How to Upgrade Units and Equip Gear in Anime Squadron

Upgrading units and equipping gear in Anime Squadron both run through the same five-tap path on the unit’s Details screen, not the Crafting NPC where you spent the materials. Anime Squadron is a Roblox lane battler where players collect units, send them into story acts, and stack stat bonuses through a gear system that can quietly change how strong a single unit performs in a fight. A single Mythic piece can fire a powerful effect on its own, and a matched Legendary set scales harder the longer a match drags on.

The piece that catches new players off guard is the manual equip step. A freshly crafted item doesn’t attach itself to a unit; it sits in your inventory until you open the unit’s Details screen and slot it in, and the Gold and material cost you just paid does nothing for you until you do. That detail is the most expensive beginner mistake in the game, since a 5,000-Gold Monarch Daggers recipe is pure loss if the resulting piece lives in your bag. Below is the exact on-screen path for equipping, the cost and roll ranges for every documented recipe, the set bonus rules, and the place where crafting materials and unit awakenings share the same farm.

The Five-Step Path to Equipping Gear on a Unit

Gear in Anime Squadron equips from a unit’s Details screen, not from the Crafting NPC where you built the piece, and the same path works for every slot, every rarity, and every unit on your roster. The whole process lives in the Units menu, which sits on the left-hand sidebar of the lobby. Pick the unit, open Details, click into a gear slot, and slot in any piece you own that fits. The same path covers every piece that lands in your bag, no matter if it came from a craft or a stage drop. For the on-screen version, a step-by-step Anime Squadron upgrade walkthrough from JustBOZ covers the same menu, and the steps line up with what players are documenting across recipe guides.

There is no activation step beyond the slot click. A piece that lives in your bag is a piece that isn’t doing any work for you. The game runs on Gold and materials, with no alternate-currency vendor in sight.

Gear arrives in your inventory through two routes: crafting at the Crafting NPC for Gold and materials, or earning it for free by playing through story acts and claiming stage rewards. The Gold and material cost you see in the recipe is what the craft pulls from your inventory at the moment of pressing Craft. Once a piece is in your bag, the equip path is the same in either case.

1. From the lobby, click the Units button on the left-hand sidebar.
2. Select the unit you want to gear up from your roster.
3. With the unit highlighted, open the Details tab on the left.
4. Click into a gear slot to see what fits there.
5. Pick any gear you own for that slot and equip it.

Where Crafted Gear Actually Comes From

The Crafting NPC sits inside the Upgrades zone of the lobby, next to the Awakening NPC. Players describe the NPC as a Madara-looking character from the Naruto anime, and you trigger the crafting menu by walking up and pressing E. The menu lists every available recipe with the materials and Gold cost printed on the right side of the panel. Pick the recipe, confirm you have the mats and Gold in your bag, and hit the Craft button to complete the craft.

Materials drop from specific Story Act ranges, and the world you farm decides which ingredient type you receive. The three story worlds are Leaf Village, GT City, and Marine Lobby, and each one drops a different crafting material family for the same Act range. Specific materials come from specific acts, so grinding random acts hoping a drop appears is the fastest way to waste your time. Farm the Act that drops the material tier you need, since the materials only land in their assigned Act window.

Crafting Costs and the Stat Rolls Each Item Carries

Gear in Anime Squadron comes in five rarities: Rare, Epic, Legendary, Mythic, and Secret. Each step up costs more Gold, more materials, and rolls a wider stat range. The Saiyan set is the entry tier at 250 Gold a piece, the Pirate set runs 500 Gold, the Ninja set runs 750 Gold, and the Mythic items cost 2,500 Gold. At the top of the cost ladder sits Monarch Daggers, the single Secret rarity item, running 5,000 Gold and built from late-act materials you can only farm in Acts 9 and 10.

