Puzzle & Dragons

[guigui]

Strange, PAD is supposed to be available in Europe on Android. But who knows how the Playstore works ?
Anyway, you can get the .apk package of the latest 7.8.1 NA version of the game here ; you'll have to get the newest NA .apk each time the game gets an update, which is not hard to do :
http://www.apk4fun.com/share/76/
http://www55.zippyshare.com/v/0JWQoMUf/file.html

Welcome to the game, and dont hesitate to ask questions, we'll gladly help.

[Kaiser]

Strange, PAD is supposed to be available in Europe on Android. But who knows how the Playstore works ?
Anyway, you can get the .apk package of the latest 7.8.1 NA version of the game here ; you'll have to get the newest NA .apk each time the game gets an update, which is not hard to do :
http://www.apk4fun.com/share/76/
http://www55.zippyshare.com/v/0JWQoMUf/file.html

Welcome to the game, and dont hesitate to ask questions, we'll gladly help.

Thanks, I just finished the tutorials and stuff, everything seems to be understandable, I even got Cursed Dragon as one of my tutorial drops lol.

[guigui]

Not sure if cursed dragon if good as a first roll. There is this whole reroll things, that I never did but still do fine with the game.
Quick rules :
- Never drop a monster coming from the rare egg machine
- Do not spend magic stones impulsively (eg to continue in a dungeon or reload stamina, at least at first). These things ARE rare and will help you later.

[Kaiser]

Not sure if cursed dragon if good as a first roll. There is this whole reroll things, that I never did but still do fine with the game.
Quick rules :
- Never drop a monster coming from the rare egg machine
- Do not spend magic stones impulsively (eg to continue in a dungeon or reload stamina, at least at first). These things ARE rare and will help you later.

Well, it's good enough that i'm slaughtering everything so far (reached the volcano dungeon) with it on my way. Also both tips I am following because it's common sense , i'm a tryhard so I would refuse to use those stones to reload stamina or continue through the dungeon by principle. Also Amaterasu Okami dropped for me from the PAD Academy egg machine, but I have to keep that one in reserve for now because of the cost (12) till I increase the cost enough to have cursed dragon + amaterasu + goons

[guigui]

Chibi Amaterasu may be of some help early game, but her leader skill wont get you far.
Not sure if rolling the collab machine is the best bet this early on, maybe you'd rather wait for the next godfest to use your easy to get early stones, coming in two weeks or less.

[Kaiser]

Well I have a whole bunch of magic stones now, so do I even use those to expand my capacity? Because 20 monsters is a bit low for me to keep certain monsters for fusions/evolutions. I have 5 stones atm.

[guigui]

Early game, it is good to expand your capacity when you feel you're too small. I'd say growing up to around 40-50ish is a good start, allows you to keep early evolve material and interesting monsters you get. Dont hesitate to ask which ones you should keep/throw.

Remember that Rare Egg Machine rolls are 5 stones each, which is a lot ; even though it does not look that way at the beginning of the game since you get stones from literally anything, but this wont last.
I'd say you should somehow keep at least 3 or 4 rolls for the upcoming godfest, but the more the better. Rolling good might help you grandly at the beginning.

[cave hermit]

Usually it's a much better idea to invest in expanding box space than it is to gamble on rolling the REM.

Yes, there's a small chance you'll get an amazing monster, but there's a much larger chance you'll get something garbage, or worse, something that you could get without the REM from a normal dungeon. With the 5 stones used to roll once, you could get 25 more slots for your monster box instead!

Regarding your early rolls, I would say that it would be a good idea to restart the game until you get a god monster from your tutorial roll, but it isn't really necessary. You may eventually hit a wall that will take awhile to get around though.

I didn't know about the concept of rerolling when I first started, and my tutorial roll was Snow White, a pretty average REM monster that I didn't even understand how to use when I first started playing. On early rolls following my first I still failed to get anything good, with the exception of one god that had such a high team cost that I couldn't afford to use him for a very long time.

While I could punch through earlier dungeons without even trying (keep in mind that this is a F2P mobile game, so the general difficulty progression is super babby mode, to babby mode, to baby mode, to easy mode, to hard mode, to balls-breakingly hard mode), at some point around hyperion lava flow I hit a wall and couldn't progress with my current team.

It took quite a bit of waiting until I had gathered enough magic stones from daily login gifts to roll the REM and get a god monster that could help me progress. Sometime after that I rolled a really good god (Lu Bu) that happened to have great synergy with the other monsters I happened to have (which were mostly devil types; Lu bu's leader skill gives an unconditional 3 times attack multiplier for devil type cards, and a slight health boost). After that I reached a point where my team had the potential to continuously progress through the game with the appropriate leveling and strategy.

So while having a nongod tutorial roll isn't the end of the world, you'll probably be able to progress through the game at a more reasonable pace if you reroll for a powerful tutorial monster.

