Puzzle & Dragons 9: Of Godfests and Golems

[Levictus]

Well, Awoken Hades details were also released. Evo materials: Zeus Stratios and Gaia. Gaia enough is reason for me to stay away from him for now. The low cost team is very slowly coming together, but I can't bring myself to feed it anything other than random fodder.

[SiuiS]

At almost four hundred days after evolving, Geoff hellwind has finally been max awoken!

Spoiler

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I kept him for sentiment. XD

[Otravyat]

Random question for jasmine-- what team did you use for Sky Prison? I misread the armor values for floor 2 and just died after not doing enough research. Skyfalls hit 25x when I didn't try to kill, so I was screwed.

EDIT: never mind taking a direct damage sub should solve the problem.

[Jasmine]

Oh, ha, I missed that that little guy had been added. Guess I'll just wait for that then.

And while Robin does have the advantage of being an attacker, the overlap in actives with Sasuke means I actually lose some versatility in generating the right number of orbs. Can't be certain, but I think being able to convert hearts to wood directly might be more valuable overall than double damage on one sub. Elise also has dark sub, which I often use to preserve wood orbs on trash floors. ...Robin does have that elusive fifth skill lock resist, though, so I guess he might still win.

Valk also has 656 RCV, which can be a blessing or a troll. GZL has a lot more leeway than Goemon, but that's why I kicked Echi off my team even though she's +297 (or was +198).

I enjoy my luck. I hit 12 million damage with a Durga active yesterday.

On the other hand, leading Kali is a wonderful idea even outside of a specific type based or TPA based team. In my opinion, LKali is stronger at a base level than U&Y, Kirin, or Durga.

This makes me happy thank you.

I hit 9 million fifty times each weekend :P Also I like tricolors now that I actually have a leader. 15 million per turn heeheeehee...hee. Ok I'll stop, this dog fetish is probably freaking you guys out.

I second learning a skill lead. You'll find that you'll need these fancy REM shenanigans a lot less when your matching skills grant you 25x.

What does the picture mean?

Random question for jasmine-- what team did you use for Sky Prison? I misread the armor values for floor 2 and just died after not doing enough research. Skyfalls hit 25x when I didn't try to kill, so I was screwed.

EDIT: never mind taking a direct damage sub should solve the problem.

Zeus/Echi/Echi/Herais/Valk/Zeus lowest levels NA.



YAY TRIPLE FIRE BIND AGAIN BEST LUCK EVER (equivalent to 0/73 on skillups) Died early this time though so it didn't matter. Eff this game.

[Otravyat]

Valk also has 656 RCV, which can be a blessing or a troll. GZL has a lot more leeway than Goemon, but that's why I kicked Echi off my team even though she's +297 (or was +198).


I hit 9 million fifty times each weekend :P Also I like tricolors now that I actually have a leader. 15 million per turn heeheeehee...hee. Ok I'll stop, this dog fetish is probably freaking you guys out.

I second learning a skill lead. You'll find that you'll need these fancy REM shenanigans a lot less when your matching skills grant you 25x.

What does the picture mean?

The picture is just for the facial expression in context, but is a Legend of Korra reference. Which makes me happy.

I'm sure you CAN do more damage than me with those plus eggs. But comparing weekend tricolor to just a U&Y activation with no color restrictions is a bit unfair haha. I'll challenge you to 12 million with 25x leads.

I've been trying to get through sky prison with U&Y, but I neglected to bring lilith. I'll be able to handle it with the direct damage on floor 2.

[Jasmine]

The picture is just for the facial expression in context, but is a Legend of Korra reference. Which makes me happy.

I'm sure you CAN do more damage than me with those plus eggs. But comparing weekend tricolor to just a U&Y activation with no color restrictions is a bit unfair haha. I'll challenge you to 12 million with 25x leads.

I've been trying to get through sky prison with U&Y, but I neglected to bring lilith. I'll be able to handle it with the direct damage on floor 2.

