Arena Discussion Thread (inc. Assault)

[Johann]

Got 3,740 using my +4 Frederick, who managed to get all 20 kills himself thanks to all the armor emblems out there. Rest of the team barely did anything beyond buffing/debuffing, though I had to use Cain once to bait Zelgius and withstand a Black Luna in order to allow Fred to finish him off.

[XRay]

Think I am going to drop to Tier 19 again despite my best efforts at fishing. I have replaced Reinhardt with Zephiel but my score still did not increase very much. My Alfonse killed like around a third to half the enemies I think.

Maybe I should start investing fully into my armor team, although I really hate using it since I suck at it. Hopefully once all the whales settle into Tier 21, maybe I will be able to consistently stay in Tier 20 again without using armor units.

[Stroud]

I think I am save with my Score. I guess the threshold for T21 will be around 3,710-3,720 and I have 3,726 and still around 1400 ranks between me and the threshold.
Arena Assault is also done. I think I have to build all my units to answer accordingly, some skillsets are still suboptimal.

At least next week will be relaxed in Arena, I can only pendle between T20-T21. 

Arena Assault was a bit annoying, I don't even bother doing reruns for 1k even if its possible. At least I start to adapt against Legendary Lucina.

[Flying Shogi]

Couldn't get a defense win with my double Tana's so I switched it to my other arena defense team(BH!Lyn, LH!Ephraim, and Azura as a core) and it has netted me 2 wins. I'll take what I can get. 

Edited August 18, 2018 by tobuShogi

[MonkeyCheez3K]

I have a feeling that, if you are able to stay in T20 this season, it will be really easy to get into T21 next season since all the super scoring users will be seperated from you and be no competitors for that particular season before a part of them rolls back into T20 the following one.

Technically, I might already become part of the T21 before that, though I have my doubts considering the severe fishing people do during the last couple days. Regardless, if my assumption turns true, I will have the pointless crown on my FEH the next time, apparently. T20.5, here I come!

[Usana]

I thought about trying to push up to stay in T20. I don't think I can get enough to push all the way up to 21, but I am pretty close to being able to stay in 20. Then I remembered that this season has that one map I absolutely loath trying to run a horse focused team on. So nope. Not going to try. If that map pops up it is basically an auto loss or at last an auto no horse kills.

Did get another Defense win, this one for full points. But I had gone and made sure it was updated just in case so I don't know if that first defense win was due to me thinking I did a battle with the team, but didn't or something else.

[Jingle Jangle]

My arena score this week is 3,563. Lower than usual, I blame the bonus heroes this time. At least I got 4 defense win with my team of VIke, Alfonse, Reinhardt, and Bunny Camilla with the power of tactics skills. 

Meanwhile the Arena Assault score is 4866, due to a unplanned guidance taking out a person. Hopefully I do better next week.

[Hawk King]

Rank #802 for Arena. Rank #575 for AA. And seriously, 10+ Defense wins per day. I have no idea why my defense team did so well this week. It was the first time any of them had been on a defense team, too.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

• Tier 20 score of 3730 (/4021) - #2439 (/4021 to T21)
• AA score of 5238 - #1332

Bah. AA was higher than usual, but still score no better than what I've been getting the few months. Regular Arena is pretty safe and solid. Had to fish a fair bit to get that score, though. Game kept wanting to give me 728, which was pointlessly low. I guess Alfonse was just not considered as strong of a bonus unit, despite me pimping him out (my average is 734-736). Had a few 740s and 742s show up while I was messing around getting used to feeding Alfonse kills, but they never reappeared for any of the successful runs. This particular run got him 16 kills. I expect to drop next season, since I'm well out of range of any reasonable initial threshold for staying.

Got another copy of Gwendolyn. Still not +Spd. I'll need two more copies for her to be worth notably more (+10) without the super boon. I'm sitting on 300 orbs again, so maybe I'll get a good Gwen while I fail to pull any Fjorms.