Also keep in mind that as a general rule you should save your pal points until the pal egg machine has a special event, like the very frequently occurring rare evo material event (one of which I think may still be going on, although you should check and make sure) where there's a small chance you'll roll a very rare monster needed to evolve other more powerful monsters (you should know that if you want to get some of these evo materials from their weekly dungeons, the dungeons are absurdly, unfairly difficult. I'm still not capable of running the top tier evo material dungeons myself, and becoming able to do so is one of my current priorities).

Finally, this website is your bible from now on: http://puzzledragonx.com/

This website has detailed walkthroughs for every single dungeon, and complete statistic sets and information regarding every monster (along with player ratings for them).

[guigui]

this is fun how Hermit and I suggest the exact opposite to Kaiser.

- Me, got Blue Odin, Water wizard Sharon, Red sky wizard Chester as first rolls, saying "Roll the REM"

- Hermit, getting shitty rolls for a long time, saying "expand box size"

Kaiser, do as you please. In the long term, this will not make much of a difference anyway. However, do not spend stones on continuing in a dungeon or to refresh stamina. This will be useful, but way later in the game.


About that Dragon Challenge level 3, I was able to clear it, and got the luckiest run ever I'd say. Ran a kind of weak team :
Lu Bu, level 93, max awakening.
Hadar, level 75, max awakening.
Vampire, level 20, no awakening, max skilled.
Sleeping Beauty, level 36, no awakening.
DL Lilith, level 32, no awakening.
Red Sonia, hypermaxed, Aisha's one to be precise.

Ran into two 100k defense metal dragons, had to get rid of them with vampire, stall between.
Could not unbind at floor 6 because I had to use Sleeping Beauty on a previous floor. Wiped the floor with Lilith poison and was unbound on the first turn of the boss since the preemptive attack actually counts for an unbind turn (but not for charge active turn).

Took a deep breath and activated Sonia, got the following board, no kidding :

Code: Select all

DRDDDD
RDRRRR
DDDDDR
RRRRRD
DDDRRR

After looking closely and carefully at it, I saw how to clear it completely ! Proceeded with pushing Hadar and Lu Bu button, matched, got a 12 combo total due to gold skyfalling and one-shot Threedia. Green Jewel wooo !

Now to the light jewel ? Nope, I know I cant get it. Maybe if continuing was allowed...

[beatsgo]

Kaiser, do as you please. In the long term, this will not make much of a difference anyway. However, do not spend stones on continuing in a dungeon or to refresh stamina. This will be useful, but way later in the game.

Just to expand on this never ending discussion of magic stone usage for dungeons, the only time you're really opting to use them is if you're close to taking down a descend dungeon or you're farming a particular monster (like the Super Ruby Dragons) in a finite time frame. Maybe mid-game you'll opt to doing it, but towards end game it's essential especially max leveling/skill upping your monsters.

[cave hermit]

So the Choco collab is here (funny how Gung Ho doesn't localize the collab for one of the most recognized animes in the US, but they localize a collab for a brand of Asian chocolate that probably isn't even sold in the US);

Is this REM worth rolling?

[Jon]

Sacred Dragon King Saiga Another is the only card that looks even remotely interesting. I'm sure the odds for pulling it are shit.

[guigui]

I'll pass the Choco collab REM, but will skill up mu Fuu.

[Necronopticous]

Screw Shinrabansho. It's all about Star Vault!

[guigui]

^ says the rank 400 guy that has nothing else to do than plus+plus+plussing. Hope your team will work well.

[cave hermit]

Out of curiosity, how many players here are completely non IAP?

I have never bought magic stones, primarily because I see the idea of making a great team without taking shortcuts to be a fun challenge in its own right, but also because I'm opposed to the idea of paying money to (potentially in this case) make a game easier.

[guigui]

I did IAP : the 5 stones pack for $1, and two 30 stones packs for the last Player's Choice Godfest.
I might IAP again if 3 Kingdoms come back, I want a Liu Bei, and others.

[Jon]

I also did the 5 stone for a buck as well as buying one 30 pack a while back. Sadly, that $23.00 resulted in some worst luck I've had with the REM. Probably not enough to make me swear off ever doing IAP again though. Hell, I have bought exactly ONE console game this year (Bloodborne CE, and I don't even own a PS4) and having a having a ten month old and a three year old running around the house means this is really the only type of gaming I can get in these days. Thank god its this enjoyable, if you would have told me a few years back that the majority of my gaming would be done on a mobile device I would have wanted to kill myself.

[Necronopticous]

I've spent a lot of money on this game--not as much as some people, but certainly more than I am proud of. I had one period where I was buying a $60 pack every single godfest which took me longer than you'd think to realize was a problem. After that, I decided to stop spending money on the game cold turkey which was probably the wrong approach since I was still completely addicted, and I subsequently relapsed badly on some tempting event and fell back into the cycle for a short time. I have a much better strategy for controlling my spending now which is an elaborate set of rules that I have set for myself mostly around rolling REMs (since that is the real stone-sink). I rarely spend stones continuing/refreshing stamina except in special circumstances (pii challenges, plus egg farming) but I have a lot of natural stamina so in those cases a small amount of stones go a long way.

