Introduction

The Voltron Collab is an exclusive series coming to North America and this is the first time NA will be receiving cards that JP does not. This is a tremendous step in the right direction as it grants us the chance to acquire unique cards or at the very least, a re-skin of a Collab we would never be able to have.

Collaborations in Puzzle and Dragons are a costly process as GungHo has to secure licensing, hire artists, and design the cards from scratch. This is partially the reason why NA/EU does not gain access to all the exclusive JP Collabs as the costs would not justify the potential income.

Therefore, having Voltron gives us the chance to show GungHo how much support NA can muster as well as hopefully granting us the ability to fill in the Monster gaps.

All players above rank 50 will receive 1 free pull on the Voltron Rare Egg Machine.

Video commentary

—video goes here–

Rolls overview

Voltron Egg Machine Overview
6 star rolls
5 star rolls
4 star rolls

 

Voltron Collab Rankings – April 23, 2017

Voltron Overview

As mentioned above, Collaborations give GungHo the chance to design new and interesting cards to help round out our Monster Boxes. The appeal is further magnified through nostalgia, appealing artwork, and the sense of being a limited time offer.

Even if I am not a fan of the style of the artwork, Voltron appears sloppy and looks out of place in Puzzle and Dragons. Many of the cards have empty space in their art and most of the icons are off-center along with feeling flat colour-scheme wise. As such, it looks hastily drawn and is a disappointment even before we look at the abilities of the cards itself.

And the abilities of the cards are mostly disappointing. Perhaps our expectations for Collabs has had the bar set too high via Bleach, Final Fantasy, and Heroine, but for a North American debut exclusive, they could have tried to make it a little more appealing.

For the most part, the entire Voltron Collaboration is a re-skin of the existing JP Crows Collab minus one of the best cards. While a re-skin is not a bad thing, they should at least choose cards that are appealing and include a better top prize that is worth pursuing.

Taking all things into consideration, Voltron is sad debut for a North American-exclusive Collaboration. The poorly designed cards from an art and viability perspective is setting it up to fail before it arrives on April 24th. My underlying fear is that it will perform poorly from a business perspective and further hinder the chances of North America (and EU) servers bridging the gap between themselves and the JP server.

6 star roll

Voltron

Machine / Physical / God
4,512 HP / 1,988 ATK / 73 RCV
873 Total
    

Active Skill:
Remove Locked Orb status
Left Column  
Right Column 
9 turn Cooldown

Leader Skill:
Physical & Machine 2x HP, 2x ATK. 3.5x ATK for each fire cross
4x HP / 600.25x ATK

Pros	Cons
Bind Immune 600x ATK 100,000+ HP in solo mode Devil Killer  3 Skill Boost  Unlocks orbs Modest sub potential	No RCV component Hard to stall Restricted sub pool

Ranking: 

Impressions

Voltron is the top prize from the Voltron Collaboration and is a reasonable card overall. He could have been a Fantastic leader if he lost the restrictive sub pool or gained an RCV component. Unfortunately, the pool of Physical & Machine fire cards is restrictive and will have almost no healing potential.

Several years ago, having teams with 4x HP / 1x RCV could work as dungeons were shorter and easier while having fewer gravities. Sadly, today’s meta is unforgiving and in order to succeed, you need to be able to dance out dangerous mechanics. One may argue that Reincarnated Astaroth  has a similar set up in that she is 4x HP / 64x ATK, but she can utilize Healers and the +35% RCV badge will be more meaningful.

As such, Voltron will mostly succeed in shorter dungeons with high damage requirements that do not require prolonged stalling. However, he has potential as a sub for both his unique unlocking mechanic, bind immunity, 3 Skill Boosts, and situational Devil Killer awakenings.

3 Skill Boosts is a rare commodity and will help Yamamoto  or other Fire farming teams with the unlocking component being beneficial in SDR farming.

