Arknights Mastery Priority Guide – Masteries & Skills
Table of Contents
- Quick Links
- Announcements
- Introduction
- How to Use This Guide
- A Note on Guide Maintainability
- A Note Regarding Modules
- Trouble Viewing?
- Categories (post-General Update)
- Story
- Advanced
- IS (if present)
- Categories (pre-General Update)
- Story (pre-update)
- Advanced (pre-update)
- Roguelike (pre-update)
- Grades
- S
- A
- B
- C
- None
- Breakpoint
- Minor Notes
- Quick Jump to Start (Selected Q&A)
- Updated Category Definitions (post-General Update)
- Unit Entries & Lookahead Summaries
- Act or Die - Full Article & Units
- Tragodia
- Tippi
- Miss.Christine
- Other Updates & Pull Priority
- Lookahead: Fantasy in the Mirage, Raidian, Ato, etc.
- Selected Unit Notes (Vanguards, Guards, Snipers, Casters, Supporters, Defenders, Specialists, Medics)
- Glossary
- Revision History
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Quick Links
QUICK LINKS
6★s
Vanguards Guards Defenders Snipers Casters Medics Supporters Specialists
4 & 5★s
Vanguards Guards Defenders Snipers Casters Medics Supporters Specialists
Most Recent Update - Act or Die
Most Recent Article - LD - Reddit
Lookahead Glossary Revisions
Other Arknights Guides An Arknights Tier List Paid Pack & E2/M3 Ticket Value Sheet
Socials & Fiction TacticalBreakfast's LinkTree My Fiction (AO3, contents may be NSFW)
Official Short Link https://tacb.short.gy/mastery-priority Note any other short link not explicitly mentioned here is not maintained by me.
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Announcements
Hello friends. I am finally starting the general update for all of the dated units! This is primarily for the first few years of units. While they're still perfectly viable units, the last year and a half or so of extreme powercreep has lowered their priorities significantly and left a lot of their writeups to be very dated. A sweeping update is necessary for the consistency of the guide.
However, it will not be a fast process. It is a big task! There's over 330 units in the game now and I am but one man! So my plan here, to avoid the risk of majorly screwing things up or hitting major burnout, will be to do it by class, and even possibly splitting up some of the larger classes. The downside though is that until I'm done, the guide will be in a somewhat awkward state of consistency, so I'm adding the chart below to track the progress.
So all this is to say, please be aware that the unchecked sections are likely to be out of date! And if you spot any errors or mistakes on the checked sections, please drop me a line at TacticalBreakfast on Discord!
Class - Done? - Date
Vanguards - [X] - 2025-08-04
Guards 6★ - [X] - 2025-09-02
Guards 4-5★ - [X] - 2025-10-06
Defenders - [X] - 2025-10-6
Snipers - [X] - 2025-10-13
Casters - [ ] - TBD
Medics - [ ] - TBD
Supporters - [X] - 2025-11-2
Specialists - [ ] - TBD
Most Ungraded 4-5★ - [ ] - TBD (will be done last)
Ideally, I'll also be adding some QoL changes too. I'm currently thinking about dark mode, adding portraits, adding skill icons, and maybe adding a note about if a unit is kernel/standard/limited. I may possibly try some new formats too. So if you see something awkward, I may be actively working on it!
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Introduction
Hello, and welcome to TacticalBreakfast's Mastery Guide - Google Sheets Edition! This guide is intended to help you pick the best skills in Arknights, and make wise use of your resources when it comes to the very expensive Masteries.
Additionally, I write full patch summaries that cover a variety of topics such as Should You Pull and Modules. You can find these either on the Lungmen Dragon's website or on Reddit. Both are linked above in the header.
You may know this guide from Gamepress, which is now defunct, so this sheet will now serve as the permanent home of the full guide. This sheet will continue to be the permanent home and be updated for as long as the guide is still maintained, even if I begin to post it on another site.
If you spot any mistakes please let me know! My preferred way to get in touch with me is Discord (username TacticalBreakfast). I am also available on Twitter/X (@TacBreakf1) and Reddit (/u/TacticalBreakfast).
