Hi guys, as the title says I've been away from the game for quite a long time now (about 8 or 9 months) and after coming back there's so many new stuff that I'm a lil bit lost.
There are some things I need clarification so if you guys could help me figure out I'd really appreciate.

• 2nd Evolution
  
  So I can see blooming is already a thing in the game. That's very nice. After some research I've learned that you have to do a lot of grind to get the itens you need so it'll take me some time to actually be able to do that. Still I want to know wich girls I can actually evolve now. I already know that I can bloom my Edelweiss (wich is awesome since she was one of the best event girls), but is it worth evolving her? What other 5* girls have a bloomed form currently? (No need to tell me about the rainbows since I don't have them anyway.)
  
  
  
• Whale
  
  Yeah... I need help figuring out that. Should I just stick a huge number of girls of the same type even if their level is very low? Should I pick my strongest girls of that specific type on team 1 or should I stick with the combinations? How exactly does the fight with the pests work? I'm really confused about this new mechanic.
  
  
  
• New equipment
  
  I have to say that extra Exclusive Equipment slot is one of the best changes regarding that (Still hoping that someday equipped itens won't force me to expand my inventory), but I've come across a problem with Camellia's earring. It was equipped in the earring slot, but after I tried to change slots it now says it's a Camellia BRIDE exclusive. Luckily Camellia Bride was one of the last girls I acquired before I stoped playing so I gave the earrings to her even though she is not maxed out like my Camellia. But the real problem is that I can't do Camellia's quest anymore since it doesn't show up.
  I haven't cleared C. Bride's yet, so I want to know: Will I get Camellia's earring if I clear her mission or I'll have another exclusive for the Bride version?
  
  
  
• Second Affection
  
  This one is rather simple. Is it worth spending my gifts on the forge? I have 90 bronze awards, 45 silvers and about 400 books. Should I burn these itens or it's best to get the small increase from those bond crystal ones? Does the second affection really make that big of a difference anyway?
  
  
• Life Crystals
  
  Well I used to gather 1000 life crystals to spend on the rainbow and gold skillbloom then wait for the next refresh and do it again. I can see there are other life crystal exclusive itens now so should I stop buying the skillblooms? Can you comfortably farm the 1000 crystals and still get those petal things before the next refresh?
  
  Oh and please tell me what are those blue crystals from the special mission used for???? I know you can use the gard amulets to get the event girl & stuff but what about the blue crystals you gain from the chests?

That's all I remeber for now. Thank you in advance guys.

I not playing on Nutaku anymore, so my answer is no more than brief.
You can pass it and wait for currently active Nutaku player to answer.

- In term of stat Full bloom lvl 80 gold girls is strong as full evol lvl 70 rainbow girl.
Full bloom lvl 80 rainbow girl is just out of chart.
In term of passive skill you girls will get new passive skill / old passive get power-up by blooming them.
So if you can afford bloom any girl you have please do.

- You can choose the most strongest team with any type you have to challenge whale campaign.
Normally if your first group strong enough they should take care all deck fight easy.
So just change the girl in lowest group to match ship type you want.
But beware of your ship total power, if its too low than recommend your ship will be almost guarantee sink.

- I can't answer about personel equipment.

- 2nd affection make your girls more stronger about 50% not sure.
If you can afford please give it to them.

- I can't answer about crystal.

Right now Nutaku have daily deal that provide lots of thing.
I'm surely they will (or maybe already) sell bloom mats and 2nd affection item with this deal.
So it maybe easy to bloom and give 2nd affection to any of your girls in long run.
Sure if you willing to buy.

Originally Posted by PSthebest

2nd Evolution
I want to know [i]which[i] girls I can actually evolve now.

6* (in case you get one): Nerine, Cherry, Sakura.
5*: Edel, Orchid, Nameless Evening Primrose.

New ones will be added every 2 weeks.

Originally Posted by PSthebest

[*]Whale
Should I just stick a huge number of girls of the same type even if their level is very low? Should I pick my strongest girls of that specific type on team 1 or should I stick with the combinations? How exactly does the fight with the pests work? I'm really confused about this new mechanic.

Use your 40 strongest girls and then change out the ones at the bottom until you have 16 girls of the type you want your ship to be.
Stages consist of two different fight types.

• Raid Boss Ship Battles: You attack the ancient pest until you deal ~50% damage and then the pest will flee. You in total fight the ancient pest up to 3 times.
• Deck Battles: Just like normal fights, if all your units in a squad die, then the next squad will take the deck and continue fighting.