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5 star rolls

Shiro

Balanced / Machine
2,928 HP / 1,475 ATK / 348 RCV
704 Total
    

Active Skill:
Remove Locked Orbs
Randomly spawn 3 Light and Dark Orbs
7 turn Cooldown

Leader Skill:
Balance cards 1.5x HP / 3x ATK. Deal 2x counterattack damage
2.25x HP / 9x ATK

Pros	Cons
Removes Locked Orbs Can kill some resolve bosses	Low impact active Low multiplier Cannot kill most resolve bosses Niche inherit

Ranking:

Impressions

Shiro’s main appeal will be his ability to unlock orbs. Unfortunately, the actual orb changer is awkward at best. The only relevant team that can full capitalize on both Light and Dark orbs is Reincarnated Indra  and Vritra  who have modest capabilities overall.

Looking at his Leadership potential, Shiro can kill very few Resolve bosses as their 1% ability has to not kill you as well as dealing damage before a heal (best example is Zeus & Hera). Furthermore, his measly 3x ATK will make pairing challenging as you will probably not have enough damage for the majority of the dungeon.

As such, Shiro will mostly be regulated to a niche inheritance card when you need to unlock orbs.

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Allura

Healer / God / Machine
2,945 HP / 1,258 ATK / 620 RCV
753 Total
        

Active Skill:
    
3 turn Light skyfalls
8 turn Cooldown

Leader Skill:
Healer cards 1.35x HP/ATK/RCV. 3x ATK with 4+ connected Wood or Light orbs
1.8x HP / 16.4x ATK / 1.8x RCV

Pros	Cons
Powerful active 7 Combo  awakening Guard Break  awakening Devil Killer  Relevance on Kush  & Light Metatron  teams	Not a leader One of the worst artworks

Ranking:

Impressions

Allura is one of the best cards in the the the Voltron Collaberation as she has a wonderful array of awakenings along with a beneficial active skill.

7 combo  awakenings is becoming the hot new thing as it provides 2x damage for that card when achieving 7 or more combos. This acts like a Killer awakening that can be turned on and off (barring skyfalls) and is effective against all types of bosses. Furthermore, the Guard Break  enables a rainbow team to instantly void all defense and trivializes PreDRA  encounters.

This synergy of awakenings has great applications for Reincarnated Kushinadahime  users who lack a Valkyrie as Allura covers Light (assuming you are running Haku  as the other subs). While her base active skill takes longer to charge up, this is still a viable replacement.

Moving beyond Kush teams, Allura has potential on the future Light Metatron  teams for both the God typing and wood coverage. You require all attributes to trigger Guard Break and this can act as a replacement for Apollo  if you do not intend to reincarnate him.

Overall, I like how Allura was designed outside of the poorly designed art that has her icon off-center and main image feeling empty.

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4 star rolls

Keith

Attacker / Machine
2,468 HP / 2,025 ATK / 5 RCV
653 Total
   

Active Skill:
Top Row  
Recover 50% base HP
9 turn Cooldown

Leader Skill:
3.5x ATK when above 50% HP. 50% Resolve. No Skyfalls
12.25x ATK / No Skyfalls

Pros	Cons
Active helps in farming 50% HP heal Niche no Skyfalls Great inherit Helps with Ganesha  x Yamamoto	Niche leader No SBR  Poor base stats

Ranking: 

Impressions

Keith is a relatively potent 4-star Collab roll as he does fulfill an interesting niche for Fire teams. By spawning a full row at the top, you help ensure your bottom orbs remain preserved along with providing enough firepower to sweep most floors. While speed farming teams may or may not require the longer cooldown and healing component, it can be vital in certain situations.

Being able to heal and deal lethal damage is vital in Puzzle and Dragons as you may be facing orb troll or lacking ideal actives that help you accomplish both aspects. As such, Keith can greatly aid bulkier teams such as Krishna  as the heal will be quite meaningful while providing 6/9 orbs for full activation.

Perhaps the most practical application for Keith will be for Ganesha  x Yamamoto  teams that swap Ganesha with Wangren. Wangren requires you to be at full HP and Keith’s active helps solve this problem while instantly creating a row to deal damage.

Finally, the no Skyfalls aspect may feel appealing for niche farming, but the >50% HP requirement along with low multiplier may make it challenging to fully capitalize on.

