Puzzle & Dragons

[cave hermit]

Yeah, I'm thinking maybe I should just use Valen's shield as soon as she shows up so I can just stall out the binds if I fail to one shot her.

[Vexorg]

On my teams, I typically pop an orb change to make sure I 1-shot Venus to avoid the bind, but unfortunately There isn't much you can really do if the game happens to skyfall a dark match on you. I have enough HP to make Venus' bind more of a nuisance than a problem, but I did get screwed over a time or two by the light devil doing dark bind on my leaders when I didn't have enough orbs to clear the floor with a TPA.

In the meantime, Kanetsugu is returning even better + egg rates than Hera-Sowilo for me, although the rainbow team requirement can be a pain (I just have my LKali in to fill in light on my alt, and the standard Shivadra lineup on my main is already rainbow naturally.). I'm easily getting 6 or 7 pluses a run on Mythical.

[guigui]

Yes, Kanetsugu is love.
Verdandi / Famiel (for colors and board change) / GZL / Osiris / Vishnu / Verdandi breezes through. I will certainly spend my XP of a lifetime rank today, plus the stone !

[Vexorg]

I'm pretty sure I'm well over 150 + eggs on both accounts by now and haven't used a single stone yet. 3 minute stamina plus 10x descends is pretty ridiculous,..

[Aisha]

Kanetsugu is indeed very nice. It's an easy dungeon too, but the ninja floor is very annoying. I didn't realize it was up so I spent a few stones on running Hera-Sowilo when I shouldn't have.

Earlier I hypermaxed my Awoken Bastet, and my Lucifer is very close -- I'll finish him today. Then I'll make a +297 fodder for my future Yomi Dragon and call it a day. Probably.

My +Egg distribution is very skewed towards HP and RCV so I will end up with extras of those. I'm thinking of putting them into my Bastet team but I'm not sure if it's worth it. I feel like my Bastet team is close to hitting a wall and investing more +Eggs into it will just give diminishing returns.

[guigui]

Yay, did not know one could become that much sick of a dungeon ! Gathered 300 +eggs in 2 days from Sowilo and Kanetsugu, and only spent 2 stones and XP of a lifetime rank up.
I will certainly Run Sowilo again sunday, then switch back to Dark Dog farming to change my mind.
Fun thing is that I actually have no idea where those eggs will go. Andromeda for Lakshmi team ? Brand new FA Lucifer ? Future Yomidra ?

[Aisha]

If you're interested in clearing the arenas, the Lucifer team is probably the best place to invest them. Lucifer himself should get priority for +ATK eggs since his God Killer awakening only works on him and not the team (same reasoning as multi-TPA cards getting priority for +ATK eggs).

Edit: I haven't been keeping exact count, but I think I spent around 12 stones so far and 5 or so rank-ups. I finished Bastet with +66 ATK, +297 for Lucifer, and my Yomi Dragon placeholder is sitting at +99 HP, around +45 ATK, and +99 RCV. I should be able to finish the latter today, but I'll see how far I can go with natural stamina before stoning again. I don't want to do more because this is getting boring; it's back to Akechi skill-ups after I clean out the challenge dungeon.

I also decided to include Zuoh in my Lucifer team instead of Haku. Just like Haku's active skill, Zuoh's active skill can also combine with Akechi's to produce a two-color board that's heavy on enhanced dark orbs. The advantage to Zuoh is that his new ultimate evolution has a Dragon Killer awakening, which will be extremely helpful against dark Kali (and others) in the arena.

[guigui]

Beside Arena, is Lucifer any good at clearing C10 and other hard stuff ? I think I have good subs for him, even though I miss Haku and, of course, Eschamali :
-Akechi
-Yomidra on to buy list
-Pandora
-Zuoh
-Okuninushi

I might so invest my + on this team, but this will not help that blue team I had on my mind for a long time.

it's back to Akechi skill-ups

This is hell. 10 runs today, 2 dark dog drops. Fortunately, 1/2 skill up.
Just one more to go and I'll leave this dungeon forever, even though my GZL is at 1/19 for now.

