FAQ/sandbox

Where do I get the game?
The game can be downloaded in Japanese from the Google Playstore or the iOS Appstore.

If the game shows that it is incompatible with your devices or unavailable in your region then you might want to use a 3rd party Appstore like Qooapp or sideload the APK using a trusted APK downloader site.

The same applies to the Global version of the game: Google Playstore, iOS Appstore, or Qooapp.

You may need a VPN for the Japanese version, or the Global version, depending on where you live. Global has several servers, but as long as you DON'T join the Korean server, you should be fine (that server is extremely competitive during raids).

You can also play the game using an Android emulator like Nox, Bluestacks, Memu or LDPlayer to play the game if you don't own an Android/iOS device.

Any tips on emulating?


Mainly that the game has a strange way of displaying. At a usual 16:9 resolution, for example, you'll actually have quite a lot of things cut off. At a 4:3 resolution, you can see more. In an emulator, this is achieved by setting your resolution to, for example, 1440x1080. Of course, this isn't something perfect. In a few ways, a "taller" resolution can cause you trouble, but overall this is definitely something to consider as it improves QoL.

Otherwise, emulators should work without any issues by default.

Can I play the Japanese version even if I don't know any Japanese?
Yes, the game is easy to navigate if you don't know Japanese and this wiki aims to make the experience easier.

What is Rerolling? Should I do it?
Rerolling is the act of restarting your game and wiping your game data until you get your desired start or a set of units you like. There are a few known methods to do this:

Rerolling with Salted Email on a Phone (no clear data)
For Global, it is as simple as going from the Menu bar (top right) -> Account -> Reset account

The idea is to only use guest accounts until you've decided on an account, then adding an email to it.

For the Japanese version, first log in with a guest account. Complete the tutorial and then collect all rewards from your mailbox then use those rewards to roll more. If you like what you got then you can start playing but if you don't then you can bind the account to Yostar using a 'Salted Email'. This involves putting a + after your email so your email becomes myemail+text@gmail.com. That text can be numbers, letters or anything you want.

After that, go back to the title screen then click the bottom left button and log in with a guest account again. Your previous account should be gone and the guest account should be a fresh account so you can repeat this process until you achieve your desired start.

The menu to link accounts can be found by going to the title screen and pressing the button located at the top right corner of the screen then press the icon that has a student card on it. You will see two lines that say "Yostar" and "Twitter" so just press the button to the right of those lines to link to that service. Press the button again and follow the instructions to unlink from that service.

Binding to Yostar will ask you to write your email on the text box at the top then press the blue button in that pop-up to send a verification code to your email. Write the code you got on the textbox located at the bottom then confirm to bind your account to Yostar. You will be able to confirm your account was successfully bound if your e-mail is shown next to the field where it says "Yostar".

NOTE: This method (sadly) does not work for the international Nexon version of the game; Nexon account creation rejects salted emails as invalid. You will need a valid email account each time you create a new Nexon account. However, as said before, there is now a "reset account" button just below the bind account button in the Accounts menu once you bind to a Nexon account; if you are absolutely certain you wish to dispose of the current content of the account, you may select this option to reset the account to a pristine state and reroll. You may do this as many times as you wish, but a reset account cannot be reverted.

Rerolling with Twitter link
Similar to the above method but instead of linking your data to a Yostar account, you will be linking it to your Twitter account then unlinking it by pressing the same button and repeating the process to link it.

Rerolling with Emulator/Rooted phone
Same as the above two but instead of linking your guest data to anything, you will delete it by navigating to "/data/data/com/YostarJP.BlueArchive/shared_prefs" on your emulator and delete "airisdk_shared.xml" whenever you want to clear the current account.

If you want to keep an account but don't want to link it to a service then you can generate a transfer code instead.

Who or What am I rerolling for?
Characters that make you happy, characters you want or characters that will help you advance faster. Keep in mind that the meta for the game will constantly change so try to aim for characters that will keep you playing for longer instead of characters you don't like but are aiming for because they're considered good. It's better to find a happy medium between characters you like and characters that are good at gameplay and will help you advance faster.

Consider reading Reroll targets for an overview of units that have been proven to stay relevant to half-anniversary and beyond.

Is there pity system? What's a "spark"?




There are 2 ways in gacha games to get a banner unit: spark and pity. With a spark you roll a certain amount of times (200 in Blue Archive) before you can redeem a copy of the banner unit. With pity for every roll past Y rolls without getting a highest star unit you get an increased chance to roll one, up to a 100%. Blue Archive does not have a pity system, it only has spark. 1 spark = 200 rolls = 24,000 pyroxene (generically, these are typically called "gems") You may also sometimes receive tickets. A "1" ticket = 120 pyroxene. A "10" ticket = 1200 Pyroxene. They're treated the same.

