Blue Archive is a new chibi anime waifu mobile game. One of the best 'side' mobile games where you can relax watching auto fights. Published by nexon.
Now let's start with important information.
Tier List
Remember - Waifu > Tier List
Tier List source (reddit)
Blue Archive Reroll
Log in as a guestFinish tutorial and collect gems from mail
Go to the menu and press Account Reset.
Roll until you get your waifu
Guide
from reddit - source (all rights belong to ClarenceLe)
Priority:
If you just want a very shorthand version of what to do the first thing you open the game, here is a list:
- Clear as far as you can on the Main campaign. Don't worry about failing, they don't save it like Arknights, and there's no penalty for it like Girls' Frontline. You get 99% cost refund back if run fails.
- Start pulling. Look for Shun, Iori, Haruna, and Hibiki. If not it's OK, just get a 3-star. By the time you get 3-star you should have enough for a decent team of 2-star, and you can start leveling more comfortably.
- Set 2 team of at least 2 Red Striker per team, 1 Tank (Tsubaki and Yuuka), and at least 1 healer (Hanae, Serina).
- Your character level limit is your Sensei level. If you want to rush content your goal is getting that Sensei level up as fast as you can. Sensei level increase at 1:1 rate with stamina spent. You can use pyroxene to recharge stamina up at cost of 30 up to 3 or 4 times. About the equivalent of a single pull, and it's very worth it in the long run.
- Start gathering Exp book to level at least one or two team of Red attack type. Red is strong against Red armor and normal against Yellow armor, so they can be use for anything up to chapter 9. EXP drop from EXP domain, or can be from Starter Event rewards.
- Check if you have the thing to level Dorm, which drop from first map clear of certain Campaign maps. Use it to upgrade your Dorm.
- Start crafting. The nodes will be randomly selected of 5, pick the one that produce furniture. (If not appear, pick one that produce Student Gift) (If also no gift, pick Growth Material)
- Build furniture in Dorm to increase stamina output.
- Check daily missions.
- Hard map will have daily limit, and they give out character shards randomly. You should always clear them, especially on low level. But in case you need your stamina elsewhere, here are priority list of important characters shards and equipment that you should build to invest for the endgame:
Chap 1: Hard 1-2 (for Glove and Watch equipment) > Hard 1-3 (for Serika shards) > Hard 1-1 (Yuuka shards)
Chap 2: Hard 2-2 (for Akari, Glove and Watch equipment) > Hard 2-3 (for Junko shards) > Hard 2.2 (low priority, but Hat is good)
Chap 3: Hard 3-3 (Shiroko) > Hard 3-2 = Hard 3-1 (EX book priority depends on which 3-star you got or character you want to build)
Chap 4: Hard 4-2 (Pina, Glove, Watch Tier 1) > Hard 4-1 (Asuna, Shoe) > Hard 4-3 (Yuuka, Hat)
Chap 5: Hard 5-2 (Junko, Glove, Watch Tier 1) > Hard 5-1 (Akari, Shoe) > Hard 5-3 (Hifumi, Hat)
Chap 6: Hard 6-2 (Pina) > Hard 6-3 (Junko) > Hard 6-1 (Millennium EX book)
Chap 7: Hard 7-3 (Hoshino, Hat Tier 2) > Hard 7-2 (Serika, Glove, Watch Tier 2) > Hard 7-1 (Asuna, Shoe Tier 2)
Chap 8: Hard 8-3 (Haruna, Hat Tier 2) > Hard 8-2 (Glove, Watch Tier 2) > Hard 8-1 (Asuna, Shoe Tier 2)
- If you have leftover stamina, already level 2 Red teams EXP to max, and cleared all daily Hard map, start farming equipment stages. Prioritize equipment for tank first, then dps striker, then buff support, then finally healer.
- If you have enough equipment also, just start farming maps with EX books that your team need, with Dps Striker first priority, until you're out of stamina.
-> Repeat for next day.
- If Sushiman map is open: try and do it. They drop Skill-related Materials, limit two per day each map. Student that belongs to school related to that map will get stat boost, but Sushiman will always be Red armor. Some school doesn't have enough student, so most the time you just have to settle with not having full bonuses.
- If PvP is open: RUSH IT. You can get massive amount of Pyroxene for first time you reach a rank, and at the beginning everyone will start the same and it will be pretty chaotic, so you can use your Pyroxene to try and hit as high as possible, until the diminishing return of Pyroxene spent vs Pyroxene gained hits. After that, you can just try and maintain rank with daily ticket.
