Puzzle and Dragons in the Playground XVIII - The meta changes, but waifus are forever

[obryn]

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

NOTE: This OP is laughably outdated. Uhhhh ... sorry?

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.

[gooddragon1]

30 days x 10k mp each day = 300k free mp by the end of this month. Is NA mp cap still 999999?

[Anarion]

Still going and going. So many free predras.

30 days x 10k mp each day = 300k free mp by the end of this month. Is NA mp cap still 999999?

No, it's in the millions now. Probably not something that can realistically be hit.

[Fax Celestis]

Hello hi yes I am still here

Godfest got me DMeta #3, Zuoh #4, Rei Sirius #3, and Dantalion #1.

Monster Hunter collab got me: Valphalk(!), Rathian, 3x Astalos, Red Female Hunter, Dark Female Hunter, and Blue Male Hunter.

[Rynjin]

Yog-Sothoth is really fun so far. Damage shields are a bit of a pain though, as will be Resolve I'm sure. Already lost three times on Sphinx and Journey to the West probably won't be grand either. Need to get some Tamadra so I can put Orochi as an Assist on someone.

[TeChameleon]

Bleh... would characterize my luck on pulls over the last while as... 'mixed'.

Going back a fair ways, let's see... honestly not sure how long a time period this is, but my (relatively) recent pulls have been:

• Griffin Rider (kept solely on the basis that I like his hat)
  Coloring Book, Sakuya (not sure why there's a comma there, but there is...)
  Blue Angel, Famiel #2
  Kagutsuchi #2
  Red Angel, Rozuel
  Holy Knight, Arcline (not sure how useful he is, but dang if he doesn't look cool)
  Amaterasu
  Yellow Grimoire, Arse Nova
  Snow White
  Cursed Dragon
  Loki
  Acala
  Makimachi Misao
  Princess of Hell, Sitri #2
  War Princess Asmodeus Another
  Fuu
  Pet Caretaking's Club, Red Riding Hood
  Indigo Dragon Caller, Sumire #3
  Tigrex
  Male Hunter Mizutsune X Gear (blue)
  Astalos
  Female Hunter Glavenus X Gear (red)
  Cinderella
  Cinderella #2 (yes, drawn one after the other -_-;)
  Fenrir Viz
  Indigo Dragon Caller, Sumire #4 (... really?)
  Australis #2 (I don't even use the first one...)
  Fuma Kotaro #2
  Red Dragonbound, Gadius #2

... bleah. Aside from the Monster Hunter collab stuff, I haven't exactly been too impressed with anything I've pulled since the last Rurouni Kenshin collab

[Erloas]

So a whole pile of new evolutions were released.
I found it interesting that Michael went from being a tank to being all damage.
Other than Krishna I really didn't see the rest of them in any teams, so I'm not entirely sure how much they've changed.
Even with Krishna I'm not sure what I want to do, the extra damage is nice, but damage we never really the weakness of the team. Loosing the RCV is going to suck, and I'm not sure who might be kicked off the team with the change in boost from red to attack/devil.

[Anarion]

Man, they kinda ruined Isis with her reincarnated color combo.

[gooddragon1]

Thread title even more appropriate with the startup screen...

[Quietus]

Man, they kinda ruined Isis with her reincarnated color combo.

She has uses, I could put her on my Ronove team to fill two colors and carry an unbind. And I guess you can run her as a leader now, she gets up to 100x damage with built in shields. Would be nice if it was better than a 15% shield though.

Besides, I've found the primary use for her before was for my Ra Dragon team, and frankly, Revo Kushinada is a better green/blue fill for that spot now.

[obryn]

Besides, I've found the primary use for her before was for my Ra Dragon team, and frankly, Revo Kushinada is a better green/blue fill for that spot now.

Yeah, I haven't run RaDra in months at this point, and both D.Athena and Re.Susano are better core monsters for that team, anyway. I am, however, using Isis on my Julie team, and more stats never hurt.

So I decided a few pulls at the June Bride REM would be fun.

Free: Silver trash
1st: Silver trash

At this point, I gave up, then got bored a few minutes ago.

2nd: Persephone! (wooo absorb crushing)
3rd: Ra! (2nd, but good!)

I got Husbando Ra last time this was around, too. And honestly you can never have too many Ra actives.

[Rynjin]

Husbando Ra was one of the first monsters I ever pulled, and he still serves me pretty well to this day.

[Mystic Muse]

2 Silvers, and Husbando Ra.

[Fax Celestis]

Two pulls, one freebie and one because my daughter liked the bride REM and wanted to pull again.

I got Izanami (#2?) and Akechi (my first!).

[obryn]

So was this another really easy one-shot challenge, or is my Julie team just way better than I thought?

The closest thing to a challenge was the Red Wizard lady, and as long as you can hit her Resolve, U&Y was a perfect counter.

