Team Building

Team building, in the beginning, is not very complicated. One can easily slap on the starter roll, grab a few friends and grind off to the end of normal dungeons, but the exact same team would not fare too well against the mechanics in the later technical dungeons and descends, where team building is mostly about.

This giant wall of text down below will provide you a lot of information on how dungeon mechanics, active skills and awoken skills interact with each other. It is a lot of information to process so do not try to digest it all at once but instead take them in slowly, and I’m sure this info will help you in the future.

Hi this is Cate, and below is me after writing this. Find me at PADX or P&D Community Discord @ケート#0409, feedback and suggestions are welcome. Let me know if I missed anything!

Special Thanks to Cat, chu, izaya, Ken, nhanagon,  Reni, Girthzilla, PadSiuBao, Requiem and

    ⎛　 ●　　ω　　●　　　　⎞（°◇°*）for helping out

Easy Team Building Steps

Step 1: Research your box

The first thing everyone should do when making a new team is to know what the cards in your box do. Look up what the cards you’ve rolled have to offer in each branch of evolution. Check their leader skills, active skills, awoken skills, and then perhaps stat distribution if your memory can hold that much information. It would be best if you even look up the farmable cards that are easily obtainable for you as they may become useful.

Step 2: Research the dungeon

Having a dungeon that you want to beat is the best way to go about team building. While it is true that a good team can beat many dungeons without having to be modified, most teams cannot do the same and it certainly isn’t true when it comes to harder dungeons. 

Know the spawns, get familiar with the mechanics. Maybe this dungeon has a lot of Dragon type spawns, so Dragon killer would be good here and you should think back to your box on what cards have Dragon killers. Perhaps this dungeon has movement time reduce debuff and you can’t perform well. Then it’s best for you to think about running a sub that brings more extend time awakenings or maybe a sub with an active skill to cancel the debuff with.

Step 3: Theorycraft

Check if everything looks right on paper. If the dungeon has combo shield, can you easily get past that? Check it off. Does the dungeon have resolve and do you have follow up attack? Check it off. Need your skill up by boss floor? Do you have enough skill boosts and/or a floor where you can stall? Check it off. Make a checklist and just check off all the mechanics that you are prepared against. If everything on paper seems to work out, then it’s time to test out the team.  

Step 4: Trial and Error

It’s easy to make mistakes in team building, and once you have actually attempted to run the team the problems will definitely come up. After you run the team many more times you will definitely notice that there are things that can be improved by adjusting the team. It can be latents, it can be an inherit, or it can be a sub. Whichever it is, you should be able to tell yourself that “making this adjustment will make my team better or more consistent because it makes a certain spawn much easier without making much tradeoffs.” 

Dungeon Mechanics and Solutions

Since this is frequently asked, I would like to address the issue with players asking about a “general team”. Before you start thinking about building a “general team” realize that a “general team” means that this team can clear numerous dungeons, meaning that it deals with all the mechanics that these dungeons will offer. Without knowing how mechanics work, you will definitely not be able to do make a team like that. So start by taking baby steps, build a team for a dungeon first and as you tackle different content, you will begin to realize whether your team requires changes or not.

High Defense: 

Spawns with high defense will require you to do higher amounts of damage than the spawn’s amount of defense. However, mechanics such as true damage, poison and gravity will not be affected by defense, so you can easily take care of low HP high defense spawns with true damage or poison actives. You can also use defense break active or awakening to do pure damage to the spawn, or you can use a burst active so that your damage is over the defense amount.

Gravity:

Gravity is usually not a problem for most teams, but for teams with low RCV, you may want to find a way to recover from it. For Gravities with a value of 100% you will need an att. resistance awakening/latent in order to survive, and for gravities with a value more than 100% you may need some combination of shield from leader skill and active skills to survive.

Preemptive Strike: 

Preemptive Strikes sometimes can hit very hard. To play around this mechanic, you can bring a shield active. If the hit is a single hit damage then a resolve leader skill can take care of it. Simply by having more HP is also an option, this can be done by switching subs out for ones that have higher HP or you can use HP badge. Another option is bringing resist awakening/latent.

Execute:

There are numerous types of execute out there and each of them can be triggered differently. Some can be triggered by board state. Leaving a jammer, poison or mortal poison on the board may trigger an execute. Other spawns execute after a predetermined number of turns. Some can be triggered by HP level. Below a certain hp threshold, some spawns will do their execute. The execute also comes in different ways, there can be single hit, multi-hit. It can also come alongside a gravity, buff cancel or awoken skill bind. Knowing the right way to prevent execute or having a way to nullify it will be crucial to team building.

Bind:

Binds can come in several variations: bind a certain att., bind a certain type, bind leaders, bind random subs. What’s most important is that you shouldn’t let your main survival source be binded. Perhaps your leader has an HP multiplier built in or has conditional shields that are important to keep up. There are a few ways to deal with this mechanic You can use the unbind awakening, you can run unbindable cards, you can use unbinding active skills. Some other options are to use a delay or shield active to stall out the bind duration. It’s important that if you choose to use active skills, the cards having these active skills are unbindable or not a target of the bind or else they can get bound. You can also use the unbindable badge, just note that it only applies to your leader.

Skill Bind:

To prevent active skills from being bound, you only need a total of 5 skill bind resist (sbr) awakenings (each awakening gives 20% skill bind resist). However, do note that if a card with skill bind resist gets bound and a skill bind came right after, there will be a chance of your active skills being bound if your remaining cards do not give 100% skill bind resist. You can also run the skill bind resist badge (50% sbr) if you want to be extra sure that this does not happen. 

Awoken Skill Bind: 

This mechanic can be dealt with by either stalling it out or using an awoken unbind skill. It is very hard to stall the bind out without any awakenings so it’s recommended to have awoken unbind active skill when this mechanic is present. Also note that when your cards have their awoken skills bound, they will be prone to other types of bind as well.

Status Shield: 

Status shield will prevent several active skills from working. Namely poison, reduce DEF and delay. Note that the def break awakening will still work. As a side note status shield does not last forever, and some spawns do not activate it until a certain condition is met. The spawn can still be delayed as long as the mechanic is not present, but the spawn can clear reduce DEF and poison by activating status shield.

Time Movement Reduction:

This type of mechanic can be bypassed by using a movement time increase active, move orbs freely for X seconds active, fixed orb move time at 4 sec leader skill, increase orb movement time leader skill or by simply running more extend time awakenings. You can also just ignore this mechanic if you’re skilled enough.

Damage Reduction: 

Damage reduction reduces the damage received from all sources except gravity or true damage. It is good to know that you can still rely on gravity or burst if your team cannot output so much damage. If that cannot be done then you can also stall out the duration with delay or shield actives.

Absorb Att.: 

The easiest way to avoid this mechanic is by using an active that bypasses the absorb att. Shield. However the amount of cards that have this type of active is very scarce, and most players will not have access to it. Remember there are still numerous way to bypass this mechanic. You can build your team to not have a certain color so the att. absorb will have no effect, or you can build your team to have the sub att. line up at the end and do enough damage to kill it (note that the attack order is main attack from left to right and then sub attack from left to right). You can also delay and stall out the absorb shield, or if the spawn is weak enough you can just use a nuke active to kill it.