- With Coin from PvP, you can use it in daily refresh shop. Priority list is: Stamina > EXP (they all have same conversion rate, so dont worry which one to get) > Character Shards. Priority of shards based on current JP shop: Mashiro > Fuuka > Saya > Utaha. Only Mashiro you want to 5-star, the rest you can leave after getting them to 3-star, unless happen to be your waifu. Subject to change if Nexon give different characters.
- If Raid is out for some reason: try it in practice mode, and if confident enough try clearing it. Careful not to forget to spend tickets as you were hesitating to save it for higher difficulty clear. Just finish every other thing you can do for dailies, and then come to raid with team you built up to that point and try your best.
- With Coin from Raid, you can use it in Raid Shop that refresh every time new raid appears. Prioritize character shards > EX book > normal skill book. Character shards priority based on current JP list: Kotama > Maki > Hanae > Akane > Chinatsu. Except Kotama, Maki and Hanae, buy only enough 3-star them, unless waifu. Like PvP shop, subject to change based on Nexon. After clearing all the shards you need, start buying EX books and normal books want.
Below will be long and more in-depth guides. You can come back to it once you tried out more of game mechanics yourself.
Fundamentals:
Currently there are 4 types of attack, with 3 types of armor. (There's one more attack and armor type - Purple - but the game seems to hasn't introduced it yet). Each character will have one of these types of attack and armor and It works like rock-paper-scissor.
-Normal Attack: PvE bots main type. Not weak against any armor type, but also not strong against any.
-Red Attack: Strong against Red armor, weak against Blue, normal against Yellow Armor.
-Yellow Attack: Strong against Yellow armor, weak against Red, normal against Blue Armor.
-Blue Attack: Strong against Blue armor, weak against Yellow, normal against Red Armor.
*As a note, just because the character has a strong attack vs a type, doesn't necessarily mean will always do more damage. Your Red Attack tank, or Red Attack healer will do less than your Blue Attack DPS against Red Armor. Type matching is still important, but Don't just mindlessly level them based on armor and attack without understanding their combat role first.*
Character will be divided into Special and Striker categories. Striker = on-field combat, and Special is off-field. Despite being off-field, Special still has all the stats like Defense and HP, because *supposedly* the entire team share a portion of that stats (5% for atk def, 10% hp and healing power or so).
There's a confusion with Healing stats between different translation at the moment, but there is different stats for incoming heal and outgoing heal. You can search up indepth guide after game is released but know that it's there.
Just like Girls' Frontline, some characters has better range and when put in team will increase team engagement range.
There are 3 types of environments: Indoor, Outdoor and Urban. A character engagement in fights (like likeliness to take cover and avoid shooting) and stats will be affected whether they like or dislike that environment which you can guess from the happy green face icon, yellow face neutral or red dislike face.
Main Game + Currency:
>You have Normal map and Hard map that you can farm for EX Book, Normal Skill Book, Materials, Character Shards, and Equipment. Materials and EXP and Gold will drop randomly even when you don't see them on the map listed drops. Higher maps also drop lower level books, material, and equipment tier randomly. These maps will resume when the game is exit and reenter, but you cannot return to menu in middle of a run.
At night map in Hard you also have hidden box at somewhere in map that reward 50 pyroxene when collected (but require map completion to be counted as collected).
>Story Mode: Where you can read Main and Side characters stories. Sometimes required to progress main Campaign chapter.
>Daily Sushiman map gives skill-related materials, limit at 2 but extra tickets can be bought at shop to increase limit. Droprate sucks so not recommend using Pyroxene just to farm it.
>EXP and Gold Map give, well, EXP and Gold. High stamina cost, so not recommend to farm unless on rate-up event. And Gold is VERY ABUNDANCE.
>Raid map is endgame raid that rotates between several main raids: Kaiten, Hieronumus are Red attack raid, Chesed, Binah as Yellow raid, and ShiroKuro, Peperozilla (lastest) as Blue raid. There's a practice mode that you can run without any consequences (and good way to test trial a character) and the normal mode that cost daily ticket.
You can use any and all the characters to clear it, as after one team is either all down or run out of time, you can bring in another team to keep fighting it, with no limit to how many teams you can throw into a raid (if you run out of 4 team slot, just swap the character out with another char that hasn't enter the raid).
Raid boss can have several phases (usually 2), and some team can excel better at one phase than the other. Usually, it's designed to be cleared with 1 or 2 teams, after which you usually run out of char with the right attack type or good team buff to clear it effectively. Some boss like Hieronumus has special gimmicks that can oneshot your team, so look into it before trying out the raid.
