Tag Archives: Puzzle and Dragons

My Perspective on Multiplayer

May 19, 2016 Mantastic 19 Comments

Multiplayer/Coop has been live in NA for a modest period of time now and has given us numerous laughs, heart aches, and frustrations. Puzzle and Dragons was originally a solo game that could be picked up and put down at will. There was less pressure to perform or match quickly and you could even put aside your device mid dungeon and come back at a later time. These features combined with the whole match orb/collect pretty girls/puzzle process medium is probably the reason many of you are playing today. For the most part, PAD has been a solo game with only some interaction between other players. Then came the introduction of Best Friends, Ranking Dungeons, and finally Mutliplayer.

Best Friends gave new meaning to virtual partnerships as it granted players access to numerous benefits and access to more leads for prolonged periods of time. A smashing success overall. On the otherhand, Ranking Dungeons have probably been met with mixed reviews. Granted these are completely optional and only award a one time, varying reward and you do not need to attempt (but should at least for the participation rewards). Introducing the game’s only PvP (player versus player) component can be frustrating, especially given the limitations of the scoring system, but again it is completely optional and does not have too big of an impact in the long run. Another bad side effect is the feeling of not being good enough as you are given a (albeit inaccurate) percentage ranking based on a poorly designed scoring system.

Now we have the Multiplayer feature which has a diverse array of emotions from players of all progression and skill levels. Upon Coop’s initial release, I wrote a nice little post on my initial impressions if you care to take a look. However, after about two months of largely playing with myself, I have a much stronger opinion formulated on multiplayer. As a disclaimer, my alt account, Fantastic, is nearing rank 500 and is quite developed and I am able to form a very powerful Blue Sonia team between my two accounts. This allows me to excessively play with myself as I always have a partner who is ready to go. Continue reading My Perspective on Multiplayer →

Godfest

Player’s Choice Godfest and You

May 18, 2016 Mantastic 15 Comments

Introduction

Player’s Choice Godfest (PCGF) has been announced for North America and the polls are open from 5/18 – 5/22. Each player can vote only once and there is no way to cancel or change your choice once submitted, so please choose carefully. There is lots of different advice or strategies floating around as to how you should spend your vote and I want to provide some clarification:

Vote for what can benefit you the most. Just because Dark Kali is a dream sub for some people, does not mean you should be voting for her if it cannot benefit you.
Think about what is being released in the next month and how that may influence your team line up. For instance, Xiang Mei should go live soon and if you plan on using her, voting for Gadius and Uriel would be wise.
Sometimes, the bottom voted gods are only separated by a thin margin of votes and holding off on voting until the final day can help swing the tide in your favour.
You ideally want to have as many favourable gods featured and if your first choice is already winning by a landslide, vote for something else as this will help ensure your second choice gets in
6 star Godfest Exclusives have very low rates and if your primary goal is acquiring these, it would be best to wait until a 4x GFE event
Please vote HERE before Sunday, May 22

PCGF vs 4x GFE

This will be a common question on many player’s minds as these two event are arguably the best time to roll the REM. Before I go into more detail, take a look at the voting results of a 1,000+ pulls from the previous PCGF:

Granted this is a small sample size, but the rates of the coveted 6 star GFE are distressingly low. You can read more about the previous PCGF in my other post HERE.

Which Godfest to roll?
	PCGF	4x GFE
Frequency	2 times per year	Random
Benefits who?	New accounts/less developed boxes Great way to fill in the numerous gaps in your monster box Those who are not chasing MP or 6* GFE	Veteran players Focus is MP and 6* GFE Those with very developed monster boxes

Conclusion

Keeping those points in mind, it is up to you to determine where to spend your hard earned stones. If you are missing numerous featured gods in the PCGF, this may be your time to shine and acquire numerous gods to round out your roster. Player’s Choice Godfests are ideal for the vast majority of the PAD population and is an exciting time of the year and hopefully the 25 voted gods are powerful and relevant so please be careful when voting.

I will also have an in-depth post covering the 25 featured gods once the results have been released. That post will have the same insight and information contained in my regular godfest analysis and will help you determine how to better use your new pulls.

Happy Puzzling!