EDIT Akechi done. Final figures : 41 runs, 12 dark dogs, 5/12 skill up. The drops were awful, but the skill up were so lucky.
Meanwhile GZL 1/20 and hanzo 1/12. Bye bye dog dragons.

[Geist]

Man, game got so slow with the new time-extend awakenings on Urd.
Now it takes like forever for the combo-counter to get the job done.

[guigui]

Dont get too used to it. I can no more combo correctly when I dont have those 7.5 seconds from my Bastet team.

Also, shamefully , I bought a pack for this upcoming Godfest, who knows when one rolls Eschamali ?

[Aisha]

EDIT Akechi done. Final figures : 41 runs, 12 dark dogs, 5/12 skill up. The drops were awful, but the skill up were so lucky.
Meanwhile GZL 1/20 and hanzo 1/12. Bye bye dog dragons.

Congrats! Those dogs rarely appear for me, and when they do, they don't drop. I think I only got 2 drops yesterday, and no skill-ups from them. My Akechi is still at skill level 4 and I'm starting to doubt that I'll finish by the time the dungeon goes away, so I'll probably have to wait for the wood version to come. Edit: Wait, just got another Akechi skill up. One more to go!

As for your Lucifer question, he should be able to handle some C9 and C10 dungeons, as well as other difficult content. Not all, of course; encounters with Vishnu will give him nightmares, for example. (Although to be fair, Vishnu gives many teams nightmares.)

Over the past year or so, high HP and high RCV row-based teams have been trending in popularity. Other such teams include

Awoken Pandora x Awoken Pandora
Blue Sonia x blue Sonia
Saria x Awoken Thor
Ryunne x Awoken Idunn&Idunna
Awoken Astaroth x Awoken Freyja
Fire Raoh x Awoken Freyr

Anyway, I would say, if you aren't totally sure about giving +Eggs to the team, put it together and play around with it first. Don't even buy Yomi Dragon until you do that. You have enough subs to complete the basic team template of Lucifer - Board Changer (Awoken Haku/ultimate Zuoh) - Akechi - Yomi Dragon - Eschamali > Awoken Loki > Awoken Pandora - Lucifer.

[guigui]

Thanks for the tips Aisha, I'll definitely give ALuci a try before plussing any member of the team, just need 3 more devilit to Awoken him, which I did not farm today because of 10x descend. Also waiting to see my paid rolls this Godfest

So, it looks like PreDra infest comes tomorrow. If I remember correctly, Necro was waiting for a Dark Resist Latent farming location, this is a pretty good one.
I'll definitely be running this over 10x descend, put your Rodins up you friend !

[Aisha]

I just max-skilled my Akechi. What a huge relief.

I'll run the PreDRA dungeon a few times tomorrow in hopes of picking up a dark resist latent. Next week I'll focus on making Tamadra for my new teams, unless something else comes up.

[guigui]

First Predra Infestation reports :
- 8 runs (6 masters, 2 legend)
- 2 Dark resists, 1 Fire, 1 Wood, 1 Water
- 1 time extend, 1 HP, 1 ATK
- 4 colored Predra

Pretty good luck about the 2 Dark resist. I think the ATK boost will go to Vishnu, and I'll decide later for the others. You ?

[Aisha]

I slept through it. Ultimately, I want to give one of each elemental resist to one card to protect my team against all forms of -100% gravity attacks, and then I want to give a couple Skill Delay Resist Latent TAMADRA to a card that has a haste active.

Well, I bought an 85 pack of stones. First IAP of the year; I want to cut back since they raised the price considerably to compensate for our currency's weakness against the USD. Hopefully I'll be able to pull some GFEs I don't have, although last time there was a 4x GFE event I pulled none. I'll use all the stones on Day 1 because Day 2 features Egyptian 1.0s and I already have them all.

[guigui]

Rolls, the ones I'm interested with !