With level cap team and right characters you can mostly clear Hardcore (semi-last difficulty), but Extreme has pretty steep requirement of fully invested team(s). But Extreme will probably be added later after people has enough time to start leveling and participating.
But tbh, some types like Blue raid only has a handful of characters that you can realistically use to clear it, so it's can be pretty irritating if you happen to get too much of one character attack type from gacha and not enough others to form a good team. And the currency that drop from raid is used in the raid shop, that has A LOT OF goodies, so you either keep rerolling for raid char Hibiki Koharu or keep trying to get character shards in Hard map for Haruna, Iori, and Shiroko (I personally didn't have a problem as f2p in JP server since I got rarely get dupes, so the teams are pretty diverse. But I have seen people with worse lucks, and who knows what Nexon will do to the droprate.)
>PvP will unlock after certain level. A very big disclaimer: Try not to get too invested into it, it's pure RNG.
You pick a team to defend, and a team to attack other people. You can set up the team for positioning, but Skill activation will be auto-RNG, and the only thing you can really do in-combat is speeding up or slowing down the fight. This mean you can have one very well-built team and lose out to someone way below your class because your healer decide to heal you max hp tank or their team crowd-control at perfect time and cancel your skill.
You get pyroxene when you reach every new rank for the first time, and there's no benefit to sandbagging because you will get that amount of pyroxene by getting at that rank either fast or slow.
This first time pyroxene is A LOT and can probably guaranteed a pity on banner, but on JP it ever only reset rank once or twice, so don't count on having that freebies income regularly.
Other than that, you also get small amount of daily Pyroxene and PvP coin for maintaining your rank. These PvP coin is used in PvP shop for stamina pills, EXP and character shards (fixed characters, doesn't rotate). and On JP server, at first few ranks, there will be bot teams that help boosting your account a bit. Then you generally will be stuck at Gold or Silver. The difference of daily Pyroxene and PvP coin at higher rank is really not that much, so don't bawl your sanity out if your team f up, because Skill activation will be auto-RNG. And btw, have I told you, Skill activation will be auto-RNG? It is what it is.
>Crafting. You use a specific craft currency to craft, and each time you get five random nodes that give five options to craft. The minimum requirement to craft something is filling up the outer ring, but you can get put more to fill inner ring to get higher material. The more rare a material is, the longer crafting time (can go from 30 mins to 6h). You can get most of the stuffs for building your characters, but only Furniture and Gifts can be obtained from crafting. Furniture for your Dorm, Gift for your character Trust. You can get exclusive Furniture related to some event, and you can still get them after event is over. You can put more material to crafting to get guaranteed high tier materials, but just don't do it. If Nexon maintain the same rate as JP, you can put max into crafting and still can't get yellow guaranteed node. Generally just craft one per day for daily, and don't worry too much about it.
>Trust Chat: When characters increase Trust, their stats will increase, and after a certain rank you can chat with them to initiate a short story that unlock their Live2D art for main menu. Most characters have L2D arts.
>Circle Chat: Chatting in a group of 30 people. This circle is also people you can borrow units to be used in raids and you can also put your unit up for others, and you will get a little reward when they use it. You get 10 stamina per day for a message chat of anything, which will be sent over mail.
>Team Setup accessed from main menu is mostly for Campaign. In Raid, Event, and PvP, Sushimap, Exp... yeah BASICALLY everything else, they have their own setup. Even Event team setup will be remembered the next time another event is available, which actually is pretty handy.
>School Scheduling: To increase Trust with char, with a very low chance to get bonus Skill books or Character shards. First two zones drop random Skill books from any school, but further down will be zone specific for each school, even though sometimes the character that appear for Trust doesn't even come from that school (logic is whatever right). Basically just level your Waifu Trust mainly through here.
>Dorm: A little too basic tbh. More furniture = Higher rating = More Stamina you get per hour, which actually will be your major source of Stamina aside from normal regen. To upgrade Dorm get material from clearing certain Campaign maps first time. Students will come randomly that you can click to increase Trust. Can't interact with them more than that, and they don't interact with most of the basic objects. About once a day can recruit one student of choice to increase Trust. Dorm size won't increase until later updates.
In-combat:
Character positioning is affected by their categories: Front, Middle and Back (you can guess which one go where from those name). They will always try their best to position according to that, making them sometimes run around like headless chicken if they're trying to find cover that's might conflict with their positioning. Putting Front and Back in a team does not give more distance gap than Front/Middle or Middle/Back (at least not perceivable gap).
You get 3 EX skill slot for 6 max characters you can put in a team. More characters in the team increase EX skills recovery rate. The order of EX skills and which one appears first seems entirely random. You can save 1 or 2 slots with heal skill and tank skill so that you can keep final slot rotating attack skills. Prioritize char with less than 4 skill cost and AOE for more consistent clear.
