So apparently I’ve found my calling on this sub as a scorebug connoisseur - So let’s review all the scorebugs all the regional and national channels has used for MLB for 2020, and I’ll give them a score on a scale from 1 to 10. Mostly I’ll speak on the design, but I’ll bring up some points on legibility.
This will be a more detailed writeup for every scorebug, so this will be a long post.
If you want to see the score bug’s design again as a refresher, just click the network name, I’ve capped them all for your convenience.
Hope I beat the buzzer for offseason posts and if I miss a scorebug I’ll amend this post. Won’t do MLB International bug because I literally can’t access that.
TBS
https://preview.redd.it/rmsj6n26fqg61.png?width=402&format=png&auto=webp&s=f37752163485f8e70058898fcf164ae14a51860d
It’s still the industrial-metallic style they’ve used since 2018. I’m very slightly annoyed of batter-pitcher info asymmetry, where the batting average/tonight’s batting results isn’t on the same footing as the pitch count and is not shown. To be fair the pitch count indicator is clear, and TBS has obviously found the winning formula since they haven’t budged from 2018’s design at all. It has enough info and it presents them decently, still no radar gun info tho, that was kicked after the 2017 experiment.
Only thing of note is that for 2020, the bug is placed in the lower third now, and third outs have now discarded the special “MID/END 8” splash, opting for the same TBS/MLB logo fly-in with the exact “scorebug initiation” animations when it returns from commercial but in reverse. Not the best, I prefer the special third out splashes as it highlights the physical scoreboard metaphor where it’s imperfect, and I find the metallic design to be just a tad outdated for 2021, but it’s readable, and certainly better than the humongous brick for 2016. Ugh.
It’s alright. 6/10
ESPN
https://preview.redd.it/gx52uyb7fqg61.png?width=1760&format=png&auto=webp&s=6bf616116efaa0dccf38d19379def7ecd7049e77
The same 2018 endeavor returns with the oversized bug with one extra addition for the playoffs - The series scoreline. It’s oversized, but it does manage to feature BOTH batter and pitcher info, even if pitch counts are in its own box which makes the drawers of the players below the team boxes look like an afterthought and just slapped on. Extra credit tho: They included the batting order of the player AB!
Speaking of afterthoughts, you know how the team boxes as a whole, aka the colored rectangles have the same height as the play action boxes in black? Well, stupidly, ESPN just shoved the series scoreline ONLY for the two team boxes, so the dumb pitcher and batter info juts out the bottom like a sore thumb. I mean, you could pull the bar all the way across to at least make the whole thing a tidy rectangle right? Or hell, do it like the out-of-town tracker on the right where they found something to occupy the space so it’s even. Uh. I prefer the original 2016 Helvetica SNB design, at least that thing doesn’t take up 1/3 of the screen.
You tried. 4/10
Fox (ARI, DET, MIA, KC, ATL, STL, MIN, CIN, SD, TEX, LAA, CLE, MIL, TB)
https://preview.redd.it/88pjinl4fqg61.png?width=412&format=png&auto=webp&s=31a041f63a4ac48644679beed1671c8935cc61dd
Hallmark of just good design. From the neatly ordered rectangle in the lower-right-hand corner, to the timeless home run splash with concise info, to the right-positioned base indicator that transforms into line scores at will, to the rich and neatly-stacked pitcher-batter duel with radar guns and the batting order, need I say more? Fonts are high contrast, legible, and stunning beautiful to look at while not being distracting.
One thing to note tho, during the playoffs they switched the yellow base lights to white for the indicators for a game or two and because of how everything is black and white in the side panels, I thought the bases loaded indicators were bases empty for a half-second. Clear highlight color like yellow solves the issue. Don’t play with fire again.
Timeless. 10/10
NBC Sports (OAK, SF, PHI, CHW)
https://preview.redd.it/zj2uuuv2fqg61.png?width=614&format=png&auto=webp&s=f45dbcbd35fc6353ca694cd028a70b3e77507096
NBC is always one step behind on these things. Still obnoxious (for 2020) skeuomorphic and glossy team bars, and the complete absence of much pitcher-batter info. All you get is a pitch count and a radar flash for every new pitch. It’s passable for some year like 1998, that’s for sure, but when other stations have freaking leap-frogged your designs and became more informative, maybe spruce it up a little?
