Arena Discussion Thread (inc. Assault)

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

27 minutes ago, XRay said:

The best way to get defense wins is to punish players for making mistakes, and there will always be players who makes mistakes. A lot of players just do not know any better or refuse to get better, so building a team that punishes players for bad play is much easier than creating a team that tries to counter good play. Throw in Vantage, Wings of Mercy, a Dancer/Singer or two, and your defense team is basically all set.

I'm thinking it's cockiness against my team since it's literally just my Arena core and sometimes the bonus unit is different between my defense and offense (but not usually) and I don't have any of that stuff on the team. Nowi and Tiki are even TA3. Granted, I do have some dual rallies in there and Kana's running around with Goad and Drive Def, so I might be catching people who either don't math right or aren't very good at positioning to separate units.

[Zeo]

@mcsilas @mampfoid @Rafiel's Aria @Alexmender

Got a score of 3524. Could go higher but not really interested. I see I'm comfortably below the tops, we'll fix that in time. For the next rotation probably I'll run either Amelia or my +1 Ike. Not sure which way I'll go with that. Also I already have 4 defense wins. I've been using my Offense team as my defense team. I had 4 wins last week and I already have 4 this week. Guess this team catches people by surprise?

Lilina is +ATK/-HP at +1. Nino is +SPD/-DEF at +8 with the standard build and you already know Matthew's kit.

Edited May 10, 2018 by Zeo

[mcsilas]

15 minutes ago, Zeo said:

@mcsilas @mampfoid @Rafiel's Aria @Alexmender

Got a score of 3524. Could go higher but not really interested. I see I'm comfortably below the tops, we'll fix that in time. For the next rotation probably I'll run either Amelia or my +1 Ike. Not sure which way I'll go with that. Also I already have 4 defense wins. I've been using my Offense team as my defense team. I had 4 wins last week and I already have 4 this week. Guess this team catches people by surprise?

Lilina is +ATK/-HP at +1. Nino is +SPD/-DEF at +8 with the standard build and you already know Matthew's kit.

I mean, you have an Axura, a Chill Res bot and a blade mage. I'm not surprised and even i would be annoyed to face that team :P

Congrats though!

Also I had a sudden surge of 2 defense wins in my second account, with Kinoka, Blue Lyn, BK and Vector. I guess +Atk Warrior Princess is good against Armor Emblem teams?

[mampfoid]

@Humanoid Heavy Blade is a nice skill and it's fun to play around with it, but it's not very effective. I've gladly sacrificed my only Ike (+ATK) to my Galeforce squad though. 

@Zeo 4 already? Nice! Don't underestimate that Matthew. 

Shiro +5 is my point slave for AA, perhaps he'll give me a new personal high score. 

[Vaximillian]

1 hour ago, mcsilas said:

I mean, you have an Axura, a Chill Res bot and a blade mage. I'm not surprised and even i would be annoyed to face that team :P

And Übermatthew.

[Rafiel's Aria]

@Zeo I definitely think Matthew takes people off guard. I'm usually prepared for units I see all the time in the Arena. But for some reason, characters I almost never see like fully decked out Henry take me by surprise. But that's still sweet. I've only gotten one win this week, but that's all I really need. XD 

[Chrom-ulent]

Ouch to this arena bonus season, mostly for my score. Winning should be even easier than normal, though. Original Ike +1 and Lene +2 are my best scoring options. Initial run will be with Ike. Either will be accompanied by my original winning team of L'Arachel / S!Sharena / S!Alfonse, but this time, L'Arachel has Blarblade+, S!Alfonse has Brave Axe+ / Galeforce / L&D / Heavy Blade, and they're honing each other. S!Sharena provides the defensive tactics.

Edited May 11, 2018 by Chrom-ulent

[Hawk King]

+10 Amelia and +8 Ike are going to be kicking some ass next week.

[Rafiel's Aria]

Hm...bonus units aren't doing much for me unfortunately... I've got a +1 Amelia and a +0 Ike and Shiro. I'm not sure how I'll do running an armored unit. I could try Amelia, Merric, Raven, and Lucius. XD But more than likely, I may have to switch out Merric for Mae just to have some color variety.

[Usana]

I am kinda of scared to think what my +9 Amelia is capable of with the stat boosts. Wonder if I should quickly Summoner support her just for shenanigans sake! 68/60/47/45/32 sounds like it could be fun.

[redlight]

9 minutes ago, Usana said:

I am kinda of scared to think what my +9 Amelia is capable of with the stat boosts. Wonder if I should quickly Summoner support her just for shenanigans sake! 68/60/47/45/32 sounds like it could be fun.

If you want to further boost her stats you could use Corrin, but beware, he's a brick by himself.

[mcsilas]

Oh boy, Shiro is a bonus unit!

Amelia also works since she was my arena core before Vector replaced her.

Ike was also a past arena core.

Good choice!

[MonkeyCheez3K]

5 hours ago, Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi said:

...Nowi and Tiki are even TA3....

