Arknights: Module Priority Guide - The Rides to Lake Silberneherze

Welcome back to my series on Modules. I’ll soon be working backwards on all the Modules that pre-date my articles. I plan to work through them per class, starting with Vanguards. I hope you all are looking forward to those forthcoming articles. All that said, today I’ll be discussing the Modules added in The Rides to Lake Silberneherze.

This event brings with it Modules for the Mech-accord Casters, the Incantation Medics, the new unit Degenbrecher, and second Modules for Suzuran, Lee, Carnelian and Weedy.

Mech-accord Caster MOD-X and MOD-Y Trait upgrades are both excellent. Mech-accord Casters have always been competitive with, albeit more complex than Core Casters as a result of their Drone mechanics. Their drones scale off the Caster’s ATK, starting out at a fraction of their ATK, and, with repeated hits on the same target, ramping up to be slightly more than the Caster’s ATK. This results in very high sustained DPS against a target, with less impressive damage while rapidly switching between targets.

Mech-accord Caster MOD-X shores up their weakness, raising the initial ATK of their Drones from 20% ATK to 35% ATK, allowing them to do more damage even when switching between targets.

Mech-accord Caster MOD-Y improves their strength, raising the peak ATK of their drones from 110% to 120%, allowing them to ramp-up to do even more sustained damage on a single target.

Goldenglow and Kjera are the biggest winners from these Modules. They already did good damage and these Modules make them even better. Click’s Module gains are modest, but reasonable considering 4★ costs. Minimalist’s Module doesn’t really do anything to help him stand out unfortunately, and while Rockrock is already very good, her Module doesn’t improve her damage enough compared to the 5★ costs.

The Incantation Medics only got one Module branch, their MOD-X. The Trait upgrade improves their healing, which is a decent but not amazing improvement. Their healing improves from 50% of damage done to 60% of damage done.

Incantation Medics have always suffered from the fact that their healing scales based on damage dealt, meaning that enemies with high RES or some other form of damage resistance, as well as a lack of enemies to attack, result in these healers potentially not doing much healing. This Trait upgrade improves the ratio of their healing to damage dealt but their weakness remains generally unaddressed.

Reed the Flameshadow, the most popular Incantation medic, got an underwhelming Module, it focuses on her healing, which is usually not the reason players bring her along in their squad. Hibiscus Alter got a decent Module, while Vendela’s Module doesn’t particularly relate to her primary gimmick, and is thus not that worthwhile.

This patch of course introduces Degenbrecher, who drops with her first Module. Degenbrecher does amazing damage and her Module is a substantial upgrade that most players interested in her should pursue.

Lastly, we got second Modules for four operators (more than usual) in this patch. One point I feel I should make to readers is that I will generally be pretty harsh on one of an operator’s two Modules. An operator’s first Module is essentially a complete upgrade that will always be active on that OP. However an operator with two Modules presents players with a choice for which upgrade they want to pursue. Even if a player builds both, they will always have to decide which to use for a given stage, so there is a substantial opportunity cost at play. A handful of operators do in fact manage to have two good Modules, but many do not. As a result, I will generally look upon Modules more favorably that have a wider applicability, rather than more niche Modules. Most players will probably only build one of these Modules therefore I believe it makes more sense to recommend the more widely useful option.

Suzuran got a second module that many might have expected to blow her first out of the water, but sadly is merely decent. Lee and Weedy got second Modules that advanced players will appreciate, but will probably not appeal to those who don’t already have specific plans in mind. The long-suffering Carnelian, one of my favorite operators, got a terrible Module. It ought to have been the chosen one, as it improves her SP Talent, unfortunately the improvement is barely noticeable; Thus her torment continues. Perhaps if she suffers enough, Carnelian will receive the Ebenholz treatment and be given a cracked Mod Delta…

Any system of evaluation will be debatable, and impossible to encompass the broad variety of playstyles and philosophies that exist in the Arknights community. Therefore, I will set out to explain the criteria I’ll be using to evaluate Modules and their upgrades.

This guide will try to strike a balance between taking into account “meta” Operator value and judging the improvement to characters. Essentially, my approach is to assume that someone reading this guide is already interested in a character, whether they’re considering building them, currently building them, or already have them built. If a character is an overall poor investment then it will impact their Module’s evaluation, but outside of a handful of the worst ops I won’t discourage you from building them; I will merely discuss whether their Module significantly affects their performance.

Each base Module, and its upgrades will be given a rating of [YES], [MAYBE], or [NO].

[YES] - Modules/upgrades are true no-brainers. If you plan to use this Operator, then plan to build this Module at some point too. These Modules either significantly improve the Operator’s performance in their existing niches, or introduce powerful new niches to these Operators. This evaluation does not mean that the Operator themselves is a must-build, it should be used as a planning tool for if you are already considering using/building that Operator.

