A very quick image for how to team build, but I can go a bit deeper since I won't be restricted to being concise on Discord.
A large part of Puzzle and Dragons is the team building aspect, which can greatly affect your dungeon clears. Here, we will go over how to make a team; how to choose a leader, what kind of subs you want to take, and how it will affect your orb matching.
How to Choose Your Leader
It is best to look at your box, and see what kind of cards have a favorable leader skill that fits what you have in your box. For example,
Idunn & Idunna
Idunn & Idunna (I&I) is an example of a decent starter lead, that covers a lot of what a leader should have. The first thing to note is their leader skill,
This means that any water card will gain a multiplier to attack and recovery, even if the attribute is only from a sub attribute. This is a flat boost, or otherwise known as an unconditional boost. The next part is an extra conditional multiplier, which will boost the attack of your water cards by 1.5 times. This boost is multiplied and not added, so it is larger than it will seem. Multiplied onto your friend leader, explained in just a bit, will result in your total multiplier. A popular pairing for I&I,
Ryune,
is often used to complement I&I. Depending on your level of comfort skill, box availability, and progress through the game, you may find other pairings that may suit your content better. Let us look at Ryune's leader skill:
Combined with I&I's leader skill, your team will have an unconditional multiplier to all stats, 2x to HP, 6.25x to attack, and 6.25x to recovery, noted as 2/6.25/6.25. In addition, on a skill activate, your team will receive an additional 2.25 to attack (1.5 * 1.5) which results in a total of ~14x attack total.
In addition to leader skill, you should also consider the array of awakenings that are present:
One of the best awakenings is SBR, which is often a barrier to most early game dungeons. While Ryune has none (eventually getting one in a future update), I&I provide two, which makes up for Ryune's lack thereof. Having 5 (20% chance per awakening) is essential to guarantee blocking a skill bind, so your subs will most likely want a total of 3. Both I&I and Ryune support TPA and Row matches, which will be explained later, but grant additional damage multipliers on top of the leader contribution. With that, let us continue with sub selection.
Choosing an Appropiate Sub
Using the examples above, let us continue with choosing appropriate subs to complement a water team. A general template for most teams usually runs by Leader/Orb/Orb/Utility/Flex/Leader, by how they complement a team. Let us revisit the above cards' active skills:
I&I provides a utility skill of an additional damage multiplier, while Ryune provides a full board orb change, which often comes in handy. This means that the subs should cover some additional orb changes, or another kind of utility.
As far as an orb change goes, I&I x Ryune is a monocolor team, so they only require water orbs. Any other orbs are used for additional combos, or targets for orb change. Single orb changers like
Siegfried or
Kamui are quick orb changers that allow you additional burst when necessary or provide orbs when you have none. On the other hand, a heartmaker like
Siren can make hearts when your team is in a low health pinch. Dual orb changers are always a plus, especially if they create both heart orbs and water orbs. Often, you will want orb changers that target different orbs, but doubling up on an orb change doesn't hurt. Full board changes that include water are always a plus, though somewhat affected by RNG, so including an active skill to "fix" a full board change becomes another strong option. In this example, Ryune combined with Siegfried results in a water heavy bicolor board that can be optimized for some serious damage.
It is also important to take utility or defensive skills to counter certain mechanics in a dungeon. The most popular utility, a bind clear, often can make the difference between clear and defeat, especially with I&I and Ryune both being bindable. While bound, their leader multiplier becomes inactive, so it is in a player's best interest to unbind them to move forward. I&I already provides a boost for the team, so in this example, a defensive skill should be considered to aid dungeon stability. These defensive utilities come in a wide array of choices, such as delay, shielding, or bind clear. Offensive utilities like gravity, defense break, or orb enhancement can also be considered to tackle dungeon mechanics. Quite often, your flex slot (an any sub) should have a utility skill to help tackle a dungeon easily, such as bringing a delay or poison to bypass a resolve, or a shield to help tank a fatal hit.
Example Teams:
In most cases, the best utility will often come from the REM, but there are a couple of non-rem options for good orb changes and utility, if you don't mind the lack of awakenings and lower stats. And of course, the skillups for REM cards will also work as subs when moving from early game to midgame. Off color subs from the REM can also work, because as long as they have water attribute they will receive buffs from the leader pairing.
Orb Matching
I&I x Ryune offer a mix of offensive awakenings that allow for both rows or TPAs to be made. While a TPA only increases the card's attack by 1.5x (multiplicative for more awakenings), a Row Enhance will increase the entire team's damage by 10% per awakening* upon activation. A 4 match activates a TPA and a full 6 match will activate a row awakening. Activating multiple row or TPA matches will always increase your damage, so try to match as many as you can while maintaining a good amount of other orb combos to refresh your board. You can also match only off color orbs to increase the amount of a desired orb, known as saving orbs, during stall turns as to prepare a stronger burst to push a dungeon floor past a certain percentage. Depending on what subs and what awakenings they have, you will want to match for rows or TPAs, though other leads may have different orb match requirements. It is often best to pick which style of orb match you are most comfortable with, and then branch out after trying a few leads to learn orb placements and effective stall strategies.
*Row awakenings are more beneficial once you have at least 5 awakenings on the team, otherwise TPA or 3 match and combos will be better. But don't let that stop you from making one anyways due to orb movement constraints.
Questions? Advice? General team building? I can usually be found on PADRagnarok's Discord:
https://discordapp.com/invite/011OOhf7gdxMdQhcS
