Arknights: Module Upgrade Priority Guide - Mizuki and Caerula Arbor

This update to the Module Upgrade Priority Guide focuses on the Modules added with the Il Siracusano event, including the Single-Target Medic branch and second modules for Angelina and Dusk. You can find the main guide page below, alongside the relevant event page.

Please keep in mind this guide does NOT rate the direct meta power or viability of these upgrades or the Operators they belong to, and instead focuses on the relative strength of the individual Module Upgrade and the individual boost in performance of their Operator. In short, if you already use these Operators often, how prioritary are these endgame upgrades for their viability?

If you wish to quickly find the ratings given to a specific Module Upgrade, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+F and search for the name or branch of the Module or the Operator they belong to.

Unlike in the Mastery Priority Guide, this list will not sub-grade upgrades in terms of how powerful they are relative to other investment sinks. Instead, only the following three ratings will be utilized.

[YES] - Upgrades given this grade will provide a substantial enough boost to the Operator's combat prowess that the before and after performances will be easily noticeable. The Module Upgrades in this tier are incredibly powerful and fundamentally change how the Operator plays or massively improve their combat performance. These boosts are to be considered stepping stones in fully realizing the combat potential of the Operator they belong to. Upgrades whose affected Talents are directly boosted via Skills are likely to end up here.

[CONSIDER] - While not as powerful nor prioritary as the upgrades in the tier above, these are still fairly strong and worthy of at least being considered. These upgrades will either enhance the Operator's strength in a noticeable but not game-changing manner, or open new niches for them to perform in. Regardless, these should not be considered a priority over the upgrades in the previous tier.

[NO] - Module Upgrades with this grade are generally disappointing boosts or not worth considering due to their extreme cost and low benefit. While no upgrade of this kind is ever going to be detrimental to your Operators, these will not provide noticeable enhancements in performance nor provide new niche use cases.

Module Upgrades with [NO] ratings all accross the board will not be listed in the main guide, but will still be featured in the individual update pages such as this one for clarity. 

The increased number and time of the Stun improves Kal’tsit’s performance in very niche scenarios as a quick, on-demand stun bomb when Mon3tr is placed outside her range, but players will most likely not get much out of this unless they specifically aim for high-end content, such as Difficulty 15 IS3, where this stun can be quite valuable at times. As an additional note, the vast majority of players will likely find her second Module Upgrade far more useful.

An additional boost in Defense is definitely not what Shining needs to become competitive amongst other Medics of her rarity, and even moreso if half the upgrades are limited to melee-only Operators. Furthermore, even the full boosting effect of these Module Upgrades is quite laughable, not even reaching an extra 100 Defense from not having the Module at all. If nothing else, this at least helps her keep Operators alive for Aak, but that can also be achieved through her Skills.

The boosted effect of this Module Upgrade is entirely focused on improving the effectiveness of her Skill 2, Cardiac Stimulant, which stops her from healing unless Operators are at low enough HP. Given how this Talent interacts and stacks with the Skill’s effect, it can result in some impressively high bursts of healing when you need them the most, but it’s still nothing but pure healing. 

Warfarin’s Module Upgrades opt to boost her already rather strong SP support even further, with the slight caveat of only working against Elite or Boss enemies. While this extra support can be inconsistent and extremely map dependent, the line between Normal and Elite is blurry, and enemies most players would consider “regular” fit into the latter group. If you enjoy Warfarin’s SP support abilities, this is a really neat addition to that kit.

The numbers of these Upgrades look powerful on paper, until you realize how limited the real usage of these effects are. Environmental damage effects are few and far between, with the most prominent versions being Poison Haze and Originium altars. Out of these two, the first is already “solved” by the sole presence of any Medic at all, while the later is best when avoided outright, and also better taken care of by a Multi-Target Medic if need be. The effects of this Upgrade path are limited and, in practice, not very useful when they can actually activate.

Extra Attack Speed for Medics is unlikely to ever help you in any tangible way, especially considering it comes attached to a Medic whose only claim to fame is a healing drone that provides great emergency healing on demand (which is not a Medic itself, and thus cannot receive this boost). Not only that, but in the grand scheme of things Medics face competition from other classes and archetypes that can heal in better or more comfortable ways, making the thought of bringing multiple of this class to a fight less appealing overall.

Unless you specifically used Myrrh as a sort of 4* Lancet-2, an upgrade to her heal-on-deploy effect is unlikely to be helpful considering how early into a fight she can be deployed. Furthermore, this Talent itself loses all effect once she’s deployed, and she needs to be retreated and placed once again in order to have any worth at all. Making use of this boosted effect means jumping through a very large amount of hoops for frankly little return.

The decay effect is slightly lengthened allowing all Medics to have a slightly longer grace period on deploy, but as it stands it is not going to help anyone survive unless the timing and spacing are so extremely tight that you need to have your Medic take the Aggro for those sweet 27 seconds, and a pitiable 120 Defense is going to let them survive the onslaught.

The boosted effect of this Module Upgrade is low and the conditional trigger of the base Talent is neither changed nor lifted in any way, making it really tough to find something that both fits under the “10 DP or less” umbrella and actively wants and needs to be healed. Other than perhaps Mr. Lee or a Potential 6 Mlynar you’ll be hard pressed to find someone who isn’t either meant to be redeployed constantly or can self-provide their own healing.

The boost of this line of Module Upgrades gives Angelina an extra 3 to 5 Attack Speed for allies in range, compounded with her base 7 from her regular Talent. The boost itself is pitiably small for such a large investment, but it is decidedly the better option over the passive healing that her other Module provides. This one puts her on the same level as Saileach’s Attack Speed boost on a somewhat better range, so at least the overall effect is tangible.

This Upgrade path is almost entirely oriented towards her third Skill, Image over Form, which is already not her most used one in any context. Regardless, the SP support is actually quite powerful for her, potentially cutting the monstrous SP cost of 100 to 83 if just one Freeling remains alive for its entire timer after the Skill has finished, and significantly less if she manages to have multiple on the field at the same time. Each of these remaining Freelings will provide an instance of extra SP support, cutting down on the cycling significantly. All other effects are nice too, although much more incidental for Dusk’s kit than the SP support she desperately needs if she wants to use her third Skill more than once in a blue moon.