Brown Dust 2 Beginner Guides

Pub Recruitment

As a new player, you should get 4 5* (rainbow) recruitment contracts very early on. This will let you get the most useful characters from the pub. Additional contracts will slowly trickle in through various events and passes.

Each character can only be recruited from the pub once. Pubs have 2 spaces for random characters, and a few have static ones that always appear there until you recruit them (they're usually related to the story). The random characters change every 2 hours, starting when you enter if the last time you visited was over 2 hours ago. Every pub has the same random characters, so you only need to check one. The 3* characters appear with the highest frequently, so it's worth recruiting them to make the rarer characters appear more frequently. The same is true for 4*s, but it's harder to justify it early on, since you want to convert those scrolls. However, you have to make sure you're getting the ones that are in the random pool, not static. The following story packs have static 3* or 4* characters, so recruit there with caution:

Do not use the Refresh option at the barkeep to force the random characters to change early. Unless you need one for something very time sensitive, this is a waste of Dia.

You can convert your 3* and 4* contracts into a 5* contract in the shop.

If any of these costumes are currently on banner, you can get 10 tickets from the associated pick-up event when you recruit them. This is almost always the best use for your contracts, as long as you save one for Diana if you haven't already recruited her.

Must Haves

As long as you save a contract for Diana, you can recruit these in whatever order makes sense for your roster. Yes, even if you already acquired them through random draws, they're worth a +1. However, you can delay recruiting for upgrade purposes until later if you have a strong need for one of the other characters.

Diana (Adventurer of Unknown) - Ch10

  • Highest value costume that can be recruited from the pub
  • One of the best buffers in the game
  • "Dispatch" field ability brings in useful items, such as cooked rice or dia, once per day.
  • Buffs "property damage", which increases your character's damage when you have an elemental advantage
  • Absolute must have for Fiend Hunter/Guild Raid

This is the highest priority costume for selective upgrades, it's that big of a deal. In order for her to not be the best choice for a given situation, you need to be against enemies where you don't have elemental advantage or there has to be some sort of environmental effect reducing her effectiveness.

Venaka (Wind Dancer) - Random

  • Excellent Magic DPS
  • Range is a 3x3 with the main target in the front row
  • Adds a vulnerability to wind debuff to the enemy (stacks additively with other vulnerability debuffs)
  • Pairs well with the free Summer Vacation Dalvi costume
  • Frequently used in Fiend Hunt
  • Useful for Tower of Pride floor 5

Liatris (Rodev's Star) - Ch8

  • Excellent Physical DPS
  • Range is a 3x3 Skip/Vault
  • Ability does decent damage and has a strong DoT that stacks
  • Has strong synergy with her other costume, Maid Name R
  • A superstar in multi-turn combat like Fiend Hunt
  • "Sprint" field ability lets you move faster on the map

Note that getting duplicates of this costume only improves the DoT. If you're winning on turn 1, upgrading won't do anything for you. However, getting to +3 will reduce the SP cost, so keep that in mind for later.

Celia (The Curse) - Random

  • "Absorb" field ability will grab all of the glitters (crafting materials & cooking ingredients) on the map for you, make sure to use Lathel's find ability first
  • Meta for Fiend Hunt and Guild Raid as a chainer, but only if you have her Descendant of the Great Witch costume as well

Liberta (Dark Saintess) - Ch15

The only reason she's not higher in the list is because it's questionable how useful she is at +0. She's worse than Arines until she reaches +2 and has a higher SP cost than Samay until she reaches +1 with reduction pot. Without upgrades, you'll only use her for daily absorbs.

  • The 2nd most valuable costume that can be recruited from the pub
  • An upgraded version of Arines: buffs crit rate and ATK, as well as recovers a small amount of SP
  • Meta for almost all types of content
  • "Absorb" field ability will grab all of the glitters (crafting materials & cooking ingredients) on the map for you, make sure to use Lathel's find ability first

Highly Recommended

These costumes are very useful, but lower in priority than the previous group.

