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Puzzle & Dragons |OT2| Don't Ask, Just Reroll

nicoga3000

Saint Nic
New players (and veterans) start here: /vg/ guide to PAD

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*Takaoka Collab Returns*
[Duration]: 9/8 (Mon), 12:00 AM - 9/14 (Sun), 11:59 PM (PDT)

Puzzle & Dragon’s very own smorgasbord of culinary excellence has returned! The Takaoka Collab shows the very best that Takaoka, Toyama Prefecture has to offer! See the note for more details: http://on.fb.me/1r3iZtq

Amberjack, Velvet Shrimp, and Firefly Squid are fresh and ready to consume--or evolve! And if you’re lucky, you may even get to try the Himi Udon; it’s considered a tradition and a local favorite. The collab is available for a week, so make sure you pay Amitan a visit too.

Takaoka Collab Explained:

Takaoka City, Toyama Prefecture is the hometown of Puzzle & Dragon’s Producer.
Collab plans were originally made to celebrate a visit to Takaokashi after being away for 20 years.

This is a puzzling collab, but it was originally introduced in celebration of the Takaoka Festivals--so please enjoy!

Copyright(C)2011 TR@P. All rights reserved.

Notice! Click this here link if you're new to the hero gods and how to play and build them. They are pretty heavy IAP, so keep that in mind if you opt to lead with one.

Leaving this here because Hero Gods are awesome.

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Tips for first time PADers
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1. Never spend your magic stones on anything aside from monster box expansions and rare pulls during Godfests (not carnivals)
2. Don't play a Special dungeon unless you are hunting for something specific in them. Otherwise you're just wasting what little stamina you have
3. This isn't quite like Bejeweled; you can move your selected gem anywhere on the board for a limited time. Try to match as much of the field as you can if possible. Link five or more of the same colored gem to unleash an AOE attack
4. Go to your Monster Box and FAV everything you don't want to accidently fuse away
5. Back your data up regularly on iTunes/iCloud/whatever. The game has no login system; your account credentials are stored in the app itself

OT1 Wall of Shame
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Developer: Gung-Ho Online Entertainment
Website: http://www.gunghoonline.com/games/puzzle-dragons/
Requirements: iPod/iPhone/iPad with iOS 5.0+ or Android 2.3+
Download: iOS / Android (US) || iOS / Android / Kindle Fire (JP)
Price: Free! with IAP
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCX-Tz8KpXE
Downloading from outside the US
(alternatively, downloading the JP version because you still want to play more crack dragons while your stamina recharges)
P&D is currently only available in Japan and the US for whatever reason. If you're outside these regions and want to play you can...
iOS: Make a US-region iTunes account without needing a credit card
Android: Use APK Downloader with Android and Google Chrome. The APK you are looking for is here.
Useful Links
English Wiki
US monsterbook, includes dungeon timers, stat calculators, and other stuff
Unofficial forum, has good guides
English Facebook group, lots of good FAQs and keeps times of Metal Dragon schedule
Panda - Events and Alarm, a nice helper app for dungeon schedules
i-FunBox, iOS backup/reroll app, jailbreak not required
Helium, Android backup app, root not required
Titanium backup, Android backup app, root required
 
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The Japanese phenomenon, now in English! Puzzle & Dragons combines Pokemon, Bejeweled, hardcore dungeon crawler RPGs, social gaming, and crack cocaine into one app. In Japan, it's remained at the top of the iTunes charts for over six months, currently has over 15 million downloads, and even got its own TV commercial.
Assemble a team out of hundreds of monsters to wipe out everything that moves in the dungeons! Power up your critters by feeding them other monsters in a bizarre cannibalistic ritual! Spend your paycheck buying IAP so you can evolve literal Egyptian Gods* into anime lolis! Wait a second...
Seriously though, while PAD may look like yet another shitty Japanese iOS freemium cash-in, the game is surprisngly deep. We're talking 30+ hours of content just to reach the real "meat" of the game, and GungHo will continue to add more new dungeons and monsters over time. You know how people describe the "Tetris Effect" where they'll see falling blocks everywhere? This game will do that to you too.
The strategies needed to beat later dungeons could fill pages and pages of text (and in fact has, if you look at the number of pages in this thread). You'll need proper hardcore RPG planning before going into a dungeon if you don't want to get slaughtered instantly, and once in battle use pro puzzle gem moving skills to execute your plans. And if you're into that shitton of numbers going up always thing, this game has that too.
Here's a video showing the kinds of broken stuff you'll be able to pull off at endgame:
VS Hera Superplay
But I'm getting way ahead of myself. Let's start with the basics:
Combo Tips
* the Egyptian God update hadn't hit Global as of the time of first posting, but they're in the game now!
Screenshots
 
