LOL
So then we'd need to define what's as good as a starter dragon, because I'm getting a vibe from your posts that says 2.5x atk and 2.5x rcv isn't as good as 3x atk and 1.5x rcv (but then again, 2/4/2 teams were outshined by 1/9/1 teams back in 2014 and only recently are people starting to like 2/6.25/2.5 teams xD)
Haha oops I forgot that the Norns get higher attack at higher HP
Match-5-with-enhanced is fine, IMO, because of the current leads that use that mechanic (thinking of Tsubaki, Sumire, Awoken Tsukuyomi, Constellation 1 pantheon) as well as GH's apparent realization that they need to give OE awakenings in greater numbers so that OE teams can be competitive with TPA and row teams. Raw numbers in the leader skill alone really can't be used in comparisons, as I can tell you know. You're missing the OE boost for Sumire.
Assuming one blue OE per sub on a Sumire team, that's 8 blue OEs (Sumire has 2) on the entire team. 100% guaranteed +orbs, so calculations are simple. A match of 5 orbs gets 20.25x from double Sumire leads, 1 + (0.06 * 5) = 1.3x from the orbs being +orbs, and 1 + (0.5 * 8) = 1.4x from the presence of 8 OE awakenings on the team. Matching 5 blue orbs on a Sumire team therefore gives you 36.855x attack for that match.
5 OEs is standard for match-5-with-enhanced teams, similar to how 6-7 rows was standard for row teams; no one runs match-5-with-enhanced teams with fewer than 4 OEs unless they're desperate or something, just as no one runs row teams with fewer than 3? 4? 5? rows of their main color
Matching 4 orbs on an Athena team gives 20.25x attack to double TPA monsters and 13.5x attack to single TPA monsters. To get that 20.25x to match Sumire's 36.855x (which is with just 1 blue OE per sub) on an Athena team, you'd need a 1.82 to come from somewhere. With 9 light OEs, you get 1 + (0.06 * 4) and 1 + (0.05 * 9) for a light 4-match, which is only 1.798. Have fun trying to squeeze 9 light OEs into 4 subs lol Valk's easy, but beyond that...
Matching 4 orbs on a DIza team gives 36x to double TPA subs and 24x to single TPA subs without OEs. Including DIza's dark OE, the 36x becomes 36 * 1.24 * 1.1 = 49.104x and the 24x becomes 32.736x. 1/3 of a double DIza team carries 0 TPA, though, and will only get 21.824x. All of that is assuming all dark orbs are enhanced.
If there's a total of 6 dark OEs (average 1 per monster), then the initial 36x, 24x, and 16x instead become 36 * 1.24 * 1.3 = 58.032x, 38.688x, and 25.792x respectively.
Awoken Pandora, Awoken FA Luci, and Awoken Astaroth have all been shown to clear Arena (1.0 or 2.0, not sure) shortly after their releases. I didn't look carefully to see their latent setup or their subs, but... yeah...
Assuming 9 row enhances in a team (idk, 3 monsters with 1 row enhance and 3 monsters with 2 row enhances):
Matching 1 row of orbs means the multiplier is 1 + (0.1 * 9) = 1.9x
Matching 2 rows: 1 + 2 * (0.1 * 9) = 2.8x
Matching 3 rows: 1 + 3 * (0.1 * 9) = 3.7x
Double Divinegon gives 9x for 6 orbs from the leader skills. 1 row, 2 rows, 3 rows: 17.1x, 25.2x, 33.3x.
Heroes give the same but have higher multiplier options as well.
At 8 orbs it's 16x for double Hero leads (for all Heroes). 1 row: 30.4x. 2 rows: 44.8x.
3 rows of 9x or 2 rows of 16x? Time to add 25% base damage per extra orb per match lol
3 matches of 6 orbs = 3 * (1 + (0.25 * 3)) = 5.25x
2 matches of 8 orbs = 2 * (1 + (0.25 * 5)) = 4.50x
3 rows of 9x: 5.25x * 33.3x = 174.825x
2 rows of 16x: 4.5x * 44.8x = 201.6x
Better to make 2 rows of 16x than 3 rows of 9x (without taking attack stats and OEs into account AND without taking APandora's devil boost into account--btw, GH loves dark row devils)
Out of the row leads, I'm most familiar with the scaling of Hero leader skills (and, by extension, the Late Bloomer series's leader skills as well); not sure what other scalings there are
Unless otherwise noted, calculations were done without taking the extra base damage from matching more than 3 orbs (+25% base damage per orb) instead of 3 orbs into account
Match-5-with-enhanced also gets brownie points for being flexible in how you match those 5 orbs: cross, L, turned L, row, and column matches all work to activate the match-5-with-enhanced condition. I think this is true of all matches greater than 4, but in reality, 6+ matches are restricted.
Sumire gets brownie points for that awesome shield in her leader skill. Constellation 1 gods get brownie points for the resists.
I was gonna type more but I got caught up in the math (I like number-crunching) and wowee so much time has passed orz
Here's a PAD calculator if you're interested in seeing the damage of specific teams; I haven't seen anyone say anything bad about it
Did the math by hand using info from
this thread as well as info from the last page of posts
And
here's Sumire's page and the comment with the most net upvotes is a great Sumire guide; Sumire's a strong team lead not just for the stuff I covered in this post but also because of the synergy with two Sumire actives and her LS, etc.
Awoken Tsukuyomi requires a bit more skill, but a double AYomi team comes with minimum 6 dark OEs and 6 TEs
(There's also the ever-present SLR issue but that's a different beast, I think)
I was gonna start mathing with combo count and stuff because TPA teams don't mind combo shield while row teams do but ugh what am I doing with my time lol