Nikke Beginner's Guide
A Comprehensive Beginner's Guide for Goddess of Victory: NIKKE that would help many newcomers learn the game. This page contains:
- Gameplay Mechanics & Tips
- Team Building
- Basic Game Knowledge
- Your First & Final Goals
Always check the guide's last updated date!
Starting Off
Before Proceeding, Decide Whether You Want to Reroll!
When you are first starting a game like NIKKE, which is built on FOMO, consider whether rerolling would be worthwhile for you.
NIKKE doesn't employ the same gacha system seen in other gachas. Instead of having old units rerun, they are added into a “Standard Pool”. This makes most units that are not seasonal or limited obtainable by any player, new or old, which is good. However, the problem with this system is that the rate of pulling them outside their initial rate-up banners will be low, especially when you aim for Pilgrims/Over-specs (Nikke's broken character faction, usually Light/Dark in old-fashioned gachas). Even with Wishlist, which narrows the number of Nikkes you can get from unlimited to just 20, it's still unpredictable.
If you are a competitive player, especially if you plan to be F2P or just spend a little, rerolling for a head start is recommended because most of the renewable gem sources from mid to late game will be from competitive content. In fact, most Pilgrims/Over-specs are mandatory to enjoy the game to its fullest. That being said, the rerolling process is time consuming. Each reroll can take about 10-20 minutes depending on speed and whether you join the game during major events. Thankfully, you don't need to clear/redownload data during the process. For more info, read the following guide:
Gameplay Mechanics
Positions
Before we go to team building, we need to first learn the game's mechanics.
This game features a basic gameplay of shooting and killing enemies, just like you would encounter in a TPS (Third-Person Shooter) game. The difference is that you can't move your characters. They are stuck in any of the 5 positions, which you can set up in the team before combat. In the community, we refer to these positions as P1 → P5 (left to right). In the game, these positions are referred to as frontline (P1, P3, P5) and backline (P2, P4). For a beginner, these positions don't matter much, but you should know that there are Nikkes who require placement in a specific spot and bosses who attack in a certain order (from left to right, or vice versa).
A Nikke in combat has two main positions: in cover and out of cover. When Nikkes are shooting, they will be out of cover (peeking). When a Nikke is out of cover, enemy attacks directed toward that Nikke will damage them. If the Nikke is not shooting and therefore is in cover, enemy attacks will hit the cover instead, and the Nikke will not take damage. However, the cover has a certain amount of HP, so they can be destroyed! To use cover, control the Nikke you want to cover and do not shoot (do not tap/click/hold the screen). You can also cover the whole team at the same time by pressing that Nikke's avatar again (mobile & PC) or Spacebar (PC only).
Tip: In this game, there is a technique called i-framing—used to dodge enemy attacks. You don't need to learn this for now, but we would like to let you know its existence because you will have to employ it sooner or later. Basically, enemy attacks are NOT actually directed toward a Nikke. They are directed toward the Nikke's snapshot position at the time of launch (cued by the blinking red circle). Abusing this allows you to deliberately “redirect” an enemy's attack to a Nikke's in-cover or out-of-cover coordinate and evade it by switching to the other position just before it lands. For demonstration, check out this video:
Team Building: Use Burst Types to Make a Functional Team
Having understood how Burst Cycles work, now you know that teams must consist of B1, B2, and B3 if you want Full Burst. That's correct, but pay attention to Burst Skill cooldowns! There are 3 cooldown values in the game: 20s, 40s, and 60s. We can simplify these into 1 rotation, 2 rotations, and 3 rotations respectively. In a Burst Cycle, you will have to use one B1, one B2, and one B3 at least. This means you must also take the Burst Cooldown(s) into account because you don't want to get stuck with all units on the same Burst Step on cooldown. For example, running 
Noise (40s CD) as your only B1 is bad, but 
Liter (20s CD) alone is good.
Important!
Be careful of Re-Enter Burst Types too, as shown above! These repeat the same Burst Stage. For example,
Tia is a Re-Enter B1. Using her Burst Skill will require you to trigger another B1 again.
The most common formation in this game is B1-B2-B3-B3. You need at least two B3 because all B3 have a cooldown of 40s. The B1 and B2 here have a 20s cooldown. The last unit in this formation is called a FLEX because they are not part of the “main rotation”. FLEXes can be a support or DPS, but usually you won't use their Burst Skill (you use some FLEXes' Burst Skills, however). There are also other formations that feature duos/trios. This is different—because now you don't have a FLEX. You are forced to bring those duos/trios together like married couples. Whether a team allows a FLEX or features a duo/trio doesn't matter as long as all units synergize well. Often, a FLEX is also called “an off-burst unit”. Look for these keywords when reading our guides or asking our community.
