Arena Discussion Thread (inc. Assault)

[Astellius]

Well, it was close, but my AA score of 5,086 was sufficient to finally land me in the 1k-3k bracket! I ended up making it in there at rank 2,928, so people really made a push for it on the last day.

And, with the feathers, I was finally able to +10 my Est! She's been with me since the first day of playing the game--she's come a long way!

 

[Tybrosion]

My AA score for this past season is notable for only one reason.

Spoiler

I somehow managed to get it to an even 5,000. Though, this might also be the first time I've broke 5,000 in AA but, given that I don't keep track of my weekly results, I can't say for sure.

 

[mampfoid]

@Rezzy @DLNarshen Congratulations for staying in tier 20 another week! I'm trying to keep up with you guys (one day ...). 

@DLNarshen Thanks for the video, that's some cool flier action. Hinoka tanking Regnal Astra and surviving by 3 HP was my personal highlight. I'm actually considering Caeda for a merge project, seeing yours further pushes me to that decision. 

My score of 5,036 kept me in top 5k of AA again, but my rank went down significantly (4,212 -> 4,745) with the exact same score last week. Perhaps because of Fjorm week? 

[Ice Dragon]

3 hours ago, Rezzy said:

Why wouldn't they just hold off the Legendary Hero for a future rotation?  They don't seem to have a set policy for the Legendary Heroes getting added to the Arena pool, and I don't think Gunnthra's even been a bonus unit at all yet.

They'll have to do a 3-week bonus hero set at some point or another regardless because banners typically last a few days longer than 2 weeks.

It was probably convenient to just do it now so that they can get the next Legendary Hero as a bonus hero a week sooner.

[Infinite Dreams]

Since all the cool kids are doing it, I thought it would be fun to record tonight's arena run.    I'm still kinda new to uploading videos, so I don't know how to do music or fancy stuff like that, but if anyone is curious what fights in the 732+ range are like, here ya go!  (Also, sorry I tap on the screen a lot.  It's a weird habit of mine. )  

Team: Laslow+10, F-Corrin+10, B-Ike+10, and L-Ephraim+1.

@Kaoxt I may have fought your team at 6:08.  Not sure if that's you.  I realized afterwards that the name seemed familiar.  

I was a dumb-dumb and used Rally Def/Res a few times and got PP'ed, but luckily everything turned out okay, hahaha.   Feel free to laugh at me for that.  I totally forgot I had it until halfway through my run, and then I was like "ooh, might as well use the rally".  Oopsie!  Can't brain tonight.  It was past midnight. 

Edited March 27, 2018 by Infinite Dreams

[mampfoid]

After ruining a lot of streaks by stupid errors (like accidentally hitting "surrender" or leaving Shiro in Deidres range), I managed to get a new highscore in AA: 4,046. This should keep me in top 5k, no matter if Fjorm week or not. 

@Infinite Dreams Thanks for the video! I watched only the first fight and let the rest run on the side while doing something else, but I was surprised you still meet full horse teams in that range. Your Laslow and Corrin are awesome, congratulations! 
 

[Korath88]

Yeah, trying to get into tier 20 without merges isn't worth the effort at this point. Having to drag around armors with useless dual rally skills while dealing with supermerged bullshit is not fun at all and not worth going through for 1.2k feathers every other week. Armor emblem isn't the problem, it's not being able to run positioning skills that kills any potential strategy with them. Also fuck Zelgius

I still don't see myself going for a +10 anytime soon despite this. It's basically a 200,000 feather investment for slightly more feathers(lol) every week that probably won't even balance out until more than a year later.

Also, can I mention how useless the arena scoring update was? All it did was lower scores and didn't even fix the scoring inconsistencies. I ran into 2 teams that were 10 whole points apart with the same team. That's 70 whole points of difference across 7 matches. So much for discouraging score sniping.