Buildings:
Each characters has few things to level:
-Main level EXP:
+Can only go as high as Level of your Sensei. Best way to increase your strength, as the stats boost is significant all the way to when you reach level cap.
Farmable through: EXP domain (Not Recommended because stamina cost is Massive and not much in return, unless there is 2x drop event), PvP daily refresh shop (Recommended), Events (Highly Recommended), Crafting (Not recommended because of material cost)
-Skill:
+There are 1 EX skill that is the active skill and 3 normal skills that work like passive and auto-activated skills.
+EX skill max at level 5, 3 normal skills max at level 10 that require a special book at end level.
+EX skill use EX book and specific materials. Normal skill use normal book and specific material that is same as EX skill requirement.
+EX skill upgrades make the biggest difference, but material drop-rate is abysmally horrendous. Normal skill has very little stats increased, but you will feel it when you level them sufficiently.
+When you finally able to play raid, use raid points to buy your needed skill book, because other methods are all bad RNG.
EX skill book and normal skill book Farmable through: Normal and Hard Campaign map (not recommended because of low drop, unless you need character shards at Hard map or there is 2x drop event), Raid shop (highly recommended, refresh every raid), daily Sushiman map (highly recommended, but you'll farm it for daily anyway) and Event (Highly Recommended, but some event only limit to one type of book related to the main school so you might not get what you need. But usually very cost effective, so just get them as much as you can to use for later.)
Special material Farmable through: daily Sushiman map (highly recommended, as daily), Events (recommended, but there are events that drop so much material from just event farming that you might not even need to get them from event shop.)
-Equipment:
+Decent stat boost, can farm them while also farming for character shards in Hard map.
+3 equipment slots per char that mostly depends on the character gun type.
+Upgradable to Tier 6 (likely on global launch only limit to Tier 4 or 5 until further campaign chapter update).
+At every Tier upgrade, require equipment piece of higher tier as material. At high tier also require both high and low tier equipment piece to ascend Tier.
+At Tier 4, get secondary main stat that usually are very good.
Equipment Farmable through: Normal and Hard map (Highly recommended, because it's the only way to get them kek). NEVER DROP FROM EVENT UP TO THIS POINT.
Equipment EXP Orbs Farmable through: Yeah you gonna get a f load of it and will run out other resources before ever running out orbs. But in case you need them, get them in events.
-Character Shards:
+To ascend characters to higher tier, and in-case you don't have the character, can also unlock them (usually at 120 shard cost). Stat boost is very good after hitting level cap, but some characters benefits a lot more from unlocking extra skills when upgrading to 3-star. Hard map is the best way to reliably unlock and upgrade great units like Haruna (Hard Map 8 and 12), Iori (Hard Map 14), Shiroko (Hard Map 3 and 9). See Character priority below to know which to pick.
+In gacha shop, you exchange gacha shards for shards of your specific char. It exchanges at cost of 1:1 at limit of 20, after which it will increasingly cost more gacha shards to exchange, exp 2:1 for another 20 shards, then 3:1, and cap at 5:1 at which point it stays at 5:1 with no more limit.
+Gacha Shards Farmable through: Gacha. No other way.
+Character Shards Farmable through: Gacha Shop (has to gacha to get gacha shards to exchange for specific char shards. 1-star dupe drop 1 shard, 2-star 10 shards, 3-star i think 100 shards but I almost never get dupe so not sure. Also only recently in JP server they have character shards drop directly when you get dupes alongside with gacha shards, which not sure will be at global yet on launch, so watch out for that if you wanna save shards), Raid shop (Fixed characters, but refresh every new raid. Contain many good characters, but will see if they will be the same for global), PvP shop (Fixed characters, refresh daily, will add more characters, but does not remove or replace current), Event (hippity hoppity just get all them properties).
-Character Weapons: newest update in JP. Require your students to be at 5-star before start upgrading weapons. Very endgame and not relevant to global for now.
Now the part you trying to look for: Characters Priority
As with any other gacha, Waifu>Meta. Your well-invested characters will clear Campaign and do well in Events. But it would be better if your waifu of choice is 2-star or more, because even though you can star-up low star characters, they are big investment costs and generally not as good at end upgrade as pure 3-star. But there are some 2-star that are irreplaceable in any content. Generally, imho, just get yourself a team to clear at least some of any raid, clear campaign, and for your waifu just try level up their Trust and unlock their L2D for main screen. Don't really have to force them in team just play however you want, because at the end of the day is all about seeing your favorites getting better and stronger. Even if your favorite is a fridge.
