Ark Ranger Black Analysis – Should You Pull?

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Overview

• B3 Wind AR Tetra Attacker with a focus on sustained damage.
• Has very high self buffing, but not to the same extreme as Diesel: Winter Sweets.
• Combined with her high base sustained damage, she has high damage output against bosses.
• Her ability to apply her lesser sustained damage debuff as enemies are arriving mid-wave gives her great DPS in normal stages, especially compared to the average sustained damage DPS.
• Gives a massive sustained damage buff to Wind AR Nikkes only. Sakura: Bloom in Summer, and Mana come to mind.

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Should You Pull?

It’s a tough one, honestly. Even though Ark Ranger Black (Black, ARB, BAR) has great DPS for a Wind DPS and viability outside of bossing, if you already have the best Wind DPS units available, namely Liberalio, Scarlet: Black Shadow, Little Mermaid [alongside a bunch of MG Nikkes] (Siren) and/or Nayuta, she’s better off being skipped. While she has the DPS to consider a pull, the timing for her banner is unfortunate.

The summer event, and with it, limited banners are coming up soon, and since it at minimum includes Dorothy: Serendipity (DoroS), a very important unit to get for bossing content in general, it makes it difficult to justify pulling for Black. That’s not to say of other, new summer units that could become just as important.

If you are completely lacking in great wind DPS units, though, then pulling for Black is not a bad idea. She has good DPSing vs both bosses and regular stages, and she has future potential for whenever Shift Up decides to add any other Wind AR units that happen to deal Sustained Damage. Wind is also a bit more important compared to other element archetypes, in order to help fight against Kraken in Anomaly Intercept. Otherwise, skip and wishlist; it should be noted that she’s definitely a high priority for it!

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Newbie/Incomplete Box Section

Ark Ranger Black is a B3 Wind AR Tetra Attacker unit with a huge focus on Sustained Damage and breaking Parts. Similar to a past Sustained Damage unit, Sakura: Bloom in Summer (sSakura), Black loves to destroy Parts in order to deal optimal damage. Skill effects that only activate when Parts are destroyed lowers her potential against bosses that lack parts and regular stages.

Unlike sSakura, though, Black does not falter as much if the boss lacks parts to destroy; all of her on-burst DPS is still available against a boss the moment she bursts, only her off-burst DPS takes a big hit if the boss lacks parts to destroy, compared to sSakura missing out on maintaining her S2 DoT effect if there are no parts to break, resulting in her overall DPS being reduced by at least a third, even greater if the S2 activates when it’s not Full Burst time.

She also has good potential in regular stages thanks to how her Burst works. As long as new enemies are spawning in while her Burst is active, they will receive her S2 Sustained Damage effect, resulting in better wave clear than what is expected out of Sustained Damage units, the majority of which have poor wave clear and are generally meant for bossing only.

She is also not a selfish DPS; for any Wind ARs on the team, she will give them a huge Sustained Damage modifier. Currently, this only affects units like sSakura and Mana to a huge degree. It also has some effect on Rosanna: Chic Ocean (sRosanna, sRos). If any future Wind ARs with Sustained Damage are introduced in the future, one will have to consider how well they work with Black.

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Basic Information

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Skill 1: Transform! Ark Ranger Black!

Activates at the start of battle. Affects self.
Damage to Parts ▲ 20% continuously.
Activates when an ally or self destroys an enemy’s part. Affects self.
Charges battery by 50% continuously, up to 100%. This effect cannot be removed.
Activates when battery reaches 100%. Affects self.
Transformation
Function: Transforms into an Ark Ranger and strenghtens herself while depleting her battery.
Effect 1: Battery ▼ 1% every 0.2 sec continuously. This effect cannot be removed.
Effect 2: ATK ▲ 156.19% continuously. This effect cannot be removed.
Deactivation condition: When the battery drops to 0%
Activates after performing 30 normal attack(s). Affects self.
Sustained Damage ▲ 59.6% for 5 sec.

