Puzzle & Dragons 14 - Double the stamina, double the fun

[commandercool]

For Take just get a Kushi or Anubis friend and watch the skyfalls kill everything, I wouldn't bother with stall-ish teams for this descent. Be careful at kano but you can arrange your board freely as long as you don't attack her so prepare a 9combo or something. Take gives you loads of turns to kill him before he attacks you, one or two 10combo+ skyfalls should be enough? (which should happen even if you're not trying in a tricolour dungeon like this unless you're really unlucky)
Do you have any combo related leaders? otherwise I guess something like a Blue valk leader should be okay too.

Oh wow, I guess I didn't realize Take was so slow. I could probably stall him if I wanted to. I do not have any (usable, since my Horus is still like level 30 unevolved) combo leaders. I'm not used to using combo leaders, so I'm not sure how that would go. But for 50 stamina a try after double stamina, fuck it, I'll try it. Valkyrie and Kushi it is I think.

[Thaws]

Oh wow, I guess I didn't realize Take was so slow. I could probably stall him if I wanted to. I do not have any (usable, since my Horus is still like level 30 unevolved) combo leaders. I'm not used to using combo leaders, so I'm not sure how that would go. But for 50 stamina a try after double stamina, fuck it, I'll try it. Valkyrie and Kushi it is I think.

Take is a dungeon without green and dark orbs, horus would be unusable anyways. This also means combo-ing is much easier.
Now that I look at the descent stats, battle 3 seem pretty dangerous if your hp is below 17k, so good luck there.

[hyorinryu]

Made it to Fagan himself today. If Echidna was up, I could have won if I didn't have to blow it on Kirin. If only Kirin didn't oneshot me with all her moves.

[Suikama]

Can't you just one hit Kirin by setting up the board on the Tamadra?

Alternatively bring two Echidnas

[hyorinryu]

Can't you just one hit Kirin by setting up the board on the Tamadra?

Alternatively bring two Echidnas

Probably. I  had to blow Echidna because my burst didn't kill her and I had only 2 red orbs on the board. I probably could have oneshot Fagan had I comboed better though. I made a small miscalculation there.

[commandercool]

FUCK. I just spent, I don't know, a million years on Endless Corridors and died to Zeus because I fucked up matching rows three times. I totally could have had this, but... Nope. I can't combo. At all. Well fuuuuck me.

I feel like I'm still doing something wrong with combos. Like I must be missing something that everyone else knows, because I have a really hard time putting rows together sometimes. This is probably a dumb question, but does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? I keep getting into situations where I have to make like five diagonals and often one of them goes bad.

[Suikama]

There are a ton of tricks for clearing certain patterns of messy orbs. The more tricks you know the better. Also none of them require you to do diagonals.

Here's a chart

Practice these in endless corridors

Then when it's time to make big matches, assess the board and try to pick out as many of these patterns as you can, then go for it.

[Thaws]

I have to make like five diagonals and often one of them goes bad.

Here is your problem.
Most of my combo route consists of 0 diagonals.
I would accept at most 1-2 diagonals if the rest is simple enough.
And this is from someone that usually use teams with 2-3 time extends.
Try making combos from the bottom or from the top so that you don't get yourself stuck between made combos and must get out by diagonals. Unless all nearby orbs need to stay in place, there are usually alternatives to making diagonals.
If you start from making combos that leans to one side, it makes it easier to extend it to larger combos too.

[Suikama]

If I ever diagonal, I always make it my last move since at that point the rest board is already matched and doing diagonals don't mess with the board (if you dont screw up)

[commandercool]

There are a ton of tricks for clearing certain patterns of messy orbs. The more tricks you know the better. Also none of them require you to do diagonals.

Here's a chart

Practice these in endless corridors

Then when it's time to make big matches, assess the board and try to pick out as many of these patterns as you can, then go for it.

That helps a lot. I've sort of picked up some of those just from playing the game, but not all of them. Not sure how I'm going to go about implementing that much information at once, but it's what I need.