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Magic Stones, The God Decision, And You
GungHo's strategy for sucking your wallets dry consists of selling Magic Stones to you. Unless you hand over your credit card info, they only come from special events, logging in for X number of total days, or from clearing an entire set of stages in a dungeon. These rocks can be spent to do one a number of things:

1. Expanding your friends list - Don't do this until you have at least 500 boxes. Even then...Only do this if you really feel the need to. I've expanded mine to 130, but I have specific leader needs.

2. Refilling your stamina to full - If you are NOT a heavy IAP player, it's not advisable to do this. Otherwise, there are times when refilling your stam is VERY smart. When a rare dungeon comes around (Super Metal dragons are a good example), refilling your stam to get 10 runs in can be a HUGE leap in your monster levels. Do this at your discretion.

3. Revive when you die in a dungeon - There are very few times this is a good idea. Mythical dungeons where you KNOW you can kill the boss in a few stones may be a good option. Also, a dungeon like Zeus where the drop is guaranteed may be justified. Remember, 2 stones in a dungeon for a guaranteed good monster beats 5 stones on the REM for a Toytops.

4. Add 5 more slots to your monster box - New players need to really take care between adding slots and spending stones on the REM. I am an advocate of more slots. I have 625 at the moment, soon to 700. There is no good way to determine if more box space is for you. I don't like to juggle mats, so I keep as many available slots as possible.

5. Spend 5 to use the Rare Egg Machine (REM) - This is a HUGE one. I will likely do an entire section on this. The REM is both your best friend and your mortal enemy. You will get GungTrolled repeatedly. You will hate everyone in this topic. You will pull the best monster in the game. You will pull the worst monster in the game. The REM is a mythical beast...

You might notice that last one is the only bullet point I don't recommend against. Why? Because the rare egg machine has a slim chance of giving you a 5* monster, or even a fabled ~* God Monster *~. In the long run, getting a chance at an awesome monster far outweighs the benefits of being able to play slightly longer for the day. That's why the first egg pull is so important: the tutorial is the only time when the game dumps five stones on you and gives you a free shot at obtaining God. Some people will advise you to make a new account and replay the tutorial until you get one of a certain few monsters.

Later in the game, especially after beating the Castle of StanSatan, having a God monster becomes less important than overall team composition. Also keep in mind that some of the monsters that pop out of the rare egg machine will be of little to no use to you in the beginning of the game. That being said, certain monsters, or their evolved/unevolved bretheren, are great cogs for a late-game team, and will make you a highly sought after friend by random explorers. The following highly subjective ~tier list~ highlights a few of these monsters as well as why you should keep them. Special thanks to /vg/ for putting this together. Check out the Google Doc at the very top of the page for more info on this.

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Rerolling an account

*Note that this is also described in the primer link at the top!*

So how do you get a new account? There's no login system; the game simply stores your account information as app data, although actual data is serverside. This also makes it important to back up your data frequently. Anyways, there are two ways to get a new account for each smartphone platform. Choose whichever one works easiest for you.

iOS
  • Delete the app and redownload it, or
  • Jailbreak your phone or use a program like iFunBox and delete data048.bin. May be a little flaky. Remember to make a backup of your old files (data056.bin keeps your monster box, for future backup reference).
Android
  • Delete the app and redownload it, or
  • ICS or later: under Settings, go to the app and choose "Clear Data" (I don't actually have an Android so I don’t know the exact steps). Otherwise root your device and delete data048.bin

How to make sick combos
Unlike Bejeweled, once you choose a gem you can move it anywhere on the board for a short duration of time. Use this opportunity to rack up some huuuuge combos (check out the cheevos for the game; they expect you to do this). Here are some common ways to "solve" a pattern of three orbs:

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While you can get away with playing earlier dungeons by ear, in the later stages you'll be required to whip out 4+ combos on command to get out of tight situations. You aren't forced to move the orb as soon as your turn begins; take some time to identify clusters of orbs that can be matched quickly and plan out your route to success.

