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I DONT WANT TO READ!!!

Yumie’s Beginner Guide

Beginner video by Yumie Tsuchinoko.


General Information

Gacha rules, sparks

A double spark with zero rate-ups pulled
  • The rates are 3% for a 3★. The rate-up student is 0.7% in that 3%. For full details: click the Rates Info button on the gacha page.
  • BA uses the spark system. A spark here is doing 200 pulls (24,000 pyroxene worth) and trading the recruitment points for a featured banner student.
  • There are only 2 guarantees; a 2★ or better in every multi pull (10 pulls at a time), and the spark.
  • Recruitment points never carry over, they convert to small keystones (crafting shards) when banners rotate.
  • To be safe, only pull if you can spark (rerolling is the exception). You can spend 23,880 pyro (199 pulls) and still get nothing.
Why you don’t pull without a spark
  • Free pull tickets give recruitment points, and they never expire once collected. Paid tickets may or may not give recruitment points, and they always expire. Check the fine print in the patch notes (Homepage -> Notice button -> Updates).
    • To check if an item expires, go to Settings -> Items. If the item has a timer, it will expire. Items left in your mailbox expire after a week (the exception is hoarding AP).
    • The 100 free pulls are not items, they’re counters in the banners. These will expire if unused.
Spark gang unite


Server differences

  • Japan (JP) is about 6 months ahead of Global. (Global is the name of Europe’s server, but we also use it for “all non-JP servers”).
  • Global follows JP’s schedule more or less; some banners are combined and rarely swapped around, but we have never skipped any.
  • There are 7 servers:
    • Japan (JP)
    • Korea (KR)
    • North America (NA)
    • Global (Europe)
    • Taiwan (TW)
    • Asia (AS)
    • China (CN, new)
  • You cannot pick your server unless you VPN. You can only add friends & join a club on your server.
  • To find your server: In-game homepage -> Settings -> Account -> Version Info.
  • Acceleration: Global started about 9 months behind JP, and have caught up to ~6 months behind. It’s unlikely they’ll close the gap further, unless they do drastic changes. You can compare banner dates here: JP banners vs Global.


Is Blue Archive F2P?

  • Depends on your definition, but generally yes.
    • Be as casual as you like; you’ll eventually beat all missions by over-leveling & over-gearing it.
    • A ton of great students are farmable, and you can eventually max them (this also makes rerolling not mandatory).
    • PvP is RNG, the reward differences are pretty small, and brackets are about a few hundred players.
    • Raid rewards don’t differ that much as well, and a max DPS borrow will carry you through every hardcore raid (and many extreme raids too).
  • While F2P income is pretty good (1 spark every 2 months), you’d have to whale or be insanely lucky to collect all the gacha-only students.
    • There’s 60+ three stars in Global, more in JP, and that pool will keep growing.
    • On the bright side, most students are permanent, and they’re pretty good about reruns.


Game Terminology


Rerolling

Reroll targets

Rerolling isn’t mandatory, and there’s over 62 units in the general pool. The most important thing is the time & effort you put into your account.

Midokuni’s Reroll Guide
Midokuni’s Reroll Guide


  • Use Midokuni’s reroll guide and spend all the free pulls from your mail.
    • You want the essential 1 & 2★s for easy progression.
    • Story requires 2 teams eventually. 3 teams in later hard chapters.
    • Limited characters can only be summoned while their banner is active (festival chars on festival banners).
  • The tutorial multi pull guarantees one 3★ or more, but it’s limited to the seventeen 3★s at launch.
The 17 three stars in the tutorial multi pull
    • They are: Iori, Hibiki, Aru, Hina, Haruna, Shun, Maki, Shiroko, Karin, Izumi, Saya, Hoshino, Eimi, Sumire, Neru, Tsurugi, and Hifumi.
    • Your best chances at Hibiki, Iori, and other good dps are there.
  • If you’re missing a lot of essential 2★s (especially Tsubaki, Momoi, Mutsuki and Chise who take longer to farm & summon), you can consider doing a few more multi pulls. There are twenty two 2★s in the pool.


Is rerolling required?

Rerolling is not mandatory
Rerolling is not mandatory
  • It helps secure useful units at the start, but it’s not required to succeed, since you can farm a lot of great students. A decent compromise is grabbing any of the strong DPS in the tutorial multi pull.
  • Reroll if you don’t mind, just play the best account if you’re tired.
  • If there’s a meta banner up like Ako, Himari, Mika or Iroha, try to get them.


