The Legend of King Arthur (UPDATED 6/1/14)

How else can JD celebrate the new year by releasing a new quest that has hell and super-hell difficulty?  I'm putting this here as a reference for info on the "lower" hell difficulty.  Damage listed factors in 50% reduction in dark and water damage from a spirit archer unless otherwise noted.  Boss info was given by a friend :)

Stage 1: Agloolik and Jack-In-Irons
- CD1 for both
- 1835 normal damage each
- Quick combo double normal damage
- Can seal cards (Agloolik seals lightning, Jack-In-Irons seals holy)
- About 300,200 HP each.  About 500 defense only too.

Stage 2: Hogle or Achilles:
- Hogle: CD2; Achilles: CD1
- 3462/2579 normal damage from Hogle/Achilles
- 4641 quick combo damage from Achilles
- 8640 angry wind damage from Hogle
- 720000 HP (for both maybe)

Stage 3: Lahair:
- CD2
- 9961 normal damage
- Dark Rules (turn all diamonds black)
- Angry Wind for 24900 damage!  (before any reductions thanfully)
- About 430000 HP

Stage 4: Anatole:
- CD2
- 3500 damage
- 7000 Release Energy damage
- 9798 Angry Snow damage
- 50% Heal (reborn)
- About 500000 HP

Stage 5: Dark Witch:
- CD2
- 5000 defense
- 33222 damage (holy crap!)
- Look around ability (does nothing)
- 695800 HP

Stage 6: Boss (Arthur?):
- CD1
- 7496 damage
- Hand of Doom (turns a random type of diamond to stone)
- Double attack for 10592
- Ghost Seal (disable one card for 5 turns)
- About 1.7 million HP


Strangely, it has 6 stages, making it rather unique.  I'm gonna try a Mobel/Spirit Archer setup with the usual Carl and Erinyes, and then probably Sigurd and Tainos.  (UPDATE: Failed at stage 5; my setup only gives me 29000 HP, which is not enough to survive the 33000 damage attack from the Dark Witch).

New 6/1/14 update: Tried again going with a Dark Witch+++ leader, thunder queen++ ally, erinyes, tainos, sigurd, and pastor carl team.  The first round is somewhat scary since you need to survive 5 rounds before erinyes and thunder queen skills are up.  Once they kick in, it's a lot less stressful.  After that, all the stages aren't much to worry about since all but Achilles have CD2, meaning Erinyes can make all of them have CD5 essentially.  Arthur "her"self can kill though if you get an unlucky break and she ghost seals Erinyes or Thunder Queen at the wrong time.

Pics of stage 1 and 3.  Stage 1 is stressful until the usual OP combo skills are up (medusa eyes + iron wall each on CD5 only).  Lahair is the troll enemy in a stage that has only water and dark enemies.  His angry wind will kill if you are not prepared.

Dark Witch in stage 5 "usually" just looks around, but can attack for a unruly amount of damage.  Need to keep that medusa eyes and iron wall skill chain going constantly no matter how many times she just looks around.  For the boss encounter, you can't afford to use medusa eyes any later than ASAP since she can potentially ghost seal Erinyes, completely screwing you over for 5 turns (and thunder queen's skill will eventually run out and screw you over).

With a little luck, it can be cleared with zero gem usage.  Super top level may be a different story though.

Quest 30-5: End of darkness

Finally - the last of the dark quests.

Team: Dark Witch, Sigurd, Smaug, Carl, Erinyes, Spirit Archer.

See that troll dragon in stage 8?  It hits for a little over 7500.  Usage of some skills to speed up that stage is recommended.  The lone Ankou is just like the previous ones seen before.  The big dragon at the end hits for around 5400 after dark damage reductions, and has 6000 defense.

Unfortunately, like in the previous versions of the final quests, the lions are only of the level 1 type.

The final quest series is upon us, and it has no specific elemental theme.

Quest 30-4: Slower but maybe just as steady?

All water and dark enemies this time.  A little troubling though, as they still hit kinda hard.

Team: Dark Witch leader, Sigurd, Tainos, Carl, Erinyes, Spirit Archer ally.

