Without going too deep into the history of the game, I think it's safe to say that ever since the advent of the original STR Gogeta, we are seeing more restrictive leader skills, resulting in multiple viable leads existing in the same meta. Super Vegito ushered the era of the original god leads, and SSJ4's represent the 2nd wave of the god leads, which is further fragmented into Super/Extreme types. In between the two meta, we had a “1.5” update in the form of Vegito Blue and SS Rose, which had more inclusive leader skill at the cost of lower stat gain.

This is a natural progression for a game where there is ever-increasing roster of new cards, which in theory should be able to support more diverse leader-skills. Many considered Vegito/Blue/SS Rose era as the golden age of Dokkan, because it allowed 7 different viable leads to exist, where each of them offered unique strength and weakness to them.

However the 120% meta seem to run into difficulty replicating the success they had in the last meta. There are several key reasons for this, but one of the big reasons is the disparity between each types. This may be just me, but when I look at analysis of Super STR, PHY, AGL, vs Extreme TEQ, INT, AGL, what strikes me is the lack of viable alternative subs for the latter. Just compare the list of alternative units for Super STR compared to Extreme TEQ for example. The second problem is that the meta is so focused on damage that it's harder to make each leader distinct like they did in the 70% meta. In an age where it's not so much about whether you can clear the content, but rather, how fast you can clear the content, healing and tanking just isn't all that important. Extreme INT was hit hard, especially when you consider that their strength comes at the cost of lack of ki-synergy. Lastly, the new era created a fatigue among many of the player-base, as more type leaders meant less time to recover before a new lead is introduced.

So what does this all mean for the new mtea? While the new leads do open up a lot of doors for different types of builds, it's going to run into the same problem if the issues mentioned above isn't somehow addressed. We already see that these leads would need new cards to fill their roster, but you don't want to overwhelm the players by releasing them too fast. The same applies for future category leads also, and if they don't balance them and offer different play style other than just outputting raw damage, they are going to have the same problem they had with the underwhelming 120% leads.

The new meta could also usher in an era where there is no big leap forward like what we've witnessed in past meta changes for quite some time. Going from 70% lead to 120% lead meant over 70% increase in stats, where as the difference between 150% and 120% lead is mere 25% increase. SSJ4/Omega are the next big thing but they are not there to make the old Gods completely obsolete. In a way you can say that they are the opposite of Vegito Blue and Rose, in that the new leads give better stat increase for more restrictive leader skill. But unlike VB/SSR(or Trunks/Merged Zamaus), this is not going to be the last leads in the 2.5 meta, and we may be seeing similar leads for quite some time.

It was easy to predict when the meta is coming to an end in the past, because there are finite types in the game, but the new category leaders makes it pretty much impossible to make that kind of prediction. Who knows, the next big leap forward may come out of the blue in the form of category leads or traditional type leads, or they might introduce a new form of leader skill that will surpass everything we have so far.

But from the looks of it, it seems like the structure is already set up in such a way that LR's are the most inclusive leads with least boost from leader skill, and Category leads offers the highest boost at the cost of the leader skill being most restrictive. The traditional type leads are somewhere in between, and it'll be interesting to see where LR Vegito Blue will stand in that spectrum.

When I take all this into account, it's kind of hard to see the new leads getting outclassed in mere 2-3 months like VB/SSR did in the last cycle, and it's more likely that they will probably last until Japan hits the 3rd anniversary. If that's the case, then SSJ4s will have lasted a full year as a lead, which is quite incredible.