The game is pretty demanding for character requirements because of the 3-attack-types system. You basically want one or two strong team of each attack type for endgame raids that rotates every few weeks. PvP is, as said, purely RNG, so just build enough to survive, but not over-invest at the cost of everything else. It's not worth it.
*General Raids: These are chars that are universally good in any raid
-Koharu: Heal me, you and everyone else you put on your team. Low cost AOE heal with auto-heal that most of the time by herself out-heal the raid damage. And even the heal bomb itself can do a little damage.
-Iori: Best DPS. Low cost Skill also versatile dealing with both mobs and boss. Despite being Yellowm excel even in Blue Raids.
-Tsubaki: THE tank. Not used in top team raid, but if you want to punch above your level, you need her to tank. Your team can probably clear the raid before she even go down, because of her 1-time heal burst at low HP (although some raid has high accuracy that can ruin the day, because her evasion and Hp is through the roof, but Defense stat is pretty sad). Can taunt Kaiten sushiman boss to cancel their skill.
-Yuuka: THE tank no.2. Very well-round, with low cost shield. Slightly less tanky than Tsubaki, but if shield is maintained, can last longer.
-Akane: Debuffer. Her 30% def down EX skill don't need investment, just put her in team for others to shine.
-Cherino: Increase Cost Regen and AoE is great in Chesed Raid.
-Kotama: Buffer, with a little debuffer. Basically built to be used for raids, and any top team will use her. Needs to be star-up for team passive extra buff.
-Hibiki: Crit Dmg Buffer. AoE skill is versatile and is used, along Kotama, in all raids. Also can be used in PvP to hit backline.
-Serina: Heal cost 2. Can drag an ally to a specific spot. Passive heal every 35s. Stand with Hanae as the best and most utilized healers.
-Hanae: Heal overtime. Cost 4 but can out-heal almost any source of damage that doesn't one-hit. Has Crit Dmg team buffer like Hibiki. Hang with Serina at Special healer top.
-Fuuka: Big AoE Heal that can reposition your team in some raids. Will heal your soul.
Units to be added later: Natsu (Laffey as a tank that can cleanse and self-heal), Bunny Neru (Yuuka 2.0, but can jump ahead to do AOE damage. Less tanky, but more benefits) Saya Casual (Hibiki, but Yellow).
*Blue Raids: Currently has ShiroKuro that's Single-Target (ST) oriented, and Perorozilla that requires heavy AOE.
-For ShiroKuro, best on launch are Haruna, Izuna, Iori, and later on Swimsuit Azusa. Chise and Asuna also works well, but need much much investment. Strong Red Striker can also be used here.
-Perorozilla is newest raid on JP, so dont need worry yet. But Natsu, Bunny Karin and Bunny Asuna will be used there.
*Red Raids: Hieronymus (ST, but some AOE can work because chonky boss) and Kaiten (AOE phase 1, ST phase 2).
-Kaiten: 5 sushi map at phase 1, 1 big boss phase 2. Just throw your favorite Red DPS to make it work. But on launch, Mutsuki, Shun, Shiroko, Azusa work best, with Bunny Neru and Swimsuit Iori be added later. But really, this is the raid that you can use any Red Striker and it will be fine.
-Hieronymus: Has a gimmicks that requires you to keep healing lanterns to avoid one-shotting and do extra dmg. So Koharu is almost a must, with Serina and Hanae, and any healer you gonna need. Otherwise, DPS are the same as Kaiten.
*Yellow Raids: Chesed (AoE) and Binah (ST)
-Chesed: Cherino, Iori, Midori, Nonomi, Momoi, Tsurugi, and Karin. Hifumi seems good, but deceptively bad, because her AoE attack isn't good enough to cover for the dmg lost of her ST potential. Nonomi has bad ST but her AoE is more than enough. Later on has Casual Saya that works best here.
-Binah: Haven't personally played, but heard that Akane, Maki, Iori and Pina is top team. Karin is also used.
*PvP: If you've ignore all the warning about PvP Skill activation will be auto-RNG, then here are the top PvP char
-Shun: The unstoppable force. Free initial cost for a strong start, and if activated, will start wiping your backline. Made to be used in PvP, but can be countered with right team, and being luckier if your Shun activate first.
-Haruna: War effort against Tsubaki. Can't backline like Shun but if lucky, her shot will line up and hit both front and back.
-Iori: Your best bet. Positioning can expose her sometimes, especially in Shun-Haruna-Iori team comp, but will deal with everything you want to be dealt. Her skill can also hit backline if lucky.
