Hello, hello. I actually had an entirely different intro paragraph originally written for this article. But uh, that was before I had to push this back for like three four weeks because of the anniversary news cycle and the plethora of articles I had to pump out due to that (my boss kidnapping me to work on Wuthering Waves content certainly didn’t help, either). As a result, this article kinda spiralled into a kind of production hell, with extra sections being added to account for new content releases and multiple sections having to be rewritten on several occasions too. It’s not a great excuse for sure, but that’s just how things shake out sometimes. Sorry. As stated, I’ve also included my scheduled “Quick Thoughts” article on the current Suspense in Skytopia event for an extra-length double feature as penance for this article being so ridiculously late. There’s a heck of a lot to cover here as a result (including a giveaway!), so let’s just get into it while I try to wash the taste of Red Bull out of my mouth.

A new feature making its debut with this meta report is a companion spreadsheet containing detailed math on calculations and numbers shown in this article, as well as logistics stat calculators for both Lyfe - Infinite Sight and Fenny - Starshine to help you optimize your setup. You can find it here. I don't know if I'll keep making these as they take a ridiculous amount of time and sanity to produce, but at least for the game's anniversary, I figured I'd go the extra mile.

Charging to the Top

With the conclusion of Realm of Illusions signalling the end of any changes to Siris - Ksana for a while, we can look back and see what kind of impact she’s had on the meta. Initial impressions upon her release were positive, but not overwhelmingly so. She had a solid spot in the meta as a “Cherno-lite” of sorts, largely serving a similar role and being quite competent at it. Siris was in a pretty good place overall, and one that a lot of other operatives would love to be in.

And then she got buffed.

With her gacha weapon now further boosting her damage and her standard skill allowing for even more ult uptime, it’s fair to say that Siris had received a major power bump. It didn’t change what she does, but it did let her do it a whole lot better. And now that she gets the best of the both worlds, being able to spam ults like the short-lived Discordance setup allowed for while also getting the full benefit from her intended weapons of choice, she easily secures a spot among the top DPS units on offer.

While her overall performance still doesn’t quite reach that of the Orphan Crusher 9000 otherwise known as Cherno - Enigma, Siris still stands head and shoulders above the majority of the existing DPS pool, as Seasun shows that it can in fact make more than one strong skill damage character. Perhaps too strong for their own good.

Oh, and she’s also great in Gigalink if you feel like making everyone else in the match completely useless as you shove enemies away to hog all the damage. I’m sorry Haru, please come back. I didn’t know how good we had it.

Insight for Lyfe

I don’t know what those New Hentiro guys are cooking, but they clearly know their stuff. Lyfe - Infinite Sight emerges from her healing pod as the featured DPS of the Suspense of Skytopia event, being a highly mobile operative with a flashy kit. Both figuratively and literally. We’ll get to that.

But first, it’s worth talking about her Deiwos passive, as it’s basically a fourth active ability in itself. Deiwos active, perhaps? In a nutshell, shooting enemies fills up an eye-shaped gauge in the middle of your screen. When it fills up, your next dodge will fire off a ten-round burst of shots that are guaranteed to crit, a dodge shot if you will. It does come with the tradeoff of not giving invulnerability like a normal dodge, but you do get CC resistance and damage reduction so it’s mostly fine, I guess. It also costs ammo, which is fair enough since you are firing your guns to do it, after all. If you don’t have enough ammo you can still use your dodge attack, but it’ll do half of the normal damage. Again, fair enough.

Speaking of damage, this is actually your main damage tool, as it handily outbursts your normal gun damage and enables your other main damage source, which we’ll get to later. It also has really good Alignment Index scaling, as every 100 AI increases the base damage multiplier of 136% by another 10%. The in-game description originally said that it increases the “final damage” by 10% which was a very easy misconception to fall for, but it’s thankfully been fixed to be clearer now. Thank you, Seasun.

