The second limited unit in this game arrived! As an AoE Sniper, she’s automatically one of my favorite units, no question asked. I’m not even hiding my bias, that’s right. But in the interest of making a guide I swear I will try to keep things objective. So get your snacks and drinks ready, since this is the longest post I've ever made and I apologize for the wall. I'll bold up the part that I think is important though, so look out for those.
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I know she's a Sarkaz, but is that a bat on the top right of the background? Is she a Vampire like Warfarin and Closure?

Overview

AoE Sniper is actually better than what people give them credit for, but that’s just relativity and the people’s tendency for extreme/exaggeration statement. They share one or two weaknesses as AoE Caster but have enough of other stuffs to make up for them partially. With long range, splash damage, high evasion, team support damage amplifier, hard crowd control, consistent damage, and a big burst capable to rival that of Firewatch, W enters the Arknights world as a playable operator.

Stats

- Offensive stats:
Of all snipers, AoE Sniper’s base ATK is one of the highest, losing only to Wide Range Sniper, and whatever Rosa’s archetype is. And because W is a 6* unit, she will have the highest ATK among the AoE Snipers, and as a quick note, losing to Ambriel by only 40 ATK at max. As with high base ATK units though, their attack rate often is reduced to compensate. AoE Snipers attack once every 2.8s, which is just longer than Wide Range Sniper (2.7s), and just faster than Medics (2.85s), and AoE casters (2.9s). Control Specialists are their own thing we don’t count them.
- Defensive stats:
Despite that high ATK, their HP isn’t that massively shafted to balance it out. AoE Snipers’ HP is actually among the highest of the Snipers, but W’s HP isn’t necessarily notable among her kin. She lost out to Shirayuki by 25HP at max, lost out to May(!) and Exu. As for DEF, she’s average among the sniper, if not below average. Now that’s for base stats only, W has something else to offer her even more survivability with her kit, which we will get into later on.
- Cost:
As with any AoE unit in this game, their cost is higher in respect, and for AoE Sniper, it’s quite bad for one other reason as well. For W specifically, she gets hit by 1 other reason, she’s a 6* unit, the highest rarity in the game. Starting at 25 base, she can get as high as 29, gaining 2 extra DP per promotion level. AoE sniper is one of the archetypes that gain additional DP at E2, but there are always justifications for it, which we will get into it right now.

Range

AoE Sniper has the second longest range in the game, losing only to Ifrit, and tied with Wide Range Sniper and Rosa, excluding the side range. They are also the only archetype so far to gain extra range at E2, which is one of the main reasons for the extra increased cost at E2.
From left to right: AoE Sniper's range at E0, E1, and E2.
Now the extra range at E2 is the more important part, at least in my eyes. The little range at E1 rarely comes into play, as it is rarely that you would be able to let a range unit to look straight into an enemy lane. Usually, the range tile will be on the side of the route, and so the range on the side matters more often than the middle one. If you can use that middle range at E1, it’s either an Ifrit spot (Aak put that medicine gun down), or you’re looking in perpendicular from the path and the extra range at E2 still help you cover the area much further.

Trait

Deal AoE Physical damage.
This is why they are called AoE Sniper. Whenever they fire their projectile, at impact it explodes and deal damage in a certain radius around the impact location. This radius is 1. If the enemy died while their projectile is midair, it will still do AoE damage at the dead enemy’s location, the effect is just not shown (as I have (not) seen from Meteorite’s effect). AoE casters attack enemies instantly, so it doesn’t work there.

Talent

Available at E1 – Ambush:

After being deployed for 10 seconds, gain 40% Physical and Arts Evasion, and become less likely to be targeted by enemies.
At E2, upgraded to 60% Evasion.
An indicator that the talent is working: some red mist appear around W
The first talent is amazing for her survivability, and adding to all of her defensive stats earlier, which turns it from average to good. 40% is admittedly low enough to make the chance inconsistent, but 60% is more than enough. Additionally, W also reduces her target priority from the enemies, means that they will only target her if she’s the only one in her range (or if she’s deployed last along with Ethan and Manticore and other people with the same thing). So with the two of them combined, where W is less targeted from enemies, AND also dodges 60% of the attack that do come her way, W becomes more “tankier” than her stats suggest. Like this meme by ucky
Now, it may sound like some stupid anti-synergy, since enemies will target her less, making the Evasion redundant. But afraid not, as you can also place her closer to the enemies, and take the hits as the enemy approaches, but stop once the enemies find your other allies. That way, it put less strain on your frontline blocker. Or it can be used to solo a lane with less healing needed.
It’s even more amazing when you consider the fact that, with W’s deploy cost, she’s more likely to be the second last or last unit deployed. Unless your vanguards can handle the waves up until you have enough for both W and your dedicated lane blocker to shift the aggro from W to that blocker. Well, with W’s talent, now you don’t have to do that, as you can just plop W after anyone and she will still be the lowest priority target, just ensure that she lives for 10s first, and bam, problems solved.
You can’t play this talent quite like Firewatch’s S1 or April’s S2 (woah spoiler alert!), as even though 60% Evasion is a huge number, it’s still ultimately a chance. You also can’t drop straight down in the middle of a bunch of ranged enemies like April too, as it need 10s to activate, while Firewatch can just straight up avoid any attack if her skill is up. (no it’s not my Firewatch bias… kinda). You can put her alone in a lane with minimal support though, like with someone who has global regen, or just time it in a way that she’ll end up with a little HP left, because it’s not like she has to stay at full health to deal full damage. The talent allows her to solo in a lane in that way, and you can practically save a healer slot when carefully calculated. (just reset the stage til you get the correct RNG roll lul)
However, if you’re like me, and abused AoE Sniper long range to it’s limit, their location is probably going to be away from the frontline by like a large distance, a distance that not many enemies can reach without walking through the blockers, then the talent is admittedly not as useful. Of course not all map is just 1 lane funneling type, so it doesn’t work like that all the time (it does work against large/global range enemy like Mortar or Faust though). Basically, all of that is just to say, this talent really covers most issues that come with her archetype.
The talent is also good at dodging everyone who are pulling for her.
cough... anyway

