Puzzle & Dragons Beginner’s Guide

Puzzle & Dragons Beginner’s Guide by Autumnazn

My puzzle and dragons story and experience

Preface – Why I’m spending hours of my life writing something that might not even be accepted by the community
So my friend introduced me to the game a little over a year ago and I started playing. Of course, I “started” two weeks before I really played the game– my first two weeks were spent researching about the game while waiting for my first godfest to pop up to get my first roll. Over the course of my time playing I’ve come to many realizations that I wish someone told me instead of having to find out for myself, and since I’ve just had a major surgery and am bedridden for the next two weeks or so, being far too drowsy to play any games that demand motor skills I decided to do a favor for anyone willing to read what I have to tell them. Here’s my thoughts, roughly in the order that the information will be relevant. Hopefully I’ll be able to help you out in your Puzzle and Dragons adventure! This guide is initially written with the purpose of being a supplement to other guides that I hope you’re reading, not a comprehensive standalone guide.

Beginning the game – First roll, player ID, and icon color

First roll

If you’re willing to give the game a chance– which I assume since you’re reading about it, you need to reroll. What that means is you keep redoing the tutorial and using the 5 free magic stones you get and rolling the rare egg machine until you get a good first roll.

I have not decided to include a rerolling guide as part of this document at this point in time, but may add one in the future.

Edit: I guess there’s a rerolling guide now, it’s found deeper into the guide though…

If you want my opinion on the absolute best roll to start with (as of 6/23/2015) I’d say DQXQ (Da Qiao & Xiao Qiao). The reason DQXQ is chosen is because she is a 16x lead that doesn’t require specific subs, is capable of clearing endgame content reliably, and is beginner friendly. Personally, my first roll is Bastet.

So here’s my thoughts on rerolling and what god to start with. Personally, I started with Bastet. She was my first hypermax, and I still frequently use her today as a leader.

I just cross referenced a few rerolling guides, and picked a god I thought was visually appealing and had a playstyle that I felt like I would enjoy. One of the biggest kicks out of this game is just how much detail they put into the artwork– you didn’t choose charmander because of how they would do in pewter/cerulean gym, did you? I just thought Bastet looked good. And the leader skill / playstyle from what I read felt like something I would like. I advise you to do the same. Your first leader is going to be the first thing you see every time you sort your monsters by CHR. Some final thoughts– I must disclose that your first roll has a massive impact on your Puzzle and Dragons experience, and will shape the way you play and view the game. Take your time, do your research and choose wisely. This part of the game is frustrating but it is not the part you want to slack off on. I encourage you to find and read multiple rerolling tier guides, but remember, you will not find a truly unbiased rerolling guide out there simply because of the impracticality of finding someone that’s played all the viable leaders to their full potential in the current meta at any given time, and furthermore, people inherently enjoy being biased. We’re giving you our opinion here, you know?

Player ID

Player ID only really matters if you play with a special friend or something but I might’ve paid a little more attention to it if I’d read a single paragraph about it when I started playing. Your player ID influences whether you’re in group A, B, C, D, or E. This group never changes, and it dictates when all your metal dragons, extreme king metal dragons, starry view lanes, and tamadra times will ever be. (you will run these dungeons frequently later in the game, don’t worry about them for now if you’re just starting) If you have a special someone that introduced you to the game, it’s not the end of the world if you don’t, but I would’ve made an extra effort to be in the same group as them if I knew about it. The group you’re assigned to is based on the third digit of your ID, 0&5 for A, 1&6 for B, 2&7 for C, 3&8 for D, 4&9 for E. So for ID 001,000,000, the group is determined by the digit where the 1 is.

Icon color

Icon color is dependent on your starter. That’s literally what you’re picking. Do you want the circle next to your name to be red, blue, or green? Personally I’ve picked blue as it’s my favorite color. That’s it. Don’t even worry about the starter, not only are they next to useless, you can get an unlimited amount of any of the starter dragons in some dungeons later in the game.

