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#NEW PLAYER TIPS

* Story mode is a great place to start. It gives a lot of stones and other goodies, is fixed team so it doesn't matter what you do or don't have, and does a much better job as a tutorial than the actual tutorial.
* Don't pull in the regular Rare Egg Machine, it's lost all value. Save your stones for godfests and good collabs. The exception is rare events like Sin Dragons or Mystics.
* Don't sell anything from the REM/collabs/seasonals. Even if it seems bad or low use, it may have better evolutions, may get better evos later, may get buffs later, or may have some niche use.
* Favorite everything that comes from the REM, godfests, collabs, seasonals, etc. Anything worth 1k monster points or more. This protects them from accidental selling or feeding off and filters the good stuff to the top when sorting by Fav.
* Don't use stones for continues or stamina refresh, it's generally not worth it. Pulls and box space are where it's at.
* Team building revolves around leader skills, read the leader skill carefully and pick subs that suit it. Similarly, synergy with the helper leader skill makes a huge difference, so pick helpers that work well with your leader(s).
* Check out the new player guides and teambuilding guide on the [subreddit wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/PuzzleAndDragons/wiki/index)
* http://ilmina.com/ and https://pad.chesterip.cc/ are great databases.
* Check https://www.puzzleanddragons.us/news once or twice a week for NA news, check http://pad.protic.site/ to see what's upcoming.
* https://pad.protic.site/glossary/ is good for learning terms and mechanics

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#GENERAL TEAMBUILDING

Here are my general guidelines on teambuilding:

Teambuilding starts with the leader skill. Pick a leader skill that has

* a good amount of tankiness, through HP multiplier, shield clause, or preferably both
* a good ATK multiplier. For early game 10x for a single lead is plenty, maybe even more than enough. For mid game 15-20x should be good. For late game it's going to be more like 20+x.
* easy/consistent activation. You generally want to be able to activate your shield and/or ATK multiplier every turn. Needing a match each of two colors, attacking with any 2-4 colors, or matching 6+ of one color are all pretty consistent. Needing to match 5 of one color in an L and 6 of another color for full activation or 3+ specific colors is not so consistent.
* one of the leaders should have a fixed damage (auto-FUA) clause and at least one if not both should add combos.

Once you have your leader picked out you'll want subs, of course. The first thing to look for is subs that fit any passive requirements. Does the leader give a multiplier to a specific color or typing? Then you'll probably want subs to mostly or entirely fit that. One off-color/type sub often won't be a big deal if they provide enough utility.

You'll usually want at least 2-3 members of your team to deal big damage, often through 7c or 10c awakenings. Once you're into mid game (past Arena 3 and into descends within the past 2-3 years) you'll want at least one big damage sub on your team to have the VDP (Damage Void Pierce) awakening. If you're running a rainbow leader (requires more than 2 attributes attacking for activation) then the VDP awakening won't be very easy to make use of, so you'll need either an active skill that bypasses voids (like Akine or Aljae) or the VDP latent .

If your leaders have a 2x or higher HP multiplier each but no RCV multiplier then you'll probably want one of your subs to make up for that, usually through Heart Orb Enhance awakenings.

As you get into mid game (and even just Arenas 1-3) you'll start wanting utility in your subs too. The big utility effects are Awoken Bind Clear actives and Damage Absorb Null actives. Some other utility that can come up are hazard resists, regular bind clear if your leaders or important subs are bindable, and L-unlock to remove locked orbs/skyfall.

Having active skills on the team that increase activation can help a lot too. If you need 5+ or two or more matches of an orb type then low cooldown actives that make that orb type are great.

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#SORTING

1. Sort by MP.
1. Use Change Order > Useful > Set Fav to favorite everything worth 1k MP or more, *then...*
1. **Sort by Fav.** so that the good stuff is grouped by attribute.
1. Upload screenshots of everything favorited to an Imgur album or other easy to view image hosting service.

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#VOIDS/ABSORBS

shield type|icon|effect|how to deal with it.
|:-|:-|:-|:-|
Damage Void|shield with grey chevrons|turns damage above the threshold to 0|Have someone on the team with the Damage Void Pierce (DVP/VDP) awakening and make a 3x3 box of 9 orbs in that unit's colors **or** have someone on the team with a Damage Void Pierce active.
Damage Absorb|shield with pink chevrons|turns damage above the threshold to healing|Have someone on the team with a "Void Damage Absorb" active skill. There's also a latent awakening, but it only affects the one unit that has it, so it's generally not very good
Combo Absorb|number with sparkles|Turns damage into healing if you make that number or less of combos|Get a higher combo count
Attribute Absorb|Attribute icon with sparkles|turns damage from that specific attribute into healing|Have someone on the team with a "Void Attribute Absorb" active skill. There's also a latent awakening, but it only affects the one unit that has it, so it's generally not very good

Auto-FUA (set number of damage in a leader skill, not a multiplier) bypasses all of these, but often might not be enough to kill the enemy.

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#USEFUL SITES

https://www.puzzleanddragons.us/news
https://ilmina.com
https://pad.chesterip.cc/
https://pad.protic.site/
https://pazudora-hensei.fc2.net/
https://xn--0ck4aw2h.gamewith.jp/article/show/14672
https://game8.jp/archives/18865
https://kamigame.jp/puzzle-dragons/お役立ち情報・コラム/最強リーダーランキング.html
https://images.fineartamerica.com/images/artworkimages/mediumlarge/3/katakana-japanese-character-kana-chart-24x36-white-organic-synthesis.jpg