1. Sun Wukong
2. Nephthys
3. Perseus !
4. Kurone
5. Australis ! (3rd one)
6. Kakkab
7. Grimrock
8. Gamble Mage
9. Radious, because why not 3 silvers in a row ?
10. Green Dragonbound Sylvie ! 6 stars GFE, goes well with Bastet. Guess which green lady GFE comes soon...
11. Green Odin
12. Dragonette
13. Perseus
14. Orange Dragonbound Saria !
15. Nim !
16. Sun Wukong
17. Skuld ! My first non-green norn, second 6 stars GFE today.
18. Verdandi, there she comes, my 7th and most waited.
19. Lu Bu

Overall good rolls. Now, really, to hoard stones until next PCGF (or next time we get a good chance at Eschamali ?).

[Aisha]

No Eschamali. I did get a nice amount of 6 star cards and improved my water box considerably, but nothing to improve my current teams with, except for maybe Castor.

Eh; I suppose I can put Skuld on my wood teams to help deal with fire enemies in certain dungeons...

Sun Wukong
Alnair
Ryune
Gadius
Skuld
Blue Odin
Kurone
Castor
Australis
Kopis
Andromeda
Sun Wukong
Andromeda
Light Kali #3
Urd #2

Sold:

Sleeping Beauty
Yamato Takeru
Green Zhuge Liang
Ruka
Strawberry Dragon
Blueberry Dragon
Horus
Zweihander
Fallen Angel Lucifer
Archangel Lucifer
Fuma Kotaro
Zweihander

[Jon]

Lol, Verdandi is nice and all but once you roll her she really does seem morph into a fungus that will not go away. I rolled my fourth one this morning along with Vritra and Gabriel. I have enough stones for a few more rolls but will probably wait until this evening to try my luck. I am only missing Anubis from Egypt 1 so it's today or bust for me.

Pretty nice rolls over all, guigui. Skuld's ult. was recently announced and she actually gained that extra TPA that was so cruelly denied to her sisters.
http://puzzledragonx.com/en/monster.asp?n=2714
Saria also has great potential. Pair with awoken Thor (ahem ) and profit. I would really like a monkey king of my own for this very team.

@Aisha: Super jealous of your Ryune.

[Vexorg]

I'm only doing a couple of rolls on each account this Godfest, mostly trash rolls (Fire Dragon Swordsman and a dupe Sun Wukong on my main, Dupe Andromeda and 4-star trash on my alt.) I probably need to just drop a bunch of stones on box space at some point so I'm not tempted to roll in these things.

I think the main problem with these things is that the number of cards I could roll that I actually have use for at this point is incredibly small. On my main it's basically Urd and ROdin; on my alt there's even less that would benefit any of my teams.

[Geist]

Finally:



Pulled four times today:

1) Kurone #3 - MP / +12 fodder
2) Fenrir -
3) LKali - Go Ra!!!
4) Exa Hydra - MP / +12 fodder

Time to bench the Fat Chocobo.

Will Kali´s skill-up fodder rotate back to Angelits soon?

[Jon]

^^^I finally got her too, although I had to open my wallet to do so. The 4x rates were just too damned tempting so I bought a pack:

Fenrir
Shaitan
Dark Metatron
Lumiel
Shining Dragon Knight
Pandora x2
Chrono Turtle
Haku x3 (I am actually pretty happy to have her since Awoken Haku is one of her own best subs)
Fenir
Light Kali
Nephthys
Wandering Wizard, Wee Jas
Urd (Hey now! She's the last Norn sister I was missing and will be a great sub for Awoken Shiva)
Cerberus Rider x2
Ilm
Lu Bu x2

Scheat and Eschmali elude me but that's to be expected. Kinda sad that I didn't get Wukong (or any featured pantheon god for that matter ) but Ilm will be more than happy to take his place on my awoken Thor team. I still have a few rolls left but I think I will sit on them for the time being.

[Aisha]

Everyone seems to be down about Fenrir. GungHo has been working on adding jammer-focused cards lately so maybe Fenrir will turn into a really good leader later on. If anything, he'll pair well with cards that convert jammer orbs, like Castor and Eschamali. But still, looks like you guys got some pretty good pulls.

