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    Summer Planar and the (water) crosses situation

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 07:46 AM PDT

    (this post is a compilation of my thoughts, opinions and impressions and mine alone)

    I've been willing to make that post since.....Kyôri's release. That's a year. I actually wrote like half of this post back then but decided not to post it because who likes reading me randomly complain about the state of this niche playstyle I adore that are the attribute crosses anyways (not heart-crosses, although they're niche too and I like this playstyle too).

    But the recent reveal of the brand new Beach version of Planar was too much, and here I am, talking about what's been bothering me for ages, and keeps becoming more and more frustrating with each new batch of new content.

    The devs -GungHo JP- doesn't seem to be willing for crosses to be anything but a niche. And lately it *feels** (emphasis on the fact that it's an impression) like they're actively working on making sure it stays like this.*


    But before I dive in.

    I'm Yamakyu. I'm this guy who were bragging a while ago with some cool clears with Best Girl Planar™ and Deity of Supernova Karin -freakin- Kanzuki. I'm this guy who keeps bringing up crosses all the times here on Reddit, on the forums, on Discord. Heck, I'm also this guy who completely lost his shit at the announcement of Karin Kanzuki.

    2 years ago, on May 2018 IIRC, when Fujin received her two split ults, I stopped playing """normally""" entirely, and shifted gears to playing 100% crosses. There was a transition phase because of friend helper issues. But for 26 months now, I've had my eyes on every news somewhat related to playing crosses, monitoring any change that could impact the cross playstyle. All I have been caring about in PAD is how the cross playstyle works in PAD at any moment in time, and only that.

    And the answer is : poorly most of the times. There's been some moments when it worked better than others. But essentially crosses have mostly been niche all this time for good reasons (duh). It's inherently challenging to just run them, and making them work in higher dungeons can get disproportionately hard as these are clearly not designed with how cross leads are designed in mind. Cross leads are special in the fact that they can trigger their LS multiple times in a turn (by matching several crosses), inducing a power scaling of their damage output that is unique to them. It's kinda their signature. But it comes at the cost that it's inherently challenging to run (team design for harder dungeons is often very specific, execution requires much more practice than any other playstyle, and errors have greater consequences), and every bit of hazard becomes much more of an annoyance when you face them playing crosses.

    Don't get me wrong. I get that this just mean the player needs to do better, and practice their execution and that's fine and all. Crosses usually do requires you to git gud at least a bit. Don't even get me started with the mess that is triple cross VDP FUA, which is a requirement for playing crosses in high challenges in 2020. I certainly ain't the best cross player out there (very far from it). I'm just very vocal. I'm however confident in the fact that I am good. Not great, but I clear stuff. Certainly not everything, but if you need a refresher, back when AA2 was still the hardest dungeon I did beat everything (solo) with crosses. Triple cross VDP FUA used to be a nightmare for me, but now it's fine. I didn't make it to the 3% crown in the Wedding Rushana ranking a few weeks ago, but I did score 6% so there's that too.

    That's just for the 2 people in the back of the room who are already typing "git gud" in the comment section :9 I'm already gitting gud. It's requirement for running crosses in high challenges anyways.


    Now that this is out of the way, there are 2 things with crosses in PAD that are bothering me.

    • the outdated design of most playable and relevant cross leads compared to modern dungeon design (think recent M+ descends)
    • the lack of cross lead as a whole, and especially water cross leads.

    Fasten your seatbelt and grab a drink because we're here for a while, as today I've decided I will elaborate extensively on everything.


    As you know, we don't get relevant cross leads very often. Approx 4 to 6 or so in a year ? Something like this ? That's including the irrelevant cross leads. And I'm not just talking about new leads ; evo and buffs are very slow to come. This is not of course a problem exclusive to crosses, but just the devs being more willing to add new stuff (money++) stuff rather than updating existing stuff (no money). It just hurt crosses much more than other playstyles, because unlike "most" other playstyles, while we wait for cross buffs and evos, new cross leads aren't released. While the vast majority of the seasonal REMs and collab have at least 1 decent and payable lead of most (if not all) playstyles, special/collab REMs featuring cross leads are exceptions (and they're often trash like Blanca or Joco). Cross leads starvation is a thing.

    This wouldn't be problematic if cross leads were always released with features matching the current state of the game ~ But that is often not the case, as LS wise, they feel kinda outdated the day they release. A good part of the relevant cross leads are often glass cannons (Karin Kanzuki, Allatu, Planar, Toragon, Cherun), and besides REvo Seraph Lucifer and Paimon, the others often have either a small 25% shield or HP boosts without access to RCV boost to complete that. With 2 exceptions to this though.

    • Split ult Acala. Not REvo. Split ult Acala has 1.5x all stats to wood... in exchange for being no skyfall. And it's her ult. Which means she's stuck in this form and won't be able to evolve from there. Card is several years old and still don't have access to a true 7x6 pairing yet. If this is not planned obsolescence I don't know what it is. (also Tigrex, but the situation is exactly the same (could it be that they are doing it on purpose))
    • Aoi Shikigami X Allatu. This pairing has x3 RCV and x2 HP with 7x6. One the best cross pairings.