 
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By adding a player to your friends list, not only do you get to add their leader to your party, but you also get the benefit of their leader skill! Fire dungeon doing too much damage to you? Bring a leader that cuts fire damage received by half! Love big numbers? Pair a friend's 2x watter attack with your own and do four times as much damage! You also get points to spend on the Pal Egg Machine, which can occasionally spit out some cool monsters.

GAF Friends Army
Venture forth, brave explorer, and team up with other GAF members! Add @GAF to the end of your nickname so fellow GAFers can find you out on the field:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhOCApI3pSVRdC0wWHQ3X2F5MnB6LWNNQUJJWG9Tb0E#gid=3
You may have to go back to the title screen/restart the app for requests to appear.

LV20 Gift
When you reach level 20, the game gives you the opportunity to share a gift with somebody on your friendslist. Each gift gives both the sender and the recipient an opportunity to get another one of the three starter dragons, or the light/dark variant. By swapping gifts with someone else you get two tries at getting the light and dark ones! This is a one-time deal, so instead of wasting it on some random, post your friendcode up in this thread and swap with a GAFer! Again, if you don't receive the present immediately, go back to the title screen or restart the app.

Thanks to rocksteady1983 for the banner images!
 

nicoga3000

Saint Nic
FAQ - if someone wants to make a sweet PAD themed FAQ banner, I'd really like you.

Awakening System
With the most recent update (as of October 8, 2013), a new set of skills were added to PAD - Awakening Skills (from here on out, I will call these ASkills). ASkills are a new set of attributes that your monsters can have that can give you that extra edge in a dungeon. ASkills include extra HP, skill CD reduction, the chance to spawn +orbs (for extra damage), auto-heal on match, and even control type skills such as reduce bind duration, chance to block jammers, and even skills to help reduce/nullify the effects of poison (a skill that, as of now, only the player has been able to take advantage of).

There are a lot of questions surrounding how ASkills work. As such, I have put together a few quick images to help better explain some of the more confusing aspects to Awakening.

1. How does it work?

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The image above shows the new Awakening monster - the Tamadra. Currently, the only two places the US can for sure get this monster are a) Metal Dragon Dungeon (only regular metals for sure, but it is assumed that any of the metal dragon dungeons can spawn them) and b) PAL machine. The spawn rate is pretty abysmal, but what can you do?

The second image shows a monster (Rowdy Red Samurai Goblin) that can earn ASkills. As you can see, the Tamadra (or Eggdra as it may be called) does not have the little symbols on the top right like the Goblin does. That means, in the simplest form, that the specific monster you're looking at has or does not have ASkills. An evolved version of the monster may have the ASkills (as is the case for a monster like Bastet and Love Deity Feline Bastet - Bastet does not have ASkills, but once she is evolved to Feline Bastet, she gains ASkills), so you're best bet is to check PDX if you're curious.

In order to Awaken a monster and earn ASkills, you simply feed the Tamadra to a monster with ASkills. Really. It's that easy. You can also feed a monster an EXACT COPY of itself in order to awaken it. In the example shown, I did NOT waste my Eggdra - I simply fed my No. 689 Rowdy Red Samurai Goblin another monster No. 689. The easiest way to remember this is that you can only earn ASkills from a monster whose monster card number is IDENTICAL. More on this in part 3.

As you can see from the 3rd image, during the Power-Up Fusion process, if you've done everything correctly, you'll see the Awakening text pop up. Congratulations - you now have access to ASkill 1. The one in top right corner of the monster card is basically telling you that exact same info - you have awoken the monster 1 time. Some monsters (GrOdin and BlOdin, for example), have 5+ ASkills.

2. What happens when you've maxed the ASkills?

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The image above shows my Flamedragon Muselpheim with max ASkill. He has a star in the right corner of his monster card (instead of a 2 for 2 ASkills). He now has a chance to spawn +fire orbs, as well as the ASkill of skill CD reduction by 1.

3. What about evolutions and busty/ultimates?

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OK, this one is a point of MAJOR confusion. Pay special attention here.

The monster on the right (No. 409 Glacialdragon Niflheim) is the busty/ultimate evolution of the monster on the left (No. 143 Ice Dragon Niflheim). While these two monsters are in the same family AND both have ASkills, you CANNOT awaken 409 with 143. As stated in point 1 above, you can ONLY awaken a monster with a Tamadra or a monster of the EXACT same card number.

What IS worth mentioning here is that you can fully awaken Ice Dragon Niflheim (with either more Ice Dragon's or 2 Tamadras - yes, you can feed multiple monsters at the same time to get ASkills) and then busty him. Once you do, the ASkills will transfer to Glacialdragon! So in this way, you can full awaken monsters before spending the expensive mats to busty them. No need to waste Mystic Masks and Dub-Mythlits!

