Category Archives: Monster Analysis

January 14 Ultimate Evolutions

The latest patch brought fourth 9 new ultimate evolutions and I want to explore their viability and if they will become a must have card or quickly forgotten the next day. The 9 monsters to receive new ultimate evolutions are Hathor Hathor , Awoken Freyja Awoken Freyja , Famiel Famiel , Ruel Ruel , Ariel Ariel , Lumiel Lumiel , Uriel Uriel , Gabriel Gabriel , Michael Michael , and Raphael Raphael . Continue reading January 14 Ultimate Evolutions

Ragnarok, The 6th MP Dragon

Ragnarok Ragnarok Mecha Dragon will be the 6th featured Monster Point Dragon and he comes as a bit of a surprise. For starters, he caps out at only 8 star rarity (compared to 9 stars for the rest) and as such, his value already feels decreased. However, what sets him apart will be the new God Killer God Killer awakening that boosts his own damage against god type enemies by 3x. In addition, Ragnarok will have lead or sub potential so he gains bonus points for flexibility. Continue reading Ragnarok, The 6th MP Dragon

Yomi or Ra Dragon with my first 300k Monster Points?

I have almost completely made my mind up what I should do with my first 300k Monster Points as I was lucky with the 4x GFE rates this past godfest. I am actually very excited and have been researching both Yomi Dragon Yomi Dragon and Ra Dragon Ra Dragon to try and determine who would be the best fit for my box and playstyle. I am only 1 skill up away from hypermaxing Elia Elia and completing my Awoken Sakuya Sakuya team pictured below. It is rare to be able to complete a team in PAD and the satisfaction I will have with the final skill up will be a glorious thing. As such, I wish to expand and branch out to a different team as Sakuya will most likely not have any roster changes any time soon.

Sakuya Dream Team
Tada!

My goal is to develop another end game team who is capable to clearing current content should my Sakuya encounter issues. Both  Yomi Dragon and  Ra Dragon are rated as top tier leads who both have the capacity to clear all the content PAD has to offer and I wish to weigh the pros and cons of using either along with my suitability based on my monster box.

Yomi D stats
Not mine XD

Yomi Dragon Yomi Dragon has a playstyle similiar to Awoken Yomi Awoken Yomi as both leads require you to match 5 connected orbs with at least one being enhanced. Yomi Dragon is vastly superior due to consistency because Awoken Yomi requires 7 combos to reach maximum damage potential. I have an Awoken Yomi team and enjoy the playstyle, but feel constricted by the lack of consistency and low recovery. As such, I am very tempted to purchase Yomi Dragon as it will allow me to develop and learn a new team.

Pros:

  • Unbindable along with bind recovery Recovery Bind awakening
    • This completely removes the need to bring a bind clear sub as Yomi Dragon ‘s active can generate 4 heal orbs and a single row of hearts will remove 6 turns of binds
  • Powerful and synergetic active
  • 2.25x recovery for god type monsters
  • Easy to activate 36x damage with only restriction is having 5 dark orbs
  • Can create teams with numerous haste actives and thus spamming skills
  • 2 time extend Time Extend and 1 Skill Lock Resist awakenings
  • Team building is flexible and only restricts you to using god type dark monsters
  • Less ugly than Ra Dragon Ra Dragon

Cons:

  • Lowish damage? Really would not be an issue when you have 9+ dark orbs so there may be some reliance on actives
  • Kind of ugly and does not fit the Puzzle and Waifus theme

Ra D stats

Ra Dragon Ra Dragon is the king of rainbow leads as he offers an unbelievable 144x  damage to god types when matching red, blue, green, yellow, purple, and heart orbs. Everything will essentially fall over and you will most likely overkill anything when proc-ing your leading skill. Unfortunately, Ra Dragon comes with a high skill cap along with specific and restrictive subs

Pros:

  • 144x damage for a relatively easy to active leader skill (“easy” when compared to other 100x leads)
  • 2.25x recovery along with very high base stats
  • 2 two prong TPA awakenings push your damage even higher
  • Time Extend awakenings to help ensure you match your 6 elements
  • Unbindable

Cons:

  • Lacks a Skill Lock Resist awakening and puts a strain on team building in order to achieve 100% resistance
  • Sub pool is very constricted and relies heavily on having 2 Dark Kalis Dark Kali for constant board refreshes
  • Highest chance of any lead to be orb trolled
  • Even uglier than Yomi Dragon

MP shop

So now the big question is what am I going to purchase? When deciding which MP Dragon to invest in, you should look at your potential sub pool. A leader, no matter how powerful, is going to falter without ideal subs. For myself, I already have a powerful rainbow leader in Awoken Sakuya Sakuya along with 0 Dark Kalis Dark Kali . Therefore, if I were to buy Ra Dragon , I would be missing all of the important subs with the exception of Awoken Isis Isis along with not being able to branch out and experience different team playstyles. As such, I will purchase Yomi Dragon because I have a stronger sub pool along with wanting to experience a new type of team and gameplay.

