Happy Lunar New Year to all those that celebrate! The latest update brought an unprecedented amount of new content and most of use were probably busy with the Cauchemar Ranking dungeon or the new coop feature. However, there were also countless monster buffs and a new evolution that got released, but were perhaps overshadowed. I just want to take this opportunity to analyse the new changes and highlight any major improvements you should look out for.

 Seraph of Corruption, Lucifer is the only new evolution to be released this patch and perhaps marks the end of an era. Lucifer used to reign supreme in the early days of PAD when awakenings and grossly high multipliers did not exist as he could tank gigantic hits along with executing bosses with his active. Fast forward 2+ years and  has undergone countless active skill reworks in hopes of resurrecting his viability. Currently, it is the strongest it has ever been with the ability to inflict 200x damage to a single enemy while resetting your team’s health to 1 along with spawning 6 heart orbs. The Morning Star used to be a maximum 35 turn cooldown with no feasible way to skill up. Now  starts at 25 and can be max skilled to only 10 turns. However, we no longer have the need to inflict ~350k damage to a single enemy that is affected by defence and attribute. True damage such as Awoken Ra  is vastly superior as you are able to bypass many high defence monsters with ease. Ironically, the other Lucifer  has true damage and is what the majority of North American players are waiting for. He should be released shortly if GungHo adheres to the release schedule set by Japan.

Looking at  ‘s awakenings, he does sport an impressive 3 two prong attacks  along with reasonably high base attack, 4 auto heal  awakenings, and a  resist. This combination of offensive and defensive awakenings would be ideal if  actually had a useful active. Furthermore, his leader skill is archaic as 4x HP / 2.25x ATK / 4x RCV teams have no place in the current meta as bosses are able to execute you even with 100k health. Perhaps his strongest feature is his amazing artwork as it combines the whole angel-demon theme perfectly along with a shimmering sword to match.

The rest of the monsters in this update received various buffs that range in terms of power and viability.

The Greco-Roman god series of Awoken Minerva  , Awoken Neptune  , Awoken Ceres  , Awoken Venus  , and Awoken Hades  all received a buff to their leader skill to resist light, dark, and their primary/sub attribute (that is not light or dark) by 50% while still increasing damage by 2.5x for their primary attribute and specific monster type. When paired with an identical leader, they reduce incoming damage by 75%. Thus you have essentially gained 4x HP and 4x RCV along with being immune to 100% gravity attacks. The Greco-Roman gods were top tier upon their initial release and this is perhaps an attempt to bring them back to their glory days. Furthermore, they all received various stat increases to bring them on par with other awoken evolutions at ~810 weighted stats each. Their only glaring weakness as a whole is a lack of skill bind resist  awakening.

 Awoken Minerva  is perhaps the strongest lead from this pantheon due to being bind immune and possessing a 5-turn orb changer.   also has a large sub pool to draw from for fire row enhance  awakenings. Provided the dungeon only had fire, light, and dark enemies, you are nearly immune and only have to be worried about water based bosses as they will deal full damage and you only inflict 50%.

 Awoken Neptune  is still drowning in a pool of sadness. His active is somewhat useless as it is a 15-turn poison when max skilled and increases attacker and devil types by 2x for 1 turn. This double dipping hurts his viability as the cooldown is too long to justify and there are hardly and water devil or attacker type monsters. Also not a fan of the art.

 Awoken Ceres is still your go to bind clearing green sub and is finding new opportunity in mono wood row  team of Sylvie  / Freyja  should you need the bind recovery or 30% of base HP heal (which is more impressive due to the augmented health pool). As a lead, perhaps not as ideal, but can be effective against all attributes with the exception of fire bosses (even with no resistance to water, you deal double damage and should be able to handle with ease).

 Awoken Venus  is a favoured sub on Saria  / Thor  teams for her 3 light rows  and light orb enhancing active that can be used in conjunction with  ‘s active. As a lead, you are vulnerable to both fire and wood bosses, but makes an enjoyable 6  leader pairing with 2 built in enhances.

 Awoken Hades may gain redemption through the new Archangel Lucifer  as his devil typing benefits from the leader skill. With gravities becoming more relevant due to gigantic health pools and perseverance,  should be making a gradual comeback in terms of usage. The bonus 5 seconds to move orbs that is built into the 25% gravity is icing on the cake as you are able to set up a perfect board for massive burst. As a lead, he loses value as 2 gravity actives and being vulnerable to fire and water bosses along with no bind immunity regulates him as a better sub.