So then, onto Lyfe’s “real” kit, starting off with her standard ability. Unlike how great Lyfe’s dodge shot is, this ability really doesn’t do a lot of damage. What it does do, however, is pepper enemies with Insight marks. These serve two purposes. The first is pretty simple - shooting an enemy with a mark will charge up your dodge shot faster, which is always nice. Additionally, when said dodge shot hits an enemy with marks, they’ll detonate to deal skill damage. This bonus damage can apply to all ten hits of Lyfe’s dodge shot, as the detonation does not consume the mark. This results in a really big burst of damage, and actually gives Lyfe a surprisingly even ballistic/skill damage split, anywhere from 60% ballistic/40% skill to more or less 50/50! Also, using your standard skill fully charges up your dodge shot, for a very fun standard ability -> dodge shot combo.

Her support skill is a line attack that can stun enemies. There’s not a lot to say about it beyond that. Let’s move on.

Last up is the super sick ultimate… which mostly just ends up being used for clearing out groups of trash mobs. It’s not that it does less damage than your dodge shot (but it does), but rather that you’re not getting any Insight mark detonations from it, which combine to cut your single-target DPS by half or more. You do look cool doing it though, and its very long cast animation that timestops in single-player modes actually still lets your standard ability cooldown continue ticking, essentially cheating out an extra ability cast that you can use after immediately cancelling the ult. This trick unfortunately only works once though, as the animation stops playing after your first usage. That cast animation is really bright too, so be careful not to flashbang yourself. Geez.

Overall, it’s a fun and cohesive kit that allows Lyfe to burst hard while also sustaining a high level of DPS over more extended battles. While she doesn’t produce the big dopamine screenshot damage numbers like Cherno can, she manages to spit out enough hard-hitting shots to provide an equally swift death by a thousand cuts and claim a spot at the top.

Manifests

Lyfe starts out decently strong with her first manifest, providing a 20% final damage boost to all of her dodge shots, right where you want that damage. M2 speeds up your rotations by refunding a third of your dodge shot charges whenever you use it. It’s also very nice to have, and probably the best place for most people to stop. This is because once you get to her M3, the value proposition starts to fall off. While a minimum of 12% extra ballistic damage to marked enemies sounds nice, you’re now facing heavy buff dilution as this bonus is stacked on top of other sources like the massive 75% boost that Nova Squad provides. The same can be said for her final manifest as well, making extended investment something reserved for heavy spenders or extra-dedicated fans.

Logistics

Seasun shows no sign of making remotely interesting logistics sets anymore so here’s Nova Squad, which is really good on Lyfe and only Lyfe because it specifically makes her damage numbers bigger with no strings attached.

Sigh.

It strongarms out any potential competition by boosting the damage of her dodge shot, Insight mark detonations, and ultimate ability to a quite frankly ridiculous degree. However, her standard skill does not get the same benefit, which explains why it’s so worthless as a standalone damage source. 

For substats, we’re primarily concerned with optimising the damage of Lyfe’s dodge shots and Insight mark detonations. Only attack bonuses boost both of them, making it an easy first priority. After that, nothing else affects Insight damage (aside from the third-stat Kinetic damage bonus, which is obviously what you want there) which means we look to her dodge shot, which actually has three possible avenues. 

Alignment Index is by far the most efficient stat as it directly increases dodge shot’s damage multiplier, so this is easily the second-best stat to have. But if you can’t get that, both crit rate and crit damage can also provide a benefit - every percent point of crit rate increases the damage that dodge shot deals by the same percent, while crit damage takes advantage of the fact that dodge shot deals guaranteed critical hits by making crit damage go up. Since crit damage will also boost your normal shooting damage, it’s naturally the preferred of the two, and the fact that you can get much higher crit damage values from substats compared to crit rate only furthers its case.

Ability haste is a bit of a wildcard, as while it won’t make any of your numbers bigger, it can potentially speed up rotations due to letting you use your standard ability more often, which means more dodge shots. In practice, it ends up being more of an art form than science as being dependent on landing shots to progress your rotations makes them inherently inconsistent due to missed shots directly delaying said rotations. It’s certainly not a completely dead stat though - as Neural Sim times get closer and closer to 0, fitting in an extra skill cast can be a very real time save, but the difference is harder to appreciate in more casual applications.

