History YMMV / PuzzleAndDragons

** The trio of Dragon Callers/Sonias are no stranger to this entry due to their active skill (able to change all the orbs into that two particular colours of their attributes), 2.5× ATK and RCV for their particular type of monsters (Devil, Physical and Dragon teams respectively, all are pretty well-developed already), general ease of usage (it's fairly easy to make a few rows of red/purple combos as compared to the conditions needed for Kirin or Ra or any of the Chinese gods), making Sonia teams come up with formidable attack power and recovery potential which even exceed the aforementioned Lucifer teams. That said, if they can't kill their foe before they strike, the problem of low health (in comparison) will kick in and costs you plenty of stamina. The presence of PowerCreep has led them to fall behind other leaders who have stronger multipliers.

*** On the matter of the Sonias, Ney is like a [[UpToEleven supercharged Sonia.]] While she lacks the stat boosts the original 3 have for her Leader Skill, she gets an ''8x'' multiplier when her attributes matched. Her awakenings are just as good and what's more, she comes in 5 flavors, including Light and Dark, compared to the originals' Fire, Water and Wood!
** It should be noted, though, the makers have acknowledged the presence of Game Breakers, and try to tweak recent Descend Dungeons (since they're all Technical) so that some broken teams become unwinnable without extensive strategy (mostly in forms of Preemptive Strikes/Heal), team building and/or playing skills, though they still work wonders in normal dungeons. Take "Athena Descended!" as example, the '''first''' stage is a boss who deals 99999 damage after 4 turns, an amount that ''very few'' Lucifer teams can reach, and barring DA Metatron teams from going on; newer Bosses also introduce Combo Absorb skills which make sure that Sonias' active skill aren't "instant win" buttons. And then Bosses may now even have High Damage Absorb[[note]]absorb damage above a certain number per attribute, ''per monster''; the Awoken Sodpet with a 200K HDA actually stalled many; confirmed to absorb nukes ''and gravities''[[/note]] and Resolve[[note]]always survive your team's attack when their HP is more than a certain level; something nasty usually follows OR they may fully resurrect[[/note]] as part of their passive skill, meaning that ''when'' and ''how'' to kill them actually requires some thinking and skill.

** Green Earth Wind Dragon Caller, Kaede took what was a pretty decent leader skill - up to 4× with 2+ wood combos and a 50% shield when 5 heal orbs are matched in a cross (+) pattern - and stacked 2× to the heart cross condition, resulting in a leader who can reach 7×/8× AND put up a 50% damage reduction, changing the whole game overnight. (That's 49/64× AND 75% damage reduction with dual leads btw.) What's more, the heart cross condition carries over to successive floors if you beat a floor with it activated as long as you don't run into any particular preemptives. The active is a Wood/Heart generator with a low cooldown and cooldown reduction, making a "system" made of multiples very possible. Unfortunately, Kaede is one of the rarer pulls, being a 6* base Godfest exclusive, and 3 are recommended. In other words, good luck. Another weakness: no bind immunity awakens, though the achievement badge system can help fix that. (Said badge requires scoring in the top 20% in a tournament, one of the hardest to pull off, so again, good luck.) Or, of course, one can throw in a bind clearer.
** Ilm was already monsterous due to, like with Sonia, having excellent synergy with her active skill (Same as Sonia, except it's Fire and Light orbs) and leader skill (3.5x ATK when you make at least two of ether fire or light and one of the other, 6x with two light and two fire). And then she recived her Ultimate leader evo in Maniacal Phantom Demon, which althoguh dropped this to only 4x to attack with just 3 combos of two and one fire and/or light, but in exchange gave her 2.5 to attack and Recovery if she reaches four combos overall. with two this gives her a 100x attack, 6.25x RCV '''WITH JUST FOUR COMBOS'''. this is balanced out though by having trouble with Damage Void and Absorb skills.

** The other major game-breaking lead in the current meta is the 6-star Godfest Exclusive, Yog-Sothoth. While he doesn't provide a 7x6 board like Diabolos does, he doesn't really need to either. Firstly, he gets a 6x multtiplier if your HP is 80% or higher. Yes, you're seeing that right, when paired with another Yog, he gets a 36x multiplier capable of sweeping most older dungeons with incredible ease just for sitting at or near full health. Of course, this alone doesn't make him broken, so what does? The answer: 'he gets an additional 3x attack multiplier for hitting 2 light combos.' This means that when paired with himself, '''Yog-Sothoth can reach a damage multiplier of 324x just for making two light combos.''' If that wasn't enough, making two light combos also gives Yog the same 25% damage shield that Diabolos has, making it easier to keep your health above 80%. In the event your health does go below 80% (probably due to a preemptive attack of some kind), then Yog's active has you covered by healing you for 40% of your maximum HP while making a light+heart bicolour board. Even if you can't heal, Yog still has an innate 2.5x multiplier when below 80% health, which means he still provides a respectable 56.25x attack multiplier when hitting 2 light combos, even when in his weakened state. Finally, he is unbindable, just like Diabolos and many of the other game-breaking leads that have been introduced after Ra Dragon's debut.

