Here is a list of everything worth buying (and a lot of things not worth buying) from shops.
There are things you need to buy every day, and others every week. Saving your resources wisely is very important.
If you are willing to spend a little bit of money as a rookie, the following is recommended:
Moira is great for Red Hunt, but the prime deal is the set of "Guardian" HP set in the Welcome Pack 2.
Having a second HP set means you never have to farm Green Hunt & can build a second tank or healer extremely easily. Even into Lategame those pieces can be split up between 3 different units and will continue to be useful.
Both packs combined are worth less than $5USD (360 ecoins in erolabs).
Similar to Welcome Pack 2, the EVP gives you a set of "Survivor" ATK set. This lets you gear a second DPS unit extremely easily - usually Celeste or Marsha for most rookies. This massively shortens the amount of time you may need to get a Hunt team going.
This pack 20 purple star-up crystals, enough to promote 1 lv.50 unit to 6★ rank. Star-up crystals are a major choke in earlygame, often hindering your progress; this may alleviate some of that pressure.
In total, both Moira welcome packs, the Equipment pack, and the Growth pack combined is 760 ecoins.
If you take advantage of the "Member+ Subscription" deal in Erolabs you can get 790 ecoins for $11USD.
MAKE SURE to cancel the subscription immediately after receiving the ecoins!
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1,100 gems and 20 tickets for 220 ecoins is decent value, however neither of those resources are arguably worth buying with real money. Still an option if you're looking for a quick top-up.
Packs under this section can potentially cost quite a bit.
2200 ecoins are roughly $30USD, 3675 ecoins about $50, and 7350 ecoins are the highest possible price at $100.
Skill Upgrade Pack 1 & 2 offer one skillmod per 153~157 ecoin. This is not a bad value considering how valuable skillmods are.
Small spenders should stick to Skill Pack 1, but Skill Pack 2 is slightly higher in efficiency.
You can get a full set of flawlessly perfect Destruction and Penetration set pink gears for about $100.
(These gears are called Pink Gears because they have pink backgrounds. Pink Gears have a fixed main and substat & can be reset to +0 using an Equipment Resetter.)
Depending on how it rolls (and you even get a wheel to reset the worst-rolled gear) you can get an "endgame spec" god tier gear with none of the painful grinding required to normally craft such gear.
Only available to new accounts for a limited amount of time, these packs which cost $100 each sell "endgame spec" pink gear sets.
While buying these gears is definitely not required or even recommended for new players, if you consider yourself a whale, you can definitely take advantage of them.
The recommended purchase priority is Destruction > Counter > Speed > Lifesteal > Health > Rage.
A trend that started around mid-2025, limited edition recruit units tend to come with their own unique set of pink gears. These tend to have tailored substats that perfectly match the unit's strengths (in theory). However, either due to developer incompetence or the unwillingness to release too good of a gear, these tend to be hit-or-miss.
As a rule of thumb, do not buy these equipments if the gear is so niche and uniquely-tuned to the featured unit that it couldn't be used by many other units. If you're dropping 100 bucks on a set of gear they need to be versatile and they need to be useful often.
If you're unsure feel free to ask around in the discord.
Only available to VIP 7 and above, Div. Apostle is the strongest "P2W unit" who is currently the only unit capable of disabling other characters' passive skills using the Seal debuff. While she isn't dominant or overpowered, she has a very strong niche unlike Apostle or Eva who are definitely replaceable.
Fair warning: Divergent Apostle does not properly function in PvP without Projekt Melody's "Cyber Clash" bond, only obtained during limited recruit events.
You can buy packs in the "Milestone" tab. VIP 0~5 packs cost gems, while 6+ cost ecoins.
VIP 0, 1, 2, 5 packs are worth buying.
VIP 6 pack has the Apostle, an AOE nuker. She is not necessary and is easily replaceable with free units. Small spenders can safely skip her.
However, VIP 9~13 packs have the Potential Break for Apostle. At SSS Potential, Apostle is one of two units in the game with a 12-speed team imprint (the other being Apathy) and one of two Mages with a speed imprint (the other being Pantasia, with an 8-speed team imprint). Considering that Mages can hold the First Flutter bond, ultra-giga-whale players can definitely consider an SSS Apostle for highly aggressive Cleave teams.
VIP 3, 4, 7, 8, 14, and 15 packs are way too expensive for what they are.
99% of offers in the shop are whale baits / terrible value.
As a rule of thumb, if it isn't listed in here, maybe ask around for opinions before you buy stuff.
Do Not Buy Anything. Buying diamonds with cash is terrible value.
DO NOT buy tickets directly with gems! Buying them in the Secret Shop is cheaper (read below).
