The [Blue Archive] meta no one told you about. 

Just in case a misunderstanding occurs, I want to clarify that I mean no shade to any of the guide makers or content creators mentioned in this video. I genuinely respect the effort and knowledge they bring to the public and I acknowledge that their work is, ultimately, helpful. The purpose of this video is to spotlight the deeper parts of the game people don’t talk about. At the very least, I wish for everyone to listen to the outro of this video and hear my mission statement. I… have a lot I want to discuss, and I’d really love for people to come along. Cheers. Side note: This is like my 4th video in a row where I sound different lmao. I was finally happy with my audio settings in my Kurokage guide video and just when I thought I’d settled into something I liked my boot drive crashed and took all my settings with it. Because of that there’s prob a bit of mic scuff in this video cause I wasn’t able to iron everything out. This will get better overtime again, I hope.

Pull for comfy clear > Malding 204893473 hours for a clear Yet we dont have unlimited pyroxene so its all about your own decision

Every guide i see it's always mika, mika, mika... 😂 i don't have mika 😢 i have gotten good at working around my mika-less situation 😂

Instructions unclear. Waifu > Meta and pulling is determined by the amount of cuteness a char has (hint:they are all cute)

Sometimes niche units are the units you can farm but don't pay much attention to. Hifumi and Utaha are the only 2 units in the game that can spawn an expendable minion to tank which can be used to invalidate mechanics. Baiting out a wide variety of dangerous attacks be it peroro laser, Goz bombs, S.wakamo phase 1 rockets/deathmarks. The fact that they haven't released another unit in the past 3+ years with the ability to spawn a expendable minion on demand goes to show how powerful this ability is.

"You fucking DIE" and showing Wakamo murdering the tank sums up my raid experince quite well XD, I've been learning this game's raids after a year of slacking and this hits close to home quite a lot

Nice is good. Sometimes you will need students in a later team because something went wrong and you're low on time. Sometimes, niche students can make particular content easier. Sometimes, those same students that may not be good in a main raid, they often work in many Torment runs. I'm a day 1 player and I've pulled every single student. From day 1, I couldn't get Iori to save my life. I played for an entire year of not having Iori. I managed to clear all but Gehenna C and Trinity C at the time. By knowing your students abilities and limitations, you become a better player. The one thing I emphasize is to do mock battles. Mock battles can help you manage your time because it's exactly the same as the real battle. That will be the difference between a wasting a ticket and getting a score. I know I can't memorize everything, I do a combination of keeping notes and recoding my actual runs via OBS on my computer.

11:52 Causew pulling a "🤓☝️" voice was something i wasnt expecting lmao

Great work in addressing the issue with new players falling into the speedrun videos trap.

I think instead of thinking "this character is niche/meta", we should be asking "is this character easily replaceable?" Some characters might not be useful now, but they can be extremely useful or even be the only god for future content, especially those with very unique skillset.

11:32 "every student in this game is worth pulling" *Chirino hotspring has entered the chat*

An example that comes to mind was that joint firing drill we had earlier this year where the only students who could do damage were explosive students, and they could only do 1 point of damage per shot. So levels, damage, crit, and equipment didn't matter. Units with skills to increase their own dps or the team's dps, and units with fast shooting weapons for those skills to influence were the key to success. Hina's EX skill makes her shoot slower, so in that specific circumstance it was a waste to use it. And 1 star welfare unit Izumi (swimsuit) was well suited to that JFD as well. If you had regular Izumi to go with her alt, then all the better.

My pulling philosophy in BA is basically "is limited? Yes. Pull./ No. Is she meta? Yes. Pull/No. She'll pop up eventually" those 200 pulls on Ako hurt

And this video is perfectly timed as we are having Wakamo Hovercraft right now, as a raid with lots of "niche" units being meta, Hifumi team being a comfy part1 and Utaha being a strong forgotten unit for part2

I'll forever be a noob but I will be a noob that is willing to learn. Probably. Thanks a lot for the video! Appreciate it! 🙏❤️✨

To me its more like pull essentials and have the backup if needed, core students obvioisly cuts the team needed, but you can compensate it with good planning and decent investment Comfy is always preferred than tryhard sweating anyway

Not a lot talk about how indepth the game is and how certain pull deciosions can affect some Raidboss experiences. Thanks for bringing up the topic and the good work on the vid. 🙏✨

I got really lucky with my acc by pulling only limited characters (with some exceptions) to the point I can beat every insane and even try some torment. Your vid made me realise how lucky I was to get off rate characters that I didn't know I need at the time

HoD GA made me realize that I need to build my students especially the niche ones, I even went out of my way to farm elephs for S. Izumi cuz she really saved my ass for both Red and Yellow HoD (I don't have S. Chise for Blue) now the other problem that made me build my Healers (especially Serina) is the Camp Challenge 3 (I don't have Koharu as backline healer) so yeah after 5 months of playing this game, all students are important in specific situations

I still remember when HOD first time raid, everyone just panic that they didn't have any CC chara, other than Hoshino and everyone say need to pull chihiro, but everyone forget that Tsubaki and Kayoko do have CC, and rn Hovercraft everyone hate it, because they need atk speed student, everyone need like Meru or Neru but I don't have it, Utaha (with 4th equipment unlock and T2) and Pina, Pina the chara I build from beginning because I didn't have Iori, become some kinda meta for this raid because her atk power and speed is really good if you build it enough. don't ever underestimate the power *1 if build it really become good student.

