Beginner’s Guide – Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Have a question? Here are some answers to some of the most common FAQs.

Q: Can you help me build my team?

A: If you're still in the re-roll phase, check out the Reroll Guide by IceKane.

If you don't know who to use as a starting team, check out the Beginners Quick Start Guide.

For late game content, you will need to tailor your team to match the enemy's elemental weaknesses and their team formation. The game is pretty well balanced, and there is no "one size fits all" team composition in BrownDust2.

The most common formation for clearing very hard PVE content is 3x buffers + 1 attacker or supporter (e.g. to knock back, reduce DEF, charge SP, etc) + 1 attacker. However, you will often need to change your line up against different kinds of enemies.

If you need help with building gear, check out Part 1 of the Gear Guide by IceKane.

Q: What is chain damage?

A: If you hit an enemy more than once in a turn, you will stack 1 "chain" on that enemy. The number of chains you have stacked on each enemy is indicated by a small red chain icon and number next to each enemy during your attack phase. Chain stacks reset at the end of each turn.

Each chain stack on an enemy increases the damage of the next hit by 10%. For example, if you attack an enemy repeatedly in a single turn, the first hit does normal damage (100%), the second hit does 110% damage, the third hit does 120% damage, and so on.

Some units have skills which hit enemies multiple times. These skills are useful for stacking up more chains for higher damage.

Q: Are units with multi-hit skills better than units with single hit skills?

A: Not always. They each have their advantages and disadvantages.

Multi-hit skills are useful because:

• They allow you to stack chains faster (see above).
• They allow you to break through enemies with evasion (e.g. White Cat Rou) and enemies that can block only a certain number of hits (e.g. Admiral Sylvia).

Single hit skills are useful because:

• They are less vulnerable to counterattacks (e.g. Android Queen Lecliss, Desert Flower Sylvia).
• Overkill damage gives higher points in Tower of Pride (it's difficult to do overkill damage with multi-hit skills, because the game stops counting damage after the hit that kills the enemy unit).
• Some fiend bosses are weak on only the first X hits each turn, so it is preferable to do 1 big hit rather than multiple small hits.
• Some buffs (like Beachside Angel Teresse) work best with low chain stacks.

Q: Do buffs of the same type stack?

A: Yes, all different skills stack with each other. However, using the same skill twice in a row will only refresh the buff (e.g. Arines's skill cannot stack with itself).

In addition, it's important to note that all buffs of the same type add to each other. Buffs of different types multiply each other. Therefore, using the multiple buffs of the same type gives diminishing returns. It is best to use many different types of buffs for maximum effect.

Example 1: Let's say you have a character that does a normal attack with 1000 ATK.

• If you give it a +100% ATK buff, its total ATK is now 200%. The damage therefore becomes 1000 x 200% = 2000, which is double what it was before.
• However, if you give it another +100% ATK buff, its total ATK is now 300%, so the damage becomes 1000 x 300% = 3000. As you can see, using the second ATK buff actually only increased your total damage by 50% compared to before (increase from 2000 to 3000).

Example 2: Again, let's say you have a character that does a normal attack with 1000 ATK.

• If you stack 10 chains before attacking with this character, your character gets a 100% boost to damage (10% per chain), so its attack becomes 1000 x 200% = 2000.
• If you stack 10 chains before attacking with this character, AND you give it a 100% ATK buff, its total damage becomes 1000 x 200% x 200% = 4000.

The above examples show that using a 100% ATK buff and 100% chain damage buff is more effective than having 2 x 100% ATK buffs. Different buffs multiply each others' effects, so use many different types of buffs at the same time for maximum damage.

Q: What is potential, engraving and awakening?

A: Check out the potential guide here.

For details about engraving and awakening, check out the guide here.

Q: The season pass has a VIP track for 1000 dia. Is it worth it?

A: Yes! BD2 is one of the very few games where you can purchase a VIP season pass without spending any money. This alone shows you how player-friendly the game is.

Always purchase the premium pass for each Season Pass which costs 1000 dia (and make sure you always keep a reserve of at least 1000 dia so that you don't miss out on the premium pass). The premium pass is always worth it. Putting everything else aside, you get over 10 draw tickets from the pass which alone are worth 2000 dia.

Q: What are the most important field abilities to level up?

A: Highest priority: Gear Crafting (Layla OR Fred, not both) and Alchemy (Schera). These are required to make UR gears.

High priority: Dispatch (Olstein) AND Dispatch (Diana). Note that Olstein and Diana's ability have the same names, but are different abilities and give different rewards.

Recommended for convenience: Lathel's Search, Celia's Absorption and Refithea's Assemble will makes your daily routines much faster, but they are not necessary to progress the game.

Magic Circle, Dash, and Overpower, and Bargain are nice to have for convenience, but not necessary.

Completely optional: Everything else. You don't get much from upgrading other skills, other than some achievements.

Q: I've seen guides online that say I should be stealing daily. Is using the Steal ability worthwhile?

