A Word from Mantastic
This article was created by one of my readers, Sam, who has invested a great deal of time and effort into creating a comprehensive and current rerolling guide for new players. I simply provided some editing and formatting modifications along with the insertion of my icons. I tried to keep my modifications to a minimum as to preserve his writing style and opinions. Sam may wish to start his own blog and any feedback on his content and writing style is greatly appreciated. He has also volunteered to do various number crunching should my articles need any mathematical supplementation. Enjoy!
Introduction
Hello newbies! My name is Sam, and I feel your pain. When starting your Puzzle & Dragons career, there is simply too much information out there, and it can be beyond overwhelming, even to veteran players. My buddy Mantastic has done a fantastic job of condensing information into easily digestible chunks such as his new player guide found HERE.
If you have ended up at this article, you are asking the right question to make your long journey a little more reasonable: “Should I reroll?” Rerolling is deleting your account and starting over from scratch, and is done to remove the variance between strong starts and weak ones so you can hopefully avoid hitting a wall in the content you can complete without spending dozens of bitcoins (or your currency of choice) on stones for Rare Egg Machine (REM) pulls. This guide will provide you with the knowledge you need to figure out if your first monster out of the REM will carry you all the way, or if you are going to end up floundering. First I will state our priorities, then I will outline some lingo I will be using, and finally I will get to the meat of the matter and give you the list.
Priorities
- Maximize your early and mid game potential, including all normal dungeons, most technical dungeons, and as many legend difficulty or lower special dungeons.
- End up with a starting card that is useful at all points in the game. Some cards like Red Dragon Caller, Sonia used to be considered the pinnacle of starters, but because they did not keep up with the rise in difficulty of endgame content, these cards became borderline useless later on. (There used to be a running joke on the facebook groups and forums of people feeding fully maxed out Red Sonias to other monsters because of this)
- Take your individual situation into account as best as possible. Are you Elon Musk with his pockets full of space bucks willing to spend whatever it takes to build the best team? Are you a buddhist monk with nothing but a cellphone and a robe to his name? All leaders will get better with better subs (team cards), but some become betterer than others, I will try to make that clear, indicated by separate IAP (in-app purchases) and Non-IAP ratings.
Lingo
When it comes to lingo for this guide, we are talking about team strategies. I am going to skip over a lot of the “multiplier” information, and keep things focussed on play style and goals. These team strategies go from most difficult to play to least difficult (In my opinion). Do not be put off by the difficulty, as you will fall into the groove of the strategy fairly quickly.
- Rainbow – These leaders require you to make a 3+ orb chain of every color in the game (3 fire, 3 water, 3 wood, 3 light, and 3 dark). These teams tend to rely on specific, rare egg machine cards to be 100% optimal. Rainbow leads may require less than all (Isis requires three out of the five different colors) and some may consider heart orbs as a color as well (Da Qiao & Xiao Qiao for instance)
- Combo – How many 3+ chains can you make? These leads require you to make at least a certain number to trigger their ability. These skills are great for starters within reason, as they will train you to make a high amount of combos. For example: Okuninushi
- 5+1e – These leaders require exactly 5 orbs of a color with one or more of those orbs “enhanced”. These leaders are not good for new players since you need awoken skills to cause enhanced orbs to spawn, so no 5+1e leaders are in the tier list below and it is not recommended to start with one. For example: Eschamali
- Color Specific – These leaders require you to match specific colors to trigger their leader skill. For some, like Haku, the support for them is wide IAP and non-IAP, but for others like Sakuya, you may have difficulty without in-app purchases. For example: Incarnation of Byakko, Haku
- Row-based – Trigger these leaders’ skill by linking (usually) 6+ orbs of a specific color. These teams usually focus on the “Row enhance” awoken skill to gain an extra boost in damage. These starters also make for great early leaders, and have a bunch of IAP and non-IAP support. For example: Pandora
- Basic multiplier – These leads simply multiply the stats of cards that meet a certain requirement, such as “Red cards” or “Healer cards”. The subs necessary to make these teams work in the late game are usually specific ones from the rare egg machine, so while these leads can help you blaze through the early and mid game, they may/will fall off depending on what you get from the rare egg machine. For example: Lu Bu
The List
The moment you have all been waiting for, I’m going to tell you what’s worth keeping. This list will be broken into two sets, godfest exclusive (GFE) and non-GFE. Non-GFE cards can be rolled at any time, where GFE cards can only be rolled if they have an active drop rate increase during a godfest. Godfests are announced on the Puzzle & Dragons facebook page, and information about them can be found pretty much anywhere you care to look. The details below will contain IAP and Non-IAP ratings, the team strategy, and a brief rationale. The ratings are an average of the IAP and Non-IAP ratings, rounded up or down semi-arbitrarily.
