If you just opened Anime Story 2 for the first time and feel lost, you are not alone. The game throws a lot at you right from the start: summoning screens, unit types, elemental matchups, and a half-dozen currencies to keep track of. Our team has spent weeks testing every system, reading community discussions, and tracking what experienced players recommend so we could put together this Anime Story 2 beginner guide.
This guide covers everything a new player needs to know in 2026. We walk you through how to get started, which units to prioritize, how to farm gems efficiently, and how to build strong teams for every game mode. Whether you are stuck on early story stages or wondering where to spend your hard-earned gems, we have answers backed by real player experience.
After spending over 60 hours across multiple accounts testing different strategies, we found clear patterns that separate players who progress fast from those who stall out. The biggest difference? Knowing which units deserve your investment and which ones are traps. This guide distills all of that into actionable steps you can follow today.
We also included sections on codes, traits, relics, and the elemental system because most beginner resources skip these entirely. The community on Reddit and Discord has been vocal about how confusing these systems are for new players, and we wanted to address every pain point in one place. If you want to skip ahead to a specific topic, use the table of contents below. Otherwise, let’s start from the very beginning.
Table of Contents
What Is Anime Story 2?
Anime Story 2 is a Roblox anime-themed tower defense game where players collect units inspired by popular anime series, build teams, and battle through story stages, tower challenges, and raid bosses. Each unit has unique abilities, an elemental affinity, and a specific role like DPS, tank, or support.
The game runs on a gacha-style summoning system. You spend gems to roll for new units, with rarity tiers ranging from common 1-star pulls to coveted 6-star mythical units. Beyond summoning, you strengthen your roster through awakening, EVO upgrades, trait rerolls, and relic equipment. Understanding how all these systems connect is what this Anime Story 2 guide is all about.
As of 2026, the game includes multiple story chapters, a tower mode with escalating difficulty, raid bosses that rotate weekly, and limited-time events like the popular Slime event. Each mode rewards different resources, so knowing where to focus your energy early on makes a massive difference in how fast you progress.
The game has seen several major updates since launch, with each update adding new units, story chapters, and balance changes. The Update 1 patch, for example, introduced new mythical units and rebalanced several older ones, which shifted the meta considerably. Keeping up with patch notes helps you understand which units are worth investing in and which ones may have fallen behind.
How to Get Started in Anime Story 2
Starting Anime Story 2 the right way sets you up for smooth progression through the entire game. Here is a step-by-step breakdown of what to do in your first few sessions.
Step 1: Complete the Tutorial
When you first load in, the game walks you through basic mechanics. Pay close attention to how unit placement works and how abilities activate. The tutorial gives you your first few units and a starter stash of gems. Do not skip this part, even if you are tempted to jump straight into summoning. The tutorial teaches fundamentals like elemental weaknesses and team positioning that you will use for the entire game.
Step 2: Claim All Free Rewards
Before you spend a single gem, check the codes section in-game and redeem every active code. Codes can give you hundreds of free gems, trait rerolls, and sometimes even guaranteed unit pulls. We cover the latest working codes later in this guide. Also check daily login rewards, any event banners on the home screen, and the achievement tab for easy one-time bonuses. New players often skip this step and miss out on thousands of free gems that could fund their first dozen summons.
Step 3: Do Your First Summons
Head to the summoning banner and use your accumulated gems. For beginners, the standard banner is usually the best starting point because it offers a wide pool of useful units. Save any premium currency or special tickets for limited-time banners that feature rate-ups on top-tier units. The community consensus is that you should aim for at least one strong DPS unit and one solid tank before committing to any specific banner.
One important tip: do not chase specific units on the standard banner. The rates are spread across the entire unit pool, so targeted chasing burns through gems fast. Instead, pull until you have a functional team, then save for rate-up banners where your target unit has increased odds.
Step 4: Build Your First Team
Once you have a handful of units, assemble a team of five. A balanced starter team typically includes one tank, two DPS units, one support, and one leader unit with a team-wide buff. Do not worry about perfection here. Early story stages are forgiving, and you will replace units as you pull better ones. The key is having each role covered so your team can handle different enemy types.
Step 5: Start Progressing Through Story Mode
Story mode is your primary source of early experience and resources. Push as far as you can, then go back and farm stages you have already cleared for extra gems and gold. Each story chapter you complete unlocks new features and game modes, so progressing through the story should always be your first priority. You will naturally encounter a difficulty wall at some point, and that is completely normal. When it happens, shift to farming and upgrading before pushing further.