There is one thing that should be covered, and that is don't be afraid to try and experiment around. You can mock battle and cook up strats as many times as you want, and this is how I managed to push myself into Insane difficulty release as well as Torment difficulty release. Even though I only started playing BA nearly 6 months after its release, it all comes down to farming units and resources regularly, knowing what you want to pull and taking a bit of time to practice. You absolutely can clear possibly every season on the highest difficulty despite being resource starved as long as you try and practice, and even if you fail that's fine. I only failed the first Hiero insane due to not having Arius unit and just being completely resource starved, and the first Greg torment due to not having enough debuffers to do the raid. I think a lot of this speedrun meta mentality comes from people wanting to get a platinum trophy on every season with the least amount of effort or spending possible. While it's certainly easy to keep up after playing for a while, if you have to bite off more than you can take it's probably not worth it. It's better to take things at your own pace until you're ready to tackle on higher difficulties.

Bro dropped a banger video. I just got a great lesson of how useful niche units are by having Tsukuyo ready to tank S Wakamo insane despite not having her built.

I learned it the hard way from the last 2 Goz raids where everyone used Hinata as the main dps well the problem isn't her actually, UI just fucking dies every time she gets random damage I think having a leaderboard with used 1-2 teams can be deceptive. People can see them as team suggestions but the thing is not only do they have cracked and max units, but they also get lucky (infinite rerun). The crazy 5-6 teams to clear torment are more possible comp suggestions instead

This video described my thoughts on the game pretty well. I have a friend who started right before S. Ui banner and always asked me "Who's good?" and "Should I pull?" and I was always conflicted on outright saying "No" to certain characters, because I'm always thinking of when each unit is useful. I do have a bunch of popular units built rather well, but I also have "niche" units I like at a good enough degree to comfortably clear most raids at lvl. 70 so once I set my mind to clearing harder difficulties I have a solid foundation to work off of instead of starting from 0. It's all about mindset, really. I've personally had a lot of fun delving deeper into boss clears instead of just slamming my head against the wall hoping I'll clear it. Great video.

Damn... watching this after malding for 1 hour for Wakamo Hovecraft made me... Skip her and keep going with my original plan to take revenge when she comes back on a Grand assault and get the title LOL. It also helped me open my mind and start actually thinking about team building (I was kind of doing that but not intentionally) Update: Actually kept trying by using my brain and managed to clear it, we're in plat baby

I can only speak on this based on my experience on a day one JP player. The first event was Izuna and it was the first 3* blue character that was released for this game. Honestly, back in the day, it was simpler. Color = meta. We needed to build teams revolving red/yellow/blue and purple later on. I was using Izuna and Arisu for a while clearing all the blue maps in the campaign. I did use Izuna elsewhere, but I realize that raids in the beginning (Binah,Cheesed/Shiro/Kuro) all were considered difficult since the game was brand new and we do have very limited options. Fast forward to now, we have a whole range of characters to use and that topic involves the Niche vs Meta argument. In my experience, niche is only niche at one point in time. They might become meta later on. To your video's point, this is the argument for people to pull on so-called Niche characters. However, I realized that BA also has a pretty stable meta and really a very mild power creep. Units like Aru/Iori/Hibiki from day one are still considered meta even now. The raid shops and others give you the opportunity to obtain Koharu and Midori which are also very good characters. Given that this video is on meta vs niche, I'd say that people should pull how they like according to their playstyle. I'm a day one casual JP player. Yet, there are times where I try torment when it's doable in one team (D.Hina vs Hiero). On average, I just do insane challenge and if I can't do that pretty comfortably, then I just do extreme. Do I have the students and guide videos to really do torment? Yes, but I don't feel like I need to compete that badly on a meta stage. Rather, I just want to play how I want and spend my rocks how I want. I'd advise people to do the same. Look at your playstyle and find what makes you happier. There's really no right or wrong answer here. I get that each boss has their mechanics, but I rely on video guides over in JP way more than researching that stuff on my own. Another person could do exactly the opposite of myself and that's totally fine. When it comes to pulling, I just horde a lot of currency and pull to 400 during the anniversary rate up banners. It works for me in the past since I'm missing a lot of "Niche" characters. What makes me happy playing BA is different than everyone else. TLDR: This is my subjective take, but I think players should just decide whatever method is best for them to enjoy BA. Casual, hybrid, or hardcore..it doesn't matter. Just play in a way that makes you enjoy the game. For me, meta is fun and convenient and niche characters are nice to get randomly too!