I suspect heavily that NBC saves a lot of manpower by not having their crews work extra to throw up the new pitcher and batter every 3 minutes, but I mean, you have the pitcher splashes for every bullpen summon. Come on. Your home run splash is still epic though.
Works but should try harder. 6/10
AT&T SportsNet (HOU, COL, SEA, PIT)
https://preview.redd.it/gekpj541fqg61.png?width=626&format=png&auto=webp&s=9d715c2044521d51cb52dace21f69a8567e6936a
Very, very weird. First of all, I’d just like to say how much I hate when scorebugs are one-sided. Play-by-play? Fine. When you can’t even award the courtesy of popping a home run splash to your opponent, that’s low. Such is the ballad of AT&T’s graphics. Seriously, it just ticks up the runs and empties the base lights. It’s a weird design where the ball-strike count is inexplicably shoved into the corner next to the giant bar for the pitcher and his pitch count. No batter info anywhere.
There are so many weird elements, like the vertically-aligned out lights that confuses me for a good five seconds before I realized they are out lights. A redo is necessary, but a rethinking is where it’s at.
Change it. 2/10
SportsNet LA (LAD)
https://preview.redd.it/xg45mskzeqg61.png?width=524&format=png&auto=webp&s=d16c1a55b149adbb7844c35a97a0ec9cde1d477b
I’ve always had a soft spot for the Dodgers’ scorebug. First of all, they do innovate, this year, their scorebug has adopted a new flatter design. Their base indicators are LIVE, and update immediately instead of after the play, and the run odometecounter design as players score and it updates is cool af. It’s also the ONLY scorebug where you get extremely-detailed batter info, including the results for his last AB! Why aren’t we all doing this? But the pitcher is unnamed as a result and his count shoved into a corner.
It is really pleasing, BUT it falls into the AT&T trap on not offering your opponents the home run graphics. Oh well, for a regional bug it can only do so much. Also they ditched the third out light for a lowly cross-dissolve. Why?
Be impartial. 8/10
MASN (BAL, WSH)
https://preview.redd.it/6jai38zxeqg61.png?width=470&format=png&auto=webp&s=729d7e5083acc9f63f5d748a071b6472da4c79d6
Do you only want the bare minimum? Do you absolutely hate any form of design? Do you want ZERO home run graphics, no names anywhere, and barely any pitch counting? I mean, when your infamous 2012 bug for the 30-run TEX showing has its own HR splashes, you gotta look into the mirror and figure out why the regression in design. Idk, is this a fucking PowerPoint slideshow all this time? Small W on the design tho, your bases are faux 3D! Yay!
Too visually drab, this is so bad. AT LEAST it’s clear, but it’s not informative at all really. Death knell: your radar gun OBSCURES the ball-strike count!
Some graphics won’t kill you. 2/10
Sportsnet (TOR)
https://preview.redd.it/3wh942queqg61.png?width=430&format=png&auto=webp&s=04796fbb3c70c7588a3b082e4c24de933666e4a0
Because this is a straight copy of Fox’s bug, like seriously, even down to where the inning, outs, and ball-strike count are placed, I’ll only focus on the differences. The immediate disappearance of the ball-strike count once the ball is in play is novel, you’re the only people who did it and it makes a huge amount of sense. It is unneeded and I might have yoinked it for my own design. But the pitcher is still active on the mound after a ball put in play, so why take that away?
Seriously though, your home run splash where the text flies in, truly rock.
Unique spin with very, very minor complaints. 9/10
SNY (NYM)
https://preview.redd.it/uenzs05teqg61.png?width=406&format=png&auto=webp&s=de98e3bd39b1dd9d60e92db0ab065771e9932428
After years of the godawful, bland, and extremely-outdated blue box, we get this. Still an evolution with the same home run animations, but everything is flatter, slimmer, and a little more colorful. Something about how sanitized it is still make it drab, but at least we don’t have to stare at that blue blob again, even if Large Attractive homered under it.
