Dungeon Guide: Hera Descended - Goddess of the Darkness
Hera Descended, one of the first descends players will choose to tackle, subsequently has also caused the most head and heartaches. Unlike most descends, Hera Descended is not a technical dungeon where enemies use skills, so this dungeon is quite predictable and easy to run once you've done it a couple times. After being added to the normal dungeons list, she's now available to you 24/7. For the dungeon's raw data check out http://puzzledragonx.com/en/mission.asp?m=810
Table of Contents
Overview
The Loot
Floor Breakdown
Floors 1-4
Floor 5: Venus
Floor 6: Minerva
Floor 7: Ceres
Floor 8: Neptune
Floor 9: Hades
Floor 10: Hera
Team Compositions
Poverty Builds
Farm Builds
Closing Words
Overview
Hera Descended is a 40 stamina, Legend difficulty descend dungeon. The dungeon is also unlockable as a normal dungeon as Divine Queen of Darkness, which is essentially the same dungeon, just available to you at all times. Beating Hera Descended is often viewed as the graduation from a newbie to an experienced player with the right to talk like he knows what he's doing. This can be very misleading, however, as the dungeon is easily exploitable with some good friend leads so that even fresh rank 48's (minimum rank for 40 stamina) can run this dungeon for their very own Hera.
The Loot
Most obviously, people run this dungeon for the boss drop, Hera, evolved into Awoken Hera. This is the easiest farmable Gravity user, allowing teams to deal tremendous damage to bosses. She shares this 30% gravity with Hera-Is and Hades, so many people farm Hera to skill-up any of these three gravity users from a 30 turn gravity to the minimum of 15 turn gravity. When ultimate evo'd, Hera becomes Divine Queen Hera, who has even higher stats and a great leader skill (although rather outdated) that allows sweeping of Starlight Sanctuary, King of the Gods.
Another worthy mention is the occasional Mystic Knight drop on the pre-boss waves, which allow skill-ups of the Mystic Knight orb changer series.
Unfortunately, none of the semi-bosses (the old greek gods) come as drops; they only give money.
Floor Breakdown
There are 10 floors altogether, with the first 4 being small mob waves, the next 5 being semi-bosses, and the last one being the almighty Hera herself.
Floors 1-4
Table of Contents
Overview
The Loot
Floor Breakdown
Floors 1-4
Floor 5: Venus
Floor 6: Minerva
Floor 7: Ceres
Floor 8: Neptune
Floor 9: Hades
Floor 10: Hera
Team Compositions
Poverty Builds
Farm Builds
Closing Words
Overview
Hera Descended is a 40 stamina, Legend difficulty descend dungeon. The dungeon is also unlockable as a normal dungeon as Divine Queen of Darkness, which is essentially the same dungeon, just available to you at all times. Beating Hera Descended is often viewed as the graduation from a newbie to an experienced player with the right to talk like he knows what he's doing. This can be very misleading, however, as the dungeon is easily exploitable with some good friend leads so that even fresh rank 48's (minimum rank for 40 stamina) can run this dungeon for their very own Hera.
The Loot
Most obviously, people run this dungeon for the boss drop, Hera, evolved into Awoken Hera. This is the easiest farmable Gravity user, allowing teams to deal tremendous damage to bosses. She shares this 30% gravity with Hera-Is and Hades, so many people farm Hera to skill-up any of these three gravity users from a 30 turn gravity to the minimum of 15 turn gravity. When ultimate evo'd, Hera becomes Divine Queen Hera, who has even higher stats and a great leader skill (although rather outdated) that allows sweeping of Starlight Sanctuary, King of the Gods.
Another worthy mention is the occasional Mystic Knight drop on the pre-boss waves, which allow skill-ups of the Mystic Knight orb changer series.
Unfortunately, none of the semi-bosses (the old greek gods) come as drops; they only give money.
Floor Breakdown
There are 10 floors altogether, with the first 4 being small mob waves, the next 5 being semi-bosses, and the last one being the almighty Hera herself.
