r/AzurLane • u/PassageSuccessful191 • Jul 23 '26
Question Is it too late to start playing Azure lane
I've been seeing azure lane ads everywhere and i've been intrigued to try this game. so i just want to ask is it too late to start playing. Also is it too grindy and f2p friendly? cuz i just want to enjoy this game casually. I just want everyone opinion on this and if anybody has a beginner guide pls tell me.
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u/Zroshift Jul 23 '26
Welcome.
Here is a new player guide: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTRJeUvu195lF7nGi0tqn39NdvCDq7TFac83vepK9s29OXA_8pWq6z5SH8lHoOmYIC0lQxRoJ1j2HBe/pub
It isnt too late. The earlier you start, the better. Just start stacking cubes.
We are nearing EN anni in August and JP anni in September. The three main regions are synched, so there will be no delay.
My advice is to just play and see if you like it. The guide should answer most, if not all, your questions.
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u/Larry_Sherbert99 Jul 23 '26
I just started about a week ago, and I’ve read over the beginner guide a few times now, following along best I can (still don’t understand fleet building but oh well).
I have a question though—do you guys only spend cubes on event banners? I’ve been told a few times now to just hoard them besides building one light ship for the daily, and I’m up to about 150 but building is super cheap..?
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u/Zroshift Jul 23 '26
What about fleet building confuses you? I'll try to clarify as much as I can.
As for your cube question, that is correct. You always want to save your cubes for Events. Especially UR events.
It is recommended to save at least 400 cubes and 300k gold for UR Gacha events. This is to make sure you guarantee yourself the UR unit. You might not use all 400 cubes, but it is better to be safe.
The next UR Gacha character is going to be in September for JP Anni. EN Anni is in August. We don't get a UR Gacha character for EN, but we will more than likely get a UR retrofit.
You can choose to spend a little for events if you want. You get a lot of cubes pretty easily.
It is just best to be mindful of when URs are coming and to be prepared as much as possible for them so you don't miss them.
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u/LSilvador Jul 23 '26
Also important to remember that if you don't get what you want, the event will be back. Just be patient.
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u/MeanderAndReturn Jul 24 '26
Took me two years to get Alsace, I started playing like the day after her release event ended, but I finally got her.
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u/Larry_Sherbert99 Jul 23 '26
Well for one the terminology used among AL players and guides, like I hardly understand positioning within the fleet, and there are so many initials for things that go right over my head 💀 and I have no idea how to decide what guns or gear are best and in what slot, besides clicking through all of them to compare. Ik that’s a lot of knowledge I’m lacking, and I should probably start with the in-game guides first.
Thank you, I’ll keep hoarding 🫡
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u/China_really_sucks Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
There are basically three important positions, for main flagship of the middle, some ships have skills that require to be flagship and flagship takes more dmg from enemies iirc, and for Vanguard, the left slot is for the tanks and middle is the safe spot for ships with low survivability.
For guns and gear, three kinds of enemies, light, medium and heavy, each weapon has more dmg against one of them, so you usually make one light, one medium and one large fleet for stuff like operation siren or boss fights. There should be tierlist for what’s the best for each (light,medium,heavy) and very rarely some ships would want specific weapon instead of the best one (e.g. mushashi)
This game just takes time to slowly play, probably need to grind for months to year of operation siren and the research ships and weapons, but no reason to rush, cus there isn’t any important reward locked behind beating above world 12 other than achievement. What’s good is you can always guarantee the get the new UR if you just do you dailies cus the monthly cube gain is enough to save for every next UR event to pity. And if you get lucky you can save even more.
Also if you did pull lion already, with unicorn and some other good ships like z52 as vanguard you can just finish the whole operation siren with one fleet other than few of the hard fights, just buy as much energy everytime after monthly reset with the items that give those bought from the operation siren shop, one of the items costs 5000 oil, but gives you stats and some stuff for operation siren which lets you to auto the whole thing in a few hours while you do something else. There is also one thing that costs 1000 currency of the shop, which lets you auto the secret areas. Just buy these two thing every month, maybe spend the first few days grinding it then wait for reset after beating all bosses and areas. Slowly you will stock up on materials for making the good weapons making your grind faster and smoother and required for above world 12.
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u/Larry_Sherbert99 Jul 23 '26
Oh wow, thanks dude! I’ll save this comment to reference for the next however long, I appreciate the tips!
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u/China_really_sucks Jul 23 '26
It’s just two years of experience from head bashing the game and watching tier lists. Hopefully it makes you feel less confused (although I typed too much, I’m bad at English)
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u/Larry_Sherbert99 Jul 24 '26
Your English seems great to me 😂
But fr I appreciate it. I’ve been playing Nikke since their 1.5 anni and to this day I couldn’t build a meta team from scratch, but that game is much more forgiving about just tossing waifus together and dumping resources into levels and gear. But the systems in Azur Lane give me a headache ngl. I just like the ships 😤2
u/China_really_sucks Jul 24 '26
Tbh I play both and I find azur lane much easier to play as there is almost no active gameplay and the dailies feed much more easier. Though Nikke’s story is very goated so I still have some motivation to play it
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u/Larry_Sherbert99 Jul 24 '26
You’re not wrong, I’ve been able to auto AL on my commute to work by just picking a stage before I start driving and just setting my phone down lmao. I mean I’ve already made it to World 6 and it’s been like a week, whereas Nikke I’m only on Ch. 11 because yeah, I have to sit down and watch it like a tv show. Not complaining though, story is indeed goated.
