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Fairies: Where They Live and How to Craft Them

Introduction

Fairies are an integral part of Girls' Frontline gameplay, providing massive DPS/survivability buffs and map utility enabling completely new strategies to beat maps. When properly raised, the value they provide cannot be understated, from literally doubling echelon DPS to teleporting to any helipad on the map. However, raising fairies is heavily time-gated, and requires large investments of resources over time. So, what are you waiting for?

CRAFT

MORE

FAIRIIIIIIIIIIIIES

For a very short crash course that doesn’t go in much detail, please see: Jessie’s crash course on Fairies.

Disclaimer: Due to legal reasons, which may or may not include my wellbeing, I must declare that Jessie's name is, in fact, jesse#6406 a.k.a. Jesse

How Fairies Work

Fairies are the 6th member of your echelon and go in the little slot on the right that is initially locked.

To be able to equip and craft fairies you must unlock Fairy Production, which happens after 60 unique map clears (Tutorial maps and Simulation stages count towards this number). 

So what do they even do?

Fairies provide a passive stat buff to your echelon, a talent that scales in potency based on rarity and possess skills you can activate at the cost of fairy commands.

These skills can vary widely from simple stat buffs, to deploying a meatshield drone in front of the echelon during combat or even paradropping your team to any unoccupied heliport on the map.

The passive stat buff (aura) depends on the fairies level and ☆ rarity, the potency of the talent also depends on the ☆ rarity.
When raising fairies, choosing one that already has a strong talent (such as Damage II and Fervor) if available is recommended for most fairies.

You can change the talent in the research screen at the cost of calibration tickets and resources, though this is quite expensive and very RNG due to 17 different Talents existing.
For more on Talents see the Talent section down below.

Avoiding the need entirely by simply raising a strong talent from the start is far cheaper.

Skill levels are trained in the regular way, but costs more data than doll skills and takes longer time.

Skill Table
Skill Level Combat Fairy Strategy Fairy Time (hours)
1→2 200 Basic 200 Basic 2
2→3 400 Basic 400 Basic 6
3→4 600 Basic 600 Basic 10
4→5 200 Intermediate 240 Intermediate 14
5→6 400 Intermediate 400 Intermediate 20
6→7 600 Intermediate 600 Intermediate 26
7→8 200 Advanced 800 Intermediate 32
8→9 400 Advanced 400 Advanced 40
9→10 600 Advanced 600 Advanced 58
Total 1200 Basic 1200 Intermediate 1200 Advanced 1200 Basic 2040 Intermediate 1000 Advanced 198
Rarity Enhancement Exp needed for next rarity Total Exp Percentage of stats you’ll get Talent potency Level required for that ☆ rarity
1☆ Default Default 40% 40% Default
2☆ 100 (100 for Event Fairies) 100 (100) 50% 60% 20 (57,400 exp)
3☆ 400 (100 for Event Fairies) 500 (200) 60% 70% 40 (416,400 exp)
4☆ 1000 (150 for Event Fairies) 1500 (350) 80% 90% 70 (2,860,800 exp)
5☆ 1500 (200 for Event Fairies) 3000 (550) 100% 100% 100 (9,999,000 exp)

“I’ve seen plenty of people neglect their fairies and here I am telling you to not be that person. Even if it seems so expensive at first, it is well worth it.” -Greez

Acquiring Fairies

3.0 Onwards!

With 3.0 these are in their own dedicated menu and you are guaranteed to get a fairy each craft. Before 3.0 fairies were part of heavy equipment production and you had a ~20% chance to get a fairy per craft, this is now outdated.

It is highly recommended to do a daily amount of fairy crafts to further your fairy progress at a steady pace. Two is a good starting amount, scale it up to the best of your ability as you progress further in the story and unlock better logistics and drag maps for resources and cores respectively.

There are multiple recipes in fairy construction, but these should be ignored for the most part.

The cheapest cost of 500x4 will be the most efficient way of getting all your fairies raised.

For getting the initial fairies that are not in the 500x4 recipe, you should instead follow the recipes listed by Mica as they messed with the resource weights and the old reliable recipes are no longer viable.

  • 3k/500/2k/1.5k, recipe for Reinforcement type fairies, includes Parachute.
  • 500/2k/3k/1.5k, recipe for Combat type fairies.

These are not recommended to even consider early on, as raising your cheap and good fairies is much more important, as most of the useful fairies come from the 500x4 recipe and you get a free Parachute Fairy from Career Quests.