Oh, that was actually in reference to two diff things. I need to stop doing that.
Weekend = Kog days - my team does 9 million guaranteed with Goemon -> Horus no slime 1 combo no skyfall.
Tricolors is cause I just cleared ancient dragons with BastetxAnubis (wtf catdog relationships) and those damage numbers are just broken.

Spoiler: Here's 23 mil damage

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Horus +297 Goemon +6 friend +198 all max level.

[Otravyat]

Ow. (Blah blah need 10 characters to post)

I expected the trumping photo to be from Kirin or Horus. :P But now I won't challenge you to it-- learned my lesson.

[Jasmine]

Ow. (Blah blah need 10 characters to post)

I expected the trumping photo to be from Kirin or Horus. :P But now I won't challenge you to it-- learned my lesson.

That would take actual thinking - here I just swap Rodin for bubblie, go in EC, match 14 times (16 - 2 SB), flick orbs back and forth until I'm hurt enough, press, press, swish, screenshot. Takes like two minutes.

[Quietus]

If you are making the team designed for light TPA I wouldnt necessarily lead Kali. On the other hand, leading Kali is a wonderful idea even outside of a specific type based or TPA based team. In my opinion, LKali is stronger at a base level than U&Y, Kirin, or Durga.

Do you think that light TPA would be better off led with Athena, then? And what sort of team should I build around Kali lead, then?

[Jasmine]

Do you think that light TPA would be better off led with Athena, then? And what sort of team should I build around Kali lead, then?

My advice is to make sure you can handle her before investing in a team. Throw her with stuff to cover the colors and maybe some time extends, go into endless corridors, and if you can't activate 25 times out of 50, you should practice more before buying.

Sorry this is late, but I deleted all the noob Gronias and this guy has been swapping around. 395,763,256 (NYC). Only Sl2 though - I don't run dragons.

[Samuel Sturm]

So...what are people's thoughts on Healer!Kirin?

Looks like a great DQXQ sub. DQXQ//Healer!Kirin/Kushi/Valk/God or healer boost//DQXQ? Sounds good to me. Could swap Kushi out if you wanted to, but I like her panic button and awakenings to much.

[Starwulf]

What monster is GZL? Green Zhuge Liang?

[Otravyat]

My advice is to make sure you can handle her before investing in a team. Throw her with stuff to cover the colors and maybe some time extends, go into endless corridors, and if you can't activate 25 times out of 50, you should practice more before buying.

Sorry this is late, but I deleted all the noob Gronias and this guy has been swapping around. 395,763,256 (NYC). Only Sl2 though - I don't run dragons.

At the very start of working with a 25x leader compared to ronia, 50% on viable boards is probably optimistic. I'd guess that you'll make less than that at first. But it'll get better quickly and Kali had more than enough power for descends.

The flexibility of a combo lead like this is that the subs don't have to have a specific awoken skill type or color (except the four colors for Kali among sub types or main types). I prioritize the active skills and skill boosts, not rowhances. You CAN do a type based team but not necessary. You can test it just with the best subs you have.

What monster is GZL? Green Zhuge Liang?

Yep!

[Fax Celestis]

Yeah, Kali is more flexible than Ronia. Isis more than Kali, Bastet and Kushi more than Isis.

[Otravyat]

True. I was mostly just talking about Kali versus the TPA and row based teams though. Once you get into the combo leads it becomes so much more complex for difficulty versus payoff

[Academia]

Holy **** it's been a while.... Looks like I missed about 20 some odd pages of stuff. Lol 23 mil damage Jasmine OP >.<... Christmas Hera?! Hell yeah.

[Quietus]

My advice is to make sure you can handle her before investing in a team. Throw her with stuff to cover the colors and maybe some time extends, go into endless corridors, and if you can't activate 25 times out of 50, you should practice more before buying.

Sorry this is late, but I deleted all the noob Gronias and this guy has been swapping around. 395,763,256 (NYC). Only Sl2 though - I don't run dragons.