** The 2018 summer event gave us Barbara & Julie (one card featuring two characters), who became a new meta overnight. They have a defense-breaking active that also unlocks orbs and creates a fire/water bicolor board, give a flat 2xHP 4xATK bonus to water and fire cards, and an additional 3xATK when fire and water attack at once. On top of all that, they have 6 of the most common Killer Awakenings, with the ability to take God, Devil and Balanced killer Latents. Because of this, they are almost always guaranteed to hit 3x personal damage against anything, 9x if they have dual typing, and if decked out with God Killer Latents, they will have a personal multiplier of 91x! Since most of the biggest bosses are either Dragons, Gods, Devils or a combination of those three, it is not uncommon to see a single B&J hit in the hundreds of millions.
** The new Extreme Rare Monster Carnival, in a similar vein to the Snow Globe Dragons. Why? It features ONLY monsters from descended dungeons, as in, the ones you need to exchange for [Size][Attribute] Gems and [Monster's] Gems to reincarnate. Stockpile enough Pal Points and roll as much as you can before it ends, and you'll be set for all sorts of evolutionary gems. As an added bonus, it has the five Spirit Numens in it, so you can potentially get a ten star monster from an Annihilation dungeon FOR FREE.
** Awoken Vajrabhairava could be one of these. He uses a 100x nuke skil every turn as a leader, the highest of the game as of now (compared to some others with a similar leader skill such as Kagutsuchi's 40x,) making him prime fodder for cheesing old dungeons (i.e the normal and Technical dungeons, evo and enhance dungeons, etc.) However, his unmatched farming capability isn't where he becomes broken. That belongs to his OTHER part of the Leader Skill: multiplies his attack by 6 when matching a meager two Dark combos and reduces damage. With two Vajrabhairavas as leaders, you can potentially deal damage in the millions ''every turn,'' as it jumps up to a whopping 36x multiplier. And while one of their skills is up, it becomes a '''72x''' multiplier. (6^2 x 2.) He's also rather viable in multiplayer, as he has 2 Multi Boost awakenings, which give him an extra 2.25x to everything. Same goes for his Light cousin, Awoken Vajryaksa, who has much the same skill, stats, awakenings, and leader skill, the only difference being that he substitutes one Extend Time awakening for Vajrabhairava's one Two-Pronged Attack.
*** On that note, a leader combo of Roche's evolved form and Vaj can put out some jaw dropping power. Roche has 4 >50% HP awakenings (provided you have a spare Super Snow Globe Dragon, lots of Plus Points and a bit of luck handy for the fourth one) which means that she [[TurnsRed turns VERY red]] and gains a 16x ATK boost with all of them combined at less than half HP. Her leader skill gives her a flat 4x ATK boost for Wood and Dark cards (she's Dark) kicking that up to 64x at less than half HP. Add 2 more Dark matches with Vaj's skill, which multiplies that by six, 384x combo. And while Vaj's skill is active, which gives Dark monsters double ATK for 2 turns, congratulations. You just hit a multiplier of ''seven hundred and sixty eight.'' '''FOR MATCHING SIX ORBS WHILE AT HALF HP.''' And that's not even taking into account Enhanced orbs and if you match four, activating Vaj's Two-Prongs. You now have a GlassCannon build that doesn't even need to get dangerously low on HP like some other cards (see the first entry) and can shred dungeons into pieces like nothing, provided you have a combo voider (Roche has attribute absorb void) and healer for the tougher ones. Slap whatever assist you like onto either to boost ATK even further...Not even funny anymore. Unfortunately, Roche requires the [[GuideDangIt rather obtusely gained]] (not to mention tough to beat) Diamond Dragon Fruit for her evolution, but her normal form is no slouch either, what with all the Two Pronged Attacks and the power to back them up.

** Gears are a mixture between this and GoddamnedBats. The stupid piles of scrap metal have high defense and double their ATK permanently after only one turn. They also ''love'' to mess up your board with their attacks, and they appear frequently as foot soldiers for machinery based levels, such as Deus Ex Descended or Ninth Dragon Caller. And they like to pop up really early in the dungeon, when you're warming up or saving your skills for a tougher foe ahead.

