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JP Stream Changes & New Evolutions Review

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Introduction

I normally do not provide much thoughts on future JP news as it does not apply to NA for usually 1-2 months. However, the most recent JP stream showcased numerous new evolutions, quality of life changes, and new game mechanics. I wish to take the time to review all of the new things coming to Puzzle and Dragons.

The Final Fantasy buffs will be covered in a separate post and the review will be updated accordingly. I will be reviewing Bleach whenever it is scheduled to come to NA.

Video commentary

—-video goes here—

Skill Inheritance changes

Puzzle and Dragons is by nature a grind-oriented game. However, there is fun grinding and there is tedious grinding. GungHo is doing their best to cut down on the more boring aspects so you can focus your stamina playing fun content.

Skill Inheritance has been a well received mechanic and it has given viability for cards that had lackluster bodies and powerful actives. Unfortunately, the process is somewhat costly to perform as each transfer costs 2 million coins and requires 4 tans. The coins were usually not too much of an issue, but collecting the right colour tans is mostly a stamina sink/loss as the dungeon is not fun to play and is more of a chore than pleasure.

As such, GungHo has revamped the transfer process to not require Tans and reducing the gold cost down to 1 million. This is wonderful as players will now be able to swap out inherits on a whim and your monster box will be less cluttered. By being able to break and transfer skills more easily, you will be able to build niche teams and tackle various mechanics without worrying about the collateral cost to be fully prepared.

In addition to these changes, monsters will now receive a stat bonus when both the base and assistant monster are the same primary attribute. The exact bonus is unclear, but you can now use Skill Inheritance as a way to bolster your monsters as well as providing a new skill and skill delay protection.

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Changes to Tans

Skill Inheritance has no further need for Tans and they are now used as a means to skill up monsters. You will require 6 of the same colour tans to form a King Tan.

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This King Tan will then be used as part of a power up fusion to guarantee skill ups when fused in conjunction with same-attribute skill up materials. This will result in a 100% skill up per skill up material.

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From the above example, Zeus Dios will receive 4 skill ups. This may seem too good to be true, and to a certain extent it is as you are now able to spend less time grinding skill ups and more time focusing on new content.

However, this new skill up method only works for monsters that have farmable skill up materials. Thus, many/most of the Awoken cards, MP Dragons, or monsters with challenging/long dungeons (think Machine Athena) will still use Py to skill them up. The Tan skill up method provides diversification and an alternative to grinding.

Latent awakening changes

The latent awakening system has been a way to add customization to your teams along with providing additional utility or survivability to help counter specific dungeon mechanics. With the new changes, players will have additional options for their teams along with an improved overwriting system.

First off, players will now be able to choose which latents to overwrite. It still baffled me as to why this was not implemented upon initial release, but it adds a significant improvement to our quality of life.

New latents

North America has recently received the option to add a 6th latent awakening at the cost of a +297 sacrifice. Prior to this announcement, these appeared to be excessive and not required for success. However, GungHo is now rolling out improved awakenings that take up two slots and provide a stronger boost compared to what is currently available. These include all stat latents (+1.5% HP, +1% ATK, +5% RCV) along with special Killer latents that provide 1.5x ATK bonus damage against a specific type. These latent awakenings will take up two slots to help offset their additional power.

The all stat latent is powerful as it provides the same benefits as 1 HP, ATK, and RCV latent awakenings. This will save you one net slot and will be beneficial if your targeted monster has strong stats in at least two departments.

With the Killer Awakenings, you will be able to deal up to 3.375x ATK against a specific boss type. However, there will be restrictions to which monsters can receive these Killer latents as they have to possess a specific typing themselves (as lifted from puzzledragonx):

Balanced type cards can receive any Killer latents

God Killer: Devil/Machine
Dragon Killer: Healer
Devil Killer: Attacker/God
Machine Killer: Physical/Dragon
Balanced Killer: Machine
Attacker Killer: Healer
Physical Killer: Attacker
Healer Killer: Physical/Dragon

This may play a role in deciding which evolution to choose as many Awoken forms lose certain typings along with providing more value for the Reincarnated forms who regain a third typing.

Killer Awakenings are very powerful when farming specific dungeons, but can be a small nightmare in randomized dungeons such as Arena where having one monster deal significantly higher damage can result in an inability to by pass absorption mechanics. When deciding to use Killer latents, think carefully as to where you plan on using that monster etc.