Black will deal bonus damage to parts to help her destroy them. Since she is so reliant on destroying parts to get bonus effects, this will help activate the rest of the kit. However, it should be noted that it can thankfully also activate if an ally destroys a part, which is good, since she has a pretty standard assault rifle, giving it poor Parts breaking ability, in spite of the bonus damage to parts.

Whenever a part is broken, Black charges up her battery by 50%. Once the battery reaches 100%, she will suit up and empower herself with a huge ATK buff. She will also deal a Sustained Damage effect from her S2 as long as the suit is active. However, the battery will also begin to deplete fast.

At a 1% reduction every 0.2 seconds, this means that the battery will fully deplete in 20 seconds at most if parts stop being broken. Unlike other effects that can be extended by fulfilling a condition, since the duration of Black’s Transformation is tied to the Battery, this means that the maximum duration is capped to 20 seconds at most.

Thankfully, destroying any parts automatically fills up the Battery by 50%, even as it is depleting. This means that against bosses with respawning parts, one can keep the suit up indefinitely, resulting in a permanent Sustained Damage effect from S2 alongside a big ATK buff from S1.

Whenever Black performs 30 normal attacks, she gives herself a big Sustained Damage buff. Since an AR fires at 12/s regardless of 30 or 60 FPS, as long as Fire Rate Adjust option is enabled, this means that it takes her 2.5 seconds of shooting to activate this buff. Thanks to her 1s reload time, and a 5s duration, this means even without any ammo lines, she can maintain this buff easily.

Skill 2: Tremble! Ark Black Collider!

Activates when Transformation takes effect and when the enemy appears while Transformation is in effect. Affects all enemies.
Ark Black Collider: Deals 45.87% of final ATK as sustained damage every 1 sec until Transformation is canceled.
Activates when entering Full Burst. Affects all Wind Code allies with assault rifles.
Sustained Damage ▲ 77.5% for 10 sec.

Whenever Black suits up, on top of getting a big ATK buff from S1, she will also deal a Sustained Damage effect. This Sustained Damage buff doesn’t have a duration; as long as she has the Ark Ranger suit on, she will keep dealing this Sustained Damage. It will also tag newly spawning enemies after a short delay in normal stages.

While there are a few enemies that have Parts to destroy that would be great for activating this, Black can still activate this effect with her Burst, allowing her to deal this sustained damage in any normal stage the moment she bursts; as long as her allies can help her defeat incoming rapture waves, this allows new raptures to be affected by her sustained damage, resulting in easy takedowns on waves of enemies, giving Black better utility in normal stages than expected.

When entering Full Burst, she will give all Wind AR units a big sustained damage buff, including herself. This is not only significant for her, but also for units such as sSakura, Mana and sRosanna, and whatever future Wind AR units that deal sustained damage will be introduced in the future. For sSakura in particular, since she has very low self-buffing, this buff in particular really brings out greater DPS compared to before.

Burst: Ultimate Attack! Ark Black Meteor!

Activates while in Transformation status. Affects self.
Battery ▲ 50%.
Activates while not in Transformation status. Affects self.
Emergency Charge Protocol.
Function: Quickly charges the battery and transforms into an Ark Ranger.
Effect 1: Battery ▲ 100%.
Effect 2: Battery ▼ 50% after transforming.
Affects the 1 enemy unit(s) with the highest final max HP.
Deals 266.69% of final ATK as sustained damage every 1 sec for 10 sec.
Affects self.
Sustained Damage ▲ 135.83% for 10 sec.

If Black is already transformed when she uses Burst, she gains 50% Battery, as if though she destroyed a part. If Black uses Burst as is not transformed, she will instead activate her Emergency Charge Protocol, where she gives herself 100% Battery just to suit up, and then immediately drain the battery by half, effectively giving her a 10s duration with a Burst-activated suit, with the effective drain rate of 5%/s.

