Blue Archive is introducing two new students in their latest banner. Utaha (Cheer Squad) and Noa are coming to the game and beefing up the list of Mystic damage students.

If you’ve been reading our last few guides, you’d know that the upcoming banners will largely feature either new characters or limited ones that can’t be acquired outside of their banners (sometimes both).

So should you pull on this banner? Let’s take a look.

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Shiraishi Utaha (Cheer Squad)

Utaha is back as a frontline Striker instead of a Support unit. Her EX ability is a long-lasting self-buff and can do massive damage while largely being left alone.

This makes her an EX efficient student to supplement other damage dealers like Azusa (Swimsuit) who need to use their power, or work with buffers like Ako for sustained single-target damage.

She’s made redundant by units like Izuna (Swimsuit) and normal Izuna who also do sustained single target Mystic damage, but she can help round out a team if you’re low on Mystic units.

Ushio Noa

Noa is another new student who works well on teams with multiple DPS or on teams that synergize with debuffs.

Her EX ability is a cost efficient ability with a duration of 40 seconds that not only decreases DEF but also applies the Focused Fire effect on the enemy.

The Focused Fire effect ensures that students will shoot at that target, when normally they default to the nearest target. This is mainly useful in some challenge stages where focusing the boss is more important than clearing adds.

Should I Pull?

We know you’re not expecting a wishy-washy answer from a guide like this, but frankly it depends. There’s two facts we need to keep in mind:

1. Neither of these characters are limited, they can be picked up randomly in later banners
2. They’re great Mystic units, especially if you’re missing big hitters like Izuna or Azusa (Swimsuit)

So at the end of the day, these are solid pick-ups. If you’re a free-to-play gamer that missed out on the banner for Azusa (Swimsuit) and/or don’t have either Izuna, you should probably pull here.

If you have Azusa (Swimsuit) and a decent team for Blue raids, you can skip these units in most circumstances. However Noa is a pretty good unit with potential outside of Blue Raids thanks to her big DEF debuff.

To sum it up: You should (probably) pull!

Waifu Clause

As always, if you really like the student’s design then more power to you. These guides are more about the student’s place in the meta.

I’ll be pulling Utaha (Cheer Squad) for this reason.

Blue Archive is available now on mobile devices! You can check out our review here! (as far as mobile games go, we still recommend it!)