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.
Wood is now the best element in the game; never would’ve guessed that only a month ago. It has the best endgame leads in Kaede and Ronove and a strong co-op farming presence with Liu Bei and Zeus-Dios. While Machine Athena hasn’t exactly impressed anyone, she’ll be another valuable tool in the arsenal. Speaking of which, this might finally be Ragnarok Dragon’s time to shine, fitting well on both Ronove and Machine Athena.
JP Aggregate Leader List Changes of Note
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A 5-star being one of the best leaders in the game is only exciting until you find out his best subs are an MP Dragon and a couple 6-star GFEs. Miru is still the best poverty lead option. |
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I overrated Gremory and underrated Ronove, but I feel that without Kaede as a sub they’re closer than the tier lists might lead on. I should have factored in the active-reliant leader skill being much worse than it appears, though, and Ronove’s rainbow activation is easier than it seems when you consider his best team has movement time on the same level as Ra Dragon. |
New Card Holding Tank
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I’m a bit surprised Kenshin didn’t rate on any of the lists outside AppMedia. Even with only two crosses, the damage is pretty good and considering those are the only two matches you have to make, he can be used effectively by the average player. |
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Saito’s damage isn’t as ridiculous as Kenshin’s, but he more than holds his own and the difference isn’t that great when you consider you’ll only be making one or two crosses in most situations. It’s unfortunate that he has an active-reliant leader skill; as we’ve seen with cards like Ichigo, that isn’t a great place to be. |
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For details on the aggregation method or each Japanese site used, refer to this page (link someday).
Setsu's PAD Blog 
How would a Ronove team work, since he has lots of farmable sub options in Linthia and Jörmungandr, with Gainaut as an option to cover fire/light. Ronove’s active can combine with those to make a board with at least 5 heals and at least 6 woods from the full board change, as well as an activatable board. How would
Ronove/ronove/linthia/Jörmungandr/Gainaut/ronove work?
Not including inherits, you can use an active every turn.
This team would work even better in co-op, since linthia and gainaut have multi boosts and you could bring dedicated utility on the other team. Thoughts?
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I’m a big fan of teams that can function at high level with farmables. Ronove is not such a team. He’s SS only because of 2x Kaede and a Ragnarok Dragon being mandatory subs. (“mandatory”)
That said, I think that the team you outlined can theoretically perform fairly well. I’d always be nervous about Ronove’s AS making the board un-activate-able, but “only” spawning 4 orbs… you should probably be OK. 3 board changes is quite nice, but I get the feeling that you’d probably rather have more heart spawns than board changes, as if you have 5 hearts every turn, you get 4/4/4 (in addition to whatever damage you get from color matching), which is the primary reason he’s up there with Kaede, big damage is nice, but big HP is even nicer. 😛
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Just going to chime in to the discussion with a few things here:
– Ronove’s active won’t make Linthia or Gainaut boards unactivatable. At worst you’ll only get 100x. He only spawns 2 heart orbs, so at worst he can only kill 2 colors, leaving at least 3 for 100x. It also guarantees at least 6 wood orbs and 5 heart orbs. I mean, Kaede will also give you a chance of not being able to activate 144x and you also have the same problem with Ragnarok Dragon so I don’t see this being a big deal.
– That being said, I don’t see the point of Jorm besides color coverage as you’ll have to blow 3 Ronoves to get enough hearts for a cross and by then, yeah, there’s a good chance you’ll have an unactivatable board.
– One thing a farmable team won’t be able to take advantage of are stacking hastes to have Ronove available almost 100% of the time, which is a huge part of the “ideal” team’s strength.
– I’d agree with having more heartmakers than board changes, but really do like Linthia as a farmable sub. Gainaut to a lesser degree, but probably necessary for color coverage.
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My bad, I thought Jörm made a dkali+jammer, not Lkali+jammer. What other alternatives are there for covering the water attribute then?
If the ideal team is ronove/ragdrag/kaede/kaede/fire&water, what would fill the fire&water slot then?
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The current best option is Rozuel. Bind immunity to always be able cover those colors, bind recovery, heartmaking, fairly short cooldown for SI; a pretty good combination for a once useless card.
For a farmable to cover water, I’d say any heartmaker works. Or even something like Hanuman for the time extend and for serving as an SI base.
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Oh yeah, two hearts… In my head, I thought it was 2 hearts 2 wood. Basically never gonna make a board un-activatable then.
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The reason that Kenshin didn’t rank all that well, I think, is because he’s not all that versatile. With no RCV or HP multiplier and no bind immunity, he gets wrecked by way too many dungeon mechanics.
He’s not bad by any means, but he’s orb-hungry enough that you’ll often have to stall, and he doesn’t have what you’d need to do that consistently in harder dungeons.
