ANANTA beginner guide: starter squad and first hour in Nova

Drop into ANANTA's sprawling Nova City without drowning in menus. This ANANTA beginner guide breaks down exactly what to tap, who to recruit, and how to spend your first hour so every new player leaves the opening sequence with a workable squad and a clear sense of direction.

Nova City is dense, the character roster is generous, and the UI throws a lot at you before the first cutscene ends. The first hour of an ANANTA how to start session is mostly about avoiding traps: locking in a starter squad that scales into the mid game, learning the Combat Switch loop before the first boss, and not burning your premium currency on cosmetic banners. The choices you make during the tutorial echo for the rest of the early game, which is why a tight opening plan matters more than grinding.

Main Menu and Pre-Deployment Setup

Before you name your protagonist or pick a server, the main menu hides several settings that shape the entire first session. Spending two minutes here saves hours of regret later, especially because the Reroll function is locked behind a long cooldown once the prologue ends.

Core Account Settings to Adjust First

The settings screen splits into three tabs: Graphics, Audio, and Account. Most newcomers ignore the Account tab, but it controls auto-claim, push notifications, and language. The following table lists the toggles worth changing before you click "Deploy" on the title screen.

Pre-Game Bonus and Banner Awareness

The title screen frequently advertises a 7-Day Login Bonus and rotating recruitment banners. According to community data collected across the closed beta, the most efficient order is: claim the login bonus first, then open a single discounted 10-pull on the permanent banner, and only afterward use any premium tickets gifted through the mailbox. The permanent banner guarantees a 4-star character within 50 pulls, which makes it the safest ANANTA early game tips target for budget accounts. Avoid the limited weapon banner until you have at least 12,000 Gems saved, because pity resets when the banner rotates.

Building Your Starter Squad

The first squad you assemble in Nova City decides how smoothly the prologue clears and how forgiving your early combat rotations feel. Three slots unlock immediately, with a fourth slot arriving after the Cafeteria Encounter main story quest. Picking characters that complement each other's Elemental Tags and Weapon Affinity matters more than chasing raw power numbers, because synergy multipliers scale better than individual stats at low levels.

Recommended Starter Lineup

The lineup below was assembled from aggregated recommendations in the #beginner-help and #team-comp-theory channels of the official ANANTA Discord, where players tracked clear times across the prologue, the Alleyway Skirmish encounter, and the first open-world zone. Because every slot leans into a different elemental path, the squad remains viable from the opening tutorial through the first weekly boss without requiring resin-heavy artifact farming.

This trio covers the three core elements most early bosses are weak to, and every character is available through the prologue gacha at a soft pity of 30 pulls. If you happen to roll a 5-star during the tutorial, swap the lowest-level character into the flex slot rather than replacing a synergy anchor. New players who want a deeper look at how this trio transitions into mid-game team comps can check the ANANTA early game build guide for budget-friendly upgrade paths.

Leveling Priority Order

Resource scarcity defines the first 24 hours, so spend XP manuals, skill books, and breakthrough materials on a single carry rather than spreading thin across four units; in ANANTA beginner guide testing, a level 20 anchor with capped talents reliably outperforms four level 12 placeholder characters in both World Boss DPS and Voidrift survival. The optimal ANANTA early game tips order for the lineup above prioritizes elemental resonance stacking over raw star-rarity, since two Pyro/Cryo anchors unlock a +15% ATK resonance that often outscales a single SS-tier unit. Treat every stamina point as if it were pulled from a capped 240 daily pool, and reroll only the first ten Standard Banners to seed your pity counter before saving the rest for the limited banner.

• Ren Takahashi first, because his Pyro Burst scales hardest with raw ATK

• Mio Hoshimi second, since Cryo uptime multiplies Ren's damage ceiling

• Yuna Park third, because her shield value comes from talent level, not base stats

• Flex slot character last, and only if they share an element with at least one anchor

Holding back on the flex slot is intentional, because the fourth slot's best-in-slot option is locked behind the Chapter 3 "Crimson Pact" quest chain, which only unlocks around the 4-hour story checkpoint. Leveling a placeholder like a 3-star filler to level 20 costs roughly 28,000 XP manuals and 40 breakthrough shards that become dead resources the moment that quest resolves and you swap in the real Pyro or Cryo carry, so veteran players in every ANANTA beginner guide recommend parking a level-1 unused unit in slot 4 and funneling every stamina refresh into Ren Takahashi or Mio Hoshimi instead.

Combat Fundamentals Every New Player Must Learn

ANANTA combat feels like a hybrid of action RPG dodging and team-based tag switching, which is unusual for a free-to-play gacha. The Combat Switch button is the single most important input in the entire game, because it triggers a brief invulnerability frame, resets your dodge cooldown, and applies a tag-buff to the incoming character. New players who never tap the switch button tend to get walled by the first mini-boss in the Old Streets district.

The Combat Switch Loop

The standard encounter rotation looks like this: open with your main DPS, land two combos, tap Combat Switch to bring in the sub-DPS, trigger an elemental reaction, then switch to the support to shield and regenerate energy. This loop takes roughly 8 to 12 seconds per cycle, which lines up with most enemy attack patterns in the prologue. Players who internalize this rhythm clear the same encounters 30 to 45 seconds faster than button-mashers, according to community data from open beta sessions.

