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

[Mystic Muse]

This is partly why I picked DRava instead of HinoKagutsuchi as my initial reroll target. Reincarnated Hino has a 40x mult and can reach over 100k damage compared to DRava, but DRava has much easier evo materials (and can get 70k damage without needing latents). Speaking of which, my previously mentioned team worked exactly as I planned and now it's just a matter of XP till I'm freefarming the metal dragons.

Made another farmable(ish) team to deal with extreme king though: Alraune (need to get this one), Shadow Lord, Zeromus, Zeromus, Zeromus.

I...don't understand what this has to do with my post at all.

This is probably an old refrain, but buy box space. I try to hold on to one of everything as much as I can (although that period where they were giving away 10x MP for descend bosses kinda ruined my stash). Every 5 box slots is 5 random things you've probably already farmed that you don't have to waste stamina getting again.

You'll get there though, just hang in there. Actually, I'm curious what you want Gran Reverse for. I haven't even considered using her on a team.

I really only want her because she looks cool, no other reason. I'm just annoyed as hell I can't evplve her, due to having no access to the dungeons required to evo Starling.

[Anarion]

I...don't understand what this has to do with my post at all.

Nothing, really, but there's a connection between getting upset about things that are hard to evolve.

I really only want her because she looks cool, no other reason. I'm just annoyed as hell I can't evplve her, due to having no access to the dungeons required to evo Starling.

Those dungeons will rotate around again, either in specials or on the coin lineup, they come back every couple weeks. And that is a valid goal. I think we've gone too long in this thread since somebody wanted to evolve something just because it was pretty.

[Fax Celestis]

Those dungeons will rotate around again, either in specials or on the coin lineup, they come back every couple weeks. And that is a valid goal. I think we've gone too long in this thread since somebody wanted to evolve something just because it was pretty.

I'm actually kind of upset Mion isn't as good as she looks like she should be.

Seriously? Another blue rows poison card?

[Rynjin]

Well, I'm the one who said that, so let me also say that there's no such thing as small potatoes. The nice thing about PAD is that it's fun almost all the time. The main gameplay of matching orbs is an enjoyable activity and one that you can constantly improve for yourself over time.

There are a few challenge points though. I'm glad to hear that you're already doing well beating some of the legendary level descends. My biggest frustration was early on when I couldn't clear the harder normal dungeons or any descends and had to spend a long time farming to get my team in shape. Clearing those early descends can let you build up some team members or the evolution materials you need to get better monsters.

If you're using Sarasvati, you should definitely friend me, I've got You Yu showing a good amount of the time (a very strong blue lead who pairs well with Sarasvati). Sarasvati is a tough leader though, she's very orb hungry and may take a lot of practice to use well. On average, how many combos do you make a round?.

Well, I don't HAVE Sarasvati, but some random guy Best Friended me so I have access to her as a friend lead basically 24/7, along with Awoken Liu Bei so both of my main teams are doing pretty good (though the Wood team hasn't seen much use lately except to blast through stuff like Friday Expert and the dragon daily dungeons with Sannosuke). LMeta is my current lead on my end.

I generally average somewhere between 4 and 6 combos per round, though 7-9 isn't RARE for me just requires a bit of luck.. I have enough orb changers to get the three water combos necessary to max out to x5 attack with Sarasvati when I really need them, and sometimes I get lucky with board spread and new orbs falling in and nail a 13 combo on the boss I had been having trouble with. Enemies that absorb 4 or fewer combos still cause me trouble a lot of the time since it's a two steps forward, one step back situation.

I've found that the harder Normal Dungeons still trouble me, I think. Just realized I haven't even attempted Legendary Seaway and Earth in a while, those were the ones I'm stuck on.

On the subject of things I'm frustrated I can't evolve, I've been banging my head against Awoken Parvati for a while. I have or can get everything I need except Cauchemar. That dungeon kicks my ass. On the rare occasions it's actually available.

The real sticking point ATM is getting Tamadra enough to get all the Awoken Skills up and running for my main teams(s). I feel I could have a good Dark/Fire (Devil/Dragon) team with Sonia if I could max all their Awoken stuff.

[gooddragon1]

I...don't understand what this has to do with my post at all.