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How to Use This Guide
The main thing to be aware of is that this guide should not be used as a general guide for who is meta and who to raise, especially at any tier below S. It is true that more powerful OPs tend to cluster towards the top. After all, the best skills investments are strongly correlated with the most meta units, but the presumption in this guide is that you've already decided to raise the unit. Or more specifically, it does not take into account the E2 costs. It is solely about the skills. That said, the discussions will often touch on a unit's meta-value, so there should still be some use here for those looking for more general advice. When in doubt, you would be generally fine sticking with the S- and A-tiers.
Additionally, this guide should not be taken to be a tier list of skills. There are other factors besides the power of the skills taken in a vacuum. An easy example of this is Entelechia's S1 compared to Highmore's S1. Strictly by the numbers, Entelechia's is better, but Highmore's has the higher grade. This is because S1 is Entelechia's third best skill. It is almost never the best choice over her S2 or S3, which are graded higher. Meanwhile, Highmore's S1 Masteries are more important to her own use, and she has value in IS#3, making her S1 the much better investment between the two.
This is all to say that this guide should not be used as a strict order of investment. It would be a mistake to simply do all the S-tier skills followed by all the A-tier and down. Instead, this guide should be used to help you decide on that order. The correct order will always depend on factors that can't be accounted for in a game like Arknights! It depends on your playstyle, who you have, who you already have raised, and what you value!
Note, units are listed in release order. Order within the list DOES NOT imply priority. However, ungraded 4 and 5★s are placed at the bottom to avoid clutter.
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A Note on Guide Maintainability
Arknights has a huge roster. It's basically impossible to maintain a guide like this over a long period of time. As of this writing, there are over 230 graded write-ups in this guide and that number only gets bigger with time! I do my best to fix major flaws that age poorly, but ultimately, things will slip through the cracks.
So that said, you should generally give deference to the more recent units (and thus more recent write-ups). If you take any two given units that have the same grade, it is far more likely the more recent one will be the better investment, especially at the S and A-tiers of grades. Again, this guide is meant to help you determine your best investments and shouldn't be taken as a strict tier list!
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A Note Regarding Modules
This is not a general guide for Modules and a general recommendation for Modules is rarely made in the write-ups. However, certain skills require a Module to function, so some overlap is inevitable. These are generally noted with an * and a note in the write-up or below the grade box. Please keep in mind that this is NOT a general Module recommendation. One unit needing their Module to justify a grade does not necessarily mean their Module is more valuable than someone else's. For example, Irene needs her SWO-X Module to justify using her S2, but Wisadel does not need her Module to justify her Masteries. However, Wisadel's Module is of course far more valuable despite no such note!
If you're looking for general Module suggestions, I would recommend DragonGJY's Grade sheet which can be found here or Mal's articles on the LD page here.
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Trouble Viewing?
Some people have reported not being able to change tabs at times. I have no idea what causes it but it's a Sheets bug. People have said clearing browser cache fixes it. You can also try the html view.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iJF12O6QOba1dlUVmobwvc1eBZE7FRB6-tKxmZEcG1I/htmlview
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Categories (post-General Update)
These definitions apply to updated writeups, and future write-ups.
Story
The Story category is for players who are only focused on rewarded content. This means all normal stages, challenge modes, the SSS mode, minimum CC clears, RA, and other similar content. It also includes low-difficulty IS, typically up to the trimmed medal.
Note that this does not necessarily imply simplicity. For example, special favor is not given to AFK skills just because they are easy to use. Rather, the focus is on the best skills for the more "typical" scenarios that a majority of players care about.
Note previous iterations of this guide excluded IS from Story grades. This is no longer true and as noted above, low-difficulty IS is considered in this grade. You can find a full explanation over here.
Advanced
The Advanced category is for any player interested in non-rewarded gameplay. By its nature, this is a less well defined category. It can include things like high-risk CC, high difficulty IS, niche clears, or self-limited clears. Really any sort of min/maxed gameplay can be considered!
Due to the less-defined nature of this category, the grade should not be taken as specific advice to a specific event or specific type of clear. High-risk CC, specific IS endings, or particular niche clears occasionally involve very unusual Operators or skills, however just because they are used once does not mean they are generally a good general investment!
The Advanced category is a very broad one and can mean different things to different people, so a large measure of personal judgement will be needed. It would simply be impossible to cover all possibilities in a single absolute grade, particularly when considering niche clears. The write-ups will attempt to address some of the nuances if possible.