This team works because Liter is a 20s B1, 
Nayuta is a 20s B2, and you have 2+ 40s B3.
This team doesn’t because it only has 1 40s B1.
Neither does this (not enough B3).
Or this… ( Tia is a re-enter B1, you need another 20s B1).
You can use our tool here to verify if your team works:
Pay extra attention to the warnings, e.g.:
Your Burst I units can't rotate properly. You need one 20s burst or at least two 40s burst units. 60s units won't work for rotations.
You only have 1 Burst Ill unit. You need 2 for proper rotations.
Game Knowledge
Types of Campaign Combat
Now that you've understood the fundamentals, let's go straight to Combat. In Nikke, two things are essential: survival & the death of enemies. If all your Nikkes are dead, you lose the stage/battle no matter what, and if you fail to kill all enemies before the time runs out (yes, there is a time limit), you also lose, except on Defense Stages. To make it less confusing, study the differences below:
- Destroy Stage: This is the most common stage type in Nikke, where enemies come in waves and you have to kill them fast while surviving. To clear this stage, you must kill the Boss mob that spawns in the Boss wave. If you have turned on the Attention setting, the game will “focus” your screen on the Boss mob when it spawns, zooming in. We recommend disabling it, though, because it can mess up with targeting.
- Defense Battle Stage: This is a Defense Stage where endless mobs continue to spawn (their patterns repeat and are therefore predictable). Your goal here is to prevent as many enemies as possible from entering the Wall on the right. A passed enemy will inflict a certain amount of integrity damage, and once the integrity HP is 0, you lose the stage. This type of Defense Stage is also the most likely to feature a Black Hole/Stun Rapture, which as you can guess, will gather/stun Raptures if killed. You win if the time runs out, and at least one Nikke survives, and the integrity HP is ≥1.
- Base Defense Stage: A variant of Defense Stage where endless mobs will continue to spawn. To finish this stage, you must dominate the Control Zone (progress is displayed at the top of screen) and achieve >50% control when the timer runs out, or you reach 100% control at any point, prematurely ending it. You control the zone when there are no Raptures in it (or if there is only one minor Rapture). Aerial Raptures usually do not count as Active Raptures (you can ignore and use them as wave stallers).
Mobs in this game may spawn based on time or on “number of Raptures dead from the previous wave exceeds X%”. You can do what the community refers to as stalling by letting a mob stay alive longer than it should be to intentionally stall the time and prevent the next wave from coming (handy for waiting for Burst Skill(s) to cool down or preparing units who rely on stacks/ammo). This is a crucial technique that you will use as you progress in Campaign and fight at higher deficits.
It’s Okay to Skip
Defense Stages are generally harder to clear than Destroy Stages. It’s normal to skip or get stuck at them. Make sure to revisit once you’re stronger to get the Outpost Defense level (we’ll explain about that soon).
Your First Goals
All right, with all the basics covered, you’re set to grow and explore things on your own. You can finish the rest of the guide, but if you have time, take a quick look at [Advanced Combat Mechanics & Tips].
Push Campaign & Unlock Features
Your very first goal in NIKKE is to push Campaign as far as possible in Normal Mode, and that means grinding through high deficits. By clearing more Campaign stages, you level up your Outpost Defense and accrue more resources per hour. It also makes your resource boxes more valuable. You will also unlock more content.
Should you get stuck, immediately evacuate to Story Mode. This difficulty is mainly for you to enjoy NIKKE’s lore, but we are doing it for the Campaign Mission (the one that asks you to clear Campaign Chapter X-Y). You can get early T9M Equipment from it, which gives you a huge competitive head start. It’s a time sink, however. If you don’t want to do it, skip this part. Note that you don’t unlock new features by clearing Story Mode.
The end
Congrats, you have reached the end of the guide! You truly have some commendable attention skills! We highly appreciate the support thus far, and we hope you’ll enjoy your stay in NIKKE!
If you have questions not answered here, feel free to approach us in our Discord server and tag any of our @Nikke Staffs (Kisenix, Snake, Retro, or Gatrix) or our lovely members there. We hope to see you around! (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