You can only spark units currently on banner. Be mindful when a banner ends, your roll count resets to zero, so you cannot carry a spark over to a new banner, nor a new set of banners.

As a side note, a duplicate of a banner unit will give you 100x of a special material (Eleph) which is used for upgrading their rarity. If you have enough Pyroxene to spare and really want to upgrade a girl, keep this in mind.

You get 12,000 Pyroxene on average per month, which means it takes 2 months to get a spark. There's a lot of freebies lying around for new accounts though. This assume you aren't rolling randomly, refreshing often, and that you're doing all your dailies. You want to save up for a spark before rolling. Don't roll without 24,000 Pyroxene, it's a really bad idea.

I got an account I like, now what?
Now it's time to clear main stages as far as you can. Nearly everything is locked until you finish the stage that unlocks it so make sure to push story until you get stuck then improve your team until you can push through.

Important milestones are 3-5, 6-1, 6-5, 9-5 and 12-5. 3,6,9 and 12-5 unlock Cafe upgrades that improve your Credit/Stamina regen per hour while 6-1 unlocks the PVP feature. It's not confirmed how PVP works but it is thought by many that the optimal way to progress is to rush to 6-1 as fast as you can to unlock PVP then refresh PVP attempts to climb until you can't beat anyone anymore, hopefully obtaining #1 in the process. Also, important note: when you get a cafe upgrade, don't forget to go to your cafe and actually upgrade. This is done manually by selecting "Comfort". Additionally, try to make sure you're always at least at maximum comfort in your cafe.

How do I gain account levels?
Account XP is gained at 1:1 rate for all stamina spent. Stamina automatically regenerates at a fixed rate of 1 per 6 minutes on your account (up to maximum cap, dependent on level), additional stamina sources are: Cafe, daily and weekly quests, and Arena store. Stamina can also be recharged with Pyroxene, or bought at the cash shop.

Help! I'm stuck! How do I get stronger?
For starters, make sure you made a proper team. A proper team for missions consists of one tank character, three damage dealers and two support slots. Normally you bring 1-2 healers in the support slots but you can ditch the 2nd healer and bring someone else if you don't need all that healing.

Also it's also not all about having 3* units. This isn't a game where you can really only progress with 3* girls. The Reroll targets page has a short list of recommended 1 and 2 star students at the bottom (though ideally this will be expanded upon soon).

You will also want to keep in mind color/weapon weaknesses. It's pretty simple, thankfully.

From the above table, we can see the game works on color matching system: bring Red units versus Red armor, Yellow units versus Yellow armor and Blue units versus Blue armor. You can also, quite often, bring Red for Yellow, Yellow for Blue, and Blue for Red if you're ever desperate. These deal neutral damage, and in some cases a unit is as good or even better than someone who has a "more effective" color. You will see this happening the most with using Yellow students for Blue content.

If you haven't consulted the other page... Good 2* and below tanks are Yuuka and Tsubaki. Both of these go beyond good and are among the best tanks you can get.

Good Explosion (Red) damage at 2* and below would be Mutsuki, Akari and Serika

Good Penetration (Yellow) damage at 2* and below would be Nonomi, Junko and Pina.

Good Mystic (Blue) damage at 2* and below would be Chise.

Level your units if they're not working out for you, but don't be too worried about keeping them at whatever the current max is. Try to get them their Equipment if you are able because the last tier of equipment makes a huge difference. When you're starting, all in all be careful or stingy with how you upgrade. Quite a lot of the game can be completed several levels below a mission's recommended level.

At what time is the server reset?
Server daily reset is at 4 AM JST. On the home screen there is a clock in the bottom right hand corner of the screen showing the current time in JST. Yes, it's the same for Global.

What is Crafting? What things should I prioritize when Crafting?
A more detailed explanation of what is Crafting can be found in it's own page but for Priorities, you want to go for Furniture until you reach maximum 'Comfy' stat for your dorms then Gifts for your girls and then everything else. While you can obtain Furniture from events, most of it you'll get from here. You'll almost never receive gifts outside of crafting, so Gifts are very high priority here. Most else of what you can get really isn't good, although with the latest crafting updates you can, VERY rarely, get something quite special.

What is Affinity?
Each character has a separate "Affinity" stat for each of the three environments currently in the game (Urban, Outdoor and Indoor).

