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11-18 June 2018 Dragon of the Week review: the Jinqiu Dragon
Hello Dragon Ladies and Lords! Although the Sparkler Dragon is still our current Dragon of the Week, Gameloft has already revealed the dragon for the upcoming week: the Jinqiu Dragon. So, technically, he isn't a brand-new dragon, but the only opportunity to obtain him that we had been given were almost two years ago, in a feeding event. He was the main leaderboard prize, so only 0,3% players of DML obtained him then. I think it's optimistic to assume that one third of players from 2016 keep playing now, and with this assumption, I guess less than 0,1% players have him (as there are more players now than then). Therefore, it is a new dragon for almost everyone. Isn't it great? Well, I am pretty excited about Jinqiu. I thin he's so much pretty and I'm already tearing my hair out trying to find a place for two Jinqius (an adult and a baby) in my habitats...
Breeding
To have a chance of breeding the Jinqiu Dragon, you must breed the Minotaur Dragon with the Eel Dragon. The combination is pretty easy: both parents are common. I can't imagine anyone but a beginner player not having the required parents. All the possible outcomes are:
Snow Dragon
Mud Dragon
Geiger Dragon
Tesla Dragon
Brick Dragon
UV Dragon
Mercury Dragon
Rust Dragon 
Clay Dragon
Jinqiu Dragon
This is a dream table for a beginner player and a nightmare table for an advanced player. The breeding times are long, there are quite a lot of possible outcomes, so breeding Jinqiu will probably take ages. On the other hand, a beginner player who doesn't have many dragons yet will not get stuck without any new positions in their codex this week. The Mercury Dragon is in my opinion the most important position there. Out of all the hybrids of incompatible element, Mercury is the only one that doesn't share element with any other (available through enchanted breeding, card packs or limited time) dragon. You will need it to complete quickly metal breeding clan quest and there is no other way to complete that quest fast. It can also be recommended to explore Ghost Ship and it is a parent for three (!) breedable legendaries. Lack of other water-metal hybrids in the DML means also that there is no really good combination to obtain the Mercury (like i. e. Ladybug + Ceremony to get Sunflower). So, if you are a beginner player trying to get Jinqiu and you get Mercury meanwhile - it's also great. Having Rust and Clay also isn't bad.
We are having a hard time breeding recently. The Furnace Dragon is really tough one comparing to previous Dragons of the Month, and now many players will get stuck for quite a long to get a Dragon of the Week, loosing precious time that could be used for trying Furnace. It's in my opinion compensated by great new dragons, but it also means that we need to optimize our breeding timers as good as we can. So, if you are a beginner player and you don't have any of the parents needed for Jinqiu yet, better obtain them now. Breed the Metal Dragon with the Earth Dragon to get the Minotaur Dragon, or the Water Dragon with the Energy Dragon to get the Eel Dragon. Use possibly low level parents to reduce chances of getting an uncommon hybrid (Armored or Rainbow). If you have a space in habitats for this maneuver, you can even buy a new Earth or Water Dragon (they are cheap and hatch quickly) and feed them to level 4, just for the breeding, then sell them. Unfortunately, I can't give many tips to advanced players, as any plans must be adjusted to your daily routine. But I strongly recommend to pay much more attention than usually to breeding timers and do your best when planning your daily routine, Chronos unleashes or seal forges, Amoura power uses and watching ads to speed up a breeding.
As a battle dragon
Having 67 base attack damage maybe isn't perfect, but it's really good score for an epic dragon. Metal as the base element isn't a perfect pick, but a good one as well. Suffering strong attacks from energy element, that has area damage skill, may hurt a lot, especially in the Saturday dungeon, but on the other hand, Jinqiu wouldn't take extra damage from neither light nor shadow element. He would also get halved damage from earth and metal attacks, as well as from metal skill aura. His element set gives him a very wide range of possible moves. He can possibly perform a strong attack against four different elements. In normal battles, he can provide you with defensive aura, area damage or damage over time, while in the Enchantment Arena, he can benefit from common 
, uncommon 
and rare 
skill boost potions. It seems that Jinqiu is a good battle dragon, doesn't it? Especially that metal element has got negative contribution to the base attack damage, so good battle dragons having metal elements are usually highly desired by players who balance their teams for castle events and boss challenges. Unfortunately, the Jinqiu Dragon meets very hard competition. 