*** Her first evolution requires Nordis, which is an easy-ish task, but her second evolution is where this trope starts to kick in full throttle. Four of the Gems (Verche, Athena, Zeus + Hera, Sandalphon) one can obtain with no sweat, but there's one outlier here: Elia. Elia is one of two monsters that can't be encountered by any means during normal gameplay, the other being Grisar. No descends, no MP shop, no Monster Exchange, nothing. They can only be encountered during constantly shifting windows of time, and even then, they have to invade the descend. Like a Diamond Dragon Fruit, but much worse. And then there's her Reincarnation after that:

*** On the matter of the Sonias, Ney is like a [[UpToEleven supercharged Sonia.]] While she lacks the stat boosts the original 3 have for her Leader Skill, she gets an ''8x'' multiplier when her attributes matched. Her awakenings are just as good and what's more, she comes in Light and Dark flavors, compared to the originals' Fire, Water and Wood!

*** As of November of 2018, [=DMeta=] is back in the meta, with a Mega awakening that taps into the similarly meta 7c awakenings. So long as they are under 80% health, a double-[=Dmeta=] god-team will have 4x HP, 44% damage reduction and a whopping 225x ATK multiplier so long as they hit 7 comboes, which is then further boosted by the aforementioned combo awakenings where [=Dmeta=] herself will have a 900x multiplier. Since the various attack multipliers have separate conditions, [=DMeta=] teams allow great damage control, and her active skill actually reduces her health by 20% AND sets up a light-dark bicolor board perfect for hitting the required number of comboes.

** Oddly enough, the snow globe dragons. Why is that under this category? At Level 50, when fused, guarantees that the recipient gets ''at least 2 million EXP''. If you're lucky, get a SUPER!! on that, and the recipient gets ''4 million EXP'', enough to max level the monster. Once [=GungHo=] discovered how gamebreaking this became, they made those dragons and eggs harder to obtain. In the first edition of the Christmas Collaboration, those dropped way too often.

** Gears are a mixture between this and GoddamnedBats. They have high defense and double their ATK permanently after only one turn. They also ''love'' to mess up your board with their attacks, and they appear frequently as foot soldiers for machinery based levels, such as Deus Ex Descended or Ninth Dragon Caller. And they like to pop up really early in the dungeon, when you're warming up or saving your skills for a tougher foe ahead.

** Early on, "Seraph of Dawn, Lucifer" was considered to render many of the [[BonusBoss descents]] rather easy because of his Morning Star. This is a ''very'' impressive '''''300,000''''' damage ([[ElementalRockPaperScissors 600,000 on anything light-based]])...except your HP plummet to '''''1''''' in the process. If you have a decent recovery, though, and/or someone to change one element to heal blocks, this is easy to recover from. ''Especially'' if you have (Dark) Ceres or Amaterasu for their full HP recovery skills. And to top it all off, his evolved version has a 2× multiplier on the HP and RCV of all dark or part-dark party members. This might not sound as impressive as 300k damage, but when you have two of these guys it is not rare to see parties with over 40k health and recovery so fast that even the toughest dungeons could barely scratch them. Takes UpToEleven with its Ultimate Evolution, "Rebel Seraph Lucifer" (yes, even "rebel seraph lucifer", the {{Chibi}} and Christmas REM exclusive monster), which enhances Dark monsters' ATK power while retaining said HP and RCV bonus, throwing Grind teams' problem of lacking attack power out of the window. Using Morning Star have less downsides as of newer updates, since it also ''randomly generates 3 heart orbs'' for recovery. ''Even on full-poison orb boards''. [=GungHo=] seemed to have finally nerfed the skill when together with the release of his PAD Academy counterpart, that instead of dealing 300k base damage, his damage would be determined by his ATK stat times 200......Which means a Rebel Seraph Lucifer with +99 on ATK ''[[UpToEleven can deal 400K damage with the Morning Star]]''. Downplayed anyways with newer bosses ranging in the millions of HP and/or giving them multiple/massive attack moves, making spike/combo leader skills and TPA/row awakens a much more effective boss strategy. Even with the subsequent presence of the (rare seasonal) Student Council President, Lucifer, which ups the base ATK by +400, along with other nuke monsters that also cover other elements (see: Kefka, who packs a 250× multiplier; the 200× fire based Kagato; and the 300,000 damage water based Shinji & Kaworu Unit 13 chief among them), the nuke has been relegated to a turtling (side-)strategy, given their extreme cooldowns.