Tainos helped a lot during the water enemy stages - he can instantly kill or nearly kill them all.  Mine isn't even skill leveled much (just level 2).  The Kali are no issue, but there's two Jack-In-Iron+ in stage 6 that are still as tough as nails.  Usage of skills except Sigurd's was expected here.  The trio of Ankou are nasty as well - each does 3830 damage after factoring in my 75% dark damage reduction.  Since I went with a resist team, I have no boost to HP or ATK, and they have around 2000+ defense each and a fair amount of health.  I had about 14K health myself, enough to bring me into the flashing red zone after a round of taking damage.

A super ATK may work if you are lucky with diamonds.  It would need some sort of shield skill as well as medusa eyes to be safe though.

Leonidas - Holy Mechbeast

This was the very first mechbeast I ever got - as well as my very first 6-star card way back in the day.  I thought he was a total beast of a card when I first picked him up.  He's not bad, but the lack of RCR growth and high energy cost does hold him back.  His active skill is also a direct damage attack, which has its ups and downs.

You can see the damage the enemies can do in stage 5 and 9 with 75% holy damage reduction.  Not bad considering they are CD2.  Though I didn't see it, I'm pretty sure the princesses can heal themselves.

With my setup, Leonidas hits fairly weak.  The 4914 damage is his angry snow attack which he uses when at low health.  He can also do double attack and reborn (50% heal).  Basically, save up skills for around 20%, then just spam skills away.  Safe yes, but rather tedious.

Onwards to next weeks festival!

Quest 30-3: Slow and Steady

Dual Sigurd failed me at the boss stage, so I fell back to my standard team, though having Balerion as my last card didn't do so much for me.  It probably could have been Smaug or Sigurd.

Team: Mobel leader, Erinyes, Carl, Catherine, Balerion, Spirit Archer ally (helps against all but two enemies).

As you can see, Spirit Archer halves the damage of every enemy except in stage 6.  The Jack-In-Irons+ in stage 4 is still a beast to contend with - very high HP and ATK.  The enemies in stage 6 hit moderately hard (9k total between the two of them IIRC).  The Yasha in stage 5 hit fairly light compared to the other enemies, but note their CD1, as well as elevated defense (which can be overcome with making multiple mono-elemental combos, revealing their somewhat low HP).  The banshee hit for 9k each.

Keep in mind all the damage I'm listing is factoring in my shadow and water damage reduction from my ally.

Quest 30-1, 2: Back to the Sigurd master race

Stuff probably hits hard, but who cares when you have 9x damage lelz.

Quest 30-1 Team: Dual Sigurd, Erinyes, Achilles, Anna, Lahair.

As you can see, none of the enemies have CD1.  Note that the evolved Jack-In-Irons has a very solid amount of HP and some defense.  The lone Atshen also has around 10k defense and enough HP to warrant Erinyes usage.


Quest 30-2 Team: Dual Sigurd, Erinyes, Achilles, Anna, Lancelot.

The masks require Erinyes usage to safely kill them in time.  It's hard to see, but the Yasha in stage 5 has CD1.  Fortunately it's easily dispatched.

Snow Princess :)

Free card - and a good one at that.  Plus you get candies to feed her quite the amount of xp.  Now instead of dual Anna you could go with dual Snow Princess for 4x ATK/RCR or one of each for 2x HP/RCR and 4x ATK.  The 7-star ATK cards don't have a lot of RCR, but some of the lesser star ATK cards do.

Quest 29-5: Twas the night before Christmas

...and not a new festival quest in sight.  So I just went on with this quest series till the end.  The dark dragon in stage 8 hits for 11111, and the boss hits a bit harder.  It also has 6000 defense.  If you want to use ATK boosters I'd suggest something like Loki, Njord, or Thore, not Sigurd/Evil Angel. 

Team: Mobel, Catherine, Carl, Tainos, Erinyes, Saintess.

Nothing really threatening, except for heart trolling at some point.

Tomorrow - free XMAS card :)

Quest 29-4: Back to tradition

Double Sigurd is fun, but also has its weakness - the moment you lose your full HP, you lose your ATK boost.  Which is ok against enemies with long CD, but when you come across CD1 enemies, it becomes quite a problem.

So I fell back to Mobel/Saintess leader and ally, with the usual Catherine/Carl/Erinyes in tow.  Morgana took up my last slot for extra dark damage fun.

Both the Centaur and the Hydra have CD1, but don't hit terribly hard as long has you have 1 holy damage reducer.  Their defense isn't terribly high, but it would take a lot of time if you don't have any poison or toxic attacks ready for them.

