Quickest way to Train All Cards (Talent Dev)

Possibly common sense, but this is what I think is the quickest way to train cards in the New Game+ area of the game, Ultimate Talent Development Plan.

Pre-training

Before starting the Talent Dev and Monokuma's test sections of the game, I recommend familiarizing yourself with what types of cards do what. This guide does a great job of breaking it down in excruciating detail. You'll need to identify what tanks and supports you'll need for your run. If there are cards you know you'll need in end-game, I actually recommend not training them until you have an S or U card for your final team. This will help avoid training a character more than once. Basically though, avoid training characters more than once the entire time.

My final team consisted of two tanks and two supports, you may devise a different strategy though! This is a very loose idea of the characters.

Sports:

• Tanks: Mondo, Hajime, Nekomaru, Kaito, Gonta
  Defensive powerhouses with high health pools. Not good at offense. Ideally uses Sacrifice.
  
• Physical DPS: Leon, Aoi, Mukuro, Akane, Ryoma, Tenko
  Most powerful physical attacks with low defense and health
  
• Powerhouses: Sakura, Monokuma, Genocide Jack, Peko, Izuru, Maki
  High health and Defense, highest attack power, but weak to magic

Intelligence:

• Wizards: Byakuya, Chihiro, Toko, Chiaki, Sonia, Shuichi, Miu
  Magic equivalent to powerhouse.
  
• Magic DPS: Kyoko, Celeste, Mahiru, Korekiyo, Tsumugi
  Built more for speed and dodging attacks than tanking hits.
  
• Mixed Attackers: Junko, Twogami, Kazuichi, Usami, Kirumi, Kokichi
  Balanced physical and magical attacks, trades speed for strength.

Variety:

• Backline Support: Taka, Hiro, Mikan, Hiyoko, Monomi, Angie, Himiko
  High defense, low speed, high focus.
  
• Frontline Support: Sayaka, Hifumi, Gundham, Fuyuhiko, Ibuki, Teruteru, Kaede, Keebo Fast and lucky.
  
• Lucky Students: Makoto, Nagito, Rantaro
  Highest luck (hit crits) and help escape battles.

Huge thanks to gredman9 on Reddit for this summary. I think this is the easiest way to think about the classes in this game.

Documentation

You'll be able to figure out which cards you need to train by going into Monokuma's Test and switching out a party member. It'll show you all available cards, meaning you've completed talent dev for them. I highly recommend opening a note doc and writing down all the characters you train as you train them.

This will help you keep track and make sure you don't double train. Remember you only need to go through talent dev with a character on ONE rarity of card, not all.

Path Method

There are tiles you need to avoid for the quickest training. The worst tiles to hit are:

- Skill (dice roll)
- Friendship
- Event

The best tiles to hit are:

- Level up
- Despair

Encounter squares (where characters give you cards) are inconsequential, but should be avoided if possible.


Because of the fact Level and Despair tiles are the best to land on with the quickest outcome, here is what we will do:

- Start on the Training course (with the most level up squares).
- Use only small movements, unless you're right in front of 3 bad tiles.
- Go the longest route possible. It'll be hard to hit Goal with all small moves but it can be done.
- Miss the goal.
- You will be placed on the Despair course. This is good!

Missing goal avoids exams. You do NOT need to complete or even attempt exams with your character to be considered developed. Miss the goal on the Despair course twice to avoid all exams. This is the quickest way to complete the courses. HOWEVER there are some more tips to be aware of.

Whenever landing on a Skill tile I always just selected Red (first option) and when throwing away cards I also always selected the first unless there was a useful one in there (see next section).
Whatever is easiest is best.

You'll always want to click the first option for ease in any menus (such as yearly events) EXCEPT for the Surgery option. It's not an extreme detour but it takes long enough to be inconvenient and adds time to your dev.

Useful Things to Know

You should be aware that the X key on your keyboard will be your best friend of all time. Both X and ESC work the same here.

Now, L-CTRL can be used to skip dialogue, yes. BUT, it does NOT fast forward the skill window. When your character gains a level or hits despair and their stats change, a window will pop up with their stats. Holding X will fast forward this. You can use this key to fast forward all dialogue, click 'decline' on monophanie's intro explanation, and skip the pop up window.


Cards, while you usually don't want to mess with them for this grindy achievement to save time, can actually be useful here.

You'll be throwing away a lot of cards because you don't really need them. However, if you somehow mess up and are about to hit a goal, using either a High Jump card, 0 move card, or possibly even a course change card, will save you from the exam.

0 Move cards are also useful in the event you land on a level or despair tile. You can use this to avoid the time it takes to move and possibly avoid landing on a bad square.

Outro

I don't know if this is helpful at all or if people consider this common knowledge, but if you didn't wanna think too hard and wanted a quick know-how of Talent Dev grinding, here you go.

With this method I could complete training a single card in about 7 and a half minutes.

If anyone has other tips please let me know. I was sad to see there weren't any settings in-game to make things go quicker.