* {{OTP}}: Traditionally, it was with [[FanNickname GROdin]] and Amaterasu.[[note]][=GROdin's=] Leader Skill reduced damage by 80% while you were at full health, while Amaterasu's Leader Skill Auto-Healed you for 5x her Recovery whenever you matched orbs, allowing you to tank hits.[[/note]] Until [=GrOdin=] got his Ultimate Evolution.[[note]]Which gave him four Auto-heal Awaken Skills, thus giving him 2000 HP auto-heal each turn.[[/note]] Amaterasu then got her most useful Ultimate Evolution, "Dancing Flame", and they never got back, according to {{Fanon}}.

** Illusionless Time Dragonbound Myr/Miru, while mediocre on her own, has a ''7x attack multiplier & reduces damage taken by 50%'' for leader skill, which activates whenever 5 heart orbs are being lined in a cross shape, despite having barely 80 Cost [[note]]compared to her ultimate evolved counterpart, which is 99, and her revo, which is 110.[[/note]]. It may seem to be impractical and difficult to line up the heart orbs, until you realize her active skill generates several heart orbs [[TimeStandsStill and allows you to move the orbs freely in a set amount of time.]] Mix this with a 7x6 board unit from a friend, it makes lining up the heart orbs a cakewalk. A full light element team with secondary elements for fire, water, wood and dark damage output will rack up the total light damage output and combos. And in case the damage output isn't enough, the 7x attack and 50% defense multiplier DOES [[UpToEleven stack with another Myr]], in other words: ''[[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverKill 14x damage & 50%^2 defense multiplier]]'', effectively shredding incoming damage to zero. As long as you have Light and Heart orbs on the board [[note]]which can be achieved by using Maeda Keiji (randomizes all orbs and speeds up active skills), Reincarnated Parvati (turns water orbs into heart orbs and buff heart and wood orbs), Awoken Astraea (turns all orbs into Fire, Water, Light and Heart and has a quick skill charge to boot) or Sniper at Rest Myr (turns orbs other than water into heart orbs randomly and allows you to move them freely for 7 seconds)[[/note]], you can [[OneHitKill virtually wipe out everything over and over again]] with a full-light double-Myr team. [[ButWaitTheresMore But wait, there's more!]] The buff doesn't wear off until you get hit by an enemy attack, and it carries forward upon sweep! Meaning that not only can you reach an effective 196x multiplier and reduce [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill 250% of incoming damage,]] you can KEEP IT FOR AS LONG AS YOU WANT (at least, until an enemy preemptives you and temporarily stuns your reign of terror, but by that point you'll probably have at least 5 Heart Orbs stocked up.) The whole thing is like [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure Za Warudo,]] but somehow more powerful. [[CripplingOverspecialization Pray that your enemy doesn't absorb or resist Light element...]]
*** Her evolved counterparts, Star Cutting Time Dragonbound Myr and Playful Time Dragonbound Myr, along with Sniper at Rest Myr, have a whopping ''7.7x attack multiplier'', while their costs are higher than Illusionless Myr, are more effective on nuking your enemies effortlessly. Reincarnated Myr loses the .7 at the end of the multiplier, but has better awakenings, including 2 L-Boosts, 2 TPA awakenings, is [[NoSell unbindable,]] has better stats, and can be limit broken. However, you'll have to put in a lot of work to get access to those two forms, [[LastLousyPoint as seen below.]] The latter doesn't even require any evolution and can be used as Assist Monster, all you need to do is to pull her from the Summer Holiday unit pack or buy her from the Monster Point Shop during the Summer Holiday event.

** The whole issue around the Juggler from FFCD Collab started a wildfire on the Internet. Due to its absurdness (see GameBreaker below) players basically divided into two camps: Nerfing it and not nerfing it. Those of former camp consider it too overpowered for a "relatively" easy way to achieve 49× ATK multiplier (others who can do so are [[DifficultButAwesome Ra, Anubis, and Kushinadahime]]), and those of the latter camp think that [=GungHo=] may violate the law for changing it, and a perfect Juggler team is leaning towards AwesomeButImpractical. The reaction of Hata Keisuke (the representative of Creator/SquareEnix over the Collab and the designer of the PurposelyOverpowered Juggler) ''and'' [=GungHo=] declaring not nerfing the Juggler doesn't help things.

