ARKNIGHTS ENDFIELD BEGINNER GUIDE 2026

If you’ve just downloaded Arknights Endfield and you’re staring at a screen full of unfamiliar currencies, banners, and a factory system that looks like it belongs in Satisfactory, you’re not alone. The game blends a real-time action RPG with deep base-building mechanics, and the learning curve in the first ten hours can feel steep. Worse, the gacha layer is unforgiving to players who pull without a plan, and the factory will quietly punish you for weeks if you misallocate your early production lines.

This Arknights Endfield beginner guide is built to fix that. It walks through every currency you’ll touch, every banner type you can pull on, the meta team compositions that actually work in the current patch, and a step-by-step approach to building a factory that won’t clog every twelve hours. By the time you finish reading, you’ll know exactly what to spend, what to save, and which characters to invest in first.

TL;DR - Key Points

• Save 120 pulls before touching any chartered banner – the rate-up guarantee is banner-bound and vanishes when the banner ends
• Buy the mid-tier battle pass every patch – it pays for itself in Origeometry, materials, and a 6-star weapon selector
• Pick Thermite Cutter from the first weapon box – best-in-slot for Pogranichnik, Arclight, Akekuri, and Alesh
• Commit to one main team of four operators first – spreading investment across eight characters leaves you underpowered for months
• Perlica and Ardelia slot into nearly every meta team – safest investment targets for new accounts
• Wuling factory targets 12/min SC Batteries and 6/min Hetonite Parts – enough to fully supply two maxed outposts
• Sewage at 50% in Expanded Crucibles is normal – only worry when sewage AND effluent are both full simultaneously
• Never spend Oroberyl on the standard banner – those characters drop naturally over time

What Makes Arknights Endfield Different from Other Gacha Games

Before diving into the mechanics, it’s worth understanding what kind of game you’re actually playing. Arknights Endfield is a 3D action RPG with a factory automation simulator bolted on top, and both halves of the game matter equally. You’ll spend roughly half your playtime exploring zones, fighting enemies, and clearing story missions. The other half is spent designing belt systems, balancing pipe flow, and optimizing forges to keep your outposts profitable.

The combat is party-based. You bring four operators into a fight, but you only control one at a time. The other three act as autonomous teammates, attacking with their basic attacks and contributing to combos based on their kits. This means team composition isn’t just about damage numbers – it’s about how your characters’ skills synergize when only one of them is being actively piloted.

The factory side determines your account’s long-term wealth. Outposts in zones like Wuling generate income that funds your gear, your stamina refreshes, and your overall progression. A well-tuned factory passively earns you currency while you sleep. A poorly tuned one clogs, halts production, and leaves you scrambling to fix pipe layouts instead of pulling characters.

Both systems are casual-friendly in the early game and surprisingly deep once you reach endgame content. That dual identity is what makes Arknights Endfield genuinely worth learning properly.

Understanding the Currency System: What to Save and What to Spend

The single most common beginner trap in Arknights Endfield is misunderstanding what each currency does. There are seven currencies you’ll interact with regularly, and treating them all the same is a fast way to run dry right before a character you actually want goes live.

Quick Currency Reference

The Battle Pass Reserve Rule

Origeometry is your premium flexible currency. It can be exchanged for character pulls, weapon pulls, or used directly in the shop. You earn it mainly from quests, story progression, and events. The most important rule: always keep a buffer of at least ten Origeometry available to purchase the mid-tier battle pass each patch. That battle pass pays for itself many times over in pulls and materials, and missing the purchase window because you spent the last of your Origeometry on a banner is the worst feeling in the game.

Pull Currency Strategy

Oroberyl is the dedicated character pull currency. It’s earned in small amounts from almost every activity in the game – chests, quests, events, story missions, daily tasks. There is no single large source. Instead, it accumulates steadily if you play consistently. Spend Oroberyl only on limited-time chartered banners, and only when you have enough to guarantee the character you want.

