Potential
In Arknights, Operators can have their Potential improved to grant them additional bonuses such as DP cost and/or redeployment time reduction, stat improvement, or improvement to their talent(s).
An Operator has six levels of Potential, denoted by white lines that gradually form an inverted pentagram, with a blue overlay indicating the next level (as seen on the right).
Operator Potential can be increased either by using one Operator Token (awarded when obtaining duplicates of Operators already owned by the player) or four Class Tokens. For more information, see Tokens.
If the Operator's Potential is maxed out, excess tokens of the Operator can be exchanged in the Certificate Store for either Commendation Certificate or
Distinction Certificate depending on the rarity of the Operator. Operators obtained from Kernel headhunting banners give out Kernel Operator Tokens instead, which are similar but instead are traded for
Universal Certificate. For more information on the certificates' conversion rates, see their respective articles.
The Potentials of Amiya, Savage, and 3★ or below Operators can only be improved by their respective Operator Tokens.
Conviction, Luo Xiaohei, Nine-Colored Deer, and Integrated Strategies-exclusive Operators are the only ones whose Potentials cannot be improved in any way.
Trivia
- Prior to Lingering Echoes, the UI for increasing an Operator's Potential displayed a Success rate under the token of choice, but that number was always 100%. There is an unused sprite in the game files under the name "icon_potential_fail" displaying the silhouette of a person tripping while climbing a staircase. This combination of elements implies that it was originally intended for raising Potential to be able to fail, but this feature was cut before the game launched. In all likelihood, it was intended for players to be allowed to use less than four Class Tokens to raise Potential, only with a lowered rate of success.