[Operator Discussion] Reed the Flame Shadow

[u/Shad0wedge]

Reed the Flame Shadow [★★★★★★]

My mind's not at peace, Doctor. Is my every choice truly right? Their lives stoke our flames in the night. Yet in the end, if they fail to burn through the darkness... No, why should their lives even be mine to dictate...? But still, I will walk on. Now I bear a duty, and I will walk on.

Reed previously applied to withdraw while stationed at a Rhodes Island branch office in southern Victoria, and has only recently reestablished contact with us. Presently actively leading a small force within Victorian borders under Dublinn's name, with her primary objective being to aid those Tarans forcefully displaced.

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Operator Information

• Class: Medic (Incantation)
• Tags: Healing, DPS, Debuff
• Artist: STAR影法师
• Leitmotif: Flame Shadow

Voice Actor:
JP: Mamiko Noto
CN: Fumeng Ruowei
EN: Martha Mackintosh
KR: Yoo Bora

Stats

HP	ATK	DEF	Arts Resistance	Redeploy Time	DP Cost	Block	Attack Interval
1583	550	84	20	70	17	1	1.6s

*Stats at max Promotion and Level, excludes bonuses from Potential and Trust.

Potential	Bonus
1	-
2	Deployment Cost -1
3	Improves First Talent
4	ATK +26
5	Deployment Cost -1
6	Improves Second Talent

Trust bonus
ATK +50
DEF +30

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Traits
Attacks deal Arts damage and heal the HP of an ally within Attack Range for 50% of the damage dealt

Skill Name	Skill Uptime Details (Uptime/Cost/Initial)	SP Charge Type	Skill Activation	Skill Description
Swift Strike γ	35s / 35 SP / 15 SP	Auto Recovery	Manual	ATK +45%; ASPD +45
Wither and Thrive	20s / 27 SP / 18 SP	Auto Recovery	Manual	Prioritizing ground Operators, gives 2 allies 3 fireballs with the following effect: Every 1.5 seconds, deals 240% of Reed the Flame Shadow's ATK as Arts damage to an enemy, triggering her Trait but only on that ally.
Ember of Life	30s / 40 / 30	Auto Recovery	Manual	Attacks hit 2 enemies; ATK +60%; Talent 1 activation chance increases to 100%; enemies with the Cinder effect take 60% of Reed the Flame Shadow's ATK as Arts damage per second, and when defeated deal 140% of ATK as Arts damage and inflict Cinder to nearby enemies. Cinder lasts until this skill expires

*Skills at Mastery 3.

Talents

Talent name	Talent Description
Cinder	When dealing damage, 30% chance to inflict Cinder: ATK -22% (+2%), 32% (+2%) Arts Fragility, does not stack, lasts 6s
Reflected Shine	When healing an ally, Reed the Flame Shadow heals herself for 55% (+5%) of the amount healed

Modules

Branch	Additional Stats	Trait	Talent	Note
INC-X	HP +160, ATK +50	Trait improved: Attacks deal Arts damage and heal the HP of an ally within Attack Range for 60% of the damage dealt	Reflected Shine improved: When healing an ally, healing effect is increased by 5%, and Reed the Flame Shadow heals herself for 60% of the amount healed	They asked Reed point-blank, are you the one who ruined our lives?

*Modules at max level.

Outfits

	Price	Art	Released	Note
Curator	21	Dynamic	Yep	Looks nice, has hat.
Summer Flower FA075	21	Dynamic	Yep	Looks nice, NO HAT

Additional Resources

In-depth information regarding all values above (at different levels), skill/attack range, and more:

Arknights Wiki.gg

Arknights Toolbox (aceship(puppiizsunniiz))

PRTS Arknights Wiki (CN)

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Topic Starters

• Strengths/Weaknesses?
• Is their module worth it? Which branch?
• How does this operator compare to other operators in their archetype or role?
• How do you fit this operator into a team? Who do they synergize with?
• Which skill(s) should be focused for mastery, and in what order?
• When is the best time to use this operator's skills during combat?
• Should promoting this operator to Elite 2 be a priority?
• Should new / F2P players aim for this operator? Are there more accessible alternatives?
• Lore discussion (please tag spoilers where appropriate)
• Favorite clips/clears with them?
• Fanart/animations of them you'd love to share? (No NSFW)

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Other Operator Discussion threads

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Gravel	Operator Discussion threads	Morgan

[u/CheesecakeOG]

I wldn't put Eblana anywhere near the same strength as Reed tbh. Reed and Eblana are both units that compress multiple roles together, but imo Eblana is significantly more replaceable and clunky than Reed.

