This post was inspired by this one from /u/zisko2. Want to give credit where it's due.

I just wanted to do a major post so we can look at some of the big changes that happened this year, as a way of documenting the past, I guess. This will be in a blog-ish format, with me just writing down my musings as they come to me. I will likely not remember all of the major changes, if there is a change or addition or something else I missed, please mention it in the comments and I'll add it! :)

Note that I won't be included all balance changes, as some were, like, not that impactful, but the recent nerf/buff patch, things like the Dark Phantom Thief bullshit affecting ToA (every goddamn time I forget to throw in a stripper for those levels, even on like level 33 I get fucked, haha), and the like will be included, to the best of my knowledge.

With that out of the way, let's get to it. Feel free to let that run in the background as you read! :)

New Units

You can't write a post like this without starting it with the new units introduced this year:

Twins

First and foremost, the twins turned the game upside down as far as PvE progression goes, especially for new players. Able to be used with subpar rune quality in GB10, DB10, NB10 (especially), ToA, Rifts, Raid, Guild Wars, Siege Battles, Arena Offense, Arena Defense, and even some lower-end RTA (not sure about C1 ). This is after about 130 days of playtime, note that the time went down to 1:10 or so as the fastest run - the twins are disgusting. Just about the only thing they aren't good at is being used as a friend rep, honestly. Their synergy with one another and all the things they do separately complete this giant puzzle of "what do I need?" very well.

Granted we can't talk about the twins without talking about the MAJOR fuck up they had on their release - pulling ALL sisters together when the other sister went. Still a sore spot in a lot of discussions, and a major point of contention for when the pitchforks come out and we're ready to crucify Com2Us. "Lab sucks! Oh and also remember when they fucked up the twins and immediately reverted them!?" "Where's the balance patch? Oh and remember the fuck up with the twins!? Fuck Com2Us!" Not going to be an apologist here, they did fuck up, but they also handled it about as well as they could after the release. Twins are still very impactful and well balanced, as they don't break any PvP aspects but are still very useful there.

Dryads

Next up is the 4* release about the middle of the year, the dryads. Honestly they have hardly been used or talked about at all. You rarely hear about them even now, despite Herne having oblivion as the only nat4 in the game who does, which, you would think, would be huge against 4* siege towers such as Khmun defenses. They also seem to have a decent kit both for ToA (the DoTs on I believe the wind dryad), and raid (the cleansing, etc. on several of them). But nope. Not sure why. I haven't built any myself, but I'm still working on "the essentials" such as Bulldozer and my newly pulled Woosa.

Druids

A lot of hype initially followed by a "wop wop!" after release. Only one that gets attention these days is the wind druid, and that's only because he synergizes with the annoying Vanessa/Triana 2 arena defenses as a stalling reviver. I'd love to hear uses for them, though, and to brainstorm some ways we can make them relevant, though I'm not sure that'll happen. LD might be a different story, I'm not sure.

Lightning Emperors

A bit later the LE's were introduced. People both commented how broken Wind and Water seem, and I believe the community still believes that, but they still aren't talked about as much as Mo Long & co. Fire as a fusion was a great addition, seems "decent" in a few niche situations as a fire AoE nuker, which the game is still severely missing. Best we have are the fire twins, I would say, and obviously Zaiross. Dark LE has some funny interactions with Rifts, as he basically steals all the armor from the beast, allowing you to practically one-shot him with your team by the third stage.

We can't talk about the Lightning Emperors without talking about new fusions, either. With Verdehile being introduced as a now permanently f2p option for new players to use in their starter DB10, which will date any DB10 guide we have seen in the past. Verdehile is now a staple for every player, so there's no reason to run a Spectra-based team anymore.

Giant Warriors

The only nat3 family added this year, but they're pretty good, particularly Skogul, the wind one (and Trasar, the dark one). Nice that the nat3 family is actually useful, rather than being a giant disappointment (no pun intended) like the charger sharks.

What are your thoughts on the new units? Anything I missed?

Balance Patches

PvE

• Dark Phantom Thief (Guillaume)

  • If you're running an auto team with ATB reduction in the kit (fire twins, Charlotte, Verad, Poseidon, etc.), these stages now are impossible to beat. I think there are three total, and I can never remember which ones they are. I run Ganymede in the later levels of Hard, but run Beth instead for almost all of Normal and the first ~40-50 floors of Hard. Now with Gany's changes as well, I'm gonna have to run Megan or Bella or some other stripper for these stages, after looking down at my phone noticing my monsters have been beating an empty ATB for 5 minutes and restarting the stage, haha.

• Juno

  • Also affects PvP, but Juno was changed from 2 debuff cleansing to any debuff, and now heals by 10% of HER MAX HP, instead of each individual monster's HP, per debuff. Big change for Lyrith's floor, made it more difficult for a few comps to get past that Juno/Anavel stage. Also made her into a really annoying PvP defender, as she also stripped debuffs and stunned you with Despair at the same time.