Here is your problem.
Most of my combo route consists of 0 diagonals.
I would accept at most 1-2 diagonals if the rest is simple enough.
And this is from someone that usually use teams with 2-3 time extends.
Try making combos from the bottom or from the top so that you don't get yourself stuck between made combos and must get out by diagonals. Unless all nearby orbs need to stay in place, there are usually alternatives to making diagonals.

Again I sort of know some of this from experimentation (I just realized that I need to start from the top or bottom fairly recently), but all of that is useful.

I don't have any time extends and I think I move too slowly though. I tend to run out of time and fail to complete my planned combo fairly often because I try to be very careful. Hopefully figuring out how to do less diagonals will make care less necessary, but yeah, I'm slow.

If you start from making combos that leans to one side, it makes it easier to extend it to larger combos too.

What does that mean? Can you give an example or reword it?

Edit: Oh man, unlearning my extremely diagonal-heavy playstyle is going to be a bastard. Just went into Legendary Seaway with my I've-been-in-Endless-Corridors-for-hours stamina and reflexively did like four diagonals on my first turn, botching two of them. Ugh.

[Thaws]

What does that mean? Can you give an example or reword it?

Oh umm, I just kind of meant if you want to do high combos, since there's only 30 orbs on the board, your combos are going to have to fit very neatly.
So usually if possible I'd try to fit half of those combos neatly on one side, so I have more freedom to make the remaining combos.
Combining that with starting from top/bottom basically means filling up a corner first may probably be a good idea.
Here's some examples.

Example Board

Just a random board I got. Giving myself double time (8s) because turning with a mouse is insanely hard. So by starting with two columns on the upper-left and the having the fire combos fill up the top row, then have the light combos stick to the fire combos as well, I leave much room in the bottom right to move around, without having to resort to diagonals.

Example 2

First thought was to start from the top-left green orb for making two easy yellow/blue combos, but bottom right was too hard to deal with this way.
Start from the bottom right red orb instead, and you have four neat combos that stick really close together leaning to the right side in a short number of moves. Since my target was 7 combos, I could pretty much move freely to make 3 combos on the left side.
(Though for both board 7 combos was the maximum without skyfalls...)

[commandercool]

Oh umm, I just kind of meant if you want to do high combos, since there's only 30 orbs on the board, your combos are going to have to fit very neatly.
So usually if possible I'd try to fit half of those combos neatly on one side, so I have more freedom to make the remaining combos.
Combining that with starting from top/bottom basically means filling up a corner first may probably be a good idea.
Here's some examples.

Example Board

Just a random board I got. Giving myself double time (8s) because turning with a mouse is insanely hard. So by starting with two columns on the upper-left and the having the fire combos fill up the top row, then have the light combos stick to the fire combos as well, I leave much room in the bottom right to move around, without having to resort to diagonals.

Example 2

First thought was to start from the top-left green orb for making two easy yellow/blue combos, but bottom right was too hard to deal with this way.
Start from the bottom right red orb instead, and you have four neat combos that stick really close together leaning to the right side in a short number of moves. Since my target was 7 combos, I could pretty much move freely to make 3 combos on the left side.
(Though for both board 7 combos was the maximum without skyfalls...)

Interesting. Makes sense. I messed around with the top board for a while and couldn't get over five matches, but this seems like a handy tool. I understand the principle behind what you're saying, but applying it at this point is a little beyond me. Will practice more I suppose.

[OverlordChirei]

Most of my combo route consists of 0 diagonals.
I would accept at most 1-2 diagonals if the rest is simple enough.

@cool: I'm gonna plug/vouch for this too. I try to avoid diagonals at all if possible because my consistency with them is terrible. The only times I use diagonals are situations like TAMADRA stalling in Twinlits/Trifruits or Siegfried in Athena or Kano in Take... you get it.

I run with 1/0 time extends and the meat of it is really "how fast is your finger" and "are you gonna choke halfway into making your great move". Few have mastered both of these, and the threat is very real. It's messing these up that cost me a 0-stone clear on Dios by a few pixels of his healthbar.

