Back up the truck and get all your mats to build your whale team
The rare Tokubetsu Mission is here!
Last time was around Christmas so get everything you need while its here.
So, I'm a bit confused what I should be prioritising. Is it the petals or is it the blooming birds that are harder to get normally? Also, should I be ignoring the special gardens that pop up in order to stock up as much as possible? I'm at 240 stamina now and it takes about 6 gardens to get a new level.
Usually I do each stage the same number of time (like 10~20 each) to get as much stuff as possible. Use all your stamina potion on it if you want. It's almost the best way to use them (to other good stages to use them is Nidhogg phase 2 stages but at low level is near to impossible to get enough currency to clear the shop. But don't worry, shop refill just stack and you will be able to get everything some days).
If you have a lot of stamina potions, it's better to do secret gardens as they give Manyu and Life Crystals. If you need stamina free XP to level up, you can do Manyu Key stages for quicker level up and stamina refill.
CSQ stages also seem decent for XP for the time being due to having a 30% discount on their stamina price. I managed to gain a few levels off of clearing the CSQs for the Knights in my active set of squads without using a stamina potion.
However, secret gardens don't show up after clearing a CSQ stage so the only rewards will be tier 1 gifts and 2* Knights. On the other hand there are quests tied into the number of CSQ stages you complete so picking up the earrings for every Knight you're using does more than give them small attack/defense bonuses.
Nutaku and DMM IGN: Tomitain
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Nutaku Flower Knight Girl ID: 610834201 (inactive)
DMM FKG ID: 106750967
DMM FKG Allies: 109/123
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DMM Girls Symphony ID: 34644951 (inactive)
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Nutaku Mist Train Girls ID: 3355988
DMM MTG ID: MSTL0Q45K5E9
MTG Allies: 31/50 (Nutaku), 11/50 (DMM)