Godfest

Player’s Choice Godfest Results 11/29-12/01

May 18, 2016 Mantastic 12 Comments

This was my post from the previous Player’s Choice Godfest and is mostly for your entertainment to see what was voted for and their roll rates based on 1,000+ pulls.

Do note that I include the 5-star evolved forms of 4-star monsters in the 4-star / MP trash section. Everything else that has 5-stars as it’s lowest evolution form is placed into non-featured gods. This did lighten the work load on my end and I was more so curious as to the rates of the silver eggs that come out during a PCGF. I was unable to create a table via WordPress, so I had to take a screenshot of a table I made separately, so apologies for no clickable links to the characters above. *My subsequent post will be much more user friendly so stay tuned* Continue reading Player’s Choice Godfest Results 11/29-12/01 →

Ranking Dungeons

10MM Ranking Tournament Strategies

May 16, 2016 Mantastic 26 Comments

Quick! Everyone grab your Shiva Dragons for a top 1% ranking and shiny hat. Wait…Awoken Horus , what are you doing here? Welcome to the 10 Million Downloads Ranking Tournament that features a pre-set rainbow team that somewhat evens the playing field as everyone is forced to use the same team. As such, there will be no theory crafting component, but instead I will do a brief run down of the dungeon and my strategies used to achieve a high score. All players should complete this ranking dungeon due to the ease due to the floors not attacking and having a full hypermaxed team. Lastly, you have a chance at acquiring a spirit jewel or an evolved Fagan and a hefty amount of rank experience.

Ranking dungeon scoring criteria

In these ranking dungeons, we are scored based on 3 criteria:

Average combos made: 5,000 points per combo
Time Remaining: 500 points per second remaining
Maximum damage: up to 10,000 points if you hit 40 million.

With these in mind, you want to plan/match as quickly as possible to score higher while sweeping every floor. A higher amount of combos will be favourable and needed to burst through several of the floors.

Your team at a glance

Each member of your team is max level, +297 and max skilled.

Awoken Horus (Leader)

Enhance fire orbs & +2s orb movement
4 turn CD

16x ATK – 4 colours
20.25x ATK – 5 colours
1.5x ATK using an active
45.56x ATK – 5 colours + active

Subs
Antares 2,418 ATK	Alreshca 1,948 ATK	Spica 1,980 ATK	Castor 2,575 ATK
1 turn haste 7 turn CD	1 turn haste 7 turn CD	1 turn haste 7 turn CD	1 turn haste 7 turn CD

With Awoken Horus as your leader, you must be able to consistently match 4 different colours (ideally 5) to trigger your damage multiplier. Furthermore, using an active grants a significant damage boost and I will go into detail after the dungeon introduction as to where you should be using your actives. Your strongest element is fire because both Horus and Antares sharing the fire element. Dark is your second strongest due to the sub colour from Horus and the high attack on Castor. You can utilize fire and dark TPA for even more damage. Lastly, each of your subs convert the useless heart orbs into a usable colour while providing 1 turn of haste.

Dungeon at a glance

The dungeon consists of 6 floors that will not attack you and simply stare at your while you play.

Floor	Hp/defence	Active to use
1	1,225,486 / 376
2	1,225,486 / 376
3	188,889/977,778
4	1,225,486 / 376
5	4,031,042 / 376
6	4,968,040 / 653

With the exception of Meimei on floor 3, all floors simply have a specific amount of health you need to nuke down. Meimei has nearly 1 million defence, and you must use Antares to generate more fire orbs (they will be enhanced due to the countless awakenings on the team) and you simply need to match your 5 colours and fire TPA to pierce through. The rest of the floors are require an active of some sort to proc your additional damage, but try to use Spica on floor 2 to generate enough wood orbs to deal with the water based Karin. Horus used on floor 1 will be ready again for the boss.

Do note that the actives listed per floor are simply a guideline, you may have to deviate if things do not go according to plan, but it helps to have a template to autopilot off of.

Strategy

The strategy is quite straightforward due to a lack of dungeon mechanics and is mostly a test of your rainbow matching skills. If you can follow the active usage chart above, you should be able to sweep every floor without too much difficulty. The key to scoring high is being able to plan and execute your matches quickly. You only have access to 2 time extend awakenings which may feel frustrating and requires you to be precise in your matching.