Available at E2 – Insult to injury:

Stunned enemies in W’s range takes 18% extra physical damage.
tl;dr at ends of this section
Now the second talent is also amazing. It’s just like Sesa’s talent except more useful more flexible/accessible. Any enemies that is stunned inside her range will take 118% of any physical damage during the stunned duration, and no spoilers intended, but W’s skills can cause quite a lot of stuns.
This talent is a Final Damage Multiplier, which is a multiplier that is calculated after all enemy’s defense stat. Which sounds awful, given that the physical damage formula is (ATK – DEF) * Final Multiplier, which lessen the effect of the multiplication. The good news is all Final Damage Multiplier stack multiplicatively, i.e. if we have, say, E2 Pramanix talent working, that’s 118% * 130% = 153.4%. It can snowball fast, if we give Sesa’s talent with 14% as well, that’s 174.876% multiplier to the final damage. You’re not necessarily going to have all of that multipliers all the time, so we’re just having 18% for now. It’s still quite good even if it’s affected by DEF though, as I will argue in S3 section.
Considering that it’s a Final Damage Multiplier though, that means it can increase the minimum damage from 5% to… 5.9% yay. But the more important thing is, this is a debuff to the enemies, which means all allies will benefit from W’s talent, making her a team player as well. Well, okay, just the physical damage allies though, but the physical damage dealing allies are more numerous than the arts one, as also stated in my old Sesa guide, and unlike Sesa, W can combo with every physical damage ally, unlike Sesa who can’t really teamwork with long range units, and SA (I mean, who would stay alive to be blocked while SA is S3-ing amirite?). Even if it only boosts physical damage, people like Mostima can still benefit from this talent, assuming if the rest of the squad still deals physical damage.
As spoiled above, W’s skills cause stuns herself, so this is where it gets even better. The stun is applied before the damage instance is dealt (just like any other debuff), which means, W get the bonus damage herself, so at E2 she basically has free bonus damage to all of her skills. It is still not a guaranteed damage buff always, as you need the enemies to be inside W’s range to achieve this, and those skills has quite a bit of an explosion radius.
Now I know what you’re thinking, Suzuran also has something similar and it doesn’t work with her own attack, why is that? Well there are actually 2 layers to her talent, she causes sluggish to hit enemies, and then applies Weakening to sluggish-ed enemies in her range, but it kicks in a little too late, even if the slow is applies before the damage. I mean, I’m no HG members, but I assume it’s to avoid the simple fact that if it works like that, any of Suzuran’s basic attack is automatically amplified, which sounds strong, while anyone else with a similar Final Damage Multiplier debuff has some other working attached to it (below 40% HP, blocked with allies, stunned through skills or allies,…) which doesn’t amplifies their basic attack all the time. But those are all conjectures and guesses, just know that this talent amplifies all of W’s skills if she hits enemies inside her range, and boost all physical allies at the same time.
That was quite a lot for just 2 talents… now on to her skills.

Skills

- RIIC Skills – always available – Patience: When W is a trainer, increase mastery SPEED for all Sniper by 30%.
Upgraded at E2: if the training is for mastery 3, further increases the training speed by 65%
Available at E2, separated skill – Insipid: When W is a trainer, increases morale consumption by 1 per hour when training a Sniper skill to mastery 3.
This is still a problem for some people, but this type of base skill increases training speed, not reduces training time. A speed increases of 30% led to about 23% reduction in training time, like Ptilopsis’ talent. But unlike Ptilopsis’ talent, any unit in the training room already gains 5% training speed, so it’s actually 35%, which is about 25.92% time reduced.
At E2, the speed remains the same for any masteries except the third one, where it is boosted to 95% (I mean, I hope it is that good, since the drawbacks of double morale consumption attached at E2 is quite bad.
I shouldn’t diddle around much with base skills, so let’s continue.

