JP Aggregate Leader List
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Disclaimer: The aggregate list is basically a compilation of the leader tier lists from three JP PAD sites: Game8, GameWith and AppMedia. The idea is that while a single tier list can have many points of contention, hopefully an aggregate can kind of smooth things over (it doesn’t, really, but it helps a bit). I try to keep my hands off the results as much as possible; the extent of my involvement is setting the algorithm to aggregate the results. I wish I could be fully hands off, but as none of the lists have 1:1 correlation in their grades, I have to have that much involvement. Don’t take these ratings as fact; I encourage you to simply take them as a starting point for discussion to figure out which leads are actually the best for your specific situation.
I’m seeing a bit too much green creep into the JP lists. Obviously, something must be wrong.
JP Aggregate Leader List Changes of Note
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Change: 2➞3
Lucifer is just is a good representative for most of the cards that were demoted this week. While it’s not like they’ve gotten worse, when better cards are released, it follows that relatively weaker cards get pushed down. It’s no coincidence that most of them were known for their ability to tank in one way or another (Lucifer, Neptune Dragon, Saria-Thor, Ryune-I&I, BSonia); the heart-cross leads (Kaede, Sumire, Miru) are just better at what they do. |
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Change: Removed from 3
As a player whose first endgame team was Beelzebub-RSonia, it’s a sad day to see the Norsebounds getting removed from the aggregate list. There’s just too many other leaders that have similar survivability while also having better damage. It’ll be interesting to see if GungHo ever makes tank teams like this relevant again. |
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Change: Removed from ❀
With Sakuya getting booted, the only one left remaining from that generation of awoken combo/rainbow leads is Anubis. |
New Card Holding Tank
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Game8 initially placed her at A. Then S. Now SS. While they’re known for being notoriously bad at rating brand new cards, I’ll give them a pass here since it took a couple days for people to truly grasp how broken the updated heart-cross mechanic had become. If you think GungHo made a mistake with Ra Dragon and Xiang Mei, the new heart-cross might be even worse than that. It doesn’t help that the three foremost leads that it’s on — Kaede, Sumire and Miru — all give the user copious amounts of time to combo, meaning even scrubs like me can use them effectively. Personally, Kaede’s been one of my favorite cards since she was released. I wasn’t expecting her to get a buff quite like this, but at least now it should be much easier easier to find friends for her. |
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Ranked Sites: Game8 (A+)
I didn’t think there was that much of a gap between Sumire and Kaede; Kaede seems stronger due her higher damage, but I didn’t think there was one tier in between them like Game8 has it. After all, does damage really make that much of a difference when you’re nigh unkillable? I guess we’ll see where the other lists go with her in the coming week or so. |
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Liu Bei never struck me as an elite leader as the active-reliance limits what he can do. While not a great measure of aptitude, the lack of Arena 2 clears on YouTube has me worried. He’s obviously a great co-op farming leader when combined with Dios subs, but don’t think that warranst his current place on the Game8 and AppMedia lists. |
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Miru’s the strongest non-co-op lead we’ve gotten in a long time and it will probably remain that way for a while just off the back of the heart-cross. |
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I’m not sure why Game8 ranked her where they did, even if it was in their lowest tier. Adding gods into her sub pool is a big upgrade compared to the original, but changing her RCV multiplier to HP seems like a slight downgrade. Regardless, of what I think, I’m interested to see where the other lists put her, if they do at all. |
Jump to: Game8 | GameWith | GameWith Farming | AppMedia | Pad-Plus
Game8
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Game8 Changes of Note
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Change: Added to SS
If I was in charge of the list I don’t know if I’d put myself out there and put her at SS initially, but with everything I’ve seen on YouTube and various streams, it’s hard to argue that she’s not on par with Xiang Mei and Ra Dragon. Kaede might even be harder to kill than Xiang Mei; if you pair Kaede’s heart-cross shield with a 75% shield like Indra, you get 93.75% total reduction. Sure, actives like Raphael’s and Fencer’s exist, but running a generic shield has more applications in more places. |
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Change: S➞A+
Having played both leads extensively, I can’t accept that Rukia and Yuna are in the same tier. As a shitter, I find Yuna a joy to play, but Rukia is considerably more powerful. |
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Change: S➞A+
Regardless of his ability to murder machines, Sephiroth was probably ranked too high at S. Depending on how the badge system works, the SBR badge could cause him to rise on the lists again or at least stabilize at his current one. |
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Change: Removed from A
Game8 dropped Yomi Dragon. AppMedia has Yomi Dragon at S+. They’re probably both wrong, but I’d say AppMedia is more so. |
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Change: Removed from A
It’s hard to imagine a world without Anubis on the tier lists. |
Jump to: Game8 | GameWith | GameWith Farming | AppMedia | Pad-Plus
GameWith
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As usual, GameWith is lagging behind. Hopefully they update next week.
