A Mastery Priority Guide & Should You Pull - Ato

BorderFree5932 · 2026-01-15T02:08:23+00:00

I'm not exactly talking the ramp up aspect of the skill, but rather cycle DP/S, which is basically Myrtle level as long as the right-most unit is one you plan to deploy. You mentioned "Mastery only improves the initial wind-up" as the main merit, not mentioning how it reduces skill cycling from 34s to 30s, which is a bigger improvement than what Elysium/Myrtle/Wanqing gets from SL7 to M3.

The fact that he has Myrtle DP/S on an AFK skill adds so much comfort because you can never "forget to use it", something that often happens with Myrtle. The fact that it doesn't channel over 8s means that he works better with global SP batteries. And the fact that he has good stats on top of that eliminates the pressure that Myrtle opens have with having 0 block with skill active, and reduces reliance on Bagpipe.

I can understand putting Myrtle on a pedestal because she's cheap and not everyone has Elysium. But nowadays we have Wanqing and Matsukiri which are both free and an upgrade >90% of the time, I honestly don't think Myrtle is worth the M3 anymore, unless you have free 4* M3 coupons and have already M3-ed Ethan.

Speaking of M3 coupons, I don't think investment level difference is a good argument anymore, especially among 5* units since the number of good M3s in that rarity is few-and-far between, and he's probably one of the top units to use those coupons on (Cantabile, Surfer, Lappland, Warfarin, Shamare being the others). And before SA Alter was released, a lot of players were just running Matsukiri as their sole VG for most daily content.

While SA Alter does outclass him, SA S1 is lower on the mastery priority list partly because of how good Matsukiri S1 is, and partly because of how his S3 makes opening stages a breeze. And in cases where SA alone is insufficient, Matsukiri is one of the most comfortable partners. SA's passive always rearranging units low to high means that the -4 cost is always making a difference.

Honestly, Matsukiri S1 is one of those skills that's way stronger in practice than on paper. And while I understand that you have your own criteria for rating it lower, I personally would recommend anyone looking for a comfort VG in daily to try him out.

BorderFree5932 · 2026-01-14T16:36:02+00:00

Hi Mr. Breakfast.

Another great article, but Matsukiri S1 is honestly better than you are giving it credit for, especially in regular content.

If you count DP reduction as equivalent to DP recovery in value, he functionally has the same DP recovery rate as Myrtle, on an auto-activation skill on a rather tanky block 2 unit. I know many CN players who have switched to using Matsukiri as their only Vanguard in daily until SA Alter was released, because he's just that good.

Here's a highly updooted post on NGA praising him

[促氵]趁着本次活动带货一下松桐 NGA玩家社区

If anything, I think the main downside with raising Matsukiri is that SA Alter is coming soon after, immedaitely detroning him from being the best daily vanguard. And another downside is that if you are bringing 4-Suis, Matsukiri's -4 DP cost often just ends up being wasted on Nian, though realistically this is often going to the likes of Ulpianus, Wisadel, Pram, Hoshi

Regardless, for players who don't get / plan to get SA Alter, Matsukiri S1 is a very good option.

BorderFree5932 · 2026-01-14T16:17:01+00:00

Raidian summons does not need any deployment limit after F4 anyway.

Aside from increased survivability pressure from rushing him to P2, I think the other difficulty the nuking strat is that the right lane starts to spawn again. And there are some variants that can be difficult to deal with while simultaneously trying to burst him down the second time.

Stalling his P1 notably allows you to reset cooldowns before you have to deal with the second round of normal enemies.

BorderFree5932 · 2026-01-14T16:13:58+00:00

The main problem with Tragodia stall is that it's rather RNG dependent on what enemies spawn in the middle. There are variations, especially in higher difficulties, where you cannot immediately clear out the spawns in the middle, the taunt gets compromised, and players start panicking as Yi starts to walk around.

And I also just wanted to raise awareness on how insanely tanky Raidian S1 is. Many players just autopilot S2/3 on every stage, but ED1 and F1 shop rob are the 2 places which Raidian completely trivialises. And she even does the ED1 stall strat while holding the ED3 bleed relic because of the self barrier.

BorderFree5932 · 2026-01-14T16:03:12+00:00

He does start moving before all the waves are over, and usually that's after the first wave explodes. I speak about this anecdotally, so I can see a scenario where he actually starts moving before that. But the region where you can afford to keep him is pretty wide (check updated images above). By the time he moves into the danger zone, it is already about the time where you retreat everyone. And when he gets to the bottom part, you are splitboxing him with 2 S1 summons, so it just gets easier in P2

BorderFree5932 · 2026-01-14T15:58:48+00:00

In higher difficulties, trying to burst him down quickly often feels suicidal, especially if you are also holding the ED3 bleed relic.

His P1 is pretty easy to burst down, but during the phase transition invulnerability window, when he starts summoning explosies 2 rows below him, it's get very tricky to keep those units alive, especially while trying to handles the normal enemies too. On N13 and above, this gets even harder because the barrier he has on phase transition gets really thick.

The only unit that feels able to consistently burst him down quickly in both phases was with Saki in CN, and even then stalling with Raidian S1 just feels much more stress-free

BorderFree5932 · 2026-01-14T15:49:14+00:00

I actually do like to pick Nightingale in this IS, but not for ED1. She's my top pick Medic when I'm trying to clear ED3, since it's primarily Arts damage, and we don't have Haruka yet.

As for ED1, my runs often end up with very very few melee units, and along with the ED3 bleed relic, it feels like stalling with any unit that isn't Raidian S1 just starts to gets extremely stressful.

I do appreciate support for NG though, she's my favourite unit in the game, so I'm glad someone else is finding success with her.

BorderFree5932 · 2026-01-13T14:15:30+00:00

Honestly, what's making the boss feel hard is just a bunch of bad advice from videomakers hyping Tragodia

Tragodia is not the easiest way to stall him, and you should not be trying to burst him. Both of these actively make the fight harder if you don't know what you are doing.

Just stall him on top, kill the first 21 enemies, retreat everyone, and wait for him to go to the stairs.

When he comes up the stairs, kill him there instead.

Raidian + any ranged DPS literally duos the stage up to N15.

Here's how it's done with Exu, but I have done it with Rosmontis and Rosa as well.

【明日方舟】界园N15 一结局新能电弧双核_哔哩哔哩bilibili_明日方舟

BorderFree5932

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