Introduction

Xin Hua (XH), or Plum, is the second of the Four Gentlemen series 300k MP monsters to be released and has been met with extreme controversy due to her horribly limited sub pool and and a complete dependency on Skill Inheritance. Xin Hua has less viability than Xiang Mei  due to no health multiplier and an even smaller sub pool. Furthermore, Xin Hua lacks both a dual typing and sub colour which may seem strange; however, this appears to be the trend for the 4 Gentlemen series and you are banking on their leadership potential to compensate.

Xin Hua

Balance
4,496 HP / 1.714 ATK / 599 RCV
992 Total
 

Active Skill:
3   
3    
1 turn haste
7 turn CD

Leader Skill:
1.5x ATK / 1.5x RCV for Balance type. 2.5x ATK when clearing 5 connected heal orbs. Max 7.5x (10+ orbs)

126.56x ATK / 2.25x RCV Balance types

Xin Hua Scaling
# heal orbs	5	6	7	8	9	10
Multiplier	14x	27.7x	45.6x	68x	95x	126.56x

Arena 2 Clear

The following video is to showcase Xin Hua’s play style and how she is capable of clearing the challenging Arena 2:

From the video, it becomes apparent that Xin Hua hits incredibly hard but is very reliant on using dupes of herself to ensure a system-like team and a constant stream of heart/dark orbs.

Pros:

• 126.56x ATK / 2.25x RCV allow for spectacular burst damage and ability to heal after attacks
• 4,496 base HP and incredible weighted stats
• Able to control damage through heart matches and electing to form a dark row or TPA
• Nearly impossible to accidentally trigger your leaderskill / damage
• Active skill allows for a system-like team due to haste
• Physical Killer  awakening grants 3x damage to physical type bosses
• Prettier than Xiang Mei
• Greatest asset are her assets

Cons:

• Horribly restrictive sub pool as dark balance cards who do not remove heart orbs is very limited
• Ideal teams require multiple Xin Hua to be effective
• Skill Inheritance reliant for full optimization
• Vulnerable to binds and is dependant on subs to remove them.
• Virtually no uses as a sub due to balance typing
• Out of reach for the average player in terms of MP investment
• Will see very little usage due to low viability and team building constraints

How many dark rows is enough?

Many people have asked what is the ideal number of dark row  awakenings to have and it comes down to a bit of math:

• Each  awakening adds 10% damage
• Every matched combo adds 25% more damage
• However, a connected 6 match deals 1.75x your base attack value while 2 separate combos is 2x base attack
• Thus you need 4.2  to “break even” (instead of matching 2 unique sets of 3 dark orbs)

You should keep in mind that you have an unbelievable 126.56x damage multiplier and rows are somewhat overkill at this point as most row leaders have 10.5-25x damage. Granted you need to have up to 10 heart orbs, but your output is amazing already.

Team Building Options

Xin Hua is restricted to using Balance type dark cards who do not remove heart orbs. This is terrible due to the horribly small pool of subs to draw from along with Balance type cards not excelling in any particular stat. Whereas Xiang Mei has amazing base RCV and her HP multiplier compliments her healer typing, Xin Hua is left with a mediocre health pool and RCV. To complicate matters further, Xin Hua requires numerous dupes of herself to form a team as you may not have the few subs she allows. Lastly, you need to rely heavily upon Skill Inheritance to counter the various dungeon mechanics.

Staple subs:

•  Typhon is one of the few balance type monsters that fulfil Xin Hua’s restrictions. He is essentially a superior version of Gadius  for Xiang Mei as he brings a more diverse array of awakenings and is your best option for bind clearing through his recover bind  awakening. Unfortunately, you are very unlikely to receive enough heart (or dark orbs) for activation and require an extra active to proc enough damage. Using more than 1 Typhon is too risky as he requires an additional active after his board change.
•  Xin Hua As much as it pains me to say it, Xin Hua is required as a sub for her own team and multiple Xin Hua are strongly encouraged as a means to cycle your actives with haste and generate the required dark and heart orbs. The only downside to running multiple Xin Hua is the 300k MP investment and a lack of uses outside her own team.
•  D/F Lucifer may not be allowed to be classified as a staple sub; however, he makes the best candidate for Skill Inheritance as a base due to his 4-turn base cooldown when max skilled. This allows you to inherit any active required to compensate for your lack of utility. Furthermore, the awakening buff granted him a Dragon Killer  and SBR .