• Verdehile/Julianne

  • Got blasted for posting this SEVEN MONTHS ago - Look who's laughing now! :D I think it's a great change, and I commend Com2Us for taking a look at something minor that just makes the game feel more polished. Shouldn't affect Julianne much (he'll just stun you "better" now), but really helps Verdehile shine and gives you a reason to skill up one of your most-used-for-PvE monsters.

• Sigmarus

  • Sigmarus, at the very beginning of the year (before I joined the game), got a huge buff to his/her/its kit, adding HP% to S2 damage, as well as freezing to S3. Now both S2 and S3 freeze on a critical hit, and both deal enemy MAX HP% damage. This makes Sigmarus the quintessential fusion monster to all things early-game PvE. Sig will speed up your GB10, make DB10 doable, get you to floor 100 of TOAN, and at least floor 70 of TOAH. Also works for early-game PvP as well as multiple essence dungeons, especially water. The community is still divided between which to fuse first - Vero or Sigmarus, with the only bonus for Vero being that the game hands you half of the process and gives a lot of good rewards by the end of it.

• Can't think of anything else substantial, I've probably forgotten a few, let me know in the comments.

PvP

• Mo Long/Tian Lang

  • The nerf hammer finally came down on water panda. In my opinion people are making a bigger deal of it than it is. It's still a pretty high chance to strip and stun, and now it strips all debuffs, so the more debuffs you have, the better this skill is in comparison to the old skill. So post-patch he actually got gutted, the patch notes were wrong (I think they were correct and then a decision was made between patch note release and patch implementation, to be honest). Mo Long only stripsONE buff, ONCE, on his THIRD attack, at a 25% chance. Big change that throws him way down to probably A tier, MAAAAAYBE S tier.
  • I have no opinion on TL, to be honest. I didn't really find him to be that difficult to deal with to begin with, and I run ATB teams, but maybe I just never had to deal with a truly terrifying TL. So post-patch he got the same ridiculous nerf that Mo Long did. Com2Us you had the right idea, you just went too far.

• Daphnis

  • Honestly I think Daphnis is better than people want to believe. Yes Psamathe and Gany are more universally awesome in a lot of different comps, but Daphnis, especially now, has a few really good niches he can fit. Compare his nuke to something like Bulldozer or Kahli. Dozer will deal more single target damage, I would imagine, with the ignore defense, but Daphnis also brings something that few other monsters bring to the table - cooldown increases to the enemy. And now he strips one enemy before nuking them down, with an added 30% MAX HP component that is not blocked at all by DEF. Meaning that Daphnis can be used in comps where Bulldozer, Kahli, and maybe Copper just don't provide enough utility to deal with the other members of the defense. Time will tell, my buddy pulled him and plans on building him. I'm fully prepared to eat my words.
  • Fairy Kings in general losing strip on S1 is a pretty big deal. It'll mostly affect lucky wins in RTA/tournies, which just straight can't happen anymore, but I use Gany to knock off Endure on Theo, and revenge/heal on Feng Yan, etc. as well. It'll be felt for sure, glancing is lame. Still, Gany and Psamathe are not losing their identity, and will continue to be top picks in their respective areas, in my opinion.

• Ragdoll

  • 20% ATB increase to 15%. Honestly people are also freaking out a bit about this change, but I don't think it really affects him much. If 20% was oppressive, 15% will be slightly-less-but-still-pretty-oppressive. Time will tell, I still expect his RTA win rate to be the highest of any monster, and it seems most RTA lists agree with me. I noticed absolutely zero difference in the Leo/Ragdoll stage this month.

• Yeonhong

  • People knocked her down on the RTA lists, and I'm not sure I agree. Yes an extra cooldown time on her S3 is a pretty big deal, but I still think she's gonna be crazy difficult to deal with when she has amazing runes. Definitely a bigger impact than Ragdoll's nerf, though.

• Tetra

  • Nobody talked about the water mermaid, but having a mini Vero/Perna passive now, I think, makes her viable in a lot of content, raid in particular as an off-cleanser that helps heal. Maybe for a second team.

• The above are all related to the previous balance patch, I can't for the life of me remember any significant changes before this, are there any? I know a lot of minor changes, but I'm just focusing on the major changes.

New Content and Unique Events

TONS of new content this year, with a mix of fuck ups and just really good stuff. Let's get to it. Again feel free to listen as you continue reading.

Lab

Started off terrible. Got a bit better. Then they finally adjusted it to its current form, so it's "mostly good." Some people don't like the 2 week timer, but I think that's really the only complaint these days. The end-of-lab boxes are usually really good, and while the first-clear on tartarus is kind of a weird interaction (incentivized to do easy right when you find him, which gives you a crap reward), it's still a good push in the right direction, though admittedly I've gotten flat stat grind/enchants every single time so far, that's probably confirmation bias.

