Arena Discussion Thread (inc. Assault)

[Astellius]

I achieved a new personal best in Arena Assault just now, with a score of 5,086. I think that's sufficient to finally pierce the 1k-3k bracket, as I'm ranked 2,312. Pretty nice, I think. With the feathers from this week's rewards, I'll have enough to finally get my second +10 unit! I'm not sure who to do next after that. I might switch gears to promoting some of my 4* units that have been sitting in the wings for awhile.

[mcsilas]

On 3/25/2018 at 8:30 PM, MonkeyCheez3K said:

With increasing merge levels on my core team I now face the issue of not being able to rack up defense wins like before. The recent surge of armors/dragons makes my old tactic rather weak on high scoring matchups (thx to the AI sucking and ridonculous bulk), at least that is my impression.

As a result, I find myself in need of some assistance. I think I'm going to build up a mid-tier core (only need to break the 450 in defensive scoring) that secures the defense wins against unoptimized teams while my actual core continues the offensive side of things. As such, to whoever still collects defense wins like candy, I could use some advice on team comps that still reliably work. If you don't want to tell your secret, it's fine; I'll have to admit defeat to the 900 feathers otherwise.

There is also the possibility that it is just this current rotation of available bonus units that suck (horses vs trenches, Kagero being weak nowadays, Anna being meh), but I'll still take any help on that front. I will build a full Tactics team in the future once Speed-Tactics comes out, but until then I will need some better options.

I think it helps if you know what maps are on rotation. For example, when there are maps with defense tiles, armours usually get more wins, especially if you have lots of Ward Armours in a defense team.

This week I actually was struggling to get a defense win. Then I noticed the annoying lava map was on rotation, and usually fliers and ranged cavalry make that map hell. And because I was desperate...

I went with a scummy horse + Skyzura team. At first I was curious about the Lunge + Obstruct SS combo, so I put that on Chrom (I heard people getting defense wins out of those). The idea is Chrom lunges an enemy and they become trapped and are in range of either Reinhardt or Lyn. Now, yes horses aren't as good at defense wins but it just really depends on the map (and I assume being stuck between a physical and magic ranged unit is what gets the win instead of the Lunge combo). It also helps to figure out which team slot is good for a unit, for example slot 2 is great for a ranged cavalry when you have to face them in the double bridge or lava map.

I swapped Chrom's B skill back to Chill Def and SS to Close Def because of TT, and it suddenly gave me 2 more wins yesterday out of the blue.

In contrast, last week I used Chrom plus my arena armour team of Valentine Lyn, Vector and BK. I gave BK Quickened Pulse and Steady Breath for 1st turn KOs, while Lyn's Blarowl makes her hard to ORKO thanks to being +Def and having good Spd as well as having Ward Armour support. BK and Vector have Vantage, while Vector has QR SS, and those are always annoying skills with Defense teams.

Similarly, really stacking boosts with Fury can sometimes make units annoying to kill. My main team uses Fury +Def Halloween Henry and he is hard to take down with Ward Armour support. He also run Atk Ploy and his Panic tome so I imagine these would be annoying for teams that rely on blue buffs. He also carries Bowbreaker for those who want to try and use Jakob/Lyn to damage his weaker Def stat, 

Another experimental team that I tried was someone with Wary Fighter + WoM. The idea is I had a Sheena who is pretty bulky with Wary Fighter, and is hard to oneshot. As soon as Wary Fighter breaks though, another unit, in this case Lucina, can swoop in for a surprise attack, especially if the unit attacking Sheena is ranged. This was more of an experimental build and it wasn't as successful as other teams (I guess it depends on maps) but it did give me 2 or 3 when the stars aligned and gave me the right maps.

Mono-colour teams seem to rarely work with me. I do try to  arrange units so the adjacent unit can cover a weakness. For example, BK as the baiting unit 1 slot. Next to him is Halloween Henry for both Armour March support and to deal with blue mages or Lyn. Slot 3 is Vector, who depending on the map, gets the movement bonus. 4th unit is bonus unit, but preferably blue, so that unit can deal with Vector's red weakness.