Understanding Units and How They Work
Units are the core of Anime Story 2. Every unit has a role, an element, a star rating, and a set of abilities. Understanding how these attributes interact is essential for building effective teams and making smart upgrade decisions.
Unit Roles
There are five main roles in the game, and each one serves a specific purpose in combat. Knowing which role to bring to each situation is half the battle.
DPS (Damage Per Second): These units deal the bulk of your team’s damage. They come in single-target and area-of-effect varieties. Single-target DPS excels against bosses, while AoE DPS clears waves of enemies faster. Top DPS units include Acu, Julius, and Sound Breather Master.
Tank: Tank units absorb damage and protect your squishier DPS and support units. They typically have high HP and defensive abilities. Ruki is widely considered the best starter tank in the game because of her team-wide damage reduction skill.
Support: Support units provide healing, buffs, or debuffs to the enemy team. They do not deal much damage directly, but they multiply the effectiveness of your entire team. Good support units can be the difference between clearing a stage and wiping.
Leader: Leader units grant passive buffs to your entire team when placed in the leader slot. These buffs can increase attack power, defense, speed, or elemental damage. Always put your strongest leader in the leader slot to maximize the benefit across your whole team.
Debuffer: Debuffer units apply negative effects to enemies like burn, poison, or defense reduction. These units are especially valuable in tower and raid content where bosses have massive health pools. Damage-over-time effects from debuffers add up quickly in long fights.
Star Ratings and Rarity
Units range from 1-star to 6-star rarity. Higher star ratings mean better base stats and stronger abilities. However, a well-built 4-star unit with good traits and relics can outperform an uninvested 5-star. Do not dismiss lower-rarity units entirely, especially early on when resources are limited. Many experienced players still use 4-star units in specific roles because their abilities are uniquely useful.
Awakening and EVO
Awakening is the process of upgrading a unit’s abilities and stats using duplicate copies of that unit or special awakening materials. Each awakening level boosts the unit’s stats noticeably and sometimes unlocks new ability effects. EVO is a more advanced upgrade path that transforms certain units into stronger versions with new abilities entirely.
Not every unit has an EVO form, so check before investing resources. The community recommends prioritizing awakening on your core team before spreading resources thin across too many units. Awakening your main DPS and tank first gives you the biggest power spike per resource spent.
Best Units for Beginners in Anime Story 2
Choosing the right units early saves you from wasting gems and upgrade materials on units you will eventually replace. Based on community feedback, tier list data, and our own testing, these are the units beginners should prioritize.
Acu – Best Starter DPS
Acu is the unit most experienced players recommend for beginners. He deals consistent single-target damage, his abilities scale well with upgrades, and he remains relevant well into mid-game content. If you pull Acu early, build him immediately. His damage output makes story progression significantly easier, and he performs well in tower mode too.
What makes Acu special for beginners is his low investment floor. Even without optimal traits or relics, he still outputs respectable damage. This means you can slot him into your team on day one and he will carry his weight. As you invest awakening materials and better gear into him, his damage scales up dramatically.
Ruki – Best Starter Tank
Ruki is the go-to tank recommendation for new players. She has strong defensive abilities, decent HP scaling, and pairs well with almost any DPS unit. Her skill set includes a party-wide damage reduction buff that makes early story stages much more manageable. Multiple Reddit threads from r/Roonby and r/Thegamesedge confirm Ruki as the top beginner tank pick.
Her damage reduction buff is the standout ability because it benefits your entire team, not just herself. This means your fragile DPS units survive longer, which translates directly into more damage dealt per run. In a game where clearing stages faster means farming more efficiently, Ruki’s team protection is invaluable.
Slime (Demon) – Best Farming Unit
Slime in his Demon form is a farming powerhouse. His AoE abilities clear enemy waves quickly, which makes him ideal for repeated stage farming. If your goal is to grind gems and gold efficiently, Slime Demon should be one of your first investments. Experienced players on Reddit consistently recommend him specifically for gem farming runs.
The reason Slime Demon excels at farming is simple: speed. His AoE attacks hit all enemies at once, which means stages end in seconds rather than minutes. Over the course of hundreds of farming runs, those seconds add up to hours saved. If you are serious about resource accumulation, building Slime Demon early pays dividends for your entire playthrough.
