Arena Discussion Thread (inc. Assault)

[MrSmokestack]

8 minutes ago, Alfred Kamon said:

I really... don't know what focus unit to pick for the next Arena season. They're all kinda mediocre, honestly...? I have all of the bunnies, even a +Spd -Def Spring Lucina, but I doubt she can replace Nowi effectively on my team. Nor can Spring Chrom replace Anna, as he can't tank magical hits, or a hit from Lucina, or double +10 Ephraims consistently. Hmm... What is even a good build for Spring Lucina? She needs Fury 3 to increase her BST, but aside from that, I don't know. So perhaps the standard set with Desperation is what I should go for?

I had this build I came up with the other day for my +Spd - HP Spring Lucina. With -HP, she has exactly 32 HP at lvl40, meaning that after initiating a battle and using Ardent Sacrifice, she'd get -16 HP, bringing her to 50% of her total HP and allowing her to teleport with Escape Route. Not bad, but still meh.

Lucina-Spring seems like a great unit to run next season if you have her, especially with that stat spread. I know I am. Her saving quality is being a blue unit in general, which every team needs to be succesful nowadays. I'd say the most optimal would be Blárblade / Desperation, as the potential for Boost Emblem completely outstrips the 2 Mt loss, if you're not willing to bump Odin to 5*, and Fury like you mentioned can get her in Desperation range without having to get injured.

Her default Rally Speed is pretty good, and even Swift Sparrow isn't bad either if you want to ease SP costs. Draw Back is good to consider with ranged units, though, especially if you're taking a dancer with you. Linde theoretically runs the set much better, but Lucina is a bonus unit while Linde is not.

EDIT: Also, Ardent Sacrifice.

Edited April 3, 2017 by MrSmokestack

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Score of 4534

• Ground Zero (3PM PST Apr 1) - #5874
• 29 Hours Later - #6673

Whoops, was a bit late on this. Splurged a bit with the rest of my free orbs and ended up getting a Spring Lucina (-Atk, though) to go with my Spring Chrom. Somewhat torn on what to deploy next season since even though both get a big BST bump over Ursula, both have an argument for providing utility. It's nicer to have two ranged, but Chrom will have more BST than Lucina. Gonna raise both and maybe do some runs with either, I guess.

For this season, I decided to bite the bullet for this last set and throw in Azama in place of Ursula. I doubt I'll be able to push much higher without Crest resetting with Ursula and even if I get like +25, I doubt I'll crack top 5k. Azama might get me there through freak circumstance, but eh, I'm mostly just bored and giving him a try for the luls.

[Ice Dragon]

1 hour ago, Alfred Kamon said:

@Ice Dragon Apologies for the inappropriate question, but I'm legitimately curious (with no malice or ill intention at all): just how rich are you? Or are you just so bored of life that you seek perfection in this gacha game? kinda looks like Oliver Again, I hope I'm not offending anyone by asking this, I just want to understand better why people are eager to spend that much on this game.

Taking my other spending and deductions into account (savings, rent, other living expenses, other hobbies), I have about $1,500 each month in disposable income that I can comfortably budget to spend on whatever I want, which happened to be this game for the past 2 months. (Of course, I've been well over budget, but still within my ability to pay, but I'd like to not think about that until my next credit card statement comes in.)

 

3 hours ago, Ryu Yuki said:

Still, for someone to attain something like a 40+10 Ryoma, I do wonder how hard they must whale for something like that...

At a rough estimate based on my own experience, if a person only pulls red, it'll take maybe around $5,000 on average to pull 11 Ryomas (or any other 5-star-exclusive red unit). You can expect fluctuation of around a factor of 2 based on luck.

 

3 hours ago, Ryu Yuki said:

To be honest, I kind of recall you mentioning that you had 2-3 Hector(s) or something, so I assumed that 40+10 versions of 5* exclusive characters without a focus summon was something relatively rare even for the +$1000 spender.

Part of my "small" number of Hectors is due to the fact that there hasn't been much of a reason to pull green for a while. Ever since the end of the launch focus set, I've limited my pulls to only the colors of the focus characters and only pull from focus sets that contain 5-star-exclusive characters, and the only green 5-star-exclusive focus characters before the set we have right now were Julia and Minerva.

I'm hoping to pull at least another Hector in the current set, but I'll leave it up to luck.

 

3 hours ago, Ryu Yuki said:

I'm not jealous of your +10 Nowi or your soon-to-be +10 Ninian. Or your +10 Julia(s) and Lucina(s) for that matter. Nope, totally not.

Slowly working on Mystery TIki, as well. I have 9 copies of her, but haven't pulled a single one since the end of the launch focus sets.

All 21 of my Lucinas were a direct result of trying to pull for Tiki from the Legendary Heroes focus.

