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Hiking through the mountain into Arknights is Wind Chimes, a new Operator released alongside Qiubai as part of the “A Death in Chunfen” side story event.
Wind Chimes worked as a messenger in the country of Yan and is a talented climber who would blaze through mountain trails as a means to open trade routes between her home village and the city.
Class and Archetype
Wind Chimes is a 5★ Operator who is a part of the Crusher Guard archetype, a relatively new subclass of Guards that only consists of her and 4★ Quartz.
This particular archetype fights similarly to Centurion Guards, having the capability to attack multiple enemies at once but possessing tremendously higher HP and ATK than other Guards, at the cost of higher DP cost. Though in exchange for its wildly higher ATK, Crusher Guards sacrificed their defensive strength, resulting in them having no DEF and RES at all. Furthermore, Crusher Guards also can only block up to 2 enemies at a given time and has the slowest attack speed among all Guard subclasses.
That does not mean Crusher Guards are terrible at survivability as their high health pool allows them to soak hits while retaliating with powerful blows of attack. However, note that since Crusher Guards have no DEF, every hit they take will be unmitigated damage and thus will be fragile when up against a high Physical damage enemy. As such, it is highly recommended to have any form of healing support to protect a Crusher Guard from getting overwhelmed.
Talents
Wind Chimes only has one Talent which is called “Mountain Traveler“, which increases her maximum health and grants her a buff known as Vigor. When her health is more than half, the Vigor buff stays active and increases her ATK, but once she drops below 50% HP, the Vigor buff deactivates. This Talent enhances her already impressive stats and makes her ATK attribute to be one of the highest among all Guards.
Skills
As a 5★ Operator, Wind Chimes has 2 Skills, which focus on giving her the ability to unleash massive damage with her high ATK stat.
Her first Skill, ATK Up γ, is a simple ability that bolsters her attack damage temporarily. A rather straightforward ability that is useful regardless of the situation.
On the other hand, her second Skill, Longing for Home, temporarily forces Wind Chimes to stop attacking for 5 seconds, during which she receives a buff called “Sanctuary” and gradually increases her ATK. When the Skill duration expires or if players chose to deactivate the ability manually, Wind Chimes will release a powerful swing that deals a burst of Physical damage to ground enemies in front of her and stuns them for a short duration.
An unusual ability for an archetype focus on DPS as she stops attacking to enter a wind-up period to enhance a single powerful strike, during which Wind Chimes protect herself with Sanctuary. For the uninitiated, Sanctuary is a buff that protects the affected Operator, temporarily reducing any incoming Physical and Arts damage.
Final Thoughts
Based on her kit, Wind Chimes is an Operator all about big damage, ditching her defenses as a Crusher Guard in favor of extremely high ATK stat.
Unfortunately, as high as her ATK stats may be, she still suffers from consistent DPS output compared to other Guards because of the drawbacks her abilities have. For one, while her Skill 2, Longing for Home, looks impressive on paper, Wind Chimes is actually losing damage as she stops attacking during the wind-up period, allowing enemies to begin overwhelming the player.
Even if Wind Chimes is protected by the Sanctuary buff, it is not as effective as it sounds and puts her in danger against some of the tougher enemies because of her naturally weak defense. Considering how long Wind Chimes need to charge up before releasing the final burst of Longing for Home, the stun effect feels underwhelming as it only affects enemies for only a second.
As such, it is better to use her Skill 1 for most stages, even if it is straightforward and dull, it still provides better consistency to her overall damage. Since Wind Chimes is also a Crusher Guard, she suffers in survivability for having 0 DEF while also not being able to eliminate enemies fast enough due to her slow attack speed. This made Longing for Home a baffling skill to have as it does not make up for the archetype’s main weaknesses but renders them worse.
In most cases, it is better off deploying other Guards as they have more consistent DPS output and better survivability. As cool as her character design looks, Wind Chimes is not a recommended Operator to pull for as her drawbacks made her ill-suited for many scenarios.