Floors 1-4
Mystic knights appear in any of the 5 attributes. They hit for a decent amount, between 6.5k and 6.7k damage, while on a 3 turn cooldown. Each knight has 76350 HP and 900 armor, so for the non-spike team they may take a while to grind down.
Devils appear in any of the 5 attributes. They hit for 3.5k-3.7k damage each while on a 1 turn cooldown, and can create problems for a lot of teams that can't kill them quickly. While they only have~20,000 HP, they pack 1,400 armor.
Demons appear in any of the 5 attributes.They hit between 5.5k and 5.6k damage on a 2 turn cooldown. Probably the hardest to kill, they have between 46,000 and 52,000 HP with 2200 armor.
Every floor will contain 2-4 of the above in any combination. Getting past them may be tough for newer teams, and can still provide a challenge for low HP spike teams.
Grind teams will want to blast through these as fast as possible, as every passing turn increases the chance of heart orb troll or synced mobs wrecking havoc on your HP. Note that because their armor ranges from 900-2200, simply matching three orbs of your color is not going to deal significant damage. A far more efficient way is to stock up until you have 8 or more orbs, then use one mass attack of 5 and combo with the rest of the orbs so that not only are you hitting for far more than 2200 damage, you're hitting all the mobs simultaneously to save time.
Spike teams want to use these floors to stall for abilities. This is when it's useful to have high RCV so that you can heal back the damage dealt. Devils hit for the highest amount of damage per turn, so killing them are your highest priority, then Demons, then Mystic knights. If the floor is about to kill you, don't be afraid to sweep it and go to the next one; there's 4 floors in total before the semi bosses.
Floor 5
Grind teams will want to blast through these as fast as possible, as every passing turn increases the chance of heart orb troll or synced mobs wrecking havoc on your HP. Note that because their armor ranges from 900-2200, simply matching three orbs of your color is not going to deal significant damage. A far more efficient way is to stock up until you have 8 or more orbs, then use one mass attack of 5 and combo with the rest of the orbs so that not only are you hitting for far more than 2200 damage, you're hitting all the mobs simultaneously to save time.
Spike teams want to use these floors to stall for abilities. This is when it's useful to have high RCV so that you can heal back the damage dealt. Devils hit for the highest amount of damage per turn, so killing them are your highest priority, then Demons, then Mystic knights. If the floor is about to kill you, don't be afraid to sweep it and go to the next one; there's 4 floors in total before the semi bosses.
Floor 5
Venus has 429,489 HP and 1200 Defense. She hits for 5647 damage every turn. This is about when correctly built grind teams can have the time of their lives doing what they do best, which is grind. Not much to talk about there. This is also when new players walking in with spike teams will hit a wall, realizing they don't hit hard enough and don't heal well enough to take out Venus. There isn't much to say, except that if you're a spike team you should walk in with over 5647*2=11294 HP so that you can take two hits without healing. Spike hard, she's the squishiest of the bosses, and good luck.
Floor 6
Floor 6
Minerva has 515,044 HP and 1200 Defense, hitting for 14117 every 3 turns. Grind teams should have no problem here; they have 3 turns to heal off her damage. Meanwhile low-HP spike teams who can't tank a hit will struggle to cough up the 515k damage before time is up. This is especially a problem if Minerva spawns with only 2 turns before attacking. You may find it worth running a high-HP sub or a high attack blue sub just to take care of this baby--I recommend Siegfried, who just so happens to have high HP, be blue, and be farmable!
Floor 7
Floor 7
Living proof of Gung-ho's creativity, Ceres also happens to have 515,044 HP and 1200 Defense! However, she hits for just 10780 while attacking every 2 turns, Once again, grind teams have a field day. Spike teams who can't tank a hit are shit outta luck--if you don't have 10780 hp you better either be a suicide GZL team sweeping every floor at the speed of light or you'd best go home and run some more Hyperion Lava Flow. On the off chance you can tank the damage, Ceres should be rather easy, since her average turn damage is even lower than Venus's.
