Leads
| SS |   |
| S |      |
| A+ |                    |
| A |             |
Subs
| S |         |
| A+ |            |
| A |                     |
There’s a lot to cover in PAD right now, both in-game and for this blog, so I’m going to keep my comments on this even shorter than usual.
Eschamali!
I don’t think there’s any surprise that she debuted as an A+ sub, but as an A leader as well? I mean, 36x ATK and 2.25x RCV is Yomi Dragon territory, but there is still a distinct lack of quality machine subs. Is she really better than something like the new Santa Sakuya? Then again, the A-tier is pretty meaningless…
If One Is Added, One Must Fall Off
It really breaks my heart to see Lakshmi fall off the list. But then I remind myself that Game8 has no idea what it’s doing sometimes and I take comfort in the fact that their A-tiers are garbage. At least BSonia is there to pick up the slack for water.
Christmas Cards Added
I don’t think this surprises anyone. Although I was expecting Sakuya to make the leader list in some form.
More Musical Chairs at Sub A-Tier
In:
- Kagutsuchi – The first triple donger falls once more. He was at S less than half a year ago.
- Sanada Yukimura – I feel that he was always qualified for this tier, but I don’t really know what changed to make them add him at this point.
- Astaroth – Perplexing.
Out:
- Belial – It was a short stay. I don’t see how Astaroth is better.
- Skuld – She follows her sister Urd who was removed last week. I think Ryune as pretty much killed Skuld’s usefulness.
- Perseus – He was great for teams that needed those two SBRs, but his power level never really justified his position. With Awoken Freyja and Spica, he should’ve been off the list long ago.
I’m questioning whether it’s even worth analyzing either A-tier anymore. I may just skip them in the future.
Did I miss something? Please leave a comment and let me know!
Setsu's PAD Blog 
Boo hiss! A list without Lakshmi is meaningless!!!
Real talk, she’s not an S tier leader anymore, and I have accepted that. She’s not even the best water leader any more, and I have also accepted that. I even accepted that she’s maybe not A+ tier, though some of their decisions to leave certain cards at A+ are still rather questionable. (Looking at you Shiva, looking at you.)
But she’s STILL one of the best leads in the game. Heck, so is Parvati, and she’s been playing A tier ping pong for some time now. A tier is a mess, because they had a secondary list of A tiers that they simply left off of the list for no real reason except keeping it “exclusive.” I used past tenses, because it looks like they’ve recently been shifting to a numeric value instead of letters. Same goal, but you can tell who’s marginally better in the eyes of Game8, so that’s cool? I guess?
Now, I don’t care for this tier list much. It’s clear that they’re booting cards like you said, If one is added, one must fall. And while that CAN be true, IE AI&I becoming A+ and Lakshmi falling to A at about the same time, since the unnecessary A tier shuffling began, it’s been clear that this is more of a popularity contest than an actual power contest… at least for A+ and A tier. (A+ a little less recently, as I said I’m pretty much OK with the leads they have there, minus Shiva. If Lakshmi is gone, Shiva has to go too…[JK, haven’t played him, though I AM working on it. In my mind, Lakshmi’s still better, but that may not be the reality, and I won’t judge until I get a team running.])
Anyways, TLDR: RIP Lakshmi, RIP my faith in Game 8’s list. Even by Game 8’s standards, Lakshmi’s still A tier, she’s just not one of the 12 they chose to show off this week. Down with Shiva, Lakshmi’s better than his blue ass any day of the week. ( 😛 )
Also, I’m not TOO mad, since blue row teams are in a MUCH better place than they were a month ago, so even though Lakshmi’s out, Blue’s actually got a decent position in the meta right now, and that’s really good.
Side note: A lot of people on the forums have gone back to hating green more than blue recently due to it’s lack of diversity! Bastet’s the only “real” endgame leader they have, and she’s pretty flexible, but certainly not diverse. Blue now has Bonia, AI&I/Ryune, Nepdra, and Lakshmi as endgame leads, green has Bastet and Gon, and Gon ain’t coming to America, so now the tables have turned. 😀 So that’s fun.
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Yeah, wood is in a sorry state, much of which can be attributed to getting a garbage MP Dragon. At least my element of choice had it’s day in the sun for like a month or something.
I also want to add that I’m losing faith in their list too, really makes me not want to analyze their list anymore. The exercise is still valuable, but bleh some of their choices are bad.