4. Do ASkills only work for leaders?

No! The amazing part about ASkills is that you can have a team of fully awoken monsters and gain ALL of their benefits! That means you can get a Skill CD Reduction of 5+, auto-heal of 2000, 2000 more HP, etc. by putting together a team of monsters with the pertinent ASkills.

Are you in a dungeon where the boss binds all monsters for 5 turns? With -5 bind reduction, that bind won't do ANYTHING anymore! Boss uses jammers all the time? Not to worry with the block jammer ASkill!

The best part about ASkills is that it brings an entirely new dynamic to team building. There are no "best" monsters to awaken - it's all about creating a smart and efficient synergy with your leaders AND your ASkills.

I been meaning to do a writeup about awakenings based on my observations, actually, and didn't get any time to do so until tonight. Bear in mind that all this is WIP because I don't actually know if this is true myself lol

Almost every PAD player ends up with decision paralysis when trying to decide what monsters to awaken. It's nothing to be surprised or ashamed about; TAMADRA and duplicate REM mobs are so rare that performing an awakening represents a huge investment in time, effort, and money into the game. The point of this guide is to sort the numerous awakenings into tiers of usefulness as well as offer some guidance about the types of monsters whose awakenings best benefit the many team compositions out there. After reading this, hopefully you will feel more confident about what monsters to invest awakenings into.

You should already be familiar with how the Awakening mechanic works before you go on, as the guide assumes you have this knowledge. If not, go check out the one on the first page or on the GungHo website and brush up before continuing further. It also assumes some passing knowledge about endgame dungeons and team compositions.

Before even considering the various types of awakenings and monsters with awakenings, you can apply a few rule of thumbs to easily eliminate awakening candidates:
A. Don't waste TAMADRA on anything easily obtainable from the game
It goes without saying that TAMADRA are a very limited commodity, so feeding them off with wild abandon is probably a bad idea. Sure, having a party of 6 fully awakened Samurai Ogre might sound appealing, but there's no reason to burn your instant Awakening on them when those monsters are easily farmable and evolvable.

This doesn't necessarily mean that anything obtainable without rolling the REM is a bad target for a TAMADRA, though: for example, each of the heartbreakers takes about 2mil EXP and the most pain in the ass to obtain evo materials to even get to the point where they can awaken a duplicate. The effort investment that it takes to dupe awaken the heartbreakers makes it way more appealing to use a TAMADRA on them instead.

B. Don't feed dupes to anything that has a split ultimate evolution path or is likely to receive one in the future
No sense in fusing a second Neptune to your first for one awakening when you'll get much more value out of having both busties in your pocket. Of course, if you get three or more from having terrible great luck at the REM then go right ahead and feed the extra one for the awakening.

---

In depth awakening guide (thanks to Cosmo Clock 21)

Awakening priority can be divided into five categories, in descending order of importance. While there's never a definite answer to the exact order you should awaken the myriad monsters in your box, these guidelines should help you determine the monsters that you should be looking at first.

0). Awakenings that enable team compositions that would be impossible without them
Of course, there's always an exception to the rules. There are very certain combinations of subs and awakenings that result in a team that would not be able to clear a dungeon otherwise. So far, there are only two known awakenings that allow you to create such teams:
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Thus far, the dungeons that these awakenings make possible are very niche cases, and you should only considering going down this path if you absolutely have to.

Example 1: Super Odin
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The original PAD couple, Odin and Amaterasu, relied on Ammy easily autohealing back to full after taking reduced damage due to Robe of Protection. But with the Auto-Recover awakening, you can run both leaders as Odin, take only 4% damage from all Normal attacks, and significantly reduce the risk of being unable to heal back to full afterwards.

Example 2: Guerilla Dragon Speed Clear
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If every Ogre is max skilled and awakened, X Strike for every ogre will activate the turn you enter the dungeon. The active does just enough damage that every metal dragon, even Kings, go down to a single Strike. With this team you can clear the dungeon without even having to move an orb.

Example 3: Challenge Mode Zaerog Clear
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The lack of a friend leader imposes unique restrictions on teams that can reliably clear Challenge Mode dungeons. Zaerog, already a pain in the ass to clear regularly, requires truly bizarre teams to complete in Challenge Mode. The skill boosts give you just enough time to delay and use The Third Eye to clear the first couple of floors, then Tengu can be swapped in on the final floor to zombie through Zaerog's attacks.

