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Module Ratings - People A People
Ratings and discussion of the Operator Modules introduced in the "People A People" patch [Arknights]
Mal.io Introduction
Heya all, Mal here with another Modules writeup! This time around is the “People a People” event. This patch introduces Modules for a few new and old Operators, but no new Branches get Modules.
Front and center is of course Zima the Raging Tide. Zima feels to me like the most “skippable” unit they’ve released in a while, which to a certain extent says more about the trend of Operators they’ve released the past couple years than it does about Zima. If you love her and want to pull her, you’ll be able to get plenty of mileage out of her, but if you compare her to many of the ops that have come out in the past year or two she’s decidedly below average. Her Module is annoying for me because the damage improvement varies greatly depending on a bunch of factors, but luckily you dear readers don’t have to worry about any of that and just trust me when I say that it’s a pretty underwhelming Module. The Trait upgrade is nice but the Talent upgrades only affect a portion of her damage, and that portion may or may not be small depending on the circumstance, but even under fairly ideal circumstances it’s never a particularly large improvement. I think most people who build her should go for the base Module only but it’s not super high priority.
The other two new units are 5★s, Botani and Ukusik. Botani is a Ritualist Supporter, introducing the new Elemental Damage Type –Corrosion. Well, new to us. Enemies have been able to shred our DEF using Corrosion for years. Anyway, Botani, despite having a really cool kit, has absolutely been hit with a case of 5★ power budget. They gave the DEF shredder Ritualist Physical damage, which rules in theory, but just nowhere near enough numbers for it to matter. So what you’re left with is that she can intermittently proc the effectively True Damage from Corrosion Burst and do some slight DEF shredding. Typically you’re much more likely to want more of one or the other, not a little of each. Her Module isn’t that impactful, it doesn’t help her achieve any meaningful breakpoints sadly.
Ukusik on the other hand is a really cool Operator who actually fulfills the promise of her kit. However, unlike Botani who lives or dies (she dies) based on her numbers, Ukusik is a utility Operator whose numbers barely matter. Ukusik is a Chain Medic who, with her S2, grants healed allies Camouflage. Previously, we’ve had to rely on Heavyrain if we wanted to grant allies Camo, but Ukusik is way better at it than Heavyrain. Anyway, Ukusik’s Camo is really nice, but it requires nearly zero investment to get the most out of. You get 98% of the benefits of Ukusik by leveling her to Elite 1 Skill level 7. All further investment whether E2, Masteries, Module, improves her ability to function as a normal healer, which is cute and all, but there’s a billion pure healers in the game. You bring Ukusik because you want her Camo application, not for her healing. Even if you want to make her function as a pure healer, the Module is actually kinda finicky and not that impressive.
Several existing Operators also got second Modules: Surtr, Skadi the Corrupting Heart, and Nymph. These are a mixed bag. Surtr’s Module is actually a huge upgrade. Her first one, perhaps because HG was scared of making it too strong, provided a measly amount of RES-ignore, and was generally a pretty big disappointment. However, this Module is great. Not only does it give her the simple improvement of an extra second of unkillability, but when she triggers her undying Talent, she also gets a whopping 30 ASPD. Combined with the Arts Fragility from the Trait upgrade, this can result in staggering DPS gains, over 50% more DPS compared to no Module, the largest DPS improvement we’ve seen on a Module in a while. Admittedly this is fairly conditional, she won’t spend the whole time in her undying state, and she won’t always be blocking enemies, but many Operators get Modules with annoying conditions that at best offer 25% more DPS. Surtr definitely isn’t in her glory days anymore, but this Module is strong enough to be worth taking her out of mothballs.
Skadi Alter’s Module is a weird one. It seems to be trying to lean into her Abyssal Hunter synergy, despite her not technically being in that faction. I suppose this might appeal to more casual players who like the strength of the AH team but don’t care about strict nicheknights rules, as those who do care would never include Skadi Alter in those clears. The Module has both direct AH interactions and more indirect synergies (such as a new Trait feature that seems to synergize neatly with Ulpianus), but honestly even for those players who like the power of the AH team without caring about nicheknights rules, this new Module doesn’t offer that much compared to what the AH team already has. As for those using Skadi Alter without concern for AH synergy, which is probably the majority of players, this Module offers a more survivability-oriented version of her kit with her flat DR and extra DEF. These bonuses are extremely small though so most of the time the straightforward stat buffs of her Module-X are better for most players most of the time.
