Arena Discussion Thread (inc. Assault)

[Alexmender]

4 minutes ago, Johann said:

What do you think? The map gave me an extreme advantage.

Like you, I'm using a single high scoring unit with several lower scoring ones, which is why they got matched. I'm not concerned about remaining in T20 this week since I don't have bonus units that would score well enough.

About what I expected, Eirika rushing alone is bad but I like how Airzura is able to survive two hits regardless of the target (take that people advocating for -Def/-Res/-Hp!). Maybe if I change Reposition for some dual Rally...

I'll have to play a bit with positioning to make sure that Fjorm is the one that charges ahead while Eirika stays together with Airzura and Chrom can do whatever he wants.

[Humanoid]

8 minutes ago, Alexmender said:

About what I expected, Eirika rushing alone is bad but I like how Airzura is able to survive two hits regardless of the target (take that people advocating for -Def/-Res/-Hp!). Maybe if I change Reposition for some dual Rally...

I'll have to play a bit with positioning to make sure that Fjorm is the one that charges ahead while Eirika stays together with Airzura and Chrom can do whatever he wants.

I'll assume you will never move Eirika from slot 1, so really the only practical thing you can do is put Fjorm in slot 2 and Airzura in slot 3 so they move in that order. (All four units being melee with a support skill will mean they simply move in slot order unless they AI can hit something that turn)

[Johann]

1 minute ago, Alexmender said:

About what I expected, Eirika rushing alone is bad but I like how Airzura is able to survive two hits regardless of the target (take that people advocating for -Def/-Res/-Hp!). Maybe if I change Reposition for some dual Rally...

I'll have to play a bit with positioning to make sure that Fjorm is the one that charges ahead while Eirika stays together with Airzura and Chrom can do whatever he wants.

In a different map, it wouldn't have begun like that. This fort map is definitely one of the most advantageous for the player. I think most people usually lose in Arena when they get one of the rough maps and they find themselves in a compromising situation. My worst maps are the lava maps since I almost never use fliers.

Consider also that my team was well suited to go against your team, particularly through triangle advantage, effective weaponry vs Chrom, unchecked cavalry buffs, and I brought some mages where your team is all melees.

[Alexmender]

8 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

I'll assume you will never move Eirika from slot 1, so really the only practical thing you can do is put Fjorm in slot 2 and Airzura in slot 3 so they move in that order. (All four units being melee with a support skill will mean they simply move in slot order unless they AI can hit something that turn)

 

8 minutes ago, Johann said:

In a different map, it wouldn't have begun like that. This fort map is definitely one of the most advantageous for the player. I think most people usually lose in Arena when they get one of the rough maps and they find themselves in a compromising situation. My worst maps are the lava maps since I almost never use fliers.

Consider also that my team was well suited to go against your team, particularly through triangle advantage, effective weaponry vs Chrom, unchecked cavalry buffs, and I brought some mages where your team is all melees.

I see, thanks for the help! I'll try moving Fjorm to slot 2 and also giving Eirika a dual Rally (I was going to give her one anyways because extra points).

Well, I don't really mind having my team lose because it only needs to win 1 time for the feathers. There's also the thing where I'm certainly going to change Fjorm/Airzura for a highly merged Cordelia/Sheena for the full Tactics team shenanigans but that's months from now and also the painful wait for Spd Tactic.

[Johann]

3 minutes ago, Alexmender said:

Well, I don't really mind having my team lose because it only needs to win 1 time for the feathers. There's also the thing where I'm certainly going to change Fjorm/Airzura for a highly merged Cordelia/Sheena for the full Tactics team shenanigans but that's months from now and also the painful wait for Spd Tactic.

Also good is that I could just try to find that team again if you ever needed a free defense win

edit: I'd have to remind myself that I didn't have my usual skills on Cain, and Ursula had no seal, and that it's currently Fire/Water season, so we both had an active blessing

Edited March 22, 2018 by Johann

[Alexmender]

3 minutes ago, Johann said:

Also good is that I could just try to find that team again if you ever needed a free defense win

I'd be eternally grateful to you for that!

Although I can certainly say that my team would go down in score to something like 700-702 without Fjorm so it's not that consistent on that regard. She really carries a lot of points with her expensive skillset and the Water season bonuses.

