Jump to content

Arena Discussion Thread (inc. Assault)


pianime94
 Share

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 10.8k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

I know this is a bit early to pose this kind of question but I'll shoot for it anyway.

So my default for the bonus unit next season, assuming I don't pull a focus unit, is going to be 5* Michalis. I'm looking to treat him to some skill inheritance but I'm not sure what would suit him best, nor what team I should use to accommodate him. I have the following planned for him so far:

Hauteclere

Swap

Moonbow

Iote's Shield

Lancebreaker 2

Threaten Defense 3

Swap is very valuable here in making movement less demanding, more so if I can't run a dancer in my final build. Moonbow is an excellent skill to replace Blazing Thunder with, since with it he will always do extra damage on the counter in enemy phase. Bowbreaker can't be inherited by fliers for some reason, so I'm supposing Lancebreaker will be my next best choice. His default C is fine as it is so I'm not changing it.

 

In summary, who here is planning on running Michalis in the next bonus unit rotation? And which units make good teammates for him?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Switched out Ursula for Anna and it has made a HUGE difference.The only issue I have with her is that she needs help taking out non-mage blues. But Ephraim and Takumi help provide the necessary backup. So far I've done a streak of 5 deathless. I'll do the remaining two tomorrow as I don't want to waste another dueling crest. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 3/23/2017 at 7:33 PM, Ryu Yuki said:

Aww, thanks for the compliment. It really feels good to be called that, considering I do love them dragons.

Well, I've had plenty of successful defenses with my dragon team (If you're willing to define 270-280+ defense scores as 'successful'). If you're willing to share your exact units and maybe their natures, I could try to help you out there with suggestions and tips. I am rather prone to long walls of text though, so if you don't really like that, do tell me and I'll try to keep it to a more compact size. Either way, my main team is Y!Tiki/Nowi/Ninian and I've invested a whole lot into them (My Nowi is 40+5 after over 80,000 feathers) so I do believe I'll know what I'm talking about to some extent. And as for the Skill Inheritance issue, you will probably have to invest a lot for certain builds, although I can try to take it into consideration and see how you can cut down on spending them if possible.

I'd be interested in advice on a dragon team, too. I'd like to eventually run a team of 3 dragons + whatever bonus character I have. The dragons I currently have are a 5* Nowi +1 (+Spd, -Def), 5* Fae (+Atk, not sure what her bane is as she's a level 2), 5* Ninian (-Atk, +Spd), 4* Corrin (neutral), 3* Corrin (-Atk, +Def), and two 3* Adult Tiki's (+ Spd, -Def for one and +Res, -Spd for the other). Nowi is the only one I've inherited skills too already with her current skill set being wings of mercy 3, fury 3, and the rest are what she originally had.

 

On the arena this week, I finally got a deathless run earlier today. On prior weeks getting a deathless run wasn't hard, but using fury on nowi made me deal with heavily merged units constantly when the only merged unit on my team was a +1. I got a score of 4572. Not sure what rank yet as it hasn't updated. I also think ninian replacing roy has made my defense team much better as I've gotten 10 successful defenses. The things I currently find scariest in the arena are dancers as they make positioning a lot more difficult. That and merged Nino's are a pain to kill for me when they have the speed to double my Nino. Julia was a pain due to her high resistance and being super effective on half my team.

 

Oh and @Kiran if you use a hinoka then I'm guessing I faced you as I saw a defense against someone with your user name.

Edited by Mehdi2277
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3/22/2017 - offense 4,454; rank 3,426 (1:22AM PST) [deathless] [team #1]
3/22/2017 - offense 4,454; rank 5,756 (11:28PM PST) [deathless] [team #1]
3/23/2017 - offense 4,500; rank 3,636 (1:05AM PST) [deathless] [team #2]
3/24/2017 - offense 4,500; rank 5,691 (8:48PM PST) [deathless] [team #2]

Team #1:

Team: (all Level 40) +Atk/-Spd Ninian (163), +Res/-HP Ryoma (173; +Vantage 2), +Atk/-Spd M!Robin (159; +Swordbreaker 3), +Spd/-HP Camilla (161)
BST: 656

 

Team #2:

Team: (all Level 40) +Atk/-Spd Ninian (163), +Res/-HP Ryoma (173; +Vantage 2), neutral Sharena (177; +Threaten Spd 3), +Spd/-HP Camilla (161)
BST: 674

So far, looks to be I'll stick to the top 10K. I don't think I can improve it in time without spamming crests. Still training Armors and Minerva! I think I'll be camping at this rank.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, Mehdi2277 said:

Oh and @Kiran if you use a hinoka then I'm guessing I faced you as I saw a defense against someone with your user name.

Sadly Kiran is the default username. So to differentiate myself from the mass, I changed my ingame username. So, no that team wouldn't have been mine. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, GinRei said:

As I'm on course for two consecutive weeks without a defense win at all, after two weeks with only a single win, I'd define even a 130 as successful.  Currently I have a 5-star +Res/-Atk Y!Tiki, +SPD/-HP Nowi, and neutral 4-star F!Corrin.  I would need to roll for Ninian, as well as units to provide Triangle Adept (among other skills) and another Nowi to give her weapon to Tiki (I assume, at least).  I've mostly been hoarding orbs so don't have many units to sacrifice, though somehow I wound up with an abundance of Swordbreakers (a poor nature Abel and two Sully).  Beyond that, it's mostly the free units they've given out.  But as long as the skills aren't super rare like Distance Counter, I could probably "do what I can" and work my way there if I can get the team mostly done.

Thanks!

My reply is a bit long, so I wrapped it in a spoiler tag. I apologize if the reply was a bit slow; I had to go out today to get several social obligations done. Hopefully I provided some insight, and do feel free to ask further questions if you are wondering about anything.