** Illusionless Time Dragonbound Myr/Miru, while mediocre on her own, has a ''7x attack multiplier & reduces damage taken by 50%'' for leader skill, which activates whenever 5 heart orbs are being lined in a cross shape, despite having barely 80 Cost [[note]]compared to her ultimate evolved counterpart, which is 99, and her revo, which is 110.[[/note]]. It may seem to be impractical and difficult to line up the heart orbs, until you realize her active skill generates several heart orbs [[TimeStandsStill and allows you to move the orbs freely in a set amount of time.]] Mix this with a 7x6 board unit from a friend, it makes lining up the heart orbs a cakewalk. A full light element team with secondary elements for fire, water, wood and dark damage output will rack up the total light damage output and combos. And in case the damage output isn't enough, the 7x attack and 50% defense multiplier DOES [[UpToEleven stack with another Myr]], in other words: ''[[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverKill 14x damage & 50%^2 defense multiplier]]''. That's 196x and a reduction of 250% of incoming damage, effectively shredding it to zero. As long as you have Light and Heart orbs on the board [[note]]which can be achieved by using Maeda Keiji (randomizes all orbs and speeds up active skills), Reincarnated Parvati (turns water orbs into heart orbs and buff heart and wood orbs), Awoken Astraea (turns all orbs into Fire, Water, Light and Heart and has a quick skill charge to boot) or Sniper at Rest Myr (turns orbs other than water into heart orbs randomly and allows you to move them freely for 7 seconds)[[/note]], you can [[OneHitKill virtually wipe out everything over and over again]] with a full-light double-Myr team. [[ButWaitTheresMore But wait, there's more!]] The buff doesn't wear off until you get hit by an enemy attack, and it carries forward upon sweep! Meaning that not only can you reach an effective 196x multiplier and reduce [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill 250% of incoming damage,]] you can KEEP IT FOR AS LONG AS YOU WANT (at least, until an enemy preemptives you and temporarily stuns your reign of terror, but by that point you'll probably have at least 5 Heart Orbs stocked up.) The whole thing is like [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure Za Warudo,]] but somehow more powerful. [[CripplingOverspecialization Pray that your enemy doesn't absorb or resist Light element...]]
*** Her evolved counterpart, Star Cutting Time Dragonbound Myr, along with Sniper at Rest Myr, have a whooping ''7.7x attack multiplier'', while their costs are higher than Illusionless Myr, are more effective on nuking your enemies effortlessly. The latter doesn't even require any evolution and can be used as Assist Monster, all you need to do is to pull her from the Summer Holiday unit pack or buy her from the Monster Coin Shop during the Summer Holiday event.
*** And an assist from Athena-Non (or a leader combo, if one is unlucky enough not to have a friend with a Myr) tips it right over the edge. Athena-Non, once limit broken and +297'd has the highest natural ATK in the game, which will provide a serious boost to Myr's. Her active, when used as an assist, generates more than enough hearts to make crosses, but enhances them, too! If used as a surrogate second Myr, her leader skill involves Heal + Light matches, which means that the Heart Cross needed for Myr activates both at once if a Light combo is made.

** Illusionless Time Dragonbound Myr, while mediocre on her own, has a ''7x attack multiplier & reduces damage taken by 50%'' for leader skill, which activates whenever 5 heart orbs are being lined in a cross shape, despite having barely 80 Cost [[note]]compared to her ultimate evolved counterpart, which is 99, and her revo, which is 110.[[/note]]. It may seem to be impractical and difficult to line up the heart orbs, until you realize her active skill generates several heart orbs [[TimeStandsStill and allows you to move the orbs freely in a set amount of time.]] Combining with a 7x6 board unit from a friend, it makes lining up the heart orbs a cakewalk. A full light element team with secondary elements for fire, water, wood and dark damage output will rack up the total light damage output and combos. And in case the damage output isn't enough, the 7x attack and 50% defense multiplier DOES [[UpToEleven stack with another Myr]], in other words: ''[[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverKill 14x damage & 50%^2 defense multiplier]]''. That's 196x and a reduction of 250% of incoming damage, effectively shredding it to zero. As long as you have Light and Heart orbs on the board [[note]]which can be achieved by using Maeda Keiji (randomizes all orbs and speeds up active skills), Reincarnated Parvati (turns water orbs into heart orbs and buff heart and wood orbs), Awoken Astraea (turns all orbs into Fire, Water, Light and Heart and has a quick skill charge to boot) or Sniper at Rest Myr (turns orbs other than water into heart orbs randomly and allows you to move them freely for 7 seconds)[[/note]], you can [[OneHitKill virtually wipe out everything over and over again]] with a full-light double-Myr team. [[ButWaitTheresMore But wait, there's more!]] The buff doesn't wear off until you get hit by an enemy attack, and it carries forward upon sweep! Meaning that not only can you reach an effective 196x multiplier and reduce [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill 250% of incoming damage,]] you can KEEP IT FOR AS LONG AS YOU WANT (at least, until an enemy preemptives you and temporarily stuns your reign of terror, but by that point you'll probably have at least 5 Heart Orbs stocked up.) The whole thing is like [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure Za Warudo,]] but somehow more powerful. [[CripplingOverspecialization Pray that your enemy doesn't absorb or resist Light element...]]