Non-GFE cards
5/5:
4/5:
- Bastet
- Hathor
- Blue Angel, Famiel
- Dark Angel, Lumiel
- Durga
- Incarnation of Byakko, Haku
- Incarnation of Genbu, Memei
3/5:
2/5:
1/5:
GFE Cards
5/5:
4/5:
- The Norn Urd
- The Norn Verdandi
- Goddess of Secrets, Kali
- Green Dragon Caller, Sonia
- Blue Dragon Caller, Sonia
3/5:
2/5:
Non-GFE Card Details
IAP: 5/5
Non-IAP: 4/5
Strategy: Color Match Light, Wood, Water, and Fire
First card of the list, member of the Chinese pantheon, Sakuya is easily one of the best starters you can hope for. Sakuya can be a bit difficult for new players due to orb troll (not having the orbs available to trigger Sakuya’s leader skill) and the play skill necessary to reliably trigger her ability. These problems are amplified if you don’t have a board changer like Goddess of Secrets, Kali or Fat Chocobo, but still 10/10 best starter in the game due to early, mid, and late game strength.
IAP: 4/5
Non-IAP: 4/5
Strategy: Combos
Bastet does work, and many of the cards needed to make her non-IAP team strong are easy to get ahold of (Highlander and Mystic Stone Knight drop from normal dungeons, Grimoire and Kaguya are not overly difficult descends if I remember correctly), so Bastet definitely fills the spot right after Sakuya for best choice.
Hathor
IAP: 4/5
Non-IAP: 3/5
Strategy: Rainbow (5 colors or 4+hearts)
Hathor is the best starting rainbow lead because she has passive HP and Recovery boosts for light attribute cards. This means that, unlike other rainbow or near-rainbow leads, her team’s able to tank and sustain a bit more damage. There are definitely non-IAP teams to use with Hathor, but she’s only going to really shine in the late game if you have board changers to provide support.
Blue Angel, Famiel and Dark Angel, Lumiel
IAP: 4/5
Non-IAP: 4/5
Strategy: Unique Color Match, Water & Water/Light or Dark & Dark/Water respectively
These cards are all-in one packages, providing solid attack, a bit of survivability to healers or devils respectively, and their actives… Let me tell you about their actives. Full board changes to their 2 on-colors and 2 off-colors that can be switched via other actives or used as buffers to separate the water or dark combos. Additionally, these actives are being buffed (or have been buffed, depending on when you read this) to include a 100,000 damage, armor-ignoring, single-target nuke, which is perfect for clearing that pesky mask or dublit or whatever high-defense low-health monster is standing in your way. Since these cards really are all-in-one, your reliance on your subs to support you and make the team work is minimized through the early game. Unfortunately, these leads are relegated to sub status (though fantastic subs) when you reach the late game.
IAP: 3/5
Non-IAP: 4/5
Strategy: Color Match Fire, Water, Wood, and Dark
Magical Christmasland is getting Durga and Lumiel in your very early rolls, having a strong bursting lead in Durga and a full activatable board change in Lumiel. Let’s assume that doesn’t happen. Durga is my first “rogue pick” because her non-iap score is actually higher than her iap score. The reason these “rogue picks” exist is because if you aren’t planning on spending money, they offer fantastic teams, but if you are planning on rolling aggressively to get powerful teams, you can do much better. In this case, Durga functions as a high damage lead with an active skill that further increases your damage. The downside is that matching 4 different colors can be somewhat difficult for the same reasons Sakuya is difficult.