Nymph’s Module is interesting, it offers better uptime on her S2, but it does somewhat rely on some micromanagement to make the most of it. Furthermore, it enables more Elemental Damage on enemies already undergoing Necrosis Burst, but it makes her a little bit worse at inflicting said Necrosis Burst than her first one. Whether you want this one will depend on whether you just use her S2 for the crowd control or whether you ever use her S3. It’s annoying for me because I had to do the math on all these different scenarios only for none of the results to really stand out that much. I think I still slightly recommend her other one over this, as inflicting Necrosis burst more reliably is more important to me, but I could see plenty of people preferring this one instead just because of the marginally better Fear uptime.
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
New Operators
Zima the Raging Tide
Unissued Medal
HAM-X
Rating
Maybe
Recommended Level
Level 1
Zima Alter is a strange unit. Her primary claim to fame is her ability to AFK lanehold, however the value of that role is arguably at an all-time low due to the wide variety of burst DPS options (or even consistent DPS ranged units) now part of the Arknights roster. Furthermore, while she does have a nuke DPS oriented skill, its output isn’t particularly impressive. This leaves Zima as a functional Operator but lacking compared to her contemporaries. To add insult to injury, her Module affects her damage profile in peculiar ways, only improving her performance in extremely specific scenarios.
The Trait upgrade of this Module increases Zima’s ATK to 115% when there are 3 or more enemies inside the splash area of her attacks. This upgrade is a fairly straightforward improvement that helps Zima when she’s hitting multiple enemies. This is by far the most appealing portion of Zima’s Module, as it improves her damage against both the primary target of her attack (assuming there are multiple enemies in range), the Earthshaker Trait’s splash damage, and the ranged tile aftershocks triggered by her Talent. One important note, the ranged tile aftershocks themselves do not count for the trigger condition of this Talent, enemies must be within the initial splash radius for Zima’s ATK to get increased.
The Talent upgrade of this Module improves Zima’s splash damage Talent by increasing the scaling of the Earthshaker Trait modifier to +40% (up from +24%). To clarify what this means, the Earthshaker Trait normally deals 50% of ATK as an AoE around the primary target. Zima’s Talent acts as a multiplier to that 50%, at Module level 0, the +24% modifier results in the new Trait multiplier of 62% ATK dealt as an AoE, while at Module level, the +40% modifier results in a new Trait multiplier of 70% ATK dealt as an AoE. It should also be noted that despite this being the same Talent that creates Zima’s ranged tile shockwaves, the scaling of those shockwaves is unaffected, remaining at 24% ATK. This upgrade is the opposite of the Trait upgrade, as it only benefits one portion of Zima’s damage, the initial AoE splash around her target, while the damage dealt to the main target and the damage from the ranged tile shockwaves are both unaffected. What this means is that the peak theoretical improvement is only at a very specific balance of target count to ranged tiles hit. The more ranged tiles Zima hits to take advantage of her Talent, the less this improvement matters. The more enemies in the direct splash area of her attacks (not just the ranged tile splash damage), the more this improvement matters. And lastly, against the primary target (or in single target), this improvement doesn’t matter at all. The primary target of Zima S3 is the one receiving the most impressive high DPH hits, and against enemies with non-trivial DEF, this results in the other portions of damage on this skill to fall off much more quickly, so it’s unfortunate that this primary component isn’t improved by these upgrades. Furthermore, for those planning to use Zima on S2, the improvements to that skill are even worse than those on her S3.
Overall, this Module provides improvements that are difficult to realize, relying heavily on Zima’s initial hit’s AoE splash damage to maximize, which feels in tension with her kit’s signature gimmick: her ranged tile shockwaves. The Trait upgrade is worth considering as it is a much more straightforward upgrade, but even then, it’s conditional upon there being multiple targets in range of the splash. As a result, Module level 1 is a potential investment path for Zima Alter, although it shouldn’t be considered high priority. The upgrades on the other hand should be considered a skip for most players.
Botani
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
RIT-X
Rating
Not Recommended
Botani is a Ritualist Supporter of the Corrosion damage type. Corrosion works much like the version enemies can apply to friendly units; when Elemental Burst is reached, Corrosion Burst deals 5,000 Elemental Damage, and permanently reduces their DEF by 120. This DEF reduction stacks upon repeated bursts, and Corrosion has a shorter cooldown than the other forms of Elemental Damage to incentivize players to proc Corrosion Burst frequently. All that said, Botani suffers from the typical shortcomings of 5★ Operators in a new Elemental Damage type. She applies Corrosion Injury slowly, and her kit is balanced around that as her primary feature. Botani does attempt to take advantage of the DEF reduction from Corrosion by also dealing Physical damage, but isn’t given the numbers to back up this theoretical synergy with impressive DPS. To top it all off, her Module is quite underwhelming, as it doesn’t enable her to hit any meaningful breakpoints for Corrosion Burst during her skill.
