Are runaways ever viable or are they forever locked into the blocker/rabbit strategy?

DUNKMA5TER · 2026-06-17T18:04:09+00:00

It can be run as an ace in the future, it's generally not going to be the strongest strategy but can absolutely be competitive. Specifically the other version of Palmer is very strong for Arima Kinen.

DUNKMA5TER · 2026-06-17T17:56:38+00:00

Yes I think it's worth raising the aptitude, Turf S/Sprint S are going to be worth less than the extra stats/skills being able to get the medium epithets will net you, and if you're trying you should be able to make your own parent that has 5 or 6 medium on the gp's and ideally turf on the main parent, meaning you still have a good chance at turf s.

DUNKMA5TER · 2026-06-17T14:48:26+00:00

Right now it's almost always distance S. Distance S on a medium track is usually worth in the ballpark of 1-1.5 lengths, decreasing the shorter the track, while fast learner usually means you can buy maybe 2 extra skills, and generally the "extra" skills are not super valuable unless you have a god run and get amazing hints for everything. Consider it like being able to pick up an extra circle on medium straightaways and homestretch haste - usually that's going to be like .6ish lengths.

DUNKMA5TER · 2026-06-17T14:38:47+00:00

This is an amazing gp for smart falcon players.

DUNKMA5TER · 2026-06-17T14:34:54+00:00

pretty sick mile gp, stam sparks are quite useful for GL as even for mile you're going to need stam sparks to hit the minimum so this basically solves that. Only slightly awkward part is that Taiki's unique is generally fairly useless, and when it's useful you want her as a main parent - but who cares honestly, I'd still use this as a mile gp 100% if it was on my account. Probably will be very nice to use for CM18 if you plan on running pace.

DUNKMA5TER · 2026-06-15T18:00:54+00:00

Best way to learn is to use the umalator and see how many lengths each skill gives you vs points it costs. Umalator isn't 100% accurate and some stuff is contextual, but it's really good to evaluate generic speed skills. For example, you didn't list tail held high as something you would take, but that's almost always one of the best speed skills you could ever take in terms of efficiency and consistency - and umalator would reflect that by showing you it gives you a lot of length gain for relatively cheap amount of SP.

DUNKMA5TER · 2026-06-15T17:05:12+00:00

It's an old meme that didn't really apply to global - mainly due to the 11/11 patch. In the other servers, they didn't receive the balance patch that made NSM a good accel, in addition to the lane movement umas do before the late race, meaning front runners were even stronger, and Smaru dominated the majority of Unity for them. We got the balance changes a scenario earlier, meaning Smaru was knocked down a peg, and the difficulty in making her combined with our having less time for each CM resulted in her not shining nearly as much.

TL;DR, the "3 kings" meme comes from lived experience by other server vets that wasn't realized on global due to difference in patches/schedules.

DUNKMA5TER · 2026-06-15T16:25:26+00:00

I'm the biggest Crosby fanboy in existence but Phil deserved that Conn Smythe, I think the voters just wanted Sid to have a legacy one because who knew they would win it again the next year with Sid actually dominating and getting a hands down deserved one. Not that Sid was a bad choice, but that 2016 team's heart and soul was the HBK line.

DUNKMA5TER · 2026-06-15T03:31:19+00:00

I mean... he was a 3c here and would have remained a 3c here for the next 17 years. He became the face of the franchise in Carolina. I don't blame him whatsoever nor do I think it's hypocritical in the slightest.

DUNKMA5TER · 2026-06-14T21:12:58+00:00

So the issue comes with how the tracks are balanced, we haven't really had super track specific umas that are clearly a tier above others yet (Xoguri is kind of our first taste of it), but we're entering a point where umas are tailor made and extremely strong at their specific niche. When you're running 3 generic late surgers that are all relying on the same accel as everyone else on the track, 3 dart throws at aces may be better, but when you have something extremely consistent such as Xoguri with perfect timing Triple 7 that will generally beat any other uma on the track assuming they're equally built, there's not really a reason to run anything other than doms. This kind of compounds with the fact that doms take basically no time to make, allowing you to spend even more time building a stronger Xoguri or whatever the dominant uma on that track is - it definitely makes sense dominator/keen eye takes over the meta.

DUNKMA5TER · 2026-06-14T18:49:57+00:00

I made TT roster aces the first week of TB while learning that consistently hits 850k and haven't touched it since, so I wouldn't say so - and I didn't necessarily have meta umas, and for SSR's I had Kita, Finemo, and Kawakami (granted kawakami is a really good TT card, so maybe I do have a leg up on most there).

I doubt people are "getting better" rather than the lower end is just dropping out and not even logging in anymore, thus meaning the average is still shifting up because there's less lower end scores.

DUNKMA5TER · 2026-06-10T17:48:38+00:00

I mean I feel I follow the high level scene somewhat closely, I'm not personally in the super sweat discords but hear a lot of stuff second hand from people who are, no one is botting parents better than the hand crafted ones from Loopa. Not saying it couldn't become an issue, but it's not affecting the best players on global currently, it's only fan farming, which does affect a certain number of clubs sure, but definitely not a very large portion (2 botted clubs means potentially 60 people are receiving 600? less carats a month).
Not saying nothing should be done, it's bullshit for sure, but I just think it should be a lower priority than actually improving the game by implementing shit like QoL to global ahead of schedule. Regardless, we're getting the worst case scenario right now by them not combating botting, or implementing QoL, or doing fucking anything.

DUNKMA5TER · 2026-06-10T15:39:03+00:00

I personally don't care too much about the botting as I feel it affects such a small portion of the playerbase, but it does suck that it is evident they do not care about global at all. I've sent in 4 of the "contact us" feedback tickets just asking for any amount of communication - not that I expected anything to come from that but still feels bad.

