Foreword
In terms of meta relevance, if you only have enough rolls to roll on one banner, then it is recommended that you roll for Stylet as she is useful in more content than Baselard.
Stylet’s kit provides her with extremely high single target damage and allows her to be deceptively tanky which means that she will shine against PvE bosses and in PvP matches.
- A well-built Stylet is more than capable of soloing Target Elimination bosses and winning PvP matches all on her own.
- Upon release, she will also be the only unit that is capable of preventing an enemy unit from being revived, though note that she will require her Exclusive Armament to be at least Level 20 to unlock this ability.
Baselard really only shines in Ultimate Arena, so if that is your sole focus, then feel free to roll for Baselard instead of Stylet.
- In Ultimate Arena, her excellent ability to reduce the raid boss’ combat effectiveness via debuffs and buff strips will be a great help to your team’s offensive power and survivability.
- Her ability to inflict the Attack Reduction, Greater SPD Reduction, and ACC Reduction debuffs on the raid boss will greatly hamper the boss’ offensive capabilities, allowing your team to survive longer and do more damage to the boss.
- Baselard is also very good at stripping buffs from the boss as well which will let your team essentially ignore any defensive buffs that the boss put on herself as well as removing any offensive buffs that might lead to an early end for your team.
All three collab units use collab-exclusive upgrade materials for their skills and exclusive armaments. You will not receive enough upgrade materials to max out the collab unit’s skills and exclusive armaments as a F2P, so plan your resources wisely
Below is the total number of collab-exclusive upgrade materials that you can obtain from event rewards:
- Due to the way that the event shop works, the materials listed below only consist of the materials that can be obtained without using Virtual Crystals.
- Gourai Skill Chips: 33
- 33 from Point Accumulation Reward Track
- Gourai Armament Application: 68
- 68 from Point Accumulation Reward Track
- Kotobuki Nippers*: 190
- 30 from Log In Bonus
- 60 from Point Accumulation Reward Track
*Kotobuki Nippers is an upgrade material for Gourai, Stylet, and Baselard’s Exclusive Armament
In addition to the upgrade materials above, you can also spend Virtual Crystals to obtain additional collab-exclusive upgrade materials from the event shop. For the purposes of this guide, we will assume that you have 2020 Virtual Crystals to spend as this is the maximum amount that you can obtain if you do not roll on the collab banners. If you have a different amount of Virtual Crystals to spend, then you will need to factor in the difference when making your purchases in the event shop.
How you should spend these will depend on what your goals are. Below are some general guidelines.
Option 1: Completely Max Out One Unit
When it comes to choosing which of the three units you should max, the priority is Stylet > Baselard > Gourai.
- This is due to Stylet being a meta defining unit in PvP and she can also act as a great boss killer as well in PvE.
- Baselard only shines in Ultimate Arena and does not need to be fully upgraded to shine in her role.
- Gourai, when fully upgraded, can dish out extremely high AoE damage. However, in terms of practical use, she is only relegated to being a niche cleaver in PvP.
If this is the approach that you want to take for upgrading your collab unit, then you can buy:
- 33 Stylet/Baselard Skill Chips (660 Virtual Crystals)
- Note that all 33 of Gourai’s Skill Chips can be obtained for free via the Point Accumulation Reward Track, so you can skip this buy if Gourai is the unit that you want to upgrade.
- 68 Armament Application of the unit that you want to upgrade (680 Virtual Crystals)
- Note that all 68 of Gourai’s Armament Applications can be obtained for free via the Point Accumulation Reward Track, so you can skip this buy if Gourai is the unit that you want to upgrade.
- Combined with the 160 Kotobuki Nippers from the Point Accumulation Reward Track, this will be enough resources to fully upgrade all of the skills and Exclusive Armament of one of the Frame Arm Girls collab units.
After these two purchases, you will be left with 680 Virtual Crystals. With this amount of Virtual Crystals, you do have enough to purchase another 33 skill chips (660 Virtual Crystals) to max out all of the skills of a second collab unit.
Option 2: Spread your resources between multiple units
The unit upgrade priority still remains the same, which is Stylet > Baselard > Gourai..