[Alkaid]

Alright, the crown is kind of cute. Still wondering what they might be used for later beyond bragging rights, if anything.

I was right in the middle of the range to go up to t21, so I might fall back down next season unless I get a really lucky streak.

[Alexmender]

Well, standard fare. Went down to tier 19 and I think I fell out of the top 5k as always (maybe not, I didn't pay attention to AA results this week).

[Humanoid]

Arena ends too early in winter to let me look at the ranks (it ends at 9am and I'm a late starter), but 3625 went up, and had plenty of buffer before I went to bed last night. Definitely no need to get anywhere near 20 kills with the bonus units each week.

AA was more a surprise, in that 5057 was enough for rank 9170. Had no expectation of top 10k, which I haven't managed all year, and apparently this score wouldn't have been enough last week. Bonus.

[DLNarshen]

Season 81 Results:

Score: 3,720
Defense: 606
Rank: Tier 20 --> Great Summoner

I got to say, I wasn't expecting to be among the first group to promote to the new tier.  Thank goodness for the Lucina pity breaker on the last legendary banner!  She proved to be quite the force, ultimately landing 16/20 kills.  One clean sweep, and then every other match had a strong green armor that proved impossible to take out safely.  Caeda's Wing Sword works against me here, as she can't be used to weaken any of them.  Like last week, Nowi was public enemy number one.

Arena Assault:

 

Rank: 2,301

After some pretty miserable fails early on in the week, I collected my bearings and managed to obtain my highest AA score yet, breaking through the 5,200 mark.  I finally gave F!Robin the high scoring skills she needed to score better than Narcian, which doubly served to make him available to counter all the L!Lucinas running amok.  Aside from the first match, every character used had the appropriate blessing.  

Previous Season Results:

Spoiler

Season 12: 4,678 | 284 | 25,513
Season 13: 4,740 | 0 | 19,082
Season 14: 4,794 | 289 | 6,331
-----------------
1.3.0 Update
-----------------
Season 15: 4,820 | 576 | 15 --> 17
Season 16: 4,788 | 568 | 17 --> 16
Season 17: 4,719 | 568 | 16 --> 17
Season 18: 4,776 | 0 | 17 --> 18
Season 19: 4,780 | 0 | 18 --> 17
Season 20: 4,796 | 578 | 17 --> 18
Season 21: 4,806 | 594 | 18 --> 19
Season 22: 4,792 | 560 | 19 --> 18
Season 23: 4,836 | 288 | 18 --> 19
Season 24: 4,828 | 288 | 19 --> 20
Season 25: 4,838 | 582 | 20 --> 19
Season 26: 4,822 | 578 | 19 --> 20
Season 27: 4,808 | 580 | 20 -->19
Season 28: 4,792 | 580 | 19 --> 18
Season 29: 4,830 | 582 | 18 --> 19
Season 30: 4,822 | 582 | 19 --> 20
Season 31: 4,806 | 584 | 20 --> 19
Season 32: 4,820 | 584 | 19 --> 20
Season 33: 4,812 | 582 | 20 --> 19
Season 34: 4,836 | 582 | 19 --> 20
Season 35: 4,822 | 582 | 20 --> 19
Season 36: 4,838 | 578 | 19 --> 20
Season 37: 4,788 | 580 | 20 --> 19
Season 38: 4,854 | 580 | 19 --> 20
Season 39: 4,830 | 582 | 20 --> 19
Season 40: 4,908 | 0 | 19 --> 20
Season 41: 4,920 | 580 | 20 --> 19
Season 42: 4,922 | 580 | 19 --> 20
Season 43: 4,914 | 582 | 20 --> 19
Season 44: 4,966 | 582 | 19 --> 20
Season 45: 5,006 | 600 | 20 --> 20
Season 46: 5,016 | 600 | 20 --> 20
Season 47: 4,976 | 596 | 20 --> 19
Season 48: 4,972 | 596 | 19 --> 20
Season 49: 4,988 | 600 | 20 --> 19
Season 50: 4,984 | 598 | 19 --> 20
Season 51: 5012 | 604 | 20 --> 19
Season 52: 4,990 | 598 | 19 --> 20
Season 53: 4,848 | 600 | 20 --> 19
Season 54: 4,994 | 602 | 19 --> 20
Season 55: 5,002 | 600 | 20 --> 19
Season 56: 5,050 | 606 | 19 --> 20
Season 57: 5,016 | 608 | 20 --> 19
Season 58: 5,014 | 608 | 19 --> 20
Season 59: 5,052 | 608 | 20 --> 20
Season 60: 5,064 | 612 | 20 --> 20
Season 61: 5,066 | 618 | 20 --> 20
Season 62: 5,088 | 614 | 20 --> 20
Season 63: 5,100 | 610 | 20 --> 20
Season 64: 5,070 | 610 | 20 --> 20
Season 65: 5,068 | 618 | 20 --> 20
Season 66: 5,086 | 309 | 20 --> 20
----------------
2.5.0 Update
----------------
Season 67: 3,642 | 606 | 20 --> 20
Season 68: 3,648 | 614 | 20 --> 20
Season 69: 3,646 | 612 | 20 --> 20
Season 70: 3,668 | 604 | 20 --> 20
Season 71: 3,672 | 618 | 20 --> 20
Season 72: 3,654 | 312 | 20 --> 20
Season 73: 3,658 | 307 | 20 --> 20
Season 74: 3,652 | 616 | 20 --> 20
Season 75: 3,654 | 614 | 20 --> 20
Season 76: 3,654 | 0 | 20 --> 20
Season 77: 3,682 | 616 | 20 --> 20
Season 78: 3,674 | 614 | 20 -- > 20
Season 79: 3,672 | 305 | 20 --> 20
Season 80: 3,678 | 608 | 20 --> 20

