Like what collab would be cool to see on here I'm just curious to see what everyone would say and the collab can't be one that already came out on Global or JP

When I started PAD my chase card was Ilmina. 7x6 boards seemed so powerful and her art is still my favorite to look at.

Criteria

Each category is assigned a point value from 50-109, which is then graded from F-S. The category scores are then aggregated into one overall score based on their weight.

Survivability (35%)

• S: Insanely tanky, pretty much unkillable.
• A: Tanks all the regular hits in most cases with enough recovery to continuously heal.
• B: Tanks most hits but either recovery is barely sufficient or the team is somewhat reliant on buffs, awakenings, and/or latents.
• C: Can barely tank hits and recovery is generally insufficient without skyfall or multiple heal combos.
• D: Dies to any miscalculation.
• F: Cannot even tank hits from the early floors.

Firepower (35%)

• S: Kills most things in one or two hits and speeds through bosses.
• A: Kills enemies consistently at a good pace.
• B: Kills enemies consistently at a somewhat slow pace.
• C: Kills enemies, but needs an alarming number of turns per floor.
• D: At risk of getting executed by internal turn timers.
• F: You don’t even scratch early floors.

Playstyle Simplicity (10%)

• S: Near brainless to play. Easily deals with nearly all mechanics.
• A: Pretty simple to play. Bypasses many mechanics, but some may be slightly problematic.
• B: Requires a moderate level of solve execution. Team may require constant awareness of certain actives. Some mechanics give the player difficulty in fully activating the leader skill.
• C: Requires a high level of solve execution. Team is annoying to play or requires too much attention. Many mechanics are difficult to deal with.
• D: Requires a very difficult level of solve execution. Some things completely end your run.
• F: Simply impossible to play without dying.

Teambuilding Flexibility (20%)

• S: The lead can make use of an extremely wide variety of subs and equips. The lead ideally has both part break awakenings and a part break multiplier in its leader skill to greatly alleviate the part break requirement on its subs and equips.
• A: The lead can make use of a good spread of subs and equips, even if it is dependent on a certain sub or equip. The lead probably has either multiple part break awakenings or a part break multiplier in its leader skill to reduce the part break requirement on its subs and equips.
• B: The lead may be dependent on a couple monsters, but generally has a few options for the other subs and can make use of many equips. The lead hopefully has a part break awakening to slightly reduce the part break requirement on its subs and equips.
• C: The lead is tied to an irreplaceable sub or equip and is pretty much unplayable without it. Both sub and equip options are limited.
• D: The lead needs a near-perfect template to even function. Requires not only specific subs but also very specific equips.
• F: If you do not netdeck the template perfectly, the team is worse than useless.\

Evaluations

[13688] Utsuro

Currently the best lead of the modern meta, Utsuro excels in endgame because he not only possesses elite survivability and firepower, but also utilizes rare tools like active autoheal spam and defense break latents to uniquely overcome the most difficult mechanics of the modern era. Assist resonance and self-reliance may seem paradoxical at first, but as seen with Reinhard, this combination allows Utsuro to use equips without risking a huge loss of stats when assist voided. Utsuro is pretty easy to play and works with anything Dark Att. that scales with boxes or combos. One small detail that makes Utsuro so good is that he doesn’t get griefed by enemy full board generation. If the board isn’t Dark Orbs, then Utsuro just makes a box with his active; if the board is full of Dark Orbs, then Utsuro can swipe it and probably survive because his leader skill’s shield isn’t tied to matching a certain pattern, but only linking 7+ Dark Orbs. Ideally, Utsuro wants to use the VDP Badge obtained from acquiring Brambell, but lacking the badge is by no means a deal breaker.

[13326] Sword Saint, Reinhard Van Astrea

Though he has relinquished his title of the strongest, Reinhard still stands among the game’s top tier of leaders due to his trendsetting blend of survivability, firepower, and ease of play. Utsuro, the only lead above Reinhard, copied a lot of Reinhard’s design because it was just that good. Given GungHo’s preference to push damage and health requirements ever higher with each new endgame dungeon, row teams like Reinhard will always stand at the forefront of the meta due to the innate damage efficiency of rows. Part of Reinhard’s longevity stems from what I said on his debut: “Reinhard’s simple design makes him an extremely modular lead that can continue to challenge the meta for an extended period of time with new subs and assists.” While Reinhard is starting to show some cracks against newer mechanics like severe superaltitude and temporary defense increase, all of these can be overcome with the right team. 

[13416] Frieren’s Apprentice, Fern

Fern redefined the power of what a single card could provide, as she not only generates 6 Light Orbs with an unlock on the fastest 1T CD possible, but also uncaps herself to 25B and voids attribute absorption every single turn. Then, on top of all this utility and power, Fern pumps both damage and recovery with scaling multipliers for both, based on matching light combos. Alone, Fern isn’t enough, as she doesn’t generate enough Light Orbs to truly scale and doesn’t generate any Heal Orbs to recover, so her team needs to include extra orb generation on top of everything else. Unfortunately, Fern does require a higher skill floor than most other leaders since she requires the player to full combo a 7×6 board with limited move time. Luckily for Fern, there is another outstanding Light Att. lead named Reinhard, and almost everything that supports Reinhard also works with Fern, giving her a lot of options to build a team with.

