Introduction
You Yu, or Bamboo, is the third released card of the Four Gentlemen series (300,000 MP monster) and pushes the boundaries on the next level of powercreep in terms of damage output. Capping out at 156.25x ATK on a mono colour team allows you to deal spectacular damage with the ability to control your output through a scaling multiplier. You will need to use Skill Inheritance to help address fragility and somewhat orb hungry nature, but that is the price to pay for explosive damage. Thankfully, you do not have to use numerous You Yu’s to form an effective team which is a nice change of pace from Xiang Mei 
. However, the real question is: do you really need to purchase You Yu?
You Yu at a glance
You Yu
Attacker
3,655 HP / 2,606 ATK / 325 RCV
995 Total
Active Skill:
3 
1.5x ATK Attacker types
7 turn CD
Leader Skill:
1.5x ATK when matching 2 water combos. Max 2.5x (4 combos). 5x ATK when matching 5 connected orbs with 1 enhanced.
156.25x ATK
| You Yu Scaling Leader Skill | ||||
| # water combos | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Multiplier | – | 2.25x | 4x | 6.25x |
| Multiplier w/ 5o1e | 25x | 56.25x | 100x | 156.25x |
Sample gameplay
You Yu lacks dual typing and does not have a sub attribute. This seems bizarre for a 300k MP Monster; however, his leadership power brings fourth the next wave of powercreep in terms of damage output. Below is a sample video of a solo Mech Hera run to give you an idea of his capabilities:
Pros:
- 156.25x ATK multiplier. Next level of damage
- Trivializes high health/defense bosses
- Able to control damage through the number of matched water combos and TPA (if using those subs)
- Low base cooldown on You Yu allows him to benefit from Skill Inheritance
- Skill Inheritance helps address the fragility and somewhat orb hungry nature of the team.
- Considered a high end leader with the right support
- Balance Killer awakening grants 3x damage to balance type bosses
- Able to deal Tonnes of Damage without type restriction
- Can pair with various other leads to add diversification (aka survivability)
- You (not You Yu) can use your own water leads and pair with a You Yu
- You puns
- I’m a big fan of his fans
Cons:
- Fragile. You Yu has no HP / RCV multiplier. The health can be compensated in coop, but you will still struggle to recover after attacks, especially in solo
- Vulnerable to binds and is dependent on subs to remove them.
- Virtually no uses as a sub
- Do you really need to purchase him with the announcement of Uuevo Sarasvati
? She is caps out at 100x for a very similar leader skill. Full Comparison can be found HERE - Costs 300,000 Monster Points
- Somewhat orb hungry although 8 water orbs = 56.25x ATK
- Someone will either call him Yo Yo or Yu You (I will butcher his and any other Asian name when I resume streaming)
- Is not a pretty girl and not even a pretty guy
- Amrpit
What awakenings do I prioritize?
Due to the leader skill restriction that requires you to have 14 water orbs and 4 unique combos for 156.25x damage, you are unable to benefit from water row 
awakenings due to spacing issues. As such, your focus should be on enhanced water orbs with some emphasis on TPA 
to help with burst on less water-heavy boards.
Matching strategies
Your playstyle will feel very similar to Sarasvati 
who has just received a new evolution in JP and arguably removes the need to purchase You Yu. In addition, you are able to pair You Yu with either Skuld 
or Sumire 
to increase your survivability. This also means you do not need to purchase You Yu and can instead find a friend to piggyback off. Even with the release of Uuevo Sarasvati, you are unable to fully proc both your leader skills without the assistance of skyfalls.
How to save 300k MP |
|||
| X | Skuld |
Ult Sumire |
Non-evo Sara |
 |
65.6x ATK 2x RCV |
93.75x ATK 50% Shield |
93.75x ATK |
Team Building Options
You Yu mostly requires water orb changers and utility as needed to counter various dungeon mechanics. Who you decide to bring will be based on your box, but ideally try to bring subs with enhanced orb awakenings, quick orb changers, and skyfall mechanics. If you are missing too many of the higher tier subs, it may be best to rethink purchasing You Yu.