Edited March 27, 2018 by Korath88

[Humanoid]

I've still been able to reliably get into T20 with minimal 5* merging, but my 4*+10 merges have been good anchors, they're worth more than most of my 5* units. Unmerged Fjorm is worth 700 points, as is 4*+10 Olivia despite the dancer BST penalty. 4+10* Cecilia at 696 is the highest of all my horses. They tend to be the cornerstones of my teams. With a team worth 700 points on average, T19.5 is fairly stable.

For this week, a base-spec Legendary Ike with a movement assist and good seal added is worth 698, but any units with Earth blessing gain +8 when fielded alongside him, so you only need units with a base value of 692-694 to average 700. A fair few newer units are worth that without any merges, and most melee units reach it with just a single merge or unmerged with point-optimised skills.

Anyway, going with a horse team this week, wasn't planning to finish arena today but I got tilted by some really stupid losses and ended up doing the whole lot today. The score generation felt a little streaky, some like five 698s in a row, other times a bunch of 702-708s in row. Regrettably I ended up wasting some of the really good ones, but taking everything worth 700 or over, I ended up with 4918. Historically this has been enough so I think I'm safe to drop down to intermediate arena for the rest of the week.

Horse Ephraim +0: Default skills + Reposition + Hone Cavalry. Close Def seal.
Horse Chrom +0: Default skills + Reposition + Hone Cavalry. Quick Riposte seal. Fire blessing.
Cecilia 4*+10: Full standard blade build - Gronnblade+, Draw Back, Glimmer, Darting Blow, Desperation, Ward Cavalry. Speed seal. Fire blessing. S-rank support with Ephraim.
Olivia 4*+10: Ruby Sword+, Moonbow, Fury, WoM, Hone Attack. Fortify Def seal. Water blessing (useless).

Score value is 692 + 704* + 704* + 700, so 700 average exactly. Asterisks are blessing-boosted.

 

EDIT: Checked my 4*+10 Cherche that's been going to TT. 700 points currently, 702 if I replace Atk+3 with DB3. Brave+, Repo, Luna, H&R.

Edited March 27, 2018 by Humanoid

[mampfoid]

36 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

EDIT: Checked my 4*+10 Cherche that's been going to TT. 700 points currently, 702 if I replace Atk+3 with DB3. Brave+, Repo, Luna, H&R.

Cherche is great in arena, she takes care of so many annoying things like blue dragons, mages etc. It will be a big change for your playstyle if you are used to have a ranged unit (and Reinhardt bait) though. 

Mine is also 4*+10, but got some expensive skills (Heavy Blade, Galeforce). 

[Humanoid]

17 minutes ago, mampfoid said:

Cherche is great in arena, she takes care of so many annoying things like blue dragons, mages etc. It will be a big change for your playstyle if you are used to have a ranged unit (and Reinhardt bait) though. 

Mine is also 4*+10, but got some expensive skills (Heavy Blade, Galeforce). 

Yeah, I've never fielded her in arena for a few reasons, first being that she's only had reasonable skills beginning with this TT. Second is that I usually run one ranged nuke alongside one or two enemy phase tanks (plus bonus unit/dancer), though admittedly Brave H&R melee is pseudo-ranged. Beyond that, I haven't yet decided how to split my flier team in terms of blessings, until a legendary flying unit is released I don't want to commit.

(One type of blessing will be built around Airzura and Corrin, the other will be built around Hinoka. Need to split Elincia, Palla, Caeda, Cordelia, Michalis, Cherche, Kagero, and a possible 4*+10 Est. Might finally promote Valter too since blue lacks a tank without Tana.)

Edited March 27, 2018 by Humanoid

[mampfoid]

10 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

Yeah, I've never fielded her in arena for a few reasons, first being that she's only had reasonable skills beginning with this TT. Second is that I usually run one ranged nuke alongside one or two enemy phase tanks (plus bonus unit/dancer), though admittedly Brave H&R melee is pseudo-ranged. Beyond that, I haven't yet decided how to split my flier team in terms of blessings, until a legendary flying unit is released I don't want to commit.

