Tag Archives: Pantheon Analysis

Monster Analysis: Master List

This has been one of my long term projects as my goal was to create a posting that can help all players find more information about their favourite monsters. This post will inevitably be pushed down over time; however, I have included it at the top of under the drop down tab of Monster Analysis: Master List so you refer back here any time you please.


This post will link you to all of my monster reviews and analysis as organised by pantheons.  These were my drafts, but from the various feedback I have received, I have made them public as people will always have questions about any monster they obtain from the REM. Do note that these analysis are a continuous work in progress and some cards may be missing or updated when they go live in a Godfest.

Please refer to my Popular Leaders and their Full Sub List post for inspiration on team building ideas. If contemplating on purchasing a MP Dragon, please check out my Monster Point Dragon Purchasing Check-list Guide.

Indian 1

Shiva
Shiva
Awoken Lakshimi
Lakshmi
Awoken Parv
Parvati
Indra row
Indra
Vitra
Vritra

The Indian 1 Pantheon is somewhat fragmented in that only 3 of the monsters have an Awoken Evolution. Furthermore, Shiva Shiva, Lakshmi Awoken Lakshimi, and Parvati Awoken Parv only come into their full power with their awoken forms and will be quite weak beforehand. Indra Indra row is powerful in the right situations, but has little benefit in the early game. Overall a strong pantheon for leaders and a single sub, but will take time to truly shine.

Indian 2

Krishna
Krishna
Sarasvati
Sarasvati
Vishnu
Vishnu
Ganesha
Ganesha
Durga
Durga

The Indian 2 Pantheon is quite lackluster due to non having Awoken Evolutions. Furthermore, several of them received a buff to their leader skill and no awakenings with their ultimate evolution. Overall, the Indian 2 series is in need of a buff to give them relevance as either subs or leaders.

Archdemon

Belial
Belial
Amon
Amon
Astaroth
Astaroth
Baal
Baal
Awoken Archdemon Lucifer
Lucifer

The Archdemons can be a frustrating pantheon to roll because only Astaroth Astaroth and Lucifer Awoken Archdemon Lucifer received Awoken Evolutions. The other 3 received a Bankai evolution which does not alter their weak active skill. This makes them poor choices to run on their respective mono-colour teams as you will almost always have a better single orb changer option. Continue reading Monster Analysis: Master List

Egyptian 1 Pantheon Analysis

Please refer to the Master List for directory to the other pantheons and their analysis.

Take a look at my Popular Leaders and their Full Sub List post for inspiration on team building ideas. If contemplating on purchasing a MP Dragon, please check out my Monster Point Dragon Purchasing Check-list Guide.

Keep in mind all of the following monsters qualify for Skill Inheritance so do not be too hasty in selling dupes.


The Egyptian 1 pantheon features a diverse array of powerful monsters who both excel in leadership and new found sub potential with the advent of more challenging dungeons. Many make stellar leaders for a beginning player as they will teach you how to combo and manage your colours/orbs efficiently and transition into powerhouses with their awoken forms. Overall, a strong pantheon to roll for.

Egyptian 1

jjjjjjjjMonsterjjjjjjjjj  Notes
 Horus
Horus
Devil / God
Enhnaced Fire Orb Enhnaced Fire Orb Skill Boost
Skill Lock Resist Skill Boost Time Extend
Skill Lock Resist TPA
—-
Fire Arrow  Enhnaced Fire Orb + extend time to move orbs by 2 seconds
4 turn CD
Horus is a flaming hot chicken who is jokingly referred to as KFC or other poultry puns. Jokes aside, Horus is an underrated leader who is capable of forming a 45.56x ATK / 2.25x RCV rainbow team. What makes Horus unique is the ability control his damage and recovery through active usage. Most rainbow teams do not have a built in RCV multiplier and is one of the main reasons they falter in higher tier content.

Perhaps the reason why Horus is not as popular in today’s meta is due to the fact that 45.46x ATK on a rainbow team is not very game breaking (thanks Ra Dragon Ra Dragon) as you are unable to stack rows and may have limited access to TPA subs. In addition, Horus’s active skill is rather lacklustre and will mostly be used to trigger the additional damage component from your leader skill. On the bright side, Horus has double skill bind resist Skill Lock Resist awakenings and will alleviate team building constraints when trying to achieve 100% immunity.

Horus is seldom seen as a sub due to a underwhelming active as there are stronger damage enhancement options available.

Overall, Horus is still a powerful leader and is capable of clearing high end content with the right investment, player skill, and luck. He is also a fantastic leader for those who are just starting out as you will be forced to improve your comboing and orb matching skills.

