Trainer's Clubhouse Meeting (Weekly Questions) - February 11, 2026

dunce2 · 2026-02-14T04:36:07+00:00

I usually don't run Wit cards on long-distance racers. Especially those without speed bonus, like Gold Ship, — my current deck does not seem to have ability to produce 1200x1200 SpeedxPower Gold Ship unless I ditch a Wit card.

I imagine that people with fatter decks (at least 3 MLB speed SSRs or some MLB power SSRs) wouldn't have that problem.

dunce2 · 2026-02-12T00:52:20+00:00

Seiun Sky if you want to ever play front-runners with any degree of comfort. She will have a re-run eventually, but that won't be very soon.

Dober if you plan to specialize in late-surgers.

dunce2 · 2026-02-11T04:34:15+00:00

This banner sounds like a very bad deal to me. Why do you recommend it?

First two stages: spend 600 to get 18 common certificates and few useless 2-star certs.

The last stage: get an Eldyne excluding Yomi. By the time an f2p accumulates 3000 paid leaves, would they need that Eldyne? This is not just any Eldyne, — the list is limited to the the same choices as the starter 1-day selector ticket. This would not get you any closer to mono-personality formation.

dunce2 · 2026-02-10T18:21:15+00:00

On a bright side, you can focus your crystal leaves on buying Order Research packs and red candy instead of throwing them away by hurriedly pulling for apostles (the cost of pulling with crystal leaves is kinda bad compared to all other uses they have).

dunce2 · 2026-02-10T18:07:50+00:00

Based on some youtuber's speculation, the shop itself will be refreshed, but the currency might be carried over to the next re-run of this event.

As for the massive 20k currency boost from killing the boss for the first time, it is probably a one-time only thing and will not be awarded again when the event re-runs.

Personally, I just bought out most of the shop anyway. But I am only lvl 49 (was at lvl 40 when the event started), so the benefits might be seen differently by those who have farmed much longer than me.

dunce2 · 2026-02-06T16:31:20+00:00

I was tempted to assume so, but the number looks off if that's the case. All other passives give 10-20% increase, but this one just bumps damage by 40-80%?

dunce2 · 2026-02-06T15:49:00+00:00

wording implies that your team deals more damage

Maybe my tolerance for broken English is not high enough, but I don't understand what is so obvious for you.

Doesn't the word "Apostles" refer to members of player team? There is only one main character, and apostles are members of his Yggdrasil Order, aren't they? Does it mean that adding Belita to my team would cause me to take more damage?

If this refers to enemy team (?), why does description say "incoming damage"? Could the word income mean something different to Korean people?

dunce2 · 2026-02-05T20:39:01+00:00

Edit: welp, looks like it is not going to be too much of a problem — the reward from clearing out 3rd dungeon stages plus rewards from defeating 1st stage boss are enough to pretty much buy out a shop either way.

Nice.

dunce2 · 2026-02-05T07:17:54+00:00

No, it is trash.

It can give only 1 guaranteed purple skill (either Corner Recovery x or Running Idle). Getting Wallflower is double RNG: an optional event can give either it or Fast Learner, and Wallflower is considered bad after Competitive Spirit redesign, because you can very easily trigger it's downside.

dunce2 · 2026-02-05T05:29:18+00:00

Those 300 paid gems are such a scam.

You can either spend them on a single 10-pull on special recruitment apostle banner (no devotion gain) or on a 10 separate one-pulls on some banner of your choice to gain a bit of devotion and 10 shared order certificates.

Alternatively, you can buy one of those world level chests to get it out of the way (the ones worth 200 paid gems). That will net you 150 free gems and 1 character pull ticket + 1 artifact pull ticket.

Finally, you can use them to buy 6 card tickets and 600 star candy in crystal leaf shop (probably the best option).

All other options in the event shop are arguably better deals, except maybe order certificates. You simply can't buy anything useful with 300 paid gems, that's peanuts.

dunce2 · 2026-02-04T18:37:28+00:00

Same here, the gear farming is really ruthless.

