Arknights: Mastery Priority Guide – Update Out of Definition | Arknights wiki

s: What took all this time? Why was it not included in the original?

a: The answer dates back to when this guide was only on Reddit, and the main reason I moved to Gamepress in the first place. Reddit was not designed to handle this kind of evidence. I actually wanted to include each module when I first made this, but the original manual was already a cumbersome thing. Reddit can hardly fit into meta-only units. Cutting out the non-supercharged units entirely made perfect sense.

Now that I’m into Gamepress, that’s a lot less of an issue. I have basically unlimited space! I should have done this update soon after joining GP, especially after merging the suggestions with the launcher pages. But, you know, life gets busy and all that.

s: What do you mean by “off meta”?

a: “Off the Meta” doesn’t really capture the full picture; Still, it’s a useful expression, so I’m sticking with it. Basically, any module that isn’t good enough to include in the home directory. These are units with low power levels or highly specialized uses that make it hard to justify the upgrade costs, let alone the proficiency.

Of course, Arknights is a game where you can easily build teams around “bad” units. There are no bad units, only bad doctors, as the old saying goes. It’s an understatement to say (this guide wouldn’t exist otherwise), but I digress.

s: Why make this update?

a: One of the most common questions I get is, “How about [Bad Unit]? “The motives are varied. Some people don’t understand why they’re bad. Others are just trolling. But usually someone has a legit question and wants advice on a unit they like personally. Far from me judging someone who wants to raise Savage. Hell, I’ve raised a few Terrible units myself, and I have rarely regretted doing so.

This guide is for those people. Understand that you should not raise any unit listed here if you want to be efficient with your resources (with a few exceptions). They lack scores in the original guide for some reason. However, I fully encourage you to embrace the off-meta concept when it comes to your favorite modules, and I hope these write-ups will at least help you make decent decisions in that vein.

s: Unit X does not deserve to be here! They’re cool and you’re an idiot and here’s a retelling of why…

a: I’m not interested. Well, I mean, neither do I, because I love discussion and different opinions. However, I’ve been playing since launch and have about 3/4 of the E2 and M3 roster. I certainly don’t know everything about Arknights, and there are a few units on the cusp of being grade-worthy here that might see an eventual upgrade, but I do know enough to tell you that, sorry, your favorite unit probably deserves to be here.

Don’t let this discourage you. Use your favorite modules and don’t let articles like mine stop you from enjoying them. The goal here is not to get rid of your favorites, but to help people make effective decisions. It’s not personal.

s: Will this guide be updated regularly?

a: Mostly not. I don’t expect this guide to get a lot of hits after it’s released. Really, the main purpose is to group writes that will be shown in trigger pages. It’s not meant to be a persistent directory, though I’d probably delete old entries if someone gets promoted.

s: Why is some of this writing written a bit strangely?

a: These writes are ultimately intended for launcher pages, where you’ll need to stand without the context of the rest of this guide. This means that each writing must convey all the necessary information, including seemingly redundant things such as the rationale behind its lack of degree or meta-state. This is especially true in Section 4 ★, where I have to repeat the same basic idea dozens of times.

=====

Editing provided by fourmana (Discord: fourmana #0477) from BethelFrankel, the team behind the first Alchemy Stars list. This update was huge, thank you so much!