How to Get Pain (Agony Shinobi) in Anime Vanguards (June 2026)

Pain (Agony Shinobi) is one of the most sought-after units in Anime Vanguards, and for good reason. This Secret rarity unit brings devastating Ninjutsu support capabilities to your team with a passive kit that keeps your fighters dealing maximum damage at all times. If you’ve been struggling to add Pain to your roster, I understand the frustration. The farming process can feel endless when RNG seems determined to keep this powerful unit away from you. I’ve been there, and I want to save you from the same headaches I experienced during my own grind. In this guide, I’ll walk you through exactly where to find Pain (Agony Shinobi) and how to optimize every single run so you spend less time farming and more time enjoying your new unit.

The location is straightforward once you know it: Story Mode, Destroyed Hidden Village, Act 3, Legend Stage difficulty. That last part is crucial. Many players waste hours upon hours running the wrong difficulty, never realizing their mistake. The catch with this stage is that 4% drop rate, which sounds small but can extend your farming session into dozens of runs. I tested the farming process extensively and have compiled everything you need to know into this comprehensive guide. By the time you finish reading, you’ll know exactly where to go, what to expect, and how to maximize your chances of finally getting that drop notification.

Where to Find Pain (Agony Shinobi)?

The exact location for Pain (Agony Shinobi) is Story Mode > Destroyed Hidden Village > Act 3 > Legend Stage. This is the only place in the entire game where Agony Shinobi can drop. There are no alternatives, no special events, no workaround methods. If you want Pain, this is where you need to be.

Here’s the critical detail that trips up more players than you might think: you must be on Legend Stage difficulty specifically. Running this stage on Normal or Hard difficulty will not yield the drop. This isn’t a case where higher difficulty just means better odds. The drop simply does not exist on any difficulty other than Legend. Legend difficulty unlocks after completing the main story, so make absolutely certain you’ve progressed far enough in the game before you start this farm. Nothing is more frustrating than running 20 stages on the wrong difficulty because you didn’t realize you hadn’t unlocked Legend yet.

The base drop rate sits at 4%, which might sound decent on paper but in practice means pure RNG can be absolutely brutal. Most players in our tests and in community reports needed anywhere from 20 to 50+ runs before seeing that beautiful golden drop notification. Some incredibly unlucky players have reported needing significantly more. However, there is a safety net in place that I want you to understand clearly. The game has a pity system that guarantees you’ll receive Pain by your 38th run if luck hasn’t blessed you earlier. This means the absolute worst-case scenario is 38 runs, which still represents about 2-3 hours of gameplay depending on your clear speed. That’s not ideal, but at least there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

Agony Shinobi Abilities and Passives

Understanding what makes Pain valuable helps motivate you through the farming grind. Agony Shinobi is classified as a Secret rarity Force-type unit with a primary role as Ninjutsu support. His kit centers around pain-themed passives that amplify your team’s damage output in ways that synergize incredibly well with other popular units in the current meta.

Passive Abilities:

• Feel Pain – This passive increases the damage taken by enemies hit by your attacks. Essentially, enemies marked with this effect take increased damage from all sources, making your damage dealers hit significantly harder against affected targets.
• Accept Pain – This defensive passive reduces the damage received by your own units. When Pain is active in your team, your other fighters survive longer against tough enemies and boss encounters.
• Know Pain – This utility passive boosts Ninjutsu placement effectiveness. If you’re running a Ninjutsu-based team composition, Pain essentially acts as a force multiplier for your entire setup.

Active Ability:

• Arsenal of Pain – Summons multiple projectiles that deal area damage to enemies. This is Pain’s main damage ability and it covers a solid area of effect, making him useful for clearing waves of weaker enemies as well as chunking tougher opponents.

Ultimate Ability:

• Shinobi Resurrection – A powerful finishing move with massive damage multipliers. When you need to delete a boss or burst down a high-priority target, this ultimate delivers. The animation is satisfying and the damage numbers are real.

The combination of these abilities makes Pain particularly valuable in longer fights where his damage amplification compounds over time. The longer a battle goes, the more your Feel Pain and Accept Pain passives stack their benefits. For more details on how Pain’s passives interact with various status effects mechanics, check out our comprehensive guide. Understanding status effect interactions can help you build teams that maximize Pain’s potential.

Evolution Materials for Agony Shinobi

Once you’ve obtained Agony Shinobi, you’ll need specific materials to fully evolve him to his maximum potential. The evolution path requires several rare materials that you’ll need to farm from various sources. Here’s the complete list of what you need:

• Energy Rod – This is the core evolution component required for Pain’s transformation. The Energy Rod is relatively uncommon and you’ll want to start farming this early since it’s a bottleneck for many players.
• Green Essence – The basic tier of evolution material. Green Essence drops from early-game Story Mode stages and various daily events. You need a moderate amount of this, so start collecting early.
• Purple Essence – The intermediate tier. Purple Essence requires more dedicated farming as it doesn’t drop as frequently. Focus on stages that specifically mention essence rewards.
• Red Essence – The advanced tier material. Red Essence represents a significant time investment to accumulate in sufficient quantities.
• Rainbow Essence – The final evolution material and the rarest of the bunch. Rainbow Essence typically requires endgame content or special events to obtain in meaningful quantities.