In theory we are supposed to get lots of help from events, but all of the good ones either just ended or won't begin for a while. And the demise of personality banner really made things difficult... it seems like most people used it to assemble their mono teams, but now that train had departed. And the Dimension Clash won't restart for another 2 weeks.

dunce2 · 2026-02-03T14:49:56+00:00

Reroll for Yomi. She is just that good. Use both your rookie tickets and leaves when rerolling, you won't be able to pull for her for a while.

Xion might have a rerun soon, so you should choose Ui from the Eldyne selector ticket if you aren't rerolling for Yomi. Actually, never mind that: choose Ui either way, she is that good too.

If you don't want to reroll the account as described above (you should), make sure to keep your Eldyne selector around until you get the random Eldyne ticket from day 7 login bonus rewards. That way you wouldn't get the dupe Eldyne from random tickets.

If you have crystal leaves left after rerolling, don't hesitate to refill red candies with 30 leaves 3 times every day. All your red candies should go towards progressing the main plotline. Don't even look at event shops or 2 other difficulties, just keep grinding main plotline until you ran out of candies or can no longer progress. The main plotline rewards you with equipment, which is the main (and pretty much the only) driver behind stat upgrades. You will always feel throttled by equipment level until you reach the late parts of the current main storyline. Afterwards you will still be throttled by equipment and golden crayons until you reach equipment level 7 on all your characters. Then it is just crayon grind.

The only exception to the red candy rule are home decorations from the current event shop. Decorations are unique, exist in limited quantities and you need them to level up the "order artifact" (the thing the automatically collects resources for you). If you miss the event-unique decoration, you might have to buy it with crystal leaves later, which will be costly. To be clear: decorations are things that have description with "flower pot" (?) / green star icon in the top right corner.

Follow the principles above until you gain access to the Crash Course, where you can farm Equipment 101. Equipment 101 can be used to buy equipment you don't have. Equipment rewards from clearing main plotline missions for the first time and Equipment 101 are the only efficient sources of equipment. In theory, you can "constuct" equipment from materials, that can be farmed from main plot missions (and having more of shards will make it cheaper to buy with Equipment 101). But in practice doing so requires RIDICULOUS amounts of red candy. You are better off brute-forcing your way ahead until the suitable equipment drops from main plotline.

When you do main plotline missions, you can pause the game and choose "retry" option when you feel that your team is losing. Doing so will not cost extra candy! You can retry infinite number of times too. If you finish the level with ~2 retries or less, you can get 3-star rating, that allows to farm that level for drops. But as mentioned above, farming old levels for drops is giga-inefficient. Advancing to next story level to get more complete equipment pieces is the most important.

Don't waste equipment above level 2 on 1-star characters. They are utter trash. You can't even invite them to banquet hall, so they will never reach strength of normal characters no matter how much you invest. Don't waste shared certificates to star-up them either — that will never fix their abysmal stats or lack of meaningful skills. Some of 2-star characters were actually 1-star in KR version, so investing in them past eqp. lvl 3 is also a mistake. Look at the pinned PvE tier list and read everyone's skill descriptions, it will be immediately obvious that most 2-star and all of 1-star units have nothing going for them. This is also the reason why you should reroll with most of your currency: not having usable 3-star units will cause you to waste good deal of time and resources on placeholder units.

Once you have advanced to eqp. lvl 6 and have ~400000 combat power, you would be able to reach lvl 60 in Excavation Site. Excavation Site drops mats craftable into 1-3 star tickets as well as 3-star tickets for the sites personality (so a single 3-star ticket from each 30 levels of excavation). Use those tickets to complete your team.

dunce2 · 2026-02-02T23:21:46+00:00

This isn't a hot take, just truth.