If either your ship or all 9 squads (8+helper) die, you lose. Chances are your ship will die before all 9 squads will.

Originally Posted by PSthebest

[*]New equipment
I have to say that extra Exclusive Equipment slot is one of the best changes regarding that (Still hoping that someday equipped itens won't force me to expand my inventory), but I've come across a problem with Camellia's earring. It was equipped in the earring slot, but after I tried to change slots it now says it's a Camellia BRIDE exclusive. Luckily Camellia Bride was one of the last girls I acquired before I stoped playing so I gave the earrings to her even though she is not maxed out like my Camellia. But the real problem is that I can't do Camellia's quest anymore since it doesn't show up.

This is a known bug, it will be fixed in the future. Although I cannot give a date as this is not a priority to them at the minute.

Originally Posted by PSthebest

[*]Second Affection
Is it worth spending my gifts on the forge? Does the second affection really make that big of a difference anyway?

Do not use forge until all your girls have 100% max affection. Then sure, why not. And yes, second affection can make a big difference.

Originally Posted by PSthebest

[*]Life Crystals
Well I used to gather 1000 life crystals to spend on the rainbow and gold skillbloom then wait for the next refresh and do it again. I can see there are other life crystal exclusive itens now so should I stop buying the skillblooms? Can you comfortably farm the 1000 crystals and still get those petal things before the next refresh?

Get only the rainbow skillbloom, you can ignore everything else really. Only buy petals when you need them. No reason to stockpile petals.
Also, because of whale, getting life crystals is very hard now. You can get the gold skillblooms if you need but I would only do that if you have a gold unit that has 4 equipment slots already at this point.

Originally Posted by PSthebest

Oh and please tell me what are those blue crystals from the special mission used for???? I know you can use the gard amulets to get the event girl & stuff but what about the blue crystals you gain from the chests?

The blue crystals are for the current event going on, you use them to vote on which girl you think will win the race and you get event currency based on if you were right or not.

2nd affection makes a huge difference. I ran a map shortly after it was added and I had 2 squads that use to have equal damage output. I gave second affection to all of the units in the squad and while the one without 2nd affection did fine the squad that got the boost absolutely eviscerated everything in their path.

You also get 2 flower gems for hitting 100% 2nd affection, so there's that as a bonus as well.

Also, about the Whale Ship missions:
Equip as many girls in the squad as possible with equipment items. Those can actually decide between a success and a loss here.
You also want to choose the strongest (in TP) helper you have for the more difficult missions.

Generally, you'll have your strongest girls in your regular squads anyway, so I'd suggest making the first four squads (20 girls) of your Whale team the same as your regular team. Maybe adjust the order of the squads, to make sure the absolute strongest squad is leading, but that's it.

The fifth squad is a good place to put some girls who support your entire whale team. Especially girls who give you a start with how far your Light Gauge (for the Solar Blast) is filled work well here, but also girls like Chocolate Cosmos and Strawberry Candle for their bonus nodes. Unless you have those girls in your first four squads ofcourse, no point moving them away from there.

The sixth, seventh and eight squads can then be used for "colormatching" the boss. If the whale boss you're fighting is weak to hit, then fill up these last squads with hit-girls. If it's weak to pierce, fill these squads up with the best pierce girls you didn't use yet. Colormatching the bosses' weakness increases the damage your whaleship deals (like fighting regular pests), and effectively allows whaleship team to handle bosses that are 30 to 50 percent in suggested difficulty above your ships' powerlevel.
Do note, the latest boss that was added is colorless (grey circle, no icon), and to get a bonus against it, your whaleship too has to be "colorless", i.e. have an even distribution in girl-types.

One piece of advise the colour matched teams it's best to have your strongest 5 of each in team one as all the deck enemies will be weak vs that class, not a huge thing but helps the fights go quicker

Yeah as other have said, Whale Ship is basically as follows:

Order by Total Atk 1st, Shuffle top 2-3 teams around till the 1st team is all or as close to all the same colour as the runs you will be doing, go to last few teams and replace girls with the mission colour till ship changes colour (16 girls total of that colour needed). And that is it.

You should never to almost never lose girls on the deck and your ship should never die. If either of these things happen a lot then you are probably not strong enough for this yet.

I really think people who cannot clear W1-5 should not do whaleship. At least W1-4. Anything below that is too inefficient imo.
You might get more out of running missions to make yourself stronger.

...that's a fair point, if you're struggling to do that and slipping on behind on other things that's probably a waste