Arkansas stones are only just slightly harder than plain hardened carbon steel, and anything with even chromium carbides (found in most stainless steels in abundance, and not at all a problem for common aluminum oxide or silicon carbide synthetic sharpening stones) will give Arkansas stones a very challenging time. It's part of the reason why the old Buck 440C 110 folding hunters were notoriously such a bear to sharpen--not only were they run at fairly high hardness that makes them a bit stubborn even with synthetic stones, but a lot of folks at the time were still using Arkansas stones and they'd barely scratch the stuff due to the chromium carbides being harder than the abrasive was.
Long story short, you're only going to find a full set of natural stones worthwhile compared to synthetics if you're using them exclusively for low-alloy plain carbon steels. They would not give at all satisfactory results on S30V and VG-10
The reference to Buck's old 440C blades, and trying to do much work on them with Ark stones, rings true to me. I learned that lesson years ago, trying to thin an edge on one of Buck's old 112 folders in 440C. Anything very wear-resistant at all, like 440C and beyond, is an exercise in frustration on Arkansas stones. If much metal removal is necessary, it'll be very, very slow and results will be disappointing. AND, it'll get exponentially slower as you go, because the carbides in these steels will quickly glaze an Arkansas stone, meaning its abrasive grit will become polished with use and will then be ineffective on most any steel at all. Even the chromium carbides in 440C, VG-10, D2, etc., are nearly twice as hard as the novaculite grit in the Arkansas stone. And vanadium carbides in steels like S30V are 3X as hard.
You can still 'burnish' a somewhat sharper edge into wear-resistant steels as mentioned. And something like a black hard Ark can be useful as an edge realignment or burr-cleanup tool on more wear-resistant steels (I've occasionally used one this way on VG-10, for that). It works in a manner similar to using a polished kitchen 'steel' for such tasks. But the existing edge on those blade alloys can't be very worn or dull, prior. Otherwise, for real edge rework requiring some true grinding, it'll be a frustrating experience. And you'll still have the glazing issues on the stones from such use, no matter how they're used on these steels.
For VG-10, I'd look at SiC or diamond for heavy grinding work. It can then be refined and/or polished on aluminum oxide stones and with AlOx polishing pastes, which work very well on this steel.
(Edited to add: You can use AlOx also, for grinding work on VG-10. I prefer to use SiC or diamond simply because it'll grind VG-10 much more easily and cleanly without as much heavy burring, which can be an issue on some less-hard VG-10 blades, such as those from Spyderco.)
For S30V, either SiC or diamond for coarse grinding work. For refining it beyond ~600 grit or so, diamond is a no-brainer, best solution all the way.