    But that's it. Best we have are a no skyfall x2.25 all stats, and a x2 HP x3 RCV pairing. Yikes.

    That means there is no cross lead with built in x1.5 HP x1.5 RCV (don't get me started on x2 HP/RCV). Did you know about that ? Not saying that it's common for other playstyles, but it's very well here and people play that. Did you also know that there isn't a single cross lead with HP boost + shield ? Did you know that there isn't a single cross lead with a RCV boost + shield ? Did you know that there isn't a single cross lead with double shield ? HP boost + RCV boost on the same card neither (even Mega Sonia has it, come on, isn't it about time).

    I'm not even yet talking about the amazing new auto-fua, poison damage nullification, or these crazy transforming leads. Just basic stuff that allows you to make -you know- durable pairings for these challenges that hits you for 60k+ each turn and with 100k+ preempts. These several years old challenges. And right here I'm simply just scrolling through my friend list to see what's popular and mentioning what cross lead don't have. Not how these things (that cross lead lacks) are combined with other features such as time extend, auto FUA, combo+, etc...

    I mean. Litteraly the mostest recentest cross lead in the game is Super Ult Allatu (released last month @JP, so soonish @NA) and here are her lead features :

    • 7x6. Thats amazing for a cross lead. Probably the playstyle which benefits the most of 7x6
    • triple-color crosses with x3 ATK per cross. That's great too, especially in 7x6.
    • +5 seconds of matching time. Crosses can absolutely use that.
    • x3 RCV for dark attribute. Great for pairing with Aoi Shikigami

    That's it. None of the crazy stuff modern leads have. In cross lead standards, her LS is amazing (heck, just her being 7x6 is amazing on its own since it benefits crosses so much). But like, crosses aside, aren't these LS features what we would find from 1 to 2 year old LS ? And this is the single freshest most recent cross lead in the game. Previous one is that weird traffic lights dragon (x2 per cross in 2020 is obviously not designed to be relevant). Then right before we got Amakozumi ; glass cannon restricted to 4secs. Before that, Sousuke Sagara (strong contender for best cross lead in the game btw) with a strong but not very modern LS. Then before that, Gray, who is an incredible water cross lead.... JP only (not super modern LS either). And before that, Aoi Shikigami.

    That's all the cross leads in 1 year. 12 months. 1/6th of my total playtime : 2 great cross lead, 2 irrelevant, 1 amazing JP only, and 1 very nice. Imagine any other playstyle with only 6 new leads per year, with only half of them relevant for modern PAD. Not 6 good leads. 6 leads. Period. And only half of them relevant.

    Well that's crosses.

    In comparison, here's Wedding Rushana which I think is the best cross lead in the game

    • 7x6.
    • triple-color with x3 per cross.
    • +5 secs of matching time.
    • x1,5 HP for gods.

    In crosses standard that is an amazing LS. The HP boost is -imo- what makes Wedding Rushana better than Allatu. LS wise they used to be a recolor of each other (before getting their respective ult), and it shows. For the record, she's 1 year old, released 1 month before Aoi Shikigami. That's actually fine though ; when she was released she was legit amazing, and Allatu catching up only now is """""ok-ish""""" as everyone has 12 of her in their box, while Wedding Rushana is a top seasonal prize. So, eh. Value checks out.

    And for the record, since I'll be mentionning her a lot from now on, Karin Kanzuki :

    • 7x6.
    • double-color with x3,5 perc cross. Amazing, and in 7x6 that's more power than you think.
    • x2 ATK and most importantly x2 RCV for light.

    Anyways. From now on, I'll stop taking into account cross lead who aren't at least bi-color with x2,5 per cross, as I cannot -under any circumstances- picture anything that doesn't at least matches "x2,5 per cross and bicolor" be relevant in 2020. So that's 45 cross leads in total that match this low base requirement (these are not all the relevant cross leads). Feel free to see for yourself with Ilmina.com. https://ilmina.com/#/ADVANCED_SEARCH/%7B%22leaderSkillConditions%22%3A%7B%220%22%3A%7B%22type%22%3A124%2C%22negate%22%3Afalse%2C%22templateVm%22%3A%7B%22colorAmount%22%3A%222%22%2C%22atkNumber%22%3A%222.5%22%7D%7D%7D%7D

    (I could try to explain the bi-color requirement, but I have had this conversation before and it's hard to explain it with words because it's a feel. Mono-color crosses just have a very poor effort/reward ratio in general , and that is not fine for higher challenges. We can have this conversation, but so far I've never really succeeded at conveying this issue to someone who hasn't played different types of cross leads)

    Here is a list of actual cross leads with a shield :

