Tag Archives: Puzzle and Dragons

Summer PAD Academy REM Analysis and Review

June 13, 2016 Mantastic 15 Comments

Introduction & Overview

School’s out and summer is in full swing. Does that mean beaches, sunshine, and lazy afternoons? Maybe for most people, but we have Puzzle and Dragons to play! Furthermore, GungHo is spoiling us with some of our favourite characters dressed up in fancy school girl/boy uniforms. The Summer PAD Academy REM features a diverse array of cards that are not only pleasing to the eye, but powerful as well.

Summer PAD Academy REM
8 Star base
7 Star base
5 Star base
4 Star base

8 Star Rolls

Continue reading Summer PAD Academy REM Analysis and Review →

New Player Help

Metalit Mondays: New Meta for Ranking Up?

June 13, 2016 Mantastic 19 Comments

Note: All values are doubled during half stamina as every run is twice as efficient.

Introduction

After years of hating Mondays with the rest of the population, GungHo has finally acknowledged the existence of Mondays through the new Monday Dungeon! Unlike the other weekday dungeons, Monday will grant a sizeable amount of rank experience instead of evolution materials and will grant lower rank players the opportunity to rank up very fast and efficiently. However, before attempting any dungeon to farm/play repeatedly, always make sure your clear rate is nearly 100% and investigate the dungeon prior to entering.

Monday Dungeon comes in two difficulty levels:

Legend

60,000-63,000 rank experience (1,230 / stamina) – 50 stamina
6 floors
- Floor 1-3 provide 2-5 turns of stalling and about 355k HP
- Floor 4 has up to 1.2M HP and give a few turns before killing you
- Floor 5 has low-HP, 433k defence monsters that can be easily bypassed with poison (eg. Lilith ) or true damage (eg. Ra )
- Boss Floor: 300k defence & 840k HP. Requires sizeable burst to kill

Continue reading Metalit Mondays: New Meta for Ranking Up? →

Pantheon Analysis

Egyptian 2 Pantheon Analysis

June 12, 2016 Mantastic 8 Comments

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 2 pantheon is in an awkward place in today’s meta. They are a relatively new pantheon, but old enough to not have kept pace with the rate of powercreep. Furthermore, none of these cards have an awoken evolution (and probably will not for some time) and this further diminishes their value. Relatively speaking, they make reasonable subs for their respective teams, but may be outclassed by other options.

