JP Aggregate Leader List: Week 16

Posted on May 29, 2016 by setsu

JP Aggregate Leader List

**Changes from last time**: Sherias Roots added to 2, GKali added to ❀
**Legend**: Popular on Pad-Plus, ❀: Honorable Mention Tier
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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.

The new uevos revealed in yesterday’s JP stream release today so they aren’t included. Although I’m not entirely sure any of them will have a huge impact on the leader lists.

JP Aggregate Leader List Changes of Note

Card

Notes

Change: Added to 2

I finally decided to do a bit of research on Sherias Roots and now I’m fairly confident his current place is well deserved. Perhaps what stood out the most is his effectiveness at 5/6 color matches; Ra Dragon gives a paltry 20.25x, but Sherias gives a usable 45.56x. This allows him to sweep trash floors even in Arena 2 and when combined with his god killer, he can one-shot beefier bosses, too. Not having to rely on DKali board changes as much is a big advantage. For more sensitive damage control, he can scale down to 9x, but I’m not sure how he fares against things like Sopdet and Parvati. He has many other strong points — like being able to effectively use Awoken Orochi without skill inheritance — but I think think Ra Dragon still wins out if only for the bind immunity.

New Card Holding Tank

New cards will be held here temporarily in an attempt to isolate the aggregate list from knee-jerk ratings.
Card	Notes
	Ranked Sites: Game8 (A), AppMedia (S), PadPlus (3) GameWith is the only site that hasn’t added Xiu Min so far and it’s hard to predict if they will. If he doesn’t catch on stronger, it wouldn’t surprise me to see him get buffs like Xin Hua just did, but, to be honest, I think he’s strong enough as-is. Although I also thought that about Xin Hua despite her pitiful sub base, so what do I know?
	Ranked Sites: Game8 (A) I think a good point of reference for Bastet Ace is You Yu. Bastet Ace tops out at 144x while You Yu is at 156.25x. However, it’s more realistic for Bastet Ace to top out at 81x for eight combos or maybe 110.25x for nine as getting 10 combos isn’t always possible. Comparatively, it’s not always possible for You Yu to have a match-five and three other water matches on top of it, but given the correct orb changers it’s probably easier to consistently activate You Yu, especially when considering the average player’s skill. Bastet Ace is down an awakening and missing quite a few stats, but is still quite respectable when compared to a 300k MP card. It’s also been a while since wood received some good TPA subs while water seems to have gotten plenty in the recent months, although uevo Kaede could possibly help. Considering all his deficiencies compared to You Yu and the competitiveness of the current tier lists, I think Game8’s A rating is fair. I’ll be interesting to see where the other lists put him, if they do at all.

Jump to: Game8 | GameWith | GameWith Farming | AppMedia | Pad-Plus

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JP Aggregate Leader List: Week 15

Posted on May 21, 2016 by setsu

JP Aggregate Leader List

**Changes from last time**: Pandora 2➞3, Xin Hua removed from ❀
**Legend**: Popular on Pad-Plus, ❀: Honorable Mention Tier
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Once again I’m going to mail this in. MP cards? 6-star GFEs? Yawn.

JP Aggregate Leader List Changes of Note

Card	Notes
	Change: 2➞3 As a fan of Pandora, her constant fall through the past few weeks hurts. Like almost all demotions, her overall power hasn’t decreased, but as time passes it’s inevitable that other teams will be more efficient. However, this second set of MP leaders has really skewed things; on top of the MP Dragons, the Four Gentlemen really restrict what can be considered a top-tier leader since they’re so innately powerful. Then the addition of skill inheritance and the emphasis on co-op further muddles the picture.
	Change: Removed from ❀ I think she’s being underestimated, but it’s certainly hard to get excited for her compared to her siblings.

New Card Holding Tank

New cards will be held here temporarily in an attempt to isolate the aggregate list from knee-jerk ratings.
Card	Notes
	Ranked Sites: Game8 (S), GameWith (A), AppMedia (S+), PadPlus (2) This version of Sherias seems legit, with all three lists giving him a decent ranking. My wallet is thankful that he’s worse than Ra Dragon, or at least not significantly better.
	Ranked Sites: Game8 (A), AppMedia (S), PadPlus (3) As a fan of row teams, Xiu Min appeals to me much more than You Yu, but I’ll concede that pairing You Yu’s ridiculous multiplier with skyfall boosting cards like Scheat and Hermes makes him better overall.
	Ranked Sites: AppMedia (S-) I watched Reco stream this team and I wasn’t impressed. This version is definitely better than the original dark, though. Being able to consistently use his active via hastes really increases the consistency of the team, but being so active hungry limits what can actually be accomplished.