Higher tier subs:
Nut is an often forgotten card who has not found a true home outside of Rukia 
due to the popularity of row-based teams. However, her awakenings are Fantastic for You Yu along with her active. Nut’s active converts the entire left column into water. This can override jammers/poison along with guaranteeing 5 orbs that can be easily moved into the 5o1e pattern.
Awoken Hermes has lost his God typing and desirability on Neptune Dragon 
teams; however, he is a stellar card for You Yu due to the powerful double water orb generating active and skyfall mechanic. Through his active, you are nearly guaranteed to produce sufficient water orbs for maximum burst damage and the skyfalls help keep the water flowing. In addition, he can be combo-ed with nearly every other board changer (outside of Skuld) to produce a 2/3 water board.- Sumire is another monster who will begin to shoot up in popularity with the release of their ultimate evolution. You are also able to take advantage of their leader skill should you wish to pair a You Yu friend. However, as a sub, Sumire guarantees 3 new water and heart orbs. This is great when used in conjunction after other board changers to give yourself just enough water orbs for lethal damage. In addition, the extra second to move orbs can be invaluable when setting up your board.
- Skuld is another card you are able to use as a leader pairing, but her active and awakenings make her a desired sub for You Yu. Tri-colour board changers that produce hearts are always more desired than those that produce non-hearts unless you need them for a specific orb changer combo. However, Skuld can be the victim to bad RNG and you should have a back up active in case she fails to produce sufficient water orbs. One thing that helps Skuld is her numerous non-wood orb enhances that help ensure your orbs retain their enhanced status after changing.
Summer Urd is a great alternative to Skuld as she provides a tri-colour board change that produces fire, water, and heart orbs. What makes Summer Urd’s active better is the ability to combo with more cards. Skuld is unable to use Hermes due to the entire board being converted to water. Furthermore, Urd can combo her hearts with Andromeda 
to produce a 2/3 water, 1/3 heal board. She is also wearing a swimsuit so that is hard to resist.
Viable subs:
Orochi may be considered a core sub; however, the delay is not always needed and would be replaced with more orb changers if possible. With that being said, Orochi is the best option you have for a delay as he provides 4 extra turns to either stall, wait out a specific absorb/shield, or give you some extra breathing room.
Isis is your best bind clearing option but is not always needed in every encounter. She provides 2 turns of bind removal on a 3 turn cooldown. This is Fantastic as she will almost always be ready when you need her and you can use her as a base for Skill Inheritance so you can take advantage of a different active once the bind clear has been fulfilled. 
Alrescha has been an often overlooked water sub due to a lack of TPA or row enhancement. However, the dual enhanced water , heart orb 
, and SBR provide damage, augmented healing, and team flexibility. Furthermore, she is slated to receive a powerful new evolution that will catapult her status to near top tier. Lastly, the ability to remove poison and jammer orbs can alleviate the strain of using a full board changer.
Andromeda may not have any orb enhances, but the sheer power of her active cannot be overlooked. She has great synergy with Summer Urd and the enhanced heart orb component to her active is amazing for fully restoring your health. In addition, she has a large chunk of health and RCV to help compensate for You Yu’s fragility. 
Gabriel is in a similar boat as Andormeda as he provides a valuable water and enhanced heart orb active along with high base recovery. In addition, the 4 autoheal 
awakenings provide a substantial boost to healing. Lastly, his attacker typing does benefit from You Yu’s active, but you are rarely going to be using it due to Skill Inheritance.
Holy Scheat! 5 TPA awakenings! Unfortuantely, they largely go to waste as you are always better off matching an extra water combo instead of a TPA. Furthermore, the naturally low base ATK can be annoying although You Yu will compromise through his giant multiplier. However, Scheat’s main appeal will be her incredible active that acts as a double orb change, poison and jammer removal, and 4 turn skyfall buff. Plenty of value within a single active.
Ryune has an active that functions similarly to Skuld, but comes with less ideal awakenings due to the wasted water rows and no enhanced orbs.
Subs that act as great bases for Skill Inheritance
These subs are not that great on their own; however, with the introduction of Skill Inheritance, you are able to benefit form their fantastic awakenings while using a much stronger active.
