Arknights : Gacha and Recruitment Guide
Although most missions in Arknights can be completed with fully upgraded low-rarity operators, any high-tier character you add to your lineup can make your life much easier. There are two ways to look for such characters in this game: the Gacha system and the Recruitment feature. Both can be used to obtain operators of all rarities, although pulls are more likely to generate 5- and 6-star units… all for a fee, of course.
While each Gacha pull will set you back 600 Orundum, this is not the case with Recruitment, which only takes time and Permits to work. However, you have to be able to use the Recruitment tool properly if you’re ever going to get a high-rarity operator from it. Below, we’ve put together all the information you need to know.
Gacha Drop Rates and Bonuses
Compared to other mobile games, Arknights features a Gacha system that is reasonably F2P-friendly. Although 10 pulls cost the exorbitant sum of 6000 Orundum, you are guaranteed to find a 5-star or better operator during your first 10 pulls in every new banner. Given that banners rotate roughly once every two weeks, this gives F2P players the opportunity to obtain at least two high-tier characters per month.
The standard drop rates are 2% for 6-star operators, 8% for 5-stars, 50% for 4-stars, and 40% for 3-stars. The rates are the same whether or not you use the 10x pulls option. In addition, single pulls are cumulative, so you don’t have to spend 6000 Orundum at once in order to draw your guaranteed 5-star or better operator. If you’re unlucky enough to draw no 6-star character across 50 pulls, the chance to get one is increased by 2% for each additional draw. On your 99th pull, you are guaranteed to land a 6-star operator.
Each banner increases the chance that you will pull certain characters, although it does not guarantee that your high-tier drop will be one of them. If you are really committed to one of the operators on a banner, you can spend more Orundum and Headhunting Tickets in an attempt to get them. However, you should always keep 6000 Orundum in store for the next new banner and a guaranteed high-tier operator.
How Recruitment Works
For F2P players, Orundum can become difficult to come by once the easier missions are all completed. Fortunately, the Gacha system is not the only way to obtain new characters. If you have enough Recruitment Permits at hand (which, by all means, any player diligent about dailies should have), you can use the Recruitment feature to find additional operators.
In Recruitment, you must decide on two factors – the amount of time that you wish to spend searching for a particular recruit and the traits that you want them to have. The longer you allow the process to be, the less likely it is that you find low-rarity operators and more likely it is that your recruit features all the specified traits. To land on some of the best characters, however, you have to get their traits right.
Choosing the Right Traits
For each Recruitment process, you have to pick 1 to 3 of 5 available traits. Ideally, the operator you get from the search will feature all the traits you have selected, but it is possible that certain traits are lost during the search and it is guaranteed that mutually-exclusive traits will cancel one another. To make the Recruitment process more accurate, you can increase the search time and ensure that you never select contradictory traits. For example, an operator cannot be two classes at the same time, so there’s no point in choosing Defender and Guard in a single search.
Higher-rarity operators have more specific combinations of traits that must be activated in order to give the player a chance to recruit them. In addition, there are a few characters that can only be obtained through Recruitment. They, too, come with specific trait combinations. If you want to rush the results of a Recruitment process, you can use an Expedited Plan, which is instant, but guarantees the same results as if the search had run its natural course.
The following combinations of traits are most likely to help you find operators that can only be obtained through recruitment:
Vulcan (5-star Defender): Survival, Defense, Defender, DPS, Senior, Melee. The combination Survival + Defender/Defense is guaranteed to land Vulcan.
Indra (5-star Guard): Guard, DPS, Senior, Melee, Survival. The combination Guard + DPS + Senior is guaranteed to land Indra.
Estelle (4-star Guard): Guard, AoE, Melee, Survival. The Combination of AoE + any of the other traits mentioned for Estelle is guaranteed to land this operator.
Adnachiel (3-star Sniper): Sniper, DPS, Ranged.
Yato (2-star Vanguard): Vanguard, Starter, Melee.
Durin (2-star Caster): Caster, Ranged, Starter.
Noir Corne (2-star Defender): Defender, Starter, Melee.
Rangers (2-star Sniper): Sniper, Starter, Ranged.
Castle-3 (1-star Guard): Guard, Support, Melee, Robot.
Lancet-2 (1-star Medic): Medic, Healing, Ranged, Robot.
Apart from a few exceptions, all operators in Arknights can be found through Recruitment if you choose the right traits. If you’re looking for a specific character, the best thing to do is to look them up, jot down their traits, and try them out in different combinations. Characters who cannot be obtained through Recruitment are Angelina, Cardigan, Savage, Gavial, Courier, Skyfire, Eyjafjalla, Deepcolor, Lappland, Sora, Franka, and Amiya.
How to Unlock and Use the HR Office
As soon as Recruitment becomes available, you’ll notice that two of the four searches are locked. In addition, you might soon become frustrated with the fact that the traits you get per Recruitment are never in the right combination to generate a good character. To be able to look for more operators at the same time and to have the possibility to refresh the available traits up to 3 times per day, you have to unlock the HR Office in your base.
Unfortunately, the basic base layout does not let you know which buildings go where, so you might not know where to expand in order to get to the HR Office sooner. As you can see in the image below, the Office is located on the left side, just under the Workshop. Once the room and the path to it are cleared, you can build the HR Office using 30 Drones and 1 Light Building Material. Once constructed, you can assign an operator to the Office to decrease the amount of time it takes to generate a traits refresh.
That’s just about everything you need to know about the Gacha and Recruitment systems in Arknights. Now, you can keep a steady flow of new operators and narrow your search for specific characters either with the help of Gacha banners or through proper Recruitment. Once you get the operators you’re looking for, don’t forget to check out our guide to upgrading characters for superior battle performance.
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