Aether Raids General Thread

[Anacybele]

I've now gotten 5 perfect victories in a row and am 260 lift away from tier 20! But I feel like I'm going to cut it real close whether I actually get there or not, mainly due to potential lift losses the rest of the season.

[Landmaster]

Made T24 for the first time~ Though I feel it's probably pretty cheap just throwing a BD Nowi at everything but having only used 1 Ladder so far, it's working fine for me~

[Jave]

Looks like I won’t be making it to Tier 20 this week. Lost today’s match and now I can’t get enough points for next tier. 

Next week hopefully. 

[Anacybele]

And I'm definitely cutting it close like I thought. I'm 95 lift away from tier 20 and I should have two more battles I can do tomorrow.

[Johann]

1 hour ago, Anacybele said:

And I'm definitely cutting it close like I thought. I'm 95 lift away from tier 20 and I should have two more battles I can do tomorrow.

I think you'll make it, and even you don't, it sounds like you've learned a lot from this week. You're definitely getting better at this.

One thing that could potentially help make your final runs easier is if you take a look at your Rematch options from Defense Results. Though you only get to see the enemy's first unit, sometimes it's possible to gauge what their map is like based on that unit's skills. Here's a few things to consider:

• Units who attacked earlier in the week might be a bit easier, especially if they had a hard time with your map. The idea here is that later challengers are probably closer to your score later in the week, while anyone who struggles or doesn't put in much effort would not likely keep up with your score, and thus probably not face you so late. Don't rely on this though.
• If their Offense Fortress is relatively low, then their Def fortress might be high, so avoid foes with low Offense forts
• If their lead unit has Infantry Pulse, don't challenge them, because you know what the rest of the team is gonna look like. Likewise you might see something similar with Legendary Hector, so be wary of him as a lead.
• Brave Lyn, Veronica, or any Firesweep units should probably also be skipped. Might be setting yourself up for an onslaught of foes you can't counter
• Seliph, Lilina, and Ophelia should probably also be skipped. Those setups are pretty much the same sort of devastating offense (in Seliph's case, Miracle + WoM baiting)
• If it's Legendary Azura, I'd be wary of them, especially if they have a Dance seal (like Earth Dance).
• Likewise, if their lead unit has a Rally skill, I'd say skip it. Rally skills are usually used on high offense units as a way to not suicide on tanks and also punish baiting
• A flier with a goad or ward skill tells you it'll be a Flier Ball map, which are very dangerous, skip those too
• Yune as a lead is usually a good sign, since she's very frail and has a hard time using most of her skills. I see Yune-lead challengers as easy wins since Hrid will always kill her in one shot, even if he's debuffed and she isn't
• If their lead unit is lacking a seal or other major skill slot (not counting assist), that's often a sign of a careless map build. It doesn't guarantee it's easy, but it does show that the player might not care about their Def map or goofed and forgot to Lock their team.
• Awkward skill/seal choices are also worth noticing. There's a guy on my rematch with a +10 Jeorge using Cupid Arrow (not very threatening) and Blaze Dance seal (does nothing for Jeorge). I could be wrong, but I doubt this guy has any tricks up his sleeve.
• If the main unit is weaponless, that's probably a free win, lucky you

[Anacybele]

3 minutes ago, Johann said:

I think you'll make it, and even you don't, it sounds like you've learned a lot from this week. You're definitely getting better at this.

I feel like I only did so well this week because it was a good week for me season-wise. I was able to use female Robin to take care of a lot of otherwise annoying threats, for example. And Eir was a bonus unit and it was Light week and she's always helpful in that case. But I do hope I can start doing this well more often.

Oh, and thanks for the tips!

Edited July 14, 2019 by Anacybele

[Vicious Sal]

Last map i challenged had to be a perfect counter to al my five offense teams. Who uses beast effective weapons nowadays, first one inhave seen since their bonus week ended. Of course +10 merged and the cleaner added to counter bonuses. A dancer with 62 hp so no crippling them either. 

