#expeditioner's joklumarkar

[superchat]

[hypaalicious]

IS4 thoughts

I’ve completed everything in this thus far and I remember I usually do a “review no one asked for” about Integrated Strategy iterations, so leggo

General improvements: the ability to choose which ending to go for rather than relying on RNG, fun Fordartal shenanigans, added perks to relics on higher Braving Nature levels

General annoyances: unable to stop the Collapse level from rising (unless you pick the Eternal Hunting Squad), being locked into Braving Nature 0 in the beginning, both the 2nd & 3rd end bosses being a DPS and/or ASPD check

Aiight so… best and worst categories GO

Best starting squad: Special Training Squad

The worst part about higher ascension runs is the +1 Hope cost for recruitment and this squad mitigates that. Made my BN 10+ runs a lot less painful LOL

Worst starting squad: Scientific Thinking Squad

Yeah, you end up with max Anti-Interference by like floor 3 but being blind up until then is annoying lol.

Best Fordartal: Sing

Listen. Hardly anything beats the endorphin rush of ASPD boosts anyway, but also I have not managed to beat the 2nd or 3rd end bosses without help from it.

Worst Fordartal: Hunt

I’m truly not tryna ASK to get my ass whooped outchea, y’all can keep this 😭

Least harmful Collapsal Paradigm: Convergence Consumption

For the most part I can just avoid getting screwed by this at all by skipping Bosky Passage nodes

Most harmful Collapsal Paradigm: Barometric Anamoly

Fuck this one to the pits of hell 😭 Have me mad as fuck watching my DP like

Easiest Emergency Node: Hands of Moss

Yeah, it’s a 1st floor stage anyway but like any of the others can steamroll you immediately if you have a poor starting lineup, this one is the safest bet cause nothing really changes about it from regular to emergency mode.

Worst Emergency Node: tie between March of the Dead & Stay Away From Strangers

If we being real? NO 5th floor combat stage is safe at high ascension 🤧 it will always be a fight for your life, but these two can be run-enders. MotD throws in two mudrock Colossi for funsies and SAWF will end in tears if you don’t have the ranged units to get all them drones gone and the swiftness to pick off all the Rot Eaters before they get too beefy to hold off.

Best Bosky Passage effect: Concentration Disorder from IS3 on steroids

I love set and forget shenanigans because I assure you, I will be setting and forgetting anyway! *grins in ADHD*

Worst Bosky Passage effect: too much Dominion

Don’t fuck around and get this while also having the Substantial Collapse paradigm. Whole map gonna have fart clouds on it. Pain.

Best new Relic: ‘Devotion’

Is it game breaking? No. But chip damage on enemies for healing racks up!

Worst new Relic: Frozen Whetstone

Way to make Bladedance absolutely useless LMFAO like honestly if there’s one thing is4 is good at is giving really good relics some disappointing handicaps.

Okay. Now onto the bosses!

Samivilinn aka that bigass ice mountain with an attitude

Very straightforward. Typhon will trivialize this boss and Reedalter will trivialize the stage itself by clearing it of all the ice in one s3 activation. The enemies on the right hand side tend to be more annoying to corral but if you have Eyjalter with her s3 it’ll keep the whole squad across the map healthy enough to push through.

Eikthynir aka the Snowpriest who really wants to be Usain Bolt

Full disclosure; most of my wins against him required creative stacking of Sing fordartals and proper timing/abuse of Goldenglow’s s3 to get him down most of the way before he speedruns the exit. But so many battles have ended up with him blowing past all my blockers with 1% health and me not being able to do shit but watch 😭

Crazelyseon, aka the teleporting Flying Spaghetti Monster

A menace 😭 Invulnerable 90% of the time, warping around the stage, dropping cancer squares of doom, and worst of all the time limit. If you don’t kill this thing soon after it starts warping three times in a row then you’re finished cause it’ll explode. I haven’t felt such a time crunch on an IS boss since BSL.

Best practice is to set up your heaviest hitters at two of its stopping points and only activate the device when it’s overcharged to get the most bang for your buck. You have GOT to time it right tho cause if you get impatient or your DPS gets wiped then the whole stage goes to shit really fast. Once again, I have never beat this boss without an ASPD boost of some kind.

Great Operators for IS4:

Ines - her invisibility reveal is goated

Typhon - really good for general carry on all floors but outside of the ice mountain boss her meta-ness falls off esp at higher ascension levels

Reedalter - her s2 will melt anybody including those Shattered Champions

Eyjaberry - frankly indispensable, her s1 holds it down and her s3 reaches everywhere

FedExecutor - his s2 allows him to dodge most bullshit and he holds his own despite not being able to be directly healed

Virtuosa - def a luxury pick and fairly new but a way better source of Necrosis damage than Valarqvin and just overall very fun to play

Ling - I usually do not play SummonKnights because I don’t have the brain cells but honestly the runs I’ve done with her were solid and fun especially with the Empty Fowlbeast relic

Ho’olheyak - rather mid as a Core Caster but with the relics that boost levitation effects she can actually hold her own

Jessica Wick - her deployable shield can buy you some time against these sprinting mobs

Yato alter: she’s a key FastRedeploynights operator for a reason!

Mlynar - full disclosure; I don’t really use him in IS unless I get him as a temp recruit because while his damage output is unrivaled, I hate how he can’t block shit unless his skill is up

Ethan - a low cost GOAT at crowd control. That Prisoner’s Night stage is trivialized with him

Other random tips:

Avoid the Nameless Hero stage. Please. 😭 If you come across the Always on Alert encounter, just dip. Expeditiously.

