Introduction

May 10th marked one of the larger updates to happen to Puzzle and Dragons for NA/EU and I wish to cover all the relevant changes and evolutions.

Monster Box Folders are one of the best quality of life improvements after the less than ideal changing how FAV sorting worked. Now through folders, you can better customize how your Monster Box works and is one of my favourite additions to date.

Furthermore, several new evolutions have went live and I was able to actually play around with some of them which will help me provide a better opinion and analysis for them.

You can read the official GungHo notes HERE.

Video commentary

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Monster Box Folders

Monster Box Folders are one of the best things to happen to Puzzle and Dragons as it allows for amazing customization and organization. By default, all of your Evolution, Awakening, and Enhance materials are sorted into their respective folders leaving the remaining monsters in the Not Set tab.

The following video is my quick tutorial on how I go about using the new Folders.
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What I love most about the Folders is that everything is organized to your liking and easier to view what you have.

Another amazing feature of the Folders is that each tab memorizes the previous setting and personal Sort setting. This means you can have your Evolution materials sorted differently than your enhance materials. For example, you could have your Evolution materials sorted by Fav -> HP -> ATK -> RCV while enhance is done by EXP value.

After recording the video, I began to use this method for viewing my Evolution materials:

This will help sort the evolution materials by their respective group so you can quickly glance to see if you actually need to go out and play Wednesday Dungeon (I probably should).

Reincarnated Kushinadahime

Kushinadahime

Healer / Dragon / God
4,305 HP / 1,682 ATK / 700 RCV
1,000 Total
        

Active Skill:
75% damage reduction for 1 turn
+1 combo count for 1 turn
10 turn Cooldown

Leader Skill:
Healers 1.5x HP & ATK. 2x ATK with 5 combos. 2x for each additional, up to 12x at 10 combos. No Skyfalls
2.25x HP / 324x ATK / No Skyfalls

Pros	Cons
Purely skill based No Skyfalls Unbindable Bind recovery  awakening Perfect damage control Rapidly scaling damage output Low dependancy on actives Can fully utilize 7 combo  awakening Can use Dragon Killers  High health Naturally high RCV Active provides a powerful shield Active helps with combo count Can use Hakus  Does not rely on 6* GFE	Purely skill based No Skyfalls Have to hit 7 combos every turn Difficulty in stalling due to damage output

Ranking: 

Impressions

Reincarnated Kushinadahime  is simply amazing and combines durability, ease of activation, perfect damage control, explosive output, and the ability to use Dragon Killer  latent awakenings. Furthermore, she can beautifully capitalize on 7 combo  awakenings to further augment her damage.

It comes as no surprise that Haku  is a staple sub and further cements the notion that if a team can run 2-3 Hakus, it will be top tier. The 7 combo awakening and dual TPA help diversify your damage control potential when combined with the no Skyfall clause.

Kushinadahime Scaling Leader Skill
# Combos	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Multiplier	2.25x	9x	36x	81x	144x	225x	324x

This is a fantastic scaling multiplier that is further augmented by a 2.25x HP to Healers. This helps combine durability as well as naturally high RCV that helps you dance around troublesome encounters.

7 combos with a dark TPA will mow through most content (also remember the 7c awakening for 2x more damage). Despite the no Skyfall clause, it is almost always possible to hit 7 combos on a given board so you should be able to pump out consistent damage.

However, Kushinadahime is not without limitations. Most notably, she is a purely skill based leader who will take adjustment to using efficiently as you can no longer rely on Skillfalls or RNGesus to save you. Furthermore, her ability to efficiently stall is marred by her rapidly scaling leader skill. In order to heal efficiently, you will need to achieve a high combo count which will inevitably deal large amounts of damage. As such, I treat her stalling like Dark Athena , tank what hits you can while hoarding heart orbs and then burst through while healing up.

I have had several Arena 3 clears with Kushinadahime and like Dark Athena, she can easily handle Hephaestus Dragon.

Solo Kushinadahime Arena 3
Card
Inherit
Latent

Here is my first clear so it will be messier as I was learning as I went along:
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Above is 9 combos with two TPA while the bottom picture is 10 combos with 0 TPA. Either way, the damage output is incredible.

Reincarnated Pandora

Reincarnated Pandora  outside of her cute artwork. She was once a top tier leader, but GungHo has gave her an underwhelming evolution that does not really keep abreast with older tank teams like Krishna  as she is orb hungry with lower defensive multipliers.

