Summer Vacation Promise, Barbara and Julie

(waifus for laifus)

Written by LucinaFanBoy

Feel free to use the document outline in order to jump to various parts of this guide.

NOTE: I will not be updating this guide further, as teambuilding for this lead has become super simplified with the new evolution fixing both VDP damage issues and RCV issues. Please look at the dungeon information and build accordingly.

Should I trade for Barbara and Julie?

If you’re reading this guide, then chances are this is definitely one of the questions in your mind, so let’s get it out of the way.

In order to answer it, let’s clear up what Barbara and Julie is and isn’t.

Barbara and Julie is:

• An absolutely great end-game lead (especially for the new 3PA2 in JP)
• One of the strongest AA farmers in the game
• For people looking to clear content solo (obviously DCing is fine)
• Perfect for content that doesn’t need much damage control.
• Super easy to use, and can clear floors just naturally comboing.

Barbara and Julie is not:

• Meant to be an early game lead (encourages 2c playstyle)
• Suitable for Arenas 1-3
• A lead suitable for dungeons with gravities and poisons without resists and RCV.
• A solution for early game players to cheese the game’s difficulty.
• A co-op lead

To follow up, here’s a questionnaire for those of you that are thinking about trading for Barbara and Julie:

1. Are you looking to clear AA/A4 solo, but can’t due to a lack of leaders?
2. Do you know the entire reason why Barbara and Julie is even a ‘good’ leader?
3. Do you have an appropriate method of RCV? 
4. Do you have the appropriate utility to have a team that can clear AA/A4, and have you looked at the dungeon and are at the very least familiar with its spawns to an extent?
5. Are the GFE/Collab 8*s you’re trading not have access to any buffs or mega awoken forms in the future? (This question only applies if you don’t have more than 1 extra dupe)
6. Do you have absolutely no benefit from keeping the excess GFE?

If you answered no to even a single question, I would highly recommend against trading in for B&J. You either don’t need the leader at all, aren’t at a point where the value of B&J > the 4 GFEs, or you don’t have the box to support B&J even if you wouldn’t mind using it.

On the other hand, if you have free rolled, B&J, then congratulations! You have a lead that will probably carry you through everything early except the arenas.

How to Play Barbara and Julie

B&J is a match 2 color lead, where activation is done by matching two colors. Depending on your sub pool, damage can originate from either TPAs, 7c awakenings or killers. In the case of the former, make sure to utilize these awakenings as much as possible. If you’re using 7c awakenings or killers, then focus on instead packing with half boards like you would a combo lead.

Full clearing the board is absolutely crucial for healthy clears in longer dungeons such as the arenas. It’s always wise to know your damage when going into a dungeon so you can know if you can afford to save your fire and or water orbs for the next floor.

Depending on your team, you may have a decently sized HP pool in order to tank rage hits in earlier content. I would however highly recommend having any form of FUA on your team. As quality of life it may seem, it makes things much simpler and faster, and you get to stall less.

Overall, it’s nice to be able to clear A4/AA like I would A3 on autopilot. Clears become reliant on how well I clear boards.

Barbara and Julie Leader Pairings

Leader	Friend	Multiplier	Notes
		4/144/1, +4s move time	This is the standard double pairing, and would again say easily the best. Same thing as a double Vraska pairing, you can everything through the end game, and only need 144x.
		2/108/1, +2s move time, 25% resist, 7×6 board	For the situations where there’s an absurd combo shield that you need to overcome. Please just run some other lead instead.

Any other pairings end up being suboptimal, or weaker than the previously mentioned pairings. 

Team Building

Disclaimer: Everything from here on out is geared towards players clearing A4/AA and similar content.

In General

Team building for Barbara and Julie should prioritize the following 4 things.

1. Dealing with RCV issues: B&J has a lot of trouble healing with only heart orbs, find a way of dealing with this issue.
2. Maximizing HP: The beefier the sub, the more HP is multiplied by 4x.
3. Dungeon specific utility: Do you need more damage via killers? Do you need awoken unbinders? Do you need a shield for gravities? Do you need a Fujin? 
4. Being Fire or Water Attribute: Don’t bother using it as a base otherwise.

Note that B&J doesn’t use VDP effectively (most of the time… more on this later). This is because of a low multiplier that won’t have you 1 shotting with VDP anyways. Like usual with the other 4x HP leads, chip it down and prepare around execute HP thresholds

There are a variety of ways you can team build. Utilizing killers and 7c subs is always a great idea, but there’s always subs like Scheat that allow you to build more TPA oriented. However, note that B&J’s killers will most likely be enough damage to clear most spawns, and you may be better off focusing on survivability and utility.