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Well no shit, but the question wasn’t raised about his own merits in a vacuum, but relative to everything else on the list. There are plenty of leads that have the same weaknesses that are on there and are just as orb hungry. I wouldn’t rank him myself, but the tier lists should at least have some consistency.
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The only leads on the aggregate list with no RCV or HP multiplier are Gkali, Bacetet, ADQXQ, and You You.
Bacetet, Gkali, and ADQXQ aren’t orb-hungry. They can do higher damage with more orbs, yes (especially Gkali), but you don’t need that to sweep most floors, which lets you just combo your way through most enemies without needing to pop an active or stall and build up orbs. Gkali also has the advantage of having the perfect active skill, because we all know how good Dkali board changes are for rainbow leads.
Which leaves You You. I’d argue that there’s two reasons that she’s on there and Kenshin isn’t. The first is inertia– she came out before the heart cross meta really took over, and I’d argue that she’s fallen a bit further behind than the rest in comparison to them. And we’ve all seen that it takes a while for once-popular leaders to filter their way down the tier lists. If she were newly released, I don’t think she’d end up ranking as highly as she does right now.
The second reason is more minor, but possibly relevant– she still has monstrously high weighted stats, even higher than Kenshin. Granted, I’d argue it’s not the best spread, since her HP and RCV aren’t that great, but it’s still worth considering. Also, unlike Kenshin, her awakenings are a bit more focused, instead of being split between two elements. (Kenshin’s awakenings are still REALLY good, of course.)
To be clear, I’m not necessarily arguing that Kenshin doesn’t deserve a spot on the tier list– I’m just saying that there are noticeable differences when you compare him to what is already on the list, and that those differences probably explain his exclusion.
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“They can do higher damage with more orbs, yes (especially Gkali), but you don’t need that to sweep most floors, which lets you just combo your way through most enemies without needing to pop an active or stall and build up orbs”.
I feel like you haven’t actually played all of these leads yourself. You constantly need actives for all of these leads. Sure, they can all do decent damage with minimal orbs and without actives, but for endgame content — may I remind you, the only thing that matters in endgame tier lists — you still need actives for just about every floor. Kenshin is pretty much the same:
Kenshin: 5 fire or light + 3 light or fire for 36x, 5 fire + 5 light for 324x
GKali: 5 wood + 3 matches of other colors for 64x, 6 wood + … for 100x
DQXQ: 5 light or water + 3 matches of other colors (including hearts) for 36x, 6 light or water + … for 64x
You Yu: 5 water for 25x, 5 + 3 water for 56.25x, 5 + 3 + 3 water for 100x
Ace Bastet: 3 wood + 7 combos for 36x, 3 + 3 + 3 wood + 5 combos for 81x
Relatively, Kenshin doesn’t look “orb hungry” to me. Don’t confuse him with Saito; now that’s orb hungry. Of course, these comparisons are apples to oranges, but in the end the orb requirements aren’t all that different.
“Gkali also has the advantage of having the perfect active skill, because we all know how good Dkali board changes are for rainbow leads.”
Actually, GKali’s leader skill is pretty trash as you need an extra active on standby in case she doesn’t make enough wood orbs. Kenshin, on the other hand, has an actual perfect active for his leader skill. Even if you get an unlucky orb distribution, Kenshin’s active can likely bring you back up to 144x and will set you up nicely for the next two turns.
“Which leaves You You. I’d argue that there’s two reasons that she’s on there and Kenshin isn’t. The first is inertia”.
You’re once again missing the point. Maybe you’re right, but who cares? The lists should be consistent. If I just said “oh well intertia lul” to all problems I had with the lists, there wouldn’t be much to talk about, would there?
I don’t care if Kenshin is on the list or not and in all likelihood he shouldn’t be. I’m saying that with what’s already there, I’m surprised he didn’t get more consideration and the arguments you present to the otherwise aren’t very convincing. At the very least, if he doesn’t make the cut, they should go back and remove similarly outdated leads from the list. If they don’t, then what’s the point of even maintaining one?
Also, You Yu is a dude.
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A fairly impressive Kenshin Arena 3 clear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7nEm3F0yHE
Sure, you need to get lucky with spawns, especially with which Radar Dragon you get, but the damage for 10 orbs is insane. There aren’t many leads that can do this.
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So looking past team archetype preference or proficiency, is Ronove preferable in offense over defense cases? At first glance it offers twice the power at the cost of roughly 20% of the defense.
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I’m assuming you’re comparing to Kaede? Sure, I guess. From what I can tell, both overkill so much in both areas that I’m not sure it makes a big difference at this point. I’d like to think Kaede is preferable for Arena 3 against the Radars, but I haven’t cared enough to discern the actual differences at this point.
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