-Tsubaki: The immovable wall. If you dont have enough accuracy requirement, she will continue to live long after everyone already dead. If lucky her skill will cancel the other team's skill activation.
-Yuuka: Tsubaki besties, since you need your team to have at least 2 tanks, because even as 1 front 3 back formation, one of them will always move a little forward and get hit. If you know what you doing, 3 DPS can work, just might not be as consistent.
-Hibiki: As defending team, their Hibiki has a certain range that can actually hit both front and back. Meaning sometimes Shun and likes can also be wipe out this way. Solid in Raid, solid in PvP.
-Serina and Hanae: works for the same reason they do in raids.
-Mashiro: Has accuracy team buff that can help your team in the fight against raid boss Tsubaki.
-Beach Mashiro: added in Summer event. Will invalidate your Tsubaki by one-shooting her. Coupled with Mashiro will clear all your tankers.
-Bunny Neru: added in Bunny event. B.Neru is less tanky than Yuuka but it's nice to have someone bum-rush their team for the unexpected element.
Of the Big 4 Special, only Kotama isn't used, cause you generally want your team to have as many skill-shots out as possible. A little bit of damage increase doesn't do much when everyone is getting assassinated.
There are also teams that can be built to counter each of these specific characters. After all it's PvP, everything is strong or weak against something. And in that something, you have this luck-based mechanics that you don't really know if your team will do what you intend for them to do.
Generally, just take it easy. Like someone said around here, it's only intend as a side game. Just do what you want, and in the end you rarely ever regret it.
Event Expectation
Sadly, can't speak for the launch, as I wasn't in the game until June. But from June to now November, events are released consistently. Generally, you farm and get drops in event stages to exchange in shop. You get more drops per run if you use characters that they rate them up, either because they're in the current banner or related to current event stories. It feels a little P2W and I'm sure Nexon will exploit this. But you can clear shop as long as you keep farming high stage event map. The newer events though have an extra gacha event shop, which give a lot of high level goods, so any extra drops you get in stage is another opportunities for you to keep rolling that gacha event shop (for Bunny event, you get Neru and Karin shards, and in my personally case, was even enough to 5-star them from 3).
About gacha banners, a very big note first and foremost is that event characters banners can be separated into parts, like in Summer event you have Swimsuit Azusa releasing first and Swimsuit Hifumi releasing later. And there can also be different version of same event, like Trinity version of Summer event and Gehenna version, with Gehenna adding Swimsuit Hina and Swimsuit Iori banner. So if you think summer event was already over with main event over, you might be surprised that there is another summer event releasing right after.
There are barely any rerun banners, as almost every banner is a new character, or limited characters. Limited are usually alternate version of existing characters, with all new everything from skill, attack and shield type, to extra live2d and quotes - all of which of you have to build from level 1. Alternate characters aren't necessary always limited, like Bike Shiroko and Casual Saya, but Limited characters are just released way too often. There's also another thing with droprate of this game: You can go 20 and get 3-star, or you can go 180 and not even getting it. The range it's vary is way to unpredictable, so unless you want to hit pity, which in f2p you can reach every a month or so, skipping at least several banners. The best is just go look at JP release schedule and start planning ahead for the one you actually want. Or, you can just go pull all you can every banner in hope of something, because as I played it, I was able to obtained almost every Limited banner without reaching pity, except Bunny Karin. And it always like I either get new 3-star every 35 wishes or so, or i can go more than 150 without encountering one. I got pretty lucky with my account, but i know it can and will be a problem for many people. One of my friend did quit because of this inconsistency.
Rate-up characters are also released alongside with a raid they're strong against. But don't ever take this as a note that you have to get them. Power-creeping has been a slight problem, but not to the point that your current characters suddenly become useless. There are strong limited char also, but unless you play for meta, just aim for the one you want.
As a minor thing, Mx2j arts, which has quite a majority in the game, seems to improve overtime. At first, their arts really clash with the rest of Blue Archive vibe, but later release seems to be much better, for example comparing Iori normal and Summer Iori. The biggest case for this is the Bunny series, which are all drawn by Mx2j, and looks nothing like their original arts. This was one of my main gripe back then, but now I can say that It's no long a problem.
Final Note
My impression was that Blue Archive is pretty much as a game just was an afterthought to the 'Hey I make this really cool concept of gun girl with clean future vibe and Future Bass blasting on background. Let's make it a game about that.' It is polished, well-thought, and quality improved overtime, but there are many shady mechanics that can be exacerbated by the game now also being in Nexon hands. Many people are drawn by that 'otherworldly utopic' vibe of the game, but there is a reminder that the best you can hope for this game is only all that you can hope. They can make it great, and slowly start cash cowing it a year later, shutting down shortly after with NAT Game taking back the license, and the only thing you can tell yourself is that you've been had. Always look out for the red flags, because history always spare some space for a story of a lesson learnt too late. Either way, that would be spoilsport for now. All the little things, if there will be any, will reveal itself in due time.
