JP Aggregate Leader List: Week 20

Posted on June 25, 2016 by setsu

JP Aggregate Leader List

**Changes from last time**: Sherias Roots 2➞1, Miru 3➞2, Pandora ❀➞3, Shiva Dragon added to ❀, Sakuya added to ❀, DQXQ 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.

Not too much happened this week, so I’ll be using this opportunity to take bit of breather and keep the comments brief. One of the few things that happened was Game8 making what is essentially an honorable mention tier which consists of many of the leads that were booted last week. Considering I was complaining about how exclusive their list was last week, this is a welcome change. However, since this isn’t a “real” tier, I’ll be giving any card that appears there minimal points, similar to what is given to AppMedia’s S- tier.

JP Aggregate Leader List Changes of Note

Card	Notes
	Change: 2➞1 Granted, the preset team given to us in the last JP Challenge Dungeons was garbage, but I’m still not as high on Sherias Roots as all the lists appear to be. It’s not because he’s lacking power, either, but rather that everything looks relatively weak compared to Kaede.
	Change: 3➞2 I’m glad the lists are slowly coming around on Miru, but I still believe Sumire needs some love. I wonder if their places would be reversed had Reco chosen Sumire instead? Yes, this might be giving a single streamer too much credit, but I’d have a hard time believing that he didn’t have a significant role in her current popularity (and we all know popularity definitely has a role in how these tier lists play out). I guess the June Bride REM has a strong influence, too.
	Change: ❀➞3 Pandora is one of the few beneficiaries of being included in Game8’s new consolation prize tier. This just goes to show that it doesn’t take much for a card to see movement in the aggregate 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), Game8 Co-op (A), GameWith (A), AppMedia (S+) Robin Hood, plenty powerful with his current sub pool, but I wonder how much higher he’d be rated if a card like Kaede or Vishnu were balanced.
	Ranked Sites: Game8 (A), Game8 Co-op (S), GameWith (S), AppMedia (SS), PadPlus (2) Nobunaga should debut at tier-2 or higher once his time in the holding tank is over and it looks like he’s well deserving of that placement.
	Ranked Sites: GameWith (B) Sub pool aside, Napoleon topping out at 39x ATK vs. the 81x of his brothers makes him relatively weak. He’s much easier to activate, but that comes at the cost of too much firepower.

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JP Aggregate Leader List: Week 19

Posted on June 18, 2016 by setsu

JP Aggregate Leader List

**Changes from last time**: Kaede added to 1, Rukia 2➞3, Sumire added to 3, Miru added to 3, Lakshmi 3➞❀, GKali 3➞❀, Bastet Ace 3➞❀, Yuna 3➞❀, Pandora 3➞❀, Liu Bei added to ❀, Shiva Dragon removed from ❀, DQXQ removed from ❀
**Legend**: Popular on Pad-Plus, ❀: Honorable Mention Tier
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The big news this past week was Game8 rearranging their tier list to make Kaede the sole inhabitant of their SS tier. This should be no surprise as she’s more than worthy, with a unprecedented amount of combined damage and survivability that makes most of the game’s content a joke (even if she is overkill for most situations). I don’t necessarily expect the other lists will follow suit, though, as how much value is there in making that distinction? It’s not like the old Arena 1-Ra Dragon days where that team was so far ahead of everything else AND trivialized farming the most valuable resource in the game at the time. That deserved a distinction. Kaede currently has nothing like that except maybe Arena 3 for Radar Dragons, but why not just co-op that?

JP Aggregate Leader List Changes of Note

Card	Notes
	Change: Added to 1 My only regret with Kaede getting a busted uevo is that I now have to share her with more people.
	Change: Added to 3 I believe both Sumire and Miru should be rated higher. The only real difference between Sumire and Kaede is top-end damage, but Sumire’s damage is more than sufficient for almost every application in the game.
	Change: Added to 3 It seems like Reco has been playing this team almost exclusively lately. He makes just about every team look amazing (except Fenrir Viz), but even if you aren’t a god, Miru should still perform exceptionally well for you. This is the new Zaerog∞ and she should stick around longer due to the raw power of the heart-cross.
	Change: 3➞❀ Just when Game8 decided to show her some much deserved love, she gets booted — along with many others — due to Kaede essentially shifting everything down a tier. This is really unfortunate and I’m surprised Game8 didn’t make an entirely new tier for Kaede like they did for Ra Dragon.
	Change: 3➞❀ I’ve been playing a bit of GKali lately and she’s quite powerful and a lot of fun to use. I’m horrible at the whole rainbow row thing, but I’m enjoying learning how to play it better. The damage doesn’t disappoint and it’s pretty amazing if you can pull off two rows.
	Change: Added to ❀ If you’re wondering where he went, Game8 moved him to their new co-op list where he’s in the top tier, as expected. As I suspected last week, he just doesn’t cut it as a solo lead. Despite that, he’s probably the leader I’m most looking forward to, maybe in my entire time playing the game, due to easy farming with Zeus Dios.
	Change: Removed from ❀ RIP. Shiva Dragon used to be one of my most used leads, but with the advent of skill inheritance and the increasing selection of killer awakenings, I’ve found that Cloud completely replaced him as my non-push button farming lead of choice.