Pretty much what Anarion said. I planned in advance to avoid having to worry about evo materials :/

Now, I'm not sure how you'll feel about this made up card:

Spoiler

Show

Dragon/Attacker/Physical
LT/WT

HPS: 4000
ATK: 2500
RCV: 300

Unbindable x2, SB x2, L+ x4, SBR
Active: Change orbs to Light, Water, and Heal Orbs.
Leader: 4x Lt ATK. 2.5x ATK and 50% shield for each Light Cross. 2x ATK/RCV with 4+ Linked Heart Orbs.

[Mystic Muse]

Pretty much what Anarion said. I planned in advance to avoid having to worry about evo materials :/

Ah, that makes sense. Sorry, I didn't understand the connection.

The only card that I can think of that I had for certain that I could have planned on is Mutecocoon, so I'd still need the other 6 that I don't believe I've ever had.

Now, I'm not sure how you'll feel about this made up card:

Spoiler

Show

Dragon/Attacker/Physical
LT/WT

HPS: 4000
ATK: 2500
RCV: 300

Unbindable x2, SB x2, L+ x4, SBR
Active: Change orbs to Light, Water, and Heal Orbs.
Leader: 4x Lt ATK. 2.5x ATK and 50% shield for each Light Cross. 2x ATK/RCV with 4+ Linked Heart Orbs.

Seems way too easy to get a potential x400, especially with the active skill (Which you didn't mention a recharge time for), and that's before any EXTRA light crosses, which would make the damage even more obscene. Also, not sure what SB is, though I think the rest makes sense.

[gooddragon1]

Ah, that makes sense. Sorry, I didn't understand the connection.

The only card that I can think of that I had for certain that I could have planned on is Mutecocoon, so I'd still need the other 6 that I don't believe I've ever had.



Seems way too easy to get a potential x400, especially with the active skill (Which you didn't mention a recharge time for), and that's before any EXTRA light crosses, which would make the damage even more obscene. Also, not sure what SB is, though I think the rest makes sense.

I just figured that with all the power creep it wouldn't be too much of a stretch :/

What would be a made up leader that would be overpowered (but not by much?) that could handle all (or most) content?

Also, I have discovered a secret to getting more combos without being really good at matching: Match orbs so that only 3 types of orbs remain on the screen. Then it's more likely for skyfall to give extra combos. This has helped me reach the 5 combo minimum requirement for Vajrabhairava.

[Jasmine]

I really only want her because she looks cool, no other reason.

Hey, that reason is one step up from "Hmm, looked like I have 20 of each evo mat needed to evolve this dude, let's do it"

Oh, and for you and everyone - this PAL machine is legit awesome. Roll them all. Open up old Pal Point emails and roll them, too. I 297'd 2 monsters off my puzzdroid and all the pal points I had saved up.

By opening every pal point email since such a thing was implemented, I was able to roll 394 times. I got one blue kali, and 3500 plusses. To think that I farmed my first 3000 at 10+ per stone...

So that leads me to the next point...anyone want an account with the equivalent of 61 +297s? I haven't played a non-gift dungeon in months.

[Anarion]

Well, I don't HAVE Sarasvati, but some random guy Best Friended me so I have access to her as a friend lead basically 24/7, along with Awoken Liu Bei so both of my main teams are doing pretty good (though the Wood team hasn't seen much use lately except to blast through stuff like Friday Expert and the dragon daily dungeons with Sannosuke). LMeta is my current lead on my end.

I generally average somewhere between 4 and 6 combos per round, though 7-9 isn't RARE for me just requires a bit of luck.. I have enough orb changers to get the three water combos necessary to max out to x5 attack with Sarasvati when I really need them, and sometimes I get lucky with board spread and new orbs falling in and nail a 13 combo on the boss I had been having trouble with. Enemies that absorb 4 or fewer combos still cause me trouble a lot of the time since it's a two steps forward, one step back situation.

I've found that the harder Normal Dungeons still trouble me, I think. Just realized I haven't even attempted Legendary Seaway and Earth in a while, those were the ones I'm stuck on.

On the subject of things I'm frustrated I can't evolve, I've been banging my head against Awoken Parvati for a while. I have or can get everything I need except Cauchemar. That dungeon kicks my ass. On the rare occasions it's actually available.

