Two exciting things happened to me last night: finally cleared Scarlet  on both accounts and Super Gabriel being announced. This is the second time  has been available for North America and I was eager to finally clear this new challenging descend as during the first rotation I only gave it a few feeble attempts before getting distracted by other things. In addition, this was the first descend I got to push my newly evolved  and  to their limits.

I am usually all Gung-Ho for clearing new content, but during the first appearance of Scarlet, my non-awoken  and 7-star   teams felt a bit lackluster in damage which was further amplified by monsters starting at level 1. However, with the November 11th Evolutions, I was able to make  and  which massively increased my damage output and I was able to bring down  in one go.

 ‘s buffed active to clear binds in addition to being unbindable herself, has allowed me to drop  from my team roster as I have expressed frustrations with Metatron’s current situation in another post I wrote. As such, I was able to bring a new team roster that is capable of handling the binds as well as the chance of a large preemptive on floor 5.

The only sub change I made was  replacing   ,which might not seem like too big a deal. However, keep in mind the team cost of the monster directly influences the amount of experience they receive. Thus,  ends up being a very high level. In addition,  brings a  and  for offensive awakenings along with an active that can guarantee a combo-maximized board every five turns. I just recently pulled my second  and she and   are not quite descend ready, so  will my temporary final spot.

Sub changes aside, it was the scaling multiplier with the new  that allowed me to safely clear this descend. Being able to consistently hit 7-8 combos grants a 49-64x multiplier and that combined with  potential produces massive damage even on low-level cards. The third floor was always a problematic place for me because it essentially has 10 million health due to light resistance. In addition, to the high health pool, the basic attacks nearly one shot me. This makes stalling near to impossible and requires large consistent bursts of damage to kill. You do get a “break” at 50% hp, but it could potentially ruin your future boards due to abundant wood orb skyfalls. I took a few turns to pass this floor; even with the new multiplier, but at least it was doable.

The fourth floor preemptive bind is easily handled with one  active and is simply a matter of finishing it off in two turns after. It was this floor that forced me to bring  when I was using  . Also, remember to throw up your defensive shield before advancing to the fifth floor!

I encountered the  on both accounts (which was actually a life saver for Fantastic as I failed to bring an adequate shield). I would have preferred encountering the  on my  because I did bring an adequate shield;  is dark vs light and does not produce jammer and red skyfalls. But beggars can’t be choosers, and I was still able to adequately combo over two turns to safely kill without actives.

The double boss floor mechanic is a favourite of mine because of their taunting and role playing aspect.  ‘s first form creates an absorption shield of 100k for two turns and you have to wait this out. I decided to gentlly hit her without activating my leader skill to cause her to enrage. On her second turn, she hits me for 16,509 and converted jammers into red orbs. Luckily I am able to survive a hit of this magnitude and once her shield dropped off, I one shot her, causing a cool transformation. On the final floor, I had a poor board for the first turn but used  and  actives to push her below 50% health. This caused her to enrage and bind my leaders (which was unsuccessful due to  being unbindable). The second turn was simply a matter of matching the board to kill the now-dark boss.

Overall, this descend was mildly heart attack inducing and I still struggled on the 3rd floor. Once you are able to overcome the third floor, it becomes more manageable as your monsters begin to level up. I apparently talk to myself a lot while playing descends, and my friend who was over at my house kept wondering if I had died yet. Thankfully I got to do a jump for joy when Fantastic narrowly cleared the dungeon.

For Fantastic and his  Wonder Boys semi dream team, I made the mistake of not bringing an adequate shield and got very lucky encountering  as I would have died otherwise. I elected to take my  over my  team because if I could survive floor two and three, the final floors would be easier due to colour preference of water > red. I used most of my actives to kill floors two and three then, stalled when I could to regain their use for later floors. The beautiful part about  ‘s active is that the damage boost lasts for two turns so I was able to burst both bosses down in one go. The increased damage of 25x -> 36x is noticeable and I look forward to doing more content with my Wonder Boys.

In completely unrelated news, my first REM roll of  is getting a new evolution that finally has good artwork! Other GFE are receiving minor but significant buffs to their awakenings or leader skills. which hopefully revitalizes their usage and gameplay.  The new Gabriel gains an attacker subtype, +500 attack, a slight leader skill buff, and 5 new awakenings! The new evolution grants  ,  ,  ,  , and  as additional awakenings. This provides Gabriel with 2000 auto heal in addition to 3  . His active is superior to  ‘s from the enhancing heal orb perspective, but removing dark orbs will make him an unviable  sub. Even after 2 years of having Gabriel and painfully max-skilling him, I still have not found a viable use or team he can play on. This could be somewhat due to the lack of power blue teams have when compared to the other colours. Also, row enhances are not in the meta at the moment due to  being much easier and more rewarding. The only strong blue row-based team would be  , where the new evolution of Gabriel would perfectly fit, but  is on the decline, and I feel that by the time we receive the new evolution, she will have fallen even further down the tier list.