Arknights: Endfield Essences — what 663 means, and why they eat every point of Sanity you own

By DayOneFix Editorial · August 24, 2026

You pulled the weapon. It still feels flat. That is almost never the weapon — it is the Essence sitting in it, and Essences are where nearly every point of Sanity you will ever spend goes.

An Essence slots into a weapon, carries up to three stat lines, and can be levelled far past what a fresh one looks like. Until you have a good one, a 6-star weapon is a stat stick with an empty socket. And the two things that decide whether your Sanity is well spent are not “which stage” — they are whether your Exploration Level is capped and whether you have an Engraving Permit in hand. Both of those are covered below, and both are why most players’ first thousand Sanity was wasted.

Two communities arrived at this from opposite directions, which is how we knew it was worth a page. In English, IWinToLose’s video is called “DO NOT MAKE THIS MISTAKE I DID WITH ESSENCES!” — about 234,000 views, framed entirely as regret, and it opens by stating flatly that Essences are the main Sanity drain in the game. In Chinese the same topic is framed as speed: 春风满马’s 「基质最速毕业！高效率同时刷取多个武器毕业基质方法论！什么是基质！」 — fastest possible Essence graduation, the methodology for farming graduation Essences for several weapons at once, and what an Essence even is — sits at roughly 2.31 million plays and 86,000 likes. Regret on one side, optimisation on the other, same mechanic underneath.

What an Essence actually is

Four properties, and the fourth one is the merciful part:

• It goes on a weapon, not an operator. One Essence per weapon at a time.
• It is not welded on. You can unequip it and move it to another weapon whenever you like. Nothing is destroyed, nothing is refunded, because nothing was spent.
• It carries stat lines drawn from three separate pools: an Attribute stat (Strength, Agility, Intellect, Will), a Secondary combat stat, and a Skill stat. When it drops, the game rolls one from each pool.
• The rarity ladder decides the ceiling. Stable, Clean and Pure Essences are the lower tiers. Flawless is the one you build: three lines, and the highest levels in the game.

That last point is the whole reason the Chinese guide scene talks in three-digit numbers.

Why every Chinese thumbnail says 663

663 is the maximum. A Flawless Essence’s Attribute and Secondary lines cap at +6 each, and its Skill line caps at +3. Six, six, three. A fresh one reads 111. The community shorthand for every state in between — 331, 442, 552, 553 — is just the three levels read left to right.

This is the single most useful thing to know about the system, because it means the grind ends. It is a stated ceiling, not an asymptote. Under 爱画画的暮雨’s explainer (about 369,000 plays), a commenter at 296 likes puts it against the genre: this enhancement feels good, there is a genuine perfect graduation and the cost to reach it is not insane. A reply at 86 likes is blunter — being able to see the finish line from where you stand takes the anxiety out of the whole thing.

The counterweight comes from a different thread, under 让你爱上学习’s video, and is worth holding onto: during closed beta the Chinese community had decided Essences were “just artifacts” and braced for the usual months-long substat mines (527 likes). After launch, that conversation simply stopped. The reply at 394 likes explains why — the things are not actually hard to farm, and you can do it half asleep.

On the English side the relief shows up as jokes. Under IWinToLose, at 17 likes: we got free gear and thought we were free from the RNG mines; jokes on us, the mines were just placed elsewhere. Correct. The mine is here. It just has a floor you can reach.

Two things to finish before you spend Sanity on Essences

This is the part that costs people a week, and it is the strongest cross-community agreement on this page.

1. Cap your Exploration Level first. Under BladeCube’s upgrade guide (about 131,000 views), a commenter states that the number of gold Essences a run gives you scales with Exploration Level — starting at one, rising to three at the current cap — and concludes you should not touch Essences until you have capped it, because there are non-random things to spend Sanity on in the meantime. Independently, on the Chinese side, 让你爱上学习 built an entire video around 「到武陵城别着急刷基质！」 — don’t rush off to farm Essences the moment you reach Wuling City — at about 320,000 plays. Same advice, two languages, no shared audience.

The reason it stings is arithmetic: the same Sanity buys one Essence or three depending on a number you could have raised first.

2. Have Engraving Permits. Farming without one is the mistake everybody confesses to. Under 爱画画的暮雨’s artificing video, a reply at 777 likes puts it in one line: always farm with a Permit, otherwise you are burning Sanity. Under 靡弦’s Essence explainer, the top comment at 1,137 likes is a whole day’s Sanity spent, no usable base rolled, nothing to show. The reply at 123 likes: use a Permit, or save the Sanity.

