Summoner Duels

[XRay]

11 hours ago, Hilda said:

Now if they would let you ascend a stat of your captain leader once you reach max that would be an incentivvto play this mode alot, and repeat with a different leader!

That is a good idea. It would also better incentivize people to set support units as captains since they can use the extra HP/Def/Res for stat comparisons if those units have not gotten their preferred Asset yet.

— — — — — — —

I am NEVER EVER going to use dumb fucking super tanks again in Summoner Duels after this season. This mode reminds me so much of why I absolutely despise using enemy phase units. I feel like I am losing more and more control over the battle the higher my score is, and I cannot really give up now that I am half through.

With a player phase team, I can at least wage a battle of attrition when I am losing so I get some more score. In contrast with a super tank team, once you are losing, you will be lucky if you get a kill cause the super tank becomes crap without support, and the support has absolte shit combat to begin with. Even when I am winning it does not feel good, as it is so excruciatingly slow.

 

Edited December 19, 2021 by XRay

[Ice Dragon]

Finally hit 1,000 with Ascended Fjorm.

While I my thoughts about this game mode are generally positive, it's such a massive slog to hit 1,000 points. Individual matches can last a really long time and tougher matches end up feeling like a lot of work, and I started losing enthusiasm around the 500-600 range. I honestly don't think I can keep this up for even just another season.

I'm thinking of switching out Brave Eirika for Legendary Sigurd in the next season. Eirika has some issues dealing with certain fast units and Near Save units have been running Svalinn Shield to tank her. I've also been having some issue putting on pressure with her due to her lesser movement range. That said, I'm not really sure how valuable Sigurd will be without a Trace skill.

As far as Captain Skills go, Earth Rendering is way too strong compared to the others. There are virtually no downsides to running Earth Rendering, as the skill has a neutral match-up against the opponent's skill at worst, and the other two skills just don't provide enough of a benefit to compete against easy capture points unless you're confident in your ability to zone away your opponent. It's not a surprise that this is by far the most commonly used Captain Skill.

I'm also not looking forward to whenever they decide to rotate in the Book 3 restriction. While it sounds fine on paper to get rid of the comparatively stronger newer units, it doesn't seem like it'll also get rid of post-Book-3 skills, meaning there will be a significant gap between players that can afford to give their older units Trace and Save skills and players that cannot. I'm expecting to see Brave Hector literally everywhere since he is by far the best Save tank in the format.

[XRay]

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Finally hit 1,000 with Ascended Fjorm.

What was your team composition? My final team composition is Ike: Brave Mercenary, Lucina: Brave Princess, Flayn, Plumeria, and Leif: Destined Scions. I do not think I can use another enemy phase centric team composition in this mode anymore since it is very difficult to take the initiative and you are generally reacting to what the enemy is doing.

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

While I my thoughts about this game mode are generally positive, it's such a massive slog to hit 1,000 points. Individual matches can last a really long time and tougher matches end up feeling like a lot of work, and I started losing enthusiasm around the 500-600 range. I honestly don't think I can keep this up for even just another season.

The first 200 points was fine, but then I got absolutely sick and tired of it by around 500. The last 500 felt the worst, and I basically used Leif: Destined Scions to carry a super tank team. On some matches, I felt so frustrated and spiteful against the opponent that I purposefully dragged out my turns and gave commands at the last second.

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

I'm thinking of switching out Brave Eirika for Legendary Sigurd in the next season. Eirika has some issues dealing with certain fast units and Near Save units have been running Svalinn Shield to tank her. I've also been having some issue putting on pressure with her due to her lesser movement range. That said, I'm not really sure how valuable Sigurd will be without a Trace skill.

Hmm... While Canto is really good, I think having better range and coverage is slightly better, as it allows you to exert pressure farther. The vast majority of opponents have reservations about starting wars of attrition despite resulting in faster games and more points for everyone involved, so if they are not going to start one, you can start it instead, and having more range gives you a bit more flexibility on choosing when and where to choose your engagements. Canto will certainly help your survive and even win wars of attrition, but if you do not got the range in the first place, then Canto is kind of moot in my opinion. Personally, I would just run both. More cavalry is better than less cavalry in my opinion.