Spoiler

Hm... Personally speaking, I would say that your Nowi has pretty much the best nature possible. Nowi's speed tier is not particularly good, but it's high enough that a +3 to her Spd can make a huge difference in who can and can't double her. And Hp is easily her most worthless stat, as she's tanky enough to take on multiple hits and a -Def or -Res would hurt her way more in the long run. As such, if I were you I'd probably go full throttle on investing in that particular Nowi, as you're unlikely to replace her with another. If you're serious about rolling a Ninian as well, then I would also suggest not using F!Corrin. She's not bad, but the unfortunate fact is that you don't really need three blues on your team and as much as I love the idea in concept, having four dragons is also detrimental to your team's overall composition. Nowi's base stat total is straight up superior to F!Corrin's, and her weapon's in-built Distant Counter effect will be far more likely to hand you defense wins, as it makes it so that your opponent can't avoid being damaged when attacking her (It helps that Nowi is tanky enough that OHKOing her is way harder than say, OHKOing Takumi). As such there's very little reason for you to run F!Corrin over Nowi at this point.

Now, making a dragon team as viable as possible would probably require quite a bit of investment. However, if we're only talking about Defense Wins, there are certain skills you should probably prioritize over others. Speaking from personal experience, I find that what really increases the number of Defense Wins is: 1) Movement shenanigans, and 2) Making sure your team will kill someone. Elaborating on movement shenanigans; what I mainly mean is basically anything that makes your 'true' Danger Zone harder to predict. A lot of people are super-reliant on using the Danger Zone feature to predict if the opponent can or can't reach them on the next turn. However, when the enemy team has skills like Dance, Shove or Reposition, it becomes a lot easier to make mistakes and have someone killed in battle. I gave Reposition to my Nowi mostly for offensive purposes (The idea was to send in a melee unit to murder Julia because screw her, and then have them Reposition'd behind my Nowi for safety afterwards, because I always aim for 0 deaths) but I found that my Defense Wins suddenly went way up when I did that, and I'm assuming the prior-mentioned reasons are why it happened. At least, it's the most logical explanation in my head. In any case, adding Ninian to my team also increased the rate at which I got Defense Wins, so I do believe including a number of movement assists that will help your team reach the enemy's can go a long way in catching them off-guard and handing you Defense Wins. Honestly, I have a strong preference for Reposition, but you are free to pick any that happens to be available to you or that you'd personally prefer to use during offense. 

Now, onto the next part, which is making sure your team kills someone. This might sound obvious, but a lot of people try to aim for zero deaths whenever possible, as your score will be hurt quite a bit if you lose even one hero during a victory. In order to get the highest possible score, one would need to basically never die in their 7-win streaks. Therein lies the the phenomenon: If your virtual team manages to kill even one hero, there's a damn good chance the enemy will just surrender so they can restart their streak (I'm pretty guilty of this from time to time). So, if you just care about Defense Wins, skills that do massive damage (Life and Death, Fury) can go a long way regardless of how they might negatively impact your team's survivability as a whole. There's also Vantage, which is pretty neat. A very common tactic is to bait the enemy units into attacking so that you can chip in some damage, and then finish them off when your turn comes. Vantage kind of screws with that strategy pretty hard, and at the very least, it will almost always ensure that you get an extra turn's worth of damage in before your unit dies. Manaketes tend to be tanky enough that they will usually get into Vantage range before they ever die, and they hit back hard enough that it's worth considering as an option. If you're actually using your team though, you might want to run Triangle Adept + Swordbreaker instead, because Lucina is everywhere at the 650+ range onwards. But purely for defense purposes, I find Vantage to be amazing and it nets me at least ten wins on the first day very consistently. It's worth noting that Vantage is even better on units like Nowi, because she will hit back regardless of range, and there is absolutely no way to avoid being hit first because of that. If you stack her with something like Defiant Atk 3, it will hurt even more, and Nowi actually becomes strong enough to OHKO a full health Lucina (And maybe Marth) at that point. The main thing though, is making sure your opponent takes enough damage that you're probably going to kill at least 1-2 schmucks. And yes, I'd definitely recommend giving Y!Tiki Lightning Breath+, although I don't actually suggest using Nowi for that. A!Tiki has the same weapon as Nowi and she's way more common, so I'd suggest using A!Tiki as a sacrifice instead if you must. A!Tiki has other useful skills she could pass down as well, such as Spur Res and Defiant Atk, so I personally believe she's more worth it. Since your Y!Tiki is +Res, she's better equipped to tank casters, so it'd be a real shame if she's unable to hit them back. If you have spare Nowi(s), I think you should just merge them with your current one due to how good her nature is. 

A few other points I should probably bring up: Although it's unlikely, if you happen to roll Ninian twice, I very heavily suggest scrapping one of her just so that Y!Tiki or Nowi can inherit her Fortify Dragons. Ninian is very widely claimed to be an inferior Azura, but because she's a manakete, she herself is eligible for Fortify Dragon's benefits. Having +6 DEF/RES makes her quite bulky and pushes her stat total way past Azura's, making her arguably even more useful than Azura in many situations. Ninian is also capable of inheriting A!Tiki/Nowi's weapon so she's one of the few dancers that won't be a sitting duck when hit by a ranged unit (Which is the most likely type of attack she's receiving since she's in the backrow dancing other units and trying to fortify the dragons). So if you have the SP to spare, I do definitely suggest doing either of those. I don't actually like Triangle Adept on Defense Teams, mostly because it makes your team easier to play around for the opponent, and especially since Y!Tiki/Nowi deal respectable enough damage even to colors they're weak against. But again, if you're planning on using your team for offense, both Nowi and Y!Tiki could use it due to how dirt common Lucina/Julia becomes on higher tiers. Swordbreaker is also a must offensively, and Green Tomebreaker would be nice on Y!Tiki. But for defensive purposes, I do suggest (Defiant/Fury)+Vantage on both of them, because it seems to produce results at least for me. Fury is excellent since it does help ensure you get into Vantage range without killing you outright. However, Y!Tiki's default A-Skill and Nowi's default C-Skill are fantastic by themselves, so if you're low on SP, I don't suggest replacing them. Nowi's is good enough that you can just leave it there forever. Prioritize empty slots above anything else, and then the assist skills, because extra movement tends to throw off the opponent. If they're not 40 yet, I do highly suggest simply not learning Breath of Life and Defense +1/2/3 because they're just not that good and are kind of a waste of SP. Ninian's default skills are fine (I feel like Wings of Mercy is a tad bit better than Escape Route, but Escape Route is good enough that you should learn it if you don't have much SP) and you could probably throw in Triangle Adept because there's nothing else that's too good for her. 

