Arena Discussion Thread (inc. Assault)

[Ice Dragon]

1 minute ago, Ryuke said:

I guess Robin is less of a concern. Since any mage including Tharja can handle Robin.

But that doesn't matter because I'm talking about Takumi on a defense team (which is what I assume you were talking about) where my own Robin can easily maneuver to avoid Tharja.

How Robin fares in a defense team is completely different (just like any other character) and irrelevant.

 

6 minutes ago, Ryuke said:

Man ... 3x Hector + 1 Effie (with Wing for Roy) might ruin everyone moment. Since no one brings ArmorSlayer as off yet.

I run two units that can solo kill Hector, which is enough to tag-team 3 Hectors assuming Effie isn't also running Goad Armor, at least one of the Hectors is not +Atk, and the Hectors are not significantly merged.

 

14 minutes ago, Ryuke said:

That being said. What's a good way to build a defensive team? (Highest BST? All units of 1 color [guaranteed defence?]?)

Assuming your stat total is high enough to reach the highest reward tier, it helps to use characters with harder-to-find specific counters, characters that are generally good all-round, or characters that an opponent in your stat total tier would have difficulty facing.

For example, I have a feeling Julia is a more-difficult-than-most character to deal with. She hard-walls every blue mage in the game and is a ranged attack, meaning most swords need to be able to get into range before they're a threat to her. Lilina, Sanaki, and Tharja are also not common to use on an offense team (especially now that Sanaki is no longer a bonus hero). She can also trade for decent damage against Julia and Nino. Any team without Ryoma or a Distant Counter sword will need to play around Julia's presence.

Probably also doesn't help people who end up having to play against my team that my +9 Julia is capable of one-round killing any Hector that isn't +Spd.

[Ryuke]

17 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

But that doesn't matter because I'm talking about Takumi on a defense team (which is what I assume you were talking about) where my own Robin can easily maneuver to avoid Tharja.

How Robin fares in a defense team is completely different (just like any other character) and irrelevant.

 

I run two units that can solo kill Hector, which is enough to tag-team 3 Hectors assuming Effie isn't also running Goad Armor, at least one of the Hectors is not +Atk, and the Hectors are not significantly merged.

 

Assuming your stat total is high enough to reach the highest reward tier, it helps to use characters with harder-to-find specific counters, characters that are generally good all-round, or characters that an opponent in your stat total tier would have difficulty facing.

For example, I have a feeling Julia is a more-difficult-than-most character to deal with. She hard-walls every blue mage in the game and is a ranged attack, meaning most swords need to be able to get into range before they're a threat to her. Lilina, Sanaki, and Tharja are also not common to use on an offense team (especially now that Sanaki is no longer a bonus hero). She can also trade for decent damage against Julia and Nino. Any team without Ryoma or a Distant Counter sword will need to play around Julia's presence.

Probably also doesn't help people who end up having to play against my team that my +9 Julia is capable of one-round killing any Hector that isn't +Spd.

Yeah.. I was talking about people with Takumi on offence. But its fine. Yup Robin is definitely a Takumi killer.

If people can build an Ephraim like Hector (since they are built similar... except with 2 range and slightly lower stat + a bunch of skill inherit).. It might be a solid Offence team. I dont think Hector is a good defence... (Unless your defence team is Julia/Hector x2 all green.. someone will evnetually fall)

 

Julia and Nino is definitely trouble.  My Tharja can 1RKO but at the cost of taking 1 hit -- and it hurts. I cannot give her TAdept because ... I need her to snipe Blue occasionally.  

 

Do bonus character counts for defence team (anyone knows?) ... if not... literally going to believe in highest stat and eventually shift to a one color team and someone will fall eventually. ( I assume ... 3 surviving characters = 250+?)

[Ice Dragon]

2 minutes ago, Ryuke said:

Yeah.. I was talking about people with Takumi on offence. But its fine. Yup Robin is definitely a Takumi killer.