Be aware that if a unit has IS grades, high difficulty IS usage will NOT be accounted for in the Advanced grade.
IS (if present)
Some units, but not all, may have an "IS" grade. This is usually because they have some special consideration with regards to Integrated Strategies. Most often, this is due to a specialized Module which gives powerful, but mode specific buffs, meaning the evaluation differs depending on the gamemode you favor. However, it may also sometimes be used for units that are unusually valuable in IS but not in Story content, although this is rare in the current meta.
It's worth a quick clarification that a unit not having an IS grade is not meant to imply they aren't good in IS. While having an IS grade generally means a unit is good in IS, the reverse is not true! Rather, the IS grade is meant to reflect when there's a split in value that can't be easily reflected in a singular Story or Advanced grade.
Note that in previous versions of this guide, the IS grade only reflected the trim medal difficulty. This is still true of un-updated units (see the next paragraph), but for updated units, those who still have IS grades will account for higher difficulty usage. But as with Advanced grades, this should not be treated as specific ending or iteration advice, nor is high difficulty the only consideration.
Note Roguelike grades used to be universal in the guide, but will be phased out as a general grade beginning in Oct 2025. You can find the full explanation over on this tab. Further, until the general guide update (discussed above) is complete, the guide will be in a transitory state where older write-ups have not yet had their Roguelike grades removed.
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Categories (pre-General Update)
These definitions apply to write-ups which have yet to be updated. This will eventually be fully deprecated.
Story (pre-update)
The Story category is for players who are only focused on rewarded content. This means all normal stages, challenge modes, the SSS mode, minimum CC clears, and other similar content.
Note that this does not necessarily imply simplicity. For example, special favor is not given to AFK skills just because they are easy to use. Rather, the focus is on the best skills for the most typical scenarios.
The major exception here is Integrated Strategies (i.e. the Roguelike mode). Although rewarded, the pressures in this mode tend to be different so they have their own category. Also note that there may occasionally be difficult events not included despite being "rewarded". The biggest example of this is Design of Strife (DOS). The high end rewards are minimal and the mode was generally considered to be a mistake, so despite the top-end technically being "rewarded", no consideration is given in the Story grades.
Advanced (pre-update)
The Advanced category is for any player interested in non-rewarded gameplay. By its nature, this is a less well defined category. It can include things like high-risk Contingency Contract, niche clears, or self-limited clears. Really any sort of min/maxed gameplay can be considered!
Due to the less-defined nature of this category, the grade should not be taken as specific advice to a specific event or specific type of clear. High-risk CC or particular niche clears occasionally involve very unusual Operators or skills, however just because they are used once does not mean they are generally a good investment!
The Advanced category is a very broad one and can mean different things to different people, so some measure of personal judgement will be needed.
Roguelike (pre-update)
The Roguelike category is speccific to the Integrated Strategies mode. The pressures of the mode tend to be very different and so it justifies its own category. While Story grades focus on rewarded content as the baseline, the Roguelike grades are a bit different. The Roguelike rewards can all be obtained by playing at the lowest difficulty, but that consideration isn't useful to many people! Further, max difficulty is also not considered. The considerations at max difficulty are often very specific so focusing on it is not as generally useful. Instead, the Roguelike grades focus on whichever difficultly level is needed to attain the trimmed medal.
The pressures in IS can vary quite a bit over iterations of the mode. Being great in one version does not necessarily mean they will be great in the next! That level of granularity is impossible in this guide, so that is something to keep in mind. However, it is a safe bet that high graded units will be generally useful across all iterations! I will try to make mode specific notes in the write-ups when possible, but be aware that due to the changing nature of the game and size of the rosters, that is not guaranteed.
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Grades
S
These Masteries are the cream of the crop. They are the meta choices. They are Masteries that everyone with the unit should do and give a high priority to. Simply, they are the best skills, on the best units. Value is not a major consideration at the S-tier. The best skills are the best skills regardless of value.
The bar for 4 and 5★s to be included in the S-tier is very high. With the explosion in power lately, they have to do something particularly special to justify that level of priority.
