Puzzle and Dragons in the Playground XVII: Cross Your Hearts and Make Things Die

[obryn]

Welcome to the Playground's sixteenth seventeenth iteration of our thread for the popular mobile app game, Puzzle & Dragons!
(Previous thread is here.)

Here we gather to discuss, praise, complain about, and generally just natter on for this fun and addictive app game.

The first step is to point all new players to one of the beginners' guides.

• We recommend you check this very comprehensive Padherder New Player Guide], which is usually current.

We also have a linked guide to using row enhancement awoken skills!

What is Puzzle & Dragons?

A Free-to-Play match-three game with surprising depth! The puzzle occupies the lower half of the screen, and the combinations you form power your team on the upper half of the screen in battle. Part pokemon, part bejeweled, part M:tG, all crack, this game is easy to learn, difficult to master and very well put together. Unlike many games of this kind, it defies genre by going for both depth and complexity while maintaining ease of pick up.

What, seriously?

Yup! While at it's surface, the game is basically any other puzzle game ever, the math behind damage output, the dungeon design, the team composition component and metagame, and the uniquely free-wheeling capacity of the puzzle make Puzzle and Dragons a stand-out despite it's terrible app graphic. It has surprisingly deep and fulfilling long-term play (at the moment, I've been playing for over 600 days), and new content comes out regularly.

So what do I need to know to get started?

• First, the game itself! PAD, P&D or puzzle and dragons should all be sufficient searches to download it. It operates on Android and iOS devices, with mixed results on running it elsewhere.
• Second, the beginner's guides will help a lot. You start out with one fast freebie pull on the game's real lure, the Rare Egg Machine, and a good pull here can save you a lot of frustration and also make the game much more fun. It's suggested that after you run the game a bit and get comfortable playing it, you "reroll" by uninstalling and reinstalling the application. Then you run through the tutorial again and do the free pull again, repeating until you snag a keeper. This is not half as bad as it sounds; it's pretty brainless, and goes by pretty quickly. If you can time your re-rolling to line up with a biweekly Godfest, you can save yourself even more frustration!
• Third, friends. Good friends with compatible Leader skills are critical. When you enter a dungeon, you can bring a friend's leader with you as a member of your team; their leader skill operates alongside your own. We have a lot of great, experienced players here, with a lot of solid leaders. We can carry you when your own leader can't. Managing your leader and picking the right friend's leader is a critical part of the metagame. The GitP list is at the bottom of this thread; feel free to send any of us requests. If you have something like "@GitP" in your username, we'll know you're from this forum, and will accept your friend requests more readily!
• Fourth, be stingy with stones! Magic stones are the in-app-purchase (IAP) resource, and while you get them for free pretty quickly early on, and even more on a regular basis, you'll regret being too free with their use early on. The four rules of magic stones are (1) Never pull the gold dragon Rare Egg Machine outside of a godfest; (2) You should have two monster boxes for every rank you have, and spending stones to Increase Capacity is almost never a bad idea; (3) It's generally not worth a stone to continue in a dungeon or refill your stamina until you have at least 100 stamina, and (4) No, really, don't pull the REM outside of a godfest, seriously.
• Fifth, as a corollary to the above, there is a resource called Monster Points, of which the only way to obtain reasonable amounts is by selling monsters you rolled from the REM, i.e. stones. One of the potential ways to spend it is on evolution materials. This is generally about the least efficient use of your stones possible. If there's a rare material you can't currently obtain, you'll be much better off in the long run spending your resources on leveling your teams until you can, and all rare evolution materials can also be obtained randomly from the PAL machine during certain events (the news box beneath the machines will say when the Rare Evo Materials event is active).

As a closing note, Puzzle & Dragons is an immensely popular game, and there are a ton of fan-run sites for information. Most of them stay fairly up-to-date, so just go with what you prefer.

