Quick Thoughts on the New GFE Dragonbounds (Yup, Even More of Them)

Posted on by

I love both Saria and Ryuune — they’re both extremely strong at first glance — but the amount of new GFEs lately is starting to annoying me; there’s just too many. I’d love to use both of them, but considering how much I recently broke the bank for Kaede and then 4x GFEs, I’m going to take a break from normal godfests. That annoyance aside:

  • The uses for both Dragonbounds are obvious and many. I’d personally love to make a better version of my defunct Beelzebub team, especially if I&I was one of the leaders, but I still don’t see any incentive to roll for them when the MP Dragons are the kings of PAD and are certain to obtain.
  • Neither have skill bind resists. This isn’t a glaring weakness nowadays, but it really constrains how you can use them and dupes aren’t nearly as good. For a good example of how important a SBR is, just look at Yomi Dragon who went from merely good to great once it got one.
  • I just finished skilling up my third Apocalypse for use on a potential Kanna team. Apoc has the advantage over Saria of interacting well with Iria, but since Saria is cute and Apoc is ugly I’d try to use at least one over an Apoc.
  • All the elements have at least two three-color board changes that include hearts. Except dark. This is particularly annoying since I believe such a board change in dark could revitalize Beelzebub teams. Here are the board changes I can think of off the top of my head:
    • Fire – Urd, Kiriko
    • Water – Skuld, Summer Urd, Ryuune
    • Wood – Verdandi, Ishida
    • Light – Apocalypse, Saria
    • Dark – ?

13 thoughts on “Quick Thoughts on the New GFE Dragonbounds (Yup, Even More of Them)”

  1. One minor nitpick: They are dragonbound, not dragon callers; that’s why they have those elements: they were chosen by reversing the ones of the original dragonbounds (Gadius and Typhon). It was always ironical that Gadius was an okay Ilm sub given their lore, but Saria is an even better sub than him and I can’t help but to find it somewhat hilarious.

    Like

    • Because yup, at least Ryuune is 100% confirmed to be Ilm and Zuoh’s enemy. The description for Saria is a bit more ambiguous with the whole “saving a god from the destruction they brought upon themselves with their wishes”. I don’t think any of the PAD Lore-related monsters has been called a God…

      Like

      • Basically, I can read japanese! When a new PAD lore character gets introduced, they add some details about their background in the Administration Site. This whole thing started with the release of Ilm, Zuoh, Gadius and Typhon; but sadly these rarely get translated to english. In Saria and Ryuume’s case is…

        光龍の契約者は、自身の望みのせいで壊されかけた神を救うため。
        水龍の契約者は、自身を育てた海龍王を獣魔の手から守るため。
        その手に龍の爪を宿す生まれながらの龍契士は、
        己の目的を果たすべく、戦いの渦中へとその身を投じた。

        “The Contractor of the Light Dragon does it to save a god whose own desires brought him inminent destruction.
        The Contractor of the Water Dragon does it to protect the King Dragon of the Seas, who raised her, from the hands of the Beast Demons.
        These Dragonbounds, born with dragon claws taking the place of their hands,
        devote their bodies to the battlefield’s maelstorm in order to acomplish their goals.”

        (English isn’t my first language either, so sorry if the translation is a bit wonky)

        Like

        • Thanks for the translation!

          I think it would be cool if GungHo did more to expand upon the PAD lore. These little tidbits on monster and descended releases are a nice touch, but it’d be cool if the corresponding cards also had flavor text. Then again, that would require more localization effort which would likely equate to a longer delay. It’s also going to be difficult to shoehorn lore into a long-running game that never had it, so maybe once they build up enough through avenues like this they can expand upon it later.

          Like

      • It’s nothing! I was really scared of messing it up… this particular japanese writing style is a pain to translate (Those “does it” weren’t anywhere in the original text, but I had to put something there for things to work in english).

        As for the lore development, I agree. You can’t suddenly try to sell your game for its lore after so many years basing it fully on gameplay, but I would love also to see more cases like Belial.

        Belial is seemingly Indigo’s ally (who is also an llm follower herself) and there are special attacks programmed in case you make them fight each other in Indigo Descended. I thought that it was a nice way to mix the new PAD lore characters with the other monsters! I would love to know in which side are other characters… After all, most devils are going to be with Ilm/Zuoh and most dragons with Gadius/Typhon, but I wonder how other characters will fit in this (most pantheon gods aside of the archdemons, for example).

        Like

  3. I think the I&I x Ryune team is gonna be strong in JP, simply because it’ll be more damaging version of sonia/beelz -with acess to baggi-

    Fucking baggi

    Like

Comments are closed.