Introduction
In a surprise mini patch, GungHo ninja released several new split evolutions for various Godfest Exclusive monsters. This article will help weigh the pros and cons when deciding which path to take.
The idea with a split evolution path is to provide players with more options for customization as well as trying to push them more into a “leader” or”sub” role. You should also be aware that some of these evolutions lose their sub attribute.
Video commentary
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Implications for split evolutions
Having a split evolution tree appears to be the norm/trend for Godfest Exclusive cards. For the most part, it is beneficial as you are able to better customize the card to your box needs, but it can also put pressure on players to roll more of what are already the most rare cards in Puzzle and Dragons. However, these new evolutions have breathed new life into the aging Odins while providing Baldin and Balboa more viability so these are positive overall.
Do note that the active skill does not change regardless of which evolution path you choose.
Baldin |
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| Conclusion
Presently speaking, Baldin was never a strong leader and despite receiving a buff to his leadership potential, the 5 Killer form is still the superior choice in nearly every scenario. Killer awakenings are an incredible way add passive damage to a farming team and being able to deal 9x to most bosses is invaluable. |
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Balboa |
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| Conclusion
The entire goal of a split evolution is to make a distinctly stronger leader and sub. However, GungHo failed to do so with Balboa as the Wood / Water form is superior is essentially every aspect. Being bind immune is invaluable and despite the fact that the Wood form has higher weighted stats and a slightly higher multiplier, you should still pick the Wood/ Water form. Regardless of which path you choose, your best leader pairing will still remain Awoken Artemis Some players will contemplate using |
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Green Odin |
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| Conclusion
The only reason you should keep your Green Odin in his older Green/Light form is for the niche situation where you need the light sub attribute, for him to act as an Awoken Liu Bei If none of the above is important to you, I highly recommend you make the switch to the the newer evolution as he dumps 3/4 auto heal for more beneficial awakenings and is able to offer some offensive capabilities and more overall utility. Perhaps the only major drawback is the lack of his shining Abs. |
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Blue Odin |
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| Conclusion
The new Ab-less Blodin is pretty much a dream come true from a functionality point of view. The main problem with the original Blue Odin was the split nature of his offensive awakenings as very few teams could truly benefit from 3 TPA and 3 rows outside of perhaps Lakshmi Thus, gaining an incredible 4th Skill Boost and Bind Immunity has dramatically improved Blue Odin’s viability. With his short base cooldown, you are able to inherit a bind clearing active to transform his 1,007 weighted stat body in the a hard bind clearer or utilize him in any manner necessary. While excessive Skill Boosts may feel wasted in longer dungeons, they are crucial to farming teams that rely heavily on inheritance and being able to use an on-colour Skill Boost stick is invaluable. |
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Red Odin |
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| Conclusion
While being able to boast 6 fire rows, the new evolution of Red Odin may not be as desirable as it seems. Granted he did gain significantly higher weighted stats, he did also lose his bind immunity and sub attribute. Now, in most cases, an off-colour sub typing is not too crucial, but when it is dark and combined with the bind immune package, it does have implications. There tends to be numerous dark binds in higher end content and being able to safely bait out this mechanic can be invaluable in team compositions while contributing to the all attribute requirement in certain scenarios. The 6 rows are flashy, but Red Odin is not used as a traditional sub and is mostly a Skill Boost stick for button-farming teams and this new evolution does not add any additional utility and if you wanted a row-stick sub, you should be using Sanada To be honest, the above mentioned changes are not massive for the average player and both are viable in most cases. |
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Conclusion
New evolutions are always exciting and hopefully grant players something new to play and experiment with.
Let me know who you are most excited about and how you plan to use them.
Happy Puzzling!
Mantastic Puzzle and Dragons 
which odin is better for solo mathena?
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Is this dual Green Odin or Green Odin x ALB pairing?