 

 

On topic, I'm really, really not looking forward to next season's bonus heroes list. After two weeks of running Ninian and enjoying the new responsiveness of my team, I'm really hesitant to remove her. I might have to drop Ryoma instead (which makes me sad because I just did the merges to get him to +4) for Sophia, though I'd have to run some calcs to make sure she can actually perform all of Ryoma's roles in his stead.

Having my entire team consist of mages is going to be weird.

[pianime94]

Same for me as well. Replacing Julia for Michalis in my team already saddens me before it even begun. I have a real great fun using Julia, Eirika, Ryoma, Ninian, too.

[Alfred Kamon]

3 hours ago, MrSmokestack said:

Lucina-Spring seems like a great unit to run next season if you have her, especially with that stat spread. I know I am. Her saving quality is being a blue unit in general, which every team needs to be succesful nowadays. I'd say the most optimal would be Blárblade / Desperation, as the potential for Boost Emblem completely outstrips the 2 Mt loss, if you're not willing to bump Odin to 5*, and Fury like you mentioned can get her in Desperation range without having to get injured.

Actually a set with standard Blàrblade is pretty good, thank you so much! I didn't think about that, and it actually makes it easier for me to save on feathers (since I have other priorities).

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

Taking my other spending and deductions into account (savings, rent, other living expenses, other hobbies), I have about $1,500 each month in disposable income that I can comfortably budget to spend on whatever I want, which happened to be this game for the past 2 months. (Of course, I've been well over budget, but still within my ability to pay, but I'd like to not think about that until my next credit card statement comes in.)

Hm hm, that makes sense. Thank you for answering me, Ice Dragon.

[Roflolxp54]

Alright, new best score! 4201; not a deathless run but still plenty good!

[Ice Dragon]

Okay... Sophia is not going to work very well.

Due to the fact that she gets double attacked by nearly everything in the game, she needs Triangle Adept 3 to tank green units without taking too much damage. This means she can't run Close Counter if she is ever expected to tank more than one unit per battle, and I absolutely need my Ryoma replacement to be able to tank and kill both Nino and Hector in one battle.

And then there's the real problem: Sophia cannot one-round kill Hector without buffs or a special skill activation unless she runs Close Counter and Quick Riposte.

 

Which means the only way Sophia is going to work at all is to run Triangle Adept 3 and have her stand in front of Hector for a bit to charge up her special skill. That's kind of really dumb.

 

I really, really don't want to use Selena with a Ruby Sword+ and Distant Counter. That's really expensive.

 

Ugh. Bonus heroes are such a pain to deal with.

[eclipse]

13 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Okay... Sophia is not going to work very well.

Due to the fact that she gets double attacked by nearly everything in the game, she needs Triangle Adept 3 to tank green units without taking too much damage. This means she can't run Close Counter if she is ever expected to tank more than one unit per battle, and I absolutely need my Ryoma replacement to be able to tank and kill both Nino and Hector in one battle.

And then there's the real problem: Sophia cannot one-round kill Hector without buffs or a special skill activation unless she runs Close Counter and Quick Riposte.

 

Which means the only way Sophia is going to work at all is to run Triangle Adept 3 and have her stand in front of Hector for a bit to charge up her special skill. That's kind of really dumb.

 

I really, really don't want to use Selena with a Ruby Sword+ and Distant Counter. That's really expensive.

 

Ugh. Bonus heroes are such a pain to deal with.

Does Palla drop your BST too much?  She's quite effective against greens!

[DehNutCase]

@Ice Dragon Can't you just G-Tomebreaker Selena and have her go to town? Armorslayer+, G-Tomebreaker, T-Adept 3 Selena 1RKOs +10 Def Boon Hector at Neutral +0 and +10 Nino with Def Boon and Fury 3 at Neutral +0.

Edit: TAdept Selena also takes all of 2 damage from +Def Nino before buffs. Haha. And, uh, Fury 3 Hector lives because, at +10, Fury's speed 3 and +10's 4 bonus speed makes it so Selena can't double him. But why is Fury 3 Hector ever a problem?

Double Edit: On second thought, that means +Spd variants will be too fast for Selena to 1RKO unless she's +Spd herself (or gets a speed buff.)

Triple Edit: God dammit I'm stupid, just realized you needed your Ryoma replacement to COUNTER-KILL Hector and Nino in one turn. So, yeah, Selena won't work unless you dump resources into her. : /

Edited April 3, 2017 by DehNutCase

[Ryu Yuki]

Suddenly there is this great influx of fliers on the teams I'm facing against...

[Ice Dragon]

4 minutes ago, eclipse said:

Does Palla drop your BST too much?  She's quite effective against greens!