Jump to: Game8 | GameWith | GameWith Farming | AppMedia | Pad-Plus

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JP Aggregate Leader List: Week 14

Posted on May 14, 2016 by setsu

JP Aggregate Leader List

**Changes from last time**: You Yu added to 2, AD Lucifer 3➞2, Sephiroth 3➞2, Astaroth 2➞3, Yuna ❀➞3, Machine Zeus added to 3, BSonia 3➞❀, Machine Hera added to ❀, Raoh removed from ❀
**Legend**: Popular on Pad-Plus, ❀: Honorable Mention Tier
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Going to keep the comments short this time. The most notable change this time is GameWith updating their list to factor in multiplayer, meaning MZeus and MHera debut on the list proper, but leads like Sephiroth also get a boost.

JP Aggregate Leader List Changes of Note

Card	Notes
	Change: 3➞2 Received a surprising upgrade from GameWith.
	Change: 2➞3 I was always skeptical of her placement on the GameWith list. This seems more reasonable.
	Change: ❀➞3 Just in time for the FF Collab on NA.
	Change: Added to 3 The official addition of multiplayer to the tier lists signals the beginning of the end for me.
	Change: Removed from ❀ Still one of my favorite teams. RIP.

New Card Holding Tank

New cards will be held here temporarily in an attempt to isolate the aggregate list from knee-jerk ratings.
Card	Notes
	Ranked Sites: Game8 (S) 110x ATK and 2.25x RCV for dragons sounds pretty strong, especially since DKali and the now seemingly ubiquitous Orochi qualify for the team. In spite of the god killer and superior active, he’s still worse than Ra Dragon due to the lack of bind immunity.

Jump to: Game8 | GameWith | GameWith Farming | AppMedia | Pad-Plus

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JP Aggregate Leader List: Week 13

Posted on May 8, 2016 by setsu

JP Aggregate Leader List

**Changes from last time**: DQXQ ❀➞3, Raoh 3➞❀, Ryune 3➞❀, I&I 3➞❀, Yuna 3➞❀, Freyr removed from ❀, Ichigo removed from ❀
**Legend**: Popular on Pad-Plus, ❀: Honorable Mention Tier
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I’m not going to comment on any of the changes due to my break from PAD. I’ll eventually do it again, but for now I want to keep the cycles spent thinking about PAD to a minimum for a while.

New Card Holding Tank

New cards will be held here temporarily in an attempt to isolate the aggregate list from knee-jerk ratings.
Card	Notes
	Ranked Sites: Game8 (A), AppMedia (S+), PadPlus (1) Yep.

Jump to: Game8 | GameWith | GameWith Farming | AppMedia | Pad-Plus

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JP Aggregate Leader List: Trial Week 12

Posted on April 30, 2016 by setsu

JP Aggregate Leader List β

**Changes from last time**: DQXQ added to ❀, Xin Hua added to ❀, Persephone added to ❀
**Legend**: Popular on Pad-Plus, ❀: Honorable Mention Tier
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Ah, a week with almost no changes. The break feels good, although I imagine there will be many changes next week as hopefully GameWith catches up with the new cards.

In other news, I think I’ll take the aggregate list out of the beta phase next week. I’m pretty happy with the way things have gone the past few weeks. I’ll still likely need to tweak the tiers from time to time, but as I whole I’m pretty happy with where things are at.

JP Aggregate Leader List β Changes of Note

Card	Notes
	Change: Added to ❀ I’m really looking forward to using this team — they were my starter roll — but I’m still skeptical about how good they actually are.
	Change: Added to ❀ Xin Hua might be the first MP card I don’t buy the first time around (wood MP cards? what are those?) since I’ll be dry after almost certainly buying 3x Xiang Mei. Hopefully by the time I have enough MP for her again she’ll have a better sub pool.
	Change: Added to ❀ I’ve started to come around on Persephone and I might even be looking forward to her coming to NA. Time to get some teams ready to record.

New Card Holding Tank

New cards will be held here temporarily in an attempt to isolate the aggregate list from knee-jerk ratings.
Card	Notes
	Ranked Sites: AppMedia (S) You Yu does a ton of damage, but is that enough? Seeing as he (?) just came out, I haven’t done much research so I don’t really have an opinion on him yet.