Isis
Isis
Devil / God
blue + orb blue + orb Bind Immune
Bind Immune Time Extend Skill Lock Resist
Water Row Skill Boost
—-
Reduce damage by 15%, 2 turn bind clear
3 turn CD
Isis is one of the most sought after cards in Puzzle and Dragons due to her incredible utility, active, skill inheritance potential, colour coverage, and beauty. It is sometimes challenging to find a sub who can cover both water and wood while being useful (others that come to mind are Sun Quan Sun Quan and Orochi Awoken Oorochi). However, neither of those offer the same degree of defensive utility as Isis along with a quick charging active. With an active that takes only 3 turns to recharge, Isis makes an amazing base monster for inheriting a skill. This way you can have the colour coverage and option of bind clearing along with an inherited active for only an additional 3 turns of cooldown.

Isis is naturally at home on mono water teams as she offers some offensive capabilities, but perhaps her most popular use is on Ra Dragon Ra Dragon (or other rainbow) teams. If you have a Dark Kali Dark Kali, your team is essentially bind immune as you your colour activation requirements will always be met. Furthermore, you can clear binds from other subs with Isis’s active.

Sub potential aside, Isis makes a wonderful leader for new accounts as she will help teach you the basics of comboing along with colour management.

Overall, Isis is one of the strongest and most versatile monsters available and is worth pursuing and investing in.

Bastet
Bastet
Devil / Balance
Poison resist Time Extend Poison resist
Skill Lock Resist Skill Boost Time Extend
TPA Enhanced Wood Orb
—-
Mass attack for 3 turns + 2s to move orbs
5 turn CD
Best Cat, I mean Bastet, is still a powerful lead despite what various JP tier lists report. She has not become weak, only that newer and flashier cards have been released (thinking of the next round of 300k MP cards). Granted 36x ATK may seem lacklustre, but you have to remember that wood has some fantastic sub options for a mono colour TPA TPA teams. Outstanding subs include, but not limited to Vishnu Vishnu (sometimes x2), Meimei MeiMei, Sylvie Sylvie, Kaede Kaede, Liu Bei Liu Bei, and Verdandi Verd. With ample access to wood orb generation and enhanced skyfalls, you can unleash incredible burst damage that is capable of sweeping most high level content. Furthermore, you are able to control your damage through combos made, electing to match TPA, and active usage as a component of your leader skill is tied to using skills.

The main downsides of using Bastet are no HP or RCV multiplier, a weak active, a reliance on using actives to trigger her full multipliers (think skill delays or locked actives), and a higher skill cap to use. However, with the introduction of skill inheritance, you will be able to inherit a powerful and useful active onto your two leaders.

Overall, Best Cat is a wonderful leader who will have players saying mee-wow at your burst damage and cuteness potential.

Ra
Ra
Devil / God
Bind Immune Bind Immune Skill Lock Resist
Blind Resist Time Extend Skill Boost
Skill Boost +light orb
—-
77,777 true damage to all enemies + 3s to move orbs
7 turn CD
Ra Ra Ra Ra Ra, Ra Ra Ra Ra. Something something P-p-poker face. Bad singing aside, Awoken Ra is still a powerhouse leader who offers 100x damage for only matching fire, water, wood, light, dark, and using an active skill. This is quite a low skill cap for 100x damage and upon his release, completely shattered the meta as he simply overpowered all the content put before him. However, with the advent of 300k MP cards and more ridiculous dungeon mechanics, Awoken Ra has lost his godly status, but is still capable of clearing end game content.

As a leader, Ra is bind immune and has the ability to control his damage through active skill usage. You can deal 4x, 25x, or 100x damage and this can be useful when you need to control your output. The main factors that are hindering his supremacy is a lacklustre active, vulnerability to skill delays (as you cannot trigger 100x damage), reliance on repeated active usage to sweep floors, and not being a pretty girl.

With the advent of push button farming and bosses with high defence and low HP, Ra’s active has found some more uses as it can be used to sweep these floors. On a push button team, he can be used for clearing the smaller floors and his two skill boosts Skill Boost will come in handy. When dealing with floors such as 10 million defence PreDRAs Fire PreDRA, the true damage nuke becomes invaluable and may be used for skill inheritance.

Overall, Ra is still a great monster and should not be discredited because newer and flashing cards have been released. You also want to keep dupes for skill inheritance or push button farming.

Anubis
Awoken Anubis
Devil / God
Bind Immune Bind Immune Time Extend
Auto heal Time Extend Skill Lock Resist
Skill Boost Auto heal
—-
Green Jammer Poison
Arrow Dark
+
4 turn counterattack
8 turn CD
The one true Doge has been heralded as the king of damage output (discrediting the even more unreliable Fenrir Fenrir) at the risk of an incredibly high skill/luck cap. Awoken Anubis can achieve 400x ATK at 12 combos and only begins to generate a multiplier at 9 combos. The average board may not even allow you to create 9 combos due to uneven orb distribution and causes you to rely on skyfalls for damage as the maximum matches you can generate from a regular board is 10 combos. Furthermore, there are very few players who can consistently hit 8+ combos and even those still need to pray to RNG-esus for additional skyfalls. Building upon the reliance of skyfalls for triggering damage, you have almost no reliable way to control your damage outside of using an active and matching under 9 combos for 4x damage. However, if you are able to maximize the board on a consistent basis, you will be greatly rewarded.