Video

My top 1.8% ranking play through that has some room for improvement but should at least give some inspiration for achieving a high score. There is no voice-over as there is not much to say and mostly consists of me rambling to myself or swearing. Upon reflection, I should have dropped the orb sooner on the first few floors to save a few extra seconds.

Conclusion

Maybe I will get a hat this time, but it is going to require a modest amount of RNG to score higher as the max damage is where a large portion of your points can come from. Perhaps if I can save Antares for a later floor, I may be able to burst higher, but will still require more runs to do so.

Happy Puzzling!

Collab REM Reviews

[Updated] Final Fantasty REM Review and Analysis

May 16, 2016 Mantastic 157 Comments

Introduction

The Final Fantasy Collab is one of the most popular and powerful collaborations available in Puzzle and Dragons. The various cards feature unique actives along with powerful leadership potential. Furthermore, GungHo has significantly buffed many of these cards to keep them relevant in today’s meta along with introducing new characters.

This post will cover all the changes that have been implemented for November, 2016 along with my thoughts and commentary for each of the monsters.

On a different note, all players above rank 50 will gain a free roll in the Final Fantasy Collab and you may get lucky.

Rolls overview

Final Fantasy REM Overview
6 Star Rolls
5 Star Rolls
4 Star Rolls
MP Shop
Gift

Note about Skill Inheritance

Any card that comes out of a Collab REM or REM that can achieve at least a 5-star form is able to be used as an assistant for Skill Inheritance. This means all the Final Fantasy cards can be used as assistants and you should think twice before vendoring any of them. For more information about Skill Inheritance, feel free to check out my guide HERE.

Video commentary

—video goes here—-

6 Star Rolls

The following monsters are both the rarest and most powerful cards available from the Final Fantasy REM. However, each day of the Final Fantasy Collab will feature one 6-star having a higher than normal roll rate on a rotating basis:

28/11 (Mon): Tifa

29/11 (Tue): Noctis

30/11 (Wed): Cloud

1/12 (Thurs): Cecil

2/12 (Fri): Yuna

3/12 (Sat): Sephiroth

4/12 (Sun): Lightning

5/12 (Mon): Tifa

6/12 (Tue): Noctis

7/12 (Wed): Cloud

8/12 (Thurs): Cecil

9/12 (Fri): Yuna

10/12 (Sat): Sephiroth

11/12 (Sun): Lightning

Continue reading [Updated] Final Fantasty REM Review and Analysis →

Godfest

10 Million Downloads Godfest Analysis and Review (Norse, Mechanical 1 & 2, and Chinese Celestials)

May 14, 2016 Mantastic Leave a comment

The 10 Million Downloads Godfest comes on the eve before the Final Fantasy Collab and gives players a tough decision on where to spend their stones. To complicate matters further, a Player’s Choice Godfest should be in the near future and will most likely feature the most coveted monsters. However, the 10M Downloads Godfest features some powerful monsters that will come out with +10 to each stat and coincides with the highly favoured Midnight Gala.

When making the decision to roll or save your magic stones, you need to determine if the featured pantheons can benefit or compliment your teams. Chasing for one specific monster is unwise as you will most likely be disappointed and should ideally have Godfests that overlap with many target cards. Remember all monsters that come out of the REM will qualify for Skill Inheritance so do not be too hasty when selling dupes. For a more detailed team building help, please refer to my full list Popular Leader’s and their Full Sub List Post. Lastly, to find more information about a specific pantheon or monster, refer to my Master List to better refine your search.

Midnight Gala
jjj Day 1	Norse	Mechanical 1
jjj Day 1
jjj Day 2	Chinese Celestials	Mechanical 2
jjj Day 2

Day 1:

Day one features the highly sought after Norse Gods along with the modestly powerful Mechanical 1 series. The Norse Gods all have their awoken forms and grant 2x damage for their primary and sub elements along with forming powerful tank teams. They are mostly used on their respective mono-colour teams, but can sometimes play a role in rainbow teams due to enhancing two colours and providing double skill lock resist awakenings. Lastly, by boosting damage for two turns, you can use on the floor prior to the boss to ensure you sweep it while conserving your other actives.

The Mechanical 1 Pantheon is relatively new and features Machine / God type monsters. They have an interesting set of awakenings and provide 2 skill bind resist along with a powerful active that removes jammer and poison orbs. They can also form 16x leads with 51% damage reduction from 4 different elements. However, their main downfall is a lack of an ultimate evolution and will only be a matter of time before they gain strong potential.

