Arena Discussion Thread (inc. Assault)

[Hawk King]

3 minutes ago, ignis_z said:

One question, 4688 would be enough to hold on to tier 17?

It's way too early to tell.

[Taim Meich]

4 minutes ago, ignis_z said:

One question, 4688 would be enough to hold on to tier 17?

I don't think anything below 4700 can make the cut. Last week 4719 would have demoted me, and I don't think the bar has lowered that much.

[ignis_z]

1 minute ago, Taim Meich said:

I don't think anything below 4700 can make the cut. Last week 4719 would have demoted me, and I don't think the bar has lowered that much.

omg FTP more than 17 is imposible and stay in 17 too.... played with a sharena 4 stars... no feathersm no orbs, no hero of the week (5 stars) omg.

[Taim Meich]

1 minute ago, ignis_z said:

omg FTP more than 17 is imposible and stay in 17 too.... played with a sharena 4 stars... no feathersm no orbs, no hero of the week (5 stars) omg.

I'm strictly ftp (didn't even reroll when I started because I didn't know it was even a thing) and managed to get to tier 18, so don't give up hope. The cutoff this season is going to be lower for sure, but I don't know if low enough for your current score.

Still, don't worry: in a few weeks tier 17 is going to be much easier to maintain, as the higher scoring players stabilize in 18-20.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

This week is a struggle to get nice points going. 680, 684 avg means im getting around 4788 Max and my last good with a 690 in it run was ruined because i'm too busy flexing because of power trip from running Xander

 

I love fortify Xander so much

 

• Azura attacks. Triangle advantage boosts attack by 20%. Attack is boosted by another 20% [Sapphire Lance+]. 21 damage dealt.
  Xander HP: 44 → 23
• Xander counter-attacks. Triangle disadvantage reduces attack by 20%. Opponent reduces attack by another 20% [Sapphire Lance+]. 5 damage dealt.
  Azura HP: 38 → 33
• Azura makes a follow-up attack, while canceling any follow-up attack from the opponent [Swordbreaker 3]. Triangle advantage boosts attack by 20%. Attack is boosted by another 20% [Sapphire Lance+]. 21 damage dealt.
  Xander HP: 23 → 2
• Azura takes damage after combat [Fury 3]. 6 damage dealt.
  Azura HP: 33 → 27
• Xander takes damage after combat [Fury 3]. 6 damage dealt.
  Xander HP: 2 → 1

• Xander attacks. Triangle disadvantage reduces attack by 20%. Opponent reduces attack by another 20% [Sapphire Lance+]. Damage boosted by 50% of defense [Bonfire]. 28 damage dealt.
  Azura HP: 27 → 0
• Xander takes damage after combat [Fury 3]. 6 damage dealt.
  Xander HP: 1 → 1

 

[salinea]

9 hours ago, Arcanite said:

ANYWHO, the real reason why I'm here; I don't know about @salinea, but AT THE LAST SECOND, I stayed in tier 17 and fell out of the promotion bracket :/

Ah, I was very comfortably set for tier 18 with my score of 4,794. Didn't fall off. Hopefully tier 18 is less scary now (I haven't used a duelling crest yet but i'm still well ranked but this is way too early to call. Well it's either fall off or up by this point anyway)

Well done on getting a deathless run already!

[Arcanite]

22 minutes ago, salinea said:

Ah, I was very comfortably set for tier 18 with my score of 4,794. Didn't fall off. Hopefully tier 18 is less scary now (I haven't used a duelling crest yet but i'm still well ranked but this is way too early to call. Well it's either fall off or up by this point anyway)

Starting to think this game has a vendetta against robots :/

Well congrats to you for making it there! Its a shame you can't stay in tier 18 though. Not sure why they did that for the top 3 tiers...... maybe to make sure different people can make it to the top slots?

22 minutes ago, salinea said:

Well done on getting a deathless run already!

Thanks! Blade tomes can seriously rule the world. I think we could all use a little more Nino in our lives XD I find it weird that a team with a 4 star unit was still able to reach close to my last score.

4 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

Ended up with 2 deaths for barely over 4.6k, but I'm probs not going to do more arena this season. Fuck trying to drag Sharena's carcass through arena.

Well I don't know about you, but FOUR STAR Sharena put in work for me

#ThisIsWhyWeUseBladeTomes

I gave her fort res 1 seal and rally speed in addition to her fort defense 2. Azura had hone attack and my Lyn helped out with Reposition. I was able to get deathless on my first run  Reposition was a major key.