The real sticking point ATM is getting Tamadra enough to get all the Awoken Skills up and running for my main teams(s). I feel I could have a good Dark/Fire (Devil/Dragon) team with Sonia if I could max all their Awoken stuff.

Thoughts, thoughts. First off, yes Tamadra take a while to farm. I run the dungeon every time it's up and still have tons of monsters in my off colors that have no awakenings. You have to pick and choose what type of team you're trying to build. It can be worth stoning stamina for tamadra, but if you're patient, the best advice is just never to stone stamina as long as possible because it's so much more valuable when your total stamina is 200+.

I actually wouldn't recommend Sarasvati if you're leading Metatron though. The power of Sara is that if you have your own, instead of getting 5x, you're getting 25x, for a total of 100x attack due to her base bonuses. That gives the power to blow up quite nearly anything in the game, and would not be far removed from those large multiple million numbers I was talking about earlier. On the other hand, having just one when your lead is light primary and has a different boost isn't all that valuable. It's almost always recommended that your leader be identical with the friend you're using, or that they be a small number of compatible monsters of the same element (e.g. running a fire lead yourself and pairing with Norn, Urd because her damage boost is unconditional). You also want to focus on having your team all be one color to the extent possible. Some leads obviously prevent that (like the ones that require combos of every color), but you'll always do more damage more easily by running a mono color team.

Now, I'm not sure how you'll feel about this made up card:

Spoiler

Show

Dragon/Attacker/Physical
LT/WT

HPS: 4000
ATK: 2500
RCV: 300

Unbindable x2, SB x2, L+ x4, SBR
Active: Change orbs to Light, Water, and Heal Orbs.
Leader: 4x Lt ATK. 2.5x ATK and 50% shield for each Light Cross. 2x ATK/RCV with 4+ Linked Heart Orbs.

I just figured that with all the power creep it wouldn't be too much of a stretch :/

What would be a made up leader that would be overpowered (but not by much?) that could handle all (or most) content?

Surprisingly, you're actually not wildly out of the ballpark on that one. In fact, if you took out the 50% shield on light cross, it wouldn't even be that great as a leader. The monster overall is probably OP depending on the active cooldown primarily because of the quality of its stats and awakenings, but again you're not wildly out of the ballpark, it's just a little bit better than nearly everything else.

If you want something that can handle all content though, just make a leader that gives 2x hp, 2x recover, and 100x attack or better. That's basically just a slight boost over Myr without the difficult heart cross execution requirement.

[Rynjin]

I have a few LMeta friends but using them I never get NEARLY the same damage output as using my Sarasvati friend. The team is sort of mono color (though I guess dual color is more accurate?) with everyone on the team being Water, most of whom have a Light sub. The main strength of this team so far is being able to heal up really easily, the whole of it being Healer monsters. Despite having less than half the HP of my Wood team, it's way more survivable. None of my other water monsters, at least to my eye, are a better lead for pure water (Healer or no, since most of my best Water mons are Healers) unless Sumire or Sitri are better than I think (all of my other water mons give static boosts, and smaller ones).

[obryn]

Oh man, folks. GungHo has a great sense of humor. Check out the fixed team for the upcoming Challenge 10. It's time to party like it's 2013.

Spoiler: I'm getting all misty-eyed

Show

[Rynjin]

Hey! I actually have two of those!

[Jurai]

How does one get these fancy Pal Point emails? I seriously want to Hypermax some things on my Green Team and my Light Team.

[Anarion]

I have a few LMeta friends but using them I never get NEARLY the same damage output as using my Sarasvati friend. The team is sort of mono color (though I guess dual color is more accurate?) with everyone on the team being Water, most of whom have a Light sub. The main strength of this team so far is being able to heal up really easily, the whole of it being Healer monsters. Despite having less than half the HP of my Wood team, it's way more survivable. None of my other water monsters, at least to my eye, are a better lead for pure water (Healer or no, since most of my best Water mons are Healers) unless Sumire or Sitri are better than I think (all of my other water mons give static boosts, and smaller ones).

Fair enough. Sometimes you can cobble together a team that has the right balance of damage and enough overall stats to clear stuff. I don't think that will get you too far (you'd be better off doubling Lmeta to have way more hp or doubling Sara to burst everything), but it might do for a while.

