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Arena Discussion Thread (inc. Assault)


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@eclipse @DehNutCase

I'll put in my 2 cents on this matter because why not?

I think this entire obsession over stats and which units are the "best" is rather pointless. If anything, I'd recommend players to use the units and characters they like, and not the units at the top of some tier list, because with SI, any unit can become good, or at least usable in the arena, something most of you know by now.

If I was given the option to replace my current arena lineup of Alm/Ninian/Lilina/Ephraim with Lucina/Azura/Tharja/Effie, complete with perfect natures and skillsets, I would never do it, as I would be giving up 4 characters I like for ones I don't care for/outright dislike. This rationale carries over into my unit guides and builds, as I focus on making them the best they can be, rather than try to slot them into "niches" where they aren't outclassed, because anyone reading said guide for help would have already decided to use that unit, and as such, I don't need to give them a reason as to why they should be used over others.

This may not extend to everyone, but I think most long time fans would derive more enjoyment from using units they like, tier lists be damned. Even when rerolling, I did so to get a unit I liked(Lyn in my case), not to get one that was top tier. After all, this is first and foremost a video game, and maximising my enjoyment of the game is my main priority.

Edited by Korath88
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43 minutes ago, eclipse said:

But you haven't answered the actual question: For the sake of what?  Did it really matter that one account had better pulls (source: tier list) than the other?  In this case, no, because you beat the map, regardless.

Gaining power for the sake of power is something that I see across multiple gacha games - and those same people are the ones who ask for help, because they replaced mechanical knowledge with what they thought was an easy solution.

If you're playing this game at all you're playing for either 'power' (that is, ability to complete content) or 'eye-candy' (that is, using units you like). The more 'power' you have the more 'eye-candy' you can afford to run. I can afford to drag a 1Hp/1Atk/150Spd/1Def/1Res unit through arena, but only because the rest of my team would be able to trio every single team. (And also because Draw Back even on the worst possible unit is still pretty damn good.)

If I had to pick a direction, I'd say I lean more towards 'power' than 'eye-candy,' though obviously I do have huge biases towards certain units.

43 minutes ago, eclipse said:

Then rerolling is for even less than feathers in the arena rank - it's for some misplaced pride.  Of all things, getting lucky with the rolls in a gacha game isn't something to brag about.  Nor is "I rerolled fifty times for this!"  Skill is something that's acquired, while luck is there, or it isn't.

You're sacrificing a lot more than time.  Every account will play differently, and it's those early experiences that teach a new player how the game works.  I can't say that my first 5* pull was very forgiving, and my second wasn't used that often (if you read backwards, you'll notice that I only ran Tiki for the longest time, with Jakob nowhere in sight).  Rather than rely on power, I went with improvisation and creativity, and I think what I learned is far more valuable than any 5*.

I'll need more feathers than the person who starts off with multiple S/S+ units. But that's okay, because I will get those feathers one day.  And when I do, I will make that -Atk Spring Lucina shine in the arena.

There's no functional difference between the guy who whaled 2k USD for a team of Hector Takumi Ryoma Azura or the guy who re-rolled for it. If the first guy breaks, say, 5k in rank with that team and is proud of the achievement, the second guy has just as much reason to be proud of the same achievement, should he achieve it.

Luck is most certainly something that can be acquired, given that rerolls effectively roll your 'LUK' stat anew every single time you reroll. (Not for long, because of regression towards the mean, but 1 particular unit can be easily guaranteed, and you can easily set the bar to be some minimum 'power' level or rarity level.)

43 minutes ago, eclipse said:

Then rerolling is for even less than feathers in the arena rank - it's for some misplaced pride.

43 minutes ago, eclipse said:

I'll need more feathers than the person who starts off with multiple S/S+ units. But that's okay, because I will get those feathers one day.  And when I do, I will make that -Atk Spring Lucina shine in the arena.

The 3* GHB guy certainly has reasons to be proud: He's clearing in-game content in basically the strictest possible conditions. But, according to you, so long as you cleared the content, it doesn't matter if the team was 4 5* +10s or 4 3*s. Which, of course, is perfectly correct, in a way. Of course, this also means that the guy who makes, say, top 5k in arena with all S-tier 5* only units that have never been in a banner is just as good as the guy who made it up there with, say, only free units promoted to 5*s. (In this case, it doesn't matter whether you used -Atk Niles or +Atk Takumi, result matters more than process.)

