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Catherine with Sleepknights + Other supports you can add that you might not think about.

Hii I'm back with another long post, but this time its about the Sleepknights niche! I always love using status effects in video games, and sleepknights is by far my most favorite since you really need to rely on it to do damage. This post isn't about pure sleepknights (AKA: operators that inflict sleep in their kit) It's more about other operators that can fit into sleepknights well + being a small sleepknights overview.

First things first, what does this have to do with Catherine? She doesn't have sleep in her kit! Yes that is true, she's not a true sleepknights member, but she fits insanely well in there as a support and also as a 2nd laneholder, which is something sleepknighs lacks having basically only Blemishine.

The major reason is her S1 and how her barrier works. How it works is that any operator being supported by her device will get a barrier equal to a % of Catherine's max hp and an atk + def buff if she has s1 + the operator has barrier. The thing of note is that Barrier only regens if the operator hasn't taken damage in 5 seconds. You can regenerate it with Catherrine's S2 but then you won't get the 15% atk/def buff from her s1.

This is where Sleep comes in. You can technically also use stun or freeze, however stuns tend not to last long enough and freeze is the hardest to get consistently mostly requiring Gnosis. Be warned that sleep is the most resisted status. So this might not work at all depending on the elite and boss. You can always check in the enemy viewer.

Almost every source of sleep that the player can inflict has a minimum of 5 seconds at lvl 7. This means that no matter what, as long as all the attacking enemies are asleep, Catherine's device will be able to recharge a little. One of the two exceptions to this is the Terra Research Commission who can roll one second sleep on their talent. The other is Grainbuds S2 which requires at least a level of mastery for it to last 5 seconds. Other than these 2 exceptions, all sources of sleep including Blemishine's ModX Talent upgrade last at least 5 seconds. Most of these sources last for longer which just mean more time for the barrier to recharge.

But as you can see you can pretty reliably get barrier and that +15%atk/def buff onto Blemishine by just spamming their skills(which is what you do in sleepknights anyways) The barrier does not apply to summons or pseudo-summons so no super slumberfoot.

The other Operator I would like to mention is using Spuria with Erato.

Before you ask, Aak still requires the standard Aak setup for her to survive. Catherine's barrier is nowhere near enough even with Mod3 S2M3 Spuria just requires less people.

Erato does want ASPD for her s1 and even at lvl 7, Spuria's s2 gives Erato enough time to get 2 shots off before the sleep runs out even if you got unlucky with a stun.

This lets 3 of her shots ignore 60% of defense (50% without module) instead of the standard 2. (I think Erato's foreswing of 16 frames is short enough for this to not actually matter in the first place, due to besiegers having a 2.4(1.8-1.7 with aspd buff) second attack interval and Spuria's stun only lasting 2-1.8 seconds max). In addition, Erato's S1 has pretty poor scaling on masteries going from 215%@lvl7 to 240%@m3 so getting an Atk buff helps a lot.

S2 is her main sleepknights skill as it has her prioritize sleeping targets to take advantage of her monstrous 60% def ignore on them.

Its basically just a better Swift strike gamma giving 50% atk and 50 aspd at m3 while having a really good 20s uptime 25s downtime. She benefits less from spuria here than just like Warfarin since she has aspd and atk basked into her kit. With spuria s2M3 she gets a really nice +80%Atk +90 aspd though, so idk just get lucky and not hit the 20% chance of 1.8s stun

I did some calculations using this equation which calculates the DPS: (BaseAtk *[1.0 + AttackBuffs])/(2.4/(1.0 + ASPDBuffs))

With this, plugging my Erato's 1065 atk stat, I calculated her using s2 by itself as : 998.43 Warfarin's S2M3 90% atk buff: 1597.5 A 60% increase Spuria's S2M3 You "miss" 1/5 shots : 1398.73 A 40% increase. Btw if you hit all of spuria's shots its only a 52% increase Missing all but 1 shot is a 13% atk increase but thats unlikely

However Spuria's buff lasts the entire skill duration of 20 seconds, and has a smaller sp charge duration of 40 so you can buff every other s2 with her module which reduces the time to 32 seconds. You can also do this for warfarin if you manage to find a spot where the enemies are dying, but you're somehow not getting anyone else in her range. Also the standard "Spuria is an actual unit that can attack and do things argument". I would say that she's easier to use and has more dps in the long run, esp since erato tends to not kill everything on s2. Its still a single target attack that gets most of its benefits from hitting sleeping targets. It applies, just a lot less since she won't be attacking the enemies as much. Sleepknighs also doesn't tend to have healing issues with Blemishine s2 and Sora s1 so Spuria should be above 80% hp for her module trait. But ofc Warf is prolly better since she can buff more than 1 class.

