Welcome to another update on Granblue Fantasy, the game I allegedly quit 9 months ago! And I did quit… for about two months. Then my mind told me “Come on, it wasn’t so bad…” and I started checking in every other day. Then every day. By the Golden Week celebration I was back in full force. “I’m only here for magnafest,” I told myself, but I haven’t left since.

I don’t play too seriously outside magfest but it has been 9 months since my last post so I’ve definitely made some progress. I’ve unlocked Tier IV classes and FLB’ed several weapons. I can post updates on my grids another time if anyone is super-interested but today I’m here to talk about sparking Summer Zooey!

Why a spark? TBH I didn’t really need to save up for a spark. I have decent gacha luck and serviceable SSRs in all elements. But other people have sparked and I haven’t. I’m missing out. I must spark too! Why Summer Zooey? Because other people have her and I don’t. What kind of world would this be if everyone were content with their lot? I must have S. Zooey and that’s final.

And I could have had her way back in the July Legfest but I got greedy and decided to wait. Thus I fell victim to the Great Zooey Switcheroo of Summer 2017. That’s why even though I’m tempted to wait and see what’s available at Halloween, Christmas and New Year, I’ll stick with the certain and spark now.

What I want: Shiva-tier summons. Korwa! I’ve always wanted Korwa. Altair because I need a Water buffer that benefits from my Baha dagger. Ayer because my Earth team needs more firepower. SSR swords and daggers to reduce for my Earth/Water FLBs. That’s it, I guess. I told you I had good teams already.

What I’m getting: Summer Zooey. If I manage to pull her before the end, Mahira. If I pull both, Lecia.

Here are my most recent characters before the spark:

And here we gooooo. 110 single ticket draws and 57,000 crystal pulls. I’ll stick to posting the SSRs only.

Sweet, a dagger! Can’t wait to reduce it. Oh wait, it’s a sword? A sword is fine too!

Oh. The new SSR. I was afraid of this. But the melee weapon will come in handy when it’s time to FLB another Celeste Claw.

A reward? Or punishment? for skipping Baalfest. I’m overflowing with Earth quartz so I’ll stick him in a stash for now.

My second Lich. I like his design a lot, it’s very “fantasy.” But because of the way Granblue works I don’t have much use for him in my parties. Stash for now.

I just realized rare crystals glow slightly as they pop out if they contain a + mark. That’s nice.
…Gold moon. That’s nice too.

I’m almost done with my grids. I can’t, I won’t go back to the mines now. *stash*

200 more sword stones get! FLB Ygg Sword, here I come! I’m not sure if Beatrix is any good or not. Will check later.

Yes! YES!! Vortex Dragon! I’m not even kidding, I really need light quartz! Thank you for coming home, please come again!

Another gold moon. And it’s the same Fusion Mobius as before. Clarisse must really like me, but I don’t need any harp stones. …Ah, yet another gold moon. This time it’s Eugen’s AK-4A. I reduced the first one. Better hang on to this just in case.

Welp, that’s it for the 110 single tickets. So far I have 7 new SSRs, 3 gold moons and two or three new SR and R characters. Stan, Rosine, Philosophia and maybe someone else too. Time for the crystal draws.

1st: Nothing good.
2nd: Junk.
3rd: Silver moon, bronze moon.
4th: Silver moon, two bronze moons.
5th: My second Anubis:

Anubis-sama, I haven’t forgotten how you carried me when I was a tiny little scrub just starting out. I will never reduce you but will treat you kindly and tenderly until the day I finally MLB you. Please rest quietly in my stash for now.

If Granblue Fantasy ever releases a must-have harp weapon, I’ll be ready to FLB it on day one.

6th: Gold moon, SR Dante, R Feather and…

A sword I can’t reduce and an SSR I don’t really need. Nice try Varuna, but it’s not gonna happen.

7th:

No Agni, you and me aren’t going to happen either. Not until Granblue provides a way of getting Sunlight Stones that doesn’t involve grinding like a madman for one week straight.

8th:

Another potentially-useful sword I can’t reduce. I hear Dark Jeanne d’Arc is a powerful character though. I’ll put her through her paces in a bit, right now I have a spark to finish.

