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Module Ratings - Abnormal Spectrum
Ratings and discussion of the Operator Modules introduced in the "Abnormal Spectrum" patch [Arknights]
Mal.io Introduction
Heya all, Mal here with another Modules write up! This time it’s the “Abnormal Spectrum” event patch, the Episode 16 release event. This patch brings with it Modules for the Loopshooters, several new Operators, as well as several second Modules for existing Operators.
The Loopshooters got a decent enough Trait upgrade. It leans into their strength (but also accentuates their weakness) by buffing them only when they are attacking enemies within the 8 surrounding tiles, which can be seen as a good thing or a bad thing depending on your style of play. Personally, as someone who loves to bring Narantuya even when there’s not necessarily favorable tiles to her, it’s a little frustrating since it barely helps her at all in those situations, but when leaning into Loopshooters’ strengths, this is definitely a strong upgrade.
Despite my gripes, Narantuya definitely got a good Module here. Not only is the Trait upgrade good for her (synergizing especially well with her S3, less so with S1/S2), but she gets an increased ATK/DEF steal cap and faster steals when attacking nearby enemies. Steal isn’t quite as good as free base stats since it’s applied after various modifiers, but it’s still free stats. Narantuya gets a solid damage increase from this Module, which helps her keep her spot in the meta as a “very good, bordering on great” unit.
Brigid on the other hand still suffers from the typical 5★ problems. She’s way more expensive than the 4★, but nowhere near as good as the 6★. Her Module is, on paper, good for her, but it does nowhere near enough to make meta players consider her as an option. And no I don’t even mean “she’s not as good as Lemuen/ExuAlter!”, I mean even compared to the “good” 5★s.
Caper on the other hand benefits from all the usual strengths of good 4★s. Incredibly low costs, and fairly good performance despite her low rarity. Since her arrival on the scene Caper has developed many fans and for good reason. They’ll be pleased to hear that this Module is good for her, giving her a solid damage improvement (the typical ~20% increase) for a mere 3 Module blocks.
Next, the new Operators. There is a new 6★ Primal Caster Mantra, a new 5★ Juggernaut Vetochki, and a new 4★ Agent Snegurochka.
Mantra is an excellent, if not game-breaking Operator. I’m really pleased with her because she manages to avoid many of the pits of previous Primal Casters. As is typical of Primal Casters, she has an S2 which is meant to function independently of their preferred partner. Like both Nymph and Blaze Alter, she has a powerful S3 that outputs great damage when she is paired with her preferred partner. However, Mantra has two significant advantages neither Nymph nor Blaze Alter have. Firstly, her preferred partner is Tragodia, and not a limited Operator (he also has yet to have his solo rerun banner, so a guaranteed opportunity to obtain him will arrive in less than a year). Secondly, Mantra’s S3 actually performs quite well even without Tragodia! It does require a little fiddling (activating allied skills within her range) to get good damage out of it without him, but it is doable. On top of that, her S3 has the very powerful utility of invis reveal in a large area from a ranged tile. Anyway, as for her Module, the Trait upgrade is the big part, significantly improving her damage for a cheap-ish upgrade. The Talent upgrades are nice, and I wouldn’t say to avoid them, but their improvements are more marginal.
Vetochki has the same pattern as most of the other Juggernauts, which is to say that she either steamrolls a stage, or she falls apart and is useless. Unfortunately, the most crucial factor for which of these occurs is her stats, and as a 5★, she is at a significant disadvantage. She can be best understood as being pretty much like Vulcan except without the torturously high SP costs, which does make for a pretty alright package! Due to this all or nothing style of play inherent to Juggernauts, her Module is fairly essential if you do plan to use her, it gives her substantially more survivability, from the Trait upgrade, the increased healing from the Talent upgrade, as well as the base stats. That said, Vetochki is overall still a desire-only unit, with or without the Module she doesn’t particularly shine when compared to actually meta units, even just among 5★s.