Arsenal Credits are the weapon pull currency. You earn them primarily as a refund when pulling on the character banner, plus smaller amounts from events and the shop. Like Oroberyl, treat these as banner-specific currency and don’t dilute them across multiple weapon banners you only half-want.

Standard Tickets can only be used on the standard banner. Spend them immediately as you earn them – there’s no benefit to hoarding them, and the standard banner pool is permanent so you’ll eventually collect every character in it anyway.

The Refund Currencies

AIC Quota is earned as a refund whenever you pull a 4-star. The smart play is to spend this on banner-specific Headhunt Permits each time a new banner releases. If you have a surplus, you can also redeem upgrade materials, but the permits are usually the higher-value purchase.

Bond Quota is refunded from 5-star and 6-star pulls. Save this exclusively for Chartered Headhunt Permits. Do not waste it on the 5-star characters in the Bond shop – those characters will eventually drop into your collection through normal pulling.

Endpoint Quota comes from pulling a 6-star you already have at maximum potential. This is a slow-accumulating currency, but it lets you eventually grab anything in the Endpoint shop, including older limited characters.

The takeaway: never spend pull currency casually. Always have a destination in mind, always know the total cost of guaranteeing the character you want, and always keep a small Origeometry reserve for the battle pass. For a deeper breakdown of pity mechanics and pull-saving math, our gacha veteran’s strategy guide covers the 120-pull spark in detail.

The Banner System Explained: Which to Pull On and When

Arknights Endfield runs several banner types simultaneously, and knowing the difference is critical to not wasting your pulls.

Chartered Headhunting (Main Limited Banner)

This is the main limited-time banner. Each one features a single rate-up 6-star character available only during that banner’s window. The pity system gives you a guaranteed copy of the featured character at 120 pulls. If you pull a 6-star before reaching 120, there’s a chance it’s a standard pool character instead – but the next 6-star is then guaranteed to be the rate-up. This is why the rule “never pull unless you have 120 pulls saved” exists. Pulling on a chartered banner with 60 or 80 pulls and walking away with nothing is the most common way new players lose progress.

New Horizons (Beginner Banner)

This is the beginner banner. It uses its own dedicated ticket currency that can’t be used anywhere else. Spend every New Horizons ticket the moment you get one. The pool is favorable to new players and helps you build a starting roster quickly.

Standard Headhunting

This is the permanent banner. Only spend Standard Tickets here. Never spend Oroberyl or Origeometry on it. The pool is fixed and you’ll naturally collect every character in it as your account ages, so there’s no urgency.

Special Headhunting (Fest of Brilliance)

These are double-rate-up banners that bring back previously-released limited characters. These banners have unique quirks: the pity counter does not carry over to or from any other banner, the rate-up is split between two limited characters (so it’s effectively a 25/25/25/25 split between the two limited and two standard pool characters), and at 120 pulls you can choose either of the two featured limited operators.

The math gets interesting here. If you only want one of the two featured characters, this banner is slightly worse than a dedicated solo rerun. If you want both, it’s slightly more efficient. As a rule of thumb, only commit to this banner if you genuinely want at least one of the featured limited characters and can guarantee the 120 pulls. For a worked example of the math, see our Fest of Brilliance meta economics breakdown.

Arsenal Issue (Weapon Banner)

The pity threshold is 80 pulls for a guaranteed featured weapon. Weapon pulls are sold in bundles of 10 (called “issues”), so plan for 8 issues to guarantee. The decision to pull a signature weapon should be made carefully – most characters perform very well on free battle pass weapons or standard pool alternatives, and only a few signature weapons (like Last Rite’s and Zhuang Fangyi’s) provide a truly significant power boost that justifies the cost.

The cardinal rule across all banners: commit fully or don’t pull. Half-commitment is how players end up with nothing to show for hundreds of pulls spread thin across multiple banners.

Best Beginner Teams: Free Comps That Clear All Current Content

You don’t need to spend money on Arknights Endfield to build a winning team. Several comps using only free or low-rarity characters can clear every piece of content currently in the game, including the harder endgame challenges. Here are the comps every new player should know about.