    • Kenshin. 25%. Very compatible with Karin Kanzuki for 7x6.
    • Dantalion. 25%. Very compatible with Allatu for 7x6.
    • Mega Paimon. 50% Legit amazing, but slightly bit unconsistent because it's HP dependent. Amazing shield otherwise. Poor 7x6 cross leads compatibility despite him being quite old now. We'll come back to this later.
    • Nemain. 25%. She also is -very weird- triple color and "compatible" with Karin Kanzuki and Wedding Rushana for 7x6. Also Allatu but don't do that.
    • REvo Seraph Lucifer. 50% Legit amazing again. Used to be -technically- the best cross lead in the game. He's just hard to build for. Same problem as Mega Paimon, we'll come back to it too.
    • Rokks. 25%. As a triple-color cross lead, he'e very good on paper. Not easy to build for. But can def clear stuff. "Compatible" with Wedding Rushana and Karin Kanzuki.
    • Kirei Kotomine. 25%. Triple-color cross lead as well, very compatible with Allatu.

    7 leads with shields. Exclusively 25% for 7x6 favorable cross leads (notice how the said 7x6 cross leads you can play them with don't have shield themselves so you're stuck with 25%), and 50% for those who work poorly with 7x6 pairings.

    Actual cross leads with a HP boost :

    • All iterations of Acala. From x2 for her SRevo or straight up x1.5 all stats for her split ult. No skyfall (for crosses ffs, come-on) and poor compatibility with 7x6 leads.
    • Sitri. x1,5 devils only. Mono-color. Water crosses in a nutshell
    • Aoi Shikigami. x2 for Dark. Excellent pairing with Allatu for 7x6. Also +3 secs of matching time. Great.
    • Wedding Rushana. x1,5 for gods. Best cross lead imo. She's also her best pairing imo.
    • Sousuke Sagara. x2 for attackers. Had it been gods he would have been the best cross lead, as he's exceptional for being rainbow-cross (crosses of all 5 colors).
    • Base form Kyôri. x2 for water This guy. He has auto fua. But he's a weapon (could they be doing it on purpose). Also mono-color. I'm mentionning him so that you realize the issue with water crosses.
    • Revo Odindra. x2. Virtually no 7x6 cross lead compatibility.
    • Tamazo Odin. x2 for water and gods. Eh. Decent on paper now that Super Ult Allatu is a thing. Mediocre tier otherwise.

    9 leads with HP boosts (I count Acala as 2). 3 of which are mono-color (and therefore should'nt even be in this list, but I needed to introduce them to you). And only 3 with good 7x6 compatibility for higher challenges.

    Actual cross leads with a RCV boost :

    • Karin Kanzuki. x2 for light. She's also 7x6, and her best pairing imo. Excellent cross lead.
    • Best Girl Planar. x3 for everyone at 6 combos. This (alongside her humongous 10k+ HP) is what allowed her to strive (before super ult Allatu completely replaces her as a lead).
    • Super Ult Allatu. x3 for Dark. With her recently announced Super Ult, Allatu -as a cross lead- vastly outclasses Planar in every possible way. RIP Best Girl.
    • Gilles Legato. x2 for Devils. Mediocre overall.

    4 leads with a RCV boost. Vanilla Odindra has auto-heal so there's that too I guess e_ê

    Actual cross leads with combo+ :

    • Ultra Toragon. +2 for matching 4 attributes. Cannonest glass cannon in the game, with x3 per cross while being rainbow-cross. This guy has an average personal damage output of 1B+ on an average 6x5 board without actives. Plays "nicely" with all 3 7x6 cross leads.

    That's it.

    Cross leads with auto-fua :

    • Base form Kyôri. * sigh *
    • No one, essentially.

    So yeah. Cross leads usually have LS in that looks like this :

    • # damage for each cross of #/# attribute
    • Maybe a flat or conditional ATK boost
    • "defensive" feature (shield or RCV or HP)
    • Some of them also have time extend boost (very nice), and 3 of them bring 7x6.

    That's ackin to 2018 LS design and earlier. Look it up if you want. Look up the top leads from 2018/2019, and replace their ATK boost by crosses, and see if it looks like a "modern" cross lead of 2020.

    "But Yamakyu, you can't expect cross lead to have all the features in their LS, that would make them OP !"

    Yep. And guess what ? I'm not expecting that much features in my LS. I'm asking for HP + shield, or RCV + shield, or HP + RCV. That's LS design from 2 years ago already. I think it's about time crosses have access to it.

    Plus, if we were even remotely anywhere near making OP cross leads, more people would play these. When a very potent lead is released, people roll for them, and play them. That's how we end up with a "meta" even though PAD isn't a competitive game. If we were at point where crosses are getting dangerously close to be OP, people would be playing crosses already nowadays. But that isn't the case. It's obviously very hard to estimate how many players plays what, but from my interactions on the different PAD communities (this subreddit, a few Discord servers, the FB group, the Forums, heck, your average in game friendlist and my in game friendlist (which has far more cross player than average)), my guess is that less than 1% of the NA player base plays crosses for more than 2-3 dungeons a month (excluding Training Arenas). Pure guess. I could be very very wrong.

