This tab is a place for me to put some information that would otherwise be out of the scope of Masteries. While I don’t intend this to become a general guide, there are some topics that warrant discussion but don’t fit well elsewhere. Some are topics that I find come up again and again in the write-ups, so may be worth additional clarity. Some are just topics I happen to care about. And a rare few are just there to help with common questions I see all the time.
- Why isn’t the Mastery guide integrated with the Tier List rankings? Why don’t the grades match?
- Why aren’t Module ratings integrated into the Mastery guide?
- What is meant when you say “specific solutions are never required”?
- A discussion on Wandering Medics and priority.
- Should you E2/M3 4★s for IS?
- The 5★ Value Problem
- The problem with buffing and combos.
- Elemental Burst Thresholds.
- Why aren’t higher rarity healing Medics (like Lumen) recommended?
- Abyssal Hunter Modules.
- A General Discussion about Shifter Priority
- A General Overview of Shifter Skills
- Why are base skills rarely, if ever, mentioned in the Mastery Guide?
- What happened to Gamepress?
- What’s going on with the IS grades? Why are many updated write-ups missing them?
Why isn’t the Mastery guide integrated with the Tier List rankings? Why don’t the grades match?#
There’s two major reasons for this.
First, while I work on both, the Tier List is a collaborative effort while the Mastery Guide is my personal solo project. I don’t necessarily agree with every single decision in the Tier List, which can sometimes make for mild inconsistencies between them, which would become more obvious if they were tightly integrated.
More importantly though, the two measure different things and I think directly integrating them would send the wrong message. As I say in the front page, this Mastery Guide is NOT a tier list for skills. It is an investment guide. While those two things do tend to be correlated, they aren’t measuring the same things. If I added the Tier List grades directly into this guide, that would lead people naturally to assume they’re directly related (which is already a problem).
Why aren’t Module ratings integrated into the Mastery guide?#
Some of you may find this question odd, but I get it a surprisingly often. I do not do Module ratings. Mal writes guides for them which you can find here on the LD page, and I do collaborate with him on the Tier List, but our guides are different things maintained by different people. DragonGJY maintains a rating guide also that you can find here, but we do not work together. So there are no ratings of my own to integrate in the first place.
The reason I’ve never done my own and have no immediate plans to is simply time. This project is already a massive one that I sink a ton of time into. Modules would nearly double that work. I have debated it at times, and may still in the future. After all, I do tend to write about them in my articles, but it would add a huge amount of additional work and cause further headaches with long-term guide maintainability.
What is meant when you say “specific solutions are never required”?#
This, or a similar phrase, is something that comes up now and then, usually in the context of a niche unit who does something very specific. One of the tenants that HG seems to stick with in designing stages is that stages are generally designed to be solved by a wide range of solutions. We don’t know the exact metrics HG designs by, but given the now six+ years worth of examples we have, it’s safe to say that few units are ever required.
We’re lucky in this regard, because it would be quite toxic otherwise! Imagine if certain OPs were required to advance? It’s a terrible thought and there are gacha games out there that do it.
In any case, that does have a downside of devaluing some nicher OPs, or even some archetypes. One common example of this is Elemental damage and Wandering Medics. Despite enemy Elemental effects being fairly common, there has never been a single stage where a Wandering Medic was required to complete it. Certainly they are useful, and can make some of those stages much easier, but the lack of requirements often means the advice isn’t to invest into them. If they aren’t required, it makes more sense to invest the same resources into something with more general impact.
Another example of this is Tsukinogi. For over five years (until Mantra) she was the only purely Ranged unit with invisibility reveal. It would be very easy for HG to design a stage that required this. In fact, they did in an early CC! But to the point, this was a mistake, and they quickly corrected it. So while Tsukinogi had a completely unique niche, it has never been useful except in some rarer self-constrained niches.
Now, this shouldn’t be taken to mean specific solutions don’t have value. Wandering Medics are useful and Tsukinogi currently has 81 records on arkrec. Instead, the point here is to not overvalue them early in your career. Broader solutions (i.e. generally powerful units) are a far better return on your resource, and you shouldn’t feel that you absolutely must have certain specific solutions.
