Fenny - Pureheart is the current events operative - you can just do a trial to test her directly.
She is also available as a trial operative in the new Cerulean Getaway story.
Pureheart does very high damage, can have amazing mobility, has great AoE and single-target capabilities and can swap between them at-will, but that comes at the cost of her gameplay potentially feeling very clunky and the constant clicking and button mashing she requires.
Role: Main DPS
Deals Thermal Damage
Deals:
LMB combo: ~50:50 Ballistic : Skill dmg
RMB combo: Entirely Skill dmg
Mobility can be fantastic, or terrible, depending on enemies compositions
Can stay airborne for long periods.
(Indefinitely as long as there's an enemy nearby)
Mobility can be fantastic
High damage
Can easily swap between single-target and AoE
Not being near the ground for combat means she f**ks over melee enemies to a whole new level
Almost everything she does auto-seeks to enemies or is a large AoE
Mobility can be terrible
AoE and single-target effects are not segregated well, which can make her feel clunky.
M3 can make her feel clunky to play optimally for her RMB combo
The one thing she does that has no AoE or auto-seek is very literally the most important part of her kit.
Has no support functionality at all
Mixing shots and skill usage makes teambuilding problematic
Constantly leaping into melee range of enemies can lead to pretty poor survivability.
Against single-targets (or 1 single target with some trash mobs):
1. Use her Standard Skill to leap to the target, deal damage, and enter Aerial Purity state.
2. Press LMB until Pureheart shoots her Passion Sparkshot, gaining 1 Passion Propulsion
Use her Standard Skill to leap to the target, deal damage, and enter Aerial Purity state.
3. Repeat step 2 until she has 3 Passion Propulsion (the orange bars around the edge of her gauge in the centre of her screen)
When she has 3 Passion Propulsion, use her ult
Repeat
You will normally have to do step 2 three times, but if you miss a Passion Sparkshot you won't gain a Passion Propulsion, and hence will need to repeat step 2 until you have the 3 required to use her ult.
This rotation deals very roughly around 50% shot damage and 50% skill dmg.
This rotation should take around 11 seconds.
If you are up against a group of multiple strong enemies:
1. Use her Standard Skill to enter Aerial Purity state and go airborne.
2. Press RMB until either everything dies or Pureheart gets near the floor.
Repeat
This rotation deals entirely skill dmg.
This rotation deals less single-target damage than her LMB combo, so again - only use this rotation against groups of multiple strong enemies
Standard Skill
Pureheart leaps to the target.
This does have quite a high range, and this allows Pureheart to close gaps incredibly well.
Since it only targets enemies, it can't be used as a generic movement ability in the same way that for example Turbo or Dawnwings abilities can.
This does also give a small amount of slow-mo after it is used.
Once at the target, she then throws a "Heartburst Ball" (a.k.a. "big bomb") at the group, the explosion of which blasts Pureheart into the air.
With her Neuronic, this also inflicts a 5s DoT.
Yes, you can use this to get on top of obstacles that melee enemies can't get on top of, meaning they can't hit you.
This isn't actually useful in basically any gameplay, but it's worth noting.
After blasting herself into the air, Pureheart enters "Aerial Purity" state.
Entering Aerial Purity state automatically fully refills her Stamina and fully reloads her magazine.
Note that you can just spam her Standard Skill to repeatedly leap at the targeted enemy and bomb them.
Since this deals AoE damage, this is a perfectly viable way of clearing groups quickly, albeit not optimally.
It does have auto-aim though, so you can just spam the E key and everything will die eventually. Fun, but again - not optimal.
Whilst in Aerial Purity state, Pureheart can't be CC-ed, and can:
Do nothing and just fall back to the ground.
There is never a reason to do this in combat, but you could.
Right-click to throw a bomb to deal AoE damage
These bombs seek out nearby targets, meaning that provided you're aiming in the vicinity of an enemy you'll never miss.
These don't count as Standard Skill uses.
Left-click to shoot her gun at enemies
These LMB shots do count as shot hits, and can proc shot effects like aptitude buffs, but they don't count as Standard Skill uses.
