GameplayHelp FAQs: Difference between revisions
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==General Information== |
==General Information== |
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====Gacha |
====Gacha and sparks==== |
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* For more |
* For more details: [[Recruitment (Gacha)|gacha page]]. |
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* Free pull tickets and pulls on any non-paid banner give recruitment points. Most free tickets don’t expire. Grand Assault tickets do. |
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* Free pull tickets always give recruitment points. Paid tickets vary. |
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** |
** See details in [https://forum.nexon.com/bluearchive-en/board_list?board=3223&pageNo=1 shop updates] or latest [https://forum.nexon.com/bluearchive-en/board_list?board=3217&pageNo=1 patch notes]. |
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** E.g. [https://forum.nexon.com/bluearchive-en/board_view?thread=2483529 3* selector details]. |
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* [https://imgur.com/a/h4dkQzM |
* [https://imgur.com/a/h4dkQzM Checking if an item expires]: |
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** Go to Settings > Items > click the item. If there’s a timer, it will expire. |
** Go to Settings > Items > click the item. If there’s a timer, it will expire. |
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** Most mail expires. |
** Most mail expires. |
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** The [https://bluearchive.wiki/wiki/GameplayHelp_FAQs#Festivals_and_100_free_pulls 100 free pulls] expire. |
** The [https://bluearchive.wiki/wiki/GameplayHelp_FAQs#Festivals_and_100_free_pulls 100 free pulls] expire. |
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* Misc: |
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* [https://bluearchive.wiki/wiki/GameplayHelp_FAQs#Limited_&_welfare Limited vs. permanent], and [https://bluearchive.wiki/wiki/GameplayHelp_FAQs#Festivals_and_100_free_pulls limited festival units]. |
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* [https://imgur.com/a/HpzNow5 Spark vs. pity] |
** [https://imgur.com/a/HpzNow5 Spark vs. pity] |
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* [https://i.imgur.com/jCzeB0e.jpg Average eligma from gacha]. |
** [https://i.imgur.com/jCzeB0e.jpg Average eligma from gacha]. |
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* [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16b4IFADWAhsUUWoLVduHrOqHXqnWcIP_woL7Kwlgo-s/edit#gid=1088883752 Accurian’s Gacha Probability] |
** [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16b4IFADWAhsUUWoLVduHrOqHXqnWcIP_woL7Kwlgo-s/edit#gid=1088883752 Accurian’s Gacha Probability] |
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* [https://dropchance.app/ Chance calculator 1], and [https://dskjal.com/statistics/chance-calculator.html |
** [https://dropchance.app/ Chance calculator 1], and [https://dskjal.com/statistics/chance-calculator.html calculator 2]. |
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Revision as of 03:57, 12 February 2024
Here ya go: RS Rainstorm’s beginner video.
Welcome to Blue Archive! There’s a lot to learn, so please take your time and treat this like a library.
General Information
Gacha and sparks
- For more details: gacha page.
- Free pull tickets always give recruitment points. Paid tickets vary.
- See details in shop updates or latest patch notes.
- E.g. 3* selector details.
- Checking if an item expires:
- Go to Settings > Items > click the item. If there’s a timer, it will expire.
- Most mail expires.
- The 100 free pulls expire.
- Misc:
Server differences
Server | Nickname | Timeline |
---|---|---|
Japan (JP) | JP | Launched Feb. 4th, 2021. |
Korea (KR) | Global | Launched Nov. 8th, 2021.
About 6 months behind content-wise. Will likely keep this steady gap. |
North America (NA) | ||
Global (Europe, EU) | ||
Taiwan (TW) | ||
Asia (AS) | ||
China (CN) | CN | Launched August 3, 2023. |
- 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/CN servers”).
- Global follows JP’s schedule more or less; some banners are combined and rarely swapped around, but we have never skipped any.
- You cannot pick your server unless you VPN. You can only add friends & join a club with players 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.
- Many students are farmable, and you can eventually max them (also makes rerolling not mandatory).
- PvP is RNG and the reward differences are pretty small.
- Raid rewards don’t differ much either. A max DPS borrow will carry every hardcore raid (and many extreme raids too).
- F2P income is pretty good (1 spark every 2 months), but you’d have to whale or be insanely lucky to collect all the gacha-only students.
- Luckily, most students are permanent, and they’re pretty good about reruns.
Game Terminology
- Midokuni’s “Glossary” tab.
- Many terms are applicable to other gacha games and regular games too.
Rerolling
Rerolling
- See Midokuni’s reroll guide tab.
