Aether Raids General Thread

[XRay]

Got like 4 Successful defenses, and the rest of the enemy wins all had at least 1 loss!

I will add more fuel to the fire with cancer Ornaments. This is now my favorite PVP mode.

[Johann]

@Hilda @Alkaid Here's my current build, feeling pretty confident about it:

Last ornament will probably go 2 spaces below the fortress, to get in the way of people using Reposition/Draw Back. Clarine's not as deadly as Veronica, but she's far harder to kill, making her more of a turn waster. I'd give Azura WoM if I had any to spare, but I think this'll work decently enough for now.

17 minutes ago, XRay said:

Got like 4 Successful defenses, and the rest of the enemy wins all had at least 1 loss!

I will add more fuel to the fire with cancer Ornaments. This is now my favorite PVP mode.

How's your map looking now?

Edited November 20, 2018 by Johann

[XRay]

2 minutes ago, Johann said:

How's your map looking now?

Same as my first layout, except with BB!Cordelia instead of Aversa. I just finished some quests, so I just built a Feh Statue and set it on the right hand side. I think I will place the rest of the ornaments on the right hand side too once I finish the rest of the quests and get more resources to build them.

[Alkaid]

@Johann Looks very nice! I assume the good HP on Cain and Ursula is keeping Aversa from being a problem? I tried a tight formation a few times, but Aversa was just ruining their day sometimes.

This is my latest attempt which has gotten 2 failures today, but it did kill a unit on the first one. That said, the second person brought both a TA Raven Cecilia and TA Raven PA Shigure which hard countered my healers. It'd work a lot better if my healers' actual damage was more threatening.

Spoiler

Peri had Firesweep before to safely Lunge anybody who'd think to bait her by going through the right side and put them in Ethlyn's range. But after watching people just bait the healers down the middle anyway, I thought being able to get off Galeforce and catch an unaware unit might be more threatening overall.

[DehNutCase]

48 minutes ago, Alkaid said:

This is my latest attempt which has gotten 2 failures today, but it did kill a unit on the first one. That said, the second person brought both a TA Raven Cecilia and TA Raven PA Shigure which hard countered my healers. It'd work a lot better if my healers' actual damage was more threatening.

  Reveal hidden contents

Peri had Firesweep before to safely Lunge anybody who'd think to bait her by going through the right side and put them in Ethlyn's range. But after watching people just bait the healers down the middle anyway, I thought being able to get off Galeforce and catch an unaware unit might be more threatening overall.

My one question is what's the dancer supposed to be doing for you? She doesn't really kill anyone, I doubt she'd be able to dance Peri reliably (firesweep and all, meaning she's either full hp or KOd), and I'm pretty sure running a bonus unit on defense is just for the stats---and she doesn't really put it to good use as a dancer.

Edit: Ah, wait, it's a slaying lance. (In which case doesn't Peri just straight up die since no one else is in range to help her if she gets baited)?

Edited November 20, 2018 by DehNutCase

[Johann]

@Rinco It seems that 4,000 is a score floor, so even if you lose a Def match right after getting above 4k, it'll only take away enough to leave you there. If you had, say, 4,020 Lift, you'd only lose 20 from losing at the maximum.

2 hours ago, Alkaid said:

@Johann Looks very nice! I assume the good HP on Cain and Ursula is keeping Aversa from being a problem? I tried a tight formation a few times, but Aversa was just ruining their day sometimes.

This is my latest attempt which has gotten 2 failures today, but it did kill a unit on the first one. That said, the second person brought both a TA Raven Cecilia and TA Raven PA Shigure which hard countered my healers. It'd work a lot better if my healers' actual damage was more threatening.

  Reveal hidden contents

Peri had Firesweep before to safely Lunge anybody who'd think to bait her by going through the right side and put them in Ethlyn's range. But after watching people just bait the healers down the middle anyway, I thought being able to get off Galeforce and catch an unaware unit might be more threatening overall.