This is why I love your guides. I'm trying to find teams for boss raids but all I see are those speedrun videos which contain some students that I don't have or require me to mald. But on the other hand, you here thoroughly explain how the boss works and tell which students (that I already own) I can actually bring. I think I saw one your streams where you defeated bosses like Greg without using any 3⭐ students. I really hope that there are more guides out there that can provide good team building like how you do in your videos. Keep up the good work 😁

Yo, just wanted to say, appreciate your featuring of my video, and overall, an amazing video that you have made, as always from the legendary Causew Just wanted to clarify that I definitely do try to fit into my scripts to get ppl to pull for niche units (maybe except my Natsu video cause that was the first ever vid that I made so I was still quite evergreen 😂), and I definitely dont have the intention to clickbait ppl by putting must pull and stuff (i know you didnt mention it, but just wanted to throw it out there to clear up any misunderstandings if there are any), but again, I totally understand, agree and acknowledge your points, and its definitely something for me to think about in future videos that I make, tho personally, I usually try to cater to the more casual players (e.g - those who do Insane or lower) which is why I don't always suggest to pull unless its a great student, but again, it might be something for me to think about moving forward! Again, thank you very much, and apologies if i sound "mad" (I really ain't), and it's an absolute honor to even have a minor appearance in a Causew video 🙏

Really important video especially considering how it's a rare gem in the sea of content about BA. Thanks for that. Helped me deeply understand an important factor regarding my future pull decisions that I was not fully aware of despite not being a beginner at this point.

I have been playing since a little after Wakamo’s first banner, I think it was in October of that year. I have beaten 3 torments now, (Chesed, Kurokage, and now Wakamo hovercraft), and this video absolutely needed to be said. I remember one of the most annoying statement I saw was that someone was annoyed that Hod was designed around Kayoko’s rng. Now of course, Hod wasn’t designed around Kayoko it was designed around throwing a bunch of CC units. The problem definitely is efficiency. You tell people to build like 4 or so cc units and they will probably panic. I think another problem is Mika. Mika did and still does make a lot of bosses very easy like Binah. Using the basic speed run strats for someone like Binah really wouldn’t be painful. So people really don’t expect things to get as complicated as they do. Skipping is also good advice. I didn’t want to pull for Minori and the summer rabbits so I only did extreme Greg. Some other thoughts. I saw people say that Kurokage was rng bull like Goz. As well as the confusion status was pointless since you “automatically lose if they get confused anyway.” As someone who did torment I disagree with a lot of what is said. First off, I was able to make a team that survived phase 2 even if they got confused. It was Momiji, Eimi, Natsu, Ui, Ny Haruka and Serina. If Eimi and Natsu got confused, they would just start attacking each other and do no damage to each other. Also, unlike Goz, Kurokage has a character that invalidates all of its mechanics with HS Shigure. I know for certain that a ue40 HS Shigure can’t be stopped even on torment. Bonus points if you have Cherino. Literally because you get extra Cost recovery for pairing her with a red winter student. I do really like the combat of Blue archive. So many interesting design decisions. Like the “element” system being divided into offense and defense has actually made the combat surprising open even if you do need certain characters here or there. Amplified further by raids allowing, (and I suppose sometime requiring) multiple teams. You can really come up with multiple solutions for problems. I had a lot of fun especially with Chesed torment. Trying to figure out a way to refill the groggy bar was an interesting team building challenge. And I guess a hot take to leave thing. I like Wakamo’s raid. I know both casuals and experts seem to hate her, but I love her boss from a team building perspective. Having to account for both the first and second phases. It has a certain restrictiveness to it, but it still has a lot of units you can use. Especially free ones. The 4 minutes of waiting on phase 2 really doesn’t bother me.

when i started playing it was insane to me how I couldn't find a single video explaining raid boss mechanics. glad you're around o/

I consider Blue Archive to be more of a resource management sim first and a strategy game second. You have to plan months ahead, knowing which students you'll pull/borrow/skip, knowing which resources to farm so you get the most out of your AP use, etc. The only time I totally failed at this was Greg, when the Aru strat got patched so the students didn't huddle up anymore and couldn't be healed at once. Beating Insane was impossible for me unless I spent elephs on Mine. Turns out, it didn't matter because so many people refused to understand Greg and gave up, so a nice extreme clear landed me a top 2000 spot

Looking forward to those gameplay discussion videos. Will be interesting to see what you have on your mind! Also, I realize that I have occasionally fallen into the "this character is specialized" type of advice giving when answering people on Discord or Reddit, by sometimes forgetting that not everybody has full roster. I'll try to be more mindful in the future.

this is a great video, and I agree about the building for one boss and moving onto the next as that was what I did too. Its great to see you trying to bring light to the gameplay aspect of BA, as its following the touhou path now of art and memes overshadowing the gameplay which I am still fond of (even if I have PTSD of malding countless hours to get a slightly better score), I look forward to seeing your future videos about the gameplay itself, the game is really fun to learn and play (until the speedrunning part) and I look forward to seeing how you can make it interesting to watch. All the best Causew!