Now, onto the criteria that will impact most players.

1). Awakenings that significantly raise the probability of success in an endgame dungeon
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These awakenings are the ones to look out for: Extend Time gives a whopping stackable +0.5 seconds to arrange the board, which on the omnipresent combo/color-matters spike teams equates to an eternity. Skill Boost is super important in Descended dungeons where that extra turn of skill activation can make or break a run, while the stackable 20% damage boost from Enhanced Att. can translate into big damage on burst teams.

2). Awakenings that slightly raise the probability of success in an endgame dungeon
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Unlike the above awakenings, these ones only contribute slightly to your overall damage output, or facilitate the time and effort taken to clear the dungeon by a small amount. Still, every little bit helps. The Enhanced Orbs cycle of awakenings are always a favorite because they have a literally blindingly obvious effect on your board, but don't work with orb changers unfortunately. Also note that Two-Pronged Attack, depending on your luck, may actually make it more difficult to stall on a floor.

3). Monsters with many awakenings
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The assumption with these monsters is that their sheer number of awakenings gives you a large toolbox of passive skills to work with. This isn't necessarily true in practice, as the quality of the awakenings on these monsters is much more important than the quantity. Likewise, the upcoming Fruit Dragons, who apparently have NINE awakenings apiece, might end up being magnets for suckers if they have poor awakenings.

4). Awakenings that lower the probability of failure in an endgame dungeon
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The rest of them. These awakenings don't really do anything on their own, and tend to be so marginal in utility that you should be able to beat the dungeon without them.

5). Your most used, completely maxed out monsters
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Even though Horus' awakenings are complete garbage, your +297 SLMAX (*) Horus will absolutely get picked by friends over somebody else's +297 SLMAX (1) one if only for the remote possibility that those extra two awakenings will save their asses in the most farfetched of situations. Basically, this is only to outrace the rat pack in PAL point accumulation. This is the lowest on the priority list because of how trivial the benefit is.
 

nicoga3000

Saint Nic
I'm considering rewriting this section. I don't know how important this is anymore as the game has evolved a LOT. Is it work keeping this super basic information here? I would like to write up some ideas on efficient leveling and +egg feeding to replace this section, though.

And the team building stuff is a whole different animal. I think it needs to be fleshed out. Yay/nay?

+Egg Feeding (Thanks to George Claw)

The wiki calculation was confusing to read, so I tested it myself when I was feeding +eggs to my ADK a while ago.

In comparison to the cost for the +stats, the cost for your monster level is really negligible.

Here are a few examples, using J0dy's Horus at Lvl.94 and +59 stats.

Example 1: J0dy feeds his Horus a single +50 monster.
9400 gold for Horus' level x 1 fed monster = 9400 gold
59,000 gold for the existing +59 stats on Horus = 59,000 gold
50,000 gold for the +50 stats being fed to Horus = 50,000 gold​

Total = 118,400 gold

Example 2: J0dy feeds his Horus five +10 monsters at once.

9400 gold for Horus' level x 5 fed monsters = 47,000 gold
59,000 gold for the existing +59 stats on Horus = 59,000 gold
50,000 gold for the +50 stats being fed to Horus = 50,000 gold

Total = 156,000 gold

Example 3: J0dy feeds his Horus five +10 monsters, one at a time.

(1st feeding) 9400 gold for Horus' level x 1 fed monster = 9400 gold
59,000 gold for the existing +59 stats on Horus = 59,000 gold
10,000 gold for the +10 stats being fed to Horus = 10,000 gold
Sub-total = 78,400 gold

(2nd feeding) 9400 gold for Horus' level x 1 fed monster = 9400 gold
69,000 gold for the existing +69 stats on Horus = 69,000 gold
10,000 gold for the +10 stats being fed to Horus = 10,000 gold
Sub-total = 88,400 gold

(3rd feeding) 9400 gold for Horus' level x 1 fed monster = 9400 gold
79,000 gold for the existing +79 stats on Horus = 79,000 gold
10,000 gold for the +10 stats being fed to Horus = 10,000 gold
Sub-total = 98,400 gold

(4th feeding) 9400 gold for Horus' level x 1 fed monster = 9400 gold
89,000 gold for the existing +89 stats on Horus = 89,000 gold
10,000 gold for the +10 stats being fed to Horus = 10,000 gold
Sub-total = 108,400 gold

(5th feeding) 9400 gold for Horus' level x 1 fed monster = 9400 gold
99,000 gold for the existing +99 stats on Horus = 99,000 gold
10,000 gold for the +10 stats being fed to Horus = 10,000 gold
Sub-total = 118,400 gold

Total = 492,000 gold

For simplicity's sake, I just assumed Horus didn't gain any levels between feedings. It wouldn't make much difference in costs anyway. Obviously, Example 3 costs substantially more gold than the first two examples, because for each separate feeding, J0dy has to pay 1000g for every existing +stat on Horus. It's like compound interest on steroids.