Quest 29-1, 2, 3: Enter the dual Sigurd master race

Quest series 29 is the holy themed series, with the usual trolling thrown in.  This particular one has a good amount of holy enemies, a couple of fire enemies thrown in, and then two DARK enemies as bosses.  Two Atlas that hit for around 13000 each with CD2.  They also have a lot of defense (10k+ at least IIRC).

Instead of trying to come up with a solid team with shadow reduction, I decided to unleash my newly acquired max level Sigurd and pair her with another one for some 9X damage fun.

Quest 29-1 Team: Sigurd leader/ally, Achilles, Mobel, Anna, Erinyes.

Of course, I had to focus down anything with a CD1 (the Ljousafar).  The Atshen at stage 6 hit for 5555 each (which I found out on a previously failed run, along with Atlas' damage).

This is also the first quest that requires 14 energy.  Getting kind of expensive now just for normal quests.



Quest 29-2 Team: Sigurd leader/ally, Baal+, Achilles, Anna, Erinyes.

Had a little scare with the masks, but a skilled up Erinyes bought me enough time to kill them all before any of them can attack.  I guess you can assume the enemies here mimic other elemental versions of the same type.



Quest 29-3 Team: same as 29-2

Need to make a 5-chain immediately in stages 1 and 2 or else I'd lose my Sigurd ATK bonus.  Unfortunately, since this setup can do some extreme damage, I have no real data on the Banshees or Charybdis.

Quest 28-5: Straightforward business

Final lightning high level normal quest.  Same team as before, except I had Wales instead of Sigurd.

Notice the enemies from stage 8, 9, and 10 have fairly long CD compared to what I'm normally accustomed to.  Thunder Naga is perfect for this quest.  Those enemies have decent defense, but too much HP.  The Charmer has 5000 defense and hits for around 23000 base.  The phoenix hits for around 16000 base damage, and the ice dragon is 10000 base damage flat.

The rest of the stages are similar to previous iterations from other quest series.

Quest 28-4: Moving along...

After pulling my hair out on the previous quest, this one was pretty easy.  Same setup as the last one, except I subbed in Sigurd for Tainos.

The Askafure doesn't have 5000 defense; maybe around 2500.  Stage 2 and 4 are still kinda scary though.  The phoenix in stage 6 and 7 are similar - just that the one in stage 7 has better states (up to about 16000 base damage for the boss).  Defense is a little higher than expected, but can be easily overcome even without any ATK boosters or defense reducers.  Both of them are also CD3 so you have plenty to time to setup and heal between their attacks.

Quest 28-3: About time!

I tried many times to pass this quest with various super offensive and defensive teams, but ended up using my top-level team setup: Mobel leader, Catherine, Carl, Erinyes, Tainos, and Thunder Naga ally.  Super offensive teams run into a brick wall at the boss, and super defensive teams can't account for all the elements featured in this team, and lack proper offense.

Those Cambion can hit for 11000 each.  I needed to stall in stage 1 to get Erinyes ready for stages 2, 4, and 5 (and obviously 7).  The Askafure have about 5000 defense, but hit a little weaker than the Cambion.  I had to burn Carl and Catherine's skills to speed up this stage.  With Thunder Naga, Jotun doesn't hit hard (a little less than 4000).  Each Thor hits for about 3750+, but they also have well over 10000 defense!  In other words, damaging them was all about skill spam.  After factoring in Thunder Naga total damage is around 7800+ every round.

Calisto - Thunder Mechbeast Revisited

Feels like this was supposed to come around last week but didn't.  I tackled this thing over the summer but never got around to trying top level...until now.

This quest has a lot of impudulu to drop if you need to raise the iron wall skill of Thunder Queen, Asiman, Askafure, or Impudulu.  A lot of enemies seem to have about 1000 defense or so.

Pics of stage 5 and 9.  The snake can seal random cards and do a double attack if I can recall properly.  The twin nymph can heal 50% of their HP when they are at low HP (dunno how low exactly: maybe 25% or less?)  Incredibly annoying to say the least since they are fairly tough to take down.

 Boss hits for about 10000 damage base with CD1.  The skills it can use is release potential, angry snow, and reborn.  Reborn only seems to be used at sub 20% HP or even lower, and recovers 50% HP. 