Resolve: 

Spawns with this mechanic generally come with a moveset that kills you if you leave it with very low HP, but not always. It’s best to check if it’s safe to just ignore the resolve. This mechanic prevents spawns from dying on a turn when its HP is above a certain threshold, and so the easiest way to kill it is just make use of bonus attack or super bonus attack awakening. Another way to bypass this is by using a delay or poison active, or you can drop it under the HP threshold with gravity or nuke active. The hardest way to tackle this mechanic is by damage controlling. While no skyfall style leader skill does this perfectly well, other leaders may have a problem with it depending on RNG. However, I would still recommend learning how to do it if you’re using a no skyfall style leader because bonus attack awakening requires heart orbs and they are not always present. There are also rare cases where you can use counter active skill to return damage after it’s left with 1 HP. Note that this will only work if you can survive the damage from the rage hit though.

Att. Resist:

Reduces damage taken from an Att. by certain amount (usually around 30%~50%), this amount may vary. May need burst or gravity if your damage is low.

Type Resist:

Reduce damage from cards that have a certain typing, currently this shield is only available in 50% as of now. More variance may be introduced, but just like Att. Resist if you need more damage you may want to consider burst or gravity.

Jammer:

Jammers reduce your damage output. Some spawns come with movesets that kill you if you don’t clear all the jammers on board. Note that Jammer will remove the enhance effect on orbs when converted, and converting it back will not return the enhanced orb effect. Having Jammer resist awakenings can bypass this. If you can resist the jammers, your enhanced orb effect won’t go away.

Poison:

Similar to Jammer orbs that it will also reduce your damage output. Most of the spawns that generate Poison orbs does it so you kill yourself by matching them. However, some spawns can punish you for not matching the Poison orbs that spawn so keep an eye out. Autoheal awakenings and Healing by matching orb style leader skills can heal you back from death if your HP drops below 0 as long as the amount healed is more than the negative HP value that matching poison orbs produces. Note Poison will also remove the enhance effect on the orb when converted, and converting it back will not return the enhanced orb effect. Having Poison resist awakenings can bypass this. If you can resist the Poisons, your enhanced orb effect won’t go away.

Lock:

Locked orbs cannot be converted into other orbs. You can utilize this mechanic to prevent spawns from changing the orbs to hazards, and you can also place a locked orb on a spinner to prevent it from changing. There are only two ways to unlock a locked orb(other than by matching it). One is by using unlock active and the other is the L attack enhance.

Bomb:

The only way to prevent bombs from spawning is to have jammer resist awakenings. If you do not match them, they will explode and destroy your board and cause you to take damage. Bomb orbs cannot be cascaded so do not try that. 

Blind:

There are two types of blind. The first kind you can move the orb and the effect will go away, but the second kind places a turn count on each orb and the blind effect will not go away until the counter reaches 0. Note that you can still check what the orb is by holding onto the orb. One way to counter blind mechanics is to use blind resistance awakenings, and another way to counter it is by using replace all orbs active. 

Buff Cancel(Dispel):

Buff cancel moves can cancel active buffs that players have used, and that includes Att. change, shield, add combo, movement time increase, burst, void Att. damage, void Att. absorb, void damage absorption, orb skyfall, mass attack and counters. Some spawns have priority on buff cancel mechanic when the player has an existing buff, and others have this effect alongside a nuke to prevent players from surviving. Sometimes it’s good to take advantage of the first case where you put up a buff as a buffer to prevent the spawn from doing another moveset that it would normally do.

Combo Shield: 

Combo Shield absorbs damage when the combo count is less than or equal to the presented number. To ensure you can achieve a combo count that can pass the threshold, you can bring extra extend time awakenings or bring add combo or extend movement time active. Another way is to bring a leader with 7×6 board leader skill. Note that gravity and nukes bypass this shield (if the spawn is weak enough, you can kill it with nukes).

Board Immobilization:

Aka the tape. The only way to prevent this mechanic is by bringing the resistance immobility awakening. It’s best to just stall out the duration of this effect as it will significantly lower your output, lowering your board to either 6×4 or 5×5, or from 7×6 to 6×6 or 7×5. Orbs that are restraint by this mechanics can still be matched, but it still significantly restricts your board setup.

Skill Delay: 

There are two ways to go against this mechanic, the first way is running skill delay resist latent awakenings, the other is to have skill delay fodder inherited. The math works as follows: if you have 3 skill boost and your card’s base skill cooldown is 1 and the inherit cooldown is 2, after a delay of 3 turn your skill would not be charged. However, if the card has 1 skill delay resist, the card will be delayed by 2 turns(3-1), so you will be able to use the skill of the base card. 

Absorb Damage: 

The spawn will absorb all damage that is higher than the threshold amount. This mechanic will also absorb nuke or gravity if their damage is larger than the threshold. You can use void damage absorption active to bypass this shield, and in conjunction with this active if you use gravity and nuke while the buff is in effect, the damage will also bypass the shield. If you do not have access to void damage absorption then the best way is to study your team’s damage and figure out a way to stay under threshold. Note that if the last attack is absorbed, the spawn will come back to life even if it was dropped to 0 HP by the attacks prior.

Void Damage: 

The mechanic will reduce the damage taken to 0 if any damage is beyond the threshold, the way to bypass this mechanic is by utilizing damage void piercer awakening. Aside from that you can always tackle the spawns by staying under the threshold. This mechanic is not as punishing as absorb damage since they will be chipped down slowly. 

Spinner: 

Spinner mechanics can have different intervals ranging from 0.5, 1 to 2 seconds. It is important to know the interval because if it’s a long gap like 2 seconds you can still make combos just fine, but with a 0.5 second interval it will be really hard to make combos and you most likely will need some sort of countermeasure. Spinners will not rotate through poison/jammer orbs, so you can sometimes make use of this mechanic to get rid of them. To stop this mechanic you can use a move orbs freely type active since the spinner will be stopped during the the entire time that the skill is in effect. You can also stop the rotation by holding onto the orb on the spinner, which will stop it from being changed. Note that locked orbs will not be changed either. 

Cloud:

Just like blind you can also hold onto an orb to see what the color is. If you have enough movement time you can also move the orb out of the cloud to check what it is then move it back in. This type of mechanic is not very common.

Damage Immunity:

This mechanic will prevent the spawn from taking any damage, by any I mean ALL damage taken will be reduced to 0. To dispel this effect the spawn will have certain condition that you will need to meet. It may be that you will have to clear other spawns on the floor, and often they have orders that you have to kill them in.

Leaders’ identity and playstyle 

The first thing you should notice about a leader is the awakening skills it has, if it has Enhanced Att. aka. Row enhance you would likely want to run cards with similar awakenings because your leader and your friend already took up ⅓ of your team, so it’s best for the rest of the team to have synergy with them. Just note that this does not apply to every leader, but for the most part it does.

Multipliers

Multipliers generally play a good portion of team building. For example a multiplier above 324× can provide a good amount of damage even without much offensive awakenings while a 49× team will have to have a team fully equipped with offensive awakening to compensate for the loss. While having high multiplier is indeed nice because you can do a lot of damage, that is not always the best case to do things, a good scaling and damage control is often needed in order to deal with different kind of mechanics that spawn have to offer.

A low multiplier range can range from 25× to 100×, the team building revolves around offensive awakening while maintaining a good balance of damage control.

