Introduction

Xiang Mei, or Orchid, is the first of the Four Gentlemen series 300k MP monsters to be released and brings a new play style, a dramatic increase in powercreep, and a somewhat dependency on Skill Inheritance. She is easily the most REM heavy of the MP Dragons to date and should only be purchased if you have the luxury of owning multiple copies of her and the few keys subs.

Xiang Mei



Healer

2,812 HP / 1.903 ATK / 1,001 RCV

995 Total



Active Skill:

6

1 turn haste

8 turn CD

Leader Skill:

1.5x HP / 2x ATK for Healer type. 3x ATK when 2 heal combo, 4.5x ATK with 3+ heal combos

2.25x HP / 81x ATK healer types

# heal combos 1 2 3 Multiplier 4x 36x 81x

Xiang Mei lacks dual typing and does not have a sub attribute. This seems bizarre for a 300k MP Monster; however, her leadership potential is unrivalled provided you have the right subs, duplicate Xiang Mei’s, and Skill Inheritance. The following video is mostly to illustrate the play style of Xiang Mei without skill inheritance to give you an idea of her capabilities.

Pros:

2.25x HP and 81x multiplier combine both survivability and damage potential on healers who have naturally high RCV

1,001 base RCV on Xiang Mei and incredible weighted stats

Able to control damage through heart combos and electing to form a fire row

Active skill allows for a system like team due to haste

Considered a top tier leader with the right support

Attacker Killer awakening grants 3x damage to attacker type bosses

awakening grants 3x damage to attacker type bosses Did I mention the outrageous damage potential?!

Puts the Waifu back into Puzzle and Waifus

Cons:

Horribly restrictive sub pool as fire healers who do not remove heart orbs is very limited

Ideal teams require multiple Xiang Mei’s to be effective

Skill Inheritance reliant for full optimization

Vulnerable to binds and is dependant on subs to remove them.

Virtually no uses as a sub

Out of reach for the average player in terms of MP investment

Is not a dragon

How many fire rows is enough?

Many people have asked what is the ideal number of awakenings to have and it comes down to a bit of math:

Each awakening adds 10% damage

awakening adds 10% damage Every matched combo adds 25% more damage

However, a connected 6 match deals 1.75x your base attack value while 2 separate combos is 2x base attack

Thus you need 4.2 to “break even” (instead of matching 2 unique sets of 3 fire orbs)

You should keep in mind that you have an unbelievable 81x damage multiplier and rows are somewhat overkill at this point as most row leaders have 10.5-25x damage. Granted you need to have 9 heart orbs, but your output is amazing already.

Team Building Options

Xiang Mei is placed out of reach due to her nearly non-existent sub pool as she can only utilize fire healers. Furthermore, you cannot use heart breakers as you require heart orb matches to trigger your damage multiplier. This can force players into purchasing multiple Xiang Mei’s in order to fill out their sub roster and to better abuse the haste component of her active. With Xiang Mei’s as subs, we need to have access to skill inheritance to bring utility to your team.

Staple subs:

Uriel is an essential sub who possess a double orb changer to spawn fire and heal orbs. Has perfect synergy with Gadius’s to form a 50% fire and 50% heal orb board. Many teams will run 1-3 Uriels and can be used in lieu of additional Xiang Meis.

is an essential sub who possess a double orb changer to spawn fire and heal orbs. Has perfect synergy with Gadius’s to form a 50% fire and 50% heal orb board. Many teams will run 1-3 Uriels and can be used in lieu of additional Xiang Meis. Gadius is unbindable and provides heart and fire orb generation with his full board changer and recover bind awakening. This enables him to be your best counter against binds and his active has incredible synergy with Uriel to unleash explosive damage. Just be careful as he lacks a skill bind resist awakenings. You should not use more than one on your team.

is unbindable and provides heart and fire orb generation with his full board changer and recover bind awakening. This enables him to be your best counter against binds and his active has incredible synergy with Uriel to unleash explosive damage. Just be careful as he lacks a skill bind resist awakenings. You should not use more than one on your team. Xiang Mei can be used as a sub on her own team to help round out your team roster and becomes reliant on Skill Inheritance to shine. Her incredible base stats along with haste and heart orb generation are vital for stalling. Having 1-2 as subs is mostly needed when challenging the hardest dungeons and is not mandatory for the majority of the content.

Viable subs:

Kiriko is a rare pull from the Shinarabansho Choco Collab and provides a full board changer into fire, light, and heart orbs. Due to her rarity, many players would not have her, but she should be used if you are fortunate enough to own one.

is a rare pull from the Shinarabansho Choco Collab and provides a full board changer into fire, light, and heart orbs. Due to her rarity, many players would not have her, but she should be used if you are fortunate enough to own one. Valen provides a 30% damage reduction shield for 4 turns on a 6-turn cooldown should you require damage mitigation. With Xiang Mei’s haste component, you an have nearly 100% uptime.

provides a 30% damage reduction shield for 4 turns on a 6-turn cooldown should you require damage mitigation. With Xiang Mei’s haste component, you an have nearly 100% uptime. Laila produces full horizontal line of fire orbs at the bottom row of the board. This enables you to automatically form a row, just be careful you have sufficient heart orbs present.