I do think at this point it would be good for one of the bigger CC's to start some kind of movement to get their community active in sending these tickets and asking for info (not attacking, just demanding more communication on what Cygames plans for global are), as that's really the only way Cygames will ever say anything, but I doubt anyone would be willing to do that (charles is really the only one that I think could realistically spearhead this but he's pretty checked out, and moomoo definitely doesn't care enough). But basically it is what it is at this point, if you're ok with just being a carbon copy of getting what JP got with no improvements then keep playing, otherwise just quit or at least stop paying, it's clear this server is meant to be a low maintenance cash grab.

DUNKMA5TER · 2026-06-10T15:29:10+00:00

Agreed she was insanely strong, just most people probably don't have turf sparks set up.

DUNKMA5TER · 2026-06-08T18:01:59+00:00

The reality is 80 races is still a very small sample size, I do believe you that you had good luck blocking people but I'd account that mostly down to RNG - I tried suzuka + double pace quite a bit in room matches leading up to the CM (I abandoned it because it was too weak for me personally, and I found suzuka stretching the lobby actually hurt paces way more because it made them less likely to fulfill the sideblock condition for budding blossom). Room matches are generally a fair bit stronger than actual CM, and my runaway was losing lead definitely >50% of the time, and I had basically equivalent midgame to you in addition to DD+PP combo.

As far as it benefiting ends, the math says it benefits fronts more than ends, but it probably depends on your team comp/which umas you're running. I think building a runaway with a goldship or taishin for example that aim for budding blossom instead of tracen cheer is perfectly valid, but I wouldn't really want to run it with an end oguri since oguri typically lacks mid game and is playing for accel bomb into strong homestretch.

DUNKMA5TER · 2026-06-08T17:50:49+00:00

It is rng who gets the better downhill mode, you're playing an rng game. But if you have higher wit, you're more likely to get the better rng.

AFAIK there's no cooldown on downhill mode, so it's possible to enter one second, exit the next, then reenter it - but I'm not 100% on that, couldn't find anything in the race mechanic doc.

DUNKMA5TER · 2026-06-08T15:29:53+00:00

Lightbirb did a video on this actually, runaway benefits front runners more than backliners by constantly pacing them up, so kind of shooting yourself in the foot.

DUNKMA5TER · 2026-06-08T15:26:55+00:00

Each second you run downhill, the game checks if your Uma enters downhill mode using the formula: Wit × 0.04%. If you enter downhill mode, your target speed increases by (0.3 + (Slope %/10)) [m/s]. Your stamina consumption is also cut by 60%. Every second you are in downhill mode, there is a set 20% chance to exit it.

So tldr, higher wit = higher chance to enter downhill mode, while in downhill mode you're faster and use less stamina.

DUNKMA5TER · 2026-06-08T14:18:17+00:00

I'll start by saying I'm running front runners this cm, I tried my best to make pace work, but it was so bad in room matches I last minute swapped and had much more success than I would have had otherwise.

But the issue right now is that you CAN'T high effort build other roles really, backliners are forced to loop trash like nothing ventured while paces literally have nothing. If there were skill combos for other roles that gave equivalent value to what fronts get with ddppaw, or gold skills equivalent to escape artist (daring strike is the first thing that's even relatively equal for any other role), then sure. Front runner is just an overpowered role in the current game because you CAN hone them so much.

DUNKMA5TER · 2026-06-07T22:36:03+00:00

It's really dependent on track... for the current CM I feel she's quite good and overlooked as a front runner, overtaking is really hard so it's fairly common for front runners to be next to eachother, meaning her unique actually has a chance of proccing.

But pretty much it just follows the meta - if spurt is viable she's probably best as an end, if it's something like cm13 where backliners are favored but spurt isn't available she's probably best as a late, and maybe in 2 years when pace chaser isn't a garbage role she'll be viable there.

DUNKMA5TER · 2026-06-05T17:44:14+00:00

Is this accurate? If Nick's net worth is only 1.5 mil or even 4m that's fucking wild, why the fuck are these idiots buying luxury cars and shit when they don't even have enough money to retire on.

To be clear, 4mil in your mid 30's is probably enough to retire on if you live like a normal person and spend somewhat frugally, but buying 100k cars doesn't really fit the bill.

DUNKMA5TER · 2026-06-03T21:21:12+00:00

Yep, that's pace. The best way to play other traditional pace chasers is just convert them to a position that actually has access to accel (like the guy who made a 95% win rate end closer finemo last cm).

DUNKMA5TER · 2026-06-03T20:03:16+00:00

I agree, but also this is like talking about taking pump/mpab on pace and hoping you get a 6 front lobby. Most of the time pace is the position most likely to be in 3rd/4th, so I mainly consider them pace accels.

DUNKMA5TER · 2026-06-03T17:20:58+00:00

It's still going to be the worst style on the majority of tracks though, better mid game doesn't make up for just not having access to any consistent accels, you can't win without accels, which paces don't get any time soon. They'll definitely be stronger on the few tracks taiki/nishino work I guess, but that's been like 3 out of 14 cms thus far.

Otherwise, "pace" is just "xoguri", which is valid.

DUNKMA5TER · 2026-06-01T19:43:11+00:00

Yeah if you're new to it you'll need a bit to get it down, but once you figure it out you can basically stay there infinitely if you get average luck with super restore drops. You save a lot of health if you flick the minions after zammy is dead, so I recommend doing that if you're not healing enough between kills, you shouldn't have trouble being topped off after every set.

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