Vantage just doesn't seem optimal for Takumi on an offense team, though.

 

4 minutes ago, Ryuke said:

If people can build an Ephraim like Hector (since they are built similar... except with 2 range and slightly lower stat + a bunch of skill inherit).. It might be a solid Offence team. I dont think Hector is a good defence... (Unless your defence team is Julia/Hector x2 all green.. someone will evnetually fall)

I'd actually look at Effie with Distant Counter.

 

5 minutes ago, Ryuke said:

Do bonus character counts for defence team (anyone knows?) ... if not... literally going to believe in highest stat and eventually shift to a one color team and someone will fall eventually. ( I assume ... 3 surviving characters = 250+?)

Nope. Bonus heroes only count for your offense score.

[Raven]

This is going fucking terribly for me. At this rate I won't even break 4k since I have units dying every other fight. Maybe I'll use my full cavalry team with Jagen and Gunter buffing Blarwolf Ursula, and have Eirika in there for some red representation and further buffs, assuming they stack on top of fortify and hone cavalry. If not, then maybe I'll use Nino for her draw back utility and strength.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Any buff that causes an up arrow won't stack with similar. It'll just take the highest value. However, the ranged aura buffs (Spur, Ward, Goad) do stack, both with each other and the arrow buffs.

[Elieson]

(No Skill Inheritance Lv40) Run with Seliph/Sharena/Nowi  5* and Anna 4* with one death net'd me a score of 4,491. Could've probably prevented the death but battling against Dancers and Drag Back-ers really messes with your head in terms of AI manip

Offense: 4,491
Rank: 35,228

Competition is fierce already this season. Sheeeeeeesh, I had a higher placement with a lower offense score last season!

Edited March 21, 2017 by Elieson

[Raven]

28 minutes ago, Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi said:

Any buff that causes an up arrow won't stack with similar. It'll just take the highest value. However, the ranged aura buffs (Spur, Ward, Goad) do stack, both with each other and the arrow buffs.

So then it won't work. I'll just take Nino to nuke things, then. Or Tharja or Lyn to get some red coverage.

[Thor Odinson]

Swapped out Takumi for Nino on my defense team-- idk if the AI is smart enough to buff her, but im running swap and reposition on Ryoma and Reinhardt respectively, so this might catch someone off guard, at least.

Hopefully.

[Ice Dragon]

Holy crap, it hasn't even been a day and I already have more defense wins than the game can show at one time (it only shows your 10 most recent), including 2 against the same person.

[Phoenix_Kensai]

5 hours ago, Elieson said:

(No Skill Inheritance Lv40) Run with Seliph/Sharena/Nowi  5* and Anna 4* with one death net'd me a score of 4,491. Could've probably prevented the death but battling against Dancers and Drag Back-ers really messes with your head in terms of AI manip

Offense: 4,491
Rank: 35,228

Competition is fierce already this season. Sheeeeeeesh, I had a higher placement with a lower offense score last season!

Jeez, already? That's ridiculous. I think I ended last season with more than 100 less, and still wasn't far from breaking 30,000. I wonder what happened, but... there goes my hope of keeping up my 1,000 feather rank bonus streak every season, I guess.

I've been doing terribly so far thanks to all the mage-and-archer-heavy teams I've run into, but I hope I can manage to get over 4,000, at least. My main team lacks variety (Lyn, Tiki, Takumi, and whatever bonus character I have; Robin is a nightmare), but it usually doesn't take too much luck to make it through a decent Advanced run. Maybe I'm just playing poorly today, or I need to experiment more with other characters even if they'd lower my stat total.

[Alfred Kamon]

So I ranked 520th on the last Arena season.

I just put Fury on 2/4 of my characters and my points increased drastically.

However, the game's matchmaking system is broken atm, I kept finding unbelievable guys with 40+10 characters. x_x (still won with swordbreaker Sanaki tho)

Do you know how the point system is going to change with the April update? I hope it won't be as BST-related as now, because the amount of ""good"" units for ranking is actually very limited, and it favors p2w in more than one way.