(One type of blessing will be built around Airzura and Corrin, the other will be built around Hinoka. Need to split Elincia, Palla, Caeda, Cordelia, Michalis, Cherche, Kagero, and a possible 4*+10 Est. Might finally promote Valter too since blue lacks a tank without Tana.)

Hit & Run is not optimal for the score though. If you have Desperation units on the team, WoM is a good choice, otherwise Axebreaker helps a lot. 

I made my ranged flier team the fire blessing team, because I lack a corresponding legendary unit. Water (Cherche) and Earth (Cordelia) are mixed teams and they are effective enough so far. 

Valter is worth the promotion, he helped out in many TTs with Fury, Desperation & Brash Assault. With a buff, he is also a very good tank. His Lance is underestimated in my opinion, since 16 Mt, +2 ATK/SPD (4 after battle damage) and killer effect suits him very well. 

[Humanoid]

15 minutes ago, mampfoid said:

Hit & Run is not optimal for the score though. If you have Desperation units on the team, WoM is a good choice, otherwise Axebreaker helps a lot. 

I made my ranged flier team the fire blessing team, because I lack a corresponding legendary unit. Water (Cherche) and Earth (Cordelia) are mixed teams and they are effective enough so far. 

Valter is worth the promotion, he helped out in many TTs with Fury, Desperation & Brash Assault. With a buff, he is also a very good tank. His Lance is underestimated in my opinion, since 16 Mt, +2 ATK/SPD (4 after battle damage) and killer effect suits him very well. 

Well yeah, but things like Atk+3, Glimmer, etc on my various units shows that I haven't really needed to optimise for score. What I have now is sufficient for T19.5 but miles away from staying in T20 so there's no incentive to increase my points value for the time being. If anything that'd just make things harder for me by matching me up against harder opponents.

EDIT: In water season I can even carry a very low value Bridelia+1 (686+8) because Olivia goes to 708. She only has L&D2, heh. I do replace Draw Back with her default dual-rally for it though. In any case, it was still enough to get my highest ever score so yeah, not at the point where I need to optimise.

Edited March 27, 2018 by Humanoid

[Stroud]

Normal arena 5,064 points.
Athena +5, Sheena +10, Wendy +7 and Hinoka.
I get used to play without A.Tiki. If I have the chance and get a better Athena I want to give her a more offensiv skill set. 

[DLNarshen]

9 hours ago, mampfoid said:

Congratulations for staying in tier 20 another week! I'm trying to keep up with you guys (one day ...). 

@DLNarshen Thanks for the video, that's some cool flier action. Hinoka tanking Regnal Astra and surviving by 3 HP was my personal highlight. I'm actually considering Caeda for a merge project, seeing yours further pushes me to that decision.

Thanks!  I wholeheartedly recommend any kind of investment in Caeda.  Even before her weapon refinery upgrade, she has put in so much work, and flier support turns her into a monster.  I know you're a fan of flier teams as well, so I don't think you'll regret it. =)

Edited March 27, 2018 by DLNarshen

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

6 hours ago, Korath88 said:

Yeah, trying to get into tier 20 without merges isn't worth the effort at this point. Having to drag around armors with useless dual rally skills while dealing with supermerged bullshit is not fun at all and not worth going through for 1.2k feathers every other week. Armor emblem isn't the problem, it's not being able to run positioning skills that kills any potential strategy with them. Also fuck Zelgius

I still don't see myself going for a +10 anytime soon despite this. It's basically a 200,000 feather investment for slightly more feathers(lol) every week that probably won't even balance out until more than a year later.

Also, can I mention how useless the arena scoring update was? All it did was lower scores and didn't even fix the scoring inconsistencies. I ran into 2 teams that were 10 whole points apart with the same team. That's 70 whole points of difference across 7 matches. So much for discouraging score sniping.

It's not like that +10 can only be used in Arena. Other modes exist where such a power unit can be helpful.

[Zeo]

@mcsilas No worries, watch whenever you can. Grats on those defense wins also, I may try to steal your strat because I had no such luck this week, it's been a long time since then actually...