  A medium multiplier range is around 100× to 400×, this range of multiplier is flexible on team building because it doesn’t have to compensate on damage so much when running easy dungeons, but when you’re running harder dungeons you still maintain flexibility to sub in cards that are offensively oriented.

Beyond 400× is generally considered a high multiplier, at this multiplier range you don’t really care about offensive awakenings in cards, you want to build your team to be able to consistently activate the leader skill because leaders that have multiplier this high generally have a very difficult activation requirement.

Note: This section is likely to change depending on the level of power creep on weighted stats and how hard the newer dungeons get. 

Consistency in Activation

Half of consistency is about how easy it is to activate the leader skill, this also goes hand in hand with survivability as many leader skill have shields that requires activation. This is a quality that is very important, the best kind of leader skill will allow you to clear spawns without assistance from active skill. Combo is the easiest activation amongst all leader skill since in order to match a combo will be made, however a regular board normally will generate around 6~8 combos and beyond that it will start to get inconsistent. Leader skills that requires a large amount of orbs in the same color face huge problem as by probability distribution it is very unlikely that you can get consistent feed of the same color of orb, that said any leader skill that require an amount more than 5 of the same color will be reliant on some other way of orb supplement. Leader skills that match multiple colors generally don’t face much problems, but if the board is not cleared thoroughly, the color that you don’t need will start piling up and eventually you will run out of the colors that you need. 

The other half of consistency is about the lower end of the multiplier, and this is important with the team’s damage spectrum. Low end multiplier is not only important on damage control, but it is also important on how efficiently can you make use of the orbs, with a good low end multiplier alongside good offensive awakening you can clear some weak spawns without having to use full activation, and this is important because it will increase the overall consistency of the team.

Survivability

There are 2 ways that a leader skill can provide survivability to a team, first is by shield and second is by having a HP multiplier. Shields are often seen in 25%, 35%, and 50% but there are a few shields that goes beyond that but they are very limited to what type of damage they block. That said 25% shields provides a pseudo 1.333× multiplier on HP, 35% shields provides a pseudo 1.538× multiplier on HP and 50% shields provides a pseudo 2× multiplier on HP. While shields are vastly common and they are easy to utilize, it is still important to know that these shields are most often conditional and if the leader skill gets binded or you fail to make the activation they will not save you. 

The other way leader skill can help you surviving is by providing a HP multiplier, this unlike shields are not conditional but it can still go away if the leaders gets binded. A weakness it has is that if leader skill only provides HP multiplier and no RCV multiplier then it can be hard to recover, shields doesn’t have this problem as they are always working with 1× HP. In this case you may want to design the team to have high RCV, use RCV badge, or make use of auto heal or enhanced heal orbs awakening to make up for it.

Another way to go at survivability is simply by using cards with high amount of HP, making use of team HP boost awakening or by using HP badge. This kind of team building definitely will not be able to achieve the same amount of effective HP as the others but you only need enough HP to survive damage, and any extra is just luxury.

To find out how damage reduction work with leader skill shield/resist and active skill shield use the formula below:

Damage Received = 

(1 – LS Shield) × (1 – Friend Shield) ×

(1 – [(#of×0.05) + (#of×0.01) + (#of×0.025)]) ×

(1 – #of ×0.05) × (1 – Active Shield)

Damage Spectrum

When people look at leader skill most of the time they only look at maximum multiplier, but minimum multiplier is just as important especially when the dungeon require you to have damage control. A low multiplier at minimum activation is usually plausible, TPA and enhanced orb awakening can also help since they do not require huge amount of combo, and that is also why combo enhance awakening are usually not a good awakening when damage control is being put in context, extra damage will be generated when matching higher combo and when board gets cleared up there are also more space for skyfall to match.

Another thing to look out for in damage spectrum is how often do you need to make a full activation, can you get by with only partial activation and still handle weak spawns with the help of offensive awakening. One way to get by with a leader skill that has a difficult activation is by using one or a few strongly offensive oriented cards that generate enough damage without having full activation.

Type of leader skills

Y× ATK for X Att.: 

Not much to this other than this will increase your minimum damage, may want to look out for damage control if the multiplier is high. Note that this type of leader skill will also affect the whole card even if the card only has the attribute from sub att.

Y× ATK for allies with both Attributes: 

Note that this is a second part of the A× ATK for B Att., C× ATK for D Att., this kind of leader skill do not stack and if the a card has both B and D Att, only Y× will apply.

Y× ATK for X Type: 

Same thing to Att. you will need to look out for damage control if it’s needed.

Inflicts a bonus attack equal to Y× ATK when matching Orbs: 

This is a type of leader skill that can sweep through a lot of low health spawns  by just matching 1 combo every floor and later on it can be used to bypass the resolve mechanics if and only if the defense of the spawn is lower than the damage being dealt.

May survive when HP is reduced to 0: 

Often referred to as “Resolve”, this type of leader skill will work very well against single hit damage that is over your HP amount, and it works the best when you can pair it with a leader skill or sub in a card that has enough auto heal awakening so that they can heal you above the trigger level.

Heals HP equal to Y× RCV when matching Orbs: 

This type of leader skill works alongside with Resolve type leader skill, it can heal you above the trigger amount so the Resolve always trigger, only works on single hit damage though. Other way to use this type of leader skill may be that your team building focus on stacking cards with high HP while sacrificing RCV, and this leader skill will take care of the low RCV problem.

Y× ATK when HP is Y% or more: 

This type of leader skill are prone to taking damage, that includes preemptive damage or just not dealing enough damage to finish off the spawn. Some newer leaders now come with a shield on top of this to prevent HP from dropping below the threshold but most don’t, when running this type of leader you should be concerned about how to recover back above the threshold without dropping under it again the following turn, you may want to consider using heal active or heal up while using a shield. For the leaders that come with shields above a certain threshold it’s important to know that if a multi-hit damage drop you below the threshold you will take full damage immediately. Offensive orientation of this type of leader skill will be dependent on the leader’s awakening. Also note for this type of leader skill the multiplier will not be active if you heal back above threshold after matching, it only activates if you start the turn while you’re above threshold.

Y× ATK when HP is less than Y%:

This type of leader skill is very hard to manage. There’re a few option to lower your HP, suicide active, taking damage or matching poison orbs. Suicide active is by far the fastest and most consistent, taking damage or matching poison will just result in not doing anything for a turn. Maintaining the condition without dying is the hard part, to do this you may want to consider low RCV subs, or just simply not match any heal orbs, do note this is easy to say but very hard to do in practice. While having a low amount of HP you will be more vulnerable to enemy damage and especially preempts, having shield active is definitely recommended, or you can simply heal up to tank the preempt. Having suicide active is essential to this play style. Offensive orientation of this type of leader skill will be dependent on the leader’s awakening.

ATK increases with X+ combos, up to Y×: 

This type of leader skill have a lot of variation. Depending on where X start and up to what combo does it end the scaling, it can go from good to bad. The more steps between X and the end of scaling the better it is because the damage will have a smooth growing curve so in case you had an extra skyfall or you messed up one combo it wouldn’t be as a severe of a problem. This type of leader skill synergize with TPA and Enhance Combo.

