/bag/ Newfag guide

Yes, if you are gonna reroll you should reroll for both collab units. FOMO will be too brutal if you don't otherwise
(no, they're not particularly good)

chesed teams

No, it is not too late to play the game. The best time to start is now.
Not just a reroll guide. Rerolling means resetting your account to get a better roll of characters.
Scroll to the bottom for my last edit date. This guide is not outdated.

Top Tips (tl;dr)

• Match colours (e.g. red enemy = use red units)
• Read the story (it's fun)
• Rush through normal missions to unlock cafe upgrades and game modes. Don't worry about 3*'ing too much.
• Splurge ur AP. 1 AP = 1 Account XP, so dump stamina to level up.
• Take advantage of the school bonuses and use Crowd Control (CC) in Bounty
• Join a club. There's no clan tryharding or an obligation to talk. Newfags are very welcome.
• You can pat girls' head (Arona and Ayumu included!)
• Only roll with a spark after your initial rolls. Don't leave things to chance

Downloading/Setting up the game

JP - Play Store | App Store | QooApp

Global - Play Store | App Store | QooApp

Emulators - LDPlayer | Bluestacks | Memu | Nox

I personally use Bluestacks for Global and LDPlayer for JP. Yeah.

JP is region-locked for payments. The only server to avoid would be Korea's server, as raids are much much MUCH more competitive there than any other, leading to a potentially very detrimental experience. Otherwise, pick whichever you want and you will be fine.

You can't choose which server your start on, so if you wish to start somewhere else you'll need a VPN for it. See 'How do servers work? What server am I in' for more.

Make sure to crank up the memory allocation if you're using an emulator.

If you want the game in something like "tablet mode" (which lets you see more of the screen (some visuals are cut off at default resolution)), consider changing your emulator to the resolution 1440x1080

For comparison:

As an aside, payment options can be dodgy on JP if you want to be a whale depending on your region/your payment account's region. These situations are more complicated. Ask about them in the thread.

I saw that the game has a 'censored' version. Am I using it?

The censored version is exclusive to Korea.
There is also a tell on the app icon which one is the censored one.

Game crashes and fixes

This will mostly cover emulator only problems.

If you experience crashes while playing the game, you should fiddle around in the settings menu. Try the following one at a time:

• Make sure you're playing on the 64-bit instance of your emulator
• Crank up the CPU/Memory allocation in the emulator settings
• Lower in-game framerate and quality
• Switch between software and hardware decoding

You can always switch emulators if nothing works.

I keep getting "Server failed to process request. Returning to title screen.", what do I do?

Certain countries are blocked from playing Blue Archive, hop on a VPN if this applies to you.
Alternatively you need to reset your network, see this video on how to do that.

(Re)rolling

The game allows you to reroll your first 10 roll up to 9 times called Precision Recruitment. There's an ingame tutorial for this.
Because Precision Recruitment is a separate system, this means that you're essentially (re)rolling twice when making an account: the first moment on your first 10 roll, the second moment on the actual gacha banner.

For Precision Recruitment: Save your first 10 roll, and Retry until you used all attempts. If you get a better roll save it. Make sure to pick the one you like most at the end!
After Precision Recruitment: Spend all your rolls after the first mission (1-1). After that you can reroll.
Make sure to claim stuff from missions and your mailbox too.

I'd advice you to use all your rolls after 1-1 even if you don't reroll, just so you have something to work with.

BA has sparks, not pity.
Sparks do not carry over between banners.
See 'Is there pity? What's a spark' for more

Your very first roll guarantees a single 3* student from a pool of only the release roster (students released on 2021/02/04) on the 10th roll. You can roll more than 1 3*s if you get lucky enough.

Rolling in 10s guarantees at least one 2* student so it's better to roll in multis.
If you have no interest in the current banner student(s) use the Regular Recruitment banner, as all pick-up rates will be the same.

The Startdash banner is a new account banner that guarantees a 3* (if you buy the ticket with real money). See below for more.

What are good units to roll for?

Made by me (also works on JP):

(I like to think my reroll guide is the best one)

Being farmable means you can unlock the student by farming her node(s) for a long period of time. See this section for more.

Or alternatively:
Use the reroll list of the wiki.

You can always ask /bag/ for advice.

What about units who are only blue or gold (1 or 2 star)?

How do I reroll? (global only)

Menu Tab (top right) > Account > Reset account
For JP the method is outlined here.

It takes like 5-10 minutes to get from the tutorial to this point (I think).

What can I get from the Startdash (the paid ticket)?

You get 1 ten roll, which guarantees a 3* unit of a set pool.

Should I reroll?

For your waifu? Of course. But besides that?

Rerolling makes the game easier, but the game is pretty easy as is. It's like going from normal difficulty to easy.
I personally didn't reroll and don't recommend it, but I have the advantage of being a day 1 player (and a dolphin that buys the monthlies). The reward for having a fully meta roster is also pretty negligible. You might get 1,5 extra rolls from raids and 6 extra rolls from pvp per month from tryharding, which isn't a lot when you get 100 rolls per month.

That being said, there is a definite advantage to rerolling. Having a noob-stomper like Hibiki or Iroha makes the early phase of the game a lot more manageable, and having a buffer like Ako or Himari makes endgame content (raids) a lot more doable.

Choose for yourself.

Is there pity? What's a spark

There are 2 ways in gacha games to get a banner unit: spark and pity. With a spark you roll X amount of times (200 in BA) before you can redeem a guaranteed copy of the 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%.

BA has sparks, not pity.
1 spark = 200 rolls = 24,000 gems

You can only spark units currently on banner.
Sparks do not carry over between banners, so whatever Recruitment Points you have left over gets turned into crafting mats when the banner ends.

How many rolls do I get? How often do I get a spark?

You get 12,000 gems (= 100 rolls) on average per month as a f2p (source (image version)), which means it takes 2 months to get a spark. There's a lot of freebies lying around for new accounts though.