The Trait upgrade of this Module increases the Elemental Injury Botani deals to Elite and Leader enemies by 18%. This could be useful if it allowed Botani to reach interesting breakpoints, the result is that in one S2 use she is able to proc Corrosion Burst three times against normal enemies and elites, and is able to proc it two times against bosses. Unfortunately, this is the case before and after her Module. In theory, this bonus could be useful at certain non-max level breakpoints, or in some buff/debuff scenarios, but other than some cope S1 use (it’s a much worse skill than her S2), that’s about all it has going for it.
The Talent upgrade of this Module improves Botani’s stacking ASPD Talent, when there are enemies in her attack range under Corrosion Burst, she gains +8 ASPD (up from 7), stacking up to 4 times (up from 3). When this buff is maximized, it leans into her ability to function as a high DPS Physical damage dealer against DEF-shredded enemies, as well as speeding up the application of Corrosion Burst. This extra 11 ASPD is fairly substantial, but unfortunately her Physical damage’s DPH is quite low and it takes a lot of Corrosion Bursts for this to start dealing meaningful damage against typical DEF targets. Realistically, most of Botani’s actual damage will come from the Corrosion Bursts themselves, which this Talent improvement often doesn’t improve much.
Crucially, this requires those enemies in range to remain under Corrosion Burst for this Talent to work; the moment they recover, she loses the ASPD. This means that Botani’s ability to maintain the maximum number of stacks is inconsistent. When this buff is maximized however, it leans into her ability to deal Physical damage against DEF-shredded enemies. Unfortunately, the gains from the Module upgrade only materialize when Botani can maximize the stacks and uptime of this Talent, and the rest of the time it’s fairly unimpressive.
Botani has the misfortune of being an Operator debuting a new Elemental Damage type, and a 5★ at that. Not only does Nervous Impairment and its Operators exist, but so do Burn and Necrosis. Botani has an interesting kit, but her numbers simply don’t make her a compelling Operator to invest in. Furthermore, even for those who choose to invest in her, her Module doesn’t make that much of a difference. This Module is an easy skip.
Ukusik
'Nighttime Stories'
XAH-X
Rating
Not Recommended
Ukusik is a useful tool that needs almost no investment to maximize. Her S2 allows her to provide Camouflage to healed allies, a powerful piece of utility with little competition. However, she accomplishes this task equally well at Elite 1 Skill level 7 as she does at Elite 2 S2M3 Module level 3. Her ability to grant Camouflage is entirely baked into her S2, and the rest of her kit is nearly irrelevant in its interaction with this role. Ukusik is a Chain Medic, and her Module leans into her ability to function as a normal healer. It does give her the usual improvements one would expect from a Module on a pure healer, however.
The Trait upgrade of this Module reduces the healing penalty when Ukusik’s heals hit subsequent targets to 15% per bounce, down from 25% per bounce. This results in the 2nd target getting a little bit more healing, the 3rd target getting a lot more healing, and while in S2, the 4th target getting way more. For comparison, pre-Module: Target 1 gets healed for 100%, Target 2 gets healed for 75%, Target 3 gets healed for 56%, and Target 4 gets healed for 42%. However, with this Module: Target 1 gets healed for 100%, Target 2 gets healed for 85%, Target 3 gets healed for 72%, and target 4 gets healed for 61%. In other words, Ukusik becomes much more capable as a multitarget Medic. While this improvement doesn’t interact in any meaningful way with her ability to grant Camouflage, it at least does provide a meaningful benefit to players who insist on using her as a regular medic.
The Talent upgrade upgrades her self-heal Talent, when receiving her own bouncing heal, Ukusik’s healing amount increases to 130% (up from 120%). By extension, this means all the subsequent bounces after Ukusik in the chain also have their healing increased. As her S2 triggers self-HP loss, Ukusik will often be targeting herself first, and thus triggering the benefit of this Talent on nearly all of her heals. Unfortunately, the healing improvements of this Talent upgrade have a certain amount of anti-synergy with her S2, as the Camouflage means the allies she has targeted are much less likely to need this healing in the first place for the duration of her skill. Meanwhile, her S1 which is more of a typical pure healing Chain Medic skill, doesn’t have any features to prioritize hitting herself, and thus the benefit of this Talent is often wasted. Players who insist on using Ukusik as a pure medic might get some benefit from this, but it’s much less reliable than it seems due to the “synergy” with her S2 being canceled out by the actual utility of the skill.