A character's affinity for a particular environment affects both the amount of damage they deal and the effectiveness of hiding behind cover in that environment. This means that certain characters are more suited to combat in certain environments, and vice versa.

The table below details the damage modifier and effectiveness of cover for each possible affinity value. Note that SS isn't normally present from the beginning, and can only be reached through unique weapon offsets.

I'm playing global version of the game, what's our upcoming banner?
Consult Banner List (Gacha) to get a basic idea of upcoming banners. Global version appears to be following broadly the same banner sequence, albeit with some timing changes.

Who and what do I upgrade? Can I brick myself like in Princess Connect?
You can't brick yourself.

That aside, because resources are often scarce, you should only level up whoever you're using at the moment. It's best to conserve your resources until you actually need to use them. You level up your EX and regular skills based on raids and (to a lesser degree) PvP. You can get by with just levels and equipment in most PvE missions. You get the biggest return on investment by upgrading your damage dealers. Upgrading your healers or buffers is also good, since you can use them in every damage type (thus increasing their usability). Tanks are generally fine with just levels and gear (specifically the 2nd equipment slot), so you can usually skimp out on their EX and regular skills.

As for the order of skills, it really depends per student and only tends to matter more later on. See the Raid page for strategies and students to keep in mind, and as a general tip consider trying to prepare not for whichever raid is just about to arrive, but a raid that will be coming later. Also, something very nice: you can borrow a single student per run for most difficult content in the game, provided you are in a Circle/Club.

There is an off-wiki interactive resource planner that you may consider using in order to plan out what you'll need over time https://justin163.com/planner/

How do Raids work?
Ignoring all possible strategies within the various boss battles, you get 3 tickets a day. Always practice first (blue button). The yellow button is a real run, and both give you about an hour to complete the raid. If you game over, or you retreat, you can't reuse the team you just sent out. However, if you screwed up and really need to reform your team or try something else, CLOSE THE GAME. When you open the game again, you can rearrange formation and will not have lost a ticket. The higher levels, particularly starting from "Extreme" are really hard. For a long time, you shouldn't even try the high difficulties.

You receive coins from these battles. Don't worry about saving them. Basically, buy elephs for strong students (Maki, or Azusa if you can get her), and buy notebooks and BDs as you need them. Until late game, you probably shouldn't ever by the special, shiny, rainbow notebooks.

How do I win at PvP?
These are battles done in auto mode, meaning you have no control over the battle; you can only choose who you're using and where they are.

You can see from the top ranks who's meta here depending on the season, but some usual suspects are Shun, Iori, Tsubaki, Nodoka (Hot Spring), and Iroha. They're not always the best in every season. For example the Red Winter Urban season sees Yuuka as the best tank possible, but these characters are often strong--especially Shun. She has an ability to target DPS units instead of tanks, and she starts every battle by allowing her team to use at least one skill immediately.

This isn't always true, but for Defense and for Attack, put your tanks in the middle and your damage dealers on the sides. You'll probably need to experiment quite a lot to understand this mode.

You can skip PvP battles, but you'll understand the mode even less. Skipping currently has a 1 minute wait time on Global, but you can always skip in JP.

How do I beat Normal/Hard missions?
This was answered already on this very page, but if you need a refresher or more tips: bombard with high damage AoE skills on normal maps. Against bosses, pull a tank behind the boss with Serina and that will almost always keep the rest of your party safe as the boss aims at your tank. Hard maps are more "hard" because of the puzzles the maps offer you. Feel free to look up clear guides. The content itself can be pretty difficult.

Taunts/Interrupts are almost always useful as well.

How do I beat the Bounties?
This Red content can be very difficult, especially when new. You can get an INCREDIBLE attack boost if you bring a lot of one school's student to the fight, however. So, if a Trinity school has bonus damage, bring enough and you can have a 300% attack boost. This very much turns the tide, although it's not "necessary", it's just very helpful. You can do silly things like bring only one red damage dealer, but have that 300% attack boost and destroy them. Tsubaki is useful for interrupting these Sentai Rangers' attacks. Hare is, too.

How do I beat the Commissions?
For defense (with a lot of robots) Hifumi is fantastic here. If you don't have her, you can use Serina and a tank to put your tank far out ahead. Keep your tank alive and dump AoE skills on the robots. Hifumi is good here because she deals a good amount of damage along with having a wide taunt on a "character" whose death won't count against you, via use of her ex.

For treasure, it's mainly about dealing damage fast. This can definitely just be outright hard. Use strong blues, use strong yellows (like Iori).

Do not worry if you can't complete the highest levels for these.

