SP ECONOMY: VANGUARDS, WEAPONS & ROTATION
Table of Contents
In Arknights: Endfield, the operator who decides whether your run lives or dies usually isn’t your damage dealer. It’s the unit feeding skill points into the shared pool. Endfield’s combat is built on a centralized SP economy — three bars, three hundred discrete units, one team of four pulling from the same well — and once you get past Authority 25 content, raw firepower stops mattering until you’ve solved the resource problem first. This guide is a complete tour of how that economy works in 2026: the math behind passive regen, how active generation actually breaks down, the operators who define the current battery meta, and the gear, weapon, and consumable layers that turn a clunky rotation into a self-sustaining loop.
TL;DR - Key Points
- Passive regen gives ~7.69 SP/sec — one full bar every 13 seconds, nowhere near enough for Umbral Monument or high-Authority Extraction
- Recovery ≠ Return — Recovery (Vanguards) builds Ultimate energy; Return (Strikers/Guards) refunds spent SP only and does not charge ults
- Pogranichnik scales with Vulnerability stacks — 4-stack consumption refunds 35 SP, multiplied by 1.2x at P5
- Akekuri is the Heat/universal battery — her Intellect-scaling talent caps at +75% SP recovery on Combo Skill, and her Ultimate dumps ~80 SP per flare
- Zhuang Fangyi self-batteries — P3 returns 10 SP per Electrification consumption, freeing your real Vanguard for buff duty
- Frontiers 3-piece set is mandatory — 15% Combo Skill CDR plus 16% team DMG on SP recovery is the gear floor for any battery
- Thermite Cutter is the universal damage amplifier — 28% team ATK at full uptime, triggered every time the wielder recovers SP
- Infinite Loop comps (Arclight + Akekuri + Pogranichnik) reset rotations every 6-10 seconds in coordinated play
Related read: Arknights Endfield Version 1.2: Strategic Evolution & Paradigm Shift goes deeper on meta analysis.
The Shared Pool: Why Endfield’s SP System Is Different
If you came to Endfield from another action gacha, the first thing that probably broke your brain was the absence of individual skill cooldowns. There is no per-character timer. Every operator on your squad of four draws Battle Skill costs from the same 300-unit reservoir, and the pool only refills as fast as your team can collectively generate SP. Mistime a single skill and you starve your hypercarry of the points it needs to capitalize on the next Stagger window.
That design choice is the entire reason “Vanguard” is treated as a structural role rather than a flavor tag. In any squad targeting Umbral Monument, Contingency Contract, or Agony-tier challenge content, at least one of your four slots is non-negotiably a battery. The math forces it.
Baseline Passive Regeneration
The default trickle is one full skill bar every roughly 13 seconds — about 7.69 SP per second of continuous combat. That’s enough to keep an exploration run smooth and to let you cast a couple of skills per minute in early-game content. It is not enough to support a real rotation. The deficit between passive gain and what a hypercarry actually wants to spend during a Stagger or Link window is the gap your Vanguard has to close.
See also: Zhuang Fangyi Ascended Form: Lore Analysis for more on zhuang fangyi.
Active Generation: The Four Sources of SP
Beyond passive regen, every SP unit that enters the pool comes from one of four mechanical sources. Knowing which is which lets you plan rotations instead of just hoping the bar fills in time.
| Source | Trigger Condition | Typical Yield | Consistency |
|---|---|---|---|
| Passive Regen | Time elapsed | 7.69 SP/sec | Constant |
| Final Strike | Last hit of basic combo | 3-17 SP per finisher | Per attack chain |
| Perfect Dodge | Dodge with tight timing window | 10-15 SP | Reaction-dependent |
| Finisher Attack | Hitting a Staggered enemy | 25-40 SP | Per Stagger |
| Combo Skill | Internal CD plus condition | Variable + 10 Ult Energy | Operator-specific |
The hierarchy is clear: Finisher attacks and Combo Skill triggers are where the real SP comes from. Final Strikes are the steady drip you get for free as long as you’re attacking, and Perfect Dodges are the bonus refund for skilled defensive play. Squads that ignore Stagger management and never trigger Finishers will struggle no matter how many Vanguards they bring.