---

Lance

Attacker / Attacker
2,348 HP / 1,798 ATK / 178 RCV
654 Total

Active Skill:
100x Water damage to a single enemy (reduced by element/defense)
2x ATK for Attackers & Machines
11 turn Cooldown

Leader Skill:
Attackers 1.2x HP/ATK. All cards 2.5x ATK when reaching 4 or more combos
1.44x HP / 9x ATK

Pros	Cons
Very budget damage nuke High base ATK Bind immunity	Poor weighted stats Only hits 1 target Enhance is lackluster

Ranking:

Impressions

It is hard to find merits in Lance as he really does not accomplish much. 100x ATK nuke inherited on the highest ATK cards will not yield sufficient damage for any current content to be meaningful. Furthermore, it only hits one target and cannot be used to help button through Star Den (which as farmable alternatives). As such, he will remain a box cheerleader for the foreseeable future.

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Pidge

Balance / Machine
2,708 HP / 1,383 ATK / 320 RCV
654 Total
     

Active Skill:
Wood ATK 1.2x for 5 turns
+1 second to orb movement for 5 turns
6 turn Cooldown

Leader Skill:
Balance 2x HP / 2x RCV
4x HP / 4x RCV

Pros	Cons
9 awakenings High up-time on buff	Doesn’t actually do anything

Ranking: 

Impressions

Pidge may have 9 awakenings, but has no real purpose. Maybe one can argue for double SBR  and coop boost, but with coop, the SBR has no real purpose and wood has amazing double SBR options otherwise. While the active skill has a high uptime, it fulfills hardly any purpose as the boost is so minor and the best it can be used for is to override movement time debuffs or bait out status void attacks.

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Hunk

Physical / Machine
3,515 HP / 1,508 ATK / 0 RCV
653 Total
   

Active Skill:
99 True damage to all enemies
   
10 turn Cooldown

Leader Skill:
Light cards 2x HP, 2x ATK
4x HP / 4x ATK

Pros	Cons
True damage inherit Light orb generator	Niche inherit is primary role

Ranking: 

Impressions

Hunk is a reasonable inherit for mono-light teams that wish to deal with high defense monsters such as PreDRAs. However, outside of this niche role, he has little value as the orb changer tends to be a hindrance for any other team.

One last thing to consider is that the 99 damage value enables you to easily bypass Reincarnated Zeal encounters with ease.

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Coran

Healer / Machine
2,228 HP / 1,340 ATK / 503 RCV
658 Total
  

Active Skill:
Unlock all orbs
 
  
7 turn Cooldown

Leader Skill:
Healers 2x HP, 2x ATK
4x HP / 4x ATK

Pros	Cons
Unlocks orbs Generates Water and Light without breaking hearts	Niche inheritance at best

Ranking: 

Impressions

Coran is the final card in the Voltron Collab and he is more lackluster version of Gan Ning  as he generates two colours without breaking hearts. Unfortunately, the generated water and light have no practical uses on any current team. As such, Coran will be a situational inherit for mono-water and light teams if you need to remove locked orbs.

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Conclusion

The Voltron Collab is a milestone for Puzzle and Dragons North America as this is our first exclusive Collab. Unfortunately, the featured cards fail to live up to the expected hype as we received a reskin of an average JP Collab without one of the better cards. Furthermore, the artwork for Voltron feels rushed and lacks the spirit of Puzzle and Dragons while their actual viability is disappointing for the most part.

Perhaps our expectations were too high and our first debut may be met with a half-hearted response as the Collab is lacking overall.

Voltron could have been an amazing opportunity to showcase the support North American players have for GungHo and Puzzle and Dragons, but releasing sub-par cards will not garner the response that was hoped for.

However, there are some positive aspects we can take away from this. Most notably, the fact that we are somewhat closing the gap between NA and JP content. A reskin is the simplest way to circumnavigate licensing issues when trying to bring over JP Collabs and their respective monsters/actives. Maybe this is just a test, but it could hopefully be a start towards bridging the gap between server equality.

What do you think about the Voltron REM and how much do you plan on rolling?

Happy Puzzling!

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