 

Edited August 27, 2018 by DLNarshen

[LordFrigid]

Offense score of 3788 (T20) promotes to T21, combining with a defense score of 626 for max rewards.

I'll probably see what I can do with another streak of "feed Arvis kills". He picked up all 20 last week, but I'll have no Wary Fighter armors to help chip down foes during Wind/Water week. I'll probably run with Fjorm, Caeda, and Myrrh to provide full tactics buffs, and see how things work out. Running Renewal instead of QR on Myrrh should help a bit.

[Hawk King]

Holy shit, 7 defense wins already?! What the hell is so difficult about my defense team? I don't get it. edit - 9 wins now. And we are at 10. Just 9 hours into this season.

And yeah, Crown is cool on Feh. All I need to do is give Aether to L!Lucina and Atk Tactics to one of the others and I will most likely be able to put together a run to keep me in Tier 20. Even if I have to burn 50 crests, I will make it happen.

With CYL2 Hector being a Lance, I fully expect to see teams of 2 L!Hectors and 2 CYL Hectors when the next fire season rolls around.

Edited August 21, 2018 by Hawk King

[Alkaid]

Doesn't look like my team + Alfonse as a bonus will cut it to stay in t21. Already placing to drop back to 20 even fishing for matches, though again the game refused to give me anything higher than 736 besides a single 738 match which was in a streak that got broken. (740 should be my max range).  I could give some higher value skills to Alfonse and try to bump my points, but I don't think it'll bump me up enough to be wort the investment. Not to mention Alfonse kind of needs those sick Bonfire procs of his to muscle through tanky blues and reds.

Also started running into dedicated anti-Alfonse teams, which ruined a couple runs. Most of the enemy team with sword breaker, blue unit stacking, etc. Not very fun running into those, but I guess that's unfortunately part of the new meta. 