Awakening changes

These changes apply to awakenings (unlocked via Tamadras) and are quite powerful overall.

There will now be a combo awakening that provides 2x ATK when achieving 7 or more combos. This is a huge damage boost and will allow combo-oriented teams to deal enough damage as they are less able to take advantage of rows or TPA. Provides a safer alternative to Killer awakenings as there is an activation clause and can be “turned off.”

Furthermore, the previously worthless autoheal Auto heal awakening is now able to restore 800 HP every turn instead of 500. This is a buff, but it is still a largely moot as there are stronger options. For example, Gabriel Gabriel will now provide 3,200 HP every turn instead of 2,000.

New evolutions

One thing that makes Puzzle and Dragons amazing is the fact they go back and buff older cards. They never actually nerf monsters and the team you had 2 years ago can still clear the same content it was capable of today (or more with Skill Inheritance/solo badges/coop etc.). For example, Minerva Minerva was once considered the worst monster in the game and when her Awoken form was released, she immediately regained relevance. She has since cooled down, but will be regaining popularity with her reincarnated form 3238.

GFE evolutions

Both the Odins are losing their Abs in their new split form evolutions. These are new evolutions that require you to de-evolve your current Odin and is done to better choose your awakenings and leader skill. Both Odins retain their original active skills.

Green Odin

Green Odin most of his auto heal awakenings for an additional Skill Boost Skill Boost, TPA TPA, and recover bind Bind Clear awakening. This is amazing as Green Odin can now be used as a viable bind clearing sub on mono wood or rainbow teams.  His leadership potential was diminished as his maximum multiplier was reduced from 3.5x -> 2.5x, but I feel this is a fair trade for sub viability. You also trade your balance typing for attacker and lose a significant amount of RCV.

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Blue Odin

Blue Odin has been in an awkward place for a long time as he has both 3 water rows Water Row and 3 TPA TPA awakenings. This essentially means he has 6 awakenings as you cannot feasibly mix and match when matching. However, with his new evolution, you lose all the TPA to gain a fourth skill boost Skill Boost and full bind immunity.

The fourth skill boost has value on button teams teams as his base cooldown is only 6 turns. However, the bind immunity grants Blue Odin tremendous value on mono water teams as he can now be transformed into a hard bind clear. who has massive damage output through his high weighted stats and rows. You do lose the physical typing for attacker (but still increase your maximum HP) and lose a significant amount of recovery. This also means you cannot use him on Blue Sonia Blue Sonia teams.

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New reincarnated evolutions

The reincarnated process transforms an awoken monster into an improved form that has augmented stats (around 1,000 total weighted), a third typing, and a revamped leader skill. You still retain the same active skill as the awoken form (no further skill ups required), but your monster is reset back to level 1. Unless you desperately require the sub colour for a rainbow team, you should always make the reincarnated form.

Reincarnated Bastet

Awoken Bastet Bastet was once heraleded as a top tier wood TPA combo leader. However, she has fallen far from grace to the point where hardly anyone runs her any more. With her reincarnated evolution, players were hoping to regain some of that relevance, but sadly, she still falls short. She is still a combo leader with an active skill clause for full multiplier which can cap out at 156.25x ATK. 156.25x ATK is still powerful, but being forced to use an active skill or suffering only 25x is painful. In longer dungeons, you will not be able to liberally use actives and being forced to stall without any defensive benefits will be challenging.

On the plus side, Reincarnated Bastet helps revive wood TPA teams and will still be able to clear plenty of high level content. She will excel in shorter dungeons where you can liberally use active skills and will be fun to use.

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Reincarnated Anubis

The One True God has undergone a rollercoaster ride of highs and lows. He has always been known for his amazing ATK multiplier at the cost of sometimes unrealistic combo count. This has not changed in his reincarnated form, but instead, he has been further boosted to 900x ATK when using an active skill. Maybe this is overkill in today’s meta, but outrageous damage will always have a place in PAD and with the introduction of bonus to combo count actives, Anubis may have more stability.

In addition to his revamped leader skill, Anubis has also been granted a recover bind Bind Clear awakening awakening alongside his bind immunity. This opens up options on various mono dark teams as you can improve his active with a dark/heart orb generation to unbind and deal damage.

