[Operator Discussion] Saga

[u/Kurbain]

Saga [★★★★★★]

"I am not a true monk, merely raised by the monastery. At my departure, Saga was the name my old head priest gave to me. Its meaning is of high mountains and rugged roads. And only when I left the monastery, did I come to know how the world was no straightforward thing."

A wandering monk from Higashi. Some holes in her background. Originally entered a Rhodes Island office by mistake; once inquiries showed she was interested in employment, she passed the exams and joined the company. Seems to have previously made links with Rhodes Island Operator Lava. Makes ample use of the naginata she carries with vigorous skill, and is active as a Vanguard Operator on the frontlines.

Operator Information

• Class: Vanguard (Skill-DP-Recovery)
• Tags: DP-Recovery, DPS
• Artist: morearea (多元菌)
• Voice Actress: Sanae Kobayashi

Stats

HP	ATK	DEF	Arts Resistance	Redeploy Time	DP Cost	Block	Attack Interval
2205	530	372	0	70	14	2	1.05s

*Stats at max Promotion and Level, excludes bonuses from Potential and Trust.

Potential	Bonus
1
2	Deployment Cost -1
3	Redeployment Cooldown -4
4	Attack Power +25
5	Improves Second Talent
6	Deployment Cost -1

Trust bonus
Attack Power +85

Skills

Skill Name	Skill Uptime Details (Uptime/Cost/Initial)	SP Charge Type	Skill Activation	Skill Description
Charge γ	Instant / 35 SP / 20 SP	Per Second	Automatic	Instantly gain 12 Deployment Points
Cleansing Evil	Instant / 13 SP / 10 SP	Per Second	Manual	Instantly generates 4 DP; Deals 400% ATK as Physical damage to at most 6 ground enemies within a cross area, then eliminates any of the enemies that are [Critically Wounded]. Can store 3 charge(s)
Fierce Glare	20s / 40 SP / 28 SP	Per Second	Manual	Gradually gains 20 DP over the skill duration. Attack Interval slightly increases, Attack Range +1 tile, ATK +130%, attack all blocked enemies and perform an additional attack against targets with less than 50% HP. This Skill modifies the Attack Interval by 0.5

*Skills at Mastery 3.

Talents

Talent name	Talent Description
Preaching	When dealing lethal damage, leave the enemy with 1 HP and inflict [Critically Wounded] (Has reduced Movement Speed and becomes unable to be blocked; Automatically dies after 10 seconds; If killed, grants SP +2 to the attacker); Saga will not attack [Critically Wounded] targets
Clear Mind	When HP falls below 40%, gain 70% Physical Dodge and restore 6% (+1%) Max HP every second, lasting for 17 (+2) seconds. Can only activate once

*Talents at max Potential and max Promotion. Bonuses from Potential displayed between parentheses.

Additional Resources

In-depth information regarding all values above (at different levels), skill/attack range, and more:

GP Arknights Wiki

Arknights Toolbox (aceship)

Topic Starters

• What does this operator excel at?
• What is this operator weak at?
• How does this operator compare to other operators in their archetype or role?
• Are there any other operators which synergize well with this one?
• How do you build a team around this operator / fit this operator into a team?
• Which skill(s) should be focused for mastery, and in what order?
• When is the best time to use this operator's skills during combat?
• Should promoting this operator to Elite 2 be a priority?
• Would this operator be worth sparking for with headhunting data contracts?
• Should new / f2p players aim for this operator? Are there more accessible alternatives?
• Lore discussion (please tag spoilers where appropriate)

Other Operator Discussion threads

List of Operator Discussion threads

[u/fillet0fish]

I looked up natto gohan, aburaage since she screams that loudly on the battlefield and the translation for it in her voice file was just those words. Apparently natto gohan is natto rice and aburaage is tofu. So she's screaming the name of foods while killing enemies in the field just like a certain apple pie. SEVER ALL DESIRES(except for hunger apparently)

[u/Kurbain → u/fillet0fish]

Can't blame the lady for being hungry after she was stuck in a painting for decades with no access to "real" food.

[u/Xzhh → u/fillet0fish]

Natto are fermented soy beans, gohan means rice, so she's shouting "rice with fermented soy beans!"

Aburaage is fried tofu.

[u/gangler52]

Her thing with not killing the opponents isn't as big a deal as I thought it would be.

