You've NEVER seen this before - Arknights 11-20 Adverse LeithanienKnights 4 Ops

So this title isn't about one thing. It's about three separate things:

1) Bassline solo holding the map for a solid minute while I wait to redeploy everyone;
2) Ebenholz soloing this boss without any blocking or assistance; and
3) In the process of soloing the boss, Eben hitting it while it's untargetable and in the air

Any one of those working would have been wild (wild but, on its own, not enough for the clear to work), but somehow I managed all three.

So, this isn't the first time I've niched this map. 11-20 adverse is one of my favourite maps due to how much fun I had putting together my first clear here, pre-zwillingstürme. Dealing with the ranged pressure and holding multiple lanes was a challenge with only one ground unit, but with Carnelian beside Eyja, working together to hold the top lane, I was able to manage it. However, to get it down to a four op, Carnelian was the obvious cut. She helped a lot both with the boss and with Eyja's laneholding, but she couldn't solo anything, and I knew I'd need that to get it down to four. But that also meant I had to replace Eyja, since she couldn't survive the artillery fire without Carnelian splitting the damage. And just cutting those two complicated things. Without them, I needed to replace their laneholding AND account for the fact that Carnelian wouldn't be helping with the boss and Eben wouldn't be getting the 22% attack buff from Eyja. But that wasn't the only change.

Viviana was a clear addition to the clear to help take over for Eyja and Carnelian. She's very durable, and on S3 can basically shrug off the boss's arts barrage. Plus, her S3's range lets her help out elsewhere. But the thing was, I'd need to reposition her, and she couldn't help the other lane until she moved. So, we reach the first thing: Bassline just holding the map for a bit while everyone else gets redeployed.

This wasn't plan A. My first thought was having Czerny there, as he's more offensive, and I hoped that with Eyjaberry's healing he'd be able to clear out the top lane on his own, and then Vivi would be able to help with the boss. But he couldn't survive the whole map, and Vivi could help with the top lane OR the boss, not both. So it was going to be Bassline for his durability and healing, and Vivi clearing everything out in both lanes. This meant the only option was (thing two) an Eben boss solo, and to do that, I'd need to maximize the time it spent in his range. Meaning I'd need to move him AND Eyjaberry along with Vivi (since Eyjaberry couldn't survive the artillery fire at the start if I opened with her in her second spot, and Eben would need to take her first spot). So, Bassline would need to hold down the fort while everyone else played musical chairs. And somehow, despite him doing basically no damage at all, he did it.

But even with the redeployments and the revised positioning, the Eben solo still wasn't working. I even borrowed a pot 4 Eben from a friend (thanks Yin!!!) and it still leaked with one HP. So I was left desperately trying to perfectly manage his skill timings in order to just eke out the tiniest but of extra damage so that I hopefully wouldn't have to desperately search for a whale with a pot 5 Eben. Which led to me accidentally discovering thing number three: the boss becomes untargetable while it launches itself, but it doesn't become invincible.

Now, as far as I can tell, I might be the first person to discover this. I can't easily search bilibili, but everyone I showed this to had never seen it. So, very tentatively, I'm going to say that maybe, maaaaybe I discovered this. And even if not, I never expected to uncover a tech this obscure in the process of any of my clears. But anyway, how does this work? If it's untargetable, isn't that the same as it being invincible?

So, Eben's S3 can be manually cancelled, and doing so forces him to ignore his lengthy attack interval and immediately launch an auto. This alone rarely comes up. I think my DoS C map "solo" was the only clear I've done where it was necessary, as usually one off-skill auto attack isn't going to be the difference anywhere. But the skill timings were so tight here that I had to cancel the skill early right then anyway so it'd be up again as the boss entered the blue box. And after a few attempts, I hit this. It relies on cancelling the skill the frame the boss takes damage, so as to launch an attack before it becomes untargetable. As far as I can tell, it's frame perfect, and largely dependent on the game's search cycles (which makes hitting that frame perfect timing kind of a roll of the originium dice), and it's incredibly difficult to replicate. But, with the extra damage from that, the on-skill auto at the end was enough, and the clear worked.

Anyway I have no idea if people read my descriptions, but I had to get this out somewhere lol. I hope you enjoy watching this as much as I enjoyed putting it together.

#arknights