ATK increases with X+ Att., up to Y×: 

Similarly to combo you want to have a decent scaling but this is quite different as you have to have the colors covered by your cards. Having to depend on randomness to have all the colors you need can be risky at times. Most of the time building around the activation for this type of leader skill will be needed. This type of leader skill does not have a good way to boost up damage with board actives, so they will be reliant on high leader skill multiplier, offensive awakenings and burst actives. This type of leader skill synergize well with Skill Charge, Enhance Combos, TPA and Guard Break if there’re high defense spawns you need to take care of.

Y× ATK when A, B ,C &D attack at once: 

This is much like the previous leader skill where you match multiple colors but instead you only focus on a few. For this type of leader skill you want to have boards that ensures you activation while keeping the randomness low, so if the activation only requires 3 colors, you will want to have the 3 color board with or without the heal orbs. This type of leader skill synergize well with TPA and Enhance Combos but occasionally can work with Enhanced Att. depending on how the leader’s awoken skill is structured.

Y× ATK when erasing X+ linked Z Orbs: 

This type of leader skill requires a large sum of orb counts in order to do significant damage, which in turn will force your team to be active reliant for the orb supply. This style of team works well with short dungeons where you can supply enough orbs by using active every turn, but once you take it to a long dungeon it will become very unreliable. This style of leader skill synergize with Enhanced Att, aka Row enhance.

Y× ATK with Y+ Z-Att. combos: 

This type of leader skill is similar to erasing X+ linked Y Orbs in a way that it also requires a decent amount of orbs to do significant damage, 2 of the same att. combo will require a minimum of 6 orbs and 3 of the same att. combo would require a minimum of 9 orbs, it is very skill dependent on orb supply. This style of leader skill can synergize with enhance combo, enhanced orbs as well as TPA but that would increase your minimum orb count at the same time.

Y× ATK when skills used: 

As name suggested, very active skill dependent, some leader may still maintain a decent multiplier without using actives which can allow you to ignore skill activation. Having to constantly use active can severely cripple your team building as you have to free up space in order to cycle skill and at the same time make you vulnerable to skill delays.

Y× ATK & reduce dmg with a cross of 5 Heal Orbs:

This type of leader skill can be active reliant as 5 heal orbs isn’t easy to get and heal cross type leader skills do not come along with other type of shields or HP multiplier. The attack multiplier is also tied to making a heart cross so without hearts this type of leader skill can get in trouble. Note that the multiplier generated from this part of the leader skill will carry on to the next floor if there is no preemptive move set on the next floor, one way to check it is by looking on the HP bar and check if the shield still persist.

Y× ATK for Att. erasing 5 Orbs including enhanced:

This multiplier of this type of leader skill will only apply to the att. That is being matched. This type of leader skill generally requires a good multiplier to be good as aside from enhanced orb awakening, the only other offensive awakening that would work alongside with this leader skill is enhance combo and subpool certainly become very small. This type of leader skill is also prone to jammer and poison mechanic as they will erase your enhanced orbs. Note that this type of leader skill is extremely unreliable in 3p co-op unless you have planned partners as it relies on enhanced orb awakening to generate activation.

Y× ATK for each cross of 5 Y Orbs:

This type of leader skill isn’t very orb efficient, usually when only doing one cross your damage can only range from low to mediocre, it will require a decent add-on to this part for a good. A good flat multiplier alongside this bypass the low orb efficient weakness. If this leader skill is packed with a good sustain option then it is also very good since stalling is a good option to provide orbs. The strength of this kind of leader skill is that you can reach a very high multiplier and can just use a board active to do the damage that other teams may need a board alongside a burst. Building this type of team will be somewhat dependent on what the other part of the leader skill is as if you don’t have a good base multiplier you may want to rely on awakenings like combo enhance, TPA and orb enhance to increase the lower end of your damage spectrum, on the other hand if you do have a decent base multiplier then you will not need to be on watch out for offensive oriented awakening skill as much.

Puzzle becomes a 7×6 board: 

This leader skill allow you to hit more combo freely, more damage output since you have 42 orbs to work with instead of 30 orbs. The downside to this is that a larger board is more prone to skyfall combos thus having bad damage control and larger board can be harder to maneuver. You may want to use Damage Absorption Null, Damage Void Piercer, No Skyfall Active/Leader skill to deal with this weakness accordingly. This type of leader skill will overwrite 5×4 board state that comes with some dungeons.

No Skyfall Combo: 

This type of leader skill will allow you to be very precise with damage output, one should be aware of their damage output of orb count and combo count. A skill trait you can develop with this type of leader skill is conserving orbs, knowing exactly the right amount to kill off spawns you can save some orbs for the next floor, and since there is no skyfall, there is no risk of them being matched by skyfall. Once mastered this is the pinnacle of consistency.

Unable to erase X Orbs or less: 

This style of leader skill forces you to either focus on TPA if X is 3 and Enhanced Att. if X is 4 or larger, it is a very unique playstyle that limits your combo count for some other trade offs, but usually the trade off doesn’t make up for the damage loss from combo counts and this style of leader skill do suffer against combo shield. In order to prevent you will want to include add combo type active.

Fixed orb move time at 4 sec: 

This type of leader skill is usually underlooked because it seems like a major cripple to people, indeed 4 second is very short to maneuver the board with but for dungeons with No Awakening Skill tag or dungeons with Fixed time at 4 sec, it can come in handy because the trade off for this disadvantage, the other part of the leader skill are often stronger than a lot of leaders. This also bypass enemy debuff of reduced orb movement time so it’s also a valid strategy against that.

Extend time to move Orbs by X sec:

This type of leader skill helps a lot when there are awoken skill bind or time movement reduction mechanics, other times it just allows you to not worry about bind issue on your cards that provides a lot of time extend awakening.

Y× ATK when X Orbs or less remain on the board:

This type of leader skill will always come with No Skyfall Combo, it can be used with monocolor board for farm teams if the multiplier is decent. Aside from that it is a difficult leader skill and it usually doesn’t come with great scaling.

Active Skill Traits

Orb Change:

Orb change actives are usually very inconsistent because there often cases of your board not having the colors you need, double(or more) orb has less chance of that happening but instead they face another problem which is that they flood the board with one color and it can reduce the maximum combo that you can produce.

Board Change:

While board changers cannot take care of locked orbs, it will take care of most hazard effect on the board and it will supply a good amount of damage. It is mostly very reliable except for the extreme cases where bicolor board can net you a 2 combo board, a tricolor board can net you a 4 combo board while a quadcolor board can net you minimally a 7 combo board. Monocolor board are great for swiping but they don’t have a way to deal with combo shield, but you can combine it with a top/bottom row maker to make 7 combo board consistently. Bicolor board is very useful for all types of team that doesn’t require multiple colors, it can be used for row style team, TPA style team, or just for combo making, it is very useful.Tricolor board are similar to bicolor board but it is a lot more accessible than bicolor board. Tricolor boards that includes heal orbs are also way more common than bicolor board with heal orbs. Having the board active include heal orbs are important because they are necessary for bonus attack and super bonus attack and generating heart orbs by orb changers are inconsistent. 

Delay:

Delay is very useful since as long as the spawn doesn’t have a status shield it can bypass all the mechanics that it has to offer and that includes all the movesets that a spawn can put up as well as resolve, but this type of active are usually weighted with high cooldown so save it until you really need it.

Unbind:

This active is only important if your leaders are being binded because in most cases they are the only way for you to stall, if they are unbindable then there are very little value in this active.

