Arena Discussion Thread (inc. Assault)

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

20 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

Drag back is only 50 SP less than Vantage 3 (150 SP vs. 200 SP). Vantage costs more to learn, because of its pre-reqs, but the actual skill doesn't cost all that much more than drag-back.

If it's being rated that way, I still wouldn't exactly call costing 33.3% more SP "not all that much more", but I guess how they scale it into team points could skew it.

[chirp]

5 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

For all vanilla +10 values of foo except +Res Effie, +Spd Peri, +Res Hawkeye, Arthur, Sheena, +Res Minerva, +Res Camilla, Julia, Nino, Robin (F), +Res Fae, +Spd Niles, and Felicia, you can use

+10 Olwen [+Atk, -HP/Def/Res] (Dire Thunder, [Ardent Sacrifice], Draconic Aura, Life and Death 3, Desperation 3, [passive C], S Atk +1) with a Hone Cavalry buff.

And yes, this Olwen kills +10 Hector if he's not on a fortification and has no buffs. (+0 Olwen does the same to +0 Hector.)

Excellent, excellent ! It looks like we can put the Vantage+Counter problem to rest. The trivial problem of convincing Olwen to join my army is left as an exercise to Lady Luck my wallet the reader.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Tier 15 score of 4812 (no surrenders; 688, 688, 688, 684, 686, 690, 688):

• May 10 7:00 PM PT - #1827
• May 11 9:30 AM PT - #2400
• May 11 3:00 PM PT - #2461

Seeing drops like this makes me instinctively nervous, but since the bracket size is also increasing at about the same rate, I really have nothing to fear. Gotta get used to that, I guess.

[Rezzy]

Offense Score 4796, Rank in Tier 15: 3646.  I have no idea what it will come out to at the end of the season.

I had no Deaths, but only Abel on my team is merged.  (I had a -Atk Abel I combined with my original.)

[GuiltyLove]

I have 4704. Using a level 24 3* Olivia lowered my score, but it was deathless

Oh well whatever. At least I broke 4k and had a relatively easy time due to the lower score bracket. I'm around 10k in ranking

[LordFrigid]

Update for 5006 (Tier 15):

• 1am PDT 5/9: 21
• 4:50 pm PDT 5/10: 177
• 4:50 pm PDT 5/11: 215

Not as much of a drop as I was expecting, given that free-sword people are only finishing their runs today (at the earliest). Maybe a lot of people just wanted to try out the new maps and got their streaks before today with crests on day 1/day 2, or something.

Highest Def score is still 578.

[Rafiel's Aria]

Still not much Arena luck. I haven't gotten another 7 streak yet...and no defense wins. I'm still ranked in the top...20k in tier 15, I believe, so that's good as long as I get my 3 orbs + feathers and get to stay in tier 15. (Moving up would be cool though.) I'll probably give it one more shot before the end of the season.

If anyone has advice for defense teams in the new Arena, that'd be nice. I tried an all red team for a while (Hana, Olivia, Sanaki, and Lucina), but I think that's probably the easiest color to counter in the current meta. I had been running all greens (Hector, Michalis, and Nino) plus Olivia, but I needed to fit Hana on my team for the bonus so I took out Hector. I decided to change my team to Michalis, Nino, M. Robin, and Olivia this morning.

Should I go for a balanced team plus a dancer? (I could probably put Wings of Mercy on Olivia or Azura...) All of one color plus a dancer? What teams seem to be working for people defense-wise?

Edited May 12, 2017 by Rafiel's Aria

[Locke087]

2 hours ago, Rafiel's Aria said:

Still not much Arena luck. I haven't gotten another 7 streak yet...and no defense wins. I'm still ranked in the top...20k in tier 15, I believe, so that's good as long as I get my 3 orbs + feathers and get to stay in tier 15. (Moving up would be cool though.) I'll probably give it one more shot before the end of the season.

If anyone has advice for defense teams in the new Arena, that'd be nice. I tried an all red team for a while (Hana, Olivia, Sanaki, and Lucina), but I think that's probably the easiest color to counter in the current meta. I had been running all greens (Hector, Michalis, and Nino) plus Olivia, but I needed to fit Hana on my team for the bonus so I took out Hector. I decided to change my team to Michalis, Nino, M. Robin, and Olivia this morning.

Should I go for a balanced team plus a dancer? (I could probably put Wings of Mercy on Olivia or Azura...) All of one color plus a dancer? What teams seem to be working for people defense-wise?