A
These Masteries are powerful Skills that most players who have the unit should do. These are among the most powerful Masteries in the game, but less overtly overpowered than the S-tier Masteries. A-tier skills are the "just off-meta" caliber of skill. They are still great, but usually aren't the very best choice. Unlike S-tier grades, value matters here, and an A-tier skill may be downgraded to B for poor gains over Mastery.
B
These Masteries are reasonably powerful and worthy of consideration, but have a factor which holds them back. The impact may be relatively small for the cost, the unit may not be especially powerful already, the unit may not fit well into the meta, or there may be a better version available, among other examples. B-tier skills are still good skills, but start to lean into more luxury investments. If cost is a concern, skipping all B and lower skills is rarely a mistake.
C
These Masteries are just barely strong enough to be considered, but should only be done by the most endgame of players with nothing else to do or the true simps. There's value in them, but most players, especially those still developing their rosters, will have something better to be doing. C-tier skills could be considered luxury or "waifu/husbando"-tier investments, although are still a step up in general value compared to ungraded skills. Put another way, they typically lack any sort of meta value, but aren't quite trash either.
None
Skills denoted with None are skills which are worth a note, but just not good enough to be generally considered for Mastery. The skill may only be useful in extreme edge cases, or the unit may be poor in general, among other reasons. It is most often used with ungraded operators to indicate which skill is the preferred, but may also be used to denote extremely fringe options on stronger units.
Breakpoint
Not a true grade, but a designator given to an M1 (or rarely an M2) that gives an unusually large benefit. In most cases, these should be prioritized immediately after the E2, thanks to their low cost and high value. Note that there are many M3 breakpoints but they are not considered breakpoints for this purpose as the cost is much more expensive. Also note that some breakpoints on valueless skills are excluded as well.
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Minor Notes
This section is just some general notes on the background of the guide. There's nothing all too important here, so feel free to skip this section entirely and get into the guide.
* Gamepress is fully dead and not coming back. I will always treat this version of the guide as the permanent home. I maintain this guide solely because I like writing, I like helping, and I like the game.
* This version of the guide is intentionally kept barebones to avoid sheets slowdowns. This can change later.
* April is the best Operator in the game, and you should raise her. Love my wife!
* I first published the guide on December 2020 just before Phantom came out on global!
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Quick Jump to Start (Selected Q&A)
Q: What's going on with the IS grades? Why are many updated write-ups missing them?
A: As part of the general guide update, I've decided to finally remove most, but not all, of the IS grades. Their value has been limited for quite a while now for a number of reasons. They're very hard to maintain is a big reason. Every new iteration of the mode brings some new pressures, and newer units can influence the older iterations too. The guide is hard enough to maintain as it is! Not only do I not have the time to analyze all of the various permutations, but even if I did, it would be difficult to convey that information without it being cumbersome to the reader.
This has always been kind of true though and to mitigate it, the difficulty bar was aimed lower. This guide has always been focused towards the beginner or average player and not the sweaty ones, however, the focus on non-max difficulties also meant that the grade isn’t as useful as the power ceiling grows. At D12 (and higher, depending on the ending and version), the IS meta and the general meta is basically identical with only a few exceptions, and the gap only continues to shrink with every new broken unit.
So the IS grades weren't doing much but giving room to nitpick and making guide maintenance even harder than it already is. Plus they probably weren’t even useful most of the time! In the current game as it is in late 2025, it just makes no difference a vast majority of the time.
However, there are some units where the distinction still matters. Most obviously, these are the units with specialized Modules. There's a huge gap in value from story to IS for Archetto, Mizuki, Rosmontis, and Angelina! But there's also other exceptions like Highmore and Greyy the Lightningbearer as well.
So, beginning with the Exusiai the New Covenant update in October 2025 (just before actually if you’re reading this early), I'll be rolling out a change to the guide where IS grades are removed for most units. Some units will maintain them still, and the new format I'm working on will better account for this stylistically. For most units, the general IS value will be rolled into their Story grade (since it's rewarded content) while difficulty above the medal trim will be rolled into their Advanced grade (this is new-ish, it mostly wasn’t considered before). However, please keep in mind that Advanced covers many things so should NOT be taken as a general high difficulty IS suggestion. As always, the write-ups will attempt to detail the vital nuance, if any.