[mampfoid]

@Johann I've never seen a team with 3 n weapons effective against horses. How does that work for you on offense? 

[Johann]

29 minutes ago, Alexmender said:

I'd be eternally grateful to you for that!

Although I can certainly say that my team would go down in score to something like 700-702 without Fjorm so it's not that consistent on that regard. She really carries a lot of points with her expensive skillset and the Water season bonuses.

Indeed she does, though I think the main thing that matched us was that we both have units with significantly higher scores than the rest, who are otherwise within the same range. This is the result of the recent Arena matching change, as I understand it. Even with a slight modification, we should be able to match up again.

25 minutes ago, mampfoid said:

@Johann I've never seen a team with 3 n weapons effective against horses. How does that work for you on offense? 

Works just fine, I mean it guarantees that I won't have issues with cavalry ever. Though I do sacrifice the advantages from other weapons when fighting other units, it's rare that I encounter a situation where those qualities would make a difference. I actually decided by unit (and those 3 are the only ones with them):

• Ursula: Used Blarblade for a good long time, but eventually switched over to her native Blarwolf+ for better scoring. This was at a time when Ursula was one of my highest scoring units, and Reinhardt/Lyn were quickly becoming the norm. Not requiring cavalry buffs to kill other cavalry units has proven useful on maps with difficult positioning, like the lava ones. She's not on my starting line-up for AA anymore, so she's great when I run into cavalry teams (notably with Sigurd), and she won't require buffs to function. I usually run her with Fury, Desperation, Hone Cav, and Brash Assault Seal.
• Cecilia: Mostly the same story as Ursula, though I didn't switch to Gronnwolf until the Refinery came out. She can bait and counter Reinhardt effortlessly, and just as importantly, other Cecilias as well (who tend to run either Raven or Blade, often with Green Tomebreaker and almost definitely buffed-- none of which are a problem for a Wolf tome). I usually run her with Fury, any B (usually Escape Route or Gtomebreaker cuz it barely matters to me), Hone Cav, and Distant Def seal.
• Cain: My main guy, first 5* from day 1, you know how that is. Originally, he was -Atk, which is pretty rough with a Brave Sword, and with Steady Breath becoming more and more common, I needed to do something different (I also wanted the extra points from a refined weapon). Took me some time to think over what weapon to give him, but I've always liked how Zanbato looked, and it was also the only sword that assured he would kill Reinhardt (one of his main threats) without question. Unlike with the Wolf tomes, however, I went with +Spd (as Cain's is fairly good) for two reasons: 1) He inherited Panic Ploy long ago, and has the HP to activate it on nearly all units I encounter, especially cavalry. 2) In most situations, the negate buffs effect is best used to deal with Bladetomes, which he doesn't have the Res or Distant Counter to utilize. I mix up his skills quite a lot, but he works great overall both defensively and offensively, even killing hardy blues like Nowi, and only dies if I do something really dumb. I do miss having Gray though.

edit: I should mention that, aside from Cain, this team isn't my top Arena scoring team, and I'm only using them because it's simple and scores well enough. I have the same team as a defensive team and I pulled in like 16 or so wins last week, so I guess people are having a hard time with it (though their lead units shown are rarely cavalry, strangely enough).

Edited March 22, 2018 by Johann

[mampfoid]

@Johann Thanks for the details! It's always good to know how other players find their way to get around the hard/annoying parts of this mode. The SP cost is surely another good point, even if I think 2 anti-cav weapons would be more than enough to deal with Reinhardt and the likes (especially since they added trenches). 

Since you don't run TA/Raven on Cecilia, how do you usually deal with archers/daggers? 

[Johann]

5 minutes ago, mampfoid said:

@Johann Thanks for the details! It's always good to know how other players find their way to get around the hard/annoying parts of this mode. The SP cost is surely another good point, even if I think 2 anti-cav weapons would be more than enough to deal with Reinhardt and the likes (especially since they added trenches). 

Since you don't run TA/Raven on Cecilia, how do you usually deal with archers/daggers? 

Oh, sure enough, in most situations it's overkill, but in AA (which I feel is the more demanding and competitive than regular Arena), having dedicated horse killers is a treat. Not to mention, by having these weapons on cavalry units, it's easier to bait enemy cavalry. It's also worth mentioning that Grani's Shield is currently one of the rarest skills in the game due to Camus having only appeared once, and even still, most people aren't willing to give up other A slot skills for it.