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I know you might not agree with the whole list and some of their decisions but I REALLY like the tier list posts and I would be so sad if you decided to stop them :(.
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Well, I’m not frustrated because I disagree. I actually think the leader S through A+ tiers are fine. It’s everything else that’s frustrating as hell as there’s little consistency or they have a propensity to favor popularity over actual strength. I’ll still do these posts for the foreseeable future, but I’m tired of sounding like a broken record every update. I may go back to either posting only have several updates have occurred or I may change up the format a bit.
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I gave up on the sub list a while ago. Back when it was basically just a list of key subs for their leader list, it felt more reasonable.
They really need to just move everything down a tier, half the game is A quality At this point. I think they are worried about people whining that all their leads got dumpstered. But oh well. I think writing off the A tier as “shouldn’t be on the list” solves most issues.
The truth is, its tier 4, tier 4 is already dumpster tier, they just have it for popular casual teams. Which is why goemon rolls through.
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They should either drop the tier altogether or list everything. This middle ground is so annoying.
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yeah, 100% agree. A is overcrowded, which means it really doesn’t belong on a list. You’ve said a few times they should just move everything down and get rid of SS, which I 100% agree with, so much so that I just literally don’t read A tier anymore lol.
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Hey Setsu, you seem to have some strong opinions about the Game8 tier list. Would you ever consider making your own lead/sub tier list? Maybe you’ve already answered this a while ago and I missed it, but one of my favorite things about your blog is your analysis of the tier list. With my inability to read Japanese, having a sound and reasonable opinion about the tier list in English really helps me understand what’s going on with it. I’d really miss it if you stopped.
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I intend to keep posting about list, especially since many people seem to enjoy the posts, but I may change the frequency and/or detail that I go into it when there’s nothing that noteworthy to talk about.
As much as I like complaining about Game8, making a tier list is a lot of work. Dealing with that and the baggage that comes along with it isn’t something I want to do.
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It’s so crazy to try and make a list, People try on Reddit and just get hated on by know-nothings constantly. My buddy and I put one up (well we came up with one, he posted it I said it was just too much hate fuel), and I had to spend a lot of time explaining the Zaerog was too orb hungry from S, and Awoken Yomi was harder to play for less damage than bastet. Then it got locked the same day.
Basically Tier lists are a lot of work, for no reward. I’m glad game8 does one. It provides a couple excellent things. 1. Starting point for discussion, 2. A general overview of the meta. 3. A constant source of sadness when you’re favorite leads and subs get dumped lol.
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I’m surprised it wasn’t Sarasvati who got the boot. Sure, she has impressive power… but has a hard time achieving 100% SBR (I suppose Alrescha + Andromeda makes it attainable), is susceptible to binds, and has mediocre HP. Considering all the holes Sarasvati has to fill, and her orb hungry nature; I’d take Awoken Lakshmi over her in a heartbeat.
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I think they just enjoy bullying Lakshmi.
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It’s baffling that Awoken Freyja x Sylvie still hasn’t made it on the leader list. My only guess is that they don’t think the pair is good enough to be in A+, but they’re reluctant to drop two leaders from A tier to make room for them.
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Its worse than blue, and light by a significant enough margin that it would fall into A but A is a garbage popular leads section
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Right now I think Thor-Saria is a step above all other Norse-based tank teams. Your reasoning is likely correct. They’re around A-tier power level, but due to the musical chairs nature of that tier they aren’t willing to add them.
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Your record of the list changes is (as far as I’m aware) the only permanent copy of them available. Game8’s website doesn’t post them on separate web pages by date they are all at the same location on their site.
Regardless of the ‘value’ of the list itself it does provide a good jumping off point for discussion of the best cards available in the game.
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Why is it that famiel is such a high rated sub, but her lead (UY) isn’t even on the lead list. Like what’s the point?
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This is an innate problem with their sub list.
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About Yukimura, I think because of Raoh or fire row teams.
They probably compared belial with yukimura as subs. They both fire enhance only yukimura’s active is way better and shorter cooldown. Plus, reduce cooldown actives are a thing.
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With shorter cooldown, I meant as short. typo
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The only relevant fire row teams are Shiva Dragon, Scarlet and Raoh. Shiva Dragon has been around forever, so I can’t see why he was added for that team, Scarlet has no use for him and Belial is much better on Raoh.