A discussion on Wandering Medics and priority.#
The Wandering Medics occupy a weird spot in priority. They were quite in demand when the archetype was first revealed, and while they’re still useful, they seem a lot more situational than they used to. For one, not every event includes enemy Elemental Injury. In fact, most don’t. For two, in high pressure situations such as high difficulty IS, it’s effectively impossible to heal through. Since burst occurs at a set threshold of 1000, enemies with enough ATK will simply trigger it in one or two attacks! To further complicate things, there are a whopping five of them, as of this writing, including three very quality but similar 5★s!
So the first question to ask before investing, is if you really need one in the first place. Certainly, they can be a useful tool to have, but they are not an essential tool. Do not feel like you absolutely must have one to proceed! You do not!
Next, we need to consider the two extremes. On the 6★ side, we have Eyjafjalla the Hvít Aska. If you have her, then you should raise her and you can stop reading here. Simply, she is far and away the best option on top of being a quality regular Medic too. However, to the original point about necessity, you should not go out of your way to spark her. If she spooks you, or you already have her, or you just got unlucky fishing for a different summer limited, that is of course OK. However, there are tons of powerful units in the game currently, and spending 300 pulls specifically to spark a healing Medic from a summer banner is not a good use of your pulls.
On the 4★ side, we have Chestnut. Given what is written above about the necessity of the archetype you may be tempted to think that the 4★ is sufficient for occasional use, but this is not the case because it turns out Chestnut is… bad. Like really bad. Even in the 4★ niche, he is rarely used. You’ll be better off learning to play around enemy Elemental Injury instead of trying to make him work. That said it’s worth a quick note to avoid confusion that Chestnut has found some work in fringe IS situations, notably IS#5 ED4, but this is due to his range alone and has nothing to do with his value as an Elemental healer.
So that brings us to the 5★s, who are really the whole reason I’m writing this digression. There are three of them, Honeyberry for Red Certs who is the better pure Elemental healer, Mulberry in the gacha who is the better regular Medic, and Harold the Welfare unit. The thing here is that all three of them are good. The answer about who to raise between them is the one that costs you the least to obtain.
To go a little deeper, you probably shouldn’t spend 600 red certificates to obtain Honeyberry. That is a steep cost and Mulberry (if she spooks you) or Harold will be more than sufficient at a far lower cost. You also shouldn’t pull specifically for Mulberry. If she spooks you, then great. Raise her. But the difference from Harold to her is not worth the cost of pulls (fishing for 5★s at all never is). So in most cases, this means you should look towards Harold. Simply put, while he is the weakest of the three, he’s still good and the difference isn’t enough to justify additional cost.
Now, since there are some that won’t be satisfied with just that as an answer, there are differences between them. Honeyberry and Mulberry are the better two, but the difference between them is situational. Honeyberry is the better Elemental healer, so tends to be the better choice if you are only looking for a utility option. Mulberry has lower Elemental healing, but has strong regular healing, so tends to be the better choice if you play in a niche of some sort. Harold brings up the rear with a lower ceiling than either, but again to be clear, it is a small gap.
Phew, that was longer than I planned. I hope someone out there finds this digression helpful. It becomes less and less relevant as more time passes, so the most efficient answer is to just learn to play around the mechanics!
Should you E2/M3 4★s for IS?#
Short answer, no you shouldn’t.
For those newer, the background here is that beginning with IS#5 and continuing at least into IS#6 (and likely further), the 4★s have had their cost to recruit dropped to 0 Hope. This makes them the “default” picks for starters, when you have no Hope, or when you need to save Hope. So a common question is how far you should go with promotion on them, and the answer to that is almost always just E1 SL7. Since this is a Mastery guide (supposedly) it creates a sticky situation that warrants some clarity lest the reader come to a false conclusion.
