Leads
| SS |   |
| S |      |
| A+ |                   |
| A |             |
Subs
| S |       |
| A+ |           |
| A |                        |
More sweeping changes. This time, I don’t have much to say about them.
Several Leads Downgraded From A+
LKali had this a long time coming. I’d say any leader that needs a damage enhance, but doesn’t have any tanking ability should be capped at A. Moving LKali to A makes A+ fairly consistent from that perspective.
When faced with a new dungeon, I always consider using Lakshmi because I love the team. Sadly, she hasn’t matched up very well lately and I usually end up using something else; she just has too many weaknesses nowadays. I can’t say for sure if her downgrade to A is justified, but I certainly understand that she feels a bit weak.
As much as I’ve downplayed Zaerog∞’s effectiveness in the past, I’m truly surprised he was demoted; in consecutive updates no less. While an orb hungry 36x isn’t all that impressive nowadays, he’s still an effective endgame lead if only for his tankiness via DIza. If I had to choose one of these demotions to reverse, it would be this one.
Musical Chairs at A Continues
- If Gadius was ever A-worthy, I thought uuevo Uriel would’ve solidified that position. I’m assuming he was a victim of musical chairs.
- Knocking Horus off this list just seems wrong, especially since his leader skill isn’t type restricted anymore. It’s not like 45.56x is weak. I’d assume this was another musical chairs victim.
- I have no problems with both Parvati and Zuoh being removed. Parvati hasn’t been relevant for a long time and Zuoh has never been, even if you consider the Meimei System.
- If we needed more proof that Game8’s A-tier is garbage, this is it. Limiting the tier to the 12 most “popular” leads instead of having it reflect what is actually A-tier is a terrible choice and only displaying a subset of information is harmful to less informed players. They should either expand the tier or just get rid of it altogether. If they just got rid of it, they could then shift all the remaining tiers down one, eliminating the need for SS.
Awoken Astaroth Debuts at A
With Sylvie’s release Astaroth seems like a dubious choice at best. She’s fine as a pair with Freyja, but Sylvie has better active and leader skills. The only advantage Astaroth has as a leader is bind immunity, but considering that she can’t heal binds, that her HP multiplier is small and that Freyja is also not bind immune, it doesn’t mean all that much. I guess that doesn’t preclude her from being on the list, but I do think the existence of a leader that’s better in almost every way should be a demerit. It will be interesting to see where they place Sylvie and if that affects Astaroth at all.
Isis to S Sub
Isis is probably the most important rainbow sub after DKali so the promotion is likely justified. It just feels like a slight to DKali to be on the same level. Hopefully they put as much work into the sub list as they have the leaders soon; it hardly seems worth the time talking about sub nuances when the entire list is garbage.
Did I miss something? Please leave a comment and let me know!
Setsu's PAD Blog 
I like how A. Astaroth can neutralize many annoying stuffs in the arena like the never-ending jammers/poisons, Hera-Ur’s premptive and Grisar.
I wonder how did the AA2s got into the tier list instead of Okuni? Beside the triple dongers, the board-changers tie with the two out-of-meta leaders and Ariel’s orb-spawn can kill a rainbow board through sheer RNG. Where would they fit also? There might be some Arena-wrecking teams I’m unaware of that ultilize them somehow.
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Hey setsu, so I just realized I have a pretty good light box and a Thor, which means I can pair with a Saria friend in the very very super ultra distant future and actually have a swing at Ultimate Arena (which makes me really happy because for the longest time I thought I’d never be able to do Arena simply because I don’t have MP/top tier leads/etc.). Would you mind offering advice on what my sub lineup should be? I know I definitely want to put on Awoken Amaterasu and Zeus&Hera. I saw a build using AAma – Valk – Venus – Raph however I don’t have Venus who was a huge key to the team. My padherder link is:
https://www.padherder.com/user/foxwaffles/monsters/#31,0,31,2047,268435455,0,,0,0,0,eq,0,0,0,0,;element,0
Levels aren’t up to date but all the cards are there. I’d love to be able to return to my beloved tank teams, I think they are amazing and I’ve always had an affinity for them, and it’s really awesome to see them come back.
My best subs for the job are AAma, God Valk/chibi valk, Da Qiao, Raphael, Zeus&Hera, and I also have Apocalpyse, Light Zhuge Liang, and Light Metatron. My healer subs already have very heavy +egg investment/most are max skilled so hopefully I won’t have to do much work beyond working on Thor and Zeus&Hera/Raphael.
Thansk in advance.
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I don’t think Venus is critical for the team. The orb enhance is good, but the added damage isn’t completely necessary and I’ve seen clears without it. Also, if you have Raphael you don’t need Zeus & Hera for the Kalis. If you can’t do enough damage to LKali in two turns, you have other problems.
I’d definitely run DQ + Apocalypse so you can hit your 3-row boards. Raphael is an obvious choice. That leaves your heartbreaker. Apollo is ideal here, but Mini Valk should be fine, leaving you with 2 mass orb combos in DQ+Apoc and Saria+Valk. I’m not convinced the team needs Amaterasu. Raphael and DQ’s bind recovery awakenings should be sufficient for addressing random binds that hit either leader. Other binds can be avoided or stalled through. The team is also 100% SBR which is quite nice.