• PuzzleDragonX is generally the best-updated site out there, with the most current news and most complete data. It's the community's go-to resource for data, but doesn't have much in the way of advice.
• PADHerder is a tool to track and manage your monster box, with some neat automated ways to update. It also has some good information pages.
• PADGuide (Android / iPhone) is an awesome app which keeps very current with all data and can even alert you to Urgent! dungeons. (HIGHLY recommended; I can't live without it.)
• The Puzzle and Dragons Forum is dedicated to PAD and has some pretty good (and some very old) guides.
• The PAD Global Facebook group is for talking about PAD stuff on ... well, Facebook. It's a solid way to get more compatible friends, too, but it's not always nice to newbies.

Jasmine has provided us with a lovely friend list off-site. You can submit your own info here, using a monster's ID (preferred) or full name.

Our old friend list (still mostly up to date) can be found below. If you want to be updated/added, post your leads (up to two each) that you use for descends and for farming. A PadHerder can be included as well.

Spoiler: Puzzle and Dragons GitP Friend List, probably real outdated!

Show

User	In-Game ID	Descended! Leads	Farming Leads
Obryn	dwarfSA@PG 357,549,260
Diego Havoc	Diego@GitP 376,879,256
Starwulf	Starwulf 319,762,282
SiuiS	SiuiS@GitP 307,676,270
Jasmine	Jasmine 301,790,222
Academia	Aca@GitP 350,076,269
Aramul	Aram@GitP 314,795,270
Leviticus	Levi@GitP 367,459,299
Erloas	ErloasGitP 325,699,229 LoraesGitP 395,991,230
Kauai	Kauai@gitp 364,995,253
Tyckspoon	Tyck@GitP 305,397,237
Blade7	Blade@GitP 387,372,268
Klaatu B. Nikto	KBN@GitP 336,576,284
137ben	Snes4@GitP 336,616,397
Otravyat	Otra@GitP 329,820,344
Fax Celestis	Fax@GitP 372,092,294
Soepvork	Soepv@GitP 333,581,245
Sallera	Kiminosei 373,137,360 Sallera 307,636,315
Quietus	Quietus 392,538,393
Baka Nikujaga	Baka 346,216,306
Flare'90	Flare@Gitp 325,249,325
Anarion	Anar@gitp 365,764,335
firedaemon33	Firedaemon 380,663,332
Meta	iNuzzle@/r 388,412,339
Fleeing Coward	FC@GitP 379,570,319

Credits to everyone who's ever contributed to the OP.

[Anarion]

I cleared Zeus +297 this morning with Ra Dragon, but I stoned for it. The key was inheriting heroic dragon guard onto Isis (which has been there for a while) and I also inherited Izanagi onto one of my Kalis. Even that wasn't enough to do it without stoning, but it could have been if I didn't suck at PAD (I died to a lighting of god doing 18,000 through heroic dragon guard after matching the critical poison orbs and some hearts left me at 16,000. One more combo and I'd have lived through it).

While there are teams that can do 60 million in one turn (like You Yu), I think it's unreliable, especially with the quite strong floors leading up to it. You need to do 20 million to the chimeras first, so I think it's better to run an active or a team that can let you tank some hits.

Alternately, run Sumire or Kaede system and just heart cross every turn, solve all problems forever.

[Academia]

I cleared Zeus +297 this morning with Ra Dragon, but I stoned for it. The key was inheriting heroic dragon guard onto Isis (which has been there for a while) and I also inherited Izanagi onto one of my Kalis. Even that wasn't enough to do it without stoning, but it could have been if I didn't suck at PAD (I died to a lighting of god doing 18,000 through heroic dragon guard after matching the critical poison orbs and some hearts left me at 16,000. One more combo and I'd have lived through it).

While there are teams that can do 60 million in one turn (like You Yu), I think it's unreliable, especially with the quite strong floors leading up to it. You need to do 20 million to the chimeras first, so I think it's better to run an active or a team that can let you tank some hits.

Alternately, run Sumire or Kaede system and just heart cross every turn, solve all problems forever.