How to reroll

  • Play until the tutorial ends. Collect the mail and use all the free pulls you have. You want the essential 1 & 2★s for easier progression.
  • Reset the guest account by Settings -> Account -> Reset Account.
  • You can bind potentially good accounts to dummy emails, then compare and pick one at the end.
  • You cannot unlink an account and still save it. You have to “close account” and wait a week for it to delete (this action is reversible). Once it’s wiped, then you can bind your guest account to it.
  • If you’re hardcore rerolling, do it on an emulator. Google or YouTube how for your particular program. Bluestacks example. Install and patch the game in one instance. Make 4 clones of it. Sync them, reroll 4 at a time. Save any potential good accounts. Add more clones to replace them. (Your computer needs to be beefy enough to run multiple instances at once).


Logging into a linked account

  • The game should prompt you which account to use on the title screen. If you’re stuck in guest mode somehow: Complete the tutorial on guest. Link the account to the email you want. It’ll say “this is already linked, do you want to login instead?” Say yes.


The Meta

Unit ratings & dates

Why a universal tier list can’t exist
Why a universal tier list can’t exist


Spark worthy

Stokkie’s banner guide
  • There are great DPS students, but they need decently high investment to shine. Very generally, DPS want 5★s for extreme raids. See Midokuni’s guide for ideal insane raid investments.
  • Koharu joined the raid shop when JP got Torment difficulty (on Toki/Nagisa’s banners). It will take ~2.5 months to summon her if you buy her out every shop reset.


Limited & welfare

  • “Unique” - The character is limited. They do not join the general pool once their banner leaves. You cannot summon limiteds from the expert shop even with 120 of their eleph.
  • “Event” - AKA welfare. The character is a free from an event. You can only get them during that event.
  • “Unique Item” - Students with bond gear.
  • You can search students individually or the whole group via filters.
Example of filtering for limiteds
  • How to filter for various character types:
    • Go to schale.gg. Set to JP in settings if it’s not already set.
    • Click Student List -> filter top left -> unique (limited), permanent, event (welfare), or unique item (bond gear).
  • JP is archiving old events so everyone can see the stories & collect the welfare. Nonomi is an exception; she comes from the beginner task event. She doesn’t drop in gacha, but she’ll join the expert shop soon.
  • Permanent students won’t have a label. They are in the general pool and you can pull them anytime.


Spark plans

Pyro planner

Pyro planner example


F2P Income

  • See DashingFlame’s pyro report for each month’s breakdown.
  • Note the baselines are fairly casual; gold raid rank, half event challenges done, minimum PvP (which no one should have if you PvP at all…and you should!), and daily playing.


Can I pull my favorites instead?

  • Absolutely. Club & friend borrows help supplement your roster, but spark Ako and Himari too for a comfier gaming life.
  • Find good clubs & friends in discord recruitment & friend channels. You can filter for high lvl players in-game too and see who they’re lending via “i” button.


Beginner guides

How to play & team comps

1. Read Life’s beginner guide or watch this .
2. Use Midokuni’s Teambuilding tab to build good teams.

    • Basic team examples per sets of enemies.
    • If you’re missing a lot of 1 & 2★ essentials in Midokuni’s “reroll” tab, do a few more multi pulls.
    • See Midokuni’s “Glossary” tab for game terminology.

3. Boost Serina to 2★. It’s cheap and improves her free heals & EX.

    • Save the rest of your eligma. You don’t need 5★ DPS until extreme/insane raids.
    • Hardcore players can consider boosting Tsubaki to 3★ for a small stat boost (farmable in ch. 15).

4. Use Yuuka & Tsubaki or other SMG weapon tanks (evasion tanks) before tier 4 bags from ch. 10. Non-SMG weapon tanks (tanks who rely on defense) need their T4 bag to tank properly.

    • After T4: Tsubaki is even stronger, Yuuka starts to struggle (still useable). She gets strong again with bond gear at bond 20.
    • S. Hoshino is a tanky support, not a true tank. Wait until she can solo the frontlines (usually with a T4 bag).

5. Avoid Izuna, S. Izuna, Michiru and other frontline DPS for general content. They’re too annoying to keep alive. Substitute with aoe yellows instead. If you insist, add Hanae or Koharu.

