Gilberta vs Laevatain: Fest of Brilliance

The Fest of Brilliance rerun puts one of the most consequential pull decisions of the entire Version 1.2 cycle squarely in front of every active player. Four limited six-stars share the featured pool, but the genuine flashpoint — the one filling every Discord thread and Reddit comment chain right now — is Gilberta vs Laevatain. Pogranichnik and Ardelia have obvious homes; the Gilberta-Laevatain fork is where accounts diverge based on roster, taste, and resources. Picking wrong does not end your account, but picking right can shape the next two patches of your gameplay, dictate which weapons you chase, and determine whether your roster has the flexibility to handle whatever endgame mode releases next.

This guide is built for the player who has read every tier list comment thread, watched the conflicting YouTube videos, opened the spreadsheet of pull values, and still feels stuck. We are going to walk through the actual decision framework — not just “Gilberta is meta, pull her” — and cover what each operator does, who they pair with, what their signature weapons actually contribute, and what the realistic accountability looks like once you commit your pulls to one of them. By the end you should have a clear answer for your account specifically, not a generic one.

TL;DR - Key Points

120 pulls guarantees your pick — the Shimmering Moment Designation Permit at pull 120 lets you choose any one of Laevatain, Gilberta, Ardelia, or Pogranichnik outright. This is the real spark; plan your budget around 120, not 80
80 pulls = random featured 6★ — one-time milestone gives a guaranteed featured 6★ with a 25% per-featured roll. A useful early off-ramp if you land your target, but 120 is the hard ceiling
240 pulls = Shimmering Moment Token — one Potential unlock for a featured operator you already own; cannot be used to acquire a character you don’t have
Gilberta = multiplier; Laevatain = foundation — Gilberta amplifies a DPS you already own, Laevatain anchors a team built around her
Gilberta’s signature is skippable — a P4+ Stanza of Memorials actually outperforms it for team-wide damage; Laevatain’s signature is roughly +20% over Umbral Torch and closer to mandatory
Total resource cost favors Gilberta because she is “complete” on day one; Laevatain needs operator + signature to hit her ceiling
Roster determines the right pick — if you own Yvonne, Rossi, or Zhuang Fangyi, Gilberta slots in. If you have no completed team, Laevatain is the faster path to one
The free Urgent Recruitment 10-pull is a clean bonus that does not consume your guarantee
Skip the banner entirely if your roster is full and your resources are better saved for the Camille / Mi Fu wave in V1.3

Related read: Our Fest of Brilliance meta economics breakdown covers the wider 4-operator pool; this post zooms in on the Gilberta-vs-Laevatain decision specifically. For the post-pull picture — which carries actually want Gilberta in their roster — see Gilberta’s best teammates ranked, which goes deeper on synergy than the pull-decision math here.

Most limited banners in Arknights Endfield work the same way: one featured six-star, a soft pity at around seventy pulls, a hard guarantee at one hundred and twenty, and a slow refill cycle that gives the average free-to-play player roughly one full guarantee per patch and a half if they clear every available source of pulls. That math is tight. It is so tight that the community spreadsheet tracking pull income has become required reading for anyone planning more than one banner ahead.

The Fest of Brilliance banner breaks that pattern in two important ways. First, the featured rate is divided among four operators — Laevatain, Gilberta, Ardelia, and Pogranichnik — so even if you reach the soft pity around sixty-five to seventy pulls, you still only have a one-in-four chance of getting the specific operator you want.

The compensating mechanic is the Shimmering Moment Designation Permit at pull 120, which lets you select any one of the four featured operators outright. This functions as a hard 120-pull spark — fundamentally different from a single-character limited, because your target is guaranteed within a defined budget rather than dependent on landing the right 25% roll at 80-pull pity. Pogranichnik and Ardelia tend to have obvious homes — Pogranichnik for any physical or SP-recursion roster, Ardelia for any account missing a universal healer — so for most active accounts the genuine flashpoint is the Gilberta-vs-Laevatain fork, which is what the rest of this guide is built around. If you are still triaging across all four, our Fest of Brilliance meta economics analysis covers the wider four-way decision. And because Endfield has not yet confirmed a recurring rerun schedule, the operator you skip might not come back for many months.