Giving her a test run is a good idea, and I'll have to look into that. If nothing else I can throw four rippers in a party with her and see how frequently I can activate her. I need to practice with combos anyway, I'm very much used to rowhances. Which is sad, given the fact that I realized the other day my Dragon team is lacking on that front. And thanks for the friend ID, I've added a few through Padguide and this will help pad my friend list further. If you'll excuse the pun.

At the very start of working with a 25x leader compared to ronia, 50% on viable boards is probably optimistic. I'd guess that you'll make less than that at first. But it'll get better quickly and Kali had more than enough power for descends.

The flexibility of a combo lead like this is that the subs don't have to have a specific awoken skill type or color (except the four colors for Kali among sub types or main types). I prioritize the active skills and skill boosts, not rowhances. You CAN do a type based team but not necessary. You can test it just with the best subs you have.

Given that high combo count has not been something I've pushed for so far, yeah. When I can hit 50% activation I'll be pretty happy. That'll be a big step up from where I am now, but I've been watching Youtube videos on orb organization and all that. I guess the other question is... is it really a *bad* idea to build a Kali team with a bunch of TPA in it? Or is it just more difficult to trigger a Light TPA while hitting all four other attributes? I'm okay with difficulty, it'll give me something to work toward. The way I see it, running a team with two 5x leaders for 25x damage is great; stacking that on the 2.25x damage you get from dual TPA would be a hell of a spike.

Of course, I'm thinking it might also be worthwhile to consider helper leads based on either three-color matches or combo totals, so there's also that. But neither of those *deny* TPA value.

Yeah, Kali is more flexible than Ronia. Isis more than Kali, Bastet and Kushi more than Isis.

True. I was mostly just talking about Kali versus the TPA and row based teams though. Once you get into the combo leads it becomes so much more complex for difficulty versus payoff

As above, my thought is that I can run it as a Kali team for whatever damage multipliers I get with them, and then if I happen to trigger TPA - or if I can arrange it with actives, I see a couple of cards that have actives that'd help a lot with that - then it just becomes an additional trigger. Not a necessity, but a hell of a spike if/when I pull it off. Am I severely understimating something on these lines?

[Otravyat]

Given that high combo count has not been something I've pushed for so far, yeah. When I can hit 50% activation I'll be pretty happy. That'll be a big step up from where I am now, but I've been watching Youtube videos on orb organization and all that. I guess the other question is... is it really a *bad* idea to build a Kali team with a bunch of TPA in it? Or is it just more difficult to trigger a Light TPA while hitting all four other attributes? I'm okay with difficulty, it'll give me something to work toward. The way I see it, running a team with two 5x leaders for 25x damage is great; stacking that on the 2.25x damage you get from dual TPA would be a hell of a spike.

Of course, I'm thinking it might also be worthwhile to consider helper leads based on either three-color matches or combo totals, so there's also that. But neither of those *deny* TPA value.

As above, my thought is that I can run it as a Kali team for whatever damage multipliers I get with them, and then if I happen to trigger TPA - or if I can arrange it with actives, I see a couple of cards that have actives that'd help a lot with that - then it just becomes an additional trigger. Not a necessity, but a hell of a spike if/when I pull it off. Am I severely understimating something on these lines?

Isis and DQXQ are great friend leaders when you are learning these x5 leaders. They give you a cushion for the trash waves and dont limit your damage too much on the bosses.

So its a complicated question. I run a U&Y team whose damage relies on blue TPA for big bursts, but that is because each U&Y leader has 2, and I also run a second U&Y as a sub. That is a viable option for me because the U&Y active skill is built for....U&Y. The more of them I have, the higher my chance of x25 activation is, and the more damage I will do with each of those activations. So sure, it is a worthwhile thing to stack light TPA on the team and then work towards that activation on top of the other 3 colors as a goal. It is more difficult, but the damage will be impressive especially with no resists. You are right that it is a nice thing to have when you manage to put together those 4 light orbs. Its just a cost benefit.

