Coop/Multiplayer, Meta Snapshots

Meta Snapshot: Alternate Accounts and How to Successfully Create One

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Introduction

Today’s Meta Snapshot will explore the rising  popularity of alternate (alt) or additional accounts. This article will define what an alternate account is, how to go about raising one, the viability in today’s meta, and why it feels go to play with yourself. For reference, Mantastic is rank 642 and Fantastic is rank 600 which gives me a strong understanding of how to successfully play two high level accounts. Do keep in mind that I have been playing both account for over 1,000 days so my level of progression will differ from other players.

Video commentary

What is an alternate account?

Simply put, an alternate account is an additional account for a player who already has an existing one (often referred to as their main). In the past, players created alt accounts to help alleviate boredom during the dark days of 10 stamina/min. However, many people did not stick with it due to a lack of coop  and slow progression years ago.

Today, many players have started to make new accounts not only to fight off boredom, but to play coop ‘solo’ by piloting two accounts.

Pros
  • Able to play coop at your own convenience
  • Have full control and only have your self to blame for mistakes
  • There is a certain joy when raising a new account (applies to most games)
  • Have twice the stamina to play with
  • Have twice the free magic stones to roll
  • If your accounts are different letter groups, you gain additional time slots to run the hourly dungeons
  • Can tell strangers you play with yourself in your spare time

Cons
  • Have to micro-manage two accounts (stamina, rank ups, etc.)
  • Need synergistic leaders for coop
  • Have to grind upwards for your new account for rank exp, team cost, skill ups etc
  • You will always roll the wrong card on each account
  • Will be harder to play on the go as you need to use two devices
  • The names Mantastic and Fantastic are already taken

Checklist for creating an alternate account

Before committing to creating a second account, you should make sure you can meet the following requirements while being very GungHo about playing Puzzle and Dragons:

  • Have a second device that can play PAD
  • Be prepared to waste stamina from your main account to raise the alt
  • Have a powerful main account who can carry through at least legend/mythic descends (not Rogues)
  • Understand that it will take time to develop a second account and can be frustrating at times
  • Acquiring a reasonable starting monster
Have a second device that can play PAD

This may seem like common sense, but I want emphasize you need to have a second device as swapping between applications will force a disconnect from Multiplayer along with complications running two different PAD accounts on a single device. This is probably the largest hurdle for many players and I am lucky to have been gifted an iPad Mini years ago along with having a smart phone (Nexus 5) for my two accounts.

Wasting stamina on your main

This will be inevitable as you will be forced to play irrelevant dungeons over and over again to either rank up your alternate account, farm skill up, or acquire evolution materials. It will feel inefficient at first, but is necessary to hasten the early game component.

Having a powerful main account

The stronger your main account is, the easier it will be to carry a new account through content. This can be done either through brainless/unconditional leaders, button teams, or leaders with very high multipliers as you will probably be playing with a weak starter at first. In essence, the more resources you have at your disposal, the faster your alternate account will rank up and develop.

Understanding it will be a grind

Puzzle and Dragons has always been a time-gated game and has a degree of repetition that is enduring. Thus, raising another account will still have a similar degree of grinding which is alleviated through coop and essentially skipping large parts of early/mid game content. However, you still cannot fully escape the more “boring” components such as raising team cost, acquiring evolution materials, or skill ups. Patience is a virtue.

Acquiring a reasonable starting monster

I use the word reasonable as you can easily start with a card that has a weak first or second evolution who can then grow into a powerful card with an awoken evolution. For example, Shiva is quite lackluster at first, but becomes quite formidable once you unlock his awoken form. When playing with yourself and your strong higher level main, you can easily clear the required descends for the awoken materials. Thus, your primary goal when rerolling is to find a card that has synergy with one of your main account’s leads, regardless of how tough of a start it may be.

Passed the checklist, now what?

Well it is time to get playing! You have a world of fun ahead of you and the following points are mostly a guideline to help you maximize your efficiency.

