Arknights: Endfield: The Only Squad Tier List That Actually Matters
If you think you can just throw your favorite high-rarity units together and survive the Talos-II outposts, you’re in for a fucking wake-up call.
Look, I get it. The panda looks cool. The knight looks heroic. But Talos-II is a cold, dead rock that wants to murder you, and it doesn't care about your aesthetics. You cannot afford to spread your upgrade materials across a "balanced" roster. You need to pick a lane, pick the right units, and ignore everything else if you want to survive the endgame outposts.
I’ve cross-referenced the beta data with the current live meta, and most of the "official" guides are giving you bad advice. They’ll tell you the Endministrator is "vanilla" or that Cryo teams are "weak." They’re wrong. You just have to know how to build around them.
THE COMPLETE TALOS-II OPERATOR HIERARCHY
Every operator currently in the 2026 meta ranked by their actual worth in a fight.
| Operator (Tier) | The NLM Verdict |
|---|---|
| Laevatain (S) | The DPS god. Her Heat Striker kit deletes anything on screen. Absolute priority. |
| Ardelia (S) | The only support that matters. Heals while shredding Physical and Arts resistance. |
| Pogranichnik (S) | The king of Physical damage. Applies massive Breach debuffs and batteries your SP. |
| Last Rite (S) | Best Cryo unit. Essential if you want to run Solidification comps. Heavy burst damage. |
| Antal (A) | Best non-6-star. His Focus ability provides insane free damage stacks. |
| Endministrator (A) | Reliable Physical DPS. "Crush" mechanic is great for boss staggers. Don't sleep on them. |
| Perlica (A) | Electric DPS that doesn't need a PhD to play. Applies Electrification with zero setup. |
| Chen Qianyu (B) | Free and functional. Great synergy with the protagonist for early-game Lift/Crush combos. |
| Wulfgard (B) | Solid Heat backup, but his damage is a joke compared to the S-tier heavyweights. |
| Da Pan (C) | Total garbage. Worse damage than the free units you start with. A waste of materials. |
| Fluorite (C) | Too much setup for almost zero reward. Jack of all trades, master of nothing. |
The Heavy Hitters: Why You Need S-Tier
If you aren't pulling for Laevatain or Last Rite, you're basically opting into a harder game for no reason. Laevatain is a one-woman army. Her Ultimate scales with Combustion and Corrosion reactions, meaning if you pair her with a half-decent support like Ardelia, bosses just stop existing.
Pogranichnik is the other half of the puzzle. Physical teams are currently king in the 2026 meta because Breach is so easy to apply. He batteries the whole team's SP, which is the only way you're going to keep your rotations fluid enough to stay alive in high-level outposts.
The Mid-Tier: Making Do with Less
If your gacha luck is shit, don't worry. The Endministrator and Chen Qianyu are a perfectly valid duo for 90% of the game's content. Chen lifts them up, the Endministrator crushes them down. It isn't flashy, and it won't break any speedrun records, but it works without costing you a fortune in real-world cash.
The Support Problem
Supports like Gilberta and Lifeng are fine, but they rely on you having a god-tier DPS to carry them. If you pull them early, keep them in your pocket until you have someone like Laevatain to actually take advantage of the Arts Susceptibility they provide. Otherwise, you're just dragging around dead weight.
The Trash Pile: Do Not Invest
Avoid Da Pan and Catcher. I don't care how cool the panda looks or how much you think you need a shielder. In Endfield, the best defense is a massive offense. If you're spending time shielding, you aren't spending time killing, and that's how you get overwhelmed.
Alesh and Estella are similarly useless. Alesh has a random "fishing" mechanic in his kit that is as annoying as it is ineffective. You need consistency on Talos-II, not a slot machine with a sword.
Got a hot take on this? I know you do. Head over to r/neonlightsmedia to discuss it.
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