First skill: King of Heart

Btw if you want the TL;DR for all 3 skills, look for the bolded line in each mini section, or something ;-;
- Description:
Immediately launches a grenade, dealing physical damage to all enemies in explosion radius and stuns them.
- Stats at level 7:
310% AoE physical damage, stuns for 2.1s, costs 19 SP, no initial SP, Auto Recovery, manual activation.
- Masteries:
M3 increases the damage to 350%, stun duration to 3s, and reduces SP cost to 16.
- Further details:
This skill functions essentially like Meteorite S2. Upon clicking the skill, she will launch an attack with the stats mentioned above. This attack does not affect attack interval… in a way.
W (and Meteorite), performs an attack every 2.8s with no other ATK SPD buffs. Using W’s S1 or Meteorite’s S2 will not change that interval but will interrupt the normal attack that comes with those intervals. Let me put it this way, after they launch an attack, you can wait 2.5s, use the skill, and W/Meteorite will immediately launch the next attack that comes at 2.8s. It will cancel any attack animation currently ongoing, so be careful with that. The video will hopefully clarify what I mean.
Don't use it when she's about to make a normal attack though
The explosion has a radius of 1.2 tile. While that increased area sounds not that significant compared to the basic radius of 1, it is 44% larger in area covered, which is more significant than it seems.
- Usage:
Don’t.
.
Let me backtrack though. The skill is actually just fine, even without the trick I mentioned. You can think of it as if W is shooting out Projekt Red’s S2 but without Red’s talent, which is actually better than it sounds. A bit spoiler again, but it is the only skill in W’s kit that is a near instant AoE stun.
The problem is, if you need this skill from W, something has already gone wrong. The delayed stun from S2 and S3 don’t matter 95% of the time. Her S2 has less stun duration, but also less cost, her S3 has longer cooldown, but is 5 levels stronger, and so, the time where you need her S1, is when you need to deal with a clump of drones (will explain in S2 section), in less than 33-39s and more than 16-19s, constantly. For that, a suggestion to replace W with an AA sniper is valid, and this is one of the few cases where Meteorite is better, since her S1 blast damage is just too good at not caring who’s in the radius.

Second skill: Jack in the Box

- Description:
The next attack instead set a mine that last 2 minutes in a deployable tile (both ranged and melee tiles). The mine will detonate when an enemy is nearby, dealing AoE physical damage and stuns for a duration.
- Stats at level 7:
250% physical damage, 1.8s stun, 10 SP cost, no initial SP, Auto Recovery, auto activation.
- Masteries:
M1 reduces the SP cost to 9, damage to 260%.
M3 reduces SP cost again to 8, damage to 280%, stuns duration to 2.2s
- Further details:
The mine can only be placed inside W’s range, but on any deployable tile. If there are no enemies in range, W will place mine randomly on any valid tile. The mine can be “retreated”, if you don’t like the random targeting because it’s blocking an important spot for your other operator, just click on the mine, then retreat it like any other operator. (It also works for Silence’s drone and Shamare’s doll).
As long as there is an enemy in range, W will plant a mine in their place. She will auto aim the mine at the tile of the enemies is on with the same priority as her normal attack. That is to say, whoever she’s attacking, when the skill is up, she will put the mine on that guy… if possible. What if she cannot place a mine on that tile, but other tiles are free? Well then it’s random as you can see from the clip below, where both valid enemies are on top of another ally, and thus she cannot place the mine. It’s treated as if there are no enemies in her range, because she wouldn’t even attempt to place a mine nearby that tile. Look at this for example
If there is a valid place on an enemy that is not her current priority, then the mine goes to that guy. In that clip, if I retreat Myrtle, then the mine is always placed there, regardless of her target priority. In this case, it’s probably the next valid enemy that is mine-able that also fit her target priority. In the CN wiki, they said something about if there are 2 enemies in range that is the same priority (least path left to blue box), then it goes to the one with higher HP (if I’m reading the google translate correctly). The mine priority also ignores the Guerilla Defender aggro, from what I’ve seen.
The skill converts W’s next attack into planting a mine, and so she will not perform the normal attack for that interval when the skill is up. It is important in a sense that, if the skill is done charging when W just finished her normal attack, she will have to wait for that 2.8s interval to pass before using it. It can be important at times, especially considering that…
The mine takes 1.5s to explode after triggered. It’s a considerable amount of time in conjunction with that attack time earlier.
The triggering range is 1.35 tiles away from the center. Incidentally, the explosion radius is also 1.35 tiles. This means 2 (or 2.5) things.

• The mines can trigger on someone who’s diagonally away from the tile but not too far. It’s not exactly like 8 tiles around itself like Waai Fu S2 or Phantom S3, but it’s close enough. Quick video to see how bad it can potentially be
• That also means fast enemies can outrun the explosion as well. To outrun a mine in the longest route, they need to cover 2.7 tiles in 1.5s. Only Sarkaz Lancer so far in this game is able to do so, and only when they gained max speed.

