Arena Discussion Thread (inc. Assault)

[Zeo]

36 minutes ago, mampfoid said:

90 minutes before closing time I was 270 ranks away from the cutoff to promote to tier 21. Hope you did it as well, @Zeo. You should have defined the exact border like I did 2 weeks ago?

Just about, yeah. I ended up doing another run but couldn't get the 20th bonus kill so I only managed to get 3715, one additional point above my previous score. It may have been key though, I was around 150 ranks before the drop from ascension.

I got another crown. I needed that 5th orb too. That combined with the VG and monthly orbs will be exactly enough for one more pull on the legendary banner.

[mampfoid]

@Zeo Congrats and good luck pulling legendary stuff then!

Next season should be easier for me, Tiki will boost my score and will make killing easier. Also having two earth blessed units in my core. 

[Zeo]

@mampfoid From the looks of it, that may be a tough week for me. We'll see what happens though.

[Diovani Bressan]

I got a pretty good score this week: 3.728, which is 20 more than last week. I don't think it will make me reach Tier 21, but I believe I will keep my place in Tier 20.

I managed to make Fjorm defeat all enemies in all 5 rounds. I was afraid of units like Myrrh, Brave Ephraim and Legendary Tiki, but they were not problem at all. The last battle scared me, with a Pain+Double Savage Blow Lucius and a Triangle Adept NY Azura. I won thank's to the power of Marth's refined Falchion + double drive Atk for my offensive, and Close Guard + both Drive Res and Def for my defenses. Also, Marth's Reciprocal Aid saved me a lot!

My Team:

1. Marth (+Atk /-Res, +10, Water): Falchion (Skill), Reciprocal Aid, Aether, Steady Breath, Wrath 3, Drive Atk 2, Drive Spd 2;
2. Nowi (+Def / -HP, +5, Water): Lighting Breath+ (Res), Rally Spd/Res, Aether, Steady Breath, Quick Riposte 3, Drive Res 2, Drive Def 2;
3. Soren (+Spd / -Def, +6, Water): Wind's Brand (Skill), Rally Spd/Res, Aether, Distant Def 3, Chill Res 3, Close Guard 3, Drive Atk 2;
4. Fjorm (neutral, +1): Leiptr, Rally Spd/Def, Aether, Warding Breath, Quick RIposte, Drive Atk 2, Close Def 3.

Next week we will have Legendary Tiki as a bonus unit... this will be fun.

[Azuni]

L!Tiki shouldn't be next week, because if you look at the schedule, the next new heroes (Seasonal Special Heroes) show up on October 10th, which is one day after the next season begins. Therefore there's a high probability of having a third bonus week for the Muspell Generals and Fjorm.

[Diovani Bressan]

16 minutes ago, Azuni said:

L!Tiki shouldn't be next week, because if you look at the schedule, the next new heroes (Seasonal Special Heroes) show up on October 10th, which is one day after the next season begins. Therefore there's a high probability of having a third bonus week for the Muspell Generals and Fjorm.

That's true! I didn't notice the next Arena Season starts before the next banner.

Edited October 2, 2018 by Diovani Bressan

[mampfoid]

44 minutes ago, Azuni said:

Therefore there's a high probability of having a third bonus week for the Muspell Generals and Fjorm.

Uff, I was looking forward to use my brand new Tiki. Seems indeed like another promotion week with Fjorm for me ... at least this week is "free". 

[Chrom-ulent]

Testing out a new Assault lead team to get higher-scoring matches. Got caught off guard by some bullshit special on the final match. His username was maya, Soleil/Effie/Fjorm/Nephenee. Fjorm had some damage-dealing special and one-shotted my W!Robin.

Still scoring similarly to a deathless with the old team.

[Hawk King]

LOL, I ran into a team worth 748 and they had no weapons equipped. It was extremely annoying to kill them since they just used rallys and moved around on defense tiles.

Edited October 3, 2018 by Hawk King

[Icelerate]

Can anyone explain to me why armours score higher just because of higher BST? I thought the purpose of higher BST was to compensate for lack of movement in order to equalize armours with the more mobile classes. Not to make them overall better units that deserve a higher score. 

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

I'd wager it's somewhat incidental. They had to pick something that would eventually power creep hard to keep the whales throwing money at them for that latest, shiniest super +10—they just happened to settle on armours.

[Ice Dragon]

2 hours ago, Icelerate said:

Can anyone explain to me why armours score higher just because of higher BST? I thought the purpose of higher BST was to compensate for lack of movement in order to equalize armours with the more mobile classes. Not to make them overall better units that deserve a higher score. 

The original matchmaking criteria for the Arena was just based on the total sum of all stats without buffs. This included the stats given by weapons (so exclusive melee weapons added +16 to your stat total), the stats given by skills (so Fury 3 added +12 to your stat total), the stats given by merges (each merge added +2 to your stat total), etc.