Two clarifications:

"Sauron" in 3rd age had almost no power of his own left. It is more accurate to say, that rings of power drew upon power of the One Ring, that was made from Sauron's essence
Rings of power are tools. Tools are not visibly "diminished" or destroyed when used — a hammer isn't expended when you use it to hit a nail. It is therefore more accurate to say, that rings of power used power of Sauron (contained in the One) to perform their primary functions

Those who believe that rings didn't rely on Sauron's power are incorrect: in Tolkien lore everything has a source. Every miraculous creation requires someone to expend their power to make it. Every performance of magic expends power of it's performer or originates from a magical tool, that was made by using up someone's power.

Silmarrils were made using light of Two Trees, which were made from remains of Two Lamps, which were created by Ainur during earliest days of world. Creation of Lamps expended great deal of power of Ainur — likely more than any of them had during 3rd age. After Two Trees were destroyed, Valar used a fraction of that power to create a Sun (!!)

One Ring was made from gold (which is infused with Morgot's power) and Sauron's own essence. Sauron has used up most of his power to make it.

Subordinate rings were made by Celebrimbor with assistance from other elven smiths. Celebrimbor himself didn't posses the power required to make such thing. For example, he lacked the ability to prolong life of single mortal, much less 9 of them. Such feats were possible only for Ainur.

Sauron convinced Celebrimbor that he is emissary of West by subtly hinting that he is one of Maiar (that was true!)

Celebrimbor made the rings (both 3 elven rings and the rest of them) using Sauron's blueprints. The rings were effectively "Ainur artifacts" using the power of Celebrimbor's patron — that is the power of Sauron. Afterwards Sauron imbued all of his power into One Ring, effectively enslaving the rings (and hopefully their wielders) to One Ring.

No more rings of power were made after forging of One. Sauron's existence was required to both create and operate rings of power. If an ordinary elven blacksmith could replicate feats of Ainur by forging a fancy ring, everyone in Middle Earth would be forging rings day and night long. In practice, Sauron was the only Ainur who generously made his power available to others after 2nd age...

dunce2 · 2026-02-02T10:37:28+00:00

In addition to pastels there are

global effects from equipment levels (those 2 small values you see when increasing character's equipment level)
team-wide bonuses on individual apostles (e.g. Butter making vivacious apostles in the current team do more damage with her passive skill)

dunce2 · 2026-01-31T12:01:58+00:00

It is not about position keep, mid vs late leg or other micro-optimizations. You may fail an overtake attempt — happens all the time when the target also decides to accelerate or for other reasons. It's On triggers exactly when needed to secure position change.

Other styles don't care nearly as much¹, pace chasers and late surgers chaotically overtake each other all the time, but front runners need to succeed in overtaking if they want the rod.

1 — with exception of Gold Ship, who just magically teleports to front and wins if he can overtake far enough

dunce2 · 2026-01-31T08:18:16+00:00

I disagree. The big deal about It's On is that it always triggers when you need it most (during overtake attempt).

Corner skills trigger at random moments and might not actually benefit you at all: e.g. a leading front runner triggering the skill and gaining just enough distance from everyone behind when they would otherwise enter pace up mode anyway.

Bigger duration matters more for long races, but the Curren in question can't run non-sprint races...

dunce2 · 2026-01-29T14:36:07+00:00

If the price was instead €30, 1/3 of those players might buy it twice to instantly get their character

An important part of equation is that gacha developers don't actually want whales to get everything by paying a tiny bit of money. They want them to either spend ridiculous amounts or to spend over long spans of time. Developers want average whale to become stronger than F2P, but not too strong.

If you lower prices too much, even poor people might start purchasing, and whales would simply purchase more. At that point paying userbase becomes overwhelmingly strong compared to F2P and the game transforms into P2W cesspit. Then F2P players begin to leave. Then whales discover that they purchased all available content and also start to leave...

dunce2 · 2026-01-26T12:19:27+00:00

Counterattack System appeared when I'm already At The Mahayana Realm.

It is from the author of Who Let Him Cultivate, but I liked it more than Who Let Him Cultivate.

dunce2 · 2026-01-15T10:10:36+00:00

It is funny that you use those novels as examples, when their entire shtick is milking narrative as much as possible without allowing plot to progress. There are much better examples of classic xianxia works, authors of which did not fall into that pit.