At the very first, he shares two of three elements with the current Dragon of the Month, amazing Furnace. Many players are planning to have Furnace in their main battle team, a team containing both Jinqiu and Furnace wouldn't be anywhere near element balance. Even if you aren't going to use Furnace in your main team, Bronze Dragon is also a hard competition for the poor Jinqiu. Bronze has exactly the same base attack damage, higher base health, the same rarity (which means no big difference in enchanting), similar spells and two extra element strengths. He can't use any common Damage Boost potions, but it's minor inconvenience compared to the fact that he would take only half damage from light, plant and void attacks - three elements, that all have on-hit effect skills, light's area damage and extremely dangerous plant's Infection! And all of this at the cost of being vulnerable to legendary attacks. So, Bronze definitely wins with Jinqiu and unless you have far too much light and not enough fire in your team, you should pick Bronze. Even if it means you'll have to breed him. The only situation when Jinqiu could be the best pick is in my opinion when you need fire and metal elements on one dragon. I have listed all the dragons that have fire and metal elements and are non-limited time or have been available to us recently, and they are: Ironfire, Sparkler, Torpedo, Ragnarok, Beetle and Ironcast. The full-blown Ironfire could do better than the Jinqiu, but enchanting and unlocking elements for a legendary dragon take a lot of resources, so many players may prefer the Jinqiu in their B team. Sparkler and Ironcast have the same attack damage as Jinqiu, but a little bit lower health points and much poorer variety of moves in battles. Torpedo and Ragnarok could be a choice for someone that really, really need some extra defensiveness, but generally they are weaker - they have lower attack damage, no triple element strengths and no great damage over time. Beetle could be picked by a huge fan of Infection, but again - no triple element strength on damage over time and much lower base attack damage. 
Other usages
A tri-elemental epic limited time dragon with a shadow element probably will probably never find a usage as a parent. It would be too unpredictable to use him for the regular breeding, being a limited-time excludes him from enchanted breeding and Dragon of the Week breeding, and shadow element isn't likely to ever be required for a Dragon of the Month combination.
Jinqiu can live in a shadow habitat and though he can't compete with Bronze or Stardust in generating gold, his base gold/hour is pretty high overall. He would make a decent income for an advanced player. A beginner player who hasn't unlocked a shadow element yet may put him in a metal habitat and enjoy really amazing (as for her/his level) income!
Another thing worth to be mentioned here is that Jinqiu's element set is unique. When you pick any pair of his element (shadow-fire, metal-fire, shadow-metal), you'll find plenty of dragons having it, but this exactly three elements are possessed only by Jinqiu. It doesn't make him a must-have, but having him may make it a little bit easier to level up your temples.
Conclusion
Jinqiu is a good battle dragon overall, but for most roles he could play, there exist even better ones. He wouldn't be an useful parent, gold generated by him is obviously nice, but still far from top-tier gold generators. He has got unique element set, but each of his elements is frequently possessed by other tri-elemental dragons, so planning leveling up temples without him will be only a little bit harder. Getting him will probably take a long time that would otherwise be useful for breeding the awesome Furnace. So, his advantages don't compensate obtaining difficulties and I would say that an advanced player should try to obtain Jinqiu only of she/he loves this dragon for the design (I will!).
On the other hand, if you are a beginner player, the time spent on breeding Jinqiu will not go in vain, as you'll probably get some new, important dragons (i.e. Mercury) meanwhile. And though you'll probably be unable to use Jinqiu for fighting for a while until you unlock shadow element, he's base gold/hour will be very helpful. If I were you, I'd try!
Please tell me in comments what do you think about this dragon. Have a wonderful day at your Dragonlandia!
PS. If you didn't notice yet, Gameloft has announced an Instagram Sweepstakes. The chances to win seems very low, but the prizes are: Ice Cream Dragon, 2,000 gems and 1,000 gems. I'll try my luck, how about you? ;)
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