Introduction

Super Ultimate Colosseum is the hardest dungeon to date as it features an incredible array of dangerous spawns who have buffed up stats and abilities. There are many hurdles that plague this dungeon including massive HP pools, numerous resolves, combo shields, lethal mechanics, and repeated dangerous spawns. it is not for the feint of heart and only the most invested team and skilled players have a chance of conquering the Colosseum.

While Arena 3 has randomized spawns, the encounters in Colosseum are much harder by comparison and have dramatically larger health pools (there is some variance in appearances, but not as much). This presents a wonderful challenge and has injected a new sense of excitement into my Puzzle and Dragons life.

0-Stone Meridionalis clear

As this was my first time clear, I played quite cautious along with having several hundred people tuning into my  Twitch stream. Playing under a large audience can be intimidating as your every move is critiqued and my conservative playstyle probably reflects that. As I play and clear Colosseum more, I will most likely improve my clear times and refine my set up. I will probably make an effort to stream everyday that Colosseum is available as it is the most exciting dungeon to play.

Video commentary

—

Teams used

Colosseum Meridionalis
Inherit
— — Card
Inherit

Latents

In terms of latents, I run 5 SDR  on my two leaders and 3 SDR and one Machine  Killer on three of my four subs. The final sub only has 3 SDR. This set up was mostly for smoother Arena 3 clears against Gaia Dragon but has the happy benefit of clearing most floors as almost every encounter is a Machine type.

The Machine Killer is by no means mandatory and it simply allows me to kill certain floors with fewer orbs (and thus active skills). It probably raises your consistency slightly, but not everyone has the ability to repeatedly farm Arena 3 and get lucky on the drop.

Key actives

The key to my success was bringing a gravity to bypass the resolve on Machine Zeus or Hera along with the final boss, Orpharion. In addition, you should have a delay to deal with the two fishes on floor 15. Outside of these two “hard” requirements, your set up can be reasonably flexible, but you should be conscious of your base HP and active skills.

No inherit on leaders

Many players have asked why I do not inherit anything on my leaders, and the simple answer is I need her +2 combo count. There are numerous high combo shield encounters (which is made harder by the no skyfall clause) along with massive health pools. Thus, the +2 combo count has a dual purpose: adding additional damage and ensuring you can bypass the 8 combo shield of Machine Zeus. If I had duplicate Meridionalis, I would simply inherit them over top for the stat transfer and SDR protection.

Comparison to Arena 3 Meridionalis teams

It is interesting to compare and contrast my two teams used for these challenging dungeons as both have slightly different requirements:

Arena 3 Meridionalis
Inherit
— — Card
Inherit			–

Most notably is the reshuffling of inherit skills and the absence of Sumire . This is partially due to the fact that Arena 3 has more absorption mechanics and the overarching need to control your damage. With fewer enhanced orbs, this is made easier as you can make more combos and still deal the same damage. More combos results in a higher change of water orbs reappearing.

However, for Colosseum, you are mostly needing brute force and the enhanced orb awakenings add a significant layer of damage along with Sumire having an ideal base active skill as you can guarantee a full heal with 3 heart orbs.

Changes I plan to make for Colosseum

Once I get a handle on the perfect damage control for Orpharion, I feel Meridionalis will be a very consistent leader for clearing in an efficient manner. However, I feel there is dramatic room for improvement. Most notably, I wish I had two 30% gravities I could inherit to instantly push Orpharion below 50% and avoid a large portion of the dance as I have to have a board without too many water orbs to avoid pushing him below his execution zone.

I could in theory bring 3 smaller gravities, but that will heavily bottleneck my active skills and I enjoy my Sun Quan  inherit as an emergency delay or damage enhance if my water orbs are lacking.

Thus, I will move Sakuya  onto Mantastic’s Sumire and switch Ryune  to Skuld  inherit to combo with Meri.

Colosseum Meridionalis
Inherit
— — Card
Inherit

This will greatly expand the window for error I have for tickling Orpharion down as I now no longer need to push him to around 60% and instead can have him around 80% and still be successful.

I do lose out on a more offensive active skill at the beginning of the dungeon, but this should be fine as most places can be stalled out and the gravity may come in handy.

Conclusion

Colosseum is the most fun I have had in Puzzle and Dragons in quite some time as it offers the hardest challenge to date. The rewards are simply amazing and I hope I am able to farm all the required pieces for Exodia Orpharion over the course of this weekend.

Let me know who you used to clear Colosseum in the comments below.

Happy Puzzling!