To get around the armor issue, if you have Caeda: Sea-Blossom Pair, she has effectiveness against melee weapons and colorless bow too. She is kind of frail though, so she needs Surge Sparrow and Flow Guard.

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

As far as Captain Skills go, Earth Rendering is way too strong compared to the others. There are virtually no downsides to running Earth Rendering, as the skill has a neutral match-up against the opponent's skill at worst, and the other two skills just don't provide enough of a benefit to compete against easy capture points unless you're confident in your ability to zone away your opponent. It's not a surprise that this is by far the most commonly used Captain Skill.

Yeah.

Secret Manuever is the most useless one in my opinion, since it is only useful against super tanks, and that is assuming the super tank is not stacking multiple Dodges in the first place without a support unit.

Adroit Captain is slightly better, but most nukes and super tanks do not need it either.

On some matches, I am able to abuse Earth Rendering to the point where I would be considered losing in any other game mode, but because I got a lot of capture points, I could still win even if the opponent won the war of attrition.

Edited December 20, 2021 by XRay

[Ice Dragon]

1 hour ago, XRay said:

What was your team composition? My final team composition is Ike: Brave Mercenary, Lucina: Brave Princess, Flayn, Plumeria, and Leif: Destined Scions. I do not think I can use another enemy phase centric team composition in this mode anymore since it is very difficult to take the initiative and you are generally reacting to what the enemy is doing.

My final team composition for this season was

+10+5 Ascended Fjorm [+Spd] (Nifl's Bite, Reposition, Ice Mirror, Steady Posture 3, Hardy Fighter 3, A/R Far Save 3, Deflect Magic 3) + Adroit Captain
+8+5 Ash [+Atk] (Horn of Opening, Reposition, Bonfire, Atk/Def Unity, Lull Atk/Def 3, Opening Retainer, Distant Guard 3)
+10+5 Thorr [+Atk] (War-God Mjolnir, Reposition, Aether, Sturdy Impact, Flow Guard 3, Worldbreaker, Death Blow 3)
+1+0 Yuri [+Spd] (Honorable Blade, Foul Play, Moonbow, Swift Sparrow 2, Desperation 3, Time's Pulse 3, Blade Session 3)
+5+5 Brave Eirika [+Spd] (Binding Reginleif, Reposition, Luna, Surge Sparrow, Moonlight Bangle, Atk/Spd Menace, Swift Sparrow 2)

I probably should have switched Aether back out for Bonfire on Thorr, but I was lazy.

I'm running Adroit Captain mainly because Fjorm only has 1 skill slot that can viably be run with a Spd boost, whereas other units in her Spd bracket are capable of running Spd boosts in 5 skill slots. It also saves my ass against opposing Legendary Sigurd, as it prevents Eirika and Ash from being doubled and lets them blunt Sigurd's threat range with a simple wall. However, I do end up losing a decent number of matches simply due to capture points.

 

1 hour ago, XRay said:

To get around the armor issue, if you have Caeda: Sea-Blossom Pair, she has effectiveness against melee weapons and colorless bow too. She is kind of frail though, so she needs Surge Sparrow and Flow Guard.

Caeda is my highest-merged Harmonic Hero at +4, as I literally do not use Harmonic Heroes anywhere other than Resonant Battles, but I don't have the resources to be passing around Surge Sparrow or Flow Guard.

Combine that with the fact that I don't have her with a Spd Asset (whereas my Eirika does), the fact that even Eirika was failing to double some enemies, and the fact that Eirika was occasionally getting killed even through her 30% damage reduction, and I don't think Caeda will really do a good enough job replacing Eirika for me.

Also, Thorr is my wallbreaker anyways, as even with effective damage nullified, she still destroys almost every Near Save tank. Wallbreaking is only Eirika's secondary role.

[LordFrigid]

Summoner Duels S1 was…pretty interesting. I got my point grind out of the way on day 1, taking Caeda: Talys’s Heart to 1k. After that I just played sporadically, trying out new things.