If you want to minmax your own logistics set or figure out which piece you should work on next, you can access the logistics calculator I made here.

Weapons

I think it’s been long enough since the release of Eatchel and Rock Python that I can stop telling you that whatever the latest shop gun is is perfectly usable. And Revolving Glow, the 4* freebie available in the event shop, very much is decent enough. I mean you don’t really get much choice either way, given the very limited dual SMG roster. So how does it stack up to Lyfe's more premium gacha option? Let’s take a look at their weapon skills, with the gacha weapon Nightborne Crown at T1 and Revolving Glow at T5:

• Nightborne Crown
  Increases Kinetic damage by 18%.
  After a skill hits, the target takes 14.4% more ballistic damage from the equipped operative for 3s. After a shot or ultimate ability hits, the target takes 14.4% more skill damage from the equipped operative for 3s. These effects are doubled when both are active on the target
• Revolving Glow
  After a shot hits, standard ability damage increases by 25% for 3s. After a skill hits, ballistic damage increases by 25% for 3s. These effects are doubled when both are active.

Looks pretty similar, right? While Nightborne Crown gets a bonus Kinetic damage boost, the numbers on Revolving Glow actually look to be bigger and seem to do the same thing. That means it should be pretty competitive if not better, right?

Spoiler alert: no.

Despite their similarities, they actually provide their damage boosts in completely different ways. Revolving Glow applies buffs to the active operative (Lyfe), while Nightborne Crown’s weapon skill applies debuffs to enemy targets. What this means is that the two weapons each affect different parts of the damage equation:

• Revolving Glow’s buffs are counted as “damage%” buffs, which is already a very diluted stat on Lyfe due to this particular buff bucket already being full of other sources like the 24% Kinetic boost and 75% boost to Insight Ray and dodge shot damage from Nova Squad. Hello diminishing returns, my old friend.
• On the other hand, Nightborne Crown’s debuffs count towards the “%damage taken” portion of the damage equation, a completely different multiplier and actually quite rare. There is no other source of this in Lyfe’s kit, which means that it gains the full benefit.

Add in the difference in stats, and T1 Nightborne Crown ends up absolutely smoking the free option, being more than 30% better. T2 only adds insult to injury, seeing percentage gains in the high 50s/low 60s against the shop gun, which really did try its best.

Full calculations are available in the companion spreadsheet.

Star Power

Tired of letting Lyfe hog the spotlight for so long, Fenny makes a fashionably late entrance as she shows off all the… bullets she carries around. What? Look, don’t ask. I don’t know what’s up with that either, but I can say that her willingness to share ammo makes her an amazing support that does her darndest to steer the meta towards a more trigger-happy state.

First things first, let’s talk about her standard skill. It’s a good place to start as it’ll provide an intro to how her support skill works as well. When you use this skill, Fenny will dash in a direction and get some fancy bullets based on the direction she dashed, each with a different party trick. Dashing forward provides slower-firing explosive shots, going left or right makes the bullets do more Kinetic damage, and choosing to retreat gives the bullets an S-Energy replenishment effect on hit. It’s kind of like a mix between Tess - The Magician’s and Eatchel - The Cub’s standard skills but like, actually good. With neuros unlocked it doesn’t even have a cooldown, giving her surprisingly credible DPS potential for a support. While I don’t expect DPS Starshine to become a serious meta threat, it should be great fun in more casual game modes like Gigalink and Paradoxical Labyrinth.