No batter info anywhere tho.
Decent evolution. 6/10
YES (NYY)
https://preview.redd.it/1w4oaj4qeqg61.png?width=420&format=png&auto=webp&s=2499f6c0113106cf3a6f24860b282285f4d85101
Now this is a scorebug I’ll have to say NO too. First of all, low-hanging fruit, no names anywhere. Fine, that’s also an NBC problem. But why on God’s Green Earth is the active play indicators (bases, outs, ball-strike count) split BETWEEN two sides? I literally have to dart my eyes around to even catch up on occupied bases and THEN see the count.
Also wth is with the semantics of “Pitch x” for the pitch count? I know it is semantics but it looks like the next pitch is x, instead of x+1 pitches. Small complaint, but does clarity not matter any more?
Needs a redesign. 4/10
NESN (BOS)
https://preview.redd.it/cu189xmneqg61.png?width=350&format=png&auto=webp&s=8ed197dd5597180b9a0a12e62d7f05bee8530f18
Welcome to MS Paint: The Scorebug. I know people meme flat design as being created with MS Paint — But this? This is actually MS Paint, not even kidding. NEW this year is finally, a pitcher name. Wowwee, gotta wait several millennia before they bring the hitter name in. They finally decoupled the pitch counter from the main element.
But somehow this isn’t bare minimum. Whatever happened to the 3D one in 2011? AT least that one IS a design. This one just had some spotlight transition, there is literally no design. Not even 3D bases.
No design. 1/10
Marquee Sports Network (CHC)
https://preview.redd.it/uhf4kspleqg61.png?width=788&format=png&auto=webp&s=b69008256de7a9e79b524030ab2d37aa425e8df3
I’ve saved the worst for last. Here’s some homework for you, take a look at the scorebug image, and tell me how many outs there are for this current play in the image. Answer: There are two. If I can quiz you on what a scorebug is supposed to represent, you have COMPLETELY failed. Even though, you have actual batter-pitcher info! With names! The fact I can’t tell how many outs because of your dumb neutral colors design deserves a zero.
And also wholly inflexible too, can’t even put up a graphic in real-time for Alec Mills’ no-hitter, just zero runs and some weird “Final” graphic where it sits on top of the bug for a few seconds after the final out before it descends. Also, the only network to use “2-run homer” as a nomenclature for your splashes.
The graphic wants to be good but it isn’t. Your network is solely dedicated to baseball. You can’t get baseball info right. Your radar blocks out the ball-strike count for a good few seconds.
Biggest L ever. 0/10
​
IN CONCLUSION - Just copy what Fox is doing. Even I did.
EDIT - Some paragraph spacing fixes, and finally fixed the network name for TOR. Sorry Jays fans.

TLDR: I tried to replicate the ICC Test Batting Ratings formula from a 30-year-old book and got decently accurate results.
Skip to Results for the graphs
Link to spreadsheet where I did all my calculations
Link to sections of the book that describes the algorithm
For a while now I’ve been interested in finding the formula for how the ICC Player Ratings are calculated. I figured that, although it might be quite complex, there would be some complete formula or algorithm specified somewhere online. But alas, after quite a few google searches, I couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for. The most information I could find was from this site, which is either old and has been superseded by the more current site or was never official in the first place. So eventually, I decided it would be fun try to reverse engineer them for myself.
Disclaimer: This was really just a proof of concept, the method I used was inexact and often not very scientific. If I wanted to do this properly, I’d probably need use a lot more sophisticated tools and software that I’m unaware of. All of this is to say that this is largely just to get the jist of the formula and I could be talking out my arse at points, but hopefully it is still interesting!