Free-to-Play Team Reference

The Physical Damage Team

Pogranichnik leads a physical-damage roster built around heavy single-target burst and reliable AoE clear. The core lineup pairs Pogranichnik with Endmin and Chen, both of whom you’ll acquire early through standard tickets and quest rewards. Round out the fourth slot with one of Da Pan, Ember, Lifeng, or Ardelia depending on what you have available. This team is extremely forgiving on rotation and has the easiest sanity-run clears in the game.

The Beginner Solidify Team

Alesh, Estella, Endmin, and Chen form a Solidify-focused composition that capitalizes on reaction chains. This team rewards understanding the elemental status system and gives you a strong introduction to how Endfield’s combo mechanics work without requiring any limited-banner characters.

The Avywenna Electric Team

Avywenna serves as the main DPS in a thunder-based composition that scales with electrification stacks. The standard build pairs her with Perlica, Arclight, and Antal – all of whom are accessible through standard pulls or beginner banners. If you do happen to pull Gilberta or Akekuri, both are direct upgrades to the support slot, but the base team works perfectly fine without them.

The Last Rite Cryo Team

Last Rite is a melee main DPS who excels at sustained damage windows. Her core comp uses Xaihi, Last Rite, and some combination of Perlica, Fluorite, and Snowshine. The team is more demanding to play because Last Rite’s basic attack chain can be interrupted by enemy attacks, forcing you to restart her combo. New players are sometimes warned about the comfort issues with this team – pulling Snowshine for her shielding mechanic significantly improves the experience by preventing stagger interruptions.

The Wulfgard Main DPS Team

Wulfgard, Akekuri, Antal, and Perlica form a heat-focused composition where Wulfgard repeatedly applies Heat Infliction and combos off himself for self-amplification. This team has excellent damage ceiling and good synergy with the broader Heat-themed roster.

The recurring names you’ll notice across these comps are Perlica (a near-universal support amp for any arts team), Ardelia (a flexible support that fits multiple damage profiles), Antal (a strong combo accelerator), and Akekuri (a top-tier sub-DPS support). If you have to pick one or two characters to invest in heavily as a new player, Perlica and Ardelia are the safest bets because they slot into almost every meta team.

Character Investment Priority: Who to Level First

One of the most common new-player questions is whether leveling the “wrong” characters causes long-term damage to your account. The honest answer is no, but with caveats.

Progression materials in Arknights Endfield are gated by Sanity (the game’s stamina system) and by time. You earn enough materials to gradually max out every character in your collection if you play consistently for several months. However, there is a short-term cost to spreading yourself too thin. If you pour materials into eight different characters at once, you’ll feel underpowered for one or two months because nobody on your roster will reach the level threshold where their kit truly comes online.

The Four-Character Commitment Rule

The recommended approach is to pick one main team – four characters total – and invest in them in a clear order. Your main DPS comes first, followed by your most important support, then your secondary support, and finally your fourth slot. Within each character, prioritize Level 80 (out of 90), skill level 9 (out of 11), and the appropriate gear set before pushing any of them to max.

Weapons and Gear Crafting

There are two additional progression systems worth mentioning. Weapon Essences boost the skills on your weapons and are Sanity-gated, meaning they compete with your character leveling materials for the same resource. Don’t rush these in the first month. Gear Crafting and Artificing is the armor system, and it’s gated through your factory output. The better your factory, the faster you can craft and artifice gear for your characters. Our essence guide for the triple-slot meta covers the optimal stat priorities once you’re ready to optimize.

The bottom line: experiment freely in your first two weeks. Once you’ve decided on a main team, commit to that team’s progression for the next month or two before branching out.

The Factory System: Getting Wuling Right

The factory is where Arknights Endfield separates casual players from those who treat the game as a serious progression hobby. A well-built factory in the Wuling region will fully supply two maxed-out outposts and generate a steady stream of materials for gear crafting. A poorly-built one will clog repeatedly, fail to meet outpost demand, and leave you constantly babysitting the layout.

