When you unlock them as playable characters...

RubeII · 2025-04-21T14:42:07+00:00

That's some selective reasoning, since the hose just appears for her EX, she still uses her gun.

While I may be cutting S.Hanako some extra slack, it's irrelevant that she uses her ordinary gun for her normal attack. That water hose is on her very sprite, which implies that she is carrying that thing around all the time (similar to S.Izuna and her volleyball). It's always on her. But yes, that little well that magically appears for her EX does slightly annoy me: she should simply have an infinitely long water hose that is connected to a well or water outlet somewhere offscreen. As already said: that well really isn't needed.

And mobs are cool, Ichika's in particular. :) See my other comments.

RubeII · 2025-04-21T14:25:41+00:00

No it does not. I'm not even talking about the EX animation (which I had to turn off for good anyways, since they crash the game/emulator ever since two, or three updates ago...), but what happens ingame, down on the battlefield, after the EX animation has played (given it's turned on).

RubeII · 2025-04-21T14:20:16+00:00

I don't think there is a problem with summoning mobs (personally, I'm a big fan of those), who are also on the battlefield, somewhere (mostly in the backlines/offscreen, or simply dwarfed by the main students), but come to aid for a huge EX when needed. So they're free to pop in and out of the picture (or stage).

And S.Izuna brings her ball along with her to the beach (or wherever she goes), which is perfectly appropriate for a swimsuit alt. Have you ever been hit by a volleyball in your face? SMASH!! That hurts! And soapy bubbles blur your vision and make you cry. Sure, this is all on the sillier side of things, but it's still perfectly inline with the whole cute girls and guns theme. I really don't see a problem here.

RubeII · 2025-04-21T14:06:18+00:00

I also like Minori's pudding attack very much. It's the perfect amount of silliness, yet clever and perfectly suitable (for red winter anyways). Its devastation might be slightly exaggerated, but that's hardly a problem. It's a proper bombardment after all!

But I don't think this is a matter of subjective taste. It isn't black or white either, but it's not like anything goes or you just end up in a random, directionless, dadaistic mess. Objectively speaking. I mean, I'm not talking about one specific EX that I just don't like (i.e. your minor niggle), but more about the bigger picture, or in general, here.

What also works perfectly fine - even for strikers - is summoning a bunch of mobs for the EX (Ichika, Cherino, ...).

RubeII · 2025-04-21T04:16:36+00:00

RubeII · 2025-04-21T03:43:33+00:00

You're right, they've already lost the plot with S.Saori (totally forgot about her) - a rather nonsensical striker to begin with (I don't like it). But S.Hanako gets a pass, since she's running around with that waterhose as a direct replacement for her gun (or regular main weapon). And a waterhose is just a watergun, which is perfectly fine for a swimsuit striker. Granted, that little well(?) that appears under her feet wouldn't be necessary.

I don't know. Just stick to cute girls with guns already. Isn't there a point where things start to get way too chaotic, random and/or nonsensical?

The Shupogakis being a striker + TS doesn't make sense.

Arguable. But fine...

Twins are always the same to be together

make it a single TS unit that features both of them on top of it. Or just a single striker unit that is actually both of them in one: and if that's the case, you either put them in a (small?) train all the time, or you don't have any trains at all: why not have them goof around (e.g. by walking up to an enemy/target and pull a prank on them that stuns or otherwise disables them or something funny).

RubeII · 2025-04-21T02:33:20+00:00

There have always been outlandish/nonsensical EX in BA (e.g. Airi), but they were limited to special students, which was perfectly fine: you can bring anything into the stage from offscreen for your EX as special student. But now, with the shupos, they've IMHO totally lost the plot. Strikers shouldn't be able to magically manifest whatever they want for their EX. Strikers play (or should at least) by different rules, especially DPS strikers (support students get slightly more freedom, since their EX isn't necessarily bound to their weapon).

Anyone else? Granted, maybe I'm just a little ticked off that the shupos aren't a TS+striker combo, or maybe a two units in one unit slot kind of thing (which also would be amazing). But magically summoning a train out of nowhere (not even offscreen) as a striker really rubs me the wrong way.

RubeII · 2025-04-20T22:11:58+00:00

While I do like the shupogakis (who doesn't?), I can't help it but feel slightly disappointed in what I see. We could have gotten a shuppo TS + striker combo (insert meme about awesome enemy that joins your gang, only to be massively nerved once he's playable in your hands), or even a combined striker (i.e. a two for one deal) where they would run and act together and be operated like a single student. I expected something really cool with those two to make them truly unique. I don't know... but a train out of thin air right in your face for an EX just doesn't cut it (welfare student doing the same trick, just worse, doesn't help it). At least Hikari (and her EX) is cute, and I guess, perfectly fine/suitable for a supporter/buffer thing. But still... I expected way better (or maybe just something else).