That one match has kept me out of T27 this week. Oh well that’s just one match. It just stings it keeps locks me out of the highest amount of rewards.

[Anacybele]

I MADE IT! Just in time for the new defense rewards too since tier 20 and higher gets much better ones! XD

Though what also helped save my ass here was that for once, I had ladder uses remaining. Two, in fact. And I had to use one today. Still wish there were more than three, but I got to tier 20 and then some! I'm at 9,510 lift! That puts me at seven perfect wins in a row now!

Though on weeks where I can't use female Robin and all, that streak will surely end. xP

Edited July 15, 2019 by Anacybele

[Landmaster]

Two perfect matches to end the Season~ I'll finish in T24, one more match and I could have made T25 but I've been so horrible at collecting pots since half of my matches were just the enemies suiciding into Nowi leaving no time to even get them~

M!Kana also now has Warding Stance 4, so we'll be seeing how he performs this coming week~

[Lewyn]

Personal best, ranked #1912!  First time to get top 3000 and a gold throne!  

[Humanoid]

A defense reward of two Dragonflowers feels kinda comical, but hey, it's two more than before.

[Diovani Bressan]

I had 6 defensive successes this season, which was pretty good.

Spoiler

@daisy jane @mampfoid @DarkAlf @Landmaster @Alkaid @Astellius @Maaka @Azuris @mcsilas @Jave

 

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Totally wasn't paying attention and was starting to wonder why I was meeting so much resistance in comps before I went to bed last night. I guess my defenses did well enough that I actually came within 100 points of T27. Neat.

[Landmaster]

One more week and I can get a Lv5 Offensive Fort~

[daisy jane]

3 minutes ago, Landmaster said:

One more week and I can get a Lv5 Offensive Fort~

HURRAH!!
 

[mampfoid]

@Diovani Bressan Congrats on that big heap of wins! Glad your map works that good. (I'm still too lazy to touch mine.) 

[Anacybele]

...I lost almost every fucking match today. And one of the only two I did win was an easy map that only had two units on it. Utter fucking bullshit. I didn't think I was going to keep winning like I was before, but losing nearly all of these battles? What the fuck? I thought I'd at least gotten somewhat better at this mode?

I guess I'm not staying in tier 20. I'll lose too much lift by the time the season ends because I can't fucking win anymore battles and my defense teams never win no matter what I do.

Oh yeah, fuck that six Camilla team too. Stupid fanservice bitch.

EDIT: So, I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong now since the team(s) that worked so well before are not working anymore now. The only thing that's different is the season. But maybe the stat difference is all that's required to make things that much harder? Seems ridiculous to be the case though. Sorry for being upset again, but yeah. I did not expect to go in and be ripped apart like that. I thought I might lose one or two battles. Not nearly all of them.

Though I wonder if I should follow anymore advice in here because obviously the advice I got for my defense team did nothing.

Edited July 16, 2019 by Anacybele

[Hilda]

2 hours ago, Anacybele said:

...I lost almost every fucking match today. And one of the only two I did win was an easy map that only had two units on it. Utter fucking bullshit. I didn't think I was going to keep winning like I was before, but losing nearly all of these battles? What the fuck? I thought I'd at least gotten somewhat better at this mode?

I guess I'm not staying in tier 20. I'll lose too much lift by the time the season ends because I can't fucking win anymore battles and my defense teams never win no matter what I do.

Oh yeah, fuck that six Camilla team too. Stupid fanservice bitch.

EDIT: So, I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong now since the team(s) that worked so well before are not working anymore now. The only thing that's different is the season. But maybe the stat difference is all that's required to make things that much harder? Seems ridiculous to be the case though. Sorry for being upset again, but yeah. I did not expect to go in and be ripped apart like that. I thought I might lose one or two battles. Not nearly all of them.

Though I wonder if I should follow anymore advice in here because obviously the advice I got for my defense team did nothing.

The bold part is what you are doing wrong. This was an instant wrong decision on your part period + Tier 20 is the land where things get even harder, because everyone in there is fighting to reach Tier 21.