The Ancient Sacred Texts
In order for this to be remotely possible I needed data in the right format I needed to know what variables were actually taken into account. I had some idea of that from the aforementioned FAQ but I eventually found myself asking around on the member forums of the ACS (which if you haven’t heard of, I strongly suggest you check it out). They very kindly pointed me to this book, which provided almost all the information I needed to try to replicate the rankings. The final section of the book very handily gives a fairly detailed description of the algorithm used by the Deloitte Ratings, which went on to become the official ICC Ratings. However, it was written all the way back in 1990 and it is very possible that the rankings have changed quite a bit in the past 30 years. As well as this, there are some aspects that are left out that I had to guess/figure out for myself, which we’ll get onto later
The Data
Of course, I also needed to have all the data, from the description in the book I knew the raw data I needed to calculate the change in rankings after a match were as follows:
· The scores of each batsman in each innings
· Whether or not the batsman was not out at the end of his innings
· The bowling rating of each bowler at the start of the match
· The number of overs bowled by each bowler
· The batting rating of all batsmen before the match
· The winner of the match
· The number of innings played by the batsman before the match
Most of these things can be taken from the scorecard of a given match. I used CricketArchive because it seemed more consistent and easier to parse than cricinfo scorecards. Thankfully, you can also find the batting and bowling rankings at any given date in the history of Test Cricket online pretty easily here. So after messing around in Power Query for a few days I was able to fumble together a script that could take the scorecard link as input and then combine all this data together for all the batsmen involved in the match and spit it out. My dodgy script only worked completely on about half the matches I gave it and the webpages only show the top 100 at any given time (meaning you had to be in the top 100 batsmen both before and after the match for me to be able to find your rating), so after throwing it around 35 test matches since the start of 2017 I was left with 218 individual match performances as data points with which to experiment.
The Algorithm
Deriving the Match Score
The ratings are a weighted average of scores given to each individual innings, and the book provides this equation for getting the new rating after an innings
​
https://preview.redd.it/nxnloha7my061.png?width=572&format=png&auto=webp&s=ab24a8304af9aa5dd9ed523c204ef888a91a1fb9
*After looking at the book I tried to confirm the derivation of this formula but kept on ending up with (k * Old Rating * (1-k) instead of (k * Old Rating * (1-k^(n)). However, that through the numbers off so I think what is in the book is correct and not a typo. It would be really appreciated if someone could double check this though, and point to where I’m wrong if I am.
Where k is the decay constant that they set at 0.95 (I assumed it hasn’t been change since then) and n is the number of innings played by that batsman before that innings. We only have the ratings before and after each match as that is when they are updated, but we can make an approximation that I will call Derived Match Score (DMS), by manipulating the equation to get
​
​
https://preview.redd.it/52ktfva9my061.png?width=696&format=png&auto=webp&s=f729efc3b8ab1ce49505087147aecd0d046a81df
In theory, DMS should be equal to the weighted average of the first and second innings scores given to the batsman in that match, so I can define Match Run Value (MRV) as follows, and then plot it against DMS to verify my results
​
https://preview.redd.it/cuzvdlsamy061.png?width=479&format=png&auto=webp&s=dc61ca82ff458ba73d8967eb785251e61e00a393
Which leads us on to the meat of the problem…
Calculating the Innings Scores
This is the actual formula that gives a score to each innings, the book denotes this as Runs Value (RV) and the crux of the formula is as follows
​
https://preview.redd.it/esjmnvzbmy061.png?width=544&format=png&auto=webp&s=6be7944fe125c654d7287f3cb5399c8ae1711d4f
So what are all these variables? Runs is simply the number of runs scored in the innings. Average is the average runs per wicket over all of test cricket (the book states this as “approximately 31”, however I used 30.5 as it is closer to that now)
MPF, IPF and Quality require a bit more explaining. MPF, or Match Pitch Factor can be thought of as the average runs per wicket during the match, however there is some nuances that I will get to later. Similarly, IPF is Innings Pitch Factor and can be thought of as the average runs per wicket of that innings (with the same caveats as MPF). Quality is a sort of expected average runs per wicket, which is derived as some function of the weighted average of the bowling ratings of the opposition bowlers (weighted by the number of overs each bowler bowled in that innings).