- In general: Hibiki, Iori, Aru > Hina, Haruna > else. All are farmable except Shun.
- The tutorial is limited to the seventeen 3★s from launch.
- If unhappy, reset by: Settings > Account > Reset Account. “Close account” wipes it completely and removes any linked email.
- Students with the “unique” label are limited; they don’t join the general pool.
Logging into a linked account
- Login to your linked account on the title screen.
- If stuck in guest mode: finish the tutorial. Link it to the account you want to access. Say Yes to “This is already linked, login instead?”
The Meta
Unit ratings & dates
- How good is this unit?
- Student Insights; a collection of character ratings by Midokuni, Causew and Stokesia. Check all tabs.
- Stokkie’s Raid Ratings; the closest thing we have to a tier list.
- Stokkie’s banner poster.
- Just3C’s video banner guide.
- When will they arrive?
- Advice from our guide makers:
- Causew - TYuuka & sparking supports/DPS.
- Causew - NY Fuuka vs Ui.
- Midokuni - NY Fuuka.
- There are great DPS students, but they need decently high investment for insane raids and up (extreme if they’re a main DPS). See Midokuni’s guide for end-game raid investments.
- You can use the Pyro Planner to plan your sparks & refreshes.
Limited & welfare
- You can check a student’s type on Schale.gg.
Limited characters:
- Have the “unique” tag. They do not join the general pool; you can only summon them when their banners are up. You cannot summon them from the expert shop.
- See JP’s banners for how often they rerun.
- Limited festival characters:
- Wakamo, S. Hoshino, Mika & S. Hanako.
- They can be pulled in any festival, but you can only spark them if their banner is up.
Welfare/event characters:
- Free students from events. You can only summon them during that event, or after their event is archived (the event’s story is permanent and you can summon the welfare and farm their elephs via expert shop. Includes Nonomi).
Permanent characters:
- Students who join the general pool. You can pull them anytime.
Bond gear characters:
- Students who have bond gear.
Farmables:
- Students whose elephs can be farmed. Commonly from (but not limited to) hard quests, events, and shops.
- See Midokuni’s “farmable summary” tab.
Looking up student types:
- Go to schale.gg. Set to JP in settings to see future content.
- Search for the student or use filters: click Student List > filter top left > unique (limited), permanent, event (welfare), or unique item (bond gear).
Spark plans
Pyro planner
- The Pyro Planner and how to use it. (Maintained by weird_sheepherder_72).
- Or estimate 12k pyro a month and use Midokuni’s banner summary.
- Your daily PvP reward is based on your current rank when claimed, not when PvP resets. Climb before you claim.
F2P Income
- See DashingFlame’s pyro report for each month’s breakdown.
- New players are showered in pyro. See Kelfran’s One-Time Pyro Rewards for details.
- For help with Guide missions:
- Select your guide mission and day.
- If the task has a timer, it’s total time spent in battle (each fight contributes). No timer means you can sweep it.
- If it asks for lessons with certain girls, you have to own the student to receive credit. Alternate characters will work (e.g. S. Azusa for Trinity).
Beginner guides
How to play & team comps
1. Jumping right in:
- Make good teams: Midokuni’s General Team Building tab.
- Basic team examples. Add better aoe DPS from above if you have them.
- Do a few more multi pulls if you’re missing a lot of 1 & 2★ essentials in Midokuni’s “reroll” tab.
Full tutorials:
2. 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 insane raids.
3. Use tanks with high evasion like Tsubaki and Yuuka. They use SMG weapons (exception: Natsu uses her EX to sustain). Tanks who rely on defense (non-SMG) need their Tier 4 bag in chapter 10 to tank properly.
- After T4: Tsubaki is even stronger, Yuuka struggles a bit compared to others (still perfectly capable). She gets super strong with T1 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).
4. Avoid using brawlers; they tend to take frontline fire and are annoying to keep alive. Some examples: Izuna, S. Izuna, Michiru. If you insist, add Hanae, a striker healer, or an aoe healer.
5. Buy and make a T4 bag for your main tank via expert permit shop (you need a T3 bag equipped plus extra materials). It’s a huge survivability boost you can get earlier than normal.
6. Since resources are scarce (especially level 70+), only invest in who you need to clear content. You can expand your roster later when you’re richer.
7. Ignore A stages for now (e.g. 3-A). They’re harder (added recently) and you don’t need to clear them to chase cafe upgrades.
Gameplay tips
- Gameplay tactics demo.