[MAYBE] - Modules/upgrades that are more murky. They might provide stat buffs that are noticeable, but not game-changing, or they might add a new niche, but it might be a rarely-used niche, or be clearly inferior to other options in that niche. Choosing whether to build these Modules is a judgment call, and if in doubt, skip them.

[NO] - Modules that are not worth the investment. Fans of the character or advanced players working with self-imposed restrictions might find some use in Modules with this grade, but for most people: “if you have to ask then the answer is no”.. These Modules either provide only marginal stat buffs, add new niches that aren’t useful, or are simply insufficient to save the most undertuned kits.

Goldenglow

Goldenglow was the first unit to give Eyjafjalla any meaningful challenge for the title of “strongest caster”, however unlike Eyja, all Mech-accord Casters have considerable complexity baked into their kits with their Drones’ ramp-up mechanics. Goldenglow’s Module manages to both shore up the weakness of Mech-accord Casters – frequently switching between targets without time to ramp up (via the Trait upgrade that improves initial Drone ATK), as well as improving her strength, dealing even more sustained damage on targets by upgrading her Drone explosion Talent.

Goldeglow is already a fantastic general purpose DPS unit and this Module makes her better at both clearing trash and killing elites.

Kjera

Kjera is perhaps most well-known for her Freeze capability, but even outside niche Freeze setups her damage is among the highest for her rarity. The Trait upgrade improves her ceiling sustained damage against single targets, and the Talent upgrade improves her +ATK% Talent. Mech-accord Caster drone mechanics mean that they get considerably more mileage out of ATK increases than one might expect, and Kjera is no exception.

Whether players are interested in Kjera for her Freeze niche or as a general purpose caster, the damage improvements from her Module are considerable.

Minimalist

Minimalist fits in an awkward spot for casters. His main skill, S2, provides multi-hits that interact well with his critical hit Talent. His S2 is a decent consistent damage skill, however those who value the convenience of consistent damage skills often might not consider using an “inferior” lower-rarity option such as Minimalist, not when skills like Eyja S2 or Goldenglow S2 exist, providing just as much convenience but with more efficacy.

Minimalist’s Module noticeably improves his damage, but not enough to help him to stand out from his (many) competitors in his niche.

Rockrock

Rockrock has some of the highest DPS attainable at the 5★ rarity, albeit at the cost of being a little more awkward to use than her higher rarity counterparts. Unfortunately the gains from Rockrock’s module are underwhelming. The Trait upgrade is worthwhile because it improves her ability to swap between targets (higher initial Drone damage before ramp-up), but the Talent upgrades are very marginal, allowing her stacks to accumulate slightly faster and giving her a very small ASPD buff.

That said, Rockrock’s damage is already so high that even the small improvements of her Module upgrades can be appealing to some players, but the value proposition of them is comparatively poor.

Click

Click provides excellent damage for her rarity, and this Module gives her noticeable improvements at very cheap 4★ costs. The Trait upgrade improves her sustained damage, synergizing well with her S2. The Talent upgrade brings her ASPD Talent up from +12 to +18 – admittedly not a massive gain, but upgrading a 4★ from Module level 1 to level 3 is very cheap and thus easy to justify.

Some players are of the philosophy that 4★s should be left at E1, but other than them, anyone who uses Click should build this Module.

Reed The Flame Shadow

Reed Alter is often referred to as one of the strongest Casters in Arknights, despite supposedly being a Medic. This reflects the motivations most players have when including her in their squad. She outputs excellent Arts damage while also providing decent healing. However, the Reed Alter experience is one of contrasts: On-skill, she outputs excellent Arts damage and far more healing than is typically needed; off-skill, she outputs mediocre Arts damage and mediocre healing.

Her Module’s Trait upgrade improves her healing, and thus might potentially be worthwhile to improve her off-skill healing, however the Talent upgrade mostly improves her secondary self-healing, rarely a relevant factor in Reed Alter’s usage.

This Module does little to change the experience of using Reed Alter. A theoretical second Module would improve her Arts Fragility Talent, and is more likely to be worthwhile.

Hibiscus the Purifier

Hibiscus Alter is a well-rounded unit who can provide decent Arts damage, healing, and crowd-control. The Module’s Trait upgrade improves her healing, and the Talent upgrade improves her Arts Fragility Talent, which results in both higher personal damage and better healing due to Incantation Medics’ healing scaling off their damage.

The gains from the Trait upgrade have especially good value, while the Talent Upgrades have less impact per upgrade and some players looking to save resources may want to skip them.

Vendela

Vendela’s primary niche is turning allied units into retaliation tanks via her S2. Her Module does decently improve her healing, but it doesn’t really change her ability to do her very specific job. If her S2 target starts taking heavy damage, they will probably die if Vendela is the only medic healing them; this is true both with and without Vendela’s Module.