Upon trying it out, there's a problem with Clarine where she gets danced and runs past the trenches to someone with lower Res, so I'm moving Azura to the left of Cain. Clarine should still have priority over Azura in case anyone tries to bait her. I don't think Aversa is as big of a threat this time around, I haven't seen anyone use her offensively so far. Defensively, I did see this monster of a map:

Spoiler

Beat it full clear with Ursula, Frederick, and Azura, just had to set off the traps first and send Ursula in to kill Jakob and Aversa. Frederick came in with WoM to hold off Fjorm and Amelia, and grab the pots

Your map looks good, though I think you might run into the same kind of problem I do, Ethlyn in particular rushing in. You might want to consider a setup where either Veronica or Ethlyn sets up a trap for a stronger unit like Peri to take advantage of. Odds are, Peri won't reach the enemy before they've already dealt with the other two.

[mampfoid]

@Alkaid Arrived to your score 3,960, I'm considering to stop now for 3 days to loose less lift from defense. 

[Stroud]

2 hours ago, mampfoid said:

@Alkaid Arrived to your score 3,960, I'm considering to stop now for 3 days to loose less lift from defense. 

Or just do the daily free and one additional fight so you are still around 200 aether at the last day and try to use them in the last Hours. No harm in trying this. 
 

[Garlyle]

Up to 3780 today, from tomorrow I might start saving some Aether until I see how scores above turn out for others. The first match of each day is free anyway, and I can stockpile up to 200.

[Diovani Bressan]

9 minutes ago, Stroud said:

Or just do the daily free and one additional fight so you are still around 200 aether at the last day and try to use them in the last Hours. No harm in trying this. 

By playing the 2 aether battles per day (a free one and a paid one), and getting the max of 200 lift, I don't believe we will lose 200 per day. My defense team lost 2 battles today (until now), so if I was above Lift 4000 it would be 40 lift lost, so I still would have 160 left. We still can get higher and higher, but now slower than before.

Someone knows if there is a max of Aether to be spent in each battle, or the cost will keep increasing forever?

[mampfoid]

21 minutes ago, Stroud said:

Or just do the daily free and one additional fight so you are still around 200 aether at the last day and try to use them in the last Hours. No harm in trying this. 

Yeah I forgot about the free fight. I'll risk to get "robbed" of my lift either way. 

[Hilda]

6 hours ago, Johann said:

@Hilda @Alkaid Here's my current build, feeling pretty confident about it:

Last ornament will probably go 2 spaces below the fortress, to get in the way of people using Reposition/Draw Back. Clarine's not as deadly as Veronica, but she's far harder to kill, making her more of a turn waster. I'd give Azura WoM if I had any to spare, but I think this'll work decently enough for now.

How's your map looking now?

I see 2 glareing weaknesses. right at the front. whike the trenches prevent easy far baiting a flier team can dispatch this group from the front. Even Intatry could :/. You basicly undermined cavalrys biggest streangth: large movement that prevents easy offense without the opponent loosing a unit, oppnents can easy initiate without fearing anything.

[Alkaid]

9 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

My one question is what's the dancer supposed to be doing for you? She doesn't really kill anyone, I doubt she'd be able to dance Peri reliably (firesweep and all, meaning she's either full hp or KOd), and I'm pretty sure running a bonus unit on defense is just for the stats---and she doesn't really put it to good use as a dancer.

Edit: Ah, wait, it's a slaying lance. (In which case doesn't Peri just straight up die since no one else is in range to help her if she gets baited)?

She's does dance Peri reliably, or dances Veronica depending on what the enemy does. If the Feh statue gets broken and both healers are baited down, Peri moves to the left and gets danced down into the enemy team. If they don't break the statue, Veronica moves to the fake shock trap and gets danced down. Azura's also got a decent shot at killing somebody after WoM thanks to decent stats with the buffs and bonds.

Yes, Peri can be baited out the right side without Firesweep to let her freely Lunge anyone that would try that. But, from my replays (now 4, with a win and a third with 1 unit loss) being able to actually get off Galeforce seemed more threatening overall. Since my healers aren't that strong, people are just baiting them down the front instead. They risk Peri moving over and scoring a double kill, or at least possibly bouncing off 1 unit and killing a different one. The real problem seems to be my healers being too weak to do as much themselves. They're nothing like the +10 Atk/Spd solo ones I saw doing a similar strategy.

7 hours ago, Johann said:

Your map looks good, though I think you might run into the same kind of problem I do, Ethlyn in particular rushing in. You might want to consider a setup where either Veronica or Ethlyn sets up a trap for a stronger unit like Peri to take advantage of. Odds are, Peri won't reach the enemy before they've already dealt with the other two.