IAP: 3/5
Non-IAP: 4/5
Strategy: Color Match Fire, Water, and Dark
The Chinese gods are the only non-GFE pantheon to make a complete appearance in the list for good reason. Haku would be ranked near Sakuya and Bastet if she didn’t lose pace compared to the difficulty increase in new content. While you would do better for a starter if you know you’re going to spend money to make the team super overpowered, Haku is probably the most “family friendly” lead you’ll find. Great non-IAP teams, that just get better as you add strong REM cards to them, but when you get to the point where you have Pandora, Blazing Maiden, Princess Valkyrie, Nephthys, and Persephone, you’d probably be better served switching to a Pandora team, which has higher damage output.
IAP: 3/5
Non-IAP: 4/5
Strategy: Color Match Wood, Light, Dark
See above. Used to be fantastic, now is simply good due to content becoming more difficult. If you’re going IAP, you’d look to run the Sylvie/Freya team over Meimei, but that team requires heavy REM investment (which is why Freya didn’t make the list and Sylvie barely made tier 3) Meimei, on the other hand, works off easy to find drops similar to Bastet.
IAP: 4/5
Non-IAP: 2/5
Strategy: Rainbow
Horus is fantastic, and was the star of the 10MM arena. A great symbol for a rainbow leader (4/5 to 5/5 not including heal), and in later evolutions Horus gets an additional boost if you used an active skill that turn. Horus’s non-iap teams are mediocre at best, and do not fare well in the late game unless you are highly skilled.
IAP: 3/5
Non-IAP: 3/5
Strategy: Combo
Before experience players start yelling, Okuninushi is a fantastic sub for dark teams and is coveted by many, but realistically he’s a solid 3 as a starter. Okuni’s active is rare for the dark attribute, but his damage is just barely over Haku’s for what is approximately twice as much work. I would almost rate him higher on IAP because if you start with him, he’ll fit onto any dark team you end up building, but if you get hosed on IAP, you could end up severely lacking.
IAP: 3/5
Non-IAP: 3/5
Strategy: Rainbow 4 out of 6
DQXQ is average. I’m not sure what else to say. They fall right in the middle of my list for a reason, and when making this list I used them as the metric of whether I thought the starter was better or worse than them, and sorted from there. As a non-IAP lead, DQXQ can take you pretty far, but can’t quite take you all the way due to needing Kali or other board changers. As an IAP lead, DQXQ peaks in power level, but that power level is inferior to other leads like Sakuya and Bastet and cards that don’t make the list because, while they’re great leaders, the team cost is prohibitive until around level 200-250. DQXQ is the last starter on the non-GFE list I would recommend with zero reservations. (DQXQ will probably move up to 4/5 on IAP and non-IAP when the awoken version makes it to the U.S. Feel free to factor that into your decision)
IAP: 3/5
Non-IAP: 3/5
Strategy: Row Based
Pandora has gotten stronger with new evolutions that have been released, but she’s definitely a stronger sub in the mid and late game. She ranks so highly because Dark has such deep support in non-iap monsters (especially devil typed dark cards), and the moment you roll a stronger dark leader you can start using her as one of the strongest dark subs in the game.
IAP: 3/5
Non-IAP: 2/5
Strategy: Rainbow 3 out of 5
Not the best leader, but a fantastic sub later in the game that is a staple or near-staple on rainbow teams. She’ll get you through the early game, then fill a needed role once you get a stronger leader.
IAP: 3/5
Non-IAP: 2/5
Strategy: Combos 6+
Combo leads should be played more like glass cannons, and sacrificing about half of your damage (compared to Bastet) for a 30% increase in health and recovery is not a fair trade. Osiris’s active isn’t particularly impactful, and for non-iap, you’re going to struggle earlier than you’d struggle with other green leads.
