Eccentric ecologist Muelsyse is swimming her way into Arknights Global in the upcoming Lone Trail event, bringing along her watery abilities to support Rhodes Island. She will be a Limited operator from the Here I Stand Headhunting banner.
Being one of the few surviving Elves, Muelsyse is one of the founding members of Rhine Lab alongside Saria and Kristen Wright, as well as the director of the Ecological Section.
Class & Archetype
Muelsyse is a 6★ Tactician Vanguard, a special archetype that operates more like a summoner and a lane-holder rather than a typical Vanguard. Unlike any other Vanguard, a Tactician is almost like a Marksman Sniper in terms of stats and they even fight in ranged tiles.
The unique aspect of Tacticians that sets them apart from regular Vanguard is the Reinforcements, special summons that they can deploy within an open melee tile designated as the Tactical Point within their attack range.
Furthermore, whenever the Reinforcements are blocking enemies, a Tactician will deal 50% more damage as they attack. Note that the Reinforcements cannot be relocated once they have been deployed unless the Operators that summoned them retreat.
These unique qualities make Tacticians rather unique and require different considerations when playing them. That said, they still provide a roughly similar DP gain, thus still play a similar role to any Vanguard despite their uniqueness.
Talents
Elite 1 Talent – Pure Water is Life
As a Tactician Vanguard, Muelsyse too can summon her own Reinforcement through her first Talent, Pure Water is Life. Her Reinforcement is called Flowing Shape and has a rather unique quality, unlike any other summons.
First off, Flowing Shape will not cost any DP or use up the Unit Limit slot. Additionally, Muelsyse can deploy Flowing Shape in both melee and ranged tiles, unlike other Tactician Reinforcements that are traditionally melee only.
More importantly, the aspect that defines Muelsyse as an Operator is how Flowing Shape works, which is to mimic any undeployed allies and copy 90% of their stats, including block counts. Additionally, depending on the type of Operators the Flowing Shape mimics, the mimicked unit will gain unique properties.
If the mimicked Operator is a melee, the Flowing Shape’s attacks will Steal a certain amount of the enemies’ ATK and DEF. Resets whenever the Flowing Shape mimics another Operator.
Meanwhile, if it is a ranged Operator, the Flowing Shape will gain a trait where after every ten attacks, it would clone itself into four additional Shapes on the adjacent tiles for a set duration.
What’s more is that even if Flowing Shape falls in battle, they will slowly rejuvenate their HP over time and revive themselves.
Elite 2 Talent – Expenditure Economization
Muelsyse’s second Talent, Expenditure Economization, is designed to synergize with her co-workers at Rhine Lab. When Muelsyse is in the squad, any other Operators associated with Rhine Lab will have their DP cost reduced by 2, while the first unit from the research organization will have an additional 1 DP cost reduced.
Note that this only affects her allies, and not herself. That said, 2 DP cost reduction can mean a lot in battle and allow for more expensive units to enter the field earlier.
The currently available Rhine Lab operators in the game and can be affected by the Talent are as follows:
- 6★ – Dorothy, Ifrit, Magallan, Saria, Silence the Paradigmatic
- 5★ – Astgenne, Mayer, Ptilopsis, Silence
Skills
In general, Muelsyse’s Skills focus on her role as a Vanguard, allowing her to generate DP for the team while further bolstering the strength of her Flowing Shape. All Skill values will be the maximum possible numbers of maxed Level 7 and Mastery 3.
Skill 1 – Progressive Moisturization
Muelsyse’s first Skill, Progressive Moisturization, gradually generates DP over its active duration, up to 13 DP while enhancing her and Flowing Shape’s ATK and ASPD by 50% for 15 seconds.
A rather straightforward ability that can be useful in certain situations, especially for the ATK and ASPD boost. However, in most cases, you would much prefer to utilize her other Skills as they offer far more utilities.