Where I want to make sure that you are careful is to not select your subs here just based on stacking light TPA. You are only going to be able to activate your leader skill on 68% of new boards, you will probably enrich the board in unwanted colors every time you activate for at least a little while. Single orb changes only help so much to alleviate that. You also arent going to have the RCV of a sonia team or the HP of a grind team to fall back on, so you can only stall through so much without using active skills.

The point of this is that awakenings are nice, and I definitely run some subs like Kirin for their awakenings. But I'm much more likely to pick a monster with a useful active skill that can keep me alive, defensive or offensive, over a monster with a meh active skill and a couple TPA. I would replace my GrOdin with a Yomi, Sun Quan, Susano, Kushi, etc. in a second if I drew one, mostly because of their superior (for me) active skills.

I'd say build a Kali team, and plug in your best stat subs at each position to go after endless corridors a few times. It will be frustrating and tough compared to row teams, but worthwhile in the long run. After that you can start worrying about specific team compositions. People here may disagree with me (I'm still new compared to 80% of the forum) and TPA may be the way to go. But you want to at least want to know that you can run Kali first, and that you enjoy the gameplay style.

This is the longest advice post I've done on this forum. Heres to hoping it isnt bad advice.

[SiuiS]

On worth of TPA in a rainbow lead:

A single two prong attack with one awakening will do 1.875x damage minimum. With two awakenings it does 2.8125x. With three two prong awakenings it does 4.21x.

Right away we see that, barring anything else, your average two prong team (mostly 2 awakenings, some 1) get as much benefit from one four orb combo as they do from two three orb combos. The team breaks about even between one four orb combo and three three orb combos even.

This shows me, personally, that you are better off setting up and guaranteeing activation of the leaderskill with minimum combos and one TPA of primary color, than trying to make multiple combos of any given color. Since most orb shift actives will shift orbs toward primary color, this should be relatively easy; you just need to guarantee a single 4-orb match of Light, say, and then the 1x3s of every other color. From minor effort with Horus as a friend lead for my physical team, that's not much harder than just activating Horus.

My words lack experience though, so run it past the others first.

And yeah, totes practice.

[Starwulf]

Man, when I want my luck to kick in, it absolutely refuses to. 7 Runs of Hera-Beorc Legend today, and not a single Jewel invade >< I was more then willing to spend a stone or two if necessary if one showed, but not a bit of luck.

[SiuiS]

That makes me feel better about being unable to beat leviathan


E: nuts. Lost to Minerva. Made the mistake of using echidna from the start and not at the end, because I was having a drought of hearts and wasn't confident I could keep recovering. Got her to a sliver of dark hp and then just ran out of steam, finally healing to 17k hp before her 18k hit. Next time, I'll try to knock her down to dark HP and then use echidna. Give me time to have both Valk and Fuu back up and running.

[Jasmine]

At the very start of working with a 25x leader compared to ronia, 50% on viable boards is probably optimistic. I'd guess that you'll make less than that at first. But it'll get better quickly and Kali had more than enough power for descends.

It's probably around the breakeven point where 5x leads show their potential though. If you can only activate 25x 25% of the time, might as well stick with a 6.25x lead. I've never taken Kirin/U&Y into a standard color dungeon, so tried EC - 58 turn clear without using actives until last floor. Activation rate is significantly higher when you stockpile (doesn't hurt that low mob hp means base 25x kills everything anyway). That's an 88%, though in practicality it'll be lower when you need to pump out more than 636k a turn. Then again, you'll have orb changes, so it could well be in the 80-90s.

I guess the other question is... is it really a *bad* idea to build a Kali team with a bunch of TPA in it? Or is it just more difficult to trigger a Light TPA while hitting all four other attributes? I'm okay with difficulty, it'll give me something to work toward. The way I see it, running a team with two 5x leaders for 25x damage is great; stacking that on the 2.25x damage you get from dual TPA would be a hell of a spike.