I gave Ash+Far Save a shot, that was pretty fun. I had a couple opponents that tried to block my team by sticking someone in front of her. That didn’t work out so well for them. I felt a little obligated to have some in-season Legendary presence (Ephraim & Lilina), since my Ash’s only investment is Reposition, but she was still pretty effective.

I also tried Caeda: Princess of Talys, with a Far Save back line. That was pretty fun, too. The best part was watching an enemy reposition their Legendary Sigurd or Brave Eirika at my team on T1, followed by a long pause as they realized that Feather Sword would slice right through their mitigations. It wasn’t super reliable against higher-investment variations, but it was still funny when it worked. I got deleted by a Hardy Bearing Reginn, though, because I don’t look at skills closely.

I finished up by building and fine-tuning a high-pressure team captained by Caeda: Sea-Blossom Pair. The final variation ended up being:

• Caeda, Sea-Blossom Pair (+10/+10; +Atk/Spd): Dolphin-Dive Axe, Reposition, Moonbow, Atk/Spd Catch 4, Flow Guard 3, Panic Smoke 3, Hardy Bearing 3
• Nott, Moon’s Elegance (+0/+0, Neutral): Hrimfaxi, Reposition, Dragon Fang, Distant Counter, Moon-Twin Wing, Atk/Spd Menace, Spd/Res Form 3
• Yuri, Ashen Valiant (+0/+0, +Spd/-Def): Honorable Blade, Foul Play, Blazing Thunder, Life and Death 4, Special Spiral 3, Time’s Pulse 3, Quickened Pulse
• Lysithea, Gifted Students (+0/+0, Neutral): Sweet Yule Log, Reposition, Moonbow, Swift Sparrow 3, A/R Far Trace 3, C Feud 3, Swift Sparrow 2
• Nils, Bright Bard (+0/+0, +HP/-Def): Frost Breath, Play, No Special, HP/Def 2, Even Pulse Tie 3, Infantry Pulse 3, Spd Tactic 3

The team forgoes a Save Armor in favor of increased pressure with Pathfinder, making it more difficult for the enemy to get an attacker in safely. Enemy Save Armors can usually be ignored by attacking at the range not covered by the Save skill, though I did run into one issue with an enemy team that was pretty bulky on the 2-range side and had an insane Near Save Sothis. It was effective within the very limited sample of matches I used the team for (3-1 record, with the one loss being to the aforementioned Sothis). I’m still trying to decide whether I like Lysithea more than Trace-less Legendary Sigurd.

Overall, it’s a pretty fun mode in small doses, but I’m definitely not looking forward to another 1k grind-fest.

Edited December 20, 2021 by LordFrigid

[Zelgius]

I finally got BK and Zelgius to 1000 points, might have to wait a while to get a third version to fill the last spot.

[Roflolxp54]

I've been playing the gamemode on-and-off (was generally too busy to sit down and play through multiple matches until my finals were done). I've actually recorded a couple of replays if something significant enough happened.

Spoiler

This match had me go up against a heavily invested team (basically the entire team except Eitri is +10).

Pretty much what the title says -- I was very surprised to see my Arden get the kill on CYL Eirika of all units.

The final match that got me the points needed to reach max Favor (1000 points), featuring shenanigans involving Arden, Ash, and New Year's Peony.

 

Edited December 26, 2021 by Roflolxp54

[Alexmender]

I got a new phone and can play FEH again, so I gave this mode a try. It's fun at the beginning, but getting to 1k is certainly a slog when the max you can get is 20 points per win and more often than not I get less because my opponents surrender quickly. 

When I checked reddit people were complaining that Yuri is quite an unfair unit, but so far all the Yuris I've faced have been pretty easy to play around. Then again, I'm abusing Canto like nobody's business because there's no way I'm not going to use a sweeping team with B!Eirika and Ninja Corrin. 