Every piece rolls within a percentage range, so two copies of the same item won’t land on the same numbers, and you can’t pick the roll you want. Accuracy is the roll that matters most in tougher gamemodes, since it counters the evasion stat on enemies in Raid and Challenge modes. Treat the costs and rolls below as provisional, since the game is updating and numbers can shift between patches.

Materials drop from specific Story Act ranges, and the world you farm decides which ingredient type you receive. Rare mats come from Acts 1 to 2, Epic from 3 to 4, Legendary from 5 to 6, Mythic from 7 to 8, and Secret from 9 to 10. The three story worlds, Leaf Village, GT City, and Marine Lobby, each drop a different crafting material family for the same Act range.

Do not farm materials for Mythic gear before clearing Acts 7 and 8 comfortably. Struggling through those Acts without gear defeats the purpose. Build Legendary pieces first to push through Acts 5 to 6, then use that power to clear Acts 7 to 8 for Mythic materials.

That’s the warning from games.gg’s Anime Squadron gear crafting guide, written by Larc. The guide was last updated June 12, 2026.

Set Bonuses and the Piece Counts That Trigger Them

Set bonuses are the second layer of the gear system, and they fire when you match pieces from the same set on a single unit. Mythic gear activates its bonus from a single piece, which is why a single Hogyoku already grants its -7.5% Cooldown. Rare, Epic, and Legendary sets need any 2 matching pieces before the bonus turns on. The bonus stacks on top of the per-piece stat rolls, not in place of them.

Devil is a one-piece Mythic set that grants +10% Critical Chance and adds +5% Damage for five seconds on every critical hit, capped at +15% Damage. Ninja is a two-piece Legendary set that grants +5% Damage and +3% Range for every hit taken, capped at +15% Range, while Pirate is a two-piece Epic set that grants -5% Cooldown and +2.5% Damage every ten seconds, capped at +10% Damage. Dragon Gi is a two-piece set that grants +5% Range and +5% Damage.

You don’t need to equip every piece of a set to trigger the bonus; two pieces are enough for the lower rarities, and you can mix sets if the individual stat rolls from a different set suit your unit better. The strongest one-piece bonus in the current patch is Hogyoku’s flat -7.5% Cooldown, which lands on ability-heavy units and is why the Hogyoku recipe is the most-cited Mythic craft. The strongest scaling two-piece bonus is Ninja, which gets stronger the longer a fight drags on, which is exactly when you need it. The materials that go into a set piece are the same materials that go into a different set of the same rarity, so a recipe you don’t end up using isn’t a total loss, since the trio that feeds one Mythic recipe feeds the others.

Two pieces are enough for any set below Mythic, and the bonus activates on the matching set, not on the third piece. A single Mythic carry is enough for the bonus to fire on its own, and the third slot stays free for a stat-stacked filler from a different set.

The set bonus tables on Roblox guide sites have shifted between patches, so treat the exact percentages above as the most recent set players have documented. The activation rules (1 piece for Mythic, 2 pieces for everything else) are the part of the system that has held steady across the recent updates players have logged. The exact number on a single stat roll is the part that moves.

Why Your Crafting Materials Double as Awakening Fuel

The crafting material farm is the same farm that feeds your unit awakenings, which is why a player who dumps every drop into the first recipe they can afford is setting themselves up for a stall. Sportskeeda’s Anime Squadron crafting guide notes that items required for crafting are also useful for awakening units, and advises players to hoard them in the inventory by repeatedly completing specific acts. The Crafting NPC and the Awakening NPC sit next to each other in the same Upgrades zone, with the Crafting NPC described as a Madara-looking character. Treat the rare drops as a shared resource, not a craft-only resource, and the awakenings stay open as an option later. The piece you don’t end up needing for one recipe is often the piece you need for the next.