If you are looking to bolster your skill bind resistance, Day 1 is a fantastic time to roll. Continue reading 10 Million Downloads Godfest Analysis and Review (Norse, Mechanical 1 & 2, and Chinese Celestials) →

Pantheon Analysis

Japanese 1 Pantheon Analysis

May 11, 2016 Mantastic 2 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 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 Dragon / Physical —- 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 awakenings. This has incredible synergy with Awoken Shiva who is one of the most popular TPA oriented leaders. Hino will also be receiving a skill bind resist awakening 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 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 Physical / Dragon —- 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 in that regard. The 4 two prong attack 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 as a means to control your damage along with surviving giant single attack preemptives. Finally, if you are considering using Orochi or 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 Physical / Dragon —- 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 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 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 and this could place constraints on team building in order to achieve 100% immunity.
Amaterasu Healer / Physical —- 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 awakening (albeit no heart generating active) giving you flexibility in how you deal with binds. Furthermore, the double Skill Bind 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 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 / 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 Physical / Devil —- 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 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!

Pantheon Analysis

Archangel Pantheon Analysis

May 11, 2016 Mantastic 4 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 Archangel Pantheon all feature Bankai evolutions. This means they all have an ultimate of an ultimate evolution which grants them 3 typing, numerous awakenings, and large weighted stats. Despite being one of the oldest Pantheons, GungHo has kept them relevant in today’s meta. They make poor leaders and only come into their true power later into the game and will be passed over for other options for newer players.

Archangel
jjjjjjjjMonsterjjjjjjjjj	Notes
Uriel God / Dragon / Healer —- 8 turn CD	Uriel, like the rest of his pantheon, received Bankai evolutions. Bankai is a term often applied to monsters who have received an ultimate evolution of an already existing evolution. These types of evolutions grant the monster 3 different typings along with additional awakenings. There is no change to their active skill. Uriel has unusually high recovery for a fire monster and his 4 auto heal awakenings grant 2,000 health every turn an orb is matched. These can be great for many fire teams as many struggle with recovering health. His God typing allows him to be used on Shiva Dragon teams and his healer sub type will make him a staple sub on Xiang Mei (a new 300k MP monster). Furthermore, Uriel has an amazing orb change combo with Gadius or Leilan to create dual colour, fire heavy boards for explosive burst damage. Uriel’s 3 fire row awakenings allow him to make an appearance on other row based teams, but will limit his usage on TPA heavy teams such as Awoken Shiva .
Gabriel God / Healer / Attacker —- 8 turn CD	Gabriel was my first REM monster on Mantastic and has largely been collecting dust since his arrival 2013. Even with his Bankai evolution, amazing weighted stats, and 9 awakenings, I am still feeling incomplete and hesitant to put him on my teams. This is because Andromeda fulfils the double orb changer role better. Both generate water and heart orbs, but Andromeda has superior awakenings and is a pretty girl. The pretty girl argument would probably convince most people to use Andromeda over Gabriel, but the 4 auto heal awakenings do not have much place on water teams who usually have high RCV multipliers (I&I / Ryune , Lakshmi , or Blue Sonia ). You can still use Gabriel on any mono water team as his active is powerful and the 3 water row have great synergy with most teams. One thing to keep in mind is the enhanced heart orbs combo beautifully with any heart breaker as they will retain their enhanced status. This can be crucial for bursting through end game bosses such as Arena Kalis. However, with the distant release of You Yu (Bamboo, #2758) as the new 300k MP Dragon, Gabriel may have more relevance due to You Yu favouring water attacker type monsters.
Michael God / Attacker / Healer —- 8 turn CD	Michael follows the same pattern of Uriel and Gabriel in that he provides 3 row enhances and 2,000 worth of auto heal. Michael has great base stats and a powerful orb changer and can be utilized on numerous mono wood teams. He finds a home on Sylvie / Freyja teams as the heart generation can be a lifesaver in high end dungeons. Michael is comparable to Perseus for Sylvie/Freyja as both fulfil the wood and heart orb generation role. Normally Persus would be the stronger option due to superior awakenings as the auto heal is somewhat wasted due to your team already having an augmented health pool. However, Michael’s orb change has amazing synergy with Meimei or Sylvie to create a 2/3 wood board with enhanced hearts. Michael’s lack of a Two Prong Attack may sideline him from non-row based mono wood teams such as Bastet , but can still be used due to his utility. However, Michael shines bright on Awoken Astaroth teams as his healer typing allows him an almost guaranteed sub spot as her sub pool is horribly limited.
Raphael God / Healer / Physical —- All + void all damage for 2 turns 16 turn CD	Raphael went from zero to hero with his new ultimate evolution and active skill rework. With an unprecedented 5 light row awakenings, he brings amazing passive damage to every row team. Looking at his other awakenings, they are somewhat lackluster as he has no bind immunity and thus makes his bind recovery less valuable, but at least he can generate heart orbs. Raphael’s active is interesting as it allows you to create an entire board of light orbs if you bring an appropriate heart breaker (Valkyrie , Pollux , Apollo , etc.). However, with out a light orb enhance or lucky skyfalls, your damage may be somewhat capped as you do not receive any combo multiplier bonus nor additional damage from multiple row activations. However, the 2 turns of full damage void can be critical for end game content where bosses have resolve, gigantic health pools, or dangerous kill mechanics. Raphael can be found as a stellar sub on Thor / Saria , Superman , and healer teams provided you need the damage void and potential for high burst damage. However, for most content, you are usually better off bringing an additional orb changer.
Lucifer God / Balance / Devil —- 6 200x ATK on 1 enemy, HP reset to 1 7 turn CD	Useless-ifer, I mean Archangel Lucifer was once the most desired monster in Puzzle and Dragons (3+ years ago) as he was capable of forming a formidable 4x HP / 4x RCV team that could execute bosses with his 300k active nuke. However, times have changed and modern day tank teams are capable of explosive burst damage through row enhances and numerous orb changer. It is simply an issue of powercreep, but GungHo has tried to keep buffing Lucifer to keep him abreast in the current meta with numerous tweaks to his current day active that is stronger and has a skill up material (but requires 15 successful skill ups). However, Lucifer still struggles to find a home on any team due to an active that essentially spawns 6 heart orbs while resetting your HP to 1 on a very long cooldown if unskilled. His 3 two prong awakenings go completely to waste as you would not use a sub who has no active skill contribution. Perhaps the only viable (and that is stretching it) use Lucifer could have is on the new dark Gentlemen MP Dragon team as dark balance monsters are nearly non-existent. On the bright side, Lucifer has amazing artwork in the game and is a very pretty trophy in my box.