IAP: 4/5
Non-IAP: 1/5
Strategy: Color Match Water, Wood, and Dark
If you are willing to roll for the rare blue subs necessary to make Karin high-tier, you can do that and she will carry you fairly deep, since the end product is a great combo of row-based and color matching strategies. If you are non-iap though, Karin will make your life more difficult than any of the other Chinese Gods.
IAP: 4/5
Non-IAP: 1/5
Strategy: Stat boost for light attribute monsters
Thor pairs up with Saria, Orange Dragonbound to form one of the stronger teams in the current meta. There’s two main problems with that team, though: 1) your grinding to get to the mid and late game will take about 4 times longer than someone choosing a combo sub, and 2) you need REM monsters to form the strongest versions of this team to get through the late-game content. If you don’t mind your first descend taking you two hours, and if you’re willing to roll hard, Thor will be fine for you.
IAP: 2/5
Non-IAP: 3/5
Strategy: Color Match Fire, Wood, and Light
The worst of the Chinese pantheon, Leilan is a sub that can function as a lead if you really want to start playing immediately and are tired of rolling. Not much to say here, the sub pool just isn’t strong enough in non-iap, and if you’re iap you can do much better.
IAP: 2/5
Non-IAP: 2/5
Strategy: Row Based
Similar to Pandora, but different because a team of Vamps and Chaos Dragon Knights beats a team of Gigases and Phoenix Dragon Knights. Additionally, there are many more easy to obtain dark leads in the mid-late game that you could run than there are fire leads that don’t also require rem subs.
IAP: 2/5
Non-IAP: 2/5
Strategy: Rainbow 3/6
Similar to Osiris, but different because the green hobgoblin for orb refresh is off-color, and Neph is a strictly worse starter than Haku.
IAP: 2/5
Non-IAP: 2/5
Strategy: Color Match Water, Wood, Light, & Dark
Blue leads all fall into the same trap. You need REM subs to make them truly shine, and if you aren’t IAP you’re going to have a tough time. U&Y takes that a couple steps further by also being near-rainbow, meaning you need Blue Angel, Famiel to make an IAP team work (Along with probably a duplicate Famiel, or a DKali, and an Idunn&Idunna). For non-iap, you’re going to have a bad time unless you started with the chocobo gift as well.
IAP: 1/5
Non-IAP: 1/5
Strategy: Stat Boost to Devils
Oh how the mighty have fallen. Rounding out our list of viable starters, we have what used to be the pinnacle of starters when combined with a Red Dragon Caller, Sonia. Lu Bu hasn’t grown much since his heyday, and nowadays you’d be better off starting with almost anybody else on the list. Only take Lu Bu if you are 100% tired of rolling or if there is a strong reason to start playing immediately.
GFE cards
IAP: 5/5
Non-IAP: 5/5
Strategy: 3 out of 5 rainbow, AND 5-7 combo.
Sherias is not out on NA as of writing this article, but they will be the pinnacle of starters you could hope for, possibly over Sakuya. Sherias solves the problem you get with rainbow leaders by having the rainbow board change built into them as an active. Definitely the best GFE card to start with.
IAP: 4/5
Non-IAP: 4/5
Strategy: 3x-3.3x Atk boost Wood, 1.5x HP boost Fire
Strong with the right IAP team, and capable of blazing through early game content with an unconditional attack multiplier. Her non-IAP team is stronger than the other Norns’ as well, and all of the norns made this list, which is why Verdandi is second place only to Sherias.
IAP: 4/5
Non-IAP: 3/5
Strategy: Stat Boost for Fire (ATK) and Water (RCV and HP)
Not a bad starter at all. There is a decent non-IAP team that ends up with eleven fire enhance awakenings to pair with 5 TPAs for moderate damage. She becomes much better if you’re willing to roll for Set and some other REM cards to make a TPA focused team. To start, a 3.3x attack boost to fire should be sufficient to help you clear the early game fairly quickly, though you’ll hit a brick wall at Sea God of Heaven unless you wind up with a defense break card like Shiva or Hino Kagatsuchi
IAP: 5/5
Non-IAP: 2/5
Strategy: Color Match Fire, Water, Light, & Dark
Kali is better than all the GFE leads except maybe Sherias if you’re going to spend money on the game. Her damage will speed you through the early content, and when you hit late game you’ll have rolled (ideally) another Kali and a Ra or Sakuya to function as your leader. Unfortunately, Kali is very expensive (in team cost) starting with her first evolution, so she’s not the easiest starting leader in the world. Definitely strong, and worth running if you get her, but there are easier starts with a more linear difficulty curve.