Gameplay tips

  • Don’t use auto team fill, auto fight, or auto skip battle (unless it’s safe). The AI is really bad.
  • Gear priority guide. Level up, gear up. Shotgun tanks will really struggle before T4 bags.
  • Balance your AOE between teams, check your EX totals aren’t too high. Double check your teams with Midokuni’s Teambuilding tab.
  • Stages become difficult 15 to 20+ lvls below enemies due to the level penalty.
  • Focus fire elite enemies (skull icons).
Example of a boss, elite mobs, and regular mobs
  • Prep the last wave: cycle through cheap EX skills to your DPS and pool your energy to max/near max.
  • Nuke the boss immediately with 2+ DPS EX skills. Place overlapping aoe to multi-hit enemies (e.g. 3 with Hibiki, 2 with Mutsuki).
  • Tsubaki taunt for something dangerous, like Iori jumping back to EX, or the giant yellow robot charging up. This forces them to cancel and auto attack instead.


Level penalty

  • The higher level unit gets a damage reduction buff against the attacker. It’s 2% damage reduction per level, capped at 60%. Your units’ and the enemies’ stats do not change. Basically, your student does less damage when they are below an enemy’s level, and vice versa.
  • The recommended level and your account level doesn’t matter. The latter just limits your characters’ max lvl.
Level Penalty Examples
Student Enemy Difference Penalty
Lvl 30 Lvl 70 40 lvls under Enemy gets 60% damage reduction (max penalty).
Lvl 60 70 10 lvls under Enemy gets 20% damage reduction.
Lvl 70 70 No difference No change.
Lvl 83 70 13 lvls above Your student gets 26% damage reduction.
  • This applies to every student vs. every enemy in all game modes (including PvP).
  • Enemies in missions chapters 13-15, bounties, commissions, and some events are higher lvl than the recommended (check with schale.gg).
  • Story 3-24 has level 57 enemies, so it’s difficult until you’re lvl 40+ unless you have Iroha. Video guide.


Maps & challenges


Leveling & AP

Spending AP

Repositioning to AOE better is one comms strategy
  • Don’t farm BDs (Blu-ray discs) from normal mode unless you’re an end game player who doesn’t need gear, and you want to gamble. The drop rates are 1-4%. Example.
  • Gear Priority Guide for farming gear.
  • You can also use Justin’s resource planner. Set up chars -> click Gear -> click AP icon.


Leveling faster

  • You gain 1:1 account experience for APAP spent.
    • Your AP does not regen when capped; don’t let it for long periods of time.
  • If you care about optimizing, refresh 3x daily as much as you can afford (buy AP 3 times a day via pyro). Applies to F2P too.
  • You can use PvP coins for AP, but events usually offer rare items, so hoard enough for those.
  • Free AP per week & expert permit shop info.
  • Max your cafe comfort when possible for more free AP per hour. Cafe upgrades are in every third chapter (3-5, 6-5, 9-5, etc.)


Level estimates

  • Account exp calculator by Futotta-kakka.
    • This is a rough estimate. Your actual time may be +/- 5 to 10 days, and assumes you play daily.
  • Estimates.
  • Account exp chart.
  • Student exp chart.
  • The max level at launch was 70, and the game has been out for almost a year and a half. They slowly increased it to 83, which is why it feels daunting to new players.


Gear, skills, Specials, eligma

Gear

  • Gear priority guide.
  • Higher tier gear can drop all the parts used to make it. It’s best to farm this first until you get stuck, then farm the lower tier directly.
  • The leftmost blueprint has the highest drop %, with the other two lesser and equal. Example.
  • Can also use Justin’s planner to calculate the most optimal runs.


Skills

  • The Bricc Skill Leveling guide.
  • Focus your main AOE DPS for story, then prep for raids. You can boost healers, but EX3 at most (if you even need that). Tanks don’t have much stats to scale with. You can ignore scaling skills for now.
  • Try to stick to the breakpoints; EX: 3, 5. Other skills: 4, 7, 10. These give the most “bang for your buck” since it gets very expensive.
  • Be very picky with Gehenna, Millennium, and Trinity students. These 3 schools have tons of great students.
  • You can use this wiki or Justin’s planner to figure out total resources needed for leveling.
  • Schale.gg has a quick overview of who uses what. Example.