Happy Puzzling!

Random Thoughts

Have a MOMtastic Mother’s Day!

May 7, 2016 Mantastic 4 Comments

May 8th is Mother’s Day and this year I have the opportunity to share my love for my Momtastic Mom in a unique and entertaining medium. Many of my readers already know my Mom is an avid Puzzle and Dragoner and has surpassed 850 login days and rank 468. She has a burning passion for the smoking hot Awoken Shiva but sometimes dabbles in Yomi Dragon and will have a hypermaxed Awoken DQXQ ready upon release.

I am quite fortunate to have a close relationship with my mother even though I moved out several years ago and a large contributing factor has been Puzzle and Dragons. Throughout my life, my family has been relatively anti-video games and it came as a surprise she took to PAD with enthusiasm. Perhaps it is the puzzling aspect that appeals to her as she has quite the analytical mind as she has no interests in collecting pretty/cute cards. Regardless, I think she mainly started playing as a means to bond with her son (as most parents struggle to find a way to connect). I do not know many parents who would make this level of effort and I will always be grateful to her for more than just PAD. As a way to make this Mother’s Day extra special, I am hoping all you Awoken Shiva (and Yomi Dragon and future Awoken DQXQ) users can send her a friend request as she does have hers Pentamax with 5 attack latents.

Hopefully you remembered to call that special someone in your life to remind them that you care. Perhaps you could also surprise them with the gift of Puzzle and Dragons with a freshly rerolled account that has a strong starting monster! If you are lucky, you may begin to receive wonderful messages and have someone else who understands why you need to disappear for an hour when Star Den opens.

Happy Mothers day and Happy Puzzling!