Oh man, folks. GungHo has a great sense of humor. Check out the fixed team for the upcoming Challenge 10. It's time to party like it's 2013.

Spoiler: I'm getting all misty-eyed

Show

Ah cute. That's not the one where you're also doing Zeus descended, is it?

How does one get these fancy Pal Point emails? I seriously want to Hypermax some things on my Green Team and my Light Team.

Uh, mostly clearing challenge dungeons, I think. There's usually a big chunk of pal points rewarded for something in the first three floors, and sometimes another chunk around floor 9-10 along with a Pii. Descended challenges usually have a couple as well.

[Jurai]

So, I pulled Tsubaki from the rank 250 Egg Machine. How does Tsubaki fare on a RShiva team? Presently, my RShiva team is as follows:

Name	Level	Hit Points	Attack	Recovery	Skill Level
Reincarnated Shiva	1	2945	1496	324	1/6
Dreadful Warrior, Sanada Yukimura	99	3128	2116	203	1
Blazing CyberDragon, Thuban	99	4086	1851	212	2
Holy Rites Mistress, Echidna	99	2167	1839	944	3
Shinra Soul Beast Sai	99	3090	1622	65	1

[Anarion]

So, I pulled Tsubaki from the rank 250 Egg Machine. How does Tsubaki fare on a RShiva team? Presently, my RShiva team is as follows:

Name	Level	Hit Points	Attack	Recovery	Skill Level
Reincarnated Shiva	1	2945	1496	324	1/6
Dreadful Warrior, Sanada Yukimura	99	3128	2116	203	1
Blazing CyberDragon, Thuban	99	4086	1851	212	2
Holy Rites Mistress, Echidna	99	2167	1839	944	3
Shinra Soul Beast Sai	99	3090	1622	65	1

Tsubaki is better than most of those subs once you evolve her. The active is good but not spectacular (unlike her blue and green brethren, Tsubaki does not make hearts, which makes her a bit worse than the other colors). You mainly use it to fix an okay field or supplement a full board change, and it's nice that it gives you a turn of skill charge. Her stats are solid, and the triple red sparkle in awakenings is great.

[Jurai]

I'll probably use her to replace Sai, then. Since he's beefy, but she'll have better awakens and a better skill.

[Anarion]

I'll probably use her to replace Sai, then. Since he's beefy, but she'll have better awakens and a better skill.

I'd suggest dropping Thuban, actually. Sai at least gives you burst for killing bosses.

[gooddragon1]

If you want something that can handle all content though, just make a leader that gives 2x hp, 2x recover, and 100x attack or better. That's basically just a slight boost over Myr without the difficult heart cross execution requirement.

So:

Light/Water
Dragon/Attacker/Healer
4000 HP/2500 ATK/500 RCV

2x Bind Resist, 1x Skill Bind Resist, 1x Skill Boost, 1x Bind Clear, 4x Light Rows
Change orbs to Light, Water, and Heart. (Same CD as Norns)
2x HP, 2x RCV, 4x ATK for light attribute. 3x ATK when clearing 6+ connected light orbs.

Could handle everything (or most everything)? Or would you still need certain subs?

[Anarion]

So:

Light/Water
Dragon/Attacker/Healer
4000 HP/2500 ATK/500 RCV

2x Bind Resist, 1x Skill Bind Resist, 1x Skill Boost, 1x Bind Clear, 4x Light Rows
Change orbs to Light, Water, and Heart. (Same CD as Norns)
2x HP, 2x RCV, 4x ATK for light attribute. 3x ATK when clearing 6+ connected light orbs.

Could handle everything (or most everything)? Or would you still need certain subs?

You would need 4 adequately strong light subs, and there are still some things where you might want the ability to stall or further reduce damage due to to light absorbs or specific hp threshold attacks (Sha Wujing, for example, might actually present a serious problem to that leader without a delay because the base 4x attack means any light combo you do will push him too low). You'd also probably want 1-2 subs that further fix your orbs just in case, and if you suck at comboing, you might want one of those new ones that has an active that adds to combo count, since there are a bunch of things with high combo shields that will murder you boosted stats or no.

[Jurai]

I'd suggest dropping Thuban, actually. Sai at least gives you burst for killing bosses.

