Arena Discussion Thread (inc. Assault)

[DarkAlf]

11 hours ago, Maaka said:

Welcome! I'm actually at 3794 right now and I'm at 1192/1499, so if you do decide to go for another run, 2 more points should be enough. 

 

10 hours ago, Diovani Bressan said:

Welcome, and good luck with the Fjorm+Slaying Spear combo this arena season.

Thank you all for the welcome!  I didn't have enough time to redo my run due to work, and it looked like my rank wasn't dropping quickly enough, so I decided to go on with my day and when I came home...

https://imgur.com/a/J0ysDk2

I HELD ON!  At last check before the end of the season, my score of 3792 was 1398/1514/5047, so I imagine the cutoff was probably around 3790 or so, maybe even 3792 itself.  That 748 made all the difference.  It feels great to hold on to T21 as a F2P (twice, actually; I held on last week with a 3796), even though I was lucky to have a Gwendolyn+10 already.  Oh I'll miss using her with those bloated bonus stats....  It'll be a looooong time before I can stay in T21 again unless I get more copies of Fjorm in the December legendary banner.

Since I'm going back to T20 after this coming week, there's no real immediate need to inherit Slaying Spear+ onto my Fjorm+2 (with Gwendolyn, A!Tiki and Fae, all water-blessed) yet.  This week will be a dry run to see how well she performs as she is before I decide whether to give her the new weapon when I demote.

AA: 5,204, rank 4,067 - I'm been holding steady at Top 5000 for the last couple of months. 

Do you think they should expand the ranges for the top rewards in AA like they did with Aether Raids, like top 3000 instead of top 1000 for max rewards, etc.?

[Hilda]

i forgot to do AA, well actually i didnt bother anymore when i remembered *shrug*

[Vaximillian]

Nice:

Not going to happen this week, though. Clair is only +8 :(

[Maaka]

Quote

I HELD ON!  At last check before the end of the season, my score of 3792 was 1398/1514/5047, so I imagine the cutoff was probably around 3790 or so, maybe even 3792 itself.  That 748 made all the difference.  It feels great to hold on to T21 as a F2P (twice, actually; I held on last week with a 3796), even though I was lucky to have a Gwendolyn+10 already.  Oh I'll miss using her with those bloated bonus stats....  It'll be a looooong time before I can stay in T21 again unless I get more copies of Fjorm in the December legendary banner.

Congrats! It's always nice to have the bonus unit already built for the season. Makes it much more enjoyable to play the arena for that season lol. Good luck summoning for more Fjorms! Will be super nice to have her at a high merge for water seasons.

6 hours ago, DarkAlf said:

Do you think they should expand the ranges for the top rewards in AA like they did with Aether Raids, like top 3000 instead of top 1000 for max rewards, etc.?

I would really like them to eventually, as it would give F2P players a bit more of a chance. We're already at the point where you need a full team of four +10 units around the 160 BST bin with maxed out SP to safely stay in top 1k. You almost need to have a 750 average score per battle and at least 20 blessing bonus points to get top 1k. Soon enough it will come down to having a legendary hero for the current season to boost your score up enough. In that case, you will need to have 3 separate teams of three +10 units and a +3 or so legendary hero to match the team blessing to stay in every week. It isn't like the rewards are crazy different, but that extra 5 sacred coins and refining stones add up very quickly. I would easily have over 100 more of each if I had been a bit more focused on maintaining the top ranks.

[Rinco]

Damn, this week's scores are going to be inflated as hell. Just did a 3718 run and that puts me almost at the cutoff to go up to Tier 21. That's a lot more than last time that I went up.

I don't know if I'll be able to even stay on T20 with this score, the way it is.

[mampfoid]

Hrid gave me a score of 3,734 (new non-Tiki highscore) which should be enough for tier 21 promotion once again. He got all kills without problem, thanks to those defensive tiles. 

Strangely I met zero Sutrs ... not sad about that though. 

[daisy jane]

Okay Team of Hrid, Fjorm, Surtr and TIki (tiki is to help inflate my score - i have zero shame in admitting this). 
all i have to say is Hrid is not doing himself any favours in staying alive. 
Myrrh is happy about this (eyeing that distant counter). 
 