Who do you have? Color spam of green is the worst one to do, most people run highly powerful red units and Green units that hit neutral very well. I could run circles around your team and I only field one red.

As for general advice, Vantage, Wings of Mercy, and Same type Breaker Skills in general can get you Defense wins. Dancers can also help though I've never needed one to get defense wins I currently have 8 or so and my team is Lyn, Sharena, Nino, Anna (all five star and heavily modified by inheritance).

Personally I find my Arena teams work as a great defense teams as well, as long as your team has good synergy usually that synergy applies to defense as well.

Edited May 12, 2017 by Locke087

[Rafiel's Aria]

2 minutes ago, Locke087 said:

Who do you have? Color spam of green is the worst one to do, most people run highly powerful red units and Green units that hit  neutral very well.

As for general advice, Vantage, Wings of Mercy, and Same type Breaker Skills in general can you Defense wins.  Dancers can also help  though I've never needed one to get defense wins I currently have 8 or so and my team is Lyn, Sharena, Nino, Anna (all five star and heavily modified by inheritance).

Wings of Mercy Azura has been giving me a lot of trouble lately. She doesn't kill me but definitely chips away at health...

As far as 5 star units go, I've got Michalis*, Raven, Priscilla, Nino*, Sanaki*, M. Robin (with Triangle Adept and Vantage)*, Chrom, Lucina*, Hector (with Wings of Mercy)*, Spring Lucina*, Spring Xander, Peri*, and Takumi. (I starred the units that have any SI.)

Next season I was thinking of running Nowi (she's only 4 stars...), Xander, Hector, and Takumi just to have a team that always counters. I'm sitting on 26k feathers right now...and those will probably go towards Xander.

[Locke087]

1 minute ago, Rafiel's Aria said:

Wings of Mercy Azura has been giving me a lot of trouble lately. She doesn't kill me but definitely chips away at health...

As far as 5 star units go, I've got Michalis*, Raven, Priscilla, Nino*, Sanaki*, M. Robin (with Triangle Adept and Vantage)*, Chrom, Lucina*, Hector (with Wings of Mercy)*, Spring Lucina*, Spring Xander, Peri*, and Takumi. (I starred the units that have any SI.)

Next season I was thinking of running Nowi (she's only 4 stars...), Xander, Hector, and Takumi just to have a team that always counters. I'm sitting on 26k feathers right now...and those will probably go towards Xander.

Assuming the units have the buff skills to synergize well with Nino I would recommend, either Lucina, M Robin, Hector, Bonus Unit (Anna I assume) or Sanaki, M Robin, Nino, Bonus Unit (Anna), ranged spam is never fun. 

You can't effectively run spam with your set up blue and red spam requires dancers. If neither of these work try this Sanaki, Olivia, Nino, Bonus Unit(Anna).

[Exoplayer]

I scored 4844 yesterday and rankend 287 from Tier 14 to 17. Defensive is very nice to me, already got more than 10 wins. 

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

I HATE

HATE

the new map with the fort tile square in the middle. That map is waaaaaaaaaay too small. There's no strategy involved; it's literally a straight DPS check to see if you can one-shot their team first, or if anything you leave in the fort tiles can survive. If you can't do any of those two, then you've basically lost the map, especially if they have -blade Mages. You can't do cool things like separating the enemies and whatnot, you just pray you live through turn 1.

In other news, 4798 in Tier 15 is Rank 3608. I have my Defense win with Anna (how), so I'm switching back to my cancer team.

Edited May 12, 2017 by SatsumaFSoysoy

[DehNutCase]

5 minutes ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

I HATE

HATE

the new map with the fort tile square in the middle. That map is waaaaaaaaaay too small. There's no strategy involved; it's literally a straight DPS check to see if you can one-shot their team first, or if anything you leave in the fort tiles can survive. If you can't do any of those two, then you've basically lost the map, especially if they have -blade Mages. You can't do cool things like separating the enemies and whatnot, you just pray you live through turn 1.

In other news, 4798 in Tier 15 is Rank 3608. I have my Defense win with Anna (how), so I'm switching back to my cancer team.

Which fort square are you talking about? The oasis one with trees, or the 4 square fort one with two rivers running above and below? (Because the two rivers one seems like you can just send all your stuff up or down and deal with the enemies that way.)

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

Just now, DehNutCase said:

Which fort square are you talking about? The oasis one with trees, or the 4 square fort one with two rivers running above and below? (Because the two rivers one seems like you can just send all your stuff up or down and deal with the enemies that way.)