Acubens has been generally overlooked due to his poor active, but with the introduction of Skill Inheritance, he is starting to make a comeback. Sporting 4 water orb enhances and a God Killer 
awakening, he is able to add a significant amount of passive damage. Furthermore, his active has a measly 3 turn base cooldown and you can inherit something of more value as you see fit.
Christmas Paulina has an amazing 5 enhanced water orbs (albeit no SBR ) along with a 4 turn cooldown active that can be useful in its own right. The secondary enhanced wood orbs also help with full board conversions as they will retain their enhanced status once changed. However, you will mostly be using Paulina for her awakenings and inheriting another active on top of hers.
You can any water sub you like and this list was mostly made to help give you some direction on the more “ideal” subs to bring. The end decision will ultimately be based upon the dungeon requirements and your box capabilities.
Sample teams
One nice benefit of using You Yu is his team building flexibility due to no type restriction. This gives you free reign to build a team that can address the dungeon mechanics while catering to your box capabilities. There will naturally be superior sub choices such as running Skuld over Ryune, but you will have to work with what you are given. If you want to find more inspiration on YouTube, simply search with the keywords: 蒼竹の君子・ヨウユウ
Team used to solo Mech Hera
Super Ultimate Extreme Dragon Rush Solo (video)
Solo Arena 1 (video)
Almost all of my YouYube searches produced teams that included Awoken Hermes and Nut with the other subs being used as needed to counteract the various dungeon mechanics.
Can I use non-attacker cards?
Yes! You already produce so much damage that there is no need to try and accomidate Attacker subs to benefit from the 50% boost from You Yu’s active. Furthermore, You Yu will most likely be a base for Skill Inheritance as his active is rather lackluster.
Skill Inheritance
You Yu will almost always be used as a base for Skill Inheritance as it will help address orb fatigue, survivability, and any other mechanic you encounter.
| You Yu |
3 1.5x ATK Attacker types 7 turn CD |
| Inheritance Options | |
| Damage Enhance | You do not need. Only exception to this rule is to correct a bad board refresh to ensure you have an enhanced water orb. Most important against full poison board preemptives (aka Beelzebub). |
| True Damage / Poison |
        |
| Board Changer |       |
| Damage mitigation |
       |
| Delay |          |
| Orb Changers |      |
What you choose to use will depend on the cards you have at your disposal along with the requirements of the dungeon. I did not list bind clearing as You Yu can be bound and essentially defeats the purpose.
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
You Yu does not require any specific latents to shine. Outside of a single rainbow resist (as a means to survive 100% gravities by having 1% of each colour), you are quite free to do as you please. You already deal enough damage that attack latents 
are somewhat overkill. However, many people will argue about the viability of skill delay resists 
to protect your actives. However, the need to run them has somewhat been diminished through skill inheritance as you are able to protect yourself by using the additional cooldown timer as a “shield” against delays.
If you are doing coop, your survivability dramatically increases as you benefit from the health of your partner’s subs. This also allows you to bring more actives and acts as a pseudo protection against skill delay as bosses can only delay one team at a time.
Conclusion:
You Yu has a lovely armpit and even lovelier damage output. He pushes the limits of easy damage activation and is capable of sweeping essentially any boss in the game. However, with the advent of numerous other 100x leads, do you really need to purchase another glass cannon? To make matters worse, Uuevo Sarasvati will be released in a month or two and is arguably on par with You Yu (I will do a subsequent follow up post on that matter shortly).
Let me know if you are planning on purchasing You Yu or even pairing your own Sarasvati, Skuld, or Sumire with a friend.
Happy Puzzling!
Mantastic Puzzle and Dragons 
yay op you yu is out but when will they come out with a good wood mp lead ;-; my box is full of wood qq
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It’s simple, just pull three Kaedes.
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Your answer is clean and simple 😉
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It’s also tedious and almost near impossible.
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yay you yu is out but when will they come out with a good wood mp lead ;-; my box is full of wood qq
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That WOOD be too nice of them 😉
If you have multiple Kaede you are kind of set!
