Version 9.03 is finally live and brings a tidal wave of changes and buffs to all aspects of Puzzle and Dragons. With this post, I wish to summarize the most important and notable changes that will be made. A separate article dedicated solely to Skill Inheritance is also available as I wish to focus on the other aspects coming with 9.03. This is not the complete patch notes, only the parts that I feel are meaningful.

Additional Awakenings:

     Greco-Roman 1 + 

The Greco-Roman 1 Pantheon is one of the oldest and was designed to tackle significantly older content that had different mechanics. They finally have been given a skill bind resist  awakening to help alleviate the burden of achieving 100% immunity. This will hopefully give them more play time as their actives are situationally useful and can be subbed in as need without fear of having your skills locked.

 Awoken Hino + 

Awoken Hino has been a fearsome triple two-prong attack  fire sub who would burn through monsters on Awoken Shiva  teams. With the added skill bind resist, Hino now becomes a nearly staple sub as he now offers everything you could want on a fire sub.

Leader Skill Changes

Skuld -> 27.56x ATK

Skuld has been seeing more potential as a sub on Rukia  teams, but was often neglected as a leader. However, she now gains an added component to her leader skill if you match 5 orbs with 1 enhanced (5o1e) to peak at 27.56x ATK and 4x RCV for water/wood cards. This may not be game-breaking, but gives players an option to begin using water TPA  cards again such as U&Y , Nut , and Orochi .

   Odins gain 1.5x ATK for clearing 4+ connected orbs

This mostly applies to Red and Blue Odin as they already feature a 1.5x HP / 2.5x ATK multiplier and this additional damage pushes them up to 3.75x ATK.  This means you can use them as a pseudo replacement for Raoh  and Ryune  when paired with Freyr  and I&I  to form a 1.5x HP / 12.19x ATK / 2.5x RCV team.

 Light Metatron gains unconditional multiplier

Light Metatron is now an unconditional 1.82x HP / 12.25x ATK leader for healer type monsters. She is also the butt end of numerous jokes on receiving so many micro buffs in hopes of giving her more relevance. Thankfully, this buff is valid, but she will still most likely be passed over for other options.

 Light Kali becomes 56.25x ATK (36 -> 56.25)

Probably one of the most significant buffs this patch as Light Kali now achieves 56.25x ATK (up from 36x) at 6+ combos while matching Fire, Water, Light, and Dark orbs. This dramatically increases her consistency and viability as she is superior to Sakuya ‘s damage output provided you cannot achieve 8+ combos every turn. Furthermore, Light Kali has one of the most powerful actives as she guarantees an activate-able board.

 Red Sonia scales up to 3.75x (3 -> 3.75)

Still not enough to regain her once supreme status as a leader as she will still mostly be used for clearing early-mid game content. Regardless, a buff is a buff and will help you acquire your awoken evolution materials with ease.

 Blue & Green Sonia trigger full LS on 4+ orbs

Now you can benefit from your full multiplier with 4+ connected orbs instead of 5. This grants you the option to utilize TPA matches if you wish to conserve orbs or actives.

 Gadius now 42.25x ATK

A row  leader who can now achieve 42.25x ATK will hit like a fire truck. Granted you have to match two heart combos, but that should not diminish your output.

   Ryune, Saria, Sylvie buffed to 3.75x ATK

This increase in attack multiplier results in a 12.19x ATK instead of 10.25x ATK when paired with their respective Norse leader. Small buff, but may be significant when facing harder content.

 Fenrir scales up to 625x ATK

9 connected jammers, all 5 colours. Okay, good luck

 Light Zhuge Liang up to 36x ATK (25 -> 36)

Light Zhuge Liang deserves mentioning due to the fact he can form a 36x ATK healer team when full health. You do drop down to 9x when injured, but with an active that can restore health, you have a powerful farming or easier descend farming card.

Active skill changes

 Ragnarok Dragon -1 turn CD (10 -> 9)

Ragnarok Dragon was already loved for his powerful active, and now that he takes only 9 turns to recharge greatly increases his value.