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Monster Point Dragon evolutions

The original 5 Monster Point Dragons peaked in power at the time of their release, but for the most part have fizzled out over the years. The evolution materials may be challenging to acquire, but it is worth the investment if you already own these dragons. I will be going into more detail for some of these dragons in a future posting.

Neptune Dragon

If you did not tell me this was Neptune Dragon, I would have never made the connection between the new artwork. It is almost too flashy to look at, but it does look impressive. Neptune Dragon Neptune Dragonsuffered from a lack of damage and was somewhat fragile prior to his evolution. However, he has now been transformed into a 100x ATK row leader who also provides 2.25x HP / RCV to God types.

This is pretty amazing as you are now able to achieve massive burst damage alongside of amazing durability. You can now safely stall for actives as you should have 60-70k HP in solo mode along with massive base RCV. You also have amazing damage control as you are able to choose how many orbs to connect as it is unlikely to skyfall a massive clump of water or dark orbs.

Unfortunately, you are still vulnerable to binds, combo shields, a poor leader active, and have a somewhat restricted sub pool. You are able to better customize your team via Skill Inheritance, but will either have to use less ideal evolutions of some monsters to retain their god typing or wait for reincarnated forms. Presently, you will be unable to utilize Ryune Ryune or Blue Sonia Blue Sonia.

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Shiva Dragon

Shiva Dragon Shiva D has historically made a wonderful farming leader as he provided an unconditional multiplier to fire Gods and could easily sweep content with a single fire TPA. However, times have changed with the introduction of coop button farming and the need for Shiva Dragon has diminished. His new evolution significantly revamps his artwork along with adding a third TPA TPA and bolstering his ATK multiplier to 39x ATK (up from 25x).

This will not propel Shiva Dragon into any tier lists, but it will uses for quickly sweeping easier content along with modest potential in ranking dungeons.

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Yomi Dragon

Yomi Dragon Yomi Dragon has always been a wonderful dark utility sub and a modest leader for a period time. With her new evolution, she does not undergo any changes to her sub potential (outside of a stat boost) and instead has a significantly revamped leader skill.

Prior to this, Yomi Dragon had a 36x ATK / 2.25x RCV multiplier for matching a 5o1e (fireworks) for God types. This was great at the time and could clear Arena 1 with the right set up. However, she will now be propelled into a 81x ATK / 4x RCV leader with the same restrictions as before. This is a huge damage boost and allows you to fully take advantage of cards such as Eschamali Eschamali for passive damage along with the Haku Haku + Akechi 3110 kill combo. You still face an HP deficit, but this can be partially addressed through the +15% HP solo badge or coop. You may still require a shield for harder content, but your team building is quite flexible and you may not need to run a damage enhancing sub anymore. You also have some degree of damage control as you passively have 4x ATK for dark cards and will allow you to bypass Sopdet in Arena.

Yomi Dragon will also become an amazingly fast leader as you achieve 81x with a single combo and will be formidable in future ranking dungeons.

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Conclusion

There are lots of exciting changes coming to Puzzle and Dragons in the near future. Everyone loves new evolutions and the revamped MP Dragons will help players better spend their Monster Points as we have been in somewhat of a dip in what to purchase as most of the current cards cannot keep up with the pace of Powercreep. These new evolutions do not necisarily shake up the current meta, but instead offer powerful alternatives to what is strong today.

Which of these changes are you most excited about? Also, let me know if you enjoy these JP stream reviews.

Happy Puzzling!

54 thoughts on “JP Stream Changes & New Evolutions Review”

  1. I think you mispoke when you refer to the the new combo awakening as a “latent”, which is not true… since it seems to be confusing people in various places, you may want to tweak the wording there.

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  3. Don’t quote me on this but I believe the new Tan skill up requires 1 King Tan + 4 fodders (that share the same skill name) to perform 1 skill up.

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  4. They were highlighting this on the stream, you can see Atlantis castle and town on neptune’s back. Guess shes a good carry now :p

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  10. Blue Odin is now a very good tank Team if you pair him with his other ultimate evolution! I hope they will buff him to 2,5 attack too…
    This makes me hyped for the reicarnated Norse Gods, as Blodin totally outclasses I&I now.
    I think I’ll keep my Blodin in his first Uvo, so I can pair him with his new Uvo!

