REM Review – Christmas 3

If GungHo is going to mail in the Christmas REM, then it’s only fitting that I mail in my review.

 

Farmable Monster Analysis: Santa Claus

Santa Claus’s skyfall buff is still rather unique which makes him an appealing option, but since he’ll presumably only be available for skill ups for a couple of days during the Christmas Event one will likely have to utilize stamina refreshes to max skill him. So the question becomes: “is he worth it?”. He’s not bad for a descended boss, but considering his narrow uses he simply isn’t for most players.

Christmas Farming and Stuff

I got my Christmas farming done while on the journey to visit family (I hate traveling, but PAD made it go by a lot quicker). I didn’t really keep track of farming numbers like I usually do, so instead you’ll have to settle for some anecdotal musings.

I started on Int which had a 100% trash floor drop rate, but after a few runs I found that it was a wasteland of unevolved Pengdras. I moved up to Expert which had a much better appearance and drop rate for the Christmas fodder, so I finished off my first Liu Bei through there. For the second Liu Bei, I moved up again to Master because I wanted to snag a few Dub-rubylits. Once again the fodder appearance and drop rates seemed to improve. On top of that I got quite a few of the Dub-rubylits I was chasing, a fair amount of Santa Heras and best of all the Pengdras were evolved. While I can’t say anything definite about the drop and stamina rates, I can say for sure that Master was much more time efficient and the added perks are nice. If I had to do it over again I’d do it all on Master on 2x. It really pissed me off that the Treants dropped way more than the Minotaurs.

The team I used for Master was Yamato / ROdin / ROdin / Goemon / Goemon / ROdin. Use Yamato if necessary for the first floor. ROdin for floors 2 through 4. Goemon nuke for 5, swipe for 6, then Goemon swipe for Hera. I used Yamato as a lead instead of Goemon to get around the Paulina 100% heal. +297 ROdins are necessary for the Treants, but no plusses are needed for the Dublits. ROdin can’t button the Minotaurs, but you can use the column of fire they make to kill them. The Treant binds are no problem since all the preemptives in the dungeon clear them for you. I used two uevo Goemons in case one got bound I could still use the other on floor 5. The other would then be unbound for Hera.

Christmas Rolls 2015.12.14 – 20 Rolls

Things went better than expected, but most people should avoid this REM.

Edit: At first I realized I had just sold all my Liu Bei skill up fodder and was sad. Then I realized Christmas Liu Bei has his own fodder and was relieved. Then I realized I have to farm the Christmas dungeon and got even sadder than the first time.

Special REM Review – PAD Christmas

After a horrendous Halloween REM, GungHo has decided to shape back up by giving us a totally revamped Christmas REM. The most notable change is the exclusion of all filler eggs, meaning there will be no chibis or other off-theme trash rolls to get depressed over. I mean, people will still get depressed, but at least this year you’ll get a unique, on-theme card that is actually useful to most players; yes, even the silver eggs. While I won’t say this special REM is good value, because they never are, I will say that this is one of the better lineups we’ve ever gotten. Just don’t let the allure of RKali lead you to rolling irresponsibly.

Updates for Christmas in July: From a high level, not much has changed even after the buffs and meta changes. I’ve added blurbs to most cards, but I won’t be redoing the entire review.

Quick Thoughts on the Christmas REM

I’m going to save my opinions on the new cards for my REM review. However, GungHo has left the door open to speculate on the nature of the REM itself:

• So far they’ve revealed six four-stars, zero five-stars, two six-stars, two seven-stars, and two eight-stars.
  • What does zero five-stars mean? I speculated that they would once again run a pantheon in the five-star slot, but I was hoping I was wrong. Skipping an entire rarity seems unlikely.
  • What does two eight-stars mean? Does this mean we get two MP Shop additions?
  • I’m used to REMs having a rarity pyramid or something close to it. Maybe they still have more announcements? God forbid they add filler.
  • Last night’s reveal of the eight-stars seems to make things pretty final, at least as far as Christmas-themed cards are concerned. I was waiting for an official post to outline the contents of the REM, but it never came. I guess that leaves the door open for more on-theme announcements, but I’m not getting my hopes up.
• The reveal of uevo Christmas Sakuya opens the door for future special REM cards like Isis, Athena or Metatron to get uevos in the future. It would’ve been easier for them to just tweak the cards like they did with Genie as this creates the expectation of uevos and new art in the future. It should be interesting to see how they handle uevos for cards like Athena that already have a cosmetic one; my guess is they probably won’t.
• I don’t know what I was expecting, but everything just seems so boring. Color swaps and rehashes are so lazy. At least Athena and Pandora had different awakenings. I guess this is just the nature of special REMs as they’re (rightly) afraid to push the power creep through them. Sadly, none of the Christmas art really does anything for me so there’s not much for me to look forward to on that front, either.
• Before the new Christmas cards, the on-theme special REM card distribution was:
  • Fire – 0
  • Water – 5 (School Isis, Summer: Metatron, Urd, Chester, Awilda)
  • Wood – 2 (School Athena, Summer GSonia)
  • Light – 3 (School Lucifer, Christmas: Sakuya, Genie)
  • Dark – 9 (Summer: Claire, Pandora, Halloween: HKali, BSonia, Vampire, Alraune, Laila, Izanami, Thoth & Sopdet)
  • Why the hell is dark even in this REM? Not only does dark have the most, it also has two 8-stars in Claire and HKali who also happen to be the two best special REM cards after RKali. Dark being represented in a Christmas event of all things seems wrong. If they were going to do a Chinese god, it should’ve been Leilan since she produces the Christmas colors.
  • At least fire got some love this time, but I was thinking they could’ve made up the deficit with a Valentine’s Day event. I guess that holiday can be both fire and light, but what about wood?

Updates! (12/10/15)

• Sonia, not Kali, is the MP Shop monster. Sucks!
• No five-stars, no filler!

No More Chibis in the Christmas REM!

今回のクリスマスガチャは、ミニキャラシリーズは登場しないそうです！かわにりクリスマスバージョンのキャラクター達が多数登場します！！#パズドラ

— pad_sexy　パズル＆ドラゴンズ公式 (@pad_sexy) December 8, 2015

This is pretty much exactly what I hoped for, but didn’t think would come to pass. They’ve already released stats for the four-star Healer Girls and to be honest they’re pretty nice for silvers. Getting Echidna-style delays in non-fire elements with decent awakenings is pretty good value for trash eggs. The best part is they’re easy to skill up; it’d be even better if Nagas dropped in the Christmas dungeon.

What’s really exciting are the possibilities at gold. I’m assuming Genie and Sakuya are auto includes so I’m curious to see how many other Christmas-specific gold eggs they’re willing to add. Sakuya is at seven and Genie is at six, so I’d assume the MP card will be at eight like Claire and Kali. It’s probably safe to assume there will be at least one more at six and seven each. That leaves the five-stars. Murako’s tweet seems to imply that all chibis from all rarities are gone, but it doesn’t say anything about pantheon gods; the Chinese were in the Christmas REM last year. I’m really hoping the five-stars will be Christmas themed too, but I’m satisfied enough that the chibis are gone.