Common questions asked by new players, compiled from community discussions and veteran player advice.
Getting Started
How important is rerolling?
Getting a Premium/Limited hero early helps, but is not required.
The heroes you get for free are a solid foundation to start off with.
Aside from Recruiting, you can farm regular heroes you don't have in the Doppelgänger Challenge too, given enough time (8 days each after completing their Side Story).
Heroes & Pulling
Who do I pull for?
Outerplane aims to use a wide range of heroes, rather than focusing on a small core group, so the goal is to have most heroes available.
goes to Limited heroes (Seasonal, Festival, Collab banners) as a priority. They don't necessarily stand above other heroes, but they are only available during their banner and can make certain fights easier. Collect at least at 3-star when their banner is up.
Premium
The Premium banner lets you change your rate up target at any time. Our recommended order is listed in the dedicated guide.
Should I pull for dupes?
Regular heroes can be farmed in the Doppelgänger Challenge, so pulling multiple copies is not required. Unlocking a 3-star hero without recruiting them takes 250 hero pieces, transcending takes 150 per step(*). So recruiting regular heroes while farming for their transcends in Doppelgänger is slightly more efficient. New heroes take 3 months to get added to Doppelgänger and Custom Recruit.
(*) Transcend Steps being 4*, 4+, 5*, 5+, 5++, 6* for 900 total pieces required.
• 4★ — for the increased Weakness Gauge Damage is the main target.
• 5★ — if they have an interesting burst 3 effect.
• 6★ — is usually not a priority for regular heroes, since it only grants a stat bonus and 25 AP at battle start.
Premium and Limited heroes transcend primarily via dupes, so these may need multiple copies. How many depends on their individual kits, they generally already work at 3-star. An evaluation of each hero and their transcends is found here.
What team do I start with?
A standard team for Story is a main damage dealer, a crit chance buffer, a Healer and a flexible spot for a debuffer, second damage dealer or buffer, or a Defender. Defenders are not required in most of the story, Healers or Bruisers can handle it.
Healers
Unidentified Chimera for armor set like 
Speed and 
Crit Damage.
Glicys and 
Blazing Knight Meteos for weapons/accessories.
A party that focuses on 
Earth & 
Fire heroes would be beneficial as a first team to work on. The long term goal is having teams in each element, but focus on building one team at a time. Having one strong team ready speeds up upgrading your next one.
Tip: You can use friends' support heroes up to stage 10, so this is not a strict requirement.
Where do I go first?
Eva's Guide Quests in game will point you around the various gamemodes while clearing Story.
Under Challenges, the Special Requests will let you unlock a strong starter pack of 6 heroes, along with gear and upgrade materials for them.
Experience is slow at the start, progress through the Bandit Chase stages to get more food daily.
Skyward Tower resets monthly, try to get as high as you can.
Gear & Equipment
How do I get gear?
Eva's Guide Quests and Skyward Tower will sort this out while levelling, along with the Challenge! Special Request missions' 6-star legendary gear. When enough Survey Hub or Arena currency is available, these can also offer solid 6-star gear. Farming for gear isn't a big focus until you have cleared Stage 10 on the Special Request bosses, so they can only drop 6-star gear.
Armor Priority
Unidentified Chimera is the first focus for armor, as her sets, Speed, Counterattack, Critical Strike, Fortification offer something for any role. Penetration set from Sacreed Guardian would be stronger for damage dealers, but this boss doesn't offer sets that are generally useful for other roles.
Weapons/Accessories
Weapon and accessory skills depend on the boss, and each boss can only drop accessories with certain main stats.Glicys offers accessories with Speed and Crit Chance main stats (also Defense & Resilience), making her the prime target for Weapons and Accessories to start off with.Meteos is the easy next target, with Penetration, Crit Damage, Health and Effectiveness accessory main stat options. Veronica can solo him at stage 10.
How do I get Exclusive Equipment & Talismans?
Exclusive Equipment
Heroes' Exclusive Equipment is gained by reaching Affinity level 10. Gifts can be obtained via the Black Market Expedition in the base, and farmed in Story boss stages marked by a daily entry limit. Irregular Extermination Project: Pursuit Operations also give gifts when clearing bosses. You can get an Oath of Determination to instant max out Affinity via certain events.
Talismans and Charms
The Archdemon's Ruins' Infinite Corridor is the primary source for Talismans. The Archdemon's Ruins Shop offers one 6-star selector per month. You also get a few from the Challenge! Special Request missions.