In all, I think Catherine adds a nice buffer to sleepknights that doesn't take away from what makes it special (Blemishine sweeps), same with Spuria they just let the existing operators perform a little better.

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that���s pretty similar to what I found about Laios’ S1 where you can shorten the time he can’t attack if you can stun or freeze him for a shorter amount of time. So using U-official you can cut his downtime in half from 15 to 7.5 seconds or cut it to a third with conviction s2 it’s funnier anyways.

Secret Marcille S3 tech:

If Marcille gets interrupted while launching her S3's chain-explosions, she'll keep whatever Mana she had left in that moment, since each explosion deducts 8 Mana individually. This can be done by getting her stunned, frozen, killed or by retreating her mid skill. The latter two options aren't terribly useful beyond retaining exactly the last 8 Mana or if you can reduce her redeployment time, but the former two leave her alive and then she can launch another set of explosions! This way, you can use her extreme firepower in a more measured way. If only there was a way to stun her in a controlled manner...

There's totally no other operator who can stun your own operators and who isn't doing it on a coinflip and doesn't need enemies in range, I totally didn't forget about U-Official until I was reminded of her after doing this. Use Conviction, they're funnier.

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barknights… we don’t have one yet but in the mean time you can strap 2 windflit batteries to them and have him bark. The things we do in trying times…

Since the new Bard module's short is "BARX" we need a Perro Bard so I can look at them in the squad with the module stating this and then go: "Oh yeah? Do they now?"

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does anyone actually know if Papyrus arknights S1 masteries actually change how much barrier her talent gives or is it just burst healing? Also is her S1 or S2 better for maximizing barrier? Since S1 makes it 44% of her atk but S2 gives her +50% atk at m3. I tried looking around and got 0 answers past “don’t use her”, and barrier’s really hard to check so if you know please respond.

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Thanks for the reply! Thanks for the Silence Alter tips, I'm mostly a 5* user now, so I don't really use her since I just prefer the 5*'s anyways. Because of that I didn't feel too comfortable talking about her tips other than her massive sanctuary on s2 . I did make a mistake with NCD her mod3 is 26% at <= 60% hp not 24% it’s fixed now

Another thing is that NCD's S2 is ranged physical only. This doesn't really matter since shes a ranged unit but I just had to clarify. It won't work against melee attacks. It's actually a really neat reference to her original film, where she blocks a bunch of arrows shot at her by hunters. 九色鹿 is a pretty neat watch, and its free on internet archive.

Also some stuff I wanted to add is that Juggernauts do value sanctuary more since their module x gives 15% damage reduction, which does stack with sanctuary. Soloblades' mod x gives 25% sanctuary at below 50% hp, which is still below NCD and Quercus's hp gates but since NCD’s sanctuary is 26% the mod does nothing , so the only other thing that has an effect below 50% hp is Tsukinogi's +8% def. She continues to be the best 5* support for those ops since that 1% extra sanctuary is pretty negligible

But yeah there's so much I could've talked about like how tanky abjurers are esp against arts damage since they have 25 res, healing and sanctuary. Or Quercus with geeks, how tsukinogi's dodge on s1 can help people survive aak skills if you don't have shining. You can use NCD S2 with Aak S2(she should survive [she can survive 5 hits] but can die if unlucky so bring dodge or barrier papryus’s talent seems like it’s enough ) to give her the defensive stats of a dreadnought (294 def 2841hp)

There's a lot of small things that abjurers can do other than just heal and it’s pretty neat.

I'm pretty excited for XingZhu since she seems to lean more on burst healing and being more independent than the other abjurers. People like to point as s2's 75 sp cost and say she's completely irredeemable while ignoring s1 just being purestream's s1 at half the sp cost. This also makes her the most offensive abjurer since she's gonna be attacking more. I just wanted to show off the ways they can work together and how they kinda cover for each other weaknesses.

but overall great post!