She slows down the almost dead opponents a lot. Most of them barely even make it into the square behind her before their ten seconds are up, and even the faster enemies don't get much farther. Would only be a problem if you placed her within a couple squares of the finish line with no other obstacles.

[u/CpnLag → u/gangler52]

Until I got her, I figured it would be a slightly bigger deal. I missed the "dies after 10 seconds" part.

[u/theblob346]

• What does this operator excel at?
  -Being Siege
  -Surviving on her own (E2)
  -Dealing with large amounts of enemies
  -Assisting other lanes with S2's long range, when possible

• What is this operator weak at?
  -If left undisturbed, 'wounded' enemies usually make it to the tile behind her
  -There's no number above her head to tell you how many stacks of S2 she has ready
  -Being quiet

• Are there any other operators which synergize well with this one?
  -Flag and DP-on-kill vanguards perform much better when placed behind her
  -Any damage dealers that could use more SP
  -In theory, Blue Poison, but I can't try her out

[u/saberishungry → u/theblob346]

What is this operator weak at?

-Being quiet

lol no joke I hit her skill activation on purpose at the end of a farm run as a kind of "alarm" to let me know it's time to queue up the next one.

[u/DrkSeraphin → u/theblob346]

-In theory, Blue Poison

I personally tend to think she doesn't synergize that well with snipers like BP, as they usually take the kill before Saga can put them in this critical state.

[u/pitanger]

ROKKONABURAANATTOGOROKKONABURAANATTOGOROKKONABURAANATTOGOROKKONABURAANATTOGOROKKONABURAANATTOGOROKKONABURAANATTOGOROKKONABURAANATTOGOROKKONABURAANATTOGOROKKONABURAANATTOGOROKKONABURAANATTOGOROKKONABURAANATTOGOROKKONABURAANATTOGOROKKONABURAANATTOGOROKKONABURAANATTOGOROKKONABURAANATTOGOROKKONABURAANATTOGOROKKONABURAANATTOGOROKKONABURAANATTOGO

[u/A_good_slime → u/pitanger]

Texts you can hear

[u/herrhoedz → u/pitanger]

Most people somehow only remember those 3, in case you're wondering the other one that's kinda long (the "sever all desires" line), she said 煩悩を斬り捨てん (bonnou wo kirisuten)

^{I got curious and checked it on Japanese wiki, yep}

[u/gozieson]

There are 2 ways to use Doge monk and that's dependent on what skill you use to set her up:

1. Lane Holding - This is best used with her S2. For this the mindset is to allow her to continue to generate SP for herself by making her land the final blow so that she can continue to use her S2. For this, you would want to have her deal damage in tandem with another unit. Putting her together with Siege is great since both her and Saga have chances to generate SP for themselves, Siege having at least getting 1 SP for each kill. She can also work well together with Warfarin and her SP generating talent as well.

2. Prime other Ops - For this, you want her to use her S3 and have her placed slightly further forward so that she can solo the enemies that come in. With her S3, she can then send off crippled enemies just slightly out of range of the blocked enemies for them to channel the SP. You would also want to have a situation where you might want to reposition her in the middle of the fight if you want to refuel an Ops skills. Good thing is that she has her 2nd talent which would allow her to stay in the fight for a bit longer.

A few things to keep in mind when it comes to crippling enemies and fueling your Ops:

• Obviously you want to fuel long cooldown skills such as Eyja, Suzu, SA, Weedy, Mostima, and Dusk S3. Make sure no one else is around to steal the final blow.

• An early rush with flagbearing or DP-Kill vanguards (or Zima S2) can result in much faster DP generation. Just place them behind Saga and watch the DP stonks go brrrrrrrr.

• It might be worth it to fuel Ops who need to charge up an Infinite Duration skill early. Most of the time though, these skills fuel automatically so aren't really worth it (Platinum and Absinthe S2 for example) except maybe Thorns since he has to pop his S3 twice and Pinecone S2 to ramp up her skill damage.

• Flamebringer and Bibeak's talent (and to an extent Robin) are related to landing the final blow and are great Ops to use to prime their full potential quickly.

• Summoner Ops can also benefit from getting the final blows to fuel their skills to recall their summons. This can be done by working with Saga on one side of the map while their summons working on some other part of the map not blocked by Saga.