-----

@Zeo @mampfoid @Vaximillian @Rafiel's Aria Also, this defense win list has a few firsts. My first, 'under 900 feathers' win. I think that could be an Arena Assault win, since no bonus points were applied?

Also my highest ever Defense win of 602! I never broke 600 before. I'm sorry for being horse scum but I'm just glad I got a good win.

Also Zeo I'll watch your videos some other time when I have proper net at home. Can't really use up too much data on limited net since for some reason the past week the internet just fails to connect. I did actually record some videos too and would upload them once I get internet!

[mampfoid]

3 minutes ago, mcsilas said:

@Zeo @mampfoid @Vaximillian @Rafiel's Aria Also, this defense win list has a few firsts. My first, 'under 900 feathers' win. I think that could be an Arena Assault win, since no bonus points were applied?

 

Jup, these are defense wins on AA or defense wins on regular arena were you had a team without bonus unit set. 

Congrats on the 602 win btw. 

[Rafiel's Aria]

1 hour ago, mcsilas said:

@Zeo @mampfoid @Vaximillian @Rafiel's Aria Also, this defense win list has a few firsts. My first, 'under 900 feathers' win. I think that could be an Arena Assault win, since no bonus points were applied?

Also my highest ever Defense win of 602! I never broke 600 before. I'm sorry for being horse scum but I'm just glad I got a good win.

Also Zeo I'll watch your videos some other time when I have proper net at home. Can't really use up too much data on limited net since for some reason the past week the internet just fails to connect. I did actually record some videos too and would upload them once I get internet!

Congrats on the cool defense wins! You got more than me this week. XD As usual, I run Merric, Lucius, Raven, and a bonus unit as my defense team. I think sometimes having "surprise" characters or skills really throws people off. Like I've been caught off guard by characters like Henry and Wrys before just because of creative builds. My bonus unit I think we Legendary Ephraim until I got one defense win, and then I switched him out for Summer Leo because why not? 

I was going to wait until we got news about our bonus units for next week's Arena but so far...nothing. So this either means that the datamined material about the next legendary hero is in fact correct, and we might get a trailer early tomorrow and then the bonus unit announcement or we have these specific bonus units for one more week. Odd, but it has happened before. I also suppose they could just be behind, but it seems odd to wait to announce them, especially since we didn't have any events today. 

At the moment a score of 5068 in the Arena gets me rank 3468. So safely staying in tier 20 again. In AA, a score of 5072 is good for a rank of 3005. I thought I might've been able to sneak into the top 3k because I've done it with a lower score, but it wasn't enough this week. So top 5k it is.

[MonkeyCheez3K]

1 hour ago, mcsilas said:

-snip-

A lot of logical assumptions, partially applied by myself. My armors are pretty subpar with the lack of DC,  and I guess I already completely disregarded B!Lyn and Reinhardt teams as I assumed everyone would be having counters by now, but I guess I'm wrong. For the rest of the day I'll be putting up a copy of your team, might be too late, but whatever, too lazy to care anymore for this arena week. Thx for your elaborate advice as well, I must seriously put more effort into my new defense team(s) if I want to keep up with the 900 feathers and not having to worry about it the whole week.

[Nanima]

I will probably drop all the way to Tier 17 after this round (mostly because I just can't manage a deathless streak), but I can't call this a failed season:

 

Most defensive wins I've ever gotten. Probably due to Chrom+Airzura combo, but I'd like to think the others helped too.

[mampfoid]

@MonkeyCheez3K I don't know if it helps, but I'm getting constant defense wins most of this year with my regular arena team. Perhaps it's not because of their composition (Cordeila+6, Cherche 4*+10, BH!Roy+5 + bonus) but because I hit something like a sweet spot with the score range (~600). I'm just assuming that this range is crowded and that I'm getting a lot of match-ups. Since we get few information about our defense wins, I can only assume that there are a lot of teams without an archer/dancer combination in that range and my team is giving them trouble on certain maps. 

