Arena Discussion Thread (inc. Assault)

[Okigen]

Is there a list somewhere on reddit, sf etc. for cut-off points for staying in Tier 20 each week? I just realised that there is a huge gap between the 2 groups that frequent Tier 20. In my 2 weeks in that tier the cut-off was above 4968 but the 2 weeks inbetween the cut-off was around 4870 i.e. 100 pts lower  I expected the tier to saturate and the gap will close eventually but this is surprisingly slow.

Edited July 4, 2017 by Okigen

[jameslove001]

I am needing a little help this Arena Season. I have a terrible combo of no great characters and getting bumped up to Tier 18 (I know that may sound like a humble brag, but I am content with hanging around 17 and hadn't moved for a few weeks). So far, I am getting destroyed. Basically, I have a 4* Alphonse (38) and a 4* Legion (35) and no one else; like, I have never summoned any of them.

Neither of them is outfitted beyond original build, so no SI. Any suggestions on either SI to add or good teammates for either?

[Othin]

4 minutes ago, jameslove001 said:

I am needing a little help this Arena Season. I have a terrible combo of no great characters and getting bumped up to Tier 18 (I know that may sound like a humble brag, but I am content with hanging around 17 and hadn't moved for a few weeks). So far, I am getting destroyed. Basically, I have a 4* Alphonse (38) and a 4* Legion (35) and no one else; like, I have never summoned any of them.

Neither of them is outfitted beyond original build, so no SI. Any suggestions on either SI to add or good teammates for either?

I don't know if you're attributing difficulties in arena battles to your tier, but there's no connection. You can face enemies of any tier, with their power depending on your own team's strength.

Regardless of your summon luck, you should have access to at least two copies of Sophia and Gunter from the Hero Battles. Have you done those? If not, they may be worth doing. I don't think they'd be an improvement over Alfonse or Legion with any reasonable resource investment, but it's worth getting what you can.

What are your best characters? Both your main arena team and any other 5*s. It may also be helpful to mention whatever SI fodder you have on hand.

[Bartozio]

4 minutes ago, jameslove001 said:

I am needing a little help this Arena Season. I have a terrible combo of no great characters and getting bumped up to Tier 18 (I know that may sound like a humble brag, but I am content with hanging around 17 and hadn't moved for a few weeks). So far, I am getting destroyed. Basically, I have a 4* Alphonse (38) and a 4* Legion (35) and no one else; like, I have never summoned any of them.

Neither of them is outfitted beyond original build, so no SI. Any suggestions on either SI to add or good teammates for either?

Especially builds really depend on what you have for other units. I personaly have a team of three units who can safely clear the arena on their own and just trow a random bonus unit on for the score.

For my Alphonse, I just gave him reposition so that he could support my other guys with that and Spur Attack, and it works pretty well. I also gave him Axe Breaker so that he could help kill Hectors, but if you have a good red unit, you shouldn't need him for combat anyway.

Do you have  good blue, red and green units who work decently well toghether?

[Alexmender]

This season is killing me. I got a run with 1 death at the end and my score was 4741 which is too low to go back to tier 20. The best I can score is 690 (thank you useless 4* Legion) which isn't very nice.

[MrSmokestack]

Anyone else running Legion for this week?

Spoiler

@Alexmender What you sayin about my boy

Edited July 4, 2017 by MrSmokestack

[Alexmender]

12 minutes ago, MrSmokestack said:

Anyone else running Legion for this week?

  Reveal hidden contents

@Alexmender What you sayin about my boy

He's looking kinda clean with that set. He's still trash compared to Raven tho.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

44 minutes ago, MrSmokestack said:

Anyone else running Legion for this week?

  Hide contents

@Alexmender What you sayin about my boy

How do you find Legion works lol

[MrSmokestack]

37 minutes ago, Alexmender said:

He's still trash compared to Raven tho.

He's got straight up better bases than Raven at neutral. I think Raven wants +Spd to be better than him statistically though.

