If you don’t know what Puzzle and Dragons (P&D) is, check out my last post re. Yu Yu Hakusho Collaboration Event for more details. In short – it’s a mobile game I’ve been playing for quite some time.
In the anime, Raizen was regarded as the most powerful demon and also an ancestor of Urameshi Yusuke (a card that I also covered in the aforementioned post), so naturally I couldn’t resist trying him out.
Leader, Active & Awoken Skills
This is where things get a bit interesting (for me at least) – this card is very much outside my comfort zone. My go-to leaders have always been either combo-based (e.g. Shiva #3241, Edward Elric #4020) or multi-colour matchers (e.g. Sephiroth #2765), Raizen is none of those things, this card requires some very specific conditions to activate.
His leader skill:
“3x attack for all Light attribute cards. 2x attack when HP is less than 50%. 3x attack when you clear 5 connected Light orbs.”
It looks a bit “dull” at first, but when you crunch the numbers you start to realise how ridiculous it can get: that’s a maximum multiplier of (3*2*3) 18x attack on a single leader – if you find a friend who is also using Raizen then your total attack output will be a whopping 324x!
And that’s before counting in the additional attack-boosts in the form of awoken skills he has, which includes:
- 3 x L-Shaped Attack
Attack increases when you match 5 orbs in an “L” shape, with the additional bonus of removing all orb locks on the board. Each one of these will increase the attack multiplier by 1.5x, which means you get an additional 3.375x on top of the leader skill multiplier. - Enhanced when HP is below 50%
Yes, more attack boosters – 2x attack when HP is at 50% or less, that means ANOTHER 2x attack onto the stack.
It’s worth noting that the above woken skills will only benefit the card itself, not the entire team.
Now for his active skill:
“Change left-most column into Heart orbs. Inflict Light damage equal to ATK x200 to 1 enemy but HP becomes 1.”
At first you wonder why the active doesn’t seem to do anything good – however once you realise how much attack multiplier he already has – this skill is simply a shortcut to ensure you can hop over that last hurdle on getting the HP below 50% so you can activate all of his attack boosters.
And it’s not even that big a sacrifice – since his active skill will also convert some healing orbs, you should be able to just use the skill and get your HP back up to a decent level afterwards. Still, I would’ve loved to see maybe a dual-changer so you get both Heart orbs and Light orbs on either sides of the board; guess that’d be asking for too much.
In short – Raizen is a full-on attacker at the price of having no boosts on health or recovery, so it’ll be pretty tricky to get a decent team build for this card. For simplicity I’ll only be testing the card to see whether I can get some good numbers from casual play.
The Damage (Oh DAT DAMAGE)
Okay, so I decided to go ALL OUT and see just how big a number I can get. So I threw in a few helpers including Edward’s 3x attack active skill, here is what happened:
Yes, that’s some impressive numbers, even more so when you consider this Raizen hasn’t reached maximum level yet. Granted that the activation criteria for Raizen is a fair bit more complicated than others, it’s nothing I’d say “difficult” – I think the choice of team members will make/break this card.
The Tricky Stuff
As a rule-of-thumb, the more powerful the card, the harder it is to use in P&D. It’s your basic “high risk, high reward” model. While this card brings ridiculous numbers onto the table, the fields in which you are able to deploy the card to can be narrow, here’s to name a few of those tricky things you need to get over.
1. Health needs to be constantly low (< 50%) to fully utilise its potential.
Pretty obvious point, but important all the same.
With Raizen providing no boosts whatsoever to HP and recovery of the team, your choice of team members will have to account for those missing elements. Anything that’s either high health (physical) or high recovery (healer) are good, balanced cards are worth considering, too.
Raizen’s active will be more than enough to ensure you can trigger the 100% attack power when needed, considering its cool-down is only 6 turns (at max skill lv.). So the prioity should be to ensure you have at least 1 other card in your team that can generate a lot of heal orbs, damage reduction actives are also good.
2. Sufficient Light Orbs Supply & Damage Consistency
Sufficient light orbs is a must, as a bonus, any heart-breakers (changing heal orbs > light orbs) will improve attack output consistency but not a must for your team build. Anything that can generate 3+ light orbs as an active should be in your consideration.
Apart from the orb supply, you also have the low health factor to keep an eye out on. On top of that you’ll also need to consider the layout of the dungeons, specifically whether your enemies have pre-emptive attacks. That means there’s a very good chance you WON’T be able to utilise his full attack potential until the point when you need it.
Having said that – even with full health, Raizen can deal VERY good numbers. It’s just that at his 100%, he’s RIDICULOUS. So don’t assume he’s bad when at full health.
3. Rarity
Here’s the really big one, which I’m still having issues with.
NO ONE SEEMS TO BE PLAYING THIS CARD.
Even with the new monster exchange system in place, I’m seeing anything but Raizen cards on my friends list. This makes playing with this card, or even just experimenting with this card incredibly difficult.
So, Worth It?
Speaking as a fan of Yu Yu Hakusho manga + anime, I’d say the GungHo did a good job on reflecting Raizen’s origin and characteristics in this card, so from a collector’s perspective, yes – totally worthwhile.
However, I suspect because of how accurate it is – it also made the card less of a “first choice” as leader material because it’s not immediately obvious how powerful it can be. I’ve not been able to reliably play with another Raizen leader ever since I got the card, so I guess from the practicality perspective, it’s not worth your time unless you can find another leader that compliments with his leader skill.
Tip: While I’m on the subject of alternative complimentary leaders fit to use with Raizen, any leaders with a “match 5” are good, bonus if you can get an additional stats multiplier for light attribute, or devil/attacker types. Shimmering Thunder Goddess, Hera Dragon (#3192) is a very good example of such card.
Well, that’s it from me this time, see you in my next post 😉
PxPorcupine 