Egyptian 2
jjjjjjjjMonsterjjjjjjjjj	Notes
Set God / Attacker —- 1.5x ATK Fire att. for 2 turns 11 turn CD	Ding dong. No, that was not the doorbell, but was Set’s triple dong awakenings! For those who avoid the internet (wise choice), the dong awakening sometimes refers to the Two Prong Attack and is Set’s signature aspect. With 3 TPA awakenings, he has the potential for massive burst damage. As such, Set can find a warm welcoming from Awoken Shiva where his burst potential and damage enhancement active are highly desired. One Fantastic aspect of Set’s active is being able to augment your damage for two turns as well as a heart to fire orb changer. This allows you to conserve actives as you can use Set on the second to last floor with no other orb changer to sweep and then proceed into the boss with the second turn of enhancement. In addition to Awoken Shiva, Set can be utilised on Shiva Dragon teams due to his God typing. This allows Set to be your go to choice for damage enhancement as Awoken Freyr lacks a god typing. In addition, you can use Set on Raoh teams due to his Attacker typing if you need the burst. Unfortunately, fire is lacking a solid end game lead and this is the main drawback of Set as you will struggle to find an ideal home for pushing current content. Furthermore, Set is also lacking a Skill Bind Resist awakening and may place constraints on your team when trying to achieve 100% immunity. For beginning players, Set is a strong leader as he will teach you the ways of comboing and basic orb management. Overall, Set is a solid sub for mono fire teams because your damage enhancement will carry over for two turns. This will help conserve your actives towards the end of a dungeon and ensures you are all set for any encounter.
Nut God / Physical —- L Column 4 turn CD	I am going a little nuts over Nut’s artwork and the whole galaxy theme combined with masks and mystery set my heart all aflutter. I actually have her as my desktop’s wallpaper. Regardless, Nut is an interesting water monster who is starting to see more gameplay with the resurgence of water TPA through Rukia . However, even without any water row awakenings, Nut can still be utilised due to her 4 water orb enhance awakenings. She ensures 80% of all water orbs that appear come with an enhance and is a fantastic way to add additional damage to your team. Her God and Physical typing allows them to fully benefit from Neptune Dragon and Blue Sonia ‘s leader skill. In addition, you can use Nut on I&I / Ryune as a means to frequently proc your leader skill via a 4 turn active. Looking at Nut’s active, you are able to generate 1-5 additional water orbs on a 4 turn cooldown. What makes this unique compared to other orb changers is that she will spawn the orbs in a fixed location regardless of what is already there. This means you can use Nut as a way to improve an already strong board after a full board changer or to override poison/jammer orbs. Furthermore, the column that is generated can easily be converted into a TPA match by moving a water orb from the bottom or top. The main drawback of using Nut is a lack of SBR which could place constraints on team building in order to achieve 100% immunity. Overall, Nut is a solid water sub and although she may not be a source of healthy fat/protein, she can strengthen your team’s output via her 4 water orb enhances.
Osiris God / Balance —- R Column 4 turn CD	Osiris was designed as the wood counterpart to Nut as he shares the same style of awakenings and active. He also features his wonderful pet, Medjedra, along with stunning art work. Unfortunately, Osiris is seldom seen on many mono wood teams due to the sheer abundance of TPA-oriented subs. Despite the fact that teams like Bastet thrive on additional orb enhances, you may not be able to as easily accommodate Osiris on your team due to a lack of SBR . In terms of a quick orb changer, most players would elect to use Vishnu instead due to the additional Two Prong Attack, SBR, and enhanced skyfall mechanic. Another factor that is hurting Osiris’s viability is a slow decline of wood TPA teams. They have actually become stronger since the inception of Awoken Bastet due to additional subs and skill inheritance. However, their improvement has not kept pace with the current rate of powercreep and players are beginning to shift away from wood teams. One thing to keep in mind with Osiris is that he forms a modest 1.82x HP / 12.25x ATK / 1.82x RCV team that can be used to clear early-mid game descends. Only problem is finding friends who use him. Overall, Osiris is still a strong card, but the teams where he shines have not kept pace with powercreep and his own lack of an awoken evolution dampens his own power. On the bright side, Medjedra still loves him.
Hathor God / Healer —- 25% gravity 13 turn CD	Got Milk? Hathor certainly does! She brings joy and overflowing jugs all rolled into one pretty girl in Puzzle and Waifus. It is a shame Hathor was released very late into the game and could not shine bright in the meta as 25x rainbow leads began to go out of style. She is capable of forming a 1.82x HP / 20.25x ATK / 1.82x RCV rainbow team that requires 5/6 elements to trigger activation. This would have made her stronger than the first few evolutions of Sakuya, but the game shifted away from rainbow leads before Hathor could develop a following. Presently, Hathor is mostly a pretty box cheerleaders and potential candidate for skill inheritance as gravity assistant. She could also be used as a mono light sub for gravity, but is relatively eclipsed by Awoken Sakuya in that department. Hathor is still lacking a Bankai or Awoken evolution and either one may be able to resurrect her viability as a tank rainbow team with a higher multiplier could be viable in the current meta. Overall, Hathor is a potential assistant as a gravity through skill inheritance and requires a major buff or evolution to gain relevance as a leader.
Nephthys God / Devil —- 1.5x Dark ATK for 2 turns 8 turn CD	Nephthys is an adorkable card in Puzzle and Dragons as she combines cute with a touch of ebil. She also follows the relative trend of the Egyptian 2 pantheon by featuring 4 enhanced orb awakenings and being largely outclassed by other options for her respective role. Even with the buff to her active skill to allow 2 turns of damage enhancement, she will still feel inferior to Loki or other damage boosters. Unlike Set, Nephthys only enhances dark orbs (instead of generating extra orbs) and still requires another orb changer to deal damage. Furthermore, if you are planning to use her active on the second to last floor (as your second turn of damage carries over), you will have wasted the majority of your burst due to the orb enhancement. Thus, you would probably need to use Nephthys on the boss itself and negating the two turn enhancement buff. This may seem a little nit-picky; however, it becomes crucial to min/max at higher levels and you need to be careful of what actives/subs you bring to the party. Looking beyond Nephthys’s active, her God and Devil typing allow her to be utilised on all the popular dark teams: Yomi Dragon , Awoken Lucifer , and Awoken Pandora . The 4 enhanced dark orb add a sizeable damage increase and ensure 80% of all spawned orbs come with an enhance. Furthermore, by being able to enhance dark orbs with her active, you can correct badly spawned full board changers for Yomi Dragon. Nephthys is also capable of forming a modestly strong 1.82x HP / 9x ATK / 1.82x RCV rainbow team that only requires you to match 3 elements. This may not seem that powerful, but you have access to numerous (and powerful) dark subs and you can prioritise rows along with having a 50% uptime on the 1.5x ATK buff from her active with max skilled leaders. You may not be able to find friends, but it is an interesting point to consider and there are numerous clears of higher end content with Nephthys floating around the internet. Overall, Nephthys is a reasonable dark team enhancer, but may be outclassed by other options.

