Operatives for Casual Play

The meta of Snowbreak is concerned with defeating Neural Sim bosses as quickly as possible and dealing maximum dps against Supreme Battleground bosses, but many players just want to play more casually, either because they don't care about those modes, don't need the rewards from better scores, want another operative who is fun for non-endgame content, or just want to prioritize other content.

This means casual players generally want an operative that is ideal for normal non-endgame gameplay, with little concern for how they perform at endgame.
Operatives that are popular for casual play will generally have the following traits:

• Are simple to use - doesn't require precise timing or memorizing any complex damage routine

• Doesn't need to continually spam buttons.

• Works decently well against both groups of enemies and bosses

• Isn't super fragile

• Can be used at range or close-up

• (and ideally looks great, of course...)

What works well for casual play is of course entirely subjective, but here are my opinions on which operatives work well for casual play:

• [Support + Healer] Eatchel - The Cub
  Just have Eatchel on your team and she'll passively heal your deployed operative.
  Eatchel doesn't have much DPS, mobility, AoE, or burst, so she's not a great main-DPS-operative, but she's the absolute perfect support for casual players.
  Eatchel's Standard Skill does group up enemies and give her next shots AoE, so she can clear groups of trash mobs without too much trouble.
  This doesn't much help her with bosses though, so whilst Eatchel can be used as your dps for general gameplay, I don't think she's the best.
  Both M1 and her 5* weapon both allow her to provide your main dps with an ATK buff as well, if you have them, and even for endgame content she's respectable.

• Vidya - Agave
  Vidya can just spam her standard skill, which has Auto-Aim and AoE, so to use her you literally just hold down your Standard Skill until everything dies.
  If she runs out of S-Energy then hold down the trigger until her mag is empty, then repeat.
  You can even save her Ultimate for later, allowing her to deal with casual bosses quickly and easily.
  Agave has decent damage, good AoE, auto-aim, a decent boss nuke, and decent manoeuvrability, making her ideal for casual play.

I'd say Agave + Eatchel is the best combination for casual play, however that is just my personal preference, and there are other very good main-DPS operatives as well:

• Katya - Dawnwing
  For groups: The AoE from her standard skill can clear groups pretty well, whilst also giving her good mobility.
  Being able to clear groups just by using her standard skill also means Dawnwing can clear trash mobs without aiming or shooting at all, which is very nice.
  That her standard skill allows you to move twice means she can end up back where she started, so she doesn't have to actually move much if you don't want her to.
  For bosses: You'll probably enter the boss with 12 Crystal Vanes from earlier enemies, in which case you can typically kill bosses by just magdumping them.

• Nerida - Styx Envoy
  Using her Standard Skill gives Nerida High mobility, auto-aim, and respectable damage against multiple targets - Nerida's very good for casual play.
  Her Standard Skill does force a lot of movement though, which can be an inconvenience or annoyance, so I personally still prefer Agave or Dawnwing.
  You don't need to hold the skill button down for Nerida though, which is fantastic.

• Chenxing - Jade Arc
  Most of her damage comes from her Ultimate, which you can use to delete bosses, but against groups you can just spam her standard skill a few times for an easy clear.
  Her dps is so high her standard skill is fine for clearing normal groups.
  She's quite fragile and doesn't have great mobility, but her very high damage is usually enough to counter that as far as survivability goes.

• Katya - Rhapsody
  For single targets shoot them. For groups use one of her abilities.
  Rhapsody has good movement, a strong single-target attack, and her ult gives her good AoE abilities.

• Lyfe - Wild Hunt
  For single targets shoot them. For groups use one of her abilities.
  Wild Hunt is in my opinion the best operative on the standard Echo banner for casual play.

Whilst all 4* operatives suck in comparison to 5* operatives, if you don't have any 5* operatives yet, then I'd recommend the following 4* operatives:

• [Healer] Yao - Quiet Quitter ("QQ")
  QQ can deploy a drone that performs PBAoE healing for 30s. This adds up to a lot of healing.
  Whilst Eatchel is the games best healer, QQ is the second best, so if you don't have Eatchel you can use QQ as your teams healer.
  QQ is basically useless as far as dps goes though - she's just there to heal.

• Lyfe - Wednesday
  Her drones make her very easy to play - just shoot stuff and use her standard skill as often as you can.
  The game gives you lots of Manifestation shards for Wednesday as well as a decent weapon (Work-in-Progress).
  This easy access to good investment allows Wednesday to have good damage whilst also being very easy to get.
  If you don't have any 5* operatives yet, I'd say Wednesday is the best 4* for casual play.

• Fenny - Lionheart
  Lionheart has a naturally very high ATK stat, giving her very good damage for a 4*.
  Being a shotgun user also means she has naturally good parts break, which combined with her high ATK allows her to easily deal with basically all enemies.
  Her standard skill also gives her a decent gap-closer to improve her mobility.
  Whilst Fenny is generally the 4* with the highest-damage, she lacks the range of somebody like Wednesday, and hence might not be the best for casual gameplay.
  Similarly, the game gives you Manifestation shards and a decent weapon for Wednesday, whereas Fenny doesn't get any such love.