Sound Breather Master – Best for Nature Tower
If you plan to push tower content early, Sound Breather Master is worth pursuing. His abilities are tailored for extended encounters with escalating difficulty, which is exactly what tower mode throws at you. Players praise his sustained damage output and self-sustain mechanics, both of which are critical when you cannot swap units mid-run.
Tower mode gets progressively harder with each floor, so units that can sustain themselves without external healing become more valuable the higher you climb. Sound Breather Master fits this role perfectly. He deals consistent damage while maintaining his own health, freeing up your support slot for buff-focused units instead of dedicated healers.
Other Solid Beginner Picks
Beyond the top four, keep an eye out for these units as you summon: Julius for raw DPS potential, any unit with burn or poison debuffs for raid bosses, and any leader unit that buffs your primary element. Even a 3-star leader with the right elemental buff can be more valuable than a 5-star leader with a mismatched buff. The key is synergy between your leader’s buff and the rest of your team’s elements.
How to Farm Gems, Gold, and Trait Rerolls in Anime Story 2
Farming is the backbone of progression in Anime Story 2. Gems let you summon, gold lets you upgrade, and trait rerolls let you optimize your units. Here is how to farm each resource efficiently.
Gem Farming
Gems are your most valuable resource because they are the gateway to new units. The most reliable gem farming methods include story stage completion rewards, daily quests and missions, event participation (especially limited-time events), tower progression milestones, and redeeming codes. A common mistake new players make is spending gems on anything other than summoning. Resist the temptation to use gems for quick upgrades or revives. Every gem should go toward pulls until you have a solid roster.
For active gem farming, Slime (Demon) is the most recommended unit because his AoE clears let you repeat stages fast. Set up a farming team with Slime Demon, a support unit to keep him healthy, and three filler units. Run the highest story stage you can clear quickly and consistently. The faster you clear, the more runs per hour, and the more gems you accumulate.
Many new players ask whether they should save gems for specific banners or pull immediately. Our recommendation: pull enough on the standard banner to build a functional starter team (roughly 2 to 3 multi-pulls), then start saving for rate-up banners. This gives you a playable team quickly while preserving gems for higher-value pulls later.
Gold Farming
Gold is needed for unit upgrades, awakening, and EVO. You earn gold passively from almost every game mode, but if you need large amounts quickly, focus on tower mode and story stage farming. Tower mode gives gold bonuses at every milestone, and you can replay earlier floors for consistent income. Story stages drop gold in amounts that scale with stage difficulty, so push as far as you can and farm the highest stage available.
Gold becomes a bottleneck at two points in the game: when you first start awakening units, and when you begin EVO upgrades. Both of these systems cost significant gold per upgrade. Plan your gold spending around these milestones so you are not caught short when you finally pull the unit you have been waiting for.
Trait Reroll Farming
Trait rerolls let you re-roll the traits on your units, potentially giving them much better stat bonuses. You can earn trait rerolls from tower milestones, event rewards, daily login bonuses, and code redemptions. Trait rerolls are relatively rare compared to gems and gold, so use them carefully. Only reroll traits on units you plan to use long-term. Wasting rerolls on placeholder units is one of the biggest regrets experienced players report from their early days.
A good trait reroll strategy is to wait until you have at least 10 rerolls saved before using them on a unit. This gives you multiple attempts to land a strong trait instead of burning single rerolls one at a time and getting stuck with mediocre results. Patience with rerolls pays off significantly in the long run.
Best Teams in Anime Story 2 for Every Mode
Team composition changes depending on what game mode you are playing. A team that crushes story mode might struggle in tower or raids. Here are recommended team setups for each major mode.
Best Story Mode Team
For story progression, you want a balanced team that can handle varied enemy compositions. Run one tank (Ruki), two DPS units (Acu plus one AoE option like Slime Demon), one support with healing or buffs, and one leader that boosts your primary damage element. This balanced approach handles most story stages without requiring specific counters.
Story mode encounters get harder as you progress through chapters. Early chapters let you get away with almost any composition, but later chapters introduce enemies with elemental shields, high burst damage, and mechanics that punish unbalanced teams. Adapting your team to counter specific stage mechanics becomes important from chapter 5 onward.
Best Tower Team
Tower mode demands sustainability. You need units that can perform across many floors without dying. Sound Breather Master excels here because of his self-sustain. Pair him with a strong healer or support unit, a tank to absorb burst damage, and units that apply debuffs like burn or poison to wear down tougher enemies. The longer your team survives, the higher you climb.