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I’ll just leave this here:
Orbs : You Yu: Sarasvati:
0-4 no activation no activation
5 25x 1.5x
6-7 25x 6.26x or 4x (R)
8 56x 14x (5+3) or 4x (R)
9-10 56x (T) 25x (T)(3+3+3/4) or 25x (R)(6+3)
11 100x or 56x (T) 56x or 25x (R)(T)
12-13 100x (Ts) 100x (R)(T) or 56x (Rs)
14+ 156x (T) 100x (Rs)
(T)=TPA
(R)=Row [assuming 10 row enhancements]
As we can see, YY is much more orb efficient when compared to Sarasvati. Sarasvati’s orb thirst is evident, and it gives her less leeway regarding team composition. She needs to feed that hunger at the expense of utility – making long dungeons even more difficult for her than they are for YY.
Let’s not forget that YY can be played as an OE lead, a TPA lead, or *gasps* a 100x row lead as well. One thing Saras cannot do is cascade or skyfall a third row to activate for 156x. While the aforementioned might not be easy, it is something she cannot do, period.
Another glaring issue is Saras’ lack of an SBR. For now, you need to gimp your team composition slightly by covering 5 SBRs with 4 subs (this is even more problematic if the player doesn’t have access Andromeda, Alresha, or Idun&Idunna.) To be afforded more flexibility, Sara users will have to wait for the SBR badge to be released in NA – which is supposed to coincide or be released shortly after Saras’s ultimate (people hope.)
A lot of ducks need to be in a row for Sara’s ultimate evolution to be smoothed out when she hits NA. Not that I doubt it’ll all happen, the question is – will it all happen succinctly? I personally hope so, because I’ll be depending on that SBR badge for a completely different team composition.
I appreciate the blog post, but disagree that Sarasvati is stronger than You Yu is. She has all of the glaring issues he does, but lacks the top end multiplier of YY – and as of July 1st, team building flexibility to make it all worth it.
Just my 2 cents
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Thank you for your insight Xayvin!
I am planning on doing a full post comparing the two in greater detail and your feedback is greatly appreciated.
I will concede that YY can deal higher damage with fewer orbs. However, you need to have numerous present for either team to deal lethal damage. You are not going to be taking either team into easy-farm content as there are much better options for speed and ease of access. Thus, it is my belief you would be using either of them for M+ level content
Both do have fragility issues and Sarasvati does have the lack of SBR. However, a lot of content is going to be played in coop and that will automatically address the HP and SBR issue (the badge does too for solo, whenever that is).
In terms of damage, OE+TPA < OE+Rows and in order for YY to make rows, he can only form 3 unique water combos and has to skyfall into the fourth to get the higher multiplier. But this also means YY needs more orbs to reach a row compared to Sara (as one combo has to be 5o1e).
Sara also has no requirement for 5o1e so she only needs 12 orbs to hit 100x with a row. YY needs 11 orbs for 100x but has no row bonus (12 gives a TPA but that deals less damage still). Thus Sara hits harder with 12 orbs. For YY to hit 100x with a row, he needs 5+3+6 = 14 orbs. Sara would get 2 tpa if you ran those subs. 15 orbs = 2 rows for Sara and 156x ATK + TPA for YY. In addition, YY lacks a sub element and that is a potential million or two of damage lost on skyhigh multipliers, small point, but noteworthy.
Lastly, Sara has a much better active as it translates into a perma-skyfall buff.
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No intentional disrespect towards Xayvin, but I’m probably going to go for Uuvo Sarasvati, for a couple of reasons.
-No way I can scrape up 300k MP
-Sarasvati is a very pretty girl, while You Yu is a weird looking dude (yes, it is a dude, I found him on Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Shun)
-Sarasvati was one of my first rolls, and it would be nice to put her to use
– I have an IRL friend who also owns a Sarasvati. We made the noob mistake that IRL friends should be in-game best friends, even though we have leads that don’t go together at all. Now it finally pays off.
-I wouldn’t have to spend Py’s on You Yu, as the Insect Dragons coin dungeon is active for Sarasvati
-Sarasvati is pretty (repeat is intentional).
Thanks for the excellent content, I will always look forward to your next post!
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Thank you for the encouragement Max =) I do plan on going into a much deeper analysis comparing YY to Sara as there is a lot of controversy and points to consider (appearance and performance-wise)
I hope you and your friend are able to coop and max skill your Sara before the 3x event ends!
