Punishing Gray Raven A Beginners Guide to Getting Started

Punishing: Gray Raven is a dark-action RPG set in the cyberpunk world much similar to the likes of Nier: Automata and Honkai Impact 3^rd, relying heavily on combat mechanics to fight huge bosses and flashy graphics while keeping the gacha pull system as a mobile games tradition. Punishing Gray Raven and has gained traction in the mobile gaming industry since its conception of 2019. The gameplay features high-speed combat and top-notch mechanics in which matching color coding of orbs to activate the skills is becoming popular.

 

 

In this beginner's guide, we will show you quick ropes to get UpToDate with all the game mechanics to start boosting your power of Heroes to tackle powerful bosses and gods. For detailed info on Weapons, don’t forget to read a guide to weapons and memories.

 

Menus:

 

On the main screen, you can see News, Friends for the social aspect of the game, and rewards from events. There is a currency on the top right now. Then there is a mail and settings menu below. A dedicated Battle button shows which mission you are in and which stage you are currently working on, which contains all different levels and stages.

 

 

The following menu is the Missions menu, where you can see goals which you either have to complete or have already completed. For example, one of the missions or goals you need to do is “Overclock a Memory 15 times”. Next is the dorm simulation, where you place your structures/Ravens to rest and interact with them to increase their affections with you. After that is the R&D menu, where you can do research. At the bottom, you can see Members and Constructs, Item management, Shop to purchase goods, and different Top-up types of cards.

 

Gacha:

 

Almost all mobile RPGs include a gacha system in their games for players to pull their characters, which have a probability of dropping. The higher the rarity, the lower the drop. Gacha rarity drops are akin to a slot machine where you essentially "pull" a character this way. Punishing: Gray Raven names this system in their game as banners, which we will discuss in detail.

 

How Banners work:

 

As we have said above, the banners in this game are the gacha system or slot machine of this of Punishing: Gray Raven, where each pull for the banner requires you to spend at least 250 of the game’s premium currency. Most of the banners are normally for hero champions and can be for weapons and some rotational items and sometimes self-select the type of pulls. The compositor is another type of Heroes or special characters used to enter special dungeons where normal heroes cannot enter.

 

With the advent of modern gaming and more and more gacha games and RPGs coming out on mobile, the competition has gotten so strong that the pity system in these games is becoming a norm. What it means is that every banner has a limit to the number of pulls that when you reach without getting a higher tier rarity, it becomes guaranteed that you pull on the next turn.

 

 

Banner Pity – In Punishing: Gray Raven, the max number for the pity to activate in case of equipment banners is 30, while for the banners for pulling the Hero, this pity is significantly higher, somewhere between 80-100. There is another pity level for the compositor banner, which is only 10. One common among a few banners is that even though they may have a similar roster to pull from, the gacha rate dictates the pity value.

 

The disparity between different banners having different pity limits is due to the gacha rate each provides. The higher the limit of the pity, the higher the rate of pulling a higher rarity character. Rotational banners are mostly lower pity, and your pity amount is carried over to the next banner. The carrying over of your pity is a good solace for people who couldn't pull on one banner can continue the pity for the next banner.

 

The pity can also stop if you pull that character before hitting the pity counter. We recommend only roll gacha using the dedicated tickets gotten from Black Cards instead of converting your Rainbow cards to rush it.

 

In the same way, if a new banner arrives, it may have two same banners that will have the same hero. Still, the only difference between them might be when the global launches, is that one of them will have a .5% drop rate. The good thing about that drop rate being 0.5% is that it has a pity of 60 polls. In contrast, the second banner may have higher drop chances, let's say 1.5%, but the Pity counter in this banner will be higher, probably around 80 to 100. Therefore, we recommend that you use the first banner if you are a free-to-play player; these things are subject to change when the global launch has all the new banners arrive.

