Random Thoughts

Why I have nearly 1,000 Stones Across my Two Accounts

32 Comments

Introduction

The past several months have been exceptionally generous in terms of log in bonuses and limited time challenges. As a result, it is not unusual for some players to currently have several hundred Magic Stones.

In my 1,944 days of playing Puzzle and Dragons, I have never been able to amass this amount of Magic Stones (previous record was low 200’s after saving for 7-8 months a few years ago) and the temptation to spend them is always there.

Thankfully, I do have a certain degree of willpower and have decided to not roll until the next wave of Powercreep arrives.

Video commentary

–video coming soon–

Powercreep

Powercreep is the notion that new content will be stronger compared to our currently available options. For the most part, Powercreep has not been advancing at too fast of a pace but one can always see noticeably stronger cards if looking back 1 year at a time.

In the past, Puzzle and Dragons did a poor job of controlling the pace of Powercreep which was first first exemplified by Ra Dragon 3265 (144x ATK vs 25-36x ATK for other Rainbow Leaders) but was then promptly trumped by the Heart Cross Meta.

The Heart Cross meta essentially invalidated most other leaders at the time as it was able to build mono colour teams that could survive all incoming attacks along with having sufficient damage to sweep all content at that time. Thankfully, we had access to the farmable Myr which gave all players a chance to clear content but did somewhat force GungHo’s hand to create harder dungeons or dungeons to counter this mechanic.

High effective HP

Fast forward to today and we are now in an era where high effective HP teams reign supreme. This is because it has become more important to actually survive incoming attacks as we are now facing outrageously large preemptives along with terrifying move sets.

Looking at the new Alt Arena 2 (AA2), players face an outrageous 162,444 preemptive on Floor 2 which will either force us into doing coop or having enough Skill Boosts Skill Boost to have a shield ready in time. As such, having a team who can naturally tank this hit becomes invaluable. On the other hand, there are several spawns in AA2 and Arena 5 that feature a 99% gravity followed immediately by a large attack. This combo will kill any team that does not have some form of damage reduction and greatly endangers 4x HP teams as they rarely bring damage reduction.

While damage output is important, it has become somewhat less mandatory due to the fact that we have access to large personal damage from subs (multiple 7 Combos 45, Killers, Latents, high weighted stats) that can essentially sweep most floors without active skill intervention. This is the reason why “low” ATK multiplier teams like Vraska  and Beach Barbara & Julie  teams can function with 144x ATK.

Taking all of the above points into consideration, it is not surprising that Dark Metatron  is arguably the best leader in the game for North America. She has 225x ATK, 4x HP along with 43.75% Damage Reduction. This enables her to deal wonderful amounts of damage along with being able to survive all preemptives and gravity+attack move sets.

Why I am saving my Magic Stones

At this point in time, I have a strong Dark Metatron team on both my accounts and have been able to clear all content currently available. As such, there is no true need for me to actually roll the REM as I would be acquiring cards that are possibly nice, but not going to advance my progress further.

While it is possible to improve my Dark Metatron teams, they are quite solid overall and would not be truly needed in the grand scheme of things.

Keeping up with Powercreep

The best way to keep up with Powercreep is to save Magic Stones and then heavily pull when the next big thing is released. Assuming that card is acquired, one should stop and begin saving again.

In essence, you are trying to acquire the top tier card upon release and ride that wave of power until something new and significantly better is released (key word is significantly).

Assuming you have what is considered top tier already, if you are continuously rolling in every event you are at best acquiring side-grades and will find yourself out of Magic Stones when something much better is released.

Taking all of the above points into consideration, I am simply waiting for the next wave of Powercreep in order improve my Monster Box as at this point in time, the vast majority of events are simply side-grades. While one may argue that I could be rolling in high rate Godfests to acquire Trade Fodder, I could still do that in the future and Godfests several months from now may be even better compared to what we are experiencing.

Furthermore, all players will be receiving 28 free Godfest rolls during the month of February and it would be unlikely to not actually roll a GFE.

Conclusion

GungHo has been wonderfully generous with the number of Magic Stones being given out these past several months which has resulted in many players possibly having several hundred saved up.

For myself, I plan to continue hoarding my Magic Stones and wait for new cards to be released that eclipse our current available options. This waiting game is the best way to keep up with Powercreep would recommend this to any player who is currently sitting at end game content with top tier teams.

Let me know what you think about my approach to saving Magic Stones and how do you try to keep up with Powercreep.

