bringing Ifrit means running a mediocre DPS unit that struggles to keep up with other damage dealers.

Her 50% Role ADV DMG INC buff is largely irrelevant, coming out to a ~10% overall damage increase against applicable targets.

In PVE, she sees some usage in content where survivability may be an issue, or in content where you cannot use duplicate operators across multiple teams (like Dimension Trimming), but other than that, she is really not necessary at all.

Sysop is a very flexible PVP-oriented operator with an intuitive skill trigger order. Sysop forgoes a traditional operator buff/ debuff to generate 2 DP to accelerate the next unit deployment. A 2 DP refund provides a massive amount of tempo that can be used to cycle units faster and get more characters on the field. Conceptually, it may be easier to think of Sysop as an operator that trades operator utility for employee utility.

Sysop presents itself as alternative to Serina for striker comps (ie. AYuna) during weeks where Serina’s buff nullification isn’t needed.

Sysop’s 50% Role ADV DMG INC buff is largely irrelevant, coming out to a ~10% overall damage increase against applicable targets. Players should not overly concern themselves with maximizing the value of this buff, as Sysop's worth lies in his 2 DP refund.

Villetta can be considered a faster-paced side-grade to Sigma, since she drops the Defender from the trigger order in exchange for a smaller shield (20% vs. 15%).

In PVE, Villetta sees niche use in Consortium Coalition Battle as part of high level Tyrant Gigas strategies for her team-wide barrier. Both Villetta and Sigma provide shields, but Villetta is slightly better because her simpler operator proc order means teams aren’t forced to bring a defender to trigger the skill effect, losing a team slot in the process.

In PVP, Villetta fills the niche of being a defensive PVP operator for fast-paced striker lead comps. However... this niche does not exist. There are no comps that utilize Villetta’s frankly underwhelming Command skill effect. Many fast-paced comps would sooner use Kim Hana for more tempo and leading a striker means they could run Serina Crew instead.

Vivian is one of many damage-boost operators focused on increasing overall team DPS. Of all the operators who buff damage, Vivian is by far the strongest. She sees frequent use in Danger Close and periodically makes her way into niche PVP teams.

In PVE, Vivian is one of two dominant operators for Danger Close, alongside Kim Hana. Vivian’s buffs significantly increase the damage ceiling for DC boss setups. Paired with characters like Curian and ASigma, Vivian’s buffs enable them to deal staggering amounts of burst damage. Vivian is a mainstay DC operator who sees use against all but a handful of bosses.

It is worth noting that while both Vivian and Kim Hana are both used in Danger Close, they are not interchangeable. Different bosses require different strategies. For instance, when Curian isn’t favored (e.g. against Defenders), Vivian setups may not necessarily be better than Kim Hana strategies.

In PVP, Vivian provides a thoughtful combination of offensive buffs that can be used to enable elaborate burst damage setups. Vivian’s ASPD reduction immunity creates a window for you to wrest the tempo back from opponents running ASPD debuffers by allowing your damage dealers to output damage uninhibited.

While the impacts are not as immediate as the other elements of her kit, Vivian’s skill haste buff can help your snipers (and strikers to a lesser extent) push out their ults faster. Ultimately, Vivian will still be a niche PVP operator. However, she occupies a clear niche for comps that need it.

Yuppie is a defensive operator that buffs your team with what is effectively hitcount-based invincibility for 8 hits, decaying over time. On top of her defensive utility, she also provides a significant attack buff while her barrier persists.

In PVE, hitcount-based invincibility is an extremely powerful defensive buff that can allow characters to survive otherwise lethal boss mechanics. As of writing, no use cases for Yuppie in PVE have been identified. However, this may change in the future.

Yuppie’s combination of survivability and damage make her a viable PVP consideration. In most cases, she is just a side grade to Olivie. However, certain teams (i.e. Curian) prefer her over the alternatives.

Zhang is an operator that doesn't buff your team but debuffs the enemies instead by decreasing their SPD and HIT. Which honestly is pretty underwhelming. Furthermore, her debuff can be easily removed by other operators.