UGH. 
i just did a no deathless run, 5th round i had to go against a Rheinhardt/Azura. :( 
so it looks like i'm gonna drop lol

Edited December 4, 2018 by daisy jane

[Javi Blizz]

Wow, Arena with bonus Surtr is stupidly easy. The other 3 members of my team did literally nothing but sit and watch surtr murdering 5 full teams in a row :O

[Astellius]

Ah, it's nice to have Laegjarn as a bonus hero again! She scores quite well with her Duel skill in the A-slot, and she's quite a powerful unit. Cherche and Est give her great buffs, and, on maps with defensive tiles, she becomes a nigh invincible physical fortress. I had no difficulty feeding her all of the kills for this run. Here's to hoping that I'll once more climb the ranks to T21 and grab another crown!

[Hilda]

6 hours ago, mampfoid said:

Hrid gave me a score of 3,734 (new non-Tiki highscore) which should be enough for tier 21 promotion once again. He got all kills without problem, thanks to those defensive tiles. 

Strangely I met zero Sutrs ... not sad about that though. 

This was the easiest Arena run so far for me. Team was Hrid, Fjorm Brave Ike and Azama.

Azama with Witchy Wand makes Hrid so much more sturdy, because the Guard debuff counts as debuff and lets him double, So he can tank both phases against Armorers because Vengefull/Bold Fighter dont proc anything due to Witchy Wand Guard debuff.

[DarkAlf]

14 hours ago, Maaka said:

Congrats! It's always nice to have the bonus unit already built for the season. Makes it much more enjoyable to play the arena for that season lol. Good luck summoning for more Fjorms! Will be super nice to have her at a high merge for water seasons.

Thank you!  It's certainly made the last three weeks much easier.  I currently have nearly 500 orbs ready for more Fjorms and L!Hectors (currently +0) at the end of the month!

There's way toooo many Surtrs, L!Tikis, H!Myrrhs, etc. running around for my liking.  Time to break out the Slaying Spear+!  Dare I inherit Aether and QR3 to go with double Atk/Def bond?

14 hours ago, Maaka said:

Soon enough it will come down to having a legendary hero for the current season to boost your score up enough. In that case, you will need to have 3 separate teams of three +10 units and a +3 or so legendary hero to match the team blessing to stay in every week. It isn't like the rewards are crazy different, but that extra 5 sacred coins and refining stones add up very quickly. I would easily have over 100 more of each if I had been a bit more focused on maintaining the top ranks.

I feel the same way - it feels like it'll take a moderately-highly merged legendary hero to compete soon in AA across Water/Earth/Fire seasons, and as a F2P it's nearly impossible to reach top 1000 unless you are very lucky and very resourceful/disciplined with your orb spending.  That's too constraining for my taste.  I think AA top 3000 is attainable for me if I can get another +10 to replace Nino, probably Draug, although I'm waiting for Red Infantry Duel to come out before I make that decision.  I have the feathers ready, but I'm hesitant to spend them unless I'm really compelled to, which I'm not right now.

Anyway, a top 3000 for maximum rewards in AA would be nice (*fingers crossed*), although I can't envision that happening anytime soon.

2 hours ago, Astellius said:

I had no difficulty feeding her all of the kills for this run. Here's to hoping that I'll once more climb the ranks to T21 and grab another crown!

What's your score?  Good luck!  I hope you make it!

[Astellius]

30 minutes ago, DarkAlf said:

What's your score?  Good luck!  I hope you make it!

Thanks! My score is 3,730 right now, we'll see how it goes. It should definitely be enough to stay in T20, but will it be enough for T21 this week? Perhaps. This score range has usually been enough, but it is water season with Fjorm as a bonus hero, so there's going to be a lot of score inflation this week. We'll see if it's enough!

[mampfoid]

6 hours ago, Hilda said:

This was the easiest Arena run so far for me. Team was Hrid, Fjorm Brave Ike and Azama.

Azama with Witchy Wand makes Hrid so much more sturdy, because the Guard debuff counts as debuff and lets him double, So he can tank both phases against Armorers because Vengefull/Bold Fighter dont proc anything due to Witchy Wand Guard debuff.

I can imagine that running a healer in general makes things easier. Witchy Wand sounds handy. 

Hrid is really great, wish mine wasn't -ATK. 

[Vaximillian]

15 hours ago, mampfoid said:

Strangely I met zero Sutrs ... not sad about that though. 

I met several Surtrs, and Laevatein makes quick work of them.

[mampfoid]

5 minutes ago, Vaximillian said:

I met several Surtrs, and Laevatein makes quick work of them.

Oh, I think also my Hrid wouldn't mind to slay some of the evil giants. But if people start merging Surtr because his banner is so good, I'd run into him also with a blue bonus unit sooner or later.