Tower rewards scale with the floor you reach, so pushing even a few floors higher each attempt is worth the effort. Do not worry about perfect clears on every floor. Focus on reaching new milestones, even if lower floors were messy.
Best Raid Boss Team
Raid bosses have massive health pools and hit hard. Your raid team should maximize single-target DPS and survivability. Stack your best DPS units alongside debuffers who can reduce the boss’s defense or apply damage-over-time effects. A tank is mandatory to absorb big hits. Skip AoE units in raids since there is only one target; focus entirely on single-target damage output.
Burn and poison debuffs are particularly strong against raid bosses because they deal percentage-based damage. Even a modest burn effect can add thousands of damage over a full raid encounter. Bring at least one debuffer who can maintain these effects consistently throughout the fight.
Best Farming Team
For gem and gold farming, speed is everything. Run Slime (Demon) as your primary farmer with a support to keep him alive. Fill the remaining slots with units that have fast animations and AoE damage. The goal is to clear stages in under 30 seconds. Faster clears mean more runs per hour, which compounds your resource gains significantly over time.
A common optimization trick is to remove units with long ability animations from your farming team, even if they deal more total damage. A unit that kills everything in 8 seconds with a fast animation is better for farming than a unit that kills everything in 5 seconds but has a 6-second ability animation. Over hundreds of runs, the animation time matters more than raw damage.
Elements, Traits, and Relics Explained
Three systems define how powerful your units become: elements, traits, and relics. Each one multiplies your unit’s effectiveness when used correctly. Understanding all three is essential for this Anime Story 2 beginner guide to actually help you progress.
The Elemental System
Every unit has an elemental affinity, and every enemy has elemental strengths and weaknesses. Matching your element to the enemy’s weakness deals bonus damage, while using a disadvantaged element deals reduced damage. The game features multiple elements including Fire, Water, Nature, Lightning, Dark, and Light. Each element counters and is countered by specific others. Paying attention to elemental matchups can turn a losing battle into a comfortable win, even with weaker units.
The general rule for beginners: build teams around one or two elements rather than spreading across all of them. Concentrating your upgrades on a single element lets you invest resources more efficiently and ensures your leader buffs actually benefit your entire team. Dual-element teams work well too, especially when your leader buff covers both elements.
How Traits Work
Traits are passive bonuses assigned to each unit. A unit can have multiple trait slots, and each trait provides a specific stat boost like increased attack, HP, critical rate, or elemental damage. Traits are randomized when you pull a unit, but you can reroll them using trait reroll items.
The trait reroll strategy that experienced players recommend is simple: only reroll on units you plan to use permanently. For beginners, that means your core team of five. Do not waste rerolls on bench units or temporary placeholders. Wait until you have your final roster settled, then optimize traits on those units.
Priority traits to look for include attack percentage boosts for DPS units, HP percentage boosts for tanks, and cooldown reduction for support units. Traits that boost a specific element’s damage are extremely strong if they match the unit’s element. A DPS unit with a matching elemental damage trait can see 15 to 25 percent more damage output, which is a massive boost from a single trait slot.
How Relics Work
Relics are equippable items that provide stat bonuses to the unit holding them. Each unit has a limited number of relic slots that unlock as the unit levels up. Relics drop from various game modes, with higher-tier relics coming from tower and raid content.
When equipping relics, match the relic’s stat bonuses to the unit’s role. DPS units want attack and critical hit relics. Tanks want HP and defense relics. Support units benefit from cooldown reduction and effect duration relics. A well-equipped unit with matching relics can outperform a higher-star unit with poor relic choices.
Relics also have set bonuses when you equip multiple relics from the same set on a single unit. These set bonuses can provide powerful effects like additional elemental damage, increased healing, or bonus turns. Prioritize completing relic sets on your core DPS and tank first, as they benefit most from the stat stacking.
How to Progress Fast in Anime Story 2
After covering the core systems, here is a focused progression roadmap to help you advance as quickly as possible. Follow these priorities in order.
Priority 1: Push story mode. Story progression unlocks new features, game modes, and farming opportunities. Every chapter you complete makes the rest of the game more accessible. Do not get distracted by side content until you hit a wall in story mode.