 

Alternatively, you can say that the guy who did GBH with only 3*s has far more reasons to be prideful than the guy who used 5* +10s, given that the first person had the far more difficult set of conditions. (Which, in your case, would be similar to shining in arena with a -Atk Spring Lucina. In this case, the -Atk Niles is far superior to the +Atk Takumi, the more difficult process with equal or similar results trumps the simpler process.)

 

Alternatively, you can say that the guy who who did GBH with only 5* +10s and left it on auto-battle had far more reasons to be prideful, given that he completed the content with the barest minimum of effort. (Similar to an ultra S-tier team that doesn't even require thought: let's just pretend, for a moment, that it's a team which could manage to auto battle their way to the same rank as your -Atk Spring Lucina team. In this case, the +Atk Takumi is far better than -Atk Niles, because the simplicity of process---the very thing that promoted 'brain-deadness' in its user---is what the owner should be proud of.)

 

Strictly speaking, the three points of view should be logically exclusive, but I've rarely met people who behaved that way.

 

Anyway, the first one favors results, the second one favors tactics, the third one favors logistics. Ignoring the first one for a moment, the second one is the brilliant general who can win against 10 to 1 odds, and the second one is the logistician (usually the general) who manages to bring 10 people to your 1.

Personally, while I do value all 3 view-points, I believe I lean closer to the logistical side in most cases. That is, I respect more the general that managed to field 100k people against a 10k army than the general that wins with 10k people against a 100k army. That said, I do value more the general who wins, so I guess my ranking would be winning > logistics > tactics.

Edited by DehNutCase
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There's a lot to learn from experimentation about what works for you personally. For example, when I was using Spring Camilla as my bonus unit, I gave her Hone Atk 2 because it seemed like a generally useful C skill and could be upgraded into Hone Fliers later, if I got someone to inherit it from. (It'd be redundant with Rally Attack, but I switched that out for a movement assist. Also, it turns out that the only character currently with Hone Fliers is Hinoka, but I only just checked that now.) It turned out that the +3 Atk was often useful for having Hector OHKO Nino, letting him take her out on the enemy phase without dying to her follow-up attack. So once Camilla stopped being a bonus unit, I still wanted to boost Hector's Atk, so I had Sharena inherit Spur Atk 2 to cover that role.

There's lots of little things like that that can make a big difference, depending on your own team and your own options available.

Edited by Othin
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29 minutes ago, salinea said:

Fucking flying team killed my deathless run on the 7th fight :(

Flier Emblem eh?

I only saw that once.

Back in the day when Gordin was on my team

good times.... good times.........

Anyhow, my updated rank and tings:

4,712 points get me to rank 14,977

Looks like its gonna be a close one

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5 minutes ago, Arcanite said:

Flier Emblem eh?

I only saw that once.

Saw 3 of them this season, counting the one that was three fliers and one Hector.

They're only dangerous on that one arena field...

Edited by salinea
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I feel like one of the best things you can do for your team as f2p is good use of inherit reposition and drawback.  These are soo cluctch to keep units alive and take advantaged fights.  You could probably make a good team from olivia and comon units with some triangle adept.

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2 minutes ago, Vaximillian said:

@Arcanite I'm still one point higher than you, while rank is 15,111.

No fucking defences because fuck that noise.

I'm personally in the camp that arena defenses are just sheer luck. Some people get like 10+ on day one of the season while the rest go for weeks at a time without a single one. Makes me wonder if we have to consider what teams and stat totals or skills our defense have to come up against to secure a win.

Spoiler

Or no one gets matched with your team at all. Could be possible.

 

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Just now, Vaximillian said:

@Arcanite I'm still one point higher than you (needed to emphasize this to inflate my ego), while rank is 15,111.

If you need to emphasize the "one point" thing to inflate your ego, you can go right ahead :)

1 minute ago, Vaximillian said:

No fucking defences because fuck that noise.

Yeah I'm pretty salty about that too. Defenses are so hard to control it's ridiculous. Meanwhile there are some people running around with 8 defense scores -_-

Somebody PLEASE fix this!

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8 minutes ago, MrSmokestack said:

I'm personally in the camp that arena defenses are just sheer luck. Some people get like 10+ on day one of the season while the rest go for weeks at a time without a single one. Makes me wonder if we have to consider what teams and stat totals or skills our defense have to come up against to secure a win.

I used to get at least one defence win a week before repositioning was a thing. None this or other week.
Or maybe nobody picks my team at all. It's possible too.

7 minutes ago, Arcanite said:

If you need to emphasize the "one point" thing to inflate your ego, you can go right ahead :)

Yeah I'm pretty salty about that too. Defenses are so hard to control it's ridiculous. Meanwhile there are some people running around with 8 defense scores -_-

I only do that because it bothers you. My ego is perfectly fine, thank you very much.