Normal dungeons

You will initially be restricted to normal dungeons that cannot be played in solo mode. However, you can simply pair with your main account and easily plow through the content. You will want to play these until you unlock Technicals which can be done in coop.

Technical dungeons

You should begin playing Technicals once you hit a wall in Normal and find yourself struggling to clear content. Technical dungeons can be played in solo or coop so use your judgement of what is needed. In theory, you should be able to easily sweep through most of the Technical dungeons in coop. Return to Normal dungeons once content becomes too challenging.

+100 team cost badge

Get this right away as it will lessen the stress when trying to team build your alternate account. Thankfully, it is very easy to do. You should also unlock as many other quest rewards as possible as they are quite lucrative.

Challenge mode

Challenge mode allows you to acquire an additional stone by only using your leader and 5 friends as subs. This will be challenging until you acquire your leader’s awoken evolution/have invested enough into them. Lots of easy stone to be gained here but must be done in solo for full stamina cost. To access Challenge mode, simply scroll down to the bottom of friend selection in solo mode.

Special dungeons

For the most part, your focus should be on clearing Normal and Technical dungeons for the easy stones to roll in a favourable Godfest. The exception to this rule is for challenge dungeons/descends. These will never rotate around again and it is wise to acquire as many of the rewards as possible before they expire. Thankfully, all these can be done in coop. You should always do every gift dungeon (Experience of a Lifetime, etc.) you are capable of clearing.

Best Friend yourself

Sounds strange, but will give you additional Pal Points every day (whether solo or coop) and will reduce the hassle of constantly refreshing your accounts to properly display the correct leader.

bff-self

The next steps

Finishing all of the above content should have given you enough Magic Stones to adequately roll in various Godfests and should hopefully give you an idea as to which direction you want to take with your alternate account. At this point, you should begin focusing on acquiring the required evolution materials to form powerful leaders/subs along with the required Tamadras and plus eggs.

Clearing descends

You should only attempt descends that are required for awoken evolutions. All others can wait as they will always cycle back at a later date and can be cleared then.

Farming hourly dungeons

For the most part, the only hourly dungeon that will be of importance is Tamadra Infestation. Tamadra farming can be done via coop and it is best to try and time your alternate account’s rank up to coincidence with your hourly slot or simply have an Experience of a Lifetime available.

Plus egg farming

Depending on how powerful your alternate account is, plus egg farming descends may be challenging; however, you can easily form this glorious push button team for farming Mechdragon’s Massive Fortress:

Viability in today’s meta

At the time of publishing, coop reigns supreme as it allows for half the stamina to be used, 4 additional actives, bolstered health, and shared skill boost/skill bind resist awakenings. Even with the advent of the Badge system, solo mode is still lacking in terms of pure efficiency. For players who love to min/max their stamina, having a functional alternate account is key to success. My own progression would have been significantly limited without the introduction of coop and having Fantastic always as my side.

Everything is up and running

Congrats on making it this far! This did not happen overnight, but once you are at a point where your alternate account is self sufficient, you can start enjoying the more exciting aspects of PAD. What is exciting varies from person to person, but for myself, I believe that playing end game content is what drives me forward. I have already experienced the headaches of skilling up two different accounts prior to coop and I want to “enjoy” Arena 3.

Conclusion

Regardless of what path you wish to take with your PAD life, having a well developed alternate account makes things easier and more fun. Many dungeons are now being scaled around Multiplayer and the half stamina component should be incentive enough. GungHo may begin to release something more meaningful than the badge system to help balance coop and solo play, but for now, multiplayer reigns supreme.

Let me know what you think about alternate accounts and whether you have one of your own or are planning on starting one.

Happy Puzzling!

34 thoughts on “Meta Snapshot: Alternate Accounts and How to Successfully Create One”

  1. Started pad nearly 900 days ago, on my ^hone and my wife’s.
    I’m glad I didn’t gave up the alt account because today I can play with myself when she’s here ;D
    Everything you said is true and grinding an alt account is hard especially for skillups and +297 …

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    1. That’s Fantastic! I am glad you kept it around as it not only gives you the opportunity to play coop at your own convenience, but to also have another way to bond with your wonderful wife!