These shots gain Thermal Aptitude, causing them to deal more Thermal DMG than normal.
Note that Pureheart can have multiple Thermal Aptitude buffs at the same time, so her shots can make use of both her own and Little Sunshine's Thermal Aptitudes.
These shots seek out nearby targets, meaning that provided you're aiming in the vicinity of an enemy you'll never miss.
Each shot that Fenny shoots will charge the gauge in the centre of the Purehearts screen.
Once the gauge is full, Purehearts next shot will be a "Passion Sparkshot", which uses the rest of all of her magazines (including special mags) to fire one strong shot
It takes 10 shot hits to generate enough to fire a Passion Sparkshot.
This final Passion Sparkshot deals around 21.5x more damage than her other shots, or around 2.15x the damage of all 10 of her other shots combined.
This final shot hitting its target also generates 1 Passion Propulsion (which is used for her ult).
If this shot fails to deal damage to an enemy, then you don't get any Passion Propulsion.
If it hits terrain, if there's no target because everything's already dead, if you just look in the wrong direction, the reason doesn't matter.
Note that whilst the visual animation of Passion Sparkshot is quite large, it has no AoE.
After using her Passion Sparkshot, Pureheart's LMB will have a brief lockout period that prevents her from using it briefly.
Pureheart will thus fall to the ground after using her Passion Sparkshot, but you can use her standard skill, use her RMB attack, or dodge to stay in the air.
This is the games hint as to what her rotation is - use her LMB attacks to charge up, and then you can use the standard skill to leap again, thus staying airborne.
Her Neuronic also gives her -50% Final DMG Taken during her next leap, which is a very nice damage reduction.
Using either the LMB or RMB attack will cause Pureheart to fall slightly after each shot.
Aerial Purity state ends when Pureheart touches the ground.
Not "Reaches equal height to where she started", but "when she touches the ground".
With enough distance to fall, Pureheart can stay airborne using her standard skill for an extremely long time.
By using her standard skill occasionally to re-gain height, Pureheart never needs to touch the ground at all - she can stay in the air indefinitely provided she has an enemy nearby to occasionally use her standard skill against.
Using either LMB or RMB during her during Aerial Purity will propel Pureheart backwards slightly.
If you are holding down a movement key, she will instead move in that direction.
Whilst in the air, Pureheart can dodge to quickly move in the given direction (or by-default forwards if you aren't holding a direction key).
Regardless of which direction you dodge in, Purheart maintains her vertical height whilst dodging.
Pureheart doesn't regen Stamina whilst in the air, so you get two dodges whilst in the air, regardless of how long you are airborne for.
Note that melee enemies can't attack Pureheart whilst she is in the air.
Being airborne also allows her to simply fly over certain enemy attacks.
Support Skill
Pureheart's Support Skill causes Pureheart to swap in and use her Standard Skill, leaping to the targeted enemy, dealing AoE damage, and entering Aerial Purity state as usual.
This means that Pureheart really doesn't have any support capabilities at all.
She could theoretically be used as or alongside a sub-DPS, as she can quickly and easily swap in and get her damage rotation up and running, but if you have another main DPS you want to be your only DPS, then Pureheart offers absolutely nothing as a support operative.
Ultimate Skill
Once Pureheart has 3 Passion Propulsion, she can fire a huge bomb in front of her, dealing AoE Thermal Damage and knocking up to 5 enemies into the air.
If Pureheart has more than 50 U-Energy (40 with the Neuronic) when using her ult, the bomb consumes all U-Energy to deal more damage based on how much extra U-Energy was used.
With her Neuronic, the bomb also deals 20% more damage if used during Aerial Purity, which is a very nice damage boost.
The damage of this skill is actually quite high.
Its U-Energy cost of 0 and 5s cooldown makes it theoretically very spammable, but in practice it's entirely limited by how quickly Pureheart can generate Passion Propulsion.
Also yes, Purehearts ult is a huge AoE blast, but you can only charge her ult by using a single-target-only attack - her AoE attack doesn't charge her AoE ult.
Even if Pureheart has 3 Passion Propulsion, she can't use her ult if she isn't on the field.