[Javi Blizz]

Wow, did another run and improved again my best highscore ever, 3743 :O

I wonder if it’ll be enough to get my first crown. If I miss it for a few ranks, I’m going to feel very very bad thanks to that H!Myrrh I had to kill with Martha

[mampfoid]

42 minutes ago, Javi Blizz said:

Wow, did another run and improved again my best highscore ever, 3743 :O

I wonder if it’ll be enough to get my first crown. If I miss it for a few ranks, I’m going to feel very very bad thanks to that H!Myrrh I had to kill with Martha

You should promote comfortably to tier 21. 

Great score, that's more than I ever got (max score 3,742 with L!Tiki and 2 Earth blessings). Two weeks ago I promoted with 3,724 and wasn't in real danger to fall below the threshold. 

[Javi Blizz]

11 minutes ago, mampfoid said:

You should promote comfortably to tier 21. 

Great score, that's more than I ever got (max score 3,742 with L!Tiki and 2 Earth blessings). Two weeks ago I promoted with 3,724 and wasn't in real danger to fall below the threshold. 

I don’t know yet how have I achieved such a high score

My main fears this week are, Surtr’s inflation and Water Season Fjorm Bonus Week inflation. Since I hasn’t used Fjorm, and my Surtr isn’t ideal, that’s why I was thinking that it could be not enough. 

[Diovani Bressan]

I got my defensive score, so I am happy. I will probably demoted, as always... Going up and down, up and down, like in a roller coaster.

[mampfoid]

1 hour ago, Javi Blizz said:

My main fears this week are, Surtr’s inflation and Water Season Fjorm Bonus Week inflation. Since I hasn’t used Fjorm, and my Surtr isn’t ideal, that’s why I was thinking that it could be not enough. 

Yeah, Fjorm + Water and Armor bonus units inflate the score. Anyway, in the last three months I promoted every second week with relatively low scores (3,721, 3,708, 3,716, 3,720, 3,742, 3,722, 3,724), no matter what season. 

In other news, I got a new AA personal high-score of 5,213!

Sutr was everywhere. 

[Usana]

I was running Hrid and I saw nothing but Nowi's, L!Tiki's, and Effies. Or and a Booklyn. Are people figuring that everyone is going to be running a Red bonus or something? That said the map that was the toughest for me was one with a +10 Azama. Due to positioning issues I couldn't get him easily ployed and even ployed he still survived a round with Hrid which charged Azama's Miracle which just made things more annoying. And Pain+ reminded me so much of why I hate armored boots. That made positioning issues significantly worse. To make things worse I keep forgetting Hrid has DC when I run into GIDuel Ninos.

Anyways my score this week is the lowest it has been for a couple months(I think?) 3692. I just couldn't get some bonus kills. And since this is my off week I didn't bother fishing. Looks like running Hrid and Clair drops me by a couple points per match. Not too surprising since Clair took Amelia's spot. I was hoping Clair would be equal thanks to her unique weapon, but apparently that isn't enough of a score boost to equal Amelia's higher stat bin.

I might do another serious run this week under the guise of completing those flag quests. I'll run Surtr and see how he affects my score. I really need to be able to climb back up next week and as fun as Hrid is I don't know if his team will manage.

[daisy jane]

i am doing better in 19. 
but i am still going to drop because i can't do deathless runs. (sigh)

[Johann]

9 hours ago, mampfoid said:

Oh, I think also my Hrid wouldn't mind to slay some of the evil giants. But if people start merging Surtr because his banner is so good, I'd run into him also with a blue bonus unit sooner or later.

Highest tier stuff all have Surtr on their teams, making it extremely hard to get Fjorm kills, especially if the map is crap

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

9 hours ago, mampfoid said:

Oh, I think also my Hrid wouldn't mind to slay some of the evil giants. But if people start merging Surtr because his banner is so good, I'd run into him also with a blue bonus unit sooner or later.

 

3 minutes ago, Johann said:

Highest tier stuff all have Surtr on their teams, making it extremely hard to get Fjorm kills, especially if the map is crap

I've been running into him at +10 with Fjorm +7 as my bonus unit. It's expensive, but I gave her a Slaying Spear +Def, which, coupled with the QR3 Seal and bonus stats, allows her to go toe-to-toe and win (assuming he's Armor Marching in, which is 95% of cases). It's a lot messier than Slaying Spear+ Gwendolyn versus Surtr, but still gets the job done (I have Renewal 3 on Fjorm to help sustain her through repeated combat, which Gwendolyn doesn't need thanks to a bit better bulk and Aether).

[daisy jane]

(sigh). 

and i got wiped out by Reinhardt, Veronica Ike and a Dancer.
pft this.