Will Kali´s skill-up fodder rotate back to Angelits soon?

Congrats on finally getting your light Kali! Her skill-up fodder rotates back to Angelits on March 3rd, which is really soon; but of course you'll just want to stock up and wait for the 2.5x skill-up chance (or better) to come back.

[Geist]

@Jon; Gui; Aisha

some lucky pulls there, congratz!

@Aisha

Thanks for the info mate; fortunately I have got 19 Angelits ready for skill-up action, (and 6 emergency Shynpies, which mustn't be touched though)

---

With the advent of the monstrous wolf Fenrir, son of Loki, and his 'Jammer-Orb' based gameplay,
GungHo is summoning Jörmungandr, the Midgard Serpent, to descend as Fenrir´s partner in crime.

This new descended boss, with its "LKali + Jammer orbs & enemy poison" AS, seems like a viable sub for Fenrir.
http://www.puzzledragonx.com/en/news.asp?nid=492

GungHo is trying so hard to make Jammer a thing,..., I take it.

---

Awoken Pandora vs. Cruel Bleak Night Goddess, Pandora?

Which one does it for you?

[Vexorg]

Running the one-shot challenges that just came up, and it is just me, or are resolve enemies (level 6 has two of them in a row) just a serious pain to deal with? All it takes is a couple of bad skyfalls and you're instakilled.

[Aisha]

Resolve is right up there with "absorb damage over X amount" as my least favorite condition. If the enemy doesn't have a status shield, one trick is to use poison (Lilith, Poison Ivy, red Odin, etc). If you apply poison and one-shot the boss from anywhere over its resolve threshold, the damage from the poison will tick and kill the boss before the resolve effect heals it back up.

[Necronopticous]

Resolve is right up there with "absorb damage over X amount" as my least favorite condition. If the enemy doesn't have a status shield, one trick is to use poison (Lilith, Poison Ivy, red Odin, etc). If you apply poison and one-shot the boss from anywhere over its resolve threshold, the damage from the poison will tick and kill the boss before the resolve effect heals it back up.

Delay can serve the same purpose and is overall safer since it additionally covers the case where you don't quite manage to one-shot. Also, a counter damage active (e.g. Baal) can work in cases where the monster hits you for a non-fatal hit as their first reaction to being in resolve state, Zeus & Hera being the quintessential example.

[Vexorg]

Zhou Yu (the boss of one-shot challenge 6) is a particular pain because she has an instakill attack that triggers under 20%, which means you need to get under 50%, but not under 20%. I suspect I'll probably have to just pull Echidna out of mothballs for this one.

There seems to be a fine line between challenging and cheap. I think one of my favoritte dungeons (at least until I ran it into the ground farming + eggs) is Hera-Sowilo, which felt well balanced and challenging but beatable for a decent team when it came out (although my Shivadra team and general power inflation takes most of the challenge out of it) although "Absorb one color" mechanics can be a pain. Stuff like resolve/instakill combos and high-DEF "bind the leads for four turns and kill in three" just feels cheap and arbitrary. Basically, if you can use a proper strategy in any given dungeon and still fail out because the RNG decides to kill you, you've crossed over the line from challenging to cheap.

[Necronopticous]

Zhou Yu (the boss of one-shot challenge 6) is a particular pain because she has an instakill attack that triggers under 20%, which means you need to get under 50%, but not under 20%. I suspect I'll probably have to just pull Echidna out of mothballs for this one.

There seems to be a fine line between challenging and cheap.

The absolute worst offender is Ilsix, but Yamato Rush is up there, too.

[Aisha]

Cleared level 8 of the One-Shot Challenge with Awoken Bastet, and I'm throwing in the towel because level 9 invalidates awoken skills. Luckily, I managed to get a much-needed Badpy out of level 8, so I'm extremely happy about that.

[Geist]

Can´t seem to beat Indigo on Challenge 8, died again on my 2nd try with Urd...
Don´t even wanna use Ra here... time to move on.