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

Holy Angel Phyllis!

Not much to say.  The pic is self explanatory.  Follows the same rules as the other angels.  I got lucky and ran into her on my very first attempt at Hector.  Which is perfect so I can focus on the new questline coming up...

Knightly buffs

So our 7-star attack cards (the "knights:" Lahair, Hogle, Lancelot, Hector, Achilles) all have sub-elements.  A nice addon I suppose.

Lahair is Fire/Water.
Hogle is Water/Dark (I noticed this correlation with Rune Archer: I wonder why this is)
Lancelot is Thunder/Fire
Hector is Light/Thunder (This is the other correlation with Holy Angel Amy I don't really understand)
Achilles is Dark/Light.

I'm still trying to figure out all the nuances with dual elemental cards, like how elemental card sealing works in tech quests, whether they count as a full element when "multiply damage by X when Y elements attack at the same time", etc.  Since these sub elements differ from the main, they do 30% of the card's ATK value, which is nice.

Berkes - Fire Fox (not the browser)

Berkes was the one mechbeast I was missing from my collection.  I was a wee newbie when this quest first came out, and was only able to complete the level 1 version.  Now it has returned - how can I tackle the top level?

Well, fortunately it's a purely mono-elemental quest.  The upper difficulties are technical quests, so it was a little tough putting a good team.  From what I read and experienced, I got really lucky.

Stage 5 and 9 minibosses.  The burning wolf can seal random cards and double attack.  Not really threatening, but it can take a very long time to defeat if it seals your cards often - which it did for me.  Stage 9 was a true pain though.  They only have 1 skill - heal wounds.  They don't have immense HP, but have around 1000+ defense.  However they are guaranteed to use their ability the moment their health goes to 50% or less.  With my team I had to withhold all skills until one of them got to 50%, and then just go all out on it.  With a high ATK team I suppose it wouldn't be too much of a hassle, but I went with a defensive setup.

Note that both the wolf and the queens have CD2.  That extra turn before attacks helps a lot in setting up big heals or attacks.

...And here is our boss.  The 11677 is the damage it can do with a normal attack when powered up with its "Release Potential" skill.  Normal attack with no buff is shown in the other pic (note my leader and ally).  I heard from other players that it can also use the "Angry Snow" skill which is a massive barrage of attacks that totals about the same damage as a buffed attack or possibly more, and/or can heal for 33% or it's max HP.  Yikes.  The boss has CD2 though.

Like I mentioned earlier, I may have gotten extremely lucky.  To account for any of that shenanigans, I went with standard play without using offensive skills till a little under 50%, waited until I got a lot of water diamonds, and just unleashed everything.  Catherine --> Carl --> Senas --> Prothero --> make good chains from here on out (Catherine's skill must be first; the rest can be in any order).

I don't think I wanna do this quest again at these levels.  The annoyance factor was quite high, as well as my luckiness.  However, the level 2 version seems much more appealing for one particular reason - stage 9 there has a pair of Erinyes!  And there I can get away with using more offensive teams, like double Anna.

Anyway, my team and reasoning:
Leader: Deep-Sea Banshee: 50% fire damage reduction and hearts on demand.  Perfect pair of defensive skills.
Prothero: Solid HP and active skill on a fair cooldown (only skill level 2, but still nice)
Pastor Carl: Solid stats all around, and pestilence is quite handy for the mini-bosses as well as the boss itself.
Night Witch Catherine: For my team, absolutely necessary for stage 9 and 10 for cutting out a good chunk of their HP with the right timing.  Also has excellent stats all around.
Erinyes: Seriously, Medusa Eyes skilled up is too amazing not to have.  Mine is very high leveled too, which gives her more than 700 RCR!
Knight Senas: Another 50% fire damage source.  This one had a max'd active skill of destruction arrow (cooldown of only 3!), which makes it useful for chipping away at HP of anything.


One last thing - the level 2 version of  this quest has 2 Erinyes at stage 9!  It's time to start farming once more :P  Level 2 is the only level that has them, which I think is good so I don't have to fret over any bs tech skills like heal wounds card sealing.

More cards with sub-attributes

So now the 7-star attack cards have changed from the normal evolution into the "ultimate" evolution path, each one gaining it's own element as the sub element (for example, Bahamut+ is now considered fire/fire).  Note that the materials to do the evolutions have not changed.  I guess this is ok, since when you do evolve them this way, they don't go back to level 1.  Also, people who have Lenneth and/or Silmeria got the same treatment, though their sub-element is different from their main (Simeria got light, Lenneth got dark).

From what info I gathered, if the sub element is the same as the main element, the sub element will do damage equal to 10% of the card's ATK.  So it will produce a second attack doing only 1/10th of the damage.  If the sub element is different from the main element, the 2nd attack will damage equal to 30% of the card's ATK.  For the sub elemental attack to activate you need to make a chain of the sub element.  So if you had a Disciple of Fire and Water, you would need to make a fire chain and a water chain for that card to make both attacks, not just it's primary element.

Having matching main and sub elements seems very underwhelming so far, but different elements may be ok.  At high level quests, where enemies have actual defense, that sub attack may not amount to anything but 1 damage unless you pull off a very high combo.