Purchasing Yomi D
Here we go!
My Yomi D
Ahhhh *screaming in Japanese*

Okay, that gave me quite the adrenaline rush! My first MP dragon and I now have a new project to work on. It will mostly be trying to 297 everything I can and here are some tentative teams I may try to run. I am open to team building feedback as my experience here is more limited when deciding on ideal subs.

Dark Box
Any input is greatly appreciated!
Yomi D 1
Z8 isnt a god, but is max skilled
Yomi D 2
25 percent gravity may be useful?
Yomi D 3
Shield and board refresh all day
Yomi D 4
Too many orb changers?
Yomi D 5
Haste all day?

Light Kali Team Building and Discussion Guide

Light Kali Kali is one of the most well rounded monsters in the game as she can fulfil both a top tier sub role and an amazing leader role. 36x damage is still significant and should be enough damage to clear nearly all the content available. In addition, she has one of the best active skills and excels when compared to other high end leads who usually have lackluster actives. Kali ‘s playstyle revolves around two prong attacks TPA along with matching red, blue, yellow, and purple orbs. Triggering 6+ matches grants the full 36x damage and should therefore plan your moves carefully. The full board change active lowers the chance of orb troll (although you can be given a board with only 3 light orbs) which is the leading cause of death for rainbow teams. All of her awakenings are relevant and synergetic to her playstyle and the only real fault to be found is that 36x is somewhat considered “low” with the advent of awoken cards and MP Dragons. Continue reading Light Kali Team Building and Discussion Guide

Umisachi & Yamasachi Team Building and Discussion Guide

U&Y Uuuuummiiiii Yammiiiiiii!!!!!!!! (a.k.a. the Wonder Boys) got an ult of an ultimate evolution and still haven’t grown past puberty. Fantastic has been using U&Y since the Players Choice Godfest around 2 years ago when they were first released. They immediately rose in popularity as there was no other 25x leader aside from Sakuya Sakuya . U&Y has a powerful active that creates a board full of water and green orbs on a 7-turn cooldown. The newest ultimate evolution added 900 health along with a desperately needed skill lock resist Skill Lock Resist awakening. In addition, to the added bulk and defensive capabilities, U&Y can now achieve 56.25x damage for god type when using an active skill. Overall, this makes the Wonder Boys a powerful leader capable of clearing end game content. The following video was my first recording so the audio may not be perfect. However, the gameplay and commentary should give you a relative idea of the playstyle and power U&Y can wield. Continue reading Umisachi & Yamasachi Team Building and Discussion Guide

Awoken Freyr Released

Freyr Awoken Freyr is a hot new addition to fire teams. Forgoing their silly mounts, they instead gain a sparkly sword and much fiercer facial expression. Artwork aside, Freyr gains a tremendous boost in weighted stats (most notably in health) at the expense of losing recovery. With the current top fire team being Awoken Shiva Shiva (and Shiva Dragon Shiva D  for 300k monster points) who grants a recovery boost, the loss in healing potential is negated. Freyr received an active update with their awoken evolution and now will boost fire and water type monsters by 2x for 2 turns along with one turn haste on a 12-turn cooldown when max skilled. As with I&I and Awoken Thor Thor active changes, Freyr ‘s feels like a sidegrade and not a meaningful power boost that I associate with awoken evolutions. Increasing the base cooldown lowers the haste potential if your team runs multiple haste actives. However, the additional two  TPA and double Skill Lock Resist awakenings allow Freyr to play on either row-based Fire Row or TPA teams.