What should I do after my initial rolls? When do I roll? Do I roll without a spark?

After your initial rolls, which is the first 10 roll + the rolls after mission 1-1, you want to save up for a spark before rolling.
Do not roll without a spark, because you can get fucked really hard.
After that do whatever. You can follow a banner guide or roll for who you like.
Make sure to always have 1,5 sparks ready for the anniversary banner + free 100 roll banner.

I have X amount of rolls into the banner, but I already rolled the banner unit. Should I keep going?

Play it by ear. It's always nice to save some extra rolls for the future, but as a rule of thumb I'd say above 150 rolls you just keep going.
It depends on whether you like or want the other girl too (if applicable).

I just got a ten roll ticket! Do they expire?

The only tickets that expire are the 3* guarantee ticket you can buy (with real money) during anniversaries and the 10 roll ticket you get from the Grand Raid.
You get a notifcation if something in your inventory expires soon, and you can see when they expire in your inventory and in the gacha menu.

I have a 10 roll ticket from the Grand raid and a regular ticket, which one is used first?

The one that expires.
If you have 2 tickets that expire it prioritises the one that expires first.

I got the banner unit at my 200th roll. Do I claim her or do I get the other banner unit that I don't have?

Sparking a dupe (copy of already owned unit) gives you 100 shards of that unit, equivalent to 500 eligma, + 50 elephs. If you don't want the other unit(s) on banner claiming the banner unit is totally fine.
That being said, I strongly recommend claiming an unowned unit. Having a bigger roster gives you more options and some units increase drops during certain events.
They're also your precious students. Don't be an asshole and leave one unclaimed.

For clarity sake: eligma = generic pink currency you can use to buy specific student shards (or elephs).

Is there a good planner for banners?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_Zjt_OM9XXidY3uYYDK92W9GrR3DN5cQsZ0IJsoEbjY/edit#gid=1082031226
Read the top right on the first sheet for instruction.

I want both banner units. Any tips?

Don't claim your spark until after you roll 1 of them or hit 400 rolls.

Banner Guide

Global follows the JP schedule reasonably tight, see the banner list for all the upcoming banners. Add 6 months to a banner from JP and that's when it happens in global.

For the actual guides, use any of the following:

• /bag/ guide (Google docs version)
• /bag/ guide (image version)

Team building

In general a team consists of 1 tank, 1 healer, and damage dealers (DPS).
You want to match the colour of ur enemy with your attack type (e.g. red unit good into red mob).

This google doc (image version) tells you what students to prioritise, just go to the 'Teambuilding' sheet (or click on the imgur).

Attack type (colour) > Role (tank/dps) > Environment mood > EX and skill levels > Star level. Iori might be the strongest starter in the game, but mismatching her against red units makes her do 1/4th of her expected damage.
For healers, buffers, and tanks you can ignore their environment mood and attack type.
Always run full teams (6 students).
Supports (role) =/= DPS. They SUPPORT you by bringing CC. They do not deal good damage. Example: Suzumi does not deal good damage, as she is a support (role).

For PvE (normal and hard missions, bounties, commissions) you want AOE units. If you're having trouble with a boss, bring in a strong single target (ST) DPS instead.
At the start you run an evasion tank like Yuuka or Tsubaki, who are the best at tanking damage early on. Eimi is also a solid option thanks to her self-heal EX and very solid early damage. The damage type/colour of ur tank doesn't matter too much however, since their job is to tank damage. PvE mobs deal neutral damage, so armour types don't matter either.
After you get access to T4 bags, you can run more orthodox tanks like Hoshino or Haruka (or Tsubaki, because she's still really good).
The best healer in the game is currently Koharu (3*), but the 2nd best is Serina (1*). Having a low cost EX heal AND a free heal on their basic skills make both of them a really solid option.

Put ur tank in position 2 or 3, because if you put her on the edges there's a bigger chance your unit on the other side takes aggro.
There are strategies where you put certain units on the edges for better angles, or in the middle for better reach, but that's often times irrelevant. Try out what fits for you.

Your units have different environmental moods (affinity) depending on the terrain. While this isn't a major concern early on, once you have a big enough roster you can try swapping around some units.

The sub skill of supports (or specialists) don't stack with each other if they have the same description (e.g. double ATK sub skills don't stack). If they are the same, the level of the support in the right slot's sub skill will be used. Not the highest level one.
For raids the strongest support combo is (generally) Crit DMG + ATK sub skill. Ideally you'd replace one of them with cost recovery.

This google doc provides a more comprehensive and up-to-date guide to team formations.

What does the leader position do

It shows you her funny leader animation at the start of every battle, her chibi in the overworld, and is the girl that appears on your victory/defeat screen.
That's it.

Is the auto team formation button good?

No.

Levelling your roster

Level up whoever you're using at the moment. It's easier to max out 3 students to 3777 (EX/basic/enhanced/sub skill) than 1 student to 5MMM (M = max lvl). It's best to keep small rosters, so keep things at a 1 team per colour scale. You use each team for all content related to their colour.
For example, you use the same 4 characters in your red team for all the red PvE missions, the bounties, and the red raids (Kaiten, Hieronymus, and Greg).
Once you have more resources you can branch out to a wider roster.

You only need 2 healers and tanks at the start, since you need to use at most 2 teams in the missions. Their attack types don't matter either, you only need to use the right DPS.

A good start to every account is upgrading your Serina to 2* (with ligma), she's your best friend early on.

Here's a Tier List for every unit in the game (in Japanese (scroll down nigga)).

Here's a guide for skill targets (e.g. do I 3444 or 5747 this girl?)
Here's a raid unit guide (with skill priority and unit notes)
here's a PvP tier list.

While the best units are the ones in a high tier, be aware that BA is a game of niches. Every student has a niche they shine in.

