Even though Blaze is currently second to Surtr in Arknights, she features unique skills and can be a crucial operator in any team.
Arknights is a popular free-to-play tower defence mobile game. It is set in the dystopian, post-apocalyptic future setting of planet Terra. People on the planet show kemonomimi features and have animal characteristics or mythological races.
The in-game natural disasters have left behind a valuable mineral Originium, which enables the use of Arts, a form of magic. It also infects people with the Oripathy disease. Due to the 100 percent mortality rate and the high infectivity at the time of death, the unfriendliness towards the infected became widespread. This led to an expulsion by governments worldwide and a mass quarantine. Subsequently, tension arose between the infected and non-infected.
Players take on the role of the amnesiac Doctor. They are in command of a team of operators on Rhodes Island. It is a medical, self-defence and pharmaceutical organisation. As the disease spreads, the team searches for a cure while defending themselves against threats such as the Reunion Movement.
Arknights features over 200 operators that players can obtain. It can thus be very confusing to know which character is worth having. The characters are divided into eight different classes: Specialists, Snipers, Supporters, Defenders, Medics, Casters, Vanguard and Guards.
It is also important to note that each class features multiple sub-classes. Each sub-class has its own unique abilities and skills. The units are ranked by stars, one-star units are the most common and usually very easy to obtain, while the six-star units are the best and the most sought-after units. These units are very difficult to obtain as they are quite rare.
Blaze
Blaze is a six-star unit that forms part of the Guard class. She specializes in survivability and does large amounts of consistent area-of-effect (AoE) damage. Blaze is frequently called a wallhacker, due to her ability to ignore walls and attack the other lane through her extended range on skill-two.
Blaze is able to hit three targets at a time and can also permanently increase her attack range. She features a unique “get out of dying once” ability. Even though she has average health (HP), she does the second-highest attack damage of all the operators.
It is important to note that Blaze has zero Arts resistance and features the highest deploy (DP) cost. Even though she has the slowest attack speed (ATKSPD), she does the most damage per second (DPS) in Arknights. Players should remember that AoE Guards only start to shine when they reach E2. This is when the operators are able to hit enemies equal to their block count. Players should thus not judge’ AoE Guards during their E0 and E1 stages.
For some time, Blaze dominated Arknights until the arrival of Surtr. Blaze is able to deal a lot of area-of-effect (AoE) physical damage and can survive lethal damage. Surtr, on the other hand, does Arts damage over a wider range and can stay alive for longer.
Even though Surtr is a better unit, Blaze is still powerful. Having a permanent S2, Block-3 and high health points (HP), Blaze is more of a “set it and forget it” unit than Surtr. It is recommended that players pull in the gacha system to obtain Blaze, especially if they do not have Surtr.
Blaze’s talents and skills
Even though Blaze is currently second to Surtr, she features some unique skills, talents and abilities. The following table indicates the name of the skill or talent, as well as the description:
| Name | Description |
| Talent: Emergency Defibrillator | This passive heals Blaze with 50 percent of her health (HP) when her health drops below 25 percent. Additionally, she gains a buff that prevents her health from dropping below 50 percent. This effect lasts for approximately seven seconds.
It is important to note that Blaze does not trigger this talent if she gets a one hit knock out (OHKO). The talent only triggers if Blaze drops between one and 25 percent health. |
| Skill: Harsh Training | The skill provides Blaze with a permanent resistance buff after waiting for a set amount of time upon deployment. However, the minimum wind-up time is 12 seconds. |
| Skill: Powerful strike – Type Y | This skill is an auto-trigger attack that deals massive amounts of damage. This type of generic auto-trigger attack comes with a low skill point cost. |
| Skill: Chainsaw Extension Module | It is an auto-trigger permanent buff that provides massive increase in attack, and a decent in defence. Additionally, it extends Blaze’s tile range from one-by-two, to one-by-three. |
| Skill: Seething Burst | Players have to manually activate this skill. This skill is separated into two phases: wind up and burst.
Wind up phase: Blaze gains an increasing attack, or defence, buff while attacking enemies within range. Burst phase: 10 seconds after skill activation, Blaze deals massive amounts of damage to all nearby enemies. |
