#thank you hypergryph

[lo-que-te-haga-feliz]

Hoederer bros we fucking won

[latimeria-fell-from-heaven]

punch to the gut, kick to crotch and slap across the face <33

[orukadoruka]

gguys. im about to burst into tears. this was all i ever wanted. he's sooooo he's so gorjus ahjsgfjhsagfkjasfas

[whitherwanderer]

🎵 for sawyer?

You thought I'd disappear for good now You thought you left me here for dead-dead-dead-dead You thought that I'd be slowing down by now But think again, think again

Sawyer has always had some unfinished business with someone in a past life that left her angry, bitter, and more alone than she'd ever been, which she would have preferred at the time if it wasn't for a certain tagalong.

But recent events have led her back towards home—towards Ishgard—where she plans to put that part of her life to rest by showing those involved that you cannot keep her down forever. You can only delay her for a time.

[np5enkidu]

i haven't been this hyped for arknights in a while goddd

[prettycottonmouthlamia]

So let's discuss Underflow a bit, since no one generally will because she's not the big stupid 6-star on the banner

Underflow is the 3rd 5-star Sentinel Protector Defender released in Arknights, and the first one released in a long ass time. With her release, we actually have a bit of a solid idea of what exactly Hypergryph is thinking about when they are designing this class.

Sentinel Protector Defenders are Defenders similar in base stats to normal Protector Defenders, but exchange a Protector Defenders reliable survivability boosting skills for middle of the pack damage capabilities and crowd control. Blitz and Liskarm can both Stun enemies, while Underflow inflicts Slow. It's neat, crowd control is actually quite uncommon among Defenders.

Underflow is not actually understatted compared to the others. She has the highest ATK stat out of the three, and slightly higher HP than Liskarm, although lower DEF. Her DEF is moderately higher than Blitz but Blitz's HP pool is significantly better. Since Liskarm has a RES boosting talent, this actually puts Blitz in the statistical bottom of the three in all situations except True Damage and certain physical damage thresholds.

Underflow's S1 is not particularly snazzy, being a mild ATK up and DEF up. What this skill does bring in comparison to the others is a very consistent lasting DEF buff. Liskarm's skill only lasts for 8 seconds and has a hefty charge up time thanks to being Defensive Recovery, and Blitz's stuns are nice but only result in temporary disruptions. Underflow also, funny enough, has the best skill damage out of all of the three on a single target, so that's neat.

Underflow's S2 is interesting, being the first instance (I believe) of piercing attacks. It has solid DPS that is better than Liskarm's but significantly worse than Blitz's S2 (the DPS on this skill is insane btw) and has similar skill damage to the other three (thanks skill durations lmao), but has one pretty obvious problem. Liskarm's S2 does Arts damage, which means it always does some damage. Blitz's S2, especially with his module, can actually pierce DEF to a pretty solid extent, even if the skill only lasts for a measly 7 seconds.

With Underflow, you have to hope that whatever enemy she's fighting has like, less than 600 DEF. I'm not sure why the ATK boost on this skill is so wimpy, but she only has 804 ATK with the skill up and that's honestly disappointing. Liskarm gets a +200% ATK boost while Blitz will deal 2.775x damage to stunned enemies is all I'm saying.

Her talent does include some extra Arts damage, but it's minimal, only 110 Arts damage per second, or 220 against Seaborns. This isn't nothing and actually contributes meaningfully to her skill damage and auto-attack DPS (which is the best of the three), but she is no Thorns. This leaves her in an awkward spot where she should be quite strong but will struggle against enemies the other two won't.

This all being said, she is another Defender who can attack aerial enemies and has the most consistent crowd control for them among the Defender crowd, so that's nice for Tums, and out of the 5-stars, she can reveal invisible enemies one tile further with her S2 which is nice. But it's strange how she doesn't really wow me, I was kind of hoping welfares might end up a fair bit better recently.

[makikodesu]

I cant recover from this...thank you for the candies hypergryph

[arkiwii]

Arknights 8, 9, 17!

yippee!! more questions for me OM NOM NOM

8. A quote from Arknights that means a lot to me.

that's a very hard exercise right there because there is MANY quotes I love. and I have to pick one?? what!!

