Blue Archive guide – Breakthrough Drill April 2023

Joint Firing Drills are probably the least fun content in Blue Archive, but out of all of them Breakthrough Drills are the most tolerable.

Players will need a diverse roster of students to clear all three battles in their set since Breakthrough Drills require healing, defense, and offense.

With a new set of random debuffs at higher difficulties, we’ve got some ideas on how to “breakthrough” some of the tougher fights.

Joint Firing Drills

Unlike Total Assaults (Raids), which only requires you to defeat the boss in three tries or less; a Joint Firing Drill requires you to have three semi-competent teams that can finish the mission in order to place on the scoreboard. Harder difficulty fights reward more points, and players receive tokens based on their score.

Breakthrough Drills

Breakthrough Drills require a well-rounded team that can do damage, but more importantly a team that can heal. Scarecrows will spawn with each wave that debuff the defense of your enemies when it’s healed up. This debuff is stronger than any defense debuff or attack buff that you can do directly so healing is vital here.

The enemies will also be dealing damage so balancing healing the Scarecrow and your frontline is the basic key to victory here.

Mechanics by Fight Level

There’s four different levels of fights for Joint Firing Drills. Not only does the difficulty get harder, but new rules and modifiers are added on levels 3 and 4.

Level 1

Indoor Warfare

Light Armor

Level 2

Indoor Warfare

Light Armor

Level 3

Indoor Warfare

Light Armor

Allied buffs are removed every 1 second

Level 4

Indoor Warfare

Light Armor

Allied buffs are removed every 1 second

Enemies have increased Defense Penetration

High End Teams

The highest level of Breakthrough Drill rewards players that have a diverse array of students. At higher difficulties you’ll either need to protect your tanks or go all in on healing and damage to just clear waves before your students die.

Example Team for High End

Kasuga Tsubaki: Defense Penetration doesn’t mean Defense is useless. Tsubaki remains a reliable tank even in the face of dangerous enemies with her passive abilities that let her self-heal once per fight, and take reduced damage while reloading.

Mikamo Neru (Bunny ver): Bunny Neru is an off-tank and damage dealer who has a good AoE and can take care of herself on the frontline. She’s less tanky than Tsubaki but she compensates for it with damage.

Shishidou Izumi (Swimsuit): Her EX ability is both a defensive and offensive tool, a multi-target attack that stuns? If you have her, this is one of the few times she’ll get to really shine.

Takanashi Hoshino (Swimsuit): Swimsuit Hoshino makes this team a little tank heavy, but the Cost Recovery built into her EX ability makes it easier to cycle through EX abilities to get to the heals you need to succeed.

Amami Nodoka (Hot Spring): A good AoE healer that will keep your team topped off and throw heals on the Scarecrow when it’s convenient.

Hinomiya Chinatsu: A big burst of healing to get the Scarecrow to near full almost instantly, also helps save your students if they’re taking a beating.

What if I don’t have enough students for all high end runs?

Level matters a lot, so if you can only clear one high end run, just throw whatever students are just good enough into your second and third teams to clear lower end content.

Clearing a single level 4 fight and two level 3 fights should get you into the 183,100+ points bracket.

If you’re new to the game just do what you can and don’t worry about high end fights.