You level up your EX and regular skills based on raids and (to a lesser degree) PvP. You can get by with only levels and equipment in PvE stuff.
You get the biggest impact investing into your DPS. Upgrading ur healers or buffers is also good, since you can use them in every damage type/colour. Tanks are generally fine with just levels and gear (specifically the 2nd equipment slot), so you can skimp out on the rest.

Early on you prioritise: Levels > Gear > Skills

If you want to plan ahead with your investments, you can use the planner to see how much you exactly need.

If you want to know how much AP it costs to upgrade a student's gear use this link.

How much ligma/elephs does it cost to raise my student's star level to X?

Taken from https://bluearchive.wiki/wiki/Shop#Eligma_Section

From 3 to 4 it costs 200 eligma.

What do I do with my student fragments and my eligma?

If you can upgrade a student's star level with their fragments you should.

For the generic eligma you should save them up until you know what the fuck you're doing. You can learn which students are strong from the few links above.
Posting your roster in /bag/ and asking for help is better though.

Can I brick myself levelling up a student (e.g. Priconne)?

No. At most you brick yourself by levelling a bad character.

Can I unequip my items after putting it on someone?

No. lol.

Should I upgrade the equipments on my specials?

Generally you prioritise strikers, but it depends.
For the DPS (e.g. Hibiki, Iroha) upgrading the first item and watch is good.
For healers you only need to upgrade the amulet.
For buffers you can keep everything at tier 1.
For CC you also only need to upgrade the amulet, but only if there's a Wakamo hovercraft raid or if you want to do Insane Hod
It's a pain to farm hairpins so don't give these to specials outside of Ako and Himari (you'll use them for almost every raid until EoS).

Specials grant 10% HP and ATK + 5% DEF and Healing to strikers (source). So while it's somewhat useful to max out a special's gear at some point, prioritise the students that are on the field. Unless if it's an exception like Iroha, who can solo carry a mission.

Give me an actual list of girls I should max out

UE40 the anniversary units, Ako, and Himari.
Happy?

Normal and Hard missions

Puzzle gaming. Look at youtube videos (e.g. "Blue Archive Mission 3-5") or use the wiki if you don't know how to solve a puzzle (lol).

Your goal is to go as far as you can in the normal mode for the cafe upgrades. They drop every 3 areas at mission 5 and boost your daily AP recovery (this means 3-5, 6-5, ...). It's fine to 1* a few missions, first time rewards only need the clear.

Don't forget to actually upgrade your cafe and max out the comfort level.

(press that button if you see an orange dot)
More comfort = more AP/energy.

Recommended levels are a meme for missions, ignore them. You can beat missions 10-20 levels underneath the recommended levels.

You can cancel the special ability of the boss and elite mob with a well-timed CC. This is especially handy against the elite shield mobs, who get damage reduction during their ability (which can cost you precious seconds).

If you have trouble with the boss you can charge your EX bar to 10 the battle before. They carry over between battles.

If you have one, I'd recommend using Tactical Supports. They can carry a lot of the missions by themselves.

If you hit a limit with your progression, switch over from normal to hard mode. Do the same until you hit a wall there. Alternatively, drain ur AP and get a few extra levels (1 AP = 1 XP) before trying the same stage again.
You can refresh a specific hard mission, or hard node, once a day for 3 extra sweeps. This is handy during rateup events, but I don't recommend as it costs pyros.
Farming a hard node for equipments is better than its normal counterpart.
Don't ever farm BDs in missions, the drop chance (2-5%) is abysmal.

Every stage drops stuff for 2 and 3 tiers down of the respective equipment (e.g. farming t5 boots also drop t3 and t2 boots). The lower tier stuff have a lower drop rate however. In addition, the left item also has a higher drop chance than the other 2 items. Example:

(drop chance for 19-1)

It's better to farm the equipment on their respective tier instead of trying to farm a higher one. E.g. don't farm t6 watch stages if you're trying to level up a watch from t2 -> t6 . Farm t3, then t4, etc.

Should I sweep my stages?

Yes.
There is no benefit to manually doing them.

What equipments do I prioritise when I farm?

T4 bag for Tsubaki > T7 badge for Yuuka > Hats/Gloves > Watches > Rest

How many mission areas are there?

24 in Global, 25 in JP.

Farmable units

Thanks to hard missions, events, and the raid and pvp shops you're able to unlock and upgrade some of your students (see this for a full list of them).

For a 3* you need 120 shards to unlock the student. A hard node drops on average 1 shard every day, so it takes 4 months to unlock a student.

What hard nodes should I farm?

If you have to choose between farming a student that you own vs someone you don't own thats higher on the list: choose the higher one.
Example: you prioritise farming Iori (unowned) > Chise (owned)

Someone's made a student insight doc, check it out for a more detailed explanation on farmable units.

Should I farm a unit I don't own?

Yes. With enough shards you can redeem her through the student list. The caveat being that it can take several months before you can actually redeem a specific student.

Do I prioritise unlocking all the characters or should I max out the good characters first?

Up to you. There are good arguments for both options, it's very dependant. I personally lean on maxing out the good units first.

Should I keep farming a unit I maxed out?

No.

Should I redeem X?

Eh.
It's more efficient waiting for a spook (non banner girl appearing through the gacha), because a dupe only gives you 30 shards if it's a 3*. This effectively means you lose out on 90 shards by redeeming. You also need to consider if you have the mats to upgrade her afterwards, too.
However, if there's a raid/content you want to clear or if you want an easier/comfier time it's fine to redeem.
If you think she's cute it's also cool to redeem.

Bounties

Your daily mats farm.

School > Damage type (red) > Environment mood
The bonuses are team-wide, so make sure to bring a good (ST) DPS for the rangers. E.g. Aru and Azusa.
Blue units work too.
The black ranger's special skill makes the target receive 50% extra damage, so you could try to cleanse it with someone like Mari.