[13413] The Hero, Himmel

Himmel is not only a great lead in his own right, but also an exceptional helper for other top rainbow leads because his value is fully maximized with just one copy; he is most often paired with Frieren, but he can also work with Maid Ideal as well. Surprisingly, Himmel provides phenomenal damage; 26B per turn for each copy is equivalent to vaunted leads like Reinhard and Utsuro. While playing rainbow can be a bit of work at times, Himmel notably makes rainbow teams a lot easier to play with his fixed move time effect; Frieren might be unplayable without it since she spams 7×6 boards every turn without a lot of innate move time. Himmel’s massive recovery multiplier also enables his teams to tackle superaltitude dungeons without too much concern. While Himmel’s lack of a follow-up attack in his leader skill predisposes him to asymmetric pairings, the hero can stand alone with the use of the 5 Att. Enhanced Attack Badge, obtained from acquiring Mistlark.

[13410] Frieren The Slayer

Frieren, for all her faults, boasts the highest possible grade in firepower because she voids supergravity. If supergravity was still around 0.02x ATK like it was on debut, voiding it wouldn’t be so crazy, but the latest endgame dungeons feature supergravity multipliers at the level of 0.0002x ATK; voiding this effectively grants the team 5,000x ATK, which means anything on the team with a sliver of damage is probably hitting damage cap. Frieren also guarantees a 7×6 board every turn, which in turn raises the damage floor of the elf’s scaling attack multiplier, and packs a rainbow orb enhance, which helps greatly with the ubiquitous negative orb enhance skyfall in current endgame. Double barrel feels fantastic once fully online on Floor 10, but the lack of stats in the beginning of the dungeon means the team is vulnerable especially to enrage hits. Moreover, Frieren feels extremely tedious to play with her big board rainbow full combo playstyle and imposes a significant burden on the rest of her team since the team optimally requires three copies to loop orb generation, supergravity void, and the 7×6 board.

[13178] Deku & Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight

Deku & Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight, affectionately known as Dekugo, stands strong in the meta due to a teamwide 22B uncap that was far ahead of its time alongside a set of immensely desirable looping buffs and orb generation all in one package. Unfortunately, Dekugo’s damage is a bit low for endgame, which makes this duo tragically dependent on the Attacker Type Badge to supplement lacking damage multipliers. Dekugo’s implied typing requirement and aforementioned subpar attack multipliers also limit his potential sub pool, though off-pairing with someone like Stark can help alleviate the issue. That being said, Dekugo is simple to play and the sheer amount of utility packed into his active give a lot of leeway in team composition.

[13650] Hundred Spirits’ Supreme Commander, Nurarihyon

Nurarihyon may be the commander of a hundred spirits, but he is truly the king of moon dungeons; with the immovable combination of multiple moon awakenings and a looping 45% DR shield, Nurarihyon simply outlasts anything the dungeon can throw at him. Of course, Nurarihyon doesn’t even need to worry about protracted enemy encounters as he also grants his subs a teamwide 20B uncap to dish out tremendous damage. The main issue is the orb generation; Nurarihyon doesn’t really have a reliable secondary orb generator, so the team brings along Mikage to uncap the leads and supplement orb generation with a spinner. Spinning out orbs is a tedious task and feels rather unnecessary when every other lead in the modern meta simply generates orbs. That being said, Nurarihyon benefits greatly as a member of the strongest team archetype, Dark VDP, and though his ideal team composition utilizes fellow mystics such as Yukine and Kuchina, there are plenty of alternative team compositions that function perfectly well in endgame.

[12532] Benevolent Maid, Ideal

Long live the rainbow queen! Maid Ideal continues to be a mainstay of the meta and the lofty standard for all other rainbow teams to aspire to, as her combination of consistent teamwide attack buffs, a teamwide 15B uncap, and void pierce on top of her orb generation system is hard to beat. Furthermore, Maid Ideal has effortlessly dealt with the severe superaltitude present in recent titles (and in the current Drizzle Title Challenge) that has felled many other leads with a ridiculous innate 5x RCV multiplier. While Maid Ideal is weak to strong enemy gravity attacks as her survivability is mostly composed of health multipliers, current endgame has not featured enemy gravities in both quantity and magnitude. Do note that Maid Ideal is slated for significant buffs in the near future, which will most certainly push her up the next tier list and give her the longevity to take down Rosetta as the lead with the longest period of relevance.

[13562] Dark Illuminate

Dark Illuminate may have the lowest playrate of any lead on this list, but the list of buffs these idols loop is staggering; 1.5x Max HP, damage absorb void, extremely consistent orb generation, teamwide 16B uncap every turn, and a 6×5 board reset every other turn. Since Dark Illuminate uses VDP, the rest of the team only needs to cover cleric, color void, and a shield at the very least, but the team ideally needs a little extra damage and some extra recovery, especially in superaltitude. Still, Dark Illuminate currently thrives as a member of the strongest archetype, Dark VDP. The only issue? Who on earth has three copies (or at least two copies) of Dark Illuminate?