Also be glad that you're not running TPA - making lines of four makes this a lot harder to do, because the board is built to handle a lot of 3 combos, but a 4 match in the middle of the open can severely mess with your "maximum" combo count. Take the advice above and try to think on a small part of the board at a time. Eventually I was able to make 4 combos without ever touching the right half of the board if the orbs permitted it. Diagonals are something I feel that should come after packed combos and cascades, as I can average 6~8 combo on a good day without ever making a single diagonal.

[hyorinryu]

Weird, my chokes rarely have anything to do messing up diagonals, and I do them a lot. I just forget where stuff is, or things happen differently than I picture in my head. Probably a bit of both really.

[Thaws]

Choosing which side to come out of a combo may also reduce your need for diagonals to escape from being surrounded by completed combos, though I don't know if this is one of the cause for your diagonals though... (maybe you can show an example of your 5 diagonal route)

One thing about reducing diagonals is notice how you can "preprocess" the orbs or move through it in a different way/order than you usually do it to avoid diagonals.
This traps yourself, requiring two diagonals
But what if you entered from the right side, thereby moving the light orbs down so that when you make the middle combo, you end up on the lower side of the board

Of course the best way to do this board is probably to start with a green orb, but this was just to illustrate my point.

Patterns like this in particular, as you can see, allows you to choose which side you want to come out from depending on which orb you move to the middle first.

Also note that moving through a "wall" and coming back the same way means the combo is not messed up. Also there's a way of "passing through a wall" without messing it up but it's not that practical in most cases.

@cool: I'm gonna plug/vouch for this too. I try to avoid diagonals at all if possible because my consistency with them is terrible. The only times I use diagonals are situations like TAMADRA stalling in Twinlits/Trifruits or Siegfried in Athena or Kano in Take... you get it.

Though actually I've played on my friend's huge Galaxy S4 and it makes diagonals much easier than on my tiny iPod screen :V Still, it slows me down because you have to aim for the corner to not mess up and so I'd still rather have as few diagonals as possible.

[commandercool]

Choosing which side to come out of a combo may also reduce your need for diagonals to escape from being surrounded by completed combos, though I don't know if this is one of the cause for your diagonals though... (maybe you can show an example of your 5 diagonal route)

I tend to reflexively do a lot of stuff like this. I don't have a full board as an example offhand, but my go-to start is often to look for a few of those near each-other and try to straighten them all out before moving on to easier combos. Obviously in a vacuum like that doing this or this is obvious, but usually when I try to do that kind of diagonal it's because doing so would mess up other parts of the board that I need to be a particular way. Even in just messing around with the patterns Suikama posted for a minute I can see that that isn't the case, but it's how I learned it unfortunately.

One thing about reducing diagonals is notice how you can "preprocess" the orbs or move through it in a different way/order than you usually do it to avoid diagonals.
This traps yourself, requiring two diagonals
But what if you entered from the right side, thereby moving the light orbs down so that when you make the middle combo, you end up on the lower side of the board

Of course the best way to do this board is probably to start with a green orb, but this was just to illustrate my point.

Patterns like this in particular, as you can see, allows you to choose which side you want to come out from depending on which orb you move to the middle first.

Also note that moving through a "wall" and coming back the same way means the combo is not messed up. Also there's a way of "passing through a wall" without messing it up but it's not that practical in most cases.

Those are extremely simple cases, but in more complex ones where I'm trying to make a row out of a few orbs off to the side and a bunch clumped at the bottom and there's stuff in the way or something it's a lot less clear, at least in the moment. I'm having trouble making an example that really illustrates what I'm talking about, but next time I see it I'll screencap it.

Though actually I've played on my friend's huge Galaxy S4 and it makes diagonals much easier than on my tiny iPod screen :V Still, it slows me down because you have to aim for the corner to not mess up and so I'd still rather have as few diagonals as possible.