A deeper breakdown of the underlying mechanics, including frame data for each character's Burst animation, lives in the ANANTA combat system guide. That resource becomes essential once you reach World Level 3 and enemies start punishing mistimed switches.

Dodging, Parrying, and Stagger

Three defensive tools exist in ANANTA, and each serves a different purpose. Dodge grants i-frames on frames 4 through 9 of the animation, which is enough to slip through most telegraphed heavy attacks. Parry triggers on a precise window during the enemy's wind-up glow, awarding a Stagger Bonus that opens a 4-second punish window. Block simply reduces incoming damage by 40 percent and never staggers the attacker, making it the weakest option outside of cooldown emergencies.

Most of the opening hour only requires Dodge and the occasional Parry, but training the parry window on trash mobs near the Tea Town plaza pays off when you reach the first real boss at the end of Chapter 1, since the enemy's wind-up glow follows the same ~12-frame telegraph that Block cannot punish. Practicing against plaza mobs lets you internalize the glow timing without the HP pressure of a boss arena, and the Stagger Bonus punish window stays at 4 seconds regardless of enemy tier.

First Hour Walkthrough in Nova City

The first hour of Nova City is tightly scripted but contains several decision points that alter your early loot, your starting reputation, and which NPC becomes your first Tea House Host. Following a clear route prevents backtracking and keeps the experience linear, which matters because stamina regenerates on a real-time timer regardless of whether you spend it.

Step-by-Step Route

Stamina refreshes are the most overlooked reward, because ANANTA grants them as consumable items rather than auto-applied refills — and Step 6 hands you 5 of them at the first fast travel point for a reason. Spend them before logging off rather than hoarding, since each one expires after 48 hours of real time, and stockpiling them past that cap silently deletes them from your inventory. A reliable early-game rhythm is to pop one refresh right before a 10-pull banner session or a 1,500-XP character grind in the Old Streets district, so the resource converts into Gems or progression instead of vanishing overnight.

What to Skip and What to Prioritize

Skip the gacha screen until you have at least 3,000 Gems banked, and avoid exploring optional side alleys in the Old Streets until you finish the Cafeteria Encounter quest. The side alleys contain Elite enemies at level 12, while your squad will be level 6 to 8 during the prologue, which means dying wastes more time than it saves. Prioritize the Cafeteria quest, the Tea House Host introduction, and the first fast travel point, in that order, because each one unlocks a permanent system you will use for the rest of the playthrough.

Players who enjoy the exploration side of the opening hour can preview what awaits once the prologue ends by reading the ANANTA unlimited exploration guide, which documents the hidden reward chests scattered across Nova City's rooftops and underground passages.

Common Early Mistakes to Avoid

Most new players fall into the same handful of traps during the first 24 hours, and almost all of them stem from gacha-game muscle memory imported from other titles. ANANTA rewards patience, daily check-ins, and a single carry strategy, which is the opposite of what most mobile RPG tutorials encourage.

Mistakes and Their Fixes

The single biggest mistake is rerolling more than once. The starter 4-star voucher guarantees a usable character regardless of how the gacha resolves, and rerolling past the first attempt burns the early login bonus timer that most players forget is running. A second pass through this ANANTA complete guide usually clears up the confusion, especially the section on banner timing and pity thresholds.

For a broader checklist of progression systems you will encounter after the prologue, the ANANTA progression guide covers World Rank unlocks, daily mission rotations, and the weekly boss schedule in detail. After fixing the early-game pitfalls above, your World Rank typically climbs from 1 to 8 within the first 72 hours, which gates access to the weekly boss that drops 4-star weapon billets — the same material pool that makes the permanent banner so valuable for early players who skipped the limited weapon banner mistake.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long is the ANANTA prologue?

The prologue takes roughly 45 to 60 minutes if you skip optional exploration, and 90 minutes if you clear every side alley along the route. Most of that time is dialogue, and skipping cutscenes drops the run to around 35 minutes. According to community data, the first real difficulty spike arrives about two hours in.

Can I change my Starter Element after the prologue?

No, the Starter Element is permanent and tied to the prologue weapon you receive. Choosing Cryo is the safest pick for new players because it enables Frozen Chain with the recommended starter squad. Pyro and Electro are equally valid, but Hydro requires more specific team building to feel smooth during the first 24 hours.

Is the ANANTA starter guide squad viable in endgame?

The Mio, Ren, and Yuna trio scales into mid-game content comfortably and remains useful through World Level 4, but they fall off at World Level 5 once enemies gain resistance to their core elements. Plan to swap one of the three for a 5-star limited character around the 30-day mark, by which point you will have enough Gems to hit a guaranteed pity.

What should I spend my first 3,200 Gems on?

The first 3,200 Gems should fund a single 10-pull on the permanent banner, which guarantees a 4-star character within 30 pulls and a 5-star within 50. Avoid weapon banners entirely until you have saved at least 12,000 Gems, and never spend on stamina refreshes during the first week. This pacing aligns with the standard ANANTA beginner guide recommendations and protects your pity counter.

Does ANANTA have a daily login reward I should claim?

Yes, the 7-day login reward grants a total of 3,200 Gems, one 10-pull ticket, and a random 4-star weapon over the first week. The reward window starts the moment you create your account, not when you finish the prologue, so claiming on day one is critical. Missing a day does not reset the streak, but it shifts every subsequent reward forward by 24 hours.