You can see the setup I used here was incredibly defensive - dual lightning damage reducers and Mobel for a lot of damage reduction.  The rest are my standard for taking down very high HP bosses.

I did do another run using a double Sigurd setup for 9X damage, as long as I never take a hit.  With mostly fire cards to go along with it, the team can easily clear every stage in 1-2 rounds except the boss.  My setup did not have any diamond changers, relying on a little luck to keep the fire diamonds coming.  A little strategy is required though, as clearing stages too quickly can land you into the boss fight before Erinyes is ready (if her level is too low).  It's a very risky setup since a bad draw on the initial board setup can spell doom almost instantly.

Cruel Angel Eugenia!

The last of the angels that can randomly appear in the time limited quests.  Damage shown in this pic is after 50% reduction from my leader card AND shield up, so the base damage is actually well over 20000!  CD3 though.

Path of Fire Revisited - Fire Samurai Level III

I had some serious issues with this quest last summer, but now I've got much better cards to handle this.  In this quest, all of the enemies have decent defense, around 1000-2000, so small chains will barely dent them, save for one exception - the boss himself, who has zero defense, but a lot of HP.

The left pic shows the dreaded trio you are guaranteed to fight in stage 5.  Of course with my luck, I ran into the exact trio in stage 4 as well.  Scott has his incredible 75000 defense that he shares with whatever allies accompany him.  Fortunately, defensive ruin + thunder breath instantly clears the stage.

Preferably, you'd want to stall so the defensive ruin + thunder breath combo is available for the start of any round.  Having other skills ready to go in case you get situations like what I ran into - facing scott and shirley enemy teams in successive stages.

I went with a defensive ally, since with my Erinyes, I can get a lot of free healing while focusing on non-heart combos.  Very safe, especially with Mobel for temporarily doubling my effective HP and RCR.  Carl is also there to provide damage in stages that feature Scott and other "normal" enemies, since the defensive ruin + thunder breath will not kill the normal enemies.

The boss's attack can be seen in the middle pic.  CD3, so there's plenty of time to recover from any attack.  Given that he also has zero defense, he's a cakewalk.  Just don't get complacent about keeping up with hearts and it'll be over soon enough.

Blade of Heaven - Silver Wolf (Sigurd Revisited)

This is the first quest where I planned to spend multiple gems just to pass.

My current team setup:
Leader: Nature Mobel (doubles HP of all god/dragons, shield skill can chain with Medusa Eyes)
Ally: Loki or Njord (x4 or x3 attack power if I can make proper combos)
Night With Catherine (dark damage, toxic attack, may save it only for Sigurd since its CD30)
Pastor Carl (mostly for pestilence on CD18 and overall good stats)
Tainos (overall good stats and active skill on CD9)
Erinyes++ (Medusa Eyes has to be used all the time in stages 4 and 5, CD6)

All enemies can have around 1000-2000 defense, except in stage 2 and 5. Here is the breakdown AFAIK:

Stage 1:Wolf pup, Octoman, Lightning snake.  All have CD2, can do a double attack.  Dunno how hard they can hit, but it can be somewhat hard.  I'm hoping I can kill one in 2 turns.

Stage 2: Holy Mask, Dark Mask, Shadow Bolla.  The shadow bolla is probably just like the one from the wednesday weekly quest - 4000 damage, CD1, 15-20HP?  The masks probably act like other bollas - 9999 damage every set amount of turns, CD6.  I might be able to stall in this stage.

Stage 3: Three random enemies with CD1.  Not terribly strong ATK or HP wise, but it is CD1.  Not sure what to make of this stage.

Stage 4: Two random 3-star ATK cards.  Each have around 800K health, CD2?, can hit for about 9000.  This stage will be trouble for sure.  I'll probably start burning all skills ASAP except maybe toxic attack.

Stage 5: Sigurd.  CD1.  Complete breakdown of this girl:
Normal Attack: 18000 damage.
Angry Wind: Series of attacks for a total of over 46000 damage!
Release Energy: One super-powerful attack for about 36000 damage(?)
Fall Apart: Turns every diamond into stone
Soul Seal: Disables random cards for 3 turns
Defense: A little over 5000

Pics of stage 2 and 4.  Need to take out that bolla ASAP - it can seal cards as you can see.  I was very fortunate that the seal would be gone right before the others attacked.  Stage 4 is a little scary too since they can do double damage whenever they feel like.  However, a CD2 gave me some breathing room to prep skills.  I also made a wise decision to burn all skills except Toxic Attack in stage 4 - I needed to bring down one of them quickly, but their HP isn't tremendously high (it would have done about 250K damage, and I was able to kill one during a second Medusa's Eyes).