I have a Galaxy S2 and the screen isn't bad. I think that's how I can pull off diagonals semi-consistently when I'm "in the zone", but even then it just takes on mistake to lose a dungeon, so... Yeah. Not a great bet under the best of conditions.

[Jq1790]

FINALLY got my "proper" Hera clear, as in fighting her toe-to-toe instead of hiding behind ODIN'S ABS.

Now I get to try to redeem myself for my rather, uh...terrible showing at Two Heroes.  Perhaps I can finally get that self-placed albatross off my neck.

[OverlordChirei]

Though actually I've played on my friend's huge Galaxy S4 and it makes diagonals much easier than on my tiny iPod screen :V Still, it slows me down because you have to aim for the corner to not mess up and so I'd still rather have as few diagonals as possible.

I actually have a Galaxy S III, but I guess the issue for me is that most of the diagonals I'd want to make aren't in the corner, which either results in rekt or rekt for me  :fail:

[Thaws]

I tend to reflexively do a lot of stuff like this. I don't have a full board as an example offhand, but my go-to start is often to look for a few of those near each-other and try to straighten them all out before moving on to easier combos. Obviously in a vacuum like that doing this or this is obvious, but usually when I try to do that kind of diagonal it's because doing so would mess up other parts of the board that I need to be a particular way. Even in just messing around with the patterns Suikama posted for a minute I can see that that isn't the case, but it's how I learned it unfortunately.

That explains alot. Guess you'd have to basically relearn PAD lol.
As you probably have noticed, for simple cases like that doing the diagonal and doing a rotation has the exact same output (though you should've done a anti-clockwise rotation in your case which would've only required one rotation...)
But yea there are also times where diagonals make a difference, but usually that's when you have like some combos made already and your board is very packed with orbs you don't want to move.

I actually have a Galaxy S III, but I guess the issue for me is that most of the diagonals I'd want to make aren't in the corner, which either results in rekt or rekt for me  :fail:

I meant corner as in the corner of the square the orb is contained in :V

[OverlordChirei]

I meant corner as in the corner of the square the orb is contained in :V

Oh. I'm still pretty garbage at that unfortunately, since it seems to be really precise. I took a tip from Matsy in that you just swipe fast, but this still seems to just be a toss-up for me, and if I have to whip it out to live I might be in deep doodoo.

[Thaws]

https://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php?action=post;topic=17582.390;last_msg=1142095

JP's friday new descent

Green/Light (Green descent again?)
Attacker/Dragon

Wood Orb Enhance, Skill Boost, TPA

2911/1511/110

Active (Max: 10cd)
Recover a quarter of your max HP.
Enhance all wood orbs.

Leader Skill.
If Liu Bei is in your team, HP,RCV x1.5, ATKx2.5

So looks like their pattern now is type-restricted descent (no livestream) -> normal descent (livestream) whose LS requires certain monster in team.
Luckily like last time with cauchemar needing astaroth, I actually have Liu Bei (actually I have two :qq:), don't see how it'd be better than GZL attackers though? Can't be used in GZL teams too, active basically says screw you to GZL's leader lols (Not that I have a GZL anyways :V)
Liu Bei is still at 3x atk, right? Him and SQ didn't get buffed to 3.5x like Astaroth did for some reason. Attacker's recovery is still pitiful even after x1.5 or x2.25...
Still thinks recovery up only when HP is above half is dumb.

What do you guys think of LSes requiring gacha monsters? It seems to be one way to both not make descents crappy while still keeping motivation for people to roll, and even those who don't have the required monster can use friend's leader instead. Seems like a win-win for everyone, but this means future descents stuff are going to have really boring leader skills :/

[MatsuriSakuragi]

I.... was really hoping Cauchemar was a one-off thing because it was a cute idea to give Astaroth's familiar a card, especially since it's a significant part of her art.

If this is how it's gonna be from now on then a lot of descend drops are going to be pretty worthless to most people. :/

Anyway! Since it is now past turnover, I decided to give the Skillbind-resistant Luci team I made a shot at the Wednesday Legend dungeon.