Her standard skill is great and all, but we both know that that’s not what we’re here for. You might have already seen the clips of Fenny popping in and handing your DPS a comically large amount of bonus ammo, or even tried it out yourself. The amount provided is based on the ammo capacity of the active operative’s weapon as well as Fenny’s own weapon too, which means that a six-ammo revolver will get far fewer bullets than the 100-ammo dual SMG that Lyfe (the new one) uses. So then, what do these things even do? Well, dealing damage with the bonus ammo gives the active operative an attack buff based on Fenny’s own (loadout) attack stat. It’s nothing too fancy, but more damage is more damage, and of course not having to reload is always nice. With neuronics unlocked, you can have up to three uses of this skill ready to go and even reduce its cooldown when you crit or hit a weak spot while its effects aren’t active, allowing for an absurd amount of bullet hosing. As the cherry on top, the active operative doesn’t even have their actions interrupted thanks to Fenny going the extra mile to deliver your ammo in person. A plus, top marks, great support ability. I love it.

Now that we’ve discussed both abilities that can provide bonus ammo, there is some technical stuff worth mentioning. Bonus ammo is still considered to be “normal,” as is the act of firing said ammo. This means that you still benefit from ballistic damage buffs like from Amano-Iwato or Dharma while firing bonus ammo. However, aptitude effects like Frita - Little Sunshine’s support skill will not activate. That can potentially restrict some of your team building options, and also will require you to be careful about which buffs you take in game modes like Gigalink and Paradoxical Labyrinth. Bonus ammo gets used up first, but also can’t be consumed by abilities like Marian - Swift’s standard ability (Lyfe IS’ dodge shot does work by virtue of it technically not being an ability), so there is in fact still a use to your existing normal ammo. Also, you can’t cheat your way into refilling bonus ammo or stacking up multiple sources of it. Duh.

Lastly, we get to Fenny’s ultimate ability, which is a very Hush-esque Care Bear Stare. However, it sticks around a bit on its own while you do other stuff, which can make her very occasionally useful as a swap-in burst damage dealer. Again, a pretty good ability as support characters go, but nothing too spectacular.

The cherry on top of this already very appealing package is Fenny’s Deiwos passive, which is literally just a free ballistic damage boost. No gimmicks, no catches. Just put her in your team, and every gun now does more damage. It’s good, no notes.

In giving out Fenny for free, she reminds me a lot of Acacia - Redacted, another freebie character. Both are surprisingly competent damage dealers for what they are (and with the context that you get Acacia very early on in the game, where her dagger damage still has a reasonable bite), but also provide strong support skills that will long outlast their active operative potential. In Fenny’s case, it’s enough to make her a must-have with supporting power comparable to the best.

Manifests

Right out of the gate, Fenny throws us a curveball with her first manifest, which provides unique buffs to characters with her bonus bullets based on their weapon type (this also includes herself!). Snipers, pistols, and crossbows get a 15% final damage boost to weak spot hits, which is always nice and finally gives Katya players a compelling reason to aim. Shotguns get an extra pellet in each shot which again means more damage, but is also a boost to parts breaking speed, U-Energy generation, and in the case of her other self, Coronet, extra Mercy stack generation for a faster ramp-up and easier maintenance. Assault rifles and SMGs both singular and dual get what is probably the most finicky buff - a 12% chance for each shot to fire off a bonus bullet. Again, this is definitely a boost to DPS, but the RNG nature of it can mean that the real-world effectiveness of this will vary, which can definitely lead to some frustrating scenarios. But all things considered, it’s better to have it than not, and the entry-level price makes it an excellent pickup.

It’s harder to make a case for the rest of her manifests, however. Manifests 2 and 3 primarily boost the uptime of Fenny’s support skill, either through providing more ammo (M2) or reducing its cooldown (M3). But… do you really need it? With neuros unlocked, Fenny can already provide three reloads’ worth of bonus ammo before a cooldown is even involved. By that time, most things are already dead. The cooldown for her support skill also begins as soon as she has a charge available to replenish as well, and combined with her neuro that already helps with support skill uptime, you start to wonder if investing more into Fenny’s manifests is really necessary. Well to be fair, M5 gives you an extra 10% resistance penetration when firing bonus ammo which is actually quite good, but most players will be better off balking at the long (or expensive) grind to get there and leaving Starshine at M1.

