Arena Discussion Thread (inc. Assault)

[sdgj1994]

54 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

Define "score well". A fairly generic horse team can bounce between tiers 18 and 19 easily enough and that's all you need to claim the maximum four orbs. I might choose to drop down to doing that if current trends continue. We're getting more copies of Xander soon so that might help add some oomph (and points). My current team is just unmerged Camus and Bowlyn buffing a 4*+10 Cecilia and that scores 4860ish, not enough for T20 but plenty for anything below and is very easy to play.

Aside, it's kind of amazing how empty lower tier arena is. I did a run with my second account, no bonus units, scoring a ridiculously low 2300 points. It's still enough to get promoted.

Bouncing between Tier 18 and 19 is all I would be happy with. And horse emblem would be great as I have so many great 5* horse units like Xander, Reinhardt, B!Lyn, etc. I could even use Elise as she’s one of my faves and she's on a horse (she has an offensive Wrathful Gravity build btw)! The issue is using a bonus unit, though. Right now the bonus horse units are Mage Eirika, L’Arachel and Peri, and all I have is an unmerged, uninvested 4* Peri. Unless I field a non-horse bonus unit for the score? I have a well built Rebecca and Marth (the former has Brave Bow+), and a decent-ish 5* Anna.

[Humanoid]

3 minutes ago, sdgj1994 said:

Bouncing between Tier 18 and 19 is all I would be happy with. And horse emblem would be great as I have so many great 5* horse units like Xander, Reinhardt, B!Lyn, etc. I could even use Elise as she’s one of my faves and she's on a horse (she has an offensive Wrathful Gravity build btw)! The issue is using a bonus unit, though. Right now the bonus horse units are Mage Eirika, L’Arachel and Peri, and all I have is an unmerged, uninvested 4* Peri. Unless I field a non-horse bonus unit for the score? I have a well built Rebecca and Marth (the former has Brave Bow+), and a decent-ish 5* Anna.

Well yeah, I just tend to field the three horses named, plus whatever bonus unit I have. Usually all they do is help with movement assists, and that's good enough for me.

[sdgj1994]

7 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

Well yeah, I just tend to field the three horses named, plus whatever bonus unit I have. Usually all they do is help with movement assists, and that's good enough for me.

Nope, I still get destroyed. Just had a go now. I hate arena so much :(

[Humanoid]

5 minutes ago, sdgj1994 said:

Nope, I still get destroyed. Just had a go now. I hate arena so much :(

Yeah, I'm no fan of arena either, it's just a weekly chore to get out of the way. At least it can be done in smaller sessions unlike the even-worse AA.

The horses did take some investment (mainly the Cecilia who is my key unit) and it took some time for me to get comfortable with it, my tactics are fairly basic nuke-then-reposition-out. You'll likely want to set up both your ally and summoner supports around the team. It doesn't affect the point scoring at all but the extra stats do make it easier.

[GinRei]

2 hours ago, Javi Blizz said:

But, I don’t have a bonus unit in it and I’ve got a 500+ defense. May it be from a surrender? 

Pretty sure that shouldn't be possible.  What team did you use, and did you switch teams at any point this week (ie: did you perhaps have a defense team set with a bonus unit and get a win before you switched to the current one)?

9 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

Yeah, I'm no fan of arena either, it's just a weekly chore to get out of the way. At least it can be done in smaller sessions unlike the even-worse AA.

I have to wonder what you do in the game if you don't like Arena.  That's like... the only thing to actually do in the game outside of rolling in the gacha.

Edited February 5, 2018 by GinRei

[Humanoid]

4 minutes ago, GinRei said:

I have to wonder what you do in the game if you don't like Arena.  That's like... the only thing to actually do in the game outside of rolling in the gacha.

Well, you sort of answered the questions. I, like most people, enjoy getting good units, whether that's through summoning or other sources. But while arena might be the most challenging place to use those units, it's not the only one. I'm happy enough fielding them in TTs and GHBs, occasional special maps, etc. I'd just play Arena on Intermediate difficulty all the time if it weren't for the gulf in rewards. It might mean there are days where I don't play any maps at all, but y'know, I'm totally fine with that. The Civ6 expansion is right around the corner after all. So is Pillars of Eternity 2, Kingdom Come:Deliverance, the Stardew Valley multiplayer patch, and beyond all that I'm still playing a six-year old game in Euro Truck Simulator 2 at the moment.