      At least now the grind is much shorter =)

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      1. I must wait for her to get back from work if I want to play coop, plus she only … rolls the REM and using all the stones I’m collecting >.< She gave up PAD after like 1 month … too much skill needed :3

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  2. Was laughing to tears at my job with those Pros/Cons XD I’ve made an alternate account in july (now rank 320 and counting), even if my account isnt that good (Rank 370, with around 550 days and no real team yet) and I think I did great (Sub pool is still poor, even on my main account for now) but I did one thing that helped: rushed Athena and some god to helped me do stuff to get magic stones.

    Athena, Valk, Izanami, Verche.

    Don’t need much ressources to build, some of them will still be useful in the future (Verche/Athena for Myr material, AnaValk incoming soon, Izanami… Izanami!)

    Could do something similar with Satan or Belzebub and surely many more!

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    1. Glad you enjoy my Pros/Cons!

      That’s great you found a use for a farmable leader and are making good use of it for your account! A lot of people did run with farmable cards in the early game and those dungeons still exist!

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      1. I think its the easy way to start, since the main account is powerful enough do roll those descended (Since they are the easier one)I think its better to get a farmable team since they take almost nothing to evolve and power up, and then you wait for Godfest, keeping your stones on the side, you roll and get good cards and start to build a team for both account!

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        1. I completely agree with saving stones for favourable godfests (most I ever managed to do was ~215 from 6 months of saving)

          Furthermore, once you do roll a bunch, you will get a good idea which direction you want to take with your accounts

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  3. I didn’t see it mentioned, but make sure your alt account is a different guerrilla group from your main. This opens up twice as many time slots for farming hourly dungeons and more efficiency overall.

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  5. I had an alt… But I stopped playing it two years ago because of the time drain on my life. I had ronia, bastet and dmeta on both so in hindsight I should have casually played it.
    Hmm. It’s hard to compare the sheer agony of grinding up another account vs the hassle of finding coop partners daily. I wish I’d at least logged in for the free stones and rewards. Maybe I’ll see if I can find the account, or maybe I’ll wait for one of my IRL friends to give up on PAD and give me their account.

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    1. That’s a shame you didnt at least babysit the other account =(

      On the bright side, there should be a PCGF at the end of the year so starting an account now n hoarding stones/collecting rewards may be wise =)

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  6. Nice post! Taunting though for those of us who have a second device but can’t use it, haha.
    I have an iPad and an iPhone but you actually can’t have a pad account on each unless they are on different iCloud accounts. I might pull my iPad off my main iCloud account and give up the syncing just to get a pad account started there though. Playing solo feels so inefficient.

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    1. Hmm, I have an acct on my ipad and another on my iphone. As far as I know, both are using the same apple id and icloud settings. Wonder what I did right…

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  7. The addition of my alt account a couple months ago, inspired me to make a near push button team for clearing tama and metals. One of the best additions came from a recent collab: juppongatana. I have one skilled up on each acct.

    leader is awoken lucifer for the skill boosts and the nuke
    others:
    rodin
    darkseid
    bane (don’t have ra)
    juppongatana

    all awoken and max skilled.

    The alt team is as many skill boosts as I could find plus juppongatana.

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    1. Alt account are great for even just buttoning your way though hourly dungeons. I am glad you managed to be creative with your team building =D

      Have any intentions for sing it to clear other content?

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      1. My motivations for creating an alt account were to have built-in multiplayer partner and to have a stable friend.

        Back in the old days. there were just a few leads so my friend list had lots of duplicates and I could use my preferred team most any time. This also had problems in that it was difficult to use less popular leads. Now I have a different problem. GH has greatly increased the set of viable leads which is reflected in my friend list and sometimes I don’t have an appropriate partner for the dungeon/team I want to run.