For the final unit of your team, you need a physical hitter. No matter what, having three manaketes on your team means you've overloaded with magic damage and could potentially be walled by a high-res team. I suggest a strong archer like Takumi/Jeorge/Klein etc if you happen to have them, due to how mobile they are. A ranged unit really helps because it's hard for your virtual team to gang up on a single unit when everyone has only a 1-tile attack range. If you don't have access to decent archers, try going for a strong axe-user just so your team has all the colors. If you still don't have that, feel free to use a sword infantry/cavalry if you happen to have them. No matter what though, you do need someone that does decent physical damage just to give your team some semblance of balance. For your manakete specials, I suggest slapping Bonfire onto everyone because they all have decent Def, but the difference is only a few points of damage and you can really put anything similar there. You'll almost never use Ninian's Special, whatever you decide to put there, so you can hold that off until you truly have so much excess SP you don't know what to do with it.

All in all, that kind of skims what you'd need to keep in mind for a Defense Team. Please do note some of the suggestions I make here aren't necessarily your best choices for a team you'd actually control and use to battle (Mostly because countering Lucina/Julia is kind of a must at higher tiers), but hopefully I made that clear enough along the way. I apologize if it was a bit long or messy, and please do feel free to ask questions if you have any concerns about practically anything. I do hope you get more defense wins, as that *is* a pretty severe drought you had there.

EDIT: Oh and, maybe you don't want to put a manakete in the lead. It's just going to tip off all the Lucina/Julia-users. I don't know how much of a difference it'd make, because I myself actually put a manakete in the lead, but I would imagine it might help slightly to put your fourth unit there, whoever it is.

 

Edited by Ryu Yuki
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, MrSmokestack said:

I know this is a bit early to pose this kind of question but I'll shoot for it anyway.

So my default for the bonus unit next season, assuming I don't pull a focus unit, is going to be 5* Michalis. I'm looking to treat him to some skill inheritance but I'm not sure what would suit him best, nor what team I should use to accommodate him. I have the following planned for him so far:

Hauteclere

Swap

Moonbow

Iote's Shield

Lancebreaker 2

Threaten Defense 3

Swap is very valuable here in making movement less demanding, more so if I can't run a dancer in my final build. Moonbow is an excellent skill to replace Blazing Thunder with, since with it he will always do extra damage on the counter in enemy phase. Bowbreaker can't be inherited by fliers for some reason, so I'm supposing Lancebreaker will be my next best choice. His default C is fine as it is so I'm not changing it.

 

In summary, who here is planning on running Michalis in the next bonus unit rotation? And which units make good teammates for him?

I already have him as 5* lvl 40 with 1000 sp and quick riposte 2 and Swap taken from Subaki. I decided not to change his active skill because the chances of being doubled are high which means that with the right baiting he can both kill the unit which engages him and get 4 ticks for his monstrous native skill. I'll see if that works out. Anyway, I think that Moonbow is solid choice, but it may be not optimal. He probably will kill lancers/blue mages anyway. For targets like Hector though you'd probably need more firepower on the active skill to one-shot them (which could prove important).

Dunno about best teamates, I'm going with my highest-BST setup again (Effie-Eldigan-Fury3!Julia). 

Edited by Avestus
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Avestus said:

I already have him lvl 40 with 1000 sp and quick riposte 2 and Swap taken from Subaki. I decided not to change his active skill because the chances of being doubled are high which means that with the right baiting he can both kill the unit which engages him and get 4 ticks for his monstrous native skill. I'll see if that works out. Anyway, I think that Moonbow is solid choice, but it may be not optimal. He probably will kill lancers/blue mages anyway. For targets like Hector though you'd probably need more firepower on the active skill to one-shot them (which could prove important).

Dunno about best teamates, I'm going with my highest-BST setup again (Effie-Eldigan-Fury3!Julia). 

I prefer Ignis as his skill as it adds a flat 28 damage when it activates, and it has a faster cooldown compared to blazing thunder.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Korath88 said:

I prefer Ignis as his skill as it adds a flat 28 damage when it activates, and it has a faster cooldown compared to blazing thunder.

The only problem with Ignis is that it can activate when you don't want it. Of course you'll have options tom play around it (not aggroing wrong units e.t.c.), but in some situations you may have to block someone with Mihalis and get off Ignis on enemy phase when you don't really want. Well, it's about preference. Ignis is very good since it adds values to raw damage. A very powerful skill, I do agree. If I'm not satisfied with native, I'll probably go for Ignis.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

30 minutes ago, Shiro said:

so finally got a deathless run of 4,614 with my catria hector lucius and sanaki team. with my best defense score of 273 :3 hope i break top 1k but doubt ill stay in it xD

I can promise you'll break into 1k; I'm currently in Rank 900 exactly with a score of 4,596. I just got a better score of 4,610 myself, but my rank hasn't been updated yet. Honestly I'd try for better, but I'd have to blow several swords and surrender a few times until I get paired off against higher-scoring teams.

4 hours ago, Mehdi2277 said:

I'd be interested in advice on a dragon team, too. I'd like to eventually run a team of 3 dragons + whatever bonus character I have. The dragons I currently have are a 5* Nowi +1 (+Spd, -Def), 5* Fae (+Atk, not sure what her bane is as she's a level 2), 5* Ninian (-Atk, +Spd), 4* Corrin (neutral), 3* Corrin (-Atk, +Def), and two 3* Adult Tiki's (+ Spd, -Def for one and +Res, -Spd for the other). Nowi is the only one I've inherited skills too already with her current skill set being wings of mercy 3, fury 3, and the rest are what she originally had.