Gilberta in the Meta: What She Actually Does

Gilberta is, mechanically, a damage amplifier and elemental infliction enabler. Her kit revolves around stacking susceptibility on enemies, providing meaningful sub-damage during her ultimate window, and contributing utility through grouping and crowd control. The reason she is described as “universal” in community discussion is that her debuffs apply to nearly every team archetype involving an element other than her own, and her own damage profile is high enough that she rarely feels like dead weight in compositions she was not designed for.

The teams that explicitly want Gilberta as their fourth slot include the Yvonne hyper-carry composition, every Rossi physical-arts hybrid build, Zhuang Fangyi electric teams looking for a comfort flex slot, and emerging compositions built around the rumored arts DPS units coming in V1.3 and beyond. Notably absent from this list: the Laevatain Heat composition, which prefers Ardelia for Corrosion application. When an Endfield player asks “who completes my team,” the answer is Gilberta more often than any other single operator — but the question only resolves to her if you already own a carry that benefits from arts amplification.

Her signature weapon is where the conversation gets nuanced. Unlike most signature weapons in the game — which typically deliver a fifteen to twenty percent damage uplift over their best alternative — Gilberta’s signature is widely considered the “luxury pick” of her arsenal. A P4+ Stanza of Memorials actually outperforms her signature for the team-wide damage that her role exists to deliver, because Stanza’s team ATK% buff piggybacks on a Gilberta ult rotation you would be running anyway. Community calculators consistently recommend prioritizing your DPS carry’s signature first, Stanza P4+ second, and Gilberta’s own signature only as a luxury pull after both of those are locked in.

Laevatain in the Meta: What She Actually Does

Laevatain is a fire-element main carry built around the combustion mechanic — a damage-over-time system that rewards stacking burn applications and detonating them with arts bursts. Her kit is dense, her ultimate animation is one of the most visually rewarding in the game, and her team archetype is unique in a way that no other current operator can replicate. If you want to play fire DPS in Endfield right now, Laevatain is the only option that can actually anchor the comp.

Her standard team configuration is Wulfgard for Heat Infliction setup, Akekuri or another SP battery, and Ardelia as the support/healer slot. The community consensus is that Ardelia — not Gilberta — is the optimal support for Laevatain teams: Ardelia’s Corrosion application gates several of Laevatain’s damage multipliers, and Gilberta’s roughly 5-second amp window does not align with Laevatain’s longer damage window. This is important for the decision math: picking Laevatain does not implicitly require Gilberta. If anything, Laevatain pairs better with the other operator on this banner (Ardelia) than she does with Gilberta.

That said, Laevatain’s signature weapon is far more impactful than Gilberta’s. Damage calculation comparisons place her signature roughly twenty percent above her battle pass weapon, Umbral Torch, and roughly forty percent above the next-best standard alternative, White Night Nova. If you pull Laevatain and intend to actually main her, going for the signature is closer to mandatory than optional, which dramatically increases the total resource cost of bringing her online compared to Gilberta.

Signature Weapon Math: The Cost-of-Entry Problem

The community calculations on signature weapons have shifted some opinions over the past patch, and they are worth restating clearly because they materially change the decision.