    ABastet and AAnubis are probably the laziest cards ever! After Horus and Ra I was at least expecting an RCV multiplier. Bastet was already outclassed by AceBastet and when AKushinada came, there was no point in using her anymore. This evolution doesn’t help her, as her ‘gimmick’ is outdated and doesn’t give her some new kind of value…

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    1. I agree that Bastet is dated and does not bring enough new excitement to be used over leads like Kushi, especially since she has the active skill clause

      The main problem with with dual Blodin leaders is a lackluster base active along with a low multiplier (by today’s standards)

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  12. Oh boy, time to start pulling for Blodin again. Let’s see what else can I say? Bastet and Anubis are both disappointments. I would be more upset about them but, at least I have Ult Rukia to fill the void. Ult Nepdra is definitely the highlight though for me. Word of advice to anyone buying him, you might want to stop at 69 Attack plus eggs. Any more than that and you won’t be able to cheese Sopdet with the poison. Mine is sadly already hypermaxed. The best thing about the Shivadra Ult is that there’s still no reason to bother with Hephdra. QoL changes are, of course, amazing.

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    1. That is a very good point about Neptune and Sopdet, but with his adequate damage control, shouldnt you be able to easily deal with her?

      Shiva Dragon got the most bad ass art imo

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      1. Yeah, I agree it’s not a big problem. I would’ve just preferred being able to decide for myself. Anyway, whole thing doesn’t matter now as Gungho tweaked Nepdra’s stats. Specifically -149 Attack and +90 RCV, putting him at exactly 1999 hypermaxed or 199900 poison damage.

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      2. AHHHH I think Mr. Loubie has been listening to the CATS sortdnuack on repeat. Yikes! The grey ones remind me of something a very eccentric school teacher or librarian would wear.

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      3. – Was taken for the 1st time in primary school and loved it. We try to go once a year, the kids just love it – the expressions on their faces just crack me up – mesmorized. There’s something deeply special about good storytelling and children. Just wonderful!

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  13. that cool when i saw the news and the bleach buff is awesome as well when u have Ichigo he would be perfect now for Gremory *_* and i could try for Revo Bastet i think but still no light metatron buff

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  14. I hope someday, somehow, the Zhuge Liangs, Guan Yus and Metatrons can have some sort of buffs to make them more interesting. There’s not even an ultimate evo from the first two. I have a gzl sleeping in my box, and even though I lost almost all hope, he will stay there in memory of when he was useful.

    I feel that the only real chance for any of them is if they pop up in the buff draws.

    Zal0k

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  15. Your site is getting better and better everyday, dude.
    Such rich and detailed analysis, review (and comments) and you posted immediately after the stream.

    Anyway, good job again man, well done.

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  16. I’m a little confused by your description of the new King-Tan skill-up method. You say it only works with farmable skill-up materials. What exactly constitutes “farmable” for this purpose? Would materials you obtain from the PAL machine qualify?

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    1. The basic gist is that there has to be a skill-up monster for this method to work, or else you don’t have anything to put in the other 4 slots! If there is no skillup monster, use piis and no king tans.

      The skillup doesn’t -have- to be farmable, but the only alternative without farmable skillups is dupes. If you want to put your 4 dupe Trailokyavijayas to get 4 skillups, you could, but you’d really want to use red piis and no king flametan instead.

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      1. Frontendchaos is correct and to elaborate on farmable, I mean something that can be obtained by playing dungeons. Most awoken Gods can only be skilled up via Py so the King Tan method does not apply here. However, if you were trying to skill up someone like Sarasvati, you could easily acquire 4 water insect dragons, feed them along with the King Tan and receive 4 skill ups =)

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        1. So “farmable” pretty much means “obtainable” here… You can’t use this method to skill up e.g. Awoken Shiva because there’s no obtainable skill up monster except dupes (and Pys which have a 100% skill-up rate by themselves).

          But if the Three Kingdoms chibis return to the Pal Egg Machine, you can get a guaranteed skillup on their big version through the King-Tan method, right?

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  17. I would like to see a more critical angle in your reviews and analysis’. Generally you laud everything, even things that aren’t so good and don’t always consider how they fit into the current state of the game.

    Now I’m not looking for you to be as jaded and curmudgeon-y as Setsu, but there is a happy medium.