Note that the old recommended recipes no longer function properly

The old pre-3.0 recommended recipes that were the go-to have been completely ruined by whatever Mica did to the back end. DO NOT USE THEM!

The only recipes you should be using are the three listed above.

Ranking Fairies

Due to the ever-changing nature on how Ranking Fairies are acquired, these are covered on their respective event. To illustrate how acquiring Fairies has changed over time:

  1. Deep Dive to Polarized Light: 
    1. Top 10% Fairy with Flex Talent
    2. Top 30% Fairy with Random Talent
    3. Minimum Score Threshold Fairy with Random Talent
  2. Mirror Stage to Poincáre Recurrence
    1. Top 10% Fairy with Flex Talent
    2. Top 30% Fairy with Random Talent
    3. Cumulative Score Threshold Fairy with Random Talent
  3. Fixed Point onwards
    1. Threshold 1 Fairy with Flex Talent
    2. Threshold 2 Fairy with Random Talent
    3. Cumulative Score Threshold Fairy with Random Talent

Raising fairies

s a general idea raising fairies is done through feeding duplicates to the same fairy, providing 100 exp per dupe. Fairies with the same talent will grant a bonus 50% exp, so 150 exp for dupes.

Fairies will only provide 1/10th of the exp when fed to a different fairy and this should never be done when raising cheap (500x4) fairies.

For more expensive fairies, it depends on how many from a specific recipe you are trying to raise at once, but as you’ll see below, there’s only really one strong fairy from the expensive recipes that is a large consideration for raising, being Parachute.

If you are raising only one single fairy from an expensive recipe (you are raising Parachute, because this is Parachute Frontline) and no others, you should be doing 500x4 and using the cheap fairies to raise the expensive fairy.

Generally not recommended: 

If you are raising 70% or more of the fairies in one of the expensive pools, crafting for that pool is more resource efficient than 500x4. Most likely you are not raising that many though, as such you should be doing 500x4 instead.

Again, this is not recommended as most of the fairies in these pools are not especially strong, and if they are even used it is generally for their Strategy (map level) skill, not their combat potential, and as such skill levels is mostly what matters here.

Early game high priorities

Strong aura

  • Command
    • As the section says, the aura is only outshone by certain ranking fairies (not available) and Parachute
    • Skill is useless
  • Artillery
    • Strongest firepower buff aura
    • Skill practically useless

Strong skill

  • Taunt
    • Decent aura
    • Very strong skill spawning a massive meatshield in front of echelon at combat start
  • Shield
    • Mediocre aura, but skill improves combat power and grants defense all in one
  • Twin
    • Weaker aura than Taunt
    • Alternative skill to Taunt with different use cases

Note that Twin Fairy should in general not be brought against enemies with damage that pierces an entire row such as Rodeleros and Patrollers, as her positioning allows enemies to hit multiple rows of dolls.

Niche fairies

Very useful in their niche, but hardly important to focus on early on:

  • Sniper
    • Very strong anti-single-target skill, being the main reason to use her (Note that older guides will say she is useless, she has since been reworked.)
    • Usable aura
  • Illumination
    • Allows for extended night vision range enabling you to see enemies and nodes from further away on night maps
    • Usable aura
  • Armor
    • Strongest armor aura if armor is needed, other benefits are decent
    • Skill can allow for a short-term armor boost, but most armor stacking strategies are longer term so it is generally not needed
    • Wants Armor II talent if possible

Weaker fairies

Should still be raised because 500x4 is cheap and you will need enough fairies for all your echelons to use (especially if you are not duping paras)

  • Airstrike
    • Decent aura
    • Skill can enable wiping out low-health swarm enemies with ease (Dinergates and Tarantulas at SL2, others need much higher Skill Level and is usually not a recommended investment)
  • Warrior
    • Mediocre aura
    • Skill combined with aura gives decent combat strength
  • Rescue
    • Mediocre aura
    • Still cheap to raise
  • Fury
    • Decent aura
    • Skill combined with aura gives decent combat strength

Fodder

Has no realistic use until a rework happens, feed to parachute.

  • Barrier
    • Has a terrible aura with no damage or crit damage
    • ​​​​​​​Skill is useless

Expensive fairies (non-500x4)

For these you should generally aim to get the base fairy and then feed it fodder from the 500x4 recipe.