Offence is at least something I can put effort into. Defence is entirely out of my control and that infuriates me beyond measure.
Precious feathers are locked by something I can't actively influence because I only have one Reinhardt and he's merely 4⋆ goddamnit

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1 minute ago, Vaximillian said:

I used to get at least one defence win a week before repositioning was a thing. None this or other week.
Or maybe nobody picks my team at all. It's possible too.

Offence is at least something I can put effort into. Defence is entirely out of my control and that infuriates me beyond measure.
Precious feathers are locked by something I can't actively influence because I only have one Reinhardt and he's merely 4⋆ goddamnit

Them's the breaks though. At least there's Hero Merit to make up for at least 1 week of no defense wins per tick.

Spoiler

Um for the record I actually got 2 defense wins before I even started my run for the new season this week, something that's never happened to me before.

 

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16 minutes ago, Arcanite said:

Yeah I'm pretty salty about that too. Defenses are so hard to control it's ridiculous. Meanwhile there are some people running around with 8 defense scores -_-

I think defense teams are more a matter of quantity of challengers rather than the quality of the defense team: Even a defense team that wins 100% of the time gets 0 wins if no one is in the score range to challenge them.

That is, it might be best to first make sure your defense team is in the 670 (or whatever range is most common to challenge), and then make sure it's a cancerous pile of units.

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12 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

That is, it might be best to first make sure your defense team is in the 670 (or whatever range is most common to challenge), and then make sure it's a cancerous pile of units.

Too bad  my only 2 remotely "cancerous" units I have are Brash assault 3 Lyn and Fury, Desp 3 Nino. After that, I have nothing heh.

Spoiler

I guess it's time to whip out Ye Olde Oncologiste books to learn a few lessons

I have a Klein to give death blow to someone. In fact, it's been a while since I did some skill inheritance shenanigans. Might take a picture and ask some questions later.

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My defense team's total is only 650. My Defense wins wildly fluctuate from one to about seven, but I've always gotten a win. Though I may have ended more deathless streaks than that...

I'm probably gonna slap Fury on Azura, then eventually cave in and put that on Lucina too. That'll bump it up to about 670.

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Just now, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

My defense team's total is only 650. My Defense wins wildly fluctuate from one to about seven, but I've always gotten a win. Though I may have ended more deathless streaks than that...

I'm probably gonna slap Fury on Azura, then eventually cave in and put that on Lucina too. That'll bump it up to about 670.

The 670 number isn't a 'real' number, per se. I actually have no idea what the most common arena score to challenge is. : /

(I only picked 670 because that's more or less what I usually get for advanced.)

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Just now, DehNutCase said:

The 670 number isn't a 'real' number, per se. I actually have no idea what the most common arena score to challenge is. : /

(I only picked 670 because that's more or less what I usually get for advanced.)

I usually get 680, which is where inheritance starts to become kinda common I think.

Actually I think I might be wrong about 650. How are cavalry scores inflated to match infantry? My Reinhardt is 160 but I think the adjustment might make him higher.

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23 minutes ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

I usually get 680, which is where inheritance starts to become kinda common I think.

Actually I think I might be wrong about 650. How are cavalry scores inflated to match infantry? My Reinhardt is 160 but I think the adjustment might make him higher.

(Full disclosure, I actually have no idea what I usually get. My 3* Sharena is throwing off my arena #s so much this week.)

 

I'm pretty sure the adjustment makes the 'average' unit of every class about the same. That is, Cavs get +4, mages get +7, armored get -10, Cav Mages get +11, etc. (Don't quote me on that, though, I haven't spent the dueling swords to actually check the adjustment.)

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13 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

A few days of rerolling's worth of luck (or just good luck in general), is worth hundreds, if not thousands of USD in orbs.

 

11 hours ago, eclipse said:

In other words, take a good hard look at what you're REALLY obtaining with rerolls.  It's not worth it.

When starting the game, I decided to reroll until I got two 5* units.

I got 5* Takumi and 5* Jeorge on my 6th or 7th reroll.

To this day, they are my most frequently used and best units and have been a part of my top arena team every single week, and have been immensely helpful in some Great Hero Battles.

Rerolling made a HUGE difference for me, for comparatively little time put in. I don't remember how much time it took, but I think it takes about 3 minutes for a reroll if you go for summoning only 4 units to start once you get the rhythm down. I probably spent some 30 minutes to an hour rerolling. That time rerolling was well worth getting two good 5* units to start with.