 

On the arena this week, I finally got a deathless run earlier today. On prior weeks getting a deathless run wasn't hard, but using fury on nowi made me deal with heavily merged units constantly when the only merged unit on my team was a +1. I got a score of 4572. Not sure what rank yet as it hasn't updated. I also think ninian replacing roy has made my defense team much better as I've gotten 10 successful defenses. The things I currently find scariest in the arena are dancers as they make positioning a lot more difficult. That and merged Nino's are a pain to kill for me when they have the speed to double my Nino. Julia was a pain due to her high resistance and being super effective on half my team.

 

Oh and @Kiran if you use a hinoka then I'm guessing I faced you as I saw a defense against someone with your user name.

Give me a bit, I'll write something for you soon enough. Multi-tasking at the moment, but I'll definitely reply to you.

Edited by Ryu Yuki
Link to comment
Share on other sites

First complete deathless run! Arena has become a lot more scary with skill inheritance but my complete vanilla team pulled through! Ephraim, Roy, Takumi, and Anna were the units I used. Got a score of 4,484 and currently at rank 7,701. Doubt that I'll be staying in the top 10k but I can hope right? 

Edited by Kiran
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Ryu Yuki said:

My reply is a bit long, so I wrapped it in a spoiler tag. I apologize if the reply was a bit slow; I had to go out today to get several social obligations done. Hopefully I provided some insight, and do feel free to ask further questions if you are wondering about anything.

  Hide contents

Hm... Personally speaking, I would say that your Nowi has pretty much the best nature possible. Nowi's speed tier is not particularly good, but it's high enough that a +3 to her Spd can make a huge difference in who can and can't double her. And Hp is easily her most worthless stat, as she's tanky enough to take on multiple hits and a -Def or -Res would hurt her way more in the long run. As such, if I were you I'd probably go full throttle on investing in that particular Nowi, as you're unlikely to replace her with another. If you're serious about rolling a Ninian as well, then I would also suggest not using F!Corrin. She's not bad, but the unfortunate fact is that you don't really need three blues on your team and as much as I love the idea in concept, having four dragons is also detrimental to your team's overall composition. Nowi's base stat total is straight up superior to F!Corrin's, and her weapon's in-built Distant Counter effect will be far more likely to hand you defense wins, as it makes it so that your opponent can't avoid being damaged when attacking her (It helps that Nowi is tanky enough that OHKOing her is way harder than say, OHKOing Takumi). As such there's very little reason for you to run F!Corrin over Nowi at this point.

Now, making a dragon team as viable as possible would probably require quite a bit of investment. However, if we're only talking about Defense Wins, there are certain skills you should probably prioritize over others. Speaking from personal experience, I find that what really increases the number of Defense Wins is: 1) Movement shenanigans, and 2) Making sure your team will kill someone. Elaborating on movement shenanigans; what I mainly mean is basically anything that makes your 'true' Danger Zone harder to predict. A lot of people are super-reliant on using the Danger Zone feature to predict if the opponent can or can't reach them on the next turn. However, when the enemy team has skills like Dance, Shove or Reposition, it becomes a lot easier to make mistakes and have someone killed in battle. I gave Reposition to my Nowi mostly for offensive purposes (The idea was to send in a melee unit to murder Julia because screw her, and then have them Reposition'd behind my Nowi for safety afterwards, because I always aim for 0 deaths) but I found that my Defense Wins suddenly went way up when I did that, and I'm assuming the prior-mentioned reasons are why it happened. At least, it's the most logical explanation in my head. In any case, adding Ninian to my team also increased the rate at which I got Defense Wins, so I do believe including a number of movement assists that will help your team reach the enemy's can go a long way in catching them off-guard and handing you Defense Wins. Honestly, I have a strong preference for Reposition, but you are free to pick any that happens to be available to you or that you'd personally prefer to use during offense. 

Now, onto the next part, which is making sure your team kills someone. This might sound obvious, but a lot of people try to aim for zero deaths whenever possible, as your score will be hurt quite a bit if you lose even one hero during a victory. In order to get the highest possible score, one would need to basically never die in their 7-win streaks. Therein lies the the phenomenon: If your virtual team manages to kill even one hero, there's a damn good chance the enemy will just surrender so they can restart their streak (I'm pretty guilty of this from time to time). So, if you just care about Defense Wins, skills that do massive damage (Life and Death, Fury) can go a long way regardless of how they might negatively impact your team's survivability as a whole. There's also Vantage, which is pretty neat. A very common tactic is to bait the enemy units into attacking so that you can chip in some damage, and then finish them off when your turn comes. Vantage kind of screws with that strategy pretty hard, and at the very least, it will almost always ensure that you get an extra turn's worth of damage in before your unit dies. Manaketes tend to be tanky enough that they will usually get into Vantage range before they ever die, and they hit back hard enough that it's worth considering as an option. If you're actually using your team though, you might want to run Triangle Adept + Swordbreaker instead, because Lucina is everywhere at the 650+ range onwards. But purely for defense purposes, I find Vantage to be amazing and it nets me at least ten wins on the first day very consistently. It's worth noting that Vantage is even better on units like Nowi, because she will hit back regardless of range, and there is absolutely no way to avoid being hit first because of that. If you stack her with something like Defiant Atk 3, it will hurt even more, and Nowi actually becomes strong enough to OHKO a full health Lucina (And maybe Marth) at that point. The main thing though, is making sure your opponent takes enough damage that you're probably going to kill at least 1-2 schmucks. And yes, I'd definitely recommend giving Y!Tiki Lightning Breath+, although I don't actually suggest using Nowi for that. A!Tiki has the same weapon as Nowi and she's way more common, so I'd suggest using A!Tiki as a sacrifice instead if you must. A!Tiki has other useful skills she could pass down as well, such as Spur Res and Defiant Atk, so I personally believe she's more worth it. Since your Y!Tiki is +Res, she's better equipped to tank casters, so it'd be a real shame if she's unable to hit them back. If you have spare Nowi(s), I think you should just merge them with your current one due to how good her nature is. 