I just started playing around kurokage release and only got himari. the recent goz boss has made me realised units like fuuka made a world of difference between me clearing hard rather than just normal. I think your videos have piqued my interest, thank you!

Unbelievably good advice. Coming from normal RPGs, it's insane to me just how tunnel visioned the average gameplay leaning gacha player tends to be. Blue Archive might be on the lighter side of this since the game's raids are relatively easy with some cheater units (aoe shielders, exponential damage inflaters, etc.) but seeing people play GFL or Genshin and rating their account strength based on the number of high tier list characters they have made me lose my mind.

I cant believed i hadnt subbed lmao. Your guides carried me for a while. Left the game and came back and now im just getring back in the groove of things

I feel this, back before TOR and even before INS was implemented I had difficulty clearing raid for the simple reason that I didn't pull the necessary units for each of these raids. I've had my INS breakthrough last year iirc with Hiero and it was only possible cuz I got lucky getting key units with offrate. Nowadays I can do raid with relative comfy, still not good enough for TOR but I'm quite happy with my current position. I do admit I still need those speedrun clears as ref even when I can never replicate them exactly, learning the raid mechanic is at times challenging and seeing something that works do help me reevaluate my roster. Anyway thanks for the insight Case, I've already shared this with my BA thread hopefully it can help them plan their raid.

nice vid, some people don't pay attention to farmables. eimi and utaha were very useful in my wakamo hovercraft torment clear

That's how I noticed I really needed nyKayoko and more investment for Blue content. Started playing in Oct2023 (during Izuna Rerun banner). I do play more hybrid, but some offrate really saved my ass even if they were "niche", such as Atsuko and Kazusa. Now I'm planning to go for nyKayoko because I've got defeated by INS Blue Goz on GA (and thus not getting the last badge), but I know I'll need her a lot of more than Goz. This makes me mindful about my future pulls

If you keep rolling safely you will get nowhere safely. I remember not rolling for Mine because Mika was coming, and there wasn't much enthusiasm for her meta-wise. She's considered "Niche". Midokuni's guide still says "Proceed as usual" without her. Then I spooked Mine on the Mika banner. I didn't realize Mine would be pivotal in clearing torment for Binah, SK, Kaiten, Greg, Kurokage, and even bodythowing for Peroro and Hod, and all their grand assault counterparts, and be quite useful for a few joint fire drills on top. Mika, Ako, Himari, and Fuuka are all super cool girls, but you really learn gotta appreciate the Mine's of the world to get anywhere in the game.

Thank you, this is genuinely really helpful. The reality check you gave was seriously eye opening and what you said about beginners completely hit the mark for me, I was following the meta guides but now realize I should switch up my mindset. 🙏

Thank you for making this video. You perfectly explained the situation I'm in. Every single guide for raid bosses I watch includes multiple students I don't have. It's a tough battle without them...

I joined during the C utaha banner, and finally this week cleared torment for the first time as a f2p. Despite being the easiest torment raid, I still had to invest in so many units. A big part that helped is knowing which prebuilt students I had which can act as alternatives to the guide videos. For example in team 3 of Hovercraft Wakamo, I ran healerless Junko Momoi Midori, and used their aoe to deal with the missiles.

Perfect time for me to see this video. I've been playing since Sports Fest last year, so I've just gotten to the point where I have most of the "meta" students and I've got enough of them leveled and geared to consistently clear Extreme on the last few raids. But I get hopelessly destroyed stepping into Insane, so picking up some of the niche students for one particular raid or another is my next step forward.

Oh yeah I'd really like to see where you're going with this idea. Looking forward to next discussion vid

I figured this was going to happen. That's why I've been pulling for the odd niche unit here and there.

Very interesting mr causew. I am very intrigued in more blue archive game discussion. I love the story and the art and all but I also enjoy raising the characters and using them in raids and JFD (if only it didn't cost so much material, the woes of starting during Mika banner...). The gameplay is surprisingly simple but also deep, would love to see more of these videos!