Specials

How to view the stats your Specials give

Stat transfer

  • Specials give 10% ATK/HP and 5% DEF/HEALING to strikers, so you’ll want to level & gear everyone eventually for difficult raids.
    • Click “Unit Info” on the team page to see the stats given.
    • Some Specials are great stat sticks (units with very high attack). E.g. Karin, Saki, UE30 NY Fuuka (she helped Mika perform a lot more consistently in torment raids).

Gear and levels

  • If a Special needs attack/healing stats to do their job properly, then they need levels and gear. If not, you can skip them until difficult raids.
    • DPS Specials need levels and slot 1 & 3 gear. E.g. Karin, Hibiki, Iroha, SHifumi. For slot 3 gear, prioritize your Striker DPS over your Specials (unless they are the main carry like Iroha in Peroro raid).
    • Healer & shielding Specials need levels and slot 3 gear. E.g. Serina, Hanae, Ako (for raids), SShizuko, Mari, Sena (to stay alive and do sad amounts of healing).
    • Specials who just buff or can do their job without stats, do not need levels and gear. E.g. Kotama, Himari, Airi, Yoshimi, Shimiko (doesn’t need investment until torment Shirokuro).
  • Some Specials have unique situations. For example: Shizuko needs a minimum HP of X to reflect both balls on Shirokuro. So you’d hit that threshold via mix of stars, levels, gear, and EX lvls.


Eligma

4R1ynnk.png
  • The eligma cost increases every 20 eleph bought, up to 5 cost. This never resets back to 1 cost.
  • You can use Justin’s resource planner to calculate eligma costs or get estimates for hard mode farming.
  • Be very picky who you boost:
    • You don’t need 5* dps until extreme/insane raids, or 5* supports until insane.
    • It costs 900 eligma per student to boost them from 3* to 5* for extreme.
    • It costs another 600 eligma to boost one student from 5* to 2*UE for insane.
    • Don’t forget your supports who may need 5* for insane/torment.


Raids

How to raid

Raid battle screen for Chesed
  • How raids work.
  • Causew’s general raid guides.
  • Causew’s video guides (insane and Goz).
  • Double check your gear & skills are up to par:
  • Make team comps, check videos in that guide & the raid channel’s thread for an idea of unit investment & execution.
  • Get feedback from experienced raiders, mock it with a strong borrow from your club/friends before you use a real ticket. Boost with eligma as a last resort (preferably on unfarmable important DPS).
  • For the raid schedule, see the pins in your discord’s raid channel.


Extreme & Insane

  • Extreme is tuned to level 70, 5★ DPS, no UE. Very generally, you want:
    • Level 70, UE30 DPS with 5777 skills and T6 gear.
    • 3★ supports work if they don’t need higher stats to do their job.
  • For insane (very generally):
    • Level 80, UE40+ for DPS with 5777 and some max skills.
    • Most supports can stay 3★, but others may need more (e.g. healers in Hiero to one-shot the lantern or heal it in a timely fashion).
  • Higher investment is comfier, but since boosting is expensive, do it until the raid is comfy enough & reproducible. Then save for the next few raids. See the raid channel’s pins or BA’s Twitter for the latest raid schedule.
  • Ask the raid channel (or Reddit’s daily megathread) for good enough char specific UE. Research, mock it, practice it, boost as needed.


Some examples of good EligmaEligma targets. This does NOT mean to blindly 5★ these students!

  • Shirokuro Indoors: S. Azusa, S. Izuna, and Wakamo are good targets (“unfarmable”, important DPS).
  • Hod: Kazusa (meta DPS, best borrowed).
  • Hiero urban: ONodoka, S. Nonomi (meta DPS). S. Hoshino can survive at 3★s. Koharu will join the raid shop (when they add torment raids on Toki’s banner).
  • Kaiten: Most units are farmable, and you bring another tanky frontliner with S. Hoshino.
  • Peroro: B. Karin, Iroha, NY Mutsuki. Aris will be farmable in ch. 23.
  • Binah: Kazusa, Mika, and Yuzu. Most others are farmable.
  • See Midokuni’s “Farmable Summary” tab for the entire farmables list. Avoid using eligma on them unless the breakpoint is huge, you need it for a raid clear now, and it’s cheap.
  • Competitive players can refresh the hard carries; Aru, Izuna, Hina, Iori (Iori has a 2nd stage now in ch. 20). The eleph drop rate is 40%.