New Player Help

New Player Help Guide

May 7, 2016 Mantastic 4 Comments

Many people have been asking what direction to take / what to do as a new player so I will list a relative guide as what you should strive to aim for. Keep in mind that you are clearing content in days it took me weeks/months to reach so things may feel fast forwarded and frustrating at times as your account rank may eclipse your PAD knowledge and matching skills. I highly recommend you take a look at my Community Resources Page to discover new mediums and sites to learn the ins and outs of Puzzle and Dragons.

Everyone plays Puzzle and Dragons for different reasons: some enjoy the puzzling aspect, others find joy in collecting. For myself, I wish to push end game content while still enjoying myself. However, for the purpose of this guide, the focus will be to begin clearing descends with 0 stones used. However, in order to get to that level, you will require a few things:

Get a strong starter / team that is viable in clearing descends.

There are many existing pages heavily covering this topic so you will need to do some of your own homework on what to aim for as this guide is going to assume you have passed that stage of the game. The most current one I could find comes from Reddit.

Rank UP!

You must keep ranking up not only to increase your maximum stamina, but to also increase team cost to be able to fit in all the subs you wish to bring. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) PAD is a very grindy game in that you are going to have to repeat dungeons over and over again whether it be for plus eggs, skill ups, team cost, or rank experience. When you first start out, your rank and thus max stamina and team cost will be your limiting factors. As such, I cannot stress enough that you are going to have to play dungeons over and over again. Thankfully, GungHo has been introducing new methods for quickly ranking up such as the Experience of a Lifetime (awards 200k rank experience) and Monday Dungeon. I go into further detail in my Monday Dungeon Review Post and how to optimize your stamina.

If those are not available, I would play the highest normal dungeon you are capable of clearing and only stopping when you feel you hit a ‘wall.’ A very important thing to note is that on Saturday and Sunday, Tower of Giants and most specifically Dragons of the Tower will be available for 3 stamina and thus providing ~500 exp / stamina. This may be boring but can be done infinitely for about the first 80 ranks. Lastly, always try to play normal dungeons that are affected by 1.5x experience provided you can reliable clear them.

Level up your monsters & evolve

Level up you monsters as high as possible and evolve them to their max evolution if you are fortunate to acquire the rare 50 stamina materials (eg. Keeper of gold, Jewel of Water, etc.). Even just reaching their second evolution is sufficient for early content. Research where their materials drop from and work towards acquiring them. It is also worth noting that monsters will gain diminishing returns on experience at higher levels Continue reading New Player Help Guide →

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Mantastic Puzzle and Dragons

Tag Archives: Puzzle and Dragons

My Perspective on Multiplayer

Player’s Choice Godfest and You

Introduction

PCGF vs 4x GFE

Conclusion

Player’s Choice Godfest Results 11/29-12/01

This was my post from the previous Player’s Choice Godfest and is mostly for your entertainment to see what was voted for and their roll rates based on 1,000+ pulls.

10MM Ranking Tournament Strategies

Ranking dungeon scoring criteria

Your team at a glance

Dungeon at a glance

Strategy

Video

Conclusion

10 Million Downloads Godfest Analysis and Review (Norse, Mechanical 1 & 2, and Chinese Celestials)

Day 1:

Japanese 1 Pantheon Analysis

Japanese 1

Archangel Pantheon Analysis

Archangel

Have a MOMtastic Mother’s Day!

New Player Help Guide

Get a strong starter / team that is viable in clearing descends.

Rank UP!

Level up your monsters & evolve

Puzzling those Dragons

Introduction

PCGF vs 4x GFE

Conclusion

*This was my post from the previous Player’s Choice Godfest and is mostly for your entertainment to see what was voted for and their roll rates based on 1,000+ pulls.*

Ranking dungeon scoring criteria

Your team at a glance

Dungeon at a glance

Strategy

Video

Conclusion

Introduction

Rolls overview

Final Fantasy REM Overview

Note about Skill Inheritance

Video commentary

6 Star Rolls

Day 1:

Japanese 1

Archangel

Get a strong starter / team that is viable in clearing descends.

Rank UP!

Level up your monsters & evolve

Puzzling those Dragons

This was my post from the previous Player’s Choice Godfest and is mostly for your entertainment to see what was voted for and their roll rates based on 1,000+ pulls.