Looking at Anubis as a sub, he can find a home on numerous mono dark teams and his active can be quite powerful as a pseudo board refresh substitute. You generally use full board changers to remove excessive jammer or poison orbs and with his revamped active, Anubis can fulfil that role. His main drawback as a sub is an underwhelming active if you are not removing jammer or poison orbs. This is because an 8-turn cooldown for a single orb change is poor value when you could use something like Grisar Grisar who is 7 turns with haste. Furthermore, Anubis lacks any offensive awakenings and this will bring down your overall damage.

Overall, Anubis is an okay card to own as his leadership potential is marred by luck/inconsistency while his sub usage is most limited to a budget jammer/poison orb removal.

Happy Puzzling!

Japanese 1 Pantheon Analysis

Please refer to the Master List for directory to the other pantheons and their analysis.

Take a look at my Popular Leaders and their Full Sub List post for inspiration on team building ideas. If contemplating on purchasing a MP Dragon, please check out my Monster Point Dragon Purchasing Check-list Guide.

Keep in mind all of the following monsters qualify for Skill Inheritance so do not be too hasty in selling dupes.


The Japanese 1 pantheon has some of the strongest awoken evolutions in the game. They provide valuable utility for various teams and several are great candidates for contributing their active for skill inheritance. The main drawback is a lack of usability prior to being awoken and will be neglected until acquiring the evolution materials.

Japanese 1

jjjjjjjjMonsterjjjjjjjjj  Notes
 Hinokagutsuchi
Awoken Hino
Dragon / Physical
TPA TPA Fire Row
Skill Boost Dark Orb Enhance Auto heal
TPA Enhnaced Fire Orb Skill Lock Resist
—-
Water Arrow Fire
Heart Arrow Dark
Reduce enemy defence 75%
7 turn CD
Hinokagutsuchi is a nightmare to spell and is often shortened to Hino and was one of the first monsters to receive an Awoken Evolution. Upon release, Hino was a fiery success as he hits incredibly hard with 3 two prong attack TPA awakenings. This has incredible synergy with Awoken Shiva Shiva who is one of the most popular TPA oriented leaders. Hino will also be receiving a skill bind resist awakening Skill Lock Resist in the near future and this will resolve his largest pitfall. Furthermore, Hino’s active creates a favourable 4 colour board along with the situationally helpful 75% defence break. Overall a fantastic fire TPA sub to own and is worth investing both pluses and attack latent Imp ATK tamadras.

As a leader, Hino has the ability to deal ~30k damage to all enemies with any orb match. This is great for helping a low level alt account or sweeping Thursday dungeon very quickly.

 Viper Orochi
Awoken Oorochi
Physical / Dragon
TPA TPA Water Row
Skill Boost TPA Skill Boost
Time Extend TPA
—-
Delay all enemies for 4 turns
15 turn CD
Viper Orochi has gone from zero to hero with various ups and downs along the way. Presently, Orochi is one of the most desired monsters in Puzzle and Dragons because of his 4 turn delay. Until recently, delays were beginning to go out of style; however, with the advent of stronger bosses with either resolve or damage absorption shields, players are become more reliant on the extra turns gained from his active. In addition, Orochi covers the awkward water and wood attribute on rainbow teams and is only outclassed by Awoken Isis Isis in that regard. The 4 two prong attack TPA awakenings allow for spectacular burst damage, but his naturally low base attack means he requires plus egg investment to truly shine. Orochi can also be used on every mono water team if you require a delay.

With the introduction of Skill Inheritance, duplicate Orochis are quite desired and I strongly encourage you to not sell them for 5,000 Monster Points. Lastly, Orochi does have some leadership potential when paired with Ra Dragon Ra Dragon as a means to control your damage along with surviving giant single attack preemptives.

Finally, if you are considering using Orochi or Sun Quan Sun Quan as your delay slot, keep the following things in mind: Sun Quan offers only 2 turns of delay, but 2 turns of healer enhancement while Orochi grants 4 turns of delay. Unless you are running a heavy healer team, the 2x damage goes to waste and unless your team has severe recovery issues, Orochi will be the superior choice.