Jump to: Game8 | GameWith | GameWith Farming | AppMedia | Pad-Plus
GameWith Farming
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I would imagine that Liu Bei will make an appearance here next week.
Jump to: Game8 | GameWith | GameWith Farming | AppMedia | Pad-Plus
AppMedia
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AppMedia Changes of Note
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Change: S+➞SS
I’m not sure what took them so long to make this change. It was painfully obvious since her release that she was better than everything except (arguably) Ra Dragon, and it wasn’t even close. |
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Change: Added to S+
Kaede on the same level as Yomi Dragon. That’s a nice joke. |
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Change: Removed from S-
And Raoh falls from the last list. Here’s hoping FotNS 3 shows him some love, although it’s likely he won’t get anything beyond a stat boost while Toki and Yuria get their uevos. |
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Change: Removed from S-
Even AppMedia has been forced to let go. Bastet was my go to endgame lead, then the MP Dragons had to ruin everything. |
Jump to: Game8 | GameWith | GameWith Farming | AppMedia | Pad-Plus
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I guess people weren’t doing much else with their Bastets. I’d expect Kaede to be #1 next week.
For details on the aggregation method or each Japanese site used, refer to this page (link someday).
Setsu's PAD Blog 
Setsu I have an honest question about Kaede.
I’ve discussed this with other PAD players regarding Kaede’s potential, but I have not ever asked the question “is a Kaede system really necessary?” because I wonder if that’s the best way to handle difficult dungeons like arena, arena 2, and arena 3. Would we really need to make Kaede systems in order to realize her potential?
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Depends what you mean by system. If you mean the full 6x Kaede team, no, it’s not necessary. As someone that makes most of them, I can say full system teams are generally pretty stupid and are more for the “hey, look at what I can do!” factor than anything.
If you mean a team with 2 Kaede subs vs a team with less, you’re basically back at the 1x Xiang Mei vs 3x Xiang Mei argument. The whole point of the team is that it’s basically unkillable as long as it has 5 hearts and having 4 7-turn heartmakers with haste ensures you’ll always have it when you need it (outside no RCV dungeons, I guess). I think the dupes are more important than with Xiang Mei since 1) wood has no TPA Uriel (although Michael, Perseus and Verdandi seem to be fine options) and 2) Xiang Mei doesn’t need 5 hearts to tank. Any missing time extends will be missed, too, as forming the cross takes a lot of time no matter how good you are. However, as with Xiang Mei, it’s not like your team is going to be crippled if you don’t have the dupes; you’ll do just fine.
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My mistake Setsu, I forgot to specify that the system in question was indeed “owning more than 1 Kaede.” I have yet to roll one, but I feel that it would not be a problem since my green pool is pretty diverse. The most important factor for her subs are to make hearts, greens, and contain at least 2 prong attack awakenings (at least from what I can concur).
Thank you for your swift response as I worried that owning one Kaede would cripple the sustainability and utility that Kaede has with herself. I just want to be able to beat Mecha Zeus and Mecha Hera. Unfortunately the PCGF wasn’t a huge hit with me as I still lack Pandora and Lucifer.
Glad you responded with a nicely written post. I hope you have a good day as I can tell my friend who owns a Kaede to have fun with her!
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Ah just to elaborate, I won’t need to worry about owning a Kaede in the future as I have Perseus and Verdandi to help make a board with green and hearts. Maybe a dupe Kaede would be good, but as you have already stated, I won’t have to be worried about being impeded by REM luck.
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“Kaede on the same level as Yomi Dragon. That’s a nice joke.”