A balanced compromise that I use myself is I feed five +1 monsters to a sixth +1 monster to create a single +6 monster. When I accumulate five +6 monsters, I then feed them to whatever monster I'm building up. So, I feed the main monster +30 stats at a time.

Monster Feeding
Monsters level up and become stronger by feeding other monsters to them. You can feed up to five monsters in one shot, and the stronger the monster, the more EXP it gives. You might even get lucky and get a x1.5 or even a x2.0 EXP boost during feeding!

Tips to get the most out of monster feeding:

  • - Feeding a monster using monsters of the same element increases the EXP recieved by 50%!
  • - During your travels you may find eggs marked with a + sign. This means the monster has an increase in one of its HP/ATK/RCV stats. Feeding one monster to another transfers all of its stat boosts! (also if you get an Amaterasu feed as much +RCV as you can to her)
  • - Feeding a monster to another with the same Active Skill has a small chance of granting a Skill Up! This probability does not increase with the number of monsters fed, so feeding five Marine Goblins to a Siren will have the same chance of a Skill Up happening as if you fed it one
The Chinese wiki has EXP Charts showing how much experience monsters need to level up (now also in English thanks to Jinko). I recommend attempting to feed a monster to max level as quickly as possible. Why? The amount of money you pay for a fusion scales with the base monster's current level. So you could either feed a monster to max level by feeding it five monsters one by one, which would be hella expensive, or from LV1 with all five of them at the same time, which would cost just cost 500 gold.

What exactly should you feed to a monster to minimize the money you need to spend? As it turns out, certain monsters give more EXP than others. At low levels, regular dungeon fodder will be adequate for leveling up. After about LV10, you should instead fuse those feeders to Carbuncles, then feed the Carbuncles to whatever you actually want to raise. You'll also occasionally come across Metal Dragons during the course of your travels, and King Metal Dragons will give a whopping 100k EXP to a monster of the same element!

Later in the game, you'll start finding "Evolve Material" called Pengdras, which at LV10 give 9000 EXP to a monster of the same element, or after evolving a cool 45000 EXP. Since feeding gets more expensive as the monster rises in level, using Metal Dragons or Pengdras to level up your monsters becomes the recommended way to go.

Monster Evolution

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Many monsters have the ability to undergo evolution once they've reached max level. In exchange for some money, a few monsters, and a reset to Level 1, you get a sicker lookin dragon, better base stats, and even possibly new skills. You can check what monsters can evolve and what's necessary for evolution from the Evolve Fusion menu. Monsters which can evolve and have the required materials are completely displayed, monsters which can evolve but are missing the required materials are slightly transparent, and monsters that can't evolve at all are almost completely transparent.
Almost every evolution requires "Evolve Material" monsters. See the FAQ below for where to farm them.

Where to farm evo mats.

  • Lits (aka Rubylit, Sapphlit, etc.): 1* elemental dungeons (Dungeon of Wood, Light, etc.), Friday Dungeon on Adept
  • Evolve Masks: 2* elemental dungeons
  • Demon Masks: 3* elemental dungeons
  • Keepers: Tuesday Dungeon. Fire/Water/Earth are the bosses of each dungeon, while the Light and Dark ones are random encounters within. Strategy
  • Dublits: Friday Dungeon on Expert
  • The following are used to evolve Dragon-type monsters and are all found in the Thursday Dungeon, but can be found less reliably in other locations:
  • Dragon Seed: Departure Tower
  • Dragon Plant: Tower of Trials
  • Dragon Flower: Tower of Giants
  • Dragon Fruit: Thursday Dungeon only!
  • ~Special~ Evolve Materials:
  • Mythlit: Friday Dungeon boss on Adept
  • Mystic Mask: Wednesday Dungeon, Expert. Strategy
  • Keeper of Rainbow: Tuesday Dungeon
  • Dubmythlit: Friday Dungeon, Expert