@Rezzy Hey you stayed in T20! Nice work! It'll be a long time before I can say the same but I know you've been at it for a while.

As for me, I got 0 defense wins this time around. It's been a long time since I haven't gotten any, so I'll be revamping my strategy. Maybe Matthew doesn't work well for the map layout so I'll be taking him out of my rotation this week. Horses have been really close to screwing me and dancers are how they always are so I'll be going that route this time. Getting back into tier 20 should be easy enough as should staying in the top 10k in AA. Busy week so won't record my run or anything like that but things should go smoothly. I just hope I can get a defense win this time.

And also as per the discussion, I could imagine being able to do what I do without my merged Matthew. I would never try to stay in my current tier torturing myself with armor units with rally skills. I enjoy making units I like strong and I'll continue to do it until I have a powerful team of favorites that can lock me in the highest tiers as a F2P.

Edited March 27, 2018 by Zeo

[Infinite Dreams]

6 hours ago, mampfoid said:

@Infinite Dreams Thanks for the video! I watched only the first fight and let the rest run on the side while doing something else, but I was surprised you still meet full horse teams in that range. Your Laslow and Corrin are awesome, congratulations! 

Aww, thank you! 

(Yeah, full horse teams are really rare above 730, but a few do pop up now and then.)

[Alexmender]

Just finished my runs, normal arena with a score of 4950 (the lack of Fjorm really hurts me, I lost almost 100 points without her) which should be more than enough to go back to tier 20 and on AA with a score of 4976 which should do good enough for top 10k.

[Korath88]

3 hours ago, Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi said:

It's not like that +10 can only be used in Arena. Other modes exist where such a power unit can be helpful.

I honestly doubt I need a +10 to clear other content, given my past track record.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

5 minutes ago, Korath88 said:

I honestly doubt I need a +10 to clear other content, given my past track record.

A lot of things in this game aren't strictly needed, but they're still useful/valuable.

[pullofthebush]

I did Arena early this week because I've got holidays. 5060 in normal Arena and 5066 in AA...

I can't wait to pull my next Fae and A!Tiki because then I've got 2 +10 units. When Nowi +5 got Aether I'm probably safe in Arena for the next few months and can finally focus on building some fun units for AA, unless I suddenly pull lots of Nowis again. The only other blue unit I could merge to +10 currently would be Est (I'm tempted...).

Overall I'm really happy btw that I started to build a good merged team. It's tedious and feels like it's not really worth it compared to building other units, but it's really satisfying eventually when you're able to stay in Tier 20 at a rather safe spot in the middle.

[LFM]

Two weeks ago I got a score of 4906 to go up to tier 20 and now 4930 (with the same team): Arvis, Nino, Nowi and Ayra. The extra merges are really helping me out. No TT so my feathers stock is depleted.

[Usana]

Plenty of defense wins like the past two weeks with the team of 4*+10Eirika/5*+1L!Ephraim/4*+10Nowi/5*+3Myrrh.

This being my off week I haven't really tried much, since regularly staying in 20 has never really been feasible for me. However, I took the plunge and 5*Eirika to a +5. Doing a test match seems to indicate that that increased my score range max from 712 to 714. Maybe I should see if I can stay in 20 with that?

[Zeo]

@Infinite Dreams I was called a cool kid just now... >_<

That Laslow is amazing. What I love about watching videos like this is that in the sea of meta units there's always that one personalized unit that's made simply awesome. Also... the team compositions in the 730+ range are somewhat terrifying.. But I'll happily hang out in the 704-718 range until I have some of those tools myself.

[Infinite Dreams]

3 hours ago, Zeo said:

@Infinite Dreams I was called a cool kid just now... >_<

That Laslow is amazing. What I love about watching videos like this is that in the sea of meta units there's always that one personalized unit that's made simply awesome.

Indeed you were! 

Aww, thank you!  It was fun building him up.  I like that too!