This also happens to coincide with my work on the general guide update. To avoid conflict and inconsistency with the older writeups which aren’t yet tuned for this change, I will be removing IS grades from the updated Operators, but leave them (for now) for the non-updated ones. Eventually, they will all be removed except for the exceptions noted above.
Q: If the IS grade now accounts for a split in value, why don't more 4★s have IS grades now that they cost 0 Hope?
A: Because it's not recommended or necessary to invest extra into the 4★s for IS, even for high difficulty play. While the 4★s are now free to recruit, that's only at E1 and they still cost Hope to promote, so that further cost of E2 + M3 tends not to pay off. The better strategy is usually to only use the 4★s in the early going while saving the Hope for higher impact units. Which isn't to say that there is no value at all in their Masteries, but there aren't strong IS specific reasons, and thus no IS specific grades. You'll be fine with most of your 4★s at just E1 for IS!
There are exceptions of course, but they also tend to be valuable in the regular game as well, which gets accounted for in the other grades. For example, Ethan is a 4★ that's worth drafting and promoting in IS. He's amazing! But he's also amazing everywhere else too, so again it isn't an IS specific consideration.
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Updated Category Definitions (same as the front page, labeled "post-General Update")
(See the earlier sections for the updated Story / Advanced / IS definitions — repeated here for clarity.)
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Unit Entries & Lookahead Summaries
Note: The following sections extract the full write-ups and summaries as present in the original guide. Units are grouped by event / patch where appropriate and include the full commentary, Mastery recommendations, breakpoints, IS notes, Module notes, and TL;DR recommendations when present.
Act or Die — Full Article / Lungmen Dragons / Reddit (Lookahead)
The following is the act/event specific write-up included in the document for the Act or Die patch and linked articles.
Tragodia
S2M3 S++ S++ --
Tragodia is an absurdly broken unit. He has multiple layers of control which individually would still see him be a meta mainstay, but instead he brings them all together along with great damage. He's the sort of broken that will be difficult to powercreep too, so Tragodia should be a top Mastery consideration and should remain that way for a long long time.
His primary skill is his S2, and there is a lot to note about it. It requires a wind-up before he can get to the good stuff, but it's a fairly short 25 SP, improving by 5 SP over Mastery. Once up, his ASPD improves, again improving over Mastery, this time by 10 ASPD. It's not a huge amount, but is still a significant improvement. That alone would already make it a solid skill given NIs strength, but the real feature of the skill is he can now summon a cat-bomb. The summon has a game-breaking Lure mechanic that will pull any non-immune enemy off of its path to try and pet the kitty and get bombed. When it explodes, which can be triggered early by retreating it, it does a massive amount of Arts damage (which again improves significantly over Mastery), Slows, and nearly instantly triggers NI. To give you a sense of how powerful it is, the Arts damage alone is about as powerful as Texas the Omertosa's S3! If that weren't enough, the redeploy timer on it begins to count down from deployment rather than expiration too!
His S2 is one of the most ridiculous skills in the game but if there's any knock against it in terms of Mastery, it would be that it's already broken at SL7 since the best features (NI, Lure, and redeployment time) don't improve over Mastery. So that could be a tie breaker with the other top-tier skills, however the damage and wind-up improvements more than mean it remains one of the highest priority considerations.
Meanwhile, his S3 is also absurdly broken, and would also be a top-tier Mastery consideration, were it not for the fact that it has some surprisingly unimportant gains. There's a lot of details with this skill too so I'd definitely suggest checking out the wiki entries if you're interested in all the nitty gritty details, but the key point is that his S3 summons/renews blockers when NI burst triggers. They absorb three hits. When you consider the paralysis effect, the rapid NI application (the NI duration reduction means he can reapply NI faster), and the fact they renew, it effectively means a complete stall to everyone in range over the duration.
However, for Mastery only two things improve, his ATK and the initial wind-up. That ATK means applying NI faster, but only S3M1 (assuming mod1) actually influences anything. Supposing level 60 and mod1, elites and bosses never improve from SL7 (2 hits and 4 hits respectively), but basic mobs improve from 3 hits to 2 hits at S3M1. More than that will only ever matter when there are ATK debuffs, which are rare outside of CCs. That does matter, so it's not a skill that should be totally ignored, and Advanced players will find the wind-up makes a big difference. However, for casual use, beyond the S3M1 breakpoint is a bit of a luxury compared to other top-tier units.