 Ganesha -2 turn CD (15 -> 13)

Ganesha voids all damage for 1 turn while enhancing light orbs and now only takes 13 turns to recharge. Small improvement and hopefully is the start to him gaining more viability or his active being used for Skill Inheritance.

 Woodbahn & Sagirinoka -3 turn CD (11 -> 8)

Woodbahn and Sagirinoka are the often forgotten PADZ monsters that delays all monsters by 1 turn and enhances wood or light orbs. Now they are on an 8-turn cooldown and may increase their viability for skill inheritance.

 Cursed Dragon -4 turn CD (10 -> 6)

Cursed Dragon is another PADZ monster who is a viable skill inheritance monster. They provide a 35% damage reduction shield for 2 turns while enhancing dark orbs on what is now a 6-turn cooldown

  Grimoire now spawn 5 instead of 3 orbs

Both Goetia and Ars Nova now spawn 5 instead of 3 dark or light orbs. Both have been slowly gaining buffs and are now beginning to have modest potential and hopefully their ultimate evolution bolsters their base stats and adds additional awakenings.

 Lakshmi spawns 4 heart orbs and deals 50x damage

Instead of spawning 3 heart orbs from non-water, Lakshmi will now generate 4. Furthermore, her leader skill will begin scaling at 4 heart orbs so you can trigger her lowest multiplier right away. The buff of dealing 50x instead of 20x damage means you will most likely restore your entire HP pool.

 Parvati enhances wood and heal orbs

Parvati combines a heart generating active with wood and heal orb enhance. This can ease the burden of bringing a damage enhancing sub as your leader can now fulfil that role. You may still want to inherit a different active, but can still use Parvati to more effect.

 Venus’s active now grants 2 additional seconds to move orbs while enhancing light. – 1 turn CD (5 -> 4)

Venus is starting to become significantly more powerful with this update as she gained a skill bind resistance and has a buff to her active. Instead of being able to freely move orbs for 6 seconds (you may actually lose time now with the advent of so many time extends), you gain 2 more seconds to manipulate orbs. This can be wonderful for row based teams with complicated boards and the now 4-turn cooldown means you can use Venus more freely. The additional 2 seconds is also a way to overwrite time debuffs put in place form various bosses such as Dark Izanami.

 Shiva -2 turn CD (9 -> 7)

This is mostly significant as it means you will spend less turns waiting for an inherited skill to charge.

 Blue Odin -2 turn CD (10 -> 8)

Having your orb enhancement on a shorter cooldown is always great.

  Hino and Minerva break defence for 2 turns

Having the armour break carry over for 2 turns can be meaningful in certain situations. However, it cannot be used to burst through 10 million defence PreDRAs  as it only cuts the value by 75% or 50%.

 Non Awoken Shiva -4 turn CD (15 -> 11)

The non awoken form of Shiva provides 100% armour break and can used for skill inheritance as a means to bypass PreDRAs 

 Set now provides 2 turns of damage enhance

Set is now starting to approach the viability of Awoken Freyr  as he now provides 2 turns of 1.5x damage enhancement for fire. This can allow you to clear more content as you can use less actives to kill the second to last floor while having your full burst ready for the boss.

 Light Zhuge Liang -2 turn CD (10 -> 8)

This buff is meaningful as his leadership potential was also boosted to 36x when full health. This will still regulate him to a farming leader, but this may improve his sub viability as a health restoring/light enhancing card.

 Light Metatron heals 8x RCV (6x -> 8x)

Wahoo! More buffs (~2k heal at +297 and max level).

 Liu Bei now heals 30% max HP (3,000 -> 30%)

Probably heals for more than Light Metatron….

  Guan Yu’s clear 3 turns of binds (2 -> 3)

This is quite significant as it means you can potentially survive binds that you were not able to do so before.

     Heros now enhance heart orbs

The Hero God pantheon keeps getting stronger as the now enhance heart orbs with their regular active. This pretty much guarantees you will be able to fully heal yourself or can be combo-ed with a heart breaker for enhanced offensive orbs.