An Engraving Permit lets you nominate the stats you want before the roll, which narrows the pool the game draws from. 慵懒の十三’s video on using them correctly (about 618,000 plays, 36,500 likes) is titled with the claim that they raise your hit rate by two to seven times. Treat that range as that creator’s figure — Hypergryph does not publish Essence rates, and under Guobafield’s guide an English commenter says exactly that out loud, wishing the artificing and engraving rates were shown in game.

The best comment on that video is a one-liner at 794 likes that explains the whole system to anyone who has played the original Arknights: oh, it’s Recruitment. Now I get it. Tags in, narrowed pool out.

Farming for several weapons at once

This is the actual community methodology, and it is why 春风满马’s video is the most-watched Essence video in any language.

The insight is that Essences are combinations, and combinations overlap. Because each Energy Alluvium has its own stat pool, and because the Permit lets you pick the stats you want, a single farming session can be aimed at the intersection of several weapons’ requirements rather than one. Under 靡弦’s video a commenter at 492 likes works one through in public: pick two Attribute stats plus one more, put an attack bonus in the other slot, and the same run feeds two different weapons’ targets — the rest of the combination space becomes fodder.

Two people in that thread built tools for it. 陈淇澳 (667 likes) publishes a grid you read by row or column so that a miss on your target weapon still lands on a usable Essence for another. And Bio-Hazard’s Essence Recognizer, announced by 逻辑元LogicalByte at about 842,000 plays, reads your screen and tells you what to keep. Under it, a comment at 1,986 likes asks the obvious question: the game already shows which weapons each stage’s Essences suit — so why won’t it tell you, on the Essence itself, which weapon it fits?

Hold that number. It comes back in the 1.5 section.

Etching: the failures are not the disaster you think

Etching is how you raise a line. You pick a stat, feed in another Flawless Essence, and roll.

Here is what makes the system survivable, and it is the fact most new players have backwards:

• Failure does not destroy anything. The Essence you are upgrading does not break. The Chinese community had to debunk this one specifically — under 让你爱上学习’s rate video, the top comment at 1,063 likes is someone wearily noting that the rumour mill next door had moved on to claiming the things shatter.
• Failure pays you. A failed etch returns Coolant Gel, and enough Coolant Gel buys a guaranteed success outright. Under Bio-Hazard’s etching breakdown (about 558,000 plays), a commenter who has never played the game guesses the mechanic cold from the item names, and three replies confirm it in a row.
• So it is a time gate, not a gamble. A reply at 534 likes on 春风满马’s video says it plainly: upgrades fail often, but that only costs you time — everything eventually succeeds, nobody is stuck rolling dice forever.

The cost curve is the thing to actually plan around. Bio-Hazard published averages from the third closed beta, pinned at 1,979 likes under the biggest Essence video in the language:

Label these honestly: they are Bio-Hazard’s measurements from the beta build, not published rates. The shape is what matters, and he says it himself in the same comment — reaching 442 costs about a fifth of the fodder and delivers about seventy per cent of the value. Spreading that fifth across several weapons beats grinding one to 663 while the rest of your account sits at 111.

The fodder trap

The best comment on the entire topic has 1,320 likes and takes one sentence:

The really infuriating part is that the perfect Essence some future weapon needs is, in all likelihood, one you already fed into something as fodder.

There is a live argument underneath it. One camp (340 likes) keeps the high-value near-misses and only feeds the junk. The counter-argument (72 likes) is that the post-etch ceiling is identical either way, so hoarding by value is pointless — the thing that is genuinely scarce is the combination, not the numbers on it.

Both are right about different things, and the practical version is: you cannot un-feed an Essence, and combinations are what run out. Which is exactly the problem Hypergryph is now shipping a screen for.

AFK farming, and the part we will not print

Both communities independently landed on the same trick: you do not have to fight an Energy Alluvium at all. You can bring turrets and let them do it.

In English it is KyoStinV’s AFK Essence farming video (about 103,000 views), NITrogen’s “AFK farm essences effortlessly”, and a comment under IWinToLose at 98 likes telling everyone to just place a bunch of turrets around the farming spot. In Chinese it is 泥萌都是托’s 「终末地也有摆完挂机？卡双倍炮台？超高效率无限刷！」 at roughly 1.73 million plays and 108,000 likes — a video whose description opens by begging any Endfield programmers watching not to follow the channel.

The mechanic underneath is friend-shared turrets, and the limits are the interesting part: the creator’s own pinned notes say you can only share ten a day, only hold ten at a time, that they need periodic maintenance or they lapse, and that they do not work inside your own base. Which is a fairly clear sign the sharing limit is the intended brake.

We are not reproducing anyone’s turret placements or spot coordinates, here or anywhere else on this site. That is the creator’s work, tuned over many hours and given away for free; go and watch theirs. What you need from us is the principle: the Alluvium can be cleared without you, and the constraint is the friend-share cap, not your team.