Since 1-Star and 2-Star characters will require long investment to shine, I will additionally list those that are good enough to build for long-term:
1-Star Units:
- Kotoma : Buffer Powerhouse. Used in all high-end raids. Needs to at least be 3-Star.
- Serina : Great healer. Has auto-heal that doesn't require using cost, do you can focus on doing damage.
- Pina : Will shine in Binah raid. Outside of that is pretty niche.
- Asuna : Will do OK, but need a lot investments. Mainly works because of how little Blue attackers there are in the game. Later on Asuna has bunny version for AoE Peperozilla raid and that's the one everyone is talking about. Not because it's that good, but it's bunny, and can do decent AoE. And there's not a lot of AoE Blue Attacker yet before.
- Chinatsu : Can help with lantern heal in Hieronymus raid. Doesn't need investment because her heal cost too high to be used elsewhere, and it's weaker heal than Hanae.
- Yoshimi : Deceptively good at first, but fall off late. Fun to play with early, not recommended for long term build.
- Nodoka : Accuracy Powerhouse. Limited and might not be available on release yet.
- Suzumi : Not great compare to the many Red Striker we get in the game. But early, her bombs are absolutely bonker to clear maps.
- Shimiko : That much defense and healing stat is not necessary. And yeah, cannot heal.
- Kotori : Why waste 4 cost to shield everyone on team for a little bit, when you can heal everyone on heal permanently? Subpar stats, split scaling that really hard to justify full build.
- Juri : Weak poison, Attack speed debuff unnecessary in almost all contents. Can have a specialty of drawing out enemies hiding in thick cover, but not warrant full investment.
- Haruka : No matter what you do, she just seems to die. She belongs to those kinds of tanks with low evasion made up for with high def and HP, but not high stats enough to survive the encounters that fall into that categories. Maybe someone can make her works, but generally not recommended.
2-Star Units:
- Ayane : Decent AoE heal. Cost is little high but good AoE. Might miss a lot of heal if you aren't familiar with how slow the heal drop. Can shine in Hieronymus raid because AoE heal like are in demands there. She's good, and L2D art is perfect, but generally better for you to use Fuuka.
- Nonomi : 2-Star that can free upgrade to 3-Star after finishing Starter Event. Excel in Chesed raid and some actually put her in PvP to swipe backlines, but her ST is very weak. Probably enough to be kept at 3-Star.
- Serika : Self-Buff x3. If leave standing still with ST enemy will keep stacking until they're dead, which is Hieronymus raid or Kaitan raid phase 2.
- Akari : Well-round AoE Red Striker. Scale good, can be invested.
- Fuuka : Hard healing your team for 5-cost and move everyone to where they should be. Useful in some raid strats, and you can get her shards from shop if want need.
- Junko : May or may not have a church of followers Pretty good to clear those Yellow map, with her straight-line AoE basically a ST skill that will delete stuffs. Immortal for 10 to 20s when HP under 20% (Yep, you heard it right). Versatile, but not exactly the unit everyone really hype about. But if your like her and your name rhythms with Toir, investing is good option.
- Kayoko : Fear mechanics has basically no use even as of now in Japan Archive.
- Mutsuki : Very explode, very fun. Bomb will clearly cover in normal maps, and Kaiten and Hieronymus and hit all the 3 mines at bosses. Very high damage potential recommended build.
- Chise : Great AoE Blue Striker. In early can use her with Haruna as the two f2p units to take down ShiroKuro raid. Chapter 10 onwards has a lot of annoying Blue type boss that can burst easily kill, so she can be used there. Recommended for full investment.
- Tsubaki : Booba Tank. If she's not tank enough, then keep building. But seriously, if she can't tank, no other 2-star can.
- Shizuko : Has many uses but still kinda niche. Has a cover drop that's much better than book castle by Shimiko, and increase team crit rate. Build or not is up to u.
- Akane : Literally used for her 30% def down. Other than that, not much else.
- Hare : Her subskill increase ally evasion, which can be pretty big in PvP. Not enough test to find out if it's worth it. But her overall is better than average if nothing else.
- Utaha : Tbh, no idea, but I heard she's not that great in late.
- Yuuka : Deal a bit more damage for slightly less tankiness than Tsubaki. Easy to farm shards for, so u can max her if you want.