It sucked. I stoned three times with my Sakuya... I would normally get to Zues but die almost instantly. Got fed up. Some 2x 100x to get 60% of his hp is ridiculous.

Maybe blue Mye can do it later when i finally have the team skilled up.

Jasmines bf likes Chains! XD

[Erloas]

The first time I got to Zeus I had the actives up that I thought I would need to 1-shot him with ACC, but when he killed me I didn't continue. I probably should have, every other run before and after I end up needing another active or two to get through.

I can never get a screen-cap during damage to see how much each person is doing, but I know one time when I forgot to put ROdin back on my team I decided to Urd+ACC just to see if I could break the Mystic Mask. I didn't see by how much, but I clearly broke it with at least 4-5 people on the team. Given that he is 8M defense that makes it pretty clear that it should get Zeus in 1-shot.

My godfest pull so far:
Pavarti
Don't have her, can probably put her to use, but a very odd pull considering not part of the GF lineup or the Gala.

[Fax Celestis]

LOL assets are great. Who's his favorite huh? Everyone list their favorite artwork/assets xD? Mine is definitely Kali.

Gremory, hands down.

[Starwulf]

In addition to what Obryn said about monster buffs, as well as 'progress' buffs you may have received - free skillups pees, tamas, several hundred plus eggs from the mail, etc. If you're referencing the previously cost/type restricted dungeons (Draggie, Tengu, Gaia, Guan Yinping, Dark Knight, etc), the restrictions got removed - you can probably imagine how a stable of gods would handle a dungeon more easily than Tyrannos + 4x Rowdy Reds...

Heh, nah I wouldn't have even bothered posting if I was talking about the dungeons where they removed the limited cost stuff. No, I'm talking about stuff like Noah Legend(or is it mythical? The harder one), Sandalphon, the Sphinx Dungeon, and a couple of the new ones like the Sutr dungeon. Heck, I'm even completing the hardest versions of the daily dungeons now, like Gold Keeper, or the Tri-Fruits(I used to need to stone to complete even the tri-fruits, but not now!). There are others as well, but the first three of those I never stood a chance in completing before, and the Sutr one looks(on paper) to be of similar difficulty, and yet I beat it on my 2nd try(only lost on my first because I went in totally blind).

Also, I wasn't logging on in the year or more that I was gone, so I didn't have any progress buffs, no skillpy's or anything like that. No +297's or anything(well, not until a few days ago when I got my first one in the mail that is). I'm guessing that, as Obryn mentioned, the away time helped improve my focus, plus whatever minor buffs the people I use on my teams got while I was gone, which makes sense, there before I quit I was so totally burnt out on PAD, now that I'm back it all feels so fresh and new, and there's so much new **** going on it's actually quite fun again.

I need to get around to devolving my Horus and re-ult him into Awoken Horus soon, and then figure out a good team for him so I can start using him more.

[Jasmine]

Heh, nah I wouldn't have even bothered posting if I was talking about the dungeons where they removed the limited cost stuff. No, I'm talking about stuff like Noah Legend(or is it mythical? The harder one), Sandalphon, the Sphinx Dungeon, and a couple of the new ones like the Sutr dungeon. Heck, I'm even completing the hardest versions of the daily dungeons now, like Gold Keeper, or the Tri-Fruits(I used to need to stone to complete even the tri-fruits, but not now!). There are others as well, but the first three of those I never stood a chance in completing before, and the Sutr one looks(on paper) to be of similar difficulty, and yet I beat it on my 2nd try(only lost on my first because I went in totally blind).

Also, I wasn't logging on in the year or more that I was gone, so I didn't have any progress buffs, no skillpy's or anything like that. No +297's or anything(well, not until a few days ago when I got my first one in the mail that is). I'm guessing that, as Obryn mentioned, the away time helped improve my focus, plus whatever minor buffs the people I use on my teams got while I was gone, which makes sense, there before I quit I was so totally burnt out on PAD, now that I'm back it all feels so fresh and new, and there's so much new **** going on it's actually quite fun again.