Special Dungeons
You may have noticed a tab in the list of dungeons labeled "Special" which features a bunch of stamina-intensive dungeons. These dungeons contain very specialized mobs, such as large quantities of Evolution Materials or Metal Dragons, or certain gimmicks, like missing light/dark gems or recovery gems. You should only enter these dungeons if you have a very specific need to do so. If you're wondering if you might be able to survive a given special dungeon, some of them are labeled with difficulty levels that correspond roughly to the following:

  • Novice: 1-2* normal dungeons
  • Adept: 2-3* normal dungeons
  • Expert: post-Castle of Satan
  • Master: you are already dead
  • Additionally, some dungeons always appear on certain days of the week. Here's what they're good for farming:
  • Monday: no dungeon
  • Tuesday: Keepers
  • Wednesday: Masks
  • Thursday: Dragon Seed/Plant/Flower/Fruit
  • Friday: Lits and Dublits
  • Weekends: Cold hard cash. Tower of Giants - Dragons of the Tower also goes to half stamina and has one of the best EXP:stamina ratios in the game

The Facebook group's FAQ explains Metal Dragons and their Special Dungeon schedule in far greater detail than I'm willing to summarize, so I'm just going to link to it from here.
Team Building 101
gHR7Y.png

So you're sitting there getting blown up by a dumb Flammie in one of the early dungeons and you're like "what the hell?" Well, with one look at your team roster, no wonder you're getting slammed! Early on, it's difficult to scrounge up a skeleton crew much less a super kickass army, but I did well cobbling the following team together:

  • Your starter dragon. There's a reason why they gave him to you for free, you know! Its leader skill also incentivizes you adding monsters of the same element to your team, so do that.
  • Your rare pull. Unless you got a super rare one and your team points are too low to equip it lol
  • An attack/technique monster: Gotta get that damage in! Try to have it match the element of your leader.
  • A healer. If you didn't get one of the five Healer girls from the rare machine, they also drop rarely as the bosses of some of the early dungeons. The 2* form of Carbuncles will also do in a pinch.
  • A slime/goblin. All of them have orb changing skills when evolved to 2*, and like Carbuncles, require relatively easy to acquire materials to evolve.
If you get something better out of the Pal or Rare machine, obviously swap those in where appropriate. Once you reach harder dungeons, you'll need to start specializing to deal with the specific hazards within. What strategy you want to prepare for those depends both on what monsters you currently own and what you're willing to put up with to fill holes in your team. Post your troubles in the thread and we'll try to help you out.
 
LOVE THAT GIF!!!!

Nice new OT smell.

really hating this ECO collab, All I want are Loki Skill ups, is that really too much to ask for?

Oh and Heavent Sent? whatever dungeon...

EDIT: saw the Modbot... 247 pages. That is a pretty good run...
 

nicoga3000

Saint Nic
StMeph posted the "Don't Ask, Just Reroll" one a long time ago. It made me laugh enough to save it and use it. :)

Sorry this isn't complete. It was sprung upon us. I promise I'll be working VERY hard on it!
 

Limit

Member
Are Tamadras a permanent edition to the pal egg machine or are they going to be special weekly event drops like King metal dragons?
 
Hey even though the old thread is closed is there a way to check to see the most frequent posters in there? I'm wondering where I stack up.

Anyone think that the event starts tomorrow with 6.0.2?
 

Nista

Member
Oh look, shiny new thread!

I am torn on the ECO collab - I want to skill up my monsters, but the amount of box space it'll take is rather prohibitive.
 
Who Posted? Total Posts: 24,652

User Name Posts
Cosmo Clock 21 1,447
MMBosstones86 1,349
nicoga3000 1,215
J0dy77 1,053
ParityBit 750
George Claw M.D. 673
cpp_is_king 668
MicH 647
atlantaguy 502
Zippedpinhead 495

Somehow I jumped up to first place by a huge margin since the last time I looked at the Wall of Shame. Oops
 

Kreed

Member
Are Tamadras a permanent edition to the pal egg machine or are they going to be special weekly event drops like King metal dragons?

Both. They appear in the pal machine and in the metal/jewel dragon dungeons (all at random rates). If Gungho does what they did in Japan, we should also get a one time Tamadras dungeon.
 