 

 

Newbie Banner – In Punishing: Gray Raven, the new players who have just started the game are allowed more than just the newbie gifts. They are also allowed to have one special banner from them at the start, called Newbie Banner, a self-select banner with a pity pull limit of 40. After getting your higher rarity promised Hero, the banner is removed from the list of banners, and the self-select banner takes its place again.

 

Regular Banners – Regular banners are where you usually pull new structures from; as mentioned above, you get to do a 40 summon when you finish the tutorial stages as a customary reward prevalent in Gacha games.

 

Other banners typically say that you are guaranteed an A-rank or above construction; every 10 attempts are guaranteed, while S-Rank constructs every 60 attempts. This is a great way to stimulate players to pull for a character as they know; eventually, they will get the featured Raven with the pity system on that banner. The pity system is always great on different banners, so you have a good start in the game.

 

Always save up Black Cards for the upcoming banners that may present more OP or cute characters. You will be looking for new banners and characters introduced in the new event as soon as the global launches.

 

Pulling Currency:

 

The banners in Punishing: Gray Raven each have their currency from what you can pull. This way, you can be attracted or overjoyed to see a higher rarity pull chance dropping and can also help distinguish between each and these currencies are as follows:

 

• Self-Select banners – Blue cards
• Starter Weapon – Red cards
• Rotational Banners – Yellow cards
• Event Banners – Normally yellow but event currency when applicable
• Compositor Banner – Yellow cards
• Every Banner – Black cards

 

 

The current currency for this game is black cards which you can see on the top left, as we said previously mentioned in the menus section. Black Cards are the in-game currency used for stamina refills and utilized in the gacha system on different banners and other miscellaneous things.

 

Another currency you will see if you click the bottom right recharge portion of the menu, called the Rainbow Cards. Rainbow currency is the premium currency, and it's bought by topping up with real cash. You can use the rainbow cards to produce unique skins, effects bundles, and other premium goods. You can also convert them into black cards to use in other things or if you want to pull on some character.

 

In Punishing: Gray Raven, the pulls are generally done via the banners and by research or member recruits. So, you use these Black Cards after conversion into research tickets. For these research tickets, you can collect tickets at their respective boxes.

 

Re-rolling and is it Worth it?

 

Understandably, Rerolling is quite common in other games when you are looking for the best character, which can also be your favorite or pull the S-rank characters. Though do remember that Punishing: Gray Raven is not one of those games, and here's the reason why it is so.

 

To amass a combined number of Black Cards and standard tickets, you will need about three days just to get to the level of pulling an S-Rank roll, which requires 5,410 Black Cards. This isn’t advisable because that can take you too long time, and you don't want to waste days of stamina and Black Cards in the games just for that.

 

The way the schedule has been designed for the China and Japan servers is that you will typically save enough for nearly as a free-to-play player to roll a full 60 pity for every new S-Rank banner that gets implemented. Keep in mind this schedule might not be the same for the Global Version.

 

You are already aware that you get 40 summons free pull at the start of the game above that you also get an S-rank selector, which is enough for you to find a good character. If you don't get your favorite character, you don't need to reroll in like the other games because you already get one or two good characters in the start, like Liv Hope, for example, probably the best Healer in the game.

 

So you usually would have to do 2 to 3 roles to do it again and again, but in this game, if you already have two characters and then you save up some black cards for the future, then you can get one or two characters soon enough for easily playing the end-game mechanics.

 

Saving Currency for Future Hot Banners:

 

Assuming you are a free-to-play player, you would still have a decent chance of attaining almost most if not every S-Rank that the game releases. Typically, the in-game rewards can get you up to 30 black cards every day from the daily tasks and a total of 1,000 Black Cards from weekly tasks, and that is quite enough if added up, and it is a total of 1,210 black cards a week.

 

New S- Rank characters are released every two patches with a new A-Rank round in between. Typically, each patch is after about six weeks, so the S-Rank banner is released around 12 weeks. This information is from China and Japan servers, where each patch is about six weeks, or it picks six weeks to roll out a new patch, and that includes new characters as well; this might not be the case in the Global Version.