Weapon Priority (Gilberta)	Notes
1. Your DPS carry’s signature	Always more impactful than any Gilberta-side weapon
2. Stanza of Memorials at P4+	Team-wide ATK% buff on Ult cast; piggybacks on a rotation you’d run anyway
3. Gilberta’s own signature	The “luxury pick” — marginally behind P4 Stanza for team damage
4. BP Opus	Fights the team’s SP economy; wasted in physical comps

For Laevatain the picture is very different:

Weapon	Operator	Best Free Alternative	Approx. Damage Gap
Umbral Torch (BP)	Laevatain	—	Baseline
Laevatain Signature	Laevatain	Umbral Torch	+~20%
Laevatain Signature	Laevatain	White Night Nova	Much larger gap

The headline: Gilberta’s own signature is genuinely skippable because a P4+ Stanza of Memorials actually outperforms it for the team-wide damage that Gilberta’s role lives or dies on. Pulling her signature is a luxury, not a requirement. Laevatain is the inverse — her signature is roughly +20% over her battle pass weapon and is closer to mandatory for any player who intends to main her.

The implication is concrete: a “complete” Gilberta build costs only the operator pull (you likely already have access to Stanza of Memorials), while a “complete” Laevatain build costs the operator pull plus a meaningful weapon banner investment that takes most free-to-play players approximately two full patches of saving.

This is the calculation that flips the decision for a lot of mid-investment players. If you are sitting on enough resources for a single 120-pull Designation Permit track and nothing more, Gilberta delivers more usable account power because she is “complete” on day one. Laevatain at no signature is still good, but she leaves a visible gap that nags at most players who care about optimization.

The Real Decision Framework: Four Variables

Here is where most guides go wrong. They line up the two operators on a tier list, point at the higher-ranked one, and call it a day. That works if your only goal is to mirror an endgame whale’s account, but most players are not building toward maximum theoretical DPS — they are building toward “I can clear the content I want to clear with characters I enjoy playing.” The right pick for your account depends on four variables.

Variable One: What Operators Do You Already Own?

The single biggest factor in this decision is your existing roster. The community wisdom that “Gilberta is always the right answer” is partially correct but importantly incomplete: she is the right answer for accounts that have a DPS unit she can amplify. An account with Yvonne, Rossi, Zhuang Fangyi, or a built-out Last Rite team will get tremendous mileage out of Gilberta as the fourth slot of multiple compositions.

An account that lacks any of those carries will find Gilberta sitting on the bench, because she is a support — she does not anchor a team on her own. In that scenario, picking Laevatain gives you both a carry and the framework of a complete team, which is a stronger immediate account improvement.

Variable Two: How Much Future Content Do You Want to Future-Proof?

Endfield has been transparent about the fact that endgame modes are still rolling out. The first wave of permanent endgame content (Umbral Monument modes, Turbidity Manifest, rotating challenge nodes) currently does not demand multiple full teams from most players, but the development trajectory clearly points toward content that will — the upcoming Contingency Contract analogue being the obvious example.

If your account currently runs only one polished team, the question becomes: which pick most efficiently builds out a second team for you? For most accounts, Laevatain creates a second team faster than Gilberta does, because she comes with a unique element identity and a dedicated archetype that does not overlap with whatever your primary team is. Gilberta, by contrast, slots into your existing team — which is great for raising that team’s ceiling but does not add a new team to your roster.

This is the strongest argument for Laevatain that does not get enough airtime in the community discourse. Supports only future-proof a roster that already has multiple viable carries. If you do not have multiple carries yet, carries future-proof you better.

Variable Three: What Does Your Pull Income Look Like?

Even ignoring the operator pull itself, building either to a competitive state requires resources beyond the character banner. Laevatain’s signature is close to mandatory for mains, which means setting aside the equivalent of two full patches of Arsenal saving. Gilberta is significantly cheaper to complete because her signature is skippable.

If you are sitting on enough resources for a single full pity track and nothing more, Gilberta delivers more usable account power on day one. If you have a larger reserve and can plan ahead for the weapon banner, Laevatain becomes a viable target.

Variable Four: Which Operator Do You Actually Want to Play?