I am speed
But the more important part of fast enemies is that, if they are just slightly fast enough, they can run enough distance to reach a different mine and thus triggering more mines than needed in order to kill them. Especially if 2 mines are close together, as someone can just go up to the first one, trigger it, go to the second one, trigger that one as well, and died from the first mine because it was delayed. That means if your other DPS is not enough, you can easily waste a lot of mine after all those times spent stacking them up. The enemies only need to cover at maximum 1.35 tiles per 1.5s, that’s a movement rate of 0.9. Do you know how many enemies have at least 0.9 mvm spd? I don’t actually, please tell me. That of course doesn’t matter if there is no mine stacked and W is just using each one as it comes.
thanks to 777ucky for the clip since I was getting lazy when I get to this part lul
Another important part of the trigger radius is that, despite being confined in W’s range only, it can still be triggered by enemies outside her range. Effectively, with this skill, W has an extra layer of damagin range outside of her base range, which is nothing to scoff at, especially considering that she can use this skill with or without enemies.
Or, if you want to be cheeky, you can find maps where there are non-deployable tiles and point W to that area. This forces the mines to be in a few specific locations only, with some working from your other operators. That way you can guaranteed that there is always a mine in your selected location. And speaking of which, if there are no valid tile in her range at all and she gain a charge for the mine, she will just hold it forever, until a valid tile shows up. That can be good or bad, depends on how you play your cards (no not the King of Heart card).
If you still remember what I said back in her first skill, you’d be asking why her S1 is used for drones. Well, it’s because the mines cannot hit drones. They cannot be triggered by drone, and they cannot damage drone if triggered by someone else. An explanation is that since the mine is on the ground, its explosion cannot hit drone. Which is a bad explanation, because Sesa’s S2 bombs also stay on the ground, and they hit drones just fine. Sesa is good confirmed???
Some miscellaneous infos about the mines:

• The mines actually have stats, apparently. None of the stats matter though, since it’s invincible, cannot be attacked, cannot block, and all damages are calculated using W’s ATK.
• You can see if a mine is triggered or not. When triggered it will start flashing red.
• If W is retreated, all of the mines are instantly gone, without any damage (same for the 2mins timer).
• Once a mine is out, it is instantly ready and can be instantly triggered (important for those who plays Techies a lil bit too much).

- Usage: look for the → for the most important part
Best for when you want to deal with constant wave of enemies that is a little bit stronger than trash mobs without paying your mind to W. And if they are just trash mobs, her auto attack couple with other operators would be more than enough to clean those. The stacking mines strat doesn’t work that well either given the waste usage against enemy’s speed, but it still works fine more often than not, and is a great way to make use of downtime between wave.
The triggeexplosion radius can be used to extend her range, true, but it should not a strat to be based around, while still worth it to remember when you’re trying to find space to put W. And speaking of space, since the mine need a deployable tile to work, sometimes you may find W not able to bunch up mines together due to the map’s layout, and so it is kinda map dependent. Technically her allies are also fighting for location as well, but as the commander, you should be able to pacify them and plan around it.
very quick 2 examples of maps with enemies on a lane with undeployable tiles
Oh and regarding the extend range through the mine’s explosion radius, if a mine is at the edge of W’s range, the enemy that trigger it has a chance to be damaged and stunned from outside of her range, and thus not receiving the damage amp from her E2 talent, which is also not that great.
This skill is usually compared to Meteorite’s S1, and in the general calculation, W wins out by a little bit (W slightly loses out in ideal conditions for Meteorite, which neve… rarely happen). Technically, Meteorite is still better to deal with drones, as her massive splash doesn’t really care who she’s targeting.
→ Remember what I said about holding a lane solo back in her first talent? This skill is the best to work with it. Usually, when we’re talking about solo-ing a lane, it’s assumed that the lane’s enemies’ density will be light. Enemies will be appearing in a small amount over an amount of time. The evasion chance then is helpful for not needing much babysitting, maybe for even the whole run, and the fact that the lane has low density means that W will have all the time to stack up mine, and so the extra loss of mine per enemy doesn’t matter either.
For running alongside with other ops, do remember the limitation of deployable tile. To maximize the amount of available mine, it’s generally considered best to place W as forward as possible, as her long range will cover more area. In that case, her first talent will be fully used. As a ranged enemy approaching, they will attack her, since they see her first, where it will miss 60% of the time, but as those enemies move a little further, they will face other operators, by then they will stop attacking W due to the lower priority. It can spread the damage out to multiple operators, making them less likely to be in a low enough HP that they’ll die in the next hit.
→ If you want to use the long range to push W in the backline to save space for shorter range unit, this skill still works, but in a different way. If there’s no available tile in her range left, but a mine is in 1 of those tiles, you can chain stun the enemy that triggers that mine. Since W has to hold her charge until a space is available, once a mine is gone, W will instantly replace it. Effectively, you get double the stun duration (well it depends on her attack interval at the time, but still), and double damage, making it a pseudo burst damage of sort.
really great for when you can force the mine to be where you want it to be
This skill gives consistent and automated damage for an operator that lacks said consistent damage (because of her innate stats). However, covering weaknesses is for the weak-minded fool! Okay calm down just a joke. But if you’re not familiar with AoE Sniper, or any archetype with slow but powerful strike, consistent DPS skill is the way for you to start stepping into learning how to use them, and this skill give you the most stun uptime for all of W’s skill (note: not stun duration, stun uptime).
→ There are more issues with S2 than you’d expect, but nothing too major individually. And hey not like every other operator have no issues with their consistent skills.
But if you want a little more explosive, you’ll come to love her third skill, which is intricated, interesting, and is what I’d recommend to master, for a variety of reasons.