 Susano
Susano
Physical / Dragon
Enhanced Wood Orb TPA Bind Immune
Bind Immune Skill Boost Skill Boost
TPA Time Extend
—-
Reduce damage by 50% for 3 turns. 1 turn haste
11 turn CD
I wish my abs were as chiselled and sculpted as Awoken Susano because that would most certainly boost my husbano potential. Regardless, Susano is the definition of a dream boat in both looks and sub potential. He is a favoured sub on both rainbow and mono wood teams due to his wood and fire coverage. His bind immunity is crucial for both having access to a shield at all times along with being able to contribute his colours for rainbow team activation. Susano is perhaps most at home on Awoken Sakuya Sakuya teams due to full colour coverage and the ability to trigger her leader skill if the entire team is bound. On mono wood teams, Susano provides a valuable shielding component and haste while providing 2 two prong TPA awakenings.

The shielding component has become invaluable with stronger preemptive strikes or the need to stall on dangerous bosses and the 50% damage reduction allows you to survive most attacks. The haste has situationally useful uses when skill delay attacks are involved. Due to his unbindability, Susano is a great candidate for full rainbow latent resists (1% of each colour) as a means to survive 100% gravity attacks. His active is also a viable choice for skill inheritance.

Susano’s main weakness is a lack of Skill Bind Resist Skill Lock Resist and this could place constraints on team building in order to achieve 100% immunity.

Amaterasu
Amate
Healer / Physical
Bind Clear awakening Bind Immune Bind Immune
Skill Boost Skill Boost TPA
Skill Lock Resist Skill Lock Resist
—-
Recover 40% max HP, 4 turns bind clear, 1 turn haste
8 turn CD
Amaterasu has been transformed into a fantastic bind clearing sub and powerful leader. She is both bind immune will possessing the bind recover Bind Clear awakening awakening (albeit no heart generating active) giving you flexibility in how you deal with binds. Furthermore, the double Skill Bind Resist Skill Lock Resist is quite unique and allows for more flexibility in team building. In terms of other high end bind clearers, Amaterasu competes with Awoken Sakuya Sakuya and both are great options.

Amaterasu’s active has 3 components and only an 8-turn cooldown. The 40% of max HP heal is quite powerful and only increases in value as your HP rises. It has an exceptional value on Saria Saria / Thor Thor teams who have an augmented health pool (a 40k HP team would receive 16k of healing). The haste is a nice addition as you can use it to recharge your other skills if the binding stage has been passed.

As a leader, Amaterasu forms a powerful 16x ATK team when your HP is full (scales down to 9x when damaged). However, you also heal 10x of your base RCV with every orb match. This essentially is a full heal every turn with dual Amaterasu leads. This is fantastic as you do not have to worry about healing and can survive any dungeon provided you do not get one shotted. This also makes her great for 5×4 latent resist farming (other viable leads can be found in my previous post) as you cannot die to the invading Tamadra.

Overall a great card to own for both sub and leadership roles.

Tsukuyomi
Awoken Yomi
Physical / Devil
Dark Orb Enhance Time Extend Time Extend
Skill Lock Resist Dark Orb Enhance Skill Boost
Time Extend Dark Orb Enhance
—-
Enhance all orbs. +5 seconds to move orbs
8 turn CD
Man, woman, or avenging cyborg? Tsukuyomi, or Yomi, can be anything you want them to be and is an incredibly powerful leader with a 56.25x ATK multiplier. They utilize the match 5 connected orbs, 1 enhanced orb (5o1e) leader playstyle and requires 7+ combos to achieve their full multiplier. This makes them very challenging and skill intensive to use as you have to essentially maximize the board every time you wish to deal damage. However, if you are able to do this successfully, your damage output will be amazing and most likely sweep every floor. So why are they not a more popular leader? The simple answer is a lack of any survivability multiplier (HP or RCV), high skill cap/thinking required, and naturally low recovery that makes stalling difficult.

Awakenings wise, Yomi provides 1.5 seconds of additional time to move orbs (3 seconds if dual leaders) and 3 dark orb enhance Dark Orb Enhance awakenings. Together, these allow for a luxurious amount of time for comboing as well as significant damage for every dark orb match and skyfall.

As a sub, Yomi is seldom seen due to their active being somewhat underwhelming and the enhanced orbs having less synergy with row or TPA based teams. However, you can use their active to override time debuffs (think Dark Izanami’s -2s) which can be situationally useful. The three time extend awakenings are nice, but should not be the sole reason you use them as a sub.

Happy Puzzling!

Greco-Roman 2, Three Kingdoms, Greco-Roman 1, and Hero God Pantheon Analysis

Refer to the Master List for directory to the other pantheons and their analysis.

Take a look at my Popular Leaders and their Full Sub List post for inspiration on team building ideas. If contemplating on purchasing a MP Dragon, please check out my Monster Point Dragon Purchasing Check-list Guide.

Keep in mind all of the following monsters qualify for Skill Inheritance so do not be too hasty in selling dupes.

