Norza kitty came out yesterday, and after running her system, I'm kinda astounded she's not being talked about more, especially when Leo Shiva dragon was THE big thing 2 months ago. He's arguably still better for end end game, but I think this team makes a very strong case for being better below that.

Let's get the elephant out of the room now, the number one thing I'm seeing people say regarding Norza Kitty System is she seems neat, but it's prohibitively expensive to run, requiring you to trade for a wopping 4 copies of the card (or 3 and a friend). But I'm (mostly) free to play! How was I able to afford it? WELL, us longtime f2p hoarders who've barely touched end game are the most likely to be able to afford it believe it or not. She's tradeable with the lower star fodder from the 10 stone godfests. Those "bad rolls" are almost never actually tradeable for things besides rainbow medals. The people tackling end end game are getting rid of all that to fund their 3 Garou's or selling it for their suite of Amaj equips or whatever. We don't care about that so they've just sat and gathered dust. Check the list of potential tradeables and highlight them so you can see evo's. Odds are you have multiple times more tradeables than you think and they're just tied up as their mega evo versions, you can devolve them to trade. Supposedly some are about to get new equips though (I recall hearing D kali notably) so look around a bit before commiting and i'll update this if I can get a good list of the "may want to keep".

So. Why is she good. Some of these will be repeats of Leo/Shiva's perks, i'll try to draw attention to direct comparisons when one is superior.

• Similar to Leo she's an immensely powerful swipe system, sporting almost 95% damage reduction and casually hitting damage cap on every swipe when not limit broken. I tested a bunch of dungeons with it and aside from holding its own in end game with proper equips, you can get a pretty universal setup that crushes anything AA4/A5 and below completely mindlessly, including a fair number of scenario's where maybe Leo Shiva won't fail necessarily, but where it can struggle or get screwed while Norza Kitty just refuses to care. Where does that start well.....

• Norza Kitty is an excellent cleric. One of the best, I frankly don't understand how she's not being talked about more. She fully recovers awaken skill bind, removes all orb locks, and removes unmatchable status. And because we're running a system we're getting this every turn.

• Speaking of mechanics we're dodging, reminder this is a swipe team, so we don't care about cloud, time, or tape, largely don't care about jammer/poison skyfalls, and don't even care about roulette orbs really, there's no solve needed, we just need to time our swipe. Half our subs are also Norza kitty so even leader swap usually doesn't mess with us. Oh and reminder combo counters aren't an issue, the combo orb awakening also adds a combo for each awakening before even spawning combo orbs, once you're going combo's are generally minimum 10c with just swipe, no solve averaging around 13-15. This sounds great but it's only new if you haven't run Leo Shiva at all. A lot of that's shared with Leo, including Leo system being able to remove orb locks every turn, but I've hit many instances where having access to cleric every turn made a tough fight into a simple one. On a similar note

• Norza systems auto heal. Autoheal? Isn't that a waste of a slot? Well you Leo Shiva people, show of hands, how many times have you lost a dungeon cause heart orbs refused to spawn and you got slowly chipped to death? This is NEVER a problem on a properly setup Norza System. Remember, we have 94% damage reduction but only about 35k HP. 4X Norza Kitty have baked into their normal awakenings 4000 auto heal, or a total of 16,000 auto heal per turn. You can see where this is going, it's realistic with proper equips to full heal each turn without needing to match heart orbs at all, and I guarantee any longtime f2p hoarder has more than enough in their box to get close enough it really doesn't matter.

• We get a spot to fit in an extra sub compared to Leo! While the system is larger (4 instead of 3), 2 are leaders so we can fit in 2 subs instead of 1 giving the team a bit more flexibility for easier mindless farming.

• Oh and if you tried really hard and failed to get Leo like me, decent shot you have IMO the best sub, more on that later.

OH so Norza's Just a better Leo Shiva system?

Well...no. If anything I'd argue it's a sidegrade but the reality is while this team has an easier time doing content up till you get to the top of the curve, Leo Shiva has a decent chance at having a higher cap because of 2 key advantages. Those are:

• Leo Shiva does more damage. Don't get me wrong, we're both comfortably hitting damage cap, but your entire Shiva system can run the double damage cap latent whereas NONE of our Norza's can cause they're transform cards. Result is your 2 other subs have to be damage sticks in addition to utility and even then we're struggling to one shot some stuff that Shiva can handle.

• More spots for equips. Technically it's the same number of abilities, Norza has 2 subs with 2 usable equip actives whereas Leo Shiva has 1 sub with 3 usable equip actives, but the latter is more flexible especially for end game.

Ok ok, you see this team has a lot going for it, but you're f2p (or not), do you have the subs/equips to run this even with 4 Norza? Who's even good?