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RIP Lakshmi. As one of the earlier Awoken evos, she had a good run. I’m surprised they kept her as high as they did for as long as they did.
Personally I’m in the process of switching to Yuria since I have Apocalypse, DQ, and Sun Wukong. I just can’t escape the heart meta, I guess.
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Why is Dmeta still on the lower end of the A tier?? She’s got so many buffs and her greatest weakness has been fixed with the addition of a new skill bind resist. Shouldn’t she be at least middle of the A+ tier?
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^ To add on to the point I made above, she should really not be too far from shiva dragon in terms of leader ability.
Pros of Dmeta over Shiva Dragon include: higher multiplier when below 50% hp, unbindable leader, greater and more diverse sub potential to adjust for different dungeons, can tank big hits especially with shield
Pros of Shiva dragon over Dmeta include: unconditional leader, is stronger in tpa damage than Dmeta teams
And correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t Dmeta have a better chance of clearing Arena than Shiva Dragon?
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Both are fairly poor Arena choices. Capable, sure, but I wouldn’t consider either consistent. You’re also not counting Shiva Dragon’s RCV multiplier which is much more valuable than an HP multiplier. As a former GZL main, I can tell you that HP thresholds are abysmal compared to a constant multiplier; DMeta’s in a lot better shape than GZL was back then, but it’s a headache few want to deal with and I understand why. I’m also assuming Shiva Dragon gets a huge pass on the Game8 list due to ease of use and popularity. Gotta keep the masses happy by favorably ranking their 300k MP monster, right?
Should DMeta be ranked higher? Probably. I’d be more offended that HKali and Levi were above her than Shiva Dragon. She’s also probably better than Zaerog who’s in the same tier. Game8 isn’t really known for being on top of their lower tiers, though.
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As setsu said, both are bad for arena. But Shivadra handles arena much better than Dmeta, when you consider the challenges in the dungeon.
RCV multipler allows shivadra to stall on many of the same floors as YomiDra and RaDra, most noteably 17 (zeus’) which is a really important cabability in arena, as that’s the floor you use to “set up” for the final push. So now on to the more generic thoughts on the two of them.
Assuming both teams are on the “full multiplier” plan, shivadragon has MORE hp, in fact with dark resists you can even get to the 27238 needed to survive Divine Queen’s Rite.
If you look at it honestly, You get an RCV multiplier, weigthed stats, and better awokens from shivadragon, and you get bind immunity, a conditional leaderskill, and a slightly better active from Dmeta.
The condition on the LS is a huge drawback, and it makes her pretty clearly worse than shivadragon imo.
HOWEVER, she should be A+ since she got the SBR, i think that was the only thing holding her back, honestly.
I still think A needs to be cut entirely, and everything shifted down 1 tier. A is just the “popular usable leads” tier, so it’s pretty much useless.
On other bits.
Levi, Gon, cloud and typhon are weaker than the rest of A+ and shouldn’t be there either. I’d argue I&I+Ryunne could be taken off since Saria/Thor is better, but “meh”, they are close enough I think it’s acceptable for them both to be on A+.
Game8’s list is bloated, and unwieldy, because they need to harshen their criteria. In the last 6 months we’ve seen a huge overhaul in power/design, this has made quite a few more things viable, even through arena (remember 10% clear rate is still twice as good as alt technicals).
I mean, spica is as good at arena as bastet, sporting a similar 20% clear rate, and she’s not on the list.
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It would make sense to clear out a bunch and re-balance the remainder more strictly based on something like arena clear rate for each tier. Something like 90/75/60/45, 80/60/40/20, or whatever makes a good minimum that clears out most of the bloat. That would make things clear, concise, and easy to redistribute if necessary.
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Hi Setsu, I was just wondering what do you think about halloween kali? is it better than normal lkali in your opinion?
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In my opinion, HKali is significantly better. While the lower ATK multiplier definitely hurts, the HP and RCV multipliers more than make up for it. HKali also has the advantage of sharing the same main element as the best sub in the game, DKali, has one of the best damage enhancers in Okuninushi and has recently added Eschamali to her arsenal. While I do like HKali more, I’m not sure how large the gap is in practice. As in, can either really clear that much more than other? I’m not sure.
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Thanks for the reply setsu. Sorry I saw this so late lol new to WordPress not sure how the response thingy work haha.
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