Third skill: D12

- Description:
Place bomb on a few enemies in range, prioritizing enemies with highest current HP. After 3 seconds, the bombs explode, each one dealing AoE Physical damage and stun for a duration
- Stats at level 7:
Target 3 enemies, dealing 280% damage, stuns 4s, cost 39 SP, 17 initial SP, Auto Recovery, manual activation.
- Masteries:
M1 target 4 enemies, 290% damage, cost 37 SP, 18 initial SP.
M3 deal 310% damage, stuns 5s, cost 33 SP, 20 initial SP.
- Further details:
3 bombs that deals 280% damage eh? I wonder if I have heard something similar somewhere… No Wind, you must not lose focus, you’re better than this.
As described, once the bombs latched, it will explode after 3 seconds. This skill has the longest delay from skill activation to stun of all of W’s kit, about 3.5s from tapping the skill to when it explodes.
The bomb has an explosion radius of 1.2, just like her first skill.
If an enemy with a bomb attached die before 3s is up, the bomb immediately explodes and deals the damage and stun. It’s quite hard to actually do it where it matters, because it targets enemies with highest current HP, so one of the enemies has to have the 4th lowest HP among them, but also higher than all of the non-selected enemies, and to be easily killed from that HP amount too.
Regarding her E2 talent, since there is a 3 seconds delay, you’ll find that W may target a bomb on an enemy, but then they walk out of her range before it goes off. Fast enemies are one thing, but it also applies for cases where W is facing perpendicular to the enemies’ path, where her width of range is only 3 tiles, unlike the amazing 5 tiles of length.
All of the damage stacks completely, if all 4 bombs are close together, all 4 affected enemies will take 4 times the damage (or 3 each before mastery). That is a yuuuge burst of damage that not many will survive. If someone survived, they will proceed to be stunned for a long duration afterward, and this skill has the longest stun of all of W’s skills.
Unlike Firewatch, you can easily aim all bombs close together, because it doesn’t have the 1 bomb per tile restriction and enemy tends to clump together when blocked by your frontline. But like Firewatch, I will advocate that stacking all the bombs together is not the only way to use the skill. You can just as well drop this to a scatter group of enemies and expand the stun area massively, split up between 2 lanes (check the enemies’ HP first though) and basically cover 2 lanes at once. What I have said about using Firewatch’s S2 can still apply here, albeit slightly differently.
The bomb’s damage is actually determined on cast, not on hit! What that means is, if you are buffing W in order to get one of those orgasm-worthy explosions, you need to buff W first before using the skill. Then the bomb’s base damage is finally determined, and thus dealing that damage after the 3s delay. This may be why the bomb do not show any red number when exploded, unlike the other skills that also has a high multiplier, like Firewatch, but also Meteorite, Sesa… This video will make it clearer.
Remember: Buff before skill!
Thanks to ucky with the W nuke video that helped me realized this lul. I know, it won’t matter most of the time, since people seem to associate buffing with meme-ing, but it’s worth putting it in the back of your mind when you are going for it.
Also, you can also see the effect of W’s E2 talent, as staying on the field will obliterate the Defender, while going off field will only kill the middle guy. Yes, if it’s calculated before DEF, then it’s going to be even more destructive, but as a team support effect, this is probably the better way to balance it, I supposed.
- Usage:
As you can already guess from the description, the skill is best for annihilating a group of enemies close together. It can kill even the tankiest of enemies, or at the very least, badly wounded them. Take the new Guerilla defender with 1300 DEF and 15k HP, at S3M3 lv56, 4 bombs leave the guy with ((935*310%)-1300)*4*1.18 = 7544.9, that’s like half of his HP already.
But I have also said that you shouldn’t feel like you can only use the skill that way. The cooldown is pretty long before masteries, true, so if you just want to delete big group of things, keep doing it. I usually do that too. I just also wouldn’t hesitate to use it for other cases where I really need it. Example cases like where you need this guy down faster, but he’s not with 3 other enemies, or even if he’s alone inside W’s range, you can still use this skill for a 4-5s stun after a 3s delay. It’s not the best way to use this skill, but it’s not terrible too.
Because of the manual activation, you can be in control of when you want to blow enemies up, as with the many cases to use this skill I have presented. A controllable burst of damage and long duration stun is just that amazing. What that really mean is, this skill is more flexible to use than people give it credit for. The only problem is the long cooldown before M3, and even at M3, it still has a long enough cooldown to force you to make every use count. (I mastered nuking with Firewatch 50SP cost, what does 33SP cost even means lul). You can use E2 Ptilopsis to make it faster though!
→ You can combo with other allies to make a huge explosion too, you don’t have to time it yourself with enemies’ waves. The best allies are one that can easily clump enemies together, like Magallan, Suzuran, FEater, Weedy S2 (not S3 because enemies will just die). DEF reduction allies also work, like Pramanix and Shamare. Late shoutout to Manticore S2, but it stuns enemies every hit, and guess what W’s E2 talent can do?
→ Just remember the most important thing, timing. Every time you use the skill, you have to ask, “are those guys I’m about to blow up the most dangerous threat for the next 40s?”. If yes, blow them up. If no, ask yourself “will my other units able to handle those upcoming guys if W isn’t ready yet?”. If you’re going blind in a map so you can’t tell ahead, then make sure you can answer yes to the second question before using the skill. When you can answer yes to that question, do whatever. You can also ask “can I hold them long enough to allow W the time to recharge her skill?” Depends on which type of enemies, you can actually freely use the skill when you feel like it, if you have a great block squad. You may also ask “if I save this skill too much and missed the chance to use the skill and failed the run, then what?” Then you live and you learn. As said above, nuking a bunch of enemies isn’t the only way to use the skill, and so you can make it a panic button to stun/kill 1 guy that is about to leak, even that is a not terrible usage of the skill, just learn the tempo better so you don’t have to panic yourself with leaks next time.