[Ice Dragon]

On 1/5/2022 at 5:33 PM, Alexmender said:

When I checked reddit people were complaining that Yuri is quite an unfair unit, but so far all the Yuris I've faced have been pretty easy to play around. Then again, I'm abusing Canto like nobody's business because there's no way I'm not going to use a sweeping team with B!Eirika and Ninja Corrin. 

Yuri's offensive presence is completely nullified by pretty much every decent Far Save tank in the game, so I haven't really had much trouble with him. I assume he's only troublesome if you don't have a Far Save tank (or are running Near Save instead), but he has the same threat range as cavalry tomes when there aren't any trenches in the way and is significantly less powerful than the relatively common Duo Corrin or Harmonic Lysithea.

His mobility support is okay, but due to the fact that turns are interleaved, you can't usually just throw an ally out in front and actually get away with it.

I personally find Ash to be a much more difficult mobility support to deal with since she can be built to be excessively physically bulky and counterattack hard, which makes it difficult to punish just walking her out into the enemy's threat range, and her teleportation support not requiring an attacker to sit out in the open for a turn first is much safer.

[Diovani Bressan]

The new rewards added to Favor Battles are:

• Favor Level 1,100: 200 Sacred Coins;
• Favor Level 1,200: 400 Divine Dews;
• Favor Level 1,300: 200 Heroic Grails;
• Favor Level 1,400: 200 Divine Codes Part 2;
• Favor Level 1,500: 100 Dragonflowers (infantry).

Honestly, I am in need of those dews, so I welcome these new rewards with open arms.

[Lemmy]

Out of curiosity, does anyone know if they pair you with people in your point tier list or something similar.

I'd like to skim some rewards but not deal with meta, like you can in the midrange of other modes.

 

[Diovani Bressan]

Summoner Duels Ranked is here and I can say it's TRASH.

This is the first and probably last time I played SD R, because its not worthy. I will stay in normal SR because not only I can play without "lives", but also I can use Book 3 Prior in that, something that is not possible in Ranked.

I am still offended that they are not running Arena Assault with that.

Edited January 20, 2022 by Diovani Bressan

[Lemmy]

4 hours ago, Diovani Bressan said:

Summoner Duels Ranked is here and I can say it's TRASH.

This is the first and probably last time I played SD R, because its not worthy. I will stay in normal SR because not only I can play without "lives", but also I can use Book 3 Prior in that, something that is not possible in Ranked.

I am still offended that they are not running Arena Assault with that.

Seeing multiple teams without A/R Far Save or Canto was more than enough for me to like this more, 3 wins can actually receive rewards compared to the minimum of 10 from the original if you scored highly before, and best of all, I can change characters after I get bored with the current team and not need to grind 50 battles to catch up. It’s strange the ranked version is more casual friendly. 

[Ice Dragon]

Ugeh.

They took the mode that takes the longest to complete a map and made the ranked version of it an "endless"-style play-until-you-lose mode. The most time-consuming match type combined with the most time-consuming scoring paradigm. Really? I mean, sure, there isn't much else they could have done in terms of scoring for this mode, but really?

And on top of that, it runs for only 4 days instead of 7.

I'd rather do Arena Assault.

[Diovani Bressan]

57 minutes ago, Lemmy said:

Seeing multiple teams without A/R Far Save or Canto was more than enough for me to like this more, 3 wins can actually receive rewards compared to the minimum of 10 from the original if you scored highly before, and best of all, I can change characters after I get bored with the current team and not need to grind 50 battles to catch up. It’s strange the ranked version is more casual friendly. 

Did you play only 3 matches?

Because the first 3 matches are against AI.

[Lemmy]

49 minutes ago, Diovani Bressan said:

Did you play only 3 matches?

Because the first 3 matches are against AI.

Yes, I didn’t know they were AI teams, although in retrospect I’m amused they gave the AI a Fjorm alt team.

I committed myself to 3 because I can tolerate 3 arena battles.

[Florete]

Dang, maybe I'm not half bad at this game after all.

Spoiler

Quick Draw is busted. Might just surrender my remaining runs, will think about it.

[KMT4ever]

59 minutes ago, Florete said:

Dang, maybe I'm not half bad at this game after all.