More broadly, I don't generally play games for the challenge. I normally play them on the medium or default difficulty, because that's the level I enjoy. I could raise the difficulty, and with some effort be able to beat it, but that's not my jam. Don't get me wrong, I understand why people enjoy games like Dark Souls and the high they get from beating something like that, but it turns me right off. Even when I play strategy games like Civ and CK2 it's as much for the roleplaying aspect rather than any notion of "winning" a game. Hell, I only played Awakening because I was led to believe it was far more of an RPG than it actually turned out to be (which is to say, essentially not at all).

Every FE game I've played I've played only once, on normal difficulty, and I took my time over each. Ranked runs, LTCs and the like hold no meaning to me whatsoever. I have no intention of ever going back to them, because I've experienced their stories once and that's all I was there for. The very idea of needing to beat FE7 four times to see all the content seems utterly ludicrous to me, I was done with the game the moment my Eliwood Normal run ended.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

oooh, I think this is the first time I got one of those charity defense wins. I had to have given out over a hundred by now, so it's nice to see somebody else sharing the love.

[Raven]

This is the week I have broken the somewhat elusive 5,000 arena offense points barrier.

Feels doubly good since I've broken a personal record, and also because I don't have to put in any effort into arena for the next week or so.

[Alkaid]

Both happy and a bit disappointed with this arena week. Firstly, I got my highest score ever of 4996! A big boost over previous weeks thanks to Camilla being done (for now, out of merge fodder) and finally deciding to merge my extra Ayra. However, I'm sad to see it seems a bit too little too late, as tier 20 continues to outpace me. But at least my Camilla project came along quickly thanks to all the feathers this month and she's paid off greatly in both score and usefulness. Perhaps if feathers keep coming in hot like this I can get Hana merged enough by next month or so to finally stay in 20.

And speaking of Camilla:

She has continued to surprise me with just how nice she's been.

[Javi Blizz]

2 hours ago, GinRei said:

Pretty sure that shouldn't be possible.  What team did you use, and did you switch teams at any point this week (ie: did you perhaps have a defense team set with a bonus unit and get a win before you switched to the current one)?

 

I have set for defense BK/C!Robin/Hector/Fjorm, and I think none of them is a bonus unit this week, so idk. All the wins came after I set this team. Maybe it's been a bug or something

[mampfoid]

70 minutes until Arena closes and I'm 4984th in AA, I guess I'll need to break 5k next season. 

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

This week's scores:

• Tier 20 score of 5094 (Nino +10 with Aether, Atk Ploy 3 Seal; Nowi +10 with LB+Def, Aether, DD3 Seal; Adult Tiki with LB+Res, Aether, Hone Spd 3 Seal; Anna with Def Ploy 3 Seal) - #1637 (/5423 to stay)
• Arena Assaul score of 5174 (Nino +10 with Aether, Atk Ploy 3 Seal; Nowi +10 with LB+Def, Aether, DD3 Seal; Adult Tiki +8 with LB+Res, Aether, Hone Spd 3 Seal; Draug +7 with Wo Dao+Def, Rally Def/Res, Blazing Wind, Panic Ploy 3 Seal) - #1158

So close, yet so far on AA. I'm out of Tikis again, so I guess I'll bump Draug a bit and see what happens next week. Had L'Arachel, but I didn't use her for offense, due to the lower scoring. I still stuck her on my defense team to see what would happen and she got one more win on her half of the week than Anna. I'll probably just leave her on defense all of next week unless she fails to get anything at all in the first 3-4 days.

Getting into the serious whale territory is interesting. I find half of my Rein and Brave Lyn counters just sitting around now, with stuff like Axebreaker Tobin and Roy seeing more common deployment. My Emerald Axe Lancebreakers are seeing a lot more use, as well, and I've actually gone ahead and built a budget merged 4* Armorslayer Hana because I'm fighting more and more armours with crazy bulk. Oh, and for similar reasons, Windsweep Troll Alm, which I made half as a joke, is seeing use, alongside Brave Lyn's massive abuse of Sacae's Blessing.

[Hilda]

8 minutes ago, Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi said:

This week's scores:

• Tier 20 score of 5094 (Nino +10 with Aether, Atk Ploy 3 Seal; Nowi +10 with LB+Def, Aether, DD3 Seal; Adult Tiki with LB+Res, Aether, Hone Spd 3 Seal; Anna with Def Ploy 3 Seal) - #1637 (/5423 to stay)
• Arena Assaul score of 5174 (Nino +10 with Aether, Atk Ploy 3 Seal; Nowi +10 with LB+Def, Aether, DD3 Seal; Adult Tiki +8 with LB+Res, Aether, Hone Spd 3 Seal; Draug +7 with Wo Dao+Def, Rally Def/Res, Blazing Wind, Panic Ploy 3 Seal) - #1158

So close, yet so far on AA. I'm out of Tikis again, so I guess I'll bump Draug a bit and see what happens next week. Had L'Arachel, but I didn't use her for offense, due to the lower scoring. I still stuck her on my defense team to see what would happen and she got one more win on her half of the week than Anna. I'll probably just leave her on defense all of next week unless she fails to get anything at all in the first 3-4 days.

