Japanese 1 Pantheon Analysis

Please refer to the Master List for directory to the other pantheons and their analysis.

Take a look at my Popular Leaders and their Full Sub List post for inspiration on team building ideas. If contemplating on purchasing a MP Dragon, please check out my Monster Point Dragon Purchasing Check-list Guide.

Keep in mind all of the following monsters qualify for Skill Inheritance so do not be too hasty in selling dupes.


The Japanese 1 pantheon has some of the strongest awoken evolutions in the game. They provide valuable utility for various teams and several are great candidates for contributing their active for skill inheritance. The main drawback is a lack of usability prior to being awoken and will be neglected until acquiring the evolution materials.

Japanese 1

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 Hinokagutsuchi
Awoken Hino
Dragon / Physical
TPA TPA Fire Row
Skill Boost Dark Orb Enhance Auto heal
TPA Enhnaced Fire Orb Skill Lock Resist
—-
Water Arrow Fire
Heart Arrow Dark
Reduce enemy defence 75%
7 turn CD
Hinokagutsuchi is a nightmare to spell and is often shortened to Hino and was one of the first monsters to receive an Awoken Evolution. Upon release, Hino was a fiery success as he hits incredibly hard with 3 two prong attack TPA awakenings. This has incredible synergy with Awoken Shiva Shiva who is one of the most popular TPA oriented leaders. Hino will also be receiving a skill bind resist awakening Skill Lock Resist in the near future and this will resolve his largest pitfall. Furthermore, Hino’s active creates a favourable 4 colour board along with the situationally helpful 75% defence break. Overall a fantastic fire TPA sub to own and is worth investing both pluses and attack latent Imp ATK tamadras.

As a leader, Hino has the ability to deal ~30k damage to all enemies with any orb match. This is great for helping a low level alt account or sweeping Thursday dungeon very quickly.

 Viper Orochi
Awoken Oorochi
Physical / Dragon
TPA TPA Water Row
Skill Boost TPA Skill Boost
Time Extend TPA
—-
Delay all enemies for 4 turns
15 turn CD
Viper Orochi has gone from zero to hero with various ups and downs along the way. Presently, Orochi is one of the most desired monsters in Puzzle and Dragons because of his 4 turn delay. Until recently, delays were beginning to go out of style; however, with the advent of stronger bosses with either resolve or damage absorption shields, players are become more reliant on the extra turns gained from his active. In addition, Orochi covers the awkward water and wood attribute on rainbow teams and is only outclassed by Awoken Isis Isis in that regard. The 4 two prong attack TPA awakenings allow for spectacular burst damage, but his naturally low base attack means he requires plus egg investment to truly shine. Orochi can also be used on every mono water team if you require a delay.

With the introduction of Skill Inheritance, duplicate Orochis are quite desired and I strongly encourage you to not sell them for 5,000 Monster Points. Lastly, Orochi does have some leadership potential when paired with Ra Dragon Ra Dragon as a means to control your damage along with surviving giant single attack preemptives.

Finally, if you are considering using Orochi or Sun Quan Sun Quan as your delay slot, keep the following things in mind: Sun Quan offers only 2 turns of delay, but 2 turns of healer enhancement while Orochi grants 4 turns of delay. Unless you are running a heavy healer team, the 2x damage goes to waste and unless your team has severe recovery issues, Orochi will be the superior choice.

 Susano
Susano
Physical / Dragon
Enhanced Wood Orb TPA Bind Immune
Bind Immune Skill Boost Skill Boost
TPA Time Extend
—-
Reduce damage by 50% for 3 turns. 1 turn haste
11 turn CD
I wish my abs were as chiselled and sculpted as Awoken Susano because that would most certainly boost my husbano potential. Regardless, Susano is the definition of a dream boat in both looks and sub potential. He is a favoured sub on both rainbow and mono wood teams due to his wood and fire coverage. His bind immunity is crucial for both having access to a shield at all times along with being able to contribute his colours for rainbow team activation. Susano is perhaps most at home on Awoken Sakuya Sakuya teams due to full colour coverage and the ability to trigger her leader skill if the entire team is bound. On mono wood teams, Susano provides a valuable shielding component and haste while providing 2 two prong TPA awakenings.

