The Rainbow Problem

The Problem
Why would you use a true rainbow (5 colors) team vs [other archetypes]?

Rainbow vs. VDP

If using VDP awakening: Terrible.
9 orbs occupied, and now you will need 21/30 of the other orbs that have to be the other 4 colors to activate. Also, not everyone would have VDP awakening to do the damage [unless you built around that].

If using VDP latent: Bad.
Because only that/those units are doing damage, not the whole team.
5ATT requirement = you will most likely have 1-2 match of (VDP color) damage.

If using VDP active: Good.
The common way to solve VDP with current teams, whole team does damage.

Rainbow vs. 5×4

RNG is RNG.
But 5ATT = 15 out of the 20 orbs requirement
vs a row team (6 / 20)
vs a 2c same ATT match team (6 / 20)

Rainbow vs Spinners

1-3 spinners are ok, a minor inconvenience that can save your board sometimes.
5+ spinners make solving daunting, especially if they last for multiple floors.
For other teams, you can just match the row or 2 color activation and freestyle the rest of the board.
For rainbow, the colors match has to be there or lose shield (yikes).

Rainbow vs Enemies (in general)

Damage is varied on how many extra attribute match (after the rainbow proc).
On a rainbow board spawn, you can roll extra matches on your cleric’s color and do no damage. Or if you use the VDP latent, and you can only roll 1 color match of their attribute(s).
Rainbow teams accommodate with their but, still –
compare to a mono color team that would stack same color damages vs that.

Rainbow vs Weakened Orbs

Less available board options to mix and match orbs to use normal/enhanced orbs since [rainbow activation for shield] is priority, and your damage stick(s) may suffer.

Rainbow vs

With sky fall effects = less likely to get your orbs naturally.
This is more minor of an inconvenience since most teams already have a looping a board change, but without it (for rainbow) you are adding more RNG variance to your 15/30 orbs needed.

Rainbow vs

If stuck on a tape without being able to clear good luck trying to proc rainbow shield. Other teams can freestyle their proc, but with rainbow – the orb requirement makes leaving bombs a no.

Rainbow vs Color Absorb

Other teams can avoid this completely or have a chance to roll nonmatching absorb.
For rainbow, the subs must be aligned properly, but even then, it doesn’t guarantee consistency unless you use an active.
You can argue that you feed it a color absorb latent but think of opportunity cost when non-rainbows teams don’t use that and instead (HP++ or other resists).

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So why play rainbow? It’s fun (sometimes), but there has to be some broken/busted factor in the team to make it reasonable AND reliable. We are seeing that with the 200x+ on awakening proc LS leads.

Maid&Butler Ideal + Kurotobi are the latest rainbow leads that fall in this category.

Ok – so they solve the hazard orbs skyfall problem and the VDP problem. And they solve the 1-color match damage problem with the large LS multiplier.

Rainbow leads historically and still inherently have some disadvantages and ultimately the no matter what variable you plug in/swap, the result is

time spent in arena playing rainbow >>> arena with [other archetypes]

So still. Why would you ever go rainbow when you can go mono color team?

What is the incentive other than

Perhaps this can be solved with a pattern of

Rainbow leads always having a higher
[Egg Drop Rate Multiplier], [EXP Multiplier], or [Part Break Multiplier]
than their current meta non rainbow counterpart.

Or other ways to reward the time disparity.