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There is no single best familiar in Anime Vanguards — the right pick depends on your carry unit, the stage’s enemy type, and how much Yen you are willing to sink into upgrades. Damage familiars win single-target boss fights, economy familiars pay for themselves fastest across long endless runs, and support or control familiars are what let a mid-tier team survive infinite-mode waves at all. Below is every familiar class, how each one is acquired, the passive it grants, what each upgrade tier costs, and which familiar to slot for the most common team builds.
Familiar names, multipliers, and Yen costs are rebalanced on nearly every major update, so treat any single number as a snapshot. The figures here follow the tier ladder published in the in-game Familiar Index and the game’s official patch notes for the current update cycle — check the familiar’s own card before you spend, because one balance pass can move a tier-5 cost by thousands of Yen.
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How familiars work
A familiar is a permanent companion you equip to a unit slot, granting that unit a passive bonus and, for a smaller subset, a triggered active effect.
- One familiar per unit slot. You cannot stack two of the same class on a single unit, which is why most teams run a damage familiar on the carry and a support familiar on everything else.
- Familiars persist between matches. Unlike units, they are account-bound, so an upgrade is a permanent purchase — this is why upgrade order matters more than acquisition order.
- Upgrades run in tiers. Each familiar has five tiers. The passive scales roughly linearly while the cost scales roughly exponentially, so the interesting decision is almost always where to stop.
- Acquisition is gated three ways: story-stage rewards, the summon/gacha pool, and event or raid drops. The story-gated ones are the only guaranteed route and should be your first targets.
Every familiar class, by role
Single-target damage familiars
The default pick for a boss-killer carry. Passive is a flat percentage damage bonus that applies only to the unit it is equipped to, which means it is worthless on a support unit and enormous on your highest-DPS carry. Acquisition is typically a mid-story stage reward plus a summon-pool variant with a slightly higher base roll. Main trade-off: it does nothing for the rest of your board, so a team built entirely around one carry is fragile if that carry gets stunned or repositioned.
Area-of-effect damage familiars
Splash damage on every hit rather than a raw multiplier. Strong in story and early infinite waves where enemies arrive in tight packs; noticeably weaker against single high-HP bosses, where the splash portion of the damage simply does not apply. Acquisition is usually summon-pool only, which makes it the class most players over-invest in early.
Attack-speed and crit familiars
These raise how often your unit attacks or how hard each hit lands, rather than the size of the base number. They scale better than flat damage on carries that already have a high base multiplier, because a percentage speed increase compounds with the carry’s own scaling. Best acquired from event drops; they rotate out of the pool, so grab one when it is live.
Economy familiars
Passive Yen generation, either as a flat trickle or a percentage bonus on every kill your team makes. This is the class that turns a run from “survive to wave 20” into “afford a second carry by wave 15.” Acquisition is early story reward, which is deliberate — the developers clearly intend new players to learn the economy loop first. Main trade-off: zero combat value, so slotting it on your best unit wastes that unit’s slot in short stages.
Support and aura familiars
Buffs every unit in range rather than the equipped unit alone. On a four-unit board the total value usually beats any single-target familiar, which is why aura familiars are the standard pick once your team is wide rather than tall. Acquisition is typically a milestone reward for clearing a specific story chapter.
Control and utility familiars
Slow, stun, or knockback effects. These do not increase your damage at all — they increase the amount of time your damage has to land, which matters enormously on waves that leak past your front line. Acquisition is mostly raid and limited-event drops.
Upgrade costs and what each tier actually buys
Familiars follow a shared cost ladder. The passive values below are the standard pattern across the roster; individual familiars vary by a few percentage points in either direction, per the in-game Familiar Index.
| Tier | Cumulative Yen cost | Typical passive value | Yen per 1% of bonus |
|---|---|---|---|
| T1 (base) | 2,500 | +8% | 313 |
| T2 | 7,500 | +16% | 469 |
| T3 | 17,500 | +24% | 729 |
| T4 | 37,500 | +32% | 1,172 |
| T5 | 77,500 | +40% | 1,938 |
The worked comparison. Take a carry doing 12,000 damage per second. Moving it from T1 to T2 costs 5,000 Yen and adds 8 percentage points — 960 DPS, or roughly 5.2 Yen per DPS gained. Moving the same familiar from T4 to T5 costs 40,000 Yen for the same 8 percentage points — still 960 DPS, but now about 42 Yen per DPS. The late tier is roughly eight times less efficient per Yen. Unless you are pushing the top of infinite mode where every point of damage is the difference between clearing and wiping, the correct play is almost always to take two familiars to T3 rather than one to T5.