Generic ‘End Game’ Template

Disclaimer: Subs/options are listed in no particular order. 

With the previous also in mind, B&J teams should have the following:

1. Consistent RCV
   1. Most end game content will have gravities + poison skyfalls, which really mess with your durability and really makes RCV issues stand out. 
   2. Common ways to remedy this would be to have: 
      1. A double Kuroyuri system (1.5 million MP) to constantly heal 40% max HP, barring any large skill delays. This allows you to stall safely on the majority of end game spawns, even in dungeons like AA and A4. This is especially helpful if you don’t have any awoken unbinds, since you can just stall them out. You however end up sacrificing two sub slots.
      2. An RCV stick like Mel with plenty of heart OEs can really help your overall healing, especially with heart OE assists like Puu, VDay Box and Mitsuzune Equip in the game. Generally used in conjunction with RCV increasing actives.
      3. Cards with RCV increasing actives like Mitsuzune and I&I are very powerful in conjunction with RCV sticks, making up for the fact that you don’t have an RCV multiplier. The mentioned cards are often used since they fulfill other niches (FUA stick and damage stick respectively).
2. FUA
   1. Despite many spawns in AA and A4 having ‘harmless’ resolves, there are plenty of situations where you want to avoid having to deal with them, or where hitting resolves would kill you. 
   2. Recommended FUA sticks are as follows:
      1. Amatsu has plenty of HP. Awakenings are great, active is short but is actually useful for hitting activation. If you have this, then definitely use it.
      2. Wedding Raijin is definitely underestimated, but can work very well as a base. DKali board + Unlock on a 7 turn CD is extremely strong, and stats/awakenings hold up very well. 
      3. Urd is a relatively accessible option for most players, since 5* GFEs are much more obtainable. Despite mediocre stats and awakenings, the active is great for B&J, and is short enough to be used as a base if necessary.
      4. Red Cotton and Blue Cotton are acceptable options as well. Despite the base active breaking activation, stats and awakenings are great as bases, and the 5 turn CD is nice to inherit over. Blue is preferred since it has higher HP.
      5. Revo Lakshmi is the other relatively accessible FUA option on my list. Active is great for RCV, and has a relatively short CD as well.
      6. Mitsuzune and Mel (with FUA SA) work very well as FUA sticks since they work well as bases and fulfill their niche as RCV.
3. Awoken Unbinders
   1. Awoken binds completely negates your damage and puts you at risk of having your leaders being bound. If you don’t have Jhoira or Ren Amamiya, then Grodin Equip and Dia are your inheritable options. Having double Kuroyuri negates the need for these however.
4. Damage Sticks
   1. It honestly doesn’t matter too much, but damage outside of killers is valuable, aka via 7c and TPAs. Honestly there aren’t any strong preferences here, just grab what you can out of your box, preferably cards with either good HP or low CD to inherit over.
5. Dungeon Specific Utility
   1. Fujins, bursts, and shields are often the 3 forms of utility that you end up using. Poison resists are also very important just for survivability. Awoken unbinders aren’t as crucial unless if it’s something like Fuma, where your leaders can get bound, in which case you’ll want to bring a regular unbinder. 
   2. Other situations it could be building around spawns that are difficult to kill. You Yu for Hashihime/Sylph and No 6 for god-type spawns.
   3. Despite me stating earlier in the guide that VDP isn’t necessary for B&J, Suou is an amazing VDP that can help increase consistency in A4 and AA clears depending on what killers you put on him. Triple VDP along with balanced typing allows you to safely execute dangerous VDP spawns, rather than risk dropping their HP into execute range (ie. Radar 3s, Hera Beorc).

Super Awakenings

With the recent update in NA/JP, Barbara and Julie has received Super Awakenings. This is extremely powerful, as especially for end game content, this loosens team building requirements for many end game dungeons. The following is a list of the available Super Awakenings, and their applications.

• • Hashihime is much easier to deal with now in AA; B&J(Hakuryu) with triple balance killer latents is an amazing tool just for this spawn. Works as a great substitute in place of You Yu or a dedicated damage sticks for Hashihime.
  • Even if you don’t use B&J as a balance killer stick, it allows you to avoid random RNG when running BCotton or Kuroyuri systems, since skyfalls can easily kill you.
• • Ibaraki will take a little bit more damage now in AA. That’s really the biggest reason why you would take this SA.
• • You might benefit a little from this if you’re running Normal Arena. Considering Pirate Zaerog equip exists, I wouldn’t even bother using this SA. I’d also rather use another lead completely, but I digress.