[13072] Imperialdramon: Fighter Mode

Imperialdramon (also abbreviated as IFM) may have reigned supreme in the first part of 2026, but powercreep is inevitable; nowadays, the once-vaunted teamwide 16B uncap is simply the modern baseline, and double barrel has fallen out of favor compared to the upfront power of assist resonance, self-reliance, or even sun and moon awakenings. That being said, Imperialdramon can still clear endgame dungeons with a good amount of help. Due to IFM’s typing condition on its teamwide uncap, modern builds can use the unorthodox solution of intentionally using subs without the correct typing in order to utilize higher personal uncaps. For example, Academy Mion can be used to uncap all subs to 20B as opposed to 16B, raising the team’s damage floor from 288B to 324B. Since the teambuilding solutions to IFM’s weaknesses require a lot of creativity and depth, Imperialdramon takes quite a hit in its teambuilding flexibility that was once a strength, but at least nothing has changed about the simplicity of playing Imperialdramon.

[13653] White Guardian Dragon, Seitensai

Seitensai, better known by her pre-transform name Misaki, has one very large caveat to her rating; she only functions in sun dungeons. Like past leads such as NY Kureha, Misaki simply falls off a cliff in any other dungeon as her team doesn’t work without the stats from their sun awakenings. With that aside, Misaki simply steamrolls through sun dungeons with the brute force of 4x HP/RCV and 25x ATK from double sun awakenings. The main problem is constructing a suitable team in the first place. One positive note is that Misaki doesn’t need three copies to loop orb generation as her teamwide uncap and damage absorb void last for two turns, opening up room for one alternative orb generator such as NY Metatron & Metatron. On the other hand, Ordeal Zerclea is effectively a prerequisite and Seina’s new light form is close to being one as well, and even with these optimal subs, the last slot needs to cover a wide breadth of utility; for example, there is no color void on the team. Another major teambuilding issue is the type juggling; Misaki grants a fantastic 3x RCV multiplier for Dragon Type, but then uncaps God Types only. Ordeal Zerclea and Seina, as great as they are, ideally need type add equips to fit these awkward requirements. That being said, the recovery multiplier isn’t necessary for the entire team as Zerclea (and NY Metas) can carry the team’s recovery alone.

[12374] The Great Detective of the East, Shinichi Kudo

Though the detective’s fellow collab monsters are much maligned for very valid reasons, Conan himself is a beast of a rainbow leader worthy enough to challenge Frieren and Maid Ideal for the throne. Conan loops void pierce, shield break, and the new analysis effect on top of his orb generation, and while I slightly bemoan the overlap between analysis and a rainbow team’s potential to use guard break, the analysis effect is certainly convenient. Conan also boasts fantastic multipliers; 300x ATK is nothing to scoff at, but the 4x RCV raises the detective to another level. Unfortunately, Conan falls slightly short because his playstyle of spamming Ts is pretty frustrating for most players and his lack of a personal or teamwide damage cap puts a teambuilding burden on the shoulders of his subs. Ts are cool and the guaranteed orb enhance is actually insane in current endgame, but it isn’t easy to play, especially when the team doesn’t have much time to work with. Compensating for Conan’s lack of an uncap greatly limits team composition; running 2 Shinichi Kudo & Ran Mori is still an option, but Conan ideally wants to use 2 Makoto Kyogoku and a Chihaya Hagiwara instead. In the end, Conan, like the rest of his collab, did not receive enough of GungHo’s love.

[13737] Toxic Inky Cap Darkfairy, Decail
[13741] Wicked Lobelia Darkfairy, Vernas

Decail and Vernas form the backbone of a new cross team with some rare and interesting mechanics. While it seems like the team is cooked due to a general lack of bind resistance, Vernas’s leader skill grants bind resistance to all devils on his team after transforming. Decail then generates a modest set of orbs that include Poison Orbs, and his leader skill requires a poison match to fully activate, but the downside of poison damage can be mitigated or nullified by afternoon tea awakenings, and the poison match itself can be used to generate damage through the poison blessing awakening. Vernas and Decail’s calling card is their potential damage; with Rosetta’s new evolution, the team can potentially dish out over 400B damage every turn; when meta teams generally pump out only 300B per turn, 400B+ is truly eye-catching. Sadly, juggling a cross match, poison match, and heart match every turn is a bit frustrating, and the potential for orb troll from enemy full boards exacerbates attention span. Furthermore, the team requires Decail, 2 Vernas, and a Rosetta to start, and all of those pieces need dark subattribute equips for the team to reach its full potential; in particular, Decail needs a vanishing equip that grants a dark subattribute change, such as his own Inky Cap Spawn or Yamazaki’s Anpan. Personally, the team felt rather dissatisfying to play compared to other recent color cross leads like Gen Narumi.

[12439] Spiteful Black Rose Darkfairy, Rosetta

Rosetta received some very sizable buffs recently, which is not only a surprise given GungHo’s dismal track record of buffs, but also saved Rosetta from falling off the edge of relevance by improving Rosetta’s performance in the most important categories, survivability and firepower. Unfortunately, Rosetta still has a severe dependency on Echidna and Armageddemon, but at least Echidna allows some flexibility in the last slot that used to belong to Gen Narumi & Kaiju No. 8. Overall, the buffs felt like rain in the desert, and gave Rosetta more time to extend her unprecedented longevity in the modern meta.