Jump to: Game8 | GameWith | GameWith Farming | AppMedia | Pad-Plus

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JP Aggregate Leader List: Trial Week 11

Posted on April 24, 2016 by setsu

JP Aggregate Leader List β

**Changes from last time**: Xiang Mei 2➞1, Astaroth 3➞2, Yuna ❀➞3, Sephiroth added to 3, Sakuya 3➞❀, Apollo added to ❀, Ushio & Tora removed from ❀
**Legend**: Popular on Pad-Plus, ❀: Honorable Mention Tier
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Game8 and Multiplayer. Game8’s changes seem to be an attempt to get ahead of the curve by preemptively adjusting for what will likely be the biggest change in 9.1: just about all dungeons can be run in co-op. The nature of co-op significantly changes team building priorities, but the two factors that seem to have most influence over Game8’s changes are HP multipliers and SBRs, or the deprecation thereof. Since multiplayer teams combine their HP pools, HP multipliers are obviously less valuable especially if there’s no corresponding RCV multiplier to help recover from large hits and gravities. A leader’s lack of SBRs also have a diminished impact as you only need five SBRs over eight subs rather than four, making a once strict team building constraint into an afterthought. As someone that doesn’t play much multiplayer I’m not looking forward to having to factor it into my judgments. If the lists become too multiplayer-biased — which I’m hoping they won’t — I may just end this post series since it won’t be worth my time to do the analysis since I don’t care about co-op outside of farming possibilities.

JP Aggregate Leader List β Changes of Note

Card	Notes
	Change: 2➞1 This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.
	Change: 3➞2 Some may have questioned Astaroth’s high rating on the GameWith list, but with Game8 also backing it up there’s probably some amount of truth to it. In my opinion, the lack of time extends makes the team significantly worse than it seems on paper.
	Change: ❀➞3 Perhaps AppMedia isn’t as stupid as once thought? There’s some overlap here with DQXQ so I’ll cover that in their section.
	Change: Added to 3 Sephiroth always had the raw power — and was the Machine Zeus solo farmer of choice — but it was difficult to meet his type and color requirements while also reaching 100% SBR. This hasn’t changed. However, co-op play address the SBR part and with inheritance and the co-op HP boost, team composition is almost brainless now.

New Card Holding Tank

New cards will be held here temporarily in an attempt to isolate the aggregate list from knee-jerk ratings.
Card	Notes
	Ranked Sites: Game8 (A), PadPlus (1) I’m quite happy with my starter getting some love, but I’m not really sure how much staying power they’ll have. However, the amount of offensive power you get considering the ease of use and activation is pretty ridiculous. Teams like these will benefit greatly from the co-op update as HP thresholds will be less of a factor.
	Ranked Sites: Game8 (A), PadPlus (2) Despite their appearance on the Game8 list, I’m still not much of a fan of Apollo and Persephone. I’ve never denied that they’re good, but I also don’t think they’re elite. My main point of contention is that their awakenings promote a hybrid TPA- and OE-based play style, but that’s so wrong on so many levels. Pairing TPAs with a 14x multiplier results in a fairly pathetic burst output since TPAs make inefficient use of board space. One might argue that the OEs could help, and they do, but OEs scale with the amount of orbs in a given match, thus pairing them with TPAs isn’t as lucrative as with rows. Rows are generally preferred by tank teams for their higher burst potential, but these leads have none. Sure, you can run them with row subs, but you’re missing so much damage from your leaders, especially when you consider the best row leaders now have three rows. However, I’ll admit that fixating on those points was a bit shortsighted. Their actives are great, they’re basically unkillable and there’s a lot of sub flexibility. Persephone is basically the first dark team where you can run all the best killer subs — fire Haku and Machine Hera come to mind first — without being punished, so maybe there’s more than enough damage there to make up for the inefficiencies I previously mentioned.
	Ranked Sites: AppMedia (S) For all their changes, Game8 snubbed Xin Hua. I’m not sure I like Persephone all that much more, even considering the severely constrained sub pool. At least for Game8, they state that the difficulty of creating the ideal team isn’t a factor in their ratings, but it certainly seems to have affected it in this case.