Green Dragon Caller, Sonia and Blue Dragon Caller, Sonia
IAP: 4/5
Non-IAP: 3/5
Strategy: GSonia – Balanced and Dragon types ATK and RCV. BSonia – Physical and Dragon types ATK and RCV
These Sonias received many buffs including adding dragons to the type they buff and adding bonus damage to the evolved forms. These Sonias have been on and off in the late game meta as strong leads, and will definitely make your life easy through the early and mid game.
Blue Dragonbound, Ryune; Orange Dragonbound, Saria; Green Dragonbound Sylvie
IAP: 4/5
Non-IAP: 2/5
Strategy: Stat Boost Water, Light, and Wood respectively
While not all dragonbounds made the list, (Typhon and Gadius I deemed too difficult of starters due to their strange heart combos mechanic) the other three all make the list under the classification “If you’re willing to roll later, they’re great now.” Ryune and Saria are slightly better than Sylvie because of how good their IAP teams are. (Saria pairs with Thor, Ryune with Idunn&Idunna) Sylvie’s team when paired with Freyja is strong as well, but not as blatantly powerful as the other two’s.
IAP: 4/5
Non-IAP: 2/5
Strategy: Atk Boost Water, RCV boost Wood
Skuld makes the bottom of the Norn list due to her late game IAP team being worse than the other Norns’ optimal IAP teams, and her early game being a bit more difficult than the other two when dealing with various challenges along the way. Same “blue is expensive” spiel, same “weaker non-iap by comparison” spiel here.
IAP: 1/5
Non-IAP: 3/5
Strategy: Devil type ATK and RCV boost
Red Sonia is definitely one of the better starters you can start with, but there are so many better options out there if you’re looking for someone who transitions gracefully to the late game. One day Red Sonia will be buffed enough to make her highly playable, and a recent buff giving her a boost to dragons and a combo component on her ultimate evolved form help, but she has a long way to go before she’s considered even a mid-high tier late-game leader. She’ll power you through your early game, though, and with enough Red Sonia friends, you’ll be able to clear all the challenge modes for dungeons to get those extra stones as well.
Conclusion
That’s it! If you want more information on the cards listed here, you can check them out on Puzzledragonx by clicking the picture, or you can see some of the in-depth looks at them that Mantastic has been posting recently on his Master List. There was a lot of information here, and I’m thrilled if you stuck with me to the end.
Thanks,
TheOtherSamB
small correction Verdandi should read:
Strategy: 3x-3.3x Atk boost Wood, 1.5x HP boost Fire
no recovery boost on fire.
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Thank you for the keen eye! Changed accordingly =)
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These lists seem outdated. As mentioned Da Qiao should be higher now that we know of the awoken form. But on things like Pandora being so low compared to others. It’s not difficult to get Vampires and if you have a couple of those even non awoken Pandora will be strong. And she is one of the best leads in game, especially for non IAP where there is a lot of farmable Devils. I do agree it will be more of a slog very early on before you can get Vamps and dark Dragon Knights, but that is such a small part of the game that it’s not worth worrying about. Heck just spam run the lowest level of Dark Carnival could get you a max skilled Hanzo lite and a decent number of skills on dark Knights.
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Agreed. From what I’ve discussed with other players, DQXQ is arguably the best starter once again, as it is very easy to get a high multiplier which will carry you through all of the Normal dungeons. When you’re ready to Awaken them, they will carry you through the rest of the game through 100x with rows. Pairing unawoken DQXQ with awoken will get through the descends needed to awaken them.
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I agree with both Anonymous (get a WordPress account! https://mantasticpad.com/2016/06/04/commenting-interacting-and-navigating-mantastic-pad/) and Kasi that DQXQ is now quite a stellar starting roll who can transition into late game AND farm her own awoken materials. Almost no other card can do that and she will also teach you how to combo.