This was obviously a terrible idea, so they changed it with their first Arena rework, but they left a bit of the total stats piece still in place. I believe the basic idea (that was terribly implemented in the original formula) was that stronger units should be matched against stronger units, and all of the factors that are currently considered still contribute in some way to being considered "strong" (though the exact relationship is obviously not 100% perfect).

I believe the steady increase in stat total is largely coincidental. What people see as "Arena stat total creep" with the Gen 2 stat boosts I see largely as a need to rebalance different classes against each other. Essentially, the difference in stats between classes among Gen 1 units was simply not enough to balance against the difference in movement range and combat initiation range, and the Gen 2 boosts were in part to address that. Obviously, the only way to do this was to apply increases to stat totals and not decreases or even a mix of increases and decreases (decreasing the stats of future units leaves the power of existing units intact, which doesn't lower the power of that class, just the power of the new units), and that's where we're at now.

As for Tiki herself, a stat total in the 180 bin was largely inevitable. The 180 bin is the theoretical highest bin possible with the current stat distribution system, and it was only a matter of time before someone had that mix of class modifiers (and it was almost certainly going to be Tiki). Obviously, they didn't want to implement her sooner (even though they could have) so that there would be time for players to actually want to pull for the in-betweens, like Winter Robin and Hardin, and that's pretty much the only reason we saw a steady increase over many months instead of an early, sharp spike for Tiki.

[Icelerate]

On 03/10/2018 at 1:50 PM, Ice Dragon said:

The original matchmaking criteria for the Arena was just based on the total sum of all stats without buffs. This included the stats given by weapons (so exclusive melee weapons added +16 to your stat total), the stats given by skills (so Fury 3 added +12 to your stat total), the stats given by merges (each merge added +2 to your stat total), etc.

This was obviously a terrible idea, so they changed it with their first Arena rework, but they left a bit of the total stats piece still in place. I believe the basic idea (that was terribly implemented in the original formula) was that stronger units should be matched against stronger units, and all of the factors that are currently considered still contribute in some way to being considered "strong" (though the exact relationship is obviously not 100% perfect).

I believe the steady increase in stat total is largely coincidental. What people see as "Arena stat total creep" with the Gen 2 stat boosts I see largely as a need to rebalance different classes against each other. Essentially, the difference in stats between classes among Gen 1 units was simply not enough to balance against the difference in movement range and combat initiation range, and the Gen 2 boosts were in part to address that. Obviously, the only way to do this was to apply increases to stat totals and not decreases or even a mix of increases and decreases (decreasing the stats of future units leaves the power of existing units intact, which doesn't lower the power of that class, just the power of the new units), and that's where we're at now.

As for Tiki herself, a stat total in the 180 bin was largely inevitable. The 180 bin is the theoretical highest bin possible with the current stat distribution system, and it was only a matter of time before someone had that mix of class modifiers (and it was almost certainly going to be Tiki). Obviously, they didn't want to implement her sooner (even though they could have) so that there would be time for players to actually want to pull for the in-betweens, like Winter Robin and Hardin, and that's pretty much the only reason we saw a steady increase over many months instead of an early, sharp spike for Tiki.

Thanks for your response. I agree that just stats wasn't the answer or else fury gets overrated because its drawback isn't accounted for and the old system ignored situational stat increases such as swift sparrow on player phase. 

However, I find it silly that a DC weapon user is considered more powerful with a wasted DC A skill than any other skill which would be more useful. Also, these new arena skills are pretty silly because it implies that +5 HP wielding unit is way more powerful than a unit wielding a more useful skill. I think higher score should imply more threatening opponents, not an arbitrary increase in BST just because. 

Anyhow, I'm now ranked 9652/11964 in tier 19. Hopefully this is enough to advance into tier 20 for the first time. Score was 3624. 

[Ice Dragon]

5 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

However, I find it silly that a DC weapon user is considered more powerful with a wasted DC A skill than any other skill which would be more useful.

The problem isn't Distant Counter. A mere 60 SP of difference between Distant Counter and the next-highest-SP-cost skills isn't actually a big deal.

The problem is Aether and Galeforce, which have a 200-SP difference between them and the next-highest tier. A logarithmic scale would work far better than a linear one, but that would still end up with similar issues involving rounding where some skills make a rounding cutoff and others don't. It won't be as huge of a difference between, say Aether and Blazing Wind, but it's still just as arbitrary.

 

9 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

Also, these new arena skills are pretty silly because it implies that +5 HP wielding unit is way more powerful than a unit wielding a more useful skill.

Just think of the Duel skills as +Charisma for your units to pay off the Arena guards into letting you have higher-point matches.

 

10 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

I think higher score should imply more threatening opponents, not an arbitrary increase in BST just because.

The problem is again, measuring "threateningness", which is not only arbitrary, but also very dependent on the team you are using and your play style.