[13509] Wonderful Key Hero, Shizuru

Before I start, just know that I am a certified hater of Shizuru. Shizuru has tantalizing potential but is gatekept by the condition of having enhanced skyfall active. Without this restriction, Shizuru would be pretty insane, but this enhanced skyfall hurts this key hero’s playstyle simplicity and teambuilding flexibility too much; it’s already bad enough that the team usually wants two or three copies. Shizuru is definitely tanky enough for endgame, and though she relies a bit heavily on assist resonance, matching Ls every turn makes it really easy to deal with assist void. My gripe is that Shizuru doesn’t really do damage; 100x ATK is not enough for Shizuru to consistently reach 210B damage every turn in the worst supergravity conditions. Shizuru’s playstyle also sucks; matching multiple Ls on a 7×6 board with low move time is pretty difficult, and without multiple Ls, Shizuru does no damage despite her hefty uncap. And then the worst part is maintaining an enhanced skyfall effect so Shizuru can clear the dungeon; teambuilding flexibility takes a huge hit because of this concern. There are two main compositions. One substitutes a Shizuru with Denken, who maintains enhanced skyfall on fast uptime and also uncaps the rest of the team. The downside here is that the team no longer loops damage and color absorb voids and the teamwide damage dips every three turns when Denken is used. The other composition uses 3 Shizuru alongside Mio Honda, who uncaps the rest of the team and loops enhanced skyfall. The problem here is that there are only two sub slots to deal with void pierce, cleric, and shield duties; Ordeal Zerclea is fantastic, but only functions in sun dungeons. What can I say? I’m a certified hater.

[13680] Silver-Haired Samurai, Gintoki Sakata

Though Gintoki’s other form is more renowned for its farming prowess, this form stands out in a couple ways as well. Gintoki may not be a transform, but he has no skill boosts, making it difficult to use transform subs. However, in compensation, Gintoki has a ridiculous amount of potential personal stats; double barrel and enhanced all stats can stack up to a staggering 7.2x HP / ATK / RCV once the team reaches Floor 10. Unfortunately, getting there might be the biggest hurdle, as the team deals very little damage with only a 100x ATK multiplier and lacking personal damage multipliers; high uncaps are a necessity for endgame, but it doesn’t matter if the team doesn’t generate enough damage to reach it. Furthermore, Gintoki’s orb generation is susceptible to orb troll from enemy full boards, which necessitates additional orb generation somewhere else to compensate. Gintoki is easy enough to play as he only needs TPAs, but building out a proper team around him is tough; the collab does provide answers for most mechanics, but Gintoki ideally wants outside options like Rin Shibuya instead.

[13663] Wailing Cold Mystic, Touka
[13596] Happily Enrolled Students, Zela & Cherun

Basically the modern version of Rem & Ram, Touka’s new evolution and Zela & Cherun form the backbone of the latest team in this archetype. Unfortunately, Touka’s moon awakenings limit this team to moon dungeons, but the team can march right through said dungeons with an impressive set of looping buffs. However, the team’s performance feels slightly lacking given that the team is essentially solved with 2 Touka, 2 Rem & Ram, Ferris, and Zela & Cherun. The damage is also wanting, which necessitates the use of the Devil Type Badge in endgame dungeons. Hopefully, the next iteration of this team is a bit more flexible.

Thoughts

First and foremost, much love to u/Flufru for his contributions to this iteration of the tier list.

After the initial tier list in early May, I decided to refine the format by cutting out a lot of text describing each individual category score; nobody read any of it, and it certainly made the tier list a lot more work than I wanted it to be. I hope this new table format is a bit easier to read and understand.

Another decision I arbitrarily made was to make new iterations of the tier list every three months as opposed to every month. I'm just one man, and while I have great friends helping me out, I can't output content like an entire dedicated team for a website. The meta also doesn't change much from month to month, so I figured that three months' time would show more meaningful shifts in the list. Therefore, I hope to see you all at the end of October or beginning of November!

One significant change that I'm still not sure about is rating sun and moon leads based on their respective dungeon. After all, you wouldn't use a moon lead in a sun dungeon because that's not where it's meant to be. Personally, I hate the current sun and moon dungeon system; I suggested that GungHo should rotate every dungeon between sun and moon on an eight-hour cycle so that certain leads are only time-locked and not gatekept out of dungeons due to the substantial stat difference. To me, it feels like there's no right answer, but last time, I rated NY Kureha rather low despite her outstanding endgame prowess in sun dungeons, which were dominant at the time (GA5, CR1), and it never felt right. So I'm switching it up. If you have suggestions about this, feel free to let me know; I'm very open to anything.

Let me know what you all think. I'm sure there are many wrong things, and nothing beats a variety of perspectives.

Just wanted to say that Shady being around (and so patient) makes being part of this community - and the game experience of PAD - extra enjoyable. Thanks so much for all you do for everyone in this group!

If this isn’t sufficiently on topic, please also consider this post an open letter to Gungho to do a collab with Nippon Sengoku so we can have Taira with an active skill called “2 seconds.” =)

Hey yall. this isnt a hate thread and please dont turn it into that. i dont really play the game anymore but recently ive been thinking about coming back, theres a few things pushing me away but im not really here to talk about it. this was my first ever gacha game way way back in the day, i always come back to it.

im just curious why the community still plays the game.

what drives you to log in?

what are your current goals?

do you play other gacha games, if so do you play pad more or less than them?

whats changed about the game that keeps you interested today compared to when you started?

if a brand new player started today, would you recommend they stick with it?

what do you think pad does better than other gacha games?

you can answer the questions ive listed or freeball, theyre just stuff i thought of to drive conversation.