[Aisha]

I'm not sure how much I've spent on the game over the course of last year; I'm afraid to count it up. It's a few hundred to be sure, but still less than what I've spent in the past or would end up spending in the future on any one console and its games. I don't regret it, but I think I'm done with that aspect of the game. There are players out there who are really hooked and regularly put in 100-200 Magic Stones per Godfest; the most extreme case I've read about is a guy in China who spends around 10,000 Magic Stones per Godfest. I wish I could find out more about him.

---

War Princess Asmodeus Another seems to be made for Durga so I'd love to pull her, but collab machines are pretty much always traps.

[Vexorg]

I've IAP'd a fair bit on both my accounts, but my alt account had quite a bit of good stuff before I ever bought any stones, including stuff like my Ronia and ROdin.

[Necronopticous]

So last night was my first opportunity to put my crazy new Star Vault team to optimal, uninterrupted use for the full hour duration.



I managed a total of 127 plus eggs. Overall I am happy with this result, and feel that the insane amount of effort I put into building this team was worth it, and will continue to pay off in the long run. That said, I think I can do better than 127. I didn't keep track of how many total runs I did or how many of them I abandoned, but I feel that I had slightly below-average luck with plus egg drops. I definitely feel that I ran the team as quickly and efficiently as I reasonably could have, so I don't think there is much room for improvement there unless they give us more options to suppress additional effects/animations/dialogs, but with better luck I may be able to hit 150 in 1 hour. That's my goal, anyway.

Also, I am still waiting for my "perfect" 5/5 Star Vault run, despite having completed a disgusting amount of runs since the dungeon came out. I'm quite jealous of people on the PAD forums/subreddit who have had multiples by now! I've had many 4/5s, but the game just won't let me have that perfect.

[guigui]

Nice sv necro. How many stones did you burn to get those 140 Plus eggs ?
Also, thanks for using my Venus, I still have hope to get Jewel of liht dropping from PEM...

X2.5 skill up rate is back, I hope it will help skill my Fuu, those Wafer man papa are hard to get from the choco collab dungeon !

[Jon]

Yeah, those wafer guys show up for me pretty frequently but they never seem to drop.

I am finally learning to let go of my Izanagi led rainbow team and embrace Ronia and her devil army (pathetic, I know but I ran this type of team for a long time and I fear change. ) I have generally ignored descends so far because I have always had farming/leveling to do and didn't want to waste stamina but I easily blew through Guan Yinping and Dark Night earlier this week. I will attempt Beelzebub today but I expect a bit more trouble with him. I will also shoot for Athena tomorrow which seems a bit easier than the lord of the flies.

[guigui]

Jon, which difficulty do you run to see the Wafer man papa ’quite frequently’ ?
As for descends, Athena, and especially Beelzebub, are quite harder than Dark Knight, but Athena and beelze cards are good.

[Jon]

I always tend to run these things in expert. I haven't really concentrated on farming the colab so far seeing as how my Fuu is the only card that would get anything out of it. I have 2 wafer guys to show for my efforts and it looks like the drop rate is going up to x1.5 soon but I still think I'll farm it on the weekend if anything.

[Necronopticous]

Nice sv necro. How many stones did you burn to get those 140 Plus eggs ?

10 stones. Not bad since it's really the only dungeon other than high level pii challenge dungeons that I actually spend stones on these days.

In other news, Awoken Egyptians are finally dropping! My Ra has been waiting very patiently to massacre every goddamned dungeon this game has to offer. I'm so stoked, you guys. Now that we'll have access to Sphinx, I really hope they don't dilly dally on Awoken Isis, as my planned Ra team relies heavily on her color coverage & short active cooldown.

[cave hermit]

Well, I made a valiant effort to try and take down Beelzebub (used 2 stones), but my damage output just wasn't enough

At least the fact I made it to the flame archdemon before having to continue on mythical difficulty means that I can probably take down a legend difficulty descend with a little effort.

I could probably get the two descend bosses needed to evolve awakened Bastet!

...Athough even then I would need to wait for 2 green sacred masks and a green spirit jewel to drop from the pal machine

[guigui]

my planned Ra team

is that even a team ? To me, it is bulldozer, a x100 bulldozer.

Hermit : yes, Beelzebub is hard to get. I spent 3 stones on him, and still dont have the material to evolve him to his D/D form with the 2 TPAs. No worries, you'll get it later.
Also, dont focus too much on Mythical descends. When Legend exist, they tend to be easier enough, and the boss drops at 40%. I got lot of stuff from Legend descends.

[Jon]

No dice for me on Beelz either. I got bound by Amon and then proceeded to get orb trolled on heart orbs. I just cant bring myself to to stone in order to continue.

In other news, Awoken Egyptians are finally dropping! My Ra has been waiting very patiently to massacre every goddamned dungeon this game has to offer. I'm so stoked, you guys. Now that we'll have access to Sphinx, I really hope they don't dilly dally on Awoken Isis

Wow, that's a lot of nice awoken evo materials for one descend. With angelits being so few and far between for me, Awoken Horus and Isis actually seem more feasible than their R/L W/L counterparts at this point.