I think you need to use her as a buff unit as opposed to a killing machine. Even so, I still used her as a distraction for a Marth one time to keep him occupied as my Nino killed 2 other members of the enemy team! Of course, not everyone has a Nino so you can take this for whatever you'd like. Also your team of Sharena, Lucina, Klein, and Cordelia needs a tome user :P

Edited May 31, 2017 by Arcanite

[Infinite Dreams]

Got my deathless run in already, yay!   I, uh, got impatient and spent a crest.   (I'm never going to build these back up again, am I?)  Well, at least I'll get some more from the June quests...

So, using Hector really beefed up my score.  He's more fun to use than I thought he'd be, since I usually hate using armoured units.  I gave him Pivot, which really helps the guy get moving.  Anyway, I got a score of 4814, which is the highest I've ever gotten!

Not sure if I will be able to upgrade from Tier 18.  Only time will tell.  If I don't, I can't really say I'll be that bummed since I can't get any higher without 5* merges.

Team: Olivia, Hector, Ryoma, Reinhardt

(Already got 2 defense wins with the same team, too!  'Tis a good day indeed.) 

Edited May 31, 2017 by Infinite Dreams

[Fruity Insanity]

Ahhhhhhh. Spent like 10 crests and thought I'd get my perfect run, but on the last battle I got a single death.

My score would've been 1850, but instead I get a measly ~1780.

I'll just use the daily crests for now and try for another deathless run, and if it looks like I won't be making the cut-off for Tier 19, I might burn some more crests.

[Othin]

5 hours ago, ignis_z said:

omg FTP more than 17 is imposible and stay in 17 too.... played with a sharena 4 stars... no feathersm no orbs, no hero of the week (5 stars) omg.

I'm free to play and get over 4800 points on deathless runs. Having all 5* teams is important, and doable by upgrading the starter trio.

I also think people are underestimating how fast the promotion thresholds are growing each week. Tier 17 this week has way more low-scoring players than last week.

[DehNutCase]

5 hours ago, Arcanite said:

I think you need to use her as a buff unit as opposed to a killing machine. Even so, I still used her as a distraction for a Marth one time to keep him occupied as my Nino killed 2 other members of the enemy team! Of course, not everyone has a Nino so you can take this for whatever you'd like. Also your team of Sharena, Lucina, Klein, and Cordelia needs a tome user :P

I didn't get any viable -blade tome users (Nino & Tharja), until like 2 or 3 weeks ago, and, at that point, my team was heavily biased towards physical units, which Sharena doesn't do much for. This is because everyone on my team has either Hone Atk or Spur Atk, barring Cordelia, who has Savage Blow. (Savage Blow lets her Galeforce sweep easier, since it's 7 damage to her second target, and 14 damage to her third.)

 

Running a 4* probably makes the matchups more favorable to her, too. I have merges on Lucina and Cordelia, and everyone is decked out in skills for Arena Scoring purposes, so Sharena is fighting people around 4/5 merge levels, meaning they all have 2 speed above normal, sometimes 5, same for defense. Which... doesn't help her offenses. Alfonse doesn't care because his Atk stat is great (especially with his Prf), and his speed wasn't doubling anyone anyway. But Sharena loses a lot from being unable to double, and not being spectacular in the Atk department.

Edited May 31, 2017 by DehNutCase

[Vaximillian]

25 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

Sharena is fighting people around 4/5 merge levels

Now this is your problem. Unless IS/Nintendo/whoever give us a way to +1 the Askr trio, they will always be inferior to summoned heroes.

[DehNutCase]

Just now, Vaximillian said:

Now this is your problem. Unless IS/Nintendo/whoever give us a way to +1 the Askr trio, they will always be inferior to summoned heroes.

Alfonse does fine, though.

Sharena is kind of like Setsuna in that she really can't afford to have her spd or her atk gimped, because she doesn't have any to spare. This means: Fury, merge levels, and min-maxed people ruin her, just like Setsuna.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Tier 17 Score of 4840 (1 surrender; no deaths; 688, 688, 692, 698,688,694, 692; Nowi +1, Sharena 5*, Eirika, Nino +2):

• May 31 12:00PM PT - #172 (/12 554 to Tier 18)

 

Sharena (5*; 187 BST) - Fensalir, Reposition, Bonfire, Fury 3, Renewal 2, Hone Spd 3, Attack Seal 1

Other party members are still my same core three without anything changed. Surrendered one sword on the choice for the 7th match because I got a 692 Merric lead that felt suuuuuper suspicious. Ended up getting an Olivia lead on the reroll, but she was just hiding a standard Rein/Hector team with Takumi shoved in because why not. I think that was a pretty good deal. I think there might be some truth to the theories that SI skills are valued more than base skills, as I ran into this weird outlier 698 I normally never see. It had an Ike +4, Catria +4, Hector +1 and Felicia +5 (with inherited Poison Dagger+, with which she still failed to one-shot Nino). This really isn't anything out of the ordinary compared to what I normally fight (maybe even a little low on merges) other than the bizarre comp and the fact that they were heavily, heavily customized. I seriously doubt the former would bump the score so high, so I guess it's the latter? Also ran into a complete team of 4* +10s (Olivia, Gunter, F!Corrin, Saizo), which was a novelty, but little else.