What gear is worth keeping?
Don't throw those blues!
Epic gear is the staple, not far behind Legendary and cheaper to upgrade. Once you get to 6-star gear (shouldn't take too long especially with friend supports), it'll be easy for reforged Epic gear to overtake 5-star Legendary gear, or even 6-star legendary with lower substat rolls. Green/Superior gear takes a bigger hit on its main stat, but for Helmet/Armor/Boots these can still turn out well when the substats are strong.
Gear can be reforged as many times as it has stars, which unlocks new substats until there are 4, then randomly increases one by one steps. The maximum total substats are:
6★ Legendary
18 ticks
6★ Epic
17 ticks
6★ Superior
16 ticks
Meaning for armor, where the main stat is usually not going to make or break the fight, the rarity of the gear is not important. Weapons, Accessories and Gloves you would aim for the higher rarities, as the main stat here does matter. Legendary Weapons & Accessories also come with skills. When it drops, the substats can have up to 3 ticks worth before reforging, out of 6 maximum. This isn't common enough to make it the basic requirement, as long as most of the substats are right you can make use of them. Increase the standards for gear to keep or use as materials as your account grows.
When should I start upgrading gear?
Enhancing Weapons will speed up the early game a lot, this is one you can start doing as soon as you notice progress slowing down.
Accessories with crit chance main stat for your damage dealer are the next target to enhance.
Armor won't need enhancements until you're in the later chapters of season 1 (and then +5 should be fine for a while).
Reforge/Breakthrough systems don't become important until you have 6-star gear.
- Substats are the focus at 6-star, so Reforging these will be a big part of your heroes' power.
- Breakthrough increases skill/set effects and upgrades main stats by 5% each (up to 4 times). This is one you can leave until you have gear with good substats which will be useful for a long time.
- Gems for Special Gear are equivalent to one Reforge of the same level. They are a large gold sink to upgrade, so not something to focus on early while gold is still scarce and needed for gear enhancements.
Progression & Resources
Where do I use skill manuals first?
Skill up rule of thumb:
- Level 2 for Weakness Gauge damage
- Effect chance, effect duration & cooldown reductions.
- Damage increases (DPS only)
Chain passive can be left at level 2 until much later, the Weakness Gauge damage increase at level 5 is the only interesting part, so you can save skill manuals here until the more important skills are taken care of.
What Base upgrades should I go for?
You can unlock and upgrade them in the order of Eva's Menu:
1. Antiparticle Generator Max this first!
2. Expedition
3. Synchro Room
4. Kate's Workshop
5. Supply Module
Unlock Quirks & Precise Crafting when they are opened (Clear Season 1 stage 9-5).
Priority for Quirks?
The upgrade order for Quirks depends on what heroes you're using and what boss you're targeting next. From broad impact to more specific: Counteract Strong Enemies, Class, Element.
Your preferred damage dealer subclass (Attacker, Bruiser, Wizard, Vanguard) and their element can go before supporters unless you're having trouble keeping them alive.
Level 5 on the main node is enough to pick up all the side nodes, so you can leave level 6-10 for later.
Utility doesn't help in combat, so picking up these QoL perks is at your own discretion.
How important is joining a guild?
It is a source of weekly skill manuals, and you can get hero pieces for Aer, Ame, Dahlia, Drakhan and Epsilon through it. Look for a guild with a level 5 guild shop. The monthly Guild Raid is also an important source of gems and ether.
Advanced Tips
My hero has skills that scale with health/defense/speed, should I focus on that then?
The key words to look for here are "instead of Attack". When a skill only says its damage increases proportional to a stat, it will still mainly use Attack for its damage calculation. The proportional stat will act as an extra multiplier, but this is generally too small to become the main focus.
Delta(HP instead of ATK)
[Delta S1][Delta S2][Delta S3]
Delta's skills scale proportional to Max Health instead of 
Attack: Focus on 
Health
Demiurge Stella(HP bonus)
[Demiurge Stella S1][Demiurge Stella S2][Demiurge Stella S3]
Demiurge Stella's skills scale proportional to Max Health: Still goes for Attack to increase damage, Health is a bonus.
Against bosses that set your Attack to 0 (Like Shichifuja's Shadow in Skyward Tower Hard): Delta can deal damage normally. Demiurge Stella's damage will reduce to single digits.