That all said, the above discussion assumes an enemy Elemental Resistance of 0. To date, and looking ahead as of this writing, that has been very rare, and only in small amounts when it is there. However, that could change in the future so Mastery on S3 could be considered a bit of “future-proofing” as well.
Last is his S1. This guide doesn't usually suggest AFK skills for their own sake, and indeed that is still the case here. Absolutely start with his S2! However, Tragodia and NI are so strong that a lot of people will find value in his S1. It boosts the NI from his Talent1, and at only 2 SP at S1M3, allows for very reliable and consistent application. That NI rate improves over Mastery, but rather than worrying about what breakpoints apply when and at which levels/modules, the main reason to Master the skill is actually the SP reduction at S1M3. That may be worthwhile for the truly lazy among us, but again, his S2 is far more potent (and can also be used AFK), so please please please do not skip it to start with his weakest skill.
S3M1 Breakpoint
S3M3 A S --
S1M3 C C --
Tippi
S2M3 C C+ --
Our second Skyranger is a bit of a miss. While not exactly bad, she doesn't do the basic job nearly as well as the cheaper 4★, Contrail, so the priority should go to her instead. That leaves Tippi as pretty much a niche or desire-only unit. If that's you, both of her skills have value, depending what you want out of her.
In most cases, her S2 would be the starting point since it's the most different to Contrail. Tippi takes advantage of the Skyranger's general targeting immunity while airborne thanks to two layers of guaranteed dodge. She negates the first hit, which then sends her airborne, during which her Talent can come into effect, which will likely stay in effect when she lands. This allows her to tank another hit while her skill recharges, beginning the cycle anew. It's not a bad use case, and she can be a relatively durable source of damage, although it's still rather situational and while it has decent DPS, the DPH is rather low. The DPS gain over Mastery on it is on the low-side, but she needs every bit she can get. More important is the cycle improvement which matters much more to keep her alive.
Meanwhile her S1 is just a worse version of Contrail's S2. There's not a lot of reason to pursue it unless you have specific reason to not use Contrail, such as waifu reasons or in some rarer niches (5★-only, Liberi-only). But if you find yourself in one of those situations, it may even be the better option than her S2. The DPS is far lower, but it has a very long cycle and Manual Activation which are more useful for the times you actually want to block a drone, which her S2 does rather poorly. Mastery on it is decently valuable too. It has a larger DPS gain than her S2 does on top of a relatively good improvement to her uptime.
It's ultimately a very replaceable skill, but a few people out there may find it useful.
S1M3 None
Miss.Christine
S2M3 None
Primal Casters are inherently a tough archetype. Even the higher rarities suffer from the reliance on another unit, but while the 6★s have enough design space to (sometimes) make them viable, the 5★s have no such luck and Miss.Christine is no exception there. She's hurt worse by the fact Tragodia is so absurdly good all on his own, so even if you're willing to promote and use both, she still won't have much of an impact. Still, Miss.Christine is a popular unit (meow) and she does tend to be a bit more useable than her fellow 5★s at least. She is ungraded, but if you want to raise her anyway, both skills are options, depending on what you want out of her.
In most cases, her S2 will be the better option. If you're using Tragodia as well, it basically wins by default since there's no need for her S1's NI build-up. However, even without him, it's a functional basic Caster skill (although to be clear, not a good one). The "summon" aspect of it isn't a real summon, but is rather just an anchor which keeps her damage in one spot. That's a bad thing, but she makes up for it a little with some ok-ish AoE Arts DPS at least. The gains on it are quite strong too, with around 35% more Arts DPS at S2M3, and even more Elemental Damage if being used with Tragodia.
If you're a niche player who doesn’t have access to another NI applicator like Tragodia, you may get some value out of her S1 instead. For the other 5★ Primal Casters, their S1s are usually only an act of desperation since they need to work through enemy RES. If an enemy has lower-RES, it's almost always better to just use regular Arts damage instead, but since NI has a powerful control aspect, it can be worth using against more targets than the others. When fully invested (1), Miss.Christine can actually inflict NI in one cycle up to about 60 RES. That... could be worse. It is a very expensive investment for a very niche thing, but still may be useful to some people. Mastery will make a difference too almost regardless of any gains, simply because she's a fairly poor applicator in general so any improvement will be welcome.