9th: Beatrix gold moon, more sword stones for me. And…

In retrospect it’s a good thing I didn’t spark back in July. I would have missed the increase in summon draw rates and missed all these good summons. I don’t run much difficult content nowadays but Europa has a place in my water party at least.

10th: Bronze moon, Dorothy and Claudia gold moon.
11th: Silver moon.
12th:

Don’t need staff, don’t need dark healer, but I’ll take the 50 crystals.

I said, I don’t need staff stones and I don’t need dark healers. Listen when I’m talking to you, GBF!

13th:

Awesome! I like those piercing blue eyes, very cool. My Earth team was lagging behind the others so this is just the pick me up I needed. Xeno Cocytus, here I come!

14th: Nothing, not even a moon.
15th:

More sword stones! I don’t really use my Dark party all that much so I can’t think of any battles that really need a Veil… Hmm. Well, let’s keep moving.

16th: Two bronze moons.
17th:

Sword stones up the wazoo! And I might actually have a place for Siegfried on my earth team. Welcome aboard!

18th: Two silver moons, one bronze moon.
19th (final): Silver moon.

And done! It won’t let me draw any more until I’ve traded the sparks. Last chance to change my mind and get Mahira or Lecia instead…

But no, I too must become one of the Zooey-endowed elite! Here goes nothing~ …Wot, they just sent it to my crate. No sparkly rainbow crystal and cool music? No ticker tape parade for getting 300 sparks?

Guess not! Well, that was pretty satisfying anyway.

Final haul

SSR characters: Albert, Dorothy & Claudia, Beatrix, Arriet, Katalina (water), Jeanne D’Arc (dark), Cagliostro (dark), Marquiares, Vira, Siegfried, Summer Zooey.
SSR summons: Baal, Lich, Varuna, Vortex Dragon, Anubis, Agni, Europa, Godsworn Alexiel.
SR characters: Carren, Sarya, Dante, Mimlemel.
R characters: Rosine, Philosophia, Stan, Dante, Feather, Ryan.
Moons: 29 bronze moons, 16 silver moons (at least 5 of which are Sarya’s weapon) and 6 gold moons.
Plus marks: +10 for summons, +20 for weapons

9/10 would spark again

Was it worth the wait? Yes and no. “Yes” because I’ve had a lot of fun today. It may look like I pulled everything all at once, but I actually spread the spark out over a couple of hours. It was great getting a rainbow surprise every hour ^_^. In an ideal world I would have spread it out over the entire weekend but knowing myself I’d forget to log in on Sunday and then (o)___(o)”” T_____T So it’s better this way.

Plus I got 19 SSRs (25 if you count gold moons), which is about right for the 6% SSR rate. Way more than I was expecting. I’m not too disappointed I didn’t get any character on my wishlist because now I have future draws and sparks to look forward to. I already have 13,136 crystals and 5 single tickets waiting for the next Summer Zooey-level gamebreaker.

“No” because I think I waited a little too long to spark. My parties are mostly finalized and it will take a lot for a new character to break into the frontlines. Apart from Summer Zooey and maybe Siegfried and Dark Jeanne d’Arc, everyone is going straight to the bench. I’m pretty happy with the great summons I got, but again at this point I mainly use sub-summons for their stats. Those without good auras or calls are going straight to the stash. Except Vortex Dragon, he is already dead.

Plus waiting for a spark as a free-to-play player can limit your grids because you lack weapon stones for final uncaps. Of course there’s no guarantee you will get them if you pull normally, but if you don’t pull for 7-9 months then you’re entirely at the mercy of Cygames and the occasional free pull.

I’ve been so desperate for sword and dagger stones that I’ve been buying all the SR weapon tickets Rise of the Beasts has to offer. And it’s still not enough. Oh, how I’ve regretted making a Skofnung for my Class Champion Weapon. Thanks to the spark I’m finally swimming in sharp pointy sword stones ouch ouch ouch but it’s been a long time coming.

Final thoughts

Sparking is fun~ When can I spark again? It took 7 months last time because I had a lot of unfinished quests and trophies. Now I estimate another 8-9 months, so probably May, June 2018. No guarantees I’ll still be playing Granblue Fantasy then but if I am, please join me for another spark. Thanks for reading!