Introduction

The landscape of Puzzle and Dragons has dramatically changed over the course of time and at this point, being able to intelligently use Skill Inheritance/Assists and Weapon Assists is key to success.

At its core, Skill Inheritance enables players to grant a different active skill to a card on their team, however, being able to optimally utilize this mechanic requires a bit more finesse. As such, this article will explain my logic/rationale for team building and utilizing Skill Inheritance to provide the maximum benefit possible when playing through challenging content.

Video commentary

–video coming soon–

Skill Inheritance/Manage Assists

In the past, the term used to express transferring new actives to a card was Skill Inheritance which in my head sounds much more pleasant compared to Manage Assists. Regardless, either term may be used in this article but both mean the same thing.

Through Skill Inheritance, players are able to provide a new active skill on their respective card which can add new layers of strategy as there are more options available. The main idea is to use a card you wish to actually have on your team paired with an active that is important for the dungeon at hand.

Skill inheritance will allow you to link two different monsters together as a means to have access to additional active skills.  The base monster can be used as normal, but your linked monster (assist) cannot be sold or used on your teams. The base monster will still retain their normal active on their regular cooldown, but will also be able to use another monster’s active at a longer cooldown (base + assist monster’s cooldown). Furthermore, if the second skill is charged, you cannot use the your base monster’s skill. Using a skill at any time will reset both skills and must wait again to use either. This restriction can be problematic if you select a high priority monster as your base.

The following chart illustrates which active you can use and on which turn when having Awoken Isis  as your base monster and Dark Kali  as the assistant.

0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10+

In this example, you will still have your regular bind clearing ability from Isis on a 3-turn cooldown, but have the option of waiting 10 turns for the board refresh (and making the bind clear unusable). This means that you can use Isis on turns 3-9, but be forced to use Dark Kali on turn 10 and above. Using an active at any time will immediately reset you back to the beginning of this cycle.

Yes this is an outdated example of an optimal inheritance choice but it cleanly shows how the process works.

Weapon Assists

Skill Inheritance is vital for pushing through challenging content as players will have to use a wider variety of actives to overcome problematic mechanics. If playing in solo mode, one will only have access to 6 active skill (with mirrored leaders resulting in 5 unique types of actives) which may not be sufficient to counter all problems at hand. Thus, by using Skill Inheritance, players can have more options as the inherited active may be attached to a card that has less synergy with your team composition.

Building upon this, Weapon Assists have become vital parts for team building as they enable the assisting monster to also transfer several awakenings to the base card.

Weapon Assists are a special evolution for select cards that will be used exclusively as inherits. This form retains the same base stats as the original form but will also transfer over all awakenings on the Weapon Assist card and this occurs if the Awoken Assist  is present.

This type of evolution is permanent and cannot be reversed; however, during the card’s respective event, it is possible to Monster Exchange them to reverse them back to the original form. Doing this will forfeit all pluses, skill ups, and awakenings.

The main appeal of Weapon Assists is the transferred awakenings as they can grant additional layers of security as they can provide resistance against dangerous mechanics.

How to optimize Skill Inheritance

From my point of view, there are several reasons to utilize Skill Inheritance and these can overlap:

• Transfer an active that is beneficial to the team
• Provide additional awakenings to the base card
• Protect against Skill Delays
• Provide additional stats for on-colour inherits

Transferring a beneficial active

Team building has become a process of using the strongest subs possible but often times, those subs do not come with actives that can counter every possible mechanic. As such, players will often need to use Skill Inheritance to acquire specific actives for the dungeon at hand.

For the most part, the inherited active may only be used once per dungeon so choosing an optimal base card is important. Depending on when you need the inherited active, choosing a lower cooldown base card may be important.

Another important factor to consider is the timing in the dungeon where the inherited skill is required along with the frequency it is needed. For example, if it is required midway through an Arena (long dungeon) and never again, choosing a low-moderate cooldown base card with a beneficial active is important. This is because you will still retain use of helpful active after the inherit has been used.

On the other hand, if the inherited active is needed at the very end, you should inherit over someone who has a less helpful base active or one that is seldom used.

Either way, make sure the dungeon is long enough, you have enough Skill Boosts , and the base card’s cooldown is appropriate to use the inherited skill in time.

Provide additional awakenings to the base card

With the introduction of Weapon Assists, it has become favourable to inherit cards that may not have useful actives for the team due to the fact that the awakenings provided can be quite powerful. Of course, there will be times when the inherited skill is helpful and players should follow the above section for determining where to inherit the Weapon Assist.

Unfortunately, most Weapon Assists tend to have less-synergistic actives and it is best to inherit them onto cards that have useful actives for the team being used. This is because players will often use the base active on a regular basis which will prevent the inherited skill from charging up.

In regards to choosing Weapon Assists, those that provide Resistance against various mechanics (eg  ) tend to be the strongest and it is a matter of choosing the most dangerous ability presented in the dungeon.

Protect against Skill Delays

Due to the fact that Inherited skills go over the base skill, they can be used to act as a buffer against Skill Delays. Despite the fact that Skill Delay Resists have become more readily available, having another way to ensure an active skill will be ready is valuable.

For the most part, this tends to be a lower priority but when used correctly, ensures a key active is always ready. If one plans to go this route, it is best to use an inherit that has a longer cooldown to give a larger window of opportunity to use the base skill.

On-colour stat transfer

Inherited cards are able to transfer a small percentage of their stats to the base card if they are the same colour. For the most part, this is a marginal benefit and would mostly be used as a tie-breaker when several, equally helpful options are presented.

With that being said, there is a slight possibility where the extra stats enable players to survive large preemptives. If this occurs, it means an active can be saved but would rarely happen in most scenarios.

Conclusion

Skill Inheritance has become more complex over time due to the varied options available. For the most part, it will be used to transfer a favourable active or provide beneficial awakenings and being able to overlap as many of these as possible will grant an edge in challenging content.

Let me know how you approach Skill Inheritance in the comments below.

Happy Puzzling!

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