Arknights: Should You Buy? New Store Operators: Dur’Nar, Breeze, and Ethan

Three new Operators are being added to the store for Doctors to buy! These new Operators are:

• 4★ Arts DPS Defender Dur’Nar
  • Six copies available (one initially, five more to max her Potential)
  • Buyable with Friend Credits

• 5★ AoE Medic Breeze
  • Six copies available (one initially, five more to max her Potential)
  • Each copy costs 600 Shop Vouchers (3600 to buy all six)

• 4★ Controller Specialist Ethan
  • Six copies available (one initially, five more to max his Potential)
  • Each copy costs 150 Shop Vouchers (900 to buy all six)

Dur’Nar: Yes.

Breeze and Ethan: Maybe. 

The earlier you are in your Arknights career, the more likely these Operators will be useful to you. Buying Dur’Nar is definitely worthwhile, as she only costs Friend Credits and buying multiple copies of her will give you Gold (1 for the first time recruit) and Green (30 for each duplicate 2-6) Distinctions, since she’s a 4* unit. 

Breeze is an AoE Medic, but she lacks utility. Ethan is a strong Controller Specialist, but he can be unreliable. Ask yourself:

• Do I have an AoE Medic already? 
• Do I need (or want) AoE crowd control? 
• How much Sanity am I willing to spend getting them?

That last question is very important. One of the big reasons Breeze and Ethan are more debatable is the much higher Sanity costs of their shop currency. We’ll explain this in more detail after we introduce the three Operators in question.

Arts DPS Defender

+ Activating her Skills causes her to deal Arts damage

+ Her Skill 2 allows her to attack multiple enemies at once

- A Defender with no damage mitigation abilities

- Skill 2 only charges when she is being attacked

AoE Medic

+ Enormous raw healing power

+ Skill 2 can allow her to heal allies outside of her range, with proper positioning

- Lacks utility, which is usually a hallmark of AoE Medics

- Skill 2 has a VERY high SP cost

Controller Specialist

+ Has Block-0 and reduced enemy aggro, so can avoid taking damage

+ Attacks all enemies in his range

+ His Talent gives his attacks a chance to Freeze (cannot move but can still attack) enemies

- Squishy if he does take damage; vulnerable to ranged enemies

- Very slow attack speed

- Talent activation chance is low unless his Skill 2 is active (even then, it’s not 100% reliable)

First off, all three of these Operators are (at present) ONLY available in the store. You cannot pull any of them through Headhunting or Recruitment on CN servers. 

Dur’Nar is available for Friend Credits, so she is easy to obtain. The fact that you get Gold (1 for the first time recruit) and Green (30 for each duplicate 2-6) Distinctions for buying her sweetens the deal even further. Buying her is a no-brainer.

Breeze and Ethan are available for Shop Vouchers. Shop Vouchers are the red certificates that you obtain by running the “Tough Siege” line of supply quests. Are these Operators worth the cost? 

Let’s examine their costs in terms of the amount of Sanity needed to obtain the Vouchers, and how many Chip Catalysts the same amount of Shop Vouchers would net you. Chip Catalysts are a high-demand item used to promote Operators that can only be purchased with Shop Vouchers; three are needed to E2 a 5★ and four are needed to E2 a 6★.

One run of the highest-level “Tough Siege” quest, AP-5, costs 30 Sanity and awards approximately 20 Shop Vouchers. Thus, each Shop Voucher costs 1.5 Sanity. One Chip Catalyst costs 90 Shop Vouchers, which is 135 Sanity.

• Buying one copy of Breeze costs 600 Shop Vouchers. That’s the equivalent of 900 Sanity (4 days), or 6.67 Chip Catalysts, enough to E2 one 6★ or two 5★s. 
• Buying all six copies of Breeze costs 3600 Shop Vouchers. That’s 5,400 Sanity (22.5 days), or 40 Chip Catalysts.
• Buying one copy of Ethan costs 150 Shop Vouchers. That is 225 Sanity (1 day), or 1.67 Chip Catalysts. 
• Buying all six copies of Ethan costs 900 Shop Vouchers. That is 1350 Sanity (5.6 days), or 10 Chip Catalysts.