produces full horizontal line of fire orbs at the bottom row of the board. This enables you to automatically form a row, just be careful you have sufficient heart orbs present. Red Riding Hood has a water to heart orb active along a 3-turn bind clear.

has a water to heart orb active along a 3-turn bind clear. Christmas Echidna (or regular Echidna ) provides 3 turns of delay which becomes vital when dealing with dangerous bosses who have either resolve/perseverance or dangerous kill mechanics

(or regular Echidna ) provides 3 turns of delay which becomes vital when dealing with dangerous bosses who have either resolve/perseverance or dangerous kill mechanics Party Fox, Mitsuki (NY REM) promises a festive time with her double orb to heart active and 1 turn haste. Can also use the regular Mitsuki from the REM.

(NY REM) promises a festive time with her double orb to heart active and 1 turn haste. Can also use the regular Mitsuki from the REM. Mamiya comes from the Fist of the North Star Collab and features a jammer and water to fire orb changer along with 20% reduction to dark damage via 4 awakenings.

The limited sub pool is the main reason why Xiang Mei is heavily dependant on Skill Inheritance.

Sample teams

The core of the team is running a single Gadius and multiple Uriels or Xiang Mei dupes with appropriate skills inherited to counteract various dungeon mechanics. Duplicate Xiang Meis grant your team a higher success rate when challenging the hardest content Puzzle and Dragons has to offer.



The most expensive and luxurious team



More budget friendly and access to plenty of fire orb generation

There is not much diversification when team building Xiang Mei and you must heavily rely on Skill Inheritance to provide the much needed utility her sub pool lacks.

Can I use non-healer fire subs?

If you are asking this question, you should probably reconsider purchasing Xiang Mei as you will not be running an optimized team. Xiang Mei is designed to clear end game content and by using a less optimized team essentially defeats the purpose. This will definately be a point of controversy and the reason I say this is because you can utilize the other Monster Point Dragons to clear plenty of content. Furthermore, they have a wider range of viable subs and will be less restrictive when team building.

With that being said, you could possibly get away with one sub not having the healer type, but just be aware they will only be receiving 20.25x ATK from 3 heart orb matches and no additional HP contribution.

Skill Inheritance in action:

Arena 2 clear heavily utilizing Skill Inheritance and a rich discussion on Reddit:

Xiang Mei 1 inherits Arcline

inherits Arcline Xiang Mei 2 inherits Awoken Ra

inherits Awoken Ra Xiang Mei 3 inherits Saria

inherits Saria Gadius inherits Fencer (JP exclusive)

inherits Fencer (JP exclusive) Uriel inherits Zeta Hydra / Orochi

However, not everyone has the perfect monster box for inheritance and here is my compilation of other options for Skill inheritance:

Xiang Mei Spawn 6 hearts

1 turn haste

7 turn CD Inheritance Options Damage Enhance True Damage /

Poison Board Changer Damage

mitigation Delay

Orb Changer

What you choose to use will depend on the cards you have at your disposal along with the requirements of the dungeon. Following the template used in that Arena 2 clear, you require a damage enhancement, true damage/poison, a full board changer, damage mitigation/void, and a delay. You may not need all of those components in every scenario, but is something to keep in mind when selling duplicate monsters. Bind clearing should not be a hard requirement as Gadius is bind immune and his recover bind should be sufficient in most cases.

I highly recommend you read my Skill Inheritance: Advanced Strategies article as it will provide you with a wealth of information on how to make the most of your actives.

Latent Awakening set-up

Xiang Mei is by nature a tank team and does not require a specific line up of awakenings to shine. Outside of a single rainbow resist (as a means to survive 100% gravities by having 1% of each colour), you are quite free to do as you please. However, due to Xiang Mei’s incredible base recovery and no RCV multiplier, she can greatly benefit from the recovery latent Tamadras as each one provides 50 RCV. This is significant as you are required to stall throughout a dungeon to recharge your actives.

The viability of skill delay resists has been somewhat diminished through skill inheritance as you are able to protect yourself by using the additional cooldown timer as a “shield” against delays. However, if you are trying to cycle your actives through Xiang Mei’s base active, you may benefit with 1-2 delay resists. The decision is up to you, but it is less important if you heavily utilize skill inheritance.

Conclusion:

Xiang Mei is a fierce violin-wielding powerhouse leader who is capable of explosive damage while retaining the option of controlling their output. Her 2.25x HP multiplier allows you to construct durable teams while the healer’s naturally high RCV allows for stalling. However, only players who have an exceptional amount of Monster Points to spend along with very specific subs can use Xiang Mei to her fullest potential. Xiang Mei is designed to clear end game content and you should not have to settle for an unideal team as you are defeating her purpose. Skill Inheritance will alleviate some of the team building constraints, but will still remain out of reach for the average player.

However, with all that being said, if you have a single Gadius and 1+ Uriel(s), you can still use Xiang Mei to clear most content as having dupes of herself is only needed when trying to push the newest and hardest content. The key is owning a Gadius and Uriel.

Happy Puzzling!