- Don’t use auto team fill, auto fight, or auto skip battle (unless it’s safe). The AI is as dumb as rocks. Skip battles acts as if you played on auto fight.
- 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 Team Building tab.
- Stages become difficult about 15 to 20+ levels below enemies due to the level penalty.
- Prioritize elite enemies (skull icons) or dangerous ones, like backline nukers.
- 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.
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 | 0 | No penalty. |
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 mission chapters 13-15, bounties, commissions, and some events are higher than the recommended (check with schale.gg).
- Story 3-3-24 has level 57 enemies, so it’s difficult until you’re level 40+ unless you have Iroha.
- Video guide by Raishin.
- Video guide by Myon. You don’t need Shiroko specifically! Just use a red dps.
Maps & challenges
- For maps: JP Wikiru and Schale.gg (maps tab).
- YouTube is your best friend. Some examples of reliable guides:
- When a map stage asks you to beat it in X seconds, that’s total battle time (time on the map doesn’t matter). You may need to use team 2 to lure an enemy away and forfeit, so team 1 can head to the boss.
- You can complete three star objectives one at a time for every stage in the game.
Leveling & AP
Spending AP
- Ideal places to spend AP.
- Global events for event guides & planners.
- Hardmode farming: Midokuni’s “Hard Summary” tab.
- Commissions efficiency chart.
- Try to avoid commissions unless there’s a 2x or better event. Do it if you must for a raid clear.
- A commissions strategy; reposition your tank to group up enemies for more efficient aoe.
- Don’t farm BDs (Blu-ray discs) or artifacts from normal mode unless you want to gamble. The drop rates are 1-4%. Example.
- Gear Priority Guide for farming gear.
- For optimal gear sweeping: Justin’s resource planner. Set up characters > click Gear > click AP icon.
Leveling faster
- You gain 1:1 account experience for AP 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 until you’re max level (buy AP 3 times a day via pyro). Applies to F2P too; it’s easily affordable with 12k pyro a month and speeds progression by a lot.
- Higher level = smaller level penalty = more likely to clear content = more rewards.
- Max level players also get expert permits or Mastery Certificates (1:1 for AP spent).
- You can use PvP coins for AP, but events usually offer rare items, so hoard enough for those.
- You need 210 Tactical Challenge Coin a day x 7 or 14 days to max refresh (but you also gain some everyday).
- 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 (“suspence” on Discord).
- This is a rough estimate. Your actual time may be +/- 5 to 10 days. It assumes you play daily and never waste AP (by capping and not regenerating AP).
- Account & student experience charts.
Gear, skills, Specials, eligma
Gear
- Gear priority guide.
- The pattern for gear drops between stages is consistent, so when new gear comes out, you farm the higher equivalent stages.
- The leftmost blueprint has the highest drop %, with the other two lesser and equal. A higher tier gear can drop itself and the parts used to make it (e.g. T6 can drop T3 & T4).
- Drop rates for low tier gear were greatly buffed (compare in Schale.gg).
- Generally, you want to farm the highest tier and work your way down. But you can also take advantage of the expert permit shop (mostly max level players with ample permits). Farm the highest gear, buy some unbuffed tiers, and farm the rest.
- T4 bags is a huge boost in survivability for tanks; newer players can grab them before they can farm them.
- Use Justin’s planner to see the most optimal sweeps for gear farming.
- Prioritize important students for upcoming raids or difficult content. (How to raid). See the Specials section for who needs gear and which type.
Skills
- The Bricc Skill Leveling guide.
- Focus your main AOE DPS for missions, then prep for raids.
- You can boost healers, but EX3 at most early on (if you even need that).
- Tanks don’t have much stats to scale with until end-game. Many don’t even need skill levels; just gear and student levels can be enough.
- Try to stick to the breakpoints since it can get expensive; EX: 3, 5. Other skills: 4, 7, 10. These give the most “bang for your buck.”
- Be very picky with Gehenna, Millennium, and Trinity students. These 3 schools have tons of great units.
- You can use this wiki, Justin’s planner, or Schale.gg to figure out total resources needed for leveling.
- For Schale.gg:
Specials
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, S. Shizuko, Mari.
- 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. Examples:
- 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.
- Mari (and Aris) need to hit a certain shield & HP minimum for insane, so Aris will survive Peroro’s laser transition.
Eligma
- Causew’s guide to spending eligma.
- Elephs = specific character shards. Eligma = currency used to buy elephs.
- 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 crazy picky with your eligma.