Logistics

Reverie Squad really confuses me. Not in what it does, that much is very simple. When any character in the team has bonus ammo from Fenny’s support skill, they do 40% extra ballistic damage. As well, Fenny herself will do 20% extra ballistic damage while firing bonus ammo from her standard skill. It’s a strong effect that synergizes perfectly with Fenny’s kit.

No no, what I’m confused about is why these effects specifically only work when the logistics set is equipped to Fenny specifically. The scope of what the logistics set does is already so narrow, why is that restriction even there to begin with? I thought about any potential ways you could abuse this without the restriction, and all I could come up with was putting this logistics set on a support to give a main DPS Fenny the 20% damage bonus while she herself double dips with something like Amano-Iwato. But that’s very much a meme setup, and can’t a girl have some fun every now and then? Whatever. Let’s just move on to the substats analysis.

Substats are pretty straightforward, and Seasun once again gets it right with the free set. Extra attack will let her hit harder and provide a bigger damage boost with her support ability’s bonus ammo, while Alignment Index will increase the ballistic damage boost her Deiwos provides. It’s perfectly fine to stick with the free set if you don’t want to pay a trip to the logistics stat casino, and personally, I won’t be trying my luck.

Weapons

Support weapons are always a little tricky to evaluate the relative value of, since they don’t directly do damage. Thus, you have to evaluate them in the context of the DPS that’s being supported. There are three weapons vying for the chance to be held by Fenny - Strawberry Shortcake, Pixel Age, and Heart Hunter - so let’s do the ol’ compare and contrast to see how they stack up.

Strawberry Shortcake initially seems like a great way to cheat the event farm and make use of something you probably already have. After all, it’s got a bigger attack stat than Pixel Age and also comes with a hefty attack boost when you use Fenny’s support skill. What’s not to like? That was a rhetorical question, the answer is the fact that it’s a Thermal weapon. This means that you no longer get the passive ballistic damage boost from Fenny’s Deiwos, nor do you get the benefits of her M1.

Meanwhile Pixel Age sits in the event shop, waiting for you to take it home. What it lacks in raw stattage it makes up for with a snack-sized version of the more premium Heart Hunter’s weapon skill. In this case, a 12.5% ballistic damage boost when firing bonus ammo that then doubles to 25% since Fenny isn’t on the field. Oh, and it’s also the right element, which means it does get all the extra goodies that Shortcake doesn’t.

Finally, we get to Heart Hunter, the obvious top dog among the three. Having the largest attack stat and a bigger ballistic damage boost (only by 5% at T1, but it’s there), it also brings something new to the table. While your DPS fires bonus ammo, those shots will also ignore 12% of the enemy’s resistances. This is actually pretty huge, as the only other support that lets you do anything similar is Acacia - Kaguya. It therefore puts this damage modifier in a very lonely multiplier bracket compared to the more-diluted attack% and damage%, where it might have otherwise made a much smaller impact. The ballistic boost and resist ignore also naturally increase in strength at T2, further boosting its buffing capabilities.

Enough chatter, let’s look at some numbers. I’ve prepared three scenarios that should provide a pretty good overall idea of how the three weapons stack up. We’ll be assuming that Fenny is level 80 and Manifest 1, with a +15 Reverie Squad (no substats) and all neuronics unlocked. A full breakdown is available in the companion spreadsheet, for those interested in taking a deeper dive into the numbers.

Lyfe - Infinite Sight: Dodge Shot

Lyfe is level 80 and Manifest 0 with a +15 Nova Squad (no substats), wielding T1 Nightborne Crown. All neuronics are unlocked.

Unbuffed Damage	64%
Strawberry Shortcake T5	100%
Pixel Age T5	100%
Heart Hunter T1	117%
Heart Hunter T2	133%

At first glance, it seems that Strawberry Shortcake keeps up just fine with Pixel Age, so we’re not off to the best start. However, there are also differences in performance that don’t show up on a raw numbers comparison. In this case, it’s the 12% chance to fire an extra bullet that Fenny’s M1 provides to dual SMG users when using a Kinetic weapon. Strawberry Shortcake doesn’t get this benefit, which means that Lyfe will take comparatively longer to charge up her dodge shot, slowing down her damage rotation and further lowering her DPS. This is also the closest that Shortcake ever comes to matching Pixel Age, as the other benefits of Fenny’s M1 can in fact be seen in a damage comparison.