13 minutes ago, JSND said:

How do you find Legion works lol

He really, really wants a Brave Axe. He's my first infantry axe I've ever run in Arena though so I'll cut him some slack. Can't wait for Gonzales to be the next Berserker we get!

Two greens is pretty nice with all the blue lances running around, but Fury makes him bleed HP tfw my entire team has Fury 3

But hey, he has Reposition so it's all good right?

[Alexmender]

7 minutes ago, MrSmokestack said:

He's got straight up better bases than Raven at neutral. I think Raven wants +Spd to be better than him statistically though.

 

You're right, Legion has more attack and defense (that HP is really high) than Raven, at neutral Legion is better but the case is that I have a +Spd Raven who outclasses Legion for a quad build and it's less expensive too F2Pbtw.

But then again I'm not too fond of either of them when I can just use Minerva as my axe user to kill everything in sight.

 

[MrSmokestack]

1 minute ago, Alexmender said:

You're right, Legion has more attack and defense (that HP is really high) than Raven, at neutral Legion is better but the case is that I have a +Spd Raven who outclasses Legion for a quad build and it's less expensive too F2Pbtw.

But then again I'm not too fond of either of them when I can just use Minerva as my axe user to kill everything in sight.

I've never pulled a Raven since release, though I do have a +Atk -HP Minerva collecting dust on my bench. Too bad she's not a bonus unit while Legion is.

[jameslove001]

2 hours ago, Othin said:

What are your best characters? Both your main arena team and any other 5*s. It may also be helpful to mention whatever SI fodder you have on hand.

 

2 hours ago, Bartozio said:

Especially builds really depend on what you have for other units. I personaly have a team of three units who can safely clear the arena on their own and just trow a random bonus unit on for bonus.

Do you have  good blue, red and green units who work decently well toghether?

So, I have been running Olivia (or Ninian), Camus, Julia (or Nino) and Tharja. With Olivia it felt too red heavy, and Alphonse and Ninian just seemingly didn't work well. As far as other units, I probably have more to work with than I admit, but when I look at Effie, Frederick, Klein, Spring Chrom, Subaki, Cecilia, or any of my other level 40s I just have a hard time getting a team together.

And I agree, the Tier isn't what's killing me; I've actually had less heavyweights, so to speak so far. I just don't know how to incorporate Alphonse very well.

[LuxSpes]

7 minutes ago, MrSmokestack said:

I've never pulled a Raven since release, though I do have a +Atk -HP Minerva collecting dust on my bench. Too bad she's not a bonus unit while Legion is.

My Minerva is also collecting dust... along with 4 Hectors. I'd use him if all the mages running around the meta didn't make Julia and Fae more attractive options .

 

7 minutes ago, jameslove001 said:

 

So, I have been running Olivia (or Ninian), Camus, Julia (or Nino) and Tharja. With Olivia it felt too red heavy, and Alphonse and Ninian just seemingly didn't work well. As far as other units, I probably have more to work with than I admit, but when I look at Effie, Frederick, Klein, Spring Chrom, Subaki, Cecilia, or any of my other level 40s I just have a hard time getting a team together.

And I agree, the Tier isn't what's killing me; I've actually had less heavyweights, so to speak so far. I just don't know how to incorporate Alphonse very well.

Have you tried using Nino/Tharja/Alfonse/Ninian? If you have the necessary  fodder, you could give buffing skills and to your units to make the blade tomes of the 2 mage hit harder and give either reposition or a rally to Alfonse? I used to get by with a core of Sanaki/Nino/Azura +  any bonus and it worked well enough for me.

[Alkaid]

35 minutes ago, jameslove001 said:

 

So, I have been running Olivia (or Ninian), Camus, Julia (or Nino) and Tharja. With Olivia it felt too red heavy, and Alphonse and Ninian just seemingly didn't work well. As far as other units, I probably have more to work with than I admit, but when I look at Effie, Frederick, Klein, Spring Chrom, Subaki, Cecilia, or any of my other level 40s I just have a hard time getting a team together.

And I agree, the Tier isn't what's killing me; I've actually had less heavyweights, so to speak so far. I just don't know how to incorporate Alphonse very well.