Jump to: Game8 | GameWith | GameWith Farming | AppMedia | Pad-Plus

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JP Aggregate Leader List: Trial Week 10

Posted on April 16, 2016 by setsu

JP Aggregate Leader List β

**Changes from last time**: Xiang Mei added to 2, Sakuya 4➞3, Freyr 4➞❀, Shiva Dragon 4➞❀, Ushio & Tora 4➞❀, Yuna 4➞❀, Ichigo 4➞❀, Bastet removed from ❀, Sylvie removed from ❀, Freyja removed from ❀, Ra removed from ❀, Cloud removed from ❀, Lightning removed from ❀, Yomi removed from ❀, Kite removed from ❀, Sephiroth removed from ❀
**Legend**: Popular on Pad-Plus, ❀: Honorable Mention Tier
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Removing tier-4. With there being almost no movement on any of the lists this week, I took the opportunity to tweak the tiers again. With Game8 and GameWith compressing their tiers, it was about time the aggregate list did as well, resulting in the removal of the 4th tier. I also slightly lowered the weight AppMedia’s ranks have on the aggregate list since I personally value their opinion less than the other two. Finally, I created a minimum score to appear in the honorable mentions. This is to prevent cards that only appear in AppMedia’s S- tier and nowhere else from appearing there.

JP Aggregate Leader List β Changes of Note

Card	Notes
	Change: Added to 2 I’m a little surprised she isn’t tier-1, but she’ll be limited to tier-2 as long as she’s only top-ranked on one of the three lists.
	Change: 4➞3 In removing tier-4, I lowered the requirement for tier-3, thus Sakuya’s bump.
	Change: 4➞❀ Considering U&T are basically a light Rukia, it’s surprising to see such a discrepancy in their grades. Then you compare the sub pools and it all makes sense.

New Card Holding Tank

New cards will be held here temporarily in an attempt to isolate the aggregate list from knee-jerk ratings.
Card	Notes
	Ranked Sites: AppMedia (S) While her sub pool is considerably worse than Xiang Mei’s (seemed impossible, but it’s true), she’s still strong enough to conquer endgame content. Unless I’m missing something and the various YouTube videos I’ve seen are just outliers, I expect her to appear somewhere on the other two lists next week. To be honest, dark didn’t need the help so her current power level seems fitting.

Jump to: Game8 | GameWith | GameWith Farming | AppMedia | Pad-Plus

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JP Aggregate Leader List: Trial Week 9

Posted on April 11, 2016 by setsu

JP Aggregate Leader List β

**Changes from last time**: Neptune Dragon 2➞3, Yuna added to 4, Sylvie 4➞❀, Freyja 4➞❀, Ra 4➞❀, Lightning added to ❀, Sephiroth added to ❀
**Legend**: Popular on Pad-Plus, ❀: Honorable Mention Tier
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Short on time. I’m going to keep the comments to a minimum this week. Which seems to be fine since there wasn’t much movement of note.

JP Aggregate Leader List β Changes of Note

Card	Notes
	Change: 2➞3 The MP Dragons are slowly dying off. It remains to be seen if the Four Gentlemen will take their places, but if Xiang Mei is any indicator, the answer is yes. I’m eagerly awaiting for JP to announce the stats for the next one whose art was revealed on their last stream.
	Change: Added to 4 The FF cards are finally out of the holding tank and Yuna is the only one to make the aggregate list proper. AppMedia is the only source that seems to believe that, though.

New Card Holding Tank

New cards will be held here temporarily in an attempt to isolate the aggregate list from knee-jerk ratings.
Card	Notes
	Ranked Sites: Game8 (S), GameWith (SS), AppMedia (S+), PadPlus (2) If the current ratings hold, she’ll debut at tier-2 next week. Which seems a bit ridiculous considering all the hype, but that’s why there’s a holding tank; we’ll see what happens next week.
	Ranked Sites: GameWith Farming (A) While it’s somewhat sad seeing one of the historically most OP characters from American comics relegated to farming duty, there’s no doubt that he’s great at it. Not all hope is lost, though, as he does have at least one Arena 2 clear under his belt. Here’s hoping his active gets the cooldown reduction to eight that the original Chinese are getting, too.

Jump to: Game8 | GameWith | GameWith Farming | AppMedia | Pad-Plus

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JP Aggregate Leader List: Trial Week 8

Posted on April 2, 2016 by setsu

JP Aggregate Leader List β

**Changes from last time**: Rukia 3➞2, Juggler removed from ❀
**Legend**: Popular on Pad-Plus, ❀: Honorable Mention Tier
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Dropping the “Trial”. Instead of constantly tweaking the tier thresholds, I’m going to see how the current one holds up and if it’s satisfactory for a couple weeks I’ll remove the beta qualification.

Future of the farming lists. I didn’t have time to update the script to scrape Game8’s farming list. I’m still undecided if I even what to continue including this information. I’ll think about it more when I have more time.