Some conclusions/thoughts

You may have heard “M1 both S2 and S3 first and see which one you like better” in the megathread a “few” times. I’m not sure if I want to make a definitive answer, but if I have to make one, I’ll have to say “S2 if you’re unfamiliar with AoE Snipers or any slow attacking unit, S3 if you are used to, or prefer, precise timing and decision making”. It still depends on situation, of course, and M1 both skills are certainly a great stop point, as it is both cheap, and unlocks a major breakpoint of each skill.
Each skill has their own way to be abused to fit what you need, but remember, W alone won’t the only damage operator in your squad, so you can just adjust the team, and expands your tools’ variety, rather than adjust how a tool is used just to fit what you need.
If you are questioning whether or not to invest in W or other lower rarity AoE Sniper, just go with W. A 6* investment is costly, but it’s also worth the price more. There will be cases where Shirayuki, Meteorite, or even Sesa can be better, but before those cases show up, you would already use W enough time before that, and as said, W’s skill is still flexible enough to partially fill whatever you’d need of those lower rarity AoE Snipers. Just don’t be like me and build all of them, well unless you want to.
AoE Snipers might not be great for general usage, because AA Sniper can shoot faster and cheaper to deploy. But if you can work for it, you can beat all of the game with only AoE Snipers and 1 or 2 supportive units (and a little bit of overleveling and bruteforcing). So if you want to start using AoE Sniper, but are afraid of the learning curve, don’t be. You can just slowly learn about them by adding them to your squad that you're already used to play with. And as said in the first talent section, it can cover a major weakness of AoE Sniper, and couple with many hard crowd control abilities, W is a great starting location to step in to the world of slow but powerful nuke damage units.
Now all that left is to pull W, ezpz.
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How are you guys doing in this banner? Oh wait wrong question, if you have W and built her, how did you find her? Is there anything I missed, since I’m pretty sure I always miss something? And biased, don’t forget biased, which is strange since I don’t like W as a character that much, but for gameplay, one of the best, nearly on par with Firewatch (you’re still the #1 pls put that radio down). Anyway, jokes aside, hope you enjoy the post, and hope to see you next time for… someone, idk yet.

Sellout section kek

Other guide posts that is gathered in this post by u/LastChancellor
And Indra guide by u/Boelthor since the other dood didn't update his post yet lul.
Completely unrelated to the sellout, below is my biased opinion, tread carefully.
Why do I think S3 is flexible? I consider instant nuke skills are one of the hardest skill types to use, but it is also one of the most intriguing because of its possibilities. If you find yourself worry about the future threat too much, you will easily find situations where when those threats do show up, enough time has passed that if you used it earlier, the skill would have been up by now anyway. So you find yourself constantly have to ask 1 big question “can I use it now and still be fine before it comes back up?” Answering that question is the best part of these nuke skills, as whenever you can answer yes to it, depends on how the skill functions, people’s playstyle, strategy, team lineup, map, and enemies’ route and composition. And that’s why I think it’s the most flexible type of skill. Because if you just switch up a few things, and the way to use the skill change, or the timing change, and it can fit the playstyle of anyone who’s willing to go with it.