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Actually, it is really the G/L one due to the autoheals and higher base dmg
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Having 2 Green Balboas I already evo one into the new G/B, but what assist should I put into him? A second green Balboa, or a bind clear? (I know it can depend of the team comp, but I was just asking for a “all arrown” Balboa team, not a specific one (arena, descends, etc…)
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Balboa’s main purpose is breaking PreDRAs defense and situational shield. Now with his new evo, he can function as a bind immune sub. There is no blanket inherit you should run and simply use what will counter the dungeon best =)
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Rowdin joined my Yamamoto farm team instantly.
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Huzzah
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I plan to make the new green odin due to him being unbindable. But I think I will stick to the B/D blue odin for now, as he is a stat stick on my Blonia team. I don’t think I will make the new red odin, since he loses unbindability.
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I agree with the decision for Blonia teams as only B/D has physical typing as was one thing I did make not of as I sometimes used to use him as a sub back then
As for Rodin, where do you commonly use him?
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Hmm. I don’t really have a use for red odin yet, so he is just sitting around in my box.
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Why not swap blonia and new blue odin’s role. Use him as a leader and her as sub. Higher damage.
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You do have a point but I found Blonia’s 1.5x at 4 orbs quite useful, especially when the board is lacking water orbs. If that happens, I can still do decent damage (Blodin has TPAs). It also adds a level of damage control, since I get some multiplier for a little extra damage (to whittle down enemies) but not proc the row multipliers.
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Do you think that the new G/B Balboa could potentially replace A Isis on an ideal Ra dragon team? I’m looking to build one, and am missing two subs, another DKali(which I will use an LKali for a body and a Sherias Roots Inherit) and an Awoken Isis, which I want to replace with the G/B Balboa. Or should I just use A Orochi instead of a Balboa?
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Whoops, apologies for not noticing the text underneath the Balboa evolution! But, other than that, do you think that Lkali+Sherias Roots inherit would work and should i replace Balboa with A Orochi
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Using Light Kali as a fill in sub for Ra Dragon is not ideal as she has a poor base active and is no bind immune. You would be better off finding a bind immune God with high stats (such as Reincarnated Parvati) and inheriting Sherias Roots over top
A Orochi does not cover wood and your team would be missing a colour if not using Isis
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isn’t a. orochi b/g?
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Oh wait, you are correct as I was thinking of Reincarnated. Regardless, B/G is not a god so will be contributing significantly less stats
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Do you think that Reincarnated Anubis would work as a base for a Roots inherit? I’ve been experimenting with a few teams, and I think that a ReAnubis would work pretty well because of its bind immunity and dual time extends.
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That is a great idea and definitely one of the stronger options/alternatives. 1k weighted stats and helpful awakenings are quite powerful
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I’m heavily considering dropping my Green Odin for the new evo, but I’ve heard he’s really good for cheesing Machine Athena and I’d like to do that before swapping evos unless his new evo can also cheese.
…of course, as you said, losing the abs hurts a lot more than it probably should >.< Am I really willing to sacrifice the best part of Green Odin…?
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Well the Green/Light form is stronger for cheesing due to the power of autoheals/80% damage reduction and higher ATK multiplier. The cheese team is a painful 1.5-2 hour ordeal so idk if that is appealing to you. But then again, Abs
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i liked the checks marks and Xs. made things easy XD
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Glad you like them! I may try and keep it a part of future posts =D
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Totally agree, keep it Man!
(what about using it when you reviw new cards? Good V – bad X?)
As hor the new evo, I’ve got a Balboa to evolve (G/B for sure) and a Green Odin which I’ll likely change UEvo sitting in my lackluster green box
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I think I will continue to use these checkmarks moving forward, but in what format exactly remains to be seen =)
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But what about pairing both Blodins/Rodins? This way, you could form a pimped norsebound team… It probably sound like a whacky idea…
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Not a whacky idea and does add a higher multiplier, but that team is somewhat outdated overall
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i would say the split ults of Balboa and Baldin are Leader Split ult and Sub split ult so well… idunno
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Well for both of them, only 1 is currently viable so at least the decision is easy =)
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2/42/2 teams sounds nice for Artemis/balboa 😀
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But 2/36/2 with an unbindable Balboa is better 😉
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i have Ceres 😀 and u will still lose the HP bonus from Artemis xD when she get binded so when balboa get binded it isnt so much of a pain xD
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XD
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I’m thinking about creating a green Odin team with the new evolutions. Both my accounts have him as well as ruel and linthia. Thinking a 39x tpa team with 92% damage reduction would be good. Just need to find another two monsters from my box to fill it out.