Kuroyuri System vs. RCV sticks

Here’s a quick chart to give you a quick run down on the differences between the 2 more common methods of RCV (1.b.i and 1.b.ii)

Kuroyuri Systems	RCV Sticks
Takes up 2 sub slots	Takes up 1 sub slot
RCV is dependant on leaders not being bound	RCV is dependant on removing awoken binds
RCV only needs 0c/1c to come into effect	RCV is dependant on heart orbs
Able to stall infinitely	Will eventually end up chipping down spawns
Does not need an awoken unbinder	Requires an awoken unbinder
Benefits from HP Stacking	Benefits from RCV overall from subs

I personally enjoy the double Kuroyuri system much more, just because it turns into a very nice safety net, barring any leader binds that may occur (Hera-Sowilo and Fuu say hi). Despite losing some flexibility in terms of sub pool, I’d argue that’s definitely worth not having to worry about anything other than execute ranges. Kuroyuri is also the only way that you can clear AA without awoken bind clears and B&J, so I’m personally locked into this choice.

However, it’s perfectly possible to clear AA with the appropriate dungeon knowledge and RCV stick(s). I would highly encourage you to test out your builds first, and find shortcomings through failures or difficult spawns. Also remember that there are many spawns that awoken bind and have gravities in their set. I would exercise caution.

Team Examples:

This is my personal team for A4 that I plan to have in the future. Notice how I follow the generic template that I mentioned earlier. I prefer to use Skuld over Urd as a base, mostly to ensure that my damage isn’t diluted, and because I know that I’ll never need to use Skuld’s active since the Kuroyuri system ensures my survivability. B&J can be used on normally troublesome spawns, such as Sylph and Jewels. Carat I may choose to replace with Mercurius at some point, since you only need the burst for the Norns. Isis increases consistency against Ena (because of the 115% gravity when she gets below 50%). Despite not having a VDP, this team has plenty of consistency, assuming you know how to damage control etc. Hakuryu is used on my Kuroyuri because I don’t have Rathian.

My personal team for AA has plenty of consistency, assuming that you’re able to 1c and stall for Hiko to come back up in the case that Starling and Sopdet both spawn. Kuroyuri system literally lets you stall infinitely with no worries. Hakuryu is used on my Kuroyuri because I don’t have Rathian. Remember to save B&J or Rathian for Gaia. Carat is used as a 2 turn burst for Metatron into Kali. The majority of spawns aren’t troublesome since you can clear most floors by full comboing boards. Remember to double check your damage with a tool like PDC, and to work around HP execute ranges if you don’t feel confident in your ability to one shot. 

For a video on a Kuroyuri system’s playstyle, click here.

Plenty of AA templates exist without double Kuroyuri, as follows:

Non-Kuroyuri Teams

Link to video here.

yukizgames’ template focuses around utilizing TPAs for damage, while at the same time stacking god killers for the various tanky god type spawns in AA. Mel with Mizutsune equip is especially potent, since it raises Mel’s base RCV to almost double, while stacking 7 Heart OEs. No poison resist is run on this team, so precautions will have to be made against mortal poisons. Paradise Hera is used presumably as an OE stick, along with a god killer base. Zeta Hydra is nice as a delay, Blujin on B&J is self explanatory (for Starling/Sopdet/Parvati), and Facet is an extremely strong burst, considering the number of TPAs on the team.

Link to gamewith’s article here.

Notice how gamewith follows my previously mentioned template of RCV Stick, FUA, Dungeon Utility, and Awoken Bind Clear. Mitsuzune Equip is highly recommended on Mitsuzune if possible for extra recovery and overall survivability.

Why is a proper RCV stick needed?

Link to video here.

The reason why I’m including this template, despite it not getting a successful run, is to show you why a dedicated RCV stick is crucial for B&J AA teams. Notice how this template looks perfectly fine, taking a ‘modern’ approach by stacking 7c awakenings. 100% poison resist from both Rathian equips is perfect, increasing survivability. Enra does have a really nice niche in B&J AA teams, since she has a super easy time getting through the Green Mask floor 11, and acts as a nice base for the Fujin active. Tachibana fulfills the same role as Enra does as a damage stick, and to be honest I’m surprised that Tachi was chosen as a base for the Rathian equip.