[gooddragon1]

So was this another really easy one-shot challenge, or is my Julie team just way better than I thought?

The closest thing to a challenge was the Red Wizard lady, and as long as you can hit her Resolve, U&Y was a perfect counter.

If it's the same one as last time, no thanks. I've had enough of it.

I wondered:
If you had a monster with 1 Trillion in each stat, it's type is vendor (it's worth 1 million monster points), it's attributes are whatever (just pick whatever two you want for the example), but it has no awoken skills, it's max level is 1 so you can't put latents/inherits/anything really on it, it has no active skill, and it's leader skill is "You may take this team into any dungeon regardless of restrictions"... would you use it or sell it? And if you did use it how would you build a team around it?

[Anarion]

So was this another really easy one-shot challenge, or is my Julie team just way better than I thought?

The closest thing to a challenge was the Red Wizard lady, and as long as you can hit her Resolve, U&Y was a perfect counter.

Yeah. I don't think you and I even get the same ones, but I had the same experience. I kept on waiting for the part where they'd throw something challenging at me, and then the dungeon ended.

edit: Actually, boasting about easy clears aside, what's the current recommendation on where to take things in the game? I've cleared every piece of regularly available single player content (have not cleared Hera Dragon descended or Noah Dragon Descended though). I've tried and failed to manage a clear of either multiplayer Arena (reached Lmeta, but we couldn't kill her) or multiplayer Lovecraftian horrors, and I honestly don't know what I'm supposed to be using to clear those. Some of the offensive leads have enough damage, but there's nothing that appears to approach consistency there. I'm also trying and failing to get a gemstone princess every time they come up on improved pull rates as I think that burst might help, I have a Fujin now (it's on Ra dragon at present, but might make its way over to DAthena if I gut that team), and I don't have enough Hakus for awoken Kushi. Not sure what other leads to pursue.

[tyckspoon]

If it's the same one as last time, no thanks. I've had enough of it.

I wondered:
If you had a monster with 1 Trillion in each stat, it's type is vendor (it's worth 1 million monster points), it's attributes are whatever (just pick whatever two you want for the example), but it has no awoken skills, it's max level is 1 so you can't put latents/inherits/anything really on it, it has no active skill, and it's leader skill is "You may take this team into any dungeon regardless of restrictions"... would you use it or sell it? And if you did use it how would you build a team around it?

Use it, absolutely - stats of that level are completely off the scale. It'd trivialize almost everything in the game right now by raw numbers (the ones it wouldn't trivialize are things like Resolve monsters that whack you with a 100% gravity if you don't kill them right.) No awakening? No latent? Who cares, you're hitting for more than any awakening could possibly give you with a basic three-orb match. Would be an interesting question what level of stats would make it good enough to consider worth using without making it the obvious best choice, tho.

[Jama7301]

Hello!

I recently got into the game again after a long hiatus, and have been really enjoying myself.

This time around, I've taken a bit of a peek beyond just "match the things, get big numbers" and boy, the game is a lot more complex than I remember it. Luckily, I'm not hitting too rough of a patch yet, in terms of completing the Normal/Technical dungeons yet, but I can feel it coming.

Any advice from handling the jump from Expert/Legend to Master rank dungeons?

[Anarion]

Hello!

I recently got into the game again after a long hiatus, and have been really enjoying myself.

This time around, I've taken a bit of a peek beyond just "match the things, get big numbers" and boy, the game is a lot more complex than I remember it. Luckily, I'm not hitting too rough of a patch yet, in terms of completing the Normal/Technical dungeons yet, but I can feel it coming.

Any advice from handling the jump from Expert/Legend to Master rank dungeons?

Depends on your leader and subs. Going up from easier to harder difficulties of the same dungeons is mostly about getting bigger numbers, especially HP, more than incremental healing or damage upgrades. On the other hand, stepping up to new dungeons you've never cleared before often requires adding specific active skills or awakenings. Both can also get a lot easier as you get better at comboing and activating your leader skill.

So, start by telling us your leader and team comp, and we can give you a better sense of what you might need.

[Jama7301]

I'ma way from device, so I'm going to recite this from memory as best I can.

I came back during the Monster Hunter event, and have primarily been using Gammoth as my leader, and pairing it with another Gammoth as a friend leader, for 20x attack combos. The rest of my team is the Fire/Light Hino Kagastuchi, the... pre-Ultimate Karin, Naracuga, and one of the Alrune ultimates.

I've been a terrible talent evaluator for this game though, as I see some monsters I used to have base forms for, as popular picks. I've been trying to be a bit more judicious with my research this go-around before junking things.