I'll put all the Rhine Lab events aside and pick one that I've read recently;

"Evil thought and evil deed differ by only one word, yet the difference in consequences could hardly be greater. This indeed began with thy thoughts, but the moment they became reality, they had left thy control." - Saga (Nameless Minion, A Death in Chunfen)

Saga is amazing, Saga is wise, Saga is right, love Saga and read a Death in Chunfen this event is amazing. this quote is a whole summary of one struggling with invasive thoughts. we all, and I mean, ALL, have these thoughts. this voice in our head impulsively and wrongly telling us to do something that we shouldn't. this desire to cause harm or to answer with violence. there's no exception to this, everyone is victim of this voice, even the wiser ones. the only difference between good and bad is if you decide to make these thoughts reality or not. Saga explains herself that even as tho she's a monk, herself has these thoughts;

but she decides to not fall for them. and it's what matters.

Saga is an AMAZING CHARACTER please fandom of Arknights oh please I beg you to stop treating her like she's stupid which she is NOT.

9. Which character I think should have interacted more in canon.

hello Hypergryph. she's literally in Victoria during the main scenario events according to her operator records. WHERE IS QUERCUS?? THE PEOPLE DEMAND QUERCUS IN MAIN SCENARIO

outside of a Light Sparks in Darkness and her operator records - as well as Susie's -, Quercus is completely absent and forgotten. and it pisses me off. she's seriously, and without any doubt, one of the most interesting characters. she lived so much, she saw so much, she struggles so much, has done horrible things, has seen horrible things, and understands the horror of war more than anyone. she's still, even to this day, working on herself, beating herself up to try to live a normal life again

and most of her character is, in fact, outside of Arknights?? all of her past, you learn it in YUJI's artworks. seriously.

please please please Hypergryph. we need more of Quercus. I want her to heal, to learn, to show weakness, to grow up. thank you

17. "The world-building aspect of the story I have the greatest admiration for."

hummm literally all of them??? but in all seriousness, the thing that I admire a lot in Arknights is how they were able to build a world with different countries with their own politics, and how they interact together, influence each other, the conflicts, history, cultural differences... alright, a lot of it is based on real world stuff, but it's still fascinating. as someone who creates stories, it's something I really want to be good at!! I'm kinda dumb to understand politics tho, so I don't really get what's going on in Arknights, but I can tell it's real good shit, that's what matters

[cerastes]

Who are the top must build caster operators? Excluding Eyja and Amiya

The ones you like :) But of course, you knew that, so let's talk Casters.

Casters exist in a perpetual state of weirdness because Hypergryph did an oopsie daisy and created Eyja as a release Operator, forever destabilizing absolutely everything about the class for years because she Did Everything better than other Casters (except Ifrit), even other Caster archetypes that aren't her own. Basically, on release, an objective tier listing for Casters, not just Core Casters, could be "Eyja Tier and Everyone Else Tier" and it'd be correct. Whether it was single target, aoe, constant DPS or burst damage, Eyja Did It Better. About the only other Caster you'd hear about in the conversation was Ifrit, because she was her own weird thing and did her job really damn well, and her unique range and true AoE, plus her ability to land flat DEF and RES debuffs (as opposed to percentage based, which made them very powerful due to the way DEF works and how the numbers tend to be low, thus flat > percentage for DEF) has always been appreciated. In fact, add Ifrit to that list of Recommended Casters, even though we won't discuss her below.

After some years of fighting their own big oopsie, Arknights is finally starting to even out the playing field with Casters. Right now, I'd say the best Caster is in fact Goldenglow (6*), and just, in general, the Mech Accord archetype is solid, with Operators like Kjera (5*) and Click (4*) being, quite honestly, very good! Minimalist (5*) is also an effective fire-and-forget unit, and in general, for your single target needs, Mech Accord is the way to go. The other archetype that's been cooking is the Mystic Caster group, with the likes of Ebenholz (6*), Iris (5*) and Indigo (4*), thanks to their great burst potential. Consider them as the Caster equivalent of Heavyshooter Snipers (Schwarz, Pozemka) in that they need to be more carefully and thoughtfully placed and require a more hands-on approach, paying dividends with incredibly effective Elite and Boss killing power, especially when they don't attack for a few seconds, as for each "autoattack" they have no target in range, they instead save that attack for later, unleashing all attacks (max 3) at once.