9:44 This right here, I choose the speedrun way after seeing many vids of it. I was like "Ye I can do that" and learn the consequences of knowing how stupidly rng it is. Here is also when I learn how useful my other students can do, they came in clutch and help dealing with remaining hp as backups. 14:38 In my case, right now, I have students needed for insane Wakaboat, but I choose to do Extreme because they are low investments and I want to focus on doing Hiero Torment after 3rd anni, I can always come back to this raid later in 3 colors when my students are well built.

You don't learn until get bass kicked...I feel called out

This video is so true, man ALL of the students have a certain degree of utility, there are tons of veterans making "begginer" guides from their +3 year old accounts, on raids of course they can work if you are a whale, then you pull and max out the teams shown in their videos but i haven't seen anyone famous making content and guides from a free to play account that is less than one year old, this is an opportunity for someone to fill, i came back to the game when the trip trap train event was on, a few months ago and i started out watching pull guides and team compositions for raids, "i have this girl but it is not working the way it is shown in the video, how is this a f2p begginer guide?" of course my girl didn't had T8 eq with maxed stats plus UE, etc, etc. This game has so much potential on the tutorial side of things.

I’m still in the beginner phase (started in November) but it’s a great thing to keep in mind going forward. Right now I’m in the debate phase of leveling students just enough to clear Insane, or fully level their skills outright so next time the raid comes around torment is a possibility. Been using the Justin planner to try and have the right niche students for each TA raid moving forward, but the balance is hard. Was proud that I didn’t invest in anyone for Goz GA to make sure I could do Wakaboat Insane and just barely managed a 4 team =).

This video couldn't have come at a more perfect time since I'm now max level and focused on clearing at least extreme for raids

so well said man. one thing i noticed when I tried to learn everything on my own without hoping on the discord for help is how useful a lot of characters are without being 'meta'. characters like serika, kanna, natsu, kotama, and more helped me so frickin much in clearing and progressing in the game simply because I studied the mechanics and spent time to cook my own team. cooking your own team to tackle problems is something a lot of new players are lacking or are not willing to do but really want the rewards that come from it. again, fantastic video! edit: now that I think about it, the one player that saved me and arguably a lot of ba players is guitar rock. that guy understands the struggles vs enjoyment balance of the game as even to this day, he still cooks his own team which is inspired by the meta team. I think the most important thing he said regarding ba was 'after you feel like you no longer want to become a casual, the best starting point is to pick a color, and buff the shit out of the niche/meta units in that color'. you can have you cake and eat it too is essentially what he keeps on saying. yes ako and himari are a must have, yes at some point in the game u need to get cost reducing units and cost regen units. but building students, (especially strikers) is such a heavy commitment, you gotta take things slow and grow one side before you even attempt to grow the others. the day I got spooked by iroha and maxed the shit out of her AND ONLY HER for 4 months straight was the day I understood the beauty of this game. cause like you said, you don't need to do insane or get all points in drill or clear all ex stages in events. you will still get massive pyroxennes, massive activity reports, notes, and blue rays, and still get cute girls doing cute things in cute stories. tryharding is up to you and only you and you gotta respect the time and effort needed.

The most painful experience for me as new player is a period between the first spark, that is when you will not roll and get new student. So you as a new player, should also aim for good mission clear student. And "meta" student is meta only when you build it, which will be very long way for new player. Meta chase as new player (ako, himari) is sometimes not feasible or very far (3+ months) before you can actually use them

8:56 XD thank you for making this video Causew, I feel like anyone who cares about the gameplay and wants to have a better experience in raids needs to watch this. I still vaguely remember that there was some major misinformation/misconceptions about Swimsuit Shiroko and that she was "skippable if you don't care about PvP" which was utterly incomprehensible to me 😭

I'm nearing my 1-year playtime of BA and this vid sure was a wake-up call

really good video, i always get reminded of this when new players ask streamers, which student to reroll for. There really arent many non limited "must have students" (and really not many limited ones either) that universally help you especially when it comes to raids. It additionally helps, that most students in blue archive are usable, just not "best in slot" for the very best speedrun tactics out there.

As a day 1 NA player this is spot on. Those "niche" pulls I have done throughout the game (from Chihiro and Natsu to Reisa and S.Saki) are the reason I've been able to clear the max difficulties as they come. That lesson along with learning the deeper mechanics of how the game works (positioning etc) are very important if you actually care to "git gud" Great vid, keep it up

This video was meant for me. I've been only doing extreme difficulty bc i just throw in a team with "meta" units in it. Thanks for sharing ur opinion on this. I've been playing for about a year now and am inspired to try and clear insane raids :)

I like ur final conclusion and I feel like this is also a problem that's compounded by the fact that when starting blue archive the "game" at lower levels barely feels like the game at high levels because lots of lower level content seems designed to let new players steamroll through it without much thought cause I didn't have to think a single thing about the mechanics until I was trying to beat story Hieronymus at level 35 with barely any blue units

Great vid discussing gameplay issues that people are having problem with. I personally have to thank you for all the SCHALE raid tactics vids because I feel like I move up from beginner phase thanks to those. Looking forward to more of your vid that focus on discussing gameplay 😆

Great video! Helps fill in the gaps that the community was missing. Keep up the great work.

