I was curious to know the distributions of adventurers and dragons that were used in the Top 25 Time Attack clears. In some cases, the TA clears are very representative of the general 'meta' for the eHDT. In other cases, it's clear there's a large difference between TA strategies and normal clear strategies. There are also some substantial differences in diversity of team compositions between trials. IMO this speaks to how well-designed each trial is. In my opinion, a strict meta is a sign of poor design/implementations, although it could also be suggestive of a lack of unit options (HMC) or a single dominant powerhouse character (HJP). With that said, here are some plots (pie charts and histograms) of adventurer and dragon frequency, from most to least diverse (guess which one comes last)!

HMS was the most diverse fight in terms of both adventurers and dragons.. It's interesting because the meta in this fight for normal clears is a little different from normal clears. Units like Rena and Ramona are powerful overall but many players don't have the skill to bait with sleep res units. Not many healers used in top time clears, but Emma is still dominant. One unit who shows up a lot here is Marth, who tends to be locked out of a lot of pub rooms. Also, congrats to the single Vanessa who got into the top 25! As far as dragons, it's clear there's a lot more diversity here as well; fire has a lot of strong dragons but not one or two dominant meta picks. As per usual for Wind content, the burn punisher strat tended to dominate.

HBH was fairly diverse in terms of adventurers but less so for dragons. Xander (long may he reign) was used in one top clear! Unsurprisingly Elisanne was dominant as a buffer (typically with H!Mariti) while S!Celliera was a very common unit for break/buffs/etc. 3 S!Celliera 1 Elisanne was a fairly common strat, which is why S!Celliera's numbers are so high. Karina is used surprisingly often; for those confused about this, her S1 gains strength with more buffs, which combined with Elisanne and Thaniel makes her a threat. Siren is by far the dominant dragon for DPS, with Leviathan most commonly used on Thaniel, occasionally on S!Celliera and Elisanne. A lot of burnable units used here, which doesn't fly with pub groups, since not every Thaniel can firefight.

HMC is where our meta starts getting more strict for TA. Only three adventurers and three dragons here, folks. 24/25 clears used 2 W!Elly/Noelle/Victor; one clear used double Noelle instead of double W!Elly. Zephyr was used exactly once. This is probably suggestive of a lack of decent wind dragon options; Vayu is by far the best option in Wind, especially since dragon is only used for tanking waterfall in that fight. I'm guessing the restricted meta in part is due to a lack of good DPS options. W!Elly and Victor are some of the best wind has to offer, and the other strong wind adventurers either aren't well-suited for HMC or just don't quite match the power level of those two. Unsurprisingly, every Noelle used Freyja. The TA HMC meta is basically the same as the meta for normal matches, which is nice. It seems to basically just come down to skill and equipment (clearing mHMS definitely helped for top 25 obviously) rather than some specific, weird comp that would never be viable in pub groups/outside of a premade group.

HZD actually has better adventurer diversity than HMC. Exactly one person managed to get Summer Cleo into the top 25 TA clears. Kudos to you, person! Almost every clear used Cupid, with a few running P!Siren on one or both G!Euden. Again, a strict meta of 2x G!Euden/Fleur/Yachiyo (or S!Cleo in that one case). This is probably also related to a lack of strong DPS units in light, at least for curse res. Many strong DPS units are Poison res in Light, and a lot of the curse res 5* Light adventurers were added early and tend to have poorly refined or experimental kits (looking at you Lucretia). Dragons in Light are also pretty bad; no skill dragon and a lot of the 5* dragons that have been added have weird or off-meta abilities. Again, this comp of 2x G!Euden/Fleur/Yachiyo pretty much meshes with the Pub Experience (tm).

I'm not sure we even need a plot for HJP but here you go. It's Shinobi G!Cleo all the way down. I don't really have anything to say here as I think this issue has been discussed enough.

Anyway there you go! Hopefully some interesting statistics on TA meta for top clears vs the normal farming meta. It's definitely interesting to look through and see what builds were used!