Starting the game – Resource allocation: Magic Stones, what dungeons, what to do with the things you get

Magic Stones – Rolling, Box Space, Friend Space, Stamina, Dungeon continues, Extra note

Rolling

The primary use of magic stones. All the best monsters in the game come from the rare egg machine, and only the rare egg machine. Wait for godfests where both pantheons contain many useful gods, and roll away. You will have to do some research on which pantheons are or aren’t useful as they change over time but for beginners probably the best possible pantheon combination you can get is Egyptian 1 + Chinese 1 or 3K.

Note: Even during the Godfest, expect gold eggs to come out at around 40% of the time. This is normal. Consider yourself blessed if you’re getting better rates.

Box Space

Don’t hesitate to expand your box. Whenever you need more room, expand it. You will always need more room eventually. Barring poor space management and unnecessary excess space, there is no reason for you not to expand your box.

Friend Space

You can have up to 300 friends, but you get your first 50 for free. The next 250 cost 1 stone per 5 more friends. I support friends list expansions but you can live without them.

Note: You also get to pick one best friend, this friend leader will be up to use as many times as time allows. Try to get a hypermaxed version (+297, max skilled) of the leader you use the most often overall.

Stamina

Don’t do it. Go do something else while you wait for your stamina to come back. Special dungeons tend to come back in the future.

Dungeon continues

Don’t do it. You will be able to clear the dungeon later.

Extra note

There are cases in the very distant future where it’s acceptable to stone for stamina and dungeon continues. I will not cover them at this point in your gameplay experience because chances are, if you have to ask, the correct answer is almost always no, it is a waste of money.

What dungeons to run – progression, leveling, and acquisition of subs

Progression

Clear each dungeon once to unlock as much content as you can until you get stuck. Every time you’re no longer stuck keep clearing content until you’ve cleared everything you can. I’m talking about normal dungeons, technical dungeons, and challenge mode for both normal and technical dungeons. Prioritize progression(getting as far as you can) in these dungeons. Special dungeons are on rotation and you can worry about them later because the droprates for the newbie difficulties aren’t worthwhile and they’ll come back later anyway. For the most part, ignore special dungeons for now. I remember I spent an excessive amount of time and stamina trying to do Helianthus, all for nothing. At no point in the game did I need to use him

Stuck on Progression – Time for the long grind

As a new player, you have only two objectives in running dungeons, progression and grinding. Grinding is only for when you’re stuck on progression, but here’s what you do. As of 6/23/2015, go on puzzledragonx.com, look for and do the available dungeon that gives the highest exp/stamina ratio. This is usually Tower of Giants – Dragons of the Tower, Hyperion Lava Flow – Lava Tube, then coin dungeons. (in order of ascending difficulty)

Leveling

Leveling is important because of the team cost and stamina it provides. Team cost is insanely frustrating at lower ranks and is the reason why people tell you to get your rank up and also to hold off on evolving your monsters until you have enough team cost to house them. Stamina is important because you’ll waste naturally gained stamina if you sleep past your max stamina, at 12 stamina restored per hour. You also need up to 99 stamina to enter a single dungeon though usually you’ll have the amount of stamina required to enter a certain dungeon before you’re capable of clearing it.

Acquisition of subs

You’ll want an Echidna and a Lilith, Echidna will be useful forever and a key sub in many of your teams whereas Lilith will fall off later, but hey, she has her uses for new players and she’s pretty. I have good memories with her and she’s still sitting in my box, max skilled and max leveled. For information on where you can get these monsters, use puzzledragonx.com (good resource as of 6/23/15)

Not gonna cover all the other monsters you should go out of your way to get since depending on your team you might not need some of them and most end up being a waste of time/effort anyway. The only specialized subs you can get when you’re new that’ll be useful later are Gigas and Vampire, for fire and dark teams respectively.

You’re going to want to mainly fill out your team with dublits and keepers at this point in time due to generally affordable team cost and high base stats

What to do with everything you get from playing the game – REM, dungeons, and more

Rare Egg Machine

For rolls that you can get only from the rare egg machine, hold on to them until you know more about the game. It’s better not to accidentally rid yourself of something important. Remember, don’t hesitate to expand your box space.