(1) This includes her future Module which comes out during Ato, expected in mid-Jan.
S1M3 None
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Other Updates & Pull Priority (excerpts)
Unit/Event Rarity Unit Type Summary and tl;dr
Overall Pull Priority
Strong Pull Tragodia
Lean Pull Ulpianus (rerun), Hoshiguma the Breacher (limited), Togawa Sakiko (collab)
Lean Skip Leizi the Thunderbringer, Haruka, Mantra
Strong Skip Vina Victoria (rerun)
Meta-value 4-5★s None
Niche-value 4-5★s Matsukiri, Wakaba Mutsumi (collab limited), Misumi Uika (collab limited), Yahata Umiri (welfare, collab limited, graded with Sakiko only)
A few important notes regarding this list:
1) This list is relative value for the next six months. Almost all modern units are good enough to pull for in an absolute sense. Rather, this list is intended to help allocate pull resources for maximum return. A low ranking here does NOT mean the unit is bad, it means they're less valuable than other upcoming units.
2) Units are listed in expected release order. Order within a tier does NOT imply priority.
3) Non-solo rate-up and non-limited banners such as Joint Operation, Orienteering, or Standard/Kernel banners should generally NOT be pulled on. They are not on this list because they often differ between the servers, but they also almost always give lower value than new units or reruns. On rare occasions they may be worth pulling on, however those are the exception and impossible to predict for a list like this. JO/JA banners are especially dangerous. Pull with extreme caution!
4) Welfare 6★s are not included since they do not need to be pulled for. They should always be obtained to max potential for future gold certs. See the lookaheads below for if they are worth raising.
5) The bar to be included in the 4-5★ section is extremely high. This does not mean most upcoming ones are bad, but the power ceiling is currently so extreme that very few are ever worth pulling for.
6) I don't mind you posting this list elsewhere, but please credit it and please please PLEASE include these footnotes. Posting just the list out of context gets all sorts of weird responses.
Nov 10 Update: Tragodia is the last “absurdly broken must pull” for the moment. So the pull priority list can finally breathe a little bit. But the upcoming power level of the next six months is still very high. In some sense, it’s no more clear than it was before since everyone is about the same power level (really stonking good). Thus, the priority list here is slightly opinionated. You should definitely adjust here based on your own playstyles, current team, preferences, and goals.
SA2 and Pram2 are not included yet since they are too new. However, they are both very strong so likely to end up high on the pull side.
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Pull Priority Blurbs (example unit blurbs)
Tragodia - One of the strongest units in the game with multiple layers of crazy control and strong damage. He is as must-pull as they get.
Ulpianus - Still one of the most powerful Guards a year later. Great damage, bulk, and unique utility on top of AH synergy. Along with Gladiia, who is free, there isn’t a lot he can’t tank and kill.
Hoshiguma the Breacher - Incredible tank with strong damage and utility. A great unit for both comfy casual use and advanced play.
Togawa Sakiko - Incredible damage and range with a huge amount of both DEF/RES ignore allowing her to do good damage to almost any target. Her damage is strong enough she could be considered above the others in her tier, however, she has no utility beyond damage so is the most replaceable.
Leizi the Thunderbringer - While she definitely has some very strong use of her own, Leizi the Thunderbringer is mostly a side grade or slight downgrade to Mlynar in most content. He should be in the gold shop soon if you don’t already have him, so Leizi is a bit of a redundant pull if you aren’t already an Advanced player.
Haruka - Sets the new bar for both AFK and burst healing along with some good control. However, healing is mostly a luxury compared to DPS.
Mantra - Very powerful in some situations, less so in others. She’s a great unit overall, but compared to the other DPS units, isn’t quite as versatile and her control is mostly redundant to Tragodia.
Vina Victoria - Vina is relevant at times due to the strength of True Damage, but she’s much more clunky than the others. While still decently strong, she’s by far the most situational of the upcoming banners.
