Arena Discussion Thread (inc. Assault)

[bethany81707]

A Vantage Camus ended my potential first streak. I have +4000, so I'm decent, but I'd like an actual streak.

[Ice Dragon]

My dragons are still tanky as all fuck, and Clarisse just sits there being all tsun and all, probably because she can't really do anything. I guess I'll laze out for a bit and slowly get Delthea ready for next week.

Tier 20

Score: 5,080 (deathless, 718-728)
Rank: 101 (out of 7,097, 1.4%, 20→20)
Defense: 584 (5)

Offense team:

+0 Clarisse [=] (Clarisse's Bow, Glimmer, Poison Strike 3, Threaten Def 3)
+10 Tiki (Mystery) [+Spd, -HP] (Lightning Breath+, Reciprocal Aid, Aether, Triangle Adept 3, Quick Riposte 3, Fortify Dragons, S HP +3)
+10 Nowi [+Atk, -Res] (Lightning Breath+, Reciprocal Aid, Aether, Triangle Adept 3, Quick Riposte 3, Fortify Dragons, S Attack +1)
+10 Fae [+Atk, -Def] (Lightning Breath+, Reciprocal Aid, Aether, Triangle Adept 3, Quick Riposte 3, Fortify Dragons)

Defense team:

+0 Clarisse [=] (Clarisse's Bow, Glimmer, Poison Strike 3, Threaten Def 3)
+0 Cherche [+Atk, -Res] (Brave Axe+, Reposition, Death Blow 3, Hone Fliers)
+6 Spring Camilla [+Spd, -Res] (Gronnblade+, Reposition, Draconic Aura, Fury 3, G Tomebreaker 3, Hone Fliers)
+8 Minerva [+Spd, -Res] (Hauteclere, Reposition, Bonfire, Fury 3, Drag Back, Hone Fliers, S Quickened Pulse)

[Arcanite]

2 hours ago, Bartozio said:

No blue mages to add to the fray? I've been using a team of Reinhardt, Camus, Linde/Tharja, bonus unit for a while now, and it always gives me a few defence wins every week..

I have Male Robin if that works lol

The OP Blue Mage I'm supposed to have is the one I'm still pulling for XD

[XRay]

Wasted like almost all my 30+ Crests and still no perfect run. There are so many blatant Pony Teams this week that I get them several times in a row. There are also a lot of Bait Pony Teams that I refuse to battle anything below 705 unless I know beforehand that they are safe.

ARGH!!! I hate myself. Lost the last battle because I forgot to pull units back.

Spent about another 20 orbs and I finally got a score of 4,956, got a rank of 616.

5 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Defense team:

 

+0 Clarisse [=] (Clarisse's Bow, Glimmer, Poison Strike 3, Threaten Def 3)
+0 Cherche [+Atk, -Res] (Brave Axe+, Reposition, Death Blow 3, Hone Fliers)
+6 Spring Camilla [+Spd, -Res] (Gronnblade+, Reposition, Draconic Aura, Fury 3, G Tomebreaker 3, Hone Fliers)
+8 Minerva [+Spd, -Res] (Hauteclere, Reposition, Bonfire, Fury 3, Drag Back, Hone Fliers, S Quickened Pulse)

Got any victims yet?

Edited July 20, 2017 by XRay

[XRay]

Double post.

Edited July 20, 2017 by XRay

[Vaximillian]

All three teams I fought today had a Reinhardt, and two of these were on the boat map.
My luck that none of the three included a dancer; I was free to bait Reinhardt into Soren and then unleash a Reinhardt of my own.

A deathless streak puts me at rank 2,219 / 29,950 with 4,778 points; well within the threshold of 11,980 at the moment. Nice.

I thought these cancerous maps would have been nice enough to give me at least a defence win, nope though. Not a big deal.

Edited July 20, 2017 by Vaximillian

[XRay]

1 minute ago, Vaximillian said:

All three teams I fought today had a Reinhardt, and two of these were on the boat map.
My luck that none of the three included a dancer; I was free to bait Reinhardt into Soren and then unleash a Reinhardt of my own.

A deathless streak puts me at rank 2,219 / 29,950 with 4,778 points; well within the threshold of 11,980 at the moment. Nice.

I thought these cancerous maps would have been nice enough to give me at least a defence win, nope though. Not a big deal.

What is your defense team? I find pony teams to be a nightmare on these maps.

Had a taste of my own medicine this morning. Got baited by several Sharenas and a Delthea with triple cavalry behind them.

[Vaximillian]

1 minute ago, XRay said:

What is your defense team? I find pony teams to be a nightmare on these maps.

Had a taste of my own medicine this morning. Got baited by several Sharenas and a Delthea with triple cavalry behind them.

Sharena, Xander, Reinhardt, Camus.