This week I got only 2 wins so far, while I had weeks with 40+ wins. 

[MonkeyCheez3K]

31 minutes ago, mampfoid said:

@MonkeyCheez3K I don't know if it helps, but I'm getting constant defense wins most of this year with my regular arena team. Perhaps it's not because of their composition (Cordeila+6, Cherche 4*+10, BH!Roy+5 + bonus) but because I hit something like a sweet spot with the score range (~600). I'm just assuming that this range is crowded and that I'm getting a lot of match-ups. Since we get few information about our defense wins, I can only assume that there are a lot of teams without an archer/dancer combination in that range and my team is giving them trouble on certain maps. 

This week I got only 2 wins so far, while I had weeks with 40+ wins. 

I have similar thoughts on score ranges and just assumed with the little info I have that my otherwise successful core team surpassed that sweet spot you mentioned (I racked up a lot of wins in the last couple of months with TA dragons of all things (which should be easily dispatched), but now, even with Fury equipped, they struggle, especially this rotation), pushing me to create a mid-tier team that overwhelms less prepared opponents.

[Ledrert]

That's a season with complicated bonus units. Most of them aren't ready, or the team their in need much time to be prepared. So I tried a team with F!Morgan last week... but points aren't enough. Then tried to change my main team for including her, but maps wasn't good. So I gave up.

But now that's a better map rotation. Got a good 4850 points, sufficient to go back to the 19th tier. (Under the 9k rank). Team :

Spoiler

Had to do some change. Lyon took the place of Robin as raven unit, and since he needed the Quick Riposte seal, I gave Bras Assault to Vanguard Ike. F!Morgan for the bonus unit and as the Guidance unit. And she was great to take down red dragons that I often encountered during the runs.

And I encountered some interesting units along the way :

Spoiler

Okay, I didn't thougth I'll be encountered The Bull in a horse emblem. That's a great dedication.

 

Pretty nice Felicia. And she's merged +6. Too bad for her that dragons can be still a hard counter to her... My Grima took her down in one blow.

 

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Score report:

• Tier 20 score of 5092 - #1902 (/5748)
• Arena Assault score of 5184 - #1156

Not too much interesting about the week other than that defenses came more easily despite not changing the team around. I guess maybe the map rotation was a bit more conducive to my team.

[MonkeyCheez3K]

9 minutes ago, Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi said:

Score report:

• Tier 20 score of 5092 - #1902 (/5748)
• Arena Assault score of 5184 - #1156

Not too much interesting about the week other than that defenses came more easily despite not changing the team around. I guess maybe the map rotation was a bit more conducive to my team.

Following the aforementioned struggle I had this rotation, what was your def team if I may ask? I'm basically gathering all the succesful info I can right now.

[Infinite Dreams]

Rank report:

Arena: 5148 - Rank 441

Arena Assault: 5168 - Rank 1315

Defense: 630 - 5 wins.  Last week I had 10+ with the same team, so this week was slower for me too.

Team: Laslow+10, F-Corrin+10, B-Ike+10, and L-Ephraim+1.

[Flying Shogi]

Apparently 4924 wasn't good enough for the top 10K rewards so I did another run of AA for a personal new high score of 4948, which nets me a rank of 9150. Cutting it a little close but hopefully it's enough. 

Similarly, I did another arena run and that also netted me a new personal new high score of 4,944 for regular arena, which safely grants entry to tier 20. It's honestly surprising how much one's rank jumps with a 20 point difference in score. I think my initial run this week had a total score of 4,924. 

[DLNarshen]

Season 60 Results:

Score: 5,064 (New Record!)
Defense: 612 (New Record!)
Rank: Tier 20 --> 20

Changes from last week:

-Shanna got another merge (+1 to +2)
-Shanna's skillset was almost completely revamped

Shanna, unfortunately, sees the least use out of my main team, and so there's still room for improvement where her skills are concerned.  I generally prefer EP combat, and so I reworked her skills to cater to that.  Desperation is filler for the moment, although it works quite well with Fury and her 45 unboosted Spd.  I'm actually thinking a Def-refine might be better for her, but we'll see. 

