Coop/multiplayer dungeons were part of the newest update and allow players to team up with their friends to take on some new dungeons along with some of the most challenging descends. I spent a great deal of time playing with my best friend (donutdust) and Mom (MOMtastic) last night and it was the most fun I had in PAD in a long time. It helped that they both came to visit me and the room was filled with lots of laughter, cries of joy, and wonderful drops. Furthermore,  with the advent of 3 minute stamina recharge and reduced stamina cost for entering dungeons in coop, we were able to play for a very long time.

3 minute stamina allows for 20 stamina per hour and  480 generated per day. This has changed my perspective on how valuable stamina is as we now have an extra 192 to play around with on a daily basis. For myself, there was always an overwhelming pressure to maximize my stamina usage and required careful planning on a daily basis. Now I am more freely spending my stamina on “fun” things such as getting that last evolution material for a random trophy monster or doing coop. Even though I have cleared the legend-plus difficulty dungeons, it was even more fun to do them again with my donutdust and MOMtastic.

Coop functions like regular Puzzle and Dragons in that you still need to find synergetic leader pairings; however, each player gets to bring in their own set of subs. This augments your total health pool as you now have the 2 shared leaders along with 8 subs. You only have access to your own set of subs and alternate turns in matching orbs. By being able to bring 8 subs, you have much more flexibility in team building as you can bring more niche/specific subs to counter various dungeon mechanics. However, as a means to combat this, your actives only recharge on your own turn and haste does not affect your partner (but your 2 leaders recharge every turn). This means that your 5-turn actives will now take 10 turns to recharge as you and you partner alternate. This forces you to make careful decisions when using actives as it may be difficult to stall when playing the rogue descends or various rushes.

In addition to strategically planning your actives, deciding which player matches against each boss plays a role, especially if one team is significantly stronger than the other. Throughout my multiplayer experience, it was sometimes more beneficial to have a certain player encounter a specific floor due to their subs/actives, orb matching skill (most notably Zaerog Infinity  when you must make 6 combos with 1 less second to move orbs). In addition, awakenings are player specific as I found that if one team lacks 100% skill bind resistance, you can have your skills locked and it will affect your partner (who has 100% immunity) when it becomes their turn. Furthermore, you can pass your turn once per dungeon to your teammate as another way to coordinate who plays each floor.

As mentioned earlier, the coop rushes and rogue descends cost less stamina and can be attempted solo. The rogue descends are 40 instead of 50 stamina and the rushes are 66 instead of 99. This is great for players who can comfortably clear these dungeons and wish to try and skill up the powerful boss drops. I may use this opportunity to farm for more Scarlet  skill ups on Mantastic. Of course, finding a partner who is on par with your skill and team level makes things easier as you will have an augmented health pool.

Since the coop dungeons are “easier” than their solo counterparts, you can somewhat piggyback off a stronger friend to clear content that would otherwise be impossible. For example, donutdust has great matching skills, but her Kali  team is not developed enough to do solo. Thus, when she pairs with Mantastic, we are able to clear dungeons such as Zaerog Infinity. Even though I have already farmed and max skilled my own  , it never hurts to own 2 and it was more enjoyable than playing solo as I get to share my experience and joy with someone else.

On a somewhat humorous note, I have been playing with myself quite a bit. And by playing with myself, I mean pairing up Mantastic and Fantastic! The only feasible team they can form together is Yomi Dragon  and it was quite amusing to switch between 2 different devices and play out the dungeons.

Furthermore, the 25 stamina Alt dungeons are great places to farm pii (eg. Shynpy   ) as well as hefty amounts of rank experience. Just be sure to bring some sort of sub who can bypass defence and execute the high defence monsters (such as Awoken Ra  ).

Lastly, it is wise to disable notifications or turn on airplane mode when playing coop as exiting the PAD screen, locking your device, or switching to a different app will cause your multiplayer connection to be lost. My friend was able to use airplane mode successfully (while connected to wifi), but still best to double check in coop endless prior to spending stamina.

Overall, I am grateful we have coop as it has breathed new interest and life into PAD for myself. I do enjoy the fact Puzzle and Dragons is a solo game, but being able to share my experience and interact with others is quite special. I am looking forward to future coop dungeons and whatever else GungHo has in store.

May your coop adventures be filled with excitement and Happy Puzzling!