What version 1.5 actually changes

Straight from the official [Dreamscape of Wind and Snow] DEV Comm of 22 August 2026 — and this is worth reading against that 1,986-like complaint above:

“In [Operators - Progression Overview], you’ll be able to view all owned, not owned, and upcoming operators and weapons in one place, along with the materials required to build operators and weapons to various progression goals, as well as the quantities of materials you currently have… For upcoming operators, you can also preview their recommended weapons’ perfect-match essences and directly add them to your Essence Wishlist.”

Two things about that sentence, precisely.

What is new is [Progression Overview]. The DEV Comm introduces that screen as a new feature. The Essence Wishlist is named as the place the previews get sent to, not described as a new feature — so treat the Wishlist as the destination and the preview-and-add path from unreleased operators as the thing 1.5 is adding. If you want to be exact about it, that is the exact wording, and Hypergryph does not elaborate further.

What it changes for you is the fodder trap. Until now the only defence against feeding away a future weapon’s perfect match was memory, a spreadsheet, or somebody’s third-party recogniser. From 1.5 you can look at an operator who does not exist on your account yet, read what her recommended weapon wants, and mark it before you touch the Etching screen. That is the difference between hoarding blindly and hoarding on purpose.

Also in the same document, and relevant if you are budgeting: the [Gear Plan] and [Auto-Artificer] features listed under “Optimization Content Still in Development” are previews of planned content, not 1.5 launch features. Do not plan a week around them.

What “graduating” an Essence means

畢業 / 毕业 — “graduation” — is community language, not an official state. There is no completion flag and no achievement. What it means in practice is a Flawless Essence sitting at 663 with the three lines your weapon actually wants.

The nearest thing to an official acknowledgement is a detail 让你爱上学习 adds in his own comment at 627 likes: when an Essence’s three stat lines perfectly match the weapon’s, part of the weapon lights up. A reply notes that maxing potential lights up the rest. So the game does tell you — it just tells you in the least searchable way possible, which is presumably why 2.3 million people went looking for a video instead.

FAQ

What is an Essence in Arknights: Endfield? A socketed upgrade that goes into a weapon, carrying up to three stat lines drawn from an Attribute pool, a Secondary combat pool and a Skill pool. One per weapon, and freely transferable between weapons at any time.

What does 663 mean? The maximum levels on a Flawless Essence: +6 on the Attribute line, +6 on the Secondary line, +3 on the Skill line. A fresh one is 111. Chinese guides use the three-digit shorthand for every state in between.

Are Essences really the biggest Sanity drain in the game? Yes, and both communities say so independently. IWinToLose’s video, at about 234,000 views, opens on exactly that claim; the Chinese equivalent is framed as a race to finish rather than a warning, at about 2.31 million plays. Hypergryph’s own response is the strongest evidence — publishers do not build a Progression Overview screen with an Essence preview unless a lot of people were farming the wrong things.

Should I farm Essences as soon as I can? No. Cap your Exploration Level first — the number of gold Essences per run scales with it, reportedly from one up to three at the cap — and get Engraving Permits before you spend. Both points are cross-confirmed in Chinese and English, and both are worth roughly a week.

What does an Engraving Permit do? It lets you nominate stats before the roll, narrowing the pool the game draws from. If you have played the original Arknights, the best comment on the subject describes it as Recruitment: put tags in, get a narrowed pool out. One Chinese creator puts the improvement at two to seven times; that figure is his, not Hypergryph’s, as no Essence rates are published.

Does an Essence break if etching fails? No. Nothing is destroyed. A failed etch returns Coolant Gel, and accumulated Coolant Gel buys a guaranteed success. The Chinese community had to actively debunk the “they shatter” rumour, which is worth remembering the next time you read a scary post.

How many fodder Essences does 663 take? Bio-Hazard’s beta measurements — the most-cited figures in the language, pinned at 1,979 likes — put the average at about 102 fodder Essences from 111 to 663, against about 24 to reach 442. Those are one researcher’s numbers from a beta build, not published rates, but the shape is the point: the last third of the bar costs three-quarters of the grind.

Should I push one Essence to 663 or spread the effort? Spread it, on the numbers above. Bio-Hazard’s own conclusion is that 442 buys roughly seventy per cent of the value for about a fifth of the fodder, and that Endfield’s other systems have the same diminishing-return shape — so raising everything a little beats maxing one thing.

Can I farm Essences AFK? Both communities say yes, using friend-shared turrets at an Energy Alluvium, and the sharing limits are the real constraint: ten shares a day, ten held at once, and they lapse without maintenance. We do not publish placements or spot coordinates — watch the creators who worked them out.

