In-Depth Analysis: Christmas Gacha

Introduction
The Christmas seasonal gacha returns with some interesting new additions and changes. Most notably, all the silver rolls have been removed from the machine and added as rare invades to the dungeon instead. This turns the Christmas REM from literal excrement into something actually passable. Some of the old higher-end rolls have been given access to the upcoming Super Awakening mechanic (which grants the card an extra awakening, chosen from a small pool) in an attempt to revitalize them a bit; however, Super Awakening is a solidly late-game mechanic and most players will realistically not stand to gain much from these updates. There are several new cards as well, of varying power. The end result is that this machine isn't quite as much of a trashfest as it used to be.

Historically speaking, seasonal REMs have always been at least pretty bad. Beach REM was probably the best reversal of this trend, as the best rolls there were absolutely spectacular; the changes to this machine are a step in the same direction. Sadly, this isn't well reflected in the 5-stars, which have approximately 75% rates and are still that perfect GungHo combination of cute and forgettable. They have, though, attempted to make the higher-end rolls somewhat worthwhile in the circumstance that you somehow do get one in the midst of all your Freyjas. In our opinion, though, even the best rolls are luxuries and the rates are simply not good enough for this machine to be worthwhile for most players.

We've included some JP roll data from Skyozora in the table below, with about 3500 rolls at the time of writing. For your convenience, we'll also start including this information in the future for REMs that already have meaningful roll data.

Review: Greco-Roman 3 Pantheon

Introduction

Due to the relative simplicity of these cards, this review will be a bit shorter than the last. (Review length will unsurprisingly be proportional to the nuance of the cards reviewed.)

The Greco-Roman 3 pantheon is generally quite good but slightly mixed. As a whole, these cards serve to advance power creep and further cement our current combo-focused meta, largely via the addition of Cronus and Uranus into our subpools. Hestia is a fairly unique red sub and a shiny new FUA option, perhaps comparable to a differently focused Glavenus. Tethys and Astraea are the least broadly applicable, though they can still find homes on a handful of teams (and have some nice art as well). The useful rolls (Cronus, Uranus, and Hestia) are luxury cards, not essentials, and should be thought of as such.

Two general things to note about Greco-Roman 3:

• This is a 6-star pantheon. The cards come in 6-star forms with awakenings already available and immediately able to undergo Ultimate Evolution. The data is unclear about whether 5-star pantheons and 6-star pantheons have the same rates in the normal unmodified REM, but it has been shown repeatedly that 5- and 6-star pantheons have the same rates when featured in a Godfest. Outside of typical GungHo desire sensor nonsense, you do not have to worry about these cards being statistically harder to roll than any 5-star pantheon card.
• Additionally, this is a pantheon with Awoken evolutions only. This means the unevolved base form has a different skill than the evolved Awoken form. We'll go through the skills of both the base and evolved forms later on in this review. All of the cards have completely parallel actives with identical effects and cooldowns, differing only in the colors of orbs produced.

irinya's notes: Kiri Teambuilding in December Challenges 8-10

Since Kiri is probably my new favorite card in all of PAD, I thought I'd showcase some ways to use her. Today she'll take on Challenges 8, 9, and 10. These are challenging dungeons for most players (especially Challenge 10) but can all be done quite straightforwardly by ignoring most of the hits. These builds are designed to use a reasonable mix of farmables and REM, and typically do not require huge REM investment. I won't cover C7 and below in this post since if you are at a place to think about the final three of the set, C7 and below are probably not difficult.

Keep in mind that I don't necessarily think this is the best way to approach these challenges, and certainly not a preferable one if you wish to farm them. I present these builds to demonstrate what Kiri can do and give examples of cheese-style teambuilding. That said, I wholeheartedly encourage you to use her if you so desire!

Jump to: [ General | Challenge 8 | Challenge 9 | Challenge 10 ]

In-Depth Analysis: Dragonbound/Dragon Caller Machine

Introduction
The long-awaited DBDC is finally here. It's amusing that this is the blog's first post and first REM review, as pretty much every special REM we receive in the future will be worse than this one -- all downhill from here, apparently! This machine is littered with great cards that excel in their niches, with very few mediocre rolls and just one "bad" card. In particular, Li and Kiri are the treasures of an already stacked machine. Li is our first inheritable leader swap, a completely gamechanging mechanic that is discussed more below. Kiri has incredible and unique potential as a sub, lead, or assist, something that is not true of almost any other card in the game.

(No, we didn't forget about Ideal. For most players, Ideal is a luxury -- a gorgeous powerhouse of a luxury, but still a luxury. She is not the true prize of this machine.)

DBDC also features some of the most interestingly designed cards that I've ever seen GungHo attempt, and huge props to them for this. Tardis and Kiri in particular really caught our eye as having creative and well-designed combinations of leader skill, active skill, and awakenings. The machine offers novelty, but it's good novelty, and quite honestly, that almost makes us as happy as the quality of the machine itself.

Even though it is a 10-stone REM, players of all skill and progression levels should be aiming to do several pulls in DBDC, as it is just that good. Farmers will also appreciate what it has to offer, and both of us will be dumping quite a few rolls into the machine.

Note that none of the Neys are in this review as they are already available from the standard REM. It's honestly kind of annoying that any Ney can be rolled at all, both because she is normally available and because she is straight-up worse than almost every other roll. The ultimate troll diamond.