When going for the 3rd ending, don’t go in a Scout node until like floor 4. Why? Cause that Routeweave Net will make additional enemies appear in all your stages and it’s best to just put that off till the last moment. By floor 5 if you take the bottom most route the Prophecy node that’s supposed to be the fork to get to Eik’s stage will turn into the one you need to get the Boundless Gift to open up floor 6.

GG’s s3 is garbage for the ice mountain stage. She’ll target every individual ice square before she decides to hit any enemies.

If you pick up the Scarred Amber relic, maximize your slay by stacking hella Plunder or Migrate Fordartals

Always save your best Fordartal combos for end stage bosses! There’s no limit of how many buffs you can stack on a node so take advantage of that.

After a certain Collapse level is reached you won’t get any more Fordartals outside of what you can buy from Cannot or get from a unique Encounter

There are two secret Collapsal Paradigms to unlock. One obscures your operators and the other obscures the enemy health bars and how many life points you have left. Both are fairly annoying. BUT STILL BETTER THAN BAROMETRIC ANAMOLY

[oarfishfever]

i kind of cant believe this worked; i absolutely scuffed this harder than i needed to

i am however justified in my decision to try and spark chalter next summer banner, this girl still dumb as hell

[lemon-dokuro]

I'm terrified

[ricketynotch2]

The illusion of choice

(I’m sure that there can be some different uses but at face value they’re pretty much the same)

[manifestmerlin]

>Be Me

>Finally get to the first boss of IS4

>Decently strong squad, not a guaranteed win but I can probably handle things with max mod gladiia and spalter

>Begin Boss Stage

>It's a Higher Damage Version of Big Sad Lock with stuns, and more than forty strong enemies that do have to be dealt with

>MFW

[bricko-mcfisto]

I swear to god the Shadow of the Frozen Sea makes me want to rip my hair out. Hands down the worst operation in IS4 to the point where it makes me want to take an elemental healer every single expedition just on the chance that this odious awful mission shows up and I can't avoid it.

Absolutely awful, terrible design, a map that feels like I need such a specific set up that is antithetical to the nature of this roguelite game mode that I want to build my entire selection process around "What if Frozen Sea" shows up.

[armoredisopod]

Didn't expect to get invested in the event story but goddamn if it isn't one of the best stories arknights has put out so far and seeing Jessica finally find the one thing she wants to do and stand up for herself was absolutely cathartic, honestly right up there with Lone Trail for me even if the story felt too short

(also i know Woodrow wanted to kill Cliff for leaving him and their unnamed friend to die behind enemy lines during the revolutionary war but they definitely had something going on in the past right)

The EX stages didn't give me too much trouble except EX-5 but that was mostly just me being stubborn, i was surprised i managed to get EX-8 trimmed medal first try and then immediately got humbled by EX-8 CM, i tried it on my own for an hour or two before looking up a guide for it and turns out the solution was simply just spawncamp Cliff with Ceobe and Suzuran

Bit late to the party to talk about IS4 first impressions but definitely agree it's an improvement over IS3 and the foldartals and anti-interference index are fun mechanics, only managed to get to difficulty 7 rn but i'm slowly working my way to 10 for the trimmed medal

Don't have much else to say that hasn't been said better by other people so i'll just complain about how annoying the emergency version of "Where be No Mounts and Seas" is because holy shit it has been the most consistent run ender for me and also the Propagating Collapse paradigm effect on "March of the Dead" is literally an automatic loss because i swear the game is actually rigged to put the dominion on every ranged tile in that stage

Perfect? clears for the new SSS missions?

I'll be honest i didn't expect to fail the dps check on the ice cream truck boss but then i found out it only takes away 2 life points and i had no prior leaks so uh i guess i'll take it

I expected to get my ass beat on the lighthouse because i didn't raise any wandering medic and i refuse to borrow support eyjaberry but turns out the device provides enough elemental healing that i really only need to focus on bringing enough dps to get through the boss' shields

[venky45]

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[amazonclimber]

Golden Chalice is your consolation prize for getting screwed over when it comes to shops.

Literally nothing gets IS players as heated as debating over how good Golden Chalice is in IS4, it's kind of extremely funny.

[superchat]

[chryza]

I found out the other day that the Expeditioner’s Joklumarkar (IS4) OST is fucking awesome.

[zeravmeta]

Expeditioner's Joklumarkar/IS4 Critical Enemy Guide

Fleet Footed Follower

Lively Lout

Rapid Rapscallion

Jovial Jaunter

Hasty Haunter

Skittering Scamperer

[tistheadmiral-blog]

Hottest Sarkaz lady who kills you yet

YES YES FINALLY I CAN FALL FOR IT

[manifestmerlin]

With some more time, experience, and EXTREMELY CRUCIALLY! More nodes on the upgrade tree unlocked. I can confidently say is4 is real good. The second boss is actually so much easier if you know the one trick to deal with him it's kind of ridiculous that the first boss is what it is. (It still kinda high key sucks ngl) I haven't gotten to ending 3 but after looking it up that boss seems like a fucking NIGHTMARE so I'm not looking forward to it. Fordotals are really great, the opening was horribly designed to make you progress through the tree so slowly without the lower difficulties even giving you silent squad, and there's a lot of cool operator options although the meta ops kinda feel as string as ever. BUT a lot of lower rarity ops are more helpful than ever so it feels like it balances out somewhat. It's kind of weird to say that I think is2 actually had the best bosses so far (cept highmore was better than BSL and a biiiit better than phantom I'd say? Mayyyyybe?) But mouthpiece is better than literally every boss in is3 and so far more than is4 too. Collapses level debuffs are frankly: more punishing than the mutations in is3 and you have less control over them which is frustrating. Crisis Trigger early on if you don't get a healer is particularly punishing, but the DP gen down, -aspd tiles, and collapsal bonus stats have also wound up with me losing runs just off of one level.