Granblue Fantasy Guide: Beginner's Help with Classes, the Casino, Weapons and more

Granblue Fantasy is a huge mobile game, and it can be a bit overwhelming to play even with its built-in tutorial that guides you at the beginning. We present below a simple beginner's guide to get you informed enough with the game's most important mechanics. If you are still at a lost on how to install Granblue Fantasy for both PC and mobile, Zack wrote up a great and simple guide on how to set everything up and running, as well as how to transfer your accounts inbetween.

It is highly recommended that you create an account when the Premium Gala (also known as Flash Gala) banner event is up. These usually occur at the end or the start of each month. Creating an account during this period will give you a larger variety of characters you can buy on your beginner's ticket if you intend on spending money.

After playing the tutorial at the beginning, the game will force you to draw a character. You will be provided free 10 rolls for a first time player. This roll is guaranteed to give one of the 6 possible SSR characters:

• Zeta (Fire, Role: Attacker)
• Melleau (Earth, Role: Attacker)
• Carmelina (Wind, Role: Debuffer)
• Charlotta (Water,  Role: Tank)
• De La Fille (Light, Role: Support)
• Lady Grey. (Dark, Role: Debuffer)

If you don't like the results of your roll, you can unlink your account and reroll for the desired result. You might get a temporary IP ban if you create too many accounts in a short span of time, so be wary. 

When you're set to play, you want to get a grasp on the characters you're using. Early teams are focused on getting resources so you can draw more characters. However, this won't be your only main concern once you pass chapter 30 as your progression will most likely be hindered by difficult bosses and you will need to understand more on how to play the game to progress further.

Class System

The class system represents the protagonist's role in a battle. At the start of the game, you will play as a fighter and by reaching its max level (Level 20), you can unlock new classes or even a stronger version of a similar class. Most classes can be unlocked by reaching the max level of two different classes, while some classes require you to complete a certain quest to unlock. Another thing required for unlocking classes is CP, which is earned by raising your rank. They can also be purchased using Moons, a currency for obtaining duplicates when drawing characters. Other benefits also include raising your stats permanently so be sure to level up each class. If you are unsure about each class' role in battles, we've provided a simple break down below.