Recovery vs Return: A Distinction That Matters
This is the single most-overlooked piece of jargon in the meta. The two terms describe mechanically different effects:
- SP Recovery — adds new points to the pool. Generates Ultimate Energy as a side effect. Vanguard talents almost always do this.
- SP Return — partially refunds the cost of the skill that just fired. Does not generate Ultimate Energy.
Strikers like Yvonne, Last Rite, and (partially) Zhuang Fangyi rely on Return to soften their own consumption costs, but Return alone won’t keep your team’s Ultimates online. That’s why a Vanguard slot is mandatory even on hypercarry comps where the Vanguard isn’t doing damage — you need Recovery for the squad’s burst windows to be available on schedule.
The Vanguard Class: Three Archetypes That Define the Meta
Vanguards aren’t all built the same way. The current 6-star and 4-star roster splits cleanly into three philosophies, each with a signature use case.
Pogranichnik: The Physical Recursion Engine
Pogranichnik is the gold standard for physical compositions and the operator most responsible for the dominance of Steel Oath / Vulnerability-stacking team archetypes. His Battle Skill, The Pulverizing Front, eats Vulnerability stacks off the target to apply Breach, and the consumption automatically chains into his Combo Skill, Full Moon Slash. SP recovery scales with how many stacks you spent.
| Stacks Consumed | SP Recovered | Time Saved (vs Passive) |
|---|---|---|
| 2 stacks | 15 SP | ~1.95 sec |
| 3 stacks | 25 SP | ~3.25 sec |
| 4 stacks | 35 SP | ~4.55 sec |
At Potential 5, his Newly Forged Blade capstone trims two seconds off Combo Skill cooldown and applies a 1.2x multiplier to the recovery numbers above. That’s where the rotation starts to feel recursive: every consumption cycle accelerates the next consumption cycle. His Ultimate, Shieldguard Banner, Forward, summons four shield-bearing helpers whose hits also drip SP, capped by a “Decisive Assault” finale that drops a 40 SP burst into the pool.
The strategic implication: Pogranichnik wants a partner who can stack Vulnerability fast (Rossi, Endministrator, Chen Qianyu). The faster the stacks come in, the faster the consumptions fire, the faster the team’s ults come back online.
Akekuri: The 4-Star Universal Battery
If Pogranichnik is the niche specialist, Akekuri is the operator nearly every account is running by Authority 30 regardless of team color. She’s a 4-star — meaning she’s effectively guaranteed off the standard banner — and her kit somehow holds up against 6-star competition into deep endgame.
Her first Talent, Cheer of Victory, scales Combo Skill SP recovery off her Intellect attribute:
| Intellect | SP Recovery Bonus | Operational Tier |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | +15% | Baseline rotational stability |
| 300 | +45% | Smooth high-content rotations |
| 500 (cap) | +75% | Elite-tier generation velocity |
The reason Akekuri shows up in non-Heat teams is that her recovery triggers on Stagger, not on a specific elemental reaction. As long as the squad can interrupt enemies, her battery output stays constant. Her Ultimate, SQUAD! ON ME!, fires three flares; at max skill level each flare injects roughly 80 SP into the pool while applying Link, which buffs the next skill cast. That’s nearly a full bar of SP refunded in one Ultimate window.
For F2P accounts, Akekuri is the single most important investment ceiling. Pull her dupes, level her Intellect, build her Frontiers set first.
Arclight: The Electric Reaction Specialist
Arclight is the high-risk option. Her generation is locked behind the Electrification reaction, and her own Battle Skill is expensive enough that running her solo makes the SP curve look worse, not better. The trick is to pair her with a forced-Electrification source — Perlica’s Combo Skill is the canonical answer — so that every consumption cycle cleanly refunds.
In specialized Electric squads, Arclight functions as the trigger mechanism in the Infinite Energy archetype (Arclight + Akekuri + Pogranichnik). The team’s normalized energy needs are met by Arclight’s reaction-driven recovery, while Akekuri and Pogranichnik provide the burst SP injections that reset the rotation. Done correctly, this comp can fire team-wide Ultimates every 6-8 seconds.