I do have to agree that Sharena isn't quite as strong when she finds herself in merge land, compared to when she is a fresh promote for a newer player. That said, she's far from useless on my team. Since Eirika has buffs covered, Sharena mostly does the simultaneous "Reposition Nino, then wall the red that was chasing her" thing that Nowi does, but with less killing power. She has more sustain with Renewal, though, so if things get drawn out, she can out-duel the last enemy standing if everyone else isn't in a good enough position for it (she has enough bulk to wall and weaken greens if she really has to). Running dual Hone Spd is also interesting because it lets me split the enemies up more easily by shifting Eirika around without having to give up buffing Nino's Spd. Eirika also sometimes appreciates the Hone Spd to counter enemy Hone Spd on the rare occasion that she's baiting. Having two bulky blues also gives me the option to have Nino find a pick, then simply wall multiple approaching reds, rather than Reposition her back, often giving me better territory control.

She's been doing much less hot on defense, though. She's replaced Nowi in the line-up so that I'm running her alongside Nino, Rein and Xander. Got a single 572, which is enough for the week, but it's interesting to see how that single roster shift seems to have made it struggle more compared to the last couple weeks.

[Rafiel's Aria]

Yes!! Got a defense win for 572! I decided to forgo Horse Emblem for my Defense Team at least and decided to return to Mage Emblem + Double Dancer... Mages with drawback probably are the best thing on a defense team. Moral of the story: just listen to Arcanite.

It's funny because Olivia is 4* 37+4, and Azura is 5* 34+1. I haven't been able to get either of them to level 40 simply because leveling dancers is super difficult for me. But that's the goal this week: get Olivia, Azura, and Ninian to level 40. 

[Roflolxp54]

5 minutes ago, Rafiel's Aria said:

I haven't been able to get either of them to level 40 simply because leveling dancers is super difficult for me. But that's the goal this week: get Olivia, Azura, and Ninian to level 40. 

Tip for training refresh units: the refresh unit in training should NOT have Dance/Sing equipped if you want to have a refresh unit Dance or Sing to it. You can also use repositioning skills (Swap, Reposition, etc.)

Edited May 31, 2017 by Roflolxp54

[Rafiel's Aria]

1 minute ago, Roflolxp54 said:

Tip for training refresh units: the refresh unit in training should NOT have Dance/Sing equipped if you want to have a refresh unit Dance or Sing to it. You can also use repositioning skills (Swap, Reposition, etc.)

Oh yeah. I've got that down. I usually bring the dancer to be trained, another dancer, healer, and one of my stronger units to tank hits. Usually M. Robin, but he maxed out HM, so I've been flip-flopping around. The problem with Azura is that she has no problem against sword users and red magic users. She's kind of questionable against lancers however. I've been using Lucius to whittle down some stronger enemies for her, but sometimes he ends up taking the kill instead. I think it's just a matter of patience and refreshing the Training Tower until I get some stratums with mostly swords... 

[Roflolxp54]

Just now, Rafiel's Aria said:

Oh yeah. I've got that down. I usually bring the dancer to be trained, another dancer, healer, and one of my stronger units to tank hits. Usually M. Robin, but he maxed out HM, so I've been flip-flopping around. The problem with Azura is that she has no problem against sword users and red magic users. She's kind of questionable against lancers however. I've been using Lucius to whittle down some stronger enemies for her, but sometimes he ends up taking the kill instead. I think it's just a matter of patience and refreshing the Training Tower until I get some stratums with mostly swords... 

My lineup consists of (training unit), Olivia (my dancer of choice, Hone Atk 3, inherited WoM3, Fortify Res 1 seal), Sharena (5* crutch, Fortify Def 3, Rally Atk, Fensalir's built-in Threaten Atk 2), and recently Bride Lyn (Rehab, Spd Balm, inherited Threaten Atk 2 and loads of other stuff); I used to use Lissa (Rehab, part-time damage sponge, inherited Pain + Threaten Atk 2). It's not a bad idea to use buffbots to assist with training (ie. 5* Eirika).