You can clear most content in this game with only meta gacha students (the cutoff I consider is 15% usage rate on the bluearchive-ranking site) and farmables to fill then niches. I cleared all 3 colors of Insane Peroro without Natsu/Resia, Insane Kurokage without Atsuko/Kikyou, Torment Wakamo without Tsukuyo/Meru, etc. Having 6 months foresight from JP and being able to look up their clears and see who you need to farm in advance really helps, to the point that I don't see the need to roll for any niche student even for all the upcoming torments.

Being a 3 week old player and still only at beginners run this video help me. And still learning the difficulty of Blue Archive

Honestly this... is really well made, wow It's true that niche units are sometimes required to be built for some of the content, like for example fury of sets on the JP server requiring you to build someone like Hanako, Sakurako and the new-ish 10 cost unit Band Yoshimi for easier clear.

8:40 I find it funny you mentioned that, since that's how long I took to beat my first torment since I started (yellow goz)😂😂 thanks for the video tho, it will be pretty helpful for many people, keep up the good work!!

I hope this video can reach the people who really needs it Looking forward to more of this kind of discussion!

Finally it is here time to unbrick

I joined late, at a bad time and did my best learning about the game and the mechanics. I would say I couldn’t have gotten far without my club and this guide definitely helps me with understanding the game better

Still a new player, but something that opened my eyes to this fact was trying to do hieronimus in the story I grabbed a comp that I saw online and I kept doing small changes to try to boost my chances against him, but most changes would just make things worse, every student I had was key to my victory, every single upgrade counted, and the difference between victory and defeat after a lot of tweaking and upgrading came to a couple of mutsuki damage upgrades That was the first time I felt the strategy element of this game, since beginner content tends to be either too easy or just obviously meant for me to do later when I have a higher level / better students Gonna chill for now doing my meta pulls and leveling up, but it's good to keep in mind that every student has a space somewhere

13:37 Feels like I needed to hear that tbh. I had to settle with Goz ext, and while it certainly didn't feel great, I think I might be able to clear ins next time. I might have been able to clear blue ins actually if I invested in blue units, but I chose to keep these investments for Wakaboat ins instead.

I really really liked how you made justice to niche students. I entered the game only by the artistic side, but since i beat Binah in extreme after a whole week of planning , i started to enjoy the gameplay more and more. I mean, if the gameplay per se wasnt addicting in itself, i wouldnt have played all the stages as soon as possible, but using students and teams that i wouldnt even imagine in common stages is just awesome. I will still be pulling for waifus and stuff, but aiming for the best of both worlds, since no students are useless, after all.

Great video. On the topic of helping more people try to solve end game raids, I wish there were more raid videos where they avoid using the newest gacha units specifically created for the next raid, but rather use farmable or meta units that most people are likely to own. I know you make no gacha 3* challenges and they're fun to watch but in the end it's an artificial restriction for fun since most people doing insane or torment most likely already have Mika/Ako/S.Hoshino/etc.

I really get you about the 'speedrun' guides. Some become really annoyed when they can not make it like in the guide. They are resetting a lot for the RNG, they do not have X character o can't make it with 1 team. When I got tired of the about the RNG, I understood that it's okay to be creative and fight the raid by other ways. After all, I accomplished what I wanted: Beat Insane and reach Platinum Rank. In fact, Torment is when you have be more creative than ever. If you check the teams of the top 100, you'll see dudes that use like 6 teams to beat it. That's really dedication, haha.

When I started playing BA, the students I pulled for were partly based on the amount of resources I had at the time. If I already used a ton of tech notes and blue rays for a Millennium student, I'd probably be less likely to pull for another Millennium student or maybe the event shop had resources for Gehenna, but I needed those resources for a student I was already investing in so I would opt out of pulling for the newest banner.

Not mentioning my don't pull Azusa video smh

This was great! I’m still quite new to the game and think this is a much better way of approaching it, for me.