I'll second using Nino/Tharja/Ninian/Alfonse. Nino already comes with Hone Attack, so putting Hone Speed and another Hone Attack across your other units will make Nino and Tharja total monsters. You could consider putting Triangle Adept and Sword Breaker on Ninian to make her a hard counter to reds as well. The mages backed by Ninian's dancing and red red countering means you probably won't even need Alfonse to really do much. Giving him Reposition could help him contribute as well.

[Rezzy]

Since I figure I'll be busy with the new modes later this week, I thought I'd do a few extra Arenas for the missions.

I got a Deathless Streak for a score of 4836, which is good for Rank 954 in Tier 20 right now.  The cut-off is 1256 to drop back to 19, so I've got pretty much no hope of staying, but at least I'll get my feathers for score.  I also got a couple D wins, so I don't have to worry about that.

It seems nowadays, it's always Titania, Ursula, Xander, with the bonus unit being dead weight, except last week, when I was running Camus.

 

So, are we going to have the same Bonus units for a whole month, or is there the possibility of another Banner mid-month?

[Alexmender]

1 hour ago, MrSmokestack said:

I've never pulled a Raven since release, though I do have a +Atk -HP Minerva collecting dust on my bench. Too bad she's not a bonus unit while Legion is.

I recommend using her, with Fury you can make her somewhat tanky and with LnD she becomes a glass cannon who can kill everything but tanky reds. Her Hauteclere is a Legendary weapon which gives a few more points for scoring. Too bad Legion's niche will last only 2 weeks, maybe it's time to train Alfonse.

[MrSmokestack]

1 hour ago, Alexmender said:

I recommend using her, with Fury you can make her somewhat tanky and with LnD she becomes a glass cannon who can kill everything but tanky reds. Her Hauteclere is a Legendary weapon which gives a few more points for scoring. Too bad Legion's niche will last only 2 weeks, maybe it's time to train Alfonse.

Oh don't worry, I know she's a pretty great unit, but I just dropped most of my resources into Legion so she'll have to sit on the backburner for a while longer. The best I can do for now is just Fortify Fliers for the monthly quests, but I have no more Draconic Aura or Desperation fodder at the moment.

[Alexmender]

22 minutes ago, MrSmokestack said:

Oh don't worry, I know she's a pretty great unit, but I just dropped most of my resources into Legion so she'll have to sit on the backburner for a while longer. The best I can do for now is just Fortify Fliers for the monthly quests, but I have no more Draconic Aura or Desperation fodder at the moment.

Fair enough. If I may ask is Draconic Aura superior to Luna for her? Mine has Luna and I've noticed she kills the same amount of stuff while hitting harder on certain units who rely on Fury to become tanky.

[MrSmokestack]

26 minutes ago, Alexmender said:

Fair enough. If I may ask is Draconic Aura superior to Luna for her? Mine has Luna and I've noticed she kills the same amount of stuff while hitting harder on certain units who rely on Fury to become tanky.

Luna is better if you need her KO'ing units with like 32 or more Def. At +Atk and LaD she hits 55 Atk which boosts Draconic Aura's bonus to 16.

I'd go Luna too but it's on a premium for me.

[Whistle]

On 7/2/2017 at 0:27 AM, Ice Dragon said:

Since we had to do a million Arena runs for the Voting Gauntlet quests, I got bored and ended up trying again. This only took something like all of my dueling sword restores and 5-10 orbs this time.

  Reveal hidden contents

Tier 20

Score: 5,180 (deathless, 728-740)
Rank: 1 (out of 4,403, 0%, 20→20)
Defense: 598 (10+)

I ended up finding the teams worth 740 points a lot more easily this time. 鏡mochi's team is back up at 740 points (previously 738) and @Whistle's team got there, too (previously 728?). I think I ended up beating 鏡mochi's team 3 times and Whistle's team 4 times (or maybe it was the other way around). I don't know where わぁい's team was hiding, though.