For IS specific purposes, few 4★s are worth the promotion. The reason is simply that they will rarely be used at E2 and they do their job well at E1 already. 4★s are valuable in IS because they cost no Hope to recruit. However, they still cost Hope and a ticket to promote. This Hope is almost always better saved. At lower difficulties the difference won’t matter, and at higher difficulties, they won’t be competitive even at E2. So in terms of strategy and efficient use of resources, it makes far more sense to save that Hope for higher impact promotions and redirect those promotion resources elsewhere!
There are a few notable exceptions. Primarily, these are 4★s which are valuable elsewhere too, and the two most prominent exceptions are Myrtle and Ethan. Myrtle is a generally useful unit and is often the suggested first general promotion for newbies anyway (to enable E2 supports). Ethan meanwhile is the only 4★ who just so absurdly punches above his weight that he can justify it.
It’s further notable that there are some 4★s which require their E2 to function well, but mostly lack Ethan’s ceiling, so you should be careful before promoting them for IS purposes. Examples here include Cutter, Purestream, and Indigo, who all have extremely valuable Modules which turn them into great general units. But Modules require E2 to access, making them inefficient in meta IS runs.
Finally, it’s worth noting that this discussion is the ideal use of resources. If you want to maximize your 4★s because they’ve earned it, because you like them, or because you want to challenge yourself in niche runs, that is completely OK. It’s not suggested to promote them, but that doesn’t mean it’s unreasonable to do so either!
The 5★ Value Problem#
In some write-ups you may find a vague reference to value problems with the 5★ rarity. This is because the rarity is very weak in terms of value (note the word “value” here, and not “power”). Simply put, there are very few of them that both 1) retain their value as your team grows (which is relatively easy in this game), and 2) can’t be easily replaced by lower cost investments in the interim.
This isn’t to say the 5★s are bad. Many of them are, in fact, very good. I primarily play in a 5★ niche so they are very near and dear to my heart! The problem here though is the cost progression from 4★ -> 5★ -> 6★ isn’t linear. The 5★s cost roughly twice as much as a 4★, but the 6★s only cost roughly 50% more than a 5★. Then further, the 5★s are closer in power to the 4★s. Then to add to the problem, many of the 4★s are still really good and free to promote in IS.
For a simple example, let’s consider the Guardians (healing defenders). The 5★s have two very good Guardians, Bassline and Nearl. However, the 6★ Guardians, Saria and Shu, are absurd units who quite simply blow them away. Of course, not everyone has either of those. Shu is limited after all. It would be logical to consider Bassline and Nearl to be good promotions for people lacking Saria and Shu. The problem though, is Gummy. Gummy isn’t as good as Bassline is, but she’s more than sufficient for what most people need. Further, she is a core IS unit! Quite simply, in terms of efficiently using resources, it makes far more sense to rely on Gummy and save the rather expensive 5★ promotion materials for a high impact 6★ instead.
This isn’t a lone example either, but applies to nearly all of them. There are cases where the 4★s are actually stronger too! The 5★s are an expansive group, by far the largest in quantity, but only a handful are worth promotion for nearly any player. In general, caution is warranted before investing in a vast majority of the 5★s.
But I always have to say when discussing this, meta is only needed to a point. The goal here is not to tell you not to raise any 5★s at all. A lot of the 5★s have awesome designs and are still good! This digression isn’t to say the 5★s are bad! Just the worst in terms of value for resources. If you personally find one appealing, I would strongly encourage you to raise them anyway! It makes the game far more fun than just chasing meta and optimal strategy. Still, it’s important to know what you’re getting into first.
The problem with buffing and combos.#
There are several places in this guide where buffing is mentioned as a suboptimal strategy. The basic idea here is one of replacement value. Two of the defining restrictions in Arknights are squad size and deployment slots. This means, in terms of ideal setup, a buffer has to justify the slot compared to just bringing someone else who does the job just as well. For example, the most common instance of this is that it often makes more sense to bring two DPS rather than one DPS and one buffer! In terms of efficient use of resources as well as stage strategy, buffers rarely make sense.