Great video man. I started playing BA a week before the Mika banner (rip NYFuuka T_T). My first successful insane run was at Perorodzilla GA with red bcos I was lucky to get spooked by Natsu during the SHanako banner and without her, I would not be able to form a 3-pan team with Natsu/Mari/Utaha. Next raid was hovercraft but I didn't have the required CC units nor the multi hit units for the second phase. It was a wakeup call for me to UE40 Kayoko as fast as possible including the fact the Hod GA is coming soon. Although SChise will be nice, I decided to pull for SIzuna and TYuuka (which helped me lot in Goz and ShiroKuro) knowing for the fact that I will mald more with Kayoko but it's the mald that I accepted. On to today's hovercraft raid, it is still one of my weakest insane clears with my rushed build on Neru but thankfully still enough for plat. One of the niche units that I would like to get spooked in the future is Tsukuyo especially in Kaiten and Hovercraft phase 1. It just to show how niche units make runs a lot lot comfier. I do admit I'm one of those people who tries to replicate the speedrun vids because I know for the fact that with the limited resources I got for now, I want to clear raids with minimum investment as much as possible but knowing more often or not that I may not have the exact units nor investment that they have I always try the runs first in mock battles to see if the run can be done comfortably with at least 1 to 2 rotations late or the mald is not worth it at all. Hopefully when I get more resources and investment in the future, I can start attempting some torment runs where niche units are even more important :))

Amaizing algorithm, I just rushed through the gran assaault of Shiro/Kuro and was only ably to do 1 of the elements in insane. I was just thinking why was I struggleing so much, after all, I have almost all meta students and this is not even torment difficulty. This has been an eye openner for me.

This made think how should i aproach with future content, after pulling on the annivery banner i'm going to start pulling with one boss in mind so i could do a comfy run in the future

I hopped in blue archive with the if cute = pull mindset often not being able to spark the niche units such as S.Hanako, NY.Kayoko, etc. and for a while I was Akoless cuz of it But I accepted the fact that I will never clear torment or a newly released boss in insane cuz I basically signed up for it Example is Kurokage, I do have Kikyou but being S.Hanakoless/Himeless means that Im stuck in extreme unless I mald with Koharu But luckily here in Asia server insane clear is guarantee plat and a good extreme can give you plat

I've been looking forward to this video ever since I saw your community post about it, since as much as I was pulled into BA by the characters (only took me like 2 years to actually decide to give Nexon another chance and download it) I am inherently a person that will gradually want to progress further into a game's difficulty, even if I express my reluctance to do so. This video resonates with me more than I expected to. While I still feel the need to have some form of establishment (I've been playing for a little over 4 months now), I want to be able to punch upwards to insane in any raid by the end of February 2025. Might be a lofty goal, but that's a challenge I'm willing to accept. The boss I decided to tackle in this regard is Hovercraft because that was my first raid experience in this game and I didn't even know about borrows, nor even join the official Discord at the time, so I ended up staying on Hard, not even sure if I should even do more than 1 team. Thus, Hovercraft is personal to me. Plus, one of my waifu plans (S.Nonomi) would be great to have for that fight. So here I am, four months later, satisfied with my Extreme clear, but proceeded to get my ass kicked in Insane. I could feel my initial plan getting closer (closest I got was 1.75m HP remaining), but ultimately I'm just not ready. Fortunately I have most of what I need, I just need to put more investment into them by the time it returns in GA so that I can accomplish my goal of beating Insane. I'm fairly confident I could do phase 2, but when I can't even beat phase 1, my ideas for phase 2 bodythrowing are meaningless until then. I might have been a bit overconfident thinking this too since I don't even have Neru (YET). Plus, throughout this week, I had the realization that Hifumi could have more use applications than I expect, so I'll definitely need to work on her some more to make some other raids comfortable. So overall, to me, this video confirms what I've been feeling in regards to my goal and what I expected. Can't wait to see what more you'll talk about!

I've only been playing for 4 months, I'm lvl 81, but I figured out early that I have to prioritize things, so I pull and build based on: A=do I need the unit for pvp, now or in the future B=will the unit help me beat kurokage or future purple content C=will the unit be necessary for tower content A=most important B=will pull C=will pull if doesn't conflict with A or B I'm intentionally planning for the future bc I am not going to be competitive until the future (except pvp, I'm doing well already)

finding this out after skipping every banner from fest to fest (except tyuuka, tmari obtained from a yolo GA pull, the one collab unit, another yolo GA ticket, and c.hare) is wild, but ive only been playing for a couple of months so ive probably got time to fix my mistakes

This is a topic I can relate to a lot, getting to experience it first hand on Kurokage. For some context: I am still a rather new player, starting on Global shortly before SHanako, so about 6 months ago. I do spend some money on the game which has helped me progress somewhat faster, at least as far as acquiring more students than otherwise possible. Still, being new, I am limited in how many resources I have to actually level, gear and skill up my students and I had to settle for Extreme clears (not that I am unhappy with that). And that brings us to Kurokage's release: Knowing how good SHanako is in that raid I had hoped to get my first ever Insane clear. But my resources being limited as they still are I did not have enough power to 1-team it and that is where the problems started. For a second team I will need to borrow a second SHanako. And that means not being able to borrow a suitable healer that I can not provide myself yet. In the end I was once again left to Extreme (though I am rather proud of getting a really high score for the that difficulty). Of course in my situation there is nothing I could have done about it. Some students that would have helped me a lot have simply not run yet within my playtime or I have simply not had the opportunity to farm them. But imagining that this is a situation I am in not due to circumstances but out of neglecting to pick up the right tools for the job would hurt a lot.

