[ml1201]

Sorry, I don't. ^^;

[Demonskid]

Ammy seems to be doing good so far.

If she doesn't make it, I might change Angel out for Echidna on my Odin team. That time delay might help me out. she just wont get any boost

[ml1201]

My friend keeps saying Echidna is weak, and I'm like ".-. What you talking about?" I don't know if she understands how to use her properly. ^^;

[Demonskid]

prolly not. its her Skill that makes her awesome.

Ammy's team failed. Dx near the end Zeus used a multi hitting skill. ;n;

-adds echidna to her Odin team- *n*

I need to skill up Echidna ._., need to find a good place to farm her.. she never drops in normal dungeons for me

[Coda]

Echidna IS weak. Her ATK is solid but it's not amazing enough to stand on its own, and she doesn't bring any useful awakenings to the table. And building a good Fire-element Healer team is difficult (though not as hard as it used to be). Her active skill is her ONLY redeeming feature on a Healer team. (If you go for an untyped Fire team, though, she's in the top four RCV stat sticks, only falling behind Samba Ruby Dragon, Gadius, and Valkyrie Femme. THAT'S a useful niche for her, but untyped teams can face spike damage and leader availability issues.)

[Demonskid]

Dk hates invades 3:<

edit:

3 invades in a ROW! Dx 3!!! If i use a skill on her, i screw my chance at zeus.. if I don't use a skill on her... i still get screwed out of zeus cause she kills me =o= i need green jewels anyway 3:< red invades go away!

[nickjr]

ML, is that friend the one that started PAD recently? Tell her that Echidna's weak only when you get further into the game LOL

For those who are still in the early part of PAD, Echidna's skill is great--to the point where sometimes, you can just shove her in to a team that she has 0 synergy with, and you will get great results.

Too bad that doesn't really work after early game xD

@Coda I disagree; with the monsters that GH has been rolling out over the past year or so, mono-color teams have become very strong and often win out over type-based teams because type-based teams will have that additional restriction (typing) in addition to trying to stay monocolor or bicolor (rainbow type-based teams can't pack enough power with the multipliers on type-based leaders and monocolor leaders since your orb-changing options will be kinda limited and you can't take nearly as much advantage of row enhances, etc as you can with monocolor/bicolor/even tricolor teams, so rainbow type-based teams need the rainbow leaders' multipliers to hit hard). Both are great, though, and which one(s) you run depends on your box, of course.

[Coda]

The main problem with untyped teams is the lack of spike damage actives. Effects like "3xATK to Fire for 1 turn" just don't exist like they do for non-God non-Dragon types. And even God and Dragon can pull 2.5xATK. The highest color-based spike actives go is 2xATK and those are on subpar monsters; you can get 2xATK or even 2.5xATK for typed monsters on monsters that won't weigh your team down.

Sure, there are plenty of leaders that offer even as high as a flat 3xATK to untyped monocolor teams, sometimes even with 1.5x or 2x bonuses to other stats or other effects. The starter uvos fall into this category. But sadly flat 3xATK simply ISN'T COMPETITIVE anymore. The new norm for leaders is flat 3.5xATK or conditional 6xATK, or higher. (I barely use any of my other teams now that I've got a 4xATK leader. It really does make THAT MUCH of a difference.) Monocolor untyped teams simply have fewer choices than typed teams at that power level and they all have drawbacks that impact one's ability to properly sweep with them.

And this is intentional -- it's just like you said, untyped teams derive power from their larger pool of available subs. Typed teams derive power from having better leader skills and stronger spike actives. And unfortunately for untyped teams, typed subs are still easy enough to come by that typed teams are in general stronger.

There is ONE monster coming up that will be able to provide spike damage for untyped teams: Facet. Her active is a one-turn ATK bonus based on the number of TPA awakenings in your team (+0.3x for each TPA). That is UTTERLY RIDICULOUS. Unfortunately, if you're building a TPA team, that cuts down your untyped leader selection even further -- at least half of the untyped color leaders have match-size-based multipliers that rule out TPA.

[nickjr]

Except you also need to take the other stat boosts into consideration. Dark Izanami is awesome for a farmable mon and that 4x attack is great but she's effectively a 0.87/16/1.54 (+3k autoheal) leader (with two max-skill DIza leads; I looked back because I remember that you posted your DIza team, but I apparently keep skipping over it... can't find it) that can handle gravities nicely. A team of 6 monsters with 6000 raw HP each has an effective 31k HP...

3x attack plus other stat boosts are competitive; see Verdandi and the other two Norns, but especially Verdandi. Why are you referring to the starter dragons? For all that I enjoy watching people clear descendeds and other tough dungeons with starter dragon leads, you would need to have incredibly crappy luck with the REM or have made almost no REM pulls or have to face a very restrictive (technically or effectively) dungeon if your best team has a starter dragon leader...