I need to get around to devolving my Horus and re-ult him into Awoken Horus soon, and then figure out a good team for him so I can start using him more.

Yeah monsters have been getting sneaky buffs constantly, Lmeta teams have a straight 125% more HP than before, and while less drastic, Ronia got a 44% boost at 6 combos, and F/L Horus got an extra 20% on 5 color (as well as various stat/awakening boosts). Other things like everyone having skilllock resist/skillboosts/other quality of life awakenings makes a large cumulative impact. More powerful friend leaders could be helping too - I used to tell newbies the fastest way to progress is to find hypermax friends - and now you can find them all over the place.

A single +297 tama might not seem like much, but keep in mind that it took me 120 days to get my first one, and I was among the faster players. That's almost like giving you a 4 months boost in progress (at the time when you quit, it's worth much less now), as a mailbox reward. (And don't worry too much about missing out, there were only a total of 2 given out)

Being burnt out definitely doesn't help your puzzling, either Glad you're having fun again! Re: Awoken Horus - He doesn't really shine in any department outside ease of teambuilding (which is great for you!). He originally only boosted devils on skill use, but after I hypered a full devil team, of course they removed the restriction so it affects anyone. Cover all the colors, get your skill cooldowns low, and you're good to go!

@Aca
I guess you can infer what he likes doing...

[Fax Celestis]

I beat +297 Zeus!

You Yu^Urd//Bonia/Sarasvati^Scheat/Andromeda/ALucifer//You Yu^{Maeda Keiji}

All hypered except Lucifer. It took me four tries but half of that was crappy orbs and the other half was me being too aggressive with actives.

[Anarion]

I beat +297 Zeus!

You Yu^Urd//Bonia/Sarasvati^Scheat/Andromeda/ALucifer//You Yu^{Maeda Keiji}

All hypered except Lucifer. It took me four tries but half of that was crappy orbs and the other half was me being too aggressive with actives.

Okay, explain that setup to me. Bonia I get, nice burst field. Sarasvati is sensible (though I'm more a fan of inheriting her onto someone else since the active is her main draw), Andromeda is okay, and then the Alucifer just totally mystifies me. Maedi Keiji is a stroke of genius though, and suddenly I need to go max level mine.

[Academia]

Gremory, hands down.

So... You you em evil goth girls huh. xD Now if only they combined Gremory with Andromeda.... Dark thoughts

--

Speaking of her... I got her on my Yolo pull today xD. Now I have to get my hands on a Xin Hua or something T.T... I have 2 A.Pandora...

So...

Gremory / A. Pand / A. Pand / A. Okuninushi / Xin Hua / Gremory?

It's gonna be mad hard to find friends... so this is on my back burner.

[Fax Celestis]

Okay, explain that setup to me. Bonia I get, nice burst field. Sarasvati is sensible (though I'm more a fan of inheriting her onto someone else since the active is her main draw), Andromeda is okay, and then the Alucifer just totally mystifies me. Maedi Keiji is a stroke of genius though, and suddenly I need to go max level mine.

ALuci was to kill the Mystic Mask so I could stall against the dark and light masks and ping them down instead of trying to make a big burst board.

Floor 1: 5+1, the left and right chimeras die. 5+1 again so the middle one dies.

Floor 2: ALuci the Mystic Mask, then ping down the other masks. Use Urd if it comes up to get new orbs and reset the timer on the skill.

Floor 3: 5+1 and 1 combo, use Scheat if you have to

Floor 4: If you haven't used Scheat, use Scheat. If you have, use Andromeda, then burst as hard as you can.

Floor 5: Refresh the board, then Bonia. If you used Urd, you should have YY back now too. Use him too. Then open fire. A 5+1, a row, and a TPA with some skyfall was enough for me. If you don't kill him in the first hit, you will survive his poison but your next turn is going to be harder. Use whatever you have and kill him.

[obryn]

"Whatcha doin?"

