Puzzles and Dragons

Ishad

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
4,813
4,781
You guys know the Chasers are getting their own dungeons eventually, right? I'm not sure of any details, but seen plenty of JP videos running the dark one so I'm pretty sure they'll do the other colors.
Dark chaser was voted in as a survey dungeon similar to drawn joker and ssp. I doubt the other chasers will be popular enough to get voted on (which is why there is no mystic ice knight dungeons).
 

Vorph

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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I think you'll be seeing a lot of runs like the one in that video too, based on the drop rate info at PDX plus the fact that only Hamahime can show up as a rare and there are no chaser invades. Basically you're looking at barely half as many chasers from there as you'd get nagas from SSP.

And then feeding them all to Haku for zero skill-ups.
 

Tsuyoi_sl

shitlord
12
1
Ran nothing but SSP all weekend for 7 drops. Got 1 skill up (though it sounds like I should be happy). Still 2 skill ups to go for max...
 

Raign

Golden Squire
627
86
Had decent luck with nagas, went 4 skill ups for 19. Then 1 for 1 on vamps, 1 for 1 on chu chu but zeroed out on Satans and Sigs, still, far better luck than I normally have. Blue pirate is worse than red pirate was as it is not even grind-team friendly (for reference, 4 gravities and 2 lol cannons leave him with health.. so don't try it ;P). Burst team worked better, but be warned she shits up the board a lot with blue and poisons.
 

Ishad

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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4,781
Moar Satans! I need to expand my friends list. Most of my Horus users have removed me.
 

Intrinsic

Person of Whiteness
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No, not for you to start with. She's a big investment to even get to a pseudo decent leader and even more as a great sub. Reroll, she will on no way help you break in to one of the easier descends or farm the early dungeons for rank / farmable drops.
 

Vorph

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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Start by deleting all the stuff about rolling until you get Lucifer for starters. Sure, he's good, he can beat a lot of things by attrition--mind-numbingly slow attrition--and you'll probably want one eventually. But I would much rather start with a spike leader and take the chance on the REM not giving up a Lucifer ever than start with Lucifer and take a chance on never getting a good spike leader.

My recommendation is still: Bastet, Horus, Haku, Leilan; for ease of use and medium to high power, those are my Tier 1 (Leilan somewhat iffy I guess, but at least she can use Echidna). Isis is the easiest but lacks in long-term power in a big way. Kirin and Umi&Yama trade ease of use for more power, but are very annoying to use in farm content unless you have Horus/Bastet friends. Ra, Anubis, Kushinada, etc. I wouldn't recommend for a new player at all. Maybe Kushinada if they're really comfortable with combos, but I'd much rather start with Bastet. That one extra combo to get to 4x makes a pretty big difference, while the ability to go all the way to 20 combos doesn't most of the time.
 

Mikey78_sl

shitlord
96
1
Right now I am enjoying the tedium of the tutorial while I practice setting up combos so we will see where I end up. Once I do get something I like, is there a good way to make friends with folks who have bombs or is that all random?
 

Vorph

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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4,841
Start by adding people here and picking up what you can from the randomly chosen ones while you're still doing content that's easy enough that not having the friend leader ability active is no big deal.

Puzzle & Dragons Forum - Add Me!is where I got a lot of mine. You have to find people who are nice about wanting to help new players rather than simply concerned about getting more good friend leads themselves though, because an unevolved and low-level leader doesn't give a whole lot back. I waited until my Haku was evolved and level 50 before I started really pushing for high-end friends to add me.
 

Kirun

Buzzfeed Editor
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I wouldn't recommend for a new player at all. Maybe Kushinada if they're really comfortable with combos, but I'd much rather start with Bastet. That one extra combo to get to 4x makes a pretty big difference, while the ability to go all the way to 20 combos doesn't most of the time.
Eh, Bastet doesn't get 4x until her Uvo, which is going to take a starting player a little while to get to. Kushinada gets progressively better, just like your skills will as a new player. It's extremely easy to pull off 3 combos and getsomethingfor your effort, which Kushinada offers. I think she's a pretty solid starter.
 

Grimmlokk

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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132
Here's something I wrote up about starters a week or so ago for a PAD thread on another forum.
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As for rerolling for Luci, don't obsess about it. There's a few high end Gods I'd say to go for, don't worry about 1 specifically. This last Godfest would have been a good start since Egypt gods are boss(except Isis now, oddly).

Luci obviously.

Bastet: Her normal leader skill will carry you far, and her ultimate evo version will carry you the rest of the way. Fun to use, works with any subs and later on you can make a healer specific team with a King Shynee for one shot descend boss killing goodness. Honestly she'd probably be my favorite for a new player right now.

Horus: Similar to Bastet in how he'll carry you, how he works with everyone, and how his Ultimate makes him a killer. Much harder to use though. Bastet you just need to make any old combos, Horus you have to get used to making 4/5 color combos. It's not too hard though.