Happy Puzzling!

Site News, Streaming

Mantastic Will Be Streaming Soon!

June 10, 2016 Mantastic 12 Comments

As the title implies, I will begin to venture into the realm of Puzzle and Dragons streaming. This way, you can be entertained by me playing with myself in real time! My stream will probably consist of playing through various coop dungeons with my second account, Fantastic, and hopefully showcasing fun to play, but somewhat unpopular leads.

To help everyone prepare for my momentous streaming debut on Tuesday, June 14 at 6pm PST, I encourage you to follow me on Twitch as this will also deliver a notification when I go live along with my other social media platforms:

Mantastic Social Media
Facebook	Twitter	YouTube	Twitch

I am quite excited as this will be an opportunity to provide another medium of entertainment and puzzling knowledge to my readers. It will also help put a face to the mysterious Mantastic entity along with the realisation that my corny jokes and puns carry over into my speech. It may also make reading my articles more entertaining as you will begin to read them in my Mantastic voice.

Stream Overlay — I would probably get more views if I was a pretty girl like her…

Hopefully you are as excited as I am and I look forward to seeing all of you on Tuesday, June 14 at 6pm PST.

Happy Puzzling!

P.S. The pretty girl is the brains and talent behind my overlay design

Pantheon Analysis

Odins, Ilm, & Zuoh Monster Analysis

June 8, 2016 Mantastic 6 Comments

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

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

The Odin are some of the oldest monsters in Puzzle and Dragons that have been receiving numerous small buffs to try and regain their viability. On the other hand, Ilm and Zuoh are two newer Godfest Exclusives who are powerful options for their respective teams due to their full board changers.

