Overview

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ART556 features high base Damage and a very strong Skill that roughly results in a 131% DPS increase while active, but it can sometimes be limited by her stat distribution. ART’s low RoF is the reason she finds herself outperformed by her downscaled counterpart TAR-21 if RoF cap hasn’t been met on both — due to the way RoF works, TAR-21 can potentially build up a significant lead on ART by having less frames to cycle through per attack. Once the RoF cap is reached, though, ART’s superior Damage and Skill modifier puts her head and shoulders above TAR-21 in DPS. Although she does perform well in this area in optimal situations, ART’s limitations are present in other aspects of her kit. Her high Initial Cooldown and mediocre uptime is something her high Damage stat and modifier failed to address, and she, just like TAR, is plagued by the fact that their Skills are nowhere near as strong as G11’s to make up for their Cooldown, and nowhere near as fast activating and consistent as G41 and Type95’s Skills. Overall, while ART fails to remedy the issues that plagued TAR and remains incapable of contesting the top ARs, she is still a good choice of an AR and is capable of dishing out insane amounts of damage while properly buffed.

Full analysis

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ART556’s stats are a mixed bag. On one hand she has a very good Damage stat of 53, but on the other, her RoF sits at 69, 10 points under TAR-21’s. Further contributing to this deficiency is the fact that ART’s upscaled Skill does not get a higher RoF modifier and therefore requires a higher amount of RoF buffs to match TAR’s pace. While TAR is able to reach RoF cap with an additional 18% RoF, ART requires nearly twice as much (35%) to do so. This means that, while TAR can reach RoF cap with just Ribeyrolles’ Skill (who is the best possible Support AR for TAR and ART), ART will require an additional RoF buff from a unit like Skorpion, Vector, or SR-3MP to provide the missing 10%. This ultimately has a negative effect on buff efficiency, since very few units can provide such a minimal ROF buff without wasting some of it. ART’s Skill Charge Focus is unto itself quite potent and can increase her DPS by roughly 131%, but it fails to remedy the issues that also plague TAR and by extension, ART. The long 6 second Initial Cooldown combined with its short Duration are some glaring deficiencies that plague this Skill and render it worse than the plain old Damage Focus T present in G41 and Type95’s kits. Furthermore, when comparing Charge Focus to G11’s Skill, which also has a long Initial Cooldown and mediocre uptime, G11’s Skill has a way stronger modifier (200%!) that makes up for it while not relying on stats like RoF to do its job, making the comparison almost unfair. On the topic of ART vs TAR, while ART may seem better as she possesses higher Damage and a stronger modifier in her Skill, the truth is that TAR will always either match or outperform ART as long as the RoF cap hasn’t been met due to the difference present in the ROF stats. If Ribeyrolles’ RoF buff is applied to both, there’s a 2 frame difference present in their attack cycles which leads to TAR outperforming ART. If we assume, however, that TAR hits the RoF cap but ART only reaches the 108 RoF threshold, (therefore making a 1 frame difference between their attack cycles) their total damage output will mostly be even, with ART having a very slight lead. Once the RoF cap has been met on both sides, though, ART is just plain better than TAR in every regard. Comparisons aside, when employing an ART-Ribey-TAR composition there are some factors that must be taken into account to make a truly efficient Echelon. For example as mentioned earlier, TAR cannot use any further RoF buffs after Ribey, thus making SMGs like RO635 and UMP9 a poor choice for main tanks. Instead, UMP45 is a better choice. To cap ART’s RoF and turn her into the beast she can be, we have to instead rely on the buffs of off-tanks — who in general tend to buff RoF — to complement ART. SR-3MP, Vector and Skorpion will all fill this purpose while providing good damage output of their own. Overall, while ART is plagued by the exact same issues that plague her counterpart TAR and she remains incapable of contesting the top ARs such as G41, Type 95, and G11, she can still dish out a very high amount of damage when properly buffed. Although she isn’t the best first choice for AR teams, she will surely not disappoint in secondary teams and ranking maps where Echelon compositions cannot be too picky.