Will Dur’Nar, Breeze, and Ethan be made available in Headhunting or Recruiting in the future? We don’t know. So far, it hasn’t happened, so it’s best to assume that they won’t be and that this is your only way to obtain these Operators.

Dur’Nar is technically a Defender, but surviving enemy attacks isn’t really her strong point. Her strategy is to kill enemies before they can kill her by using her ATK-increasing Skills to activate her Trait: “Normal attacks deal Arts Damage while a Skill is active.” Her Skill 2 even allows her to attack multiple enemies, greatly multiplying her damage output.

If you need a strong Defender to hold the frontline for you, Dur’Nar isn’t really what you’re looking for. She has no damage mitigation Skills, and her HP and DEF aren’t that high. Think of her more as an AoE Guard, or even a short-range AoE Caster who can be deployed on ground squares. Her niche is an odd one, but she can perform quite well on any stage with floods of small, weak enemies that need to be killed quickly, or high-DEF enemies that don’t output high damage.

I recommend buying Dur’Nar, even if you aren’t going to use her, just to get the Distinctions.

Breeze is an AoE Medic who has specced entirely into healing. Her Skills offer huge healing power boosts and change the scope of her healing in different ways, allowing her to tailor her healing output to different situations. She also gives allied Medic and Supporter Operators a Resistance buff while her Skills are active, reducing the amount of time they can be locked down by enemy crowd control.

Breeze is very strong, but her sheer healing power is rarely needed. Popular strategies usually involve reducing the amount of healing you need for a given battle, by either using damage mitigation or killing enemies more efficiently. Some bosses cannot be effectively tanked no matter how much healing you have, and weak enemies can defeat you regardless of your healing just by overwhelming you with their numbers. All of this makes Breeze a less convincing purchase than she may seem at first glance.

If you DO NOT own another AoE Medic, definitely buy at least one copy of Breeze. Many stages are much more difficult if you do not have an AoE Medic, and Breeze is a good one. She's also a good source of Clue 5 for the Reception Room, if that's of interest to you.

If you DO own another AoE Medic, I don’t recommend buying Breeze. Her healing is often overkill, so the utility of the other AoE Medics is usually more valuable.

I don’t recommend buying all six copies of Breeze, even if she’s your only AoE Medic. Buying two copies—one to obtain her and one to lower her DP cost by 1—should be sufficient. However, there are two situations where you might want to max Breeze:

• If she’s your favorite character, then follow your heart and max her out.
• If you’re concerned that you might need her in the future. Breeze’s healing is mostly overkill right now, but there’s a chance that you might need that kind of healing power as more difficult content comes out later down the line. If that time comes, having +20 ATK and -2 DP cost instead of -1 could be a big help.

Ethan hides out in plain sight and smacks enemies around with his electrifying neon yo-yo, inflicting Freeze on random targets. His AoE attacks can Freeze multiple enemies in their tracks, and unless there are ranged enemies on the field, they’ll have a lot of trouble pinning him down to make him stop.

Ethan’s value lies almost entirely in his Freeze debuff. His ATK isn’t bad, but his slow attack speed limits his DPS, and having Block-0 means he can’t impede enemies unless his Freeze triggers (although it’s also what stops melee enemies from attacking him, so there are pros and cons there). His high DP cost can also be troublesome. However, he stacks excellently with other movement debuffers like Slow Supporters, Nightmare, or fellow Specialist Manticore, giving you more breathing room to generate DP, charge SP, or prepare your next move.

I recommend buying Ethan, especially if you don’t have Manticore. He’s got a lovable personality and he’s a great addition to a stall- or debuff-centric team composition. He is admittedly a niche unit, but his niche is very useful when you need him.

If you’re going to buy Ethan, I recommend buying two copies of him. The DP cost reduction is a really nice bonus, considering that his natural DP cost is rather high. Maxing him out for the -2 DP cost would be even better, but that costs a lot of Sanity, and his other Potential bonuses are not very useful. Only buy all six copies if he’s one of your favorite units.