Skill 2 – Ecological Interaction
Her Skill 2 is when things get interesting. Named Ecological Interaction, the ability generates 15 DP upon activation and bolsters the ATK of Muelsyse and her Flowing Shape by 50%, while also granting the latter the following effect for 15 seconds:
- If the Flowing Shape mimics a melee Operator, it will regenerate 5% Max HP over time and gain 25% of Sanctuary, a buff that reduces incoming Physical and Arts damage.
- If it is a Ranged mimic, they will gain the ability to hit twice in a burst against random enemies within their attack range.
One of Muelsyse’s biggest strengths is the impressive stats that the Flowing Shape possesses, however, she has a weakness of not being able to sustain them on the field.
This Skill helps to divert that weakness for the Melee variant of the Flowing Shape. For 15 seconds, the Flowing Shape gains a non-stop health recovery of 5% Max HP and 25% damage reduction against both incoming Physical and Arts damage. If your Flowing Shape mimics a beefy Operator’s stats, it can practically be unkillable with this skill’s active duration.
For the Ranged Flowing Shape buff, the effect meant that the Shape would clone itself into adjacent tiles every 5 attacks instead of the usual 10, thus further improving their damage output.
Skill 3 – Superficial Regulation
At first glance, Muelsyse’s Skill 3, Superficial Regulation, can seem similar to her Skill 2 as they both have identical uptime, DP generation, and SP costs. Similarly, they also both buffed Muelsyse’s and her Flowing Shape’s ATK by 50% while also granting unique effects to the latter.
The special buff granted to the Flowing Shapes is what set both Skills apart as Skill 3 has a much more complicated and fancier set of properties and they are as follows:
- When active, enemies near a melee Shape will be pulled toward it with a small force strength every 2 seconds. Furthermore, the Flowing Shape will continuously stun enemies that are currently being blocked by it until the duration ends.
- For ranged Shapes, immediately respawn the adjacent clones, restore their HP fully, and cause their attacks to Bind enemies for 1.5 seconds.
As compared to Skill 2, Superficial Regulation would have the upper hand in terms of utilities.
As noted previously, Muelsyse’s weak point is her ability to keep her Flowing Shape in melee tiles healthy. The stun effect of Skill 3 can help her sustain the Flowing Shape so long as the enemies are stunnable as the stun effect would serve as a form of damage reduction.
However, keep in mind that the pull strength is not the greatest thus it would not stop any large enemies from stampeding through the Flowing Shape. Although against smaller enemies, the Flowing Shape can be rather useful at pulling them in for a brutal beatdown while Stealing their stats.
On the other hand, the effect of Skill 3 is great at boosting the ranged Shapes and causing them to deal amazing damage against medium to low-defense enemies while also being able to Bind multiple of them, especially if the Shape had mimicked a powerful Sniper’s stats.
Final Thoughts
The Rhine Lab founder has a lot of things going for her, from her contribution to science to her powerful kit in battle. As the second 6★ Tactician Vanguard in Arknights, Muelsyse goes against her archetype convention slightly, thus gaining much versatility compared to others in her role.
Unlike other Tacticians, Muelsyse can deploy her Reinforcement, Flowing Shape in any tile. Additionally, the Flowing Shape gains almost all the stats of a specific chosen undeployed Operator, allowing it to adapt to many different situations.
Since both her Skill 2 and Skill 3 are similar in many ways, it all comes down to the matchup and tile availability. If you are going for ranged Flowing Shapes, both Skills can output roughly similar DPS with Skill 2 having a more favorable peak, while Skill 3 offers crowd control through Bind.
On the side of melee Flowing Shapes, both skill options are great and it all depends on what you are looking for, whether more crowd control with Skill 3 or better survivability with Skill 2.
All in all, Muelsyse is worth the consideration due to her versatility but she is also a rather difficult Operator to utilize if you are clueless about which Operator to choose for Flowing Shape stats mimicking or the map layouts. Despite her confusing skills, she is ultimately a Limited Operator so go for it before her banner goes out of availability.
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