Most crucially, this Module is simply unnecessary for Ukusik’s primary niche: providing AoE Camouflage to allied Operators. Furthermore, it has specific anti-synergy with her utility in that the benefits of these upgrades will be inactive most of the time when using her as intended. Ukusik is a fascinating Operator, but her Module is almost useless. Ukusik maximalists who want to use her everywhere might find some benefit from Module level 1, but even for them the upgrades are not worth it. For the typical player, this entire Module is a skip and Ukusik should be left at Elite 1 SL7, as that is all she needs.
Second Modules
Surtr
Travel Necessities
AFT-Y
Rating
Yes
Recommended Level
Level 3
The “just Surtr it” days are long past, but even so, the ability to ignore death for several seconds while doing decent multi-target Arts damage remains valuable, if not invaluable. Surtr already had one Module, however its effects were fairly underwhelming, luckily, her second one is much more meaningful, representing a substantial DPS and utility upgrade.
The Trait upgrade of this Module applies 10% Arts Fragility to Enemies Surtr is blocking. This is a conditional buff that, when active, provides a fairly comparable DPS improvement to that granted by her first Module (Module-X), but in theory when facing a dangerous enemy, it’s plausible that Surtr will spend more time blocking than not, and thus it’s reasonable to expect more uptime on this condition than the condition on her Module-X. A decent damage upgrade that can occasionally benefit other Arts damage teammates attacking the same enemies.
The Talent upgrade of this Module gives Surtr an extra second of invulnerability after receiving fatal damage, for a total of 9 seconds (up from 8). Furthermore, with the same trigger, she also gains +30 ASPD. This combination of upgrades is massive, representing up to 30% more DPS than Module X, and over 50% more DPS than no Module, in addition to the less quantifiable benefits of the extra second of being unkillable. Obviously, Surtr does output some damage before dying, and so that +30 ASPD doesn’t actually have full uptime, but it leans into her intended use case quite cleanly. Meanwhile, the additional RES-ignore offered by her first Module is an incredibly paltry amount, so the benefit will almost never outpace that of the extra ASPD.
Overall this Y Module is better than Surtr’s X Module in nearly every way. While Surtr isn’t the ubiquitous solution to stages she once was, this Module substantially improves her DPS as well as her core utility of “not dying”. Players should consider dusting off Surtr and building this Module for her.
Skadi the Corrupting Heart
New Generation
BAR-Y
Rating
Not Recommended
Skadi Alter was once a staple unit of both casual and advanced Arknights play, however her role these days largely only consists of the former, and even there she’s not as prominent as she once was. This Module seemingly attempts to breathe new life into her by improving her synergy with the Abyssal Hunter faction, as compared to the more general use approach of her first Module, Module-X.
The Trait upgrade of this Module grants allies within Skadi’s range a flat 30 Physical and Arts Damage Reduction while her skill is active. This means every hit of damage will be reduced by 30, after DEF/RES calculations. This is quite impactful when dealing with some damage over time effects, as each tick of damage is reduced by this flat amount. Unfortunately, when compared to the benefit of her first Module, this one generally pales in comparison to that flat ATK buff, only really shining in a few scenarios (to be discussed more later).
The Talent upgrade of this Module slightly increases the scaling of her Talent that buffs Skadi whenever an ally is within range of her or her seaborn, up to +9% ATK (up from 6%) and adds a brand new +8% DEF. However, it more substantially buffs her stats when that unit is an Abyssal Hunter, with +20% ATK (up from 15%), and the same +8% DEF. Furthermore, it adds a new effect, when a friendly Operator is deployed within her range, or the range of an Abyssal Hunter, Skadi recovers 3 SP. This SP generation benefits her S3 much more than her S2, as its SP cost is low enough that 3 SP here and there makes a meaningful dent, unlike her S2. Furthermore, the Abyssal Hunters condition on both the extra ATK and range of SP generation makes it clear that this Module is intended for using Skadi alongside the other Abyssal Hunters.