Well, if you're like me and saved stones for 2 months and dropped a few hundred on not getting leo, chances are good that you Pulled Ultraman Trigger.

Ultraman Trigger Sky Type (first evo) is an absolute swiss army messiah for filling in this team. The big draw is as a teamwide VDP solution, on a four turn CD that also doubles as a self steroid to make sure you hit double damage cap when you absolutely need to hit it. On top of that he's a huge stat stick with double bricks, additional water row awakenings, Jammer immunity to prevent bombs (which can be a real problem cause Norza active might erase some but not all which probably is a wipe) and another combo orb awakening to pump that up even higher. If you managed to get an Ultraman Z it feels like the equip was designed to fit in here, gives him the Water sub type which is a pretty substantial buff to team damage if we're hitting the limit broken cap on sub attack, and also gives the team a solid solution to att absorb with a bit of planning or a bit of stalling. IMO if you have him (and especially if you have Z equip as well), you need to be running this.

I've been rounding out for general use with Uesugi Kenshin, 2 turn CD solution to damage absorb (with no drawback thanks to autoheal) that just generally fits into the team with it's awakenings. He feels like more of a flex spot but is earning his place solidly for the lower dungeons.

Obviously both those and their equips are flexible based on whats needed for dungeons, but I think having those 2 clears almost anything below World of Carnage blindly without much problem.

Honestly I'm not sure who else fits great into those slots. Just about every post I've seen on the sub discussing this team is trying to suggest alternate solutions to a Norza system as opposed to who'd fit well alongside it. I'm curious to hear suggestions.

For equip, Norza kitty's are never using their active so we only care about awakenings. Priority is

Skill haste (up to 20 including helper) > Autoheal up to ~25-30k (largely redundant after that but nice to have a full heal if you can make it) > water row or combo orb awakenings. Your active makes 2 water rows and you're almost never having enough extra orbs to make a 3rd, so water rows are actually a largely static damage boost. Combo orb awakenings become more valuable the more water row awakenings you have, and the amount naturally baked into Norza is right around the breakpoint where it can be debatable/situational which is better damage on average, so feel comfortable going for either based on your box.

There is a best in slot equip for Kitty, and that's Beach Lakshmi's Fan. It's the best autoheal in the game as far as i know at 6k each, AND has a skill haste 2 water row's to boot.

If you don't have multiple fans, some other good equips I'd suggest are Ultra Badge (ultraman taro equip, 3k heal a skill haste), Blue Ney's equip (skill haste 3X water row), normal Lakshmi brooch (skill haste and 2 water rows), Joker card or Ushas card (4k autoheal apiece), Saitama's gloves (skill haste combo orb), or heck, throw Kenshin's equip on Kenshin so you don't have to worry about CD management since it's same active (also another skill haste combo orb).

One last thing to address, is it really THAT much better than the 1 Norza alternative.

Honestly, it feels like yeah, it is. The alt system I see suggested the most is Ultraman Z 1 leader and 1 helper Norza kitty, and running even the Arena's I struggled significantly more. Came down to a combination of so many times I needed consecutive clerics (usually skyfall orbs being locked, even if i can run the L unlock awakening the nature of the actives make that inconsistent to setup) or to Ultraman Z active needing even the slight solve crumbling under combination of cut time and hazard pressure. If you wanna run it and go through the extra work by all means, but it really feels like the leader helper 2 sub norza variant was far more consistent in addition to being far easier.

Bottom line, this team feels amazing for farming, and is probably gonna be keeping up with the level of dungeon most F2P's are farming pretty much indefinitely. It's exceptionally hazard resistant and frankly may just be the best and easiest swipe farm for the Arenas. And honestly, I just think it's fun, and a better alternative that I coulda hoped for for those of us who failed to get Leo despite our best efforts.

Is it WORTH IT though for everyone? Honestly Idk. If you have the Shiva system and its already doing it for you stress free then is it even really an improvement if it's just being even more stress free? Your call.

But if you missed the shiva system or leo (and especially if you missed those 2 AND rolled Ultraman Trigger on your leo hunt, again, he's incredible in this team) IMO make the trade for 4 Norza Kitty, I think it's worth 20 6 stars even if that sounds like a lot.

Curious to hear ya'll thoughts on the team, Norza system, or any alt systems ya'll are running. I hope this gets more people running it, I really love this team and I wanna see it shine!

-edit- I got a dm asking what mostly f2p meant. I enjoy the game and want to support them, I'll buy a bundle when the community says it's a really good deal (like that 20 stone godfest bundle the other week). Usually once or twice a year, and I specifically don't allow myself to pay to chase cards. Maybe I'd have Leo otherwise lmao