Zhuang Fangyi: When the Striker Becomes Its Own Vanguard
Version 1.2’s Zhuang Fangyi rewrote what a Striker is allowed to do with the SP economy. As the first 6-star Electric Striker, she ships with internal SP and energy logic that drastically reduces her dependence on external batteries — to the point that her actual Vanguard slot is freed up to do something other than feed her.
The mechanic everyone references is her Sunderblade generation loop, but the SP economics matter more. At Potential 3 (Sense and Response), every Battle Skill that consumes Electrification returns 10 SP. During her Ultimate, that consumption rate becomes high enough that the refund stream essentially funds the next attack chain.
The Smiting Tempest Transformation
Her Ultimate, Smiting Tempest, transforms her into the Empyrean of Truth and changes the rules of her economy:
- First Battle Skill is free. No SP cost, three guaranteed Sunderblades, regardless of enemy state.
- Combo Skill cooldown drops 4x. This lets her ramp Electrification levels (2 → 3) inside a single Ultimate window, maximizing the Sunderblade payoff on her next Battle Skill.
- At P5, she ignores 15 Electric Resistance. Every SP unit you spend during transformation converts to higher damage-per-point efficiency than any other 6-star can match.
The downstream effect on team building is what makes her so disruptive. With Fangyi self-funding most of her own rotation, your Vanguard is no longer obligated to be a pure battery — they can be a buff carrier, a Stagger generator, or a debuff applicator. The team’s overall rotational ceiling rises because the Striker slot stops being the bottleneck.
Sub-DPS and Support Catalysts
Vanguards do the heavy lifting, but a couple of support and sub-DPS units provide the specific triggers that turn an okay rotation into a great one.
Tangtang: Duration-Based Generation and the Time Stop Window
Tangtang is a Cryo Caster whose Cryo Waterspouts deal damage-over-time and drip SP back to the squad while they’re up. That alone makes her a contender on bosses where it’s hard to maintain a clean basic-attack chain — high-mobility encounters where Final Strikes are constantly interrupted lose their primary regen avenue, and Tangtang’s spouts patch the gap.
The bigger payoff is her Ultimate. The 5-second time-freeze window it creates is functionally a free SP zone: your squad lands Final Strikes, sets up Finisher attacks, and reorients without any incoming threat. For Cryo carries with long cast animations (Last Rite, Yvonne), this freeze is the difference between safely landing a burst and getting interrupted halfway through.
Rossi: The Vulnerability Accelerator
Rossi’s contribution to the SP economy is indirect but surgical. Her Combo Skill, Perfect Timing, converts Arts Inflictions into Vulnerability stacks at high speed. She doesn’t generate large amounts of SP herself — but in a Pogranichnik-led team, Rossi is the unit that keeps the 4-stack consumption table firing on cooldown. Hybrid Arts/Physical comps are built around this loop: Rossi stacks, Pogranichnik consumes, the pool refills, the carry burns it.
Gear and Infrastructure: The AIC Layer
The AIC (Automated Industry Complex) is where the math behind your battery actually gets built. Skipping AIC investment and expecting your Vanguard to perform is the single most common mistake in early-Authority play.
The Frontiers 3-Piece: Mandatory for Batteries
Frontiers is the standard-issue Vanguard set, and the 3-piece bonuses are designed precisely around the Recovery loop:
- +15% Combo Skill CDR — fires the primary SP-generation skill more often
- +16% Team DMG for 15s on SP Recovery — folds team-wide damage into the same trigger that fills the bar
For Intellect-scaling generators (Akekuri, Alesh), the Frontiers kit pieces — Extra O2 Tube and the rest — also provide percentage-based Secondary Attribute boosts, helping the operator reach the +75% Intellect cap without investing in expensive substat rolls.
Artificing Priorities
Once your gold gear is in place, Artificing is where you tune the SP curve. The general priority for any battery operator:
| Priority | Stat Focus | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Primary | Intellect or Will | Direct scaling on Recovery talents |
| Secondary | Ultimate Gain Efficiency | Faster Ultimate rotation |
| Tertiary | Stagger Efficiency | More Finisher windows for SP bursts |
Hitting clean Ultimate-energy breakpoints is what lets Arclight or Fangyi cast on a predictable schedule rather than waiting for RNG to align — and predictable schedules are how you avoid rotation collapse in extended boss fights.