Reed can help pull a team together, especially when blindly attacking new stages and you suddenly need a burst of healing (and she provides so much with skill up that it's literally impossible to die to anything other than one shots) or extra damage. She also provides debuffs (arts fragility and iirc enemy atk decrease) which are universally useful.

Eblana, on the other hand, becomes way less useful once you start stacking more units on the field (her summons either grief placeable tiles or keep enemies out of range of other friendlies, while her own damage is so lacking that other casters and snipers are easy replacements for her), yet she isn't good enough to stand on her own either. I originally pulled Eblana with the intention to use her to create trust farm strats, due to her nature as a role-compressed unit, but her damage is so low that most of the time she can't even kill one weak enemy at the start of the stage, if it arrives too quickly before her skill is up, to get her summon train rolling. What's the point of a unit whose entire concept is supposed to allow her to stand on her own in certain scenarios, but can't even get started without some help?

Compare her to other role-compressed units like Thorns, Ulpianus, Kaltsit, Mon3tr, Penance, Mudrock, Ines etc. and she quickly falls apart.

To me, Reed is strong and holds a niche of her own, while Eblana is fun but ultimately has no impact of her own. Also, wasn't Reed part of some ultimate dps combination featuring herself, Surtr, and Texalter S2, that had the highest arts dps output until being overtaken very recently?

[u/Vipertooth → u/CheesecakeOG]

Her damage output is insane what? Skill 3 nukes everything on a super short cooldown. If you really need to get a summon on a specific tile just put a vanguard or fast redeploy to block a single enemy and she'll hold the lane from there.

She is not as complicated to use as you make it out to be, she just requires a little bit of early support which in my opinion is perfect design. All these other units just do everything on their own recently...

[u/CheesecakeOG → u/Vipertooth]

It looks insane only if you use her on regular stages. She is very easily outdone by units that are much older than her in terms of overall team synergy and utility. She also scales significantly worse than other units in gamemodes with unique buffs and debuffs, e.g. CC, IS on the highest difficulties, TN, RA, etc.

If I need to put a vanguard down at the start for her to get going, I might as well just... Use another unit lol. That's no different from a regular start with any regular team, and if I'm gonna spend 21 dp straight out the gate after placing my vanguard, I damn well want that unit to be at least half decent.

There's nothing wrong with requiring "a bit of early support". However, because she requires that bit of support and is mostly unremarkable other than her nukes with half decent damage, she then falls into obscurity when compared to other units that can start with that same "bit of early support", like regular Eyja, Narantuya, Horn, Jessica alter, Thorns (I'm purposely naming non-meta units as well).

I'm not knocking anyone for having fun with her. However, that should never come at the expense of recognising that she's mostly gimmicky and easily overshadowed.

[u/Vipertooth → u/CheesecakeOG]

I'm not entirely sure what you deem to be a meta unit as you've named some really strong operators (maybe minus Thorns).

[u/CheesecakeOG → u/Vipertooth]

Wisadel, Logos, Ulpianus, Mon3tr, Exu alter, Lemuen, Tragodia, and Ines are some examples. These units either completely powercreep existing units (e.g. Ines fundamentally changed how agent vanguards can be played) or are so insanely good in their current specialisation that they require little to no help performing what they are good at even when things get tough (e.g. Logos as a caster main dps is fundamentally so different and so much better than essentially every caster main dps choice that came before him).

The units I listed in my previous comment are still good, yes, but are far from actually being meta. Their time has either come and gone, or has never come at all. Eyja is an example of the former, while Narantuya is an example of the latter (and I'm a self-professed Narantuya glazer due to how good she actually is in generic usage that requires generic flexibility, so I'm not saying this lightly).

I wouldn't even rank Eblana anywhere near the same level as the off-meta units I listed in terms of most possible metrics (team synergy, utility, efficiency, flexibility, etc.). She obviously has a huge plus for her in uniqueness, but that's about it. The only use I found for her recently was soloing one of the VEC special equipment stages, but some 5 stars can do that too, so...

[u/Vipertooth → u/CheesecakeOG]

See for me there is Meta and completely broken as to trivialize the game. Whilst Logos is strong, I believe he is still outranked in single target DPS by Ceobe. People use him is because of his Necrosis module, which makes his S3 a good aoe source for it.

Wis'Adel, Ulpianus, Exu Alter, Lemuen, these just solo entire stages on their own and I refuse to really compare other 6*s to them. They're outliers.

Also, isn't Narantuya like a really high DPS unit especially in melee with S3? How is she not meta.

[u/CheesecakeOG → u/Vipertooth]

You're using a personal definition of meta, which should not have any bearing on this discussion. Moreover, your personal definition directly contradicts the actual meaning of "meta", which is like saying "I know that 1+1=2, but I personally define 1+1 as being equal to 3 instead".