 

3 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

@Ice Dragon Can't you just G-Tomebreaker Selena and have her go to town? Armorslayer, G-Tomebreaker, T-Adept 3 Selena 1RKOs +10 Hector def Boon at Neutral +0 and +10 Nino with Def Boon at Neutral +0,.

My current team is Ryoma, Robin (M) (Close Counter and Quick Riposte 3), Julia, and Ninian. The main issue with either of these suggestions is that my play style is to take free kills when ranged enemies attack me, then go in to pick off the melee enemies one by one by virtue of being able to out-maneuver them with my ranged attackers.

The biggest problem with finding a replacement for Ryoma is that said replacement needs to be able to either kill Nino and Julia outright on enemy phase or be able to safely perform a kill on player phase after luring them away from the rest of the army. On maps with limited mobility, namely the lava map and the underground waterway map, enemies have a tendency to bunch up due to the limited space, making it nearly impossible to split the enemy army in an advantageous way.

Add to that the fact that three of the four red bonus characters prefer the use of Triangle Adept, which is literally telling every AI-controlled blue unit to come and get dessert.

The more I look at this situation, the more I see Triangle Adept Sophia being the best answer. +Atk Hector deals 5x2 damage to her. +Atk Nino with buffs from Eirika deals 7 damage and dies on the counterattack.

 

On that note, I actually have a question. How do other people typically handle ranged enemies when the only unit you have with weapon triangle advantage is a melee unit? And, how do you specifically handle this situation on the lava map and underground waterway map?

[DehNutCase]

14 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

On that note, I actually have a question. How do other people typically handle ranged enemies when the only unit you have with weapon triangle advantage is a melee unit? And, how do you specifically handle this situation on the lava map and underground waterway map?

I just have someone bait the ranged (taking very little), and then send Klein in to murder, using a dancer to reposition him afterwards. It helps that I have Minerva who's ridiculously bulky, meaning I can usually take out 2 units in one round (as long as you don't keep L&D on her, high def, middling res, and Sacred Cowl makes her tanky enough to survive 2 hits pretty reliably).

For reference, my standard team is Minerva, Klein, Azura & Bonus unit.

Edit: If bonus units weren't an issue, I'd just run Leo in the last slot. Not because he's great or anything, but Minerva, Klein, Azura and Leo were the account's first 4 5*s, so I got used to how the lineup runs.

Double Edit: Minerva's flight, Klein's range, and Azura's sing means that I will almost always easily out maneuver the enemy-lineup on open maps, and closed maps are Klein city. Horses lack the BST to show up in advanced, and fliers die to Klein.

Edited April 3, 2017 by DehNutCase

[Birdy]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

On that note, I actually have a question. How do other people typically handle ranged enemies when the only unit you have with weapon triangle advantage is a melee unit? And, how do you specifically handle this situation on the lava map and underground waterway map?

I run a team of Nino, Tharja, Eirika/Azura (or both if one of them is a bonus unit) and -insert bonus unit-, which right now is Anna, and has been my best group so far. Both Azura (Sapphire Lance+) and Anna have Triangle Adept and good RES, which makes ranged magical attacks that they have WTA over do very little damage. 

The real thing that safes me a lot of times on those particular maps though is having 3/4 Draw Back skills and a Sing available. On those maps, it becomes really easy to actually pick units off by attacking enemies > sing > move behind Azura and draw back. Nino (+SPD, Fury 3, Desperation) can kill every blue except Effie, who's likely not the first one to be on the front lines because movement issues. Tharja (+ATK, Fury 3, Swordbreaker) can kill any green and red sword unit. With the right buffs from Eirika/Nino/Fill, she can probably kill any archer aswell, though it's been weeks since I saw an archer in the Arena to be honest.

But yeah, for your particular question about how to deal with ranged units when you only have melee units that have WTA, for me Triangle Adept is king. 

[Clogon]

I just use my -res+atk Hector. My Erika has Rally Res so the 3 buffs help him tank and kill the Julia and Nino. I also run Spur ATK to help him OHKO them.

[Silith13]

My current team is Hana, Ursula, Robin(M!) and Olivia. And I have no clue which to replace next week. Aside from the easter characters I got everyone available... technically. Palla and Selena are both level 1 3*.

[Hawk King]

4 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

On that note, I actually have a question. How do other people typically handle ranged enemies when the only unit you have with weapon triangle advantage is a melee unit? And, how do you specifically handle this situation on the lava map and underground waterway map?