    Plus, crosses are a shape that some player base dislikes to match. Understandable. So these player ain't playing crosses anytime soon, unless it's OP (a lot of players openly disliked this meta, but played it anyways because it was so damn good). I'm not saying that they should play crosses at some point (you do you), but that when these players will gradually start playing crosses that will mean we're getting close to crosses being just too good. We aren't there yet.

    I understand the fear of making leads that trivialize everything with their firepower and durability, and I understand how this kind of balancing must be adjusted little by little to keep everything in control. Especially cross leads and their power scaling damage. But we still have quite some room before reaching the point where crosses go out of control, and we can make them much better than what they currently are.


    Ok. Now that you're more familiar with them, here's a list of the "relevant" cross leads, relevant for considering tackling modern high challenges, grouped by attribute.

    FIRE ATTRIBUTE

    • Kenshin
    • Karin Kanzuki (7x6) (tricolor)
    • Rokks (debatable) (tricolor)
    • Pre-ult Allatu (debatable) (7x6) (tricolor)
    • Nemain (very debatable) (tricolor)

    WATER ATTRIBUTE

    • Nothing.

    WOOD ATTRIBUTE

    • Wedding Rushana (7x6) (tricolor)
    • Wd/F Acala.
    • SRevo Acala (debatable) (monocolor)
    • Rokks (debatale) (tricolor)
    • Nemain (very debtable) (tricolor)

    LIGHT ATTRIBUTE

    • Karin Kanzuki (7x6)
    • Kenshin
    • Wedding Rushana (7x6) (tricolor)
    • Mega Paimon (debatable)
    • Revo Seraph Lucifer (debatable) (bicolor + heart-cross)
    • Nemain (very debatable) (tricolor)

    DARK ATTRIBUTE

    • Aoi Shikigami
    • Allatu (7x6) (tricolor)
    • Sousuke Sagara (rainbow)
    • Best Girl Planar (debatable)
    • Mega Paimon (debatable)
    • Revo Seraph Lucifer (debatable) (bicolor + heart-cross)
    • Rokks (debatale) (tricolor)
    • Kirei Kotomine (very debatable) (tricolor)

    It's blatantly obvious that there's an issue with water cross leads, but we'll come back to it in a bit. As for the "debatable leads" it's just that they're just a bit on the lower potency side end of spectrum, and for others it's a 7x6 issue. So let's talk about these.

    • Rokks is debatable not because of his lack of 7x6 pairing, or lack of power. He's technically more powerful than Karin Kanzuki (which is a powerhouse so that says a lot), and is decently compatible with the 7x6 leads. The issue lies in Triple Cross VDP FUA, which is very hard to setup with rokks because of the requirement to match wood/fire/light, while also making 3 crosses, a VDP and a FUA. That means you either need a tri-color+hearts setup/board change (which might not guarantee enough orb repartition to allow the execution of triple cross VDP FUA), or a bi-color+heart setup/board change, with an additional active skill to spawn 3 of the last color. Both of ways are problematic in higher challenges such as AA2 and more recent (either not guaranteed, or requires an additional AS), as spawns with both a damage void and resolve are everywhere nowadays.
    • Pre-ult Allatu is debatable because ult allatu exists and is vastly superior in every way. Except. Being a fire lead.
    • Nemain would have been relevant if not for he fact that she doesn't contribute to the team damage. Her power output is certainly above the average cross lead, but her not having the colors of the crosses she can match implies about 33% of loss of power or so. Which -again- isn't suited to higher challenges
    • Best Girl Planar is vastly outclassed as a cross lead by Super Revo Allatu so don't bother.
    • Kireik Kotomine is just very average in fire power and doesn't compensate for it with anything, besides his small shield.

    But the main thing I wanted to address here are Revo Seraph Lucifer, and Mega Paimon. These fine guys have top cross lead potency... but are let down by the fact that they don't have a good 7x6 pairing. Both are technicaly compatible with Allatu, Wedding Rushana and Karin Kanzuki.... but they only share 1 color with each of these. And that is a problem -again- in higher challenges. If you're wondering why, think about the signature of crosses. The cross shape, and the power scaling damage output.

    The cross shape is debatably the 2nd hardest shape to match, after the 3x3 square. Matching a cross is a commitment in ressoruces, as it takes time (practice helps though), space (hard to match around crosses so you need to play around it by cascading stuff) and orbs. Each additional cross on the board makes everything increasingly harder to match because you have less orbs, less time, and a lot less space. But in exchange you get this power scaling which makes your damage increase dramatically fast.

    Well.

    You kinda loses a big part of that when you pair with a laid which only share one of your color. Mono-color cross leads have effort/reward ration problem, and can therefore not be relevant for modern challenges. It's the same issues when you pair cross leads who only share 1 color. Because your power will come from this 1 color, as the others won't induce a notable damage scaling.