Later!


And victory.


Very simple, actually. I basically just stalled my way through the first two floors as much as possible and popped Lilith Kuromi at the third floor because I didn't want to take any chances. But I did notice that her defense cancel did not carry over into floor 4, so I had to take them out as fast as possible because they used sealing gaze more than once. I mean, I managed to avoid it with 80% resistance, but it had me very worried.

The boss masks were simple. With the defense the blue mask has, it takes four morning stars to kill. So all I had to do was make sure I controlled the orbs enough that I didn't get 5+ matches and accidentally hurt the green mask too much. Near the end I was actually getting kind of worried I'd kill it and then I'd be in for a world of hurt

But still, it's done, I got my blue mask, and I got a sweet free stone out of it. Now I am free to work on preparing for Takeminakata farming for green jewel tomorrow. \o/

[trancehime]

So looks like their pattern now is type-restricted descent (no livestream) -> normal descent (livestream) whose LS requires certain monster in team.
Luckily like last time with cauchemar needing astaroth, I actually have Liu Bei (actually I have two :qq:), don't see how it'd be better than GZL attackers though? Can't be used in GZL teams too, active basically says screw you to GZL's leader lols (Not that I have a GZL anyways :V)

Disagree regarding the use of Zhao Yun's active in a GZL team. Keep in mind that the HP threshold for activating GZL's LS is sub-80% HP. You can thusly use the HP heal in the situation that you're sent to dangerous HP levels and want to recover a small amount to prepare for damage pre-emptives. It would be a lot more suspect to use the active if the threshold was sub-50% HP which I do think actually exist.

If this is how it's gonna be from now on then a lot of descend drops are going to be pretty worthless to most people. :/

If people only valued descend drops for their viability as a Leader then sure we can look to be disappointed...

[MatsuriSakuragi]

If people only valued descend drops for their viability as a Leader then sure we can look to be disappointed...

Well I mean, even as a sub he seems kinda underwhelming. I'd be saying otherwise if he had a god type in there somewhere because he'd be great on an Athena team, but...

But yes, I do personally think that there should be more viable descend leaders for people to not have to rely on the REM to get. Making leader skills dependent on your luck and your wallet during godfests alone is kind of lousy. I guess it's viable if you have a friend who has them, but still. :s

[trancehime]

My main issue is pushing in yet another green attacker with average stats that only seems to do well as a GGY sub, and and as leader he needs someone who's not even statistically exceptional to activate LS. I agree with your point of pushing for better descend leaders (Gravis is ok) but I always see people immediately do unit valuation based solely on LS rather than holistically.

At least we can agree that as a whole Zhao Yun is just 'ok' and not great, from a more overall perspective

[MatsuriSakuragi]

My main issue is pushing in yet another green attacker with average stats that only seems to do well as a GGY sub, and and as leader he needs someone who's not even statistically exceptional to activate LS. I agree with your point of pushing for better descend leaders (Gravis is ok) but I always see people immediately do unit valuation based solely on LS rather than holistically.

Oh, well, yeah. I try to make a point of seeing all situations where a unit can be used, but that LS is a glaring flaw that nothing else seems to make up for. I mean I guess I could like, toss him into a Michael or Sasuke team or something, but the fact remains that he's mediocre at best.

I mean, most descends DO seem to take the role of subs, but when it doesn't even seem to work in that area...

Well, at least Cauchemar has more versatility, I guess?

[trancehime]

Oh, well, yeah. I try to make a point of seeing all situations where a unit can be used, but that LS is a glaring flaw that nothing else seems to make up for. I mean I guess I could like, toss him into a Michael or Sasuke team or something, but the fact remains that he's mediocre at best.

I mean, most descends DO seem to take the role of subs, but when it doesn't even seem to work in that area...

Well, at least Cauchemar has more versatility, I guess?

Well now that I'm actually not posting on my phone anymore, I can go ahead and say my full thoughts on the matter more clearly.