As a bonus, I decided to record some matches this week in the 722+ score range, if anyone wanted a general idea of how the team functions in practice.  Fans of FE6 might enjoy this one :)

Arena Assault:

Rank: 5,137

Ouch.  Shanna probably wasn't worth as many points as Hinoka even with the right blessing, and I got seriously low-balled on top of that. 

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
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

 

[Rezzy]

They haven't announced the Arena Bonus units yet, have they?  I looked on the Twitter, but didn't see anything.  I like to get my Defense Team in place, in case there are any people facing my team before I get a chance to log in.

[LordFrigid]

Offense score of 5148 (T20) remains in T20, combining with a defense score of 622 for max rewards.

Teams faced (streak):

Spoiler

Teams faced (other):

Spoiler

I got lazy with doing & recording Arena matches again. I blame the Creature Campaign. Fortunately, Flier Emblem is my "just do whatever and it'll turn out fine" core. Whether or not the bonus units change, I'm probably slated to use them for at least another week (assuming that Alfonse will be in the next new rotation).

[Alexmender]

Seems that the arena rotation will be the same this week. Not that I mind because I like having Exalted Chrom around to one shot Myrrhs and Tikis.

Anyways, back to tier 19 and still not good enough for top 5k in AA. At least I got enough feathers to merge Cordelia to +1, I decided that Cordelia should get up in merges before Sheena due to their BST differences, after she gets to +4 I'll start with Sheena who's also at +1 atm.

[Rafiel's Aria]

23 minutes ago, Rezzy said:

They haven't announced the Arena Bonus units yet, have they?  I looked on the Twitter, but didn't see anything.  I like to get my Defense Team in place, in case there are any people facing my team before I get a chance to log in.

I'm thinking that if they don't reveal a trailer for the legendary banner by noon JST (in about 3 hours--I'm really bad/lazy at figuring out time zones and stuff, so I use my own especially since DST stuff happened), then we can safely say we have this set for one more rotation. IDK if you'll still be awake then, so you might be safe maybe keeping one bonus unit from this season and one bonus unit for what you might think next season might be? Horse Alfonse + Legendary Ephraim would probably be a safe bet. 

 

Ended up getting my rewards and one last defense win for a total of 4. Not bad for my boys. Looking forward to next week with two 5*+10 characters. 

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

2 hours ago, MonkeyCheez3K said:

Following the aforementioned struggle I had this rotation, what was your def team if I may ask? I'm basically gathering all the succesful info I can right now.

My Arena core plus F!Morgan:

• Standard Desperation +Spd/-Def Nino +10 with Draw Back, Aether and Atk Ploy 3 Seal
• TA, QR, +Atk/-HP A!Tiki +10 with Aether, Rally Def/Res, Hone Atk 3 and Hone Spd 3 Seal (LB refined to +Def)
• TA, QR, +Atk/-HP Nowi +10 with Reposition, Aether and DD3 Seal (LB refined to +Res)
• +Atk/-HP F!Morgan +1 with standard kit, Reposition and QR3 Seal (Serpent refined for +Res)

[Rezzy]

59 minutes ago, Alexmender said:

Seems that the arena rotation will be the same this week. Not that I mind because I like having Exalted Chrom around to one shot Myrrhs and Tikis.

Anyways, back to tier 19 and still not good enough for top 5k in AA. At least I got enough feathers to merge Cordelia to +1, I decided that Cordelia should get up in merges before Sheena due to their BST differences, after she gets to +4 I'll start with Sheena who's also at +1 atm.

 

52 minutes ago, Rafiel's Aria said:

I'm thinking that if they don't reveal a trailer for the legendary banner by noon JST (in about 3 hours--I'm really bad/lazy at figuring out time zones and stuff, so I use my own especially since DST stuff happened), then we can safely say we have this set for one more rotation. IDK if you'll still be awake then, so you might be safe maybe keeping one bonus unit from this season and one bonus unit for what you might think next season might be? Horse Alfonse + Legendary Ephraim would probably be a safe bet. 