Parachute

  • Parachute, the omnipotent one because Mica forgot anti-air turrets are a thing.
  • If you intend to dupe these, see Varz’ parachute document.
  • This is the single most useful fairy in the game, allowing you to take full control of a battlefield by paradropping on any non-occupied helipads.

Combo

  • A combat fairy whose skill gets stronger as she takes more fights.
  • “Combo is basically a very expensive and fancy statstick.” - Varz
  • Only really a consideration if you are not raising more Parachute fairies.

The niche

If you do not intend to dupe paras, you will need to raise less optimal fairies. Of these there are three that stand out from the rest.

  • Rocket
    • A strategy fairy whose main appeal is her skill, deploying a mini-HOC on a nearby node.
    • Weak aura
  • Construction
    • A strategy fairy focused on granting strong buffs to a single node, allowing any echelon that takes fights on said node to gain large stat boosts in combat for the next few turns.
    • Weak aura
  • Landmine
    • A strategy fairy who puts down a mine that will damage the enemy that walks onto the node, doesn’t work on bosses.
    • Weak aura

The useless ones

  • Defense
    • Got a skill rework, still not stellar skill
    • Weak aura
  • Reinforcement
    • ​​​​​​​Can ‘heal’ a single doll in your echelon for 1 link
    • Weak aura

Fairy skills

Fairies can spend FCs (Fairy Commands) to activate skills that take effect during the next fight or on the map layer; these have varying effects and some are far stronger than others.

Far from all fairy skills should even be considered to skill up, here is a list of all the production fairies and their skills.

Strong skills

  • Parachute
    • The ultimate map utility, allows Paradropping onto any non-occupied Helipad.
  • Taunt
    • Defensive power in combat, spawns a meatshield in front of the echelon on combat start.
  • Shield
    • Defense and offense in one package, shields can prevent chip damage.
  • Twin
    • Alternative to Taunt fairy, spawns two meatshields in front of the echelon on combat start, different use cases from Taunt.
  • Sniper
    • Anti-boss and single target specialist, scales exceptionally well with skill levels.
  • Illumination
    • ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Used for night map vision range, specifically skill levels 3 and 10 for +1 and +2 vision range respectively, anything in between is practically useless. Also has a minor PEQ effect.

Decent skills

Fairy skills are expensive to skill up, but these fairies do get better with skills active.

  • Combo
    • Attached to a very expensive fairy, only skill this if you intend to raise her. (You are not duping paras.)
  • Warrior
    • Buffs Damage and Rate of fire for 20s.
  • Fury
    • Buffs Accuracy and Crit Rate for 20s.
      Only useful for dolls not close to crit cap (crit chance caps at 100%), not useful on Rifles for this reason.
  • Airstrike
    • Calls down an Airstrike that damages all enemies a few seconds into combat. Sl2 kills most Tarantula swarms.

Niche skills

  • Rocket
    • Place a mini-HOC on a nearby node, which will support nearby echelons in battle up to 3 times, or expires after 3 rounds. Deals current hp% based damage, stronger early in fights and diminishes in effectiveness as enemy health pools deplete.
  • Armor
    • Buffs Armor by 50% for 20s, the limited duration does not combine well with how Armor stacking comps try to drag fights out, and is as such generally not useful.
  • Construction
    • Buffs the node the Echelon is currently on, granting 30% damage, accuracy, evasion, armor and crit rate to any echelon fighting on the node for 3 turns.
  • Landmine
    • Place a mine on an adjacent empty node, any non-Boss enemy that steps onto it takes 50% damage. This can be an extremely effective way of dealing with enemies you struggle with. Do note that in certain ranking maps this causes CE loss which will reduce the amount of points you get from killing enemies, lowering your score potential.
  • Rescue
    • ​​​​​​​Increases your core rate while farming for FCs, which can be worth it. Also costs quite a bit of data due to being a fairy.