One reason I never wrote a reroll tier list is due to the subjective nature and constantly shifting meta. It’s hard to stay objective and insightful. Thus I let someone else try their hand =) Your feedback is greatly appreciated!
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I factored the new awoken into DQXQ’s rating. The point I tried to make clear with this list is that it’s evaluating how easy your early game is AND how well they transition to late game AND how they are relative to each other (Considering Ronia and Lu Bu the absolute worst cards you’d feasibly want to start with). While DQXQ is sweet and highly playable, if you started with Okuninushi or Horus you’d have a stronger start (in terms of what you’d be able to clear with non-iap cards) and they transition much better to the current late-game meta.
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Yeah it’s tough. My thought on starting rolls after starting with a mediocre one (Leilan) is that you have to choose one that has both end game power and doesn’t crap the bed early game. Thus no Ra even though Ra end game is a very strong team if you have LKali’s. Basically with rerolls it is the one chance to make sure you get an amazing lead.
That leaves my list pretty sparse:
Top Tier:
Sherias
ADQXQ
Pandora
Any dragonbound (Sylvie, Saria, Ryune)
LKali
Any Norn
Second Tier:
Blonia
Haku
Sakuya (I don’t like her near as much as LKali because her active doesn’t help her unlike Kali)
To me given the power of the cards I’d only accept Sherias, LKali, ADQXQ or a norn, specifically Skuld.
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Yeah that is a pretty solid list you have. But you also have to keep in mind some new players (and I mean non-alts) will have a terrible time with rainbow leads and still need to strike a balance between fun and power/potential.
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Out of curiosity, do you think that your choices were influenced by what you rolled? Browsing PAD-related websites, too often I come across leader ranks influenced by ownership bias.
Regardless, I think this is part of what makes PAD great- the fact that no one can agree on which cards are the best. There are so many facets to each card, and so many dungeons requiring different strategies, that you might as well believe that your own cards are the best!
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For those who are interested (you sound like one of them) I’ll go through the 4 different processes I used to develop this list.
1. I googled any “reroll tier list” and wrote down the ranks for the respective cards from any list that was updated within the last 6 months. I used this as a starting point and used it to weed out cards that just weren’t good enough to make the cut. (Sample size: about 20)
2. I googled any late game tier list and compiled the ratings from all lists that had been updated in the last three months (Sample size: about 10)
3. I determined benchmarks for stages that the accounts will need to clear that regularly serve as walls. (dps check or spike check, usually) The stages I used were (final stage of each) Caste of Satan, Hyperion Lava Flow, Sea God of Heaven, and Starlight Sanctuary KoG. I then granted a mostly arbitrary rating to how well these leads could complete these dungeons with non-iap or limited iap subs. I will admit I cheated a bit here, and for rainbow or near-rainbow leads I assumed you’d have access to Fat Chocobo. If not, the rainbow and near-rainbow leads would go down probably a half-tier to full tier each, and the number 1 non-GFE card would probably be Bastet. Sherias and L.Kali would be unaffected since their actives are board changes.
4. I granted arbitrary ratings to their “optimal” iap team and “optimal” non-iap team according to game8. I used this to determine their late-game potential and how significant the difference is between being Mr. Moneybags and Pennypincher McGee.
4 1/2. I knocked off 3 tiers from any blue cards since I have a bias against blue. (Not really, but it surprised and injured me physically to accept that Sherias really is probably the best starter).
To address your concerns, I used the method above (which degraded in effort over time since it was a LOT of work, to be fair) to try to minimize ownership bias (e.g. I don’t own Bastet, but she is second on non-iap, and I started with Ronia back in the day and we all know how that turned out).
I would also say that I own and use to some capacity about 80-ish% of the cards on this list, so the real question is if I excluded something from the list that SHOULD be on it because I deemed it too hard to play early without actually trying it. (e.g. I don’t own a d.kali, but maybe d.kali is a strong starter too, and hitting all but light, including hearts, isn’t as difficult as I thought for new players)
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Out of curiosity, do you think that your choices were influenced by what you rolled? Browsing PAD-related websites, too often I come across leader ranks influenced by ownership bias.