Snegurochka is definitely the biggest disappointment of this patch. The moment everyone watching heard there was going to be a 4★ Agent we all salivated at the potential. Unfortunately, I suspect Hypergryph was thinking along the same lines and feared for how powerful a 4★ Agent could be, and thus decided to deliberately undertune Snegurochka as a result. No matter what her numbers were, if she simply had one of those basic on-deploy/passive skills, she’d be amazing! Alas, she does not, she has two skills that take a painfully long time to start up, which significantly hurts her ability to capitalize on Agents’ greatest strength, their “medium redeploy” nature. That could possibly be forgiven if her skills were particularly impactful, but they aren’t. Anyway, her Module is pretty unimpressive. The Trait upgrade gives her taunt down, which does actually happen to synergize with her, so those who know they’ll be using her a lot (and she is a 4★, thus costing 0 hope in IS) might still consider dropping a singular Module block on her. However the Module upgrades are really underwhelming, giving her a pitiful +5 more ASPD! And it’s conditional too! What a pity, she has such pretty art too…
Eyja’s tries to lean into her nearly completely dead helidrop S3 niche, and while the consistency of the extra SP on deploy might seem appealing, it doesn’t even out-DPS her X module in most cases. Meanwhile, the Module provides very little for her more-relevant S2 use. The extra SP generation might seem appealing but it still ends up coming out behind the RES-ignore and extra +ATK% even in the best case scenario. This Module is pretty much never worth building over her first.
Fedex’s second Module isn’t quite as terrible as Eyja’s in that it’s a bit of a toss-up whether it or his original X Module is better, but also Fedex is already a very borderline unit when it comes to his meta relevance, we just have so many laneholders and he rarely stands out. So a Module that isn’t even better than his first one simply isn’t something I can really recommend. There’s very marginal situations where this or his first Module may come out ahead of the other one, but none of them are really solid enough niches to recommend this one for anyone other than Executor maximalists. Operators that are several years old need Modules that are actual upgrades over their first for them to be relevant, not this kind of irrelevant side-grade.
Last, and definitely not least, Radian! Again! This is a Specialized Module, but really it’s like her first in that it’s a “special” Specialized Module. It doesn’t cost anything, not even a handful of Module blocks, rather, the player has to complete various tasks within IS6 in order to unlock it. Therefore I will provide a writeup for it but no rating. There’s no opportunity cost to consider investment wise, only the choice of which Module to use in which stage. This Module only works inside IS6 (not IS in general), so it is going to be a highly situational question, but in general her first Module, the α Module, is much more generally applicable, while this one is more situational. This second Module, her β Module, leans into Raidian’s ability to function without relying as much on her summons. It’s not a bad Module at all, and can be quite strong when there are tile limitations or in early floors before Raidian gets to deploy her summons without consuming deployment slots, but if you put me into a stage blind I would always prefer her first since it allows you to play her summons far more aggressively and activate her skills significantly more often.
Ratings System
This rating system aims to capture both the relative “meta value” of a unit as well as the strength of a Module. My aim is to have the ratings give an at a glance understanding for those just trying to figure out what is “good”, while those already interested in a unit regardless of the meta value of said unit, can read the detailed write-up of each Module to find out if it’s right for them, even if it’s a Module on a relatively low value Operator.
Each Module will be given a rating of [YES], [MAYBE], or [NOT RECOMMENDED] for whether it is worth building, as well as a recommended level to upgrade it to.
For Specialized Modules, ratings are given with the assumption that players are interested in the applicable game mode (for example Integrated Strategies).
Ratings
Loopshooters
Narantuya
'Those Buried in Sand'
LPS-X
Rating
Yes
Recommended Level
Level 3
Narantuya occupies an awkward place in the meta of Arknights. She’s good enough to be in the conversation but never one of the top contenders outside of very narrow circumstances. Luckily, her Module substantially improves her damage when attacking nearby enemies.
The Trait upgrade of this Module increases her ATK to 110% when attacking enemies within the surrounding 8 tiles. This upgrade most noticeably improves Narantuya’s damage when players lean into the Loopshooter’s optimal range. It is especially impactful for her S3, which also relies on the same 8 tile range for its peak damage potential. This Trait is somewhat less impactful for Narantuya’s S1 or S2, which are often skills used when enemies aren’t hanging out in optimal range.
The Talent upgrade of this Module improves Narantuya’s stat Steal Talent. Not only does it increase the cap of the ATK steal to 300 (up from 250) and DEF to 240 (up from 200), but it also grants Narantuya a double Steal when attacking enemies within those 8 surrounding tiles. The latter portion of this upgrade can be nice to get Narantuya up and running faster, but ultimately doesn’t impact her ceiling, while the former portion is essentially a 50 ATK (and less importantly, 40 DEF) upgrade. Additionally, more stat steal (for either stat) increases the maximum stat debuff on enemies Narantuya hits. For an Operator with relatively low base ATK, this (in addition to the base stats added by the Module) is a notable improvement to Narantuya’s damage (do note that stats granted by Steal are added after other modifiers).
The only possible negative of this Module is that it heavily reinforces the Loopshooter gameplay incentives. Great for players that only ever used Narantuya when conditions were optimal for her, not as useful for players who want to use her all the time. Still, the peak damage improvements of this Module are substantial and make Narantuya a more competitive, if not broken option.
Brigid
Color of the Wind
LPS-X
Rating
Not Recommended
Brigid suffers from 5★ disease. She has nowhere near the cost-effectiveness of Caper, the 4★, but isn’t even that much cheaper than the vastly superior 6★ Narantuya. Her Module, in a vacuum, isn’t terrible, but doesn’t do nearly enough to help Brigid compete with even the good 5★s, much less justify her value proposition when compared with other rarities.
The Trait upgrade of this Module increases Brigid’s ATK to 110% when attacking enemies within the surrounding 8 tiles. This is a straightforward damage increase conditional upon the scenario in which Loopshooters already excel, therefore as far as conditional buffs go, it’s a good one.
The Talent upgrade of this Module improves Brigid’s Talent in three ways: It reduces the trigger condition to dealing damage 16 times (down from 20), it adds a +10 ATK% buff, and it increases the Physical Dodge to 45% (up from 35%). This is a nice upgrade, giving Brigid some more offense and defense on an even easier trigger condition.
This Module doesn’t really have any problems other than the fact that it’s on Brigid, who is an underwhelming 5★, that said she’s not inherently terrible so for players who want to use her, this Module will help. It just doesn’t do anything to elevate Brigid to a point where players have any meta reason to invest in her.
Caper
Where the Warmth Remains
LPS-X
Rating
Yes
Recommended Level
Level 3
Caper has been a budget darling since her release, and Caper’s Module is similarly cheap (like all 4★ Modules) and good (not true of all 4★ Modules).
The Trait upgrade of this Module increases Caper’s ATK to 110% when attacking enemies within the surrounding 8 tiles. This is a straightforward damage increase, conditional upon the scenario in which Loopshooters already excel, therefore as far as conditional buffs go, it’s a good one.
The Talent upgrade of this Module improves Caper’s Talent in two ways: Firstly, it increases the “Crit” chance to 30% (up from 25%), and secondly it increases the “Crit” multiplier to 160% ATK (up from 150%).
No single component (the base stats, the Trait upgrade, the Talent upgrade) of this Module is absurdly strong but they all add up to be a significant upgrade to Caper’s damage. At the low 4★ costs, this Module is an easy win for anyone who already uses Caper.
New Operators
Mantra
Central Nerve Detection Module
PRI-X
Rating
Yes
Recommended Level
Level 1
Mantra follows the pattern of previous Primal Casters in that she really shines when paired alongside her preferred Elemental Injury applicator (using S3). Unlike the previous Primal Casters, however, Mantra’s preferred partner Tragodia is not a limited unit, and thus this combination is slightly less egregious of a requirement. Even further different than the previous Primal Casters, Mantra also doesn’t rely on a preferred partner when using her burst damage skill (S3), still performing quite impressively even solo (though Tragodia does significantly raise her damage ceiling). Her Module is a considerable help to her ability to perform this role, however with a little bit of nuance.
The Trait upgrade of this Module gives Mantra 110% damage dealt to enemies who are undergoing Elemental Burst. This is a significant improvement to her DPS, as her most impressive damage occurs under this condition anyway (when she is paired with Tragodia). This upgrade is by far the most essential and important upgrade for Mantra.
The Talent upgrade of this Module does two things: Firstly, when enemies trigger Paralysis, they take 160% of Mantra’s ATK (increased from 135%), secondly, when they trigger Paralysis, enemies have a 15% chance (up from 10%) not to consume the stack of Paralysis. The damage increase on this upgrade is the more consequential one, but it’s not outstanding. Meanwhile the stack save chance is still fairly low odds, low enough that most players would probably have to grind RNG to really rely on it. These upgrades are nice but far less essential than the straightforward power increase from the Trait upgrade at Module level 1.