Monarch Daggers are the clearest example of this dual use. The 5,000-Gold piece costs 10 Eclipse Godstone, 10 Chakra Fragment, and 10 King’s Haki Residue, and those three ingredients drop only in Acts 9 and 10 across GT City, Leaf Village, and Marine Lobby. The piece itself doesn’t roll a stat; it awakens the Woo unit, which is why the cost reads as a progression investment. The recipe’s value is the awakening it unlocks. The same set of late-act materials feeds other awakenings as well, so a player who burns the full set on a single craft may find their next awakening gated by the same farm.

Common Mistakes to Burn Gold On

Most early Gold waste in Anime Squadron traces back to a few habits, and unlearning them is the cheapest way to climb the gear ladder. The most expensive of the bunch is treating the Crafting NPC as the equip station, since a freshly crafted piece sits in your inventory until you open the unit’s Details screen and slot it in. The Gold and materials you just paid for are doing nothing for you until you do.

• Equipping nothing after crafting. A freshly crafted item sits in your inventory until you manually slot it into a unit’s Details screen. The Gold and materials you just spent are doing nothing until you do.
• Farming the wrong acts. Each material drops from a specific Act range across the three story worlds. Random farming burns time; targeted farming finishes the recipe.
• Spending awakening materials too early. The same materials that feed gear also feed unit awakenings. Hoard the rare drops until you know your plan for the next awakening.
• Confusing currencies from other Roblox games. Anime Squadron runs on Gold and materials, not Sheckles or other Roblox-specific currencies. Vendors that take alternate currencies don’t exist here.

Two quick habits cover the rest of the gap. After you craft anything, jump straight to the unit’s equipment screen and confirm it’s actually equipped, since a slot left empty is a slot that is silently losing you the recipe’s value. Ignore set bonuses at your peril: a Legendary set like Ninja scales harder the longer a match runs, and a Mythic set like Devil Sword compounds damage on every crit you land, both of which outperform a single rare stat-stacked piece once a fight stretches past the opening wave. Pair the right pieces and the bonus turns on automatically. A slot filled with a mismatched Rare piece is leaving percentage points on the table.

The progression loop the gear system rewards is straightforward. Target the Act range that drops the material tier you need, save the rare drops for the awakening you know is coming, and let the set bonuses compound the percentage gains on the unit you are actually using. The craft cost for a single Mythic piece runs 2,500 Gold, and the craft cost for a single Secret piece runs 5,000 Gold, so a single mistake in the recipe choice can burn half a day of farming. The piece you craft and never equip is the most expensive kind, since the 5,000-Gold Monarch Daggers recipe in particular does nothing if you forget the Details screen.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you get gear in Anime Squadron?

Two ways. You can craft it at the Crafting NPC in the Upgrades area for Gold and materials, or you can earn it for free by playing through story acts and claiming stage rewards. The equip step from a unit’s Details screen is the same in either case.

Where is the Crafting NPC?

Inside the Upgrades zone of the lobby, next to the Awakening NPC. Players describe it as a Madara-looking character from the Naruto anime, and you trigger the crafting menu by walking up and pressing E.

Does crafted gear auto-equip?

No. Crafting makes the piece available in your inventory with no activation step, but it doesn’t attach itself to a unit. Open the unit’s Details screen, pick a gear slot, and equip the piece there.

How many gear pieces do you need for a set bonus?

It depends on rarity. Mythic and Secret gear activate their bonus from a single piece, while Rare, Epic, and Legendary sets need any 2 matching pieces before the bonus turns on.

What do Monarch Daggers do?

They cost 5,000 Gold plus 10 Eclipse Godstone, 10 Chakra Fragment, and 10 King’s Haki Residue, and they unlock an awakening for the Woo unit. They don’t roll a stat; they read as a progression piece, not a stat stick.

How do you upgrade or awaken units?

Progression comes from better units, traits, crafted gear, and awakenings at the Awakening NPC, with crafting materials feeding into awakenings. There is no confirmed unit-level upgrade cost table or exact button path right now, so treat any precise upgrade numbers you see as unverified for the moment.