Now this isn’t to say they are universally bad. There are some buffers who are good enough as standalone units that they can justify it. Warfarin and Skadi the Corrupting Heart are prime examples of this. Further, once you start delving into the world of niches where options are more constrained, it can make a lot more sense too. For example, in my 5★ niche, one of my absolute best solutions is Kroos the Keen Glint + Warfarin + Shamare! But if you’re just getting started, be cautious. It will almost always be better to invest your resources into someone who can do the job on their own, especially in the current era of powercreep.
This idea also applies to combos which often comes up in questions and write-ups. Most combos are worse than just bringing two independently good units. For example, it is often asked if Gracebearer works well with Tragodia. And the answer is, of course it “works”! But the combo here misses some things. While Gracebearer is strong in niches, she isn’t a meta selection, and you will get far better results bringing most 6★ Guards instead even if they don’t “combo”. That said, there are combos that are worth the effort. A notable example here is Yu’s firewall which can be used to great effect with various Casters like Goldenglow or Lappland the Decadenza!
Elemental Burst Thresholds.#
Much is often said about breakpoints in reference to Elemental damage units such as Ritualists. The reason for this is that burst triggers at a specific and unchanging threshold. It’s 1000 for regular enemies, elites, and allied operators, while it’s 2000 for bosses. The effect of this means that not all promotions are valuable.
Let’s do an example to illustrate. Let’s say some fictional Ritualist at SL7 deals 300 Burn per attack. Therefore, it would take 4 attacks to trigger Burn (1000/300 = 3.333, rounded up to 4 since there are no partial attacks). Now suppose the same Ritualist at M2 deals 340 Burn per attack. Now the number of attacks is 3 (1000/340 = 2.94, rounded up to 3). But then let’s say at M3 they deal 375 Burn per attack. In this case, the number of attacks is still 3 so the extra promotion didn’t actually do anything!
Now there’s a few details worth noting here. First, HG often finely and purposefully tunes these breakpoints. They often (but not always) encourage certain investments. Second, there are often other benefits to Mastery, so these breakpoints are not the be all and end all of Mastery. Third, this all assumes no enemy Elemental Resistance. That’s been almost entirely true so far (very rare exceptions), but could change sometime in the future. For example, 10 Elemental Resistance changes the above M2 example to 4 attacks, but M3 remains at 3! Although I certainly hope it doesn’t become more common because I’ll have to rewrite a lot of this guide… Fourth, ATK buffs and debuffs (particularly in CC) can of course influence these, so the breakpoints are also not universal. And finally, these don’t typically apply to Primal Guards and Primal Casters since they scale off of damage dealt which makes these breakpoints much harder to account for.
Why aren’t higher rarity healing Medics (like Lumen) recommended?#
The reason is that in most cases, you can optimize healing needs via better strategy. There are a good many Medics that only heal and they tend to be fairly low value for this reason. Some measure of healing is necessary, but the better Medics are those that bring some other utility with them such as Mon3tr’s damage or Warfarin’s buffing or Ptilopsis’ SP field (for just a few examples, this section is NOT calling Medics bad!!!). It’s common for early players to feel that their healing isn’t sufficient. Lumen in particular can look appealing since he’s a freely available 6★ with some decent HPS, but this is largely a mistake.
The main reason is that its rare healing is the root of the problem. Maybe more healing would solve the problem. There are certainly cases where it’s true. But more often than not, the problem can be solved by reconsidering your strategy and redirecting resources elsewhere such as to better DPS. Further, as a 6★, units like Lumen are very expensive, so units like him can stunt your development!
Now, this isn’t to say healing Medics are bad and Lumen is actually pretty decent (apologies to the fans if it seems like I’m picking on him). However, the bottom line is that if you play your strategy well, you can get by in your early development using just Perfumer, Sussurro, and maybe a supplementary 3★ like Ansel, who are all also very valuable in IS.
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you must raise a pure-Healing 6★ Medic early on!
Abyssal Hunter Modules.#
While Modules are beyond the scope of this guide, the AH Modules are something I see a lot of questions on and are something people often get wrong. It’s one of those topics that isn’t actually relevent to anything in this guide (aside from some minor notes about Specter2), but I feel is worth soapboxing a little bit about now that I have this additional space for such topics!