A few other points I should probably bring up: Although it's unlikely, if you happen to roll Ninian twice, I very heavily suggest scrapping one of her just so that Y!Tiki or Nowi can inherit her Fortify Dragons. Ninian is very widely claimed to be an inferior Azura, but because she's a manakete, she herself is eligible for Fortify Dragon's benefits. Having +6 DEF/RES makes her quite bulky and pushes her stat total way past Azura's, making her arguably even more useful than Azura in many situations. Ninian is also capable of inheriting A!Tiki/Nowi's weapon so she's one of the few dancers that won't be a sitting duck when hit by a ranged unit (Which is the most likely type of attack she's receiving since she's in the backrow dancing other units and trying to fortify the dragons). So if you have the SP to spare, I do definitely suggest doing either of those. I don't actually like Triangle Adept on Defense Teams, mostly because it makes your team easier to play around for the opponent, and especially since Y!Tiki/Nowi deal respectable enough damage even to colors they're weak against. But again, if you're planning on using your team for offense, both Nowi and Y!Tiki could use it due to how dirt common Lucina/Julia becomes on higher tiers. Swordbreaker is also a must offensively, and Green Tomebreaker would be nice on Y!Tiki. But for defensive purposes, I do suggest (Defiant/Fury)+Vantage on both of them, because it seems to produce results at least for me. Fury is excellent since it does help ensure you get into Vantage range without killing you outright. However, Y!Tiki's default A-Skill and Nowi's default C-Skill are fantastic by themselves, so if you're low on SP, I don't suggest replacing them. Nowi's is good enough that you can just leave it there forever. Prioritize empty slots above anything else, and then the assist skills, because extra movement tends to throw off the opponent. If they're not 40 yet, I do highly suggest simply not learning Breath of Life and Defense +1/2/3 because they're just not that good and are kind of a waste of SP. Ninian's default skills are fine (I feel like Wings of Mercy is a tad bit better than Escape Route, but Escape Route is good enough that you should learn it if you don't have much SP) and you could probably throw in Triangle Adept because there's nothing else that's too good for her. 

For the final unit of your team, you need a physical hitter. No matter what, having three manaketes on your team means you've overloaded with magic damage and could potentially be walled by a high-res team. I suggest a strong archer like Takumi/Jeorge/Klein etc if you happen to have them, due to how mobile they are. A ranged unit really helps because it's hard for your virtual team to gang up on a single unit when everyone has only a 1-tile attack range. If you don't have access to decent archers, try going for a strong axe-user just so your team has all the colors. If you still don't have that, feel free to use a sword infantry/cavalry if you happen to have them. No matter what though, you do need someone that does decent physical damage just to give your team some semblance of balance. For your manakete specials, I suggest slapping Bonfire onto everyone because they all have decent Def, but the difference is only a few points of damage and you can really put anything similar there. You'll almost never use Ninian's Special, whatever you decide to put there, so you can hold that off until you truly have so much excess SP you don't know what to do with it.

All in all, that kind of skims what you'd need to keep in mind for a Defense Team. Please do note some of the suggestions I make here aren't necessarily your best choices for a team you'd actually control and use to battle (Mostly because countering Lucina/Julia is kind of a must at higher tiers), but hopefully I made that clear enough along the way. I apologize if it was a bit long or messy, and please do feel free to ask questions if you have any concerns about practically anything. I do hope you get more defense wins, as that *is* a pretty severe drought you had there.

EDIT: Oh and, maybe you don't want to put a manakete in the lead. It's just going to tip off all the Lucina/Julia-users. I don't know how much of a difference it'd make, because I myself actually put a manakete in the lead, but I would imagine it might help slightly to put your fourth unit there, whoever it is.

 

No worries on the time.  Banner lasts until the 30th, so not in any rush to start tossing orbs into it.  I appreciate the in-depth analysis.  That's a lot of skill inheritance that sounds to be needed, so if I went for Ninian now I probably wouldn't be able to get the rest done for quite a while (but at the same time, it'd feel pretty bad if I passed on Ninian, and then got everything else I needed in a relatively prompt time frame).  And while I don't have an archer, I do have a Hector that I could toss in the group in place of Corrin.

Definitely gives me something to think about in regards to whether I should try for Ninian or not though.  Thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I finally got the D!  After having zero Defense wins yesterday, I now have 4.  I wish it wasn't so random.

Offense score of 4494 gives Rank 6936 right now.  Sadly Jaffar has a low BST, so that's about the best I can do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, GinRei said:

No worries on the time.  Banner lasts until the 30th, so not in any rush to start tossing orbs into it.  I appreciate the in-depth analysis.  That's a lot of skill inheritance that sounds to be needed, so if I went for Ninian now I probably wouldn't be able to get the rest done for quite a while (but at the same time, it'd feel pretty bad if I passed on Ninian, and then got everything else I needed in a relatively prompt time frame).  And while I don't have an archer, I do have a Hector that I could toss in the group in place of Corrin.

Definitely gives me something to think about in regards to whether I should try for Ninian or not though.  Thanks!

I'm glad you found all that somewhat useful. Also, while it's true that dragons take a lot of investment and it'll take you a while to fully complete their builds, prioritizing certain skills (Such as the assists and Vantage etc) could potentially net you defense wins along the way without actually completing the builds yet. So it's ultimately up to you whether you want to go all the way with this, but you might not necessarily need the full builds (Though obviously it does help a lot if you complete them) if you're really worried about getting defense wins. In any case, you can get around 75 SP per 4 hours (Takes 4 hours to recharge fully; 5 units on Eight Stratum will net you 3 SP each, for a total of 15x5=75 on full stamina; Use the leftover stamina to 'refresh' via Starting Stratum) so if you put your mind to it, you can actually grind them relatively fast. Also, Hector is an excellent teammate to the dragons, as he's the strongest green unit in the game and can fell the likes of Julia rather handily. I would definitely go with him since you happen to have him.