If this is the approach that you want to take for upgrading your collab unit, then some recommended options you have are listed below:
Option 1:
- 44 Stylet/Baselard Skill Chips (880 Virtual Crystals)
- 68 Armament Application of the unit that you want to upgrade (680 Virtual Crystals)
- 28 Armament Application of the second unit that you want to upgrade (280 Virtual Crystals)
- This will allow you to max out 2 skills for 2 collab units as well as upgrading the Exclusive Armament for 1 collab unit to Level 30 and another to Level 10.
- You will have 180 Virtual Crystals left
Option 2:
- 44 Stylet/Baselard Skill Chips (880 Virtual Crystals)
- 48 Armament Application of the unit that you want to upgrade (480 Virtual Crystals)
- 48 Armament Application of the unit that you want to upgrade (480 Virtual Crystals)
- This will allow you to max out 2 skills for 2 collab units as well as upgrading the Exclusive Armament for 1 collab unit to Level 20 and another to Level 20.
- You will have 180 Virtual Crystals left
Upgrading skills and EA
When it comes to upgrading skills and Exclusive Armaments for the collab units, below are some general guidelines and recommendations.
Skills:
- Gourai
- Skill Priority Upgrade: S3 > S2 > S1
- Max out all of her skills since her skill chips are unique to her, so there is no other use for them.
- Note that you will need to complete around 90% of the Point Accumulation Reward Track in order to get enough of her skill chips to max out all three skills.
- Stylet
- Priority 1: S2 to +4
- This is so that she has a 100% chance to gain her Dodge Boost buff at the start of the battle.
- Priority 2: S3 to max
- Stylet’s S3 is her single target nuke ability, so you want it to be as strong as possible.
- Priority 3: S1 to max
- Stylet counterattacks with her S1 whenever she dodges an enemy attack, so you also want this skill to be as strong as possible.
- Priority 4: Finish upgrading S2 to max
- Baselard
- Priority 1: S3 to +3
- To reduce the CD of the skill by 1, so that it comes back up faster.
- Priority 2: S2 to max
- Same reasoning as above, you want to reduce the CD of this skill as much as possible, so that it comes back up faster.
- Priority 3: S1 to max
- This is mainly to increase the chance for her S1 to strip a buff from the enemy that she is attacking.
- Priority 4: Finish upgrading S3 to max
Exclusive Armament:
Gourai
Gourai’s Exclusive Armament needs to be at least Level 20 for it to provide any meaningful upgrade to her as at Level 20, she will be able to give a party wide Attack Buff when using S3. However, given the limited collab-exclusive upgrade materials that F2P or low spenders have access to, it is generally a better idea to spend those upgrade material on either Stylet or Baselard instead.
Stylet
Upgrade to Level 30, though at a minimum, you should aim for Level 20.
- At Exclusive Armament Level 20, Stylet’s S3 gains the ability to prevent units that she kills with S3 from being revived.
- At Exclusive Armament Level 30, Stylet’s counterattack damage is increased by 30% which will allow her to one shot or close to one shot squishy DPS units in PvP.
Baselard
Upgrade to Level 20
- At Exclusive Armament Level 20, Baselard will gain enough Energy at battle start to proc her S2 counterattack immediately after the first enemy attack.
Expiration information
Collab Exclusive Upgrade Materials do not expire. You do not need to rush any upgrades during the collab event period. The “timer” that is displayed above each of their icons is only to signify the amount of time left before you can optionally exchange them for regular upgrade materials. For more details, see the Post-Event Collab Material Exchange section.
On the other hand, Virtual Crystals do expire. They will expire at the end of the event shop exchange period, so make sure that you spend all of them before then.
Priority of items to buy with leftover Virtual Crystals
- 1. Stylet/Baselard Skill Chips
- These can be exchanged for Advanced Decoder Chips to upgrade the skills of your regular 5 star units
- 2. Stylet/Baselard Armament Application
- These can be exchanged for Polymeric Power to help you speed up the Exclusive Armament process for your regular 5 star units
- 3. Kotobuki Nippers
- These can be exchanged for Exclusive Armament Upgrade Materials to help save you some stamina
- 4. Any of the regular upgrade materials that you need
For spending players, there are collab-exclusive upgrade material packs in the cash shop that are available for purchase. If you already have the collab unit that you want and are only missing upgrade materials after spending all of your Virtual Crystals, then it is more cost efficient to buy the upgrade material packs for the missing materials over buying more gacha pulls to get more Virtual Crystals.