Arena Discussion Thread (inc. Assault)

Ledrert · December 23, 2017

Got a pretty nice score of 4878 with my Armored Winter Team.

Spoiler

(Feu de joie = Bonfire ; Ignition = Ignis, all have Reposition (Pivot in french), Lissa and Robin have Slaying Weapons)

I began to fell in love with this team. It was certainly easy, even if I didn't encounter any Horse Emblem (too bad, I wanted to try...), I encounter some Armor Emblem (generally with Fjorm) and particulary interesting Flier Emblem, which I'll call... The White Wings !

This team was with a Minerva merged +5 and Palla, Catria and Est all 4* +10.

Spoiler

(Forgot to screen Catria, but she had a Firesweep Lance+ refined with Moonbow, Drag Back...forgot the rest)

I'm actually in range for the 20th rank with that ! Maybe I'll try again after giving Ignis to Chrom... if I got out of this range.

Thor Odinson · December 23, 2017

Nice of them to make Minerva bonus these 2 seasons, so I get to use my +3 Minerva for a hefty score boost and she's an awesome unit too.

5034 arena score with Ryoma +1, Rein +8, Hector +3, and Minerva +3. I wonder if they'll make Ryo or Hector bonus sometime...

Rafiel's Aria · December 24, 2017

Oh man. Thank goodness. I was beginning to worry that I might not get a defense win this week. All horses weren’t cutting it, so I decided to just use Anna, Rein, Inigo, and Leon. Managed to get a win at last. Phew.

Now I can put my boys back in.

mcsilas · December 24, 2017

36 minutes ago, Rafiel's Aria said:

Oh man. Thank goodness. I was beginning to worry that I might not get a defense win this week. All horses weren’t cutting it, so I decided to just use Anna, Rein, Inigo, and Leon. Managed to get a win at last. Phew.

Now I can put my boys back in.

Wow, defense wins are getting rarer these days :/

All fliers, all cavs, dancers, my usual armour team- all didn't work

finally managed to get one with Guidance Minerva, BK and Rein/Lyn. I had none last week so at least this one is welcome.

Meanwhile my main account is a bit more successful with Guidance Minerva, Ike, BK and Halloween Henry. I suspect Threaten Speed on both Ike and Minerva make them quite bulkier than expected.

Rafiel's Aria · December 24, 2017

23 minutes ago, mcsilas said:

Wow, defense wins are getting rarer these days :/

All fliers, all cavs, dancers, my usual armour team- all didn't work

finally managed to get one with Guidance Minerva, BK and Rein/Lyn. I had none last week so at least this one is welcome.

Meanwhile my main account is a bit more successful with Guidance Minerva, Ike, BK and Halloween Henry. I suspect Threaten Speed on both Ike and Minerva make them quite bulkier than expected.

I haven’t had too much trouble getting wins, but this week has been more difficult. I think the only reason I got one was because of Close Counter, QR Leon. XD

Marcodian_Elite · December 24, 2017

So I managed to get W!Chrom, decided to level him and throw him into my main team (as they have the most SI) so my team had W!Chrom/Tharja/Azura/Klein - got 7 wins (cant remember if I did it deathless or if I picked up a death at the start, just dont remember) managed to get a score of 4800 - I think that's the highest I'l get, not enough for me to go from 19-20 aww well

Poimagic · December 24, 2017

I decided to do a few things to change my arena score. First, put the deflect seals on C!Robin, S!Camilla, and Fjrom, give Camilla drive speed, give Black Knight Wings of Mercy, and give Fjorm Atk/Def bond.

Usana · December 25, 2017

I never really have trouble getting the defense wins. Amelia + WoM Black Knight + WoM Hector + Bonus unit(Minerva right now) tends to net me at least one per week. I think Minerva had the guidance seal for a while before I started leveling some fliers over the weekend(finally started building my Nowitch and Bunnilla). Basically my experience tells me folks lose often to teleporting surprise.

Edited December 25, 2017 by Usana

LordFrigid · December 26, 2017

Offense score of 5092 (T20) remains in T20, combining with a Def score of 612 for max rewards.

Teams faced (streak):

Spoiler

Teams faced (other):

Spoiler

I went ahead and jumped straight to Flier Emblem, using Minerva as my bonus unit (sorry Nino team). After this set of Arena rewards, I gathered enough Divine Dew for Ephraim's Siegmund upgrade! I'll probably pencil in Minerva's Hauteclere for the next one, unless they decide to add a good Parthia or Brynhildr refinement option while I'm building my Divine Dew stock.