Raid progression

Example of how easily a good borrow can carry you through hardcore raids
  • If you’re inexperienced, use the safe strategies, not the maldy wanpan comps (hair-pulling one team sped runs).
  • All the previous tactics still work, you just have more options now (except rare bugs that’ve been fixed since).
  • For example: 2 team Kaiten had an aoe team for phase 1, and a single target & shield breaking team for phase 2. If you’re strong enough, you can brute force it and crit mald with one team. If you’re not, do it the old, safe way. See Causew’s General Raid guide for more info.
  • Wanpans are not even the fastest option sometimes. Depends on the boss, terrain, and available units.


Typical raid progression:
1. Get carried in hardcore raids & easier with a max DPS borrow. (Build for the next raid).

    • Try safe or slow extreme clears.

2. Get stronger and start “speed running” (brute force) extreme.

    • Try safe or slow clears on insane.

3. Get stronger and brute force insane.

    • Try torment difficulty.
    • Cry because you didn’t farm everyone to UE50 lol.


Clubs & friends

$$$ Why vets and clubs will always welcome newbies
  • Clubs & friends are very important. You can borrow units for raids, JFD and conquest mode (only 2 story events use conquest mode). Even at end game, they save you from sparking & maxing 1 unit per raid/JFD. Sometimes it’s ideal to use two of that character per ticket.
  • A club also gives 10 AP a day which adds up.
  • You can use the friends & club recruitment channels in discord. You can also filter for high lvl players in-game. Click the “i“ to see who they’re lending for raids/JFD.
  • Clubs and friends want newer players for more credits from borrowing.
  • Make sure you set 6 units in your borrow slots. You earn for 172.8k credits per day with zero borrows. Do it through the club or settings -> friends -> assistant settings.


Finding your server

  • Settings -> Account -> Version Info.
  • You can only add friends and join clubs on the same server.


UE, scrimmage, bond gear, affection

Unique Equipment (UE)

File:Weapon Icon 10000.png
Aru’s unique weapon
  • UE is short for Unique equipment. It’s a special weapon 5★ units can equip. The # stands for the weapon level (e.g. UE40 = lvl 40 weapon).
  • Save your eligma. You don’t need 5★ DPS until extreme/insane raids.
  • You level UE by doing scrimmage and buying pins from the expert shop.


Scrimmage & when to farm

  • Scrimmage is a mode to farm UE materials, tuned for higher level players with multiple 5★ DPS. You can skip it until you’re at that point.
  • Farm stage C or D if you need, don’t bother with lower levels if it costs AP. Most buy UE pins from the expert shop and only farm during 2x events.


Scrimmage A-D

Rainstorm’s video for strategies to tackle scrimmage


Bond gear

Aru’s treasured wallet (her bond gear)
  • Bond gear is 4th slot gear unique to certain chars. Here’s the whole Unique_gear_list. You can also filter for “unique item” in Schale.gg.
  • To see the requirements, go to the Item tab on a character with bond gear.
  • Turn off bulk upgrade to upgrade T1 -> T2 bond gear.
  • Bond gear releases:
    • 1st batch on SHoshino: Aru, Tsurugi, Shun (young), Asuna (Bunny), Yuuka & Hare.
    • 2nd batch on BAkane: Utaha, Hinata, Cherino (Hot Spring). (A little earlier than JP which was on TYuuka).
    • 3rd batch on Mika (unavailable): Neru, Shiroko, Junko, Suzumi.
    • 4th batch on BToki, MAris (unavailable): Izumi, Eimi, SHina, SHifumi.
  • For estimated dates, see Midokuni’s “Banner Summary” tab.
  • Generally Aru and Yuuka > others. Whoever you like really, just equipping it is basically free and a char buff. You might as well do it for whoever you use.
  • The T2 bond gear is a bit of a grind, but gift selectors & the crafting revamp helps with that.


Affection & Momo talk rewards


Shops, crafting, lessons

Shops

JFD shop
Bounty shop predictions
  • Each shop has a refresh timer at the bottom. When they refresh, the items stay the same, but the purchase count will reset (except the Bounty shop that rotates what it sells). It’s better to buy things you need than hoard way too much and be limited on shop resets.
  • You cannot summon units from the expert shop! Do not buy their elephs unless you have them, or plan on sparking them.
    • Exceptions: Fes units like Wakamo and SHoshino because it’s possible to get them on any fes banner. You still have to summon them from gacha. If you’re a max lvl player, you’ll have lots of leftover permits, so you might as well buy them (low priority). Newer players can’t afford it.