Sweeping usually shouldn't be a problem; recent mono-color teams have been packing enough row enhances to make sweeping easy and they are also able to stall with higher HP, because tanky teams are making a comeback (although grindy teams aren't lol). Mono-color teams have competitive leads with 2x hp and 2.5x atk or 2.5x atk and 2.5x rcv, which can be paired to make 4/6.25/1 or 1/6.25/6.25 or 2/6.25/2.5 teams, with the latter easily reaching over 40k hp unless you're running a bunch of healer or attacker subs or something--and the low 6.25x attack is often made up with row enhances. Then there are teams like Sumire or Tsubaki or Awoken Tsukuyomi with the match-5-with-one-enhanced mechanic; they aren't type-bound and they can put out great damage (I feel like there's something wrong with this example, but I can't figure out what, so I'm gonna leave it here).

Type-based teams and mono-color teams tend to overlap a lot, which means a lot of mono-color teams can use type-based bursts (looking at you, dark row devils and fire attackers). Recent leads are also getting two-part leader skills that incorporate both type-based and mono-color boosts (Awoken Pandora, Awoken FA Luci, Blonia and Gronia uvos). I was going to type why I decided to say that, but I forgot what I wanted to say. But I didn't want to leave it out lol

Also:
"Effects like "3xATK to Fire for 1 turn" just don't exist"
But we have stuff like "2x attack to fire for 2 turns"--and on non-GFEs, to boot
While sometimes this isn't enough, this and the existence of the 2x hp (+ other things) leads mentioned earlier do mean that these actives can't really be directly compared

"at least half of the untyped color leaders have match-size-based multipliers that rule out TPA"
But the remaining half is still pretty big.

But Facet sucks (for now) because if you put her in a TPA team, it's probably not gonna be a team that gives Facet a boost so that she's not dead weight outside of her active. Light TPA teams are basically Athena, Light Valk, and Kanna--none of whom will boost Facet. Balanced TPA teams (the ones that exist, at least) are mostly green--notably Bastet (whose team ends up being half attacker usually) and Verdandi.
Maybe Light Izanami teams once she comes over to NA, but that's exactly one team--albeit a potentially really nice team with a farmable lead.
LD Izanagi teams would have the same problem as Athena, Light Valk, and Kanna teams--that the leader doesn't boost Facet's damage. On top of that, he has that >80% HP restriction.

I can feel that there's something very wrong with my post lol but after rereading this several times over I can't figure out what it is and I really don't feel like not posting it xD

[Demonskid]

DK wants Orochi ono

Your guys' wall of text scare dk o3o

nyahaha! 3 zeus, evo'd valk! 2 more zeus to go and I should be good o3o

edit: 4 zeus now. one more to go then i go after 2 tengu and another Goemon. *n*

[Illusion]

*Notices your friends are too deep into the mechanics of PAD*

o.o....

[Demonskid]

-pets illu- o3o dk isn't smart enough to understand what they're talking about. do you understand?

>:3 Sparx might join us soon! muwahahahaha

[Coda]

I bring up the starter dragons because they're extremely easy to get and pack 3xATK and a RCV boost. This is your bare minimum. If your leader skill isn't at least as good as a starter dragon's, you suck.

The Norns are, if you will, the exception that proves the rule -- and they're 3.5xATK, not 3x. They're highly valued monsters SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE they're among the VERY FEW leaders that bring untyped 3.5xATK. If there were more leaders that provided such, the Norns wouldn't be so prized.

Match-5-with-enhanced is a terrible mechanic. It disables both TPA AND rows (except in 5x4 dungeons), and the leader skills that provide it don't grant it enough of a damage bonus to make up for it -- compare Sumire (REM rare) at 4.5x with five orbs to Light Twin Star Divinegon (event reward) easily hitting over 4.8x with six orbs or Athena (farmable) at 6.75x with four.

Awoken Pandora and similar are NOT amazing untyped leaders. As a row enhance leader, she's effectively only 3x unless it's a mono-devil team, not 4x. You can't do three rows and still trigger the full power of her leader skill, and two rows requires 16 orbs instead of 12. So unless you're running a typed team anyway, she's PROBABLY better as a sub.

I was slightly wrong when I specified Facet individually; her entire series counts and I just hadn't looked at the others yet. Okame for example provides that buff based on wood and dark rows, making her a great sub under Verdandi with green Sonia as another sub.

[Demonskid]

-stares at Coda's wall of text- o3o Athena with Divinigon, thats the team build you made for dk ouo

[Coda]

In this discussion, those are two alternatives for the leader slot, not members of a single team. :P Divinegon actually kinda sucks as a leader but it was a point of illustration of a weak monster providing a stronger multiplier.

[Demonskid]

Ahh.. o3o i just found it interesting you listed those 2.

-tries to get her tengu team ready but realizes she evo'd one- =o= archie..

YES I GIVE MY MON'S NICKNAMES D8<

edit: 5th Zeus caught, tomorrow i go after Tengu *n* then after i get 2-3 of those I'll go after 1 or 2 more Goemon