Comprehensive coverage of every pantheon featured in the REM – I always wanted to be a baker

I’ll summarize this quick but it can be expanded upon extensively in the future.

First will be the pantheon as a whole, followed by each specific god in the pantheon I’ll add in the comments whether I’ve used this monster or not as well so you can get a feel for my understanding of them

(up to date as of 6/23/15)

Egyptian 1 – Best pantheon to roll for leaders

Horus – Fantastic rainbow leader; use him every now and then

Bastet – Best endgame leader ingame atm; have her hypermaxed

Isis – Good leader, good sub; don’t own

Ra – JP sees Awoken Ra as a tier 1 leader. He’s very powerful, but on some turns it’s simply not possible to activate his leader-skill. Orb trolling will happen.; use him frequently

Anubis – Good leader, will get orb trolled; have him hypermaxed

3 Kingdoms – Good leaders, good subs

Cao Cao – Okay leader, okay sub; own but don’t really use

Sun Quan – Okay leader, good sub; own but don’t really use

Liu Bei – Okay leader, fantastic sub; use him every now and then

Da Qiao & Xiao Qiao – Fantastic leader, good sub; use her frequently on gf’s account

Lu Bu – Fantastic leader, fantastic sub; own, don’t really use

Heroes – Fantastic leaders. All the Heroes play about the same though so if you try one and don’t like it, you won’t like any of the rest. (inversely, if you like one, you’ll like em all!?) Personally I’ve only played Pandora

Yamato Takeru – Fantastic leader, good sub

Andromeda – Fantastic leader, good sub

Perseus – Fantastic leader, good sub

Wukong – Fantastic leader, good sub

Pandora – Fantastic leader, good sub; use her every now and then

Japanese 2 – Good leaders, good subs, Kushinada is one of my bread and butter subs

Ame no Uzume – no opinion; don’t own

Umisachi & Yamasachi – Good leader; own, don’t use but have played other 5x leads

Kushinada – Good leader, fantastic sub; use her in almost all of my teams, she basically replaces echidna later on when everything cancels delay. 1 turn get out of jail free card available on turn 1.

Izanagi – Okay leader, okay sub; own, don’t really use. Teams I play tend to not need a spike active

Okuninushi – Amazing leader, okay sub; own, don’t use (due to similarity with Bastet) but he basically guarantees 16x every turn, is tanky, has high RCV, built in time extend, skill bind resist, skill boost, delay and mini damage steroid. Like a more sturdy but slightly less bursty version of Bastet I guess

Chinese 1 – Best pantheon to roll for subs. I must disclose a bias for Chinese gods because their active guarantees 8 – 9 combos instead of the normal 7 – 8, something that matters a lot more to me than others because I frequent Anubis. A Chinese god’s active will typically give you 2 – 4 combos of each of the 3 elements. Another way to think about this is they make your board 2/6ths of the desired element.

Leilan – Okay leader, amazing sub; use frequently

Karin – Okay leader, amazing sub; use frequently

Meimei – Okay leader, amazing sub; use frequently

Sakuya – Good leader, use her every now and then

Haku – Okay leader, amazing sub; use frequently

Indian 2 – Good leaders you really need vishnu for that cash money

Krishna – Fantastic leader; only used once or twice

Sarasvati – Fantastic leader; only used once or twice

Vishnu – Okay leader; don’t own

Ganesha – Doubles your income during weekend dungeon. That’s literally all he does

Durga – Good leader; own, don’t use but have played other 5x leads

Greek 1 – Situational leaders, fantastic subs (bad for starting rolls)

Minerva – Situational leader, good sub (breaks defense!); use her every now and then

Neptune – Situational leader, good sub; don’t own

Ceres – Situational leader, good sub; own but I use something else to deal with binds