 

 

So, each S-rank round takes about 12 weeks which is about three months. When you crunch these numbers, you will see that you get about 14,500 black cards this way which is close enough to have a full 60 pity for any banner that is 15,000 Black cards. Even if the schedule is slightly accelerated or the patches come in sooner so that the global launch wraps up or catches up well with the China and Japan patches or server, then Black cards from campaign rewards and maintenance would naturally add up.

 

The 30-day black card bundle cost about US$5; if you purchase this bundle, you got an additional 100 Black Cards each day. With these Black Cards, you're guaranteed a copy of every new S-Rank character, which means that you will have enough Black Cards to pull on them, and even if you don't get it before the patch, you always have the period of getting the Pity for a 60 pull so you can get that S-Rank character.

 

S-Rank Selector:

 

Finally, we are going to talk about the S-Rank selector because whenever you start a new game in Punishing: Gray Raven and every new player will be given a selector that allows them to pick any launch S-Rank of their choosing. Be sure to remember that this will only contain characters available at the launch; future characters might not be part of this has S-Rank selector.

 

The better approach is to finish the 14-period standard box by using the standard tickets, not the Black Cards; before using the selector, an S-Rank selector is given to you as a reward during the tutorial and on the launch of the game. To prevent you from getting duplicates now, you're probably wondering to yourself what is the best structures? Well, that depends on whoever you like.

 

But if you must know, Kamui and Liv Hope are the two most relevant launch S-Rank characters as even to this day Kamui still holds as he is a mainstay and a dark element team core character as his element is dark. Kamui also got a boost and buff in the local version in about six months after lunch which the developers did in one of the events, which may not be the case in Global as this is just a prediction. In the case of Liv Hope, owning more support characters is always a good thing because they are a core part of any team and give her healing to the teammates and buffs to the team.

 

Quests and Objectives:

 

Every game has a roadmap for players to follow. This roadmap has clear milestones in the form of missions, tasks, objectives, or whatever you might want to call them. Missions and quests is a soft tutorial for players to progress and grow stronger, and each of these quests and missions or a set of them provides bonuses and rewards. Let’s discuss these further.

 

Rookie Missions:

 

Like any other game, Punishing: Gray Raven also has missions for the new players to complete to get tons of rewards and XP, a few of them each day for up to 7 days. This 7-day event is one time only, and the newbie has enough gear and resources to start farming in the game. The detail of these missions is shown below.

 

First Day:

 

• LVL 3 Heroes to 15
• LVL a 5* gear to 30
• Clear 5 dailys
• Salvage a 4* gear
• ClearStory CH 1 – 5

 

Second Day:

 

• ClearStory CH 3
• LVL 6 5* gears to 30
• LVL 3 Heroes to 30
• Clear all six CH of Lucia's story
• Clear Rescue Battle LVL 2

 

Third-Day:

 

• Clear Battle Stage 3x
• Reach Affection LV 2 with a Hero
• Clear hidden story Ch 2
• Clear a Hero’s fragment stage 6x
• Clear AB-2 3x
• Complete a Bounty mission

 

Fourth Day:

 

• Clear a Boss mission on the chaotic difficulty
• LVL Commander to 40
• Clear Hero’s special training stage 2^nd difficulty
• Promote 4 Structures to Elite
• Upgrade dorm furniture

 

Fifth Day:

 

• • Clear Rescue Battle LvL 4
  • LVL any gear to 40
  • Reach commander level 45
  • LVL 3 Heroes to 45

 

Sixth Day:

 

• • Clearstory CH 5
  • Clear Rescue Battle LVL 6
  • 2500 Comb PWR with a Hero

 

Seventh Day:

 

• • Login 7 days
  • Achieve commander LVL 50
  • LVL 4 Structures to Taskforce

 

 

Getting Started:

 

In this part of the guide, we'll tell you what to do at the beginning of the game and aim for simple steps.