• Fighter
  • Role: DPS
  • Higher Tier Class: Warrior, Weapon Master, Berserker
  • Overview: The fighter is your basic melee attack class, their skills kit is simple. A buff to boost strength for all allies including other players, and the skill to instantly charge your C.A. (your special skill).  The fighter is an easy-to-play class, but they don't have the required utility to for certain battles, and will need the support of other players for more difficult battles.
• Knight
  • Role: Tank
  • Higher Tier Class:  Sentinel, Holy Saber, Spartan
  • Overview: Knight is your tank class, providing a great range of abilities to allow you to survive attacks that can be fatal. Due to the limits of healing items you can use in Granblue, a knight is always required during raid battles. Their role of providing damage-reducing abilities makes them a great asset for all battles.
• Priest
  • Role: Tank
  • Higher Tier Class:  Cleric, Bishop, Sage
  • Overview: Priest is your standard healing class, which will work out on all situations. As you fight stronger bosses, you will fiind yourself fighting bosses that can cause a huge range of abnormal statuses. With a cleric, you can learn skills to grant status immunity (Veil) and the ability to clear ailments. This makes them an excellent support class for all situation. When you unlock the higher tier version, you willl learn the ability to dispel enemy buff. This can be used to fight bosses that requires a Dispel. 
• Wizard
  • Role: Burst Damage
  • Higher Tier Class: Sorcerer, Hermit, Warlock
  • Overview: The magician series of Granblue is focus on burst damage. They have skills that can unleash a huge amount of damage in a short number of turns, which allows you to clear lower level content much easier. However their class lacks the utility required for more difficult battles and their skills suffer from very limited use. Mastering this class though will allow you to permanently increase your skill damage which will benefit you in the long term. 
• Thief
  • Role: Quality of Life Improvements
  • Higher Tier Class: Raider, Hawkeye, Bandit Tycoon
  • Overview:  The thief class is not really effective in battle. Their main purpose is to use Bounty Hunter, a skill that can raise enemy drop rate. They do have skills that can unleash massive damage based on enemy current state (Break, Overdrive mode), but other than that, you mainly want to use a thief to unlock other job classes or raise the drop rate.
• Enhancer
  • Role: Debuffer
  • Higher Tier Class: Arcana Dueler, Dark Fencer, Chaos Ruler
  • Overview: Enhancer is one of the best class branches in Granblue. Their main use is to debuff enemies. In Granblue, debuffing bosses is the key of victory. As you unlock the higher tier version of this class, you will have a stronger debuff abilities including status ailments. Unlike most RPGs, 90% of the ailments work on bosses in Granblue. Other skills, includies delaying enemy attack, will prevent bosses from using their ultimate attack which can allow you to survive some of the more difficult fights. For this reason Enhancer can easily find a role in raid battles.
• Grappler
  • Role: DPS
  • Higher Tier Class: Kung Fu Artist, Ogre, Luchador
  • Overview:  The Grappler is the monk class of Granblue Fantasy. Their only weapon of choice is using their fist, which really limits the selection of weapons you can equip. As for the class itself, they're a DPS class that sort of relies on niche abilities. These include an ability to counterattack, and the abilitiy to raise attack power at the cost of your defense. Due to their poor utility, you will be much more effective using other classes at the beginning. However, if you managed to unlock their final class, the Luchador, you will be rewarded with a very strong DPS class that provides a whole range of uiltitly that Fighter series don't have.
• Ranger
  • Role: DPS
  • Higher Tier Class: Archer, Sidewinder, Nighthound
  • Overview: The ranger is a jack of all trades class, they have a bunch of attack skills that can weaken enemies and the ability to dodge incoming attacks. Your main priority with using this class is to unlock the higher tier version as their abilities are superior in every form. Their abilities are similiar to the Enhancer series, but can provide you with much higher burst damage but with a bit less utility, making it overall a solid class to focus on.
• Harpist
  • Role: Buffer
  • Higher Tier Class: Bard, Superstar, Elysian
  • Overview: The harpist is a unique buff class. Their skills kit will change completely as you unlock their stronger version. Their lower class counterpart will provide buffs to raise your healing potential, and the abilitiy to charm enemies. As you unlock the final two tiers of this job class, you will end up with a class that will buff your attack rate and abilities to reduce enemy debuffs. As a result, the lower tier class can still be viable on certain situations (for example, Bosses that requires charm, or healing, etc) while the higher tier version is more suitable as an attack buffer. If you manage to unlock the final version of this class chain, the Elysian, you will have one of the strongest buffer in the game along with the abilitiy to customize your abilities as you see fit.
• Lancer
  • Role: DPS
  • Higher Tier Class:  Dragoon, Valkyrie, Apsaras
  • Overview: The Lancer is another DPS class that provides a different set of buff compared to the Fighter counterpart. They have an ability to raise your multi-attack rate and have strong burst attacks that can weaken bosses. Their main use is kind of limited as other classes can provide more ulitily and support in raid battles. If you manage to unlock the final version of this job series, you will get the Apsaras. However, the Apsaras has a completely different skill set than its starting class and plays more like a stronger version of the Grappler class.

Casino

When you reach chapter 8, you will gain access to the Casino Resort. Going to the Casino can let you purchase goods with Casino Chips, which includes costumes, summons, and even materials to farm your daily goods. The great thing about the Casino is that you don't have to spend any real money, you just need to purchase everything with Casino Chips. Every week, the game will provide you some casino chips as you login. If you really want the big prizes, you will need to play Poker. The odds will be against you, but just winning that big prize will give you enough chips to purchase all your daily needs. The rules of Poker is that you will draw 5 cards, and you are given the choice to discard any card you want. If you manage to draw a winning hand, which can be two pairs, three to five of a kind, or flushes. You can play the double up, where you have to guess if the upcoming card is higher or lower than your current hand. This is the most stable source of farming casino chips, and you want to further risk going for the big prize, there is also the Bingo option. 