[gooddragon1]

Tried some of the hero evolution materials on the limited time dungeon today. I succeeded on one and could probably do more with the others (failed once on a different one), but... why? For a magic stone? I mean, that's why I've been clearing these material dungeons, but this skill threshold is too much to be entertaining (though maybe clearing that one hero justice machine thing just to get the drop since it seems plausible might be something, not sure). Especially when we're getting 2 magic stones a day and I'm at about 280 already. For them to make the game fun for me would probably annoy a lot of the people here with severe power creep so I won't ask them for it or go into specifics. Clearing arena 1 every now and again is somewhat entertaining. Maybe I'll just farm mp from the predra infestation when it comes up and not bother with these material dungeons for the magic stones. Perks of not having the japanese version are that we get to plan for when their mp stuff comes out. So if they do release some 1 million+ mp monster I'll probably be able to prepare for it (assuming they do something like the heroine rem just before it).

[Anarion]

I'ma way from device, so I'm going to recite this from memory as best I can.

I came back during the Monster Hunter event, and have primarily been using Gammoth as my leader, and pairing it with another Gammoth as a friend leader, for 20x attack combos. The rest of my team is the Fire/Light Hino Kagastuchi, the... pre-Ultimate Karin, Naracuga, and one of the Alrune ultimates.

I've been a terrible talent evaluator for this game though, as I see some monsters I used to have base forms for, as popular picks. I've been trying to be a bit more judicious with my research this go-around before junking things.

Gammoth is good. Can you consistently get the tricolor activation? If so, he ought to be more than enough to clear most content with even a reasonable team. On that note, Hino makes no sense on that team because you need three orb colors. You should try to focus on team members that make you water/wood/dark without taking away from any of the other three so that you can activate the leader skill. So, like, stuff that makes light, fire, or hearts into one of the three colors you want. You might also want something that's bind immune and can clear binds since Gammoth isn't bind immune and leader binds are annoying. Karin is functionally perfect and if you have more than one copy of her, just add that in. Alrune is acceptable if you have nothing better. Hino is awful on that team (he's great in other contexts) and you should replace him with something you can farm in the right colors or with a useful skill, even if not ideal.

They've also been giving away lots of daily stones right now, so you should have several pools on the next godfest, which can get you some good subs for the team.

Gammoth alone ought to be able to clear any normal Mythical tier content if you can execute the leader skill consistently, and pretty much all of it if you've got a bind clear for him. He might have some trouble with preemptive hits and enemies with high % HP cuts though, since he has no healing boost. If you can't, it's probably either a) execution troubles or b) you haven't farmed enough to stat up your team. a) requires practice and b) requires some time getting XP dragons, +eggs, and Tamadra.

edit: Also, I haven't given this advice in a while, but you reminded me about it and I nearly forgot. DO NOT SELL ANYTHING YOU GET FROM THE RARE EGG MACHINE UNLESS IT'S A DUPLICATE, AND EVEN THEN ASK HERE FIRST.

[Jama7301]

I kept Hino on the team because I was still in the mindset of 'I need to cover all attributes'. Just swapped him out for Famiel, and I'll see how that goes.

Thanks for the information.

[Winter_Wolf]

Is Gammoth really that good? I have one, but it hasn't really inspired me. Maybe it's just that I don't have a good set of synergy cards? Admittedly, I don't experiment a lot with team builds.

[Mystic Muse]

Well, this is the first One-Shot challenge I ever beat.

Probably won't ever use the tama tho.

[Anarion]

Is Gammoth really that good? I have one, but it hasn't really inspired me. Maybe it's just that I don't have a good set of synergy cards? Admittedly, I don't experiment a lot with team builds.

Gammoth is solidly above average, and as I noted above, should have no difficulty clearing mythical tier content with a good supporting team. I wouldn't put him as a top tier leader, as he offers neither the burst damage of a true glass cannon, the sustained defense of the best damage reduction or stat multiplier leads, nor the ease of execution of some of the top leads (e.g., he's not as strong as Awoken Kushi even though he's easier to execute, and can't heal or sustain as well as DAthena even though he can probably approach similar damage with the right subs).

The 81x multiplier alone, plus multiple water row awakenings means that if you can do 6 water orbs, 3 dark orbs, 3 wood orbs, your team will blow up anything that isn't a specifically tough high HP boss.

[obryn]

Well, this is the first One-Shot challenge I ever beat.

Probably won't ever use the tama tho.

Me either. I have like 8 of them by now, and the utility of an extra awoken skill slot is way lower than a +297 monster.

Maybe I'll change my tune next time we have a cool +15 or whatever PEM.

[gooddragon1]

Spoiler: Magic Stones Level 300, not a screenshot

Show

511,471 mp. On track for whatever comes out next (unless it's 1 million mp monster and I get unlucky).

I've beaten the boss of c10 before, but this one has more HP than I remember.

[Jama7301]

Finally got the last piece to make my Awoken Karin today, after doing the Awoken Machine dungeon before work. Thought it was going to take a lot longer than it ended up taking, so I'm looking forward to tinkering with some teams tonight.