Why does this even work? Not caring about defense anymore I just slapped two TA dragons (Nowi and Fae), Olivia and Lilina, a team nobody should have issues with (TA dragons (TA units in general) are ridiculously easy to erase on both phases), and took a nap; now I already have a win, even though it took me till the last minutes last week to get anything while thinking about valid team comps for the current set of maps.

Even if my Lilina and Olivia use WoM, the TA dragons shouldn't have any way of activating it by being obliterated beforehand due to the TA disadvantage, and killing off a slow mage and a dancer isn't hard. Could be a free concede, or the guy was drunk or whatever, but I just do not get Defense in this game.

[Cute Chao]

Got a defence win :O I wasn't expecting that.

Annoyingly, my usual team doesn't have a hope of keeping me bouncing between 18 - 19 now. I suppose I'll have to mix it up a bit or just give up on that extra orb. I'm trying the mix up thing. Armours and one bonus, currently. Might try two bonuses.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Oh, yeah, I guess I've also got Ike, who should score higher than Kana because of Ragnell and Aether. I tend to forget about him because he's +HP/-Def and with his neutral Spd impressing no one, he tends to get a black eye from the first thing he engages, making him more of a trophy pull for me. I guess the bonus stats might fix that, though, and if not, he can just be a Reposition bot like the Askr units. I'll probably still put M!Kana on defense to make Nowi and Tiki a bit more of a pain to deal with, though. >.>

2 hours ago, MonkeyCheez3K said:

Why does this even work? Not caring about defense anymore I just slapped two TA dragons (Nowi and Fae), Olivia and Lilina, a team nobody should have issues with (TA dragons (TA units in general) are ridiculously easy to erase on both phases), and took a nap; now I already have a win, even though it took me till the last minutes last week to get anything while thinking about valid team comps for the current set of maps.

Even if my Lilina and Olivia use WoM, the TA dragons shouldn't have any way of activating it by being obliterated beforehand due to the TA disadvantage, and killing off a slow mage and a dancer isn't hard. Could be a free concede, or the guy was drunk or whatever, but I just do not get Defense in this game.

Do either of your dragons have rallies? My theory on why it works with my team is that TA3 makes it so that Tiki, who has Rally Def/Res, doesn't want to be baited by a blue, because she'll do less than 5 damage. So she'll just hang out and rally stuff. This means she'll either stick to Nino or F!Kana, the former creating a very dangerous attack zone overlap. I could see either of your dragons doing the same with Lilina. Good positioning would obviously ruin the setup very quickly, but I have a feeling many people either don't know about or forget to account for the <5-damage rule. Actually, yours might be even more trolly because with a refresher, you can get stuff like your rallier moving forward to rally a friendly, then getting refreshed and ramming into the thing that was supposed to be the unit who got rallied.

[MonkeyCheez3K]

27 minutes ago, Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi said:

Do either of your dragons have rallies? My theory on why it works with my team is that TA3 makes it so that Tiki, who has Rally Def/Res, doesn't want to be baited by a blue, because she'll do less than 5 damage. So she'll just hang out and rally stuff. This means she'll either stick to Nino or F!Kana, the former creating a very dangerous attack zone overlap. I could see either of your dragons doing the same with Lilina. Good positioning would obviously ruin the setup very quickly, but I have a feeling many people either don't know about or forget to account for the <5-damage rule. Actually, yours might be even more trolly because with a refresher, you can get stuff like your rallier moving forward to rally a friendly, then getting refreshed and ramming into the thing that was supposed to be the unit who got rallied.

Both had Reposition, which is even more baffling, and Lilina had Draw Back. When I auto-battle the comp they do the dumbest stuff and seperate themselves to get picked off, which is why I never expected a win, like at all during the week, but if that win stays all alone till the end of the season, then I'll just consider it a lucky pity win or something.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Could also be Reposition/Draw Back loops. For some reason, when I see people talk about said loops, their go-to strategy is to charge straight in, rather than skirt the edges with the enemy's preferred targets on opposite sides to break them up.

Edited May 10, 2018 by Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi

[Alexmender]

@Zeo Probably the combo of Matthew and Axura makes him too bulky for some teams, if he's in a defense tile it would be GG. It also helps that your team can easily have overlapping ranges. 

---

I finally finished my AA run with 5020 points. This took so long and I found a freaking Bartre+10 with 39 Spd (46 effectively because he had Threaten Spd), he caught me off-guard when he doubled and killed my Lucina. I gave that guy his def win because that was nuts!

[Hilda]

1 hour ago, Alexmender said:

@Zeo Probably the combo of Matthew and Axura makes him too bulky for some teams, if he's in a defense tile it would be GG. It also helps that your team can easily have overlapping ranges. 

---

I finally finished my AA run with 5020 points. This took so long and I found a freaking Bartre+10 with 39 Spd (46 effectively because he had Threaten Spd), he caught me off-guard when he doubled and killed my Lucina. I gave that guy his def win because that was nuts!