All in all it's a huge update with a full-content release that gives us more to do. 5 Lanterns feels like "enough" without being overbearing. If you don't want to really spend the time in lab, just do normal or hard (or whatever you can easily auto battle), or if you want better rewards and a challenge, manual your stages at a higher difficulty. Overall Com2Us should be mostly commended on this release, despite the early hiccups and a few issues that could still be resolved.

Can't forget the immemorial gems and grinds that you 'can' get here. Universal gems/grinds are really good, but unfortunately Com2Us is treating them like Devilmon in rarity, except that we are given a free one for our first victory against Tartarus per lab reset. Otherwise they are only obtainable in end-of-lab reward boxes, and again, at a really low rate.

Craft-a-rune Event

Twice this year, which is awesome. Great opportunity to get that missing slot you really need for a monster, roll it a bunch of times, and finally see what the final product is like. My first rune rolled really well, but didn't have Crit Rate on it, while my second rune rolled decently, but also had crit rate. I fully expect to use that rune on my twins, so yay.

Verde-for-Free Event

With Verde being a fusion now, it's not as big of a deal, but this was great, and was how I personally obtained Verde so I could start doing DB10. The community in general was blown away with Com2Us' decision here.

Choose-a-Nat4 Event

This was how I, and many others, got Shaina. Others got Sabrina, Lushen, Chasun, Galleon, and other key nat4s. Some of the more veteran players just got an easy devilmon. All around great event, and having a devilmon as "consolation" was a great idea. With it being relatively close to the twins' release, a lot of people really wanted a twin, so it even applied to veteran players, which was nice.

Elsharion and the Magic Shop

Took a LOOOONG time to finally get him released, and he was a bit lackluster post-release, but overall a cool new option with a new currency. Time will tell if they will add more stuff to it. I would bank your coins for now, you can always dump them on reapps later.

Summon 'Blessings'

A new change that just went through. These will likely only be tied to purchases other than the odd event here and there (I'd guess maybe once a year if that for the nat5 blessings). Some are hypothesizing that they will be put in the ancient coin shop, but I personally doubt the nat5 blessing will be. Maybe the nat4. Regardless, this is something the whales of the community have wanted for a long time, and frankly I think it was a good move on Com2Us' part.

Anyway, what it is is that when you summon a nat4 or 5 (depending on the blessing you have), you will be given an option between two different ones. This applies to all normal summoning methods except, I believe, LD Scrolls and Summoning stones. Mystical/Legendary/Trans scrolls, elemental scrolls, crystal summons, etc. all work with the blessing.

Any that I missed?

QoL and UI Changes

Rune Upgrades

My personal favorite is the 3 to 15 UI change on runes. Been needed for a LONG time and they finally implemented it. A lot of new Gacha game releases has done some really good things for this game to stay relevant. Much appreciated to many more-or-less failed projects this year, hahaha.

Guild Shop and Guild Achievements/Levels

Another great addition that just adds more stuff to get without a real cost other than mana. Slowly obtaining skillups for XL, etc. is a nice touch, and the occasional decent grind/gem or mystical scroll is nice as well.

Replay

No more cycling through 17 screens just to replay the dungeon/scenario again. The quick response to max leveling monsters and other smaller QoL changes related to this update were really well done on their part as well.

Essence Fusions

First they reduced the mana cost, then they added a "fuse 5" option. Both really great additions.

Rune Crafting

Heavily reduced the mana costs to craft runes, making crafting a straight-up desirable decision. You come out mostly-even after crafting now.

Friend Points Changes

"Send All" and 20 energy for 500 FP was a HUGE change that was very welcome. No more slowly scrolling through your friends' list tapping "<3 Gift" 50 times, and the energy bonus is awesome. I personally keep a bank of 500 FP in reserve in case I forget to do something by the end of the night.

Mana bump on dailies, and added 15 crystal "secret" mission. Extra Achievements.

Not a huge deal, but a nice bump in resources on daily stuff. The extra achievements giving basically all mana with the LD scroll after WEEKS of grinding mana achievements is pretty lame. Community is still upset about it.

Rune rates buffed. Rune sell price increased.

Legendary- and Hero-grade runes got a bump in rate. Not noticeable on a run-by-run basis, but over a week, a month, and a year, it starts to add up, and the larger number of mana gained from selling runes help keep mana pools healthy.

There were other changes such as separating runes and grinds/gems, adding monster storage, etc. But I think I got most if not all of the major changes. Anything I missed?

Conclusion

Again I'll ask, for a final time - Anything I missed?

Beyond that - what was your favorite change? Does your opinion on the above differ in any way? Let's hear your thoughts! :)

I hope this was enjoyable to read, if a bit long, haha. Take care, Summoner.