You can sort of think of this formula as taking the runs scored by a batsman, making an adjustment for how difficult it was for the average batsman in that match, making a smaller adjustment for how difficult it was for the average batsman in that specific innings, and making a much bigger adjustment for the quality of opposition bowling. Also note that these adjustments are multiplicative, and that we’re still ending up with a score on the scale of runs. A batsman up against a perfectly average attack, in a perfectly average innings in a perfectly match will have the same Runs Value as the runs he made in that innings.
Innings Pitch Factor and Match Pitch Factor
This is the first place where there is a major lack of information in the book. Regarding the ratio of runs to wickets in a match, it states:

“Incomplete innings have to be adjusted first, as 180 for 2 would very rarely be equivalent to 900 all out. A separate formula thus transforms the simple ratio of runs per wicket to the much more important sounding ‘match pitch factor’ (although, it should be stressed, the actual pitch is not being assessed in any way)”

The only problem is that they don’t give any formula for this, so I was stuck. Ultimately, with no information on the functional form of said formula, the only way I could treat this was to guess a reasonable function and continue from there.
I decided the most reasonable assumption to make was that MPF was simply the average of the IPF for each innings, and that I would calculate “my” IPF as follows. Consider the average percentage of innings runs scored by the fall of the nth wicket, and denote it as C(n). I found data for partnerships in this paper, and used it as a proxy (I know that adding all the means and finding the cumulative percentage is not necessarily the same thing, but I figured it was a good enough approximation for my purposes).

Wicket	Average Runs By Fall of Wicket	C(W)
1	36.6	0.122
2	72.9	0.242
3	114.3	0.380
4	157.9	0.525
5	192.5	0.640
6	225.6	0.750
7	250	0.831
8	271.5	0.903
9	287	0.954
10	300.7	1

Then calculate IPF by projecting what the completed innings score of an incomplete innings was likely to be, after considering this table, and dividing by 10. So if an innings is declared on R runs and W wickets, then
​
https://preview.redd.it/puv3nkezeu061.png?width=162&format=png&auto=webp&s=2af97a43c02011d1faf8edd9ea7da1fd5adc3a88
This IPF isn’t perfect, but it made a slight increase to the accuracy of the results
Quality
After sorting out the IPF and MPF I still had to figure out how to calculate the Quality variable. As with the other 2, the book doesn’t give a formula or really any hints towards it other than it uses the weighted average of bowler’s ratings. So I made the assumption that it could be approximated by the basic formula
​
https://preview.redd.it/jfojiclemy061.png?width=407&format=png&auto=webp&s=c4023f84034d8a5c4092f4ed3d362d73f1d8d7b7
Where a and b were parameters to be estimated. I thought I could use a simple linear regression on this with the data I had, but I couldn’t easily extract the quality rating from the derived match score (for reasons I’ll get too soon). I considered trying to make this estimation based on a regression predicting the actual innings totals in the matches from the bowler’s ratings - that is what the Quality variable is supposed to account for – but the data for that would be too noisy to do it properly. So I ended up to resorting to the, not very scientific, method of using Excel's solver to find values that best fit the data, then rounding them to correct significant figures. I was left with a = 1800 and b = 30.
Adjustments
The book then describes adjustments made taking into account the result of the match. I won't cover them in detail here because this post is already massively long and they are in the pages of the book I linked to above if you are interested. Basically, batsmen with high scores in winning games have their score for that innings increased proportionally to how well they did, whilst low scores in losing efforts get quite severely punished. It was all described completely which was nice as it meant I didn't have to do any guesswork but the fact the adjustments were there meant that it wasn't simple to directly work out Quality as a function of the oppositions bowling ratings.
There are also adjustments made for if a batsman finishes not out but they aren't described at all beyond a brief mention so I decided to omit them from this.
Dampening First Innings
In order that a player doesn't reach the top of the rankings immediately if they have a particularly good debut. The book puts it like this:

"The system works for all but the newest Test players, who for the first few games of their career have their ratings damped by gradually decreasing percentages to stop them rising too high and too quickly.