The most cavs I had this week was two with Xander+Reinhardt, Xander+Camus, and Camus+Reinhardt.
Maybe there was a full Horse Emblem team in that one sword I surrendered. It was led by Xander, so I backed out.

[XRay]

4 minutes ago, Vaximillian said:

Sharena, Xander, Reinhardt, Camus.

The most cavs I had this week was two with Xander+Reinhardt, Xander+Camus, and Camus+Reinhardt.
Maybe there was a full Horse Emblem team in that one sword I surrendered. It was led by Xander, so I backed out.

Yeah. I avoid any teams with cavalry leaders unless it has a score of 710. I have seen a lot of triple cavalry hiding behind infantry bait, so I refuse to battle anything with a low score. Do you have another mage cavalry? The melee ones are not much of a threat to deal with. Cecilia with Raven tome also hard counters B!Cordelia and Reinhardt, my two main glass cannons.

[Vaximillian]

2 minutes ago, XRay said:

Yeah. I avoid any teams with cavalry leaders unless it has a score of 710. I have seen a lot of triple cavalry hiding behind infantry bait, so I refuse to battle anything with a low score. Do you have another mage cavalry? The melee ones are not much of a threat to deal with. Cecilia with Raven tome also hard counters B!Cordelia and Reinhardt, my two main glass cannons.

I have a Gronnblade Cecilia. Should I replace Camus with her?

[XRay]

3 minutes ago, Vaximillian said:

I have a Gronnblade Cecilia. Should I replace Camus with her?

Sounds good. Make sure they all have Hone Cavalry, so they can kill almost anything they come across.

[Vaximillian]

1 minute ago, XRay said:

Sounds good. Make sure they all have Hone Cavalry, so they can kill almost anything they come across.

Xander and Cecilia have Hone, and Reinhardt has Fortify. This usually works when I’m the one who’s controlling the team.

[DehNutCase]

10 minutes ago, Vaximillian said:

I have a Gronnblade Cecilia. Should I replace Camus with her?

Camus is damn good as a defense team unit, he has:

Good matchup spread (due to high spd, atk, and bulk).

Good mobility (worse than Cecilia, but 3 move and 4 threat range is still quite good).

1-2 range counter (particularly relevant due to him being a natural Vantage user, having good speed and good bulk. This means, if he gets to initiate, he usually doesn't die in one round, meaning someone is going to tank a Vantage hit, possibly with a special up).

 

Furthermore, Cecilia's matchups aren't even better than L&D Camus' matchups, the guy has an absurd matchup spread thanks to being blue, being fast, and being bulky as all hell. (If Cecilia gets +6 all stats, she pulls ahead IRRC, but Camus with +6/+6 or no buffs is consistently better than Cecilia with +6/+6 or no buffs in terms of matchup spread.)

Edited July 20, 2017 by DehNutCase

[XRay]

Just now, DehNutCase said:

Camus is damn good as a defense team unit, he has:

Good matchup spread (due to high spd, atk, and bulk).

Good mobility (worse than Cecilia, but 3 move and 4 threat range is still quite good).

1-2 range counter (particularly relevant due to him having Vantage, good speed, and good bulk, this means, if he gets to initiate, he usually doesn't die in one round, meaning someone is going to tank a Vantage hit, possibly with a special up).

Furthermore, Cecilia's matchups aren't even better than L&D Camus' matchups, the guy has an absurd matchup spread thanks to being blue, being fast, and being bulky as all hell. (If Cecilia gets +6 all stats, she pulls ahead IRRC, but Camus with +6/+6 or no buffs is consistently better than Cecilia with +6/+6 or no buffs in terms of matchup spread.)

Enemy Phase builds are not that great on defense teams. The AI can only rush and does not sit and wait. Player Phase units fare better on defense teams because that is all the AI knows how to use.

[DehNutCase]

4 minutes ago, XRay said:

Enemy Phase builds are not that great on defense teams. The AI can only rush and does not sit and wait. Player Phase units fare better on defense teams because that is all the AI knows how to use.

I was talking about Camus' player phase matchups---have you even seen his numbers? 32/33 offenses isn't a joke.

Edit: What did you think I meant by 'If he gets to initiate,' anyway?

Edited July 20, 2017 by DehNutCase

[XRay]

14 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

I was talking about Camus' player phase matchups---have you even seen his numbers? 32/33 offenses isn't a joke.

Edit: What did you think I meant by 'If he gets to initiate,' anyway?

Ah. I did not read your post carefully. Either way, I think Blade cavalry and Reinhardt are far more effective than melee cavalry. They can hit over obstacles and have greater range. With so many obstacles in this week's Arena maps, I can annihilate melee cavalry who get stuck attacking walls. Blade cavalry are the ones that frustrates me to the point of wasting Orbs in the Arena. You can hide from Xander and Camus, but you cannot hide from Cecilia, Olwen, Ursula, and Reinhardt.