Edited March 22, 2017 by Alfred Kamon

[Phoenix_Kensai]

15 minutes ago, Alfred Kamon said:

Do you know how the point system is going to change with the April update? I hope it won't be as BST-related as now, because the amount of ""good"" units for ranking is actually very limited, and it favors p2w in more than one way.

No details yet (I imagine they're still working things out), but according to the announcement, score will be calculated from some combination of star rating, level, Merge Ally bonuses, stat total (ignoring skills and weapons), and equipped skills. So BST will still matter to some degree, but its effects will be limited. I'm hoping it will only be factored in for characters below maximum level, since stat gains are random, but we'll see.

[MaskedAmpharos]

For those of you making a completely (or at least decently) different team for Defense as opposed to Offense, what kinds of units and skills do you consider, and why do you think certain units/skills are better suited for offense vs defense?

[wizzard of soz]

I was sad last season because the best score I could get (deathless) was around 2100 because no bonus characters...

Now this season Karel who was already on my main team is a bonus hero, so I did an awful run with probably 6 deaths total..and yet..

Team: Lvl. 40 5* Karel, Lvl.40 5* Felicia, Lvl.40 4* M Robin, Lvl. 29 3* Olivia

Score: 3,685

Rank: 23,991

I don't understand how someone above scored almost 1,000 higher than me but are ranked below? I've only been playing for two seasons, so I feel like there's something I'm missing...

Edited March 22, 2017 by wizzard of soz

[Othin]

3 minutes ago, wizzard of soz said:

I was sad last season because the best score I could get (deathless) was around 2100 because no bonus characters...

Now this season Karel who was already on my main team is a bonus hero, so I did an awful run with probably 6 deaths total..and yet..

Team: Lvl. 40 5* Karel, Lvl.40 5* Felicia, Lvl.40 4* M Robin, Lvl. 29 3* Olivia

Score: 3,685

Rank: 23,991

I don't understand how someone above scored almost 1,000 higher than me but are ranked below? I've only been playing for two seasons, so I feel like there's something I'm missing...

Ranks only update each hour, so if you check soon after you improve your score, it'll list the rank corresponding to your old score. Perhaps Elieson forgot to wait for an updated rank?

Edited March 22, 2017 by Othin

[wizzard of soz]

Unless I've totally lost my memory and did another run after, that was my first and only run which I did about 9 hours ago...now I'm even more confused. Glitch? I'll see what it says tomorrow I guess.

[Alfred Kamon]

21 minutes ago, MaskedAmpharos said:

For those of you making a completely (or at least decently) different team for Defense as opposed to Offense, what kinds of units and skills do you consider, and why do you think certain units/skills are better suited for offense vs defense?

I think that a variety of glass cannons are your best option for Defense teams. People usually quit if you manage to kill 1 of their units, giving you the win.

Dancers/Singers also help for that purpose, giving opponents a hard time playing around your nukers.

[shadowofchaos]

And I wait until I get kicked off rankings.

 

[Elieson]

1 hour ago, Phoenix_Kensai said:

Jeez, already? That's ridiculous. I think I ended last season with more than 100 less, and still wasn't far from breaking 30,000. I wonder what happened, but... there goes my hope of keeping up my 1,000 feather rank bonus streak every season, I guess.

I've been doing terribly so far thanks to all the mage-and-archer-heavy teams I've run into, but I hope I can manage to get over 4,000, at least. My main team lacks variety (Lyn, Tiki, Takumi, and whatever bonus character I have; Robin is a nightmare), but it usually doesn't take too much luck to make it through a decent Advanced run. Maybe I'm just playing poorly today, or I need to experiment more with other characters even if they'd lower my stat total.