[Ice Dragon]

It looks like the number of Tier 21 crowns is also visible on the friends list. Fancy.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Looks like I also got a pretty early defense win. My team happens to be incidentally a bit anti-Alfonse, though that mostly comes from having good general coverage. Nino hits his poor Res with blade damage, so he's in trouble if it's not running the TA refine. Nowi is TA3 since she's built to bring victory even if I face quad Falchion spam. Finally, my own Alfonse has Swordbreaker so he can swing some offensive kills on enemy swords (he runs the QR3 Seal, but that breaks rather quickly if I'm going for multiple kills), which I guess incidentally causes issues for the opposing Alfonse if he isn't also running Swordbreaker. Adult Tiki also hits his Res, but she's slow enough that he really shouldn't have issues taking her out if he baits her (she might leave him in a state that's unable to score kills on anyone else, however).

[mcsilas]

Huh. Managed to get into Tier 20 again thanks to the bonus unit kills (L!Lucina is so fun to use!)

Also after a week of no defense wins, I suddenly gotten 2 wins already with my arena core team of Lector, Gronnowl Fury Halloween Henry, L!Lucina and Masked Marth. Maybe i should use my arena as my defense team more often.. (tried it on a whim)

Also, I think I found the youtuber Sagemaster in arena? 

Spoiler

Had to use Lector to deal with Bridelia quickly, and also Sumia, since Iotes's shield meant L!Lucina wasn't completely safe from her DC attacks. (Also the faster I delete Guidance fliers, the better)

 

[mampfoid]

New merges, new personal highscores: 3674 (tier 19), 5193 (AA). 

Now that Cherche, Cordelia and M!Marth arrived to their maximum merge level (10, 10, 8), I should check how to further boost my score. It would be nice to get into Tier 21 once. 

Arena Assault starter team is more or less optimized (team 2-7 got blessings): 

http://tinyurl.com/y8y7dkwq

Regular Arena looks a little different: 

http://tinyurl.com/y9r2mynn

• Bonus units: Alfonse is the representative of my usually unmerged bonus units. This week I'm running L!Lucina and next week Celica is waiting to wreck stuff. Sharena got her Refinement, missing only Anna. All three could get expensive specials, but I'm unsure if it's worth the investment. 
• Skills: Cordelia and Cherche aren't good recipients for DC (currently 2 spare Hectors), I'm unsure about M!Marth (no-one knows if we can +10 this year if ever). I don't know which other expensive skills would make sense on them, for sure DB4 on Cherche if I ever get the fodder. I could run 1-2 double Rallies, but that would make the 5 streak very hard. 
• Alternatives: I'm really unsure if to start to merge Caeda, since I have only copies for a +8 merge currently and my feathers allow only one further +10 unit. Caeda would be a good candidate for Distant Counter (currently 2 hectors available) and sooner or later I should get the missing copies, while it's possible I'll see my next Marth copies in a year if ever. I could build a Warding Breath Tiki, but don't want to invest the ~240k feathers. 
• Blessings/Legendary heroes: It's impossible for me to build a highly merged team for each blessing . I only have few legendary heroes (Fjorm, Lucina, Gunnthra, Ike) and most likely won't get the newest of each month. 

Asking successful arena players with Flier teams @LordFrigid, @DLNarshen and @Alkaid (sorry if I forgot someone), do you have an advice? I want to boost my score while not losing the last bit of fun (or big heaps of money). 

 

 

[LordFrigid]

@mampfoid First off, congrats on getting Cordelia to +10!

My Flier team core is Caeda (DC/QR, Fortify), Corrin (-blade, Goad), and Myrrh (DC/QR, Hone), so it plays a little differently than yours.

The past couple weeks, though, I’ve been running teams focused on feeding the bonus unit KOs (replacing QR with Renewal on Myrrh so she can chip blues, for instance). Well, I say feeding, but for this rotation, I’ve been using Arvis, who’s actually pretty darn good.