 

Commander LVL up to 40:

 

The first big milestone for you on the roadmap to becoming powerful in Punishing: Gray Raven is to reach LVL 40 as soon as possible, as this is where most of the content is open for you. Follow the steps we have mentioned to make your progression easier.

 

Tutorial – The game gives you one of the toughest fights right at the beginning with Alpha. It is designed for you to lose, so worry not. Take this time to familiarize yourself with mechanics and learn how to properly utilize the dodge as they're a limited commodity in the game.

 

Early Game Selector – Another great deal that the game gives you right after the disappointing Alpha fights to brighten up your spirit is the S-Selector, which is a selector pull for an S-Tier hero is a great boon in the start. Still, we don't recommend you pull from it at least before you have completed your 40 pulls on the Newbie banner. When you receive an S-Tier from the newbie banner, you can now select a different S-Tier from the S-Selector to increase your team and game potency.

 

Early Game Progression – Do the dailys. Doing Dailys can't be stressed enough as these are freebie rewards because of how easy they are. The next step is to rush the story missions for more rewards and to reach LVL 40 of your commander's LVL a soon as possible to unlock more content.

 

The next rule of thumb is to keep increasing the LVL of your memories to increase your power, but don't upgrade any of your memories, as you'll surely get a few 6* memories soon enough.

 

Mentor-Student System:

 

Mentor-Student is another system through which players can improve the power of the heroes even further. This is a great system mechanic; actually, your student heroes can be assisted by higher LVL mentors as in this system. Whenever you choose mentors this way, they automatically give you a list of objectives attached to this bond. Upon completing missions by this system, the students receive rewards, and one of the rewards can be memories up to 5* in rarity.

 

 

These tasks are categorized into two types, Stage missions, and Assignments. Let's list each of these below.

 

Stage Missions:

 

• LVL Commander 20-75 every 5 Levels
• 6* memories, leveling up to 6 to LVL 45
• 5* Weapon leveling to 45
• Complete the stages for materials 10-100 times
• Complete Warzone 3/6/12/18/24 – Rewards only for the first time clear
• Complete Paincage 3/6/12/18/24 – Rewards only for the first time clear
• Join a guild
• Complete guild-boss stages 1/3/6/9/12 times – Rewards only for the first time clear
• Weekly bounty chests - Operation Vindicator - 1/3/6x
• Weekly bounty Operation Vindicator 1/2x
• Student missions 1/3/6/12/18

 

Assignments:

 

• 6* Weapon up to LVL 45
• Complete Memory Rescue 10
• Get a SSS character
• One Hero liberation
• Complete stronghold 3-3
• Reach 1 million in level 80-120 Paincage

 

Recurring Missions:

 

Recurring missions are named for their recurring nature as most of them are daily and weekly missions, which are part of every mobile game to make you sign in every day, but it also rewards you for doing daily. We'll list them down with a little bit of information each to give you an idea of what to look forward to in the game.

 

Daily Missions:

 

• Logging in each day
• Spending stamina
• Completing co-op mode at least once
• Spending one black card
• Completing Paincage 3x

 

Weekly Missions:

 

• Completing Warzone 1-12x
• Completing Paincage 1-12x
• 200,000 points in Paincage
• 200,000 points in Warzone
• Sparring with guild boss 3x

 

Dorm Missions:

 

• Complete Boss Mission on Chaos Difficulty (Pain Cage)
• Upgrade Dorm Furniture Once

 

Affection:

 

 

The affection mechanic is for the enthusiasts who want to know their Heroes and would like to know additional information about them like voice lines, juicy secrets, and a bit more about their affection story. Gifts can increase this affection by giving your much-loved Heroines. You can buy these gifts from the dorm shop, and the currency to do that is acquired by doing missions of the dorm.

 

The amount of XP that you get from gifts is increased with the rarity of the gifts, so a 5* will give 30 XP while a 4* will give only 20 XP.