Crafting

Stop at the 1st node if you lack thousands of fodder. It’s very expensive & generally only gifts are worth it past here.
Nodes If Gift Hunting If Not Gift Hunting
Node 1-2 Furniture (Until Max Comfort) > Gift > Shiny > Radiant > Else Furniture (Until Max Comfort) > Radiant > Shiny > Gift > Else
Node 3 Gift > Radiant > Shiny > Elephs > Secret Tech Note
(You shouldn't be here if you're new enough to still need Comfort) 		Elephs = Secret Tech Note > Radiant > Gift > Shiny
(You shouldn't be here if you're new enough to still need Comfort)
L5ywttT.png
  • Don’t go past the first node (big circle) if you’re unsure what’s safe to fodder. The last node is very expensive, and generally only gifts there are worth it.
  • Small crafting nodes are random! Pick whichever you want most.
  • Crafting drop tables and rates:
  • You can skip crafting animations by clicking the screen each time.


Lessons

Requirements for the daily maximum tickets
  • Overview: schedule.
  • Leveling the schools more evenly unlocks the daily max tickets faster. Click the ticket button on the lessons homepage to see the requirements.
  • Get whatever you need the most. If you can’t decide, more Gehenna, Millennium (and Trinity) is always good.
  • Generally purple mats > gold > blue, since the first two are harder to farm, you’ll have plenty of blue and grays mats, and you won’t have to worry about skill levels until extreme raids (since a max DPS borrow can carry you in all hardcore raids).
  • Lesson Drop Rates “schedule tab”.


PvP, Joint Firing Drill

PvP

Why you don’t need to sweat PvP
Why you don’t need to sweat PvP
  • How PvP works:

Causew’s General PvP guide.

  • Who you should use:

Causew’s PvP Usage Tier List.

    • These guides include links to his JP PvP reports too.
  • RS Rainstorm’s S4 defense guide
    • Small correction from Midokuni: 1:50 - It’s not due to Iori having 650 range, it’s due to the exact formations being slightly different. On a different formation, Iori can target the barrier (but get blocked anyway).
Ouch


  • PvP is very RNG and expensive to stay at the top. Just do what you can and hoard coins for AP refreshing on good events.
  • Your daily PvP reward is based on your current rank. Climb ranks before you claim. The reward reset time is on the PvP page in-game.
  • Battles are determined once you start. Skipping/watching has no impact.


  • If you’re new and want an easier PvP experience, reach level 31 before clearing 6-1 normal (which unlocks pvp).
    • Accounts level 31+ have the highest chance of a newer bracket with low level players.
    • Accounts level 1-30 have the highest chance of an older bracket with higher level players.
    • If you read this too late, don’t worry. There’s a chance you’ll land in an older bracket every time the season changes.
    • Testing for this was done mostly on the Asia server. In theory, it should apply to other servers, but it may depend on the level distribution.


JP PvP Seasons
Season Terrain Start Date Banner Approx. Duration
1 Urban 02/04/2021 Hoshino & Shiroko 7 months
2 Outdoors 08/26/2021 Shun (kid) 4 months
3 Indoors 12/15/2021 O. Nodoka (Hot Spring) 9 months
4 Urban 09/07/2022 S. Hina & S. Iori 7 months
5 Outdoors 04/05/2023 Izuna & Mimori


Joint Firing Drill (JFD)

JFD gimmick example
  • How JFD works. It’s a bit like raid, but you need 3 teams.
  • The type of exercise, the gimmicks, and the enemies’ armor will heavily influence your team comps. Go to your respective discord #joint-firing-drill channel for help or search YouTube.
  • Only stages 3 and 4 have special gimmicks. Stage 1 and 2 are regular enemies; just shoot them down.
  • Borrows help immensely here, occasionally letting new players cheese stage 4.
  • See the shops section for what to buy from JFD.


Game stats, buffs/debuffs, bricking

Game stats

  • ItJustWorks stats doc. What game stats do, how to calculate them.
  • You can also use the damage/healing calculator in Schale.gg via magnifying glass icon on any character page.