Odins, Ilm, & Zuoh
jjjjjjjjMonsterjjjjjjjjj	Notes
Red Odin God / Attacker —- 50x Dark damage to all enemies. 10x ATK poison 15 turn CD	Red Odin (Rodin) is considered by many to be a staple sub on push button teams. However, with the introduction of skill inheritance, his dependency is slightly lowered if you are willing to invest in a high skill boost base monster. However, Red Odin performs the job so well and can make farming a breeze. Unfortunately, his uses beyond a farming sub are slim as his active will only be situationally useful to bypass high defence monsters via poison. You can also inherit his skill which does make him one of the few poison cards that can be used as an assistant. In an effort to increase his viability, Red Odin has received various buffs to his leader skill and now provides 2x HP and 3.75x ATK. This is reasonable and can make as a pseudo tank team lead. Unfortunately, his active is relatively weak and would require an inheritance to have more viability. Overall, Red Odin is a luxury card who will not see much use for the average player. Just remember, being able to farm an easy dungeon fast does not increase the drop rates, only the speed in which you can clear (and burn stones).
Blue Odin God / Physical —- 50x ATK damage & 15% heal. Enhance water & dark orbs 6 turn CD	Blue Odin (Blodin) has outrageously sculpted thighs that are threatening to burst through his skin-tight pants. Looks aside, the magical spear Odin posses an outstanding 894 weighed stats along with a wonderful mix of offensive awakenings to satisfy any mono water team. Granted you rarely wish to mix rows with TPA awakenings and thus he only has six valid awakenings. Unfortunately, he lacks any form of utility and skill bind resistance which could place constraints on team building to help achieve 100% immunity. Blue Odin’s active has undergone numerous micro-buffs with a reduction to 6 turns with latest patch. Unfortunately, the dual enhancement for water and dark goes mostly to waste and only adds additional turns to the cooldown. However, at only 6 turns, you can use Odin as a base for skill inheritance as his awakenings and base stats are quite strong. Furthermore, you should not discredit the healing component tied to his active. At max level and +297, he will restore 13,395 health and has functioned as an emergency heal on my Blue Sonia team. Blue Odin can have an appearance on any mono water team due to his God and Physical typing which includes, but not limited to Blue Sonia, Neptune Dragon , I&I / Ryune , Lakshmi , and Rukia . As stated above, you can use Blue Odin as your base for skill inheritance as he has a low base cooldown along with high stats and 3 skill boost awakenings. Overall, Blue Odin is regaining favour as a 6-star GFE due to numerous active buffs and skill inheritance.
Green Odin God / Balance —- 50x ATK damage & 15% heal. 5 turns bind clear 9 turn CD	Like Blue Odin , Green Odin (Grodin) has been receiving numerous micro-buffs to his active and is finally blessed with a truly powerful bind clear. If full leveled and +297, he will restore just under 14k health along with removing 5 turns of binds. This is quite potent and although you will rarely need to remove 5 turns, it is a helpful option to have available for skill inheritance. The main reason Odin is not selected as a sub on most teams is his lack of offensive awakenings and no SBR or recover bind utility. Thus, his only purpose would be bind clearing which is becoming less important due to unbindable leads. In addition to his active skill receiving improvements, Grodin’s leader skill has also been upgraded to grant up to 3.5x ATK when clearing 4-8 connected wood orbs and an 80% damage reduction shield on the first attack when HP is full. This is not game-breaking, but at least allows for modestly faster clears if tackling a descend with no multi-hit components. His favourite pairing would be Awoken Ama who also has an ATK multiplier in addition to large autohealing component to her leader skill. Overall, Green Odin is still a lacklustre 5-star GFE as the dependency on bind clearing is at an all time low and will most likely be regulated to being an assistant through skill inheritance.
Ilm Devil / Attacker —- All 12 turn CD	Ilm is essentially a Light/Fire Sonia without an ultimate evolution. This automatically diminishes their value as they only have 6 awakenings (which is low for a 6-star GFE) and I was somewhat surprised to see them in the PCGF. However, it just shows how popular Saria / Thor and Machine Zeus teams are as Ilm can almost always produce 2+ rows through their active. You are of course running the risk of a horrible orb-trolled board which cannot correct via orb changers due to only light and fire orbs being generated. I would prefer to run a tri-colour board changer as you can combo with another sub to pretty much guarantee a burst heavy board. Regardless, you can still effectively utilise Ilm on your mono light row teams and the promise of a future ultimate evolution should address their lack of awakenings. Ilm’s leadership potential is for the most part impractical as a 36x lead is not game breaking considering you have to match two different colours and have no HP or RCV multiplier. However, you can use Ilm as a fantastic Tsubaki sub (if you can find friends who use them) as you generate their two needed colours and can achieve a higher multiplier. Overall, Ilm is a potent mono light sub and their active can be transferred to both fire and light teams.
Zuoh Devil / Physical —- All 8 turn CD	Zuoh has fantastic artwork that truly captures the demonic beast within. He has a relatively new ultimate evolution that gave him a significant boost to his damage output through an additional row and Dragon Killer awakening. The Dragon Killer is exceptionally valuable in Ultimate Arena when facing the Dark Kali as it helps you push her out of the >65% danger zone. In addition to his offensive capabilities, he has a healthy mix of defensive utility and is a boon to all dark row-based/devil teams. You can find Zuoh making an appearance on Lucifer , Pandora , and Dark Metatron as they all focus on dark rows and Zuoh can be beautifully combo-ed with Akechi , Hanzo , and Pandora to form a 2/3 dark board for explosive damage. The main drawback of using Zuoh as a sub is his 0 base RCV that can place constraints on recovering when stalling. Awoken Pandora teams already have naturally low RCV due to their two leaders and Zuoh can further complicate the problem unless you have heavy plus egg investment. Zuoh can also be used as a leader and form a “Meimei System” by using multiple Awoken Meimeis to continuously chain his leader skill activation. However, the team is fragile as there is no HP or RCV multiplier and you have no defensive utility. Overall, Zuoh is a powerful dark row team sub and his offensive capabilities and his active allows for incredible burst damage when combo-ed with another orb changer.