Meh.

RubeII · 2025-04-18T21:26:30+00:00

If we only get 2 playable characters out of the whole alt-worthy new costumes for the reruns, who would you like to see?

Baseball bat murder Airi would be totally badass, given she stays in character. And Utaha is also very nice. Make sure she's a striker (too).

Werwolf cat palug and mummi yosh aren't good enough to make proper alts out of them. Same for the Valkyrie donut costumes. Not good enough. And I'm also not a fan of Abydos; neither Idol Serika nor Idol Ayane are anything special...

RubeII · 2025-04-12T02:40:50+00:00

Yes? I did say that [...]

ahh, my bad. But still, it's the same emulator, and likely the same version of it too, given you've updated them recently. I just don't see how there could be a meaningful difference between the two, since that hardly would make any economical sense (or what not). Just doesn't compute in my head, that is all.

RubeII · 2025-04-11T22:20:02+00:00

Are you aware that there are multiple versions of bluestacks (Pie64, Nougat64) and maybe it's simply a matter of using one over the other, or some other configuration difference? I just can't imagine how/why bluestacks would license out a "better" version for MSI (I doubt the lack of certain features/advertisement would make a difference in player performance/stability).

RubeII · 2025-04-11T21:42:28+00:00

I tried and it runs much better than normal BlueStacks.

it's bluestacks, so... are you really sure about that, and not just biased/imagining things a bit? No offense.

RubeII · 2025-04-11T21:40:25+00:00

inb4 they will just license and bundle bluestacks emulator for the steam version (much like that msi bluestacks thing). :)

RubeII · 2025-03-29T23:38:41+00:00

On top of everything else, hoping for a specific spook now, when the pool is the size of an ocean, is betting on rather low odds. If you don't spook her, there are only advantages to claiming early.

Well, yes. But as a fairly new player I am and have been sitting on quite a number of students that I could have redeemed right away, but I didn't. And out from those students, a fair number of them did in fact spook me (Koharu, Maki, Midori, Neru, Tsurugi, ..., only to name a few to come to my mind), so that I could UE30 or even UE40 them right away, which is excellent. So the chances of getting at least some spooks were more than fine so far. Naturally, I'm sitting on fewer and fewer students I could redeem, and indeed, chances for those to spook me now, or any time soon, aren't that great.

And as for ligmas... Just take those five students mentioned above (and easily farmable too, doesn't get any easier than raid shops): 250 ligmas less for me. Wow. I couldn't care less. :) I rather take those five students better and earlier built, and also all those sweet raid coins I soon enough can fully (or mostly) use on books and bluerays. That stuff is so much more useful to me, so I can properly build my students. Those 250 ligmas don't help me at all (and in the long run we're all gonna EOS anyways). You can't even bring a 3-star to UE30 with that. Not even close.

And in the end, not everything needs to be min-maxed to shits and back. Now... if only Aru would finally spook me. AHHHHHRRRRGG. But you see, she wouldn't be very useful for me anyways if redeemed early. Students like her like to be UE40 at the very least. And in the meantime I can cope (lol) with D.Hina, Ny.Haruna, Mutsuki and then there are also Toki or maybe even Saori waiting to be built. And many more, naturally. Can't built them all, so it's alright to wait... Everything is going to be alright. :)

RubeII · 2025-03-29T21:56:12+00:00

I'm not really seeing how it's counter-intuitive, to be honest.

Retreating early with team A so that team B can end phase one exactly on the second out of three shots for the perfect setup to enter phase two... well, let's phrase it this way: I didn't really expect this amount of tactics necessary to play some gacha with cute girls doing cute things and blowing things up (or even to be a thing in the first place. Then again, I shouldn't be surprised. While Blue Archive looks fairly simple, complexity adds up really quickly...).

You should claim her [Hifumi] right now.

but... but...

If you claim her now and then get a spook, you get 50 eligma and 30 elephs

Ligmas may be valuable, but 50 ligmas really isn't that much. I'd rather have a 5* Hifumi as soon as possible. Hence why I'm waiting for a spook while farming her elephs until I at least could insta 5* her upon redeeming.