I think that for Zhao Yun's LS to be effective, there has got to be at least one out of two major criteria that should be met:

• Zhao Yun has really good stats or a very exceptional active
• Liu Bei is actually used for more than just his orb changing active

Unfortunately, neither of these criteria are met at all. Liu Bei is rarely ever used when he is pulled, and even if he is used, that's because his orb changer is actually quite decent, and on top of that he can be skilled up indefinitely as his skillup monster appears in a Coin Dungeon. He is basically crap-tier in that respect. Meanwhile, Zhao Yun's stats are very mediocre for a descend like that (sub-3000 HP but only 1500 ATK, for comparison: Zhang Fei has about 400 more HP than him, 100 more ATK, so that 500+ increase makes up for the fact he has 0 RCV to Zhao Yun's... 117... RCV...). And to top it all off he's 10 cost more than Zhang Fei despite the Decisive General having better offensive stats AND an arguably better active for a leader you might actually put the two of them in? (GGY)

If you want to compare Zhao Yun to Cauchemar since they have a similar unit archetype (monster with an LS that requires another monster to be in the same team), you can easily see that Cauchemar blows Zhao Yun out of the water. First of all, Cauchemar is a Devil - one of the best typings in the game to have. Secondly, he has a full board changer AND a damage mitigation skill in one that's only 2 turns slower than Zhao Yun's active when both are max skilled. And Zhao Yun's active isn't even an orb changer - it's an orb enhancer, which isn't even relevant until NA gets the enhance orb awakening buff. On top of that, Cauchemar's LS boosts x2 HP instead of x1.5 HP/RCV, which is way better offensively speaking. Granted, Attacker types don't exactly have the best RCV, so you could argue that it's not so bad. But when you factor in that Cauchemar + Pure Demon Lord Astaroth is a far better complementary pairing than Zhao Yun + Liu Bei, you can see just how far the Heroic Dragon General falls short.

Anyway, I'm pretty much agreeing with you here. I just prefer a more rational analysis

EDIT: Ironically Zhao Yun probably makes a better sub for Liu Bei than the other way around :v

[Edible]

I like Zhao Yun but this is a really mediocre card even if you do have Liu Bei.  Cauchemar's better in every conceivable way.

[trancehime]

I like Zhao Yun but this is a really mediocre card even if you do have Liu Bei.  Cauchemar's better in every conceivable way.

i'm just gonna say what i said on facebook:

GungHo you could have made him so awesome. You really could have. But you went and screwed it all up.

[commandercool]

That explains alot. Guess you'd have to basically relearn PAD lol.
As you probably have noticed, for simple cases like that doing the diagonal and doing a rotation has the exact same output (though you should've done a anti-clockwise rotation in your case which would've only required one rotation...)
But yea there are also times where diagonals make a difference, but usually that's when you have like some combos made already and your board is very packed with orbs you don't want to move.

Dang. Shows what I know. :derp:

 

Yup, first dungeon I did today I looked at the board, didn't think about it as long as I should have because I had just woken up, and was like "Fifteen diagonals to get average-to-poor results? Sure, fuck it". It did not work. :wat:

What do you guys think of LSes requiring gacha monsters? It seems to be one way to both not make descents crappy while still keeping motivation for people to roll, and even those who don't have the required monster can use friend's leader instead. Seems like a win-win for everyone, but this means future descents stuff are going to have really boring leader skills :/

I'm extremely pro-that. As long as they're designed with the fact that you're likely to be going with your own descend boss as your leader and a friend's REM monster as friend leader (like Cauchemar seemingly was) it's really interesting and smart. If they start to drift into the territory where the REM monster works much better as a sub on the same team, not so much. I don't think that's happening here, I just think Zhao Yun is unfortunately a mediocre buddy for an already-mediocre monster. Too bad, because making an amazing buddy to a mediocre monster would be an interesting (if heavy-handed) way of buffing REM pulls that people don't like much.