The shielding component has become invaluable with stronger preemptive strikes or the need to stall on dangerous bosses and the 50% damage reduction allows you to survive most attacks. The haste has situationally useful uses when skill delay attacks are involved. Due to his unbindability, Susano is a great candidate for full rainbow latent resists (1% of each colour) as a means to survive 100% gravity attacks. His active is also a viable choice for skill inheritance.

Susano’s main weakness is a lack of Skill Bind Resist Skill Lock Resist and this could place constraints on team building in order to achieve 100% immunity.

Amaterasu
Amate
Healer / Physical
Bind Clear awakening Bind Immune Bind Immune
Skill Boost Skill Boost TPA
Skill Lock Resist Skill Lock Resist
—-
Recover 40% max HP, 4 turns bind clear, 1 turn haste
8 turn CD
Amaterasu has been transformed into a fantastic bind clearing sub and powerful leader. She is both bind immune will possessing the bind recover Bind Clear awakening awakening (albeit no heart generating active) giving you flexibility in how you deal with binds. Furthermore, the double Skill Bind Resist Skill Lock Resist is quite unique and allows for more flexibility in team building. In terms of other high end bind clearers, Amaterasu competes with Awoken Sakuya Sakuya and both are great options.

Amaterasu’s active has 3 components and only an 8-turn cooldown. The 40% of max HP heal is quite powerful and only increases in value as your HP rises. It has an exceptional value on Saria Saria / Thor Thor teams who have an augmented health pool (a 40k HP team would receive 16k of healing). The haste is a nice addition as you can use it to recharge your other skills if the binding stage has been passed.

As a leader, Amaterasu forms a powerful 16x ATK team when your HP is full (scales down to 9x when damaged). However, you also heal 10x of your base RCV with every orb match. This essentially is a full heal every turn with dual Amaterasu leads. This is fantastic as you do not have to worry about healing and can survive any dungeon provided you do not get one shotted. This also makes her great for 5×4 latent resist farming (other viable leads can be found in my previous post) as you cannot die to the invading Tamadra.

Overall a great card to own for both sub and leadership roles.

Tsukuyomi
Awoken Yomi
Physical / Devil
Dark Orb Enhance Time Extend Time Extend
Skill Lock Resist Dark Orb Enhance Skill Boost
Time Extend Dark Orb Enhance
—-
Enhance all orbs. +5 seconds to move orbs
8 turn CD
Man, woman, or avenging cyborg? Tsukuyomi, or Yomi, can be anything you want them to be and is an incredibly powerful leader with a 56.25x ATK multiplier. They utilize the match 5 connected orbs, 1 enhanced orb (5o1e) leader playstyle and requires 7+ combos to achieve their full multiplier. This makes them very challenging and skill intensive to use as you have to essentially maximize the board every time you wish to deal damage. However, if you are able to do this successfully, your damage output will be amazing and most likely sweep every floor. So why are they not a more popular leader? The simple answer is a lack of any survivability multiplier (HP or RCV), high skill cap/thinking required, and naturally low recovery that makes stalling difficult.

Awakenings wise, Yomi provides 1.5 seconds of additional time to move orbs (3 seconds if dual leaders) and 3 dark orb enhance Dark Orb Enhance awakenings. Together, these allow for a luxurious amount of time for comboing as well as significant damage for every dark orb match and skyfall.

As a sub, Yomi is seldom seen due to their active being somewhat underwhelming and the enhanced orbs having less synergy with row or TPA based teams. However, you can use their active to override time debuffs (think Dark Izanami’s -2s) which can be situationally useful. The three time extend awakenings are nice, but should not be the sole reason you use them as a sub.

Happy Puzzling!

2 thoughts on “Japanese 1 Pantheon Analysis”

  1. Another great post! I do have no disagree slightly with Yomi’s use as a sub. I find a place for him/her/it on rainbow and combo based teams (assuming it’s on color) thanks to his triple Time Extend, Skill Boost and SBR. Partially due to a lack of DKali, I put Yomi on Awoken Ra (where they will still benefit from his full multiplier) as well as Umi Yami, who seems to struggle with lack of Time Extends. There are for sure better options out there, but I don’t think that Yomi can be discredited so easily.
    Otherwise I agree with most everything you’ve said here!

    Like

    1. Glad you enjoyed it!

      Well the thing about only using him as a time extend sub can be problematic in the long run. Many players will argue saying that it is a waste and can be compensated with additional player skill etc, but you do need a certain amount to be viable for the average player. It would most likely be a stepping stone to a better sub or player skill.

      Like

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