Floor 8
Floor 8
One of the defining characteristics of Hera Descended, Neptune has only 44,489 HP but packs a whopping 72k Defense. He hits every 4 turns for 18,480 damage. This is where grind teams are forced to run an active just for Neptune so they can move on with life; failure to bypass his 72,000 defense means dealing 1 damage at a time to him for eternity. (I heard of someone who did this, took him a full week.) Spike teams who can't tank 18.5k damage are forced to spike over 72k within 4 turns, which is a pretty realistic goal. If you can't deal over 72k damage with one card, you can't really call yourself a spike team anyway. Worst comes to worst, run a green card, so with type advantage, spiking to exactly 58245 attack will one-shot that bad boy.
Floor 9
Floor 9
Hades gives some grind teams a run for their money while spike teams can take a quick breather before Hera. He has 600,600 HP with the standard 1200 defense, but gives you 6 turns before smashing in with 82,133 damage.
Grind team HP thresholds to survive:
Double 50% resist: 20,534
Double 55% resist: 16,632
Single 80% resist: 16,427
80% with 50% resist: 8214
Double 80% resist: 3286 (but seriously how big of a pussy are you)
Spike teams that have made it this far should dish out the damage easy. The biggest deal here is to make the most use out of the 6 turns Hades gives you to stall, in case your boss-slaying skills haven't been fully charged yet.
Floor 10
Grind team HP thresholds to survive:
Double 50% resist: 20,534
Double 55% resist: 16,632
Single 80% resist: 16,427
80% with 50% resist: 8214
Double 80% resist: 3286 (but seriously how big of a pussy are you)
Spike teams that have made it this far should dish out the damage easy. The biggest deal here is to make the most use out of the 6 turns Hades gives you to stall, in case your boss-slaying skills haven't been fully charged yet.
Floor 10
And we finally make it to Hera! A large difficulty jump from the semi-bosses, Hera swings in with a 12354 blow every single turn. She packs 2,569,319 HP with a measly 372 defense (ironically, lowest defense of anything in the dungeon). For grind teams, this will be the longest and most mind-numbing stall you have faced so far (unless you beat Endless Corridors with a double Angel Lucifer team, in which case, fuck off). For spike teams, the majority of your team building was focused on raping Hera so thoroughly she'll feel it a week from now, so go ahead and pop your skills for the win. If that fails, then good luck, because not many teams can survive her massive damage output for too long.
Team Compositions
Down to business. Here's a selection of viable teams.
Poverty Builds
For those who are beating Hera for the first time, or are deflowering themselves on the descend scene altogether, you're not looking for speed or fanciness but an easy build. Here are some easy to construct teams.
Down to business. Here's a selection of viable teams.
Poverty Builds
For those who are beating Hera for the first time, or are deflowering themselves on the descend scene altogether, you're not looking for speed or fanciness but an easy build. Here are some easy to construct teams.
JD + Lilith/?/?/? + GOdin
This is pretty much the most generic grind team you can come up with. Jester Dragon provides 50% Water and Dark damage reduction, while GOdin provides 80% damage reduction at full HP. A 1 lvl awoken Lilith with a fully awoken Godin autoheals you for 2500 HP every turn, so the last 6 floors are an easy grind, since you'll heal back to full HP before a boss can hit you so long as you match orbs every turn. The biggest challenge is surviving the first four floors, since taking more than 1 hit per turn is dangerous (Godin's leader skill doesn't protect you after the first hit every turn). Your remaining 3 flex slots should be optimally filled with high attack Dark and Wood subs so you can have more concentrated damage in those colors, letting you sweep the first floors easier. Note that your whole team needs a minimum of 8214 HP to tank a hit from Hades.