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Misread the leader skill. 6.25x multiplier isn’t great, i may have to depend more on killer awakenings to boost damage.
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Hmm, maybe waiting until next month and purchasing rag drag with the free mp and a jize. Either way, the rag drag would be good on my ronove team.
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What you need to keep in mind is that the damage reduction only occurs for the first hit and multihits will only have the initial damage reduced and then you will be taking full damage after
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I think I’ll keep my Rodin as is, and I have 4 green Odins after years of playing (pets memorial Tamadra) so the choice there is easy–why not both? I don’t have Blodin, though.
Despite having Rodin, I’m never sure what to do with him. Button farm, I guess, but I have Arthurs and devil fish for that (if I ever stop being lazy and make the team…). The only fire teams I really use are Xiang Mei and Krishna, and Rodin doesn’t fit on Xiang Mei and there are better options for Krishna.
Oh well. At least he has a cool hawk.
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Bird’s the word
And I do agree that Rodin is a bit awkward as he is mostly a luxury stat stick with a button active, I placed him quite low on my GFE tier list (most recent post) as he is really just a luxury
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As someone who lacks a good solid red lead, going from the 3.75 to 6.25 damage multiplier made a significant difference. It isn’t like 10x red leaders are falling off trees and the rcv bonus is very nice as well. Losing the bind immunity does hurt but for a non-IAP player, my experience is that the new EVO is at least a fun new alternative lead that can beat a good amount of content, but probably won’t be beating Arena any time soon.
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That is a fair point and while that may not be his primary role, I’m glad you managed to find a use for him that suits your box =)
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i hope i get one of these
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Soon ^^
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With a ronove/Rozuel/Dkali/Ragdra/Kaede team, what do you think about replacing rozuel with the new bind resistant/clearing balboa? It bumps up the SBR to 100% but loses a bunch of TPA and heart generation.
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The shorter base CD and TPA from Rozuel makes her more appealing overall. You do not need the additional SBR as you already have 5 so I would stick with Rozuel
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For the first time, in my life, I’m glad that I have a duplicate Grodin.
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I have Rowdin and as far as I can tell, having him as a leader for speed farming a lot of easy content (like button farming tams or Zues dios), but now it begs the question. Since his Leaderskill gives the same stats as Shiva dragon, is Shiva dragon still worth the buy or is Rowdin a good enough substitute leader that I should save up for D. Athena instead? I saw your recent video where you bought Shiva drag and I understand your thought process but you did mention that you had excess mp (860k+?). You could afford both Shiva drag and dathena whereas I currently only have 380k.
What do you think? I have teams for both dathena and Shiva drag so forget about the sub aspect.
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The main appeal of Shiva D is the TPA and ability to mow down content with only 4 fire orbs. It is by no means needed for success and was mostly purchases as my situation can afford it and the desire for more crowns.
I would hold off purchasing Shiva D and save for Athena
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Thanks for the write up. My alt just rolled Balboa. I was leaning towards unbindable one because well. But sometimes I am unsure.
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Where do you plan to use your Balboa?
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For now, no plans as I just got him. But my alts A Perseus team is looking strong. I have Osiris that I can lead with too but that 6 combo is too hard to achieve when farming. I have ReArtemis on my main I can pair up with if I want to use Balboa as a leader. This is my alts padherder https://www.padherder.com/user/nightwing2/monsters/#31,0,31,8191,4294967295_63,0,,0,0,0,eq,0,0,0,0,;default,0
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