So, with that said, I don't particularly like the term "must raise", so let's call this a Hearty Recommended List of Casters:

Goldenglow - Whether it is her S2 for constant output (and AFK strats wink wink) or S3 for a more hands-on approach to evisceration with its great damage per second and global range, Miss Electric WILL send your foes to the principal's office and have them expelled. Her single target damage is incredible and she is absurdly easy to use, plus, thanks to her Talent, sometimes her drones will explode to deal AoE damage, granting her a degree of AoE ability as well. There's not much to say other than Goldenglow is really as powerful as you've heard: Incredibly easy to use, incredibly versatile, and incredibly pink.

Ebenholz - The other big relevant Caster nowadays. Ebenholz tends to have a bit of a worse reputation than Goldenglow, mostly due to incompetence (of the playerbase, not Eben's). The truth is, the absolutely monstrous amounts of damage Ebenholz can put out if played correctly are astonishing, but there's two issues here: 1) He's considerably harder to use than the average unit, as you need to make sure he's placed in a way that allows him to actually shoot all of this damage at the right target, which usually translates to "your entire team set-up, or at least a significant part of it, is built around using Ebenholz properly", and 2) you rarely actually need the amount of damage he outputs, especially relative to the effort needed to squeeze it out of him (when you can just use an easier unit, like Eyja or GG). However, for those moments in which you can definitely benefit from the Big Hits or, let's be honest here, when you just really want to see those big damn numbers, yeah, Ebenholz is a bona fide top pick. For BIG Damage, you'll want to learn to build around his S3, for general use, you want his S2, which is quite similar to W's S2 Claymores.

Kjera - Kjera's freezing ability allows her to output damage and provide team utility -- Freezing is not only a measure of crowd control, it reduces RES by 15 as well -- making her an easy to integrate Operator into pretty much any team, especially if you also use the likes of Gnosis or Aurora for that sweet, sweet Frozen synergy. Even without them, however, Kjera is a solid member of any team and a great team player.

Click - An ol' reliable, cheap, effective damage hose with minor crowd control in the form of Stun, Click is simple to use, cheap to upgrade, and has great hands to high five with after she's done blasting. Not much else to be said about her, she simply works.

Iris - Nice bursty Caster with some fun gimmicks: S1 is her machine gun, making her range a line in front of line and releasing a LOT of very quick attacks very briefly, while her S2 Sleeps enemies for a few seconds (allowing her to charge up Mystic stacks) before waking them up with a burst of Arts damage. Being one of the rare Sleep synergies, it also allows Blemishine to smash enemies over the head with a tire iron, the way knights do, if you use them together. Quite the gimmicky unit, but fun and effective nonetheless.

Indigo - The light machine gun to Iris' heavy machine gun and Ebenholz attack jet-mounted vulcan gun. Her damage is not as high as her fellow Mystics, but she instead has a rather consistent Bind she can apply to her enemies, which is interesting to have on a Caster. A sub-DPS/Support hybrid, and welcome in pretty much any team.

There's other Casters that can get a recommendation, but these are the ones I think are pretty relevant as of right now besides Eyja, Amiya, and Ifrit.

[waheelawhisperer]

I think this anniversary was designed as a targeted attack on Dreamer

IT'S SILENCE??

[arknights-imagines]

WAKE UP EXECUTOR ALTER DROPPED

Hsshjs hiya vesvic and the anons 😭! Thank you v v v much for your asks!

I know my reply to your asks is rather late and the Hortus de Escapismo event is ending v soon, but I just knew I had to reply to these and talk about it sgsugssbs...I'm Exe after all 🥺! So it's only right I discuss 'Rico news on here!

(I've also received other asks about 'Rico's alter since I came back, so I knew I had to answer these ones first!)

It's not new news anymore, however, yes!!

AAA Executor received an alter 😖😭😱💕!!!

Executor the Ex Foedere!!!

