I got Zeus, but I wouldn't call it a success. It cost me 10 stones, but it should have been half that at worst. My team was all max level, and I used a +297 Awoken Zeus friend. I went in with a flawed strategy and also made player errors. 5 stones were spent on the Chimera beasts. 4 stones were spent on Zeus, and 1 stone was thrown away on the Divine Masks.
I watched some YT vids of people tackling this dungeon, and assumed some givens.
1st battle, I swept.
2nd battle, I kill the Mystic Mask in 2 turns. Now this is where I wasted a stone. As I saw in a YT vid, I allowed both Divine Masks(which were on the same counter) to live, assuming at least one or both would use its bind skill. This would prevent me from doing damage and killing them before my skills were charged. Well, just my luck, once their counters were up they both attacked, killing me. So, now I had to kill 1 of them to avoid the same fate. Unfortunately, having used a stone and now at full health I accidentally broke the armor of the Light Mask with my 12x ATK multiplier(taking weakness into account). So, 6 points of damage all went to the second surviving Mask. With the Mask barely holding onto life, I carefully charged my skills, doing my best not to kill it. I killed it with Hades and Hera a few turns away from being charged.
3rd battle, I had no choice but to sweep with all 3 Demons having a 1 countdown.
4th battle, my flawed strategy was to activate Hades and/or Hera's Gravity and kill off 1 Chimera, leaving the other alive while I charged their skills back up. Loki's 2x RCV would make healing between attacks a cinch, as long as there were Hearts on the board. I knew the Chimeras had a special double attack that could wipe me in one hit, but I stupidly assumed it would be seldom used. Well, I was already off to a bad start with Hades and Hera still 4 turns away from activation, due to my poor skill charging in the earlier rounds. After activating Echidna, I was pointlessly dealing damage before I even got a chance to activate Gravity. I didn't get to activate Hades until the first Chimera got to attack, after which Zeus' leader skill was nullified. After taking a hit and activating Gravity, I figured without Zeus' ATK multiplier, I may as well set the board up for a strong attack after I get killed and revive. So, I clear the board of garbage orbs, setting it up for massive damage after I revive to full health. PLAYER ERROR. It's been so long since I've actually continued a battle that I forgot the board completely resets upon revival. DOH! Now, I have a shit board and 2 Chimeras on separate timers attacking every turn. I activated Loki's and Duke's skills to accelerate the battle. After killing the first Chimera, I attempted my flawed strategy of keeping the second Chimera alive to recharge my skills. Nope. Constant special double strikes. I said fuck it, and killed the bastard. 5 stones down the drain due to poor prep and stupid mistakes.
Final battle, Loki's and Hades' skills are no where near charged. Echidna still has a couple of turns to charge. I make do by activating Zeus' and Hera's skills. From there, it's basically do as much damage as possible. Pretty straight forward, but took 4 stones since I didn't have the skills charged that I expected to, heading into the final battle.
In hindsight, I should have just quit after the second death. My whole strategy was botched by that point, and I knew it was going to cost me stones. Loki's 2x RCV ended up being a non-factor. And I only got to activate his active skill once, due to its long charge time. Were I to do it again, I'd probably take him out and slot the Duke into the leader spot. Then, I'd put either Demon Viper Orochi, another Hades/Hera, or my max-skilled CDK into the empty sub slot. I didn't want my CDK cannibalizing Zeus' Light orbs, since Zeus had a maxed-out 1917 ATK. But with 4 Dark monsters on the team, the extra burst damage from a CDK activation would've completely overshadowed the lost Zeus damage.
Oh well. 20/20 hindsight and all that. I should be happy to get Zeus with
only 2 rare pulls worth of stones. But, it wasn't about the stones as much as my poor strategy and play. I didn't even attempt it last time, since the best team I could muster would've probably taken upwards of 50 stones.
Anyway, my team and my spoils:
