Tackling the Arena with Hector

[XRay]

I have not seen anyone posting a relatively consistent method of reaching 3,001+ scores, or at least not recently, so I want to post mine out. I was super lucky and got Hector without spending money, but I did spend about $120 later trying to get Camilla, Ryoma, and Takumi. I only got a Camilla 4* from that $120.00. I did get other good units, but nothing overpowered.

— — — — — — —

My team currently consists of:

Narcian [N/A, Lancebreaker 2, Savage Blow  — Steel Axe, N/A, Retribution]
3* Lv. 20 HP 28 Atk 24 Spd 15 Def 16 Res 14
Julia [N/A, N/A, N/A — Naga, N/A, Dragon Gaze]
5* Lv. 01 HP 15 Atk 23 Spd 07 Def 05 Res 08
Hector [Distant Counter, N/A, Spur Atk 2 — Armads, N/A, Pavise]
5* Lv. 40 HP 49 Atk 52 Spd 24 Def 40 Res19
Serra [N/A, N/A, Hone Atk 2 — Absorb, Recover, Imbue]
4* Lv. 40 HP 31 Atk 28 Spd 29 Def 19 Res 34

Based on my experience it is important to place Hector in the third or fourth slot on the team, because he is an armored unit and he is very, very slow to get into position. The third and fourth slot will land him closer to the middle of the map usually. I personally prefer the third slot since it is easier for other units to hide behind him. The enemies in the arena will come after you right from the start rather than wait for you to get into their attack range.

Hector should get into enemy range as soon as possible, preferably with only one or two enemies being able to reach him per turn, and preferably at a choke point. Hector is not invincible, so he can get swarmed. This strategy may or may not work using other units with counter, because Armads allows him to make "...a guaranteed follow-up attack when attacked at HP ≥ 80%" which is metaphorically insane.

Make sure your healer is close behind to keep Hector's health as high as possible. Any healer will work, but I prefer one that has both Recover and Imbue for a large amount of healing.

Narcian and Julia are just there to keep my rating low and boost my score. I tried using four high-level units before, but the risk of losing to a stronger team and losing the chain bonus is not worth the meager increase in score. Hector is overpowered, but not invincible.

— — — — — — —

So what does this mean? When you go into the Arena and face my team, my team will mindlessly rush you. The double attack from Armads will only work if Hector is being attacked, so you do not have to worry about my Hector doubling your Hector as long as you do not initiate the attack.

Basically, if everyone has just one Hector, one healer, and two weak bonus heroes, everyone will have an easy time earning the maximum amount of feathers.

However, if you want to ruin my life, put adult Tiki from Awakening on your team. She alone can and will slaughter Hector and massacre my team. I feel pretty lucky because I do not see her very often. I tried countering Tiki with Kagero, Oboro, Peri, and Robin, but all that did was increase my rating and Tiki still manages to kill my Hector. This team is also vulnerable to a combination of dancer/singer and certain red units that can take a double whammy from Armads. However, they are usually not a big problem because the dancer/singer is often out of position, or they choose the wrong unit to dance/sing to.

I hope this helps everyone with Hector out there who did not know about this. I do already see a lot of Hector players with similar setups, so that is perfect. If you have Ryoma, Takumi, or any other units with counter, what are your strategies? Is my strategy similar to yours? What about people who do not have units with counter, how do you manage to get the max score?

[Roflolxp54]

The point of getting and stacking Hectors into the same team is to get into the high-scoring ranks for even more feathers by facing teams with very high ratings. It's possible to get a score of 3001+ without Hector and remain unranked and thus be denied the chance of getting extra feathers beyond the 2100 you get from a 3001+ Offense high score and a 251+ Defense high score.

Edited March 2, 2017 by Roflolxp54

[XRay]

Okay, that makes sense. I will try to use a higher rating team and try the rankings. Are the rankings based on the amount of battles or just the highest rated team you defeat? If it is the latter, I do not think I will get very far though.

[Vaximillian]

Rankings are based on your offence score, which is a sum of your best 7-win streak. This post might help with the calculations.

[Katrisa]

7 hours ago, XRay said:

Narcian [N/A, Lancebreaker 2, Savage Blow  — Steel Axe, N/A, Retribution]
Julia [N/A, N/A, N/A — Naga, N/A, Dragon Gaze]
Hector [Distant Counter, N/A, Spur Atk 2 — Armads, N/A, Pavise]
Serra [N/A, N/A, Hone Atk 2 — Absorb, Recover, Imbue]

Narcian and Julia are just there to keep my rating low and boost my score. I tried using four high-level units before, but the risk of losing to a stronger team and losing the chain bonus is not worth the meager increase in score. Hector is overpowered, but not invincible.