Getting into the serious whale territory is interesting. I find half of my Rein and Brave Lyn counters just sitting around now, with stuff like Axebreaker Tobin and Roy seeing more common deployment. My Emerald Axe Lancebreakers are seeing a lot more use, as well, and I've actually gone ahead and built a budget merged 4* Armorslayer Hana because I'm fighting more and more armours with crazy bulk. Oh, and for similar reasons, Windsweep Troll Alm, which I made half as a joke, is seeing use, alongside Brave Lyn's massive abuse of Sacae's Blessing.

yeah unless your mages can hit like a truck with desperation, mages become utterly um.... less relevant in whale land due to Distant Counter abolishing them. Its all about haveing the melees to take on the waves of armored units being thrown at you, with the occasionaly Dragon loli or Ayra in the mix between

[Alexmender]

I feel something is wrong with the Arena defense records. I put a weaponless Valter to help people and got 2 pity defense wins from it (score 143 and 172), everything normal right? Right now the top defense win I got looks like this:

 

Where the hell did that 588 defense came from? I haven't changed the Valter so it makes no sense that I could've gotten that score. Does the system still have my other defense team up? Is it a bug?

Edited June 9, 2018 by Alexmender

[Ice Dragon]

15 minutes ago, Hilda said:

yeah unless your mages can hit like a truck with desperation, mages become utterly um.... less relevant in whale land due to Distant Counter abolishing them. Its all about haveing the melees to take on the waves of armored units being thrown at you, with the occasionaly Dragon loli or Ayra in the mix between

There are a million Vanguard Ikes running around now, too.

@Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi Yeah, magic users generally end up not bulky enough to deal with things higher up. You basically need to either one-hit kill or run Triangle Adept to safely eat the counterattack.

 

1 minute ago, Alexmender said:

Where the hell did that 588 defense came from? I haven't changed the Valter so it makes no sense that I could've gotten that score. Does the system still have my other defense team up? Is it a bug?

Perhaps a long-shot, but maybe someone started a match against you, closed the game for a day, and came back just to lose or surrender?

[Ice Dragon]

15 minutes ago, Hilda said:

yeah unless your mages can hit like a truck with desperation, mages become utterly um.... less relevant in whale land due to Distant Counter abolishing them. Its all about haveing the melees to take on the waves of armored units being thrown at you, with the occasionaly Dragon loli or Ayra in the mix between

There are a million Vanguard Ikes running around now, too.

@Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi Yeah, magic users generally end up not bulky enough to deal with things higher up. You basically need to either one-hit kill or run Triangle Adept to safely eat the counterattack.

 

1 minute ago, Alexmender said:

Where the hell did that 588 defense came from? I haven't changed the Valter so it makes no sense that I could've gotten that score. Does the system still have my other defense team up? Is it a bug?

Perhaps a long-shot, but maybe someone started a match against you, closed the game for a day, and came back just to lose or surrender?

[Charmeleonbrah]

5 hours ago, Alkaid said:

Both happy and a bit disappointed with this arena week. Firstly, I got my highest score ever of 4996! A big boost over previous weeks thanks to Camilla being done (for now, out of merge fodder) and finally deciding to merge my extra Ayra. However, I'm sad to see it seems a bit too little too late, as tier 20 continues to outpace me. But at least my Camilla project came along quickly thanks to all the feathers this month and she's paid off greatly in both score and usefulness. Perhaps if feathers keep coming in hot like this I can get Hana merged enough by next month or so to finally stay in 20.

And speaking of Camilla:

She has continued to surprise me with just how nice she's been.

Nice!  One-shotting Myrrh is no joke.  You might have made it to Tier 20, as I only scored 4898 and made it to Tier 20. 

What do you run on Camilla?  I have the Quad/Desperation build, and it works out well on her.  

[Rafiel's Aria]

Got all the rewards I thought I would which puts me at 64k feathers. I'm going to give Raven at least one more merge...and I think I'll finally give him either Aether or Galeforce since he does pretty well with that Heavy Blade seal. I had been leaning towards Galeforce, but the extra damage his Luna does has been invaluable, especially against dragons. I may sack my final spare Ike or that -ATK Chrom I never use.  Hmmm...  Next season may be the one I manage to stay up there if I have the patience and luck to get it done.