Pureheart also can't generate Passion Propulsion unless she is on the field.
This means Pureheart's ult can never be used unless Pureheart herself is on the field, and if she is never put on the field she can't even generate the charges to use her ult at all.
Welkin Starflare
Her 5* weapon, and her best weapon.
Grants Thermal DMG, Skill DMG, and extra Skill DMG taken.
All pretty standard for a new operative-specific 5*, but it works well.
Honeycomb
Her 4* event weapon.
+ATK after using an Active Skill and +3% Thermal DMG for 10s (up to 5 stacks) after shooting.
This means Honeycomb tends to work better for LMB attacks than RMB, due to the RMB attack not giving the Thermal DMG buff.
It's not enough of a difference that'd you'd change which attack you use just to get the buff, but it is notable.
(Also yes, Pureheart's 4* weapon does literally have stuff duct-taped to it.)
For weapon Parts just go with max ATK.
Use Sprout squad - it was designed specifically for her and is her best choice.
For stats you want +10.0% ATK and +106 Alignment Index.
For the Special talent, you want +8.5% Thermal Damage
Alignment gives her more ATK.
(A max-roll of 106 Alignment Index gives +5.3% ATK)
Her standard skill having a cooldown of 1 second (and being limited by animation speed anyway) means that Skill Haste is literally useless.
Similarly, her Support Skill just swaps her in, so there's absolutely no reason for it to have Skill Haste.
Her standard skill having an S-Energy cost of 0 means that S-Energy regen is literally useless.
Being a largely skill-dps means that crit rate and crit dmg amplifier are literally useless to her as skills can't crit.
Pureheart doesn't heal or create shields, so those stats are also useless to her
Her ultimate skill having a U-Energy cost of 0 means that U-Energy regen is literally useless for spamming her ult.
U-Energy regen is useful though since her ult gains extra damage from being used at higher U-Energy levels.
The extra U-Energy that a U-Energy Regen stat would give is very small, and it's a very bad stat for Pureheart, but it does actually help her.
...if she's using LMB attacks.
If you're just spamming RMB attacks with Pureheart then U-Energy Recovery is literally useless as well, as you can't charge or use her ult with RMB attacks.
This means that U-Energy regen is Pureheart's only cope stat.
Other than ATK, Alignment Index, Thermal DMG, and U-Energy Recovery all other stats are literally worthless to Pureheart and do not affect her dps at all.
M1 gives Purehearts standard skill and support skill an extra 18% Skill DMG taken modifier for 5s.
Given how rare DMG Taken modifiers are, this is actually extremely strong, especially for an M1.
M2 gives each LMB attack a -5% DEF debuff for 3s, up to 4 stacks.
If Pureheart is just spamming her LMB attack this is quite a nice buff.
Given how rare -DEF is, this is actually pretty strong.
If spamming her RMB though, M2 is basically useless.
M3 gives Pureheart +10% Final DMG dealt to all targets inflicted with the DoT from her standard skill activations Neuronic Effect.
This only applies if Pureheart has a Thermal Weapon equipped, but if you've gotten her to M3 she should always have a Thermal weapon equipped.
Remember that the DoT lasts 5 seconds.
Whilst +10% Final DMG is nice, this does mean that you will want to use her Standard Skill every 5s or more often in order to get this M3 damage bonus.
For her standard skill/LMB/Ult combo this is fine, and she should be doing that anyway.
For her RMB combo there's no need to use her standard skill at all, and given that her RMB attack deals more damage than her standard skill it's a bad Manifestation.
You either use a weaker attack to apply the +DMG buff, or you ignore her M3 entirely and just continue using her stronger RMB. Both feel bad.
M4 gives her standard skill +1 level with the usual +10% damage buffs.
This is basically the same as the M4 buff all other operatives have gotten for a long time now.
M5 just gives her +20% ATK whilst in Aerial Purity state.
A very nice buff.
If you want efficiency (good damage with minimal investment), then M2 is a good stopping point.
Siris - Freefin
Freefin isn't out yet, so we have no idea how good she is, but given that she's paired with Pureheart this event she's bound to be a great support for Pureheart.