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I wanted to see what would happen if we took away all of the positive gained plays that were assisted by the cheating tactic we all now colloquially refer to as “banging.” I watched through all the footage that consisted of banging as well as a net-positive outcome for the Astros and tallied what all should be taken away. This INCLUDES fastballs that did not receive a “bang” during an at-bat that had bangs for the off-speed pitches. There were also a few plays I subtracted from where a batter takes advantage of an early fast ball after an at-bat that contained bangs. This included taking away plays such as where base runners who did NOT receive banging help, but were driven in to score by a batter who was helped, as well as the opposite situation where a batter who was not helped may have driven in those on base who cheated to get there – those runs and RBI’s would be taken away.
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A few disclaimers:
These statistics, findings, and opinions – are based on the effect of banging on trash cans. I did not take into account whistling, buzzing, and whatnot – as there is no data on that. This analysis was done on the notion of analyzing at-bat performance against trash can banging, or whatever they were beating on.
I did not track stolen bases. It was enough to watch/listen/verify all the at-bats, so I did not bother to track stolen base metrics.
I did not watch through the at-bats that had bangs and resulted in an out with nobody on base, as there is no point. I did watch through at-bats that resulted in an out, but had base runners move and took that into consideration when removing stats.
There were a FEW (less than ten) cases where the batter received help on an AB, but the help did not matter as the pitcher was way off the mound on fastballs and it led to a walk. These plays I did not deduct. Once again, there were very few of these compared to the balls-on-base that WERE taken away during this analysis.
There was only one case where the batter received help and got a hit – but I let it stand. This was an at-bat between Evan Gattis and Ervin Santana on July 15th, in which I thought Santana threw cake right over the plate (he was 100 pitches deep) that just about any major league batter would have hit.
There was one case I found where a bang that was not recorded, which clearly was a bang, resulted in a home run. This went to George Springer and I took it away from him. I’m sure there were more bangs that could not get picked up by the mics, so you can assume some form of variance.
Keep in mind, the dataset provided by u/atadams is still missing 20 additional games that are not factored into these numbers.
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Findings on the banging scheme while going through the film:
Through early May, the sign stealing system was in its infancy. Often it seemed like the relay (should read “banging”) team had the wrong sign, and really may have negatively affected the batter.
By mid-to-late July, the relay team had it down and the banging was in full-force. There were plenty of at-bats that were perfectly assisted by the relay team down to the 1 bang, 2 bang and their respective pitch. These were the games that documented upwards of 40+ bangs in a game. They truly are hard to watch.
The banging became more and more audible as the season went on. By early August it was like they weren’t even trying to hide it anymore. As an Astros fan, it even got me a little sick at times of how blatant they were cheating and how casual they were about it.
The banging did not always correlate to off-speed. The relay team, at times, would bang for a fastball as opposed to the off-speed pitch, depending who was at-bat. An example of this was Josh Reddick who is known to prefer off-speed pitches.
All of the top 20 batters for the Astros during the 2017 season, minus Tony Kemp, benefited from the sign-stealing system.
Jose Altuve participated in the banging scheme, early into the season, but was rarely helped after the All-Star break. It seems clear that at some point, Altuve preferred to not receive help via banging – the reason of which is unclear. Some may say he shifted to some other form of cheating, and others will proclaim his innocence. I’m staying out of this one.
If there was another player who seemed to disfavor the banging scheme, it was Josh Reddick. Although Reddick did receive his share of help at the plate - during the same stretch Altuve stopped receiving help, Reddick also trended in the same bang-free direction. Reddick’s help did ramp up again closer to season’s end as he went through a batting slump.
I also really just wanted to plug-in, that for as many bangs that Brian McCann got, he did not see that great of a return for it.
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Here are the charts in which I tallied the “new” (taken away) stats, compared it to the old (official) stats, and showed the change in difference to each stat. Personally, I want to refrain from making personal judgement and sharing my opinion and let you draw your own conclusions based on the numbers. These original stats came from baseball-rerference.com, and all the advanced stats are locked into the correct formulas. For the conditional filters, I made red the higher number to represent who was the worse offender per stat.
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https://preview.redd.it/jxvzall80ge41.png?width=623&format=png&auto=webp&s=3537dab490dea342bf23a651c2a1c2c72710d071
https://preview.redd.it/hxgkrn8xzfe41.png?width=696&format=png&auto=webp&s=73c59b0d24ffbb9473c6626e59804c46623baefa
https://preview.redd.it/51olo48j0ge41.png?width=690&format=png&auto=webp&s=4000da8ff9bb70313e750803b844d5accd5b33fb
https://preview.redd.it/5g5gjqmn0ge41.png?width=521&format=png&auto=webp&s=15a472a86ad0d5afb77644e9b44237774cb8f876
Note: this list features what I saw as the “main” line-up for the Houston Astros. I removed individuals who cheated but had low at-bats, as it skewed the colored formatting too drastically with the smaller sample size of at-bats.
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Further on, past the individual statistics – there were certainly games that the outcome of which was affected by cheating. Here are the games that based on the runs that would be taken away, would change the outcome of the game to an outright loss for the Astros.
May 2nd vs. Texas Rangers: 7-6
May 10th vs. Atlanta Braves: 2-1
July 1st vs. New York Yankees: 6-2
July 17th vs. Minnesota Twins: 3-2
July 31st vs. Tampa Bay Rays: 7-6
August 4th vs. Toronto Blue Jays: 7-6
August 6th vs. Toronto Blue Jays: 6-1
September 3rd vs. New York Mets: 6-5
September 20th vs. Chicago White Sox: 3-1
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This would be a total of 9 wins taken away from the Astros, bringing them down to a total of 92. But how much would this affect them? Even with these 9 wins wiped out, it would take at least 12 more losses from the 20 games of footage we are missing of, for the Los Angeles Angels to catch the Astros for the division title. So, who ultimately lost out here?
The Boston Red Sox. If the Astros fell to 92 wins, this would have reseeded them in the #3 spot in the 2017 playoffs and given the home field advantage of the ALDS to the Red Sox. Now, would this have affected the outcome of the ALDS? Hard to call. The Astros had great outings by Verlander and Kuechel in the ALDS, and proved they could win at Fenway by closing the series out in Game 4 while facing Chris Sale.
If the Astros got out of an ALDS series that saw the Boston Red Sox with home field advantage, the rest of the 2017 postseason could theoretically continue as it was written. The Astros would still have had home field advantage against the Yankees in the ALCS, and the Dodgers would still have home field in the World Series. My question is, if the Boston Red Sox still split the first two games at home, could they have mustered a win in Houston knowing they could have had returned to Fenway for a do-or-die Game 5 – and even then, would they be able to win that game?
A distant second-place prize for the next-most team to get screwed over in the win-loss column, goes to the Toronto Blue Jays – who could claim two losses from the Astros banging scandal. Marcus Stroman already tweeted his frustration upon recollection of the game and the breaking of the news, and after watching the game – he had a damn good reason to.
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Let’s cover the individual pitchers who got screwed over from this. There are a few categories I break this into:
First, let’s look at the “you cost me my job” pitchers:

