With the release of Dragalia Lost’s newest major Void Battle, Void Poseidon, there’s one thing that proved an unsubstantiated but truly horrific feeling that myself and many other players have felt for a long while now: Cygames does not give a shit about Hawk.
Twilight Hunter Hawk was one of Dragalia Lost’s very first five star heroes, available since the launch of the game. He is currently the lowest rated five star adventurer available, sitting at Tier 3 of 6 on Gamepress’ adventurer tier list. His kit revolves around inflicting the Stun status effect whenever he uses Force Strikes after using his Hunter’s Creed skill. He has Freeze Resist which is good for combating a large amount of water enemies (the element he’s strong against being a wind type), but two of the three major farmable water bosses (High Mercury and Void Poseidon) have full stun resistance. Hawk has a niche for the Water Imperial Onslaught mission where his freeze resistance and stun are more useful, but Water IO is an incredibly broken mission with weird log obstacles that trip up ranged AI units and make them shoot into the geometry at nothing, thus making melee units far more desirable. Hawk can still be pretty effective in Water IO, but as an AI unit, he’s extremely compromised.
Archers were not very desirable party members for a while until the 1.7.1 update that allowed AI controlled units to use Force Strikes, which opened up a lot of bow users like Nefaria or our precious boy Hawk to be more usable in solo missions. Ranged units were further buffed in the 1.8.0 update, that improved the dodging behavior of the AI, making them much harder to kill overall. While I would PERSONALLY recommend putting Hawk in your main slot and playing as him yourself (because of his cool scarf), these updates mean that a lot of players can now put ranged attackers into AI controlled slots without worrying if they should be using a more practical melee unit. Because of this, a lot of ranged units have jumped up in the tier lists, and yet Hawk remains so, so low.
Not only is Hawk surpassed by powerful wind type adventurers like Maribelle, Lin You, or even the limited four star unit Addis, he was surpassed only two months after the release of the game by an adventurer named Louise. Louise is a newer five star wind archer, who reliably inflicts the far less resisted status effect Poison, and has a built in strength buff that triggers whenever the extremely common healer Lowen (who happens to be her adorable little brother) uses his defense buff. Not only is she overall more flexible, but her lack of reliance on Force Strikes immediately made her a more appealing choice than the more unwieldy Hawk, who, before the 1.7.1 update, was required to be in the player controlled spot in order to be used effectively. Many fools may also consider her sexier than Hawk, which I think is absurd!
It isn’t just one wind archer that overshadows Hawk, either! Another wind archer, Eleonora, also came out at the game’s launch and has steadily climbed the tier list until she also made it above Hawk. The kicker? She’s only a four star unit. A mere four star unit, far more readily available, easier to level up, and she was already kicking Hawk’s ass. Like Louise, she ALSO uses poison application, comes with 50% skill prep and Bog resist, which makes her a more useful pick for High Mercury and most of the game’s other content in general. She is also an extremely cute bunny girl that comes with a sick as hell cape, which leaves me to ponder probably the biggest injustice Cygames has deliberately done to Hawk. Why doesn’t HE have a cool cape??? If you weren’t cowards, Cygames, you would give him a cape to go with his cool scarf. I’m waiting, patiently.
Many tried and true Hawk fans were hoping that Void Poseidon would have an exploitable weakness to Stun that would make Hawk more desirable to play, as he’d finally have a niche beyond Water IO, but that is simply not the case. Cygames continues to shit on our precious Hawk to this day. He deserves so much better than just being a totally average unit. He’s got a really cool bird. He calls himself a “Reaper” which is, frankly, cool as hell if you ask me. He has. A cool scarf. He’s cute, and perfect, and I hope I get to draw him one day, even if he is, currently, the most disappointing five star in the game. God Bless You Hawk.