Degenbrecher

Degenbrecher raises the ceiling on how good a unit can be, with an excellent combination of damage, range, and ease of use. Her skills do massive damage, so the Module’s Trait upgrade is a big improvement. Degenbrecher’s main skill, her S3, and her Talent, both include multiplicative buffs, therefore her Module’s Talent upgrades, which improves one of those buffs, has an outsized impact on her S3’s already massive damage.

Put simply, Degenbrecher is a top-tier unit whose Module elevates her damage significantly.

Carnelian

Carnelian’s long-awaited second Module was hoped by many to be the chosen one, finally “fixing” this flawed 6★ operator, unfortunately it was not to be, as this Module does far too little to address her flaws.

The Trait upgrade improves her theoretical peak damage, but Carnelian fans will know that it is rare to be able to actually run into scenarios in which she can reach that peak.

The reason this Module was looked upon by many as the potential savior of Carnelian is because it upgrades her second Talent, which affects her SP generation. Carnelian’s skills have an infamously bad skill cycle, however the Talent upgrade brought by this Module improves her SP generation far too little to make her more usable. Her S3 is brought down from 45.5s for full charge, to 42s for full charge with her MOD-Y.

This Module is potentially worthwhile for the Trait upgrade for the slight improvement to Carnelian’s peak damage, but the level 2 and 3 upgrades are not worthwhile even for Carnelian fans.

Suzuran

Suzuran is one of the premier buffers in Arknights, with her strong damage amplification on a reasonable skill cycle. This Module’s effects will be most noticeable depending on which skill is used.

The Trait upgrade increases Suzuran’s Slow duration from her attacks. The impact of this will be primarily felt when using Suzuran’s S2. Frequent users of her S2 might consider Module level 1 (or higher) because of how well the upgrade works with this skill. The Talent upgrades are not particularly impactful for S2 usage. Suzuran’s MOD-X does help her S2 charge up faster, so depending on the stage it still might be the better choice even for S2 usage.

The Talent upgrade from Module level 2 and 3 improves Suzuran’s Fragile Talent, therefore it primarily interacts with her S3. However, the Talent improvement is very modest, under S3 her Fragile effect goes from 40% Damage Amplification to 44% Damage Amplification with Mod 3. As a result, her MOD-X that improves her skill cycle might often still be desirable over MOD-Y. There might be some cases where advanced players know they will need that extra 4%, but for more typical usage, the flexibility her MOD-X brings makes it more desirable a majority of the time.

MOD-Y is decent, but generally overshadowed by MOD-X for general usage.  Neither has essential upgrades.

Lee

Lee is widely known as a gimmick Operator, who famously says “No u” when enemies attempt to inflict crowd control statuses on him (Stun, Freeze, etc). He is often used as a counter to annoying stage or enemy mechanics, as long as there is sufficient DP production, he can hold a lane against hordes of weaker enemies.

However, Lee’s personal damage is usually not particularly relevant in this usage. His damage is decent, with Merchants having inherently good base stats, and his main skill, S3, giving him a sizable ATK and DEF buff, however his damage is rarely the reason players include him in their squad.

As a result, Lee’s second Module, MOD-Y, which primarily improves his personal damage, is in a strange place. The Trait upgrade gives him a stacking ATK buff, and the Talent upgrade improves his ASPD buff/debuff. The damage improvement adds up to be significant, so if players truly need Lee to pump out damage (or debuff enemy ASPD just a little bit more), this Module is the way to do it.

All that said, Lee’s first Module, MOD-X, exists. The Trait upgrade reduces his DP drain so that players can still naturally recover DP, albeit at a reduced rate. The vast majority of cases where players will want to include Lee in their squad, it is so he can fill his role as a “No u” machine or use his S3 to insist enemies take him on one at a time. This usefulness does not depend on Lee’s personal damage, while the MOD-X Trait makes him easier to deploy and keep on the field.

Lee’s MOD-Y is not bad, but is overshadowed by the convenience his MOD-X brings. Only invest in this Module if Lee needs to output as much damage as possible and his DP drain is not a concern.

Weedy

Weedy is the 6★ unit of an archetype that is disproportionately of interest to advanced players, as a result, her Module must be evaluated in that light.

The Trait upgrade of this Module grants Weedy greater push force when blocking two or more enemies, while the Talent upgrade reduces the redeployment time of her Water Cannon summon.

Both of those upgrades will undoubtedly be essential in all manner of advanced clears Weedy fans will concoct, and therefore this Module will undoubtedly be essential for them.

For the casual player who merely builds Weedy so they can have a pusher, her first Module, MOD-X, will give her more day to day convenience, allowing her to serve better as a laneholder, and granting her more tile flexibility; but for the Advanced players who prize Weedy for her technical gameplay, MOD-Y will add yet another tool in her toolbox.