Yomigon on a tier list… that’s a nice joke. 😛
Is fast farming Arena REALLY that big a deal nowadays? Like, when A1 was THE endgame, OK, sure. But now we have A2 and 3, MHera and Zeus, and the Radar Dragons… OK, maybe not the Radar dragons, that remains to be seen.
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Speaking of Arena 1, I need to do some research on new speed farming teams. I’d probably use the same Yomi Dragon team otherwise lol
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To be honest, even though anubis has been severely outclassed in terms of HP and damage control, I sure hope that Anubis stays somewhere in the tier list as the original and always will be One True God.
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I always liked the game best when Anubis was a top lead. It felt like those who were good enough and put in the practice to make him work should be rewarded with a leader that befitted their skill and it gave me a goal to aim for skill-wise. Now it’s hard to say any of the “top” leads take much skill as even the harder ones to use come with so many TEs. I’m pretty lazy so it was questionable whether I’d ever put in the work to improve my puzzling, but now that the game doesn’t punish you for being a scrub, there certainly isn’t much motivation to improve.
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Agreed. It was pretty inevitable with people getting tired of constant combos to trigger leader skill, such on and so forth, etc. Oh well.
Just still fingers crossed that Anubis stays on the list. He’s the last of the very first original leads to get on the tier list for a long time.
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Your profile picture waifu’s time to shine! I expect you to fully use her when she comes here with the evo and buff =P
I have both sumire and kaede (sold a dupe sumire, sigh), but I think I might use Miru instead for her extra time leader skill. I’m just happy Verdandi can be used again now that Green has a top tier leader haha
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You don’t know how pleased I am that Kaede is amazing now 😀
I kinda think Sumire and Miru are underrated right now. Which is why I’m curious where they’ll end up next week.
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What do you think of using row subs in lieu of dupe kaede? I don’t have dupe kaede but I do have Michael and Perseus, along with verdandi, Sylvie, and Vishnu.
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It’s more than perfectly fine. You won’t get much use out of the awakenings since making rows makes it difficult to reach her 3-wood combo count. It’s not like we have much choice in wood and Kaede does more than enough damage in most situations anyways. I think Perseus’s two time extends will be particularly useful.
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Thank you for the quick and insightful response!
My other concern about this team is susceptibility to binds. While radra is unbindable himself and xm is helped by gadius, the only unbindable cards i can think of for kaede are ceres, astaroth, guan yu, and ruel. Is t worth allocating a spot to any of these and inheriting a bind clear skill (or a green and heart maker on Ceres)?
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I was about to go on my “why is everyone so worried about binds?” rant, but in the case of wood, this is actually a real concern since in the Arena there are 2 preemptive wood binds in Kraken and Apollo.
That being said, the essence of my rant remains true: you only need to worry about it when it becomes a problem and in almost all cases it can be worked around. Even if a Kaede gets bound by a random, preemptive bind, you still have your other Kaede for 50% damage reduction.
But I guess, if you want all your bases covered, you’ll need some sort of bind utility. It doesn’t really matter what it is, you won’t need it in most cases.
And you forgot Odin Dragon, who is likely the preferred bind clear option for Kaede. Thumbelina is a nice, cheap option. There are a ton of other options: http://puzzledragonx.com/en/monsterbook.asp?e1=3&a=12&e=0&ue=0&s1=1&s2=1&o1=1&o2=1&o3=1
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I forgot thumbelina existed. I’ll see if I can roll during some wood gala gf, then, since she also makes hearts for the cross part of the ls and I don’t have 300k to drop for odindra (as my only other desired rolls at this time are wedding akechi, dupe sumire, and dupe kaede, the exact pantheon doesn’t matter too much to me.).
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I don’t expect anyone to ever buy Odin Dragon. It was just to point out that your list missed quite a few possibilities, with Odin Dragon perhaps being one of the best for that niche situation.
School Thumbelina is also an option, but it seems unlikely that you’d want to roll in that REM.
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Sorry, the first one didn’t appear after like 5 refreshes so i thought it didnt post. Ignore it.
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I don’t think Sumire is even close to Kaede just because Kaede has triple 2 prongs with that attack giving her insane multipliers and Sumire has orb enchance instead. The difference in their damage potential is huge.
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I don’t know if that’s your own opinion or if you’re just playing devil’s advocate for the tier lists, but it’s shortsighted either way.