Weapons: Turning Recovery Into Damage
The Arsenal system introduces weapons whose passives trigger specifically on SP recovery. These weapons are the offensive layer of the economy: they turn the act of generating points into a damage event for the whole squad.
Thermite Cutter: The Universal Standard
The 6-star sword Thermite Cutter is genuinely the most-recommended piece of gear in the game right now, and the SP economy is why. Its passive, Flow: Thermal Release, grants a 16% team-wide ATK buff every time the wielder recovers SP or enters a Link state — and because Akekuri or Pogranichnik recover SP multiple times per minute, the buff has effectively 100% uptime. Two stacks max for 28% team ATK total. (See our Thermite Cutter deep dive for the full passive math.)
Never Rest and OBJ Edge of Lightness
Never Rest is the Physical equivalent of the Cutter — its SP-recovery trigger drops a stacking Physical damage buff on the squad. OBJ Edge of Lightness is the 5-star specialist option, providing 8.4% Heat/Electric damage per stack to operators like Akekuri whose generation cadence is fast enough to keep stacks rolling.
These aren’t side-grades or alternatives. Together with the Frontiers set bonus, they form the third layer of the SP-as-damage-amplifier loop: every recovery is also a buff event, every buff event is also a damage event.
Consumables and the Tactical Layer
The AIC’s consumable production is where the economy gets tuned for specific encounters.
- Perplexing Medicine (Buckflower + Citrome) grants +23.76% Ultimate Gain Efficiency. For Akekuri-flare comps and Fangyi transformation comps, this consumable can shave several seconds off time-to-burst, which on interrupt-windowed bosses is the difference between a clean run and a wipe.
- Rare plant cultivation (Umbraline, Thorny Yazhen) feeds the higher-tier consumable recipes that matter for Authority 30+ content.
Consumables are usually the last thing players invest in, which is a mistake — for endgame bosses they are essentially a free additional gear slot.
For the broader picture on optimization, see our Attribute Scaling & Artificing Optimization breakdown.
Putting It Together: The Infinite Loop Archetype
The mature expression of all these systems is the Infinite Loop archetype — the comp that makes coordinated play feel like the SP system never existed in the first place. The most-documented version uses Arclight, Akekuri, and Pogranichnik:
- Arclight spends her low-CD Battle Skill to consume Electrification.
- SP recovery fires, triggering Thermite Cutter’s Thermal Release and Frontiers’ team-DMG buff.
- Team Ultimate energy charges from the Recovery event.
- Akekuri dumps her flare Ultimate (~80 SP per flare) and applies Link to boost the next skill cast.
- Pogranichnik fires Pulverizing Front into 4-stack consumption, refunding 35-42 SP and triggering his Decisive Assault for another 40.
- Rotation resets. Next cycle starts in 6-10 seconds.
This isn’t theory — it’s a documented community archetype, and it’s the clearest demonstration of why Endfield’s “restrictive” SP pool is actually a design space. Once players solve the economy with the right operators, the right gear, and the right consumables, the system stops being a constraint and starts being a multiplier.
For team-building context across other archetypes, our Mastering the Frontier squad-building guide covers the non-Infinite Loop options in depth.
Closing Thoughts: SP Velocity Is the Real Meta
The hardest lesson Endfield teaches new players is that the ranking of “best damage dealer” is mostly a fiction. The real ranking is SP velocity — how fast your team can generate, spend, and regenerate the points needed to fuel its most powerful actions. Pogranichnik isn’t strong because he hits hard. Akekuri isn’t S-tier because of her stat distribution. They’re at the top because they solve the economy problem better than anyone else.
As the game pushes deeper into Authority 30+ Umbral Monument content and the upcoming Version 1.3 expansion, the demand for clean rotational throughput will only grow. The teams that win the next meta will be the ones that compress the entire SP loop — Recovery, Return, Ultimate Gain, and reaction triggers — into the tightest cycle possible. The best generator isn’t a single character. It’s a squad, a gear set, a weapon trigger, and a consumable, all firing on the same beat.
Build the engine. Damage takes care of itself.
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