These materials primarily drop from various Story Mode stages and events throughout the game. I recommend focusing on stages that specifically mention “essence” in their rewards to maximize your farming efficiency. Don’t spread yourself thin trying to get everything at once. Prioritize the materials you need most based on your current evolution progress.

If you need a complete breakdown of how the Memoria system works and how it relates to evolution, our Memoria upgrade system guide covers everything you need to know about maximizing your unit’s potential through Memoria enhancement.

Speed Farming Tips for Pain

Let’s be completely honest: farming a 4% drop rate is tedious. There are no two ways around it. But there are concrete steps you can take to make the process as painless as possible. Over the course of my own grind and through extensive research in the community, I’ve identified the strategies that separate players who finish their Pain farm in a reasonable timeframe from those who spend weeks pulling their hair out.

Recommended Team Setup:

Use high-damage AoE units that can clear waves quickly. The goal is to minimize time per run so you can squeeze in more attempts during your play session. Every second counts when you’re planning to do 30+ runs. Units with Ninjutsu synergy work exceptionally well since Pain himself will eventually join your roster as a Ninjutsu support unit, making them a double-purpose investment. For specific team composition ideas that work well for Legend Stage clears, see our best team compositions guide which covers units that excel at speed-clearing difficult stages.

Auto Mode Strategy:

Auto mode is the most popular choice for Pain farming among dedicated players. Set up a team that can reliably clear Legend Stage without dying, and let the game run while you do other things. Many players report leaving the game running overnight or during work hours to accumulate runs passively. The key is ensuring your auto team has enough damage output to clear waves quickly AND enough survivability to handle the harder waves in Act 3 without dying and wasting a run. Finding this balance is crucial. A team that dies half the time is effectively doubling your farming time.

What to Realistically Expect:

Based on extensive community reports, forum discussions, and player testimonials from platforms like TikTok and Reddit, the typical farming experience looks like this:

• Average runs before drop: 20-50+ depending heavily on RNG
• Players celebrating on TikTok after 30+ runs are extremely common
• Some particularly lucky players report getting the drop in under 10 runs
• The pity guarantee at 38 runs ensures you’re never worse off than 38 attempts

The variance here is massive and that’s the nature of RNG-based farming. One player might get Pain on their 5th run while another needs 45. The pity system exists precisely because the developers understand how punishing that 4% rate can be and want to ensure no player is stuck farming indefinitely. Stay patient, set up your auto team properly, and trust that the pity system will deliver eventually.

Shall Know Pain Memoria Location

If you’re serious about maximizing Pain’s potential in your team, you’ll absolutely want to obtain his signature Memoria: Shall Know Pain. This Memoria provides additional stat boosts and synergy bonuses when equipped to Agony Shinobi, making your Pain significantly more powerful than he would be without it.

The Shall Know Pain Memoria drops from the 2nd level of the Destroyed Hidden Village, also on Legend Stage difficulty with the same 4% drop rate. This is conveniently the same location where you farm the main unit, just on a different Act within the stage. I recommend farming this immediately after you get the main unit, or even alternating runs between Act 3 and Level 2 to maximize your farming efficiency while you’re in the zone.

Note that farming both the unit and Memoria simultaneously will roughly double your expected playtime since you need to complete two different runs within the same stage location. However, having both significantly increases Pain’s value in your team lineup. The Memoria bonus stats and synergy effects are substantial enough that Pain without his Memoria feels like an incomplete unit. Budget your time accordingly and decide whether you want to prioritize the unit first or go for both from the beginning.

Is Pain Worth Farming?

In the current meta following Update 12, Pain (Agony Shinobi) holds a strong position as a Ninjutsu support unit. His damage amplification passives make him valuable in both PvE story content and PvP battles. If you’re running a Ninjutsu-focused team composition, Pain should be a priority addition to your roster.

The three pain-themed passives work together to create a multiplicative effect on your team’s damage output. Feel Pain increases enemy damage intake, Accept Pain keeps your units alive longer, and Know Pain makes your Ninjutsu placements more effective. Together, these abilities make Pain one of the best support units for Ninjutsu teams currently available in the game.

Check our Anime Vanguards tier list to see where Pain currently ranks among all units in the game. His placement has remained relatively stable since his introduction in Update 12, which speaks to how well-designed his kit is. He’s not a flavor-of-the-month unit that gets nerfed into uselessness. Pain is a long-term investment in your team’s power.

FAQs

Final Thoughts on Getting Pain

Getting Pain (Agony Shinobi) in Anime Vanguards requires patience thanks to that challenging 4% drop rate, but the pity system at 38 runs ensures every dedicated player eventually adds this Secret rarity unit to their roster. Don’t get discouraged by bad RNG streaks. The system is designed to catch you.

Focus on building an auto-capable team that can reliably clear Legend Stage without dying. Head to Story Mode > Destroyed Hidden Village > Act 3 > Legend Stage, and let the runs stack up. Set realistic expectations, start your farming session when you have a few hours available, and trust the process.

Don’t forget to farm the Shall Know Pain Memoria from the 2nd level while you’re grinding. Having both the unit and its signature Memoria makes Pain significantly more powerful in your team compositions. Consider alternating between Act 3 and Level 2 runs to get both simultaneously, though this does extend your total farming time considerably.

Happy farming, and may RNG finally smile upon you. When that golden drop notification finally appears, you’ll know every single run was worth it.