** Illusionless Time Dragonbound Myr, while mediocre on her own, has a ''7x attack multiplier & reduces damage taken by 50%'' for leader skill, which activates whenever 5 heart orbs are being lined in a cross shape, despite having barely 80 Cost [[note]]compared to her ultimate evolved counterpart, which is 99, and her revo, which is 110.[[/note]]. It may seem to be impractical and difficult to line up the heart orbs, until you realize her active skill generates several heart orbs and allows you to move the orbs freely in a set amount of time. Combining with a 7x6 board unit from your friend, it makes lining up the heart orbs a cakewalk. A full light element team with secondary elements for fire, water, wood and dark damage output will rack up the total light damage output and combos. And in case the damage output isn't enough, the 7x attack and 50% defense multiplier DOES [[UpToEleven stack with another Myr]], in other words: ''[[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverKill 14x damage & 50%^2 defense multiplier]]''. That's 196x and a reduction of 250% of incoming damage, effectively shredding it to zero. As long as you have Light and Heart orbs on the board [[note]]which can be achieved by using Maeda Keiji (randomizes all orbs and speeds up active skills), Reincarnated Parvati (turns water orbs into heart orbs and buff heart and wood orbs), Awoken Astraea (turns all orbs into Fire, Water, Light and Heart and has a quick skill charge to boot) or Sniper at Rest Myr (turns orbs other than water into heart orbs randomly and allows you to move them freely for 7 seconds)[[/note]], you can [[OneHitKill virtually wipe out everything over and over again]] with a full-light double-Myr team. [[ButWaitTheresMore But wait, there's more!]] The buff doesn't wear off until you get hit by an enemy attack, and it carries forward upon sweep! Meaning that not only can you reach an effective 196x multiplier and reduce [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill 250% of incoming damage,]] you can KEEP IT FOR AS LONG AS YOU WANT (at least, until an enemy preemptives you and temporarily stuns your reign of terror, but by that point you'll probably have at least 5 Heart Orbs stocked up.) THe whole ting is like [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure Za Warudo,]] but somehow more powerful. [[CripplingOverspecialization Pray that your enemy doesn't absorb or resist Light element...]]

** Due to newer content such as Titania Dexcended the highest difficulty 3-player descend rush having an increased emphasis on dealing absurdly high amounts of damage and reaching high combo counts, along with the introduction of the follow-up attack awakening (a GameBreaker in its own right) that also needs 5 hearts, but arranged in a different formation (a column instead of a cross) Heart-cross leads such as Kaede and Myr have started veering towards AwesomeButImpractical as a new set of game-breakers emerge. The most notable of these new generation of Game Breakers is Diabolos from the Monster Hunter collab. Firstly, '''he has the highest weighted stat total of any monster in the entire game up as of 28th of August 2017''' (tied with the collab's other top gacha prize, Amatsugatsuchi). Secondly, His leader skill gives you a 7x6 board regardless of the dungeon you're running, including 5x4 dungeons. Thirdly, he gives you a formidable 8.5x multiplier ''and'' a 25% damage reduction shield when you hit 8 combos while leading with him, an activation requirement that compliments his 7x6 board perfectly. Lastly, you don't even need to have a Diabolos of your own to take advantage of his game-breaking abilities as you only need to one half of your leader pair to be a Diabolos to get his 7x6 board ability. This means you can lead with another combo leads such as the reincarnated forms of Anubis and Kushinadahime and pair with a Diabolos friend lead for the 7x6 board and a higher damage multiplier than pairing Diabolos x Diabolos. Oh, and did I mention that he is unbindable as well?

** Illusionless Time Dragonbound Myr, while mediocre on her own, has a ''7x attack multiplier & reduces damage taken by 50%'' for leader skill, which activates whenever 5 heart orbs are being lined in a cross shape, despite having barely 80 Cost [[note]]compared to her ultimate evolved counterpart, which is 99, and her revo, which is 110.[[/note]]. It may seem to be impractical and difficult to line up the heart orbs, until you realize her active skill generates several heart orbs and allows you to move the orbs freely in a set amount of time. Combining with a 7x6 board unit from your friend, it makes lining up the heart orbs a cakewalk. A full light element team with secondary elements for fire, water, wood and dark damage output will rack up the total light damage output and combos. And in case the damage output isn't enough, the 7x attack and 50% defense multiplier DOES [[UpToEleven stack with another Myr]], in other words: ''[[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverKill 14x damage & 50%^2 defense multiplier]]''. As long as you have light and heart orbs on the board [[note]]which can be achieved by using Maeda Keiji (randomizes all orbs and speeds up active skills), Reincarnated Parvati (turns water orbs into heart orbs and buff heart and wood orbs), Awoken Astraea (turns all orbs into Fire, Water, Light and Heart) or Sniper at Rest Myr (turns orbs other than water into heart orbs randomly and allows you to move them freely for 7 seconds)[[/note]], you can [[OneHitKill virtually wipe out everything over and over again]] with a full-light double-Myr team (so long as you have Fire, Water, Dark and Wood sub-elements on those Light monsters, of course.) [[CripplingOverspecialization Pray that your enemy doesn't absorb or resist Light element...]]