Greco-Roman 2

jjjjjjjjMonsterjjjjjjjjj  Notes
 Ares
Ares
God / Physical
TPA Skill Boost Blind Resist
Fire Row Skill Lock Resist Fire Row
Fire Row

Heart Water Arrow Fire
8 turn CD
Ares is one hot fire team sub and was once crowned the title of highest ATK base stats in the game. However, time has seen his place shifted around to his current form of a fire row Fire Row powerhouse. Furthermore, with his god typing, he makes an incredible Shiva Dragon Shiva D sub. Unfortunately, Ares is unable to be as well utilized on other top fire teams such as Awoken Shiva Shiva or Gadius Gadius as he will either create too many fire orbs and prevent sufficient combos or remove heart orbs.

On the bright side for Awoken Shiva Shiva teams, Ares just had an Awoken Evolution announced Awoken Ares. This will grant him Devil / Attacker typing and causing him to become TPA TPA oriented with massive base attack and an enhanced fire skyfall active in conjunction with double orb change. This is also great news for Raoh teams as the double orb change helps flood the board with fire orbs. Unfortunately, this will remove his presence on Shiva Dragon Shiva D teams so exercise caution before committing. I will also do his own special post comparing his evolutions at a later date.

Hermes
Hermes
God / Attacker
Skill Lock Resist Skill Boost Skill Boost
Water Row TPA Water Row
Water Row
—-
BL Hermes
God / Physical
Skill Lock Resist Skill Boost Skill Boost
Water Row Devil killer Water Row

Green Heart Arrow Water
8 turn CD
—-
Awoken Hermes
Awoken Hermes
Devil / Attacker
Skill Lock Resist Skill Boost Skill Boost
Water Row Water Row TPA
blue + orb blue + orb
—-
Green Heart Arrow Water + 2 turn water skyfall
8 turn CD
Hermes is one of the few monsters that has 3 unique and powerful options for evolution trees (which I will be covering in a more extensive post). The decision of which evolution boils down to the type of leader you are using.

  • B/D Hermes is best on Neptune Dragon Neptune Dragon teams
  • B/L  BL Hermes is a physical Blue Sonia Blue Sonia sub (or Neptune Dragon Neptune Dragon )
  • Awoken Awoken Hermes for every other water team except for Neptune Dragon Neptune Dragon and Blue Sonia Blue Sonia

Regardless of which evolution path you choose, all the Hermi (Hermeses?) are outstanding mono water team subs on row Water Row based teams as his active overflows the board with your desired water orbs and can be combo-ed with nearly every full board changer to generate a 2/3 water board.

Please read my Hermes Evolution Comparison Post for a more detailed examination of which path is best for you.

Awoken Artemis
Awoken Artemis
Attacker/ Devil
TPA Skill Boost Blind Resist
Wood Row Enhanced Wood Orb Skill Lock Resist
 TPA Enhanced Wood Orb
—-
Fire Heart Arrow Green + 2 turn wood skyfall
8 turn CD
—-
Artemis
God / Attacker
TPA Skill Boost Blind Resist
Wood Row Skill Lock Resist Wood Row
Wood Row
—-
Fire Heart Arrow Green
8 turn CD
Artemis is still in an awkward position even with her branched evolution tree. Her double orb changer is similar to Australis Australis and Liu Bei Liu Bei , but she cannot as easily be placed on any team as both those counterparts do their job better.

Australis Australis has 5 Wood Row awakenings and a more powerful active as her skyfall buff lasts for 4 turns. Liu Bei Liu Bei has 3 TPA TPA awakenings and by default hits harder (maybe the skyfall mechanic negates this). Regardless, playing Artemis on a TPA oriented combo team such as Awoken Bastet Bastet is problematic due to overflowing the board with too many wood orbs and potentially causing you to be unable to form 7+ combos required for full leader skill activation. You can arguably use Awoken Artemis  as a leader on her own to form a 4x HP / 16x ATK team but must work around awkwardly matching water and wood orbs.

However, one thing Awoken Artemis shines at is being an Awoken Astaroth Astaroth sub as her team is normally quite restrictive in their sub choices.

Please read my Artemis Evolution Comparison Post for a more detailed examination of which path is best for you.

 

Apollo
Apollo (blue)
God / Attacker
+heart +heart TPA
Skill Boost TPA Light Row
Light Row
—-
Heart Dark  Arrow Light
8 turn CD
—-
Awoken Apollo
Awoken Apollo
Healer / Attacker
+heart +heart TPA
Skill Boost +light orb TPA
Skill Lock Resist +light orb
—-
Heart Dark  Arrow Light + 2 turn light skyfall
8 turn CD
L/B Apollo Apollo (blue) is a fantastic light row Light Row sub for Saria Saria / Thor Thor teams as his active floods the board with numerous light orbs and almost always ensures you can manufacture 2 unique rows. Furthermore, his dual orb changing capabilities allow him to combo with most full board changers. Unfortunately, a lack of SBR Skill Lock Resist or time extend Time Extend diminish his utility value.