Poison:

This active can be used to bypass high defense spawns or to finish off spawns with resolve, other usage also include dealing fixed damage for a few turns in conjunction with delay if needed.

Mass Attack:

There are basically no real value to this active aside from it can be used to buffer buff cancel, but that is not very useful either. 

Move Orbs freely for X Seconds:

This active will work for the full duration even under fixed 4 second movetime dungeon/leader skill, also if your awoken skills are binded or are in awoken skill invalid dungeon. Another use of this active is to stop spinner mechanic. Overall this is an active that has very few niche use and have been outranked by extend orb movement time by X seconds because this does not stack with the extend movement time awakening nor the base 4 seconds.

Shield:

This is a good solution to big damage or gravity, however just note that this will not prevent poison orb damage.

Heal:

Heal active that comes in a set number or a multiplier on cards’ RCV are very unreliable as they usually result in a very low amount. Heal that recovers a % of your team’s HP are very good for leader skills that do have HP% requirement on activation, the active will allow you to not have to take a turn and heal up while risking to take damage and drop below threshold again.

Gravity:

There are two types of gravity, the first type deals a % of the spawns’ current HP, and the other deals a % of the spawns’ maximum HP. The first kind can be used to figure out exactly how much HP the spawn has left based on the amount of damage it deals while the second type deals the same amount of damage every time. Gravity active can be used as the main burst damage source for low multiplier teams. Gravity actives will not be affected by shields, Att. resistance, but it will be affected by void damage shield and absorb damage shield.

True Damage:

True damage active allows you to penetrate high def spawns, vanilla true damage active is usually sought after for quick buttoning but it is not very useful for any other scenario so often times true damage paired with other effects will be more desired.

Nuke:

Nuke are usually used to kill off weak spawns that have medium to low HP, it’s good because it waste no time on matching and makes farming easy and fast.

Extend movement time:

This type of active can be used to counter movement time reduction mechanic or to guarantee combo counts for combo shield. It is not very consistent as you may have a board that doesn’t allow you to do above that combo count and using this active will not help.

Void X-Att. Damage:

This is a very strategic kind of active, you would want to use it to counter a certain move set that you cannot normally withstand. Note that this can be buff cancelled so check if the spawn has that move set beforehand.

Enhance X-Att. Orbs:

This type of active skill gives you a decent boost of damage when there are enough orbs of the color present. It can be used to guarantee activation for Y× ATK for Att. erasing 5 Orbs including enhanced, or as burst for other type of leaders. This active skill is usually sought after in combination with other skill as it alone does not provide a lot.

Counter:

Counter has very little usage but you can use it to counter damage and kill spawns with resolve if you can survive the damage aside from that you can also use it to trigger buff cancel.

Haste:

Haste is just an add on to most actives that help your team members active to come up, you can also build a team around that and have skills every turn but this design will be prone to skill delays and you most likely will not be able to save up active skills.

Burst:

Not much to this active it’s very straightforward. Note that the enhance Att. type of burst active will only apply to the color and not the cards’ other att.

Reduce enemies’ DEF:

This type of effect can carry onto the next floor if there is no preemptive moves. This type of active will not work on spawns with status shield, it is mainly used against cards with high def but as a standalone active it is not very useful as it has very little value in any other scenario.

Replace all Orbs:

This active skill is very versatile as it can take care of multiple mechanic but it is very unstable if the intention is to guarantee activation. This active alone can get rid of jammer, poison, blind, locked orbs. It can also do damage without the spawn making a move, it is capable of dropping spawns under resolve threshold therefore disabling it, if you can kill the spawn with damage generated by this active it will bypass the resolve and directly kill it    . The skyfalled orb will not match if paired with no skyfall combo active/leader skill.

Suicide:

This type of active skill goes hand in hand with Y× ATK when HP is less than Y% type leader skill, this is how you can consistently manage the HP level. Aside from the previous use, suicide is also used to drop your HP to 1 so that grudge strike type nuke (meaning more multiplier when HP is low) will be able to be used with maximum multiplier.

X-Att. Orbs skyfall:

This type of active skill is not very reliable, it can drop in large quantity and match itself and in turn reduce the amount of orb available to you on the following turn. Note that you can only have one RBGLDH orb skyfall buff up at a time, using another will overwrite an existing one. Jammer, poison and mortal poison shares another pool of their own and will be overwritten if another is used.

Orbs created at random:

This type of active is most often used for farm setup where you use it to generate orbs for combos or use it to enable damage void piercer awoken skill. It is not used for other purpose because it is not very reliable as the amount of orb it generate is very little.

Add Combo:

This active can be used directly to bypass combo shields, provide extra damage or to guarantee leader skill activation. You can also use it alongside damage void piercer as the setup takes up a huge space on the board and severely limit your ability to make combos.

ATK increased based on # of X awakening:

The difference in this active and regular burst active is that this will apply to every card on your team regardless of typing or Att. This type of active is dependent on the awoken skill of your team so awoken skill bind will disable this skill and you will not be able to use this. Note that while extend time awakening skill is disabled in fixed orb move time at 4 sec leader skill or dungeon, the awakening will still get counted towards the active. This type of active only count the specific type of awoken skill so for example skill boost+ will not be counted if the skill counts skill boost.

Void Damage Absorption:

This type of active will allow you to bypass the absorb damage mechanic, while it is very useful it does come with high cooldown and will often require stalling before you can use it. I recommend to not be overly reliant on this skill and spend some time to learn how to tackle spawns without using the active when the chance is present.

Void Att. Absorption:

This type of active will allow you to bypass Att. absorption mechanics. This active is not easily obtainable and it is not so sought after as most spawns with Att. absorption does not punish teams for not having this active. 

This ally’s Att. changes to X for Y turns:

This type of active can allow certain highly offensive oriented subs to switch to an Att. and allow creative usage, it can be used to bypass Att. absorb and it can also be used to draw out buff cancel.

Unlock:

This type of active skill is only necessary in specific situation where you absolutely need the unlock. Most dungeons do not have lock orbs mechanics and even then it is still not punishing enough to require you to have this type of active.

All enemies’ Attributes change to X:

This type of active skill is strong when paired with leader skills that blocks a huge amount of damage from a specific color, or you can also build your team to have a huge amount of Att. resist awoken skills and latent to play around this active. This active skill is not affected by status shield.

Awakening Unbind:

This active is quite meaningless aside from dispeling awoken skill binds. In dungeons that have multiple awoken skill binds it’s crucial to know which you can stall on and which ones you cannot so that you have the skill when you really need it.

X% Chance of Enhanced Orb appearing for Y turns:

In a sense it is helpful in boosting team’s overall output, but realistically it really isn’t that useful for most teams. For Y× ATK for Att. erasing 5 Orbs including enhanced type leader skill it will allow you to activate with sub att. but it will not generate much damage itself, it does however guarantee that there will be enhanced orbs on the board so using board change active after will likely land an enhanced orb on a color you need. This active can also overcome the weakness Y× ATK for Att. erasing 5 Orbs including enhanced type leader skill may have in 3p co-op but it just makes the team very active reliant and the duration also gets used up with 2 extra teams.

No Orb Skyfall:

This effect only last one turn but when you need to damage control it usually takes more than that, it is not really useful because you can just use Void Damage Absorption active or Damage Void Piercer awakening skill instead.

