Introduction

Today marks the first day of the PAD Special Event Tournament and gives an interesting twist on team building as our Leaders are fixed but subs, inherits, and solo mode badge are up to the player. This gives some degree of freedom but will constrict scores due to the No Skyfall clause.

Any Ranking Dungeon with No Skyfalls will have a high density of scores near each cutoff as we are somewhat capped on how high our score can go. As such, even improving by 2 seconds (1,000 points) can result in a sizable difference in scores.

This article will outline the strategies I used for this Ranking Dungeon in hopes of improving your final score.

Video clear – 129,708

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Score breakdown

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

• Each average 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
• Matching Bonuses
  • Activate specific awakenings to trigger varying bonus points
  • 
    • Some tournaments will increase the point value for certain awakenings

In the case of the PAD Special Event Tournament 4, the Matching Bonuses are insignificant and will not influence our final scores in truly meaningful ways. With that being said, having Guard Break can passively add 400 points for each Rainbow activation.

Despite the fact that the dungeon is 5 floors long, it will actually take 7 turns to clear as the final boss has a unique mechanic. Thus, each combo made is worth 5000/7 = 714 points.

Fixed leaders

The PAD Special Event Tournament 4 features fixed Tachibana leaders and it is important to understand their two component ATK multiplier. Just be aware that there will be No Skyfalls for the dungeon.

• 4x ATK when 6 or less orbs remain (16x with dual leaders)
• 5x ATK when matching Fire, Water, Wood, and Light (20x with dual leaders)
• Fulfill both = 400x

Despite the fact that the multipliers are low for fulfilling one component, most floors can be cleared in this manner and is why most strategies utilize bicolour board changers.

Actives/subs to bring

Due to the fact that we can only bring our subs/inherits, we are effectively playing with actives of our choosing and the most efficient strategy tends to revolve around bicolour boards.

This is because a 2 colour board is significantly easier/faster to solve along with players have the ability to reduce the number of pings/attack animations which will improve clear times.

As such, many strategies revolve around using a high damage stick (multiple 7 Combos ) and bicolours that trigger their primary colour. With this in mind, one of the more common tactics is to use Enra and three Whaledors with 4 Red Sonia inherits.

This results in a board of only Fire/Dark and only 1 ping to hasten clear times.

With that being said, there are numerous ways to build your team and it is mostly a matter of finding what works for you.

Bicolour re-haste

A popular strategy in Ranking Dungeons is to abuse bicolour boards that come with 2 turns of haste in order to re-cycle through active skills to use them again. In the case of the PAD Special Event Tournament 4, it is possible to recharge a 12 turn cooldown if it was used on Floor 1.

For this particular ranking, the key card to re-haste is Sheena as her natural Devil Killer and 7 Combos can kill the final boss after his pillars have died.

This strategy utilizes a bind immune Sheena and three bicolour +2 haste cards along with Puu and Evolution Killer latents to sweep the pillars.

I used this strategy for Mantastic in the above video.

Solo mode badge

Players are able to choose their Solo mode badge and the most common choices will be Skill Boost , +15% ATK, or Time Extend. Choose what is best for you and your team composition and matching skills.

Killing Gilles Legato

Gilles Legato is the final boss of the PAD Special Event Tournament and features 2 Pillars that must be killed before he is able to take damage. Unfortunately, this must be done in a specific order and is the reason why it takes 7 turns to finish the 5 floor dungeon.

1. Kill Blue (right) Pillar
2. Kill Red (left) Pillar
3. Kill Gilles Legato

You must follow this specific kill order or Gilles Legato will resurrect the Pillars and inevitably ruin your run. Also, you cannot kill both Pillars at the same time, they must be killed one at a time in above order.

It is for this reason why many players elect to use bicolours with only 1 damage ping as it guarantees only the Blue Pillar will be killed on the first turn.

You can refer to the video clear to see this process in action.

Conclusion

The PAD Special Event Tournament functions like a Fixed Team with extra steps that give players some degree of customization. This is interesting but most strategies tend to revolve around using bicolour boards to minimize solve times and maximize combo count.

If lacking sufficient bicolours, it is still possible to combo vanilla boards and moving fast enough can still secure a Crown. With that being said, scores will greatly clump around the tier thresholds as the No Skyfall clause will place a soft cap on score potential.

Let me know what you used for this event and how well you scored.

Happy Puzzling!

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