Venus – Situational leader, good sub; use her every now and then

Hades – Situational leader, good sub; own but he just sits in my box…

Greek 2 – Amazing subs if you can get the skills up, Greek 2 are hands down the best monocolor orb changers if you can wait long enough for their skills to be up, as they are the only cards in the game besides Sonia that can make your board 3/6ths of the desired element (bad for starting rolls)

Ares – Okay leader, fantastic sub; own don’t use

Hermes – Okay leader, fantastic sub; own don’t use

Artemis – Okay leader, fantastic sub; own don’t use

Apollo – Okay leader, fantastic sub; use sometimes

Persephone – Okay leader, fantastic sub; use sometimes

Angels 1 – Okay leader, okay subs, I must disclose that I know nothing about any of these 5 other than the fact that if you play aa lucifer, pad will feel be different for you than it is the rest of us. I know angels have their own niche and they are in fact useful, I’m just uneducated in terms of them. I’ll leave it to your other sources

Archangel Uriel – Okay leader, okay sub; don’t own

Archangel Gabriel – Okay leader, okay sub; don’t own

Archangel Michael – Okay leader, okay sub; don’t own

Archangel Raphael – Okay leader, okay sub; don’t own

Archangel Lucifer – Okay leader, okay sub; don’t use

Angels 2 – Amazing subs (bad for starting rolls)

Rozuel – Okay leader, okay sub; don’t own

Famiel – Okay leader, amazing sub specifically for Umisachi & Yamasachi; don’t own

Ruel –  Okay leader, okay sub; don’t own

Ariel – Okay leader, good sub; don’t own

Lumiel – Okay leader, amazing sub specifically for Durga; don’t own

Demons – I wouldn’t roll in this pantheon, not because it’s bad, but because there’s nothing good I can get from it that I can’t get a better version of elsewhere. (bad for starting rolls)

Belial – Okay leader, okay sub; don’t own

Amon – Okay leader, okay sub; don’t own

Astaroth – Okay leader, okay sub; don’t own

Baal – Okay leader, okay sub; don’t own

Lucifer – Okay leader, good sub; don’t use

Egyptian 2 – Good leaders, 2 fantastic subs, but not overlapping

Set – Good leader, good sub; don’t use

Nut – Good leader, fantastic sub; don’t own

Osiris – Good leader, fantastic sub; use every now and then

Hathor – Fantastic leader, bad sub; use every now and then

Nephthys – Good leader, good sub; don’t own

Japanese 1 – A mix of super wants and don’t wants (bad for starting rolls)

Hinokagutsuchi – Bad leader, fantastic sub; use every now and then

Orochi – Good leader, good sub; most dungeons I run nowadays don’t give me enough time to get his active up / delay doesn’t work on them

Susano – Good leader, amazing sub (5 turn damage shield!!); don’t own

Amaterasu – Good leader, good sub; don’t own

Yomi – Okay leader, good sub (best friend leader for learning!!); don’t use anymore

Indian 1 – Mixed bag of decent leaders and subs. (bad for starting rolls)

Shiva – Amazing leader, amazing sub (breaks defense!); use him every now and then

Lakshmi – Good leader, good sub; use her every now and then

Parvati – Good leader, good sub; own don’t use

Indra – Bad leader, good sub (3 turns damage shield!); don’t own

Vritra – Bad leader, bad sub; don’t own

Norse – Bad (don’t roll period unless you want them for the artwork) I must disclose that I am very uneducated in terms of how these are used and that I have seem them used as leads and subs in other guides. If this is the first guide you’re reading about PAD I hope you’ll read up a little bit more on this pantheon instead of dismissing it blindly, I’m sure they’re not as useless as I’m portraying them to be

Freyr – Bad leader, bad sub, don’t use

Idunn&Idunna – Bad leader, bad sub, don’t use

Freyja – Bad leader, bad sub, don’t use

Thor – Bad leader, bad sub, don’t use

Loki – Bad leader, bad sub, don’t use

It’s my first roll, which pantheons should I look out for?