For example, player-phase teams have significantly more difficulty dealing with ranged cavalry than enemy-phase teams that can bait them one at a time, but enemy-phase teams have more difficulty with ranged cavalry on the parallel walls map where it is difficult to make enemy threat ranges not overlap.

[Ice Dragon]

18 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

However, I find it silly that a DC weapon user is considered more powerful with a wasted DC A skill than any other skill which would be more useful.

The problem isn't Distant Counter. A mere 60 SP of difference between Distant Counter and the next-highest-SP-cost skills isn't actually a big deal.

The problem is Aether and Galeforce, which have a 200-SP difference between them and the next-highest tier. A logarithmic scale would work far better than a linear one, but that would still end up with similar issues involving rounding where some skills make a rounding cutoff and others don't. It won't be as huge of a difference between, say Aether and Blazing Wind, but it's still just as arbitrary.

 

18 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

Also, these new arena skills are pretty silly because it implies that +5 HP wielding unit is way more powerful than a unit wielding a more useful skill.

Just think of the Duel skills as +Charisma for your units to pay off the Arena guards into letting you have higher-point matches.

 

18 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

I think higher score should imply more threatening opponents, not an arbitrary increase in BST just because.

The problem is, again, measuring "threateningness", which is not only arbitrary, but also very dependent on the team you are using and your play style and the map selection.

For example, player-phase teams have significantly more difficulty dealing with ranged cavalry than enemy-phase teams that can bait them one at a time, but enemy-phase teams have more difficulty with ranged cavalry on the parallel walls map where it is difficult to make enemy threat ranges not overlap.

Edited October 6, 2018 by Ice Dragon

[Johann]

Did an Arena run earlier this week for 3786, which has since been pushed out of range to stay in T21. Redid it with fishing for 748 scores and pulled off a total score of 3800, which should be safe... probably

[Vaximillian]

The worst thing is that I don’t have any defence wins this week, even though I’ve had 3+ for the last three or four weeks straight.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

17 hours ago, Johann said:

Did an Arena run earlier this week for 3786, which has since been pushed out of range to stay in T21. Redid it with fishing for 748 scores and pulled off a total score of 3800, which should be safe... probably

Wow, that's crazy. I'm at 3795 and in no serious danger of falling out, so somewhere in that 9-point difference is a massive breakpoint.

Speaking of which, I guess I'll do this now since I'll be out later and liable to forget to record things.

• T21 score of 3795 - #1130 (/1581)
• AA score of 5276 - #646

Well, there's no way this is sustainable, due to the fact that I could only even achieve scores this high due to water season and bonus Fjorm +7 aligning for me, but at least I have one week where I very likely get to stay in T21 and the top 1000 of AA. The effect of having a high-merge legendary with their element active is seriously bonkers.

[daisy jane]

I'm officially going to drop.
Hopefully i can figure out how to get back to 18 from level 17. 

[Diovani Bressan]

With two hours left for closing this arena season... and with a score of 3.728... I can reach Tier 21! Right now I am in rank 3.234, and Tier 21 is between 1 ~ 3.663. I am ready for my first crown!

[wizzard of soz]

haha i'm right behind you with a score of 3,727. this will be my first time too. 

i'm still having trouble getting all kills with Fjorm (pesky Faes or Hectors), but i finally have accrued enough merging on my mainstay to bridge the gap. i need more buffs for her and i think i need to replace Ice Mirror and Shield Pulse with something damage-y since i almost never get matched with ranged units.

[Johann]

3 hours ago, daisy jane said:

I'm officially going to drop.
Hopefully i can figure out how to get back to 18 from level 17. 

Who are you using for units? There are ways to improve your score, though it usually involves using skill inheritance and/or merges

[daisy jane]

1 minute ago, Johann said:

Who are you using for units? There are ways to improve your score, though it usually involves using skill inheritance and/or merges

I usually use Ishtar (+1), Hosh!Micaiah, Lewyn, and the person who needs the bonus hits. 

[Johann]

1 minute ago, daisy jane said:

I usually use Ishtar (+1), Hosh!Micaiah, Lewyn, and the person who needs the bonus hits. 

Hmm... I imagine those are some of your strongest units, cuz well, they're really great units. They are going to score lower than most units though for a few reasons, primarily being that they're ranged units (giving them lower base stats) and they won't easily increase in merges.

If you want, I can help you out with putting together a team based on what else you have, or look at the skills and things you have on those units and see how we can boost their score.

[daisy jane]

2 minutes ago, Johann said:

Hmm... I imagine those are some of your strongest units, cuz well, they're really great units. They are going to score lower than most units though for a few reasons, primarily being that they're ranged units (giving them lower base stats) and they won't easily increase in merges.

If you want, I can help you out with putting together a team based on what else you have, or look at the skills and things you have on those units and see how we can boost their score.

Oh thanks! i'd totally like that. i'm on my way for thanksgiving dinner, would you just want me to pm you my units etc when i get back?