Edited July 20, 2017 by XRay

[DehNutCase]

Just now, XRay said:

Ah. I did not read your post carefully. Either way, I think Blade cavalry and Reinhardt are far more effective than melee cavalry. They can hit over obstacles and have greater range. With so many obstacles in this week's Arena maps, I can annihilate melee cavalry who get stuck attacking walls. Blade cavalry are the ones that frustrates me to the point of wasting Orbs in the Arena. You can hide from Xander and Camus, but you cannot hide from Cecilia, Olwen, Ursula, and Reinhardt.

-Blade has decent matchups, but a good defense cav team (in my opinion), will want a mix of melee and ranged units. This is because this allows overlapping 'threat fields,' Camus in front, -blade Leo in back, for example, will royally up basically anyone trying to tank the pair, since you can't tank only one at once. They're also threatening even if they do get into the opponent's range without initiating, simply because of how hard it would be to kill the two of them off. (Camus has 1-2 range counter, so he's hard to kill safely, and Leo has basically the best mixed bulk among cavalry, so good luck killing him if he's Honed.)

 

Same color melee/range pairs will have the advantage of usually going together (that is, running after a TA/L&D unit of their advantage color), while different color melee/range pairs will have the advantage of absurd matchup spread. (But suffering the risk of being 'disjointed' on open maps, where the opponent runs two 'bait' units to opposite ends of the map and spliting your team---neutering your buff reliant units. Cecilia, for example, needs that Hone to kill with -blade. Certain maps don't have this problem, of course, like that Mountain one with the corners cut off by trees---all cav have to go through the middle.)

 

 

Mind, I also like Camus in general on a defense team, for all the factors I've mentioned previously:

Great matchup spread.

Above average reach (tied with infantry mage/archer isn't bad at all, not Reinhardt level, of course, but Camus + Reinhardt is a hell of a pair).

1-2 range counter with the bulk and speed to use it. (Which also makes him a great WoM target, since L&D means he's hard to ORKO on the counter.)

 

^ That's why I promoted Camus in the first place, incidentally. He's the first unit I've promoted to 5* only for Defense team usage---I don't use him in Arena because I have Cordelia for the blue physical role, and the only reason I use him in TT is because he's a 5* I haven't maxed merit in yet.

[Ice Dragon]

2 hours ago, XRay said:

Got any victims yet?

5 wins so far this week. This team has not failed me ever since I started using it two months ago, just changing the lead to a bonus unit each week.

 

1 minute ago, XRay said:

Ah. I did not read your post carefully. Either way, I think Blade cavalry and Reinhardt are far more effective than melee cavalry. They can hit over obstacles and have greater range. With so many obstacles in this week's Arena maps, I can annihilate melee cavalry who get stuck attacking walls. Blade cavalry are the ones that frustrates me to the point of wasting Orbs in the Arena. You can hide from Xander and Camus, but you cannot hide from Cecilia, Olwen, Ursula, and Reinhardt.

Enemy phase teams, on the other hand, love seeing ranged opponents (that don't have Firesweep Bows) because you bait them over walls, leaving the melee opponents behind for easy clean-up.

[XRay]

1 minute ago, DehNutCase said:

-Blade has decent matchups, but a good defense cav team (in my opinion), will want a mix of melee and ranged units. This is because this allows overlapping 'threat fields,' Camus in front, -blade Leo in back, for example, will royally up basically anyone trying to tank the pair, since you can't tank only one at once. They're also threatening even if they do get into the opponent's range without initiating, simply because of how hard it would be to kill the two of them off. (Camus has 1-2 range counter, so he's hard to kill safely, and Leo has basically the best mixed bulk among cavalry, so good luck killing him if he's Honed.)

Same color melee/range pairs will have the advantage of usually going together (that is, running after a TA/L&D unit of their advantage color), while different color melee/range pairs will have the advantage of absurd matchup spread. (But suffering the risk of being 'disjointed' on open maps, where the opponent runs two 'bait' units to opposite ends of the map and spliting your team---neutering your buff reliant units. Cecilia, for example, needs that Hone to kill with -blade. Certain maps don't have this problem, of course, like that Mountain one with the corners cut off by trees---all cav have to go through the middle.)

Mind, I also like Camus in general on a defense team, for all the factors I've mentioned previously:

Great matchup spread.

Above average reach (tied with infantry mage/archer isn't bad at all, not Reinhardt level, of course, but Camus + Reinhardt is a hell of a pair).

1-2 range counter with the bulk and speed to use it. (Which also makes him a great WoM target, since L&D means he's hard to ORKO on the counter.)