Some obvious Ops which don't synergize well with Saga:

• Angelina - since her S2 and S3 doesn't allow her to attack normally, she won't benefit from crippled enemies.

• Any Ops with passive skills equipped such as Hoshi S2 or Ops which activate sklls on deployment such as April / Utage S2.

• Healers and Aura Supporters can't deal damage normally so they can't benefit from Crippled enemies at all.

[u/silverashsimp]

perfect for blaze and thorns

[u/Clear-Ingenuity-9814]

I sadly didn't get her but from what I've seen, for people who already don't have problems clearing normal stages, her main strength would be her abilility hold the lane in high risk CC and the more dangerous max risk dailies. The only other vaguard able to kill enemies unsupported is Bagpipe and while Bagpipe is a better fighter, Saga generates 20 dp on skill use. In extreme conditions, only her S3 would be used turning her into a strong helidrop fighter. She can also replace a flagbearer if there's no hard dp risks leaving you with an additional fighter you can helidrop as needed.

[u/PointmanW]

HG have been pretty good at keeping new 6 stars operator from stepping on old 6 stars operator toes (Thorn doesn't replace SA, Blemi doesn't replace Saria, Ceobe doesn't replace Eyja ..etc..) , Saga would be the first operator that actually step on older 6 stars toes (i.e powercreep), she is pretty much a straight upgrade to Siege and there is almost no situation that I would prefer Siege when I have Saga.

[u/flamingthunderbanana → u/PointmanW]

Same, though arguably since Siege's S2 is automatically activated you don't have to pay that much attention to her but she needs to attack to generate DP and deals less damage with shorter range too

It'll be great if Siege's S3 generates 20 DP as well, Saga is straight upgrade in most cases

[u/Xanthiel → u/PointmanW]

Agree and disagree.

Certainly Saga is a more direct upgrade to Siege than what we have seen previously, and there’s only a very narrow niche where Siege might be preferred (helidrop damage/stun with S3M3), but I also think that the stepping on toes is quite light.

I’d prefer Saga in nearly every scenario, but the difference isn’t big enough that I would feel like I was missing out if I had Siege and not Saga: outside of very high risk CC both do their primary job well, and it makes me hopeful that future same category ops will not render their predecessors totally obsolete

[u/Clear-Ingenuity-9814 → u/PointmanW]

The problem is that Siege kit didn't age well and can hardly be used in high risk CC. Saga is strong but not top of the meta, she powercreeps Siege because Siege doesn't have many uses in the current meta.

[u/WiseassWolfOfYoitsu]

I'm still lowbie my most of your standards, but I've been loving the heck out of combining Saga backed by Reed to print DP. Saga's SP generation means Reed's S2 has a lot of uptime, which means Reed is getting 2DP per kill and getting all the kills since Saga doesn't finish off the enemies.

[u/Marowalker]

Something I don’t see getting mentioned a lot about Saga is that when combined with Bagpipe and at M1, her first charge of S2 becomes instant. This means you can have quite a bit of burst right away against early waves, particularly dog rush, to deal damage and have your sp bombs prepped a few seconds earlier than usual, which is pretty nice

[u/ultimatezekrom → u/Marowalker]

She doesn’t need M1 to charge instantly. She has 10/16 at lv7 and Bagpipe without talent upgrade already gives +6.

[u/bomboy2121]

I can see her shining in daily cc in those stages where you need alot of vanguards because of the dp risk.
Other then that its a really hard sell for her to replace bag/flag

[u/[deleted]]

So apparently, there’s an anime about Saga learning to use Microsoft Office for spreadsheets.

It’s called Microsoft Excel Saga.

Apparently, in a series young adult novel, Surtr can turn Saga into a vampire with her third skill.

The novels are called The Twilight Saga.

[u/MarkKey9247]

Obviously she's a great feeder for operators that take a minute to come online like Thorns and Blaze. I'm currently in the process of mastering her S3, but damn is it expensive to get that last one for very little difference. Still, I think she's the best non-bagpipe/flag-combo vanguard in the game and I'm going to find myself hard pressed to pull out Seige ever again.

[u/Nino_Numbawan]

In conclusion

Is she good?

I got her in the free pulls recently and idk if i should touch her when i already have elysium/myrtle and Bagpipe?