That 23K attack is her angry wind with my shield up.  I don't even know the real damage her Release Energy skill does, since she used it only when my shield was down and one-shot me at full health.  Toxic Attack immediately at the start did a little over 1.15M damage.  The right pic is the result of "Fall Apart" - just a free turn to charge up skills.

I spent 5 gems, all on the boss fight itself.  Without my skilled Erinyes, it probably would have been a LOT more.  Even if her skill was 7 or even 8, it would probably double the amount of gems I would have had to spend.  That's how powerful that card is.  I never do golden summons save that one compensation period, so I can imagine teams with a skilled up Thunder Queen can really tackle the highest level encounters (that card can get the shield skill to FIVE CD, which is insane).

I can finally join the ranks of the master double Sigurd master race.

The Legend of Cefiro (UPDATE: 1/31/14)

UPDATE for 1/31/14: See the bottom.

5 Stages, 50 energy, a "Level 1" and a top level.  Treat Level 1 has hellish and top level as super hellish.


Low top-level statistics:
Stage 1: 5 random enemies.  CD1. Each hits for a about 4300.  2600 defense.  Each one can use "ghost seal" which seals one card for FIVE TURNS.  8200 HP (keep in mind the defense you need to get through)
Stage 2: 4 random enemies with CD1.  They have have 60000 defense, but 12 HP, attacking for around 2400. They have an ability "fury burst" which triples their ATK for MULTIPLE (3?) turns.
Stage 3: The same as Stage 2.
Stage 4: Aurora.  Can do a angry for about 8400 damage total.  Normal attack is about 5600. Also has the "Look Around" skill :P and Ice Seal.  About 1 million HP.  Probably the easiest part of this quest.
Stage 5: BOSS TIME: CD1, 10k damage; also has release energy (2x damage!), angry snow (3 attacks that do 15000 total), dark rules (makes all diamonds black until you move them), and soul seal (seal random cards for 3 turns).  About 2 million HP.

For high top-level, just increase the numbers by like 50% for now.

 

This team had to spend a gem in stage 1 due to a lack of ATK getting them down.  Note I have Alice as an ally to mitigate fire damage (and water).  Of course, the boss DID NOT DROP FOR ME :\

UPDATE: This quest came around again, and this time I went in with a mono-fire team:
Alice leader (50% damage reduction for fire enemies and the bosses obviously, additional reduction for any lightning enemies that may pop up, also a heart changer which is quite useful)
Ally follower (doubles my ATK and RCR, needed to clear stage 1 in particular)
Wales (high stats, active skill can help pick on enemies in stage 2 and 3 even if it is just 1 or 2 damage there)
Bahamut++ (high stats, ATK in particular to break through in stage 1)
Erinyes++ (medusa eyes, etc., high RCR)
Kelpie++ (decent stats, water-->fire change is key in stage 2 and 3)

Due to the randomness of stage 1 and what can be on your initial board, stage 1 can be a breeze or instant death.  Stage 2 and 3 are similar in luck, though at that point Erinyes' skill can be up to buy time if necessary.  Stage 4 wasn't much of an issue as damage taken is fairly weak, and no water cards means no ice seals.  The boss is a little scary at times since she can seal random cards and then go nuts with Release Energy, which sucks when saving Erinyes or Alice for a bad timing and then they get sealed off.

In the end, I finally did land her card :)

BTW, a dark team with Alice as lead/ally also worked well for me.  Yeah, Erinyes is actually NOT part of this team, but it's manageable:
Alice leader (still need that damage reduction on the bosses)
Pamela follower (needed to double ATK/RCR of the dark team)
Catherine (good stats and toxic attack for the boss (not Aurora)
Morgana (good stats basically)
Atlas++ (light-->dark changer is useful for pre-boss stages)
Banshee (the dark version for pestilence on Ayesha)

The idea behind leader/allies with the double ATK/RCR is to quickly remax out on HP while being able to clear stage 1 without too much trouble.  Both the fire and dark teams were able to have around 4000+ RCR with a single heart chain, and a 3-combo could easily heal most attacks.  Max HP is around 12500 for my setups.