Priority 2: Build one core team. Focus all upgrade materials, awakening resources, and trait rerolls on a single team of five units. Spreading resources across ten mediocre units slows you down far more than having five strong ones. This is the single most common mistake new players make, and it sets back progression by days or even weeks.
Priority 3: Farm efficiently. Once you hit a story wall, switch to farming the highest stage you can clear quickly. Use the gems and gold to strengthen your core team. Repeat this cycle of pushing story, farming, upgrading, and pushing again. This loop is the core gameplay loop that carries you from beginner to endgame.
Priority 4: Participate in events. Limited-time events often provide resources that are hard to get elsewhere. Even if you cannot complete every event challenge, participate as much as you can. The rewards compound over time, and some events give exclusive units or trait rerolls that are not available through normal gameplay.
Priority 5: Optimize traits and relics. Once your core team is leveled and awakened, start optimizing their traits and relics. This is where the real power jumps happen. A fully optimized team can punch well above its star rating, clearing content that raw stats alone would not allow.
Priority 6: Expand your roster. Only after your core team is fully built should you start investing in secondary units for specific game modes. Having one amazing team plus a few situational units is better than having ten half-built units. Build for raid and tower specifically once your story team is set.
Anime Story 2 Codes – Free Rewards Guide
Codes are one of the easiest ways to get free resources in Anime Story 2, yet most beginner guides do not cover them. The developers regularly release new codes through their Discord server, social media, and update milestone celebrations. Codes typically reward gems, trait rerolls, gold, and occasionally guaranteed unit pulls.
To redeem codes, open the game and look for the codes or settings menu, usually represented by a Twitter bird icon or a gift box on the main screen. Enter each code exactly as shown, including capitalization. Codes are case-sensitive and expire after a certain period, so redeem them as soon as possible.
For the most up-to-date list of active codes, check the official Anime Story 2 Discord server. Codes get posted there first, and community members confirm which ones are still working. You can also follow the game’s social media accounts for code drops tied to updates and milestones. Bookmark this page because we update our codes section regularly as new codes are released and old ones expire.
Codes from the 0.5 update were particularly generous, offering multiple multi-pull tickets and hundreds of gems. When major updates drop, the developers tend to release a batch of codes all at once. These are the best times to be actively checking for new codes, as the rewards are significantly better than the standard weekly code drops.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I get started in Anime Story 2?
To get started in Anime Story 2, complete the tutorial, redeem all available codes for free gems, do your first summons on the standard banner, build a balanced team with one tank and two DPS units, then push through story mode as far as you can. Story progression unlocks new features and resources, so always prioritize advancing through chapters.
What are the best units for beginners in Anime Story 2?
The best beginner units are Acu for DPS, Ruki for tanking, and Slime (Demon) for farming. Acu deals consistent damage that carries you through story mode. Ruki provides team-wide damage reduction. Slime Demon clears stages quickly for efficient gem farming. Sound Breather Master is also excellent if you plan to push tower content early.
How do I farm gems in Anime Story 2?
Farm gems by completing story stages, finishing daily quests and missions, participating in limited-time events, pushing tower milestones, and redeeming codes. For active farming, use Slime (Demon) in a fast-clear team to repeat your highest completable story stage. Never spend gems on anything except summoning until you have a solid roster.
What are the best teams in Anime Story 2?
The best story team runs Ruki as tank, Acu plus an AoE DPS, one support, and an elemental leader. For tower mode, use Sound Breather Master with a healer and debuff units. For raids, stack single-target DPS and debuffers with one tank. For farming, build around Slime Demon with fast-animation AoE units for sub-30-second clears.
How do I progress fast in Anime Story 2?
Progress fast by prioritizing story mode progression, building one core team of five units instead of spreading resources thin, farming the highest clearable stage when stuck, participating in all events, and optimizing traits and relics only after your core team is fully leveled and awakened. Follow this cycle: push story, farm, upgrade, repeat.
Wrapping Up Your Anime Story 2 Beginner Guide
This Anime Story 2 beginner guide covers everything you need to start strong in 2026. From your first summon to efficient farming routes, the path forward is straightforward: complete the tutorial, redeem codes, build around Acu and Ruki, push story mode, and farm resources with Slime Demon. Focus on one core team before branching out, and save your trait rerolls for units you plan to keep permanently.
The biggest mistake new players make is spreading resources too thin across too many units. Build five strong units first. Everything else follows from there. Check back regularly as we update this guide with new codes, unit recommendations, and strategy changes from each game update.