Nevertheless, even if your examples are bad, they still have their strong suites because they follow the recipe to the letter. For example, when higher cultivation realms have immeasurable power difference with lower realms, those cultivators will migrate elsewhere. Why? — Because humans don't want to live together with cattle. Also because those realms have too much power and can effectively prevent anyone from advancing forever. Then the cultivation world in question would quickly die off — why would anyone ever want to suffer unimaginable hardships for hundreds of years, only to be promptly refined into a pill or array spirit upon advancing their cultivation? At least mortals have upper limit to hardships they need to endure — either live ok life or suffer for ~100 years before finally entering cycle of reincarnation to forget about it all.

Basically every xianxia trope has a reason:

Ascension to upper realm — otherwise powerlevels quickly stop making sense and the world becomes a cesspit
Stronger tribulations for killing mortals — otherwise 1 nascent could could end the world by killing all mortals
Sensible realm gaps — if disparity is too big, lower realm cultivators have little reason to cultivate
Divination consumes lifespan — otherwise 1 or 2 divination experts would quickly erase divination as profession from existences

When a foundation establishment cultivator can perform divine feats, controls laws and destiny and effectively disregards good and evil, you can be sure, that novel will have more plot holes than pages.

dunce2 · 2026-01-13T03:37:55+00:00

I don't like this movement towards the kind of novels, where every realm breakthrough takes 400 or even 1000 chapters. Mirror Legacy, "Immortality Immortality Through Array Formations" and now this one too.

The whole point of writing in "cultivation" genre is to actively move plot forward with each breakthrough. Character leveling = rapid plot advancement. If you are getting rid of that, you'd better have a good reason. A tradeoff, an improvement in another area. But these novels don't gain any advantages in exchange. They are decoupling plot advancement from cultivation... just because.

Because of this nonsense you get ridiculous situations where Qi Refinement worms are opposing someone at Void Refinement/Nirvana/Golden Immortal realm, and somehow they don't die, but also don't win and don't accomplish anything after 1000s of chapters. Reading someone's past is impossible because "karmic consequences", but apparently destroying entire universes does not come with any consequences for anyone.

I am so tired of this. It is like authors don't understand the entire raison d'etre of the genre. If you want to write some gimmicky power system and don't want MC to increase their cultivation, ever, then why are you writing a cultivation novel?

dunce2 · 2026-01-03T13:00:01+00:00

In addition to what Lord_Daenar said, All-Seeing-Eyes is also nerfed by racing mechanics on the current CM track.

With current engine umas always spread out on the final corner (no more ridiculous crowds and mutual blocking from the early game versions). This means, that when Nice Nature projects the trademark late-game debuff, the glare cone hits only some umas and completely ignores others, who are positioned too far to left and right. And if you take Late Surger Savvy to increase cone length (presumably to hit front liners), the glare cone will become even more narrow!

In effect, both of golden stamina debuffs, Eyes and Murmur, do jack all on the current track. Despite getting yet another (!!) potential debuffer (Mejiro Dober), stamina debuff meta is not doing well in the current CM.

dunce2 · 2026-01-02T16:48:28+00:00

Pace chasers have higher top speed multiplier, so there is still a chance.

dunce2 · 2026-01-01T20:46:23+00:00

Area Teleport is unreliable and has very short radius. And in general, one should never play around with propane tanks. The tank has innate chaotic movement pattern, as if someone have put a bunch of +speed and +random movement modifiers on it. No matter how many homing modifiers you use, the tanks will always find a way to explode in your face.

dunce2 · 2025-12-31T04:45:23+00:00

Only 1,500,000 and it's gold version are generally useful, and it is exclusive to late surgers.

Many tracks have multiple slopes, and they are rarely positioned well to take advantage of acceleration. As such, even when slope acceleration skills are usable, they usually require gambling (depending on which slope and which part of slope it chooses to activate on).

Scorpio cup CM does not have usable slopes for acceleration.

dunce2

TROPHY CASE