    Let's take an example. If I play Karin Kanzuki (paired wiht herself, as she's her optimal pairing imo), 1 cross = x12.25 ATK, and 2 crosses = x150 ATK. However if I pair Karin Kanzuki with Mega Paimon, I will lose this scaling unless I match only light. If I do, fine, I get the same rewarding scaling. But at the cost of being stuck to light, which means I have to play around my need for light supply (team building for mono color cross lead and bi/multi color cross leads are very different), while being careful of not having my crosses touch each other, while being limited to 3 crosses in 7x6. Yep. That's a lot of conditions for making a 1-color 7x6 pairing. Now try to picture these conditions in higher challenges. I'm not saying it's impossible, and I know there are people who play Karin Kanzuki X Mega Paimon and make it work but from my experience (26 months, yada yada), it has potency for high challenges but it's quite harder to play and harder to build.

    So no, I don't think these 1-color 7x6 pairing are good.

    "But Yamakyu you forget about the other colors, 7x6 leads can match at least 2 colors after all".

    Yep. And it makes things better. But not by a large margin. Back to the Mega Paimon X Karin Kanzuki pairing. 1 light cross is x12.25, and 2 crosses are x150. If instead you match 1 cross of either fire or dark, you get x3.5 ATK. That's less than 1/3 of what you get with 1 light. Now if you match 2 of either fire or dark, that's x12.25 (which is 1 light cross), instead of x150 for 2 light. Thats less than 1/10 of what you get for 2 lights (also exactly 1 light cross). This means that for the effort and ressources required to match these crosses, you get bad reward. Sure matching 1 or 2 lights + 1 off color is a strat, but each cross makes every folloing match harder. So anything that are not crosses become increasingly harder to match, but at the same time these don't contribute a whole lot to your damage. That's what I call waste.

    And that's not all. Remember how triple cross VDP FUA has become increasingly required in 2020 content ? Well, 1-color 7x6 pairing have a harder time dealing with that because you can match only 1 cross of your VDP color ; so you either :

    • match 1 cross and 1 VDP of your main color (light, here), and then are stuck to matching 2 off-color crosses (fire or dark here) which brings little damage output because they are not a shared color.
    • match 1 cross and 1 VDP of another color so that one of your off-color cards (here, non-light then) deals VDP damage and you can match 2 light crosses to increase your damage output and actually kill stuff. But then you have to carry that off-color VDP card.

    Either way, that's another "play around" situation, which means more effort to play and to build, which is undesirable in higher challenges. I'm not saying it's impossible. But crosses as a playstyle are already much more effort than all othter playstyles (I've played all of them for a while (except L because I openly dislike it)), and playing 1-color 7x6 pairings is additional effort on top of that. So you do you, but for me, 1-color 7x6 pairings are a no go. All of them.

    Yet, Mega Paimon and -especially- Revo Seraph Lucifer need 7x6 pairings for them to work in higher challenges because of how limiting 6x5 is for crosses :

    • double crosses VDP has low potency and is exclusive to 3-color cross leads (Kirei Kotomine and Rokks, eh)
    • FUA limits the amount of crosses to 2, and 7c max before skyfall
    • triple crosses FUA requires extremely specific setups and galaxy brain cascading, and the vast majority of cross players can't do it.
    • Most hazard straight up become handicaps when you need to take FUA or high combo into account (because we're talking crosses).

    And then again. Gitting gud can alleviate all of that. But I dont think it's fine that we need to git that much gud to make stuff work. The team building requirement and execution in higher challenges just becomes unreasonnably high.

    So yes, Revo Seraph Lucifer and Mega Paimon do need 7x6 pairings. And. They don't have it. And it's been years. It's easy to make a 7x6 cross lead with light and dark crosses. They just don't want to do it.

    Oh and if you still don't think they're doing it on purpose, they could have made Allatu an Attacker with her super ult, so that she becomes actually fully compatible with Sosuke Sagara. So you'll have a hard time convincing me they're not doing all that on purpose.

    "But Yamakyu why don't you pair with other non-cross 7x6 leads"

    No.

    You do you, but it's a no for me.

    It's the same issue as the 1-color cross 7x6 pairing, but worse. Instead of losing part of the power scaling of your damage (which is already an issue in itself), you lose the entirety of it. So your effort to build and learn to match for crosses is rewarded with abysmal damage scaling. And that is just straight bad in higher challenges. Again, if that works for you great, but I ain't playing that. Yeah I gain shields and HP bonuses and RCV and whatnot, but in exchange for seeing my effort meaning nothing in regards to modern HP pools. Might as well play other playstyles which work optimally with optimal 7x6 pairings. And if you think pairing a 7x6 non cross lead is straight up better than an actual cross lead because they bring so much value, that just mean you think cross lead have outdated lead design and GungHo JP should look into it.

    Which is : exactly my point.

    So yeah, no.

    As for water crosses...

    • Cherun is a glass cannon monocolor cross lead which openly doesn't benefit from 7x6 because of the "less x orbs clause"
    • Tamazo Odin has outdated stats and awakes, alongside an average LS. Decent now thanks to super ult Allatu but that's it.
    • Sitri has outdated everything, is monocolor and hard to build for as she specifically wants water devils
    • base Kyori is... a weapon equip, monocolor. But with auto FUA. But a weapon. You know, because otherwise it would have been too strong™️. Also baffles me that he's a monocolor cross lead with a rainbow component in his LS. That's kinda messed up.