Who Posted? Total Posts: 24,652

User Name Posts
Cosmo Clock 21 1,447
MMBosstones86 1,349
nicoga3000 1,215
J0dy77 1,053
ParityBit 750
George Claw M.D. 673
cpp_is_king 668
MicH 647
atlantaguy 502
Zippedpinhead 495

Somehow I jumped up to first place by a huge margin since the last time I looked at the Wall of Shame. Oops

You win this round Cosmo

hilarious that most of the top 10 stopped playing at some point.
 
Who Posted? Total Posts: 24,652

User Name Posts
Cosmo Clock 21 1,447
MMBosstones86 1,349
nicoga3000 1,215
J0dy77 1,053
ParityBit 750
George Claw M.D. 673
cpp_is_king 668
MicH 647
atlantaguy 502
Zippedpinhead 495

Somehow I jumped up to first place by a huge margin since the last time I looked at the Wall of Shame. Oops

Wow I actually made it on the list...
 
So we finally got struck by the ModBot huh? lol

I was just about to post when I saw the thread locked. Anyway, was just gonna say I like how GH made the Eco monsters only take 29K exp to max, unlike the 45K it took to max out the CoC monsters. That means you can use a single Pengdra of any color to max out any of the Eco monsters. Very convenient.
 

Anoregon

The flight plan I just filed with the agency list me, my men, Dr. Pavel here. But only one of you!
The current collab guys sure are silly looking.
 

coy

Member
Ooh, new OT.

So Persephone appears to be sub-fire, just like Apollo. Making her dark/wood would make the most sense so of course GH won't be doing that. I can't imagine the remaining Greek 2.0 gods acquiring sub-fire as well so it is interesting why Apollo and Persephone appear to go that route. Or maybe, if they did make the whole pantheon one specific sub-element for all, that would be the case for the other sets (with different sub-elements). Eagerly waiting for more news about the other gods with announced busties incoming.
 

ZeroAKA

Member
OT2 finally!

I just finished the ECO Collab on Heaven Sent with 2 Lucis and a fairly low-leveled mono-dark team, very simple dual Morning Stars to take down the end boss. It might actually be the first dungeon above Master rank that I was able to clear. :D
 
Is there anything thats worth keeping from the ECO collab in terms of usefulness?

The Change the World boss mob ( ECO Tiny Alma ) at the end has good stats if that is the effect you are looking for. If you already had a Yomi or Venus and they are a key part of your team then farming them for skillups is worth it. Max skill Change the World is much more powerful than unskilled since stalling is so hard for spike teams in high level content.

ECO Shabo Alma (evolved from the cactus mobs) skills up Fortoytops. Once the joke of the REM, the new final form of Fortoytops is actually core to the new Cu Chulainn 9x balance team. For example:

Cu Chulainn final form
Fortoytops new form
ADK new form
King Woodsie
Green Odin/ Awoken Zeus-Dios/Echidna (if you need more defense)
Cu Chulainn friend

Seems pretty good.

Also if you have a Pavarti, here's a way to grind skillups.

The Lakshmi and Flare Drall skillups also drop in the dungeon.You know if you want/need them,if you aren't sure then you don't need them.

Finally there is a rare invasion mob that can skill up Loki, but I wouldn't rely on this dungeon for that purpose. It's just a boost if you already are farming it for the other monsters.
 

Zero_IYAD

Member
Wohooo, congrats on the new thread :)

That awesome feeling when you're able to clear all ECO stages with no difficulties!
Am loving my new mono-dark team with 2 Gravities & 2 Morning Stars ♥
 

nicoga3000

Saint Nic
Wohooo, congrats on the new thread :)

That awesome feeling when you're able to clear all ECO stages with no difficulties!
Am loving my new mono-dark team with 2 Gravities & 2 Morning Stars ♥

That is such a powerful team. Get a Dark Ceres and a max skilled Echidna and you've got a team that can clear SO much content.
 

Colby

Member
I've only had a max-skilled Echidna for a few days, but it has already put in work. No matter how many stones and fusions it takes, you guys MUST do it.
 
I've only had a max-skilled Echidna for a few days, but it has already put in work. No matter how many stones and fusions it takes, you guys MUST do it.

I agree with this. Farming skillup up your subs is one of the best expenditures of stones you can make once you hit the middle ranks of the game. Echidna especially.
 
I see I made the wall of shame... Thanks for the new thread Nicoga! Anyway is there any chance of an event that includes this Thursday? I feel like it would be a dick move to hold out on decent Thursday drops with the ECO collab going on right now.
 
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