Overall this is a decent Module, but by far the most important part of it is the Trait upgrade obtained at Module level 1. Anyone planning to build Mantra should probably further plan to build that too, while the upgrades are more of a luxury option.
Vetochki
'Marks of Time'
UNY-X
Rating
Not Recommended
Vetochki is the long-awaited upgrade to Vulcan, boasting comparable survivability and damage with vastly superior skill cycles. Unfortunately in modern Arknights that’s not a particularly impressive achievement. However, this Module does provide an essential portion of that power.
The Trait upgrade of this Module makes Vetochki take 15% less damage from enemies she is blocking. A simple and effective upgrade that helps her stay alive, adding some Damage Resistance to her respectable HP and DEF pools.
The Talent upgrade of this Module grants her +18% DEF during her skill, and restores 70% of Max HP when her skill ends (increased from 50%). This DEF increase isn’t terrifically high, especially considering the condition, but combined with the extra DEF Vetochki gains from the Module base stats, it ends up being fairly impactful to her bulk. Furthermore, the increased size of the heal is quite substantial. Vetochki, as a Juggernaut defender, cannot be targeted with most heals, and thus her self-heal is her primary means of survivability.
The Trait, Talent upgrade, and base stats from this Module are quite substantial improvements to Vetochki which improve her fairly strong self-contained survivability. However the playstyle of Juggernaut’s is typically very “all or nothing”, and without the stats of a 6★, Vetochki will often end up on the wrong end of that dynamic with or without Module. Those who have already decided they want to use Vetochki will certainly want to build this Module, all the way to level 3, as it will enable her to reach various crucial breakpoints, but most players will probably want to skip her altogether, including her Module.
Snegurochka
An Invalid Access Card
AGE-X
Rating
Maybe
Recommended Level
Level 1
Snegurochka, or Снегурочка, is a 4★ Agent Vanguard, which might initially seem like an easy recipe for an incredible value unit, however her skills let her down significantly, leaving her meta value incredibly low. Her Module does very little to improve this situation, with only a portion of it mitigating one of her flaws.
The Trait upgrade of this Module grants Snegurochka a lower taunt level. While this upgrade can often have inconsistent benefits for other Agents, for Snegurochka it is a reasonably consistent upgrade due to the way it interacts with her Talent. Snegurochka gains extra APSD until she is damaged the first time. Lowering her taunt level allows her to be deployed without always immediately becoming enemies’ priority target and thus losing her crucial ASPD buff.
The Talent upgrade of this Module increases the magnitude of that ASPD buff (up to +15 ASPD, from +10), but sadly by nowhere near enough to be a significant upgrade for Snegurochka.
Snegurochka’s skills are by far her biggest flaw, both requiring significant wind-up time before providing underwhelming effects. The Trait upgrade does help her survive and keep her +ASPD buff longer so that she has time to try and activate her skills, and that is about the only positive thing that can be said about this Module. The Trait upgrade costs only 1 Module block and thus if players do plan to use her, it’s cheap enough that a situational benefit might be worth the investment. Meanwhile her upgrades are so incredibly marginal that they’re never worth worrying about.
Second Modules
Eyjafjalla
Pet Contest First Prize
CCR-Y
Rating
Not Recommended
Eyjafjalla is a classic Arknights Operator who has, despite the increased power budget of newer units, remained fairly relevant. Her helidrop S3 playstyle is much less significant in her use these days, while the consistent AoE damage of her S2 is still a decent option. Furthermore, her first Module, the Core Caster X Module, is a great Module that gives her multiple valuable characteristics any Caster could want: RES ignore, and more ATK. Unfortunately, this Module is her second, the Core Caster Y Module, and suffers from all the typical problems of 2nd Modules.
The Trait upgrade of this Module grants Eyjafjalla 1 SP when her normal attacks hit Elite or Leader enemies. This improvement can theoretically speed up Eyja’s ability to cast her S2, but only with a steady stream of consistent enemies does it even catch up with the damage improvements her other Module offers for S2 use. As for S3, this SP generation is nowhere near enough to make it worth trying to recharge her skill with her onfield rather than just retreating her.