** And an assist from Athena-Non (or a leader combo, if one is unlucky enough not to have a friend with a Myr) tips it right over the edge. Athena-Non, once limit broken and +297'd has the highest natural ATK in the game, which will provide a serious boost to Myr's. Her active, when used as an assist, generates more than enough hearts to make crosses, but enhances them, too! If used as a surrogate second Myr, her leader skill involves Heal + Light matches, which means that the Heart Cross needed for Myr activates both at once if a Light combo is made.

* And then there's Haku's recent [[ShapedLikeItself Super Reincarnation,]] which requires you to:

** beat Qilin and evolve her. Remember Hexazeon? And how he required certain mats that dropped in his dungeon, but he was still very good in his basic form? Yeah, that concept is back with a vengeance. Not only does she require her flunky to evolve, but a crapton of Descended Gems and not one, the aforementioned Tri-God Mask, and not one, but TWO Diamond Dragon Fruits!

** Illusionless Time Dragonbound Myr, while mediocre on her own, has a ''7x attack multiplier & reduces damage taken by 50%'' for leader skill, which activates whenever 5 heart orbs are being lined in a cross shape, despite having barely 80 Cost [[note]]compared to her ultimate evolved counterpart, which is 99, and her revo, which is 110.[[/note]]. It may seem to be impractical and difficult to line up the heart orbs, until you realize her active skill generates several heart orbs and allows you to move the orbs freely in a set amount of time. Combining with a 7x6 board unit from your friend, it makes lining up the heart orbs a cakewalk. A full light element team with secondary elements for fire, water, wood and dark damage output will rack up the total light damage output and combos. And in case the damage output isn't enough, the 7x attack and 50% defense multiplier DOES [[UpToEleven stack with another Myr]], in other words: ''[[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverKill 14x damage & 50%^2 defense multiplier]]''. As long as you have light and heart orbs on the board [[note]]which can be achieved by using Maeda Keiji (randomizes all orbs and speeds up active skills), Reincarnated Parvati (turns water orbs into heart orbs and buff heart and wood orbs), Awoken Astraea (turns all orbs into Fire, Water, Light and Heart) or Sniper at Rest Myr (turns orbs other than water into heart orbs randomly and allows you to move them freely for 7 seconds)[[/note]], you can [[OneHitKill virtually wipe out everything over and over again]] with a full-light double-Myr team. [[CripplingOverspecialization Pray that your enemy doesn't absorb or resist Light element...]]

** Illusionless Time Dragonbound Myr, while mediocre on her own, has a ''7x attack multiplier & reduces damage taken by 50%'' for leader skill, which activates whenever 5 heart orbs are being lined in a cross shape, despite having barely 80 Cost [[note]]compared to her ultimate evolved counterpart, which is 99, and her revo, which is 110.[[/note]]. It may seem to be impractical and difficult to line up the heart orbs, until you realize her active skill generates several heart orbs and allows you to move the orbs freely in a set amount of time. Combining with a 7x6 board unit from your friend, it makes lining up the heart orbs a cakewalk. A full light element team with secondary elements for fire, water, wood and dark damage output will rack up the total light damage output and combos. And in case the damage output isn't enough, the 7x attack and 50% defense multiplier DOES [[UpToEleven stack with another Myr]], in other words: ''[[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverKill 14x damage & 50%^2 defense multiplier]]''. As long as you have light and heart orbs on the board [[note]]which can be achieved by using Maeda Keiji (randomizes all orbs and speeds up active skills), Reincarnated Parvati (turns water orbs into heart orbs and buff heart and wood orbs), or Sniper at Rest Myr (turns orbs other than water into heart orbs randomly and allows you to move them freely for 7 seconds)[[/note]], you can [[OneHitKill virtually wipe out everything over and over again]] with a full-light double-Myr team. [[CripplingOverspecialization Pray that your enemy doesn't absorb or resist Light element...]]