 

Ended up getting my rewards and one last defense win for a total of 4. Not bad for my boys. Looking forward to next week with two 5*+10 characters. 

Wouldn't keeping the same bonus units for another round be unprecedented, since we've had a Banner with new characters since last week?  I don't mind, since it lets me use Xander for another week, but it seems weird that the bunny characters wouldn't be bonus units starting tomorrow.

 

Well, I guess I'll post my results here.  @Vaximillian@SatsumaFSoysoy@Arcanite@Infinite Dreams@DefaultBeep@Rex Glacies@Zeo@DarkLordIvy@Anime27Arts@Natalie

I managed to get 10+ Defense Wins this week by just fielding my Horse Team, which is the same as my Offense Team.  I wonder if having the extra merges makes more people actually see my team and is the reason for the increase in wins.  I also got a score of 618, which I think is a high for me.

I managed to stay in Tier 20 this week, with the aid of Mega Pity Breaker Eldigan and Bonus Unit Xander.  I gave Eldigan Aether, which probably made the difference.

Edited March 27, 2018 by Rezzy

[Rafiel's Aria]

52 minutes ago, Rezzy said:

Wouldn't keeping the same bonus units for another round be unprecedented, since we've had a Banner with new characters since last week?  I don't mind, since it lets me use Xander for another week, but it seems weird that the bunny characters wouldn't be bonus units starting tomorrow.

It is a bit strange. I can't say that I recall it ever happening before, but I could be wrong because I'm too lazy to go ahead and check. They may be trying to compensate for the large gap between banners (the bunny and Thracia banners). There's a part of me that still thinks we may get a surprise/slightly early trailer in a few hours,  but I also won't be surprised if we don't. It seems strange that the (possible) datamine info for the next Arena characters would be in the game this week if they weren't going to be relevent until next week, especially since we have an update coming later in this week anyways. 

Then again, I know nothing of game design and how these things work. I don't mind having another Arena season with these characters myself. 

[Infinite Dreams]

1 hour ago, Rezzy said:

I managed to stay in Tier 20 this week, with the aid of Mega Pity Breaker Eldigan and Bonus Unit Xander.  I gave Eldigan Aether, which probably made the difference.

Yay!  Congrats Rezzy!    

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

It's kind of one of those weird scenarios where there's a couple conflict factors. Normally, the three-week rotations we've had in the past have some kind of delay on the next banner, yet we've got the 2018 Spring banner already. It feels weird for them to do a three-week rotation because of that. However, if the data mine is correct, then the next legendary hero is included in the next rotation. Would feel even odder to start the next Arena season with a listed unknown hero who doesn't even drop for another three days. Granted, I guess they could do an announcement video tonight, which would stop the Arena rotation from ruining the surprise.

[Rezzy]

3 minutes ago, Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi said:

It's kind of one of those weird scenarios where there's a couple conflict factors. Normally, the three-week rotations we've had in the past have some kind of delay on the next banner, yet we've got the 2018 Spring banner already. It feels weird for them to do a three-week rotation because of that. However, if the data mine is correct, then the next legendary hero is included in the next rotation. Would feel even odder to start the next Arena season with a listed unknown hero who doesn't even drop for another three days. Granted, I guess they could do an announcement video tonight, which would stop the Arena rotation from ruining the surprise.

Why wouldn't they just hold off the Legendary Hero for a future rotation?  They don't seem to have a set policy for the Legendary Heroes getting added to the Arena pool, and I don't think Gunnthra's even been a bonus unit at all yet.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

1 hour ago, Rezzy said:

Why wouldn't they just hold off the Legendary Hero for a future rotation?  They don't seem to have a set policy for the Legendary Heroes getting added to the Arena pool, and I don't think Gunnthra's even been a bonus unit at all yet.

It would make sense to hold off until after the new legendary is out, yes. It would also make sense to push for the next rotation right away because the Spring 2018 banner was released last week. It's one of those weird, logical conundrums.