Recommended Wuling Production Targets

For the current patch, the baseline target outputs from a fully optimized Wuling factory are roughly as follows:

• 12 per minute of SC Batteries (using around two sets, or four Xiranite lines)
• 12 per minute of Heavy Xiranite (using five Xiranite lines and two forges, with potential to save a forge by purifying inert Xircon from the battery process)
• 6 per minute of Hetonite Parts (around 30 Hetonite per minute, requiring eight Cuprium lines)
• ~30 Xiranite per minute surplus that can be redirected into LC Batteries
• Optionally, 6 per minute of Yazhen A if you choose to allocate cuprium toward that instead of pushing all of it into Hetonite

A factory tuned to these numbers will outproduce both Wuling outposts at max level, leaving you with surplus to feed thermal banks or stockpile for events. For a step-by-step build walkthrough, see our mastering Wuling comprehensive guide.

Avoiding the Most Common Factory Mistake

The number-one cause of clogged factories is misunderstanding sewage flow in Expanded Crucibles. Expanded Crucibles both produce and consume sewage. If you drain all the sewage out of the system, the crucible can’t make Xircon Effluent. If you let sewage cap out without also using it, the crucible clogs on output.

The fix is to never give sewage a dedicated “out” line until your effluent storage is also nearly full. Sewage hitting 50 percent in the system is fine – that’s expected behavior. The only true clog state is when both sewage and effluent are simultaneously full, which prevents the crucible from making either product. If you find yourself in this state, push out a small amount of one or the other and the system will resume normal operation.

Handling Acid in Hetonite Production

Acid is another fluid that catches new players off guard. The output acid from Hetonite production can technically be recycled back into the input, but the merger doesn’t let you prioritize which input gets used first. This means high-volume fresh acid will often dominate the input flow and cause the recycled acid to accumulate until the system clogs.

The cleaner solution for new players is to dump all output acid back into the source pond and use 100 percent fresh input. Veteran factory builders can achieve perfect recycling by carefully balancing pump counts (a purification unit produces about half the output of a single pump, so you can replace one of four pumps with the recycled output), but this requires precise layout work that’s better learned after you’ve gotten the basics down.

Storage Tank Limits and Pond Water

Some Wuling quests require dumping massive amounts of pondwater – sometimes 40,000 units or more. Fluid storage tanks hold only 500 units each, which means you cannot solve this problem by building enough tanks. The intended solution is to pipe the excess water directly into the nearby river. Don’t waste structure cap on tanks for this purpose.

Structure Cap Awareness

Wuling has a structure cap of 512. This counts forges, refineries, crucibles, pumps, ziplines, Xiranite pylons, turrets, and basically every building except pipes, belts, and pipe logistics nodes (those have their own separate limits). When you start brushing up against the cap, the smartest moves are to consolidate factory lines, push some production to the outposts, and reduce the number of belt logistics nodes by replacing them with direct connections where possible.

Combat Mechanics: How Autonomous Teammates Actually Work

A common question new players ask is how the three non-controlled teammates contribute to damage. The mechanics here are straightforward but easy to misunderstand.

Your three off-field teammates use their basic attacks and scale with their own stats, buffs, and talents – exactly the same way they would if you were controlling them. They don’t have any damage penalty for being autonomous. However, they have two key limitations: their uptime is significantly worse than a player-controlled character (they spend more time moving and repositioning), and they cannot perform Final Strikes, which are the special attacks triggered against staggered enemies.

This means autonomous teammates contribute reliable but not optimal damage, and the controlled character should always be your highest-output operator who benefits most from being piloted. Choosing the right “driver” for your team is often more impactful than swapping a sub-DPS slot.

Damage Snapshotting and Ability Order

Most skills in Arknights Endfield do not snapshot damage – they apply buffs and debuffs retroactively. This means if you cast a damage-over-time ultimate and then apply a vulnerability debuff midway through, the remaining ticks will benefit from the new debuff. The main exception is mechanics like Link, which is a one-shot consumable buff that gets used by your next ability cast.