This is the variable that gets dismissed most often, and it is also the one that most reliably predicts whether you will be happy with your decision six weeks from now. Gacha games run on long-term engagement, and operators you do not enjoy playing get benched no matter how good their numbers are. If Laevatain’s combustion animations and explosive ultimate window genuinely excite you and Gilberta feels like a chore to control, picking Gilberta because she has a half-point higher tier list rating is a bad trade. The inverse is also true.

The community consensus that “always pick meta” tends to underweight this factor because it is hard to quantify, but the players who report being happiest with their pulls six months out are consistently the ones who optimized for play feel alongside numerical strength.

Account Archetype Recommendations

Rather than restate the framework in abstract terms, here is how it resolves for the most common account configurations.

Archetype	Pick	Reasoning
Zhuang Fangyi main	Gilberta	You already have a functional arts DPS team; Gilberta upgrades it and enables future arts DPS
Yvonne or Rossi main	Gilberta	Both teams explicitly call for Gilberta as their fourth-slot core
Last Rite Cryo main	Laevatain	Cryo is already covered; Laevatain adds a genuinely different second team
New account (1-2 limited 6★)	Laevatain	She brings a complete team with her; Gilberta needs a carry that isn’t there yet
Whale (can pull both)	Laevatain first, then Gilberta	Laevatain’s signature is the higher-priority weapon pull
Roster-complete veteran	Skip	Save for Camille/Mi Fu in V1.3

The Zhuang Fangyi Main

If your account is built around Zhuang Fangyi and you have her signature weapon, you almost certainly already have a fully functional arts DPS team. Adding Laevatain gives you a second damage profile that overlaps with what Zhuang already does — different element, similar gameplay loop. Gilberta is the stronger pick here because she also slots into the Zhuang composition as a fourth-slot upgrade and simultaneously enables future arts DPS units that will inevitably want her buffs. Our Zhuang Fangyi banner pull strategy breakdown has the full team-comp matrix if you want the supporting math.

The Yvonne or Rossi Account

This is the clearest Gilberta case. Both Yvonne and Rossi compositions explicitly call for Gilberta as their support core, and trying to run either team without her requires noticeably more compromise than other comps demand. If you have either of these carries already and you do not have Gilberta, this banner is your opportunity, and you should not overthink it. Our Yvonne complete guide has the team-comp specifics.

The Last Rite Cryo Account

Last Rite teams are a slightly more flexible case. The composition wants Xaihi and Tangtang for setup and amplification, and the fourth slot can rotate through several options. Gilberta is fine here but not as transformative as she is for other archetypes. Laevatain provides a genuinely different second team that does not overlap with your existing cryo identity, which makes her a stronger account-diversification pick for these players specifically.

The Newer Account With Limited Six-Stars

For accounts that have one or two limited six-stars total and are still building toward their first complete team, the answer is almost always Laevatain. She brings her own composition with her, she works with a wider range of supporting four-stars and five-stars than most carries, and the immediate clear-power improvement is more meaningful than a support that needs an existing carry to enable. Gilberta is a multiplier; Laevatain is a foundation, and newer accounts need foundations before they need multipliers.

The Whale Account

If you have the resources to pull both — and “both” here means roughly 200-280 pulls (120 for the Designation Permit pick, plus another 80-160 to swing at the second operator via 6★ rolls), plus weapon banner investment for at least one of them — the order should be Laevatain first, Gilberta second. Laevatain’s signature is the higher-priority weapon pull, and securing her ceiling first lets you spend the Gilberta investment more flexibly afterward.

Pull Timing: The 80, 120, and 240 Milestones

Fest of Brilliance stacks five one-time milestone rewards on top of the standard rate-up. Two of them — pulls 80 and 120 — define the actual pull-budgeting math.