Perhaps I got lucky getting two great 5* units that quickly with rerolling. That being said, I actually got 5* Sakura and 5* Sheena on a previously reroll, but I lost that save data before I linked my account, and got 5* Takumi and Jeorge on the very next roll... How's that for luck.

Consider this: In my two and a half months of playing Heroes, I have gotten FIVE 5* units from summoning AFTER my initial roll. That works out to two 5* units a month from summoning. In the short run, having another two 5* units to start with is a HUGE boost. I didn't get another 5* until about 3 weeks after starting the game. This effect is lessened as time goes on, and as one gets more and more feathers to promote units to 5*. But for starting out, it makes a big difference.

So the biggest thing rerolling does is give you a much better start in the game. A head start, if you will. Especially considering how scarce feathers were early on.

Edit: Here's something else to consider.

The time you spent on rerolling versus the potential rewards you get out of it is much better than any activity the game itself presents to you.

Think about the time you spend doing arenas for feathers, story maps for orbs, GHBs to get heroes, quests, etc.

If you were to reroll until you get one 5* unit as opposed to a 4*, that's 18,000 feathers you got for the time you spent rerolling. If you reroll until you get two 5* units instead of two 4*s, that's 36,000 feathers you got.

How much time of actually playing the game would have to spend to get that much feathers? Or to get enough orbs to on average get one or two 5* units? Or how much money you would have to spend, and how much time it would take you to earn that money? And then consider that how much of each resource you can get per day/week is heavily restricted.

If there was a quest in the game that took half an hour to one hour, and gave you a very good chance of getting one 5* unit, and a decent chance of getting two 5* units... would you do that quest? Would you think those are pretty good rewards for the time and effort required? Of course you would.

For me, spending, say, an hour rerolling to get two 5* units, or an extra value of 36,000 feathers to start the game with, was an excellent investment of my time into this game.

Edit #2: I'm basing this on the assumption you can get 10-20 rerolls in an hour, at 4 units each. That's 40-80 units summoned per hour, at a 6% chance to get a 5* each summon. That's an average of 2-5 5* units per hour.

10 hours ago, OKigen said:

I have an extra Eirika which I would like to merge asap to get some sp. Which one will be better to keep: +res -atk or +spd -res?

Her main business outside of buff is just to tank highly merged Julia/Nino. I'm leaned more to the +spd one but that -res throws me off a bit. Alternative I'm gonna stick g tomebreaker on the -atk +res Eirika. What do you think?

I have a +Res -Atk Eirika and I'm rather disappointed by her damage output. She barely scratches higher defense units. Eirika is fast enough to double some units, so you're giving up 6 points of damage a lot of the time for 3 points of res, where Eirika might not even be taking a single attack from a mage on that map.

Definitely keep the +Spd -Res. Much better offensive output. She'll take more damage from mages, but she still has good res, and I don't know how you play but I tend to use ranged units to take out enemy mages anyway.

If you do keep the +Res, you could give her Iceberg as an activation skill.

Edited by XaosLogos
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So, ended up with a second 5-star Nowi, which made me obliged to kit my current one out and merge them. It's my first real serious merge and... not noticing any difference. Score's bumped just a bit compared to earlier this week (862-684), but last week's team was facing 686 on average, with a couple dips into the 690s. I'm a bit confused as to how a full +0 team with one empty skill slot was getting better match-ups than a team with a +1 and all skill slots filled. Sure, it's got Rein on the team, but BST is supposed to be normalized to allow all characters some level of viability.

For reference, last week's team was Hector, Linde, Sharena, Spring Chrom. All 5* +0, with full skill slots other than Spring Chrom, who was missing a B (a silly oversight, really).

Anyway, I did get a deathless run with this new team that improves my score by a fair margin, but I wonder if it'll even be worth top 5k (the hour hasn't rolled over yet, so I'll get back to you guys on it).

Score of 4701 (Cherche 5*, Cordelia 5*, Sharena 5*, Nino 5*; all skill slots filled, single death):

  • Apr 21 9AM PST - #13 301
  • Apr 21 3PM PST - #13 830
  • Apr 22 5PM PST - #16 854

 

Score of 4780 (Nowi 5* +1, Nino 5*, Sharena 5*, Reinhardt 5*; all skill slots filled, no deaths):

  • Apr 22 7PM PST - #4337

EDIT: Rank is in. Ehhhh, that's a really huge maybe. If it's anything like last week, I'm gonna get bumped out late Sunday.