She is still able to gain Battery normally even if she activated it from the Emergency Charge Protocol, so there’s no need to treat it any differently compared to the usual way of getting her suit. This is the exact reason why she has little DPS falloff, even if the boss lacks parts: the bulk of her effects are always going to be there with Burst. All that she will lack against a Partless boss is higher off-burst damage, but a huge bulk of her DPS vs bosses is in her Burst.

She will also affect the enemy unit with the highest final max HP with a huge Sustained Damage effect, and further buff her Sustained Damage by a lot. Unlike other big damage effects that specify they target the boss/stage target, this one states that it will affect the enemy unit with the highest max HP. This means it will work on normal stages and PvP, which again, is much higher utility than expected out of a Sustained Damage unit.

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Campaign

Unlike most other Sustained Damage units, Black has great capability in campaign. When her Burst is activated, as long as the suit is maintained, she will deal a Sustained Damage effect to incoming enemy units.

In a similar vein to Diesel: Winter Sweets (xDiesel), her burst can also help ‘assassinate’ a boss in a normal stage, thanks to it targeting the highest HP unit. Unlike xDiesel’s Burst Sustained Damage that can only target bosses, though, Black’s Sustained Damage from Burst targets the highest HP enemy, allowing it to work against normal enemies as well. This can be useful against high priority Elite rapture units that aren’t the boss.

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Arena

Black could work in Arena well. Her Burst is pretty good for it thanks to her Sustained Damage effects, one targeting the highest HP unit, and the other targeting the highest HP unit. However, there’s few Nikkes that are Iron (Wind-Weak) in the PvP meta. Also, having to use Black means having to deal with her having a bad weapon archetype for PvP, an AR with no special properties to help generate Burst.

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Special Interception | Union Raid | Solo Raid

Black is really good vs bosses, regardless of whether they have parts or not, though given she is a Wind DPS with the ability to boost the damage of Sustained Damage Wind ARs even further, she of course, prefers to stick to Wind-weak bosses mainly. She will love to pair up with units such as sSakura, sRosanna or Mana to further boost their damage, especially the former two.

However, her personal DPS is so good that she doesn’t necessarily need to pair up with them, especially if you lack the resources to work on them. They are fairly mediocre without her, meaning that if it is too much of a resource sink to prepare them, or get them, as the former two are limited units, I would personally not bother and just stick to working on Black on her own.

Black can work well with Miranda (Treasure) (MirandaT), though it should be noted that Wind already has a unit that works excellently with MirandaT, Nayuta. Similar to Mihara: Bonding Chain (MiharaBC), since the bulk of her DPS originates from her Sustained Damage, her shooting is but a small part of her overall DPS when buffed by Miranda, meaning she can just take cover after using Burst to deal huge damage.

While Black arguably works better with MirandaT compared to Nayuta, on top of being easier to setup, thanks to her massive self-ATK buff making it easier to secure MirandaT’s critical rate buff, using Black for Nayuta means that Nayuta will not be the main DPS for a Wind team in Solo Raid settings, which could result in an overall lower score.

It should be considered if one does not have team setup for Nayuta to make use of with MirandaT, as Nayuta has much stricter requirement, since her self ATK buff from skills is lower, on top of being a support means her base ATK is lower; this results in having a harder time compared to Black in securing the ATK buff if Nayuta has less bodies than the B3 units that will be used to buff her.

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Strengths

• High Sustained Damage DPS.
• Great in campaign thanks to Burst and S2.
• Has little damage falloff vs bosses without parts, unlike most other Parts-reliant units.
• Big Sustained Damage buff to Wind ARs gives her future potential if more are introduced.
  • As of right now, she has effectively given new life to people that already own sSakura and sRosanna.
• For a 2% unit, her bossing DPS is honestly incredible.
• Huge self-buffing gives her very good damage potential regardless of investment.
  • It should be noted that the big self-buffing also means that those same buffs are less effective on her, adding onto the same multiplier.