    I don't know if I need to say more about water crosses. It's flooded (pun intended) with monocolor leads, none of them -besides Tamazo- anywhere near relevant.


    And all that brings me to : Summer Planar.

    Yeah that was a disproportionate introduction to this Summer Planar issue. But I felt like for once it was the occasion to give you a true "complete" overview. Like, sharing my background and """knowledge""" and my observations (26months that I'm observing all that with care) with you so that you have an almost complete picture without playing this playstyle. I usually don't because it just is too long. But eh, here we are.

    Anyways.

    Quick reminder of the facts : some player (including very vocal me) expected with enthusiasm Summer Planar -the high prize of this year's Beach REM- to be a cross lead, as Planar is a cross lead.... but it turns out she's a very normal combo lead.

    If we sum up all the context prior to Summer Planar's release :

    • 1 - Crosses in general lacks leads. With 3 to 6 new lead per year, and half of them actually at an acceptable level of potency, there are very few amounts of cross leads playable at any given moment, compared to all the other playstyles.
    • 2 - Crosses in general have outdated LS design. They can beat stuff, but what their LS don't provide (basic features that's been available for years to other playstyles) must be compensated with very intricate and specific team design, excellent planning (borderline flawless for some dungeons such as AA2), consistent execution skills even under hazard pressure, and massive amounts of ressources. 7x6 helps with that, but stuff like triple crosses vdp fua are still ressources sink, and a real unconsistent and specific challenge to perform.
    • 3 - Water has no relevant cross lead. Allatu's RCV bonus doesn't affected Water, and she's therefore not a water cross lead. Just a cross lead who can match water. Tamazo X Allatu sounds decent but Tamazo's is openly outdated and you play with a handicap by running him.
    • 4 - They're actively messing with cross leads with big potential. I mean, if SRevo Seraph Lucifer being demoted from his cross lead status (for no apparent reason except the devs being scared of him being too strong (and we've seen we're far from that) as it doesn't change the fact that it doesn't and won't make money) wasn't sabotage, I don't know what it was. It was a big opportunity to make a new great high potency cross lead. And it has been canceled. On a similar vein, base form Kyôri has an interesting LS with auto-fua.... and he's also a monocolor cross lead and a freakin weapon assist. Allatu, Wedding Rushana and Karin Kanzuki have been there for ages, so does Mega Paimon, but he still doesn't have a 7x6 pairing who can use his colors properly. Same colors as -wait for it- REvo Seraph Lucifer (also SRevo, obviously). BOTH of these guys have the potential to be the best cross leads in the game (better than W.Rushana), but they can't because 7x6 doesn't benefit them nearly enough. It's been the case for ages.
    • 5 - Vanilla Planar has been entirely replaced by Super ult Allatu, which -as a cross lead- is vastly superior in litteraly all the ways. Planar is obsolete and not good for anything anymore -as lead-, especially considering everyone has about 25 Allatus in their box (while Planar is a high prize in a REM no one wants to roll anymore). She's still the best at being best girl though.
    • 6 - Super ult Allatu was just released, is Dark/Water, but her RCV boost only affects dark.

    Considering all that. How was it not blatantly obvious that Summer Planar could have fixed all these issues by herself, if the devs dared making her a (good) cross lead.

    Just think about it for a second.

    To me it was obvious, like, all the pieces of the puzzles were here, it was written in capital letters, with blinking arrows. And the devs didn't do it.

    I mean, if Summer Planar was a (good) cross lead :

    • 1 - She would have been an additional cross lead, in a game where there are not a lot.
    • 2 - Being a top prize, she could have been the first true 2020 (or heck, 2019 if you're scared of OPness or whatnot) cross lead, with real modern features such as ! HP bonus ! And ! A shield !! Amazing !!!
    • 3 - She would have been water, to start addressing the "no water cross lead" issue.
    • 4 - Being a top prize, she could have had big potential.
    • 5 - She would have replaced vanilla Best Girl Planar, so that we still have a Planar that is good for something (just so we're clear here, I'm talking LS wise ; vanilla Planar is still a great sub)
    • 6 - She could have been a perfect pairing with Allatu, which was just released.

    The #6 is the part that's killing me.

    They just made an Allatu ult which is Dark and water (she was originally dark/fire ; of all the possible attributes they picked water), with a RCV bonus.... and teased Summer Planar on the same stream, the same day. How could it not be because Summer Planar was supposed to be a pairing for her ?? With all this context, how is it remotely possible -as a dev- to pick Planar (one of the few relevant cross leads in the entire game) as the next special REM high prize, and not make her Water/Dark cross lead with x2 HP + some cross features + some QoL features, to synergize perfectly with another card they just released -namely Allatu- and that would have addressed a lot of issues ? It was right in front of their eyes ?