I don't often encounter archers or daggers aside from Lyn (and I can laugh when I see Cancel Affinity), but Cain has more than enough Def should I be in a position of getting hit, and the offense to take them out.

[Stroud]

Thanks to Spring Cartria AA became a bit easier. With her skills she is a real good support unit. And it is fun to play around with a team which depends on debuffing the opponent.  
I already granted her one Wind Blessing for this happy occasion. 

5.096 Points which should be enough to be in the top 3k.

Edited March 22, 2018 by Stroud

[Javi Blizz]

So, I've got a new personal highscore! 4994 points. Although it helped that I had a bonus unit at +2 (Deirdre) and 2 Water Blessed units.

Also, 4996 for AA, which rank could it end up being?

Edited March 22, 2018 by Javi Blizz

[Tenzen12]

There are moments when I don't even mind getting wining streak broken. This guy deserved it.

Spoiler

 

 

Edited March 22, 2018 by Tenzen12

[Rafiel's Aria]

Now that I've got two 5*+10 units, I decided to give AA a go. I've been procrastinating just because I had some really bad runs earlier in the week and figured that was going to set the tone. It took me a few tries, HOWEVER I managed to get my run, and it's worth 5072 which may be the highest score I've ever gotten in this mode... It's almost 30 points higher than my score last week, so I may get to stay in the top 3k again. At the moment, it's good for rank 1965. My Arena score of 5068 is good for rank 2584 atm.

[Zeo]

@eclipse tagging you because I'm not 100% sure if this is the right thread for this but I'm giving it a shot, otherwise I'm going to general next time. Not trying to hijack the thread.

@mampfoid @mcsilas @Rafiel's Aria @Hilda @Johann @Alexmender @NegativeExponents- @Fei Mao @DefaultBeep

So I broke my previous record of 4946 by a huge margin this AA run. I've hit an all time high of 4970. It's not ultra high tier like some of you but it's big for me. I threw Water Blessings on my highest BST units and put my Matthew into the fray at +7 which brought me to new heights. I won't be able to replicate this outside of Water season yet but we'll get there. But yeah, thing is, I recorded it. 

So here's the deal guys, I went ham. Recorded the whole thing from the preparations to the battles and even threw together the team comps on the side like I see the mainstream FE uploaders do. It's about the length of a cartoon so grab a cup of coffee and a snack. But first here's the thing, I'd like feedback from you guys.

This is the biggest FEH video I've ever done with the most editing. So I'd like to know a couple things if you (and even people I didn't tag) watch. I wanted to give you guys an authentic experience of what an AA run is like for your friendly neighborhood mid tier FEH'er but I'd definitely like to know. 1. Do you care about the preparations? Without those the video's length would drop drastically and make it more viewer friendly, it let me use some different tracks though. 2. Do you care about my/enemy unit stats? I listed them on the sides cause I always thought that was cool, but it's a lot of work, if it's not necessary I won't do it. 3. Animations or no? They're probably the biggest part of my videos and give a cinematic quality, but these arena videos tend to be long so cutting those out would definitely cut down on the runtime, I'm mostly against it though, but I could make concession for videos like this.

Anyways, you have the opportunity to peek into my FEH world if you're interested, so have a look. Was different recording a video using other units than my main ones. I'll do timestamps too so you can skip the prep if you want.

Timestamps:

• 00:24 - Battle 1
• 02:40 - Battle 2
• 05:40 - Battle 3
• 09:32 - Battle 4
• 13:28 - Battle 5
• 17: 20 - Battle 6
• 23:10 - Battle 7

Battle Comments: 

Spoiler

Battle 1 - Unbelievably easy. The score inflation was probably just merges more than anything else. Most of these units were missing skills for whatever reason.

Battle 2 - Ike roflstomp with my pesudo GM team. I've been sitting on Ike fodder for the longest, but this battle made me want to merge him. I forgot how awesome of a unit he was and how fun it is to use him.

Battle 3 - Caeda subbed for Matthew, she usually does work, but not really here.