The AH niche is an appealing one. Most people when they dive into it naturally assume that the correct Modules in all cases are the ones that enhance the faction buffs. This is a reasonable thought on casual inspection, so I don’t blame most people for assuming that, but it’s actually incorrect! The only faction buff that actually matters is Gladiia’s!
To go into a little more detail here, the totally correct answer is that if you’re doing dedicated AH clears, you need all of the Modules. AHs have limited unit selections, so flexibility is paramount to actually making the niche work. Of course, that isn’t what most people are after though, nor is it what most people can afford. Given that, there are Modules which are generally more important. Again, AHs have limited unit selections, so focusing on the buffs themselves to make that decision is a mistake. What’s more important is that the units need to be good, and for Skadi and Specter the Unchained, their Modules that make them good units are not the same ones that improve the faction buffs.
In Skadi’s case, her DRE-X Module is far more important for making her a functional unit. As a year 1 unit, she’s pretty flawed due to extremely long effective cycles, but DRE-X actually makes her a functional MRD unit. That is far more important than 8% ATK and some HP. In fact, Skadi’s DRE-Y is one of the second least valuable Modules for AH teams (after Gladiia’s HOK-Y)!
For Specter the Unchained, the gap between her two Modules is quite a bit closer, but the same fundamental gap still exists. She is notably bad without Modules, and her PUM-X goes a long way to solving both of her major issues, cycle time and a weak doll. At the time, it was a must have Module, and still is to make effective use out of her! Meanwhile, PUM-Y has a buff that would be good in many teams, but isn’t as valuable as you may think in an AH team. It’s a worse effect for herself since the doll is worse, Gladiia is not primarily used for her skills which are actually kinda weak, Ulpianus’ main skill cycles fast already, and Skadi uses her MRD function instead. So there aren’t actually a lot of skills that get value out of the SP buff!
So the tl;dr is: Skadi - DRE-X most of the time, DRE-Y luxury Specter2 - PUM-X primary, PUM-Y secondary Gladiia - HOK-X primary and the most important of all of them, HOK-Y very very situational Ulpianus - CRU-X (only one as of this writing) Andreana - DEA-X (only one) Specter1 - CEN-X (only one)
A General Discussion about Shifter Priority#
While lots of units have some form of Shift ability, there are two key archetypes with regards to the mechanic, Hookmasters (Pullers) and Push Strokers (Pushers). They warrant a bit of side digression about their general priority since there are just a lot of them which makes it quite clunky to address these concerns in each individual write-up.
They can also fool some newer players because there’s a fairly large emphasis placed on the mechanic in the early stages, which may lead some to unnecessarily prioritize the promotions. But they just aren’t that useful most of the time, and when they are, will be sufficient at lower investment levels. The tl;dr here is that you probably don’t need any of them beyond Shaw and Rope at SL7!
To go a little deeper, there are two problems. First, the entire mechanic is map dependent, and two, it’s almost never the only solution! HG will sometimes throw us a map that is made much easier by Shifters, so they aren’t zero-value, but it’s basically never required! Further, the difference between E1 SL7 and E2 M3 will often not matter. It certainly can. The Shifters almost all get a Force increase at M3 that makes their Masteries uniquely valuable, but it’s not as if they can’t Shift anyone before that! It may open up new targets, and lower SP may allow for more of them, not to mention ancillary non-Shifting benefits, so again this is not to say they’re worthless. Just that there’s no need to rush to expensive promotions because you think they’re vital. They are not.
It’s notable that the two current 6★s are mostly exempt from this discussion. Gladiia and Weedy are both uniquely valuable in their own right and on their own merits. The general discourse is still a factor here, but they’re unique enough that they are covered in their specific write-ups, rather than generally here.
As for the rest, well it’s simply too out of scope to go into all the minutia of the differences. There’s a lot of units which can get pretty deep. All of the details and all of the places they could matter would be a full proper guide on its own let alone an off-topic blurb in a Mastery guide. In cases they do matter, they are addressed directly in the write-ups. For the rest, here is some general advice on the matter at least.