        Fortunately, both accounts have sumire. I have been clearing content as the alt team gets strong enough. Right now legend level dungeons are mostly doable and some older descends. Best I have done so far with my dual sumire teams on multi-player is the most recent C7 dungeon.

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        1. I do agree that GH has expanded the list of viable leaders but it has also diluted the number of stable friends running what you want. Furthermore, with the exception of the top tier heart cross leaders, you will need to swap between various teams to tackle challenging content

          Hopefully you and your alt continue to progress and clear ch8 next time!

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  8. After over 600 days of playing on an IPad, I got a phone today and started an alt and rolled ryune in 1x rates !!! However, I’m worried my teams on the alt and main may not line up. Do you know any ways to prevent this?

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    1. Congrats on the Ryune! One of the better starting cards as she’s strong right out of the rem

      Only way to prevent this is to simply roll more =P tbh, any water lead can pair with ryune to start and you will have more rolls in the future

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  9. That’s was a awesome post, I was laughing alone reading your definitions about pros and cons.
    True! You’ll always roll the amazing card in the wrong account, got zuoh where I already have ronia in Jize, and still relying in Haku in the other account, also 2 ronove in one account and 2 Pandoras in the other… oh boy!

    I identify myself about everything in your analysis! I have 2 very strong accounts, group A & B, both high ranks and tbh my alt account is now getting stronger than my “main” one.

    Play with yourself when you have that privilege is something singular & rewarding for all your effort.

    Also, I have to say that watch Fantastic/Mantastic on YouTube was my inspiration to archieve that goal.

    Thank you for bring all that entertainment to us, and #happingpuzzling

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    1. I’m glad I can put a smile on your face and I am thrilled you enjoy all the content I produce =D

      From a REM persepctive of 6* GFE, Fantastic is outpacing Mantastic but it 40 ranks behind (which is a huge amount of rank exp at 600+)

      I will hopefully be able to save up lots of stones and roll heavily in a favourable GF to help close the gap and give Mantastic better Myr subs

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  10. Hi Mantastic,

    This was a really awesome post. Thanks for laying out essential information for those of us looking to start an alt.

    Would like your advice on what starter(s) to aim for since I’m looking to start a non-IAP alt and am not opposed to doing alot of rerolling. My heavy IAP main account is rank 550 and has almost all of the leaders the game has to offer.

    I was thinking of starting with DQXQ and quickly getting her awoken form to propel the new account forward… does that sound like a good idea? (I’ll probably use my main’s A Kagutsuchi to sweep early normal dungeons) I thought of Liu Bei, but I don’t see any logical way of getting 3 A Dios up quickly (or is there a way I am not aware of haha). Lastly, are there any other good leaders you recommend starting out with in the above context?

    Thanks in advance!

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    1. You should aim for a starting roll that has synergy with your main (as you have most, should not be a problem)

      Starting with DQXQ is a good idea as she transitions well and is actually usable to start out with. Once you get her awoken form, you will be able to clear plenty of content and easily farm Z8 etc

      Starting with Liu Bei is always a tempting option, but will take quite a bit of grinding to get your Dios system online. Thus, he will take even longer start using as you have to both evolve him and get the dios ready. You could in theory get a mystic Knight and have main acc go first and then pseudo button through content. Eg. Use P1 dios, P2 ALB, P1 dios, etc to proc full multiplier

      However, the big question is how much do you really want to button your way through content or actually puzzle/match orbs.

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  11. I created my alternative account about a month ago (my main is two months old) And the game is now more satisfactory than ever, because it was always hard for me to Co-op with my irl friends.

    Thanks for the guide, I learned good tips here.

    Just one question, I’m farming the Pad Z collab dragons, so I can get 100% resistance to one element while playing Co-op. But I have no idea if you can actually avoid damage done this way by playing multiplayer.

    Anyway, great guide.

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    1. If I am not mistaken, only the player with the damage reduction PAD Z card is safe while their partner is vulnerable. It is really not worth investing so heavily in those cards unless you want to cheese Arena+ content

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