Update 2021-08-05: This is now an outdated post. Please check
this post for the updated version.
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I finally did a massive revamp of my training teams. I hadn't had the time before to verify the right QCK levels and turn orders, but I recently put in about a month of effort and finally decided on the new stats, then took as many speed tests as I could for the different builds.
One thing I noticed is that
Coliseum 2.0 has made many solo trainer builds perform very well. The fix in the turn order, as well as the much-reduced buff cast times, have all contributed to much lower times across the board, and surprisingly, more
consistent times. I tested several different builds between Mire and Ghostlight Ruins, and even though I change my playstyle quite a bit depending on the build, I ended up with really similar times for all of them.
Ideally I'd have 100+ trials (200 dragons) per level for levels 4-6, and closer to 200+ trials (400 dragons) per level for levels 7+, because that's about what it takes for the variant RNG times to stabilize into an average that doesn't move when you have a particularly good or particularly bad time. However, I can't commit that much time to collecting (I don't want to train 400 level 25s per build...) so I did the best I could. I'll list my numbers for each build first, then get into a time comparison and some notes.
I'm arbitrarily choosing to list the builds in order of my favorite to least favorite, but you'll see in the time comparisons that they're all quite good builds and you should be able to choose based on preference.
Post with builds and turn order KO threshold comparisons
Ghostlight Ruins Meditate high QCK - 115 STR/64 QCK/40 VIT/10 DEF Water
Speed test sheet
Level
4
5
6
7
8
|
____
|
Time per dragon
21 sec
44 sec
1 min 11 sec
1 min 57 sec
2 min 57 sec
|
____
|
# trials
79 (158 dragons)
78 (156 dragons)
76 (152 dragons)
28 (56 dragons)
25 (50 dragons)
|
Mire Scratch - 119 STR/63 QCK/31 VIT/8 DEF Arcane
Speed test sheet
Level
4
5
6
7
8
|
____
|
Time per dragon
24 sec
44 sec
1 min 13 sec
1 min 55 sec
2 min 54 sec
|
____
|
# trials
122 (244 dragons)
124 (248 dragons)
88 (176 dragons)
41 (82 dragons)
30 (60 dragons)
|
Ghostlight Ruins Meditate low QCK - 115 STR/53 QCK/48 VIT/21 DEF Water
Speed test sheet
Level
4
5
6
7
8
|
____
|
Time per dragon
21 sec
44 sec
1 min 13 sec
1 min 57 sec
3 min 2 sec
|
____
|
# trials
107 (214 dragons)
106 (212 dragons)
55 (110 dragons)
14 (28 dragons)
1 (2 dragons)
|
Ghostlight Ruins Scratch high QCK - 115 STR/65 QCK/39 VIT/8 DEF Water
Speed test sheet
Level
4
5
6
7
8
|
____
|
Time per dragon
20 sec
45 sec
1 min 12 sec
-
-
|
____
|
# trials
26 (52 dragons)
27 (54 dragons)
26 (52 dragons)
-
-
|
And now I've got a few notes for the build comparisons.
1) "Ghostlight Ruins Scratch high QCK" has the least amount of trials in this list. Its "20 second" lv4 average is not necessarily 20 seconds because it hasn't had time to stabilize; the other two GLR builds started around 20 seconds as well, but eventually the effects of bad RNG runs evened out the times to 21 sec each. I expect the Scratch version to level out towards 21 sec as there are more trials.
2) With any of these builds, it is reasonably easy to kill bosses as long as you start with enough Breath and haven't lost too much health. However, I chose
not to fight bosses at all when taking these speed tests, regardless of conditions. (Ie: I would flee even if I had full health and full breath, which could easily get me a boss kill.) This is because I did not want additional randomness to be thrown into my speed tests; you can't control whether you're in the condition to kill a boss whenever it appears, and there's a possibility of a random miss or crit causing you to lose when you should've won. This really skews average times. In addition, assuming that you weren't worried about average times, even if you only fought bosses under good conditions, they take so many turns to kill that their "large" exp reward is slower than just running into some 3-packs. Also, they need more than a full Breath bar to kill, so unless you're really lucky with crits, you'll be starting your next fight with not enough Breath for Eliminate. This adds time to the average even under ideal conditions, and I did not find that useful for speed test comparisons. (Outside of speed tests, I fight bosses if I'm not in a hurry, but I'll still avoid them if I'm trying to train quickly.)
3) I experienced a
much higher incidence of bosses in the Ghostlight Ruins compared to the Mire. This observation is supported by data in the
enemy frequency sheet. The averages on the sheet show the GLR bosses at 2.7% and 2.1% appearance rate, while the Mire bosses are at 1.4% and 1.2%. What I noticed is that this frequency difference is enough such that GLR "bad RNG runs" are caused by a mix of missed Eliminates AND bosses appearing, while Mire "bad RNG runs" are mainly limited to poorly-timed missed Eliminates. Although bosses did sometimes appear in the Mire, their presence was not as devastating to my average times as the GLR bosses.
4) Just like it was in Coli 1.0, Ghostlight Ruins (any viable build) is significantly better than Mire for level 4s due to the pack configurations.
5) I did not test GLR Anticipate for 2.0 because the turn order has become rather hostile to the Anticipate style of play from my point of view. Dropping QCK will help reduce the number of wasted turns, but you don't want to drop too many turns so that you're still fine in the non-startup rounds. I also didn't test Anticipate or Meditate builds in Mire because I feel Scratch would have a slight edge due to the pack configuration, but I can't say for sure unless I test them. Ideally, I would test these other builds eventually. However, I left them low on my priority list due to the amount of time and effort required.
Here are the times side-by-side. Keep in mind that a lower number of trials means that the average might move a few seconds in the long run.
Build
GLR Med high QCK
Mire Scratch
GLR Med low QCK
GLR Scratch high QCK
|
______
|
Lv.4
21 s
24 s
21 s
20 s *
|
___
|
Lv.5
44 s
44 s
44 s
45 s *
|
___
|
Lv.6
1 m 11 s
1 m 13 s
1 m 13 s
1 m 12 s *
|
___
|
Lv.7
1 m 57 s
1 m 55 s
1 m 57 s *
-
|
___
|
Lv.8
2 m 57 s
2 m 54 s
-
-
|
* Asterisk denotes low number of trials relative to the other builds.
My conclusion: The builds are so close together that it's up to you whether you go to Mire or Ghostlight Ruins. Scratch and Meditate seem both good for GLR. You could also go for either more QCK or more VIT/DEF. (I gave specific numbers for the highest defensive stat combo available with remaining points, which allows you to take the most number of hits.)
For my personal choices, I'll be doing lv4 - 6 with GLR Meditate high QCK. For levels 7 and up, I'll use Mire Scratch.
Hope this helps a bit with build choices! We have many more choices thanks to 2.0.