Interesting tactics.  I also keep my hector in slot 3 as it does keep him central and up near the front of the pack better.  I'd like to get a smite on my team to shove his ass up front (I just drew a Roy and may end up making use of him). 

As others have mentioned you do have to balance between clearing and having stats high enough to rank and get feathers.  Even if you only place in the bottom rank its worth it for the feathers.

So the question is what would you do to your composition to compensate.  First I think carrying a healer with Hector early on is fairly smart.  As you can lean on Hector harder while you learn compositions, counters etc better.   And some folks have shown that using 5 star healers in a well balanced semi-tank composition can net you some seriously awesome scores.

Now with a 5 star Julia and Hector what I would be looking for is a hard Red counter.  You're going to be destroying blues and greens with those two together.  But as you said reds are going to be terrible.  So you need to drop Narcian and pickup a blue unit who is fast and agile and independent handle reds that will cause problems to your remaining team.  Sharena could easily do this for your team and would be the first person I would look to.  Leveling her up to 5 star with your current comp would be fantastic.  She would likewise add to your defenses, offensive boosting options and she is highly independent with her +Speed, high attack and attack reduction.  

The question and problem I'm seeing is how you fit in your bonus unit.  Please note you only need ONE unit for the full benefits.  So this week you can use your Julia and there is no need for Narcian.  Beyond this week its hard to say.  You'll often be forced with the decision of dropping your healer or one of your greens (Julia).  Since Julia can partially heal Hector I think I would drop your healer on weeks where fitting in someone odd is going to be necessary, but that's a rough prediction since bonus units could be anyone.

[Soulkey]

I need Hector sooooo bad /__/'

[XRay]

The formulas are pretty neat. I am not sure how high my score needs to be in order for it to rank though, since the game does not tell me what my rank is compared to others. My highest score this season is 3,820.

I am training Julia up at the moment. I agree Sharena is pretty good, but it will take me a while before I can get her to 5*.

 

Yeah, I really wanted Camilla at first, and I was actually a little disappointed when I pulled Hector. I felt a lot better after I read his skills of course, but I still really wanted Camilla, and I am not sure if I made the right decision spending $120.00 just to get her.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

The game will tell you your rank if you select "Check Rewards". Note that this number only updates every hour, though.

[Ice Dragon]

On 3/2/2017 at 1:54 AM, XRay said:

If you have Ryoma, Takumi, or any other units with counter, what are your strategies? Is my strategy similar to yours?

The characters with counterattack skills behave very differently from each other, meaning they're going to be played in different ways.

Hector has armored movement, so positioning is absolutely crucial to how he is used, but the other characters don't have this limitation. His high all-round stats and automatic double attack at high HP means you can sit him in a choke point and watch enemies die as they walk into him. However, you need proper team support to eliminate threatening red units from reaching him because he is incapable of getting away.

Ryoma is squishy to magic, but he is still capable of brushing off a hit from Julia and retaliating with a one-round kill. You probably don't want to do this against any other mage, though. His ranged counterattack and decent physical bulk also allows him to kill Takumi one-on-one if Takumi cannot double attack. Other than that, he plays fairly similarly to any other sword character.

Takumi I think is more valuable on an arena defense team than an arena offense team. His Close Counter is an annoyance to deal with as an enemy, but doesn't play a much of a role when in the player's hands. Takumi's defenses are rather mediocre, and being colorless means he has no way of using the weapon triangle to increase his bulk against specific targets. You're typically not going to be using his Close Counter except against flying units and in emergencies.

I don't have experience using Nowi or Awakening Tiki. I only know that they melt to my Julia and Robin, respectively.

[Lord_Grima]

If you find Hector's movement lacking, then you can try adding a character with Shove, Swap, Reposition, Smite, or any other movement based supports. Olivia and/or Azura would also be good team members if you have them, singing/dancing is not just good for extra attacks, it can really help low movement characters get around easier.

[XRay]

Sweet. I rank at the bottom, but it is still 500 feathers!

I am not really sure on how to use Robin properly against Tiki, since he could not kill her in one hit and is usually swarmed right after. If Hector is next to Robin, Tiki would go after Hector and that defeats the purpose of Robin being there in the first place.

I have Olivia and used her a few times before, and she is pretty nifty.