Marian - Swift: Shooting

Marian is level 80 and Manifest 3 with a +15 Dharma Squad (no substats), wielding T2 Horn of the Orca. All neuronics are unlocked. Marian is shooting an enemy weak spot after casting her standard skill.

Unbuffed Damage	55%
Strawberry Shortcake T5	87%
Pixel Age T5	100%
Heart Hunter T1	117%
Heart Hunter T2	134%

Hey wait, Shortcake dropped down by quite a bit. What happened? Well, one of the other things that Fenny’s M1 does is give sniper users a 15% final damage buff when shooting weak spots, which Marian is doing here. Unless you’re using Strawberry Shortcake, in which case you’re missing out. One more scenario then, just to round things off.

Fenny - Coronet - Shooting

Fenny is level 80 and Manifest 3 with a +15 Amano-Iwato Squad (no substats), wielding T1 Sunny Payback. All neuronics are unlocked. Fenny’s standard skill is active. Fenny gains the bonus pellets from both her Deiwos passive and Sunny Payback.

Unbuffed Damage	56%
Strawberry Shortcake T5	92%
Pixel Age T5	100%
Heart Hunter T1	117%
Heart Hunter T2	134%

Once again, Shortcake struggles to keep up with Pixel Age and the reason why is also in Fenny (Starshine)’s M1. With a Kinetic weapon equipped, shotgun users get an extra pellet on every shot, which obviously means more damage. This is actually the best-case scenario considering that Fenny (Coronet) is already getting two bonus pellets, which reduces the benefit that a third would provide. When that doesn’t happen, the value of Starshine’s bonus pellet - and the performance disparity between Shortcake and Pixel Age - will only increase.

One thing that does stay pretty consistent is the performance increase that Heart Hunter will provide over Pixel Age. Providing just under 20% extra damage at T1 and at least 30% more at T2 puts it about in line with other signature weapons, so no surprises here. I’m of the opinion that support weapons are generally a better value due to their additional versatility in team building, but the final decision will of course be up to you.

Meta Changes

Fenny Game

Fenny - Starshine’s arrival on the scene has produced an impact with far-reaching effects. Being such a generic ballistic damage buffer means that she lifts up the performance of every gun DPS to a degree. But of course, some benefit more than others, which can lead to even some ballistic damage operatives getting left out in the cold.

Strong Synergies

Chenxing - Ethereal Cloud: Not having to reload means that Chenxing can get the most out of her standard skill, cramming in as many buffed up slip detonations as she can (remember, more gun damage also means more slip detonation damage!).

Lyfe - Wild Hunt: While more impactful on less-developed Wild Hunts, even when fully built the extra ammo is always appreciated to help with maintaining the uptime of her standard skill.

Fenny - Coronet: Coronet finally gets the reload support she’s wanted since day one. And who better than… herself? Being able to essentially quadruple the ammo she can fire before having to reload basically negates one of her two biggest weaknesses, and makes giving her the resources needed to solve the other (limited range) a much more compelling proposition.

Fenny - Lionheart: While not nearly as ammo-hungry as her original SSR form, a little extra oomph (and a lot of extra shotgun shells) go a long way to taking down anything that doesn’t die to her signature scoot-and-shoot combo.

Marian - Queen of Pain: To the five people that still play Marian as a DPS, more bullets are always appreciated in these trying times.

100 Battle Veteran: Yes, I mean the weapon. Because the bonus ammo provided by Fenny isn’t counted as part of the original weapon magazine’s ammo count, you can leave one round in 100BV’s actual magazine before calling in Fenny, allowing you to maximise the weapon’s ballistic damage boost based on missing ammo without the consequences of actually emptying the mag.