My eyes have been open now. Time to take this advice into practice, thank you

This is so real; everyone was fixated on Wakamo and Maid Aris as a blue dealer but no one told me how good Hinata was. I ended up being the only one to UE50 her in my club and she's so useful for Goz and Peroro

I like to think that I had assembled 'most' everyone I need to start clearing real end game (Torment), but for this Hovercraft raid I tapped out at 8 million HP left in phase 2. I simply didn't have the damage needed to finish the job. And this coming from someone who managed to do yellow Torment for Goz and thought I had finally arrived. That's because I may have all the students I need (or can borrow for) insane speed runs, but the students in team 3 and beyond are all still not built, so they cannot do the damage they need against a level 90 boss.

It’s a bit hard to know if I’m still supposed to be in the beginner phase or not because I’m a F2P Player that began playing when S.Ui/S.Hinata banners debuted on global. I still have a lot of students to build up, so it’s taking time to do that. Doesn’t help when I basically haven’t used my eligma at all aside from getting Serina to 2*. But I also just feel like I haven’t pulled too much. Just on like 6 banners total (S.Hinata, S.Hanako, T.Yuuka, Himari, Kikyou, C.Hare), and only 2 of them even made it to spark limit… To this day, I’m still mostly locked behind doing extremes (but did get plat once from being able to do Yellow Goz Insane with a borrowed Mika). It’ll take time for me before I feel ready for niche pulls.

Ngl this is very very good video and very different from any other Blue Archive video I had seen ty

Hope you expand more on this ideas soon, I belive the game need more opportunities for forgotten student, I started playing on December but some veterans told me the AA students were meta and attack speed was a big deal before, I'm a bit frustrated for the current Wakamo raid I feel I'm close to make it in Insame but my C. Kotama is not UE40 so the she can't land the third stun with a single Ex skill.

So this is the exact guide for me. I'm already Max level, have tons of ☆5 student, some of them are UE40~UE50, Max gear, all fes students are present, etc. I know how to teach the literal beginners in BA, but holy heck this video taught me how to teach juvenile / mid level players. this kind of guide video is a must-need in this game, thinking how much newbies just quit after they became mid-level players. of course the problem of Ooparts exists, but this guide is surely a good one

This was really good. I want to see more.

I cleared a torment within 6 months of playing (F2P) while completely accepting the fact that I would suffer immensely for lot of future incoming raids due to the amount of investment I put for this one goal. Is it worth it? Absolutely for me (I get to brag at least 😎). Don't be afraid to do/pull whats necessary for your goal. As the video said; Set your goal, prepare for said goal (In this case, pull for niches) , and accept that you won't be able to do everything at first.

On Hanako's banner, I got Koyuki and Reisa on the same 10-pull. The day of reckoning was that day.

Thank you for the video, this is inspiring.❤

Love the video, played since first bunny chaser event in global, and did just end up only rolling on unbrick banners after I got bunny neru. Didn't want to watch clear videos since I knew I wouldn't have the units so most of the time I read the in game tooltips and tried to make teams that way - my fondest memories were definitely from - An early hieronymus where i didn't roll for the arius units and played around with a autoattacking hina - Another early shiro kuro where the teams were just attack speed izuna Those non-ex-skill-damage comps felt really fun and I'd just sit and stare at your text guides and see what I could change here and there During the previous Wakamo Hovercraft raid when I knew I was gonna be comfy in plat, I looked at meru's banner and was like "wow this would be funny to build" and went for it Now that I've reached comfy plat and some torment clears under my belt(just heiro and this wakamo), I use the gem economy I have to put these niche characters up to let my club members try and maybe possibly see some fun comps here and there, and slip in the recommendations here and there for when they ask for budget clear comps XD

The way i learned that i needed a niche character and bet that many of us had is the fact that you usually need more than a songle team of 4 to clear some contents and bosses. For example, i can clear heavy armor bosses easily but that's not the same with special armor. Explosive armor is a 50/50

I’m one of the few staunch believers of waifu over meta. But I know what I got myself into. I know that I’m crippling myself by not pulling for some meta characters I don’t like. Or not using meta characters I did end up getting by accident (like Himari or S. Hoshino). That said, I’m very competitive, and would like to get the highest score possible. So to me at least, I’m always relying on the niche characters anyway to make them work where the universals would shine instead. I guess you could say I have the opposite problem. My only saving grace is the guild, allowing me to borrow a maxed Himari for example. Though recently have had to level her and S.Hoshino due to needing other characters (T.Yuuka and NY Fuuka). But then again, I won’t pull for either when their banner comes, because I know what I’m getting myself into, and I’m content in doing Extreme after starting in December 2023.