I run a Windsweep Saizo Coupled with Gunnthra. This Team never fails to get me a Defense win, especially with Clair and Guidance in it. I think people underestimate how annoying and how gamechanging Aoe debuffs from Daggers or Gunnthra/Chill skills can be. Especially on a Team that runs Tactics Spectral buffs. I mean they are basicly facing a Gunnthra with +30 atk and +12 Spd if any of their units get hit by Saizos Smoke Daggers, even if he dies.

[Zeo]

3 hours ago, Alexmender said:

@Zeo Probably the combo of Matthew and Axura makes him too bulky for some teams, if he's in a defense tile it would be GG. It also helps that your team can easily have overlapping ranges. 

Matthew and Inigo used to be my defense core, but they would occasionally fail me. I may consider running Matthew/Nino/Axura next week with a bonus unit (Ike most likely) and see how big of a difference Lilina made. That Chill RES is pretty insane. Maybe I should slap Vantage on Ike just to be a jerk.

[Usana]

So my fire team, my strongest legendary team, is 2000 ranks too weak to stay in tier 20. According to the Arena Score Calculator at articsilverfox they should be in the 712-726 range. Though I was playing with EP Ephraim when I did my no death run and due to running Solar Brace and Sturdy Stance they should have been in the 714-728 range. Problem of course is that EP Ephraim is just hard to use. If I gave Myrrh and Eirika Aether and Siegbert Galeforce that would push them up to 716-732 with EP Ephraim. Would that finally be enough to stay 20? Though maybe it is just cause the game doesn't want to give me good scoring matchups. Dividing my score by 5 gives me 718. Which is on the low end for even the 712-726 standard set up.

Basically trying to figure out if I should fish around and try to stay in 20 for a change. If Fire team during fire season can't do it, then NONE of my teams can.

[kirauza343]

I was concerned about getting a defense win with the arena change, but apparently I shouldn't've been. I'd been averaging one or two a week (occasionally getting none) but I'm already 3 for this week. Looks like last week's increase wasn't a fluke; hyper offensive Micaiah seems to be doing better than hyper defensive Micaiah.

[Hawk King]

1 hour ago, Usana said:

So my fire team, my strongest legendary team, is 2000 ranks too weak to stay in tier 20. According to the Arena Score Calculator at articsilverfox they should be in the 712-726 range. Though I was playing with EP Ephraim when I did my no death run and due to running Solar Brace and Sturdy Stance they should have been in the 714-728 range. Problem of course is that EP Ephraim is just hard to use. If I gave Myrrh and Eirika Aether and Siegbert Galeforce that would push them up to 716-732 with EP Ephraim. Would that finally be enough to stay 20? Though maybe it is just cause the game doesn't want to give me good scoring matchups. Dividing my score by 5 gives me 718. Which is on the low end for even the 712-726 standard set up.

Basically trying to figure out if I should fish around and try to stay in 20 for a change. If Fire team during fire season can't do it, then NONE of my teams can.

I have never used the Blessing bonuses for increased arena scoring. It is always my core of +10 Caeda, Nowi, and Lukas with a bonus unit added on (usually +2 or less). 

Do you have three +10 units? Just use them with high scoring skills, and add a bonus unit and you should be able to stay in tier 20 no problem.

If you don't have three +10s that should be your short-term to intermediate-term goal.

My score of 3658 is rank #1795 right now.

[Usana]

@Hawk King With just Eirika as a +10 I do realize staying in 20 isn't going to happen ordinarily. I had just thought that my 720+ scores I was seeing would have got me up high enough and was surprised that it wasn't enough. However, looking at the first deathless run score I realized my average was pretty darn low. Nearly every matchup must have been near bottom of the score barrel.

A second deathless run got me a 720 average which is more expected since it is close to the middle. 3600 though is only good for rank #7191. About 1500 ranks off from staying.

As for +10. The simple fact is most of the units I want to play with? Yeah. 5* exclusives. Even with the kind of money I've dumped on this game that ain't happening. Amelia is the only one even remotely close. And I don't want to even think of the dollar amount that went into her. As for the ones more easily available that I like. Way too many reds. I have a hard time thinking a non-red that I really like that isn't named Amelia or Hector or I guess my Ephraim. Let alone available as a 3 or 4 star. So my teams will almost always be a mix of variable merge levels. Which is why I really only try to stay in during fire season. My only 5*+10 is fire blessed so that is really the only team that stands a chance.  It just kinda surprised me because I could have sworn I had stayed in 20 before(or at least come darn close) with a full deathless run, but this time it wasn't even close.

Edited May 12, 2018 by Usana

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

I think people are fishing a bit harder now that the streak only needs to be five wins, inflating overall requirements.

An average of 726 per match was looking borderline for staying before I got a better score. It was about 1000 ranks away from falling out as of this morning (which is, realistically, probably more like 1300ish ranks, thanks to more people playing over the week also expanding the overall size of Tier 20s who count in the system).