That's what's supposed to happen with Azura's dancing. Azura slingshots her into their team. A ranged cav might be better, but I don't have any that can't just be baited over the right side for free. (no Firesweep on my Lyn) Peri's Galeforce thing has worked in wiping one team so far, but I'll have to see. If it's not working well, I'll probably have to start from scratch again, maybe going more like your setup. I personally have still seen Aversa in my defense replays, but maybe she'll continue to taper off in use this week.

7 hours ago, mampfoid said:

@Alkaid Arrived to your score 3,960, I'm considering to stop now for 3 days to loose less lift from defense. 

Yeah, I'll probably just do the daily run only as well and try to put off my regular runs for a day or two.

[Nanima]

Made two mistakes and ended today at the 55k mark. I don't think there is any way to recover from this or rise up into the higher ranks anymore. Looking forward to when I slip past the 100k mark and don't even get cups anymore. They've created amode you can permanently look yourself out of by having the audacity to make mistakes. ooking forward to making Skadikumi +10 just before the game is shut down.

[Azuris]

So, I did 3 matches yesterday to get to 3960 and then stopped to delay the inevitable defense loss.

I plan on playing as late as possible today and buy the 5th slot for offense after going over 4k lift.

Is that a really bad idea? I know the elite players may be better off buying the 5th defense slot and winning offense anyway, but I am not as comfortable with my team this week and would really appreciate running my main team with the bonus unit as a 5th unit instead of switching it around each week.

Has anyone here actually bought an extra unit slot? Is there something I should be aware of?

[XRay]

46 minutes ago, Azuris said:

So, I did 3 matches yesterday to get to 3960 and then stopped to delay the inevitable defense loss.

I plan on playing as late as possible today and buy the 5th slot for offense after going over 4k lift.

Is that a really bad idea? I know the elite players may be better off buying the 5th defense slot and winning offense anyway, but I am not as comfortable with my team this week and would really appreciate running my main team with the bonus unit as a 5th unit instead of switching it around each week.

Has anyone here actually bought an extra unit slot? Is there something I should be aware of?

Before the babysitting crap in Arena, a solid Arena team should have only consist of 3 members since you want the 4th slot to be empty for the bonus unit. But this is Aether Raids, so if you cannot make a solid team with only 3 units, you can go with 4 units and buy the 5th slot for the bonus unit.

I personally do not need the 5th slot yet, but once I encounter stronger defense teams with more than 4 defense units, then I probably will need the 5th slot though to speed up the battle.

Edited November 20, 2018 by XRay

[Azuris]

3 hours ago, XRay said:

Before the babysitting crap in Arena, a solid Arena team should have only consist of 3 members since you want the 4th slot to be empty for the bonus unit. But this is Aether Raids, so if you cannot make a solid team with only 3 units, you can go with 4 units and buy the 5th slot for the bonus unit.

Thank you for the advice. Arena is a good point, but my arena team is only my best scoring not my best performing team and I doubt they do well in Aether Raids.

I guess I just lack the confidence to keep up with the highest ranks and would rather invest fully in offense, to keep winning on offense and climbing tiers, than spending too much in defense and once I may not be able to win offense anymore everything falls apart completely.

It's also not helping, that with our current income in stones and the need to still buy all the bonus structures as they appear, a bad decision may throw someone back for weeks.

[Johann]

17 hours ago, Hilda said:

I see 2 glareing weaknesses. right at the front. whike the trenches prevent easy far baiting a flier team can dispatch this group from the front. Even Intatry could :/. You basicly undermined cavalrys biggest streangth: large movement that prevents easy offense without the opponent loosing a unit, oppnents can easy initiate without fearing anything.

It would seem so, but even watching an infantry team in replay, they barely won in turn 7 even with a +10 new Corrin buffed like crazy, so I need to see it play out a bit on other teams before I change it up.

5 hours ago, Azuris said:

I guess I just lack the confidence to keep up with the highest ranks and would rather invest fully in offense, to keep winning on offense and climbing tiers, than spending too much in defense and once I may not be able to win offense anymore everything falls apart completely.

