The wait is over. Arknights: Endfield has finally dropped in 2026, and I’ve already swapped the Doctor’s clinical white robe for the Endministrator’s field－worn coat. The sandy vistas of Talos-II are calling, but before you start redecorating the factory base, there’s that familiar beast we all love to curse: the gacha system. It looks like Genshin Impact and Wuthering Waves on the surface, yet the moment you open the headhunting menu, it feels like someone handed you a spaceship control panel and whispered, “good luck.” I am here to walk you through every banner, every pity count, and a few salt-breaking pitfalls, so you can pull with precision instead of raw desperation.

Grasping Endfield’s gacha is like trying to assemble a piece of IKEA furniture without the manual—you’ll probably end up with extra bolts and a profound sense of regret unless you know the blueprint. So let’s break down the three operator banners and the weapon system, then finish with a tidy cheat sheet.

The Operator Banners: Novice, Standard, Chartered

Arknights: Endfield offers three main flavorings of headhunting—New Horizons for fresh faces, Basic for the evergreen pool, and Chartered for the spicy limited-time operators. The currency dance is straightforward: standard and limited pulls cost either 500 Oroberyl or 6 Origeometry per shot. That’s your classic premium exchange economy, nothing that should give tax auditors a headache.

The difference lies in how the limited Chartered banner handles its featured stars. This isn’t your grandma’s 50/50—well, actually it is, but with a twist. Every time you snag a 6-star from a Chartered Headhunting, you have a 50% chance of it being the featured operator. If you lose the coin flip, you get a random 6-star from a pool that includes previous limited operators for two rotations after their debut. For instance, the first Chartered banner spotlighted Laevatain, but she will still roam the 6-star drop table as a spookable surprise in the next two limited cycles. Think of it as a departing celebrity who still hangs out at the afterparty for another couple of rounds before finally ghosting you.

The Novice banner “New Horizons” is a tutorial gift wrapped in gacha math. It only accepts special permits you earn by hitting story milestones—no wallet required. You’re restricted to ten-pulls, each guaranteeing at least one 5-star operator. Within 40 pulls you are guaranteed one of five 6-star starters: Ardelia, Pogranichnik, Last Rite, Ember, or Lifeng. It’s like a carefully curated cheese platter where every bite is a winner, but you only get a limited number of crackers.

The Basic Headhunting banner is your idle companion, holding all standard operators and sharing the same 5-star odds. A 6-star is guaranteed at 80 pulls on this banner, and after 300 pulls you can outright choose a 6-star from the shop. That’s the equivalent of squeezing a lifetime supply of ketchup packets out of a single truck stop—tedious, but eventually rewarding.

Now, for the Chartered limited banner, which is where most endorphin-seekers will camp. Soft pity kicks in at 65 pulls, tightening the noose with every subsequent roll. At 80 pulls you are guaranteed a 6-star, and at 120 pulls you are guaranteed the featured operator—no ifs, no cosmic jokes. Here’s the catch: if you get the featured character early, both the 80 and 120 counters reset to prepare for your next emotional endurance test. Worse yet, the featured guarantee of 120 pulls does not carry over to future limited banners, so partial progress evaporates like morning dew once the banner ends. Only the soft pity (the 6-star guarantee count) scoots forward, whispering promises of better luck next time.

The Arsenal Issue: Weapons and the Art of Pain

Arsenal Issues are Endfield’s weapon banners, and they merit their own cautionary tale. These banners don’t accept ordinary permits. Instead, you spend Arsenal Tickets—1920 per 10-pull—which you earn from drawing operators: 20 tickets for a 4-star, 200 for a 5-star, and a juicy 2000 for a 6-star. It’s a system that rewards spending on character banners with weapon-pulling fuel, like a coffee shop giving you loyalty stamps every time you buy a pastry.

Each Arsenal Issue guarantees a 6-star weapon at 60 pulls, but here the carrot dangles behind a foggy mirror: you have only a 25% chance that the shiny new weapon will be the featured one. If the desire sensor decides to spite you, the featured weapon is guaranteed at 80 pulls (or after burning 15,360 tickets). Because the game loves symmetry, the weapon pity counters reset independently from the operator ones.

Visualizing this madness might help, so here’s a snapshot from Hypergryph that sums up the pity structure in one glance:

Pity Microscope: Soft vs. Hard Numbers

To prevent your wallet from feeling like a pinata at a kid’s birthday party, memorize these pivot points:

• Soft pity (all operator banners except New Horizons): 65 pulls. After this point your 6-star probability starts curving upward like a ramp made of hope.

• Operator hard pity: 80 pulls for a 6-star on Basic and Chartered.

• Featured operator guarantee (Chartered only): 120 pulls. This does not carry over.

• Weapon soft pity (Arsenal Issue): guesswork suggests elevated rates after 50 pulls, but the official guarantee is 60 pulls for any 6-star weapon.

• Featured weapon hard pity: 80 pulls (or ticket equivalent).

I like to compare Endfield’s pity system to a pressure cooker with a stubborn safety valve. You build steam with every pull (the soft pity phase), and eventually the valve bursts at 80 for operators, or 60/80 for weapons. But the limited featured guarantee lurches on its own timeline, like a second valve that resets every time the chef opens the lid too soon.

Here’s the same information in a compact table to carry in your mental inventory:

Parting Shots and Saving Strategies

If I’ve learned anything from three years of gacha trenches, it’s that treating limited banners like a subscription service only ends in tears. Stop pulling the moment you hit the featured guarantee—every tap after that is like buying extra lottery tickets for a draw you’ve already won. The weapon banner is brutally honest: unless you have stockpiled tickets from operator pulls, walking in with pure premium currency is a recipe for a lean month.

A final offbeat metaphor: chasing a limited operator in Endfield feels like trying to catch a specific ripple in a fountain—possible, but you’ll waste a lot of coins before it flows your way. The pity net is the only thing keeping you from drowning in regret. Now that you know the numbers, go forth, budget wisely, and may your Laevatain come home before the 120th coin plinks into the water.

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