Also, restoring a double elemental card to its original version no longer requires 5 holy flowers.  It now requires 1 of each of those non-winged tentacle monsters, which are sorta painful to get unless it's the Friday weekly quest.  I still don't know why you'd want to revert a card though.

Gracious Angel Caroline!

For some odd reason she reminds me of Mami from Madoka Magica.

CD2, but hits for almost 8000 after taking in the 50% lightning damage reduction.  Having skills ready to go would be most helpful.  As you can see I brought a bunch of instant burst damage cards and Erinyes.  Ciguapa is standard issue in these no-heart quests (you'll need a high level one to keep up with Lancelot's attack anyway).  Charmer is just mainly for the damage reduction, but she can chip in damage as well.

Fatal Routlette - as the world of JD turns

LATEST UPDATE: Cleared it twice, facing each boss once.

Finally was able to make a decent setup for this quest.  50 energy for 5 levels of deathly fun.  Sort of.

Stage 1: 5 enemies of the ATK type.  Each one does 3500 damage. CD1.  If you are not prepared or get a bad initial setup, you might be in trouble.

Stage 2: 4 bollas of different colors.  I got light/dark/fire/water.  CD6, 9999 damage each.  Making a 5-combo on top of normal combos is crucial.  When only 1 or 2 remaining, you may want to stall a little bit to get skills ready.

Stage 3: 3 enemies with CD2.  Each hits for about 7000+ I think.

Stage 4: 2 Ala, with around 800K health a piece.  CD2, 12000+ damage each.  This stage is rough.  You will need some way to boost your attack and burn all your skills here.  Be proactive with defensive skills too.  I did spend one gem on this stage because after burning out my defensive skills, there is a small window where I have to eat 24000+ damage, which inevitably leads to death.  But once one of them is down, it's not too hard unless you get trolled with heart diamonds.

Stage 5: You could get either Ganessa (the elephant) or Poseidon (who looks more like a scylla).  Ganessa has only 372600 HP, but also has 15000 defense; hits for 5710 with CD1.  Poseidon hits for about 14000 damage with  CD3.  She doesn't have any defense worth noting, so for her it's just keeping up with her attack every third turn.

The team I used:

Nature Mobel as leader doubles the HP of all my cards except Erinyes++.  Also provides the shield skill which was crucial in stage 4 and 5.
Night Witch Catherine is there as utility mostly.  Her toxic attack didn't come up fast enough before stage 4, but she is still good for solid HP/ATK/RCR.  Also sped up stage 5.
Ciguapa+ is just for stats.  She's really amazing at very high levels.  Though she could be replaced.
Pastor Carl was needed for stage 4 and 5.  Especially 5 since I fought Ganessa.
Erinyes++ is always a staple for harder missions.  Leveling up her skill is essential.
Thunder Goddess Thore is my source of damage.  Because of her, I was able to clear stage 1 in one fell swoop: she triples the damage of any attack when I do a 4x combo or greater.  It's also needed for stage 4.  She is a God type card, so she benefits from Mobel's leader skill.  Similar God type damage enhancers will work great here, like Loki or Njord.

Burning Scales (UPDATE 4/1/14)

UPDATE: Cleared lower level using 2 gems, but no boss drop :( Pics below.

While not exactly the same, the setup is very similar to Holy Land.

Values below are for the Level I version.  Top level just adds about 33% more damage (unless it's the bolla type monster).

Stage 1: 5 enemies,  of each element, all with CD1 and hit around 3500 each.  Just like certain other quests. Each one can do a death strike, which does a bit over 4000 damage.
Stage 2: 4 chaos eggs of varying elements.  A holy flower may replace one.  CD6, 9999 damage each.  The flower has a CD1 and hits for 4000.  They are just like bollas. They can seal cards too.
Stage 3: 1 Asiman++.  Hits for 9956+, CD3.  Can do a quick combo for about 17k I think.  Also has an ability to boost her attack for multiple turns.
Stage 4: 2 random 3-star energy cards (cyclops, lampades, or cambion).  hit for 6000-6500 each.  Each can do a quick combo for about double the damage.
Stage 5: Fire Queen.  Hits for 12000 or 23000 from quick combo.  Can seal random cards for 3 turns (very dangerous if key cards are sealed at the wrong  time), and has a one time full heal which is always used at 50% HP or less.  Around 3M health.

Bleh.  Going defensive costed me a gem at stage 1 since you need good ATK to clear it before the damage they inflict adds up.  This setup also has a luck factor using the fire/water damage reducer since stage 4 is somewhat random in what enemies I face.  It is possible to get 2 cambion, giving me zero defense against them.  I got Lampades and Cambion, and still had to spend a 2nd gem here.  As for the boss, having that 50% fire damage reduction got me through with sheer attrition.

Quick Note:  The damage Lamapdes does to me is still about 6000 base.  I used Mobel's shield skill which just ended when that attack I took finished, and factor in my 50% water reduction damage to get that value.

To do this with no gem spending would require some really good ATK booster cards, along with about 25K total and a really skill up'd Erinyes.  HP can be lowered if you can find a place to stall (Stage 2 I suppose), and can find ways to reduce damage from skills (Thunder Queen?)