 

40 minutes ago, Othin said:

Ranks only update each hour, so if you check soon after you improve your score, it'll list the rank corresponding to your old score. Perhaps Elieson forgot to wait for an updated rank?

Such is the case apparently. I didnt waitnlong enough, as i am currently 1,836 in rank with my score. I have never seen it give me one score and another later...scared me!

[Roflolxp54]

Yes, got 4059 Offense score!

Team: 5* Lyn, 5* Sharena, 4* Ursula, 4* Olivia (all lv. 40)

Not a deathless run; did at least 1 Intermediate battle.

[Thor Odinson]

Oh shit Ryo just took 3 mages at once, thanks vantage

Okay so i went up against a team with ninian, nino, linde, and lilina and it's like 3 am so i was a bit careless with positioning and left ryo in reachable range by the linde after a dance but

so the linde attacks nino first, nino is unboosted so doesn't quite kill her, she then attacks ryoma and she must've been -atk or something because ryo survives with 7 hp left

now the good parts

7hp Ryoma has 54 atk (-atk). The lilina I went up against had 19 def and 32 hp. Swordbreaker? Who cares, Ryo does 35, she down. Nino? slightly tankier but WTD, so Ryo does like 40 something damage, she also down. all on enemy phase. Nino just went and got rid of Ninian while she's there. 

God I love Vantage Ryoma

[Ice Dragon]

I ended up replacing +2 Reinhardt (153) with Ninian (162) for the bonus and teaching Robin Close Counter and Quick Riposte.

Managed a personal high score of 4,584 (old personal high of 4,564), no doubt due to the +9 increase in my stat total, which is apparently currently rank 364. Pretty sure that'll drop to maybe the 1,000-3,000 range by the end of the week.

Robin is pulling some serious weight, though. Holy crap. Tanked and killed a low-merged Takumi and a low-merged Ryoma and still had Quick Riposte unbroken to destroy a low-merged Fury Lyn.

It seems like I'm running into a ton of chumps units with Fury now.

[MaskedAmpharos]

9 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

I ended up replacing +2 Reinhardt (153) with Ninian (162) for the bonus and teaching Robin Close Counter and Quick Riposte.

Managed a personal high score of 4,584 (old personal high of 4,564), no doubt due to the +9 increase in my stat total, which is apparently currently rank 364. Pretty sure that'll drop to maybe the 1,000-3,000 range by the end of the week.

Robin is pulling some serious weight, though. Holy crap. Tanked and killed a low-merged Takumi and a low-merged Ryoma and still had Quick Riposte unbroken to destroy a low-merged Fury Lyn.

It seems like I'm running into a ton of chumps units with Fury now.

Tell me about it. Every team I've run into has at least one unit with Fury. There'll probably be a decrease after the April update hits though, as I'm fairly certain the BST increase is one of the factors. 

Also update: score of 4560 has dropped down to rank 581

[pianime94]

12 hours ago, MaskedAmpharos said:

Your Arena Defense team will always be your leftmost team. 

I really have no idea what makes a good defense team though. I wish we saw how many people challenged our defense, not just how many lost. That would give us a better idea of what team comps work and what comps don't. 

Gotta ask @Vaximillian on his secret hmm.

He got like 8 defense wins last time, which is holy mousey cat mackarel.

 

[Dual Dragons]

3/22/2017 - offense 4,454; rank 3,426 (1:22AM PST) [deathless]

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

Is this the highest I've gotten? I won't count on me sticking in the top 10K since it seems 4.5K offense is the threshold to stay there, but Ninian has definitely been helping. Final Boss didn't include what my team counters most (Swords) but thankfully M!Robin can deal with Bows Jorge and Takumi fine.

I'm praying to pull Minerva to boost the BST. Though Fury on M!Robin and Camilla I guess I would fix my BST a little. Also a Wings of Mercy for either Camilla or Minerva if I pull her. Maybe I'll pull many Frederick's finding the elusive Minerva.

Edited March 22, 2017 by Dual Dragons