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I just want those armpits, man
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I admire your dedication to your username
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Halfway to an MP buy, so I’m in no real rush to decide yet, however I have a great sub pool to run yooyoo with, missing Nut and Isis for complete flexibility. As far as I can tell, You Yu is one of, if not the best choice for me to get, just looking at my box. But it’ll take many many months to scrounge the MP up, so in the meantime hopefully a friend takes the plunge first and I can run Sumire/Skuld leads with him, which looks fairly pleasant. Other choices will pop up in that time as well, so who knows how that’ll go, I like seeing big numbers though. That’s assuming I don’t buy Linka cause she’s cute
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I am certain you have a few friend who run You Yu and should not be too difficult to find new ones as he is flavour of the month.
Linka may be cute, but she is not a good investment =P
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Does Princess Soprano work for skill inheritance? Because her skill is basically Isis and Kali combined, however comes with a 10 turn cooldown, which is decent. I don’t really want to try, nor does anybody else as 100k MP is a somewhat big investment, and it would be a waste to find that it doesn’t work.
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Any card purchased with MP cannot transfer their skill so you should not buy her
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uevo sarasvati kinda dampened my enthusiasm but i have his evo materials i just need to evolve them and i have the bubpys and i will get the +eggs eventually, so by now i’ve committed, can’t just go back on this!
…also i don’t have a sara
i need to get another 200K MP so i can get Xiu Min too T_T and then watch MP power creep get even worse and invalidate both of them. RIP
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Well the thing about having You Yu now is that you can benefit from his power today. Unlike Sara who may take several months to reach NA. I hope she doesnt get the same treatment as DQXQ as I could have used her much earlier.
I will get to a Xiu Min write up soon =)
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Not sure what to do any more. A month ago I was stocking YY evo mats but now…
Even though I have enough MP for two purchases, I’m probably not going to now!
Don’t have Sara, but I have all the best water subs for both teams.
My other teams are A Panda and I/I. Working on maxing my ADQXQ. I don’t have any Kalis to speak of so Chickendra has never been an option.
I’m an Uriel away from an Orchid team and have enough MP for two of her. I’m also really interested in that new Gremory card since I have the two Pandas and Typhons. But who knows if I’ll ever roll it.
The game makes it hard to choose! I’ve saved my MP for 850 days!
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I feel you are not alone in the to buy or not to buy YY boat as he is essentially just another glass cannon (albeit biggest one to date)
DQXQ hits incredibly hard already and Pandora has the survivability and damage. It all depends on what kind of content you plan on clearing and how much emphasis you place on coop (as that can “fix” a lot of weaknesses)
XM is a lot more stable than YY and I feel that she would be a better choice provided you can get that elusive Uriel
And great job on saving MP! No sense in rushing into things =)
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So we’ve already discussed hermes’ different forms, specifically how they related to nepdra, and I was wanting to touch on the comment that awoken isn’t good for nepdra (that being said, I do realize nepdra is falling more and more out of favor and thus this discussion is less relevant, but oh well).
I did eventually agree that B/L won out over B/D, but I’m actually quite a bit in favor of awoken over B/L. Basically the biggest thing about B/L was the huge hp boost which was relevant for DQ hera, but we are now playing a new game called Coop & Dragons ;). That hp, while still great, is quite a bit less significant. Another thing you trade when leaving B/L is that juicy devil killer. I have really liked it, but found that it was still probably overkill in many spots (not every spot, importantly, though!). You trade devil killer for 2 OE, tpa, generally better awakenings. The lack of benefit from 2.25x rcv is fine since it’s rcv rivals the other forms even when they have the boost! And finally I think the skyfall portion of the active really tips the scales. Especially considering the fact that I run i&i and skuld as well, I am heavily considering swapping my only hermes to awoken. It will be hard to let go of that devil killer, though!