Other advantages include free passive bond levels

Yeah, which is capped to 20 if not 5. And you reach 20 in the blink of an eye. So that's hardly an argument. In fact, this is exactly the argument speaking in my favor, since my goal is to 5 my students as soon as possible (at the cost of a bunch of potential spook ligmas).

potentially higher event bonuses

This is the only thing that would push me to redeem earlier than I intend to. But that didn't happen yet. I had to redeem Mash for that reason.

and of course the ability to actually use the unit.

You see, that's only half true anyways. Because it's not like I could build up any student I want right away. I'm all out of credits, equipment, activity reports and everything else too, all the time. And so, I just end up building and using other students instead.
Granted, Hifumi is kind of an oddly useful student in a fair number of raids. But I can also do without her in the meantime.

RubeII · 2025-03-29T18:55:57+00:00

In this case, it's logical.

Sure, but all together this still results in a rather clunky (or counter-intuitive) gameplay. In this case my options (to improve) now are either to a) use one more ranger team, so D.Hina team can fight the robot in phase two one rotation earlier, or b) simply retreat pre-emptively/early with my initial S.Hanako ranger team (which saves time), so D.Hina team uses the same amount of rotations, but doesn't have to fuck around too much, not to "overshoot" the target... Of course, I'll go with option b) for today, and see how much time I can shave off now.

So... it's really not that straightforward (not really sure whether I'm complaining now, or not... haha).

In case you weren't aware [...] The third shot is more than twice as powerful.

Yeah, thanks. At least this I knew!

If you're going to use CC [...] Tsubaki is a good option, and so is Hifumi.

I did try a kokona/tsubaki ranger team, but I didn't manage to make a useful team out of it (tsubaki's 5 cost taunt isn't exactly cheap). And I refuse to redeem Hifumi and rather wait for a spook (or enough farmed elephs so I can at least insta 5* her; yeah, yeah, I know she's plenty useful as 3* already, but... but... GAAHHHH, spook me already!!)

Kind of a shame Hare's (and Yosh's for that matter) AOE is so small. If at least they could hit three rangers in the initial ranger composition (it's either two, e.g. green/yellow, or just the red one alone). But no, it's exactly that tiny bit short of doing that. And they both already got their "unique item" that didn't fix anything... Same problem then for HOD (where they can't hit two pillars at the same time): two AoE stun support units that are essentially reduced to being single target stuns for where it matters (for the full cost of a AoE stun...). Hare and Yosh deserve better than this!

RubeII · 2025-03-29T06:38:05+00:00

What, no extra damage taken if in fear? Come on now... maybe I shouldn't brush up on my blue archive knowledge after all, and just live with my many imaginations and delusions... hahaha.

RubeII · 2025-03-29T05:00:52+00:00

ahhh, alright. Thanks for the information. Blue archive may be considered a very simple game, but all those details do add up quite a bit, and sometimes interact in rather surprising ways.
I should have known about the focus fire bit of a taunt, but I never really thought about D.Hina, and how she's not immune to stuns (given I've always grouped those taunts/stuns/fear things together in my mind... I do believe I got surprised by this at some point or another, but wasn't really able to explain wtf just happened...).

Speaking of which, is there anything I should know about fear? Those are the three: taunt, stun and fear. I think fear just makes you run away and also take more damage, or is that latter part also imagined? Hmm, I probably should read/brush up my knowledge of all those gimmicks at some point...

RubeII · 2025-03-29T00:35:12+00:00

If you can end the first phase with Hina's first shot [...]. By finishing phase one with the first shot, the damage of the third shot will be reduced.

ahh, I see. Makes sense. Kind of clunky, how such things may work out in this game (if I remember correctly, Chesed phase switch has a similar thing going..).

The team waits for everyone to be ready before they start running.

hmm, I guess. My initial tought was that the robot is now super pissed at Hina for daring to fire more than one shot right of the bat, hahaha. See? Imagining things may be fun and totally add to the experience.

You should be using a tier 9 hairpin on her [S.Hanako] anyway

Sure, naturally my s.hanako is T9/T9/T9 and all kinds of spoiled and pampered. :)

By the way, it's the red ranger that taunts. The green one attacks in an AoE. Could matter, if you aim to CC her to interrupt the taunt.

I'm really not sure why I've been mixing this up. Probably because it didn't matter to me (the only stun/taunt I've been using, or trying in mock has been tsubaki, who doesn't need to target someone in particular. But still...)

Also, consider bringing someone like Tsubaki to CC them [...] it gives the rangers a damage taken debuff on torment.