The Talent upgrade of this Module improves Eyja’s initial SP Talent. She still gains the same 7 to 15 SP on deployment, but also gains +6 to 15 ASPD upon deployment., Additionally, if there is an Elite or Boss enemy within her range when deployed, she will obtain the maximum of both these buffs. These improvements primarily help her S3 helidrop usage. The ASPD does genuinely improve the damage of her S3 uptime, but unfortunately not by enough to compete with the RES ignore and extra ATK from her X Module. The extra initial SP does allow her to always wait the minimum 10s to cast her S3 upon deployment, but it’s still not instant and her S3 is generally outclassed by other options in Arknights these days anyway. This Talent upgrade notably doesn’t improve S2 use at all, despite it now being her primary niche.
Overall this Module simply leans into the wrong parts of Eyja’s kit in the modern game for it to be a particularly good improvement for her. Players who already have her X Module should absolutely not consider building this one, and for those who don’t have either built, the improvement of her Caster +ATK% buff from “when deployed” to “when in the Squad” from her X Module is far more impactful than anything this Y Module offers. An easy skip.
Executor the Ex Foedere
Acknowledged
REA-Y
Rating
Not Recommended
Executor Alter sure is a laneholder. A decent one. There sure are a lot of those… He already has a good Module. This one is his second Module and is at best a side-grade to his first Module.
The Trait upgrade of this Module grants Executor Alter +12 ASPD when there are 2 or more targets within his range. This helps speed up Executor’s cycles and get his damage out faster, but sacrifices the extra healing and double hit “crit” chance.
The Talent upgrade of this Module grants an extra +12% ATK while using his skills, as well as +30% Physical and Arts Dodge when his Ammunition capacity is above half. This extra ATK helps this Y Module compete with the DEF ignore of Executor Alter’s X Module.
At the end of the day, this Module is so incredibly close to his X Module in damage, in survivability, and in RNG-dependence. The damage this Module grants is (so long as there are 2 targets), slightly more reliable as its its less dependent on his “crit” double hits, however his survivability will be more reliant on RNG than with his other Module. On paper, which Module will be better is a huge toss-up. However, in practice, this Module has the significant disadvantage of coming second. What that entails is that not only is Executor Alter considerably less meta-relevant than when his first Module released, but also most of the players interested in building him already have his first Module build, and this is absolutely not worth building for those who already have his Module X at level 3. For the rare player who doesn’t yet have Executor alter build but wants to now, this Module might be worth considering over his X Module? But neither will really help Executor catch up to the direction the Arknights meta has shifted, which in general values laneholders far less than sky-high burst DPS.
Specialized Modules
Raidian
Start+
SO-B
Rating
N/A
This is the second of Raidian’s Specialized Modules. Like her first one, this is obtained through IS6 special missions, and is thus “free” in that no limited resources such as Module Blocks are required to build her. As a result, this guide will not assign this Module a rating, and will instead simply walk through the effects, strengths, and weaknesses of this Module. In general, this Module is less universally strong as Raidian’s first Module, but is situationally useful. Like the first Module, this is a Specialized Module which only functions inside IS6 (not any IS).
The Trait upgrade of this Module (in IS6) grants Raidian the ability to attack an additional enemy. This upgrade is generally not as useful as the various summon related benefits from her α Module, but especially when combined with the Talent upgrade effects, can result in Raidian being much more capable as a damage dealer personally (rather than exclusively through her summons). Additionally, it’s a fairly useful buff for being able to deal with talismans and trash mobs at the same time.
The Talent upgrade of this Module (in IS6) allows Raidian to recycle her summons deployed within the 4 adjacent tiles around her, recovering 25% of her Max HP, and causing her attacks to deal an extra instance of Arts Damage equal to 30% ATK (stacking up to 4x). This effect leans into the change from her Trait upgrade, substantially improving Raidian’s ability to do damage herself rather than relying on her summons.
In general, this Module is much more situationally useful than her α Module. The recycling feature does somewhat mitigate the loss of the extra summon stock from her first Module, but the requirement of summons being placed in the 4 adjacent tiles does significantly limit the stages where the benefits of this Module can be put to their full use. In most stages, the ability to rapidly place more summons across the map and activate her skills more often is generally more useful, however this Module definitely helps to have in the players’ back pocket, especially in the earlier floors when her summons still use deployment slots.