But after ten innings (for a batsman) or 40 wickets (for a bowler), ratings are no longer damped - after then, players are on their own

It is unclear here whether or not this means that their real rating is kept and used to calculate new ratings, which then reduced by a different percentage after each match, or if a player's first innings simply gets counted for less forever. As it was simpler to implement, I chose the later. So now a player only ever receives a given percentage -p- of points for his first inning, and the percentage of points he receives for his second and third innings, and so on, are increased linearly until his -n-th inning, at which point all innings are worth full points in the ratings. So we have parameters p and n to consider
Using the same method as that used to estimate the a and b parameters for Quality, I determined that p = 50% and n = 10. In other words, a players first inning is worth 50%, and this increases until his 10th Inning which is worth 100%.
Results
So how does my hacked together approximation of the ratings compare? As mentioned, the MRV should be equivalent to DMS (up to a transformation). If we plot them together we see that they agree pretty well with each other. In fact MRV can explain roughly 90% of the variation in DMS
https://preview.redd.it/9m0k8fmlmy061.png?width=500&format=png&auto=webp&s=ce4a5a3dc88509129fcc7227b800f81d4dc27454
You may wonder why this isn't a trendline with equation y = x, but rather y = 22.2x +79.9. This was to be expected as the ratings (and therefore DMS) are all based on a scale of 0 to 1000 whereas Innings Scores (and therefore MRV) are still always on the scale of runs. But we can use the information from this graph to convert each Innings Score into the correct scale. Then we can use the first equation of this post to work out the rating after the first innings, given the rating before the match and the newly converted innings score for a batsman's first inning. We can then predict what the rating should've been after the match using the calculated rating after the first innings and the second innings score. This gives us a set of ratings that we calculated using our algorithm, along with the actual ratings calculated by the ICC after the match. Plotting them together looks like this
​
https://preview.redd.it/r99idlynmy061.png?width=453&format=png&auto=webp&s=7994b26a8a98377ec7dcdda91c7db765ce034a75
That's an incredibly close fit, but can be a bit misleading, as ratings after a match would be close to the rating before the match, which we use in our calculations anyway. It would be more informative to take a look at the change in the ratings compared to the predicted change in the ratings.
​
https://preview.redd.it/ls3xc45qmy061.png?width=487&format=png&auto=webp&s=4b7f8e23822c46227fecc40ef8209b92edec76b7
So this is still a good fit. In fact, this algorithm can explain nearly 92% of the variance in the change in official ratings after a test match. Is that good? I'll leave that for you to decide.
In theory it should be possible to get it pretty close to 100% as we're trying to predict a process which is itself driven by an algorithm and completely non-random. Still I think this shows we have an algorithm who's results tend to line-up pretty well with those of the official ratings, and I think it was not too bad for a first try.
Where do the uncertainties lie?
I think the biggest uncertainties are in that we don't really know what sort of function the Quality, MPF and IPF variables follow, and it seems impossible to ever know that with certainty. Similarly, there are a lot of parameters to be determined. There were at least 4 that were determined here and hey are all linked together in complicated ways its impossible to take one in isolation and determine its value. Even more parameters were taken as given and could've been changed since the book came out. The nonlinear weights for each factor as well as the decay constant were examples. If I had not considered them fixed I don't think I would've had enough data to confidently determine every parameter. So next time more data and more sophisticated parameter estimation techniques would be required.
What next?
The first thing I wanna do with this is to forecast the changes in ratings after each test in India's tour of Australia. That way I can test if it actually works on new data it hasn't seen before, or if its complete junk.
Also, now that we have a similar process for determining rankings as that used in test. We could use it to make our own batting rankings for first class competitions. I think that would be really cool and interesting, if say we had a complete rankings table for the County Championship
The obvious next step is to work out the bowlers ratings, but they are even more hideous than this algorithm, so I'll leave it a bit for now. Would be interesting to come back to some time in the future though.
If someone who actually knows what they're can pick this apart or point out a flaw in what I've done, I'd love to hear from you. I'm genuinely curious as to how someone would go about doing this sort of thing, and I'd love to learn more (even if it necessitates telling me this is complete garbage)!
If you made it this far thanks for taking the time to read this!

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.
​
​
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.
.
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.