"Oh you know, skillin up xmas ars paulina because I've convinced myself she's great for Sumire tho I'm probably wrong"

Glad you're having fun again, Starwulf.

[Jurai]

Spent my stone from today's Ten Egg Scramble, and managed to get six Super Gold Dragon rums in. My 95 Saria is pleased. Now I just need some Shynpys/Bunnydra skill ups. Uuugh... Then I need to +297 her...

[obryn]

Two silvers on the Kenshin REM. Guys, for realz, it's a trap. Never mind that the rarest gold can hit the damage cap; he's still a glass cannon.

[Anarion]

Two silvers on the Kenshin REM. Guys, for realz, it's a trap. Never mind that the rarest gold can hit the damage cap; he's still a glass cannon.

I pulled Kaoru, who seems kinda terrible.

[Quietus]

Two silvers on the Kenshin REM. Guys, for realz, it's a trap. Never mind that the rarest gold can hit the damage cap; he's still a glass cannon.

I didn't know there was a damage cap. Huh.

I've realized today that I can use my Liu Bei team to farm the higher level God Rush dungeon, and get me some easy Elia. The only floor I have to do any work for is Zeus Stratios and his combo shield.

[Fax Celestis]

I didn't know there was a damage cap. Huh.

I've realized today that I can use my Liu Bei team to farm the higher level God Rush dungeon, and get me some easy Elia. The only floor I have to do any work for is Zeus Stratios and his combo shield.

People use Vaan or Sado to fulfill that combo requirement: they make a row on the top and bottom, which you can finagle into 5 combos super easy by twiddling them into this position.

[Anarion]

People use Vaan or Sado to fulfill that combo requirement: they make a row on the top and bottom, which you can finagle into 5 combos super easy by twiddling them into this position.

Isn't Stratios 6 combos or more required? I mean, it's still the same, you just twiddle the top one, but it doesn't require that specific set of actives not be burned at any prior point.

Also, with regard to damage cap, see video. It hits an absurd number on the multiplier and that's as much as you can get because it's a big enough number the program can't handle any higher. The number is, of course, 2^31-1.

[Starwulf]

Two silvers on the Kenshin REM. Guys, for realz, it's a trap. Never mind that the rarest gold can hit the damage cap; he's still a glass cannon.

Which one is the rarest? I pulled Shinomori Aoshi on my single pull last night. I know he's not "the rarest", that LS isn't anything special, not when Bastet or Kushinadahime has been around forever.

[Quietus]

People use Vaan or Sado to fulfill that combo requirement: they make a row on the top and bottom, which you can finagle into 5 combos super easy by twiddling them into this position.

Hm. Could inherit them onto Liu Bei leads. But I already have plans for their inheritances, and I'd like to keep my backups clean for general use. I've been using Gronia and Avalon Drake to produce boards for this, not 100% perfect but it seems to work well enough.

[Starwulf]

Woot! Another dungeon I could never beat before has fallen to might, muahhaha!!! Just beat Zeus Mercury, and things never really got hairy until I failed to wipe ZM himself out from 3/4. He was left with a sliver and enacted that damnable "6 combos or less will heal me" crap, but because of the increased water orbs falling, I still hit 7-10 combos for the next two turns and managed to finish him off ^^

[Starwulf]

Woot! Another dungeon I couldn't beat before has been put by the wayside! Zeus-Vulcan is done and finished(and by finished, I mean I was able to beat it without using a single stone). Pretty happy about that :)

Actually, that's two milestones in one, because unless there's a Dark Zeus dungeon now, that means I've beaten all the Zeus: Zeus, Zeus-Dios, Zeus Mercury & Zeus Vulcan.

[obryn]

That's awesome, Starwulf!!

[Academia]

Woot! Another dungeon I couldn't beat before has been put by the wayside! Zeus-Vulcan is done and finished(and by finished, I mean I was able to beat it without using a single stone). Pretty happy about that :)

Actually, that's two milestones in one, because unless there's a Dark Zeus dungeon now, that means I've beaten all the Zeus: Zeus, Zeus-Dios, Zeus Mercury & Zeus Vulcan.