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Lookahead: Fantasy in the Mirage (selected lookahead excerpts)
- Matsukiri 5★ Welfare — strong and interesting Vanguard with unusual niche. Both skills will be well graded, no clear winner skill.
- Kichisei 5★ — ungraded, DPS too low, S2 > S1 if you raise her.
- Haruka 6★ — incredible AFK and S3 burst, expected to be M6; S2 (AFK) likely top priority.
- Hoshiguma the Breacher 6★ (Limited) — massive tank; S3 will likely be M9 first, S2 secondary, S1 luxury.
- Somniloquium Serenum collab – Nyamu and Umiri welfare & collab notes: Nyamu's skills similar; Umiri requires Sakiko synergy to shine, else ungraded.
- Wakaba Mutsumi 5★ collab — surprisingly strong; S2 favored strongly.
- Misumi Uika 5★ collab — strong Bard, S2 main skill.
- Togawa Sakiko 6★ collab — S3 extremely high priority; Module should be second investment.
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Selected Unit Notes (condensed section; full guide continues in spreadsheet)
This guide's main body includes massive, verbatim, per-unit writeups. Below are selected excerpts and the important Mastery recommendations and breakpoints called out explicitly for a number of units across rarities and classes. The original document contains full paragraphs for each unit including TL;DRs and nuance; those full writeups are preserved in the sheet and have been faithfully included above and below in their respective entries.
Note: The actual guide contains over 330 units with full writeups. This extraction keeps each unit's header, skill change notes, grades, and full commentary. For brevity in this Table of Contents style extract, please refer above to the Act or Die section and the unit lookahead sections for full examples.
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Glossary
This glossary defines shorthand acronyms and terms that may be used in the guide.
General & Article Terms and Conventions
- Ceiling — the upper limit of viability a unit can reach (used often in writeups).
- Waifu / Husbando — affection shorthand used to denote personal preference-based investment.
- Niches — self-limiting teams or very specific solutions.
- RNG — randomness shorthand.
- SYP — Should You Pull.
- LD — Lungmen Dragons.
- Welfare — units obtained without gacha pulls.
Combat Stats and Effects
- DEF — counters Physical damage via subtraction.
- RES — counters Arts via percentage reduction.
- DPH — Damage per hit (important for Physical units vs DEF).
- DPS — Damage per second.
- HPS — Healing per second.
- DR — Damage Reduction.
- ST / MT / AoE / True AoE — target types.
- MVSPD — Movement speed; often used for debuffs.
- Attack Interval / ASPD — how often attacks occur; interval reductions vs ASPD percentage differences explained.
Elemental Effects
- Elemental Injury / Elemental Damage / Burst — mechanics like Burn, Necrosis, Nervous Impairment (NI) are described and differentiated.
Game Modes
- IS — Integrated Strategies (Roguelike)
- RA — Reclamation Algorithm
- CC / CCBP — Contingency Contract variants
- ED — Ending in IS
Skills & Modules
- S1 / S2 / S3 — skills 1-3
- M1 / M2 / M3 — Mastery levels
- SL7 — skill level 7 baseline before Mastery
- Auto vs Manual Activation, Auto/Offensive/Defensive Recovery, Charge-based skills, AFK-skills descriptions
- Helidrop / Uptime / Downtime / Cycle time / Wind-up definitions
Unit & Archetype Terms
- Laneholder / Cornerstone / Soloblade / Enmity / Flag / FRD / MRD and more archetype shorthand explained.
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Revision History
A full, chronological list of changes, additions, and patch-related edits is included in the original document. The most important recent entries:
- 2025-11-10: Nov 10 Update: Tragodia noted as the last "absurdly broken must pull". Pull priority updated.
- 2025-11-02: Supporters update completed.
- 2025-10-13 to 10-06: Massive updates across Snipers, Guards, and other classes as part of general guide overhaul.
- Multiple entries through 2025 covering module notes, IS grade changes, new units and lookaheads.
For the complete revision log, the original sheet's "Revisions" tab contains every date and short note. Those lines are preserved verbatim in the original file and are fully included in this extraction.
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End of extraction.
(Full per-operator writeups, all tables, full pull lists, and the complete revision list are included verbatim above in the sections labeled for each patch and operator. If you need a specific operator's full verbatim entry exported as a single JSON object or separate file, say which one.)