Leader Swap:

This type of active skill is very strong that it will allow you to swap 7×6 board leader or Y× Exp leader out for another leader that is stronger. While this active is very strong, it is also weighted with a high cooldown which makes it not practical for most dungeon. It is good in dungeons where you spend over 200 turns in, or if you have specific farming setup it is also great, but aside from those scenario it really isn’t worth the time to implement this into your team.

Deal Damage based on team’s Total HP:

• Total HP is only counted from your Leader + friend Leader + 4 subs, and that’s still the case even in coop
• Total HP is not affected by leader skill HP multiplier
• HP-affecting awakenings such as work
• In solo mode HP badges will work
• In coop mode, team HP awakening from partner’s team will not be calculated

That’s how the amount of damage is calculated.

Awoken Skill Traits

Offensive Awakenings

Offensive awakenings on your leaders should give you a good idea on what kind of cards you would want to run on your team because you would want to have synergizing awakenings throughout your team.

Two Pronged Attack (TPA): 

This awakening boost the individual card’s damage output by 1.5× when orbs are matched in four, it stacks multiplicatively. TPAs are easy to match and does not take up much space on the board, you can easily achieve 6+ combo while matching a lot of TPAs, this awakening synergize with Enhance Combos and Enhanced X Orbs because their activation don’t interrupt each other. Note the bonus damage will only be applied to the orbs matched in four.

Enhance Combos: 

This awakening boost the individual card’s damage output by 2×, it stacks multiplicatively. Enhance combos are superior than TPA in that they have a higher multiplier to work with meaning that you can use less orb counts to output more damage, or you can use the same amount of orbs to output even more damage, but the trade offs is that you don’t have a good way to control your damage. When you strike below 7 combos your damage would be significantly lower, a combination of Two Pronged Attack alongside Enhance Combos are generally recommended when damage control is a concern, if not then you can definitely just run cards that solely rely on Enhance Combos.

Enhanced X Att. (Rows): 

The row enhance attack are used mainly on farm setups because they synergize with ATK increases when erasing X+ linked orbs type leader skills. Major downside to this awakening is that it requires a large amount of orbs and the way they stack up is by matching another row, which will in turn make players rely on active skills to spawn orbs. The result is that you have very low orb efficiency because in comparison to Two Pronged Attack or Enhance Combos which only requires 4 and 3 orbs to activate respectively, and that is why the team that focus on Enhanced X Att. has gone out of popularity.

Enhanced X Orbs (OE): 

The enhanced orb awakening provides a decent boost of damage in the first few addition, however its value drops significantly after the fifth one. It goes well alongside with all other awakenings and it’s also the very important for Y× ATK for Att. erasing 5 Orbs including enhanced type leader skill. Do keep in mind that Enhanced orb awakenings adds the minimum damage to your team because once you have reach five of this awakening you cannot easily lower your damage without using active to spawn orbs that are not enhanced. Note that this awakening is not shared in 3p co-op mode.

Damage Void Piercer: 

This is not an awakening that you would build around, it’s used to bypass annoying spawns that have damage null shield. You would not want to run a card with this awakening on most team because cards that have this awakening don’t come with other good awakenings. In order to make this awakening work you will want to have actives that ensures you can activate both the awakening and leader skill, and on top of that you still need to make sure you do enough damage. 

Killer: 

This awakening boost the individual card’s damage output by 3× to the corresponding typing, it stacks multiplicatively. Killers are usually great but spawns that have absorb damage shield will totally ruin your day. This is a very strategic awakening in that if you want to use it, you’ll have to build around its downside, for example you may want to have void damage absorption active in case of damage absorb shield. Team building will only revolve around killers when its effect applies to most of the important spawn in a dungeon. 

Guard Break:

This awakening is strong against spawns with high defense, but because high defense spawn isn’t common and the activation isn’t synergistic with most teams, the awakening is usually not needed and can be replaced by cards that simply output high damage or by increasing the team’s overall output by implementing a burst on the team.

L Increase attack:

This awakening boost the individual card’s damage output by 1.5×, it stacks multiplicatively. This awakening will also unlock the board after the orbs have been matched, this part of the awakening skill may come in handy but overall it is not very useful as you most likely will want to be able to unlock prior to matching. It works well with Y× ATK for Att. erasing 5 Orbs including enhanced but this awakening is not widely available so it would be hard to build a team around this. This awakening also provide the utility of removing any lock orb skyfall debuff.

Enhance Above 80%:

This awakening boost the individual card’s damage output by 1.5×, it stacks multiplicatively. This awakening is currently only available from Super Awakening so you can’t really build around this. It does help boosting your damage on the low end, so it may be good for low threshold damage control, but it may also push you over.

Enhance Below 50%:

This awakening boost the individual card’s damage output by 2×, it stacks multiplicatively. This awakening is currently only available from Super Awakening so you can’t really build around this.

Super Enhance Combo:

This awakening boost the individual card’s damage output by 5×, however this awakening is very inconsistent due to requiring high amount of combo. The boost coming in only on high combo also means that you wouldn’t be doing much damage on the lower end which can make damage controlling hard depending on the situation. Overall if you want to make use of this awakening it’s best you use it with 7×6 board so you at least can activate it.

L Damage reduction:

This awakening blocks 5% of the damage received and it stacks additively with itself also with reduce X damage awakening and latents. On top of that it also provide 1.5× damage boost for the cards that has this awakening. This type of awakening stacks additively on itself and with resist awakening skill/latent. It is not a common awakening and in low amount it really isn’t effective. This awakening skill can be only triggered once, meaning any extra L matches after the first one will not have any effect.

Utility Awakenings

Team building is rarely around utility awakenings, only in very niche dungeons where certain mechanic gets reused a lot then that is where you would want to include awakenings that can counter that, aside from that scenario you’d normally just focus on having cards that synergize with each other.

Extend Time: 

This awakening increase your movement time by 0.5 second, and the enhanced version increases the movement time by 1 second. The awakening is essential for almost all kinds of team building, you want enough to allow you to consistently activate your leader skill. The amount you need may vary based on the difficulty of the leader and your player skill level but having more would just prevent mistakes from happening.

Resist Skill Bind: 

This awakening provides 20% chance to nullify skill binds. Not all dungeons have skill bind but most do, if there isn’t then you can definitely ignore this.

Skill Boost: 

This awakening charges your skill up by 1 turn, the enhanced version charges your skill up by 2 turns. Skill boosts are very important when you’re building for farm teams and for short dungeons, however it is a lot less important when you’re running arena or other long dungeons with easy spawns in early floors since they will be charged up by the time you need them. Also note that this awakening is shared when you’re doing 2 players co-op but not shared in 3 player co-op.

Resistance Bind: 

This awakening gives you 50% chance to nullify bind on a card and the enhanced version provides 100%. Having your leader being unbindable can be very important. Out of the whole team, leader is the most important card because in most cases it provides sustainability, survivability and the ability to dish out damage. With an unbindable leader it will save you from needing to use unbind active/awakening however you should also keep in mind that if the leader skill activation gets binded you can still be in trouble. 

HP Boost:

Increase HP by 500, this amount will not be affected by latent awakenings.

ATK Boost:

Increase ATK by 100, this amount will not be affected by latent awakenings.

RCV Boost:

Increase RCV by 200, this amount will not be affected by latent awakenings.