JP Aggregate Leader List β Changes of Note

Card	Notes
	Change: 3➞2 A Game8 upgrade pushes Rukia up a tier. With NA getting Bleach on Monday, this can only add fuel to the fire. I wouldn’t let this influence your decision, though. I always thought she was a little underrated, but since I never cared to formulate an argument for it I never really said anything. Now that NA is getting her, I’ll definitely be doing more research
	Change: Removed from ❀ Juggler wasn’t on any of the tier lists, but made the honorable mentions by way of Pad-Plus. I’m still debating if I want to remove this functionality since it can be misleading.

New Card Holding Tank

New cards will be held here temporarily in an attempt to isolate the aggregate list from knee-jerk ratings.
Card	Notes
	Ranked Sites: Game8 (S), GameWith (SS), AppMedia (S) Even with a limited sub pool and no sub-attribute, Xiang Mei is obviously an elite leader. That was never in question, though. What we really need to find out is where her ceiling is. Hopefully the tier lists can sort it out in the next couple of weeks, but I won’t be relying on them and you shouldn’t either, especially since it looks like she could be a 900k MP investment. I’ll definitely be doing my own research.
	Ranked Sites: AppMedia (S), PadPlus (3) I’m extending the holding tank period for new cards to two weeks. It doesn’t took like any of the FF cards are going to stick on the list.
	Ranked Sites: AppMedia (S-), PadPlus (2) .
	Ranked Sites: PadPlus (1) If it means anything, GameWith removed her from their holding tank and she didn’t make their list.
	Ranked Sites: PadPlus (5) Cecil’s buffs resulted in increased interest on Pad-Plus, but it’s uncertain whether it’s enough to vault him onto the tier lists. 45.56x ATK and 2.25x RCV seem pretty good — like an upgraded Zaerog∞ — but there are many other factors that go into being a good lead.

Jump to: Game8 | GameWith | GameWith Farming | AppMedia | Pad-Plus

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JP Aggregate Leader List: Trial Week 7

Posted on March 27, 2016 by setsu

JP Aggregate Leader List β

**Changes from last time**: Yomi Dragon 2➞3, Freyr ❀➞4, Yomi 4➞❀, Ragnarok Dragon removed from ❀, Linka removed from ❀
**Legend**: Popular on Pad-Plus, ❀: Honorable Mention Tier
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I’m short on time so I’m going to keep my comments short. Luckily, there wasn’t too much movement this week. I decided to tweak the tier thresholds again which resulted in Freyr making tier-4 while not having any movement on the lists.

Currently, cards on the Pad-Plus popularity list will be added to the honorable mention tier if they don’t appear on any other list. I’m strongly considering removing this functionality.

JP Aggregate Leader List β Changes of Note

Card	Notes
	Change: 2➞3 Game8 finally followed suit and downgraded Yomi Dragon resulting in a fall to tier-3. The reason it isn’t on the same tier as Neptune Dragon is because GameWith put it in their B-tier. I don’t know if many would agree with that, but either way there’s no contesting that Yomi Dragon is no longer on the same level as Ra Dragon (and hasn’t been for a long time).
	Change: 4➞❀ Game 8 removed Yomi from their list.

New Card Holding Tank

New cards will be held here temporarily in an attempt to isolate the aggregate list from knee-jerk ratings.
Card	Notes
	Ranked Sites: Game8 (A) Despite the lack of an HP or RCV multiplier, Lightning is a fairly strong lead. Her damage is obviously great at 126x — with the possibility of stacking rows — and the healing is somewhat similar to a Sakuya team by virtue of the healer type. However, her biggest asset might be how strong her active is in Arena 2. If NA gets the FF Collab again, the value of her active for skill inheritance is so high that the collab REM will still be worth rolling even if we get a delay like last time (I sure hope not, though).
	Ranked Sites: AppMedia (S) Yuna actually plays similar to Lightning — high multiplier with the possibility of stacking rows, no HP or RCV multiplier but still has respectable healing — but trades activation flexibility for a weaker multiplier. It’s that flexibility paired with a still very nice 64x that makes her surprisingly strong. Instead of having to dedicate slots to Kali board changes, she can focus on utility subs which only gets more valuable when you factor skill inheritance. AppMedia currently has her at S which might be a little ambitious so I’m curious if she’ll make any of the other lists.
	Ranked Sites: AppMedia (S-) Unlike the previous two, Sephiroth has a severely constrained sub pool, but in return he gets an RCV multiplier. He also lines up incredibly well for soloing Machine Zeus. I haven’t totally bought in to him being an elite endgame lead — I’m skeptical any of the FF cards are, to be honest; great, yes, but not elite — but the raw power is definitely there.