Pulls	Reward	What it means for planning
30	Urgent Recruitment x10	Free 10-pull, separate from your 6★ guarantee
60	Basic HH Permit x10	Another free 10-pull on the banner
80	Guaranteed featured 6★ (random)	One-shot guarantee, 25% per featured
120	Shimmering Moment Designation Permit	Pick any one featured 6★ outright — the real spark
240	Shimmering Moment Token	One Potential unlock for a featured op you already own

All five milestones are one-time-per-account rewards tied to cumulative pulls on this specific banner, and the banner’s pity counter is independent — it doesn’t carry into prior or upcoming banners and isn’t affected by pulls done elsewhere.

The mechanic that actually anchors the pull budget is the Shimmering Moment Designation Permit at pull 120. It is a free-pick of any featured operator (Gilberta, Laevatain, Ardelia, or Pogranichnik), and it is the reason this banner is fundamentally safer than a single-character limited: 120 pulls is a hard ceiling on landing your specific target.

The 80-pull guarantee still matters, but as an early off-ramp rather than the planning floor. If you reach 80 and the random featured roll lands on your target, you can walk away 40 pulls under budget. If it lands on another featured, you keep going to 120 — at which point the Designation Permit gives you who you actually wanted. There is no scenario where you reach 120 pulls on this banner and fail to acquire your specific operator.

The Shimmering Moment Token at 240 is a duplicate Token (one Potential level) for a featured operator you already own. Crucially, it cannot be used to acquire a character you don’t have — for example, if you don’t own Gilberta, the Token cannot grant Gilberta’s Token. It is purely a dupe-pushing reward for whales, not a planning anchor for free-to-play accounts.

Each Headhunting pull also generates Bond Quota, tradeable in the Quota Exchange for Chartered HH Permits, Marks of Perseverance, and operator dupes — incremental value on every pull, on top of the milestones.

How to budget

120 pulls is the planning floor for guaranteeing one specific featured operator. If you cannot confidently reach 120, skip.
80 pulls is the lucky-break threshold. A 1-in-4 chance to land your target early, with the 120 Permit as the safety net if you miss.
240 pulls is whale territory — relevant only if you both want the Token and already own the operator it would unlock.

Free-to-play pull income from a single patch is roughly 75-90 pulls if you fully clear available content, which is short of the 120 floor by 30-45 pulls. Accounts entering the banner with little or no banked income should treat this as a “save and watch the timer” decision, not a “start pulling immediately” one.

If you start pulling and hit Laevatain (or whoever your target is) at soft pity around pull 70-75, that is a major win — you have the operator you wanted at well under one full Permit track, and you can either stop or keep going toward the 120 Permit to grab a second featured operator outright.

What to Spend Your Standard Selector On

A related decision that often pairs with this banner: the standard six-star selector that many accounts have unspent from mission rewards. The right pairing depends on your Fest of Brilliance pick.

Fest of Brilliance Pick	Recommended Standard Selector
Gilberta	Pogranichnik (physical core) or Last Rite (cryo core)
Laevatain	Pogranichnik (different team archetype) or Lifeng (physical amp)
Skipping the banner	Hold the selector until V1.3 confirms Mi Fu/Camille kits

Avoid spending the standard selector on duplicates or on operators that do not unlock a new team for you. The selector is one of the most valuable single resources in the game, and “I’ll figure out how to use them later” is the most common reason players regret their pick six months out. For SP-economy context on Pogranichnik specifically, our Akekuri vs Pogranichnik SP showdown lays out where he actually fits.

The Long-Term Pull Roadmap

Looking past this banner, the community is watching V1.3 announcements closely. Camille has been confirmed as the first non standard male 6★ Sarkaz Blood Hunter and lands around May 29, and Mi Fu is widely speculated as a near-term limited Heat-adjacent operator. If either of those banners is confirmed in the next preview stream, the decision math shifts again — particularly for accounts that were leaning toward Gilberta primarily for her future-proofing value.