The practical takeaway is that you don’t have to obsess over the exact frame timing of your ability rotations. As long as your supports apply their buffs before or during your main DPS’s damage window, you’ll get the benefit. There are a few edge cases where snapshotting matters – Stanza’s effects on Perlica’s ultimate, for instance – but for the vast majority of comps, you can play intuitively.

The Battle Pass: Why It Pays for Itself

The mid-tier battle pass (sometimes called the Protocol Pass) is one of the highest-value purchases in Arknights Endfield, and you should buy it with in-game Origeometry every single patch. The pass returns more pull currency and materials than it costs, and includes a weapon selector box that contains some of the strongest weapons in the game.

The first weapon box typically gives you Thermite Cutter as the optimal pick. Thermite Cutter is the best-in-slot weapon for at least four standard-pool characters: Pogranichnik, Arclight, Akekuri, and Alesh. Almost every team comp in the game uses at least one of these characters, so the weapon will see use no matter what direction your account goes.

The second weapon box pick depends more on your roster. Detonation Unit and Wedge are both strong choices. Wedge is notable as a high-value pick for Yvonne, eliminating the need to pull her signature weapon entirely.

Beyond the weapon boxes, the battle pass grants Origeometry, Arsenal Credits, Sanity refills, and upgrade materials in quantities that easily exceed what you paid to buy it.

Common Beginner Mistakes That Cost You Months of Progress

Several mistakes appear over and over in new-player threads, and avoiding them is the single biggest jump in account efficiency you can make.

• Pulling on a banner without 120 pulls saved. You’ll either get the character early and feel great, or run out of pulls and walk away with nothing. There is no middle ground that’s worth pursuing. If you don’t have the full guarantee, skip the banner and save for the next one.
• Spending Oroberyl on the standard banner. Standard banner characters are permanent. You’ll get them naturally over time. Never trade limited-banner pull currency for permanent rewards.
• Letting Standard Tickets and New Horizons Tickets accumulate. These have no other use except their dedicated banners. Spend them immediately as you earn them.
• Skipping the mid-tier battle pass. It pays for itself with significant surplus and includes weapons that would otherwise cost you a full weapon banner to acquire.
• Investing in too many characters at once. Pick four characters for your main team and prioritize them. Spreading investment across eight or ten characters leaves your roster underpowered for months.
• Trying to play Last Rite without a stagger-prevention support. If you’ve committed to a Last Rite cryo team, you’ll want Snowshine or another shield support to prevent her basic attack chain from being interrupted. Without that, her gameplay feels frustrating compared to other carries.
• Ignoring the gardening system. The garden in your factory produces variants of common materials (like Fluffed Jincao and Thorny Yazhen) that can only be grown there. These variants unlock better recipes and increase your Oros gains. Plant Redjade, Amber, Tartpepper, plus the seeds that produce special variants, and ignore the ones that don’t add anything beyond what your factory machines already produce.

Looking Ahead: What to Expect in Future Patches

Arknights Endfield is still a young game. So far, each patch has brought a new chartered banner or two, a new event, story progression, and incremental factory tuning. Patch lengths have varied between five and seven weeks. The exact pattern of reruns is still being established – the only confirmed rerun format so far is the double-rate-up Fest of Brilliance style, but it’s reasonable to assume more conventional solo reruns will appear over time.

The Wuling region likely isn’t finished receiving updates. Several characters with Wuling story ties haven’t been released yet, and the region’s outposts still cap at level 3 with the metatransfer system not yet available at the higher development tier. Expect another wave of Wuling content before the next major region opens up.

The factory structure cap of 512 is likely to remain stable across future updates, since the same cap exists in the original Valley region. This means future factory updates will focus on giving you more efficient buildings rather than allowing you to build more buildings. Learning to consolidate now is an investment that pays off later.