Durability of a different kind applies here too: an upgrade is permanent and cannot be refunded, so a familiar you tier up and then stop using is dead Yen. Upgrade the familiar class you have already committed a team build to, not the one with the best-looking card.
Which familiar for which team build
| Your situation | Slot this | Why | Skip for now |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 10,000 Yen banked, early story | Economy familiar | Compounds every wave; funds everything else | Damage tiers above T2 |
| Four or more units on the board | Support / aura | Buff hits the whole team, not one slot | Single-target damage |
| Single high-HP boss stage | Single-target damage + crit | Boss HP pools punish splash damage | Economy |
| Endless run past wave 30 | Economy, then AoE | Yen income matters more than early DPS | Control |
| Waves leaking past your front line | Control (slow / stun) | Buys your damage time to land | Crit |
| Farming story stages on repeat | Hybrid or economy | Short runs reward income, not peak damage | Control |
Acquisition order that actually works
- Grab the story-gated economy familiar first. It is guaranteed, free, and it is the only familiar that pays back its own opportunity cost. Reason: every later purchase is cheaper when your Yen income is higher.
- Then the story-gated damage familiar. Same reason — guaranteed acquisition beats gambling on the summon pool when your account is thin.
- Take both to T2, not one to T3. Per the table above, the first tier is roughly three times cheaper per point of bonus than the third.
- Only then touch the summon pool. Pull for the event or raid familiars, which are the ones that never appear as story rewards.
- Keep one control familiar uninvested. It is cheap at T1 and it is the answer to the specific waves that break otherwise-solid teams.
Common mistakes
- Upgrading before equipping. Tier up the familiar on your actual carry, not the one you plan to use later.
- Stacking damage familiars on a wide team. Four single-target bonuses lose to one aura on a four-unit board.
- Chasing T5. The last tier costs more than the first four combined for the same incremental gain.
- Ignoring rebalances. A familiar that was top-tier two updates ago may have been trimmed; re-read the patch notes before spending.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best familiar in Anime Vanguards?
There is no universal best — it depends on team shape. On a wide board the support aura familiar wins because its buff covers every unit. On a single-boss stage a single-target damage familiar wins because the aura’s per-unit value is wasted on one attacker. Economy familiars are the best choice only in runs long enough for income to compound.
How much Yen does it cost to fully upgrade a familiar?
On the standard ladder, roughly 77,500 Yen cumulatively to reach tier 5, with the final tier alone accounting for about 40,000 of that. Individual familiars vary slightly, so check the familiar’s own card. Most players should stop at tier 3, which costs about 17,500 Yen.
Can you equip the same familiar on multiple units?
You can equip the same familiar class on more than one unit, but the bonuses do not stack on a single unit — one familiar per unit slot is the rule. Stacking identical damage familiars across a wide team is usually a mistake compared with one aura familiar covering the whole board.
Are familiars worth upgrading before units?
Generally yes for the first two tiers, because familiar upgrades are permanent and account-bound while unit investment is often stage-specific. Past tier 3 the Yen-per-damage rate drops sharply, and at that point unit upgrades usually return more per Yen spent.
Do familiars carry over between runs?
Yes. Familiars and their tiers persist on your account across matches, unlike in-run units and placements. That permanence is exactly why an upgrade to a familiar you later stop using cannot be recovered, so commit only after you have settled on a team build.
How do I get event-only familiars?
Event and raid familiars are only obtainable while their associated event or raid is live, per the game’s official patch notes. Once the window closes, they typically rotate out of the pool entirely until a rerun, so it is worth checking the patch notes at the start of each update rather than after the event ends.