Investing in Offense seems to be the far better choice, since it's your primary source of Lift, and if done right, should outweigh Defense losses. Though, with rising Aether costs, there's going to be a point where people will only be able to get one fight per day in (unless there's a cap).

[Alkaid]

Lost 60 lift (since I was at 4,060) from a defense loss in the past hour. I guess none of the others earlier today counted as my daily win/loss , though I could swear I did my free run for the day and ranked up before I got them.(and the first against my new defense team was a win, so I thought I'd dodged lift loss for the day)

Guess I'll be waiting till the end of the day tomorrow to do all my runs so I minimize risk of losing more lift gains.

[Johann]

1 hour ago, Alkaid said:

Lost 60 lift (since I was at 4,060) from a defense loss in the past hour. I guess none of the others earlier today counted as my daily win/loss , though I could swear I did my free run for the day and ranked up before I got them.(and the first against my new defense team was a win, so I thought I'd dodged lift loss for the day)

Guess I'll be waiting till the end of the day tomorrow to do all my runs so I minimize risk of losing more lift gains.

Not that I have enough Def results to confirm either way, but perhaps it goes by the first one that is actually a loss, instead of first match regardless of outcome.

[Alkaid]

11 minutes ago, Johann said:

Not that I have enough Def results to confirm either way, but perhaps it goes by the first one that is actually a loss, instead of first match regardless of outcome.

I don't know, since the previous 2 before this one were also losses, so I don't know why one of those didn't seem to count already. That's why I thought the first one being a success had been what counted.

[Garlyle]

There's a weird phenomenon I faced this morning. My last defense said that the enemy won the rematch, while I'm pretty sure I did not initiate any rematch so far. How is this a thing?

[Qilin]

This is bullshit, as soon as I reach tier 11, the game starts pitching me against impossible teams like Reinhart and Hector with 2 dancers. I don't even have two dancers.

[Maaka]

Well, I learned my lesson... No more playing aether raids as soon as I wake up. Managed to move my Aversa just out of Azura's dance range and got swept by a galeforce brave Ephraim... Kind of sad too because it would have been an easy win. That coupled with my first defense loss since hitting 4k lift makes a loss of 180 lift today... So much for being in the top ranks now.

[Ice Dragon]

I ran into a map similar to this one on the first day of this season and decided to try my own version of it since it was pretty obnoxious to play around. I decided to try a debuffing theme for my characters instead of the boring units I played against (Aversa, Reinhardt, Cecilia, Dream Azura).

+10 Lilina [+Atk, -Def] (Forblaze [unique], Reposition, Blazing Flame, Death Blow 3, Spur Atk 3, Spd Ploy 3)
+10 Spring Catria [+Spd, -HP] (Huginn's Egg, Reposition, Moonbow, Swift Sparrow 2, Chill Res 3, Hone Cavalry, Atk Ploy 3)
+10 Gunnthra [+Spd, -Def] (Blizzard, Reposition, Moonbow, Swift Sparrow 2, Chilling Seal, Hone Cavalry, Res Ploy 3)
+10 Flying Olivia [+Spd, -Def] (Skuld, Dance, Moonbow, Bracing Stance 2, Chill Spd 3, Guidance 3, Drive Atk 2)

Spoiler

I may switch Lilina out for Celica since the damage from the Bolt Trap would be enough to activate Celica's Desperation if someone actually steps on it, but Lilina adds more layers of debuffs for the team to work with. Alternatively, Katarina may be a fun choice.

Total list of debuffs:

• Forblaze from Lilina. Highest Res hit with -7 Res.
• Spd Ploy 3 from Lilina off of 35 Res. Hits for -5 Spd.
• Huginn's Egg from Catria. Lowest Res hit with -5 Atk and Def.
• Chill Res 3 from Catria. Highest Res hit with -7 Res. Intentionally redundant with Lilina.
• Atk Ploy 3 from Catria off of 30 Res. Hits for -5 Atk.
• Chilling Seal from Gunnthra. Lowest Def hit with -6 Atk and Spd.
• Res Ploy 3 from Gunnthra off of 32 Res. Hits for -5 Res.
• Chill Spd 3 from Olivia. Highest Spd hit with -7 Spd.

Get rekt.

Edited November 21, 2018 by Ice Dragon