Mizuho Squad: Being able to continuously shoot for much longer periods of time means that Mizuho can finally provide its class-leading 60% ballistic damage buff in a real-world scenario. Too bad it’s locked away in the Jotun Tunnel shop, which can make it difficult to farm for good substats.

Mingyi Squad: I mean it still loses to Amano-Iwato on buff numbers alone, but at least now it loses with improved uptime.

Not So Much

Marian - Swift: Extra ammo sounds great for extending Swift’s combos, but she’s still too limited by her cooldowns to properly take advantage of it.

Yao - Winter Solstice: No, you can’t cheat in extra ult bullets with Fenny. But even outside of her ult, having bonus ammo available essentially turns off Space Cowboy’s weapon skill, which makes any potential benefit more trouble than it’s worth.

Katya - Blue Bolt: As it turns out, firing Fenny’s bonus ammo while in Katya’s standard skill still costs S-Energy. What’s the point?

Fritia - Little Sunshine: Because Fenny’s bonus ammo doesn’t apply Aptitude, it directly conflicts with Fritia’s support skill and excludes her from some potential team compositions.

Skill Damage DPS Units: Hey if you’re not winning, you’re losing. Ballistic damage DPS units getting stronger means that skill damage characters get weaker by comparison. Affected operatives include Cherno - Enigma, Siris, Ksana, and Fritia - Hush.

Tier List Changes

You can find the full tier list here.

New “Tier 5” Added

It really hurts me to do this, but there’s just no getting around it. The newest releases of Cherno - Enigma, Siris - Ksana, and Lyfe - Infinite Sight (who I’ve started collectively referring to as the “three-headed hydra”) put out DPS performance that is on a complete other level compared to the legacy T0 DPS roster. Seasun, what have you unleashed upon us?

New Additions

While she does get bested by the more-potent Cherno - Enigma, being close to the peak still puts you pretty high up at the top.

Packing strong damage that hits hard and doesn’t stop, Lyfe reaches her strongest form yet as she gives Cherno a serious run for her money for top DPS overall if not beating her outright.

Were you really surprised? With competitive buffs and more bonus ammo than you can shake a shotgun at, Fenny easily makes her mark as a must-have support - one that everyone conveniently gets for free.

Obituaries to a Dead Meta

The power level of recent DPS releases has not reflected kindly on those that came before. So before we turn the page on a new chapter of the Snowbreak meta, a brief moment to pay respects to the original elite.

Chenxing was the very first DPS to release after the game’s launch, which gave her a long period of time to make her mark on the game. While she certainly had her strengths (Hela shredder!), it was her overall versatility and viability in almost any situation that really paid dividends as one of the best-value pickups of the time.

But nothing good lasts forever, it seems. The release of Katya very quickly had Chenxing playing second fiddle against anything she couldn’t slap multiple marks on. And with DPS releases from Cherno onward bursting harder than Chenxing while being able to outsustain her damage too, her few remaining competitive use cases only highlight how far the original Brave Squad MVP has fallen.

Looking back, I think Katya really got a raw deal. Sure, she was a direct upgrade to Chenxing in enough cases to put her on top, and having infinite ammo was admittedly a really cool gimmick. But for as much as people understandably (over)reacted about how “broken” she was, that time at the top only lasted for just two events. With the release of Realm of Illusion and Cherno, all of her advantages started to lose their meaning in the face of a 300-stack orb pop producing the biggest numbers Snowbreak had ever seen. Two DPS releases later, it was clear that Katya had fallen behind with no way of catching up.

I’m sure that Katya will continue to be relevant for uh, other reasons. So even if she no longer has her competitive edge, Katya can at least take solace in the fact that her other charms will last for quite a while longer.

By all accounts, Yao’s enduring presence at the top should not have been possible to begin with. She was nerfed after CBT, before Snowbreak had yet to even officially release. Chenxing - Ethereal Cloud had better sustained damage. Haru - Absconditus had better mobbing power. Hell, Katya - Blue Bolt didn’t even have to reload.