** Illusionless Time Dragonbound Myr, while mediocre on her own, has a ''7x attack multiplier & reduces damage taken by 50%'' for leader skill, which activates whenever 5 heart orbs are being lined in a cross shape, despite having barely 80 Cost [[note]]compared to her evolved counterpart, which is 99[[/note]]. It may seem to be impractical and difficult to line up the heart orbs, until you realize her active skill generates several heart orbs and allows you to move the orbs freely in a set amount of time. Combining with a 7x6 board unit from your friend, it makes lining up the heart orbs a cakewalk. A full light element team with secondary elements for fire, water, wood and dark damage output will rack up the total light damage output and combos. And in case the damage output isn't enough, the 7x attack and 50% defense multiplier DOES [[UpToEleven stack with another Myr]], in other words: ''[[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverKill 14x damage & 50%^2 defense multiplier]]''. As long as you have light and heart orbs on the board [[note]]which can be achieved by using Maeda Keiji (randomizes all orbs and speeds up active skills), Reincarnated Parvati (turns water orbs into heart orbs and buff heart and wood orbs), or Sniper at Rest Myr (turns orbs other than water into heart orbs randomly and allows you to move them freely for 7 seconds)[[/note]], you can [[OneHitKill virtually wipe out everything over and over again]] with a full-light double-Myr team. [[CripplingOverspecialization Pray that your enemy doesn't absorb or resist Light element...]]

* TierInducedScrappy: The "heart cross" meta in led by Kaede, Ronove, Gremory and Myr has come to dominate the tier lists, much to the chagrin of many who wish for more diversity, as new high end dungeons have typically been created with the top tier of the meta in mind. That's not the worst of it; only Myr (and if you're talking about her original light release and not her Summer water variant) is farmable, and the other three are Godfest exclusives, are 6* at base with the exception of Ronove, and are heavily reliant on other 6* base [=GFEs=] to create optimal teams. The 6* base Kaede is infamous for the "system team" that relies on owning 3 or 4, and Ronove, despite starting out at 5*, is even more reliant on 6* [=GFEs=] including Dark Kali.

*** As of November of 2018, DMeta is back in the meta, with a Mega awakening that taps into the similarly meta 7c awakenings. So long as they are under 80% health, a double-Dmeta god-team will have 4x HP, 44% damage reduction and a whopping 225x ATK multiplier so long as they hit 7 comboes, which is then further boosted by the aforementioned combo awakenings where Dmeta herself will have a 900x multiplier. Since the various attack multipliers have separate conditions, DMeta teams allow great damage control, and her active skill actually reduces her health by 20% AND sets up a light-dark bicolor board perfect for hitting the required number of comboes.

*** While Red Sonia is still behind the power curve, both the Blue and the Green versions have received tremendous boosts with their Mega Evolutions, giving dragon teams 1.5X in all stats, with a 25% damage reduction and an extra 5x ATK when matching their main color and dark. This allows them to form extremely resilient teams that can employ some of the best monsters in the game, and their 7c and L-unlock awakenings can compensate for the less than stellar 56x ATK multiplier.

** Illusionless Time Dragonbound Myr, while mediocre on her own, has a ''7x attack multiplier & reduces damage taken by 50%'' for leader skill, which activates whenever 5 heart orbs are being lined in a cross shape, despite having barely 80 Cost [[note]]compared to her evolved counterpart, which is 99[[/note]]. It may seem to be impractical and difficult to line up the heart orbs, until you realize her active skill generates several heart orbs and allows you to move the orbs freely in a set amount of time. Combining with a 7x6 board unit from your friend, it makes lining up the heart orbs a cakewalk. A full light element team with secondary elements for fire, water, wood and dark damage output will rack up the total light damage output and combos. And in case the damage output isn't enough, the 7x attack and 50% defense multiplier DOES [[UpToEleven stack with another Myr]], in other words: ''[[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverKill 14x damage & 50%^2 defense multiplier]]''. As long as you have light and heart orbs on the board [[note]]which can be achieved by using Maeda Keiji (randomizes all orbs and speeds up active skills), Reincarnated Parvati (turns water orbs into heart orbs and buff heart and wood orbs), or Sniper at Rest Myr (turns orbs other than water into heart orbs randomly and allows you to move them freely for 7 seconds)[[/note]], you can [[OneHitKill virtually wipe out everything over and over again]] with a full-light double-Myr team. [[CripplingOverspecialization Pray that your enemy doesn't resist light element...]]

** Gears are a mixture between this and GoddamnedBats. They have high defense and double their ATK permanently after only one turn. They also ''love'' to mess up your board with their attacks, and they appear frequently as foot soldiers for machinery based levels, such as Deus Ex Descended or Ninth Dragon Caller.