    Look. I didn't know about the pattern with special REMs having DBDC/Heroine cards as their high chase prize (for these 26 months I've observed anything that affects the cross playstyle, so this pattern slipped through my attention). I've been told about it, so if they choosed Planar and they needed her to be the high prize, look at what they could have done.

    • Water/Dark.
    • x2 HP for Water and Dark
    • x3 ATK per water or Dark crosses
    • x3 ATK and 35% shield for matching 5 of water and 5 dark (so essentially a water and dark cross, but with some possible damage control)
    • 1 auto-fua damage for matching any 5 of not water or dark (so fire, light, or wood.... so essentially an Allatu fire cross)

    And boom.

    High prize cross lead. Doesn't sound "9 stars" enough to you ? Make it x3,5 per cross and add +2 secs of matching time in her LS and voilà.

    If you look at it that's still 15 orbs minimum for full activation, but since it's designed with 7x6 Allatu in mind (which is wiiiiidely available in the player base) it's less of an issue. Make her AS be a VDP + spawn 3 dark/fire/water (so that she doesn't have to rely all the times on this abberration that is Triple Cross VDP FUA) with 25turns or so of CD and you're set.

    They could have done that, and it would have addressed all the issues I told you about. I swear it was obvious to me that this would have happened (with the timing with Allatu's release), with all this context Summer Planar couldn't not be a cross lead of this kind. The planets were perfectly aligned.

    And they still. Missed. This shot.


    So yeah. That's why I was so mad at Summer Planar. All this was why I'm immensely disappointed and upset at what GungHo JP did with Summer Planar. Also the fact that she was revealed the day a knife has been put under Dadguide's throat did add to my salt. But Summer Planar had everything to be what crosses needed the most in the current state of this playstyle, and they decided not to do it.

    You know what ? I understand. She wouldn't have generated money. Prize cards in special REM are supposed to be an incentive to roll, and crosses aren't popular enough to create that incentive.

    But then if they're not willing to improve this crosses situation, I might as well quit. I'm tired to have to put additional effort onto already existing big effort to make this playstyle work. I've been doing that for a long while, it has worked for a while, but I've reached the limit to how much I want to sweat when I run a dungeon with a lead designed like 2 years ago. This is the reason why I've been in hiatus lately. I like the additional effort required to run and optimize crosses and make them work in challenges and all. But there are limits to how much I'm willing to compensate with my time and effort for outdated leader design. And we're either way past this limit, or I'm severely burned out. Or both (don't worry I've been in hiatus for a long while anyways).

    Either way, to me it's clear. The devs actively don't want crosses to be anything but a niche. Call "base Kyôri having a promising LS while being a weapon" a test or an accident if you want. Call "Summer Planar not being a cross lead despite the context begging for it" an unfortunate oversight if you want. But you cannot call "Super Revo Seraph Lucifer demoted from his cross lead status when he could have been a high potency cross lead" anything but sabotage. And then suddenly Kyôri and Summer Planar feel less like unfortunate mistakes either.

    Or ! You know what ?

    Or Maybe ! Maybe it's not like that at all ! And they're trying their best ! And that's great ! And I'm just an angry idiot who thinks because he's into gamedev he knows how balancing works ! I can certainly acknowledge that ! I mean, I certainly am overthinking things here ! But if they're truely not actively making sure crosses remains a niche then -after all this time I'm finally going to say it- they're doing a poor job at maintaining it.


    So why did I make this post.

    First and foremost, I'm not trying to have people relate to my experience or whatnot. I don't expect anyone to feel any kind of empathy towards any of that. GungHo JP doesn't owe me anything anyways, especially considering I'm non IAP. They never said they would make Summer Planar a cross lead. It was I who assumed things, seeing clues where there aren't.

    I'm not trying either to justify my anger, nor say that we should all be angry. But these are my impressions and opinions, and I needed to get them off my head, because for all this time, these were thoughts I had gathered during my cross journey, and haven't had a lot of opportunities to let it all out. For 26 months it racked up, and while I do talk crosses with some people, I can't just puke all my thoughts at once in the face of people I barely know... like I'm doing now.

    But with Summer Planar, I couldn't just keep it for myself anymore. I am invested in PAD. That's a fact. In the past I've had to take 2 big breaks from the game already because of how much I'm invested in this game. So that's my 3rd hiatus. I do like this game. I've liked it for years. But lately, it feels like the game don't like me. So here it is. What it feels for me to play crosses in 2020 PAD.

    Don't get me wrong. I still 0% regret my decision to shift gears and go all out on crosses in May 2018. Back then I was playing Kamimusubi I think, and it was genuinely nice (really loved this lead actually, she's legit the non-cross lead that surprised me the most with how capable she is (and she cute (#MakeMegaKamimusubiACrossLead))), but I haven't had nearly as much fun playing any playstyle (and I tried them all, or almost) than crosses. Karin Kanzuki especially. I'm not under any circumstances stopping playing crosses. I would rather quit. The devs have yet to come up with a playstyle as fun as crosses. I though Super Revo Parvati would be a thing for me, but it just doesn't click. Nothing does.