The two rivers one. It's hard to divert everything to the river, because there's always going to be one guy stuck, and everyone and their mother runs a dancer, so their -blade mage or archer can reach you. The oasis one is actually fine.

[Otorio]

9 minutes ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

The two rivers one. It's hard to divert everything to the river, because there's always going to be one guy stuck, and everyone and their mother runs a dancer, so their -blade mage or archer can reach you. The oasis one is actually fine.

Have you been keeping a lookout as to whether or not their ranged units have Assist skills? Since all the dancers are melee attackers, they tend to move before mages/archers if they all have an Assist ability. When it comes to these really cramped maps, AI manipulation becomes pretty crucial.

Oh, also a score update!

Score: 4816

Rank (Tier 15): 2345

Edited May 12, 2017 by Otorio

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

Just now, Otorio said:

Have you been keeping a lookout as to whether or not their ranged units have Assist skills? Since all the dancers are melee attackers, they tend to move before mages/archers if they all have an Assist ability. When it comes to these really cramped maps, AI manipulation becomes pretty crucial.

They pretty much all do, since I'm at 690. People like Nino come with one already anyway. So I can just mostly not care about potential danced attack ranges from ranged units that have Assists?

[Otorio]

1 minute ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

They pretty much all do, since I'm at 690. People like Nino come with one already anyway. So I can just mostly not care about potential danced attack ranges from ranged units that have Assists?

Yup. It might help to review this page: http://feheroes.gamepedia.com/Enemy_AI

After going through it a few times while battling in the Arena, I feel like I'm able to predict dancer teams much better now.

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

2 minutes ago, Otorio said:

Yup. It might help to review this page: http://feheroes.gamepedia.com/Enemy_AI

After going through it a few times while battling in the Arena, I feel like I'm able to predict dancer teams much better now.

I think I've seen it in action a lot of times, but I've always just continued to live with the fear that I could get dance-maged to death every time I play in the Arena. Thanks.

[Skala_Bundet]

14 hours ago, Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi said:

I can even give a little more info on the individual matches if it helps.

Tier 15 score of 4812 (no surrenders; 688, 688, 688, 684, 686, 690, 688):

• May 10 7:00 PM PT - #1827
• May 11 9:30 AM PT - #2400

 

Team:

• Soren 5* (+HP/-Spd; 163) - Rexcal+, Rally Res, Growing Wind, Atk +1, Watersweep 3, Fort Res 3
• Nowi 5* +1 (+Atk/-HP; 177) - LBreath+, Reposition, Bonfire, TA3, Vantage 3, Spur Res 3, Spd Seal +1
• Eirika 5* (+Atk/-Def; 189) - Sieg, Rally Def, Moonbow, Fury 3, Drag Back, Hone Spd 3, Atk Seal +1
• Nino 5* +1 (+Spd/-Def) - Gblade+, Draw Back, Draconic Aura, Fury 3, Desperation 3, Hone Atk 3, HP Seal +3

Amazing you noted the individual scores. Yep those should be useful as well

 

@azurrys : You had a fairly high score considering you're running a cavalry team with two mages. Did you occasionally surrender to get more points?

 

Keep those/that (argh... English...) data coming. The more similar the teams are, the easier it becomes to pinpoint individual differences. It's just really important to know how often someone surrendered (since that can really scew results)

[Xaos Steel Wing]

I was struggling to go deathless earlier in the week... turns out all I needed was Hector.

5* Hector, Soren, Eirika, Sharena

Score: 4808 (new personal best)

Rank: 2,873 (in Tier 15)

Switching Hector to replace Takumi made a huge difference. I got 7 wins deathless no problem. Hector just crushes pretty much everything outside of reds... and Sharena handles those.

Hector destroys pretty much everything (bows, shurikens, blues, greens, blue and green mages) aside from reds.

Sharena takes out reds, including the most common ones, Ryoma and Ike.

Eirika takes out greens and can double slower red mages.

Sharena takes out green and blue mages.

The only character that really counters my team is Tharja (fast red mage that my characters can't double). But I won against a Tharja once in this run as she walked into Sharena's attack range.

Looks like Hector is my new hero.