  Reveal hidden contents

Quick Draw is busted. Might just surrender my remaining runs, will think about it.

Speaking as someone who chose not to use it and got stomped, I absolutely agree with you. I'm pretty sure every single player I fought had it, and it is broken as all get out. I can deal with the opponent always going first tolerably enough by rushing into the center and balling up to discourage attackers, but the fact that on Turns 2 and 4 they get to move twice before you can do anything without even needing a dancer is ridiculous. Previously this mode went out of its way to prevent chaining actions, so why IS thought allowing Quick Draw to do that was acceptable is beyond me.

[XRay]

Ugh, need to do more writing and add more stuff. I have not played at all for over a week, so just getting back into it now.

So far, at least for me anyways, player phase nukes are so much more bearable to use. I feel I have more control and initiative over the situation instead of just reacting to what the opponent is doing. And even if I am losing, I can still get some points by at least taking out an enemy or two since most of my teams are ranged cavalry nukes. It could still feel like a slog eventually though, so I do not want to say that player phase teams is the way to go just yet.

[Hilda]

On 1/20/2022 at 11:24 PM, KMT4ever said:

Speaking as someone who chose not to use it and got stomped, I absolutely agree with you. I'm pretty sure every single player I fought had it, and it is broken as all get out. I can deal with the opponent always going first tolerably enough by rushing into the center and balling up to discourage attackers, but the fact that on Turns 2 and 4 they get to move twice before you can do anything without even needing a dancer is ridiculous. Previously this mode went out of its way to prevent chaining actions, so why IS thought allowing Quick Draw to do that was acceptable is beyond me.

in all honesty i believe canto should cost a move too. Not suggesting you shouldnt be able to move after canto but if you do it should cost you 2 move points.

Most units are auto-invalidated if they dont have some form of canto. You have literally no fighting chance with favourite units/chars no matter the investment unless you use canto/dancers/duo skills

Also Duo skills sigh…

I would really like to use some fav units i have invested in for fun but its just not feasable

[Ice Dragon]

Ranked is so fucking tedious, and it's really bad for my nerves. After three or four matches, both of my arms are tingling from being constantly tense.

Currently sitting at rank 155 with 1,605 points and 2 of 4 losses used.

The first loss was due to a Harmonized Catria + Dancer Micaiah combo that killed Fjorm, and the second loss was due to a Blazing Wind Yuri + Infantry Pulse combo that killed Fjorm.

Done for today to let my arms rest. I'll deal with the rest tomorrow.

I hope they reduce the frequency of this event in the future because if they keep up the pattern on the calendar, it'll be every other week, which is just going to suck. This event is way too time-consuming.

[Ice Dragon]

One win and two losses today, so I end at 1,705 points at rank 152.

Wait times searching for matches ran over two minutes today, presumably because most players were probably already done with their run, and that looks like it could be a pain point moving forward for this game mode. I don't want to suggest that you should be able to start a new run after finishing a run because that would just make this even more (optionally) tedious than it already is, but it could get really annoying to finish a run on the last day otherwise if this many players drop out by the last day (and it looks like the matchmaking prevents you from matching with the same opponent).

Another thing I noticed was that when I started my run two days ago, I think the first win put me somewhere in the 60,000's or something like that if I remember correctly. I don't remember what my rank was after completing the three AI matches, but it was probably better than 10,000. If my memory is correct, then it looks like this game mode's participation rate is pretty low.

For comparison, the Arena population (Tier 7 and higher) extrapolated from the size of Tier 21 is at minimum 130,000. Also, my current Tempest Trials rank is in the 40,000's, and I only do my three daily runs and nothing more.

[Diovani Bressan]

I actually enjoyed some of the changes they did for Duels R.

• Reward amounts for Tiers 1-23 and Ranks 1,001 and below have been raised for a better overall balance in Tier/Rank rewards.

Now even in lower ranks, you get a very good amount of rewards. For comparison, Top 10k in Duels R is already better than Top 3k in Arena Assault.

• Up to a certain Tier level, you will be matched against the AI the next battle after a loss.