In no particular order, these are the pantheons you want to roll in when starting the game. These were chosen because all 5 in each pantheon amazing-fantastic-good leaders (save ganesha), and leaders that aren’t amazing or fantastic make up for it by being an amazing or fantastic sub. Of course these are just my opinions (and I have disclosed my amount of experience with every god, as well as conscious bias) but I hope this information will be of use to you

Egyptian 1

3 Kingdoms

Heroes (disclosure: rough until you get a decent amount of same element orb changers)

Japanese 2

Chinese 1

Indian 2

Egyptian 2

Dungeons

Everything you get from the normal and technical dungeons is crap. I assure you. Aside from Echidna, Lilith, Gigas, Vampire, and maybe Angel just feed it as fodder or sell it.

While I personally wouldn’t care for the rest– there are other valuables such as Siren and Golems. If you’re unsure, do your research before discarding them! No harm in keeping them in your box for a while until you can make an informed decision.

Protecting your monsters

Go to your monster box, click on monsters you don’t want to accidentally lose, and click Add to Favorites. This will make it much harder to accidentally sell or otherwise lose your beloved max skilled echidna (or whatever, any, and all monsters that you like)

Feeding monsters and plus eggs – What am I feeding my monsters to?

Do not evenly feed your monsters so that everyone on your team is the same level. Max level your leader first. Max level your most valuable sub second, and so forth. One at a time. The reasoning behind this is early on you switch out monsters so often that if you feed your fourth most valuable sub and don’t need them later, everything you’ve fed them goes to waste.

Same goes for + plus egg + allocation. Hypermax your leader first. Do not spread out your plus eggs. There is absolutely no value to doing so. Even after playing for a year I only have two hypermaxed monsters, my Bastet and Anubis, and had I spread out my plus eggs, I would have none. Two good monsters indefinitely better than a ton of crap. That said I hope this helps push the point how important your first leader truly is.

Special note: While it will never change that you should hypermax one monster at a time, if you’re positive that monster is a keeper (not the kind of keepers you get from tuesday dungeons), you should level them evenly with all the other monsters that you’ll keep on your team for sure. Since new players tend to not know which monsters they’ll end up keeping on their team, I suggest one at a time because doing the leader and core subs in order of importance one at a time provides the smallest chance of having exp go to waste. Otherwise, do some research first and make sure you really are going to need all those monsters first. I recommend making one team where every monster is max leveled first instead of just having a bunch of medium leveled monsters all over the place and nothing optimized.

Intermission – Quick summary of what I’ve gone over so far

So I’ve given you the instructions to start Puzzles and Dragons properly as well as pointed you into the right direction with what to do when starting the game. With that in mind we’re going to skip the rest of earlygame and proceed right into lategame as I see little value in covering midgame at this point in time. So I’m going to discuss my thoughts on relative power-output in regards to endgame clearing.

Common things people tend to want to know about Puzzle and Dragons

How to improve at comboing

While there are tons of videos and guides out there, so far I’ve found this one to be the most comprehensive:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLku-s20EBE

Now let me tell you why exactly you should care, and what you can do from a macro standpoint to improve. There are two things in this game that improve your ability to clear dungeons. Better Puzzles and better Dragons waifus. So basically you want better monsters, you want them fully awoken, max leveled, max skilled, then max plussed. There’s endless information you can read about team management, but for now let’s talk about the other aspect that you can improve on– better comboing ability.

Instead of going over how to combo better through patterns (as there are many out there) I’ll go through the thought process behind actually getting better.

Practice, practice, practice. Remember all those years in elementary school they made you spend writing the alphabet so your handwriting didn’t suck so much? Comboing is one part knowing what to do and four parts having it down in your muscle memory. So go into Endless Corridors… I’m just kidding, everyone says to do that but nobody really likes it. The next time you do a dungeon that won’t require you to combo the maximum amount possible on a given floor, focus on your form instead of making the most combos you can. What I mean is pack as many combos as you can together– that way you have more room to make more combos even though you’ll have to manipulate more orbs to achieve this. It’ll take more time but once you get it into muscle memory you’ll be much better at comboing. You’re also going to want time extends when you’re improving. They don’t just make the game easier for you, they make you better at the game. Why? Because they allow you to finish your train of thought while you’re comboing, so you can get used to seeing how a well comboed board is supposed to look like. If you just finish four combos in any random place on the board you’re never going to be able to visualize how you could’ve kept on going because the game immediately shoves a new puzzle straight into your face– giving you no time to process the information needed to analyze what areas could be worked on for improvement.