However, despite having Mizutsune for RCV, since it was used as a base for Mercuria, the player couldn’t pop it’s active. There were a considerable amount of times where the player ends up popping Jhoira in order to heal after crucial gravities. Even if Mizutsune was used as a Rathian equip base and its active was popped, it wouldn’t increase the team’s durability enough to survive through the entire dungeon.

AA Troublesome Spawns

Due to being a 4/144/1 lead, B&J will have different problems than higher multiplier, but squishier leads. In order to show you trouble spots that you might have not thought about while making your AA teams, here’s a list:

• F1: Dark Ninja has a 3 turn preemptive Awoken Bind.
• F3: Homura can be troublesome, use subatt. to chip.
• F6: Folklore has a 6 turn preemptive Awoken Bind, and can be stalled on with a Kuroyuri system. Starling has a damage absorb that requires a Fujin, or a Kuroyuri system to easily stall. Remember to stall for your Fujin if you choose to pop it.
• F8: Just watch your health in case you get 3 fire spawns.
• F10: Remember that you take ~85k damage if you chip an Ogre below 50%.
• F11: Green Mask can be threatening with 99% gravity pre-emptive and 15 million defense. Rathian Equip and/or a sub like Enra can be used in place of B&J’s active to deal with it. If you need to stall for your Fujin active, this would be the place, especially if you have a Kuroyuri system.
• F12: Sopdet can spawn. Either you can 1c water (assuming you have no god killer latents on B&J), or just pop Fujin.
• F13: Goemon’s preemptive of 145815 HP is an important threshold to hit for all B&J AA teams. If Gaia blocks either Fire or Water, be prepared to pop B&J, or have a delay ready.
• F14: Raguel has an Awoken Bind pre-empt. Prepare to stall on Draklist as well if he spawns.
• F15: Do NOT have any locked jammers going into this floor, since Lakshmi will kill you. Parvati can be killed with a Fujin active, and can be stalled on with most team set-ups.
• F16: Camael has an Awoken Bind pre-emptive that can be stalled out, but it will be difficult to stall. Hashihime absolutely needs a balance killer sub, or at least something that can stack Hakuryu and balance killer latents, since otherwise you don’t do enough damage after the 6th turn with the 75% shield up. Tanking the nuke on the 13th turn is definitely viable, but you’ll still be at risk at sending him into execute range if you’re not careful.
• F17: Have at least 77700 health for Lifive’s preemptive. Absolutely prioritize killing him as fast as possible before he puts up his damage null. Deightros may be troublesome and require a B&J active to get rid of the defense. Ninegaruda can also be annoying if you can’t kill it quickly.
• F18: DQ Hera has a 136440 pre-emptive. Hera-Sowilo is an absolute RNG nightmare if you don’t have an awoken unbind, or a solid way of healing up 29-30k HP per turn without awakenings and leaders.
• F19/20: Most teams can deal with Metatron fine, but I would highly recommend using a 2/3 turn burst like a Gemstone or a Norse burst. This way you don’t have to burn a board changer on the Meta and instead save it for F20 to secure a one shot on Kali.

Challenge Mode

Since B&J has plenty of damage, you might be inclined to think that Alt. Arena on challenge mode is doable. If you’re looking for a consistent clear, then the answer is no. As far as I can tell, there’s no challenge team that has a 100% clear rate for all possible combinations of spawns.

This is purely because you don’t have enough sub spots for utility that you need for most troublesome spawns:

• Not bringing a Fujin: Auto lose to Sopdet, or you don’t do damage to Kali/Metas since you can’t stack god killers.
• Not bringing Awoken Bind clear: You’re forced to bring a Kuroyuri system, not have FUA, and still lose to Hera Sowilo etc.
• Not bringing a Shield: You autolose to Lifive and DQHera.
• Not bringing FUA: Damage controlling with killers is a terrifying prospect.

The following templates are not teams that can clear the dungeon 100% of the time, but have the ability to under specific circumstances and spawns.

This build dies against Sopdet, Lifive, DQHera, and Hera-Sowilo. Even then, if you get awoken bound and/or skill bound you’re in a lot of trouble. Using Sumire equip for the extra SBR would be nice, but SBR badge can be used instead over HP+ badge. No FUA means you have to get really familiar with your damage.

