The single most expensive mistake a free player makes in Reverse: 1999 is spreading investment thin. You pull a shiny new 6-star, you dump mats into it, then a better fit shows up two patches later and the first one gathers dust at half-built. Power in this game comes from depth on the right units, not from a roster of everyone half-finished.
So the honest answer to "who do I build first" is a rule before it is a list. Learn the rule and the list mostly writes itself.
The rule: carries get depth, supports get P0, cheap units get maxed
Four systems get conflated constantly, so pin them down first. Insight (I to III) raises the level cap and unlocks the Resonance board. Resonance is a stat grid you fill. Portray (P0 to P5) is the dupe track, and it is the only one fed by duplicate copies. Euphoria is a separate second-kit upgrade funded by Reveries in the Rain.
Here is how a free account should think about all four at once:
- 6-star carries scale with early Portray. P1 or P2 is real damage on the one unit you actually pilot every fight. This is the only place you chase dupes on a limited banner, and only for your account's core carry.
- 6-star supports, buffers, and healers are complete at P0. Their job is a buff or a heal that barely scales with Portray. Building them past Insight III and a Resonance board is money set on fire.
- 5-star and lower units are balanced around P5, and you get those dupes for free. The standard banner and Clear Drops hand you copies whether you want them or not, so max them. A P5 cheap 5-star out-contributes a lucky P0 6-star with no team around it.
If you remember nothing else: Resonate to 10 before pushing Insight III, build your board around three matching pieces rather than five, and touch Portray last.
Where your limited materials go first
These are the units that earn the full cycle: Insight III, Resonance 10, and your best-in-slot psychube. They stay relevant across teams and patches, which is the whole point of investing as a free player.
| Unit | Why it lasts | Dupes? |
|---|---|---|
| Tooth Fairy | Universal crit and damage buffer with attached healing; fits almost any team | Keep at P0 |
| Semmelweis | Self-damage amplifier and enabler for a whole archetype | P0 (Rank I Euphoria is instant value) |
| An-an Lee | Generalist: party damage up, damage taken down, slots anywhere | P5, and it is free |
| Sonetto | The universal free buffer and off-tank; the starter core of every account | P5, and it is free |
| Lucy | Efficient Intellect damage that punches above her rarity | P5, and it is free |
| Your one main DPS | The carry the account is built around | P1 to P2, on this unit only |
That last row is the exception to everything. Whatever hypercarry you personally run every fight (a Beryl, a Jiu Niangzi, a Ramona, whoever your account revolves around) is the only unit where re-pulling a limited banner for a dupe is defensible.
Build next, once the core is standing
After a carry, a support, and a healer are online, widen the roster: 6 as a top-flight support, Jiu Niangzi as a durable follow-up DPS, Willow for poison sub-DPS, Vila for reactive Plant sustain, and budget healers like Yenisei and Barbara. These earn a full build when you have the mats to spare, not before.
Do not spend pulls chasing these dupes
- Every 6-star support, buffer, and healer listed above stays at P0. Tooth Fairy, Semmelweis, Anjo Nala, Charon, and the rest are complete on their first copy.
- Situational units like Ms. NewBabel are kept for the niche content that wants them, built only if you hit that wall.
- Older carries (Windsong, Sotheby as a general DPS) are fine to own and off-meta to invest in unless you are running their specific archetype.
Meta placements shift every six-week version, so treat the tier lines as of-the-moment and the durability judgments as the load-bearing part. When in doubt, check the current Reverse: 1999 tier list before you commit.
Psychubes: one great one beats five mediocre
Psychube investment follows the same logic as characters. Build one excellent psychube fully on your main carry, a workable one on your main healer, then situational 5-stars on sub-DPS, and let everything else wait. Never invest in a psychube on a unit you plan to bench; the investment does not transfer.
Pick for the passive trigger, not the raw stat line:
- His Bounden Duty for snowballing multi-target carries.
- Luxurious Leisure for single-target boss killers who keep ulting.
- Blasphemer of Night when you run a debuff-heavy team.
- Thunderous Applause for a dedicated crit DPS.
- On a budget, Hopscotch (wave clear) and Laughter and Laughter (healer throughput) are correct picks, not compromises.
Claim every free unit, and Euphoria last
Your account floor is higher than the pull odds suggest. Sonetto, 37, An-an Lee, and Sotheby give you a full clearing team with zero limited wins, and event and anniversary rewards keep topping it up: recent anniversaries handed out a free 6-star, a 6-star selector, and free lower-rarity units on top of a large pull payout. When a selector asks you to choose, fill your biggest gap (usually a support or healer), not the newest carry. Supports age far better.
Euphoria comes dead last, and only on units you already run in Mane's Bulletin or Raids. It is cheapest on 5-stars, which only need Insight III at level 1, so a Sotheby or a Shamane Euphoria is enormous value for the mats. Tooth Fairy and Semmelweis Euphorias are archetype-defining if you main those teams; otherwise let Reveries in the Rain quietly fund it in the background over a few patches.
The free-player checklist
- Get your main carry to Insight III and Resonance 10, best psychube attached.
- Do the same for one support and one healer.
- Max the free 5-stars (Sonetto, An-an Lee, Lucy, 37) to P5, since the dupes are free anyway.
- Only now consider a dupe, and only on the single carry you pilot every fight.
- Save Euphoria for units you actually field, cheapest 5-stars first.
Do it in that order and a free account clears everything the game currently throws at it. Still deciding who that first carry should be? Start with the best free characters and the team-building guide, then grab the latest redeem codes for a few pulls on the house.