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), Game8 Co-op (A), AppMedia (S+) Bastet Ace was a boon for wood, but Robin Hood is better in just about every way. His top-end ATK multiplier is lower (81x vs 144x) and he has that annoying balanced type restriction meaning he can’t take advantage of any of wood’s triple dongers like Vishnu. However, add in the RCV bonus, a significantly better active (which boosts him to 121.5x), the ability to activate with only a single wood combo, and that they have the same multiplier at eight combos and things start to swing strongly in Robin Hood’s favor. I think Game8 has him rated reasonably.
	Ranked Sites: Game8 (A), Game8 Co-op (S), GameWith (S), AppMedia (SS), PadPlus (9) Nobunaga was almost tier-worthy before his buffs; now with 81x he’s easily one of the best leaders in the game and, to my dismay, he puts Pandora to shame. Even without his bind immunity he’d be elite, but with it, he should be relevant for a long time to come.

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JP Aggregate Leader List: Week 18

Posted on June 12, 2016 by setsu

JP Aggregate Leader List

**Changes from last time**: Sephiroth 2➞3, Lakshmi added to 3, Bastet Ace added to 3, DQXQ 3➞❀, Anubis removed from 3, Parvati added to ❀, Apollo removed from ❀, Persephone removed from ❀
**Legend**: Popular on Pad-Plus, ❀: Honorable Mention Tier
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It’s great to see so many wood cards on the list and it should only improve next week when Kaede and Liu Bei’s time in the holding tank expires. For what it’s worth, all elements seem to be represented fairly well now. There’s still a lack of fire leads; while Xiang Mei is certainly one of the most powerful leads, the element really needs more options. Hopefully Awoken Cao Cao can fill that void, or at least be on Liu Bei’s level, but I’ve learned to not get my expectations up when it comes to GungHo.

JP Aggregate Leader List Changes of Note

Card	Notes
	Change: 2➞3 I’ve actually been using Sephiroth quite a bit lately to solo farm MZeus for SDRs. I’ve learned quite a bit about the team and for the most part my initial assessment was true. He’s ridiculously OP in MZeus, but elsewhere, he just isn’t worth the effort. However, considering how much value there is to be obtained in that dungeon, I understand why the lists initially regarded Seph so high.
	Change: Added to 3 I had tired of beating the Lakshmi drum long, long ago and wish I had continued to do so if only to now say “I told you so!”. She continuously received significant buffs and her clear videos remained impressive, but she was constantly ignored by the tier lists. I’m glad to see her back. It’s good to see Parvati also getting love and it’s strange that Shiva might be the weakest awoken from the pantheon now.
	Change: Added to 3 Bastet Ace breaths new life into your old Bastet, producing results that are at least on par with Awoken Anubis with a more friendly activation.
	Change: Removed from 3 Well, it finally happened. Here’s hoping he gets some buffs in the near future.
	Change: Added to ❀ Similar to Lakshmi, Parvati has been receiving continuous buffs, but is still inferior due to the relatively poor sub pool. However, she has received some help with uevo Kaede and Robin Hood (as a better 100% SBR option), although if you have Kaede you’ll likely just be leading with her instead.
	Change: Removed from ❀ I was never a huge fan of Persephone and Apollo’s rankings on the Game8 list, but I slowly came around on their abilities; well, Persephone’s, at least. With Game8 retracting their ranking, they now disappear from the aggregate list. Regardless, I’m still looking forward to playing around with Persephone whenever she hits NA.

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 (SS), GameWith (SS), AppMedia (SS), PadPlus (4) There seems to be little doubt that Kaede is an elite leader and all the heart-cross leaders should enjoy destroying the endgame for a long time to come.
	Ranked Sites: Game8 (A+), GameWith Farming (SS), AppMedia (S), PadPlus (1) I’m curious how much Game8 and AppMedia’s ratings are based on Liu Bei’s co-op farming prowess as he seems to be a relatively weak solo endgame leader.
	Ranked Sites: Game8 (A) I think it’s a testament to Vritra’s power that he can be considered a strong leader despite his best leader pair being the outdated RSonia. I’m still not a huge fan of the double-color activation a la the awoken Greeks, but as an old Beelzebub-RSonia user, I’m tempted to try the team out if only because the sub pool is so damned strong now.

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

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JP Aggregate Leader List: Week 17

Posted on June 4, 2016 by setsu

JP Aggregate Leader List

**Changes from last time**: AD Lucifer 2➞3, GKali ❀➞3, Neptune Dragon 3➞❀, Saria removed from 3, Thor removed from 3, Ryune removed from ❀, I&I removed from ❀, BSonia removed from ❀, Sakuya removed from ❀
**Legend**: Popular on Pad-Plus, ❀: Honorable Mention Tier
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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

Card	Notes
	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.
	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.
	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

New cards will be held here temporarily in an attempt to isolate the aggregate list from knee-jerk ratings.
Card	Notes
	Ranked Sites: Game8 (SS), AppMedia (S+), PadPlus (6) 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.
	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.
	Ranked Sites: Game8 (A+), AppMedia (S), PadPlus (14) 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.
	Ranked Sites: Game8 (A+), AppMedia (S-), PadPlus (4) 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.
	Ranked Sites: Game8 (A), PadPlus (8) 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

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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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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.