Arknights recruitment: every tag combination that guarantees a 5★
Without Senior Operator, 41 tag combinations still guarantee a 5★ operator: 38 pairs and 3 triples. The full list for the current recruitment pool.
41 tag combinations guarantee a 5★ operator in Arknights recruitment without the Senior Operator tag: 38 pairs and 3 triples. Top Operator guarantees a 6★ and Senior Operator a 5★ on their own, at the recruitment time the game's rules require; everything below is for a recruitment that offers neither.
How a combination guarantees a rarity
A recruitment can only give an operator who carries every tag you select. Without Top Operator, no 6★ can come out at all. So a combination guarantees a 5★ when every operator carrying all of its tags is a 5★. Of the 156 operators recruitment can give, 54 are 5★.
The combinations
Every combination of up to 3 tags that guarantees a 5★, with the operators it can give. Only the shortest form of each is listed: adding more tags to one of these still guarantees a 5★, but never helps.
| Tags | Possible operators |
|---|---|
| AoE + Debuff | Meteorite, Sesa |
| AoE + Defense | Beeswax |
| Caster + Defense | Beeswax |
| Caster + Healing | Nightmare |
| Caster + Nuker | Leonhardt |
| Crowd-Control + DP-Recovery | Texas |
| Crowd-Control + Fast-Redeploy | Kafka, Projekt Red |
| Crowd-Control + Slow | Glaucus |
| Crowd-Control + Summon | Mayer |
| Debuff + Fast-Redeploy | Waai Fu |
| Defender + DPS | Asbestos, Liskarm, Vulcan |
| Defender + Shift | Croissant |
| Defender + Survival | Vulcan |
| Defense + Shift | Croissant |
| DPS + Defense | Asbestos, Astesia, Liskarm, Vulcan |
| DPS + Shift | Cliffheart |
| Guard + Defense | Astesia |
| Healing + DPS | Nightmare |
| Melee + Debuff | Waai Fu |
| Nuker + AoE | Leonhardt |
| Ranged + Defense | Beeswax |
| Ranged + Nuker | Firewatch, Leonhardt |
| Slow + Shift | FEater |
| Sniper + Nuker | Firewatch |
| Specialist + Crowd-Control | Kafka, Projekt Red |
| Specialist + Debuff | Waai Fu |
| Specialist + Slow | FEater |
| Specialist + Survival | Kirara, Manticore |
| Support + DP-Recovery | Elysium, Zima |
| Support + Survival | Tsukinogi |
| Supporter + Crowd-Control | Glaucus, Mayer |
| Supporter + Debuff | Pramanix, Shamare |
| Supporter + DPS | Istina |
| Supporter + Summon | Mayer |
| Supporter + Support | Tsukinogi |
| Supporter + Survival | Tsukinogi |
| Survival + Defense | Vulcan |
| Vanguard + Support | Elysium, Zima |
| Caster + DPS + Slow | Nightmare |
| Guard + DPS + AoE | Ayerscarpe |
| Melee + DPS + AoE | Ayerscarpe |
30 of the 41 combinations can give only one operator, so the tags alone tell you exactly who you will get.
What to look for on a recruitment screen
Pairs, not single tags
No single tag other than the rare ones guarantees a 5★; it always takes a pair or a triple. DPS appears in more of the combinations than any other tag, in 8, so when it is on offer, check what it pairs with.
Single tags that guarantee a 4★
4 tags guarantee a 4★ or better on their own: Debuff, Fast-Redeploy, Shift and Summon. When no 5★ combination is on offer, one of these alone is the safe pick.
Which 5★ operators these can reach
Taken together, the combinations above can give 28 different 5★ operators, 52% of the 5★ recruitment pool. The rest only come with Senior Operator or by luck from a looser combination.
Reading the table
Many combinations lead to the same operator from different directions: the same 5★ can sit behind a class tag paired with an affix, and behind two affixes. That is useful on a real recruitment screen, which offers a random handful of tags. Look for any listed pair among the tags you were given, not for one specific pair.
Check your own tags
The Recruitment tool takes the tags your recruitment offered and ranks every combination of them by the rarity it guarantees, with the operators each can give.