Thing is, Thuban gives me another Haste, as well as giving me a Red row, which allows me to knock significant chunks off of enemies. Sai needs twenty turns, which is bad enough, since he doesn't HAVE any skill up monsters to speak of.

[Anarion]

Thing is, Thuban gives me another Haste, as well as giving me a Red row, which allows me to knock significant chunks off of enemies. Sai needs twenty turns, which is bad enough, since he doesn't HAVE any skill up monsters to speak of.

Do you need Sai though? I used red slime for ages because that was how I did enough damage to clear the last floor of every descend when I was using Urd and didn't have a full god fire team lineup. It was irrelevant that the thing has no stats and isn't useful until you've stalled for 17 turns because I specifically needed that damage boost at one specific moment. Thuban, when I look at him, is one of like 50 different interchangeable fire monsters with average stats at best and a solid active that fixes the field for you. His awakenings aren't relevant, you're not actually seeing much difference from a 10% boost from one row. If you do enough damage that you don't actually need Sai active, then sure, keep Thuban, he's a tad stronger. But the multiplier actives are hard to replace, imo.

[Jurai]

I get incredible spike just from Enhanced Fire Orbs, supplied by RShiva and Sanada, though.

I'll Skill Inherit Sai onto Tsubaki once one of the two are max-skilled.

[Anarion]

I've solo cleared Mecha Hera and Mecha Zeus! 1 stone for Hera, 3 for Zeus because I suck and am bad, but nevertheless I'm happy to be able to clear them (and to now have every piece of super mega ultra chicken).

Hera clear was Reincarnated Shiva/ AAme/Urd/AFreyr/AHino w/ASusan inherited/Shiva.

Zeus clear was ult Krishna/ACaoCao/Urd/AAme/AHino w/ASusan inherited/Krishna

[gooddragon1]

Adventures of the unskilled:

Team for clearing King of the Underworld

Vajrabhairava (D/L, 99, +99 HP/ATK, +48 RCV, Fully Awakened)
Chibi Sun Quan (stats irrelevant)
3x Braska's Final Aeon (Skill Boost Awakened, Stats Irrelevant)

Strat = 1 combo each turn. Activate Sun Quan when ready on Hades. Win.

I've calculated that I should get to about rank 170 by the time running it does not get me levels before I run out of stamina (thanks to the 2x xp until 6+ or so days from now). Even if all 3 wave 9 dragons attack I live and even if Hades starts with 5 turns instead of 6 I still win.

In other news:
I have Zuoh and Chibi Lu Bu and Kushinadahime and 2 Badzeals

[Starwulf]

Adventures of the unskilled:

Team for clearing King of the Underworld

Vajrabhairava (D/L, 99, +99 HP/ATK, +48 RCV, Fully Awakened)
Chibi Sun Quan (stats irrelevant)
3x Braska's Final Aeon (Skill Boost Awakened, Stats Irrelevant)

Strat = 1 combo each turn. Activate Sun Quan when ready on Hades. Win.

I've calculated that I should get to about rank 170 by the time running it does not get me levels before I run out of stamina (thanks to the 2x xp until 6+ or so days from now). Even if all 3 wave 9 dragons attack I live and even if Hades starts with 5 turns instead of 6 I still win.

In other news:
I have Zuoh and Chibi Lu Bu and Kushinadahime and 2 Badzeals

Can you tell me why you play PAD, if you only want to do the bare minimum to get by on anything? What's the point? I just honestly don't get it, you've been like this since the first time I saw you post on this thread well over a year ago(probably closer to 1 1/2 years ago, it was right before I took a year off), and you're still the same way now, and it doesn't make any sense, because if you put even the tiniest shred of effort into the game, you wouldn't need to rely on leaders that only need 1 combo, you'd be able to make at least 3-4 combos every turn, and more if you focused. What's the point of turning a somewhat complicated/challenging game into a snoozefest?

[gooddragon1]

Can you tell me why you play PAD, if you only want to do the bare minimum to get by on anything? What's the point? I just honestly don't get it, you've been like this since the first time I saw you post on this thread well over a year ago(probably closer to 1 1/2 years ago, it was right before I took a year off), and you're still the same way now, and it doesn't make any sense, because if you put even the tiniest shred of effort into the game, you wouldn't need to rely on leaders that only need 1 combo, you'd be able to make at least 3-4 combos every turn, and more if you focused. What's the point of turning a somewhat complicated/challenging game into a snoozefest?