 Durga now enhances God & Devil types by 2.5x (2 -> 2.5x)

This is quite a significant boost and with the introduction of skill inheritance, makes the prospect of massive burst damage more feasible.

 Chaos Devil Dragon and the other Rippers -2 turn CD (8 -> 6)

You still need to skill them up, but a buff is a buff and at least they are a farmable option.

 Ame no Uzume -2 turn CD (8 -> 6)

This is quite a significant buff as her 1.5x RCV is applied for 4 turns and now grants 66% uptime (more if you use haste) along with a 4 turn bind clear. More relevance as a sub or being used for skill inheritance.

 Ceres -1 turn CD (7 -> 6)

More options for bind clearing as either a sub or skill inheritance.

 Hades -1 turn CD (13 -> 12)

Hades is one of the few gravity options you have for skill inheritance and any buff to his cooldown is wonderful. The 25% may not be as large as some other gravities, but can be used to help navigate around powerful bosses with resolve, massive HP values, or to push them into a more favourable colour.

     Riders -1 turn CD (7 -> 6)

This may not make them top tier subs, but with the introduction of easy skill up material, their viability has increased. Some are crucial on the Awoken Greco-Roman 2 teams as some of the only means to create the two required colours (eg.  on Awoken Hermes ).

  Haku (and non awoken Chinese) -1 turn CD (9 -> 8)

This buff helps keep them on par with other board changers and helps keep them relevant on top tier teams due to their typing and new killer awakenings.

 Zuoh -1 turn CD (9 -> 8)

Zuoh is one of the most powerful subs on Awoken Pandora  and Lucifer  teams due to his amazing awakenings and easily combo-able board change. More reasons to use him and pray he pops out of the golden dragon’s belly.

 Cauchemar -1 turn CD (12 -> 11)

Cauchemar is one of the few farmable full board changers and generates the same colours as Zuoh while providing a 30% damage reduction shield. Obviously not as strong as Zuoh, but is at least obtainable by all players.

 Famiel 100k true damage -1 turn CD (9 -> 8)

Famiel is a dream sub for U&Y  as they create the perfect 4 colour board. The additional cooldown is of course amazing, but the true damage component seems somewhat random. Perhaps the only other team would want to run Famiel is Rukia  and they do challenge high level content. It could be used to handle Meimei in Arena or the King Fat Dragon who both have massive defence values, but low HP. Unfortunately, you only strike a single enemy, and thus will have less of an impact when facing multiple PreDRAs .

 Lumiel 100k true damage -1 turn CD (9 -> 8)

Same buff as Famiel, but has a less clearly defined role in the current meta as Durga  is not a powerful lead. You could perhaps use Lumiel on various devil teams as a more budget board refresh (must combo with someone else to ensure sufficient orbs), but may still not see much playtime.

 Nephthys enhances damage for 2 turns. -2 turn CD (10 -> 8)

Nephthys is an often overlooked option for dark enhancement. However, with this buff, she may regain some popularity as she is now similar to Awoken Loki  in that she enhances damage for two turns, but also provides dark orb enhancement on the turn she is used. Unfortunately, you will not be able to use her as effectively as you rely on the dark orb enhancement to propel your damage. Thus, you will may not use her the floor before the boss as a means to conserve actives.

 Lu Bu enhances 3x to devils (2.5 -> 3) and -1 turn CD (12 -> 11)

This is a lot of buffs for Lu Bu as he now provides an unparalleled boost to devil types and ensures you sweep the floor. Furthermore, the reduction in his cooldown means you can use him more frequently and may have uses for skill inheritance. However, Lu Bu already offers wonderful stats and awakenings including the bind immunity. Thus you may inherit a bind clearing active onto him as the shorter cooldown means you can use it faster. An interesting concept and worth considering.

Conclusion

Wow. That is a lot of buffs and I only listed the major/important ones. This is going to be an exciting patch and I look forward to benefiting from the newly augmented monsters!

Let me know what you are most excited for.

Happy Puzzling!