As a general rule, only sweep these stages if 1) you have the highest stages unlocked and 2) it's a 2x or 3x drop commissions week.

How do I beat the Joint Firing Exercises?
These are fairly irritating, all told. but the idea is oddly, usually, "using really small teams". Typically, it's an abysmal idea to run a team with less than 6 students in it. However here, you have an advantage at 3 or less students to constantly spam an ex skill and possibly dominate the stage. It's not always like that, and each Exercise is different, but that's your baseline. The highest level typically adds very annoying conditions to these fights. Don't worry about choosing easier difficulties when starting out. This is also the only game mode where you can quit a fight and reuse your team at no loss of ticket or stamina or anything. You will lose a ticket if you choose to "give up" on the top menu, however, or if you run out of time.

How do I beat the Scrimmages/School exchange?
When you're just starting out, to be honest with you you probably don't. You may be able to do the easiest levels, but it may not be worth the frustration. This content was added later to the game and was expected to be completed by high level, highly invested players. Basically, it's like playing PvP against a fairly smart AI and also the other team is cheating (with things like having way too many students). There aren't any real easy ways to win these. You're expected to know the game pretty well before doing them. Don't worry because your reward here is an upgrade material that is, again, for players who have been playing for quite a while (it upgrades a unique type of equipment after reaching 5* on a girl).

Normal shop
Buy out the last artifacts in the normal shop at the bottom every day (the "blue" artifacts). Consider buying the cheaper "gray" artifacts if you're low on them - which you will be initially - but keep in mind that that tier of artifact is obtainable from regular normal missions. Ignore the tickets, because they're not worth your gems; and get the enhancement stones only if you need them. Buying the reports is a waste of credits.

Eligma shops
Every 20 purchases, these go up in cost by 1, so 20 for 1, 20 for 2, 20 for 3, 20 for 4, and then the rest for 5. The cost will not ever go down, if you get it to 5, it will stay there. Don't use your Eligma for farmable characters if you can, they're quite literally farmable. Have a look at

to learn. Ignore Eligma Shop 2. While the stuff in it may seem enticing, Eligma is often a very scarce resource. (If you didn't know or forgot, you get these from raids, from certain special shops, and from events, but mostly you will likely be getting them from the gacha)

Raid shop
Buy out Maki and Azusa shards, and get Kotama to 3*. After that you're free to do as you like. As a note, with regular coins buying out all of a character's eleph will cost you 500 coins. For elite (purple) coins, it costs 250, and you will also receive less Eleph by comparison. Repeat: Don't get the secret tech notes until you actually need theme. You use them to bring your regular skills from 9 -> 10, which won't be a bottleneck for quite some time.

PvP shop
In general you want to save up your coins so you get to buy out the Energy Drinks during events. The Shop can be refreshed 3 times a day for 10 PvP coins each time, this allows you to spend 210 PvP coins a day buying out energy drinks. Don't buy the reports or credits, they're not worth it in the slightest. Only buy out the Elephs if you like the student. So far, most of the students available in this shop aren't worth it from a gameplay perspective.

Joint Firing Drill/Joint Exercise shop
A lot of the stuff in this shop is obtainable elsewhere. The fusion stones are not. If you're just starting out, buying artifacts or reports may be a good idea, but you can also get those in several other places. Eventually, for sure, you will want the blue, yellow, and purple fusion crystals. These will eventually be extremely helpful, as a way of burning items of which you have an overabundance for more useful ones.

The shards are decent. Eimi is a solid tank, and Sumire and Tsurugi (JP only) are both yellow aoe dps frontliners. Unfortunately, there are better alternatives to Eimi, and the only place Sumire and Tsurugi shine in is in (indoors) Chesed as a 2nd or 3rd option.

Expert Permit Shop
This shop is mainly geared towards endgame players, although new players can obtain a small amount of currency for it through their dailies. (After you hit MAX level, 1 AP = 1 Mastery Certificate) Eventually, you'll have more tickets than you'll be able to use. At the start, reports and credits may seem very tempting. Equipment as well (though you'll get most equipment just from playing). Unfortunately you can't farm the special limited students at the top of this shop. You can only use their eleph for upgrading them if you already have them.

An event is coming! Should I save my AP?
Well, you can.

While this sort of minmaxing isn't really necessary for progress, very basically you can start saving AP 3 days prior to when you want to dump it all on an event (for farming, as events fairly often have unique drops (like, character upgrading elephs and such) or higher drop rates). When you reach 999 AP, all new AP goes to your mailbox for a few days, whereupon your sitting excess AP can later be used on farming.