Whistle, though, 'grats on your defense team. Honestly, it wasn't hard to beat at all since my team is basically all Triangle Adept dragons, but it was pretty fun. I realized halfway through my second match that even without Fortify Dragons, Tiki still took zero damage from Hector and could double attack on player phase, which helped me deal with Panic Ploy a bit more effectively. Basically, I could separate Tiki from the rest of my team and let her charge in and roast Hectors unbuffed on her own accord.

One thing I found interesting was that all three of the 740-point teams are running two green armors, which means Tiki has Aether fully charged after the killing the second one, which lets her one-round kill Draug since Ninian isn't fast enough to double attack, and I'm not using Nowi on this team.

gz it help u boosting ur score :D . 

 

[Roflolxp54]

Alright, managed to get Alfonse to work on my team though most of the time, he'd just be chilling, occasionally give Xander Reciprocal Aid support. Replaced Brave Sword+ with his native Folkvangr for the sake of scoring.

[DehNutCase]

Alfonse probably works best in a team with an exceptionally strong blue (Reinhardt, Cordelia, mayyyyyyyyyybe Camus if it's some kind of janky L&D build with like 80 wins or something). The only units he'll need to worry about then are greens, since the blue kills everyone else. Mages get OHKO'd because Alfonse has 35 + 16 + 6 + 4/5 = 61 or 62 Atk, depending on whether he has Hone or his Prf up, which is 73/74 Atk against greens. Only Boey has the bulk to survive that, and Boey's actually slow enough that he can't double Alfonse (lol). Physical units will depend on whether it's a defense map rotation or not, if it is, Alfonse gets to sit on a fort and just trade hits forever thanks to his good bulk and natural sustain from Sol. If it's not defense map then he'll have to pick his fights a lot more carefully (maybe take Fury 3 to help his spd and bulk a bit) and get a Hone Spd or Fort Def so he doesn't get doubled into critical.

When he's not doing things, like everyone else, he should be packing reposition, swap, or draw back. (I have swap on him, but reposition is probably best, followed by draw back, then swap.)

 

He's actually a lot better than Sharena on my arena team because I have +Atk Cordelia, anything that even comes close to bothering her, he cleans up. I also have a Lucina, so he only shows up as a bonus unit, but he does a lot better as a Lucina sub (kills Hector, OHKOs mages) than Sharena does as a Cordelia sub. Sharena is actually worse at literally everything Cordelia can do. ORKOs for Cordelia turns into 2 or 3RKOs, no galeforce for galeforce shenanigans, Cordelia flies so her reposition is better, 35/35 offenses versus 32/32. Sure, Sharena has a bit of bulk, but bulk doesn't matter too much if you have dancer support---which, incidentally, I don't when Sharena's in the rotation. Azura is swapped out rather than Cordelia because Sharena simply can't take Cordelia's slot at all. Feelsbadman.

[Infinite Dreams]

Just wanted to share this funny team I ran into last night.

Alfonse and Olivia were very happy to meet these guys.

[bethany81707]

2 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

He's actually a lot better than Sharena on my arena team because I have +Atk Cordelia, anything that even comes close to bothering her, he cleans up. I also have a Lucina, so he only shows up as a bonus unit, but he does a lot better as a Lucina sub (kills Hector, OHKOs mages) than Sharena does as a Cordelia sub. Sharena is actually worse at literally everything Cordelia can do. ORKOs for Cordelia turns into 2 or 3RKOs, no galeforce for galeforce shenanigans, Cordelia flies so her reposition is better, 35/35 offenses versus 32/32. Sure, Sharena has a bit of bulk, but bulk doesn't matter too much if you have dancer support---which, incidentally, I don't when Sharena's in the rotation. Azura is swapped out rather than Cordelia because Sharena simply can't take Cordelia's slot at all. Feelsbadman.

I'd honestly recommend trying to assemble a seperate Arena team for when you're required to use Sharena. I found her quite useful when I used her a lot, but if she's not meshing well, it'd probably be better to cut your losses and dip down to her level.

[Okigen]

11 minutes ago, Infinite Dreams said:

Just wanted to share this funny team I ran into last night.

Alfonse and Olivia were very happy to meet these guys.

Wow Hector squad!