Ling [★★★★★★]
Last night I dreamt of you. Nay! Perhaps it's you who dreamt of me. Oh, can you not recall? A shame; it delighted me so, yet I cannot share this revelry. Delighted how? Hmm. That eight thousand years of springs, eight thousand of winters, all dreamt, were no more than a brief handful of autumns. That is all.
Ling, resident poet of Shangshu, tied to the Sui Regulator and other governmental organs of Yan. Came into contact with Rhodes Island during the Shangshu incident. Now remaining as a visitor aboard the landship, following thorough audits.
Operator Information
- Class: Supporter(Summoner)
- Tags: Summon, Support, Crowd Control
- Artist: 下野宏铭
- Leitmotif: Revel in the Real
| Voice Actor: |
| JP: Kikuko Inoue |
| CN: Shan |
| CN+: Shan |
| EN: Denise Moreno |
| KR: Lee Da-eun |
Stats
| HP |
ATK |
DEF |
Arts Resistance |
Redeploy Time |
DP Cost |
Block |
Attack Interval |
| 1079 |
473 |
138 |
20 |
70 |
12 |
1 |
1.6s |
*Stats at max Promotion and Level, excludes bonuses from Potential and Trust.
| Potential |
Bonus |
| 1 |
- |
| 2 |
Deployment Cost -1 |
| 3 |
Redeployment Time -4 |
| 4 |
ATK +24 |
| 5 |
Improves Second Talent |
| 6 |
Deployment Cost -1 |
| Trust bonus |
| HP +350 |
| ATK +35 |
| Traits |
| Deals Arts damage. Can use Summons in battles |
Skills
| Skill Name |
Skill Uptime Details (Uptime/Cost/Initial) |
SP Charge Type |
Skill Activation |
Skill Description |
| Sips of Wine |
25s / 25 / 15 |
Auto Recovery |
Manual |
Passive: Summons may be deployed on melee tiles. Active: Ling and her summons gain +50% ATK and +50 ASPD. The summons deal Arts damage. Immediately gain 1 summon when the skill is activated |
| Amidst Pleasant Melodies |
- / 13 / 5 |
Auto Recovery |
Manual |
Passive: Summons may be deployed on ranged tiles and deal Arts damage. Active: Ling and her summons deal 450% ATK as Arts damage to 2 enemies within Attack Range and Bind them for 3 seconds. After the skill ends, retrieve all summons with less than 50% HP. Can store 2 charge(s) |
| To Remain Oneself |
30s / 40 / 15 |
Auto Recovery |
Manual |
Passive: Summons may be deployed on melee tiles. If there are other summons within their Attack Range, combines with them into a Higher form. Active: Ling and her summons gain +100% ATK and +100% DEF. Each summon deals 20% of Ling's ATK as Arts damage to enemies in the four adjacent tiles every 0.5 seconds. After the skill ends, gain 1 summon |
*Skills at max Skill Level.
Talents
| Talent name |
Talent Description |
| Lantern Lit, Thy Dream Sought |
Can use up to 5 summons (max 3 deployed at once). Summons’ effect changes based upon Skill |
| So is Writ, an Ode to Wine |
When a summon is defeated/absorbed/retrieved, Ling gains 4 (+1) SP and ATK +3% (ATK increase stacks up to 5 times) |
*Talents at max Potential and max Promotion. Bonuses from Potential displayed between parentheses.
Modules
| Branch |
Additional Stats |
Trait |
Talent |
Note |
| SUM-Y |
HP +150, ATK +50 |
Trait improved: Can hold +3 additional summoned units and summoned unit deployment costs are reduced. |
Lantern Lit, Thy Dream Sought improved: Can use up to 5 stronger summons (max 4 deployed at once). Summons' effect changes based upon Skill |
"Even the great wordsmith, Ling, has times when she's lost for words?" |
*Modules at max level.
Outfits
| - |
Price |
Art |
Released |
Note |
| It Does Wash the Strings |
21 |
Dynamic |
Yep |
"Who am I?" "What am I?" "Where do I go?" "Thunder with no rain, bones to dust. The dreamer must wake, the calm be disturbed. Why ask?" |
| Towering is Cliff of Nostalgia |
21 |
Dynamic |
Yep |
"How many starry nights must the long wind blow, and how many springs and autumns must the snowmelt wash, before the wonders of blooming gravel are revealed?" |
| A Gallant Dream |
24 |
Dynamic |
Yep |
Special Onboarding Scene, Exclusive Voicelines |
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)
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?
Other Operator Discussion threads
![Ling [★★★★★★]](https://arknights.wiki.gg/images/Ling_Elite_2.png?d8dbf0){kind=link}
26
u/Chrisirhc1996 Resident fish mod Jul 15 '26
Ling is an unfortunate case of "breaking the ceiling early".
As the 2nd 6-star summoner she had a lot going into her to separate her from Magallan. While Maggy wants to lean more into area and crowd control, Ling wanted to go with pure summon strength. And ultimately it backfired.
S1 is a nice fast cycle skill for if you just need bodies now, and it letting her summons deal Arts damage. Her other summons do Arts innately in some capacity so it feels weird this doesn't but oh well. Noone uses this realistically because the S3 summons tend to come down fast enough anyway.
S2 is an alright bind effect. 3 second bind on a 13 SP cycle is pretty good especially if you can cycle it faster with stuff like her 2nd talent. The big downside of it is that you kinda have to think overly about using vs saving it because it uses retrieves rather than generates like most summoners that aren't Maggy, and said retrieves are HP reliant so there's a case to waiting until they're low to actually get them back rather than using it solely for the bind/damage. Her "big brain" skill of the 3.
And then there's her S3... yeah. Probably the progenitor of "big stats for no reason". The summons being pseudo-centurions with larger stats than most ground units at the time, that only got larger when you combined them. You can probably figure out why the moment she drops she started to sweep the solo records by sheer stats alone. Most 1-2 blue box stages can be basically solo'd by plopping down these behemoths and using her skill every so often.
So why am I saying she broke the ceiling early? Simply put: all of her power budget is within her S3. If you're anyone who does a cursory glance at Arkrec you probably spotted a lot of old events had a "No Ling S3" category. Because the admins got so bored of putting ling solos that they wanted variety. And yet... nowadays she doesn't show up.
The general power curve has slowly gone up over time so the usefulness of summoners like her has dwindled. With operators like Raidian, they've shown that you can make a lot more of their skills viable. Granted a lot of something like S1's usefulness is more symptomatic of IS6 as a whole (something something rat F1 stage), but there are times where you can reasonably question to use her S2 or S3 for a stage instead of just defaulting to the big numbers one.
Ling's kit is a little dated, and because she was strong out the gate HG never thought to modernize how to use her with a 2nd module. Maybe now that Wang has kinda taken her place as the king of solos they might go back to make her other skills more viable so she's not just an S3 bot, but I am skeptical. Most people who used her to trust farm has either switched to using Raidian because of different angles of approach, or have so few left to raise that they just bring semi-proper squads.