It warms my heart to know that people know how much of an Executor/'Rico I am and came to my inbox to let me know about the news...tysm 😭!!

I first saw news of it while I was still away and I thought I must've been seeing things or it was fan made 😭 but, it's real! (I had to lie down for a little while when I realized it was real lololsnjss) It still feels a little unreal to say it and see it aaa 😖😮!

I think this might be the hugest Arknights news for me yet, after the announcement of the Guide Ahead event all that time ago svushdje 🥺! It feels like my biggest Arknights fantasy has come true...!!

I'm also v v happy to say, that he came home safely to me without any issues 😭💘!!

And not just once, but multiple times!

His alternate being released to the EN server was uplifting for me and gave me some happiness when things in my IRL life were not-so-good sbsjbs, so I'm v v thankful to Hypergryph 🙏😭! He even got his English voice as well...omg aaa! Just mentioning this makes me excited all over again 🥺

I couldn't have possibly asked for more 😭😖!!

Especially because they did him extremely well in all aspects svhshs! I won't talk about it much here as to not overcrowd this post, but from his story and his character development to his appearance and his English voice, I feel Hypergryph did him lots and lots of justice 🥺🥰!! (and as an extra fun fact, I believe he's also the first 6-star alternate who's male!)

Again, I won't ramble about it too much here sgsugs but if anyone would like me to talk more about Executor the Ex Foedere, I'd be more than happy to as you guys could probably guess 🥺! I'll gladly answer any asks sent in about him or the Hortus de Escapismo event, so please do send in any!

(It would make me a very happy Exe to be able to talk about Executor the Ex Foedere and the Hortus de Escapismo event more lololsnjss!)

I'm currently working on farming materials to fully max-out my Executor the Ex Foedere, but here he is right now sgshsh 🥺! He will be the first 6 star Operator I max-out completely ✨

I'm also planning on writing for him v soon sbsjshs 🥺🙏 whether it be for one of your guys' requests or something I think up based on the events of the Hortus de Escapismo event! I hope you guys will look forward to it aaa...!

I think I'll stop rambling for now, before I get carried away lololsnjss 😶!

Thank you again to vesvic and the anons for your asks, and for the opportunity to talk about Executor the Ex Foedere 💕! ('Rico sends a sincere 'thank you' as well, he hopes everyone has enjoyed his event and that all those hoping to have his alter come home have received him 🙏!)

Please remember to take care of yourselves and I hope you'll stick around! Please have a good day 💘!!

[little-lanterns]

putting every IS mimic in chilchuck's e2 art is so evil. i am gonna bring him to all my future IS run to torture him more, thank you for the opportunity hypergryph

[sunder-the-gold]

Thank you for the advice! I fully intend to spend $0.00 total on Arknights and abandon it as soon as it becomes unplayable without spending money, I simply was enticed by all the art you've reposted and by my nostalgia for tower defense.

Whales spend enough on this game to allow you to do that without worrying about Hypergryph closing down for lack of funds.

I justified my first purchases in the game on the basis of "I would have spent this much money on a console game". That was for buying the one-purchase only "packs" out of the store. And I don't necessarily think that was wrong.

Otherwise, I spend maybe $6 a month on the 'monthly value pack'.

The only other things I spend real money on are little commemorative items or high-value, low-cost packs. Never anything that collectively costs as much as $25, and maybe once a year at most.

It doesn't sound like much, and in terms of annual budget it sure isn't. But added up, that means I've spent more than $400 dollars total on a game that I've participated in for 6 years, but not necessarily PLAYED for that amount of time.

Warhammer fans spend far more, but they still have their little figures if Games Workshop shuts down. But when Hypergryph shuts down their servers, what happens then?

[orukadoruka]

aaAAAAAAUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHGUAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[notafiredemon]

Dear Hypergryph: the character I'd most like to recruit from this event is Hyman, please and thank you

[leafesol]

I want to personally extend a congratulations to the Hypergryph intern who came up with Eyjafjalla's module. It takes a certain type of person to look at the virtually unopposed champion of, not one, but two Caster archetypes and decide that what that character needs is RES Ignore and more ATK. Thank you, unnamed intern, for making every future conversation about this character more insufferable than they already were.