With a well timed CC you can cancel the rangers' special ability, so if you start to get melted make sure to use ur CC abilities to cancel their skills!

Always try to go for the highest tier you can clear. It drops lower tier mats as well, so there's no reason to farm a lower level.
You won't lose a ticket if you retreat, so you have infinite retries.

Which bounty area do I sweep?

If you need to ask, distribute ur tickets evenly.
You could also do 1 area a day, and rotate it that way.

What do I get from the Bounty shop?

See the shop section.

Commissions

Ignore this until you can clear commission H (recommended level 65, but doable way below that), thank you.
Only farm commissions during rate up events if you did the above.
Reports > credits
You'll run out of reports before you run out of credits. Consider changing your spending habits if the reverse holds true.

Commissions is comprised of two modes: Base Defense and Item Retrieval.
Base Defense is a wave defense against small yellow armored enemies. You want to bring your best AOE yellow students and at least one tank. A useful trick is to use Serina to move your tank further ahead so they take 100% of the aggro from the waves of bots. This also prevents ur tank from running behind ur team.
sHifumi is surprisingly VERY good here, able to solo carry your run. Regular Hifumi also works as an okay way to tank damage, giving you much needed breathing room if your tank melts too fast.
Anyone you'd use for (indoors) Chesed works here. Think about Momoi, Cherino, Iori, Junko, Nonomi, Moe, Tsurugi, Sumire.

Item Retrieval is a single-target blue challenge with a strict time limit. Bring your best ST blues, but ST yellows work fine too if you're lacking good blue students. There is no need to bring a tank or healer to this mode.
Any DPS you'd use for (urban) Shiro & Kuro works here. Think about Izuna, Haruna, Wakamo, sAzusa, Chise, mAris.

Scrimmages

The place you get mats to upgrade ur Exclusive Weapon (EW)/Unique Equipment (UE).
If you're not sure how to tackle it look at a youtube video. A common tactic uses Serina EX to reposition Tsubaki into their team, preventing most aoe from hitting your backline.
Not worth farming until you clear at the very least B, and even then only once you start hitting 5*s on your students. When you hit ultra lategame you can start skipping out on them, but don't neglect it too much.

Feel free to skip during farmable events.
With the small monthly you reduce the AP cost per ticket by 5, and with the big monthly you reduce it by 10. Buying both means that scrims become free to do.

Total Assault (Raid) & Grand Assault (Raid 2)

Welcome to the endgame content of BA, the biweekly PREMIER source of BDs, technotes, and elephs.
The first thing you want to do is join a club. The second thing is borrowing the strongest unit for the raid. Congrats you just beat the raid.

Read up on what the boss does and how to tackle it with the raid guide.
Alternatively look up some clears or guides on YouTube. E.g. "Blue Archive Binah Guide".

Up to Hardcore you can borrow someone's hypercarry who can beat the raid by herself, just build a decent supporting team around her.
Don't try Extreme without a mock battle if ur below the recommended level.
You can do Extreme at level 70, Insane at level 80, and Torment after 2 years of playing. This holds generally true for most raids.

If you're a pro raid gamer, it's good practice to set a time you'll stop resetting for a high score and finish the raid. Getting a cool gamer score is not worth losing a ticket over. My advice is 15-20 minutes before the ticket ends .

If you need to change formation in the middle of ur raid battle use the Lobby button.

See the shop section for what to buy.

Groggy/stun meters are the small bars underneath the boss' HP bar. If applicable, they only fill up if you use the correct damage type.
E.g. For Binah (yellow) I can use Mika (yellow) to fill the bar and stun the snake, but I can't stun the snake with Aru (red) no matter how much damage she deals.

Useful links that aren't english:

https://arona.ai/egraph - raid ranking of the JP server (in Korean)
https://www.bluearchive-ranking.com/ - statistics of students used in a specific raid (in Japanese)
https://kamigame.jp/bluearchive/page/142954441589444800.html - includes rank ranking of JP server somewhere but I can't navigate moonrune websites so good luck

I forgot if I started a mock battle or a real run, help!

In battle, at the top left of your screen it shows if it's a mock battle. If there isn't a notice, it's a real run.

Should I save my raid coins?

No. There's a limit on every item you can buy, and the shop refreshes before a new raid. Don't be a retard.
You don't lose your coins after a refresh.

In Grand Assault/Elimination Raid I saw that there's a 10 roll ticket, does it expire?

Yes. The ticket expires on the last day of the next month after the raid. So it has a limit of around 40 days.
Example: the ticket from the Grand Raid of February expires on the 31st of March.

If there's a Grand Raid happening, can I borrow more than 1 student?

You get 1 borrow per ticket. This means that if you use another ticket by doing a different 2nd raid you get another borrow.
You can't reuse the same borrowed student on the same day.
Example: If I start a raid, I can borrow my friend Alex's Ako for that ticket. If I then start another raid I can't borrow my friend Alex's Ako again, but I can borrow my friend Blake's Ako.

I'm lazy, do I lose my ticket if I don't log in/miss the first day of Grand Raids?

No, the tickets stack.
You can save ur tickets until the last day and sweep the raid. You still need to clear it at least once, so don't be lazy.

Can I see my past raid rankings?

Yes.

Joint Firing Drill/Joint Exercise

It's commissions but with a unique gimmick. The gimmick changes every time, so no 2 drills are the same.
You can read up on what each of them do in the wiki.
If you don't know what to do against a gimmick, look at a few videos. If it's ongoing, filter by 1 week upload date and you should be good.

You can borrow students for this challenge, so being in a club is very helpful if you want to get a good score.
There are no rankings (like raids), and higher scores simply give you more coins/credits per clear.