There’s something to be said for consistency of activation: Sumire requires 10 orbs to fully activate while Kaede requires 14 — 15 if you want at least one TPA in there — and needs 11 for a decent offensive activation.
There’s also a point where extra damage is overkill. Both teams can one-shot just about everything in the game. Yes, damage matters, even if it’s overkill, but just look at a fairly recent comparison where the tier lists ignored that factor: Ra Dragon vs. Yomi Dragon.
Does the amount of damage you do, if already plenty sufficient, really matter when it’s basically impossible to die?
Then does the comparison between Kaede and Sumire even matter? What is more important is whether the teams in between them actually deserve to be there. I had the pleasure of using Sherias Roots on JP due to the preset team for C9. Granted, it was a somewhat ghetto team, but I got a pretty good feel for its capabilities. There’s no way it’s a tier higher than Sumire.
I could go on and on, but hopefully that’s enough reason to question Game8’s rankings. I would agree that Kaede is better, but the question is “by how much?”. I think Game8’s gap is too large and there’s no way you can convince me Yuna is on the same level. I’d also say Miru should get a boost as she has one critical attribute that neither of the other two heart-crossers in question have: bind immunity.
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How does Pad Plus work? Is it affected by accessibility of good subs?
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It’s a popularity ranking based on data from their friend finding service.
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Then is Kaede so strong, and her subs so accessible, for her to hit number 1?
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I don’t think you understand how popularity works.
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I do not.
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Not sure if troll or not, but here I go anyways:
How good a team is is certainly a factor in its popularity, but hype is usually the overwhelming driving force. Think Xiang Mei: she has a limited sub pool and not many players have a great team for her, but due to hype they want to try her out anyway and the hype train snowballs (now one week later, look at the amount of people that are underwhelmed/disappointed by their purchase). Regardless of how good she is I think Kaede will be the next FotM so I expect her to be at the top of any popularity chart. One might say she’s already there since she was only there for half a week and the votes were split between her old and new version.
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This is the most green the tier list has ever been. It’s so beautiful TT
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The next MP card better be wood. I’m not expecting anything on Xiang Mei’s level or even You Yu, but even something on the level of Xiu Min would really help wood out. God forbid we get another Odin Dragon (mostly useless) or Ragnarok Dragon (basically a rainbow card).
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Sad to see Thoria/RyunI&I be removed. But it is true their damage output is rather low nowadays, I was co-opping with Thoria to farm Gainaut and even with a good 60/40 board we leave Gainaut with like 15% HP left. Thankfully we also have 81,000 HP so we can tank Gainaut’s rage hit and use Thor’s second turn to finish him off. But it is rather off putting.
They both got buffed to deal more damage when actives are used but I’m not sure that’s enough.
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Hi Setsu.
So, I just wanted to get some info on the dupe Kaede problem – So, on my alt account, I’ve rolled 2 Kaedes from last winter’s PCGF. In my green box, I’ve also rolled a Verdandis, a Michael, and Phact, are any of those good for an Endgame Kaede team?
Thanks.
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They’re fine. It’s not like you have much choice.
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Power creep on this game is going much faster than I can handle. I would barely finish maxing a lead/subs and a month later I see myself having a better team already. I guess I should eventually reach a point that most of my box will be maxed that when a better team comes out I would only need a few evo’s and be set. Very excited for the Sumire/Tsubaki/Kaede buffs. I already run a Tsubaki/RValk/ALeilan/Ilm/Ilm team for fun with 2x Tsubaki and 1x Leilan that I can work with if I want a system Tsubaki4x/ALeilan2x team. Not as good Sumire or Kaede, but systems are super fun. I plan to run Sumire/Skuld/Scheat/Isis/Gabriel/Bamboo hybrid team. The 50% shield should help Bamboo’s glassy-ness.
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Personally I think Saria and the other Norse Dragonbounds will regain their relevance as soon as they get their long awaited uevos. Saria was my first hypermax on my new account, and it’s sad to see her fall from glory like this. Hopefully she’ll rise again.
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“Long” awaited? It’s been little over half a year since their release and they’ve been relevant the entire time and still are. Outside uevo voting, I can’t think of a GFE that got a uevo while they were still relevant. The exception might be DKali, but she didn’t see widespread relevancy until her uevo and didn’t blow up until the era of Ra Dragon a few months later.