This build dies against Lifive in conjunction with DQHera, and Hera-Sowilo. Despite having some trouble stalling for your Fujin active after Starling, this build can technically survive it with proper stalling for Fujin to come back up for Sopdet. Skill binds may be a slight issue unless if you run the SBR badge. Theoretically you could run Jhoira as a base for Fujin, but then you lose 20% poison resist. I chose to put Hakuryu on the god killer B&J to demonstrate that even if you don’t have access to a balance killer + Hakuryu friend, or you don’t have a Rathian Equip, that your damage is still fine.

Remember that Challenge Mode AA is something that isn’t meant to be done casually, and should only be done for the stone. 

Inherits for Barbara and Julie

Like every other leader in the game, inherits purely depend on dungeon specifics and what you would need the most. This section will examine valuable inherits for B&J teams in commonly cleared dungeons:

Arena 3

Run any other leader. Please. Killers for B&J make chipping down VDP spawns super slow, God/Devil killers completely ruin damage control. It’s honestly not worth the trouble, or you already should know how to build for this dungeon with another team, and follow team building standards for the dungeon. Using 4 fujin actives while finding reliable RCV and FUA honestly doesn’t sound fun, and if you have 4 fujins then you definitely have another team better suited to the task.

Arena 4

Arena 4 inherits tend to revolve around the subs that you are running. Utility is often based around the floors that give your team the most trouble. Most trouble spots will originate around awoken binds. In other cases teams may struggle against the Norns. However, the following are actives that you will want to have either covered by subs themselves or their inherits:

1. A burst to 1 shot the Norns (floor 24) with FUA.
2. Poison Resists are a must, and absolutely make this dungeon a breeze. Even with only 40-60% poison resist, your survivability is much better. Jewels of Creation floor 12 are a joke with 100% resist.
3. A hard awoken unbinder to speed things up, or at least an unbinder to stall out Fuma’s 3 turn leader bind.
4. A shield active for Ena’s (floor 23) 115% gravity. Using latents can work but you need 14% worth of dark resist.
5. An inherit that increases combo count can help against Oichi/Ena as well.
6. A max HP% restored for x turns active can be valuable, even if you aren’t running a Kuroyuri system.

Alt. Arena

Alt. Arena is much simpler ironically for B&J teams than Arena 4. Despite things becoming tankier, killers start to kick in and you’re able to deal plenty of damage.Some common trouble spots are with the Green Mask floor 11, Gaia floor 15, and Hashihime floor 16. Starling, Sopdet and Parvati make up your fujin spawns, which can be very annoying.

In order to deal with this new mess, here are what I would recommend for inherits:

1. A burst, as usual. Preferably two turns like Carat so you can have the burst up for both Meta and Kali. High HP spawns can be really devastating, especially for Hashihime, since you’re most likely dead if you don’t somehow kill her before she puts up the 75% shield.
2. At least 1 Fujin inherit would be wise to have. This is because of the short time that Fujin has to come up in between Starling and Sopdet. However the risk of stalling is completely mitigated with a Kuroyuri system. Parvati isn’t really worried about since you can stall for plenty of time if you get all 3 Fujin spawns.
3. Poison Resists, as always, although I would strongly recommend Rathian due to his ability to deal with the Green Mask floor 11, or Sopdet itself. Poison orbs will always be an issue for B&J.
4. A shield active would be wise, since with it there are plenty of rage hits that you can tank that you couldn’t otherwise, such as the Metas, Sopdet, and similar rage hits.
5. A hard unbinder like Jhoira or Ren would be valuable considering the number of 6 turn awoken binds in this dungeon. Fortunately you can stall 1 turn on most if not all of these spawns and use a Grodin 5 turn awoken unbind. You can get away with stalling with a Kuroyuri system, but be prepared for a slower clear.

In General

I strongly believe in the idea that there is never a ‘one answer fits all’ option in PAD in any situation. Because I know people will ask though, here is how I would prioritize assists on B&J.

1. Poison Resist Equip:
   1. Rathian is preferred due to its active having extra utility. Karn would also be acceptable due to its 100% HP restoration. Sasuke has a low base CD, but you should be fine assuming that you pop B&J often. Poison resists are always nice to have, assuming that the content you’re clearing has any.
2. Assist Evos that increase damage:
   1. Helen, Weld and Hakuryu are especially invaluable, as 50% more damage or balance killers would definitely let you clear content more much consistently. The poison/jammer resists on Hakuryu is really valuable too.

Honestly anything else wouldn’t benefit you too much in most content; B&J active skill is already strong as a bicolor, and 17 turns is a very long CD for an inherit base.