Happy Puzzling!

Collab REM Reviews

Kiriko, I mean Shinrabansho Collab REM Overview

June 6, 2016 Mantastic 12 Comments

Introduction

The Shinrabansho Collab is returning to Puzzle and Dragons with some minor upgrades and evolutions. Unfortunately, it is mostly a story of too little, too late to have any real viability outside of Kiriko as a powerful sub on the new Xiang Mei . Even with the introduction of a re-coloured (non-awoken) Sakuya , Sonia , and Athena , the quality and quantity of the rare rolls is horribly lacking. The cards are quite underwhelming and it would be wise to not roll as you are more likely to pull more Uriels , Gadius , or collect enough MP for another Xiang Mei before rolling Kiriko (or anything of real value).

As with any Collab REM, any monster who can achieve at least a 5-star rarity can qualify as an assistant for Skill Inheritance. Therefore, you should think carefully before hastily selling your rolls. If you have not already, I highly encourage you to read my Skill Inheritance Guide.

Valuable Rolls

Continue reading Kiriko, I mean Shinrabansho Collab REM Overview →

New Player Help

New Player Rerolling Guide

June 3, 2016 Mantastic 19 Comments

A Word from Mantastic

This article was created by one of my readers, Sam, who has invested a great deal of time and effort into creating a comprehensive and current rerolling guide for new players. I simply provided some editing and formatting modifications along with the insertion of my icons. I tried to keep my modifications to a minimum as to preserve his writing style and opinions. Sam may wish to start his own blog and any feedback on his content and writing style is greatly appreciated. He has also volunteered to do various number crunching should my articles need any mathematical supplementation. Enjoy!

Introduction

Hello newbies! My name is Sam, and I feel your pain. When starting your Puzzle & Dragons career, there is simply too much information out there, and it can be beyond overwhelming, even to veteran players. My buddy Mantastic has done a fantastic job of condensing information into easily digestible chunks such as his new player guide found HERE.

If you have ended up at this article, you are asking the right question to make your long journey a little more reasonable: “Should I reroll?” Rerolling is deleting your account and starting over from scratch, and is done to remove the variance between strong starts and weak ones so you can hopefully avoid hitting a wall in the content you can complete without spending dozens of bitcoins (or your currency of choice) on stones for Rare Egg Machine (REM) pulls. This guide will provide you with the knowledge you need to figure out if your first monster out of the REM will carry you all the way, or if you are going to end up floundering. First I will state our priorities, then I will outline some lingo I will be using, and finally I will get to the meat of the matter and give you the list. Continue reading New Player Rerolling Guide →

Videos

[Video] Scarlet System Online

June 3, 2016 Mantastic Leave a comment

With the hype surrounding Xiang Mei (who I probably will not get due to a lack of MP and subs) and all this talk about “systems,” I thought I would share my own system team and accomplishment. This is a little twist on a regular Scarlet system as both my accounts have a fully operational team and it does work in coop!