That being said, they seem to be more willing to had out GFE uevos, but when you consider things like BSonia and GSonia, it’d probably be wise to temper your expectations.
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!@#@#$^^%@#%
is my reaction to this, because right now my Saria team is the only viable one I have. But yeah, I think when Saria gets her uevo she’ll hopefully come back into the limelight.
Then again, I’m only rank 180, so should I even be thinking about this right now?
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Don’t worry. It’s just a tier list. It doesn’t mean your team has suddenly become less capable. By the time any player gets to the endgame — think the Arenas — they’d probably have to make a new team regardless.
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I wouldn’t assume that Saria will get a UEVO, I would be happy that Saria/Thor is still just as capable of clearing the content it could already clear, including Arena.
My AD Luci leader got demoted as well, but it’s still going to clear anything I need it to, including many of the upcoming C10. I’d just continue to work on your team and develop a stone buffer to roll in solid GF for your box.
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I assumed it because other dragonbounds have gotten uevos, but I suppose there’s no guarantee. And I did roll a few decent/good leaders in the PCGF, so I’m focusing now on putting together new teams, getting max skill on my Saria team, etc.
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Hey setsu, so on the topic of the cross heart op meta, do you think having multiples of either sumire or kaede is actually required in order to tackle the harder endgame content? Or is it more of a luxury and put on for a show?
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If you read the previous comments before you, Setsu already answered that question. He stated that having dupes doesn’t exactly cripple your potential to clear endgame content. However, it does help you solidify your consistency. Having an extra Kaede/Sumire helps, but if you do not own more than one, you should do well if you have great subs for either. It’s more of a luxury if you have more (and a pretty flamboyant display). Just have subs that can create hearts and wood for Kaede (or hearts and water for Sumire).
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My biggest problem right now is deciding which heart-crosser I’m going to use. Kaede is the strongest, but my subpool isn’t great and my shitty skills call for time extends. Miru, then…? I’ve never wanted a DQXQ so badly (and I’ve been wanting one for a while, those color-heart orb changers are gold). I must resist the temptation for June Bride Akechi…
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By the way, Setsu: what do you think of Thor in a Miru team? I have two Saria and I want to sub them both if I go with that team, but that brings the problem of skill lock. Thor seems more useful that Amaterasu or Indra in that team, but I’m not sold to the idea of using him.
And I have doubts about the last slot, Bride Sopdet and Fuma Kotarou seems nice options… I’m kinda learning towards Sopdet, as Miru needs the hearts to attack. I could always use one of the Sarias for Skill Inheritance in Fuma Kotarou, I guess?
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Thor is not something I would feel good about running, but you gotta do what you gotta do.
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Shitters unite! :V
Thanks for the good read. Also I’m interested as to why Game8 put Awoken DQXQ and Library Kali on two different tiers when they have very similar leader skills. Perhaps because of the availability of subs?
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Despite recent updates, wood is still in a terrible place. Wood has the most fragmented sub pool in the game so it’s difficult to gain advantages through synergy like other elements do. It also has one of the worst utility pools in the game, even when you include the few JP-only collab cards.
As for why Game8 did it, I gave up trying to understand them long ago.
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Any idea when uevo Sumire will come to NA? Also, how is Sumire, Sumire, Ryune, Gabriel, Andromeda and Sumire (friend). I also have Nut, AIsis and AViper. Unfortunately, I don’t have Skuld.
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It’ll come when it comes. No matter how many times people ask it, the answer will never change as long as GungHo has no transparency (which will likely never change).
The team seems fine.
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About 3 months from the date of JP release.
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We haven’t had a 3 month delay for uevos in literally a year.
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Hearts crossers are so OP they don’t even need skill max, pluses or max level to clear Machine Hera. And Miru is the farmeable one…
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Wondering what the skills inherited to the Mirus were (too lazy to hunt them down :v)
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Friend’s is June Bride Akechi (I’m probably also inheriting mine sooner or later. That combo with Saria is beautiful) and the player’s Kanna most likely
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“while Toki and Yuria get their uevos.”
Yuria’s uevo is my dream. I really hope it’s good.
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