Happy Puzzling!

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32 thoughts on “Why I have nearly 1,000 Stones Across my Two Accounts”

  3. I really love this article. It’s something that I was thinking about very recently. I have not actually beaten Alt Arena yet, but I have the team (or several, DMeta included) that could. I’m just playing at my comfortably close to end game position that I enjoy.

    Really 9 times out of 10 I am just playing BB&J for farming or monthly quest dungeons, etc.

    Very few of my recent “best” godfest or collab pulls have ended up in my teams that I play all the time. Mostly they are dupes anyway. So, yeah, it occurred to me maybe I should start hoarding for a while. See how long that lasts.

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  4. Hmm these are all great points! I wish I had your willpower ^^
    I’m only at 50 stones right now, but I’m doing my best to not roll in all the 10-stone events (>///<) Looking forward to when you’d recommend we spend stones! Thanks as always for a great article~

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    1. Also … so far my free rolls have been Kopis, Fuma Kotaro, Marine Rider, and a dupe Sarasvati. With my luck, it’s likely I won’t be getting a 6* GFE anytime soon TT^TT At least it’s free mp, so I’m not complaining ^^

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  5. I have Sherias Roots, Scheat, all witches except Madoo, and ol’ reliable Yog. Would you consider that to be up to date with current power creep?

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      1. I’m not very good at team building, but I’d say my Sherias team is my best. With my subs being Mel, Indra, Nees, and Tardis. I have been meaning to update it with better subs but I’m still figuring out what exactly I should use instead. I do have a Kuroyuri, so that’s one.

        I have beaten arena 3 with my Reeche team (and arena 2 back when I still used the combo Uvo of Roots.) I am a fairly casual player – I can’t say I’ve tried Alt arena more than once and arena four I just haven’t given a go yet. I’ve been wanting to try more once summer starts and I’m less busy.

        So yeah. I’m definitely under applying what I have, but I have two of the best sticks for my Sherias, a crap ton of good 7c subs, delays like orochimaru, vdps, fua… you name it. I also have reeche, orya, and Gilgamesh for absorb void. I’m not sure though if I’m lacking in necessary elements or if im just bad at teambuilding.

        I write quite a lot, don’t I? Sorry lol.

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  6. Hi mantastic, I currently have all subs for dmeta team, just like yours, but NY tsukuyomi. Do you think I should roll for this NY hatcher? How much effect could it be once tsukuyomi is on my team? (I currently use skuld instead tsukuyomi)

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  7. I admire your self control greatly. I’m like the dog from Up, who always is getting distracted by the new shiny thing i don’t own. Saving stones is pretty hard because of how little i actually end up being able to control my impulse to roll. So kudos to you… even if it is always fun to watch you roll on your streams when you do end up doing so 🙂

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  9. Free stones = No will.

    Or at least that’s what it seems if you are me. I have rolled my stones. Got some pretty good GFE trade fodder. Was it worth it? I guess i will know when the new hotness comes and i either get it or don’t.

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  10. I personally understand where you are coming from but, I honestly cannot justifiy keeping stones for to long anymore. I wish there was a way to hide your magic stones, cause like it always in my face and, if I didn’t see them, I wouldn’t use them. I wouldn’t mind having a storage space in the game to hide stones for when I really need them…… Another reason is cause out of 5 years I literally never rolled a GFE(don’t tell I’m brushing over them or,, that I’m not noticing what I rolled. I really only rolled my first GFE last July) As soon as July hit it seems like my GFE rates have completely changed, for the better. I can’t justify saving for to long, cause at the rate I’m going and, the fact that the best card of last year was a GFE I expect that everything I have rolled will get some sort of buff(at this point anyway) I currently have rolled 3 Kami’s 3 Ilms, Skuld, D Kali, Ney and, Kadeem. All within about six months.(probably less) These monster only include the ones that don’t have an animated evo yet. In about 6 months, I have rolled over 20 GFEs in this time frame, I never had this luck before either…….

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    1. In your case, it sounds like you still have a monster box that can be improved by rolling so it is still a good idea to chase cards. As for your luck, perhaps it is a combination of both the large stone influx along with the better SGF rates =)

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    1. Myr is a strong farmable FUA but has a mediocre active and less ideal awakenings. Yomi has generous time extend along with two 7c

      As for Archangel over archdemon, Archangel has TE and <50 along with a much better active. Archdemon has skill boosts and rows which do not help got this dungeon.

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