[GinRei]

8 hours ago, Othin said:

I also think people are underestimating how fast the promotion thresholds are growing each week. Tier 17 this week has way more low-scoring players than last week.

It's also only day 2.  Last week, the promotion threshold leapt up on the last day.

[Othin]

1 minute ago, GinRei said:

It's also only day 2.  Last week, the promotion threshold leapt up on the last day.

I'm not basing that on any observations about where current scores stand. We know a bunch of players just joined Tier 17 from lower tiers, mostly players with lower scores, while higher-scoring players ascended from Tier 17 to higher tiers. There were also some higher-scoring players dropping into Tier 17 from higher tiers and lower-scoring players dropping out of it, but those are far outnumbered by the ascending ones, resulting in a net decrease in the thresholds from week to week. This will continue until the tiers get relatively stable, which will take a while, since the size of the playerbase means we should be able to expect at least 14k players in Tier 20 by the time things are stable. That's a ways away.

[LordFrigid]

Update for 5070 (T19):

6am PDT 5/30: 29

4:30pm PDT 5/31: 62

Teams faced detailed in the previous post. No defense wins yet D: .

Aiming to get either Charlotte or Caeda prepped as my bonus unit for next season. Charlotte would probably have a better offensive presence, but Caeda is Caeda so...idk. I've got some HM grinding to do before I make my decision, so I'll think it over.

[wizzard of soz]

sigh..i was on autopilot and forgot to surrender when i saw a Horsey leader for the Advanced option. my team has issues with Reinhardt because no one can bait him without dying, and especially not buffed and merged Death Blow Reinhardts..and i pretty much have to kill at least one of them by baiting or else there's no way i can tank or kill the rest of the horsies that come storming in with infinite range. my 5 streak comes to a sad end )8

[Rosetta]

I noticed that sometimes all the arena maps are those with special defensive terrains, while sometimes all the maps are normal maps.

Because I lose a lot on the the type of maps with special terrains, I wonder how these two types of maps appear. Is it related to my tier, or something else? Or is it dependent on time of the day, day of the week, etc.?

------------------------------

Another question: has anyone tried single-color teams or wolf-tome teams for arena defense? I find it's getting harder to get defensive scores nowadays. My current team is Lucina/Bunny Lucina/Nino/Sharena. I suspect I need to change my strategy.

Edited June 1, 2017 by Rosetta

[MrSmokestack]

@Rosetta The maps are all on a rotation that changes every week, independent of your tier. You can find more about it here, scroll to the bottom.

Color-stacking has been the traditional way of scoring defense wins, though ordering units a specific way, avoidng the use of certain assists like rallies, and running surprise defensive skills like Distant Counter, Quick Riposte, Wings of Mercy, and Vantage also factor into your defense team's efffectiveness. This makes ranged units as well as units like Ryoma and Nowi with Distant Counter by default popular defensive picks.

Probably the best change to your team is to switch out either Lucina or Sharena with Olivia, to make predicting their movement when controlled by the AI more complicated to track.

Why -Wolf tomes? They have low Mt and only work against a specific archetype. -Blade and -Raven are much better options to consider for a defense team, especially the latter if you have access to Triangle Adept.

[Rosetta]

6 minutes ago, MrSmokestack said:

The maps are all on a rotation that changes every week, independent of your tier. You can find more about it here, scroll to the bottom.

Thanks so much! I should carefully read this whole page. Unfortunately I tried to search for information on another website and didn't know about this.

9 minutes ago, MrSmokestack said:

Color-stacking has been the traditional way of scoring defense wins, though ordering units a specific way, avoidng the use of certain assists like rallies, and running surprise defensive skills like Distant Counter, Quick Riposte, Wings of Mercy, and Vantage also factor into your defense team's efffectiveness. This makes ranged units as well as units like Ryoma and Nowi with Distant Counter by default popular defensive picks.

I have never met a color-stacking team, even if it's a traditional way. But I did lost once to an all-bow team. 

14 minutes ago, MrSmokestack said:

Why -Wolf tomes? They have low Mt and only work against a specific archetype.

To surprise the very popular horse emblem teams, I guess.

20 minutes ago, MrSmokestack said:

Probably the best change to your team is to switch out either Lucina or Sharena with Olivia, to make predicting their movement when controlled by the AI more complicated to track.

To prevent bad AI moves, is it a good idea to remove Olivia's weapon so that she can keep herself safe while dancing? She's 3-star and I don't expect her do do damage, anyway.