If you are running 2 Eirs you are kinda loosing 10 HP and 10 RES during Astra season in a mode that is mostly heavy mage infested. 20 magical bulk lost! Thats kinda huge. Its now Astra season.
Naga provides buffs too but 10 HP and 10 Def is kinda okeish + the fact she isnt a ranged unit makes it harder. In that regard Astra season is allways harder to get through.

You can NOT run the same offensiv Team on Astra season that you used on Light season. It will hurt you, not only because no Lift bonus, but because of lost Magical bulk. You have to make up for that loss in magical bulk.

Usually i run Omega tanks in Light season and Galeforce Teams in Astra season. Although i also use Naga as an Omega Tank in Astra season, it works kinda okeish with Marth support.

But if you are entering Astra season with the same Team as before you are in for a bad treat, because those Reinhardts Ophelias Lilinas etc are gonna hit that much harder.

[Vicious Sal]

2 hours ago, Anacybele said:

.

Though I wonder if I should follow anymore advice in here because obviously the advice I got for my defense team did nothing.

First I want to clarify something here, because you are jumping to conclusions.

Everyone here has been telling you that there are multiple way to tackle a map. Multiple of those people gave you the advice to build your team to counter one strategy first, then look at your defense replays and see what people use to beat your map and adjust accordingly.

A person who goes to the gym for the first time won’t have a ripped physique after one day. He comes back every day, look at places where he can improve his form or pacing and adjusts his routine if necessary.

So we helped you along with your first steps into building a defense team. Now you get defense results and it’s valuable to know what kind of ways people beat your map this time around. Maybe people use bridal fjorm to counter the rally and dance. Maybe they use vantage or galeforce. When you analyse your replays, look at how you get beaten. And fix those holes. That is what people have been telling you. It is not a one time fix to all your problems. Ar is a dynamic metagame and new strategies pop up every day. 

My first defense result today was a Loss because i got swept in one turn by a heavy blade galeforce reyson. Never saw that before, but I gave a few merged to a unit so that they have higher attack and thus make it less likely to let the enemy proc heavy blade.

 

You don’t have to follow our advice, but it has been working for us and on your own attempt at a defense team had no wins at all. So maybe give us the benefit of the doubt, keep posting your map and how you lose, and we might be able to plug those holes together. 

 

@Hilda Well spoken, good summary of why offense differs so much season by season!

 

 

 

Oh and as for the new mythic, I’d like to discuss that a bit! My guess is that the new mythic will be one of the worst mythics yet. It will most likely be red, which in the current AR meta is an awful colour. So if it is dark, Yune will outperform easily, even though her res based kit has to fight an uphill battle vs eir. Eir herself is a beast in light season, I do not see her falling. I think double eir is here to stay. 

If the new mythic is anima, and has a decent kit, it might be better than dormer. Because dormer is currently rather pathetic.

if the new mythic is Astra, which i doubt, she might be better than Naga if she is ranged. Then I would expect a Naga+New mythic comp to perform best since red is still a bad colour in ar right now, but range would help snipe aether pots.

Edited July 16, 2019 by Vicious Sal

[XRay]

1 hour ago, Anacybele said:

I didn't think I was going to keep winning like I was before, but losing nearly all of these battles? What the fuck? I thought I'd at least gotten somewhat better at this mode?

Shit happens, and you will need to get used to it. It is not good to dwell on your losses because negativity will affect your performance. I lose on average at least 6 or 7 times a week, sometimes 3 or 4 losses in a row for the day. Two weeks ago, I loss so many battles that I was not able to reach Tier 22.

Just let it go and accept the outcome.

1 hour ago, Anacybele said:

I guess I'm not staying in tier 20. I'll lose too much lift by the time the season ends because I can't fucking win anymore battles and my defense teams never win no matter what I do.

Maintaining a tier is easy. So I would not worry about it. I generally have almost full defense losses anyways, most of my successes happen during protection, and I can still maintain Tier 21 despite playing relatively shit on offense.