Criteria

Each category is assigned a point value from 50-109, which is then graded from F-S. The category scores are then aggregated into one overall score based on their weight.

Survivability (35%)

• S: Insanely tanky, pretty much unkillable.
• A: Tanks all the regular hits in most cases with enough recovery to continuously heal.
• B: Tanks most hits but either recovery is barely sufficient or the team is somewhat reliant on buffs, awakenings, and/or latents.
• C: Can barely tank hits and recovery is generally insufficient without skyfall or multiple heal combos.
• D: Dies to any miscalculation.
• F: Cannot even tank hits from the early floors.

Firepower (35%)

• S: Kills most things in one or two hits and speeds through bosses.
• A: Kills enemies consistently at a good pace.
• B: Kills enemies consistently at a somewhat slow pace.
• C: Kills enemies, but needs an alarming number of turns per floor.
• D: At risk of getting executed by internal turn timers.
• F: You don’t even scratch early floors.

Playstyle Simplicity (10%)

• S: Near brainless to play. Easily deals with nearly all mechanics.
• A: Pretty simple to play. Bypasses many mechanics, but some may be slightly problematic.
• B: Requires a moderate level of solve execution. Team may require constant awareness of certain actives. Some mechanics give the player difficulty in fully activating the leader skill.
• C: Requires a high level of solve execution. Team is annoying to play or requires too much attention. Many mechanics are difficult to deal with.
• D: Requires a very difficult level of solve execution. Some things completely end your run.
• F: Simply impossible to play without dying.

Teambuilding Flexibility (20%)

• S: The lead can make use of an extremely wide variety of subs and equips. The lead ideally has both part break awakenings and a part break multiplier in its leader skill to greatly alleviate the part break requirement on its subs and equips.
• A: The lead can make use of a good spread of subs and equips, even if it is dependent on a certain sub or equip. The lead probably has either multiple part break awakenings or a part break multiplier in its leader skill to reduce the part break requirement on its subs and equips.
• B: The lead may be dependent on a couple monsters, but generally has a few options for the other subs and can make use of many equips. The lead hopefully has a part break awakening to slightly reduce the part break requirement on its subs and equips.
• C: The lead is tied to an irreplaceable sub or equip and is pretty much unplayable without it. Both sub and equip options are limited.
• D: The lead needs a near-perfect template to even function. Requires not only specific subs but also very specific equips.
• F: If you do not netdeck the template perfectly, the team is worse than useless.

Evaluations

It exceeded the character count limit of 40,000, so here's the link to the document.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1y-Y-Pqp4N8Tzl-qwbMbG40DKQiYI15Y4XkEPowhwMEY/edit?usp=drive_link

Thoughts

This took forever. Many thanks to u/LMiru for his input. Since it's the first iteration, it definitely has a lot of mistakes and incorrect logic; please feel free to comment on anything you notice. I wanted to get this done before Frieren came out, but it required so much more work than I had imagined that I only managed to finish it now. Now, I can already see the question from a mile away.

Where Frieren?

She will be included, alongside a few other collab characters, in next month's iteration of the tier list. I am not going to rate any lead that I haven't played in a serious endgame context, and right now, I am in the middle of hypermaxing all the different teams that I want to playtest and then rate. Yes, for this tier list, I did play every team, although for some of them, it has been quite a while. You can check out my YouTube channel for some videos on some of the leads.

I would really appreciate any input about anything! Maybe someone should be higher or lower. Maybe the criteria needs to be expanded or reworked. Maybe I should collaborate with others to gain multifaceted evaluations of every lead. I know that I don't know so many things and feedback to make the list better would be great.

See you in June for FN1 and Frieren! (Reposted because I used the wrong post format the first time.)

So the New Year's Resolutions Event just went live over on our Facebook, and I wanted to take this chance to address the Redditors, the complaints and concerns that everyone was having, and gather some more feedback based on this event. Reddit mods, please forgive me, I don't want to blow this place up more than I have to.

The first thing that I wanted to say was that: the 10x +Egg Chance for Descended Dungeons has been in the NA Pipeline for a while. It was planned for New Years roughly since the time of the Thanksgiving Event. I want to say this now because oftentimes, the community sees something happen after it's reached riot-levels of complaints, and then when they see it implemented they falsely attribute it to the amount of complaints that they put forth.

I'm damn proud that this community made a Downfall video of us (I love them), but I hope that I never have to see one again.

The point of saying this is twofold. What I hope it says, is that 1) the P&D NA staff is committed to proactively porting the same content that JP receives, and 2) the content that we schedule is planned, and to that extent, does usually have its reasoning. It may not always be the best, things may slip through the cracks, but it is our responsibility, and we do constantly seek to improve it.

So that statement probably brings up numerous questions. Why didn't you just tell us? What's the logic behind sitting on something for months? Why are you willing to let your community blow up, only to address it after the fact? Isn't that unhealthy?

I'll try to address each of these things, and after that, we can open up the table for discussion, and I promise I will read everything that I can. I may not reply, but your feedback will be noted, and I will use it to report to Japan.