The tickets for Joint Firing Drill (JFD) work differently than the ones for raids. Unlike with raids, you will not waste a ticket by retreating in battle. You'll only waste the ticket if you give up entirely (in the stage menu) or the sixty minute timer on the ticket runs out.
Once you have used up an entire ticket (3 clears), you are able to sweep your remaining tickets.

It's not worth it to hyperinvest into someone for only the JFD. Just take the L, do a lower difficulty, and move on.

If you're feeling lazy you can auto stage 1/2/3.

Look at the shop section if you need advice on what to buy.

Tactical Challenge (PvP)

The goal of PvP is to match your attack type with the enemy's armour type, while mismatching their attack type with your armour type.
Use the following tierlist to build your team around.
General advice is to use a double tank setup + Shun, with good supports. Tsubaki and Yuuka are usually your goto.

You can skip the battle if you don't like to be in pain.
The pvp coins claim reset takes place 10 hours after the daily reset, which is why it's better to do your pvp battles AFTER the pvp coin reset. This is because your rewards are dependant on what rank you are at that exact moment. Basically do pvp at the same time as your 'login after X' daily mission.
If you find yourself with 3 pvp coins in your mailbox, that's from winning a defence. Good job.
No, you can not turn off the auto button in a pvp battle.

Shop

The place where u buy stuff and rub Sora's forehead.
The only items that rotate are the artifacts in the credit store. Everything else, including the student elephs stays the same.
You can see when a shop refreshes on the bottom, they refresh on a daily/weekly/monthly basis.

Normal shop (or credit shop)

Buy out the artifacts/OOParts/funny looking objects in the normal shop at the bottom every day, until you have a nice stack of 200 of the target item. Buy the enhancement stones only if you need them.
Buying the activity reports with credits is kind of bad (as in really bad), so don't do that.

Eligma shops

You max out your wife. After that? You max the alt of your wife (she has an alt right?)
Otherwise bring Serina to 2*. After that? You upgrade the strongest units in the game. Generally this means you post your roster in the /bag/ general and ask for help. It's faster that way.
Don't use ur elephs for farmable characters if you can, they're quite literally farmable.

Ignore Eligma shop 2. It has some good stuff in it, but elephs are a really rare resource. Do not brick yourself and buy the secret note here. Do not.

Raid shop

Don't get the secret tech note until you actually need it. You use it to bring your regular skills from 9 -> 10, which aren't a bottleneck until you're well into your BA tenure. Besides that ur free to buy whatever you need.
I personally recommend buying stuff for the current and next raid.

• "idk what to buy, which BDs/technotes do I pick?"

Gehenna/Millennium/Trinity. They're the 3 biggest schools, and they have a lot of meta students. You'll always be needing their mats. Always.

PvP shop

Save ur shit for AP drinks, maybe buy Utaha. Maybe.

In general you want to save up your coins so you get to buy out the pvp drinks during events. Keeping a stack of 2000 coins is my recommendation.
If there's a girl that appeals to you feel free to buy her. Utaha is the best character in this shop, as her UG makes her a top pvp support and makes her very effective in the Wakamo hovercraft raid. She requires a lot of investment however, which is a bit rough.
Don't buy the reports or credits, they really really suck. You can buy the drinks and farm commissions for a better efficiency
Consider bringing Shizuko to 3* when a Shirokuro raid is approaching.

If you ever want to unlock any of the 3*s available that's fine, theyre just very very niche. Don't expect them to be good.

In case you didn't realise, you can refresh the pvp shop with pvp coins, NOT with pyros. This way you get to buy out the pvp drinks 4x (also known as pvp refreshing)

Joint Firing Drill/Joint Exercise shop

Elephs > whatever > artifacts

I'll go over every item, just know that this shop is a lot more nuanced. You can pick anything and it'd be decent.

• Artifacts
  Buy them when you absolutely need to. Even though you can't get these artifacts through bounty, there are a lot of events where you get a dece to haul. There's the occasional morsel from raids too.
• Reports
  The safest option if you don't know what to pick. They're purple, they're FREE*, and you'll always need them. They're REALLY expensive though, so you usually skip them in favour of the other options.
• Shards
  Tsurugi > Eimi > Sumire.
  Eimi is a solid tank, and Sumire and Tsurugi 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.
  I personally prioritise buying them out since elephs are hard to obtain, the shards are nice to have, and because I don't have much need for the other options.
  If you buy them out, eventually you'll no longer need to buy them too. Eventually.
• Fusion stones
  With the fusion stones you can convert a surplus of a certain type of mat into a different mat in the crafting chamber (the 2nd one). It really helps bridging the gaps in your stash at a decent price.
  I'm personally using the gold ones to convert gifts into the ones I need, but most of the time you won't need these things. They're very handy when you need them, so having a decent stack of them can come in handy (don't buy the grey ones though). About 40 of each would be my recommendation.
• Secret tech note
  They're okay. If you need them they're handy. I always buy them, but I'm 2 years into the game.

Mastery Certificate/Expert Permit shop

(After you hit MAX level, 1 AP = 1 Mastery Cert)

You buy the shards so that you save some ligma.

According to this korean post, the priority is:
Credits > Limited Elephs (that you need) > Pins (if you need) > Eligma > Reports
Everything depends on your needs at the time though, and you can just buy whatever you want.
You can't unlock/redeem limited students through this shop, so don't buy them if you don't have them (or plan to).
The gear blueprints are a godsend though. Everything about this shop is honestly. Thank you, John Nexon.

• "Can I redeem limited units if I buy their elephs?"

READ NIGGA READ

Bounty shop

Every month a new shop, save ur stuff for (good) artifacts only. You can get BDs/technotes from the raid shop, so I wouldn't recommend buying them here.
It's fine to skip a shop if you don't need anything from it that month. Try to limit ur purchases to t4 artifacts too.