Regardless, I think this is part of what makes PAD great- the fact that no one can agree on which cards are the best. There are so many facets to each card, and so many dungeons requiring different strategies, that you might as well believe that your own cards are the best!
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You would have to ask Sam as he was the one who created this guide’s content.
However, I do agree that there will always be a certain degree of bias or favouritism when ranking cards for a rerolling guide. We all have different playstyles and preferences which is reflected in our leader choices mid-late game. And yes, the diversity is one of the many reasons why I am so GungHo over PAD =P
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I think this guide is somewhat outdated and/or off. Ryune and Saria, for example, can farm their own teams perfectly fine.
I think this guide (it’s in japanese, though) is accurate, and worth taking a look at.
https://xn--0ck4aw2h.gamewith.jp/article/show/3826
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That is quite a nice roster that definitely places emphasis on easier to activate/flat multiplier leaders.Thanks for the reference!
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This serves as the counterpoint to my main point about early-mid game difficulty. With Saria, for example, you couldn’t get through valk without stoning multiple times, and we haven’t seen light laybrinth in at least a year to pick up verche, chaser, and angelion. (I have a max evo’d but non-max leveled Saria team that I ran with a hypermaxed thor and had difficulty with sea god of heaven. This is with what game8 considers the optimal IAP team, though not max leveled)
It is a fair point that I could raise the non-iap rankings a bit higher for the dragonbounds, but the way I calculated those, for consistency, is to rate the cards by iap teams compared to each other, then rate each individual non-iap team against their iap team, since I figured the ratings are commutative.
This goes towards what Mantastic has been saying, it’s really subjective, and the actual difference is probably minimal between all these after you get through King of the Gods. (or maybe even earlier) I just noticed that many lists hadn’t been updated recently, didn’t factor in the new meta and new cards and new awakenings (especially this, few lists out there considered how powerful godkiller is when trying to clear mid-game dungeons like SGoH and KotG), so I wanted to provide an updated list that will only be relevant for about 2 months before being obsolete. (Gadius and Uriel have, like, 5/5 IAP ratings for REALLY rich people now since those people can roll infinitely and end up with the #1 team in the meta: Xiang Mei, and that developed in the week since I wrote the article. They probably still wouldn’t make the list, but it articulates my point a bit)
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another factor to consider for beginners is the difficulty in activating leader skills. while it’s true sakuya is awesome and pretty and powerful, beginners might have a hard time using her. personally, a good starter monster is something generally easy to activate, but also fairly powerful, like haku or isis. the starter leader doesn’t have to be the end game leader either, it just has to be good enough to breeze through the early dungeons.
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Those are all very good points to consider Bob =) This is partially one reason why I never made a rerolling guide as there are too many factors to take into consideration, especially when trying to assign a tier list or numerical value. Hence why most of my guides and analysis provide insight instead of hard-fast statements
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I disagree. If you can’t match all 6 types of orbs and average 9 combos when you first start playing, you should definitely stop and pick up Clash of Clans instead.
But more seriously, that’s something that I’d consider more subjective and more on an individual basis than ANY other assumption I made during the creation of this list. Some people (like me) prefer trial by fire, where you are given something that’s difficult, and you have to figure it out. Some people prefer a steady learning curve, and for those people starting with Isis, and moving to Sakuya or something like that later makes a lot of sense. Because of how subjective and individual these cases are, I only allowed leader skills to impact the placement on the list if I arbitrarily decided they were too difficult to be feasible (Ra, Anubis) OR if they’re so easy that you’ll always have it online (Why Chinese 1 (Haku, Meimei) are rated so favorably).
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Thanks Sam. You wanted feedback, and I haven’t read your entire article yet, but I can tell you right now some people will be offended by the buddhist monk comment. You want to avoid stereotyping people groups, especially in a negative way, poor in this case – even if you don’t mean it to be offensive.
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