1 hour ago, Anacybele said:

Oh yeah, fuck that six Camilla team too. Stupid fanservice bitch.

Do not underestimate flier balls.

Do they have Flier Formation? That is usually the skill that trips me up.

1 hour ago, Anacybele said:

EDIT: So, I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong now since the team(s) that worked so well before are not working anymore now. The only thing that's different is the season. But maybe the stat difference is all that's required to make things that much harder? Seems ridiculous to be the case though. Sorry for being upset again, but yeah. I did not expect to go in and be ripped apart like that. I thought I might lose one or two battles. Not nearly all of them.

Though I wonder if I should follow anymore advice in here because obviously the advice I got for my defense team did nothing.

Stats make a huge difference. Each Eir provides 10 magical bulk, which represents a merge level of about 11 or 12 for Res tanks.

My defense team wins at best 50% of the matches. Usually it wins about a quarter to a third of the matches, and that is after I got my Fortress (D) to level 5. A competent player with the right selection of units and teams will have no trouble crushing most defense teams.

[Anacybele]

1 hour ago, Hilda said:

The bold part is what you are doing wrong. This was an instant wrong decision on your part period + Tier 20 is the land where things get even harder, because everyone in there is fighting to reach Tier 21. 

Okay, fair enough, I guess.

1 hour ago, Hilda said:

If you are running 2 Eirs you are kinda loosing 10 HP and 10 RES during Astra season in a mode that is mostly heavy mage infested. 20 magical bulk lost! Thats kinda huge. Its now Astra season.
Naga provides buffs too but 10 HP and 10 Def is kinda okeish + the fact she isnt a ranged unit makes it harder. In that regard Astra season is allways harder to get through.

You can NOT run the same offensiv Team on Astra season that you used on Light season. It will hurt you, not only because no Lift bonus, but because of lost Magical bulk. You have to make up for that loss in magical bulk.

Usually i run Omega tanks in Light season and Galeforce Teams in Astra season. Although i also use Naga as an Omega Tank in Astra season, it works kinda okeish with Marth support.

But if you are entering Astra season with the same Team as before you are in for a bad treat, because those Reinhardts Ophelias Lilinas etc are gonna hit that much harder. 

I don't have two Eirs, so that's not an option.

Reinhardts and Ophelias are what my female Robin is for. I haven't run into any Lilinas, regular or seasonal. But I see.

57 minutes ago, Vicious Sal said:

First I want to clarify something here, because you are jumping to conclusions.

Everyone here has been telling you that there are multiple way to tackle a map. Multiple of those people gave you the advice to build your team to counter one strategy first, then look at your defense replays and see what people use to beat your map and adjust accordingly.

A person who goes to the gym for the first time won’t have a ripped physique after one day. He comes back every day, look at places where he can improve his form or pacing and adjusts his routine if necessary.

So we helped you along with your first steps into building a defense team. Now you get defense results and it’s valuable to know what kind of ways people beat your map this time around. Maybe people use bridal fjorm to counter the rally and dance. Maybe they use vantage or galeforce. When you analyse your replays, look at how you get beaten. And fix those holes. That is what people have been telling you. It is not a one time fix to all your problems. Ar is a dynamic metagame and new strategies pop up every day. 

My first defense result today was a Loss because i got swept in one turn by a heavy blade galeforce reyson. Never saw that before, but I gave a few merged to a unit so that they have higher attack and thus make it less likely to let the enemy proc heavy blade.

 

You don’t have to follow our advice, but it has been working for us and on your own attempt at a defense team had no wins at all. So maybe give us the benefit of the doubt, keep posting your map and how you lose, and we might be able to plug those holes together. 

Okay, sorry about that then.

I recall one of my defense losses last week was against a team with a regular Nino that took out half my squad in one turn. A Sharena of all things took out the rest. She even made short work of Berkut who is very tanky, not -Def, and not a red unit. Sharena isn't supposed to be very good anymore due to lack of merges and being outclassed by so many other blues now, so... Maybe I didn't give Berkut enough stuff.