Extra: Your real life equipment does make a difference. I use a Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge with a Puzzle and Dragons Su-Pen, which I’ve had for about 7 months now. The stylus does make a big difference– if you’re willing to invest money on stones, consider investing in proper comboing tools too. As of (6/23/15), this Puzzle and Dragons Su-Pen is available on Amazon for $18, and mine shows no sign of damage (but I do take good care of it)

http://www.amazon.com/Pazdora–Puzzle-Dragons-Su-Pen-iPhone/dp/B00E59TJ3Q

How to try certain teams without investing in/owning all the subs

This is just a little thing I do every now and then but if I have the leader for a certain team that I’d like to test out just to see what it’s capable of, or just would like to play around with it for a while, I’ll go on puzzledragonx.com and use the friend finder (this also works for finding your favorite youtuber, but don’t do it) and add all hypermaxed dream team subs that leader uses. Then I’ll play around with it in a few challenge mode dungeons, taking screenshots of the damage so I can multiply it by the leader skill multiplier (as there’s only one ls in effect, not two) to get a feel for how much damage I’m doing and how it feels to play with that lead. Things on my mind include how often I need to use a particular active, the frequency of getting trolled by a certain active, how much time extend I get with the team, how much I like the team from an aesthetic standpoint, and just how the team feels. Do I like it? Do I want to invest more into it? I find out by doing this.

What the rest of this guide is going to be about – sharing my thoughts and insights based on my values and experiences pertaining to this game

This is going to be very messy as I’m just going to write down a jarble of all my thoughts and perhaps sort them out later, perhaps not. Most to all of the included material will be things I myself wish I’d realized much earlier, or things I’ve seen my friends and peers commonly overlook. This is also the part where people reading this guide are going to find things very controversial, so read it with a grain of salt.

Big Misconception #1 – Orb changes only help you play the game and aren’t necessary

When I first started playing, some of the guides I read lead me to believe that orb changers were simply there to help you make combos, a belief that stuck with me until my entry into lategame as I played a rainbow team– WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! Orb changers are often responsible for the majority of your burst; a requirement for nearly all viable endgame teams as of writing this (6/23/2015) Think about it like this. If your board is normally 1/6th of a color, and you use a single color orb changer, the board is now 2/6th of that color. You just doubled your damage, and in the case that it helped you make a row or two prong or etc, your damage increases by more than double. Think of a single turn orb changer as a more versatile, lower cooldown, stronger version of perhaps a Lu Bu or Izanagi active.

Big Misconception #2 – Mono color teams are an option, not a necessity (thoughts of spending my entire midgame as a Ra player)

Well, you can. And I really wish someone really emphasized this can for me because for the longest time I did play a rainbow team. This ties in really closely with big misconception #1, but I’ve played Ra for quite a while. Let’s compare Ra with Red Sonia. Ra was (at the time, he’s now since been buffed) a 49x leader that gave you 7x per Ra if you matched at least one of fire, water, wood, light, dark, and heart. On the other hand, Red Sonia is a flat 2.5x ATK for devils, 6.25x for both Sonias. For now, let’s ignore the fact that Ra’s leaderskill has a relatively low activation rate (60%~, and you can usually tell right away when you’re fucked) and that Sonia’s is an unconditional. Now I thought Ra would blow Sonia out of the water (and he does tend to outperform her), but the difference isn’t nearly as great as 49x to 6.25x would imply. See, 49x is applied to a single light combo, a single fire combo, a single water combo, a single wood combo, and a single dark combo. Simply proccing Ra’s leaderskill will take up a minimum of 18 of the 30 slots on the board. Now, with Sonia, instead, you can do fire combo, fire combo, fire combo, fire combo, fire combo, fire combo, for 6 fire combos instead of 1 of each. Essentially you’re comparing the damage of 49x * 1 vs. 6.25x * 6, which ends up to be a fair 37.5. Not so bad as it looked, right? Now of course you’re only realistically going to get 4 or 5 fire combos on a Sonia active, but then you factor in things like orb enhance awakening, two prongs, row enhance awakening, orb changers, element specific actives and more that are all significantly more effective on mono-color teams, and it’s not hard to see why in the grand scheme of things mono-color teams really blow rainbow teams out of the water. In the current meta, the vast majority of endgame teams are monocolor, or at least focus on a single color. There are a few rainbow teams that work (and they work well), but they make the game more difficult than they need to be, if you want to have that burden solely for the sake of playing a rainbow team, be my guest.