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    1. Could you give an example? Mantastic usually mentions why a card won’t fit on any teams (like “there are no wood tpa teams, so this card doesn’t have a home”), which seems like what you’re looking for. But quite often the critical comments from other reviewers only applies to IAP players trying to make optimal teams, and I think the tone of this community is more inclusive.

      I personally like the balance in the reviews right now 🙂

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    2. Could you provide some examples as I do provide rationale for my comments. We are currently in somewhat of a powercreeped freeze as new leaders are not pushing beyond the current top tier ones. I feel GH is playing a game of catch up and allowing more people to hit end game with a wider variety of leaders

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  18. Hi Mantastic!
    Isn’t Blodin a better leader than Blonia now? I believe that he is a 6.25/2.5 leader for water and gods when matching a row (please correct me if I’m wrong), wouldn’t that make him superior in every aspect?
    Thanks!

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  19. With Blue odin’s new evolution, blue Sonia will be the sub instead of the leader role. Just need to put someone like idunn idunna for 2 sbr cause he lacks it. His attack and rcv multiplier is similar to new Shiva dragon now and since blue cards have a lot of row based awakenings, he just might be equal or better than Shiva dragon. Gung-ho could have made Shiva dragon better. He is a big disappointment for me cause he has always been a quick farming lead, and boosting his damage and rcv is just over kill for what he can already do well previously, but he stands no chance in end game dungeons.

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    1. Shiva Dragon is a horrible disappointment with his new evo. I do agree that Blue Odin can be a comparable stand in with perhaps better clearing potential due to rows > TPA and a shorter base CD.

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      1. Also blue teams that you use with rows are usually physical typing,slightly More hp than the reds. I am really loving the blue Odin evolution and can’t wait for him to come to NA. He was once a staple for blue Sonia, almost his husbando pairing until more blue members are introduced. Now they are going to be back together in the same team. Bloniaxblodin forever!
        As for Shiva dragon…. I am going to go slow preparing his obnoxious evolution materials. Still a brainless farming leader but… We all know we have better teams now.

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        1. Just keep in mind Blue Odin loses his physical typing and will not benefit from Blonia’s leader skill

          Dual Blodin would be a better pairing as you can use any water card as a sub =)

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          1. Yep, no more Physical typing but getting even higher HP and Att than his counterpart 🙂 Giddy just thinking about it. Definitely will say farewell to all the Blonia friends who do not have Blodin upgrade. For the Blonia lovers who has Blodin, I am sure all of them will swap leaders.

            By the way, one question about Blonia team, with full 6×5 board change and Creuse’s 2x damage, I can only consistently do 3-8mil damage on her alone. Sometimes, but very rarely, with skyfalls and combos, she hits 20 million damage. Probably 2 or 3 times, but oh so exciting to see. Would you know or have you ever recorded what is her usual damage output normally under same condition?

            Here’s hoping Blodin can consistently do that kind of damage. 🙂

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  20. hellooooo
    I’m considering on buying a new MP card.
    The ones I’m considering are a second Yomi Dragon or Xin Hua.
    This is because i have Gremory and my best team is (Grem / Grem / Pandora / Yomi Drag / Mp Card). I lack any other heart and dark maker with rows. i do have Cecil though.
    I’m Considering Xin Hua only because she fits well in Gremory, but her recent JP buff gives her more available subs (Can just hope for another pandora akechi). Which brings me to the question of whether or not i should purchase a second Yomi Dragon. I just felt that Yomi Drag would be generally good overall in most dark teams and would fit in the missing spot for my Grem team. So I’m currently standing on Yomi Dragon over Xin Hua. Just wanted your thoughts and opinions.

    I don’t need the other mp cards:
    Shiva, is eh
    Neptune, i have plenty of glass cannons and krishna but may consider later
    Rag, do not have ronove sherias
    Ra, Dkalis MIA
    XM, heart cross meta
    You yu, i have him

    Thanks 😊

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    1. There is generally very little need for a second Yomi Dragon in today’s meta as her awakenings are mostly defensive/utility. As such, I do not recommend purchasing another one as it is rare you would even need a second one on her own team

      If you truly love your Gremory team, purchasing Plum is worthwhile as she is essentially one of the best subs for her, but has limited value outside of her team. Gremory becomes significantly more powerful with her future buff and your team would be quite solid with the addition of Plum

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