1. Cesar Valdez – A’s and Blue Jays

Cesar Valdez had the unfortunate fate of facing the Astros twice in their dome, with two different teams. First with the A's on April 28th, and then with the Blue Jays on August 4th. Both times, he was shelled by the Astros and didn't last more than four innings. His start on August 4th, 2017 was his last appearance in the majors. Valdez has since seen success in the Mexican League, where he spent his time after his first tenure in the MLB in 2010.

1. A.J. Griffin – Rangers

The Astros cheated during their first game against Griffin on May 4th. While there is no current footage of his other appearance at Minute Maid Park on September 26th, Griffin was pulled out after only getting through 0.1 inning, surrendering 5 hits and 5 runs in what would also be his last appearance in the majors. Again there is no footage, but the implications are pretty heavy. Griffin would go on to sign a minor league deal with the Mets in 2018, but was waived after two awful Triple-A starts and hasn’t pitched since.

1. Mike Bolsinger – Blue Jays

Perhaps ironically, Bolsinger came in for relief on behalf of Cesar Valdez, and left with a similar outcome. This became Bolsinger’s last game in the majors. He was demoted to Triple-A for the rest of 2017, and in the following off-season he went to play in Japan where he still is today.

1. Josh Smith – A’s

A distant fourth, Smith got sent to the minors after his rough outing on June 28th in a relief appearance. He did return to the A’s active roster a month later.
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Second, I had to make a category for one pitcher who I really think got screwed:

1. Patrick Corbin – Diamondbacks

If not for the banging, I believe Patrick Corbin may have recorded his first and only career no-hitter on his start in Minute Maid on August 17th. All the hits he gave up in the game included assists from banging, with the exception of one hit from Jake Marisnick – but that hit came from an early fastball that Marisnick very well may have known was coming, given that he was getting help earlier in the game.
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Last, pitchers who were affected and suffered various outcomes such as taking a loss, blown save, or uncharacteristically giving up a ton of hits/bases – and the date of that appearance.

1. Jaime Garcia – Braves – May 10th
2. Aroldis Chapman – Yankees – July 1st
3. Dellin Betances – Yankees – July 1st
4. Kyle Gibson – Twins – July 16th
5. James Paxton – Mariners – July 19th and September 15th
6. Alex Cobb – Rays – July 31st
7. Marcus Stroman – Blue Jays – August 6th
8. Roberto Osuna – Blue Jays – August 6th
9. Chris Flexen – Mets – September 3rd

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And of course, there is Aaron Judge. The argument still looms for Aaron Judge’s MVP case, and while to Altuve’s credit of cheating the least (relatively), the RBIs that would be taken away from his cheating teammates might be enough to cover that gap voters may have had. Voters may still point to the gap in batting average, but the drop in Altuve’s OPS from .957 to .938 might be something that would be considered as well.
On the topic of the All-Star game and if this would have affected All-Star appearances, I don’t think so. Like I said earlier, the cheating really ramped up in mid-to-late July – after the All-Star break. If anything, perhaps Springer and Correa would not be All-Star Starters, but I couldn’t see them missing the All-Star roster even with the stats pulled pre-All-Star game.
To wrap up, once again - I only did this analysis to cover the effects of the sign-stealing scandal in the regular season and seeing what would happen if these stats were taken away retroactively to the teams and the individuals. I do not want to cover if the Astros would have beaten the Yankees or Dodgers in the 2017 playoffs because that is a completely different story. The next question I could anticipate coming, is if I could provide the log of every play/AB I tallied. I might make that available, but by August – I stopped making written notes on each cheating instance and just made tallies, because there really was no explanation needed.
Hope this doesn’t get removed by mods. Thanks and all feedback appreciated.
EDIT: Thank you for all the awards, karma, and kind words!