Not worth it skills

  • Command
    • Very minor exp boost for FCs, expensive to skill up due to fairy skill costs. Spending FCs on Airstrike in 8-1n is significantly more exp per fairy command.
  • Artillery
    • Delayed mortar hitting a targeted enemy at start of combat, both arrives too late and does too low damage to be a help in more difficult fights and again is expensive to skill up due to fairy skill costs.
  • Barrier
    • Tries to scale the shield with armor and is entirely and completely outclassed by Shield Fairy scaling with link hp. SGs generally have 250 or higher hp per link, and to get even remotely close to this with Barrier’s skill you would need over 160 armor on your SG which is not even remotely possible. The final nail in the coffin for Barrier is that Shield Fairy also increases the damage and reduces damage taken for all the dolls in the echelon for the duration of the shield.
  • Reinforcement
    • Heals the lowest health% doll in the echelon by 1 Dummy links. Killing the enemy faster through using stronger Fairy Auras and Fairy Skills would prevent such damage loss in the first place.
  • Defense
    • Buffs the echelon with a damage reduction that diminishes over time to 0, and also prevents link loss per doll once. Since she offers little in ways to help kill the enemy you are more likely to have more things alive as your damage reduction runs out. Again, using stronger Fairy Auras and Fairy Skills would generally prevent more damage than this strange skill.
    • If you do intend to raise this fairy for some strange reason, you probably want to skill it up, but, otherwise, this is a big no.

Prototype Fairy

Prototype fairy is a unique fairy that you get at level 100 5☆, allowing Talents to work at full strength while having a fairly weak aura of 10% to 4 stats. Her skill does nothing, and her only purpose is being fed to other fairies (being fodder) and still granting 100 exp despite being of a different type.

In general this should be used on expensive fairies such as Parachute, as getting dupes of these is far more expensive than 500x4 fairies.

Skilling up her skill is free and can grant you achievement and Career Quest progress. It is recommended to spend the minute to do so before using her as fodder.

Talents

Fairy talents activate at the start of battle and have varying effects.

Note that this can have interactions with doll skills.

Tier II (Gold) talents are more rare than tier I talents, more on this on BSJ’s page on talent frequency.

Strongest talents

  • Fervor
    • 10% damage at combat start, an additional 10% every 8 seconds up to 3 stacks.
    • Becomes stronger than Damage II past the 8s mark, outperforming it at the 10-14s mark.
    • Niche interaction with Pekola and AS Val mod.
  • Damage II
    • 15% damage at combat start.

Niche talents

  • Armor II
    • Enables reaching armor thresholds for SGs.
  • Aim
    • Net dps buff on RFs is higher than Damage II. This only affects RFs and limits the use of the Fairy, though with how prevalent RFs are this is not a major issue as of writing.
  • Critical II
    • Mostly used for Parachute debuffed RFs. Potential uses for ARs, MGs, but Fervor or Damage II are more general for this purpose.

Good enough talents

Talents you can make do with, even though there are stronger options if you have a choice: say raising a new fairy from the start. These still offer far more than talents that don’t do anything useful.

  • Damage I
    • Slightly weaker than Damage II.

Stopgap talents

Talents to make do with until you either need something stronger or can afford the cost of rerolling.

  • Sturdy and Armor I
    • Not as much armor as Armor II, which can lead to not reaching the required threshold.
  • Assault
    • Similar to Aim but applies to ARs. ARs have a much higher base RoF and Chips just add to this leading to potential overcaps or not making enough of a difference to reach the next RoF bracket. Potential uses for M4mod exodia, but other talents are far more widely applicable.

Little to no use talents

These talents offer far too little to be worth considering. You want to avoid these if possible.

  • Accuracy I and II
    • No direct damage increase.
  • Evasion I and II
    • Killing enemies is better.
  • Keen
    • Offers no damage, reducing any use it could have in niche 5HG comps.
  • Suppression
    • Just use a damage talent. Even if you want more accuracy on your MGs, Nova exists.
  • Charge
    • Less damage buffs than other stronger talents, even for SMG focused echelons.
  • Critical I
    • Crit II is already niche so if you intend to use crit, you should go for Crit II for the maximum benefit.

Flex Talents

When you rank in the top 10% in a Major Event ranking you will receive an extra fairy with a “flex” talent. This is a purely cosmetic talent causing a visual effect to appear when it triggers in battle. Each ranking fairy has a separate one of these, none of them have any actual combat impact.

If you participated in a ranking and received a fairy with a talent that you do not recognize and isn’t mentioned above, it is most likely a flex talent and has no practical use.

Post Fixed Point Flex Talent

When you reach the relevant Score Threshold for newer Rankings, you will receive an extra fairy with a “flex” talent. This is a purely cosmetic talent causing a visual effect to appear when it triggers in battle. Each ranking fairy has a separate one of these, none of them have any actual combat impact.

If you participated in a ranking and received a fairy with a talent that you do not recognize and isn’t mentioned above, it is most likely a flex talent and has no practical use.

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