Introduction#
Hello, and welcome to TacticalBreakfast’s Mastery Guide! 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, the Sanity;Gone website, or on Reddit. They are linked in several places in this guide.
You may know this guide from Gamepress, which is now defunct, so this, and the Google Sheet version, 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! There’s a Reddit feedback thread here or any of my socials linked above.
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 S1s.
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.
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!
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.
Categories#
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 here.
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 otherwise 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.
–#
In some rare cases there are skills that need to be denoted, but don’t warrant the “None” monkier. These can be for either positive or negative reasons, or even simply consistency reasons.
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.
Other Notes#
Kernel Units#
Kernel units use the pool currently on the global servers. Pool updates typically happen in December. I do my best to keep the categories updated correctly, but there may be a lag time between updates. Gacha 4★s are available in both standard and kernel pools.
Acknowledgements#
Big thanks to everyone who helps me proof the articles and writeups, especially my Tier List homies. Special thanks to Danbo for giving the article a home and being a community mainstay, and Ivoryalas for helping me with the Sheets migration. Icon by patuwu.station.