Instant gratification that isn't so instant for me to get bored immediately. I cheat on every single game I play. At least the ones where I can anyways (though never against other people). It's a fun and interesting challenge to beat dungeons for me in this way. I even thought of a farmable way to beat legendary earth zaerog normal dungeon that I could do if I cared enough (The skill up material for radious and angelious prevents damage from dark for 2 rounds with a minimum cooldown of 8, 4 of those with my 2 skill boosts on DRava would allow me to do an overlapping shield against Zaerog's damage and DRava can take care of everything else). However, 99 stamina is effectively 5 hours and I could run it 4 times in a day at best back to back. As opposed to the rates I get from the periodic metal dragon dungeons which are much better. I can already do 3 combos (sometimes 4). However, it's so difficult and I hate training because I love instant gratification. I know there are videos on youtube about how to do advanced orb matching with some sort of rotation strategy and such, but just like I used trickery to beat people in counter strike source rather than becoming good at aiming, I use it here.

[Starwulf]

So, I've finally gotten my Vishnu team up and running(albeit barely, I'm missing a lot of awakenings, and obviously skill-ups, but everyone's leveled at least now), and it's pretty good. Unfortunately I'm disappointed with the damage output after having played those fixed-team challenge dungeons we had a week or two ago. The green one had this chick who had a monstrous amount of damage if you could do two green-crosses, and after playing it over and over, I actually got used to plotting out HOW to get those dual crosses. That and the crazy synergy between everyone monster, you basically had an active ready every turn because each one lowered others cool-down by one turn.

So, now I'm going to save all my stones until that green chick comes around again and then I'mma go nuts hoping I get her, LOL.

Still, I'm happy with the Vishnu team, and it's nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be getting enough green orbs to keep making 2-3 sets of green matches. It'll be a lot better after I get my other team members max-skilled, for example my GRonia may require me to stone on the Thursday dungeon to get green fruits. I also need to find a site that has a list of people with Vishnu leads, I only have two on my list, and I never see any pop up which is irritating.

[Anarion]

Instant gratification that isn't so instant for me to get bored immediately. I cheat on every single game I play. At least the ones where I can anyways (though never against other people). It's a fun and interesting challenge to beat dungeons for me in this way. I even thought of a farmable way to beat legendary earth zaerog normal dungeon that I could do if I cared enough (The skill up material for radious and angelious prevents damage from dark for 2 rounds with a minimum cooldown of 8, 4 of those with my 2 skill boosts on DRava would allow me to do an overlapping shield against Zaerog's damage and DRava can take care of everything else). However, 99 stamina is effectively 5 hours and I could run it 4 times in a day at best back to back. As opposed to the rates I get from the periodic metal dragon dungeons which are much better. I can already do 3 combos (sometimes 4). However, it's so difficult and I hate training because I love instant gratification. I know there are videos on youtube about how to do advanced orb matching with some sort of rotation strategy and such, but just like I used trickery to beat people in counter strike source rather than becoming good at aiming, I use it here.

The thing with PAD is that playing the game at all with your approach just makes no sense to me. The only reason I play PAD every day and it's been worthwhile for me to even spend some money on IAP is that the essential gameplay is fun. I like doing the orbing thing and I feel good at the fact that my consistent comboing is much, much better than it used to be. I felt super awesome about clearing C10 because there's a team with zero time extend awakenings and I was making 5-6 combos every turn, and I remember starting this game and making 1-3 combos when I was running Vishnu as my lead. Playing PAD without the orbing mechanics would be boring for me. And I think most everyone but you tends to agree with my assessment of it. Hence, confusion.

[obryn]

I mean, I kind of get it? I mean, all of us by now have farming teams with a collection of True Damage active skills to push-button through weds/fri/tamas/tans.

And there's degenerate teams like the Awilda/Puppeteer nonsense.

The frustrating part (for me) is an apparent fundamental misunderstanding of the game's mechanics, and suggestions for monsters which will harm the game's core play. And an unwillingness to actually learn or engage with the game itself to find out this basic stuff.

For real, if all you want to do is lazy your way through dungeons, gooddragon, just download PuzzCombo and let it solve all the boards for you.