 

Warzone:

 

This game mechanic forces you to go out adventuring during different weather cycles like Fire, Lightning, etc., twice per cycle. For example, if you sent on a Fire and Lightning weather cycle, you'll need those structures or compositors that can do fire or lighting damages like S Rank Karenina or Bianca.

 

Weathers:

 

During the Warzone missions, you can do only one type of weather mission during that day and can only do another type of weather cycle on the next day.

 

 

Stages:

 

Warzone has a few mechanics up its sleeve when you play this mode, as when you begin Warzone, you have to play through 3 rounds. In the first round of Warzone, you've to complete the simple task of killing the enemies, but you slowly deplete your health in the second round, while in the third round, instead of bleed, you have to kill as many enemies within 2 minutes. The higher the number of monsters you kill, the more you score and the bigger rewards.

 

Paincage:

 

We'll talk about the last game mode in this game: the Paincage, where you fight a group of 3 monsters each cycle. This gam-mode rewards you for the fastest finish and health left after each cycle. There is a certain variation of elite monsters that you may face, which depends on your commanders’ level and are called boss battles.

 

Setting up Controller and Mouse & Keyboard:

 

This section will discuss how to set up a gamepad and controller to play Punishing: Gray Raven and set up Mouse and Keyboard to play it firstly on PC through an emulator or directly a Bluetooth controller connected to your mobile phone. Punishing: Gray Raven is a fast action game that requires your full attention and adequate tools to play it with more flare. Playing this game just with your fingers on your phone would be pretty difficult.

 

 

To start configuring them, you can just go into the settings and change them on the LDPlayer emulator as per your liking. You can check on the keyboard icon located on the right pane of the player, and after that, the green pen icon can access the gamepad key just by the editor. Click anywhere on the screen to place a button, and then you can bind your gamepad with all the essential controls. Afterward, you can then drag and drop the movement button, joystick here, and the camera movement buttons, respectively. Now you are all set for the game controller. You can always go and hide your key binds for your setup.

 

So, for mapping the keyboard, you can click on the keyboard button instead of the game controller button. Further on, you can click anywhere on the screen where you want to emulate those buttons as if doing taps on a mobile screen, and you can do it with different controls. Exactly similar to a controller's setup, drag-and-drop the movement and 3-D screen buttons onto their respective locations. Press saves to finalize your setup. Alternatively, we have separate guides for setting up keyboard and mouse and game controller on the LDPlayer's official website.

 

Finally, we’ll talk about setting up the mobile controls as mobile phones apart from straight-up playing the game with your fingers; Punishing: Gray Raven has added support for controllers. You can connect Xbox and PlayStation DualShock controllers via the Bluetooth settings menu and set up the controller. The game gives you the option to customize the button, which includes all the button settings.

 

The methods are the same to find Xbox and PlayStation for the controller in the Bluetooth menu. Before that, you need to ensure that the controller is paired to your device; for example, if you have a PlayStation dual shock controller, you need it to be paired to your phone. In this menu, you can select each field and binding into a button on your controller. for example, move forward, move backward, move left or right, et cetera in this option. You can also set a key binding or the controller binding when swapping QTE of character 1 or QTE of the 2^nd character.

 

LDPlayer Features for Punishing Gray Raven:

 

Punishing: Gray Raven is a fast-paced action RPG that heavily relies on you to make combos and avoid danger timely by dodging out, made easier by the High FPS settings of LDPlayer, making the game smoother, which can further improve your experience by using the key bind feature. At the same time, you also perfectly play using a gamepad or a controller instead of sliding and tapping your fingers on a mobile screen. All these features are home to LDPlayer.

 

Conclusion:

 

Punishing: Gray Raven is an awesome 3D action game that utilizes the graphical potential of present generation mobile phones and delivers smooth graphics and combat to scratch that action combat itch. This is why we have included the most important topics in this guide to let you begin the game with more than just basic information and propel your progression much farther ahead.

 

After reading this guide, you can browse our other guides for more information, Punishing: Gray Raven Characters Tier List.