The only exception is the Rookie Sprint banner for newbies. DO buy tickets directly with gems in order to pity the Rookie Sprint banner.
Do not buy gold with gems, and do not buy discipline/love link power with gems.
Do not buy Mindlink Matrix (VR entrance ticket) with batteries.
Do not buy energy with batteries outside of Resupply event weekend.
If you are looking for Substat Converters, or if you have astrogen powder left over, buy the Substat Converter Chests every week.
The Secret Shop is where you get most of your tickets. In addition to refreshing every hour, you can pay 3 gems to refresh the offers. The daily refresh limit increases with VIP level.
From the regular shop, tickets are sold at the price of 1 pull per 100 gems. The secret shop, on average, offers 1 pull (5 tix) per 26.5 rolls. This is equivalent to 1 pull per 79.5 gems.
So not only are tickets in the secret shop 20 gems cheaper, you can also find Mystery tickets, Ampleons, and gear pieces. Therefore, unless you ran out of gold, you should MAX your refresh limit every day.
From the secret shop, you can find:
Astrogen Powder: Do not buy
Common growth potion: Do not buy
Ampleons: Buy if you need them, especially earlygame
Recruit Tickets (green, yellow): Buy all of them
ALL Gear pieces BELOW LEVEL 85: Do not buy
Level 85 Rare, Epic gear pieces: Do not buy
Level 85 Legendary gear pieces: Buy if they're good
Upgrading your Secret Shop level increases the level and quality of gear offered. It does not affect the drop odds of anything else (including tickets). Level 85 gear will not be offered below Shop level 11 (Account level 60).
In general, you should stop rolling the shop if you drop below 1.5 million gold. This rule can be broken if you urgently need tickets.
If you've been unlucky with the secret shop, paradoxically your best bet is to roll MORE. The Law of Large Numbers dictates that a larger sample size will approach the known (true) probability. Since we know that the odds are 1 per 26.5, the more you roll the Shop, the closer your average will approach that, and sooner you're going to start profiting.
The exact drop odds for the shop is listed in the Miraheze wiki page.
The Earth Merchants shop is a temporary event shop where different items are sold for gems.
This shop is NOT PERMANENT and periodically returns for 2 weeks at a time as an event.
Every item in the shop has purchase limits.
Energy Batteries: Buying batteries here is cheaper than buying energy directly with gems.
ALL ITEMS LISTED HERE should only be bought if you have a surplus of gems (5~6k+). If you are saving up for an emergency pity fund, you need a 12k+ surplus. Don't buy these unless you actually need them.
Equipment Resetters: This is the ONLY F2P source of "Wheels" if you have some pink gear you'd like to roll again (such as Arena shop pink gear).
Skill Mods: This is most likely a bad value unless you are critically low on skillmods.
Legendary Bond Ampleons: Ditto; bad value unless you are in dire need of bond upgrades.
Mysterious Contracts: If your yellow ticket income is low but your gems are high, this has merit.
Member ticket: 90% chance for a 4★ unit and a 5% chance for a useless 5★ for 1200 gems.
Galaxy ticket: way too overpriced at 1200 gems for 1 pull.
Substat Converter: Buy them with emblems or powders instead in the normal shop.
Catalysts: Farm Event Stages for catalysts.
Gear Ampleons: These are not rare or valuable at all.
Growth Potions: These are worthless.
Desire Tokens are a paid resource that is only obtained by buying the Monthly Pack 3. You can get up to 400 Desire Tokens per month by buying the pack and then logging in every day.
You can Limit Break any 5-star RGB unit one stage with the RGB Shared Potential (3 months equivalent price).
You can Limit Break any 5-star ML unit one stage with the ML Shared Potential (4 months equivalent price).
You can Limit Break any 5-star bond one stage with the Shared Bond Potential (2.5 months equivalent price).
You can VERY slowly Potential Break your hard-to-get Limited units, bonds, and ML5s with this. The current consensus is that this is not worth it aside from very specific circumstances.
You can get a random 5-star RGB unit with the Member Ticket. (2.25 months equivalent price).
This is equivalent to 10 Rainbow Astrogen after you sell the unit. Considering that you can already get 10 Rainbows per month from Battle Pass 2, this doesn't seem worth it.
You can buy 10 Energy Batteries (0.25 months equivalent price).
As it currently stands, simply buying 40 Batteries a month for the extra energy seems to be the best use of Desire Tokens.
However, it is unclear whether this is worth buying Monthly Pack 3 for, as the Monthly Pack 2 is better for getting extra energy and gold.