The general principle that holds regardless of what comes next: save approximately one full guarantee worth of pulls between banner closes, even if the upcoming featured operator looks weaker on paper. Endfield’s pull income has been generous compared to some contemporary gacha titles, but it is not so generous that you can afford to chase every limited operator without a buffer. A patient account that picks two or three operators per quarter and skips the rest will run circles around an impulsive account that pulls on everything and never has resources when a truly significant operator drops.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Confusing the 80-pull guarantee with the 120-pull spark. 80 gets you a random featured (25% chance of your target); 120 gets you the one you actually want. Plan around 120 as the floor, not 80.
Stopping at pull 100 or 110. You are this close to the Designation Permit. Pushing the last 10-20 pulls turns a random outcome into a guaranteed pick — almost always worth it.
Pulling Gilberta and then chasing her signature anyway. The math is clear: a P4+ Stanza of Memorials outperforms her signature for team-wide damage. Skip the weapon banner and pocket the credits for your DPS carry’s signature instead.
Pulling Laevatain and not chasing her signature. Her signature is the +20% bracket where the math actually argues for the pull. Running her at Umbral Torch leaves a visible ceiling gap.
Picking based on tier list rank alone. “Gilberta is meta” is not an argument if you have no DPS for her to amplify.
Spending the standard selector on a duplicate or filler. It is one of the most valuable single resources in the game; treat it as a deliberate roster pick, not an afterthought.
Burning your free Urgent Recruitment 10-pull before checking the banner mechanics. It does not consume your six-star guarantee, but assuming otherwise has cost players pulls.
Banking on the 240-pull Token for a character you don’t own. The Shimmering Moment Token only unlocks a Potential level for an operator already in your roster. If you don’t own the featured op, the Token does nothing for them — don’t budget toward 240 expecting it to “complete” an acquisition you haven’t made yet.

Watch List: What Could Change This Decision

Forward-looking factors worth tracking before the banner closes:

V1.3 preview livestream — if Mi Fu is confirmed Heat DPS, Laevatain’s elemental monopoly weakens and Gilberta moves up
Camille kit reveal — if his composition demands a specific support, that may push the calculus toward saving entirely
Future arts DPS unit announcements — any new arts striker dramatically increases Gilberta’s downstream value
Endgame mode previews — a confirmed multi-team content mode shifts the future-proofing math toward Laevatain
Designation Selector rotation changes — if Pogranichnik or another core support enters the standard selector pool, your post-banner ladder changes
Rerun cadence confirmation — if Hypergryph confirms regular reruns, the “you might never see her again” pressure drops

Final Read

If you are still on the fence after all of that, here is the simplest version of the decision the community has converged on.

Pull Gilberta if you already have a strong DPS carry (Yvonne, Rossi, Zhuang Fangyi, or a built-out Last Rite team), if you value account flexibility over single-team ceiling, and if you want to minimize the resources required to “complete” your pick. She is the safe, high-mileage, low-additional-investment option.

Pull Laevatain if you are still building your first or second team, if you want a genuinely different team archetype to add variety to your endgame mode rotations, if you have or can earn the resources for her signature weapon, or if you simply find her gameplay more enjoyable than supportive amplification roles. She is the higher-ceiling, higher-cost, more distinctive option.

Skip the banner entirely if you do not have a confident path to 120 pulls (the Designation Permit floor for guaranteeing your specific target) or if your roster is already complete enough to clear current content. There will be other banners, the rerun system appears to be live now in some form, and burning 80 pulls on a 1-in-4 random featured roll without the budget to reach 120 is the worst of all possible outcomes.

Whichever way you go, the most important thing is to actually finish the build before moving to the next banner. The graveyard of underwhelming Endfield accounts is full of players who pulled five limited operators, leveled none of them, and now cannot clear the content their roster should be able to handle.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Fest of Brilliance banner a true rerun?

It functions similarly to a rerun in that all four featured operators — Laevatain, Gilberta, Ardelia, and Pogranichnik — were previously available on standalone limited banners, and players who missed them then can acquire them now. The development team has not confirmed whether this multi-operator Special Headhunting format will be the standard going forward or whether traditional single-character reruns will eventually launch. Treat it as a rerun for planning purposes but do not assume future reruns are guaranteed.