This means if you lose against a team controlled by another player, your next match will be against a team controlled by AI. So at least you can easily get 300 glory. It doesn't mention what Tier it stops to work, but I will guess it's Tier 13.

...

Also, looks like until a certail tier (guessing Tier 13 again), you keep your glory from previous event, even if you didn't reach a threshold. I ended last event with 800 glory, before reaching the first threshold (at 1,000 glory), and this event I started with 800 insted of going back to zero. 

[Namero]

Apparently there is some sort of glitch or exploit that enables a person to force you to disconnect and even if you immediately resume it says that your opponent left and the battle is a loss? This most definitely isn't some random connection problem on my part; every single time it happens it is when somebody I'm against in is put in a clear losing situation. It first happened in Summoner Duels R a few days back when one guy with a bunch of +10 duo units wound up at a major disadvantage. I assumed at the time maybe something wet wrong with the connection at an unlucky moment (even though I immediately resumed and he was already gone which seemed way too fast for the count down to have ended), but that is suddenly becoming a common occurrence in normal Summoner Duels now. Just a few minutes ago I was up against somebody relying on Valentian Palla vantage shenanigans but I managed to take out that unit and then just a few seconds later the forced disconnect happened (from which I immediately resumed and he was already gone thus making a loss). This is like the sixth time in the last few days that suddenly happened when an opponent was about to lose.

If people are using this exploit to unfairly force losses in normal SD it is bad enough, but if they are even abusing it in SDR then it is even worse because of the stupid loss limit. They need to either make it so disconnecting doesn't count as a loss, or remove the stupid loss limit.

[Ice Dragon]

Summoner Duels S is... interesting.

I actually have only three functional teams, whereas the fourth team looks really scary because I put bunch of scary units on it (Fallen Edelgard, Duo Chrom, Brave Eirika) that I feel comfortable not using, but the team synergy isn't really there, and I don't have a dancer on the team. Basically, I'm trying my best to trick the opponent into always vetoing my bait team, which guarantees that I get to use one of the two teams I'm most comfortable using.

Honestly, it's a bit refreshing knowing that my opponents also have to split their A teams across 4 teams, which is far more manageable than always having to go against an opponent's 5 most broken units.

Meanwhile, I have enough good units to know that things will go well.

 

On the other hand, I just ran into a player using a really cool strategy. They had a Vantage Echoes Palla, a level 1 Olivia, and a Winter Bernadetta on the team. Bernadetta's weapon kits Olivia for 1 damage at the start of the first turn, then Palla uses Reciprocal Aid to drop into Vantage range. Palla also had a Tempest skill to be annoying. Fortunately, my Henriette could just tank Palla straight up and double her on initiation. (I also had Hardy Bearing on Ophelia, but lost her unintentionally, which ended up also baiting Palla out.)

I want to steal the strategy for myself, but I'm feeling lazy right now.

 

EDIT: Hit 1,000 points with no losses. I definitely find this mode to be better than regular Summoner Duels and Summoner Duels R. Way less stressful since I'm not dealing with opponents that are quite as difficult.

Spoiler

On the other hand, this mode definitely favors players that have the barracks capacity to have multiple functional Far Save tanks. It's too easy otherwise to just veto the teams that have Far Save tanks in them (though I definitely prioritize vetoing Duo Chrom first).

Speaking of Duo Chrom, I like the fact that I can veto him to not have to deal with that bullshit.

 

And as a follow-up to my strategy of having a bait team, it definitely worked perfectly. That team was vetoed in all 10 matches. Looking back on my own behavior of always vetoing Duo Chrom, it probably had more to do with Duo Chrom than anything else, so I might spread those units around next time.

And in case anyone's interested in my team setup, it looks like this:

Spoiler

Team 4 is the bait team. Teams 1 and 2 are my preferred teams. Despite the lack of synergy, I probably would have used team 4 over team 3 if both teams 1 and 2 were vetoed simply because I'm not too confident in the composition (and because Robin isn't fully merged and don't yet have an S summoner support).

Edited February 20, 2022 by Ice Dragon