Poimagic · December 26, 2017

Moved from tier 18 to 19. Soon, I'll have enough feathers to promote. The feathers will be spent of Black Knight to get him an extra merge. The best part is that I'll be sending home a unit I despise to get enough feathers to get 20k. A perfect natured Nino. Sayonara Nino!

Alexmender · December 26, 2017

Back to tier 20! That's all good but this week was rough, I only got 3 defense wins this week, I guess the map rotation didn't help my team at all.

On AA I got kicked out of the top 5k again, I'll need to merge BK to see if that increases my score or something because I prefer getting 32 coins/refining stones to 29.

Humanoid · December 26, 2017

Tried to optimise a bit for AA and 4902 was good for rank 8407. I'm normally in the 9000-11000 range which means I fall out of the top 10000 half the time, but I guess I could secure my spot every week if I put as much effort into it as I did this week. Hard work though, for something I don't enjoy doing at all.

4888 was back in T20 safely (4*+10 Cecilia, unmerged Camus, Bowlyn, WChrom). Just the single defense win too, but it does mean I got the maximum reward my team is capable of this week.

Edited December 26, 2017 by Humanoid

DLNarshen · December 26, 2017

Season 47 (1.3.0 S32) Results:

Score: 4,976
Defense: 596
Rank: Tier 20 --> 19

Not feasible to stay in tier 20 without Fjorm for me, so back down I go...

Arena Assault:

Rank: 3,310

So close, yet so far to the 3K cut-off. A couple more merges and Galeforce on Hinoka might be enough to do it, but right now I want to work on other projects.

Hall of Fame:

Spoiler

I was confused when I saw her double my buffed Narcian on initiation, thinking she had some weird skill, but no. 50 speed on Corrin is bonkers.

I'm probably not going to bother with the Hall of Fame section in future updates. Everything kind of blends in now, especially if I have any desire to run a team outside of my usual core, and it's taking up extra space on my computer.

Previous Season Results:

Spoiler

Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi · December 26, 2017

Oops, forgot to log in to document things, though here's what score info I have:

Tier 20 score of 5044 (Nino +8 with Aether and Atk Ploy 3 Seal; Nowi +10 with DD3 Seal; Adult Tiki +5 with Hone Spd 3 Seal; Xmas Robin with Panic Ploy 3 Seal) - #1566 as of before bed last night, so probably something like #1800-1900
Arena Assault score of 5074 (from memory here, so I may be off by a few points — Nino +8 with Aether and Atk Ploy 3 Seal; Nowi +10 with DD3 Seal; Adult Tiki +5 with Hone Spd 3 Seal; Fjorm with Panic Ploy 3 Seal) - #1608

Not a lot to say other than that it feels really weird to be using a BST-inflated armour as my bonus, yet still score 30 points lower than my AA team that's using an infantry as its fourth. Of course, Fjorm is super point optimized, so it only makes sense, but still.

I guess a funny note is I ran against a team with Kagero as its fourth and I was kind of formulating how I'd bait her out while documenting her allies' skills. Then I came to her and realized she was completely naked except for an Atk +3 Seal. I guess they could have been trying to tank their worth to face weaker opponents, but I feel like there's much better options than sending in a naked 4*+7.

Hilda · December 26, 2017

New highscore for AA 5210

As for Arena i had 1 death, but thats i think still enough to remain in Tier 20 with points of 5000ish-something

Most disgusting units faced:

Regnal Astra ready at the start of the battle lulz. My Sword breaker Sigurd coulnd take her out with her Special ready and would die. There was no option for Sigurd to attack or get attacked by her at all with this built, even with Sword Breaker. Windsweep would negate all forms of countering with Sword Breaker and recharge her special. So i need the streangth and specials of 2 units to take her out. A special charged Clair would bait her Regnal Astra attack and then i would finish her off in the player phase... Really really really disgusting built.

Encountered a same built but with Wrath instead of Windsweep. This was easier to manage, because you actually can counter attack.

Also Hector with Bold Fighter 3 and Aether transformed him from piss easy bait for my B!Ike to "The fuck let Sigurd handle this".

I have an easier time faceing as many Reinhardts and BLyns as you want, but i rather not face Ayras again with such builts!!!

Edited February 10, 2019 by Hilda

Javi Blizz · December 26, 2017

Which is the cut for moving to tier 20? I've never been there yet, so IDK. I've just done 4778 points with Palla/Subaki/Michalis/Berkut (don't have Minerva built) with only 1 death in the last map (c'mon Nowi, why did you have to kill Michalis?) and I want to know if it'd be worthy to try again for a deadless run or just keep this and drop to tier 18 again. I've been the last month or so moving between tier 19-18-19

mampfoid · December 26, 2017

@MrSmokestack Sent you a defense win, my streak started bad anyway. My friend list was full, couldn't send a request.