A system team consists of cards who have a 7 or less cooldown on their active and a haste component. This allows your team to use 3 actives per turn and the haste mechanic will allow you to use the original 3 again on your third turn. Now, it is hard to make a pure system team where every monster fulfils those components, but you can get close to allow for greater active cycling. A couple of popular system teams in existence are Cloud (rare pull from FF Collab) and Scarlet who is farmable (albeit from a very challenging dungeon).

The Scarlet System can only do modest level content, but it allows for completely mindless clears as all you have to do is connect 8-10 of the 12 spawned orbs every turn. It’s mostly for fun and the sense of pride and accomplishment that comes with 50 successful skill ups per account. I also farmed about 100k Monster Points throughout this entire ordeal which does put me a bit closer to a second 300k MP Monster.

The following video showcases how I farmed for my system with a Blue Sonia team:

Playing with myself always feels amazing and wonderfully satisfying. Hope you have a Fantastic Friday.

Happy Puzzling!

+ Eggs, Godfest, Monster Points

50 Plus Eggs or 3,000 Monster Points: A Comparison

June 1, 2016 Mantastic 28 Comments

Introduction

To fuse, or not to fuse-that is the question. And that is probably the question of the week with the introduction of +50 eggs rolling out of the Rare Egg Machine during the 55 Million Downloads 5x GFE Godfest. We are now faced with the tough decision of whether it is better to fuse for the 50 pluses or sell for the 3,000+ Monster Points. Now, before you do anything hasty and start liquefying your monster box out of rage or frustration, please ask yourself if this card has any value. Can you use them on your teams or for Skill Inheritance. Dupes are now becoming more valuable and you do not want vendor’s remorse. If the monster in question has no true value. then continue reading. If not, please hit favourite on their character screen and read anyway!

Monster Points Overview

With the implementation of the Monster Point (MP) system, we are now able to save up to 300,000 MP to purchase a powerful card who is capable of leading our monster box into new content and territory. Now, 300,000 is a tall order and one of the fastest methods to acquire is selling various REM monsters for 3,000-50,000 MP. However, you are able to farm for Monster Points through PreDRA Infestation and the Rogue Descends.

Rogue descends on Mythical-Plus difficulty always award a 500 MP PreDRA along with additional drops for 25 stamina in coop. Rogue descends include Scarlet, Zaerog Infinity, and the other dungeons where your monsters start at level 1. Continue reading 50 Plus Eggs or 3,000 Monster Points: A Comparison →

Monster Analysis, Monster Point Dragons

Xiang Mei – New 300k MP Monster Review and Analysis

May 30, 2016 Mantastic 76 Comments

Introduction

Xiang Mei, or Orchid, is the first of the Four Gentlemen series 300k MP monsters to be released and brings a new play style, a dramatic increase in powercreep, and a somewhat dependency on Skill Inheritance. She is easily the most REM heavy of the MP Dragons to date and should only be purchased if you have the luxury of owning multiple copies of her and the few keys subs.

Xiang Mei

Healer
2,812 HP / 1.903 ATK / 1,001 RCV
995 Total

Active Skill:
6
1 turn haste
8 turn CD

Leader Skill:
1.5x HP / 2x ATK for Healer type. 3x ATK when 2 heal combo, 4.5x ATK with 3+ heal combos

2.25x HP / 81x ATK healer types

# heal combos	1	2	3
Multiplier	4x	36x	81x

Xiang Mei lacks dual typing and does not have a sub attribute. This seems bizarre for a 300k MP Monster; however, her leadership potential is unrivalled provided you have the right subs, duplicate Xiang Mei’s, and Skill Inheritance. The following video is mostly to illustrate the play style of Xiang Mei without skill inheritance to give you an idea of her capabilities. Continue reading Xiang Mei – New 300k MP Monster Review and Analysis →