Vidya - Celestial Swan (and other resistance shredders)
Celestial Swan and other resistance shredders (Acacia - Kaguya, etc.) that reduce the enemies resistance help enemies take more damage.
If using Celestial Swan, make sure the other support isn't off element to the main DPS.
Eatchel - The Cub
A Blitzing Fangs Eatchel provides a nice ATK boost, as well as the passive healing.
Given that Pureheart needs to be near enemies to deal damage, she can be quite squishy, which Eatchel massively helps with.
Enya - Exuvia
Her Skill Dmg buffs are very much appreciated by Pureheart, and Pureheart's LMB combo does shoot a lot to charge Exuvia's Zephyr Machine
Purehearts skills don't do enough hits to make great use of Exuvia's buff though.
Tess - The Magician
Purehearts ult benefits from having lots of U-Energy, and having Tess give a lot of it allows Pureheart more damage.
Overall Tess is a poor pick though - Pureheart needs time to charge her ult - Getting to max U-Energy immediately doesn't help Pureheart.
You're generally better off using a support that gives more damage to Purehearts entire damage rotation though.
Mauxir - Shadow Ka
Shadow Ka's utility is mostly useless to Pureheart due to her AoE and lock-on, however the extra damage is nice.
Nightglow
Nightglow is decent overall, but only her LMB attacks (around 50% of her damage) actually benefit from Yao's ballistic buffs
Skills can't crit, and Pureheart has a 0% crit rate, so unless she's shooting at a weakspot Yao's crit weakness mods are utterly useless to Pureheart.
Even if Ballistic and Crit buffs are useless, her ATK bonus is still good, but this makes Nightglow a cope support for Purehearts RMB combo.
Marian - Riptide
Pureheart benefits from Marians Skill DMG and ResPen buffs
Being off-element means that Riptide is not a good choice if used with Celestial Swan, but otherwise Marian works well.
Pureheart's Support Skill does allow her to get back into her damage rotation pretty much immediately after Marian is finished magdumping.
Since Purheart's LMB and RMB attacks don't count as skill uses though, they won't generate any Tidesong for Riptide.
It's not very effective, but as cursed as it sounds you can just spam Pureheart's standard skill repeatedly, which will charge Riptide's Tidesong quite quickly.
It's not an ideal rotation or operative pairing, but in a pinch it can work.
Cope Supports - I.e. you don't have the above, but you want her to have something:
Phantasia and Little Sunshine
Pureheart's LMB combo does shoot a decent number of shots.
Not that many shots when compared to a lot of other operatives, but it's not the worst RoF...
Agave - Basically a passive 20% ATK bonus. Decent, but not nearly as strong as the above.
A 15s buff on a 15s duration means it has basically 100% uptime though.
Fenny - Pureheart is... a mixed bag.
She's very certainly very strong if used properly, she can have good mobility, has strong AoE and single-target capabilities.
In practice though, having to use her single-target attack to charge up her AoE ult can feel clunky, as can the fact that her AoE attack doesn't charge up her AoE ult.
Her LMB attack dealing shot damage whilst her RMB attack is skill-only also makes her extremely clunky to use, as you need to basically pick whether you want to use her LMB or RMB attack ahead of time so you can select supports appropriately.
You can use some supports regardless, but for some supports like Enya - Tempest you really do need to know what you are going to do ahead of time to know if she'll work.
This in-essence means that Pureheart can function as a hybrid dps, using her standard skill, LMB attack, and ult, with the LMB attacks being shots and the standard skill and ult being skills.
Alternatively, she can be run as a pure-skill dps, using just her standard skill and RMB attack.
She just can't really be run as both at the same time.
Her support skill isn't really a support skill as much as it is just shaving a second or two off her standard rotation if using a sub-DPS, which is incredibly niche.
The fact that her RMB attacks don't charge her ult feels like very poor design.
Similarly, some of her Manifestations feel like they buff her LMB or RMB, rather than buffing all of her capabilities.
If I had to give her a TL:DR, I'd say Pureheart is "strong but clunky".