Spoiler

Humanoid · December 26, 2017

2 hours ago, Javi Blizz said:

Which is the cut for moving to tier 20? I've never been there yet, so IDK. I've just done 4778 points with Palla/Subaki/Michalis/Berkut (don't have Minerva built) with only 1 death in the last map (c'mon Nowi, why did you have to kill Michalis?) and I want to know if it'd be worthy to try again for a deadless run or just keep this and drop to tier 18 again. I've been the last month or so moving between tier 19-18-19

Mid 4800s, in past months I've been doing okay with about 4840 but had to step it up a bit recently. It was 4870-4880ish during Fjorm Fortnight, should have been a little lower this week, but not by much given the high BST seasonal units.

DehNutCase · December 26, 2017

3 hours ago, Hilda said:

New highscore for AA 5210

As for Arena i had 1 death, but thats i think still enough to remain in Tier 20 with points of 5000ish-something

Most disgusting units faced:

Regnal Astra ready at the start of the battle lulz. My Sword breaker Sigurd coulnd take her out with her Special ready and would die. There was no option for Sigurd to attack or get attacked by her at all with this built, even with Sword Breaker. Windsweep would negate all forms of countering with Sword Breaker and recharge her special. So i need the streangth and specials of 2 units to take her out. A special charged Clair would bait her Regnal Astra attack and then i would finish her off in the player phase... Really really really disgusting built.

Encountered a same built but with Wrath instead of Windsweep. This was easier to manage, because you actually can counter attack.

Also Hector with Bold Fighter 3 and Aether transformed him from piss easy bait for my B!Ike to "The fuck let Sigurd handle this".

I have an easier time faceing as many Reinhardts and BLyns as you want, but i rather not face Ayras again with such builts!!!

I mean, CC Reinhart OHKOs that on the counter. And on offense. 69 (51 + .4 * 47) damage is barely cutting it even versus Reinhardt's base 65 ehp at +0, no buffs, much less after triangle disadvantage. (How does Sigurd die to her, by the way? 51 + 47*.4 = 69, and Sigurd has 41 + 34 = 75 ehp. She needs +4/+3 buffs or better to OHKO, and that's versus +0, buffless Sigurd.)

Hell, even Leo can handle that, because 32 + 13 + 30 = 75 damage, and 50 + 22 = 72 hp for Ayra. If enemy buffs are the problem, then you just send Leo/Rein to nuke the dudes buffing Ayra on player phase---or just nuke Ayra straight out, if the buffers are less dangerous on enemy phase than Ayra herself.

The problem with builds like this is that teams with great mobility and okay matchups destroy teams with great matchups but only mediocre mobility. The team with better mobility will always dictate which engagements happen, so, unless your matchups are so ridiculously good that all your units units beat all of theirs, the more mobile team would just give you all your losing matchups while running away from your winning matchups.

The fact that Reinhardt has the best matchup spread in the game is also a problem, but even if we removed -blade tomes the mobility advantage is still there---just more fragile, balanced, because he doesn't get to have his cake (best offenses in the game, thanks to best mobility and acceptable offensive matchup spread) and eat it too (the best defensive matchup spread).

It's basically a starcraft thing:

More mobile units have to be weaker than less mobile units.

If a immobile unit is weaker than a more mobile unit, the immobile unit will never be built---because it's fucking terrible.

If a weak unit isn't more mobile than a stronger unit, then the weak unit will never be built---because it's fucking terrible.

Reinhardt's very existence means that you have to be better than, or at least orthogonal to him in terms of matchups, because otherwise you don't have a reason to exist. Range horse is the best mobility in the game, meaning anything less mobile must have better matchups to be worthwhile.

And -blade tomes are fucking hard to beat, offensively or defensively. (Dire Thunder is also hard to beat, being the second strongest brave weapon after Amiti, but at least brave weapons are only insane offensively, meaning counter kill sets have orthogonal matchups.)

[Note: Fortunately, only Dire Thunder Reinhardt is popular, and B!Lyn doesn't have the spread to run counter-kill sets. So it's almost like -blade Reinhardt and Leo don't exist, and thus don't need to be accounted for. You can't realize your unit is bad if everyone else is running units just as bad, after all.]