I didn't look at any of the other losses. I just decided to check out one of them.

I don't have Duma, so I can't lower my lift loss. I really hope the next mythic is an anima hero since Duma apparently won't be appearing on this banner.

54 minutes ago, XRay said:

Shit happens, and you will need to get used to it. It is not good to dwell on your losses because negativity will affect your performance. I lose on average at least 6 or 7 times a week, sometimes 3 or 4 losses in a row for the day. Two weeks ago, I loss so many battles that I was not able to reach Tier 22.

Just let it go and accept the outcome. 

Yeah, you're right. I should also stop letting myself get so frustrated at a game, since as you said, shit happens.

54 minutes ago, XRay said:

Maintaining a tier is easy. So I would not worry about it. I generally have almost full defense losses anyways, most of my successes happen during protection, and I can still maintain Tier 21 despite playing relatively shit on offense.

Okay, hope you're right. I just want to maintain my tier right now anyway, I doubt I'm going to get to tier 21 for a long time. I kind of barely made it to 20.

55 minutes ago, XRay said:

Do not underestimate flier balls.

Do they have Flier Formation? That is usually the skill that trips me up.

I actually almost beat the team, only one Camilla was left when I lost. But yeah. I didn't check their skills. I forgot because I was just reminded of how much I hate Camilla. But at least some of them probably did. It trips me up too.

56 minutes ago, XRay said:

Stats make a huge difference. Each Eir provides 10 magical bulk, which represents a merge level of about 11 or 12 for Res tanks.

My defense team wins at best 50% of the matches. Usually it wins about a quarter to a third of the matches, and that is after I got my Fortress (D) to level 5. A competent player with the right selection of units and teams will have no trouble crushing most defense teams. 

None of the teams I faced had more than one Eir, but I see. I do still need to upgrade my Fortress D myself too. It's still only lv. 3 because I focused more on maxing my Fortress O. I still don't have enough divine dew though.

[Rezzy]

Had a really crappy start to Aether this week.  Part of it is that Naga just isn't as good as Eir, especially with doubling up her being mandatory.  Second is that most of my good units already got Light Blessed.

At least I got a Defense "win" today with no Lift loss, but that was more than canceled out by wasting all my ladders on Day 1, where I think I used only one all last week.  I wish we got a bit more variety with bonus units.  Having most of it taken up by the latest banner really hurts, if you didn't pull for any of them.

[XRay]

19 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

I recall one of my defense losses last week was against a team with a regular Nino that took out half my squad in one turn. A Sharena of all things took out the rest. She even made short work of Berkut who is very tanky, not -Def, and not a red unit. Sharena isn't supposed to be very good anymore due to lack of merges and being outclassed by so many other blues now, so... Maybe I didn't give Berkut enough stuff.

Sharena is very good, although only during her bonus weeks since she needs those stats. Right now is during her bonus season, so she should have no trouble one rounding DW!Berkut +0 with her +10 stats. Fensalir also has Dull All to help shut down enemy bonus buffs.

[Anacybele]

3 minutes ago, XRay said:

Sharena is very good, although only during her bonus weeks since she needs those stats. Right now is during her bonus season, so she should have no trouble one rounding DW!Berkut +0 with her +10 stats. Fensalir also has Dull All to help shut down enemy bonus buffs.

Without merges and such though, she's still not as good as those other bonus units who CAN be merged.

[XRay]

1 minute ago, Anacybele said:

Without merges and such though, she's still not as good as those other bonus units who CAN be merged.

She is a frequent bonus unit, as she is there 25% of the time. Besides the Askr Trio and Fjorm, no other unit comes close to being a frequent bonus unit. Being a bonus unit is the equivalent of being merge +10 with another HP +6 on top. She does not need merges during her bonus rotation since she has enough stats to compete effectively. For players on a budget and wish to climb Aether Raids in a reasonable amount of time, Sharena is one of the best supertanks to invest in.

She is good enough to pull her own weight during her rotation, and more than good enough to take out DW!Berkut, so that is why she is used.