On the other hand, Awoken Apollo Awoken Apollo is quite the horny and majestic unicorn (seriously, his art is just mind-boggling) and appears to have less synergy with most teams as he lost his row enhances. The strange part of the entire Greco-Roman pantheon’s active favours row formation due to flooding the board with their respective colour. Regardless, Awoken Apollo gains the healer typing and opens options to be used on Awoken Ama Amate , Light Metatron Metatron , and Light Zhuge Liang Light Zhuge Liang teams. In addition, the new wood typing means Awoken Sakuya Sakuya teams do not need to bring a wood sub and may ease team building. Of course, the overflow of light orbs may make it problematic to adequately combo, but can be used after Light Kali Kali ‘s active to ensure a more combo friendly board. Furthermore, the enhanced skyfall mechanic may add lethal amounts of additional damage.

Please read my Apollo Evolution Comparison Post for a more detailed examination of which path is best for you.

Persephone
Persephone
God / Healer
+heart +heart TPA
Skill Boost TPA Dark row
Dark row
—-
D.R Persephone
God / Devil
+heart +heart TPA
Skill Boost God Killer Skill Lock Resist

—-

Heart Light Arrow Dark
8 turn CD
—-
Persephone was far prettier in her dark/fire D.R Persephone form and is only evolved to dark/wood because of the additional awakenings and most notably 2 Dark row . In addition, the 2 +heart awakenings add significant increase to healing that should not be overlooked. Furthermore, the enhanced heal orbs will be converted into enhanced dark orbs. Row based teams love actives that can flood the board with dark orbs and D/G  Persephone is an amazing candidate. Main drawback are a lack of Skill Lock Resist awakening and may place constraints on team building along with no devil typing. This changes with the D.R Persephone evolution at the cost of 2 Dark row and TPA.

However, Awoken PersephoneAwoken Persephone was just announced in JP and brings yet another tough decision to make in terms of viable evolution paths. I will be making a special follow up post at a future date with her pros and cons, but I will just leave you with her becoming Attacker / Devil typing and being orb enhance Dark Orb Enhance and TPA TPA reliant.

Continue reading Greco-Roman 2, Three Kingdoms, Greco-Roman 1, and Hero God Pantheon Analysis

Chinese Celestial, Sengoku, Mechanical 1, & Mechanical 2 Pantheon Analysis

Please refer to the Master List for directory to the other pantheons and their analysis.

Take a look at my Popular Leaders and their Full Sub List post for inspiration on team building ideas. If contemplating on purchasing a MP Dragon, please check out my Monster Point Dragon Purchasing Check-list Guide.

Keep in mind all of the following monsters qualify for Skill Inheritance so do not be too hasty in selling dupes.

Chinese Celestials

jjjjjjjjMonsterjjjjjjjjj  Notes
 Awoken Leilan
Awoken Leilan
Physical / Attacker
Enhnaced Fire Orb
 Enhnaced Fire Orb Skill Lock Resist
Fire Row Skill Boost Fire Row
Skill Boost Time Extend
—-
All  Arrow Fire Green Light + haste
9 turn CD
Leilan has legs to die for along with being a mono red powerhouse with a healthy mixture of offensive and utility based awakenings. She can also be effectively comboed with other orb changers to create fire heavy boards. Unfortunately, the 2 top fire teams, Awoken Shiva Shiva and Shiva Dragon Shiva D seldom use  Leilan due to no two prong attack TPA awakenings or god typing. Hopefully with a release of more Fire Row based teams she will see a resurgence in popularity. Lastly, Leilan can form a system on Ilm Ilm teams.

As a leader, Leilan forms a 12.25x ATK team with 51% damage reduction from Fire, Wood, and Light enemies. Has situational uses, but is usually used as a sub.

 Awoken Karin
Awoken Karin
Dragon / Attacker
blue + orb
 Poison resist Skill Lock Resist
Water Row Water Row Skill Boost
Skill Boost Time Extend
—-
All  Arrow Water Green Dark + haste
9 turn CD
I have a borderline irrational love for Karin and probably stems from my favourite colour being blue, dragons, and a pretty girl all rolled into amazing one monster. Fanboying aside, Karin is most at home on the various mono-blue powerhouse leads such as Blue Sonia Blue Sonia and Awoken I&I I&I / Ryune Ryune . Karin’s active, while powerful, is somewhat overshadowed by other water full board changers as she does not generate hearts and most likely needs to be used in conjunction with another orb changer to ensure sufficient water rows.

As a leader, Karin forms a 12.25x ATK team with 51% damage reduction from Water, Wood, and Dark enemies. Has situational uses, but she is mostly used as a sub.

