Chongyue, one of the fabled dragon siblings will be kicking his way into Arknights Global as a Limited Operator in the new 3.5 anniversary celebration event “Where Vernal Winds Will Never Blow“.

Going by the fake alias of Chongyue, Shuo is the eldest of all fragments of ancient Yanese Feranmut Sui and the brother of Nian, Dusk, and Ling. Claiming to be a mere Yanese martial artist, Chongyue serves the imperial court where he spread his kung fu knowledge across Yan.

Class and Archetype

Chongyue is a 6★ Fighter Guard, an archetype that possesses rapid attack speed in addition to having a low Deployment Point (DP) cost. A Fighter Guard generally has a lower ATK value to offset their speedy attack rate, which leads them to be less effective against enemies with high defense.

In exchange, Fighter Guards excel at dueling enemies with low DEF and stalling a lane, making them excellent Operators for stages with waves of weaker foes. This attribute also pairs well with their natural low DP cost, allowing them to be deployed very early on to establish early control.

Note that defensively, Fighter Guards generally have lower HP but higher DEF than regular Dreadnought Guards, and without any form of sustain, Chongyue is a glass cannon through and through. Chongyue can also only block a single enemy at a time, so another melee Operator is recommended to be deployed behind him to avoid enemies leaking through.

Talents

Unlike other Fighter Guards such as Mountain who specialize in dealing sustained damage, Chongyue does the opposite and instead deals bursts of damage through his Talents and Skills within a short timeframe, living up to his reputation as a martial arts master. An important note about Chongyue is that his kit uses damage multipliers rather than ATK multipliers, thus allowing him to amplify his damage output significantly higher than regular Operators.

Chongyue’s first Talent is An End of War, which grants a chance to apply a short-lasting debuff on a target through normal attacks and causing them to take additional damage from him. As a duelist, An End of War is a powerful talent as Chongyue’s overall damage is amplified the longer he duels a target.

His second talent, named All Are Guests, is a passive that recovers Chongyue some SP whenever he manages to defeat an enemy using his Skills, allowing him to regain the ability to recast his Skill quicker. This Talent ties into his overall playstyle, repeatedly spamming his Skills and clearing enemy waves through bursts of damage.

Skills

Chongyue’s first Skill is called Abudant, an offensive ability that can store up to 3 charges. When cast, Chongyue will deal physical damage to an enemy within his range based on a greater percentage of his overall damage. The damage further multiplies based on the number of charges stored, consuming all stacks of charges in the process.

His Skill 2, Whisk, is also a charge-based ability with a maximum of 2 storable charge stacks and does several things:

• When Chongyue activates the Skill, he will deal physical damage to up to 4 nearby enemies (including airborne foes) and Levitates those who are affected by the An End to War Talent’s debuff. Levitate is a debuff that renders ground enemies airborne and incapacitated for a short duration, enabling Sniper Operators to focus fire on them.
• Once the Skill duration ends, the Levitated enemies are then slammed to the ground, receiving additional damage, and have An End to War debuff reapplied to them.

Anatta, Chongyue’s third Skill, has several properties:

• On the first 5 activations, Chongyue deals physical splash damage to nearby enemies.
• After 5 activations, the Skill will evolve and become an infinite-duration passive ability that grants Chongyue an additional attack range of two adjacent tiles forming a 4-directional cross shape.
• Chongyue will also hit twice per normal attack from now on.
• During this state, Anatta will also be activated automatically whenever it is ready, dealing an instance of burst damage.

Because of the Skill’s high damage multiplier and low SP cost, Chongyue is able to regularly inflict bursts of heavy damage even against some of the high DEF enemies.

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, Chongyue is a powerful unit worth considering, especially on how much damage he could unleash even without the assistance of allies. As such, given the right composition, Chongyue can reach some impressive damage numbers. Because he uses damage multipliers, Bard Supporters like Skadi the Corrupting Heart and Sora offer great synergy with Chongyue through damage buffing.

That being said, Chongyue can struggle in some stages even with assistance as he lacks any form of self-sustain and can only block 1 enemy at a time, which limits his capability to stall lanes. Any high-defense enemies can become a problem for Chongyue due to his lack of defense penetration ability. As such, it is recommended to position a melee operator behind Chongyue to prevent enemies from leaking through.

It is also important to note that Chongyue heavily relies on Skill activations to be effective because that’s where all his damage capabilities are. His Skill 2, Whisk is also less efficient against enemies with high weight as the duration of the Levitate will be halved.

On the other hand, Chongyue’s Skill 3, Anatta must be triggered at least 5 times before it becomes optimally effective by granting him an expanded attack range and double hit per attack effect. As given by how the Skill functions, Chongyue can struggle in fast-paced stages where it may take too long for Anatta to ramp up into effectiveness.

Even so, Chongyue is a reliable Operator to use and has much potential in the future as more supporting units be added to the game. He can be a force to be reckoned with, especially if you can provide him with sufficient buffs, healing, and enemy block support. More importantly, Chongyue is a limited Operator that may not be available for a long time after his banner.

Download

Arknights Global

Publisher: Yostar Inc

Developer: Hypergryph

Release Date: 2020-01-16

Android, iOS

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