    No regrets here. Only salt :9 And billions of words on this post that I'm not asking anyone to read fully. I'm grateful however if you did because that means we can have meaningfull discussions, and that sounds nice to me :>

    Thanks for attending my TED talk.


    PS: I purposefully didn't mention the cross awakening issue because it only has little to do with most of my points here, but I think it's about time we get a cross awake, and I have a bunch of ideas about what it could do. We can have this conversation too if you want.

    submitted by /u/Yamakyu
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    [Misc][Giveaway] 20,000 +Point Giveaway challenge

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 12:46 PM PDT

    Giving away 20k plus points for the fastest clear (using the Play History clear time) of Milky Way's Star Treasure - Mythical Plus

    Rules:

    1. Video preferred but pic is ok too. I know all the animation times so I'm pretty sure I can tell if the pic is faked.

    2. Just want to see 1 clear. It's fine if the team only works for a specific set of spawns

    3. Has to be 1 complete clear, no "sum of best segments" garbage

    4. I personally believe the fastest possible to be 1:03-1:04 but happy to be proven wrong.

    submitted by /u/timgodfang
    [link] [comments]

    So close, yet so far

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 08:50 AM PDT

    I adjusted my TA2 team to be able to button swipe the plus dungoen during this event

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 08:30 AM PDT

    Folklore dragon be like

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 12:39 AM PDT

    [Dungeon] Speedrun Challenge - Milky Way Star Treasure 1:09.4 +Point farming

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 05:49 AM PDT

    Forever stuck at 3.1% :(

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 10:42 AM PDT

    For those with a serious PSI

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 09:18 AM PDT

    https://pad.dawnglare.com

    I have decided to take a break, save stones and work on my orb solving. The website above might also help people who have been coasting/casual all this time.

    submitted by /u/kelleheruk
    [link] [comments]

    Alt Shura Clear with Norza/Yomi

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 01:25 PM PDT

    PadX has Beach Planar’s leader skill translated incorrectly

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 09:38 AM PDT

    Late night pull. ID 313 319 328 Will be making a new madoo hat on her thats not skilled up very soon. Will leave her in slot 1 and will be playing PAD as long as it's in NA

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 10:55 AM PDT

    New Player Introductions! [Discussion] Megathread

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 04:00 AM PDT

    New to Puzzle & Dragons or new to Reddit? Welcome! Drop in to say Hi.

    Don't have a reddit account? Sign up and then Subscribe to our subreddit.

    submitted by /u/AutoModerator
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    very annoying farm but at least it was possible

    Posted: 23 Aug 2020 08:05 PM PDT

    Revo Ieyasu or muramasa equip

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 11:52 AM PDT

    So i'm debating between making revo ieyasu or making the muramasa equip. revo has 3sb 3vdp which is nice but nothing that special right? leaning more towards equip which essentially is an sb and near full jammer resist which seems much more useful. thoughts?

    submitted by /u/Walkonwalkoff
    [link] [comments]

    [Question] Can you do 2player pixel valk descended to farm for the pixel orb skin?

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 11:40 AM PDT

    Is it possible for the pixel volcano drag to drop if I play multipplayer? Or has my coop runs with my alt been futile?

    submitted by /u/noobcak
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    [Fanart] Maid Valeria,,, just cuz cowgirl maid good

    Posted: 23 Aug 2020 06:08 PM PDT

    [Help] Which floor of Milky Way Star Treasure is better?

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 11:31 AM PDT

    Which floor has the highest + point/stamina ratio, Mythical or Mythical Plus? Also, should I farm with double Veroah and dungeon boosts to get more drops and plusses, or does it not make a difference?

    submitted by /u/iswavi
    [link] [comments]

    PAD W

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 11:20 AM PDT

    So I hadn't played the Japanese version of PAD in months and after I updated I noticed PAD W is gone which totally sucks because I thought Tamadra was adorable and loved collecting the cute items for her. When did Gungoho take PAD W out of JP PAD? Is Pad W available as a stand alone game or is it gone for good? Any links with info about this?

    submitted by /u/Santisima_Muerte
    [link] [comments]

    Alternative to polowne

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 04:30 AM PDT

    So after 18 rolls no polowne. Just dupes. With just a week left I can't face rolling in this machine anymore. I don't need anymore lampeids or lisheilas.I have an ideal Dante/remu team otherwise, so my question is is there an alternative?

    submitted by /u/stardent2000
    [link] [comments]

    Ahahahh no remu for me i guess

    Posted: 23 Aug 2020 10:11 PM PDT

    Anybody else see this when they check out the PAD news?

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 07:27 AM PDT

    LF: friends for my leads! 300,059,255! Remu, Norza especially!

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 07:19 AM PDT

    [Video] Milky Way's Star Treasure Farming (Light Row Team)

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 10:39 AM PDT

    [Video] She Won't Be Forgotten

    Posted: 24 Aug 2020 10:35 AM PDT

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