[Alkaid]

10 minutes ago, Charmeleonbrah said:

Nice!  One-shotting Myrrh is no joke.  You might have made it to Tier 20, as I only scored 4898 and made it to Tier 20. 

What do you run on Camilla?  I have the Quad/Desperation build, and it works out well on her.  

I was hoping to be close to staying in 20, but I still missed it by like 1000 ranks and dropped to 19. I guess I still need a lot more merges to have a chance.

I went big and finally gave her my extra Hector, so she's running Slaying Axe+(spd forge), DC, QR3, Def Ploy and DD3 seal. She's been a great addition to the main team, and most mages and dragons are way less annoying to run into now. She really carries her weight.

[LordFrigid]

Offense score of 5100 (T20) remains in T20, combining with a Def score of 614 for max rewards.

Teams faced (streak):

Spoiler

Teams faced (other):

Spoiler

Nino, Eirika, and Azura made their grand return to the Arena scene, and it went better than I was expecting, all things considered. They ended up suffering one death because I failed to bait out a Brave Lady Lyn (Firesweep variant). I think I might have been able to do that one deathless if I had just had someone eat a hit from her...something to keep in mind for next time, I guess. One more week of them, and then I believe it'll be Flier Emblem time again. Speaking of which, Melee Fliers put in another solid defensive performance; in the mid-20s iirc. Having 2 sources of refreshing (Azura's Sing and Tana's Galeforce) probably generates a lot of chaos.

[Charmeleonbrah]

1 hour ago, Rafiel's Aria said:

Got all the rewards I thought I would which puts me at 64k feathers. I'm going to give Raven at least one more merge...and I think I'll finally give him either Aether or Galeforce since he does pretty well with that Heavy Blade seal. I had been leaning towards Galeforce, but the extra damage his Luna does has been invaluable, especially against dragons. I may sack my final spare Ike or that -ATK Chrom I never use.  Hmmm...  Next season may be the one I manage to stay up there if I have the patience and luck to get it done.

You might want to hold off on that until the update comes out.  Raven will get Basilikos

59 minutes ago, Alkaid said:

I was hoping to be close to staying in 20, but I still missed it by like 1000 ranks and dropped to 19. I guess I still need a lot more merges to have a chance.

I went big and finally gave her my extra Hector, so she's running Slaying Axe+(spd forge), DC, QR3, Def Ploy and DD3 seal. She's been a great addition to the main team, and most mages and dragons are way less annoying to run into now. She really carries her weight.

Her "main form" is underrated, she can be really good with SI and flier buffs.  I am guessing you gave her DC to make up for that day which will live in infamy

[Rafiel's Aria]

51 minutes ago, Charmeleonbrah said:

You might want to hold off on that until the update comes out.  Raven will get Basilikos

Hold off on giving him a special that'll make him worth more Arena points...or merges? I mean, I've gotta do both eventually, and his weapon probably won't affect either of those things too much. Even if Basilikos gives him +3 to DEF/RES or something strange like that, my Raven already runs LaD, so  Bonfire or Iceberg wouldn't be better options.

[DLNarshen]

Season 53 Results:

Score: 4,848
Defense: 600
Rank: Tier 20 --> 19

First team of FEH's second year, and first time I've been able to run Dragon Emblem in the arena!  Myrrh was the final piece I was looking for, and is the glue that holds this all together.  Unfortunately, on more than one occasion I forgot she's considered a flier, and left her in range to get killed by a bow user. =(

The A!Tiki pictured is the first unit I ever summoned, and the last time she was used in the arena was during the 13th season, which coincidentally was the first one I started making these team sheets.  She hasn't gotten any merges thanks to everything taking a backseat to my flier and GHB projects, but pulling a spare B!Ike on Hero Fest means she gets Steady Breath and Aether to play around with, which needless to say is quite the improvement over the Defiant Attack 3 she had before...

Ninian is -Atk, but she was surprisingly effective in combat, one-rounding BKs and other reds with middle-ish Spd after a Hone Buff.  I had contemplated giving Myrrh my spare Hector for DC, but I found she really doesn't need it, not when she has QR to blow back any melee on enemy phase, and Fae serves the DC-Green niche well enough for our purposes.   

Arena Assault:

Rank: 4,199

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
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

 

[Rezzy]

Winding up not getting any Defense Wins this week for the first time in months.  I've got my Corrin promoted to 5*, so hopefully, she can bring me a win with my Dragon team.

[Humanoid]

4918 was enough to get back up, which is good because getting that score was a horrible experience. 4870 points in AA was good enough for a comfortable rank 14000ish so I can probably dial it back a little. Also managed a last day AA defense win, so only a net loss of 400 feathers, I'll take it I guess.