Woot woot! Congrats! Good to see you enjoying the game ^^. I found a new interest too. So many new things~

[Starwulf]

Woot woot! Congrats! Good to see you enjoying the game ^^. I found a new interest too. So many new things~

Yeah there's so many new dungeons I've tried my hand at(though I have admittedly lost to quite a few of them, and I haven't managed a win against a legend+ one yet), and then there's the new mechanic of skills swaps to consider, plus the easier access of +eggs now, at times I'm almost lost as to what to do because there's so much(which is a good thing! ^^).

[Academia]

Yeah there's so many new dungeons I've tried my hand at(though I have admittedly lost to quite a few of them, and I haven't managed a win against a legend+ one yet), and then there's the new mechanic of skills swaps to consider, plus the easier access of +eggs now, at times I'm almost lost as to what to do because there's so much(which is a good thing! ^^).

You will get there. My Kirin still carry me through most of the content. Now with the multiplayer, it's fun to play with two accounts or grab a friend and do the dungeons together! Even though this is like "carrying" but it's so good to finally see people together and sharing their orbing skills. Plus, it kinda shows you how each person sees the "puzzle" in this game.

Which leads are you using now starwulf? And yes, +eggs are so much easier... I feel bad for Jasmine for all her time grinding +eggs T.T... But now I think her box is full of shinnies xD.

I look forward to seeing you here more! I'll try to be here more too!

[Starwulf]

You will get there. My Kirin still carry me through most of the content. Now with the multiplayer, it's fun to play with two accounts or grab a friend and do the dungeons together! Even though this is like "carrying" but it's so good to finally see people together and sharing their orbing skills. Plus, it kinda shows you how each person sees the "puzzle" in this game.

Which leads are you using now starwulf? And yes, +eggs are so much easier... I feel bad for Jasmine for all her time grinding +eggs T.T... But now I think her box is full of shinnies xD.

I look forward to seeing you here more! I'll try to be here more too!

I still stick with my healer girl team, though I'm a few days away from switching to a new primary lead, I got the Ult. Awoken Amaterasu Ohkami that gives 4x atk when HP is full, and 3x all other times, and with the 2nd part of her LS(heals HP by RCVx10 when you match orbs), I'm generally always at full health. My only issue is I don't know what to do with L.Meta, because she's at like +220 and it feels like such a waste to not use her anymore.

I do also sometimes use either Ronia, or Horus(mostly for dungeons that require all colors). I am in the process of trying to raise up a mono-water team with Ult Sarsvati(I have 2) and Zeus-Mercury and Noah, but it's goign to be a while before it's ready as I need a metric crap-ton of Tamadras for them, as the strength is in their Awakenings. And a mono-fire team with Awoken Freyr, though I'm not sure who to use for subs beyond Awoken Goemon, though I do have a few ideas(I'll edit this post once I log into PAD in a bit).

[Quietus]

Welcome back, Starwulf! Glad to see that all the new stuff is pulling people back in.

I've been farting around quite a bit, did a lot of farming stuff yesterday, quite a few MP monsters and latents for giggles. Today is going to be multiplayer Hera-Ur all day for Zeus skill up reasons, and will do more of the same when Zeus himself is here on the weekend. Team being functional is great, but screw everything, I want those Zeuses *maxed*. If I can reach that point, then I can use my Liu Bei cheese team in single player. Skill boost team badge means max skilled Zeuses only take three turns to come up, and conveniently I'll have two Liu Bei and a Gronia available to fill that time. Or I can use Avalon Drake instead of Gronia, for that extra skill boost.

[Jurai]

Liu Bei Cheese Team? Do tell.

[Fax Celestis]

Doot de doo, been farming Gainaut for Fenrir reasons.

I mean, I've rolled three. I might as well join the jammer cancer army.

Looking at Fenrir//Fenrir/Fenrir/Jormungandr/Gainaut//Fenrir right now.