Crafting Chamber

Material Synthesis (the normal one)

Radiant (purple mats) >= Blu-ray Disks > Furniture (if not capped yet in cafe) > Flower (gifts) >= Shiny (orange mats) > Rest

Don't do the tier 2 and 3 nodes if you're strapped for mats. If you need to ask if you have enough: you don't. I personally only throw in mats if they have an excess of 200, and only artifacts, BDs, and tech notes

In case it wasn't clear yet: you get furniture to cap the energy generation from your cafe. Yes, you are supposed to craft whenever you have crafting keystone.

If you want to go to node 2: use t1-2 mats you don't care about. Not crafting keystones.

For the T3 node (only do this if ur a oldfag/whale): Diamond (secret tech note) > Flower > Radiant > Shiny > Abundance (credits) > Mystic (elephs) > The Rest
The only reason to farm t3 nodes at this point is for the gifts, you'll have enough of everything else to spend it on getting here.
You can spin the wheel with the Radiant, Abundance, and Mystic options for more entertaining results. I personally always get assmad doing them, but they are very entertaining.

Material Fusion (the new one)

Trading your garbage away for the freshest sneaks
Do not get the raffle ticket, the choice ticket is the one you want. Raffle tickets give you a random item, if you prefer these seek help.

You can dump excessive mats from useless schools (like Red Winter, Shanghai, Arius, and SRT) into a better one. The useless schools only have 1-2 characters you want to max out anyway. Gaps in your artifact stash can also be helped bridged.

You can also trade your useless furnitures away for a specific one you want, which is pretty neat. If it's worth the purple fusion stone is for you to decide.

You're able to combine ur raid statues into a display one, which let's you see your past raid rankings

Misc. info

Feel free to use the speedup tickets, you'll have a billion of them lying around.
There has never been a 2x event on the crafting chamber, so there's no point in saving your keystones.

Events

(the story ones, not 2x ones)
Go to https://justin163.com/planner/events
Fill it in, it'll tell you what to do.

Important stuff to know

Always do story mission 1 first, just in case there's a welfare unit.

The highest bonus will be saved, so if you 1* a quest stage with the max bonus then 3* it with a different team, you can sweep the stage and get the highest bonus. This also works vice versa (first 3*, then 1* with max bonus).

Example:
Stage 1 drops 20x and 15y.
Team with 100% bonus for x clears stage 1 with 1*
Stage 1 now drops 40x and 15y (1*)
Team with 100% bonus for y clears stage 1 with 1*
Stage 1 now drops 40x and 30y (1*)
Team that's not dogshit clears stage 1 with 3*
Stage 1 now drops 40x and 30y (3*)

You unlock the welfare/free unit by doing the story missions (the very 1st one). Do this before you farm the quest stages.

I can only clear up to stage X. What do I do?

• Do the story and farm the highest stage tier you can sweep (again, go to https://justin163.com/planner/events)
• Buy out the high priority stuff from the shop first (Pyroxenes > Ligma/Elephs > Artifacts > BDs > Technotes > whatever > Furniture)
• Buy from T4 -> T1 (lower priority than the one above)

What you're supposed to do is a case by case scenario though, since some events are pretty shit to farm, or some artifacts and schools are worse than others. You can always ask in the thread

Always try to go for a cafe upgrade before you do event stuff if you can.

Regardless, you're pretty fucked so gl bro

The event features characters from the main story, but I haven't read that part yet. What do I do?

They're usually very minor spoilers, but if you'd rather not get spoiled just do the story missions but skip the story. You get the gem rewards and occassionally a welfare unit too, and you can always read the story later. Go to Story > Replay > Event Story for this.

I have X shards of this event's welfare unit but I can't claim her wtf!

DO THE STORY MISSIONS

Hoarding before an event

Generally only do this for 3x campaigns, if the week before it is dead, or if it's a really good farming event

You can save up some extra AP right before an event to splurge on the event. This way every AP you spend is worth several times its normal value, vastly outweighing the small loss you take from missing out on daily regen AP (if you are saving for several days).

If you want a specific guide, use:

or

If you don't understand either of these guides hoarding isn't for you. Stop. You're harming yourself.

Bounties/Scrimmages: if and only if (I.F.F.) you buy the monthlies, you can save those extra tickets by not doing your bounties for a fat bonus during rate ups. Be aware that your free daily tickets will go to waste, but the bonus you get outweighs the 6 tickets you lose out on.

Whaling for dummies

Buy out the new player gems first, the numbers are crazy.
If you're planning on being a dolphin, like all gacha games the best value pakejis are the monthly/bimonthly ones. More bounty tickets, making scrimmages AP free, and a good pyro income.

The 1 dollar Serika is nice, but pretty unneeded.

I'm not a big spender so I can't give too much of an opinion on the other packs. The anniversary selector seems cool though, definitely worth a zinger box or two. Prioritise Ako/Himari > Ui > rest

I bought the monthly but I forgot when, help!

Open the pakeji shop, it'll tell you how many days you have left.
You also get a notification the moment it expires.

Main story stuff (spoiler free)

(WIP)

source
Don't read the volume F sheet too closely, it has some spoilers in it.

Ordered by release date:
Volume 1 > V2C1 > V3C1-3 > V4C1 > V3C4 > V2C2 > Volume F > V4C2 > V5C1 > V1C3

Including the events:
Volume 1 > Izuna event > V2C1 > Cherino event > Hina's momotalk (lol) > V3C1-2 > Trinity Summer 1 > Gehenna Summer > Shunny event > Bunny Chasers > Decagrammaton Story 1-2 > Hot Springs event > V3C3 E1-9 > NY Problem Solvers 68 > V3C3 E10-25 > Wakamo Valentine event > Ui event > V4C1 > Michiru event > Decagrammaton Story 3-4 > V3C4 E1-10 > Abydos summer > Hyakkiyako summer > V3C4 E11-25 > ASS club event >
I got too lazy to do the rest

V2C2 > Aru's momotalk (lmao) > Volume F > V4C2 > V5C1 > dress Hina event > V1C3

You can also read it by volume.