Final Thoughts: Pacing Your Account for the Long Term

Arknights Endfield rewards consistent daily play more than burst engagement. The pull currency, materials, and gear progression are all designed to accumulate gradually. A player who logs in for thirty minutes every day will out-progress a player who plays eight hours on a weekend and then disappears for two weeks.

Build a routine. Clear your daily quests, run a few sanity-restoration cycles for your character materials, check your factory for clogs, and pull on banners only when you have the full guarantee available. Avoid the FOMO trap of pulling on every character because they look cool – most characters will rerun eventually, and the ones you skip now can be picked up later without significant loss to your account’s strength.

The factory and combat systems both deepen significantly the longer you play. What feels overwhelming in the first week becomes second nature by week six. Trust the pacing the game is teaching you, focus on a single main team, and let your account grow naturally. Arknights Endfield is a long game, and the players who play it well are the ones who treat it like a marathon.

Welcome to Talos-II. Your operators are waiting.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many pulls do I need to guarantee a featured 6-star character? You need 120 pulls saved before rolling on a chartered banner. The guarantee is banner-bound, meaning it vanishes when the banner ends – don’t roll without the full budget. The 80-pity for any 6-star carries over across banners, but it doesn’t guarantee your specific target.

Should I pull on every banner that interests me? No. Spread-thin pulling is the most common way new accounts stall out. Pick one or two characters per patch that genuinely improve your team, and skip everything else. Most characters will rerun eventually, and your account will be measurably stronger if you go deep on a few well-built teams instead of collecting weak copies of many.

Is Arknights Endfield free-to-play friendly? Yes, with the caveat that you should buy the mid-tier battle pass each patch using in-game Origeometry. F2P comps using Pogranichnik, Avywenna, Wulfgard, or Last Rite can clear every piece of current endgame content. Signature weapons add roughly 10-20 percent damage; battle pass weapons cover most needs.

What’s the best starting team for a brand-new player? The Pogranichnik physical team is the most forgiving and easiest to assemble. Pair Pogranichnik with Endmin and Chen (both highly accessible) and a flexible fourth slot like Ardelia or Lifeng. This team handles all current story content and most sanity runs without any limited-banner characters.

How do I stop my Wuling factory from clogging? The most common clog source is sewage management in Expanded Crucibles. Don’t drain sewage to zero, and don’t let it fill at the same time as effluent. A sewage level around 50 percent is healthy. If you’re clogged, manually push a small amount of one fluid out and the system will resume normal flow.

Are autonomous teammates worth investing in if I won’t pilot them? Yes. Off-field teammates deal full damage with their basic attacks – there’s no autonomous damage penalty. Their main limitations are lower uptime (they reposition often) and inability to execute Final Strikes. Pick supports and sub-DPS units whose value comes from buffs and consistent basic attacks, not from skill-cycle perfection.

Should I buy the battle pass every patch? Yes. The mid-tier (Protocol) pass pays for itself in Origeometry, Sanity refills, materials, and a 6-star weapon selector that includes Thermite Cutter – best-in-slot for Pogranichnik, Arclight, Akekuri, and Alesh. Almost every team uses at least one of those characters, so the weapon stays relevant regardless of your roster direction.

What’s the difference between Oroberyl and Origeometry? Origeometry is your flexible premium currency and can be converted into anything, including the battle pass. Oroberyl is dedicated to character pulls and accumulates from gameplay activities. Always keep an Origeometry reserve for the battle pass; spend Oroberyl only on chartered banners where you have 120 pulls ready.

How do I deal with the Wuling pondwater dump quest? Pipe the water directly into the river next to your factory. Fluid storage tanks only hold 500 units each, so you can’t tank-buffer a 40,000-unit dump requirement. The river dump is the intended solution.

When should I unlock LC Batteries instead of just running SC? Once your Xiranite surplus exceeds ~30 per minute, redirect the excess into LC Batteries. Until then, focus on hitting the 12/min SC Battery target – that’s the production floor for sustainably supplying two maxed Wuling outposts plus a buffer for thermal banks.