Buff & debuff stacking

Two examples:

  • S. Ayane and Hanae have the same crit damage sub. If S. Ayane w/sub level 10 is on the left, and Hanae w/sub level 4 is on the right, Hanae’s smaller buff overwrites it since she’s in the right slot.
  • B. Akane and another attack sub example.
    • B. Akane on the left: Applies B. Akane’s buff for Mystic attackers -> overwrites it with Kotama’s buff for everyone.
    • B. Akane on the right: Applies Kotama’s buff for everyone -> applies B. Akane’s for Mystic attackers.



Bricking

  • Bricking is more of a meme you’ve done terrible, irreversible things and permanently ruined your account. It comes from an old Princess Connect issue, where investing too much in your units made them take less damage, and therefore gain less energy for important skills.
  • For a majority of players, you can’t really brick yourself.
  • (Not) example with S. Hoshino.
  • Another (not) example:
    • Kuro’s attack speed affects the times at which it summons carts. If you leveled Airi’s EX/Basic skills too far, Kuro’s attack speed lowers to the point where the delay between cart summoning is long enough to prevent self-hitting the typical 6 times.
    • Demo of this with EX3 Basic 7 Airi.
    • It only affects those who are barely clearing ShiroKuro insane and above, relying on Airi as they need all the damage they can get. If you’re already far into bodythrowing, missing an extra 600k can be quite significant.
    • To work around this, you would have to throw another team to make up for the lost damage.
    • This is actually more of a trade off, because it means you take less attacks from the boss. If you put dps students in the Airi team, they will live longer, which means they deal more damage.
  • More game terminology here.


Festivals, free pulls, paid items

Festival banners

Mika is the next festival banner
  • Festival (or fes) banners are JP’s anniversary banners with double the 3★ rate, from 3% to 6%. They usually only last about 4-5 days. Mika’s banner was a week in JP.
  • When a fes banner ends, we get 100 free pulls on the next set of banners (it’s a banner swap, so your recruitment points will not carry over). These 100 free pulls expire.
  • Previous fes students are in every fes banner, but you can only spark the featured banner student. The next one is Mika.
  • Rates on Mika’s banner:
    • 6% total for a 3★.
    • 0.7% for Mika
    • 0.3% for Wakamo
    • 0.3% for S. Hoshino
  • See Midokuni’s “banner summary” tab for estimated dates.
Don’t chase previous fes students
  • We recommend spending only 1 spark per fes banner. It’s safer to guarantee other girls you want, than to gamble. My clubmate spent 400 pulls on SHoshino’s fes and only got 4 three stars, no rate ups.


100 free pulls

  • After a fes banner ends, we get 100 free pulls on the next set of banners.
    • These pulls expire if you don’t use them.
    • They accumulate; you can wait until the last day to do all 100. See JP’s banners for who’s after a fes banner.
    • They typically give 10 pulls a day and 20 on the last day.
    • These aren’t “physical” tickets. They’re counters on the banners.


Worth buying

  • “Worth” is subjective, but the cheapest decent things are: New teacher packs x3, both monthly subscriptions, and the AP pack during good events. The Serika package is alright, but she’s easy to farm.
  • Big spenders may want to buy the school packs. They save you about 3 months of normal farming.


Start Dash ticket

Students in the Start Dash ticket
  • The pool of 8 is small and offers a lot of great units. It also gives a rate-up for dupes (100 elephs instead of 30). However, 3 students are farmable (Koharu will join the raid shop in several months, and Hibiki will be in hard mode ch.22). You can see the whole pool via Rate Info button on its gacha page.
  • I probably wouldn’t buy it unless you’re already buying the 2 monthly subs and AP packs during good events.
  • For more info on these units:


3★ selector

  • BA only sold one selector ticket. None in the future yet.
  • The closest thing was an RNG ticket on Mika’s fes banner; choose an attack type (red/yellow/blue), and get a random permanent 3★ from that pool.
  • Always read the fine print in case our ticket is different from JP’s.


Events


Before you edit this page, please contact me on discord (Oom#3360) with feedback or suggestions.

References

  1. ↑ Blue Archive Official(GL) Discord, Midokuni#0001, https://imgur.com/a/1bzF6J7
  2. ↑ Blue Archive Official(GL) Discord, Kelfran#0178, https://imgur.com/a/WvpmCeD
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