In the end, though, I think your playstyle plays a big role in which subs you use. Unlike something like Ra Dragon, I don’t think there’s a 100% ideal team (which is how PAD should be, but I digress).
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Thanks for the insight! I think I’ll toy around with Amaterasu vs no Amaterasu, I tend to place a very high value on bind-immune bind clearers because my bff’s account has almost NO bind clearer for every one of his teams except water (Andromeda) and so whenever I’m playing on his account bind is the nail in the coffin if it happens at the wrong time to the wrong cards.
Unfortunately I don’t possess an Apollo (also missing Artemis in my Greek 2 collection) but I do think chibi valk will suffice.
Besides the rest of the Arena I’m wondering how I’ll be able to get past DQ Hera and then still have burst left to kill Kali in two turns–DKali can be one-shotted by LKali will pose a slightly bigger problem, although then I’ll just have to prep myself for a grindfest. Of course that can be mulled over later.
I like it when teams have a 100% single optimal team, it makes it easy to either emulate through substitutes, or outright use, but sometimes being able to mix it up is also fun (although it can hurt the brain a little when shuffling possibilities on the table). I like my Leilan team for that very reason, I have around 7 cards that slot well onto her team that I can mix up to my leisure/how creative I feel like being.
Thank you again 🙂 I’m pretty stoked to have a real shot at the Arena, even if it takes me a few months to cobble things together, and a few months more to hypermax things.
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Good luck! Please let me know what your experiences are like running the Arena whenever you get the team up and running. I’m curious what team you end up using.
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Is Saria/Thor really that much better Kanna’s Apoc system? The latter seems even tankier for a minor decrease in damage.
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A true tank team has a RCV multiplier. The Apocs will only take you so far. It’s basically the same problem a Verdandi team has.
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GungHo seems to love throwing really strong green enemies into dungeons which are just a gigantic wall for ALak and it makes me sad.
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I see. Sounds like I should bail on skilling up the last 2 Apocs and get Thor skilled up. Will have to try it out.
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Should’ve realized long ago Game8 has no respect for KFC, but to be booted out of A tier before Sarasvati, an orb hungry glass cannon blue team whose leaders have zilch awakenings, is so bad it doesn’t even make sense. I mean, they moved Z8 down to A tier and he’s much better than her so the list isn’t even internally consistent!
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A. Astaroth’s debut at A makes sense if you see her as taking over A. Parvati’s spot. They’re both unbindable leads, but dual A. Astaroth led teams have solid HP in the 40k range and a much easier time achieving 100% SBR (especially with A. Freyja as a sub). Uuevo Mike and his 2k autoheal + high RCV takes care of healing. With 12+ green rows, the damage output seems about the same.
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Hey Setsu!
I’m a regular reader of your blog. I love it!
Since you are kinda a Guru in pad, I would like some advice. Right now I’m maining A.Shiva (Urd x2, Takeru, Gigas/RGY), and somehow I feel the team is quite inconsistent at dealing damage. In the last PCGF I roll a Cao Cao and 2 Susanos (shield may become a nice niché). I guess mynext step is changing 1 Urd for a Cao Cao.
Here’s my padherder: https://www.padherder.com/user/runge/monsters/#31,0,31,8191,268435455,0,,0,0,0,eq,0,0,0,0,;default,0
On the other hand, I have always been maining fire (Takeru, R/D Shiva, A.Shiva, Urd) and I use Verdandi and Athena (Soon it will be Kanna) as a mindless farmers. I tryed to use Hathor as an alternative lead, but my skill matching colors (and dealing damage) is somehow poor. Which team do you recomend I invest in?
And finally, which should be my next +297 montser? I’m really lost… Since I main A.Shiva I was thinking on Takeru, but I not pretty sure.
Thanks in advance!
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It looks like you have Awoken Minerva? The first thing I’d do would be to swap Gigas for her – she doesn’t have a TPA, but her stats and other awakenings make up for that. After that, swapping an Urd for Cao Cao should give you a really strong team. If you specifically care about A. Shiva, Cao Cao is by far the best choice for the next 297, but if you ever plan on buying Shiva Dragon, Yamato Takeru can go on both teams.
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Actually I’m not planning to buy ShivaDRA. I think I have much better team for NeptuneDRA, but I’m not going to take any of them. So maybe it’s better to +297 Cao Cao.
Thanks for the advicing, Alex!
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It’s true that the leader list can be misleading for the less informed, but I think those players should be basing their decisions on accessibility anyway instead of using this sort of power ranking as a metric.
That said I agree, they should just lean into it and cull the leader list to make it more meaningful.
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Do you think its worth selling double red odins and a blue odin to get a ra dragon? I’m a non-IAP player, but got lucky and rolled a dark kali, isis, and indra this godfest. I heard red odin is good for farming, but I will probably never get around to invest in a farming team anyways.
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It’s making me die inside saying this, but yeah it’s probably worth selling the ROdins for Ra Dragon (no doubt about the BOdin). Ra Dragon / DKali / Fat Chcocbo / Isis / Indra / Ra Dragon is a great team and once latent resists become farmable you can take it into the Arena.
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no…why did my Awoken Yomi get downgraded to A+?. I am so upset
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I wouldn’t get upset over some random tier list.
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Same reason bastet did, because she’s bindable and doesn’t have RCV multiplier. Doesn’t mean Yomi got any worse, just that their criteria changed.
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