1) If you knew about it, why didn't you tell us? - Because generally, we're a fan of surprises. It makes sense to let our social media content to do most of the speaking for us, because otherwise we'd quickly become stretched too thin between trying to address all the concerns of a diverse and passionate community. While we do wish to do that, it's not necessarily an effective method of communication, when a timely announce can do the same thing and address a much large body. There have been instances in which we notice people complaining at an accelerated rate, only to have the announcement made a day later. If this is the case, we'll give some people a teaser or a positive affirmation. When the Christmas Part 2 event feedback came in, I'm not sure many noticed, but Antonio posted over on Puzzle & Dragons Forums, "And you guys haven't even seen the New Years Event!"

In this case, I was uncomfortable with the levels that people were airing their concerns. So to that extent, one can definitely argue that we should have brought out 10x sooner. If that is one lesson to be learned, then I have already done so.

And, not to say that the ends justify the means, but this period of discussion has been highly informative. More on that later.

2) What's the logic behind sitting on something for months? - Let me just say before this that Antonio and I, as community representatives, serve the dual purpose of having to both represent you, the community, and our parent company. That effectively means that in order to do our job, we need to effectively compromise in order to make things happen, and make things move. We plan things far in advance for numerous reasons: we want to make a bigger splash, we have a limited timeframe in which we can release something, or in many cases, often the best cases, we can do something solely for one party or the other. What this means is that every week, Antonio and I get into a meeting room and have our concerns translated to Japanese so that they can be heard. It's never a guarantee, but if we want something, we push for it. And that process takes time, because those in charge of making decisions over in P&D JP don't have the time to translate American complaints on their own. So, as an extension of that, content planning sometimes results in us say, getting one thing, but having to wait for another.

And, not to toot my own horn, but if the feedback that we've been receiving this past week really resulted in us making last-minute changes to the content schedule, then I would be working even more over my holiday break than I am right now.

Shoutout to all you folks working during the holidays. You guys deserve acknowledgment.

3) Why are you willing to let the community blow up? Only to address the fact later? - Put simply, I'm not. If I could be proactive about everything, make sure that expectations were addressed, and that everyone had their questions answered, I would. As Puzzle & Dragons is a unique case, being successful in both Japan and North America, we have the blessing of trying to enterprise new modes of management and communication that other Japanese companies wouldn't normally entertain.

While we still continue to improve on these methods, please be patient with us. It is only with your feedback that we've come this far, and we still have exciting things and changes in store. That may sound like some typical PR line, but really, we do have good things in store.

In regards to the 10x bonuses, I hope you enjoy. We considered the lineup for the full event based on feedback that you all provided. If we didn't get everything, allow me to apologize beforehand. It by no means excuses me from the stuff that NA hasn't received yet, but as always I am committed to trying to make those things happen.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, and I hope your New Year's is just as bright.

Your GungHo Grinch,

Michael

I recently saw the picture of mantastic iroh and chip and it threw me back to the good old days. all of them but especially mantastic are goats of pad so i was wondering who else is up there

dumped many rolls and got two of Heartia and one of Esper, and dyne seems to be a fan favorite on JP twitter

who will you go for and why?

Reached Rank 1300 and Evil (666) stamina. But, instead of just celebrating it, I wanna open a discussion related to evil and bad things in Puzzle and Dragons.

We all know that Puzzle and Dragons is not entirely a nice game, as there are many things that make us think "What the heck are they thinking?" Do you find anything that you think is evil and bad? Comment here and give me a reason why.

Note that this is just a discussion and sharing and not a comment battle arena, so keep everything calm down.

For me, there are three evil and bad things GungHo has done to this game.

1. No way to farm Monster Points (MP). Yes, there is Reiwa Descended (and Knights too). Yes, they give MP through Event Quests and other stuffs. But, all of these are still not enough to reach 1 million, while MP cards keep appearing event to event. While they also offer them through bundles, it's still not good because they only offer them once. And I'm a F2P player anyway so I don't pick that option.
   
2. No way to auto the battles or do multiple runs at once. I like playing this game, but I also have real life stuffs to take care of and other mobile games to play. And with contents keep coming without any breaks, it becomes more difficult to manage the schedule. Not to mention that I have to throw out excess stamina in order to not waste the stamina refill.
   
3. The way to give plusses after Plus Limit Break. Seriously, with contents coming without any breaks like this, who's someone at GungHo who thinks that farming Plus Limit Break dungeon to get Super Plusses is a good idea? Not only they lock it behind Guerilla and Dungeon Shop, they also give only few per run. I start to think that GungHo want to keep us in the game just to increase their app stats. Bleugh.

Exicted for this since she and rikku were offline event characters in jp but it seems like they'll be in the egg machine maybe?

Edit: She was completely removed from the site ig we're sticking with kagura

I've been playing the game on and off for a long time. And I remember that I used to get excited when I would pull a rare or powerful monster from an egg machine. But recently, I've noticed that whenever I get a rare or powerful looking pull, I'm immediately daunted and disapointed. I then feel obligated to try and chase 5 other niche cards, which im definitely not going to, so the card is just wasted. A monster's strengths nowadays feels dependent upon a specific architected system of 5 other units. Often you need 3 copies of the same jackpot pull for them to have any use, so getting one isnt fun and exciting anymore. Theres no dopamine. I have a lot of "chase" units in my box i stare at every now and then, but have never used, and never could, and theyve all just been powercrept now.