I've been running +spd/-def Lucina, +def/-hp Chrom, Sharena, and Anna and I have to be very careful when dealing with ranged units. I mostly just position my units on the edge of their range and let them move into my range so I can move in to kill them. Mages die pretty easily from physical hits. Takumi give me the most trouble but if i really need to bait him in, after the Hone Def from Sharena, Chrom takes at worst 12x2 from him. Just gave Lucina Fury 2 (need more SP for 3) so she can double and 1RKO even +spd Takumi. Anna has swap to switch with Chrom or Lucina when there are Lance users within range when they get their kills.

Thankfully, with my rating, I run into a lot of Hectors and Effies so any ranged units that might accompany them run off ahead and are easy to pick off.

 

I've only lost units twice in the past 2 weeks, and it was completely my fault because I didn't check all of the opponents skills.

 

The Lava map is by far the worst for me. The starting position is just so terrible. The waterway one, I actually find to be really easy for me. It's easy to manipulate the enemy AI.

Edited April 3, 2017 by Hawk King

[GinRei]

Ugh, my 4,303 score just dropped out of the top 50k.  Not sure if it's really worth trying to do another run to up the score a bit or not.

[Elieson]

my 4,550 score just dropped to Rank 5,236. SO MUCH FOR THOSE 500 FEATHERS I GUESS

 

I need to learn how to build a Defense team. I just rolled a second 5* Nowi (well, my daughter rolled it for me). Tempted to throw them both onto a defense team, but other options...Marth & Dancer perhaps?

[MrSmokestack]

1 minute ago, Elieson said:

my 4,550 score just dropped to Rank 5,236. SO MUCH FOR THOSE 500 FEATHERS I GUESS

 

I need to learn how to build a Defense team. I just rolled a second 5* Nowi (well, my daughter rolled it for me). Tempted to throw them both onto a defense team, but other options...Marth & Dancer perhaps?

Hey, we have the same score! I guess we can cry together.

The arena update honestly can't come fast enough.

Color-stacking (especially blue) is for people desperate for defense wins honestly, I just use my normal team and get at least 1-3 every season.

[Elieson]

6 minutes ago, MrSmokestack said:

Hey, we have the same score! I guess we can cry together.

The arena update honestly can't come fast enough.

Color-stacking (especially blue) is for people desperate for defense wins honestly, I just use my normal team and get at least 1-3 every season.

I've only had defense feather bonuses two times out of all the seasons (combined 3 Defensive wins), so it's quite bothersome when I use my standard Marth/Julia/Sharena/Nowi team.

 

Now, a Sharena/Nowi/Nowi/[Julia/or/Olivia] team could do something for me...i have one +Def-Res (the new one) and one -Def+Res so we can play with this and see if going full blues makes a difference

[Birdy]

23 minutes ago, Elieson said:

my 4,550 score just dropped to Rank 5,236. SO MUCH FOR THOSE 500 FEATHERS I GUESS

 

I need to learn how to build a Defense team. I just rolled a second 5* Nowi (well, my daughter rolled it for me). Tempted to throw them both onto a defense team, but other options...Marth & Dancer perhaps?

Dancer is always good catching people off-guard. Wings of Mercy and Swap are also very effective. I once got off-guard thinking I was out of range of attacks, only to have the enemy Eirika use swap on the enemy Nino to get her in range of my Azura... I think it's not so much about winning a fight (not that you said this, just stating it), but more about catching someone off-guard just once makes them give up quite a lot of times.

[chirp]

14 minutes ago, Elieson said:

I need to learn how to build a Defense team.

Defense seems random, I got wins with a value over 250 every week despite not having a defense team. Maybe aiming for the mid range with no obvious "defense" staples is good enough ? Perhaps doing so gives my team frequent matchups and improves its chances to face a distracted player ? Whereas if I tried to build a monster defense squad full of Armads, Counters, Vantages and whatnot, it would face only a handful of players prepared to handle this. Just musing.

[Thor Odinson]

Well, after flailing around all week I finally got a successful defense. Sully/Reinhardt/Sharena/Robin with Sully as the fairly unsuspecting lead. 

Fucking finally just in time lmao

[MaskedAmpharos]

@Ice Dragon Do you absolutely have to replace Ryoma? At this point I'm wondering if it wouldn't be more beneficial for you to replace Robin with Easter Lucina or something like that. 

[Ice Dragon]

Just now, MaskedAmpharos said:

@Ice Dragon Do you absolutely have to replace Ryoma? At this point I'm wondering if it wouldn't be more beneficial for you to replace Robin with Easter Lucina or something like that. 

Robin is my red and colorless wall. He stands in front of the enemy army and watches as all of the Lucinas, Marths, Ryomas, Eldigans, Takumis, and Kleins walk up to him and die in a cloud of blue feathers, which is what the Close Counter and Quick Riposte combination is designed to do. Spring Lucina doesn't have the physical bulk to do that and would have to be relegated to taking potshots at the enemy army as they approach.