What does version 1.5 add for Essences? A new [Progression Overview] screen showing every owned, unowned and upcoming operator and weapon with the materials each build needs. For upcoming operators it previews their recommended weapons’ perfect-match Essences and lets you add those straight to your Essence Wishlist. The DEV Comm presents the Overview as the new feature and names the Wishlist as where the previews go.

Related

• Endfield best gear: how to choose armor, gloves and kits
• Endfield base building: why your factory stopped overnight
• Endfield beginner mistakes: the ones you don’t feel until later
• Endfield best characters: which operators are worth building
• Endfield 1.5 [Dreamscape of Wind and Snow]: what the DEV Comm confirms
• Endfield 1.5 release date and countdown

Sources

Official. The [Progression Overview] screen, the perfect-match essence preview for upcoming operators, the Essence Wishlist as its destination, and the [Gear Plan] and [Auto-Artificer] items filed under “Optimization Content Still in Development” are quoted from the Dreamscape of Wind and Snow Version DEV Comm of 22 August 2026. Essence and Essence Wishlist are Hypergryph’s own English terms from that document; [Energy Alluvium], [Sanity Meds], [Sanity Usage Permit] and [Emergency Sanity Booster] are theirs from the Homecoming Version Update Notes. Operator classes (Striker, Defender, Guard, Caster, Supporter, Vanguard) and elements (Heat, Cryo, Electric, Nature, Physical) are read from the localisation bundle behind the official Arknights: Endfield site, which is also where its Traditional Chinese equivalents come from. Hypergryph’s published notes do not describe the Essence system’s rarity tiers, etching rates, Engraving Permits or Coolant Gel; those are in-game names as they appear in guide coverage in both languages, and no Essence rate of any kind is published anywhere we can find — an English commenter under Guobafield’s guide says as much.

Community, named and counted. Play and view counts measured 24 August 2026 and rounded. The demand evidence: 春风满马, 「基质最速毕业！高效率同时刷取多个武器毕业基质方法论！什么是基质！」 (BV1vU6KBLEXx, ~2.31M plays, ~85.7K likes), against IWinToLose (~234K views). Bio-Hazard’s fodder averages from the third closed beta are quoted from his own comment pinned under 春风满马’s video at 1,979 likes, and his etching breakdown (BV1VakbBVE9P, ~558K plays) supplies the Coolant Gel mechanic, confirmed in its comment thread. Mechanics explainers and their threads: 靡弦 (BV1kGz9BHE4g, ~1.36M plays) for the fodder-trap comment at 1,320 likes, the multi-weapon worked example at 492 likes, the keep-or-feed argument at 340 and 72 likes, and the Permit-first warning at 1,137 likes; 爱画画的暮雨 (BV1swzQBnEZo, ~369K plays) for the visible-finish-line replies at 296 and 86 likes; 慵懒の十三 on Engraving Permits (BV1YE6MBCERZ, ~618K plays, ~36.5K likes) for the two-to-seven-times claim and the Recruitment comparison at 794 likes; 让你爱上学习 for the shatter-rumour debunking (BV17223BCEmq, ~555K plays) and for the Exploration-Level warning (BV1AAz4BCEdn, ~320K plays) — whose thread also carries the closed-beta “it’s just artifacts” retrospective at 527 likes and the reply at 394 likes — plus his own comment at 627 likes about a perfectly matched weapon lighting up. Tooling: 逻辑元LogicalByte’s announcement of Bio-Hazard’s Essence Recognizer (BV1xR6nBqELV, ~842K plays) and the comment at 1,986 likes asking why the game will not show which weapon an Essence fits. AFK farming, cross-verified across communities that do not read each other: 泥萌都是托 (BV1e2zDBhEAe, ~1.73M plays, ~108K likes) and the creator’s own notes on friend-turret limits, against KyoStinV (~103K views), NITrogen’s Severe Energy Alluvium AFK guide, and a comment at 98 likes under IWinToLose. The Exploration-Level scaling claim is a comment at 34 likes under BladeCube (~131K views); the “the mines were just placed elsewhere” line is a comment at 17 likes under IWinToLose; the absence of published rates is a comment at 33 likes under Guobafield (~117K views). English structural detail cross-checked against WG:B’s full Essence guide (~89K views).

Boundaries. Bio-Hazard’s fodder table and the two-to-seven-times Permit figure are labelled in the body as their authors’ measurements, because they are the numbers a reader would budget a week around. One video that surfaces near the top of every Chinese Essence search — 咩咩子memeko’s 「毕业的663基质不是刷出来的」 at about 920,000 plays — is deliberately absent: the creator’s own pinned comment, at 13,100 likes, admits it is a bait video he made to farm the event reward and asks people to stop watching it. It is very funny and it is not a source. No turret placement, farming spot coordinate, blueprint or build order from any creator is reproduced here. All sources checked 24 August 2026.