You can borrow students for Volume F, which helps a ton. Make sure to join a club for this!

Completing volume F gives you a new login screen, and so does reading the epilogue of Volume 4 chapter 2.

You also obtain a special item from Volume F that gives you 1200 gems. It's a one-time consumable.

Can I change back my login screen?

Yes (in JP, wait for 3rd anni).

WTF I'm stuck in the story help! It's at volume 3 chapter 3 episode 24 (v3 c3 e24)

Example clear, every newbie gets stuck on that. I'd recommend attempting it at level 40-50

What does D.U. mean?

District of Utnapishtim.

Misc. stuff

You can rub people's heads after you unlock their L2Ds. This also counts for NPCs (e.g. Arona, Sora, Rin)
Yes. You really can.

Total newbie pyros

Open this link, it's a lot.
The vol F sheet has spoilers, so take care.

XP

1 AP = 1 XP. Your level is tied to how much AP you spend, so there's no real way to level up faster.

MAX level is current level cap + 1 xp off the next level (e.g. if the cap is 20, MAX would be 1 xp off lvl 21)

Relationship levels

The max level is 10 below 3*, 20 at 3-4*, and 100 at 5*.
The wiki's affection calculator is a pretty good resource to calculate ur affection with. Make sure to actually scroll down.
There's also the korean version of the calculator, and there's also a spreadsheet that provides a detailed breakdown of how affection works

Maxing out affection/bond/relationship level

Use https://rentry.org/bondarchive (image version)
Very useful!

Friends

Need a friend or two?
Add a couple of /bag/ bros from the friend google doc.
If you want to help a future newfag or would like to put urself up there yourself, feel free to add yourself to the spreadsheet by filling out the form. Entries will be automatically removed after 30 days. It's also completely anonymous, so don't worry.

AP

Any AP that crosses the max limit (999) gets sent to your bank. It expires in 7 days, so make sure to spend it at some point.

You can 3x refresh/recharge/refill your AP for 90 gems a day, which is kind of good. Whether it's worth it is for you to decide. There's a good argument to 3x refresh during 3x events, events with a good welfare to farm, or 2x account XP weekends. It also helps you level up faster, which is a power in itself.
I'd generally suggest not to, because Blue Archive isn't a "grind" game. Most rewards are locked behind events/gamemodes, which means time spent playing the game, and I value gems a lot more as gems = rolling.
It's your choice though.

Lessons

For the Schale areas: at rank 10 you unlock receiving choice tickets on top of the regular drops when you're doing your lessons. Pretty neat
The max rank for an area is 12.
Increasing ur Total Area Rank also unlocks extra daily lesson tickets, in case you didn't realise. There's a 7th ticket you can unlock at rank 80.
At Lesson Area <10 you get 15 relationship points, Area 11 it's 20, and 12 it's 25. Go max out every area.
When you get a BONUS, it means that students receives double the points.

Normal Missions

The XP your students are supposed to get when you manually farm a node gets converted into a grey activity report while sweeping. At certain breakpoints this gets converted into a higher tier report.
This part I'm a little unsure about, but I think it's every 5 sweeps you get a blue report and every 30 sweeps you get an orange report. So ideally you'd sweep in multiples of 5 or 30.
It's a pretty negligible trick though.

For every level below the recommended level you'll start doing 2% less damage while taking 2% more dmg, up to 20 levels. If you ever wonder why it gets so hard progressing, that's why. This is compared between student and enemy level, not Sensei level.
Very important to keep in mind is that you can ignore the recommended level. Until you actually can't get further, ignore it. Otherwise you block urself mentally, instead of the game stopping you.

One-time per battle skills can happen once in every battle.
E.g. You're doing 1-4 with Tsubaki, and in 1-4 there are 3 enemies you have to fight. For every fight in 1-4 she can proc her heal once for a total of three times.

Maxing out affection/bond/relationship level with crafting

Use https://rentry.org/bondarchive (image version)

It's a small guide on maximising your wife's affection level (the autistic minmax way), and it has some neat info as well. I'd recommend skimming through it at least once.

Daily and weekly missions

Doing stage 1 of commissions for the daily mission is pretty worth. 20 mastery certificates for the price of 5 AP? That's a steal. Doing the weekly commission is kind of decent (3 orange reports for 75 AP), although I don't do it personally.

The weekly missions reset on Sunday (the reset from Sunday to Monday).

You can save weekly missions for several days during the week, in case you want to claim it on Friday instead of Tuesday (e.g. saving the extra AP to use on 2x hard instead of 2x normals). It doesn't carry over to another week though, so use it before the weekly reset.

It's worth it to do the 20x missions + 3x hard nodes daily, even during 2x commissions.

Birthdays/holidays

If you switch out from the L2D, on (birth/holi)days your assistant gives you a unique dialogue if you tap her.

Cafe

You can headpat a girl again after 3 hours from the last time you did, giving you 4 opportunities every cafe reset.

There is an increased chance for a specific girl to appear if you have her interactable furniture in your cafe. Get to it.

Stacking (de)buffs

You can stack several (de)buffs with the same descriptor/effect, but only if they're in different skill slots.
E.g. I can stack Akane's EX skill DEF down with Maki's basic skill, and sAzusa's sub skill. I can't stack Akane's DEF down with Noa's, Hiyori's, or Mine's DEF down as they are on the same skill slot.
There is some nuance here: sHoshino's ATK buff EX stacks with Himari/Kotama's ATK buff EX for example (because technically the way the buff is applied is different), but generally (de)buffs in the same skill slot don't stack.

Seia

You can have floating images of Yurizono Seia in the /bag/ thread with 1 simple trick! (read the top of the rentry)
https://rentry.org/DVDoom
https://rentry.org/DVDoomPERMA

FAQ

Is it too late to play?

No.

When is a good time to start?