Skill Charge:

This awakening charges the specific card’s skill up by one turn if all five colors are matched, and for that to happen you need to have all the colors present in your team. The awakening’s worth is heavily dependant on what the base active of the card is, most teams don’t build around this awakening but if the team can line up to make this work, and the active is strong then it will make the team very strong. Note that you should not be thinking about bringing rainbow colored boards to make use of skill charge unless your leader skill requires it.

Bonus Attack:

This awakening deals with resolve when matching exactly a heart column. While it is very convenient, it will definitely lower your combo count and this awakening does not synergize with enhanced X Att. awakening since you will not be able to match any rows alongside this. In the case of spawn not having any rage hit underneath resolve you can just choose to not use this awakening. Another downside to this awakening is that it is orb reliant, you may want to use an orb generator or a board active to guarantee you can activate this active.

Super Bonus Attack:

Super Bonus Attack provides a 2× boost in damage on the card that has this awakening. Unlike Bonus Attack, this awakening can work with enhanced X Att. but it is much more orb reliant as it needs a hefty amount of 9 heal orbs. It is a lot less reliable in comparison to Bonus Attack just because of that, but it has its merits which boosts your damage and can work with certain types of teams.

Enhanced Heal Orbs:

This awakening boost the individual card RCV output by 1.5× when heal orbs are matched in four, it stacks multiplicatively with itself. This awakening will boost the RCV of your team mediocrely but it can significantly increase the RCV of the specific card that has this awakening. If your team is lacking in RCV, this is definitely an awakening that you can seek out for. Do note that this awakening can be disabled by awoken skill binds, so you should not be relying on it to stall out the duration.

Reduce X Damage:

These awoken skill reduce damage taken from a certain Att. by 5% each, they can be stacked additively with itself or with latent resists and L shield awakening. This type of awoken skills are very strong when dungeons have have numerous spawns in one specific color. 

Auto Heal:

This can take care of some RCV problem but it is not very reliable since the amount if regenerate is low. It can be used with resolve style leader skill and it’s a decent awakening to have for teams with high resistance/shields as it also generates more value for the amount healed.

Recover Bind:

This awakening skill unbinds your entire team by 3 turns when heal orbs are matched in a row, note that even if you match extra orbs alongside this will still trigger. This awakening is not very reliable as it requires a large amount of heal orb to be present, and also the leader skill will not be activated unless you cascaded into activation, and cards that are binded also will not attack unless you cascaded into orb matches. Often times you will need to react to the spawns’ move set accordingly but if there is nothing dangerous coming right after this awakening will still do the job.

Resistance Poison:

This awakening provides 20% chance to prevent enemy from spawning poison orbs and they stack additively, note that this does not affect your own active skills or poison skyfalls. This awakening is usually very decent in dungeons that have numerous spawns that generate poison orbs, it can protect your enhanced orbs and it’s more critical for teams that have high HP pool and low RCV because poison deals %HP damage.

Resistance Jammer:

This awakening provides 20% chance to prevent enemy from spawning jammer orbs or bomb orbs and they stack additively, note that this will not affect your own active skill or jammer skyfalls. Just like Resistance Poison this will also protect your enhanced orbs but it is not as impactful as Jammer does not kill you directly however you will still want to watch out for the moveset of the boss.

Resistance Dark:

This awakening provides 20% chance to prevent enemy from blinding your board and they stack additively. This type of awakening can get used on super blind intensive dungeon as normal blind is usually not a hard mechanic to beat, aside from that there really isn’t much use for this awakening skill.

Co-op Boost:

This awakening boosts all stats on a card by 1.5× but most of the time it only gets used with cards that have high base attack alongside with nuke active skills as inherit.

Team HP Boost:

This awakening skill boost the team’s HP by 5% and it stacks additively. Team HP Boost is a very scarce awakening and only a few cards have them, that said you don’t really get to choose whether to have it or not, but it certainly helps when you need the extra HP to survive a hit by a margin. Note that this can be deactivated by awoken skill binds and if the skill does not include a heal you will not be at full HP. During 2 players co-op this will affect both player but during 3 players co-op it will only affect you.

Team RCV Boost:

This awakening skill boost the team’s RCV by 10% and it stacks additively. This awoken skill is not very useful as it only helps when the team already got a decent amount of RCV but you will only want RCV when your team is low on RCV, so realistically it is not going to help very much. During 2 players co-op this will affect both players but do note that each player only get RCV from their own team and the bonus is applied on that amount. During 3 players co-op this will only affect you.

  Resistance Immobility:

This awakening provides 100% chance to prevent immobility mechanic. Immobility is not a type of mechanic that is seen everywhere, but it can prove to be problematic sometimes. Having just one will disable the mechanic.

Resistance Cloud:

This awakening provides 100% chance to prevent cloud mechanic. Immobility is not a type of mechanic that is seen everywhere, but it can prove to be problematic sometimes. Having just one will disable the mechanic.

Latent Awakenings

Latent Awakenings are most often not needed, but for end game content you will want them to fine tune yours setup. In contents prior to that there is no requirement and you can certainly get by without any. Latent awakenings should be used to make your team more consistent or build accordingly to help you tackle certain spawn, without anything in mind you will not find good use of them.

Attack Boost:

This latent gives 1%/3% boost in attack respectively. Attack boost are mainly used for high base attack cards that have Co-op boost awakenings in combination with nuke type active which allows them to do a huge amount of damage with just active, which will kill a lot of weak to decently strong spawns.

HP Boost:

This latent gives 1.5%/4.5% boost in HP respectively. HP boost can help you tank certain hits if your base HP is close enough, however they don’t provide a huge amount of boost and usually using Att. resist latent is just a better way to go at it.

RCV Boost:

This latent gives 5%/15% boost in RCV respectively. RCV boost rarely ever makes an appearance because for it to be effective the base card has to have decent RCV and to be relevant the card also has to have heal orb enhance awakening in order to really recover a substantial amount. 

All Stats Boost:

This latent gives 1.5%/1%/5% boost on stat. Cards are designed to have a fixed amount of weighted stats distributed into 3 separate category and this latent split the stats boost across all 3 category which gives only mediocre boost. Usually when you use stat boost awakening you’re using it for a card that has a significant portion of its stat weighted in one category and that is how stat latent become effective. 

Extend Time: 

This latent gives 0.05/0.12 second boost respectively. The amount they add is very small to see any significant difference, that said if you need it then you can definitely use it.

Resists: 

These awoken skill reduce damage taken from a certain Att. by 1% each and they stack additively alongside resist awakenings and L shield awakenings. Having latent resist can prevent you from dying to 100% gravities. It can also push you over preempt damage threshold if your team’s HP is close. Latent resist will provide you more effective HP than HP boost latent but it only affects one att. You can also stack latent resist on top of resist awakening skills to achieve 100% resist towards a certain Att. and use change enemies Att. active skills to construct a basic resist team. 

Skill Delay Resist: 

Skill delay resist can protect your important skills from being delayed, in content that has multiple spawn with delay mechanics it’s important to have a few on skills that you need or else you may never see that skill be charged again. For cards that have very short cooldown you are unlikely going to need it as they will just charge up right away anyways.