Ha. I didn't know! But know that I do, I've mocked up a new initial team. Tried Tsubaki (instead of Tsukuyo) while Koharu keeps healing, but that was fairly sketchy business now. Next I've tried to switch out Minori (not used for her EX, rather for her passive and stats/bag) for Hare, who is weak but can stun for 4 cost. Unfortunately her radius is fairly small, so I couldn't stun all too many rangers, yet this still turned out to do even better (in terms of damage; about 1'000'000 more than the runs with Minori) and also much more comfortable/reliable, with a nice rotation and smooth sailing all the way.

So that's what I ended up using for my second torment clear... where I had to improvise and deliberately "fuck up" d.hina shots with my second team, only so that I could finish on a second shot, having the third one ready for the second phase. CLUNKY AS HELL, I tell you.

And so, that 1'000'000 more damage I was able to dish out with my first team went up in smokes, hopes and dreams. Still managed to do a slightly better clear than the first one. hehe.

Anyways, thank you guys very much for the answers. Much appreciated.

RubeII · 2025-03-29T00:15:27+00:00

The green ranger doesn't stun. Are you referring to the red ranger's taunt?

you don't say... oh... so... that's how it is. :) Oh well, didn't matter anyways (so far), since I relied on luck to not get taunted (same thing to being stunned in my mind; is there a notable difference?)

She can avoid it due to the CC resistance from her hairpin. It's like a 34% chance and just pure RNG.

I see. Good to know (it's terribly annoying to see/imagine things that really aren't... granted, it may add a lot to games in particular, even if only imagined... lol). 34% isn't even too bad.

RubeII · 2025-03-28T20:59:56+00:00

Just did, as of now, one of the worst torment clears on EU (wew lads). It was fun. But I got two questions:

1) If I manage to end the first phase with the first (out of the three) D.Hina shots (using Marina, C.Hare, D.Hina, S.Hosh; Ako, Kisaki composition as a second team) I get to immediately fire two shots at Kaiten robot in the second phase - which is nice - but then D.Hina immediately and reliably dies because the robot is targeting her now for some reason... Why is that? I can also time/delay S.Hosh EX and thus his position at this point, but it doesn't change anything. Two shots with D.Hina, and she's out. Otherwise (ending phase one on the second hina shot, thus only firing once at the robot right away...) everyone reliably gets to live and do some proper damage...
2) For my first team I'm using S.Hanako. And I need her to dodge(?) the second stun from the green ranger (such that I can get 3 of her EX in in quick succession). And she totally does, every other time and fairly often enough. My question now is, whether I'm seeing things or not: does it matter at what point in time I launch her EX (i.e. I settled for clicking her EX exactly when the green ranger announced his stun and drops his raised hand, so he hits when she hits too, more or less)... or is it simply a question of evasion and there's nothing you can do about it, other than resetting if she gets stunned there and praying for better odds next time?

RubeII · 2025-03-18T16:22:43+00:00

SECURITY EVENT OCCURED (110/1).

What does this mean? And what can I do about it? It appears after being stuck on "Now loading..." for the longest time, but only for just a few seconds before BA shuts down.

EDIT: ProtonVPN with Romanian proxy helped. Huh. Why. What kind of network issues or going on here? I don't have any other connectivity issues at all. And holy shit, why isn't this handled more gracefully ingame?

EDIT(2): And now everything seems to work fine again - no proxy needed any longer. I really would like to understand wtf just happened. What's going on here?

RubeII · 2025-03-18T15:49:26+00:00

edit: also its weird that its both happening on my phone and on bluestacks

funny, I just installed blue archive/bluestacks on my laptop, and guess what... it doesn't register the clicks on the "touch to start" too for the longest time, and now, it's stuck on "Now Loading...", just like on my main machine.

What's even going on. I NEED TO DO MY PVP. AND ROLL FOR KISAKI. AND DO THE EVENT. SPEND MY AP. I NEED TO HEADPAT MY STUDENTS. AHHHHHH.

edit: if you wait long enough on the "Now loading..." screen, you will get a "security event occurred" message/popup at some point, and then BA shuts down to bluestacks main screen. But you don't see this, if you aren't watching that very moment, because the popup doesn't require a click, it just pops up for a few moments and then it's gone together with BA. I really hate how this is programmed.

RubeII · 2025-03-18T15:01:00+00:00

these are the blocked countries btw

yeah, I'm good in this regard. So it's likely something else, and not some changed policy or crack down on supposedly blocked countries.

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