 Awoken Meimei
MeiMei
Physical / Attacker
Enhanced Wood Orb
 Enhanced Wood Orb TPA
Skill Lock Resist TPA Skill Boost
Skill Boost Time Extend
—-
All  Arrow Green Light Dark + haste
9 turn CD
Meimei was once the primary wood board changer and she still reigns strong today. Her awakenings are more powerful than Verdandi Verd and Sylvie Sylvie and only loses ground due to not manufacturing heart orbs. Meimei can be used to great success on Sylvie Sylvie / Freyja Awoken Freyja , Awoken Bastet Bastet , and Spica Spica teams. Furthermore, multiple Meimei ‘s can be used to form a “Meimei System” with Zuoh Ult Zuoh as a lead.

As a leader, Meimei forms a 12.25x ATK team with 51% damage reduction from Wood, Light, and Dark enemies. Has situational uses, but she is mostly used as a sub.

 Awoken Sakuya
Sakuya
Dragon / Healer
Bind Clear awakening
 Blind Resist Jammer Resist
Skill Lock Resist TPA Time Extend
Bind Immune Bind Immune Skill Boost
—-
20% Gravity + 3 turn bind clear
10 turn CD
Sakuya has gone through a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs over the course of her PAD career. She is still currently one of the strongest leaders (and now subs) in her awoken form as she can scale up to 100x damage at 10 combos. The main pitfalls of using Sakuya are a high skill cap, damage inconsistency/orb troll (as it is a scaling and high skill multiplier), and dependency on Light Kalis Kali or other board refreshers. It is still possible to play Sakuya effectively without board changers, but it is becoming harder in today’s meta. Lastly, without any HP/RCV multiplier, it may be challenging to recover after attacks or when stalling. All that negativity aside, Sakuya is still an amazing leader and has been my go to team for over 2 years and have used her to clear numerous Challenge 10s.

Sakuya ‘s uses as a sub are now wide and varied as she combines both a gravity and 3-turn bind clear while being bind immune. Furthermore, she essentially outclasses Light Metatron Metatron in nearly every aspect as a sub.

   Awoken Haku
Haku
God / Healer
Dark Orb Enhance
 Dark Orb Enhance blue + orb
TPA Skill Lock Resist TPA
Skill Boost Time Extend
—-
All  Arrow Fire Water Dark + haste
9 turn CD
Awoken Haku was once a critical dark sub to own due to her utility and active. Thankfully, other options have opened up, but should not diminish her value. Furthermore, her exceptionally high base recovery dramatically increases your healing potential on many dark teams. Even without any Dark row awakenings, Haku can still warrant a slot on your Awoken Archdemon Lucifer team due to her utility and explosive combo potential with Akechi Akechi . Haku can also find a home on Yomi Dragon Yomi Dragon , Awoken Yomi Awoken Yomi , and Awoken Anubis Awoken Anubis teams. Lastly, her D/D evolution DD Haku has the devil typing and can be successfully used on Awoken Pandora Awoken Pandora teams.

As a leader, Haku forms a 12.25x ATK team with 51% damage reduction from Fire, Water, and Dark enemies. Has situational uses, but is usually used as a sub.

For further reading on determining which Haku evolution is right for you, please read my Haku Evolution Path Guide.

Continue reading Chinese Celestial, Sengoku, Mechanical 1, & Mechanical 2 Pantheon Analysis

Indian 1, Indian 2, Archdemon, & Japanese 2 Pantheon Anaylsis

Please refer to the Master List for directory to the other pantheons and their analysis.

Take a look at my Popular Leaders and their Full Sub List post for inspiration on team building ideas. If contemplating on purchasing a MP Dragon, please check out my Monster Point Dragon Purchasing Check-list Guide.

Keep in mind all of the following monsters qualify for Skill Inheritance so do not be too hasty in selling dupes.

Indian 1

jjjjjjjjMonsterjjjjjjjjj  Notes
 Shiva
Shiva
Attacker / Devil
Time Extend Skill Boost TPA
TPA Skill Boost Enhnaced Fire Orb
Skill Lock Resist Time Extend
—-
Heart Fire Arrow Enhnaced Fire Orb +heart
Reduce enemy defence 75%
7 turn CD
Awoken Shiva is one of the hottest leads in Puzzle and Dragons as he forms a powerful 20.25x ATK / 2.25x RCV team that is two prong  TPA reliant. Furthermore, his sub pool has no type restrictions other than they must have the fire attribute. This allows for great flexibility with team building along with compensating for fire’s normally low RCV. I enjoy Awoken Shiva’s playstyle as he combines speed and power and can clear high level content due to amazing burst potential. If you wish to read about how to properly construct a Shiva team, please refer to my Team Building Guide.

Unfortunately, Awoken Shiva does falter in the highest level content as his active is relatively weak and his damage output is heavily gated by active usage and may run out of steam mid dungeon. However, do not let this discourage you as he is capable of clearing Challenge 9s and some 10s with the right team and investment. You will also be able to find a huge number of friends due to his popularity.