Perhaps this is a “good” thing as the meta is shifting away from row teams and more towards combo-oriented ones. However, many people will have a certain degree of nostalgia/fondness for Pandora that they may be disappointing.

Regardless, I did take her for a spin in Arena 1 and I was shocked that a single row could not even kill most floors.
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Reincarnated Ame no Uzume

Ame no Uzume  tends to be an overlooked card mostly because she has an underwhelming active skill and could not feasibly fit on most meta teams. Her new Reincarnated evolution is certainly an upgrade as it provides meaningful awakenings that help her pump out more consistent damage.

However, the main focus will be on her leadership potential as she now has the potential to achieve 2.25x HP and 81x ATK for Physical and Devil types when matching Fire, Wood, and Light orbs. Naturally, this will help create a tanky team and the recovery component is somewhat offset by the bonus RCV from the leader skill.

I do sometimes question the logic of having 7 combo awakenings with rows as it is challenging to achieve both at the same time, but it also grants you flexibility when dealing damage. You can elect to purely combo and if you do have subs with the 7 combo awakening, you will be dealing respectable damage on 81x. In addition, you could also use the rows when faced with an awkward board and still produce meaningful damage. Finally, with full board changers, you should be able to utilize both awakenings.

However, the main fault I find in Reincarnated Ame no Uzume teams is the naturally low RCV for her team. Yes you can use her active skill to offset this, but that means you will be having 1-2 active slots completely wasted and this will prove problematic in challenging content.

Ars Nova and Goetia

Ars Nova  and Goetia  have historically been underwhelming cards, but their new evolutions do provide additional value. Their active skills randomly spawn 5 orbs of their primary colour at random while simultaneously enhancing them. This is great for mono colour teams along with their numerous enhanced orb awakenings. However, this new evolution grants them an improved leader skill that bolsters them to an unconditional 49x ATK if cards share their two elements.

Thus, Ars Nova boosts light and fire cards while Goetia utilizes dark and wood types. While 49x may not feel spectacular, it is unconditional and will make for easy and mindless farming.

Challenge Mode Renewal

Challenge mode has been revamped to use your leader, two subs, and a friend for the chance at unlocking an additional Magic Stone. This ensures you retain your full multiplier, but will have to be creative when selecting subs to support your team.

Not only will two subs lower your overall damage output, but you will have lower HP, RCV, SBR levels, and fewer active skills.

I feel this is a fun and exciting as this will help keep the feel for your favourite team intact, but present a unique and challenging twist.

With the Challenge Mode Renewal, there are countless Magic Stones to be acquired as you are able to replay all of the Normal and Technical dungeons again for a first time clear.

If you are looking for Arena 1 inspiration, check out Darkζ闇’s (333 906 392) various A1 clears:

Fastest and most mindless farming for Challenge Mode

Due to the fact that you have to grind through hundreds of floors, you will probably want to find the fastest route possible. As such, I recommend using Hino  as a leader for his large damaging follow up attack after matching 1 combo. This means you will only need to match 1 combo of any element to trigger about 200,000 damage with dual leaders. To make this go even faster, try to use only fire cards and no other elements to cut down on animation times. However, if you require a little more damage, you should use a fire/dark card to trigger his 9x ATK multiplier.

You should use this opportunity to farm for Pal Points for the upcoming GH PEM renewal.

GH PEM renewal

The infamous GungHo Pal Egg Machine returns on Friday, May 12th with a wonderfully revamped +15 per pull. That means 500 pal points = 15 Plus Eggs. This is incredible and must be abused and taken advantage of as there is simply no better avenue for acquiring Plus Eggs.

If you have ample Best Friends, it is advisable to use each of them every day during this event. For 2 stamina, you can enter the lowest difficulty Normal Dungeons and quit (or play through for Challenge Mode) and repeat until you exhaust your list. This will translate into 10 stamina for 15 plus eggs. For comparison, Star Den is 25 stamina for 10 pluses.

Conclusion

Version 11.0 is one of the most exciting updates to date as the Monster Box Folders are simply amazing. The new evolutions help revitalize older cards and we have plenty more to look forward to in the upcoming weeks.

Let me know which of these features you are most excited about.

Happy Puzzling!