- It costs about 2 sparks to boost one DPS for insane/torment (UE40). That’s 4 months of pyro saving for F2P.
- Don’t forget your supports who may need 5* for insane/torment.
Raids
How to raid
Boss guides:
- Wiki for general info. about the raid system.
- Double check your gear & skills are up to par: Gear priority guide & Bricc Skill Leveling guide.
- For ideas of team comps, unit investment, and execution: Near’s playlists, Midokuni’s raid stats, the raid channel’s video thread, and YouTube.
- Get feedback from experienced raiders on your proposed teams & their investments (e.g. using Justin’s team editor).
- Mock it with a strong borrow from your club/friends before using a real ticket.
- For the raid schedule, see the pins in your discord’s raid channel or BA’s official Twitter.
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. Depending on your supports, you can even get away with an all 3★ team + a max hyper carry borrow.
- 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).
- See Midokuni’s guide for insane investments (multiple tabs).
- Boosting is expensive, so only do it until the raid is comfy enough, then save for the next few raids.
- Causew’s character & team statistics for torment.
- Midokuni’s raid stats.
Raid progression
- If you’re inexperienced, use the safe strategies, not the maldy wanpan comps (hair-pulling 1 team speed 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.
Clubs & friends
- Clubs & friends are very important. You can borrow units for raids, JFD, conquest mode, and certain parts of story.
- Borrows 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 helps you level faster.
- You can use the friends & club recruitment channels in discord. You can also filter for high level players in-game. Click the “i“ to see who they’re lending for raids/JFD. How to do it.
- Clubs and friends want newer players for more credits from borrowing.
- Make sure you set 9 units in your borrow slots. You earn a lot of credits this way, even with zero borrows. Set them via “Assistant Settings” in your club, or Settings > Friends > Assistant Settings. Click “Reform” to collect credits.
Finding your server
- From in-game: Settings > Account > Version Info.
- You can only add friends and join clubs on the same server.
UE, scrimmage, bond gear, affection
Unique Equipment (UE)
- UE is short for Unique equipment.
- It’s a special weapon 5★ students can equip. The # stands for the weapon level (e.g. UE40 = level 40 weapon).
Notation | Elephs Required | Weapon Level |
---|---|---|
1★ UE | Student must be a 5★ | Can go up to UE30 |
2★ UE | 120 elephs | Can go up to UE40 |
3★ UE | 180 elephs | Can go up to UE50 |
4★ UE and higher | Doesn’t exist yet | ~ |
- 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
- Scrimmage drops UE materials. Most buy UE pins from the expert shop and farm 2x drops as needed.
- Guides:
- Rainstorm’s explains mechanics. Applicable to all stages.
- Valiant’s No Iori/Azusa/S. Azusa.
- Causew’s no gacha challenge.
- Midokuni’s all 3.
- Ahri’s Trinity, Gehenna, and Millennium.
- Scrimmage D suggestions.
- Scrimmage D: UE30 is required. More is comfier. Aru is even stronger with her T2 bond gear. I cleared it with UE50 Maki/Wakamo, UE40 Haruna/Shun/Iori/Aru, and UE30 Hina. Generally 5777 skills and T766 gear.
Bond gear
- Bond gear is 4th slot gear unique to certain characters. You can see it on unique gear list.
Characters | Available | Released on |
---|---|---|
Aru, Tsurugi, Shun (young), B. Asuna, Yuuka, Hare | Yes | S. Hoshino |
Utaha, Hinata, O. Cherino | Yes | B. Akane (early) |
Neru, Shiroko, Junko, Suzumi | Yes | Mika |
Izumi, Eimi, S. Hina, S. Hifumi | Yes | B. Toki & M. Aris |
Wakamo, Mimori, S. Chise, C. Saya, Serika. | Yes | S. Hanako Bond requirements reduced by 5 levels (3 months early). |
Sumire, Miyako, Hanako, S. Izumi | No | Railgun collab: Mikoto & Misaki. |
Nonomi, C. Hanae, Misaki | No | Dress Hina |
- For estimated dates, see Midokuni’s Banner Summary or his Google doc.
- Generally Aru and Yuuka > others, but whoever you use and like really. Just equipping it is basically free and a buff.
- The T2 bond gear is a bit of a grind, but gift selectors (via fusion crystals from JFD) & the crafting revamp helps with that.
Affection & Momo talk rewards
- Wiki affection page.
- Arona.ai. A site with multiple tools. (Doesn’t work with certain browsers).
- Futotta-kakka‘s bond calculator (“suspence” on Discord).