- Momoi : Normally good, becomes much better when Midori is in team. Cheap cost, good AoE, can rotate skill easily in Chesed raid. Easy recommended for 3-Star, but shards not farmable, so the further investment is up to u.
- Airi : Attack speed, movement speed... Maybe someday. Bench until then.
- Hanae : THE medic. One of strongest ST heal, and rare healer that have sub to buff allies crit dmg. AND her shards are available in shop. She's used everywhere, so might as well invest.
- Hasumi : Easily farmable, but needs high investment to start seeing return. Niche and hard to be used anywhere other than Binah raid. But her scale is heard to be pretty good, so it's still worth building slowly.
- Hanako : AoE heal-over-time heal. Which is to say pretty OP, and is used sometimes in PvP, but still can't beat Hanae versatility. Shards not farmable, so up to you.
I also want to add some notes for 3-Star Units. All of them are good by themselves, and just because you don't see them on the list doesn't mean they're bad. They're just unpopular. When you start out, just get a few 3-Stars and level them to fill your team needs.
Also when you search on Blue Archive characters tier list, you see the one from TheArchive.gg . That list is very outdated, so don't base your references on it. If you want to know your character's compatibility with a raid, use this guide (credit to Stokkie. You can find him on Official BA Discord). Otherwise, just raise the 3-Star you want. All of them will be usable, and if they fall into a niche like Hifumi (summon aggro), they will be usable in their niche. 1 and 2-Star might be hard to shine, but 3-Star are really all solid. Certainly would not be worth the hassle for re-rolling more than 2 or 3 times.
As for future units, you really do have to look out for limited banners. Some are pretty irreplaceable in raids. Here are the current Limited characters released so far:
- Azusa Swimsuit : First limited banner. Used in all Blue raids after her release. Must have.
- Mashiro Swimsuit : Used in all top rank PvP teams to kill tanks. Must have.
- Hina Swimsuit : Only excel in Kaiten raid, but her low-cost skill can still carry Campaign maps. Used in PvP to hit everyone on their team, but the damage is pretty weak. Good to have.
- Iori Swimsuit : Great in anything Red. Not as broken as normal Iori. Good to have if you lacks Red by that point.
- Karin Bunny : Only excel in Peperozilla raid. Her 7 cost is as high as Hina, so doesn't see much use elsewhere. Good to have if you want to dominate that raid.
- Neru Bunny : Now you can finally throw your tank into enemy team. And she get a shield like Yuuka. And get evasion buff every 30s. And extra-dps for human-sized enemy. Major QoL improvement to the game. Doesn't always get you in top rank, but still a must have.
- Asuna Bunny : Def down, so you dont have to try slotting Akane for Blue raids. Good low cost AoE, and with how few Blue units are in the game, is good to have. Also the reason that you heard of Blue Archive.
- Hatsune Miku : literally just out on Jp, not tested yet. But so sooo fun to play with.
Outside of limited banners, try also looking out for these characters:
- Arisu : Can carry all things Blue. She and Haruna can save you in Peperozilla raid if you can't get Bunnies. Very good to have.
- Midori : Basically another Iori, but harder to because you need their whole team within range. Pair with Momoi for top rank Chesed. Very good to have.
- Cherino : Cost down, AoE, used in all top Chesed raid team. Very good to have.
- Azusa : A Must Have, like Summer ver. Focus ST. Used in all Red raids.
- Koharu : Must Have, by herself can solve your healing problem for any raids. Use literally everywhere.
- Saya Casual : 100% Hibiki but as Yellow. And you know how good Hibiki is. Good to be put on your second team in raid, but must have or not depend if you can even have a good second team to begin with, and how for you wanna go for that top. Anyway, at least get her if you don't have Hibiki by this point.
- Natsu : Tank that self-cleanse for Peperozilla raid and heal. Can self-sustain in many raids that you don't need a healer on the team. She's out between Bunny banners and Hatsune Miku banner, so she's very good but unfortunately, you might not have enough to get.
As like I mention above, just because I didn't list them here doesn't mean they're bad. These units are just more versatile than them, or they can excel better at certain raids. All of them are effective, the rest just really depends on how much you wanna sniff that top 1%.
Limited character starts releasing after Koharu banner, which is about 4 months after JP official opening. If Nexon doesn't mess with the schedule you have amble times to get diverse teams to prepare for most of the content. Blue characters will be rare at first, but more will come. You can still build 2-Star DPS like Chise, Serika, Matsuki, Pina and they will still be good enough to be used later on (Although haven't seen Binah raid for a while).