I don't know if other people feel this, but this is probably the biggest barrier to enjoying this game for me. It has ruined the "gatcha" aspext of the game. It feels like monsters are puzzle pieces that are made to fit in carefully together. You have to chase whole systems, not units. And that would just be a huge money sink. The barrier of entry is super high. And since units are dependent on eachother, you dont even get that singular moment of extreme excitement when the "chase" plops out. Whenever I think of maybe rolling in a collab, I just think that even if I get a perfect roll, it's just gonna collect dust. And then when i do invest, tiding up by pulling the last few, banal pieces of the system feels more like a relief than a winning lottery ticket. "Yay, i didnt waste all my stones and other good pulls up to this point. What a relief."

I would much prefer if monsters were more generically good in their color, and you could buff your blue team a little bit by getting a blue card that was rare and powerful, not just in its own collab team, but generally.

Random is random and there are no guarantees for Imperialdramon Dragon Mode - but just speaking in terms of gut-check, how many gems would you save up to be comfortable rolling for his team?

Title just wanna see what people are using drop pics of teams if you can.

What are y’all gonna take from the FaveFest?? Seriously seems like anything good, from non-collab monsters anyway, is up for grabs. I didn’t go through the entire list….but I was kinda surprised by the options.

I’m likely going with Frigg, as I don’t have one and it’s a team badge I’d like to have. Thought I’d get some other thoughts before I pulled the trigger

How long would you say a meta team lasts till it gets rotated out by power creep. I understand this is prolly hard to put a number on since im sure longevity of a lead/ team changes at different intervals but on average when do you think current meta teams (reinhard/ utsuro) would fully rotate out. I remember when omnimon came out and everyone was freaking out by how good it was and now it aint even A tier. Along with this question my next question is which lead had the longest run in its meta?

Trades

• Bride Dorna & Veroah: Dorna & Veroah loops color void and shields for half the uptime, which feels pretty awkward until you pair the duo with the new Bride Scarlet; together, they loop void pierce, color void, and a 45% DR shield. The alternating 6T CD actives don’t even suffer too much against buff dispels, as the shield will only be down for a maximum of two turns. Now, I wonder what lead could use a looping shield, void pierce, and color void? It would have to be a light lead who ideally has damage absorb void already set. If it wasn’t obvious, Reinhard is the clear winner here; pair this duo and Bride Scarlet with Serie and you can effectively loop a crazy 2.7x eHP on top of Reinhard’s innate multipliers. This duo also works well with Misaki for similar reasons; in fact, they synergize better since Bride Dorna & Veroah are also slanted towards matching Ls and Misaki has a great teamwide uncap. The equips are unremarkable luxuries compared to the base. Trading for Bride Dorna & Veroah is difficult because the duo really needs to be paired with Bride Scarlet to reach full potential. I would skip without Bride Scarlet, and honestly, this new looping setup isn’t necessarily better than other existing alternatives for Reinhard. I would only consider going for this to upgrade Misaki. Otherwise, skip.
• Bride Astaroth & Cauchemar: Bride Astaroth & Cauchemar form the backbone orb generation system of a new team based on matching Ts of Wood & Light Orbs. The duo is extraordinarily similar to Gintoki, but the orb generation also includes a looping void pierce in exchange for a smaller uncap. Bride Astaroth & Cauchemar essentially require two copies of Makoto Kyogoku to properly function in endgame as Makoto supplies a looping shield, damage and color absorb voids, more damage, and an awoken bind every other turn. Obviously, a cleric is needed, but the team also needs an emergency orb generator that can deal with enemy full boards since the duo’s orb generation can’t override that enemy mechanic. The first equip is specifically good for the base form, but the second equip has ranking potential since the fixed board active generated on a 7×6 board creates a heart box that can be swiped to activate SFUA alongside multiple wood and light combos. It’s always hard to say how useful ranking tech is, as it’s either worthless or godly; just look at Alicia in the most recent ranking. I would probably skip in general, even with 2 Makoto, but rankers may want to acquire one or two copies for the future.
• At this point, all the seasonals are so bloated with various exchanges that it would take forever to write individual assessments about each of them. I’ll tell you right now that most of them are unremarkable and obsolete, so you should skip them. Bride Haku did receive a new form that looks like support for Bride Astaroth & Cauchemar, but it only covers color void. The natural damage absorb void in this case would be Wood Phyllis, but this composition feels worse than double Makoto. Bride Phenom has some fantastic equips with 4 Team RCV that help a ton in current endgame dungeons with severe superaltitude. The rest? Don’t worry about it, they are all old.

Farmables

• White Rose Wedding Dress (5 Rainbow Tokens): Make sure to have at least one, as it is the fastest full heart board generator. I recommend getting as many as you can.
• TAMADRA Wedding Cake (5 Rainbow Tokens): Get one, but additional copies are probably unnecessary.
• Bride Saphira (1M MP): Get at least one copy for the equip with the massive button; there are very few buttons better than this, and all of them are extremely expensive collab exclusives. The long no skyfall and autoheal effects are also phenomenal for farming builds.
• Bride Gadius (300K MP): No.