Gaining two TPA and double Skill Lock Resist allows Freyr to be utilized on a TPA heavy Shiva team. Freyr will primarily be competing with Set Set for the damage enhancing role on a red based team and as previously discussed in my November 18th Evolution Post, and Freyr is superior in almost every way. Both Freyr and Set increase fire attribute damage which stacks with enhanced orbs that Shiva ‘s active generates and this is another way to guarentee a one shot on a powerful boss. It becomes redundant to stack too many orb-changers on a team because you are unable to use too many on one turn for an Shiva team because you have to be able to make at least 6+ combos. Lastly, the damage carrying over to a second turn can allow you to kill the second to last floor with ease and transition into the boss with one more turn of enhanced damage. This can preserve other actives or take down a boss in two turns who grants a free turn when pushed into a certain health threshold.

The blue subtype for Freyr screams out a spot as an Urd Urd sub as you will now benefit from the augmented health and recovery stats. Urd teams are not considered top tier at the moment, but perhaps when more subs that cover red and blue are released may increase her viability. In addition gaining an ultimate evolution may push her teams ahead.

Of the three Awoken Norse Gods ( I&I , Thor , and Freyr ) currently released, Freyr has the most viability because water is currently the weakest colour and Thor has no true role to fill as most light teams are rainbow based and currently are not in a true need for a 12-turn cooldown to augment damage as they already have very high base multipliers. If I am fortunate enough to pull Freyr in the next godfest, I will most likely place them on my Shiva for Fantastic as there are times when I do need the extra burst of damage.

All I Want for Christmas is…a Snow Globe?

I can’t believe this will be my third Puzzle and Dragons Christmas and every year it gets bigger and better! Gung-Ho has consistently been stepping up their game in terms of the number events, content being released, and magic stone/tamadras/pii give-aways. Tomorrow, we get the revamped Christmas Dungeon with the top difficulty being amusingly named SuperBlessed. I dearly hope the dungeon features festive music (I still do not understand people who play with the sound off) as that helped me get into the Christmas spirit and combined my favourite time of year with my love for PAD. Continue reading All I Want for Christmas is…a Snow Globe?

Awoken Shiva Team Building and Discussion

Shiva Awoken Shiva is the hottest fire lead in the game and was the reason fire teams are viable in the current meta. Fire teams were historically row-based Fire Row and the row playstyle was limiting due to the heavy reliance on fire-orb makers, the orb manipulation required to create a horizontal line of 6, and the lack of time extends available. Those factors pushed rows out of the meta and the game became more fixated around two-prong attacks (TPA) TPA .  TPA are much easier to match and require less orbs to deal damage. This also allows you to create more off-colour combos, and each match adds an additional 25% damage. Shiva has a similar feel and playstyle to Awoken Bastet Bastet in that they are both combo-based leaders who utilize TPA . Shiva ‘s active skill has been buffed in his awoken form, but it is still a bit lackluster as you bring two into the descend, and it is slightly redundant to have two cards with a damage enhancing active. Continue reading Awoken Shiva Team Building and Discussion

Dark Metatron, Back in the Meta?

dtron Arbiter of Judgement, Metatron, aka Dark Metatron or dtron is one of the oldest Godfest Exclusive (GFE) gods in PAD along with the Odin pantheon. She rose to hyper-luxury REM status when awakenings were first introduced as she was unbindable and had two dark row enhances Dark row . However, she quickly lost popularity as team building restricted you to using only dark attacker subs. Eventually, dtron was given her current Dark-Blue evolution and updated active skill to provide a shield along with dark orb enhancement. The evolution was nice because it opened up sub pools to gods as well, but still could not viably build a team as the introduction of preemptive abilities made it near impossible to stay below 80% health as there was no health boost from her leader skill. Continue reading Dark Metatron, Back in the Meta?

Indigo Descended & November 18th Evolutions

Indigo Indigo Descended is going to be available on November 20th at 6pm and brings fourth a new set of challenges, some familiar faces, and a 7×6 board. Those who have managed to clear the first Endless Coridoors will have unlocked a 7×6 board onwhich to practice upon. I have found myself becoming quite dizzy and slightly nauseous from playing the 7×6 and 5×4 boards as I am too familiar with the 6×5. With a larger board, the boss’s health is boosted to compensate for the higher average combos when playing with 12 additional orbs. Row enhance-based teams will have a tough time trying to match a horizontal line of seven orbs whereas a TPA focused team will excel as more two prongs can be achieved. Naturally, combo-based teams will have it easier; players are expected to pump out millions of damage every turn to overcome the nearly 10 million health pool of the boss. Continue reading Indigo Descended & November 18th Evolutions