12 hours ago, Mehdi2277 said:

I'd be interested in advice on a dragon team, too. I'd like to eventually run a team of 3 dragons + whatever bonus character I have. The dragons I currently have are a 5* Nowi +1 (+Spd, -Def), 5* Fae (+Atk, not sure what her bane is as she's a level 2), 5* Ninian (-Atk, +Spd), 4* Corrin (neutral), 3* Corrin (-Atk, +Def), and two 3* Adult Tiki's (+ Spd, -Def for one and +Res, -Spd for the other). Nowi is the only one I've inherited skills too already with her current skill set being wings of mercy 3, fury 3, and the rest are what she originally had.

 

On the arena this week, I finally got a deathless run earlier today. On prior weeks getting a deathless run wasn't hard, but using fury on nowi made me deal with heavily merged units constantly when the only merged unit on my team was a +1. I got a score of 4572. Not sure what rank yet as it hasn't updated. I also think ninian replacing roy has made my defense team much better as I've gotten 10 successful defenses. The things I currently find scariest in the arena are dancers as they make positioning a lot more difficult. That and merged Nino's are a pain to kill for me when they have the speed to double my Nino. Julia was a pain due to her high resistance and being super effective on half my team.

 

Oh and @Kiran if you use a hinoka then I'm guessing I faced you as I saw a defense against someone with your user name.

Well, that's one unfortunate side effect of using manaketes. They have inflated base stat totals, so you end up getting paired against really powerful merged units. I for example, constantly deal with 40+10 Lucina and 40+5/6/7 Julia in 70% of my runs, even though my only merged units are my 40+5 Nowi and the 40+2 Lucina that I'm gradually phasing out for my new Eliwood (His mobility and high-res makes a good complement to my dragons; also I just don't want Ninian to feel lonely). I can tell you that it wasn't fun at first, but I've learnt to deal with it over time. Since you're running Fury 3 on Nowi, your team's total base stat is artificially getting jacked even further and you're most likely running into even more horribly mismatched battles. There isn't much you can do besides maybe removing Fury, but that would mean the teams you fight against won't give as much of a score either. The April update will probably alleviate the issue somewhat, so I suggest just waiting it out until then, and you'll probably be facing teams that aren't over-merged by that point. And yes, as a Dancer, Ninian tends to throw off the enemy's sense of your effective Danger Zone, so she's really great for defense team purposes.

As for dealing with dancers, there is really no better method than to simply observe them closely. Dancers give a lot of mobility to a team and there's no real good way to deal with them besides making decent predictions and picking off the enemy team fast enough that they don't completely swarm your team and make deathless positioning hard. I would like to say kill the dancers as soon as possible, but that's rarely an option given that they're almost always hiding behind another unit or two and reaching them means an incredible risk of losing one of your units. 

As for the Nino and Julia, there are two main ways that you could go about killing them consistently. The fact that you have a +Res/-Spd Adult Tiki is actually quite fortunate, and I highly suggest you go about raising her. Honestly speaking, Adult Tiki is so slow that any speed investment in her is really not worth it, and she's one of the few units I explicitly recommend -Spd for because of how little of a difference it'd make. I would personally say +Def or +Res goes the longest way in helping her, due to how often she's going to be doubled, and a +3 Def/Res means taking 6 less damage in your typical round of combat. I'm leaning on +Res as the superior option because it's much more helpful in the build you'd typically want for her. So in a way, you got one of, if not the best bane/boon combination on her. Anyway, I highly suggest running Triangle Adept + Green Tomebreaker on her, as it makes her surprisingly good at murdering any green unit in existence. To demonstrate, any axe-user is going to need 59 Atk to deal even a single point of damage on your particular Adult Tiki, assuming she's at 5* 40. That's almost never going to happen without big buffs, so she becomes practically untouchable on the physical side (Which is also why I feel +Res is somewhat more useful than +Def as anymore Def is just overkill on this front). She's a bit more fragile on the magical side, but she will still be taking hits very gracefully. Julia is arguably your biggest nightmare, because she gets a whopping 50% boost to her damage due to Naga's in-built effect. But with Triangle Adept and Green Tomebreaker, the typical Julia with neutral nature will only deal 17 damage to a +Res (i.e your) Adult Tiki, and Adult Tiki will completely destroy her in retaliation. This means your Adult Tiki can murder two Julia before finally dying to a third, assuming Julia is always the one initiating (Julia herself will die horribly with minimal opposition if you're the one initiating the attack). Even being very generous and assuming you're facing off against a +Atk Fury 3 40+10 Julia, she will deal a somewhat respectable 26 damage to your Adult Tiki before being horribly mauled to death by her. With Green Tomebreaker, Julia basically has no chance whatsoever of surviving an encounter with Adult Tiki. Looking at Nino, a +Atk Fury 3 40+10 version of her will only deal a laughable 7 damage to your Adult Tiki, before proceeding to be one-shotted in retaliation. Nino could technically deal more damage than that due to her Gronnblade, but you probably won't be taking too much more since I was using a very generously powerful Nino in that calculation, and you could probably play around the buffs against an AI team. No matter what though, even at her absolute strongest (+4 buff to Atk/Spd/Def/Res with the aforementioned 40+10 build) she will only barely manage 19 damage, which is less than half your full health, and she will still be one-shotted. So yes, one solution to your problems is this build of A!Tiki's, that will most certainly fry any green that stands in her way. Also keep in mind, I used an unmerged Adult Tiki that isn't buffed by Fortify Dragons in the above calculations. If you actually include Ninian's buff in the calculations, Adult Tiki is even more hilariously untouchable. 

If you're somehow not comfortable with the above solution, another way would be to include a Red Cavalry/Infantry on your team, and slapping Nowi with Reposition. I personally use Eliwood/Lucina for my Julia-killing purposes, but they aren't necessarily beefy enough to survive being deep inside enemy formation. As such, what I do is to send them in for the kill, and then have Nowi come in and use Reposition on them; this sends them behind her, leaving her to tank 1-2 hits which she could probably do as you've very likely killed the only non-Hector green on their team. From there on it's pretty easy pickings unless they have Falchion-wielders. Nowi is strong enough to survive one Falchion hit though, and if you have Spur Atk on your Red Cavalry/Infantry, there's a very good chance Nowi will simply one-shot them in her counterattack. So this method had worked fairly reliably for me, and it's something you can do if investing in A!Tiki is going to take too much time or something. 