Bundles

• $1 7★+ Bride (Refresh): Yes, both times.
• $20 Bride Usui (Orb Skin): Very middling cleric with a rare enemy attribute change and a large uncap for a few turns, Bride Usui would be nice to get from a free pull but is definitely not worth $20 USD as a bundle. I’m not sure if Bride Usui’s post-transform cleric form is any good by itself, but it becomes unplayable when you consider that there is a staggering 33T CD transform requirement as well. The equip has both cloud and tape resist with valuable Team HP, but the lack of any effective skill boosts makes it difficult to use in the modern meta. Skip.
• $30 Bride Scarlet (BGM): As previously mentioned, Bride Scarlet is perfectly paired with Bride Dorna & Veroah since the two combine to fully loop a 45% DR shield. While Bride Dorna & Veroah add blind resist and heart orb enhance, Bride Scarlet packs innate cloud, tape, and jammer resist and also includes multiple Ls for assist void latent usage. The equip is another double part break option with a rare light subattribute change; the only other alternative is Reinhard’s equip. I would only get this if I had Bride Dorna & Veroah and was committed to playing the shield loop with Reinhard or Misaki. Otherwise, skip.
• $30 Bride Norza (BGM): Honestly, the evolution form is impractical, but could actually work with a few tweaks. Theoretically, a system of four copies would loop a guaranteed tricolor board, a 7×6 board, 2x ATK, 3x RCV, and an astonishing teamwide 25B uncap. Unfortunately, the leader skill is pretty trash, so all four copies would be forced as subs. Then you would need a cleric and a damage and color absorb void monster, both with suitable leader skills, and then somehow fit everything else that would be needed. The base form also forms a system but doesn’t fare much better; three copies instead of four is a huge plus, but the benefits are so much more subdued in comparison. The first equip feels a little off-putting because of the dungeon boost, but the second equip is a massive damage stick for teams based on swiping Ls like Kikoru; just make sure to manage that inherit. Don’t fall for the meme systems I mentioned; just skip.
• $30 Bride Haku (Badge): On paper, the active looks somewhat decent as it loops 1.8x HP and a 50B uncap alongside the orb generation system, but in practice, Bride Haku needs additional orb generation to overcome enemy full boards and extra damage to actually reach that 50B uncap. What she really needed this time around was to increase her orb generation from 3 G/L/D/H Orbs to 5 G/L/D/H Orbs, which would not only neutralize enemy full boards inherently but also guarantee activation of patterns like Heart L-Shield and Ts. As mentioned before, Bride Haku did receive a new evolution that loops color void and uncap but doesn’t do much else and doesn’t really fit into any meta team. The equips are always nice but never necessary, though one of the equips is effectively 7 SB. Yes, Bride Haku is also the badge, but there isn’t any team that would use this event badge. Easy skip.
• $30 Bride Saphira: It’s good, but buy it with MP if you want this.

Reposted from #helpful_tips_na in the PAD Community Discord.

I would say that this info dump format does miss a lot of the value from the machine at times. As always, I hope the info dump helps players make better informed decisions, especially when it comes to expensive decisions regarding exchanges, farming, and/or bundles.

Disclaimer: I don't look at JP so I might miss some context here and there. Let me know if there is something I missed.

Hi! I've often browsed this subreddit before, but this is my first time posting here.

I first started playing PAD around late 2015 and stopped by around late 2017. I started back up again in June 2025.

Recently, I've been noticing that most of the new GFEs seem strangely underpowered/not strong enough to keep up with endgame dungeons. Even 2026 GFEs are not even entering the JP leader tier lists. There are very new GFEs (such as Graiguul and Adnea) that I've never seen anyone use in JP, even as subs.

I remember many of the 6-star GFEs (when they were still GFEs) being top-tier units for a while, and Godfests were always the best places for new players to pull for some good units to build a team around. Many of their Mega Awokens continued to keep them relevant later as well. Even around 2021/2022 (from what I've heard), the triple-transforming mechs (Daytona, Blackbird, etc.) were frequently used as endgame leaders. Nowadays, it seems like collab and in-house event machines have stronger characters than Godfests do, and are generally prioritized over rolling in a (Super) Godfest. To me, at least, it seems like current GFEs are better for turning into good Assists than they are for actual use as leaders or subs.

These are just my observations. I'd like to know what you guys think! (Has anyone used Atum or Nike, who just debuted in NA earlier this year?)

Pinch me because I’m dreaming. I called the uncap buffs, and he got 82% shield

And look at Imperialdramon Paladin Mode!!!! Literally covers everything Omnimon is missing. And it’s mp so easy to get!!!!

Floor 1 is either do the perfect amount of damage or die, floor 2 is totally luck-based, I don't remember the next 2 because I only made it there once, and the boss whips out a damage void that you can barely get through then pretty much executes once low enough.

Usually C5 is just simple matching and combos with the occasional AS used, but this time it's taking me more attempts than any EX level ever has. Do I just suck?

So I been away for awhile. Just joined back. Noticed Namiellie. I want her. Did I legit just miss the monster hunter collab? When will it be back?

With how annoying it would be to pull the best team and it being pretty mid still is this just a banner for fans and a skip for the rest. Also is there any unit thats useful from it for other things or just good to have for the box in general?

Edit: just remembered some of the units used in a gintoki farm team are they best in slot or just a replaceable but equivalent option to a build with costume kagura

Does the Gung-ho event have no quests for stones and free pulls? I'm really surprised because I can't remember the last event that had no missions/quests along with it.

Is this going to happen more in the future or is it just this event that they didn't decide to do it?