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Yeah I did do a large discussion on choosing the correct Herems and you summed it up pretty nicely outside of B/L being the only form for Blonia (who is still relevant, esp with coop due to huge HP and skyhigh rcv)
I do agree that the additional HP is not AS important as it once was due to coop. There is a ~100 weighted stats difference between Awoken and B/L, but the majority of that is in ATK and how vital is that? However, the 2 OE awakenings are very powerful when combined with your skyfall buff. Your YY team will have numerous OE awakenings and that combined with skyfalls is important for your damage and triggering additional combos or having more water orbs leftover after a match. Devil killer is great, but the skyfall buff is much more consistent dmg (as not everything is a devil)
YY is still reasonably orb hungry (11 orbs for 100x) as you are probably bringing him for M+ content and 56x will probably not be enough. Thus the skyfall will help a lot more than you think.
For YY I would go with awoken unless you must have B/L for Blonia
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Yea for my point blonia was irrelevant since I don’t have :p. I was more talking about awoken still actually being better for nepdra than B/L rather than its merits for YY. For about the same summed up reasons we both mentioned.
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If you are doing Neptune Dragon in coop, the change in HP from B/L -> Awoken is more than compensated. It really depends on how badly you need the skyfall buff (whether for more dmg or to override boss debuffs). I say it comes down to what you are running too. If you are farming Scarlet/Devil Rush, you would probably want the Devil Killer as it is a significant boost (I used 3 B/L Hermes between my 2 accounts when I was farming those with Blonia just because the killers added so much dmg)
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Not going to lie, about 60% of the reason I bought You Yu is to get away from the row-based gameplay I’ve focused on the last two years. I’m glad to say that so far I have not been disappointed. I’ve absolutely fallen in love with the flexibility of the 5o/1e match.
Anyway, just throwing this out there but, I’d like to recommend Blodin as a somewhat niche option for skill inheritance, being the closest NA can get to this guy-http://puzzledragonx.com/en/monster.asp?n=2848. Ideally, YY should be able to rely on skyfall to provide the needed enhanced orbs but, certain bosses *coughBeelzebubcough* may force the team into needing an enhance active. The HP drain is also pretty much a full heal considering YY’s attack and the team’s durability.
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Are you referring to Blodin as an assistant or base for Skill Inheritance? His active does help correct horrible board changers or as you mentioned, Beelz. The heal is only based on Blodin’s attack (but it is significant when 297)
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I meant mostly as an assistant, in which case it uses the nuke and heal run off the attack of the card you give it to.
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It would be a situational inheritance and mostly for the enhance post bad board change/poison flood
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Yea the killer will certainly be missed if I do switch. But I don’t farm scarlet and devil rush (though I might decide to su grisar eventually). Team is hyper though so don’t feel like I’m too lacking on damage (which will be slightly compensated for by higher atk, OE, skyfall).
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The phrase “not enough damage” and Neptune Dragon are rarely said together XD
The main drop would be in RCV (as you had +297 *2.25) but if the rest of your team is hyper, you should still be fine
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Yea 400 less rcv after multiplier but team is hyper so it’s fairly bearable.
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Yeah, you RCV should already be sufficiently high enough and hopefully Awoken Hermes works well for you =)
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Where would Barbarossa fit in since his recent ish addition? I think he brings a lot to the table, with 3 TPAs, 2 SBRs and an attacker killer, as well as a very useful active. Thoughts?
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Barbarossa is a reasonable character that does lend some utility through his active. However, his 0 base RCV would make stalling more challenging (if that is an issue for that dungeon)
I would say he would be more situational rather than staple and tbh, the extra damage may be overkill and may be better off with more water orb generation
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I disagree that enhance orb skill inheritance is not needed because there are times you get orb trolled when you change orbs from skills and you don’t have enhanced blue orbs. I’ve had many successes with A.yomis AS on YY.
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That is a good point about the enhanced orbs. That section was mostly referring to damage enhance as a whole. However, I modified the section to include a justification of the enhanced water orb component post board change =)
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Sorry this is a little late, but what are your thoughts on Paradise Meimei instead of Nut? I have both, but the main difference seems to be Nuts 2 prongs, which might be negligible given YYs damage multiplier anyway. Meimei has more OEs, does that put her up there with Nut as one of the better subs?
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Nut guarantees 5 water orbs and has the TPA. Meimei has an unreliable board changer and if you do not run a sub who can combo off her, may lose out to RNG. I would still run Nut in most cases (unless you have no other board changer option)
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