Jarble #3 – The amount of combos you’re going to make on a given turn

Okay. Puzzle and Dragons is a 6×5 board. That means with a perfect board, you can make 10 combos. Let me go ahead and tell you that happens naturally only once in a blue moon. I’ll also go ahead and tell you the worst possible scenario in a fresh board is 6 combos, but I honestly don’t remember this ever happening to me. Should you have a board with 5 fire, water, wood, light, dark, and heart orbs respectively, the maximum amount of combos you will be able to make on that board is 6. In real life this never happens. Most natural boards will have 7 – 8 combos on them and rarely, 9. You can boost this up by using a Chinese god active, Light Kali, or similar full board change active which will usually give your board 8 or 9 combos, sometimes 10. Of course, don’t forget that the more combos you make, the more skyfalls you get. When clearing a majority of the board (especially with cascades) it’s actually reasonable to expect skyfalls as part of your regular combo count. If you clear 10 combos as opposed to 1, you have 30 slots for potential skyfalling vs 3 slots, right?

Misconception #4 – More damage potential is always better – The problem with Anubis

After reading Jarble #3, I went over that you can expect 7 – 8 combos per turn. This means you cannot expect to proc Anubis’ leader skill every turn. Herein lies the problem. Excess of damage doesn’t do jack shit in this game. If you do 5 mil damage to a 5 mil HP boss, it will die. If you do 15 mil damage to a 5 mil HP boss, it still dies. The result is the same. The problem with Anubis is the consistency of proccing his leader skill. The problem is Anubis isn’t actually worth until you hit 9 combos– MANY leaders in this game offer 16x at a much easier activation rate. And when there are two leaders that both output enough damage to clear something, the one that can do so more consistently is better. So when you’re playing Anubis, you’re holding your luck accountable for making him effective. You can combo 7 to 8, but he needs 9. You need a minimum of 1 – 2 skyfalls per turn for him to be more useful compared to a different leader.

Misconception #5 – Why I used to think Kushinada’s leaderskill was superior to Bastet’s

For the longest time, I thought Kushinada was better than Bastet. (talking about the G/D evo of Bastet as the Awoken is not out in US version as of the time of writing this) but Kushinada’s multiplier doesn’t beat Bastet’s until you hit 10 combos… and if you’re expecting to play 10 combos, play Anubis, not Kushinada. Also, the earlier combos tend to be where the damage matters more– getting a 16x on Kushinada vs a 20.25x on Bastet tends to hurt Kushinada more than 25x over 20.25x helps, because for mob waves, 16x might get you killed whereas you’ll kill the mobs with 20.25x. As for 20.25x not being enough, if that’s the case, you should not be entering the dungeon with Bastet anyways.

Misconception #6 – Time extends are only a luxury

hahahahahahahahahahaha

Okay, for some people, time extends are a luxury. But if you take away some of my time extends I really won’t be able to combo much. Also, the more time extends you have, the faster you’ll improve at the game because you’ll be allowed to finish your train of thought instead of getting cut off, and eventually you’ll have the necessary information imprinted into muscle memory. Don’t consider yourself bad for having a lot of time extends, instead, just appreciate how good someone is for being able to combo. Respect their quality skills, but don’t feel obligated to hold yourself to the same expectations. Give yourself the time you need. A lot of useful monsters have a lot more +time awakenings these days, I encourage everyone to make use of them.