Olstein (The Fiend Scholar) - Ch4

  • If you already have him recruited (any costume), this costume falls into the "situationaly useful" category
  • "Dispatch" field ability brings in somewhat useful items once per day, mostly gold
  • Ability is a Skip 3x3 silence + SP recovery, which can be useful later in the game when you can't reliably clear fights in 1-2 turns. However, you're more likely to use Lucrezia, despite the smaller range, since her ability is cheaper and has a shorter cooldown.
  • A staple character for Tower of Jealousy and Tower of Wrath, ideally at least +3 and has his Sage of Blue Clouds costume.

Levia (Night of Jealousy) - Random

  • Range is a 3 tile wide cross with exceptional damage on the main target and weak damage on the remaining targets
  • For most situations, her Track and Field Captain costume is preferred, but this is a good follow-up
  • Frequently used in Fiend Hunt
  • Excellent against Partan (ch11 boss) or for Last Night

Blade (Apostle) - Ch15

  • One of the highest damage pub recruitables, but her range is limited
  • Lowest base HP for a 5*, making it risky to take advantage of her counter (may even need supports that provide energy guard in order to survive)
  • Meta for Fiend Hunt and Guild Raid, but only if you have her Young Lady costume as well

Eleaneer (Piercing Magic Bow) - Random

  • Tied with Pool Party Scheherazade (limited costume) for cheapest dispel, good in PvP if it's +3
  • Most accessible dispel after Schera, who becomes unavailable in ch13

Situationally Useful

Elise (Lovely Lady) - Random

  • Physical & magic defense reduction in combat
  • Note that this is only useful if the enemy has physical or magical defense
  • Unless you need her range, there's better options (Liberated Marauder Kry, Code Name A Rafina, B-Rank Manager Gray, DJ Venaka)

Olivier (Faithful Wings) - Ch18

  • Mid damage, decent SP recovery
  • For most general content, you're better off using Lucrezia for the SP recovery

Notable Pushers

These costumes have abilities that are more than a simple push. Either more tiles or multiple targets.

Character Location Ability
Rou (White Cat) Ch3
Knocks 1 target 3 tiles back
Teresse (Angel of Destruction) Ch7
Knocks 3 targets back 2 tiles (potential increases range by 2 tiles, allowing you to target the side lanes and still hit 3 enemies)

There are a few recruitables with unusual knockback directions. These are low priority if you already have the character from a random draw, with a few exceptions:

Character Location Direction
Rubia (Thorn of the Desert) Ch5
Very Front
Blade (Apostle) Ch15
Very Front
Eclipse (The Dimension Witch) Ch6
Skip/Vault
Michaela (Acting Archbishop) Random
Skip/Vault
Angelica (The Fallen) Random
Very Front
Venaka (Wind Dancer) Random
Very Front
Refithea (The Gluttonous) Random
Skip/Vault
Morpeah (Apostle) Ch17
Skip/Vault
Liberta (Dark Saintess) Ch15
Very Front

Notable Field Abilities

If you already have these characters, it's not a priority to recruit them for this purpose.

Character Location Ability Description
Rubia Ch5 Swiftness Makes your dash gauge recharge 95% faster (not useful since the field challenges were eliminated)
Sylvia Ch5 Bargan Gives you a discount at the shop, does not work on ability pills (only useful if you want to do the cooking achievements)
Anastasia Random Dash Faster version of Liatris's dash, but half the duration
Refithea Random Assemble Grabs all of the Gluttis in the area, giving you a small amount of gold

Useful if you have the other costume(s), maybe

These costumes are either useless on their own or are eclipsed by the character's other costumes. They might be worth recruiting if you already have one of their other costumes. Listed by chapter order, then alphabetical.

PvP Only

These costumes are generally not very useful outside of PvP (Mirror Wars). If all you care about is getting medals for purchasing the monthly costume from the shop, you can skip them. Doing well in PvP requires a significant investment, don't expect it to magically happen just because you recruit these characters.