Can I get both Gilberta and Laevatain from this banner?

Yes, but only with significant pull headroom. The Shimmering Moment Designation Permit at pull 120 guarantees one of the two outright; the second has to come from a 6★ roll on top of that (25% chance per featured 6★), so plan for 120 plus another 80-160 pulls to give yourself one or two more swings at the random featured guarantee. Budget somewhere in the 200-280 pull range if you specifically want both, and accept that the second one is still partly RNG. If you only want one of them, 120 pulls is the planning floor and the ceiling — the Permit guarantees your pick.

Does the free Urgent Recruitment 10-pull count toward pity?

The free Urgent Recruitment 10-pull does not consume your six-star guarantee if it happens to grant a featured operator. It is a clean bonus that does not affect any of the standard banner mechanics.

Should I prioritize this banner over saving for the next patch?

If you do not have an existing carry that Gilberta amplifies, and if you already enjoy the team archetypes that Laevatain or Gilberta would slot into, this banner is one of the strongest value opportunities currently available. If your current roster is well-built and you have specific operators you are watching in V1.3, saving is the safer call.

What happens to my pity if I do not get my target before banner close?

Pity on Fest of Brilliance is independent — it doesn’t carry into prior or upcoming banners. The 30/60/80/120/240 milestones (free 10-pulls, guaranteed featured 6★, Shimmering Moment Designation Permit, and Shimmering Moment Token) are one-time-per-account rewards tied to cumulative pulls on this specific banner, so if you stop before 120, you forfeit the Permit; if you stop before 240, you forfeit the Token. This is the closest thing the banner has to spark-style pressure: once you’ve banked enough pulls to be within reach of 120, finishing it out is almost always correct.

Is Gilberta’s signature weapon really worse than a P4 Stanza of Memorials?

For team-wide damage — which is what Gilberta’s role actually exists to deliver — yes. Her signature’s team damage gain is only marginal compared to a P4+ Stanza of Memorials, and Stanza piggybacks on a Gilberta ult rotation you would already be running. The practical priority order is: your DPS carry’s signature first, Stanza P4+ second, Gilberta’s own signature only as a luxury after both of those, and BP Opus dead last because its Battle Skill requirement fights the team’s SP economy.

Is Laevatain’s signature weapon really mandatory?

“Mandatory” is strong, but the math is closer to mandatory than for almost any other operator. Roughly +20% over Umbral Torch (her battle pass weapon) and +38% over the next-best standard alternative places her signature in the bracket where the pull is genuinely worth it for any player intending to main her.

Will Gilberta be useful in V1.3 and beyond?

Almost certainly. Every confirmed and leaked future arts DPS unit overlaps with her buff and debuff profile. The risk in picking her is not that she becomes obsolete — it is that she becomes redundant if you do not own a carry she can amplify.

Will Laevatain be power-crept if Mi Fu is also Heat DPS?

Possible but not confirmed. Mi Fu’s element has been speculated as “Heat-adjacent” but no kit has been officially revealed. Even in the worst case where Mi Fu directly competes, Laevatain’s existing team archetype (Wulfgard + combustion) remains functional — she is unlikely to be benched outright, just no longer the only fire DPS option.

What should I do if I genuinely cannot decide?

Default to Gilberta if you have any built carry on your account, and default to Laevatain if you do not. The framework above resolves to one of those two outcomes for roughly 90% of accounts; only the very newest and the very most invested accounts are genuine edge cases. And remember — the worst pick is no pick at all, since splitting resources across both leaves you with neither.

The Fest of Brilliance banner is not a routine pull decision and it should not be treated like one. Take the time to map your account state against the framework above, make a deliberate pick, and then commit fully to building the operator you chose.

GILBERTA VS LAEVATAIN: FEST OF BRILLIANCE