All in all, looking at your potential candidates, I'd probably not include Corrin no matter what, because Nowi/Ninian are better blues and you really don't need more than two of those. I typically wouldn't recommend a completely pure dragon team, so I would suggest deciding between Fae/Nowi/A!Tiki/Ninian and choosing three of them to keep on your team, and throwing in a physical hitter because you don't really want a full magic team. Pure dragons can be walled by high-Res teams, and you rather avoid that scenario if possible. I personally would throw out Fae due to the abundance of reds in the arena, and the fact that her Def isn't super-respectable in a meta where you're more likely to see physical blues than magical ones, but she is one of your 5*s so I'm kind of reluctant about truly shafting her. If you really want, you could maybe throw Triangle Adept onto Fae/Nowi/A!Tiki, and you could maybe viably run a pure dragon team since the damage boost from TA might manage to make up for a lack of strong physical damage, and you've also managed to cover the entire color spectrum so there's no color that can truly wall you. (Besides colorless ninjas with super high-res like Felicia who don't show up too much) With Ninian in tow, it might work out, since TA will make your units tank certain colors extremely hard, and including Lancebreaker for Fae and Swordbreaker for Nowi can go a real long way in helping them murder the enemy team. It's ultimately up to your preferences though, as I think either of these paths could work out to some extent. Of course, if you happen to have the season's bonus unit though, you're going to have to throw one of them out, and if you absolutely must, I still say either Fae or Nowi. Fae for the prior-mentioned reasons, and Nowi because Ninian might be able to fill in for her despite her far lower natural stats.

Hopefully with that, I've addressed most of your concerns. If there's anything I've said that confuses you or doesn't seem like it makes sense, do feel free to ask me about it, and I'll do my best to answer any questions. If you have any further concerns beyond that, feel free to ask about them, and I'll do my best to address them. I hope this provided some insight at least, and I apologize if it was a tad bit long.

Edited by Ryu Yuki
Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Ryu Yuki said:

I can promise you'll break into 1k; I'm currently in Rank 900 exactly with a score of 4,596. I just got a better score of 4,610 myself, but my rank hasn't been updated yet. Honestly I'd try for better, but I'd have to blow several swords and surrender a few times until I get paired off against higher-scoring teams.

Give me a bit, I'll write something for you soon enough. Multi-tasking at the moment, but I'll definitely reply to you.

Yeah i am around rank 700ish with the 4,614 score. It was pretty hard getting a deathless win streak with lucius in my team xD cause my ninian wasnt maxed lul.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Ryu Yuki Thanks very much for the advice. I'll probably go with Adult Tiki/Nowi/Ninian then as my core. I do have Roy and Henry so the two adult tiki skills you mentioned are doable. Roy is my only source of triangle adept, so Nowi is not getting it though for awhile. Keeping Nowi is partly just she was one of my first 5* units and has served me really well. I'm guessing I should also eventually give her swordbreaker, but first I need to actually pull a sully/abel for that. For physical hitters my only 5* choices are Seliph or Minerva (technically Roy, but he looks to be sacrificed) and I'll likely just continue using seliph (Minerva being -Atk is a bit annoying for damage).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Score of 4476:

  • Ground Zero (3AM PST Mar 22) - #3221
  • 12 Hours Later - #4274
  • 36 Hours Later - #6067
  • 60 Hours Later - #7400
  • 86 Hours Later - #8810

I expect to be pushed out tomorrow unless I can somehow improve my score. 634 matches have been showing up in force, which are total crap.

Edited by Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3/22/2017 - offense 4,454; rank 3,426 (1:22AM PST) [deathless] [team #1]
3/22/2017 - offense 4,454; rank 5,756 (11:28PM PST) [deathless] [team #1]
3/23/2017 - offense 4,500; rank 3,636 (1:05AM PST) [deathless] [team #2]
3/24/2017 - offense 4,500; rank 5,691 (8:48PM PST) [deathless] [team #2]
3/25/2017 - offense 4,500; rank 6,660 (5:42PM PST) [deathless] [team #2]

Team #1:

Team: (all Level 40) +Atk/-Spd Ninian (163), +Res/-HP Ryoma (173; +Vantage 2), +Atk/-Spd M!Robin (159; +Swordbreaker 3), +Spd/-HP Camilla (161)
BST: 656

 

Team #2:

Team: (all Level 40) +Atk/-Spd Ninian (163), +Res/-HP Ryoma (173; +Vantage 2), neutral Sharena (177; +Threaten Spd 3), +Spd/-HP Camilla (161)
BST: 674

I've taken up @eclipse's idea of raising a training team when I need to reset training tower. It's been going good! I need somewhere to go in safety after the slippage of sanity trying Armors quest. Gwendolyn's Hone Attack 2 and Nino were working well until Gwendolyn surpassed Nino's level.

Also: I didn't know you could surrender for better scores and not lose your current win streak. Whoops. Good to know for next time! I don't think I'm bothering to improve my score this season. Just gonna pray I don't fall out of top 10K.

Edited by Dual Dragons
forgot to put the new rank whoops
Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, Mehdi2277 said:

I'd be interested in advice on a dragon team, too. I'd like to eventually run a team of 3 dragons + whatever bonus character I have. The dragons I currently have are a 5* Nowi +1 (+Spd, -Def), 5* Fae (+Atk, not sure what her bane is as she's a level 2), 5* Ninian (-Atk, +Spd), 4* Corrin (neutral), 3* Corrin (-Atk, +Def), and two 3* Adult Tiki's (+ Spd, -Def for one and +Res, -Spd for the other). Nowi is the only one I've inherited skills too already with her current skill set being wings of mercy 3, fury 3, and the rest are what she originally had.