Misconception #7 – Valuing high damage over controlled damage

I know, it’s cool when you proc L/L Ra’s 49x (64x now) or D/L Anubis’ 100x. But let me go over why this isn’t really what you want in terms of content clearing. I’ll start by talking about D/D Anubis. Other than the fact that it’s simply impossible to guarantee proccing his leader skill on a turn by turn basis (as you cannot combo 10 every turn, regardless of skill, the board simply does not allow for it), you simply don’t need that excess damage for– well, anything. It’s just bragging rights. That said, when you can, a team should be focused on being able to clear the content 100% of the time, and that involves being able to control when you do your damage. Even though damage from gods like Anubis and Ra are high, you can’t say I want to do a specific x amount of damage on this specific turn. This becomes a problem when that floor will one shot you if you don’t kill it within the turn, and say you only have 2 fire orbs on the board as Ra… well, you’re screwed. Here’s where the value of using a god like Pandora comes in, press Haku, press Hanzo, and sure, you’ll get trolled once in a while– but remember, the frequency of that happening is much, much lower than how often it’ll happen to you on Ra or Anubis. Controlled, on demand damage is so much more valuable than highest possible damage.

Jarble #8 – Why I’ll probably stick with L/L Ra even when his Awoken comes out

Awoken Ra offers a cap of 100x damage with a seemingly reasonable requirement– I will come back and revise this for sure when he comes out, as I’m eager to play him myself. However, right now I have a lot of glaring concerns. For those who’ve read to here, I care about doing damage when damage is needed, how much is irrelevant as long as it’s enough. However, when I need it, I want to be able to guarantee that it will come out. The chance of activating Awoken Ra’s leaderskill on a fresh board is 61%. However, this problem is usually alleviated with the use of a Kali, which guarantees the 100x activation. But even with Kali, you are only going to have up to three on a team, two Light Kali and one Dark Kali, or any combination so long as it contains at least one Dark Kali, because you need to fill blue and green on the team. Unfortunately blue/green utility doesn’t offer any damage reduction (except 15% from Awoken Isis now I guess) So there’s only three turns where you’ll have 100x for sure. Then there’s 3 other turns where you can guarantee 4x, and then you have a 61% chance of only being able to have 4x… I think, for the dungeons where 100x damage is even needed, if you do 4x damage with a burst team for even a single turn, you’re usually boned? So you have a 39% chance of getting boned and failing the dungeon except for your 3 lifesavers… (well two for me, no Dark Kali…)… which is honestly not that bad. I’ll play with it a bit to see how I feel first, but I’ll most likely prefer something more reliable.

Misconception #9 – Bastet doesn’t have to be played as a mono-green lead

This is implied earlier on in this guide but based on some feedback I decided it would be nice to discuss this general concept a bit more. Ok, the problem here is that 20.25x can carry your rainbow through most content. I too, for a long time, played Bastet as a rainbow lead, thinking “I want full coverage of all colors, for consistent damage”. Bastet is a mono-color lead. All evolutions of her are, especially the Awoken. A quick explanation why Awoken Horus’ 45.5625x literally sucks cock (get it? cause he’s a bird lolol) compared to Awoken Bastet’s 36x is because Bastet can (and should) be played as mono color whereas Horus can’t. See Misconception #1 for a more detailed explanation. But yeah. My first team was Bastet, Echidna, Siren, Angel, and Lilith. Then it changed to Bastet, Echidna, Noah, Athena, and Lilith. (I rolled nothing useful in this period of time) For a long time, I didn’t know I was wasting so much of Bastet’s potential, and it’s why I thought L/L Ra was unstoppable, but he’s not, Bastet is. Use her in a mono-green team with two prongs. It’s why her Awoken form is so revered in JP right now (6/23/15), consistent, high damage that can be controlled to happen when you need it to.