Understanding the Weapon Grid

In most games, your stats will be based on the weapon you're currently using. However, this does not apply to Granblue. The system works as an accumulation of your entire weapon grid, and each weapon has their own unique skills that will stack on each other. Stacking these weapon levels is the key to progression. Each weapon has a level cap, which can be raised by finding a duplicate or using Damascus Bar. If you have stumbled on these bars, DO NOT USE THEM. It might sound insane, but these bars are extremely limited in supply, and there is no reliable way of finding them unless you fork out money. You do not want to use these bars unless they are for the ultimate or the rarest weapons. If you ever manage to find a Gold Bar, NEVER USE IT on a weapon. A gold bar can be used to unlock the 10 Eternals (the strongest characters) in Granblue. 

For starting players, you'd want to amass a collection of weapons to fill your grid, not prioritizing raising their level caps by sacrificing a spare. 

Farming the Weapon Grid

Depending on what sort of character you managed to roll, you want to focus on gathering weapons suitable with their element type. In earlier parts, a combination of elements can get you through battles with ease. However, as you progress further, you will need to take advantage of elemental weakness to stand a chance through building your weapon grid. It can also depend on what kind of player you are, if you're the Free-to-Play type or the Pay-to-Win type. If you're going the free route, you want to start focusing on fighting Omega/Magna bosses. These bosses will drop an SSR Weapon along with a Summon, which will give these weapons a bonus effect. These bosses are very strong for new players, but you can call for help from other players by hosting the raid. Hosting a battle will give you a red treasure chest, and you can get another red chest from dealing the highest damage to the boss. The reason you want these red chests is that they have a 10% drop rate of the SSR items. 

For beginners, the best element to start is Wind, as it has a great SSR summon that can be bought without spending actual money and great weapons from the Omega Bosses. However, Wind Element is also one of the weakest for end game and you may struggle to keep up with other elements.

Note: Elements such as Light and Dark does not suffer from elemental weakness. However, their Omega weapons has an abysmal drop rate compared to the other elements.

If you're the spender type, the best approach would be based on what sort of summons you rolled. If you managed to get the Primal Summons, (Bahamut, Lucifer, Agni, Shiva, Varuna, Europa, Titan, Alexiel, Grimnir, Hades, Zeus), your whole game plan will revolve on getting premium weapons based on the element of this summons. 

How to Efficiently Upgrade Your Weapons

Raising weapon skill level is the key to boost your maximum damage. However, with each successful weapon upgrade, your success rate is reduced. The fodder weapons use to upgrade your desire weapon can be upgraded with lower rank weapons. By using this method, your fodder weapon will be counted as two. Imagine the current weapon requiring two SR weapons for a 100% success rate; if you use a Level 2 SR weapon, it is the equivalent of using two SR weapons. This is an effective way of upgrading weapons when they reached a higher level.

Boss Patterns

A lot of the bosses in Granblue Fantasy have a unique fight pattern. Most bosses have a Trigger, a special attack that occurs when their HP drop below a certain percentage. The other thing to watch for is their Overdrive Gauge, this bar will let them use their ultimate attack when their charge Diamond is full. Do keep in mind that these aren't always offensive attacks as some of them are buffs. If you manage to deal enough damage to reduce the Overdrive gauge to 0, bosses will go into Break mode. During Break Mode, your characters can hit more frequently and the boss will not use their ultimate skill. For higher level content, you will need to understand a boss' Trigger, especially during Raid battles, as each player can be a liability for not understanding these mechanics.

Notable Events

New players should participate in all events as they are an excellent source of crystals and can let you exchange items that are beneficial to new players.  A frequently occurring event is the Rise of the Beast event, which lets you obtain gold bars and a selection of weapons that comes fully uncapped. New players can still be rewarded despite being outpaced by veteran players. 

Events are also frequent. Every two weeks or so there is always a collaboration event, which lets you obtain unique SR characters limited to the event. If you miss out on an event, occasionally there will be reruns after some time. Some events are also added permanently as a Side Story event.