^ That's why I promoted Camus in the first place, incidentally. He's the first unit I've promoted to 5* only for Defense team usage---I don't use him in Arena because I have Cordelia for the blue physical role, and the only reason I use him in TT is because he's a 5* I haven't maxed merit in yet.

Overlapping threat fields is not very reliable, especially if some of them have positioning Assists. The vast majority of the time, positioning assists will ruin the AI team's formation. You also cannot plan out what their overlapping field is since each map is different. Overlapping fields does not work on the boat map and the map with parallel walls and forts, since the AI attacks the boxes/walls and ruin whatever formation you plan to put on those maps.

This week's maps have a ton of obstacles that forces you to fight in the middle or in a corner. The only map that you can reliably bait is the one with parallel walls and forts.

I find their range is more important than their combat performance. Blade cavalry will annihilate any of my units once buffed.

12 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Enemy phase teams, on the other hand, love seeing ranged opponents (that don't have Firesweep Bows) because you bait them over walls, leaving the melee opponents behind for easy clean-up.

My core team consists of Reinhardt, B!Cordelia, and Olivia. I can put Fae in to do deal with Blade cavalry, but I then I would not have a bonus unit. And with so many obstacles, I do not think I can get by without Olivia since Reposition is not that reliable this week.

[Ice Dragon]

4 minutes ago, XRay said:

My core team consists of Reinhardt, B!Cordelia, and Olivia. I can put Fae in to do deal with Blade cavalry, but I then I would not have a bonus unit. And with so many obstacles, I do not think I can get by without Olivia since Reposition is not that reliable this week.

I'm running three dragons plus one bystander, no positioning assists, and no dancer. Get on my level. Granted, there are literally no cavalry up at the top (maybe a stray Reinhardt here or there, but never full cavalry teams), so I can get away with that pretty easily.

On the other hand, enemy-phase teams hate Firesweep weapons, particularly Firesweep Bow, and have some trouble with ranged units with Draw Back.

[XRay]

42 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

I'm running three dragons plus one bystander, no positioning assists, and no dancer. Get on my level. Granted, there are literally no cavalry up at the top (maybe a stray Reinhardt here or there, but never full cavalry teams), so I can get away with that pretty easily.

On the other hand, enemy-phase teams hate Firesweep weapons, particularly Firesweep Bow, and have some trouble with ranged units with Draw Back.

Great, a lolicon. I have Nowi [+Atk, -Res]. I have to check my Faes, but outside a +Spd -Res one for a Player Phase build, I do not think I have one that has the right nature for Enemy Phase. I have Y!Tiki at level 30 something, but I do not remember her nature.

I can promote Nowi and Fae and get them several merges immediately, but I still need some extra Y!Tikis and two more Roys.

I have Cecilia all set up, and she just needs to be promoted, so archers should not be a problem.

[Ice Dragon]

1 minute ago, XRay said:

Great, a lolicon. I have Nowi [+Atk, -Res]. I have to check my Faes, but outside a +Spd -Res one for a Player Phase build, I do not think I have one that has the right nature for Enemy Phase. I have Y!Tiki at level 30 something, but I do not remember her nature.

I can promote Nowi and Fae and get them several merges immediately, but I still need some extra Y!Tikis and two more Roys.

I have Cecilia all set up, and she just needs to be promoted, so archers should not be a problem.

But do you have three copies of Fortify Dragons to pass around?

 

If I ever try to go for a 5,180 score again, I'll probably replace Reciprocal Aid with Reposition. Reciprocal Aid is only useful when you occasionally take damage, and the 740-point teams cannot deal damage through Triangle Adept (but Effie's Wary Fighter occasionally screws me up if she has Spd buffs active since it prevents Fae from double attacking).

[XRay]

41 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

But do you have three copies of Fortify Dragons to pass around?

If I ever try to go for a 5,180 score again, I'll probably replace Reciprocal Aid with Reposition. Reciprocal Aid is only useful when you occasionally take damage, and the 740-point teams cannot deal damage through Triangle Adept (but Effie's Wary Fighter occasionally screws me up if she has Spd buffs active since it prevents Fae from double attacking).

I only have one neutral Ninian. Is Triandle Adept not enough to tank things?

[Ice Dragon]

1 minute ago, XRay said:

I only have one neutral Ninian. Is Triandle Adept not enough to tank things?

-Def Fae has a little trouble tanking Effie without Fortify Dragons, but Triangle Adept is typically enough for most things, as long as you aren't facing off against colorless. Being able to tank weapon-triangle-neutral hits without losing too much health is pretty useful.

[XRay]

6 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

-Def Fae has a little trouble tanking Effie without Fortify Dragons, but Triangle Adept is typically enough for most things, as long as you aren't facing off against colorless. Being able to tank weapon-triangle-neutral hits without losing too much health is pretty useful.

I see. I will definitely get some Ninians next time I see her.