This is pretty much the most generic grind team you can come up with. Jester Dragon provides 50% Water and Dark damage reduction, while GOdin provides 80% damage reduction at full HP. A 1 lvl awoken Lilith with a fully awoken Godin autoheals you for 2500 HP every turn, so the last 6 floors are an easy grind, since you'll heal back to full HP before a boss can hit you so long as you match orbs every turn. The biggest challenge is surviving the first four floors, since taking more than 1 hit per turn is dangerous (Godin's leader skill doesn't protect you after the first hit every turn). Your remaining 3 flex slots should be optimally filled with high attack Dark and Wood subs so you can have more concentrated damage in those colors, letting you sweep the first floors easier. Note that your whole team needs a minimum of 8214 HP to tank a hit from Hades.
JD + Hera/High Dark Ninja/Siren/? + GOdin
This is the slightly more pimped-out team of the version above. Once again, JD/GOdin leads allows optimal survivability. Any gravity user, especially Hera herself (assuming you've just finished this dungeons and want to rerun it faster), will make bosses with lots of HP much easier to take down. High Dark Ninja, not to be confused with High Dark Ninja, Hanzo (seriously Gungho could you be more confusing), is the easy-to-obtain poor man's DL Lucifer. His active, Morning Star, deals 300k dark damage while reducing your HP to 1, which most noticeably goes through Neptune's defense and one shots him. It also makes killing Hades and Hera much faster; note that if your gravity and morning star are both up, use gravity first then morning star for maximum damage. Siren is there not only because her awakenings grant 500 extra auto heal, but also because upon using a morning star on Hera you'll need to immediately heal back up too full HP to tank the next hit, and making extra heart orbs helps a lot.
This is the slightly more pimped-out team of the version above. Once again, JD/GOdin leads allows optimal survivability. Any gravity user, especially Hera herself (assuming you've just finished this dungeons and want to rerun it faster), will make bosses with lots of HP much easier to take down. High Dark Ninja, not to be confused with High Dark Ninja, Hanzo (seriously Gungho could you be more confusing), is the easy-to-obtain poor man's DL Lucifer. His active, Morning Star, deals 300k dark damage while reducing your HP to 1, which most noticeably goes through Neptune's defense and one shots him. It also makes killing Hades and Hera much faster; note that if your gravity and morning star are both up, use gravity first then morning star for maximum damage. Siren is there not only because her awakenings grant 500 extra auto heal, but also because upon using a morning star on Hera you'll need to immediately heal back up too full HP to tank the next hit, and making extra heart orbs helps a lot.
Farm Builds
So you're a rich man confident in your abilities too spike down anything that pops up, and you want to max skill your Hera? No problem, below you'll find some teams to finish the dungeon in anywhere from 2-10 minutes. Note that any decent spike team can clear out this dungeon, given it has these qualities:
1. Either A) Reliably output ~500k damage every 2 turns without actives or B) Reliably heal off 5.5k HP every turn and have >14117 HP
2. Can hit over 72k damage with one sub, to break Neptune's defense
3. Has an active skill combo that guarantees a kill on Hera, who has 2.5 million HP.
So you're a rich man confident in your abilities too spike down anything that pops up, and you want to max skill your Hera? No problem, below you'll find some teams to finish the dungeon in anywhere from 2-10 minutes. Note that any decent spike team can clear out this dungeon, given it has these qualities:
1. Either A) Reliably output ~500k damage every 2 turns without actives or B) Reliably heal off 5.5k HP every turn and have >14117 HP
2. Can hit over 72k damage with one sub, to break Neptune's defense
3. Has an active skill combo that guarantees a kill on Hera, who has 2.5 million HP.
Horus + Echidna/Chu/Siren/? + Horus
Horus allows for a pretty consistent sweep of the dungeon with his 4-5x multiplier. Echidna is to guarantee Hera dies. For higher leveled players, the other subs really don't matter. However, Chu Chulainn is pretty good at guaranteeing Neptune dies, and Siren lets you quickly heal up should you mess up on a floor.
Horus allows for a pretty consistent sweep of the dungeon with his 4-5x multiplier. Echidna is to guarantee Hera dies. For higher leveled players, the other subs really don't matter. However, Chu Chulainn is pretty good at guaranteeing Neptune dies, and Siren lets you quickly heal up should you mess up on a floor.