Kirin or Umisachi&Yamasachi(1 god): Match 4 specific colors, do 5x damage. Kirin is a little better because you play it as a light team in general and light damage is boss. Plus she has a short cooldown(20 turn) 20% gravity. U&Y skill is a very helpful orb change, it's just unlikely to do as much as the gravities. Still, both are pretty fly.

Red Sonia(Godfest only): 2.5x Atk/RCV for devils. Not as eyepopping as above and takes some more work to really get going. But 6.25 damage/rcv is boss eventually and the grind getting her team to descend level will be a piece of cake.

Dark Metatron(Godfest only): Probably only worth starting with if you plan to spend some money, as she really needs multiple REM only subs to get to asskicking level. One of the strongest teams in the game once there though.
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Less elite or harder to use, still great:

Anubis: Yeah, the guy that does 10x damage at 10 combos. Almost impossible to use reliably. BUT he has an Ultimate Evo that makes it 4x at 8, 7x at 9, 10x at 10. Meaning if you can get up the skill to reliably do 8 combos(still very very hard) he becomes waaaaay easier to use. And 100x will kill anything in the game. Can pair him with other combo based leaders like Bastet/Okuninushi/Kushinadahime/Robin for easier triggering/lower damage. Again though, he's a much harder to use leader.

Ra: Horus on steroids. Need to be able to match all colors, so it's very hard to master him. Only use him as a starter if you are very confident in your board manipulation skills.

Kushinadahime: Combo leader like Bastet/Anubis, but different. Her multiplier starts at 1.5x at 3 combos and goes up .5x for every combo after. Up to 10x at 20 combos. Very powerful if you are a combo machine, but I wouldn't recommend her for a new player.

Okuninushi: 4x damage at 6 combos. The easiest 16x leader of the combo guys. Not positive how well he'll handle descends, but it's doable for sure. Much rather have Bastet or Horus though. Hasn't gotten an Ultimate yet, could change him drastically.

Byakko Haku: The only 3.5x Chinese leader I'd start with. Play as a mostly dark team and has red as a sub so you can plus Echidna in easy. Makes her the most desirable of them easily.

If for some reason I was restarting from scratch knowing all I know my preferred order would probably be

Bastet > Kirin/Horus > Luci/Umi&Yama > Red Sonia > Anubis > Haku

The rest I'd consider holding on to, but it wouldn't be a sure thing. And with Anubis he'd just sit in my box for a long long time as I ground out ranks etc with something easier to use. Actually most of these wouldn't get used for regular grinding for a while. Kirin/U&Y/Luci especially, first two too hard to use and Luci too boring.

Seriously though, Bastet is really cool and fun to use=) Not the most powerful, but powerful enough.
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I might add Blue Sonia to the second list now. Though it would be a chore to get a physical team with enough RCV to make her worthwhile.
 

Intrinsic

Person of Whiteness
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I wouldn't discount any of the Sonias honestly. Even Jade Sonia just because of the abundance of dragon types available. There's typically 2x dragon events going on whether they are stone, samurai, ancient, mystic, etc... If you aren't going to IAP it should be useable as a lead, no?
 

Dandain

Trakanon Raider
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All that said, if you hit the jackpot and get a luci keep it - Even though luci is a tortoise compared to spike leads that you can activate every turn with matching skills. He can grind like a boss and its very convenient to lazy match while watching tv. Worst case scenario is you stall for 35 turns and do 600k damage. The main thing a starting leader needs to do is allow you to bust into the decends. If you can beat Two heroes/Hera/Valk you get some team variety. You can make both 9x balance / 9x healer teams which are stable grind teams and in some cases decend enabled teams with the right levels and subs.

Dark leaders are substantially faster to maturity than any other color, and light is the slowest.


General Question to people with spike leaders (as I've never done this content before on my old account ) how does the post castle of satan normals compare difficulty wise to my experience with the luci?

I know there is talk of how slow luci completes dungeons (relatively) - but my level 81 account is already on the clayus prison with nothing special, and I expect I'll be able to do sea god of heaven by looking at it on PDX. It takes me around 35 total turns to beat any stage and none of the bosses can survive the luci cannon. At 6k/15 stamina the leveling is very rapid and the overall exp seems to be superior to anything in the technicals and since I haven't run into any blocker skills, color binds etc (only high armor which luci cannon counters). I believe I could have started grinding past castle of satan on normal probably 15 account levels ago. With all the talk of the +egg gathering being and undervalued aspect of an account it seems that with luci you can start that egg collection much sooner as well as it being 100% safe. I currently take about 5 seconds or less before I decide a move - which is pretty much asking for suicide with a spike team and hardly ideal if you're looking to really maximize. I probably average 5-6 combos.
 

Grimmlokk

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Do it with Luci until you get a decent 9x team made, then do it with that. You can slap together a Green/Black balance team pretty easily that will mow down those T5 dungeons. Cu Chu lead with Vamp/Dark Knight/Green Knight and a 2nd knight or Cu Chu(I plug a Robin in right now).