A dragon team absolutely is required to have an answer to both Falchion and Naga, which severely limits what you can do. Mystery Tiki and at least one of Nowi or Corrin (F) is required to keep dragon-effective weaponry at bay. If you have the means to do so, it's highly recommended to run at least one member with Fortify Dragons.

Tiki (Mystery)

Lightning Breath+
Triangle Adept 3
Quick Riposte / G Tomebreaker

Triangle Adept 3 is required for a neutral-Atk Tiki to guarantee a two-hit kill on any Julia without Fury. Because +Spd Tiki fails to double attack +Spd Julia, either Quick Riposte or G Tomebreaker is required to secure a one-round kill. Triangle Adept 3 also decrease's the damage taken from +Atk Julia's Naga to a manageable 44% damage on a Tiki with -Res.

With neutral Atk, Tiki is guaranteed a two-hit kill on every green unit in the game except Sheena, and +Atk Hector deals only 1 damage per hit to a Tiki with neutral Def.

Nowi

Lightning Breath+
Triangle Adept 3
Quick Riposte / Swordbreaker / Lancebreaker

A +Atk Nowi is guaranteed to one-hit kill any Lucina, Marth, or Chrom without Fury, meaning Quick Riposte, Swordbreaker, and Lancebreaker are used to guarantee one-round kills on other targets. Triangle Adept 3 mitigates damage taken from Falchions on enemy phase, with neutral-Atk Marth dealing 27% damage and +Atk Chrom dealing 47% damage to Nowi with neutral defenses.

Because +Atk Nowi naturally one-hit kills Falchion-users, Quick Riposte and the Weaponbreaker skills are used if Falchion-users with Fury are a concern or to guarantee a one-round kill on other opponents or if you are using a Nowi with neutral Atk, such as +Def Nowi

Corrin (F)

Lightning Breath+ / Dark Breath+
Triangle Adept 3
Quick Riposte / Swordbreaker / Seal Atk / Seal Spd / Seal Def / Seal Res

Unlike Nowi, Corrin cannot land one-hit kills against any Falchion-user, but her higher Def allows her to tank more effectively. Even with her higher Def, Triangle Adept 3 is still required because a hit from a Falchion will still put her out of commission for the remainder of the match without it. With Triangle Adept 3, a Corrin with neutral defenses takes 20% damage from neutral-Atk Marth and 41% damage from +Atk Chrom. Because Nowi cannot one-hit kill any Falchion-user, without Swordbreaker or a boost to her Spd, she can be double attacked by unboosted +Spd Lucina.

If ranged opponents aren't a threat, you can opt to keep Dark Breath+ on Corrin to inflict a crippling -5 Atk and -5 Spd debuff to enemies within 2 squares of your opponent. A Seal skill can be used instead of Quick Riposte or Swordbreaker to weaken the opponent to clean up on player phase or with another team member.

Fae

I'm not going to give a set here because Fae has a decent number of options due to the fact that she gets demolished by both Falchion and Naga regardless of what she uses, meaning her role is to keep Linde in check and to help your blue dragon(s) with blue opponents.

Triangle Adept 3 and Lightning Breath+ guarantees a one-hit kill against any Linde without Fury and any Linde with Fury that isn't +Res while +Atk Linde does a mere 13% damage in return to -Res Fae. Fae with neutral defenses and without Triangle Adept takes only 52% damage from +Atk Linde, meaning it's entirely viable to use a different passive A skill.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Score of 4476:

  • Ground Zero (3AM PST Mar 22) - #3221
  • 12 Hours Later - #4274
  • 36 Hours Later - #6067
  • 60 Hours Later - #7400
  • 86 Hours Later - #8810
  • 90 Hours Later - #8902

 

Score of 4478 (I feel like the game is mocking me...):

  • Ground Zero (10PM PST Mar 25) - #8740

 

Man, 2 points is not the improvement I was looking for. These rolls are awful. I'm starting to see 632s. :/

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Arena seems harder nowadays but finally got a chance to focus on a serious run. Fury 3!Eirika, Linde, Robin(M), Fury 2!Anna, all 5* lvl 40, deathless 7 adv streak results in 4565 for rank 2052. I have 1 more duplicate Bartre to perhaps give Fury 2 to Linde but don’t think that’s going to rank sub 1k anyways. There are tons of whale teams in this range, the scariest are merged, fully skill’d, usually Fury, mages. Ninian is also common and can be tricky at times (I back out of a dancer led team if late in the streak). Hector/Effie are usually a relief to see. 

Anna is pretty good, though Linde and Robin (with Eirika’s buff) still do most of the work. She’s mainly a more consistent answer to Blues, and she can also handle Julia. She usually can take a hit from most units so sometimes it’s good to lure some enemies away, splitting them, then teleporting to safety using her prf. Being green allows some predictable AI manip against reds as well. 

Vengeance seems like an ideal skill for her (still using Astra for Vantage burst damage) but I’m hesitant to use up the spare Narcian, because there’s only 2 copies of him with no way to get more atm. I’m also looking to have her inherit Reposition for some team mobility when she gets the sp. Swap and Smite are other options but I think Reposition will be the most flexible overall. 

Tons of defense wins again this week. I now suspect it’s because of Draw Back. Having Draw Back on mages kinda forces the AI to stick together in a melee/ranged combo and I think it’s hard for some teams to do baiting tactics if they have to take Aura+Sieglinde and Blarraven+Noatun combinations. At least I know I sometimes run into trouble if I run into Draw Back teams, given the frailty of my characters.

Edited by XeKr
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Still have no defence win

 

Sooooo

List all the good defensive units guys? (Or if you have a defence win... list your units)

I am literally going to mock it ... idc anymore.

Edited by Ryuke
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Ryuke said:

Still have no defence win

 

Sooooo

List all the good defensive units guys? (Or if you have a defence win... list your units)

I am literally going to mock it ... idc anymore.

Stack one color.  I'm dead serious.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...