Killers: 

This awakening boost the individual card’s damage output by 1.5× to the corresponding typing, it stacks multiplicatively. Latent killers is a big part in refining your team. If you’re just starting to build your team I would refrain from using them until you’ve ran your team. Latent killers can be used to push a card’s damage high enough to ensure kill of a spawn, or they can be used to land your cards’ damage in the right zone. They stack multiplicatively so if a card does high damage, latent kill will be able to push it higher, but if the card does low damage then the boost in damage will also be a lot smaller. Latent killer can also be used to push up minimum damage as they work unconditionally as long as the spawn is the right typing. 

Assists (Inherits)

There’re a few reasons that you might want to have assists on your cards, one of the reason is because just want a better skill, you may want to inherit a dummy delay fodder, you may also want to assist for the stat bonus, or you may just want to utilize the extra awakening from assist evos.

Assist for Active Skill

Sometimes the skill of the base cards you run on the team don’t cover all the mechanics you have to deal with and this is where assists can come in, you may inherit rare active skills that are from weaker cards that will solve a problem that your team have problems with, for example shields for preemptive damage.

Assist for Delay Fodder

Other times you may want to keep the active skills of the base card. Inheriting a card with very high active cooldown will make it so that the base active skill will not be affected by skill delay mechanics as much while maintaining the ability to use base skills.

Assist for Stat Bonus

There are times where your team have low base stat, while it may not be much, assisting for stat bonus may help. There are cards that have a good amount of weighted stats specifically distributed into HP, ATK or RCV depending on what you may need, but this option has begun to be outshined by the huge amount of stat that new Assist evos are able to provide.

Assist for Assist Evos

On top the of decent stat boost, assist evos also provide extra awakening skills, they allow more flexible team building in exchange for awkward active skill combination which may or may not work with your team. 

Super Awakening

Super Awakening is a system that was added to help players through end game, this system should not be the solution to any early/mid game player as it requires a hefty price of a +297 feed into the base card and there is only ⅓ chance to obtain the desired awakening so the system is rather resource consuming. Note this system only works in solo mode. Super awakenings will also be re-enabled if you have disconnected from a multiplayer game.

How to determine which awakening you should be using?

To put it simple, there’re a few category you want to place cards in based on their super awakenings and those are: Niche, Leader, and DPS Sub.

Niche Sub:

The reason why you would run a niche sub is because you’re running it for just the certain super awakening it has, this type of awakening can be uncommon or maybe the card can construct a unique scenario through the combination of active skill, awakening skills and super awakenings.
The card will be identified as a niche sub if there’s a certain condition that need to be met for the dungeon and that card can create it.
List of awakenings that falls under this category:

Leaders:

Some leaders may have native flaws due to the combination of awakenings it was given, and most often they will be given some options of super awakenings to fix these issues.
The card will be identified as a leader if… well you run it as a leader.

List of awakenings that falls under this category:

DPS Sub:

It is very often that you will want to stack offensive awakenings on a card that is already very strong for a pretty looking number, but keep in mind that mechanics like absorb shield and null shield exist which can definitely ruin your day. So the correct move is to estimate your damage without the super awakening first and then see if you need the extra boost. In cases like Alt. Arena where the HP of spawns are very high and the amount of absorb shield and null shield are not as many, it is very beneficial to stack your offensive awakenings accordingly, afterall enough damage is enough.

The card will be identified as a DPS sub if it already provides a large amount of damage via other offensive awakenings.

List of awakening that falls under this category:

Again, Super awakening is for Solo only.

Q&A

Q: How do I know if a card is good?

A: Identifying whether a card is good for you or not is more of a comparative process within your box. You can compare it to other leaders in your box, analyze its consistency in activation, scaling and multiplier, if you think it may fit better as a sub compare it to other cards that might also contest for the spot, compare their active skill, awoken skills and stat distribution. If the card outshines other cards you have then it’s obviously good for your team.

Q: How do I build an ideal team?

A: The answer to that is an ideal team does not exist, different teams will be required in different dungeons, teams may seem similar but you’re still going to change it up according to the dungeon mechanics.

Q: Should I check tier lists to get an idea on what to focus on?

A: In a way yes, but tier lists do not provide the full image on cards individually. You will need to do your own research on why the card is being rated highly and what cards are needed for that leader, and if you happen to have those cards then yes the leader can be relevant, but if you do not have the cards that synergize with the leaders on the tier list then the tier list is completely irrelevant to you.

Q: I just want to build a general team, why would I care about all this?

A: Because a general team means that your team can run through a good amount of the dungeon in this game without needing changes, and that means you will need to understand what is in these dungeons and the mechanics you need in order to beat them.

Q: I don’t have FUA, can I still kill spawns with resolve?

A: Yes, there are multiple ways to go at a spawn with resolve without using FUA. That includes delay, poison and many other mechanics..

Q: I don’t have any card with Damage Void Piercer, can I still kill spawns that have damage void shield?

A: Yes, depending on the spawns there are always multiple ways to beat it without damage void piercer, and the most basic methods requires you to learn the damage scaling of your team. 

Q: I don’t have void absorb damage shield type active, can I still kill spawns that have absorb damage shield?

A: Yes, depending on the spawns there are always multiple ways to beat it without void absorb damage shield active, and the most basic methods requires you to learn the damage scaling of your team.

Q: I built a team and it isn’t working very well, where can I get help?

A: First thing you need to do is identify the problem, if a certain set of mechanics is giving you trouble then try to think of a way to counter it, if you cannot think of a way to do so feel free to drop by PADX/PAD Community discord and go to the help channel and describe your situation, the more detailed the better, there’re tons of people out there that will try to help you.

Q: How do I identify a problem with my team?

A: This is a skill set that many people understand naturally while others may have difficulties with. I will try to explain this easily but essentially it’s that you need to pay attention to what you did that caused you to die in the dungeon. Maybe you matched too many combos and over killed the spawn while it has absorb shield or resolve, maybe you simply did not do enough damage and have dropped the boss to its execute range, there are also other scenarios like maybe there is a preemptive damage on a certain floor and you always forget to heal up and put up a shield. Most of the time it’s just players being forgetful but it’s important to make notes to yourself and find out how did you fail a dungeon because finding out the problem is half to solving the problem.

Q: How can I learn how to build a team?

A: This whole document is packed with all the information you’ll need to know about team building, next thing to do is aim for a dungeon then start building a team!

Q: Isn’t the more HP the better?

A: To a certain extent yes. More HP will always allow you to withstand higher damage, but above a certain threshold(depending on dungeon) HP will no longer matter as most numbers don’t exceed it, after that point it becomes pointless to push your HP up any higher.

Q: Isn’t the higher multiplier the better?

A: No, you only need so much multiplier to kill bosses, any extra beyond that is just insurance in case you made a mistake, but they are definitely not needed.

Q: How do I know if my team is good?

A: If it works for the dungeon you built it for then it’s good, if it isn’t very consistent then you may want to look at the issue and make changes or apply latents accordingly to fix those problems but if it works then it works.

Q: I don’t know what latent killers I should put on my cards, is there a general way to go at it?

A: Latent killers should only be applied when you’re min maxing, for example if I don’t have enough consistent damage against a certain type, one of my solution is to apply a killer, if you’re not having any problem then you’re definitely fine not putting any killers on. Remember it’s perfectly fine to keep a card free of latent.

Q: What if a spawn has both damage nullify shield and Att. absorb shield, how does it work?

A: If the damage is over nullify threshold then the damage will be 0 thus the spawn will absorb 0 damage. 

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imy6jvWkZtQ