Viable subs:

•  Archangel Lucifer is another dark/balance type monster who generates heart orbs. Lucifer is capable of generating 6 new heart orbs without overriding dark orbs. You do have your health reset to 1, but with the 2.25x RCV boost and mandatory heart orb matching, you should be returned to full health. Main downside is an extensive number of skill ups required.
•  Halloween Izanami is an on-type/colour shielding option who offers a wonderful  35% damage reduction shield for a single turn while on a 4 turn cooldown. This essentially allows for 100% uptime on your damage reduction due to the abundant haste. Lastly, the 5 dark enhanced orb  awakenings add additional damage. Only thing to watch out for is a lack of SBR .
•  Reincarnated Chaos Dragon Knight is a farmable solution for a viable balance type monster for Xin Hua. Granted he has no defensive awakenings, but can be a solution for filling your last sub slot. His main selling point is the fast, 5-turn cooldown that can be repeatedly chained due to haste.
•   Sleeping Beauties are your most reliable option for bind removal as they are bind immune and feature an on-demand bind clear through their active. To help alleviate active fatigue, you can inherit an active of your choice to help contribute once their bind clear has been fulfilled.
•  Batman has a wonderful array of awakenings and is your best, non-skill inherited burst damage active. Granted you will probably not need to achieve more damage for the majority of the dungeons, but it is something to consider when pushing end game content.
•  Ichigo is a Balance type board refresher that is essentially the inferior version of Typhon. You will need to combo with other actives to have sufficient dark and heart orbs.
•  Thanatos rounds out the viable dark-balance subs who can enhance dark orbs and void light damage for 3 turns. Valuable in niche situations, but the cases where you require light damage immunity are far and few.

The limited sub pool is the main reason why Xin Hua is heavily dependant on Skill Inheritance.

Sample teams

The core of the team is running a single Typhon, D/F Lucifer, and multiple Xin Hua with appropriate skills inherited to counteract various dungeon mechanics. Duplicate Xin Hua will grant your team a higher success rate when challenging the hardest content Puzzle and Dragons has to offer due to her high base stats and fantastic active.

 
An expensive and luxurious team

More budget friendly and modest access to dark orb generation

There is not much diversification when team building Xin Hua and you must heavily rely on Skill Inheritance to provide the much needed utility her sub pool lacks. Things to keep in mind when team building is achieving 100% skill bind immunity as cycling your actives is crucial to success.

Can I use non-balance dark subs?

This is going to be a popular question floating around with the release of Xin Hua. However, if this is a reoccurring question for yourself, you may want to put off purchasing her until you can fill out her roster or afford multiple Xin Hua. A non-balance sub will achieve a 56.25x ATK multiplier at 10 heart combos with no additional RCV bonus. This also means you will be receiving only 6.25x ATK on a 4 heart match.

However, Xin Hua has limited uses outside of a leadership role and if you cannot fully utilise her, you should probably look into purchasing a different 300k MP monster. Other cards such as Yomi Dragon  can clear plenty of content and are far more flexible with team building and sub usage. Do not fall victim to the hype train.

Skill Inheritance Options:

Due to the fact that Xin Hua has a very limited sub pool, you must utilise Skill Inheritance to help cover the various gaps in your team. What you choose to inherit will vary from player to player and dungeon to dungeon. The following list provides the broad sweeping categories of what you can utilise:

Xin Hua	3    3     1 turn haste 7 turn CD
Inheritance Options
Damage Enhance
True Damage / Poison
Board Changer
Damage mitigation
Delay
Orb Changer

You may not require all of those components in every scenario, but is something to keep in mind when selling duplicate monsters. Bind clearing should not be a hard requirement as Typhon is bind immune and his recover bind  should be sufficient in most cases.

I highly recommend you read my Skill Inheritance: Advanced Strategies article as it will provide you with a wealth of information on how to make the most of your actives.

Latent Awakening set-up

Xin Hua lacks any health multiplier, but has naturally high base HP. As such, she can greatly benefit from health latent Tamadras  to help you achieve specific HP thresholds for various preemptives. In addition, you should have a single rainbow resist (as a means to survive 100% gravities by having 1% of each colour) on one of your cards. However, you may need to heavily invest in dark resist latents  when tackling dungeons with Divine Queen Hera preemptives.

The viability of skill delay resists  has been somewhat diminished through skill inheritance as you are able to protect yourself by using the additional cooldown timer as a “shield” against delays. However, if you are trying to cycle your actives through Xin Hua’s base active, you may benefit with 1-2 delay resists. The decision is up to you, but it is less important if you heavily utilise skill inheritance.

Conclusion:

Xin Hua may be beautiful, but this beauty comes with a hefty price: 300k Monster Points. Her viability outside of her limited leadership role is slim to nil as her Balance typing excludes her from the various top-tier dark teams. Furthermore, in order to fully benefit from Xin Hua as a leader, you must be willing to invest additional 300k MP to buy additional duplicates. Do not be fooled by the 126.56x ATK multiplier with row stacking: Xin Hua is essentially an unstable/orb hungry glass cannon with limited options to draw upon. However, if you are able to overcome her shortcomings, the fruits of your labour will be rewarded with spectacular damage.

Happy Puzzling!