Getting the bonus unit KOs is probably the easiest score boost you’re going to find, at this point. You don’t need to get the full +60, or anything; I don’t think your core is well-suited to that anyway (Cherche can Def-tank, and can probably take a round with a Lance even with that Brave Axe set. Marth’s heal support is nice. However, Cordelia’s not much of a chipper and you probably see a fair amount of ranged units in that score range). Besides that, the only thing you can really do is make some minor skill point optimizations, but you probably already know about those. I wonder if you could get away with a Dual Rally or two, since you’re running Galeforcers.

Edited August 22, 2018 by LordFrigid

[Hawk King]

21 defense wins and counting...

I just realized that Zelgius, Hardin, and the built-in DC dragon breath units won't be running the redundant DC for scoring in the arena anymore. They can run the much more dangerous Death Blow 4.

[Diovani Bressan]

I am proud of my team this time. I got a pretty good high score:  3.686 points. I don't know if I will reach Tier 21, but at least a believe I will not fall to Tier 19. My team is a  infantry team.

Marth: Altean Prince (+9 / +Atk -Res) - Refined Falchion (effect), Rally Spd/Res, Aether, Steady Breath, Swordbreaker 3, Drive Spd 2, Drive Atk 2 SS.

Soren: Shrewd Strategist (+5 / +Spd -Def) - Refined Wind's Brand (effect), Rally Spd/Res, Aether, Distant Def 3, Desperation 3, Close Guard 3, Flashing Blade 3 SS.

Fjorm: Princess of Ice (+1 / neutral) - Leiptr, Rally Def/Res, Aether, Warding Breath, Vantage 3, Drive Atk 2, Quick Riposte 3 SS.

Alfonse: Prince of Askr  - Refined Fólkvangr (Spd), Rally Atk/Def, Draconic Aura, Brazen Atk/Spd, Vantage 3, Atk Smoke 3, Close Def 3 SS. (that's right, I gave him a speed refinement)

[Hilda]

31 minutes ago, Hawk King said:

21 defense wins and counting...

I just realized that Zelgius, Hardin, and the built-in DC dragon breath units won't be running the redundant DC for scoring in the arena anymore. They can run the much more dangerous Death Blow 4.

How you count them? my screen like filled up and the one defense win with the bonus unit was pushed out of the list allready.

[mampfoid]

19 minutes ago, LordFrigid said:

First off, congrats on getting Cordelia to +10!

Thanks! I'll post her in the compendium tomorrow, already in the Micaiah/Sothe clear she had her final merge. :-)

I was too impatient and immediately merged my backup GF fodder when I pulled the 11th copy on the BHB banner with my free pull. 

23 minutes ago, LordFrigid said:

The past couple weeks, though, I’ve been running teams focused on feeding the bonus unit KOs (replacing QR with Renewal on Myrrh so she can chip blues, for instance). Well, I say feeding, but for this rotation, I’ve been using Arvis, who’s actually pretty darn good.

Getting the bonus unit KOs is probably the easiest score boost you’re going to find, at this point. You don’t need to get the full +60, or anything; I don’t think your core is well-suited to that anyway (Cherche can Def-tank, and can probably take a round with a Lance even with that Brave Axe set. Marth’s heal support is nice. However, Cordelia’s not much of a chipper and you probably see a fair amount of ranged units in that score range).

Yeah, I think I got L!Lucina ~2 kills per map, I'll miss her next season. Celica will get her kills too, if it doesn't work I could go Firesweep with her. 

Cordelia could run FS (or windsweep) as well, with Drag Back and Savage blow/ to chip those armors. It would lower her SP value though. 

Cherche on the other hand ... remains emergency kill switch. 

29 minutes ago, LordFrigid said:

Besides that, the only thing you can really do is make some minor skill point optimizations, but you probably already know about those. I wonder if you could get away with a Dual Rally or two, since you’re running Galeforcers.

I'll try double Rallies, but it's sad that my guys are already at the end of their score potential without ever having reached tier 21 (or even stayed in tier 20). 

I won't start a merged armor team. Until I would have finished that team, score inflation would keep me out anyway. 

Thanks for your help!