Battle 4 - This one was dicey, I should have payed more attention to unit stats and adjusted my team comp. Had to use items to come out on top, and yes I use items. Taboo or not, they just pile up, might as well make use of them if need be.

Battle 5 - Those F!Corrins threw me off guard with that DEF Stacking Sakura, but Cherche is a beast. Just as I come to appreciate her she caps HM. Go figure.

Battle 6 - Had to cut some of the video out here. Hit a serious wall against this team and had to stop and think. The video length was getting excessive. Figured it out though. I apologize as this particular battle significantly padded the length of the video. 

Battle 7 - I always save at least one of my most powerful units for the last battle. Got to break out Marth though so that was cool. You can never have too many Falchions these days.

If you notice, I have the habit of fielding nearly every team with a healer. It's been a habit since the very first AA. I've been screwed over so many times by units that didn't have enough HP to survive a Vantage hit that it ended up becoming standard for me. Anyway, enjoy the show as always and leave feedback.

[Alexmender]

@Zeo Congrats on the new high score! I'm sure it won't take you that long to reach 5k!

The video was pretty neat! I really liked how you tend to use at least 1 underrated unit in almost all your matches (makes me feel like a scrub for using only top tier stuff+Eirika). For the feedback I'll answer in order:

1. The preparations tend to overlap a bit with the stats you placed on the sides making it a bit redundant on the grand scheme of things, the prep music makes up for it a bit but I'd say that cutting this part will give the video a better flow.
2. I really liked looking at your stats/the enemy stats on the sides, it provides all the important info about your team and also what kind of stuff you're facing against (be it the high merged scrubs of the first round or the F!Corrin craziness of the fifth one). 
3. The animations part depends a lot on the match imo. For example the first match was kinda boring because the enemy sucked so there wasn't a lot of interesting stuff going on but in the 6th match they felt pretty cool because it was a close one. I'd say this one's up to how you feel the match will go, if it goes fast without anything noteworthy then have it with no animations but if there's some clutch plays here and there then leave them on. 

 

----------

On my end it turns out the double rally was enough to improve my defense team. I went form 1 def win to 7 just by giving Eirika the dual rally. @Humanoid @Johann 

I also improved my normal arena score to 5024, I think I can reach 5050 if I fish for scores in the 720-724 range but with the new mechanics it seems like a futile endeavor so I'll keep bouncing between tiers 19-20 for now.

[mampfoid]

@Zeo very nice video, thanks. I like to see how others fare in Arena, interesting how you approach some things differently. I tend to use hard counters (TA, breakers) which makes match 2-7 easier but also less interesting to watch, while you field synergistic teams you would use also for other things (i.e. Ayra, Genny, Inigo, Caeda). 

The video was well made (good choice of music btw.), but 25 minutes is way too long. For me, you could leave the preparations and the animations (perhaps switch them on for a spectacular finish) away, while the stats and skills are interesting. You could highlight especially tricky or evil skill combinations, to show what gave you trouble. 

The timestamps are handy, you could tell us what has been the most important/interesting fight of the streak to get also people watching who tend to choose much shorter content. 

Are you sure this starter team gives you the highest score? I saw other merged units in your roster, but perhaps the two water blessings count higher after all. 

Congratulations to the new highscore! 

[Fei Mao]

@Zeo Congrats on your score and +7 Matt, it's cool to see what other units you've built. As for the questions the answers are the same as the others that have replied to you. I feel that you should cut out the preparation and since you are displaying both teams' stats on the side of the vid it's not necessary to click each of them. As for animations, maybe turn them on in the 4th/5th match and above since that's where the more exciting stuff happens IMO or whichever team you think is exciting for you.

Edited March 24, 2018 by Fei Mao

[Zeo]

@Alexmender Didn't really notice any underdogs except maybe my healers lol, but thank you! 4970 is a huge jump but I doubt I'll be able to reach that high outside of water season. Nino will need merges so she can surpass B!Ike and even then it'll be a while until Lukas and Chrom get enough merges to beat Fjorm + Blessings in value but we'll get there. Breaking the 5000 barrier will feel amazing when it does happen.

Ok so, the most interesting thing about prep for me is being able to do the music to suit the battle (and you seeing my barracks I guess) but without those parts the video would have cut down by a lot in runtime, like probably around 19 minutes or less, so we can definitely cut those out. The stats are a lot of work but I can keep doing them. I'll probably keep the animations next time to see how it goes. Thanks and good luck climbing into the tier 20 mainstays as well!

