Considering returning after 2 years, what to do?

[Indignation211]

So I played this game pretty regularly from late Episode 2 all the way through Episode 4, I got really hyped for Hero to the point that in the final days of Episode 4 I grinded Deus ESCA enough to get a Zeinesis Sword, Twin Machinegun and Talis to +35. Then Hero came and... I just didn't like the class. Combine that with Episode 5 just being... meh and I ended up just falling off the game entirely (didn't even stick around for Buster Quest). Also didn't help that I was sick with a cold on Episode 5's launch day...

So fast forward 2 years to today, I see the new Armada of Demise EQ and it actually looks amazing. I'm thinking of getting back on, but i've missed out on 2 years of powercreep. 15-star weapons were'nt a thing when I last played and on top of that I had never even gotten my hands on a single 12-star unit (to say nothing of expert block/matching). Oh and I think I only got Hunter to level 80, everything else was 75 tops.

So if I were to pick this game up again with my old main, what would I need to do to catch up?

[Anduril]

So I played this game pretty regularly from late Episode 2 all the way through Episode 4, I got really hyped for Hero to the point that in the final days of Episode 4 I grinded Deus ESCA enough to get a Zeinesis Sword, Twin Machinegun and Talis to +35. Then Hero came and... I just didn't like the class. Combine that with Episode 5 just being... meh and I ended up just falling off the game entirely (didn't even stick around for Buster Quest). Also didn't help that I was sick with a cold on Episode 5's launch day...

So fast forward 2 years to today, I see the new Armada of Demise EQ and it actually looks amazing. I'm thinking of getting back on, but i've missed out on 2 years of powercreep. 15-star weapons were'nt a thing when I last played and on top of that I had never even gotten my hands on a single 12-star unit (to say nothing of expert block/matching). Oh and I think I only got Hunter to level 80, everything else was 75 tops.

So if I were to pick this game up again with my old main, what would I need to do to catch up?

Well, you will definitely want to play as many runs of the Persona EQ and Armada EQ as you can since those have titles that give you the stone needed for 15* Lightstream weapons (and the Persona EQ also is the only place to get the stones needed to upgrade a Profound Weapon from a 13* to Celestial 14*, which is then upgraded to the 15* Lightstream; getting the Dark Falz weapons you need for the upgrade from 13* to 14* might be a bit more of a chore). Also, the upcoming 7th Anniversary event will have new 15*s that will likely be obtainable from Xie.
In the mean time, there are some conditional 15*s that you can get from the Medals you obtain in Armada, otherwise you can buy some 14*s from the Player Shops to hold you over.

For 12* Units, you can get a set of Phobos Units with decent affixes just from running the story quests. The current best all-around set of 12* Units is the Lightstream set, but those are an upgrade of the Persona EQ drop-only Celestial set, so they can be a bit of a pain to obtain.

For leveling, we now have an ARKS Mission system, and you get daily Tokyo Silver Keys from completing all of a day's Missions, on top of the ones you can get from Featured Quests, and you also get a weekly Tokyo Gold Key for completing 15 Daily Missions; this is per character, so that means you can get a max of 21 Silver Keys and 3 Gold Keys per week just from doing your Daily Missions with your 3 free characters.

There have been several QoL changes to all classes over the past couple of years, so keep in mind that your chosen class may play a little bit different than before.

[ZerotakerZX]

I can also add that we gonna have 7th anniversary event next month. It'll give revamped PD EQ and quest where we can farm two new 15* series weapons. I think they gonna be worthwhile, especially for a new player.