A significant source of Pledge Emblems is from selling units. DO NOT sell units randomly! Read Resource Management (Ticket Farming) for more info.
At the VERY LEAST get the 2x skillmods every single week. If you have a lot of emblems, also buy the Bond Ampleons every week.
Only buy the necklace and ring amps if you need them urgently.
Only buy Potential Fragments when you need them.
You can get 1 Eternal Emblem per 20 banner pulls (recruits). You can also get 2 emblems a week from Guild Rewards and Weekly Milestone.
DO NOT BUY 4-5★ Random tickets! ONLY buy Galaxy Contracts.
4-5★ Tickets drop 90% 4★, and 10% 5★. At least half of all 5★ units in the game are useless or less useful.
On the other hand, Galaxy Contracts are the best way to find Yellow/Black (ML) 4★ units who are very strong. Even ML3★ units can be very useful.
Bond Fragments are mainly gained from selling excess Bonds. Read Resource Management (Shard Farming) for more info.
In general, save your bond fragments to buy good bonds from the shop.
The shop rotation is listed in the Miraheze wiki page.
Buy bond amps if you need them in a pinch - try not to buy them often, though.
Friendship coins are gained from using friends' support units, and having your support units used by a friend.
Make sure that your support units are configured properly (Main menu > Profile picture > Change Support Member). Advertise your profile on the Discord server and kick any inactive friends from your friend list.
Every day, buy the 40 Energy, and 5 Flags.
Do not buy the Quick Battle tickets unless you need them right now.
Buy the 20 Discipline Points if you have a very high income of Friendship Coins.
You can stack the discipline points above the limit this way, if you're not building any units at the moment.
If you have more than 4,000 coins, buy the 100,000 gold.
Every week, buy the two Skillmods. If you hit Arena often (you should be!), also buy the 3x Energy every day.
If you have a lot of surplus medals, buy Ampleons as you need them.
Save these for the pink gear in the shop.
Buy the HP set first, prioritizing right side over left (neck ring boots > weapon helmet armor).
If you need a specific piece, buy that one first.
After that, buy the ATK set. Buy the boots last, as they're the least useful.
Rainbow Astrogen is a very rare resource that is only gained via 2 ways:
Selling (sending) a natural 5★ unit; RGB5s give 10 rainbow, ML5s give 40.
Purchasing Special Battle Pass for 720 ecoins.
The ONLY PLACE Rainbow Astrogen should be used is the "Random Lv. 85 Legendary Equipment" chest.
When you press "Confirm Equipment" you get offered 3 randomly generated gear pieces. You can refresh the offer by pressing the bottom left button. The refresh amount refills every day and increases by VIP level.
By continuously refreshing, you can generate and buy "Perfect" gear pieces in the Rainbow shop. Being able to buy custom perfect gear pieces is the most important value of rainbow astrogen.
DO NOT buy ANYTHING ELSE with rainbow astrogen.
Always buy Event Recruit tickets, Exclusive event gear (lv 78), Skillmods, and Bond Ampleon.
Some events don't offer an exclusive gear for purchase.
If you want, buy the event background.
After the event is over and you have bought anything worth buying, turn the rest of the tokens into Astrocash.
If you're new and short on upgrade materials, buy all the ampleons first.
Hard stages are less energy-efficient than Elite stages, but they give you a ton of Astrogen powder.
Farm Hard stages to buy all catalysts (5 legendary, 20 rare) if you need catalysts or star-up crystals.
Only farm enough to get "Always Buy" items if you don't need catalysts or star-up crystals.
Buy the gear ampleons if you need them, skip them if you don't.
Elite stage is the most efficient way to farm catalysts.
Farm Elite stages to buy all catalysts (5 legendary, 20 rare) if you need catalysts or star-up crystals.
Only farm enough to get "Always Buy" items if you don't need catalysts or star-up crystals.
It's a good idea to stockpile catalysts and slowly convert them to ones for future units.
Do NOT buy 4★ Bond Tickets, Advanced star-up (yellow crystals), or Growth potions.
Advanced Discipline elements can be bought, but Intermediate and Common ones are bad value.
Lv. 70 equipment chests should NEVER be bought.
Converting tokens into Astrocash (gold) should only be done at the end of the event after you've bought everything else. Do not farm Event stages just for gold.
Every week, buy the Skill mod and the 3x Random Catalyst Chest. Every month, buy the star-up crystal.
Surplus emblems can be used at any time to buy bond ampleons for 180 per amp.
Every week, buy the Mysterious tickets. Buy catalyst chests if you need them in a pinch, but try not to.
Save up and buy the Guild Exclusive Reluctant Compromise bond and bond potentials at your own pace.