- Check preferred gifts on schale.gg via student’s profile tab, or by searching for the gift.
- Kelfran’s guide - “Momo talks” tab.
Shops, crafting, lessons
Shops
- Locher’s General Wisdom & Advice.
- Life’s Tirade.
- Midokuni’s “farmable summary” tab.
- Joint Firing Drill (JFD) shop.
- Shops have a refresh timer at the bottom. Items stay the same, but purchase counts reset (except the Bounty shop that rotates goods).
- 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!
Crafting
- How crafting works.
- Crafting Priorities:[1][2]
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) |
- 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.
- Don’t use Quick Craft if you care about the results.
Lessons
- 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 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
- How PvP works:
- Who you should use:
- Causew’s PvP Usage Tier List.
- See his JP PvP reports for more info.
- How brackets work.
- 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.
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 | 7 months |
6 | Indoors | 11/08/2023 | Railgun collab: Mikoto & Misaki | Ongoing |
- For an est. date on season change, see Midokuni’s banner summary.
Joint Firing Drill (JFD)
- 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 (e.g. “blue archive joint season #”). Check which season we’re on in Schale.gg.
- Only stages 3 and 4 have additional gimmicks. Stage 1 and 2 are regular enemies; just shoot them down. If there’s a scarecrow, heal it first to greatly debuff enemies.
- 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 or Calculations button on any character page.
Buff & debuff stacking
- Ahri’s buff stacking guide.
- How to test buff/debuff stacking.
- Specials’ sub skill buffs: The game applies the left slot buff, and then the right slot buff. If they overlap, the right overwrites the left, even if it’s a lower percentage.
For example:
- S. Ayane and Hanae have the same crit damage sub. If S. Ayane with sub level 10 is on the left, and Hanae with sub level 4 is on the right, Hanae’s smaller buff overwrites it since she’s on the right slot.
- B. Akane and another attack sub example.
Cost recovery demos:
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
Festivals and 100 free pulls
- Festival (or fes) banners are JP’s anniversary banners with double the 3★ rate, from 3% to 6%. They only last a week. We also get 100 free pulls right before or after.
- Next anniversary: 100 free pulls on limited S. Hinata & S. Ui, then the fes banners S. Hanako and Wakamo.
- Anniversary after S. Hanako: 100 free pulls on limited Dress Ako & Makoto. Festival girls: Dress Hinata & S. Hoshino rerun.
- Banners swap & the free pulls expire. You cannot save them for anyone else, and recruitment points convert to small crafting shards when banners end.
- Free pulls accumulate; you can do all 100 on the last day (they give 10 a day).
- Previous fes students are in every fes banner, but you can only spark the featured banner students. Since Wakamo had a rerun, it’s likely others will too. We’ll have to wait and see.
- See Midokuni’s Banner Summary for estimated dates (search for “fes”).
6% total for a 3★: Permanent pool (81 chars) + festival girls. | ||
Banner | Students | Rates |
---|---|---|
S. Hanako (new) | ||
S. Hanako. Can be sparked. | 0.7% | |
Wakamo | 0.3% | |
S. Hoshino | 0.3% | |
Mika | 0.3% | |
Permanent 3★s | The rest of the 6% | |
Wakamo (rerun) | ||
Wakamo. Can be sparked. | 0.7% | |
S. Hoshino | 0.3% | |
Mika | 0.3% | |
S. Hanako | 0.3% | |
Permanent 3★s | The rest of the 6% |
Worth buying
- The monthly subscriptions stack with each other. Refreshing them early extends their duration (same for the AP pack).
- The generic guaranteed 3★ tickets usually include the entire permanent pool. Check via Rate Info button on its gacha page.
- For info on new shop items, see the latest shop update.
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).
- More than half of the students are farmable (can check on schale.gg).
- Click the Rate Info button on its gacha page to see the details.
- For more info on these units: Student Insights: “Banner”, “Farmable” and “Other > Stokkie’s Raid Ratings” tabs.
3★ selector
- BA rarely sells 3★ selector tickets. See this post for more details. The next festival with D. Hina sells a school selector instead.
- For info on new shop items, see the latest shop update.
Events
- See Global Events for everything related to events.
- For official posts, see their Events page and find the appropriate post.
- Patch notes are on the Updates page.
References
- ↑ Blue Archive Official(GL) Discord, Midokuni#0001, https://imgur.com/a/1bzF6J7
- ↑ Blue Archive Official(GL) Discord, Kelfran#0178, https://imgur.com/a/WvpmCeD