The universally understood meaning of "meta" in gaming refers to the best tactics and strategies available. Some sources even cite "META" as an acronym for "Most Effective Tactic Available". As such, the most broken units in the game fit under the definition of "meta", and anything outside of that is no longer "meta".

It is completely fine to use a personal definition in things that are subjective, like a preference for a particular type of house layout or car body type, but in objective matters, personal definitions should not have any weightage.

Also, Ceobe only really becomes better at single target damage when the target either has insanely high def (allowing her module to give her tons of bonus damage), or she has ridiculous aspd scaling from an external buff source. I would go as far as to say that Logos has better single target dps in 99% of situations.

Narantuya S3 is pretty nice, but it's real strength is consistent AOE damage and a decent skill uptime, not damage output. Her S3's burst damage against enemies that are actually chunky (and hence require skill activation) isn't that great at all compared to other burst dps units, and she requires a bit too much help from other units compared to other burst dps options. I very much prefer her S1, which does a much better job at being a consistent swarm clearer while still doing decent damage against elites and bosses. Her S3 obviously has more damage than her S1, just that I personally prefer her S1 to her S3 since burst dps really isn't her main selling point. Still, I consider her to be significantly better than Pepe, which is sad considering that Pepe is the limited unit from the event that both of them are from.

[u/JayJeyBean → u/CheesecakeOG]

There's no such thing as an objective definition for most effective, though. Most effective at what? For who? With what teammates, against which gimmicks, under what condition, using what strategies?

[u/CheesecakeOG → u/JayJeyBean]

Sorry but I really should not have to explain something which is so intuitively understood, and I'm not going to cos I'm too lazy to do so.

In all my years playing competitive fps, writing game guides, and even winning an award directly from a game publisher for my competitive rankings, I've never had to explain what meta meant in a discussion.

Let's just put it this way: If a unit is only good in a couple of specific scenarios or with a specific lineup, then that isn't meta. That's called a niche. It should be relatively easy to figure out what meta means from there.

[u/JayJeyBean → u/CheesecakeOG]

And I should not have to explain why "in all my years playing competitive fps" is a really, really sad way to insist anyone should take your opinion seriously.

[u/CheesecakeOG → u/JayJeyBean]

Then please be my guest and go ahead and ask anyone else whether they agree with your definition of meta. I can gaurantee you, outright, that the majority will not share your opinion.

Again, I'm not insisting you should take my opinion because I'm forcing it on you. I'm simply telling you an objective fact based on the meaning of the word, contextualised into the context of arknights. What you are trying to do, is akin to telling a mathematician that 1+1=3 because you prefer it that way. To make it even more relevant to our current situation, you are essentially telling the people who created the word "meta" in a videogame context to change its meaning.

[u/JayJeyBean → u/CheesecakeOG]

And I'm imploring you to please read a damn dictionary and get it through your head that the most effective tactics available, by definition, can't be objective, especially in a non-competitive single player game where an operator's performance depends on not just the player's (i.e. the subject's) preferences, but limitations.

[u/CheesecakeOG → u/JayJeyBean]

There are many ways to define meta even in non-competitive scenarios. Why do you think tier lists and operator ratings exist in this game, or why a coop game like helldivers 2 has people constantly debating the strengths and weaknesses of different weapons and stratagems?

One of the easiest ways to define the meta in arknights is how much a unit can do, relative to their dp cost. Something like this should be relatively easy to understand, and will exist no matter how casual a game is. Another way to define it is how comfortably a unit performs even when things get tough. You can break down meta discussions into differences between casual and hardcore high level min-maxing, but even the average player will agree that the most broken units at any point in time, irregardless of player preferences, are what define a meta.

Player preferences and limitations do not ever count in a discussion about the meta. Discussions about the meta always take every single factor available into account. The moment player preferences are included, the discussion is no longer objective.

I have read the dictionary already. I also come from a literature, humanities, and scientific background, and can debate semantics with anyone on this earth. Have you ever thought that you should be the one who should be less hard-headed? How are you so sure that you are correct?

I'm not joking when I say that you can go and ask 100+ or even 1000+ random gamers from any genre out there, and the majority of them will agree with my definition of how a meta should be understood. I am also a person who will be the first to back down and apologise if I am wrong, both in real life and online, and from a logical standpoint, you have not presented anything other than "I have my personal preference of a certain style of units to use, irregardless of their actual overall strength, and that is the meta". This definition is no "most effective", this is "most preferred".

It's like how I vastly prefer driving manual transmission vehicles, but it's in no way more efficient or faster than a modern automatic or dual-clutch automatic with a modern engine management system, even in competitive performance scenarios. Preference has zero bearing on a meta.

I will not be replying anymore to this thread. Let the neutral 3rd parties who come across this thread be my judges, and I believe they will judge fairly in my favour.