I would suggest sticking with Rope and Shaw for the early going. They’re cheap and sufficient. Later on, look towards Gladiia and Weedy who are both valuable later game units for other reasons beyond basic Shifting. Gladiia in particular is freely available and has a lot of value not related to being a Shifter at all.
If you look to expand that, you should look towards one of the 5★ Pusher S2’s since Shaw’s S2 is one of the very few skills here that doesn’t get a Force improvement and Weedy doesn’t directly cover. Generally, I’d consider Cliffheart (who has a lot of other value) > FEater > Enforcer »> Snowsant > Almond, with the last three being totally optional. However, since Enforcer is much easier to obtain than FEater is, he’s a perfectly fine replacement with some special value of his own.
Finally, to close out these general suggestions, all of these (except maybe Gladiia) are lower priority than any key role unit such as DPS, healing, vanguards, or tanking! If it wasn’t clear already, Shifters are one of the last things you should be looking to heavily invest into!
A General Overview of Shifter Skills#
Looking at the Hookmasters and Push Strokers skills broadly, there’s three “types” of skills they typically have, and being aware of them may help in promotion evaluation. The first is a short cooldown skill (4-5 SP) that typically has a lower Force value. Every Shifter as of this writing has a similar skill on their S1, although a few may have additional Charge utility such as Gladiia and Almond. They are generally useful for consistent hole coverage, although their lower Force tends to limit their targets. They also usually have some sort of damage enhancement, but the value never particularly matters, although some may have additional control instead which can matter.
The next type is typically a skill that has a longer, but still short, cooldown (15-20 SP). They usually (but not always) have a greater Shift Force than the S1s and some additional effects as well. These are useful for a greater variety of purposes than the S1s are since there tends to be more variety in those additional effects. On the 4 and 5★s, they are always S2, so all of them, as of this writing, have a standard skill split between S1 and S2. However, the 6★s don’t follow this pattern as strongly and their S2s typically have different and more powerful effects.
The third type applies to the 6★ and could be generally thought of as just “other”. Or in other words, their S3s and signature skills. These of course give them their special flavor and 6★ power, so there isn’t much general to say here as they will vary from unit to unit.
As for targets, as of this writing, Pusher S1s always push 2 targets (their block count) even though the descriptions often imply it’s a single target effect. Pusher S2s always occur in a splash, that is, all targets around the impact point. The exception here is Enforcer’s S2 who pushes all targets in his range. Puller S1s are always single target. Puller S2s vary and state it in the skill description. Additionally, Weedy’s S3 behaves as a splash push as with the Pusher S2s.
Why are base skills rarely, if ever, mentioned in the Mastery Guide?#
Because they shouldn’t factor into any promotion decision. Base skills at E1 are fine to pursue (as they are on the 4★s) but only Proviso has a base skill good enough to justify an E2 promotion. In fact, almost all of them take YEARS to pay off and some even take decades. This isn’t an exaggeration either. Seriously, do not promote units only for their base skill.
This is why they’re rarely mentioned in the guide. Aside from being irrelevant to Masteries themselves, I don’t want to accidentally guide people down the wrong path by casually mentioning something that they may misinterpret.
What happened to Gamepress?#
For background here, the Mastery guide used to be housed on the now defunct Gamepress Arknights page, and I also wrote quite a bit of general content for the page. Around June of 2024, GP suffered a major backend failure. The ownership had already been working on a new iteration of the site (which was quite dated) so they took the opportunity to push ahead with the update.
For reasons I was never entirely clear on myself, this did not go particularly well. The ownership decided to focus on their highest grossing pages, FGO and POGO first. Arknights was supposed to be third in line, but that ultimately never happened.
The result is the Arknights page died, was frozen in time for a long time, then finally was put down for good. I re-established the guide on this sheet, and what was left of the crew transitioned the tier list too.
What’s going on with the IS grades? Why are many updated write-ups missing them?#
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.