@mampfoid I rather do enjoy my team compositions, but it's hard to craft pre-made teams a lot for AA. I've found that you need an all purpose team more often than not because you can get caught by one skill that you overlooked and get blown up if you do a team of hard counters all the time.

I'm not gonna cut the animations out yet, I want to see what the next video with them is like as I'd prefer to keep them. However, I'm definitely going to cut out the preparation as that (and the 6th battle in this case) padded the length. Without them the video would have easily been under 20 mins. Timestamps will stay and I might bring the stats back.

And yeah, I have quite a few merged units but most of them are +1 and they lack the kits/class to make use of their BST. This is currently my highest scoring team. With one more merge, Nino will have the same score as B!Ike. Chrom is my highest scoring sword and Fjorm/Matt speak for themselves. 

@Fei Mao I likely will still click them during battle because I tend to do that to recheck the stats and whatnot, but the deliberate "click and wait so the viewer can see" thing I do for the GHBs and stuff I'll probably cut out. Thanks for the feedback! Preparations are out.

Edited March 24, 2018 by Zeo

[MonkeyCheez3K]

With increasing merge levels on my core team I now face the issue of not being able to rack up defense wins like before. The recent surge of armors/dragons makes my old tactic rather weak on high scoring matchups (thx to the AI sucking and ridonculous bulk), at least that is my impression.

As a result, I find myself in need of some assistance. I think I'm going to build up a mid-tier core (only need to break the 450 in defensive scoring) that secures the defense wins against unoptimized teams while my actual core continues the offensive side of things. As such, to whoever still collects defense wins like candy, I could use some advice on team comps that still reliably work. If you don't want to tell your secret, it's fine; I'll have to admit defeat to the 900 feathers otherwise.

There is also the possibility that it is just this current rotation of available bonus units that suck (horses vs trenches, Kagero being weak nowadays, Anna being meh), but I'll still take any help on that front. I will build a full Tactics team in the future once Speed-Tactics comes out, but until then I will need some better options.

[Usana]

@MonkeyCheez3K I'm not sure what your old tactic was, but the general tricks are:

Wings of Mercy or other teleporting skills
Invisible buffs like spurs/drives/owls/Eirika
Units carrying breakers unexpectedly
Mono color teams*

*Never tried that one myself, but the idea is to overwhelm their counter for that color and have free reign otherwise, I guess?

Anyways my wins have increased since Eirika's refinement. She can get some rahter high in combat boosts that aren't visible and have to be mentally calculated by the opposing player. Through a diversified enough number of those boosts around and you increase the chances someone miscalculates something and loses a unit unexpectedly. Or just ends up in a spot that isn't particularly easy to play through.

Back before Eirika's refinement my Blarowl WoM Mae was killing it defense win style.

 

Basically the AI won't outplay the player, but the player can miscalculate or overlook a skill. Which might be why in my experience multiple WoM's don't seem to help. If everyone has it maybe it stands out more and is more easily spotted?

[MonkeyCheez3K]

16 minutes ago, Usana said:

@MonkeyCheez3K I'm not sure what your old tactic was, but the general tricks are:

Wings of Mercy or other teleporting skills
Invisible buffs like spurs/drives/owls/Eirika
Units carrying breakers unexpectedly
Mono color teams*

*Never tried that one myself, but the idea is to overwhelm their counter for that color and have free reign otherwise, I guess?

Anyways my wins have increased since Eirika's refinement. She can get some rahter high in combat boosts that aren't visible and have to be mentally calculated by the opposing player. Through a diversified enough number of those boosts around and you increase the chances someone miscalculates something and loses a unit unexpectedly. Or just ends up in a spot that isn't particularly easy to play through.

Back before Eirika's refinement my Blarowl WoM Mae was killing it defense win style.

 

Basically the AI won't outplay the player, but the player can miscalculate or overlook a skill. Which might be why in my experience multiple WoM's don't seem to help. If everyone has it maybe it stands out more and is more easily spotted?