Lastly, his sub potential is quite low as there are better options for a fire orb enhancer.

 Lakshmi
Awoken Lakshimi
Physical / God
Skill Boost Auto heal Bind Clear awakening
Time Extend blue + orb Skill Lock Resist
TPA Water Row
—-
4 Question Orb Arrow Heart + 25x ATK heal
8 turn CD
Awoken Lakshmi is an often overlooked water powerhouse as she forms an incredible 39x ATK / 2.25x RCV team that is focuses around water rows Water Row . For comparison sake, most other row leaders range from 10.25-25x ATK. Granted you have to match 6 connected heart orbs to do so (in any shape), but the augmented recovery and built in bind recovery Bind Clear awakening from the your leaders help alleviate team building stress. Your subs ideally need to generate both heart and water orbs and some noteworthy ones include, but are not limited to, Andromeda Bankai Andro, Ryune Ryune, Sumire Sumire, and Gabriel Gabriel.

With a built in heal and heart orb generating active, you can stall for actives with ease and the naturally high base HP on water type monsters allows you to survive attacks that most other non-HP multiplied teams could not. Furthermore, you are able to control your damage output by choosing how many heart orbs to match. This is becoming more vital with the advent of bosses with specific damage absorption shields. Lastly, her awakenings are all over the place and perhaps when her design phase they gave up and just gave her a little of everything.

Lakshmi’s main drawbacks are a difficulty finding friends along with almost no sub potential herself.

 Parvati
Awoken Parv
Balance / Devil
Poison resist Enhanced Wood Orb TPA
Auto heal TPA Skill Boost
Bind Immune Bind Immune
—-
Water Arrow Heart
Green Heart Arrow Enhanced Wood Orb +heart
5 turn CD
Awoken Parvati is another 39x ATK / 2.25x RCV leader who is also reliant on heart orb matching for damage. She is essentially the wood version of Lakshmi Awoken Lakshimi , but focuses on Two Prong Attacks TPA to deal lethal damage. This is fantastic as most of the strongest wood subs are TPA oriented and many have 3 of those awakenings. Furthermore, the bind immunity eases team building as you may not need to bring a bind clearing sub. Unfortunately, she lacks a recover bind Bind Clear awakening awakening to help the rest of her team. In addition, with her scaling multiplier, you can control your damage and also elect to not trigger two prong attacks to handle floors with specific damage absorptions.

There is not too much else to say for Parvati as she is a powerful lead who is capable of clearing Arena 1. Her main drawback is her lack of popularity as her leader skill requires some thinking to proc and many people are opting for more mindless/higher output leads.

On the bright side, her two tigers are both cute and majestic.

Indra
Indra row
Dragon / Balance
Time Extend Skill Lock Resist Skill Boost
Skill Lock Resist Light Row Light Row
—-
75% damage reduction for 3 turns
15 turn CD
It is strange how Indra is still lacking an Awoken Evolution as the fire, water, and wood monsters in his pantheon received theirs ages ago. This does put a damper on his viability as he does not have the same power potential as other monsters. Regardless, his 75% damage reduction shield is amazing as you can essentially survive any attack for 3 turns. Granted the cooldown is very long, but will save you during critical phases.

One of his evolutions provides 2 light rows Light Row and allows Indra to participate on some of the newer teams if you need the shielding. His other evolution,  Indra , has god typing which has made him nearly a staple sub on Ra Dragon Ra Dragon teams due to his 2 skill lock resist Skill Lock Resist awakenings. I used to use Indra for that feature when my various teams were less developed as it allowed me to achieve 100% immunity with ease. Lastly, many rainbow teams will use him for the shield as they lack an HP modifier.

Overall, Indra is a vital sub on certain teams, but does not have too many uses for the average player. Perhaps with his Awoken evolution will we have something more meaningful.

Vritra
Vitra
Dragon / Devil
Dark row Skill Boost Dark row
Skill Lock Resist Skill Boost Dark row
—-
Varying damage to all enemies, 1.5x dark ATK
9 turn CD
Vritra appears to have amazing awakenings and upon first glance, but his active is far too weak to be utilized. Dark has numerous options for enhancing their damage via Loki Awoken Loki , Neph Nephthys , and Oku Oku who all provide more burst potential/utility as their secondary effect does not deal small damage. As such, Vritra and his amazing art is regulated to push button teams who wish to farm a dungeon quickly by pressing an active to sweep a floor. Although with the awakenings buff, his other evolution posses the God Killer God Killer awakening and may have a bit more uses on non-button teams.

The HP reset is usually a bad thing, but on teams such as Dark Metatron dtron, it can be a lifesaver if you are unexpectedly healed too much.

Hopefully with an Awoken evolution Vritra will become more useful than a button team sub.

Continue reading Indian 1, Indian 2, Archdemon, & Japanese 2 Pantheon Anaylsis