Weaknesses

• S2 Sustained Damage buff being limited to Wind ARs only results in incredibly specific buffs. She doesn’t need to ally with these units specifically, but it is preferable.
  • It being Sustained Damage instead of Attack Damage also limits who she likes to pair up with.
• Released at a bad time, with summer units approaching. It would be a big ask to try to get her right now.
• While she DOES have less damage falloff vs Partless bosses compared to other units, she still does have it.
  • Not always having the ATK buff from S1 means she has lower bullet damage, though this mostly matters for normal stages.
• Her big self ATK buffing on top of a lot of Sustained Damage buffing results in those same buffs being less effective on her from other units, as she’s already giving herself so much.
  • Damage Taken debuffs and Critical Rate/Damage buffs are the best way for her to increase her DPS potential, which are less common ways to buff.

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Rating

Category	Rating
Overall	SS
Story	S
Bosses	SS
Arena	A

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Recommended Cubes

destruction cube,bastion cube

She does not really have any ammo management issues; since the bulk of her DPS is from Sustained Damage, and her S1 Sustained Damage buff is possible to maintain without any changes to her ammo under normal circumstances, she only wants the highest level cube in one’s inventory, which tends to be Bastion, Resilience, and sometimes Destruction.

Destruction gets a bonus for helping her destroy parts, which is desirable for the rest of her kit, but is not mandatory for her to use.

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Doll Priority

Thanks to her high bossing DPS, she has High doll priority. While she can’t really use the bonus core damage from Doll AR’s bonus damage effect, the base ATK increase pairs up excellently with the huge S1 ATK self-buff, and can help her destroy parts to enable the rest of her kit.

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Expected Skill Priority

Nikke	Budget Skill Investments	Recommended Skill Investments	Skill Priority	Notes	Investment Priority
Ark Ranger Black	Skill 1: 7 Skill 2: 4 Burst: 7	Skill 1: 10 Skill 2: 7 Burst: 10	S1 > S2	Skill 1 gives her a huge ATK buff and an easy to get Sustained Damage buff. Skill 2 provides her a small Sustained Damage effect and a bigger Sustained Damage buff. While the buff from S2 is greater than the one from S1, since all three abilities give Black a ton of Sustained Damage, especially Burst, S2 has a lower recommendation. Can be maxed if using sSakura alongside Black, as her low self-buffing means she appreciates a higher buff power. Burst is where a ton of her combat ability comes from, especially in stages and bosses that lack parts. The huge Sustained Damage against any high HP enemy and an even bigger Sustained Damage buff results in a lot of damage potential.	High

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Overload Gear Priority

Gear Priority = Head > Gloves > Chest > Boots

Attribute (Sub-Stat)	Priority	Recommended	Notes
Increase Element Damage Dealt	★★★★★	4x	Wanted for Union Raids and Solo Raid content.
Increase Hit Rate	☆☆☆☆☆	0x	—
Increase Max Ammunition Capacity	★★☆☆☆	0 – 1x	Thanks to how her kit mostly deals DPS, she does not really need ammo lines.
Increase ATK	★★★★★	4x	Simply more damage. It should be noted that her huge self ATK buff actually makes it a little less effective to get ATK OLs. However, there’s no better lines to really go for.
Increase Charge Damage	☆☆☆☆☆	0x	—
Increase Charge Speed	☆☆☆☆☆	0x	—
Increase Critical Rate	★★★★☆	0 – 4x	Critical rate lines are overall great for her in setups where she’s not paired up with MirandaT. Going for them should be thought of as a nice bonus.
Increase Critical Damage	★★★★☆	0 – 4x	Critical damage lines explode in damage potential when used alongside MirandaT. Going for them should be thought of as a nice bonus.
Increase DEF	☆☆☆☆☆	0x	—