Would have been smarter to state my regular tactics beforehand:

Olivia +10 (Dance; WoM3, Hone Spd3 and Hone Att3 SS), Nowi +6 (Reposition; Standard Dragon QR build + Fortify Dragons and Distant Defense SS) Fae +10 (Reposition; Fortify Dragons + Panic Ploy SS), Takumi +2 (+Att BraveBow / Draw Back; LoD3  WoM3   Hone Spd3 and Att+3 SS).

Basically with Nowi and Fae being tanks that were less likely to die immediately, they get damaged, Olivia and Takumi port themselves in and cause havoc. The Bonus unit is often a problem as they rarely synergize well, and my core became the two dragons and Olivia. Worked pretty well up till recently were I got a lot of Faes and I +10 her. This rotation of bonus units also sucks, ...kinda, even though I have a lot of them (Arvis is only 4*, have Hinoka, Chrom, Kagero, Anna and Xander at 5*) most didn't work.

I think my team does poorly because of all the top tier bulky units at my current score range, where only people with great teams wander about (offense is rarely an issue for example, meaning other people probably shrug off my def team as well). I might be wrong, but I can't tell (The teams I face on the offense now are miles ahead in optimization compared to before I +10ed my Fae. All the armors,dragons,Ayras,powercreeps you'd expect).

Mono Green Fae, Grima, Myrrh and Anna didn't work (though I could have been impatient and swapped them out too soon, hard to tell without any statistics, thus making me worry quickly); Eirika isn't refined yet, not sure if I'll do it soonish, though I'd immediately do it if I had the necessary resources to optimize her and if it would grant me successful defenses. I need a middle of the road team and new WoM fodder for it to give at least one of the units the skill. If horses were still worth a damn, I'd try a debuffing team with Chrom, Gunnthra, Bunny Catria and more debuffs to come, can't sacrifice them since I only have 1 copy of each (0 of Gunnthra actually). And for my Tactics team, I still need a Distant Counter from the ellusive Hector and Speed Tactics.

I normally try following your suggestions, with the exception of invisible buffs, but just can't think of any working combination with what I got at the moment, which is annoying, but "only" 900 feathers worth of effort lost in the worst of cases.

[Javi Blizz]

I'm going to miss this rotation, 2 weeks getting defense wins with Arvis/Gunttrhà/Felicia/F!Morgan. 

[NegativeExponents-]

@Zeo Wow that fourth battle had me on edge mostly because I forgot items existed. Glad you broke your previous record. Is 24 extra points a big difference? I usually don’t do arena so that’s why I’m not sure.

I’m not the best at feedback since I’m so wishy-washy but I’ll try anyway. 1. I don’t mind the preparation whatsoever so you’re free to keep them if you’d like. I’d imagine it’s also less time consuming for you since you wouldn’t have to edit them out. 2. I like them but I can live without it. Maybe only do your units? 3. I actually like the animations. I’m so used to everyone having animations off and it’s just nice to see someone actually use them. I agree it makes it appear more cinematic.

I also have the habit of fielding every team with a healer but I only have like 4 actually build up so I wouldn’t be able to do it for all 7.

Edited March 25, 2018 by NegativeExponents-
I realized I could just pin instead

[Zeo]

@NegativeExponents- Yeah, looking at that match I didn't need options but I had a mental brainfart. Cecillia and LA!Roy both had hone cavalry and had I positioned them together instead of Ninian blocking them, Roy would have had the ATK to kill Rein, Cecillia could have killed Ephraim, Roy could have nuked Rein and then Cecilia could have been danced and nuked Lyn, but the day was busy and I kept getting interrupted so I eventually started making marginally worse decisions in a bit of a slight rush. The music really adds to the tension though cause I legit didn't know what to do at that point, without items it could have gotten bad.

Yeah I like the fact that I can use different music for the prep, but I want to cut down on length so I'm probably going to cut that out. I'll keep the stats depending on the video and will keep the animations though. And yeah my amount of usable healers is steadily rising.

And yes, a 24 point jump is gigantic and in some cases the difference between getting in a certain "top" area with more rewards. I'll need... like... 5020 or something like that to break top 5k so it'll be a while but still, with a score like 4970 I can safely sit in the top 10k. You should do arena though, the feathers can't be beat. I wouldn't be able to merge as fast as I do without it. Higher you score the more fun things you can do.