My talk about Abjurers Arknights

WARNING: EXTREMELY LONG POST

Hiiii this is my TED talk about Arknights Abjurers which imo is one of the most overlooked classes. I will agree that they are niche but they're fun to play around with and have some interesting tech I wanted to share. The scope of this will be on the three 5* abjurers in global at the time of 4/9/2025

As a note I will not be talking about Silence Alter. If you do, the tips are s2 for general use as she has the highest sanctuary in the game with it, 30-72% sanctuary depending on how low the target is when inside the drone. S3 if you want temporary invulnerable First of all, you should not use Abjurers as a replacement for a medic unless you're not taking that much damage, or you're using more than one, or you are using Quercus s1. They are not built for that, your operators will die on the off skills (trust me I tried).

I found that they work best when working together with another healer, be it a medic or another abjurer, offering damage when you don't need healing, and healing when you need to not die.

Tip 1: While Sanctuary cannot stack (highest effect wins), due to the abilities of all 3 at module lvl 3, its still beneficial to overlap their ranges. At mod 3, Quercus gives 18% sanctuary when >= 60% hp 9 Colored Deer gives 24% sanctuary when <= 60% hp Tsukinogi gives 22% sanctuary and +8% defense when <= 40% hp

As you can see Quercus and 9 Colored Deer's hp gates perfectly cover each other's, meaning that operators will always have at least 18% sanctuary.

To show this I will be using a lvl 17 catherine (2253hp 375def) against a butcher (850atk) Below are the results from in game testing

No abjurers: 5 hits, 353hp before death quercus mod3 :6 hits, 106hp after before death 9 Colored Deer mod 3: 6 hits, 248 hp before death Tsukinogi mod3: 6 hits, 135 hp and 405 def before death 9 colored Deer + Quercus mod3: 7 hits, 1hp before death All 3: 7 hits, 46hp before death

As you can see 9 Colored Deer's and Quercus' effects stacks, as well as Tsukinogi's defense buff when below 40% hp, this leads in directly to tip 2.

Tip 2: Tsukinogi works best with high defense operators, or operators that cannot be healed directly. (she is a juggernaut's best friend).

Tsukinogi has a bad rap for having long skill times and a base module effect that only works with Skill 1, however she's the most unique among the 3, as her skills offer an additional defensive effect. I see her as a defender supporter since she keeps tankier ops alive with an additional +8% defense buff. S1 is just a good tool for a one time mitigation, as much of a meme dodge is, 35% phys+ arts dodge at m3 is nothing to scoff at + revealing from a high tile can be really useful at very niche moments. The main skill is S2:

This skill grants everyone under 60% hp a whopping 50.6% sanctuary + that 8% defens buff. People tend to scoff at the low healing over time, but it tends to be just enough to keep them just in that 60% range which means that they're unlikely to get killed from being healed too much.

This is really good with anyone, specifically enmity ops like soloblades and juggernauts as if offers healing as well as 20 seconds for them to charge their skills back up. If you really need that healing over time though, you have Windflit which can give supporters (and casters) +40%atk with s2 or be an sp battery with s1. The only weaknesses are the uptimes (50 sp cost for 15 uptime), and the fact that the batteries expire on s1(his kit is kind of a mess but I love him) He's fine at what he does cus fun fact! Artificers have the same stats as reapers. He's a perfectly good laneholder and you can always just use the devices on him, he has 1012 atk on s2m3. (or just bring amiya and melt stuff with s3) (I do not have stainless) There's also like warfarin but you already know how to use her.

Other notable teammates are nightmare and podenco for being pseudo artificers. Podenco does gives atk and aspd but its not that noticeable. Any operator that boosts sp regen helps abjurers with the healing downtime, but if you're stacking them, you shouldn't need it.

In all Abjurers are a niche class, they're not gonna carry you. You still need other operators to do damage and everything. However they're not as bad as everyone says they are. I just thought that they have a lot of interesting things to them that people tend to overlook since they're pretty divorced from the meta in most aspects. If this long long post convinces someone to build someone other than Quercus I'll be pretty happy.

