PAD Sniffing

Packet Sniffing for Fun and Profit

Disclaimer: The ethics of doing this are not in your favor, but I will offer these rationalizations:

1. Packet sniffing will not win the game for you. You still need a proper team and to spend stones for Descends.
2. PAD is a literal pay2win game. Every build is viable if you give Gungho enough money. There's a video of a guy who spent 130+ stones to clear Zeus Dios with Anubis.
3. PAD is a single player game. Nobody else suffers from packet sniffing; if anything, others benefit because now they have friends with better leaders.
4. Spending stones on a 40% drop rate is bullshit

You will need:

Your phone, connected to a Wifi network
A computer, with a wireless network adaptor
Packet sniffing software. I use Wireshark (http://www.wireshark.org/)
(Optional) Packet recording app on your phone. For Android, I use "Shark for Root" (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=lv.n3o.shark)

The guide:

Setting Up Wireshark

Open Wireshark
Click on "Capture Options" (In left pane of start screen; alternatively, click the gear icon on the toolbar)
Check the Wifi network that your phone is currently connected to
Confirm settings; DON'T START CAPTURING YET

Preparing in PAD

Prepare your team, navigate to dungeon via menu, and pick a friend
STOP RIGHT THERE
DO NOT ENTER DUNGEON YET
Start capture on Wireshark
Enter dungeon
When the first round loads, stop the capture on Wireshark

Reading the Packets

You should see lots and lots of packets listed. Only a few of these were sent by PAD.

PAD packets are always HTTP, so sort by Protocol column first
At a glance, if you see under the Info column: GET /api.php?action=sneak_dungeon, then you've done the previous steps correctly and definitely have some PAD packets
The drop packet will read: HTTP/1.1 200 OK (text/html) under Info; there will be more than one of these, usually two.
Look at the contents of these packets
(if you don't know how, the foolproof way:
Click on the packet
In the middle Wireshark pane, scroll down to "Line-based text data",
Right-click on "Line-based text data" > Copy > Bytes > Printable Text Only
Paste in a text editor)

The data should look like this (if it doesn't, try another packet):

{"res":0,"hash":"XXXXX","btype":0,"barg":0,"fp":0,"waves":[{"seq":"1","monsters":[{"type":3,"num":"191","lv":10,"item":0,"inum":0,"pval":0},{"type":3,"num":"193","lv":10,"item":"0","inum":10,"pval":0},{"type":3,"num":"195","lv":10,"item":0,"inum":0,"pval":0},{"type":3,"num":"197","lv":10,"item":0,"inum":0,"pval":0},{"type":3,"num":"199","lv":10,"item":0,"inum":0,"pval":0}]},{"seq":"2","monsters":[{"type":3,"num":"171","lv":1,"item":"0","inum":1,"pval":0},{"type":3,"num":"172","lv":1,"item":0,"inum":0,"pval":0},{"type":3,"num":"173","lv":1,"item":0,"inum":0,"pval":0},{"type":0,"num":"175","lv":1,"item":0,"inum":0,"pval":0}]},{"seq":"3","monsters":[{"type":0,"num":"320","lv":5,"item":"86","inum":5,"pval":0}]},{"seq":"4","monsters":[{"type":0,"num":"476","lv":5,"item":0,"inum":0,"pval":0},{"type":0,"num":"475","lv":5,"item":"475","inum":5,"pval":0}]},{"seq":"5","monsters":[{"type":1,"num":"226","lv":6,"item":0,"inum":0,"pval":0}]}]}

Each bracket represents a round
Seq is the round #
Num is the card ID of the monster(s) you're fighting
Item is the card ID of the drop; 0 means no drop; any number that doesn't correspond to an ID is a gold drop

The above was from a Goddess Descended-Legend run. In round 5 (seq: 5), I fought Great Valkyrie (num: 226), and didn't get a drop (item: 0). Gungtrolled.

Another example, but from a successful Goddess Descended-Legend run

{"res":0,"hash":"XXXXX","btype":0,"barg":0,"fp":0,"waves":[{"seq":"1","monsters":[{"type":3,"num":"191","lv":10,"item":0,"inum":0,"pval":0},{"type":3,"num":"193","lv":10,"item":0,"inum":0,"pval":0},{"type":3,"num":"195","lv":10,"item":"195","inum":10,"pval":1},{"type":3,"num":"197","lv":10,"item":0,"inum":0,"pval":0},{"type":3,"num":"199","lv":10,"item":0,"inum":0,"pval":0}]},{"seq":"2","monsters":[{"type":3,"num":"171","lv":1,"item":0,"inum":0,"pval":0},{"type":3,"num":"172","lv":1,"item":0,"inum":0,"pval":0},{"type":3,"num":"173","lv":1,"item":"0","inum":1,"pval":0},{"type":0,"num":"175","lv":1,"item":0,"inum":0,"pval":0}]},{"seq":"3","monsters":[{"type":0,"num":"320","lv":5,"item":"0","inum":5,"pval":0}]},{"seq":"4","monsters":[{"type":0,"num":"476","lv":5,"item":"476","inum":5,"pval":0},{"type":0,"num":"476","lv":5,"item":0,"inum":0,"pval":0}]},{"seq":"5","monsters":[{"type":1,"num":"226","lv":6,"item":"225","inum":6,"pval":0}]}]}

Again, in round 5 (seq 5), I fought Great Valkyrie (num 226). However, this time she dropped a Valkyrie (item: 225).

Apply this technique to other dungeons and you'll never have to burn stones to get nothing or, worse still, a goddamn cockteasing treasure chest.


Troubleshooting:

Before trying this out on a Descend, test it on a regular dungeon to see if you can properly and reliably capture PAD packets. Some wireless adapters have a hard time catching every packet.

If you can't, no matter what (read the Wireshark manual), you may have to capture packets from your phone itself. The upside with this is that you don't need a Wifi network; mobile data (3G/4G) can be captured too.
For Android, I use Shark for Root (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=lv.n3o.shark ;requires root, no shit). No idea what's available for iOS (>using iOS)
With Shark for Root, just switch to the app before entering a dungeon, start capture, enter the dungeon, and stop capture. Same deal with Wireshark (Shark is a port of Wireshark)
Move the .pcap (Shark will display the directory) to your computer and view it with Wireshark. Don't try to open the file on your phone; Shark Reader is a piece of crap. Proceed with reading the captured packets as above.

If you still cant capture packets, the other surest way to get them is to create an ad-hoc network on your pc/mac as a wireless hotspot. Once created connect your device to the newly created hot spot and wireshark will certainly capture the packets because it most go through your pc first before going to your mobile device. Virtual Router Plus is an easy way to create a wireless hotspot on windows 7/8 http://virtualwifihotspot.codeplex.com/.