It didn’t matter. Yao was still onetapping mooks and deleting bosses as fast as anyone else, if not faster. But some things are inevitable, it seems. Thus it went: Cherno pushed the bar higher than Yao could ever reach, and the following releases of Siris and Lyfe ensured that it stayed there. So as the last of the release SSRs finally succumbs to powercreep, you have to wonder if those flashy new DPS operatives were really worth the devastation they brought to the meta.

The old queen is dead. And with her, an entire era of Snowbreak.

Multiple Tier 0.5 Operatives Lowered to Tier 1

Lyfe - Wild Hunt: There’s something ironic about Lyfe being shown up by her own self. I can only imagine the monkey’s paw that some unwitting player wished upon as they requested that Lyfe become a top DPS pick.

Marian - Swift (High Investment): Why would you practically play Marian over Lyfe - Infinite Sight, who does exactly what Swift does but better and for longer? It’s a role assassination if I’ve ever seen one. At the very least, Swift was able to go out with a swan song as she got to be a serious contender one final time with the debut of Katya - Frostcap in Neural Simulation. Most of the other operatives did not get to enjoy such dignity.

Haru - Absconditus: With new DPS releases that can handle groups of mobs just as easily as they can delete bosses, the value of having a dedicated mobber only decreases from its already-questionable state.

Fritia - Hush (High Investment): After considering all the effort and careful planning required to produce competitive results with Hush, you start to wonder why you even bothered when new releases kill things even faster with a fraction of the brainwork.

Most Tier 1 Operatives Lowered to Tier 2

Fenny - Lionheart, Acacia - Redacted, and Eatchel - The Cub are unaffected and remain at Tier 1. See “Notably Unchanged Ratings” for more details.

All Previous Tier 2 And Lower Operatives Shifted Down

Affected operatives: Yao - Quiet Quitter, Lyfe - Wednesday, Siris - The Goldfish, Cherno - Those Two, Nita - Hands, Fritia - Hush, Enya - Big Sis, Haru - The Ace.

Holdouts and Promotions

It's not all doom and gloom.

Even though her sub-DPS gimmick hasn't really seen the value where it counts, it turns out that getting a chunky skill damage buff for basically free is still really good. Being immune to CC effects while in the safety circle is just the cherry on top as more and more bosses try to poke you off balance.

Notably Unchanged Ratings

Fenny - Coronet (Tier 0.5): Sometimes all you need is one missing piece, and for Coronet, it’s the bucket of extra ammo that her other self provides. Being able to consistently max out her Mercy stacks means that she’s once again a decent enough burst threat capable of express-mailing enemies more lead than they know what to do with. While she likely won’t ever end up back in Tier 0 as new DPS releases leave her choking on dust, the fact that she keeps her rating as her peers get demoted is at least some consolation.

Fenny - Lionheart (Tier 1): It turns out that both Fennys (Fennies?) get spared from being bumped down, with Lionheart getting the thumbs up due to her overall amazing performance in general content that punches well above her weight.

Acacia - Redacted (Tier 1): Offensive supports are generally more resistant to powercreep than DPS characters, and the universal value that Slow still provides means that Acacia keeps her spot. Fritia - Little Sunshine notably does not enjoy this benefit as her support skill has direct anti-synergy with the bonus ammo from Fenny - Starshine, an arguably superior support.

Eatchel - The Cub (Tier 1): With recent boss releases being designed to produce longer kill times (if only slightly), Eatchel finds a bit more room to properly ramp up and actually manage to deliver her best-in-class attack buffs.

Addendum

It’s hard to believe that one year has already passed since Snowbreak first officially released. There’s a lot to look back on, and you can expect a very special year-in-review soon which will do just that. But I also want to hear from you - what were your favourite moments? Which character was your first favourite, and has it changed? I’ve prepared a survey for you to give your answer to these questions and more, and maybe even ask me something as well. As thanks, you’ll get to enter a giveaway for a Snowbreak redemption code. I uh, actually forgot what’s in these, but free stuff is free stuff, right?

Take the survey here - it closes on August 13 at 4:00PM EST.