[Sl3w1n]

@Skala_BundetMy current arena team is:

5*Nino +1 (+Spd/-Hp)
Blade +/ Glimmer/ Deathblow 3/ Desperation 3/ Atk+ Aura/ Drawback

5*Olivia +1 (+Atk/ -Hp)
Silver blade +/ Moonbow/ Fury 3/ Wings of mercy 3/ Atk+ AUra/ Dance

5* Bunny Chrome +1 (+Spd/ -Hp)
Carrot axe +/ Dragon gaze/ +2Atk and Def/ Renewell 2/ Res+ Aura (lv. 2)/ Rally Speed

4* Zephiel

Silver Blade/ Revenge/+2 Atk/Wary Fighter 3/ Hone Atk 2/ Swap

Which (could've) scored:

2x 678

5x 680

1x 684

2x 688

 

The same team but with Rawing thunder on Nino instead of glimmer got machtched with:

3x 678

17x 680

16x 682

5x 684

2x 686

2x 688

 

[Rafiel's Aria]

4 hours ago, Locke087 said:

Assuming the units have the buff skills to synergize well with Nino I would recommend, either Lucina, M Robin, Hector, Bonus Unit (Anna I assume) or Sanaki, M Robin, Nino, Bonus Unit (Anna), ranged spam is never fun. 

You can't effectively run spam with your set up blue and red spam requires dancers. If neither of these work try this Sanaki, Olivia, Nino, Bonus Unit(Anna).

Hana has been my bonus unit for this season, and she's worked out pretty good because I've been facing a LOT of Hectors. I ended up switching my team to Lucina, M. Robin, Hector, and Hana...so hopefully I'll be able to secure a win before the season ends, but it's not looking too great. 

 

1 hour ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

I HATE

HATE

the new map with the fort tile square in the middle. That map is waaaaaaaaaay too small. There's no strategy involved; it's literally a straight DPS check to see if you can one-shot their team first, or if anything you leave in the fort tiles can survive. If you can't do any of those two, then you've basically lost the map, especially if they have -blade Mages. You can't do cool things like separating the enemies and whatnot, you just pray you live through turn 1.

In other news, 4798 in Tier 15 is Rank 3608. I have my Defense win with Anna (how), so I'm switching back to my cancer team.

I know the map. >.> I hate it too. People suggested dividing my team down the sides, but that hasn't worked. The AI always makes the other team barrel straight down the middle or all four characters end up going after two of my peeps. I got lucky on the last one and ended up against 4 red units that couldn't do any damage to M. Robin while he was on a tile. But still...that's an awful map. 

 

Arena Update: Managed to get a 7 streak win. My first four battles were in the 660 range because I dropped Hector and added Olivia. My last 3 battles were all in the 680 range which put me at exactly 4702 for the season. That's good enough for me! I'm ranked in the 13000s which should keep me safely in the percentage that moves up.

[Korath88]

A Reinhardt user just lost to my swordspam defence team. (Also I have like 5 defense victories now)

I'm just going to stop questioning things and accept it as it is.

[Skala_Bundet]

1 hour ago, Sl3w1n said:

@Skala_BundetMy current arena team is:

5*Nino +1 (+Spd/-Hp)
Blade +/ Glimmer/ Deathblow 3/ Desperation 3/ Atk+ Aura/ Drawback

5*Olivia +1 (+Atk/ -Hp)
Silver blade +/ Moonbow/ Fury 3/ Wings of mercy 3/ Atk+ AUra/ Dance

5* Bunny Chrome +1 (+Spd/ -Hp)
Carrot axe +/ Dragon gaze/ +2Atk and Def/ Renewell 2/ Res+ Aura (lv. 2)/ Rally Speed

4* Zephiel

Silver Blade/ Revenge/+2 Atk/Wary Fighter 3/ Hone Atk 2/ Swap

Which (could've) scored:

2x 678

5x 680

1x 684

2x 688

 

The same team but with Rawing thunder on Nino instead of glimmer got machtched with:

3x 678

17x 680

16x 682

5x 684

2x 686

2x 688

 

Yes, that's definitely a nice collection of values, as it makes estimates of the mean all that more accurate. 45 runs with your Rising Thunder Nino

In case anyone else wants to post all the individual scores they encounter in the arena, those are even more useful than the deathless run results.

Anyone who is already happy with their deathless run and was to help with some data points you can either keep the same team and have a character swap a skill or a weapon against another with a different sp cost, or swap a single character and post the results.

[Luchi]

(collapses) I just got my first deathless run. After countless duelling crests, periods of near frustration, I finally did it. My best moment in Heroes to date.

Thank you for killing all those Ikes for me, Rein. Not that he is a threat, I already have 3 defence wins against Ike-led teams.