Passenger

General overview

No operator has had popular opinion about them change nearly as drastically as Passenger. He was considered one of the worst 6 stars on release, but balance updates caused some people to change their minds about him. Add in his modules, and he's now considered one of the best casters in the game. That being said, I still think he's very good even without the module, provided you temper your expectations about what he can do. His crowd control isn't quite as good as dedicated slowers, his DPS isn't quite as good as some other casters, but he's substantially better at handling large crowds of enemies than a slower or caster would be on their own. Consider him a supportive unit that is coincidentally also very good at kicking ass.

E2? Yes, because skill 3 is very good and access to his modules does a lot for him. His chain length also increases to 4 from 3 at E1.

Game modes

Passenger can be a good CC pick because he has both utility and damage, but this is highly situational. What is not as situational is his performance in IS, which is almost always consistently good. He's a pretty good caster carry in early game, and there are a lot of relics that allow him to sweep in late game. Hand of Diffusion is notorious for making his skill 3 incredibly spammable. He's also a good pick for SSS if you can get a full stack of caster buffs on him.

Talents

Talent 1 - Mechanism Analysis

E1 When attacking enemies with at least 80% HP, deal 10% (+5%) increased damage to them for 3 seconds

E2 When attacking enemies with at least 80% HP, deal 20% (+5%) increased damage to them for 3 seconds

Nice bonus damage that lets him weaken enemies on their way to your frontline.

Talent 2 - Lone Soldier

E2 When there are no enemies in the surrounding 4 tiles, ATK +8% (+2%)

This buff isn't terribly hard to take advantage of, and you'll often get it for free by virtue of map design.

Skills

Skill 1 - Touch of Static

Skill effect: Increases the ATK of the next attack to 210%/250%; the attack jumps between 4 enemies and the duration of the slow is increased to 1.5 seconds

Overview: Not a bad AFK skill by any means. He can easily hold lanes of squishies with it. The jump between 4 enemies is redundant once you get him to E2, though.

Skill 2 - Focus Command

Skill effect: Attack Range +1 tile, ATK +20%/30%, Attack Interval decreases (moderately). Increase the maximum number of jumps to 5

Note: At level 7, this skill decreases his attack interval by -0.4 seconds. At M3, the decrease is -0.5 seconds.

Skill range:

Overview: A skill that's a lot more useful than it sounds on paper due to the range extension (due to the extra tile, yes, but also the effective range extension that he gets from having an extra jump). It should be considered in terms of its crowd control rather than DPS, which isn't great, but it can still easily wipe out weaker mobs.

M3? The offensive gains are a little mediocre, so most people can probably live without it. The biggest benefit is the additional uptime.

Skill 3 - Glorious Shards

Skill effect: Immediately generates a lightning storm centered on the target with the highest HP within a wide range, lasting for 4 seconds; deals an additional attack equal to 130%/150% ATK to a random enemy inside every 0.5 seconds. Can hold 2 charges

Skill range:

Overview: This is ostensibly Passenger's god skill. It's by no means a nuke, but it still does a whole lot of damage to a whole lot of enemies. The range is also ginormous, which allows him to attack things that no other operator can. The main caveat is the targeting priority, which may screw you if you're not paying attention to which enemies are in range. The uptime may seem slow sometimes, but this is easily fixed using SP batteries or his module X. This is all a small price to pay for a super unique and interesting skill with no direct competition.

M3? Mastery gains aren't great, but the 20% attack buff does more than it seems like it does on paper - remember each of the hits chains. Also, the small decrease in charge time is still useful.

Module - Electromagnetic Regulator

Level 1: Attacks deal Arts damage and jump between 4 enemies. Each jump deals 10% less damage and inflicts a short Slow

Level 2: Talent Upgrade: When there are no enemies in the surrounding 4 tiles, ATK +8% and own SP recovery rate +0.15/second

Level 3: Talent Upgrade: When there are no enemies in the surrounding 4 tiles, ATK +8% and own SP recovery rate +0.25/second

Overview: The base effect of this module is really easy to miss, both because it's subtle and because the developers love to use infuriatingly imprecise language. First, jumps do 10% less damage instead of 15% without the module. Second, and more importantly, the duration of his slow increases to 0.8 seconds instead of 0.5 seconds, which is the same as a slower supporter. This is a big deal, and you'll notice it immediately. The upgrades are also a big deal, as they increase his own SP generation by quite a lot and the upgrade stacks with the SP generation buffs that Mostima or Ptilopsis provide. On its own, the module 3 talent upgrade reduces the charge time for skill 3 to 24 seconds, and with Mostima, it brings it down to just over 18 seconds!

Module - Gold of Crowns

Level 1: Attacks deal Arts damage and jump between 4 enemies. Each jump no longer deals less damage and inflicts a brief Slow

Level 2: Talent Upgrade: When attacking enemies with 80% or more HP, Passenger will deal 25% increased damage to them for 4 seconds

Level 3: Talent Upgrade: When attacking enemies with 80% or more HP, Passenger will deal 28% increased damage to them for 4 seconds

Overview: This module really leans into Passenger's role as a DPS unit, eliminating the damage decay in his attack chains. This lets him really milk the 150% damage he does with skill 3. It also enhances skill 2 because you get 5 jumps of full damage. The talent upgrades give him more time to whittle enemy HP down, which increases his DPS even more. Level 3 doesn't have much to offer, though, so I recommend stopping at level 2 for the extra second.