Rafiel's Aria · December 26, 2017

I met the strangest Effie in the Arena... She had Firesweep Lance and Galeforce. I wish I had looked at the rest of her build... She must have had Wary Fighter and Heavy Blade seal because I couldn’t double her. But I suppose there’s a chance she had Brazen ATK/SPD and that’s why she could double some of my characters without buffs. But dang. She attacked, killed, attacked again, and got danced to attack one more time because I got cornered. I swear she wiped out my team by herself because I got cornered. I don’t feel bad losing to that though since at least it’s a unique build!

I also gave a defense win to someone using Merric as their lead. Totally warmed my heart.

Got a score of 4944. Haven’t attempted AA yet. But I’m not looking forward to it. XD

Hilda · December 26, 2017

42 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

I mean, CC Reinhart OHKOs that on the counter. And on offense. 69 (51 + .4 * 47) damage is barely cutting it even versus Reinhardt's base 65 ehp at +0, no buffs, much less after triangle disadvantage. (How does Sigurd die to her, by the way? 51 + 47*.4 = 69, and Sigurd has 41 + 34 = 75 ehp. She needs +4/+3 buffs or better to OHKO, and that's versus +0, buffless Sigurd.)

Hell, even Leo can handle that, because 32 + 13 + 30 = 75 damage, and 50 + 22 = 72 hp for Ayra. If enemy buffs are the problem, then you just send Leo/Rein to nuke the dudes buffing Ayra on player phase---or just nuke Ayra straight out, if the buffers are less dangerous on enemy phase than Ayra herself.

The problem with builds like this is that teams with great mobility and okay matchups destroy teams with great matchups but only mediocre mobility. The team with better mobility will always dictate which engagements happen, so, unless your matchups are so ridiculously good that all your units units beat all of theirs, the more mobile team would just give you all your losing matchups while running away from your winning matchups.

The fact that Reinhardt has the best matchup spread in the game is also a problem, but even if we removed -blade tomes the mobility advantage is still there---just more fragile, balanced, because he doesn't get to have his cake (best offenses in the game, thanks to best mobility and acceptable offensive matchup spread) and eat it too (the best defensive matchup spread).

It's basically a starcraft thing:

More mobile units have to be weaker than less mobile units.

If a immobile unit is weaker than a more mobile unit, the immobile unit will never be built---because it's fucking terrible.

If a weak unit isn't more mobile than a stronger unit, then the weak unit will never be built---because it's fucking terrible.

Reinhardt's very existence means that you have to be better than, or at least orthogonal to him in terms of matchups, because otherwise you don't have a reason to exist. Range horse is the best mobility in the game, meaning anything less mobile must have better matchups to be worthwhile.

And -blade tomes are fucking hard to beat, offensively or defensively. (Dire Thunder is also hard to beat, being the second strongest brave weapon after Amiti, but at least brave weapons are only insane offensively, meaning counter kill sets have orthogonal matchups.)

[Note: Fortunately, only Dire Thunder Reinhardt is popular, and B!Lyn doesn't have the spread to run counter-kill sets. So it's almost like -blade Reinhardt and Leo don't exist, and thus don't need to be accounted for. You can't realize your unit is bad if everyone else is running units just as bad, after all.]

1. of all i dont run cavalry Team because it makes the game too easy (and their Arena score isnt the best even if +10 merged)
2. I also dont run Reinfart (see above)
3. this was on the map with the 2 seperate bridges. The Armors were constantly buffing Ayra with +Atk/Def and my Sigurd couldnt avoid Def Ploy from C!Tharja or Panic Ploy fro Effie daaaahhh.
4. I won the match deathless but it was a serious pita to deal with this Ayra
5. I have no Idea why you are bringing Reinhardt up, because i said i have no problems dealing with Reinfart. This Ayra was on a total different scale for my Team. Neither Sigurd who is designed to destroy Sword units nor Clair with color advantage could handle her alone because of the built she was running.
6. lets please not start again a wall-o-text debate about mobility. thanks!

Alexmender · December 26, 2017

For now I'm doing good in Arena. 3 matches without deaths and I already got my defense win of the week.

This is the off week so there's no problem if I get a few deaths as long as my score stays at 4001+. Arena Assault is a problem, I need to increase my score but the only unit I have to merge is BK and I'm not sure if +1 is enough to increase my score to stay in the top 5k.

DehNutCase · December 26, 2017

5 minutes ago, Hilda said:

1. of all i dont run cavalry Team because it makes the game too easy (and their Arena score isnt the best even if +10 merged)
2. I also dont run Reinfart (see above)
3. this was on the map with the 2 seperate bridges. The Armors were constantly buffing Ayra with +Atk/Def and my Sigurd couldnt avoid Def Ploy from C!Tharja or Panic Ploy fro Effie daaaahhh.
4. I won the match deathless but it was a serious pita to deal with this Ayra
5. I have no Idea why you are bringing Reinhardt up, because i said i have no problems dealing with Reinfart. This Ayra was on a total different scale for my Team. Neither Sigurd who is designed to destroy Sword units nor Clair with color advantage could handle her alone because of the built she was running.
6. lets please not start again a wall-o-text debate about mobility. thanks!

