Table of Contents
Hi folks. I've been doing a maintenance preview article for the past two events, but I figured I could fit a little extra info into it. So this is a new format I'm trying out, the "patch preview," where I also talk about what's going to be on offer. Operation Midnight brings the new operative Vidya - Agave, as well as three operative reruns. It seems that this is how Seasun plans on handling reruns in the future now that older releases have to share rerun slots with new ones. It's honestly a pretty logical way of handling it. I feel like I say this too much and really need a better way of ending off intro paragraphs, but let's get into it.
New Operative: Vidya - Agave
So right off the bat, Agave's kit looks very similar to Haru - Absconditus, but with more of a focus on single-target damage output as well as parts breaking. Given that Snowbreak doesn't provide dedicated mobbers like Haru a lot of meaningful content to shine in (if any), the single-target tradeoff should end up being a benefit for Agave. The parts break bonus on her (very spammable) standard ability shouldn't be too surprising given that Joseph - Hardned is on rotation this week in Neural Sim, where she's expected to be a strong contender because of that. Of course, it'll all come down to her numbers and what her manifests can provide, so we'll have to wait until her actual release to find out. But given Seasun's track record with "balancing" DPS releases lately, it's probably a safe bet that she'll be quite strong.
Reruns
Chenxing - Ethereal Cloud
The inclusion of CX5 as a rerun available right at the start of the event initially made me think that Agave was going to be a support. After all, it would be weird to put two Electric DPS characters on banner at the same time, right? Truly a masterful bait-and-switch from Seasun.
Chenxing has uh, seen better days. She's thoroughly eclipsed by new DPS releases in most content, but she still retains her edge against Hela due to her ability to slap marks all over it. That being said, Chenxing is still more than good enough for general content so if you're okay with only above-average performance and like her character or design, then sure, why not? But for those looking to really turn up the hurt, you may want to consider rolling for Agave instead depending on how good she ends up being. What's more, there's other competition on the second half of the rerun schedule. See below.
Cherno - Enigma
Cherno was arguably the first major leap forward in terms of DPS strength, singlehandedly causing a paradigm shift in the meta. And she holds up quite well, as popping enemies for a comically large amount of damage still doesn't get old. She remains a highly recommended pickup for those who don't have her. Just please, remember that you can detonate her orbs, and that she isn't an off-field DPS. I swear, the amount of people who still think that...
Enya - Exuvia
Sorry, she's not free anymore. But if you have the Digicash to spare, she's well worth it as the best generic skill damage buffer in the game. She also has that whole sub-DPS gimmick that only sometimes works well, but you could completely ignore that and she'd still be an amazing support. As it turns out, being able to roid up skill damage by the amount that Enya can is pretty useful. Also, CC resistance is always appreciated, especially against bosses that spam staggers or knockbacks. I'm looking at you, Hela Ragethorn.
Event Game Modes
There isn't anything specifically new this time around. Defense Line Zero and Hero Games should be familiar to anyone that's been playing for a while, and Aperture Eclipse is the name of the wave defense mode that was revamped a while ago to also include points scoring with various bonus objectives to copmlate. Lifting of Fog is the usual Brave Squad game mode, but interestingly, this time the final high score stage is not co-op anymore. I'm honestly pretty curious as to why that is.
Skins
Vidya - Agave, Chenxing - Ethereal Cloud, and Acacia - Redacted all get new skins this update. The first two are available in the paid shop, while Acacia's skin can be purchased in the Choice Products Shop using currency you get from the monthly pass ("Employee Benefit").
There's also a weapon skin for Enya - Exuvia. This can be selected as a reward for the premium battlepass (in which case you'll get a 280 Digicash bonus on top), but you can also just buy it in the paid shop. This may be appealing to you if you're missing a past battlepass skin, because the premium battlepass skin selector has a bunch of those on offer this time around.
I am personally a little miffed that my super-rare Kaguya battlepass outfit will be losing some of its exclusivity, but I understand that a lot of people who joined later would like a chance to get it too. I'll just take one for team here, no need to thank me. Remember, you can only pick one, so choose wisely.
Quality of Life Feature Updates
I already wrote a separate article on that, go read it here.
Maintenance
Server maintenance for the update will begin on August 22 at 9:50AM, UTC+8 (convert to your own time zone here) and last for "about 7 hours." Maintenance rewards are the usual: 420 Digicash, 25,000 Silverbucks, and a 60AP stamina refill.
While most of the maintenance notes are pretty boring and stuff you'd expect (read the full thing here), there are a few interesting things to point out:
- You know those orange words in story cutscenes that you can click on to get extra lore about whatever that thing is? Those are getting added to the Archives menu, so you can get your lore nerd on more conveniently.
- You can now individually choose which weapon parts you want to display and which you want to keep stock, which is an awesome change because some weapon parts are ugly as sin while others look pretty good, and having to choose all or nothing really sucks.
- All the references to Twitter in the game have been changed to refer to "X" instead. This isn't actually that important, but I just wanted an excuse to complain about how stupid that name is.
Also, a whole bunch of bug fixes. Among them are some Co-op fixes for Siris - Ksana not being able to scoop up enemies properly, as if she wasn't already hogging all the damage in Gigalink as it is.
That's it for now. Is this kind of article useful and something you'd like to see again in the future? Let me know.