Anatole - Ice Mechbeast revisited

A long time ago I tried fighting this thing.  JD was a different beast back then - 7 star ATK cards gave crazy amounts of HP, and we didn't have all the cards we could access today.  After cleaning up the Archlight quest series, I decided to revisit this questline.  Starting with the lower tech level.

I went in with a defensive setup - Pastor Carl as leader, Thunder Naga as ally.  Both have excellent skills for leading: dual 50% water damage reduction, heart changing, and pestilence.  I also took in my standard Erinyes, Catherine, Mobel, and then Tainos - that ancient thunder dragon.  With no way to boost my attack, each stage took a bit of time.  Stage 5 has that lone ATK enemy that didn't hit too hard, but had a lot of health.  Stage 9 has a pair of water banshee (the 2-star variety, not the ocean banshee type) that can heal 50% of their health when they drop below 50% HP.  Annoying to say the least.

As for Anatole itself, it's got the release potential skill whch is a focus skill on steriods.  It triples the damage of its next attack.  Back when I first tried this, it also had angry snow as an ability when it dipped below 50% HP.  I forgot if it could heal as well.  But in my lone attempt, it never used those two skills.  Between having dual water damage reduction AND Mobel's shield skill, the damage it could do was not too much of a concern until sub 50% percent, but maybe I just got lucky.

Now for top level.  Pics below.

Little scary with only Carl for water defense, but the extra damage from Thore helped tremendously.  Bela has an attack that does double damage, but that's it.  Her normal attack isn't much to worry about with my setup.  Anatole still only used release potential, which seemed to also do about double damage from a normal attack (the damage showed in its pic shows how much damage it does, but I have shield up).

So for now, all of my quests are complete...so I just gotta wait for the festival.

Arclight - Light Melody

A brand new quest series with some new cards thrown in. Yay.

LATEST UPDATE: Cleared all quests :)

The normal quests are only 5 stages long and only require 10 or 15 energy.  A high ATK/HP team can easily clear it before any of the enemies can attack unless you get really unlucky at stages with multiple unicorns.

The tech level starts to get a little tougher.  Stage 1, 5, and 9 pit you against 5 unicorns, each with CD1.  Fortunately, they have very little HP and no real defense to speak of, so a 5-chain can kill them all.  They hit pretty hard though; around 15000 a piece on top level!  Another issue are the flame enemies.  Hestia can hit for over 12000 damage on the LOWER tech level, and around 35000(!) on top level, CD2.  Focusing down the non-holy enemies should be top priority.  There are also princess enemies that can focus to do extra damage on their next attack.

Both the flame gnome and Liana appear randomly.  At top level, they both hit for around 23K+ damage; the gnome has CD1 and Liana has CD2.  They also have a good amount of HP, but it may be wise to quickly burn down any weaker enemies first.

I'm really starting to see the power of a high level Erinyes.  Mine has a skill level of 9, just shy of max,  giving the medusa eyes a cooldown of only 6 turns.

The boss hit for around 6000-7000 base on low level, and around 9000ish on top level, CD2.  Only skill I saw it use was dark rules, which is mostly an annoyance.

You can see the team I used.  I think going with strong thunder/holy ATK card may be better than Baal for more diversity.  In stage 1, 5, and 9, a 5-chain can kill all the unicorns as long as you make a 2-3x combo with it (their HP is so low, even just the 5-chain may do it, but I'd play it safe, since they pack a punch).  But if you get unlucky with the board and the right diamonds aren't on, you could be in trouble.

The boss (Lana) has an active skill is just an instant heal for 500% of it's RCR, which is just ok since its a defensive card with high RCR, though still not overly impressive, and time extension as its leader skill.  Kinda meh if you ask me, unless leveling it gives crazy amounts of RCR.

Also, you can see I got the rare drop and proceeded to work on her a bit.  You need 1 of those flame gnomes to evolve her normally, and then two more of them for the ultimate evolution.  The non-ultimate form only has Time Extension as the leader skill - this one is way superior.  The active skill is the same, though the unevolved original form has the 500% RCR heal like Lana.

The ultimate evolution requires flame gnome + flame gnome + light bolla + light kawsa + fire kawsa.  Farming the gnomes is a pain - I didn't think Liana would pop up more often than that guy.   Her leader skill seems like it'd be pretty good in the Balerion quest series :P