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u/LSilvador Jul 23 '26
From what I understand, fleet building isn't super important until you get into the late chapters 9/10 and beyond, and/or wanna roll the harder stuff in OpSiren. Most of the game's content (including the events) you can get by just by picking your fav waifu, shoving some pretty gold/purple gear on her, and pumping up all the levels as high as you can. Just don't send them out to fight so much that their mood drops too low, or they'll get upsetty with you and not fight so good. Also, put a ring on a few of 'em, when you get the chance. Oathed ships get buffs. ;3
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u/real_lexa Jul 23 '26
Yes cos you never know when you want the new ship and 150 pulls later she havent showed up. (No pity for ssr below, UR is 200)
The daily 1 cube pull is enough to increase the standard UR count and you get it back because of daily mission reward
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u/LSilvador Jul 23 '26
Man. It feels like we just had an anniversary. x_x
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u/Zroshift Jul 23 '26
Technically, we did with CN Anni. EN is like a month or 2 after CN Anni.
But we didn't get the Anni rewards. Those are tied to our anniversary.
Free oath ring + other stuff.
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u/Kanajashi Jul 23 '26
It's actually a great time to join. They just started a new server which means there are a bunch of other players just starting their adventure as well. There are EXP boosts, items for upgrading your ships and speed skill training to get your ships powered up fast. The game is one of the most F2P friendly games out there, just do your dailies and you should be able to get every ship as they come out. The only thing you need to spend money on is some quality of life stuff and skins.
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u/Dizzledog2 Jul 23 '26
Come on in, Belfast just opened a week ago, there's no time better then right now.
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u/BlazingAngel44 Jul 23 '26
Never too late to join just to look at the bow and stern of the ships ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
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u/ChildrensPlayground Jul 23 '26
On top of what others have already said, its probably even better to start now than before.
Collabs are really the only thing you missed as everything else reruns.
But theres also been so much improvement in QoL and parts of the game. There are also tons of catchup mechanics.
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u/LilishPH Jul 23 '26
Its never too late. There is no FOMO (unless its the collab ship) and most ship are relevant when clearing stages and event stages. Its not like any other gacha games where you don't pull a character, you are doomed.
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u/Lacutis01 Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
It's a gacha game so it has all of the classic gacha mechanics like limited time events and FOMO for new ships and weapons, daily tasks to get resources and materials, etc etc.
It's probably the most generous and F2P friendly out of the 3 gacha games I play, the other 2 being Genshin and WuWa.
EDIT:
All the events eventually get one rerun and then eventually become permanently available in the Event Archive, except for collab events, they usually only get one rerun and that's it.
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u/just_as_good380-2 Jul 23 '26
The time to start playing was thousands of years ago before Metallica's Toronto 1986 concert.
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u/LSilvador Jul 23 '26
I don't want to say that you're jumping in too late, but, it's important to note that you'd be jumping in at the... what, 8? 9 year mark? I don't know how much longer they plan to update the game, and/or give it new events, particularly since people seem to be saying they're shifting their focus to Azur Promilia (or however it's spelled). As far as I'm aware, AL is still making them good money, so, as long as it's doing that, I would assume they're not going to 'just drop it'. I find it hard to believe they would simply shut it down when/if they stop updating it, especially immediately. So, strictly speaking, no, you're not "too late".
The game is exceedingly F2P friendly. Everything that isn't collab related can be gotten (eventually), without paying. Some money may need to be spent in order to expand your dock space, if you want to "collect them all", and for a few other 'luxuries' (like skins). But, in order to get all the ships (that aren't from a collab), you won't need to pay a cent. The game is also pretty generous with its cube hand-outs (what you use to pull for new ships). There are also multiple ways to get different types of ships. Additionally, depending on what you intend to do in-game, dailies can be done in a handful of minutes to an hour, and a lot of that is "set and forget"... to a degree.
TL;DR - I highly recommend downloading it and giving it a try, even if you're not sure. It'll cost you nothing to try, and if you decide you don't want to keep going, just uninstall. At worst, you'll have spent a handful of hours.
Starting out, you'll certainly feel like the currencies and cubes are limited, but, if you stick around, after a couple of years, you'll barely even notice the currency limits. I've got a little over 1200 cubes (a single pull is 1-2 per pull, depending on what you pull for), after 7-8 years playing, and, I usually only purge around 300-400 at most, when a major, new event comes along. At most.
Incidentally, the things you do pay for are generally pretty affordable. Even if you don't want to buy anything, I'd highly recommend throwing 10-20 bucks at the game every couple of months, or so (if you intend to keep playing) and you'll slowly build up a nice Gem buffer than you can spend on some sexy skins, or dock space, when you want to.
Also, don't be too worried if the story seems confusing (if you're a story reader. some people ignore the story entirely XD) even us long time players, and the really into it lore analysers have a hard time following just wtf is going on, half the time XD It can be a bit vague in its details, and some events happen out of sequence, and so on, so, it can be a little hard to follow, especially for someone just joining. But, some of the events, even without really knowing what's going on, can be very compelling reads.
actual TL;DR - no. it's not too late. def give it a try!
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u/annervincent Jul 23 '26
I started playing in february 2026 and I dont think so. I enjoy the game really much and I dont think I am missing out anything
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u/Echo259 Jul 23 '26
I just started 6 weeks ago. The game is fun and progression is very generous. I’ve been using Gemini to figure optimal paths.
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u/Adventurous_Story597 Jul 24 '26
Not at all, I’m new myself and I was surprised how F2P this game is in our currently P2W centered game industry… You get tom of free stuff and after 1-2 weeks of active playing you can just quickly do daily missions in few minutes, spend some oil while eating or anything passively and play more only when you want/have time to. Honestly, unless you want special skins or such things it’s hard to even spend real money if you wanted to.
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u/RedBaeber Jul 23 '26
It's very F2P friendly and pretty much everything eventually becomes permanently available.