 Awoken Lakshimi received a significant buff to her leader skill to start scaling damage with 4 heart orbs (1.5x) all the way up to 2.5x with 6 linked heart orbs. This brings her total multiplier to 39x (from 25x) and can be combined with a water row enhance  heavy team. With many water cards having naturally high HP and 2.25x recovery leads to a tanky and burst heavy team. Furthermore,  has a massive sub pool to draw from that have heart generating actives and  awakenings such as Gabriel  and Ryune  . Overall, I hope this encourages players to start using  again as her playstyle is quite exciting and different than most other teams. Lastly, a 700 increase in base health significantly augments her survivability.

 Awoken Parvati received the same leader skill treatment as  to cap out at 39x. However, wood rows  are not as popular compared to water and  is  based. You can still form powerful teams  due to the abundance of green subs and the built in heart generating active eases team building. In addition,  can be used as an unbindable heart generating sub. She can be used in conjunction with Elize  to produce a board full of enhanced green orbs. Lastly,  received +400 HP and +150 ATK to bring her on par with other awoken evolution weighted stats.

 Awoken Horus now grants 1.5x recovery when using an active skill. This becomes 2.25x for dual  pairing and this is incredibly valuable as rainbow teams now suffer from low recovery with the advent of MP Dragons and the new tank teams. Being able to fully recover with only 3 heart orbs matched will prove invaluable especially when you can already put out up to 45.6x damage. Hopefully other rainbow leads receive similiar treatment to keep pace with powercreep. Lastly,  received an additional 100 base attack.

The Chinese Celestials of Awoken Leilan  , Awoken Karin  , Awoken Meimei  , and Awoken Haku  all received leader skill buffs to include heart orbs as potential matches to trigger their activation. As such, you now have the option of matching 2/3 of their original elements plus hearts to proc your 12.25x damage. However, their viability as leads is overshadowed by their dominance as top tier subs for their respective colours due to their powerful active, synergetic awakenings, and high base stats. Furthermore, they all received modest stat increases which is always welcome as it further increases their potency especially when you have already +297 your team and cannot add any more power.

 Awoken Astaroth is one of the newer evolutions and received a significant buff to her leader skill. She now increases health and attack of devil and healer types by 1.5x along with a 3x attack increase when matching 6+ connected wood orbs. This translates into a leader with 2.25x HP and 20.25x ATK along with favouring  stacking. Further reading about  ‘s potency as a lead can be found HERE.

 Awoken Hinokagusuchi received one of the biggest buffs of all the monsters as his active skill can now be skilled down to a 7-turn cooldown (from 8). This is significant as you can now more liberally use his active and is one of the few double orb changer to be on a 7-turn cooldown (the others being the less popular Rider 1.0 series). Granted it changes water to fire and heal to dark, but nevertheless it may mark the start of double orb changers shifting down to a 7-turn cooldown. In addition,  received 400 more health and 50 attack to bring him on par with other awoken evolution weighted stats. The attack is significant as he has a frightening 3  awakenings and this will only allow him to hit even higher numbers.

The other Japanese Series 1 gods of Awoken Orochi  , Awoken Susano  , Awoken Amaterasu  , and Awoken Yomi  also received modest stat increases, but not additional upgrade to their active skill. All of these monsters can find themselves on end-game teams and any increase in power is always welcomed.

 Awoken Shiva also received a stat increase through 200 more health and 100 attack. Furthermore, some of his favourite subs including  and  also received buffs this patch making his team a bit more powerful.

 Awoken Isis received 200 more health and 30 more recovery, but it is her health buff that is most important for Ra Dragon  teams.  teams have a very specific latent set up provided you have the ideal team and the extra 200 health can allow you to dump some health latent tamadras  for skill delay resist  on your  . Of course you should double check the math before making any changes, but this opens up additional survivability as you can re-haste your team after a skill delay attack.

Awoken Bastet  and Awoken Anubis  also received minor stat increases which are always helpful, but not as impactful as  .

Lastly, many common skill up materials can now provide a skill up opportunity without evolving which is great news for all Hero god users such as Pandora  (albeit she received an awoken evolution that resets her active skill). Regardless, the entire pantheon is expected to receive an ultimate of an ultimate evolution so stay excited!

If you feel I overlooked anyone’s new found power or wish to highlight an additional point, feel free to leave a comment.

Happy Puzzling!