As above, my thought is that I can run it as a Kali team for whatever damage multipliers I get with them, and then if I happen to trigger TPA - or if I can arrange it with actives, I see a couple of cards that have actives that'd help a lot with that - then it just becomes an additional trigger. Not a necessity, but a hell of a spike if/when I pull it off. Am I severely understimating something on these lines?

Isis and DQXQ are great friend leaders when you are learning these x5 leaders. They give you a cushion for the trash waves and dont limit your damage too much on the bosses.

So its a complicated question. I run a U&Y team whose damage relies on blue TPA for big bursts, but that is because each U&Y leader has 2, and I also run a second U&Y as a sub. That is a viable option for me because the U&Y active skill is built for....U&Y. The more of them I have, the higher my chance of x25 activation is, and the more damage I will do with each of those activations. So sure, it is a worthwhile thing to stack light TPA on the team and then work towards that activation on top of the other 3 colors as a goal. It is more difficult, but the damage will be impressive especially with no resists. You are right that it is a nice thing to have when you manage to put together those 4 light orbs. Its just a cost benefit.

Where I want to make sure that you are careful is to not select your subs here just based on stacking light TPA. You are only going to be able to activate your leader skill on 68% of new boards, you will probably enrich the board in unwanted colors every time you activate for at least a little while. Single orb changes only help so much to alleviate that. You also arent going to have the RCV of a sonia team or the HP of a grind team to fall back on, so you can only stall through so much without using active skills.

The point of this is that awakenings are nice, and I definitely run some subs like Kirin for their awakenings. But I'm much more likely to pick a monster with a useful active skill that can keep me alive, defensive or offensive, over a monster with a meh active skill and a couple TPA. I would replace my GrOdin with a Yomi, Sun Quan, Susano, Kushi, etc. in a second if I drew one, mostly because of their superior (for me) active skills.

I'd say build a Kali team, and plug in your best stat subs at each position to go after endless corridors a few times. It will be frustrating and tough compared to row teams, but worthwhile in the long run. After that you can start worrying about specific team compositions. People here may disagree with me (I'm still new compared to 80% of the forum) and TPA may be the way to go. But you want to at least want to know that you can run Kali first, and that you enjoy the gameplay style.

This is the longest advice post I've done on this forum. Heres to hoping it isnt bad advice.

I would not go with DQ. She's a great lead paired with herself, but her active clashes with every other color combo lead, which is pretty much the only area she beats Horus in. Take Isis or Horus for colors. Bastet and Kushi are OK until you have Fuma, who is pretty much MVP of a LKali team.

Otra gives good advice about not taking TPA to the detriment of utility and sturdiness (a lot of TPAs are attackers with low hp/rcv. Add that to being used to Onias 6.25 rcv...recipe for disaster) Raw multiplier isn't the end all for teams; otherwise there'd be a slime on every lineup. Flashy numbers like my 23 mil hit (and later a 29 mil hit) are cool and all, but when the boss has 3 mil hp, you're going to want a team that can get to a boss 100% of the time and scrape by with a 3 mil hit rather than a team that gets you to the boss 50% of the time but can blast out 20 million.

And yeah, TPA can do a lot of damage, but you have to be able to handle the playstyle. I think Goemon has the second highest raw power in the game (behind Anoobis), but also has what can possibly be the hardest playstyle - needing to combo while not getting hit AND not healing. That combined with his ugliness and some dungeons saying NO OLD MEN make very few players play him, even though his team is easily farmable. 4 color leads are also reasonably high in difficulty - adding TPA will just make it even harder. If you can handle it though...you can probably beat 95%+ of the game.

[Starwulf]

So, I just had a go at Hera-Ur mythical, and...I think I can beat it. I made it to Ifrit, I just messed up by not looking at my HP and didn't match any heart orbs and he killed me just barely. With him auto using a water bind <50% HP, as long as I have both Lmetas up, once I get him to <50% HP, I can survive his big hit, thus giving me 2 extra turns to finish him off. Minerva doesn't look to bad and I can Delay her on top of that. Hera-Ur herself should be a cakewalk, only 2.3mil HP, half of that dark. A single King SHynee burst should do her in. Looking forward to offing another Mythical level dungeon, even if it is one of the easier ones.