The best time to start was yesterday, the second best time to start is right now. This holds true for any bonsai game.
If you're playing the game for a specific girl, I'd still suggest playing now even if she's limited. Better to find out if you like the game now than wait and be disappointed later. You also get more time to farm a spark.

How grindy is BA?

It follows every gacha formula of having a lot of stuff to do in the first week/month, but after that you just do your dailies and log off. Dailies can take 5-20 minutes.
From my very limited experience playing other gachas (Arknights, Limbuuuuuuus companyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, some old mobile phone games), I'd say it's definitely on the very low side for daily maintenance. The sweep mechanic helps a lot in this regard.

You can 'grind' a bit more trying to get to the latest cafe upgrade, or by trying a raid difficulty that's above (or at) your level. The reward for doing so is nice, but not significant enough to feel bad about skipping it.

Is the game f2p friendly?

Yes.

You get 12,000 gems (= 100 rolls) on average per month as a f2p (source (image version)), which means it takes 2 months to get a spark (guaranteed copy of banner unit).

PvP, event challenges, and raids (BA's endgame) are also all very accessible. While there are tiered rewards for PvP and raids, the difference in rewards between the top and the average is incredibly negligible.
For reference, the top rank reward for raids only grant 200 more gems (= 1,67 rolls) more than the the average reward.

How do you choose your student wife

You don't choose her. She chooses you.
The best way I can describe it is that everything just 'clicks'. You might not find her for months, maybe even years, and that's okay. You'll know when it happens. Yes, I am being cringe.

just b urself.

I'm AP capped! What do I spend it on?

Current story event > 2x/3x rate up > Hard missions > Normal missions > Commissions
Commissions are only worth it during campaign events, and only if you can farm the orange report, which are available at level H+. The credit commissions are decent too, so if ur poor you can sweep them.

I don't have any credits/reports what do I do!

You pretend nothing's wrong and do the same what you're already doing.
You can get pink reports in the Joint Exercise Shop, and you can get reports AND credits from the Mastery Certificate Shop.
There's also technically the reports you can buy in the normal shop for credits, but those are a scam.

I just missed the X banner, will she get a rerun?

Students attached to a story event get a rerun, including limited units. Otherwise the chance is pretty slim.
See https://bluearchive.wiki/wiki/Banner_List for future banners.

If it's a limited unit they seem to be getting a yearly rerun. Anniversary units can be rolled during anniversary banners.

Should I join a (/bag/) club?

Yes. It's 10 AP daily, an extra source of credits, and it lets you borrow hyper invested students for Total Assault, Joint Exercise, and Conquest.
See https://rentry.org/holdingthebag for /bag/ clubs.

No one cares if you don't use the chat or can't lend out "good" students. You're there as a piggybank for the whales to earn some extra credits.
You passively get money from putting up borrows, so make sure you fill out all the slots available.

Do 2x/3x events apply on the first time clear rewards?

No.
I wish they did too.

I can't beat X what do I do?

Go on youtube and look at a video. You'll find that is the answer to a lot of problems in life.

What is UE / EW?

Unique Equipment, or Exclusive Weapon in Global.
It's the gun.

UE1 = UE30, UE2 = UE40, etc. You can use them interchangeably.

What is UG / UI?

Unique Gear, or Unique Item in global.
It's the 4th equipment.
You can find out what gift you need for the t2 upgrade on the wiki here.

How does X stat work?

See this link.

How do servers work? What server am I in.

There are 3 game versions right now: JP, Global, and CN.
JP is Japan, which is ~5 month ahead of Global.
Global is divided in 5 different regions: Global (= EU), NA, Asia, Taiwan, and Korea.
CN is the Chinese server, which is behind JP and Global by 2 years.
You can only join clubs or add friends from the same region.

If you wish to start in a different region for Global, you'll need to set your VPN to a country of that server before you create/start your account.

When did X change get added

You'll have to manually look for it.
Go to https://bluearchive.wiki/wiki/Events, open an event, and underneath Event Summary > details you can find new additions.

Where is the AV room? (Hanako mission)

Schale office > Schale theatre room. It's bottom left.

How long does it take to reach max level

You can calculate how long it takes here

At max cafe you get ~930 AP a day, but with pvp drinks and refreshes I'd guess it to be anywhere between 7-9 months.

Global's level cap is 87, JP's is 90.

How do I get a coloured name in my ID? I see accounts that have this.

It got patched out. You used to be able to add a hexcode in ur name for it, but the method got patched. The colour stayed.

What is Blufes/Bluefes/Blue fes?

Blue Archive festival, it's the anniversary banner where the 3* rateup is doubled (3% -> 6%).
The base chance to roll the banner unit is still the same (0,7%).

I got a pop up of something expiring but I clicked away too fast, help!

It's either event currency, a grand raid ticket, your recruitment points from rolling, or your monthly pakeji.

When is the affection check?

1st of every month in the 4chan /bag/ thread, don't be late!

Resources

In case you didn't see it already, most stuff is inside the bagguides rentry. Use it.
It also includes the chibi extraction and posing guide

Afternote

Thanks for reading my guide. If you have any questions, comments, contributions, and/or feedback go to the 4chan /bag/ thread and add how2playba in ur post (so I can find it in the archive). Anything is much appreciated.
Shoutout to the newbaguide writer, who specifically made the 'Downloading/Setting up the game' section, and added + edited stuff in the 'Team Formations', '(Re)rolling', 'Commissions', and 'Firing Exercise' sections.
Big thanks to all the guides I'm linking (and stealing from) as well. Your contribution is truly appreciated.

If I stop updating this guide for longer than a month it's safe to say I died. Not planning on dying, but you know.

Keeping this here for in advance, no one scrolls this far down
don't open it, there's a virus inside ᓀ‸ᓂ
https://rentry.org/DressHinaEvent
https://rentry.org/BandEventASS