I'll be back when XingZhu comes to global. Her niche is actually different!

[pooce-not-art]

My talk about Abjurers Arknights

WARNING: EXTREMELY LONG POST

Hiiii this is my TED talk about Arknights Abjurers which imo is one of the most overlooked classes. I will agree that they are niche but they're fun to play around with and have some interesting tech I wanted to share. The scope of this will be on the three 5* abjurers in global at the time of 4/9/2025

As a note I will not be talking about Silence Alter. If you do, the tips are s2 for general use as she has the highest sanctuary in the game with it, 30-72% sanctuary depending on how low the target is when inside the drone. S3 if you want temporary invulnerable First of all, you should not use Abjurers as a replacement for a medic unless you're not taking that much damage, or you're using more than one, or you are using Quercus s1. They are not built for that, your operators will die on the off skills (trust me I tried).

I found that they work best when working together with another healer, be it a medic or another abjurer, offering damage when you don't need healing, and healing when you need to not die.

Tip 1: While Sanctuary cannot stack (highest effect wins), due to the abilities of all 3 at module lvl 3, its still beneficial to overlap their ranges. At mod 3, Quercus gives 18% sanctuary when >= 60% hp 9 Colored Deer gives 26% sanctuary when <= 60% hp Tsukinogi gives 22% sanctuary and +8% defense when <= 40% hp

As you can see Quercus and 9 Colored Deer's hp gates perfectly cover each other's, meaning that operators will always have at least 18% sanctuary.

To show this I will be using a lvl 17 catherine (2253hp 375def) against a butcher (850atk) Below are the results from in game testing

No abjurers: 5 hits, 353hp before death quercus mod3 :6 hits, 106hp after before death 9 Colored Deer mod 3: 6 hits, 248 hp before death Tsukinogi mod3: 6 hits, 135 hp and 405 def before death 9 colored Deer + Quercus mod3: 7 hits, 1hp before death All 3: 7 hits, 46hp before death

As you can see 9 Colored Deer's and Quercus' effects stacks, as well as Tsukinogi's defense buff when below 40% hp, this leads in directly to tip 2.

Tip 2: Tsukinogi works best with high defense operators, or operators that cannot be healed directly. (she is a juggernaut's best friend).

Tsukinogi has a bad rap for having long skill times and a base module effect that only works with Skill 1, however she's the most unique among the 3, as her skills offer an additional defensive effect. I see her as a defender supporter since she keeps tankier ops alive with an additional +8% defense buff. S1 is just a good tool for a one time mitigation, as much of a meme dodge is, 35% phys+ arts dodge at m3 is nothing to scoff at + revealing from a high tile can be really useful at very niche moments. The main skill is S2:

This skill grants everyone under 60% hp a whopping 50.6% sanctuary + that 8% defens buff. People tend to scoff at the low healing over time, but it tends to be just enough to keep them just in that 60% range which means that they're unlikely to get killed from being healed too much.

This is really good with anyone, specifically enmity ops like soloblades and juggernauts as if offers healing as well as 20 seconds for them to charge their skills back up. If you really need that healing over time though, you have Windflit which can give supporters (and casters) +40%atk with s2 or be an sp battery with s1. The only weaknesses are the uptimes (50 sp cost for 15 uptime), and the fact that the batteries expire on s1(his kit is kind of a mess but I love him) He's fine at what he does cus fun fact! Artificers have the same stats as reapers. He's a perfectly good laneholder and you can always just use the devices on him, he has 1012 atk on s2m3. (or just bring amiya and melt stuff with s3) (I do not have stainless) There's also like warfarin but you already know how to use her.

Other notable teammates are nightmare and podenco for being pseudo artificers. Podenco does gives atk and aspd but its not that noticeable. Any operator that boosts sp regen helps abjurers with the healing downtime, but if you're stacking them, you shouldn't need it.

In all Abjurers are a niche class, they're not gonna carry you. You still need other operators to do damage and everything. However they're not as bad as everyone says they are. I just thought that they have a lot of interesting things to them that people tend to overlook since they're pretty divorced from the meta in most aspects. If this long long post convinces someone to build someone other than Quercus I'll be pretty happy.

I'll be back when XingZhu comes to global. Her niche is actually different!