1,2, Why would difficult units to deal with be special if you're deliberately gimping your team?

Like, a team of 3 TA-3 reds and a weaponless bonus unit could consistently deathless---it's a harder challenge, and certain blues would be a nightmare---but blue units aren't 'special' just because they happened to be difficult for that team. (You can even run CA on one of those TA-3 reds just to satisfy the 'challenge rule' while 'optimizing' for the 'constraint.')

Horses giving less arena score is a real concern---mostly valid for the first team in Arena Assault than regular arena, however, since you can comfortably stay in T20 even with a horse heavy team. Past the point where arena score matters---rounds 2 to 7 in AA, sufficient to T20, literally only performance matters. (Or personal preference, but personal preference does not belong in a discussion of whether a certain unit is difficult to deal with. TA-3 Linde is difficult for Leo to deal with, but that doesn't mean it's a difficult unit-build to deal with.)

3, This was only a challenge because your team gimped itself. Positioning based debuffs is trivial with sufficient mobility. Like, anything that can shoot/fly across bridges? No problem being debuffed since they can just stand on the other bridge.

4, That's still a problem you made for yourself. -blade tomes, dazzling staves, firesweeps, Sacae's Blessing, ultra-high attack brave users. The game abounds with ways that trivialize low mobility counter-kill units.

But the problem with Ayra isn't that she's a low mobility counter-kill unit, it's that there are high mobility counter-kill units out there, with better matchups on both sides. (Leo, for example. Ayra wins in reliability, thanks to the fact that she doesn't need to be buffed, but, even as your example showed, she actually needed her support to be threatening. She did not have the stats to 1v1 Sigurd if her support units were taken out beforehand. Nor does she have the mobility to support her own supporters---trying to nuke a horse team's buffers is harder than trying to nuke an infantry or armor team's because horses cover each other better.)

In starcraft BW terms? She's the Battlecruiser in the TvP matchup. Slow, lumbering, and wrecked by just about anything the protoss player usually builds. Dragoons trade cost and supply effectively, high templar storms murder them (they can survive quite a few, but they'll eat tons since they can't fly away fast enough), Arbiters freeze all of them with a single stasis, Dark Archons have Mind Control---although DAs are very rare---etc. etc.

A slow, weak unit.

5, A particular unit not being challenging for a particular team is also not a reason to say it's easy. The triple TA-3 red team I mentioned? 0 problems with Cecilia, or Hector, or B!Ike but that doesn't mean Cecilia, Hector, and B!Ike are bad. (Which, mind, they are, just not because they lose to triple TA-3. Or rather, not only because they lose to triple TA-3).

A defense unit has to be rated on what it actually does, in terms of matchups, support utility, or taking space---that is, threatening ORKOs or cripples on units that stand where they want to stand.

The Ayra you fought has very good matchups, nearly jack all in terms of support utility---she has spur def/res and rally atk/spd---one of which is very heavily positioning dependent, the other one costs her action turn, and is about as good as an armor at taking space (that is, not at all).

Hector, for example, has okay to very good matchups, nearly jack all (but still better than Ayra, because he has the hp for panic ploy, and Type Buff access) in terms of support utility, and no ability to take space whatsoever.

Leo, for example, has very good matchups, decent support utility (on the level of Eirika, his buffs are stronger, but more limited, and his assist skills are better---since he has better positioning skills and better rallies, due to how far he can move to use those assist skills---but a tier worse than, say, Axe!Azura), and the maximum possible ability to take space. It's hard to see that Leo has this, because he has a very high support requirement---due to needing buffs to reach his peak, whereas Ayra is near her peak even without buff. The problem is that Ayra at her peak is still kind of a joke, whereas Leo at his peak sees 80% of the cast as ORKOs on both phases, with a Horse Mage's threat range.

Hawk King · December 26, 2017

2 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

Reinhardt

doesn't really exist in the +10 meta.

Ranged cavalry units don't get built---because they are fucking terrible for arena scoring.

@Hilda that Ayra build is really disgusting. Makes me glad that I run TA3 Nowi and a super defense Lukas.

Poimagic · December 26, 2017

Got a score of 4912. Hopefully I can stay in tier 20 with the score. Oh, and team used was Black Knight+1, Fjorm+1, S!Camilla, and C!Robin.

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