Introduction

The Xiang Mei Ranking Dungeon is now live and will last from Thursday October 18-23 while featuring a No Skyfall Fixed Team.

This is not the first time that we have experienced this type of tournament and the main hurdle will be having sufficient combos present across the 5 floors. As such, each combo made is worth a sizable amount of points and is worth pursuing on each match.

Due to the fact that this is a Fixed Team with No Skyfalls, it is a pretty straightforward dungeon as the strategy is to essentially combo and pray for favourable boards.

Top 3% will receive a Crown while the top 20% will be awarded a Rainbow Event Medal  and Xiang Mei .

Video commentary

–video coming soon–

Score breakdown

In Ranking Dungeons, players are scored based on the following:

• Each Combo is worth 5,000 points
• Each second remaining is worth 500 points
• Hitting 40 Million damage is 10,000 points
• Each active used to kill a floor (no combo made) is -5,000 points

Due to the fact that the Xiang Mei Tournament is 5  floors, each Combo is quite valuable and is worth pursuing provided it can be formed in a reasonable time frame.

5,000/5= 1,000 points per combo.

Taking this into consideration, each combo is worth 2 seconds (minus animations) so if you are able to make an additional combo within 1.5 seconds, it is worthwhile.

No Skyfalls

No Skyfalls can be a frustrating condition as players have to rely on favourable boards as they cannot “get lucky” and have orbs skyfall into place. As such, the act of cascading (having orbs match at a staggered rate) is less helpful as a skyfall cannot occur.

This is because cascades add additional animation time but can still be used if it would save time in moving orbs into position; however, more elaborate cascades that occur in several steps may slow down the run too much.

Kushinadahime’s Leader Skill

Kushinadahime features a scaling ATK multiplier with each additional combo formed. As such, it is vital to the success of a run to pursue each additional match, especially for the last 3 floors.

Just be aware that there is an “invisible” 2.25x multiplier for Healer type cards and is why the displayed multiplier on the screen appears lower.

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

A given board will almost always have at least 7 combos present and I would say the average one has 7-8 available. While 7 combos is sufficient for the first 3 floors, one requires 8 and then 9 for the last two Floors.

If insufficient combos are present for Floor 4 and 5, one can utilize Kushinadahime’s active skill to grant +1 combo.

Dungeon breakdown

In essence, one just needs to max combo a given board each turn so it is challenging to give too much overall advice for each floor; however, there are a few things one can do to improve their chances of success.

In an ideal world, no active skill is used, but sometimes a little bit of help is required to one shot a floor.

Floor 1-2

Just combo as hard as possible. Both die with 7 Combos so no actives are required.

Floor 3

Floor 3 has Resolve which requires a column of heart orb for Follow Up Attack (FUA)  along with 7 Combos. Failing to receive 5 heart orbs, one can use Hestia  to produce a 4-elemental board with hearts.

Floor 4

8 Combos will kill provided one is Wood. If missing Wood and do not have 9+ Combos, use Hestia, otherwise Kushinadahime  can provide the +1 Combo via her active.

Floor 5

The final floor requires 9 Combos to kill, but damage will most likely be insufficient without using Red Valkrie . As such, using Red Valkyrie will provide enough Fire Power and hopefully a 9 Combo board. If 9 are not present, use Kushinadahime.

JP Cutoff scores

It is challenging to predict the final score for North America but we can use the JP cutoffs as a soft guide to what we can expect.

Generally speaking, NA is able to better prepare for non-Fixed Teams as we have the winning templates right away which gives us a scoring edge as we have more productive days to play. On the other hand, being 2-3 months behind JP provides little merit for Fixed Teams as there is little strategy to actually work out and mostly comes down to puzzling skills.

The following chart was compiled by Pandaa and shows the JP cutoff for a Crown and 20% for the Rainbow Event Medal and Xiang Mei:

If the image does not load or is hard to see, the final cutoffs are:

Crown (3%) – 153,060

Rainbow Event Medal (20%) – 140,039

One thing to keep in mind with a Fixed Team with No Skyfalls is that the scores will be heavily clumped together and even a 100 point difference can propel one’s overall percentage. This also explains why the curves are relatively flat for the 7 days.

Conclusion

The Xiang Mei Ranking Tournament gives players a shot at a 3% Crown along with Xiang Mei and Rainbow Event Medal at 20%. Furthermore, due to the Fixed Team set up, all players are on an even footing and it will come down to puzzling skills and board RNG to succeed.

Let me know what you think about this Ranking Tournament in the comments below along with how well you have been doing.

Happy Puzzling!

 

Mantastic Social Media
Facebook	Twitter	YouTube
Twitch	Discord	Patreon

If you enjoy my content, please consider turning off AdBlocker for this website =)