[Soepvork]

Godfest time!

Phone (obligatory godfest roll): Lakshmi. I don't particularly have a use for her at the moment, but it's always nice to roll a (non-dupe) god.
Tablet: Nepthys! Great, I was looking for a combo leader on this. Still trying to wrap my head around the (long-term) implications of her leader skill though, guess I should be looking for a dark-based rainbow team?

[Quietus]

Thank you so much for all the responses, guys! Lots of great advice, and yes, this would definitely be a team with a lot of survivability issues. Even at max level, the team I was looking at is capping out at 15kish HP. Lots of nice things about it - With maxed skills it'd have three orb changing skills up by turn 3, and running a Kushinada helper lead gives me a 75% damage reduction skill as well. But this would definitely be a blitz team, and the more I'm looking at it, the more it seems like it's well beyond my skill level for now. Also I don't think it'd be nearly as good as I thought... I looked at the damage it'd put out if all I did was match five combos and hit my TPA, and it only worked out to 691k damage pre-defense. Probably because this team has a lot of God/Healers on it, average Light attack is... well, 1,586 isn't bad actually. So why does that damage number seem so low?

End result of all this musing : I am definitely not at the level required to play this team. I tried activating Kali in Endless Corridors last night, couldn't do it once. I wasn't running any +time subs/helpers though, so I may yet try that and see what I can do. But for the time being, as nice as this team seems, I think it's beyond me.

[Sallera]

Made my one roll on the tablet, got an Apollo. Pretty nice DQXQ sub, and gives me something to sink light xp into again. :3 No complaints here.

On Nephthys: Yeah, pretty nice safe x9 lead. Will be amazing if she ever gets an Isis-esque uvo, but even now she's pretty solid. And apparently KoG capable. (I'm still giggling at that art, though. I like it and all, but the artist must have been in a very silly mood that day.)

[Quietus]

...I JUST REALIZED SOMETHING. I've been misreading Kali; I don't actually need green orbs *at all*! Holy hell, that changes so much about what I'd been planning! Being able to skip the Green subs means I can drop Athena, who was only adding stat stick and a skill up, for something MUCH more useful. And probably trade out Kushinada as a helper...

TPA with four-color matches is WAY easier!

[137beth]

Two REM pulls:
1. Echidna
2. GrimCrystal
Well, at least it's REM-only and not a golem...


Lifetime REM pulls: 48
Farmable monsters pulled during a godfest: 21

[SiuiS]

End result of all this musing : I am definitely not at the level required to play this team. I tried activating Kali in Endless Corridors last night, couldn't do it once. I wasn't running any +time subs/helpers though, so I may yet try that and see what I can do. But for the time being, as nice as this team seems, I think it's beyond me.

Practice
Study YouTube videos of skilled players
Theorycraft

I took a screen simulator into takeminakata and spent hours with some of the people here figuring out moves to always get eight combos. That boosted my skill enormously. I lost some of it but the way I look at the screen changed. That's grand.

Two REM pulls:
1. Echidna
2. GrimCrystal
Well, at least it's REM-only and not a golem...


Lifetime REM pulls: 48
Farmable monsters pulled during a godfest: 21

Ooh. Grim crystal looks actually useful, especially if we ever get the fodder for him. A seven turn 50% resist...



Gonna charge my tablet and see if I can get a good godfest god there. Hoping for Hathor but it's so slow to download the app there, nothing like my phone!

[Otravyat]

Swept through Hera-Ur mythical this morning. Waited one turn and then one shot the ogres turn one, accidentally clearing all my light orbs in the process. Had to take the preemptive and then one hit from Formula to get orbs, but no big deal. One shot ifrit first turn with a U&Y active. Took a hit from Minerva (I had really poor orb management having just woken up) but then one shot both her and hera ur, using an active on Hera-Ur to be safe. Blue damage FTW!