A: No. Steal used to give you a lot of crafting materials when the game first launched, but the devs subsequently moved the steal rewards into the daily missions. Now, stealing just gives a very small amount of gold which is not really worth the time to do.

Q: Which packs are best for collecting crafting materials?

A: The daily Search rewards in Ch 8 and Ch 13 yield a lot of gold and copper, which are scarce materials required for SR and UR gear crafting. If you're not yet up to Ch 8 and Ch 13, Chapters 3 also has copper and gold drops from Search finds.

Chapter 9 drops wood Search finds, so it's convenient to do daily quests there when you are running low on wood.

Note that leather, cloth, peat and iron are extremely abundant, so there is no need to farm them. Only gold, copper and wood are worth farming for.

Note also that Alchemy can be used to convert common materials into rarer materials, but the conversion rate is not efficient.

Q: What's the best way to farm for gold and slimes?

A: The best way to farm is to spend cooked rice in Path of Adventure.

It's possible to get more gold and experience by battling all the enemies that spawn daily in each pack, but the time-to-reward ratio is not great and too tedious to recommend doing daily.

It is also possible to earn gold by selling food cooked using Justia's skill. There are some guides online for this, but it takes a lot of effort to learn about all the ingredients and farm for them, and generally speaking the time and effort required to maximize cooking income is not really worth the time for the majority of players. For the average player, it's enough to just cook the best recipes you can with the ingredients you have, and sell them to your nearest shop. Or, if you are lazy, just sell the ingredients directly.

Q: Is it really necessary to hoard more gold? I already have millions and I hardly use any.

Yes. In the early game you use very little gold. In the late game, crafting, upgrading and refining gear is very gold intensive. You will use it up quickly.

Q: How can I try Hard or Very Hard mode?

A: Talk to Elin, the glitching girl sitting on a TV, in each story pack. She will appear in the safe area after you have completed the main quest in that story pack. If you're having trouble finding her, you can use the map (there is an icon showing Elin's location).

Don't attempt more than one Hard Mode or Very Hard Mode at a time. Once you start Hard Mode or Very Hard mode, you will be locked out of doing daily quests in that chapter until you complete the story quest. It's therefore a good idea to challenge them one by one.

Q: My characters are injured/dead and now I'm stuck on a Character Pack, what can I do?

A: Run away and heal! Healing pots can be smashed with Dash for minor healing. There also is an inn located in each Character Pack where you can revive dead characters bring your characters back to full health. The inn location is not always obvious, but you should be able to find it using the icons on the minimap.

Character Packs (in Normal difficulty) are like puzzle game, because you are forced to use a fixed set of characters. Figuring out how to defeat enemies with fixed resources is part of the fun, though if you are still unable to clear a level (even after healing up), there are plenty of guides on YouTube with suggested solutions.

Q: Should I pull on the featured banner for [costume]?

A: This site is regularly being updated with reviews on new costumes, so check back often for fresh content!

Q: Should I pull on the select banner (choose 6 units)?

A: It's generally better to pull on the featured banners. The overall 5-star rates are the same as the featured banner, but there are two things you should know.

First of all, the rates for getting the unit you want are extremely low. Think about rates on the normal featured banner, and divide by 6 for each individual selected unit. Put another way, think about how long it takes you to +5 a unit: that's on average how often you will pull any one of the featured units you want.

Secondly, there are no event bonuses for the select banner. Usually, if you pull the featured costume on the featured banner you are rewarded with 10 tickets, but this does not apply for the select banner.

Q: What equipment is best for [character]? Is it worth pulling their exclusive gear?

A: Check out the character guides on this site for recommended gear builds.

As to whether exclusive gear is necessary: Exclusive gears are the same as UR IV gears except that they provide one additional bonus stat (e.g. +45% ATK, +54% HP, etc). This is nice to have, but not a must have. The additional stats do make a difference for top ranking PVP and fiend hunt players, but you do not need exclusive gear to clear most end game content.

Q: Who should I +1 with Golden Threads?

A: Each month you can upgrade 1 costume with Golden Threads. Check out this guide for some recommendations on who to upgrade.

Q: Should I pull on the featured gear banner?

A: Generally speaking, the gear banner is not as good value as the costume banner.

Firstly, there is a risk that you could draw the same gear twice. Currently, there are no uses for having multiple copies of unique gears.

Secondly, having more costumes is generally better value than having more gears. There are some battles where you must have the right costumes to win, but there are no battles where you must have specific unique gears to win. The stat boosts from unique gears are definitely helpful but you can clear pretty much all content just by using normal UR gears, rather than unique UR gears.

Of course, if there is a unit that you plan to use long term, then by all means feel free to try for their unique gear.

Q: What should I buy from event shops? Are the event gears worth it?

A: The most valuable items from the event shop are Tears of the Goddess, which are used to unlock potential. This is a time-gated currency, and the best way to earn them is from events.

After this, draw tickets, ancient crystals, and refining crystals are all valuable and hard to get resources.

The event gears are worth it. They are not as good as UR IV gears at BBS refining, but are generally better than UR III gears because they always upgrade with SSS refining.