The Trait upgrade, in a vacuum, is a niche upgrade that is slightly convenient here and there, but makes much more sense when Skadi is used alongside the Abyssal Hunters, notably Ulpianus and Gladiia. Ulpianus has his powerful Talent that allows him to recover health with each hit, Gladiia has her Talent which grants all the Abyssal Hunters Damage Resistance (which calculates before Skadi’s Trait’s flat Damage Resistance) and HP scaling regen. This flat Damage Resistance gets to function as yet another layer in the cocoon of invincibility the Abyssal Hunters team offers. Furthermore, her stats get substantially buffed when she is supporting her Abyssal Hunters simply through her Talent’s condition. Unfortunately, the main downside of all this is that even with all these Abyssal Hunters specific buffs, Skadi doesn’t fit neatly into the rest of the team. Since she’s not an Abyssal Hunter Operator herself (even after the hidden tags update), she doesn’t benefit from the various buffs from the rest of the squad to further juice her own buffs, and as a result her buffs are generally not that pertinent compared to all the buffs that squad already has access to. Furthermore, these benefits are only for some Abyssal Hunters users, as those who follow strict nicheknights rules typically do not include Skadi Alter in their teams.
Realistically, the main benefits of this Module for more typical Skadi play is that it leans into the survivability she grants allied units between the Damage Reduction and extra DEF. However these improvements are still fairly marginal, and this Module only shines when players can activate the Abyssal Hunter condition that buffs her stats even further, even then, those buffs aren’t that much higher than those she provides at base.
Some Abyssal Hunters players might want to add this Module to their collection, but even for that team it should be considered low priority. For everyone else, the simple stat increases and Seaborn timing flexibility given by Skadi’s first Module (Module-X) is nearly always better. Though it should be noted that the differences between the two are fairly marginal in almost all these cases. This Module only really outshines it when players want Skadi for the defensive measures she provides allies rather than offensive, or when the marginally improved skill cycles are imperative. For most players her Module-X is preferable, albeit slightly.
Nymph
Consultation Toolkit
PRI-Y
Rating
Maybe
Recommended Level
Level 3
Nymph provides extremely potent crowd control via her Fear application on her S2. Despite the theoretical power of combining her with Virtuosa and using both their S3s, the actual applications for this combination have been far and few between. This Module, her second, leans into Nymph’s S2 use, and thus improves the more relevant part of Nymphs kit, albeit in a way that is not a straightforward upgrade over her first Module.
The Trait upgrade of this Module grants Nymph +0.2 SP/s when there are enemies undergoing Elemental Burst within her range. In theory, this can improve Nymph’s skill cycles substantially, and with some effort, it can get close to that theoretical maximum. However it should be noted that if players are using S2 as they might normally (without this Module in mind), enemies undergoing Necrosis Burst will often walk out of Nymph’s range while suffering from the Fear effect. This means that in order to obtain the maximum S2 cycle improvements, players must activate the skill at precise angles to try and maneuver enemies to stay within Nymph’s range during their Fear wandering. However even this can be inconsistent due to the RNG nature of Fear’s effects. Nevertheless, even imperfect usage of S2 will still result in some cycle time improvements.
The Talent upgrade of this Module increases the frequency of Nymph’s Talent hits, when attacking enemies under Necrosis Burst, she deals an additional 40% ATK as Elemental damage every 0.7 seconds (down from 1 second), until the end of Necrosis Burst. As Nymph’s S2 already increases the scaling of the damage of this Talent, increasing the frequency of the Talent hits allow this improvement to synergize nicely with S2. It should be noted however that this only applies to enemies that are already undergoing Necrosis Burst. When compared to her first Module (Module-X), this upgrade results in higher Elemental Damage after Burst has been triggered, but Nymph may require more skill activations to trigger burst, especially in AoE where enemies are only getting hit by the splash component of her S2.
For S2, it’s a bit of a toss-up between this and her other Module. It depends on whether players value slightly faster skill cycles, more consistent/faster Necrosis Burst proc, or more damage after the proc. Which outperforms in terms of DPS varies depending on several circumstances such as RES and target count. As for S3, her Module-X (her first one) outperforms this one by a more noticeable margin.
Overall, this Module is a little bit awkward, those who only use Nymph for keeping Fear active on one enemy, and don’t much care about the damage will probably want this Module at level 1. Those who only ever use her S2 but do care somewhat about the damage can probably lean towards this Module at level 3, while those who want to dabble between her S2 and S3 should probably stick with her other Module. Overall, Nymph isn’t a dominant Operator given the relative prominence of other Elemental Damage types, so none of her Modules should be considered particularly high priority anymore.