 

Edited by Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi
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I’m looking for advice for my offensive arena team. Right now I’m running Ryoma, Azura and Hector with the 4th slot as the bonus hero (Sharena this week). It worked better before the arena changes since the higher BST meant I faced more melee centric teams but now I’m seeing more ranged compositions.

My biggest issue seems to be red tomes like Tharja because Ryoma has fairly low res and while Azura takes little damage due to TA she usually cannot kill Tharja and be in a good position to not die after that. Green tomes like Nino can also be an issue because of Ryoma’s low res despite Azura’s buff. A buffed Fury 3 Nino actually ended my arena run when she doubled and killed my Ryoma that I used to bait.

I do have access to Vantage (only level 2) and Fury 3 that I’ve been considering throwing on Ryoma but I’m not sure if I should invest in him because he’s -atk. I also pulled a +atk/-res Nowi which seems like decent IVs but not running any reds seems like an instant loss to Hector.

Also running through the calculator it seems quick riposte might be equally as good on Ryoma as Vantage. Maybe it makes sense to give Ryoma QR and Hector Vantage but QR has poor synergy with Fury.

5*:
Nowi (+atk/-res)
Azura (+spd/-res, sword breaker 2)
Reinhardt (+def/-atk)
Erika (+hp/-atk)
Ryoma (+hp/-atk)
Sharena
Effie (+res/-spd, pivot)
Catria (+res/-spd)
Hinoka (+res/-spd)
Hinoka (+spd/-def)
Hector (+def/-spd)
Spring Chrom (+spd/-def)

4*: Nino (+res/-def)

SI available: Fury 3, QR 2, Vantage 2, Moonbow, Luna

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37 minutes ago, Gengar said:

I’m looking for advice for my offensive arena team. Right now I’m running Ryoma, Azura and Hector with the 4th slot as the bonus hero (Sharena this week). It worked better before the arena changes since the higher BST meant I faced more melee centric teams but now I’m seeing more ranged compositions.

My biggest issue seems to be red tomes like Tharja because Ryoma has fairly low res and while Azura takes little damage due to TA she usually cannot kill Tharja and be in a good position to not die after that. Green tomes like Nino can also be an issue because of Ryoma’s low res despite Azura’s buff. A buffed Fury 3 Nino actually ended my arena run when she doubled and killed my Ryoma that I used to bait.

I do have access to Vantage (only level 2) and Fury 3 that I’ve been considering throwing on Ryoma but I’m not sure if I should invest in him because he’s -atk. I also pulled a +atk/-res Nowi which seems like decent IVs but not running any reds seems like an instant loss to Hector.

Also running through the calculator it seems quick riposte might be equally as good on Ryoma as Vantage. Maybe it makes sense to give Ryoma QR and Hector Vantage but QR has poor synergy with Fury.

5*:
Nowi (+atk/-res)
Azura (+spd/-res, sword breaker 2)
Reinhardt (+def/-atk)
Erika (+hp/-atk)
Ryoma (+hp/-atk)
Sharena
Effie (+res/-spd, pivot)
Catria (+res/-spd)
Hinoka (+res/-spd)
Hinoka (+spd/-def)
Hector (+def/-spd)
Spring Chrom (+spd/-def)

4*: Nino (+res/-def)

SI available: Fury 3, QR 2, Vantage 2, Moonbow, Luna

QR on Ryoma is a good idea, and if his low attack keeps you from being able to kill on enemy phase, then you can slap a Moonbow on there and it will trigger and likely finish the job. with this, he wins against 31 out of 36 neutral ranged units that have Fury (not counting healers because whatever), and only 2 matchups end with him dying in one round. i'm amazed that the Nino managed to kill your Ryoma by doubling because Ryoma should be able to one shot her in retaliation even if she has +4 def buff AND +Def boon AND +4 Def from a spur (unless the calculator i'm using is wrong), even if Ryoma is -Atk. if you want to keep Ryoma in QR range, consider skills on your other units like Breath of Life, Reciprocal Aid, or Ardent Sacrifice.

edit: mb i messed up on some stuff here. this is why you don't try to help people when you're drunk. he wins 25/36 and loses 2, and if you give him the +1 attack seal that goes up to 27/36. still i think QR + Moonbow is nice.

Edited by wizzard of soz
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Anyone else having massive trouble in the Arena this week?  I've probably tried fifteen matches, all on Beginner, and only manage to win one out of every three or so.  I'll face opponents 10 levels or more below me, and yet even if my entire team attacks one guy, they just get him down to half health.  At this point, I'm not even sure any amount of feathers is worth the hassle.  -_-

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